The Big Why (6 page)

Tom Dobie had this manner. Of holding the back of his head when he talked, and he spoke to the floor. When he came by in the morning, my greeting to him was one word: Coffee?

I wouldnt mind, he said, checking the soundness of the windows, a coffee.

He would, occasionally, cast out a brightness. He was bright. He was honest. He was shy. He was oblivious to how he projected himself in the world. And this is very attractive. Tom Dobie was strong but seemed to motor around in first gear: it was the potential for strength. But in moments of panic, when I needed force, he would exert himself. There were flashes of power, and then he was marked by power. Tom Dobie possessed it yet it rarely surfaced. And this was true of both the muscle and the temper of the young man.

Thought the boo-darbies got you.

Me: Pardon?

The fairies. Heard your flute last night. Came right over the water. Awful nice.

Occasionally, when the wind came up, I stayed at the Bartletts’. I had dinner with Rupert, his parents and sisters. Once, Rose Foley came over. And she sang afterwards. She was a big woman, full of life, and her breasts rose as she belted it out. Can I walk you home, Rose. Of course, Mr Kent. She was my age, a widow with two children.

They said Bob was on his way any day now, the collier iced in at Holyrood. Tom would meet me at the Bartlett gate, Emily Edwards waved to him, and we’d walk over and I’d put on the coffee. I loved the sounds of ritual. The coffee pot clunking onto the cast iron, the sizzle of water droplets evaporating on the hob. I loved that more than the coffee. It was early March now, calm and pleasant.

It’s strange to be over here so much, Tom said.

And looking at the cottage, Boy, youre roughing it.

When we entered to put on the coffee he’d stamp his feet and say, every morning, She’s all a chunk of ice!

There was enough sun and the work was hard, so you did not want it warm. But when you stopped it was freezing. I put in the stove. There was some dry wood, so dry it was hollow and hard. I had ordered coal and I thought about the coal so often that it became a steady image on the floor of my brain. I hung my socks on the stovepipe, and they burnt like toast. They went stiff like toast.

It was the domestic moments that made me think of Kathleen. I remembered the sound of her skin. When I brushed her bare arms.

Sometimes in the dark outside, on my way to the new outhouse. If I stepped on a branch. I said, aloud, Scary. I pronounced it in a childish voice, a lisp on the
S
. I pronounced it as I would if Kathleen were present. We did those things. Scary, the young language.

I often spoke to my absent wife and children. When I made a meal. One should not cook too long alone. In the kitchen I spoke to Kathleen. And I’d laugh at myself, talking to her when she was not there. This, a clear sign of love.

Is love a realization that you love? You recognize that you are in love, and then you decide to cultivate it. It is an impulse you can wrap the hand of your mind around. But without that initial surprise — like finding a wildflower in your garden — no amount of wanting to love, of committing to the act of love, will generate it.

Soon there was so much snow and frozen rain that I was afraid the roof might buckle. We put in two posts to reinforce the peak. In some of the smaller houses in the cove the new weight cracked windows.

Do not commit during the bloom of youth. Wait until that initial flush subsides, or you will commit to the wrong partner. It is true that men who are monogamous marry often.

When I married Kathleen I promised her that my relationship with Jenny was over. And it was. We were friends. I was faithful to Kathleen, even though I’d told her that I might not be. I might find other women attractive. Kathleen knew this.

She didnt want to live in Monhegan, because of Jenny, so I convinced her to move to Newfoundland. The plan: sell the house I’d built in Monhegan, and get established in Newfoundland. This was five years ago. When we had the one child. I thought, We’ll go to Newfoundland and set up a little Monhegan.

I went on a scouting mission. The ferry to Newfoundland leaves from Boston. Jenny was living in Boston. I thought, What’s the harm in looking her up. I called Jenny. She was having dinner with her sister. Did I want to join them. So all we did was eat dinner. Then I went back to my room at the Essex Hotel, and I was happy with myself. I’d withstood desire. I wrote Kathleen a postcard telling her of the meal with Jenny Starling and her sister. I wanted to be honest with her and prove my resistance. I’d promised myself honesty and a bolstering of restraint.

The next day the ferry did not move. I was frustrated and worried about the expense of another night at the Essex. Then I saw Jenny. She had come down to wish me off.

The ferry won’t depart, I said, until tomorrow.

Let’s go for a walk, she said.

We talked about Bob Bartlett — she’d recently met up with him at a party. Single man, she said, but he’s asexual.

Could be otherwise, just not acting on it.

Is there a difference, Jenny said, between suppressing your sexuality and being asexual.

I think there are only a few asexual people

So do you live far? I asked. She was wearing a new red sweater.

Just down there.

Then I’ll walk you.

You mean if I lived far you wouldnt?

Laugh.

I meant to take a cab if it was far, but youre stuck with me until your door.

Oh, youre not fickle.

Do you have a problem with fickleness.

I like consistency in people, she said. I dont like it when a person treats me well and then badly.

Jenny was talking about me. About how I’d dealt with her and Kathleen.

You have, I said, a dislike of fickleness.

Let’s say I like people with ficklelessness.

We walked on like this.

I live in one of those flats, she said. It’s nothing special. Luis thinks an ordinary apartment will make me come back to him. I didnt even see the actual apartment but another one that happened to be vacant. And I took it.

At the door. Well, Kent, thank you for the walk.

I leaned in and we kissed. A tender kiss, and she did not move away. This is how you know that you can kiss again. The lingering. So we kissed. And held each other.

Jenny: Are you fondling me.

I’m a little fond of you.

There was the sound of a metal door being roughly opened.

I said, I hope youre keeping an eye over my shoulder for anyone wanting in.

I can’t see over your shoulder.

We kissed again.

I dont have anything to offer you in the way of a drink. I have champagne.

You dont have a cup of tea.

I have tea. Would you like to come up for a cup of tea.

I bent her hips. There was the cream ass. I lifted a leg. I felt the weight of her entire thigh in my hand. I immersed myself. It was the frustration at inaction that I drove into Jenny Starling. I pushed my optic nerve into the bridge of her nose. There was her head against the headboard. There was a hot fold of her with my fingers. I moistened my fingers. A heavy curtain flipped over beside the bed. You could hear a street. Things in a street.

Youre a wolf, she said, in sheep’s clothing.

I put the wool in wolf.

What you must understand is that my wife knew. I told my wife this would happen. I will marry you, I said to Kathleen, but you must know this: I will be with other women. I was honest to her about this. We came to an arrangement. Kathleen said this: If it must happen, dont let me catch you. I want no evidence.

Truth: She said it with an air of martyrdom. And when she drew a scent of an affair, she demanded to know. She did not want to know, but then she had to know. And I felt guilt. I felt the guilt of having wronged her. But that guilt was mixed with the honesty with which I had approached our union. I am a man with big appetites. I confessed to these appetites, and now I was being judged for them. But I understand the love of a monogamous woman. Kathleen wants to believe that I won’t do it. She believes in the virtue of monogamy and that I am virtuous. My guilt was proof because I loved her so much. She was full of God, and I couldnt bear her censure.

But my desire for Jenny Starling. To exercise with her, to permit her muscles to flex and push my body, was to accept her influence over me, and Jenny knew it. Our fucking was personal, as though I were confirming myself in the world, or it was a spiritual proclamation intended to persuade the world. Intimacy created meaning. I had turned Jenny Starling over several times with just my hands. It’s true that in those days I wanted to press against any woman if she allowed it. I had a gear I could reach called abandon. I wanted to be remembered. It was vanity, and my vanity about Jenny Starling lasted an evening and a morning. We were raw from the sex. It was not erotic now but a motion that united us. It was a farewell joining, a gentle but brutish thrust to assist us over the separation. The push was to be kept in the brain. And Jenny had no problem with my departure. We linked like insects that cannot unhinge. She came several small, unexpected times, and I pulsed in her and burned from the excess. It was not enjoyable but necessary, as we were addicted to it. For we knew the extent of our time — what little we had of it.

I remember her open closet door. Jenny had fabric hung on it with pockets, and in the pockets were pairs of shoes. I thought it interesting that someone had realized that doors werent shouldering enough work. It was only one side of the door. So you could shut the door and forget the work the door was always doing.

In the morning I heard her up. She showered. I smelled coffee. And she came in dressed. A black-and-charcoal top. Jenny bent down and kissed me. It’s nine, she said. I’m late for work.

But it’ll be okay?

Yes, but they’ll know. Women know, she said.

On Jenny Starling’s kitchen table was a white cup full of black coffee. The white was so unblemished.

I’d had this affair with Jenny Starling on my first trip to Newfoundland. I had promised my wife I was done with her, and, through a coincidence, I’d ended up spending a night and a morning with her. Then my ferry left Boston for Nova Scotia and then a train to St John’s. I met the prime minister, Morris, on the train. He waived the duty on my sketch box. He listened to my plans for an artists’ colony. He suggested Burin. Ice-free port, he said, solid storerooms on the water. I’ll give free passage, he said, to artists and tax breaks for students.

I loved Burin. The birch groves and blueberry bushes and there was a marsh I sank in.

After seeing Burin I returned to New York. I did not tell Kathleen about staying with Jenny, though she knew I’d had dinner with her. I sold the house we had in Monhegan. I had my wife and son ready to leave. While I was in the middle of a set of push-ups with my feet on a kitchen chair, the postman came and Kathleen knelt down and laid the blue letter franked in Boston on the linoleum between my hands and oh she knew.

I finished my twenty repetitions, stood, and primly tore off one end of the envelope. Near the middle of the letter was a word with the tails of a
p
and a
g
. I knew the word before I’d even got to it; it was next to the face of my thumb. I knew the information contained in this word as though the word itself had impregnated the letter. I was shocked at how I had not thought of this possibility, how dumb I was not to connect. But I did not tell Kathleen anything. I held on to the idea of the way things were.

I said to Kathleen, I have to go to Boston.

That was it. It’s hard to believe that Kathleen accepted this without any other words being said. We both knew it, and somehow not saying the words undid it.

I stayed with Jenny Starling three days. She demanded that I leave my wife, that I take up with her. She almost convinced me that I should. And perhaps a promise leaked out of me. I am a bad man for promising. There was my desire in the idea of being with a woman I could talk with, but there was something repellent in her now being pregnant. That the two should mix. It had begun with the letter: I did not like the handwriting. How could I be passionate with a woman who writes this way? But how is a man to relieve himself of repellent thoughts? I did not tell this to Jenny but resorted to the responsibilities I had to my wife. Yes, I would accept Jenny’s child as my own. I would do all I could to take care of her and the child. But I would not leave my wife.

We did not sleep together. Jenny wanted it to be our last three days. Fucking is a declaration of just the two of you. It excludes the world. I refused it. I felt of all the things I’d done to Kathleen, this resistance could shore up some goodwill. I had sold the Monhegan house because it brought Kathleen memories of Jenny. That was where I’d slept with Jenny while courting Kathleen. So. These three days were the end and the end is different from knowing you have only a short time. I had the rest of my life with Kathleen, which makes you feel different. I am not a great man. I have fucked over those I love. I hurt Jenny and did very badly by Kathleen. I am a man of appetites and an inability to refrain from the most intimate act a man and a woman can do. I love the feast of fucking, the permission and the giving. It is a religious act. I am not religious, except for sex and art. They are my king and queen, and I do not mind lying to honour them. There is a greater honesty at work, or at least to hell with telling the truth. To lie does not betray integrity. At least, my definition of integrity.