The Dark Descends (15 page)

"This is hardly an occasion for levity." Margaret's frown was formidable now.

"I realize that. But honestly, aren't you blowing this thing up out of all proportion? All right, I goofed. It's bad, I'll admit, but not as bad as all that. I mean, they were small changes. And on copy for the printer, not on galleys or—"

"That's not the point. Can you give me assurances that the same thing wouldn't have happened with galleys or page proofs? No, naturally you can't. Now, Joyce, I'm going to give it to you straight from the shoulder." A claw-like hand touched Joyce's shoulder lightly, fell away. "You'd prefer it that way, wouldn't you?"

"Yes, Margaret. Of course."

"I was sure of it." A mechanical smile. Brief. "Now, Joyce, if this were the first thing that's gone wrong with you lately I wouldn't be making such an issue of it. But it isn't. The day before yesterday, when you were stapling copies of that article on abortion together, you insisted that one of the stacks was a page short. We turned the office upside down looking for it, and it turned out you had taken two pages from that stack at one point. Remember?"

"Yes, Margaret. Of course. But—"

"No 'buts' yet, please. I'm not finished yet. Think back a bit further. Remember the day you raised Cain because you thought somebody had taken your paper clips, and all the time they were behind your calendar?"

"Margaret—"

"No, let me finish, please. I know what you're going to say, Joyce. These are petty things. In themselves, things not worth making a fuss over. Am I right?"

"Well, yes. But, Margaret—"

"I was sure of it." Again the claw-like hand reached out to Joyce's shoulder, this time giving a few gentle pats before falling away. "Now, Joyce, I want you to listen to me. Preferably without taking a defensive attitude, because I'm talking to you for your own good. We've all had to bear the brunt of your edginess and your health crises lately, and believe me, we haven't enjoyed it. I think I know what the trouble is. I think you've been trying just a wee bit harder than necessary to impress us all with how competent you are. Because you've been out of the swim for so long, you feel you have to be twice as clever as everybody else. But there's such a thing as trying too hard, isn't there?"

"Well, yes, but—"

"I understand your feelings. In a way, they're commendable. And I won't deny that you've made some good catches on errors of fact. But that isn't really what you're being paid to do, is it?"

"Well, no, but—"

"Before you start giving me an argument, just hear me out, please." A note of impatience in Margaret's voice made it clear that any argument would be futile. "I think what you need is a good rest, and I've arranged a week's vacation for you next week. It took a lot of doing—strictly speaking, you haven't worked for
Yardstick
long enough to qualify for a vacation till next summer—but I managed to swing it. There's only one condition. You have to take the following two weeks off, too. Without pay, naturally."

...

"I don't know what you expect me to tell you, babe," Hank McDermott said. His head was bent over his glass; the sparse hair sprouting from the base of his crown looked like fine black wire. "It's certainly not good. You're not expecting me to deliver any bullshit about a silver lining, are you?"

"No. I know as well as you do there isn't one." Joyce made a quick inspection of the small, boxlike bar. It was particularly dreary this evening. The light bulb above the entrance had blown out. The face of the ex-basketball player who stood at his regular station at the bar looked more despairing than usual. Gloom. Nothing but gloom. She returned her gaze to Hank. "I was just hoping you'd listen to me sound off and grunt in the right places."

"Can do." He looked up with a grin, but his dark eyes remained sad. "Grunt or cluck or go 'tut-tut' or even belch. But not the Pollyanna stuff."

"I always hated the very thought of Pollyanna." Joyce made an attempt to return his smile; knew it was a flop. "What I found so awful were the gratuitous remarks about my trying to impress everybody when I was simply trying to—I can't get over it. All this time Margaret's been regarding me as a pushy little upstart reaching above herself. That hurts. That really hurts."

"What can I tell you, babe? That's the way people are. Could be she thinks you're bucking for her job."

"Oh, but, Hank, she couldn't possibly think—"

"You never know what goes on in people's heads. It could be something else. It could be that you're the kind who inspires—" He broke off, gave a slight shrug, and gulped down the remains of his martini.

"Inspires what?"

"Skip it. Personalities wouldn't enter into it anyway. I've known Margaret a long time. She's fair. If you rest the way she says and come back looking a little less frantic, the whole thing will probably blow over."

"I hope so. I guess they're hoping, too, or else they'd hardly be so generous about forking over a week's salary just like that."

"It's a calculated risk to them. If you make it, they'll take it out of the Christmas bonus. If you don't, you'll get one week's severance pay instead of the usual two."

"That's a nice thought. A really nice thought." She picked up her glass. Though it was no more than half full, her hand shook so badly that liquid sloshed over the rim.

"Just giving you the lowdown on the economics of corporation life. What's it to them whether you make it or whether you don't? It's rough, I know, but—"

"It's straight from the shoulder, as Margaret would say." Joyce emptied her glass and set it down with a loud click. "Exactly what is it that I inspire, Hank? I think I'd better hear it."

"Must you? I guess you must." He leaned forward and cupped her chin in his hand. "It's the impression you give of detaching yourself from the action and taking the long view, rather than hanging in there and running around the track with the rest of us. Or used to give." He squeezed her chin and released it. "Listen, babe, you better pull yourself together. You're fight on the brink. Anybody can see it. People don't like seeing it. Too much of a reminder of how close to the brink they are themselves."

"But I'm not—"

"Fortification first." He slid out of the booth and shuffled over to the bar, returning immediately with two martini glasses, frosted and filled to the brim. He put them on the table and sat down again. "Okay. Now let's hear the denials."

"I don't know why you think I'm on the brink of anything. Just because—"

"Oh, come off it! You're not a nincompoop, you're a bright girl. You don't have to be told that a bout with sleeping sickness means the mind is shutting out something it doesn't want to face."

"All right, I don't have to be told." She put her hand around the glass. Cold as cold could be. "But what's the alternative to shutting it out? Conjuring up pictures of her lying there like a broken doll? Dwelling on the thought that if it hadn't been for me none of it would have happened?"

"I've told you a million times, you've gone overboard on that. But telling's no use. You have to believe it. You know, I think it might be a good idea if you—"

"Don't tell me. Let me guess. You're going to suggest seeing a shrink."

He looked down at his glass. "It's what people usually do when things pile up on them."

"I know. Don't imagine I haven't thought about it. Quite a lot, in fact. I'm sure any psychiatrist could have a field day with me, dig up all kinds of treasure buried in my unconscious. But I simply can't afford to see one, so that's that. Fortunately, I have a mind that's capable of shutting things out and nerves that are capable of exerting control."

"Or a semblance of control."

"Well, the shadow will have to do until I've toughened up sufficiently to achieve the substance. I will eventually."

"Oh, sure you will. We all do. We all have to live with the knowledge of wrongs we've done to other people. Why the hell should you be any exception?"

Something in his tone sounded a warning in her head. Confession time. Leave now. Get out while the getting's good. But of course she couldn't do anything of the kind. Not to a man who had just bought her a couple of drinks. Not to a man she liked. And so, two hours and four martinis later, she had heard all about his twenty-year-long struggle to give physical satisfaction to his wife, who didn't know it was men he was drawn to, not women. No indulgence in anything like that, of course. Well, not for years anyway. Only his psychiatrist knew. And now, Joyce.

The next morning—her last at the office before the vacation—she found a bottle of Tanqueray gin on her desk. Taped around its neck was a sealed envelope. Inside:
Sorry. Guess I foamed at the mouth a little yesterday. Last thing you needed. Keep
laughing. Hank.

...

"I don't know about the rest of you," Ruth Elkins said, "but I'm voting no on the first amendment. Even if constructing a swimming pool in conjunction with Barton County does mean a lighter tax load, I don't fancy sharing the water with every Tom, Dick, and Harry."

"Right on," Harriet Wintergreen said. "I'm with you all the way. At least here in Moccasin you more or less know everybody. But who knows anybody in Barton County?"

"I do," Midge Haviland said. "My sister-in-law lives in Barton."

"That's not the point, Midge." Ruth set her jaw. It had always been a heavy jaw, and the jowls had expanded since Joyce had seen it last. "A community is a community, and we have a responsibility toward seeing that it remains one."

Midge looked crest-fallen.

"Now about that second amendment—" Ruth began.

And got no further. Both Harriet and Midge had plenty to say about the second amendment, and tried to say it simultaneously. Ruth was determined to have her say, too, and the result was a rather noisy free-for-all. Joyce was able to make out that the second amendment concerned busing children to achieve a better racial balance in the schools, and that all three Moccasin matrons were against it. Not that they were prejudiced. God forbid! Their long-winded eloquence offered reason after reason that was as far removed from prejudice as Beluga caviar from peanuts.

Easy enough to tune them out. Joyce gazed out the window at the house across the street—the house in which she had lived for seven years—with eyes that seemed to recognize nothing. It was like looking at a house she had never seen before. To be sure, the Havilands, who owned it now, had painted the once creamy stucco white, made a vast (and vulgar) flower bed of the front lawn, and drastically trimmed the elm at the side of the house. But all these things didn't explain the strength of her reaction. No amount of alteration could have rendered the house so unfamiliar. The change was in herself: paying a visit to Moccasin was like taking a trip to the moon.

The past was dead. Proof of its demise was probably worth having, though that wasn't what she expected when she telephoned Ruth this morning to say hello and received a ready invitation to come out for the day and join a hen party. She had come seeking an alternative—any alternative—to boredom. Anything that would hack away a small chunk of the three weeks. More accurately, the twenty-three days. In hours, five hundred and fifty-two. In minutes—But she could never bring herself to go as far as totting up the minutes. Too absurd. Like a kid calculating the distance to the end of the school year. Strange to find herself in the position of wishing time away. Strange, and not very pleasant. Like being in a stalled subway train all the time. She felt too tense to settle down to anything. Too tense to read. Too tense to eat. Too tense, even, to sleep, now that she had all the time in the world for—

"Hey, wake up, dreamer." Ruth snapped her fingers under Joyce's nose. "You're not trying to escape us by going off into a trance, are you?"

Midge gave a wail. "Oh, I hope not. I have a whole list of household things I have to ask you about, Joyce. Where did you get that pine paneling you used in the basement? I've hunted all over town and—"

"Oh, shut up and wait your turn, Midge," Ruth said jovially. "Say, Joyce, I meant to ask you on the phone about those soap animals of yours that made such a smash at our bazaar last year. You wouldn't have any more on hand by any chance, would you?"

Joyce laughed. "What a pity you didn't ask, Ruth. It just so happens I do have a few. I could have brought them with me."

Ruth looked ready to chew nails.

...

Dear Eliot,

I'm taking you at your word and asking a favor of you. It occurs to me that the furniture we placed in storage against such time as either of us had a need for it might just as well be sold. Most of the pieces are Colonial and ought to fetch a tidy little sum in the right markets. I don't know how you feel, but, for my part, I can't envision a future that encompasses a dining room big enough for the pine table, to say nothing of the sideboard.

My share of that tidy little sum would really come in handy right now. I'd like to get out of this dump (it seems more and more like a prison cell every day), but without some kind of stake moving is out of the question. What with one thing and another, I haven't managed to save a bean.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that you'll go along with the idea. If you're too busy at the moment to make the arrangements, you could send me the receipts from the storage company and I could handle things. The girl in the shop downstairs knows all there is to know about American antiques—I couldn't have a better guide to the marketplace.

Hope this finds you in good health and good spirits. How's the work going?

Love, Joyce

...

Dear Joyce,

Your idea sounds fine. I can't see a need, present or future, for all that dining room stuff. To tell the truth, I was all for selling everything lock, stock, and barrel when we sold the house, but you were so bent on storage that I didn't want to make an issue of it. By all means let's sell now. I don't mind telling you a bit of spare cash would come in handy for me, too. I've drawn up a budget and I've been pretty good about sticking to it, but things come up. You know how it is.