The Incredible Charlie Carewe (20 page)

“We’re married, Charles. And I hope God wills that we have children. It’s not for us to say.”

He ran angry fingers through his hair and began to pace the floor. With great control he went up to her and took her by the shoulders. “Listen to me, Mavis honey. I love you so much, I don’t want to share you with children. It just wouldn’t be any fun. Later maybe, in a few years—all right?” Dismayed, he saw her eyes fill with tears, but he pulled her down with him into the one overstuffed chair in the room.

“Don’t rush me, sweetheart. I’m just not cut out to be a domestic animal. You just do all the things I told you, and everything will be all right.” She seemed rigid and unyielding in his arms. “What’s the matter with you!” He pulled her shoulders around so that she faced him. Her eyes were closed tightly and the tips of her fingers were pressed against her mouth. Suddenly he flung her from him and strode into the bathroom. In a moment he returned, with a plain wrapped package in his hands.

White with rage, he spoke between his teeth. “You damn little cheat! You never even opened it!”

The rain cleared the following day. The sky was sullen as Charlie’s mood, but they moved on because Charlie said he’d have to get out of the sticks or go crazy. Mavis sat miserable and mute; and Charlie drove the car at top speed, adding to her nervousness. He was determined to reach the sizable city of Boynton by nightfall, a place where maybe he could find someone civilized to talk to. He would have given anything to hire a plane and go on into New York without any more nonsense, but now the idea of leaving Mavis at his home was urgent, and there were no other connections that would get them there any quicker than the car.

Boynton was a bustling crowded industrial town, and its impact hit Mavis like a blow. She had felt that she was becoming travel-wise and used to civilization, but the big crowds and the dirt and the noise brought on a kind of panic. She clung to Charlie’s arm as they made their way from the garage along a block to the hotel. His steps were too long for her, and each time as people passed her on the other side she would drop back a step. He tugged her along. “Honey, don’t give way like that! Keep moving, let the others get out of the way!” Impatiently he took her elbow and guided her up the steps through the tide of people emerging from the hotel.

In their room, she sank onto the bed, too exhausted to observe the first decent surroundings they had been in since leaving Clarke Falls.

Charlie’s spirits had risen. “Well, now, how about this, huh? Now we’ll have a real dinner here in the room,” and to himself he thought, “God, she needs clothes, I’m sick of that damned red sweater, can’t take her into the dining room in that outfit.” He went on, “Then, maybe a good movie afterwards, what do you say?”

She opened her eyes at his pleasant tone, and smiled. “That will be nice, Charlie.” If she could only sleep, just get a bath with lots of hot water and then sleep. If only he’d take her in his arms and just hold her, quietly, she could relax, and all the voices of people and the noise and hooting and whistling would go away. And her heart ached within her for the deep sound of the wind in the pines beyond her window at home. There was a difference, she thought, between sound and noise. The forest was never really still for long, there was always a sound of water, the chatter of a squirrel, the murmur of a breeze, the crash of a dead branch. A wave of homesickness swept over her, surprising and shocking, so that she sat up straight on the bed, feeling that she had been secretly disloyal to Charlie.

The novelty of the movie had revived her a bit, but in a little while the screen hurt her eyes, she could make nothing of the story, and what people said seemed to have no relation to life. For a while she whispered questions to Charlie, but it seemed to annoy him, so she just shut her eyes and stayed very quiet. It seemed only a moment before Charlie nudged her and her head snapped back on her neck. She had fallen asleep! Impatiently, Charlie took her arm and pulled her along with him to the aisle, bumping and bumbling over the other people in the row of seats.

He said nothing to her on the way back to the hotel. The silence was stiff between them. He took her to their room and said, “I’ll be back in a little while—why don’t you just go to bed, you seem to need sleep so badly.” It was the first time he had left her alone for more than a few minutes. At first she thought she’d be worried, but as she undressed, a sense of peace and relaxation and relief came over her. Also, she seemed wide awake. After a luxurious hot bath she brushed her hair till her scalp tingled. Ignoring the expensive, too heavily scented jars of cream that Charlie had purchased for her, she took the cork from a plain bottle and poured some drops of her own glycerine and rose water into her palms, smoothing it into the skin of her face and neck and hands. Its very familiarity of texture and scent was pleasant. From the ancient suitcase of Grand-mère’s she drew out one of the clean cotton flannel nightgowns that Charlie had laughed at on their wedding night, saying, “Till I can buy you decent lingerie, you’ll sleep raw! I refuse to put my arms around an old cheap
blanket
.” To her, as she now pulled its generous folds over her head, it smelt of the sun, of the clean wind that had snapped it dry, of the beeswax touch of her iron. In the bedroom she flipped off the overhead “crystal” chandelier, pulled the cords of the floor lamp by the heavy plush sofa, and the one beside the desk with its orderly pile of hotel stationery and cards describing the services of the hotel. In the light from the one lamp on the bed table the room became mellow, the red carpeting softened, and from beyond one of the blinds that she had pulled down carefully came a streak of pale white light. It looked as though the moon might have risen and found its way through the crack. She rushed to the window to welcome it, and ran up the shade, but it was only a street lamp, cold and glaring on the opposite corner. Slowly she drew the shade down again, bringing it precisely to the window sill, orderly, carefully. She thought, “I must get used to it. I must do what Charles wants me to. I must learn his ways, and then someday he will be proud of me.” She began to go over her catechism: “Don’t turn around and stare at people.” “Don’t make a face when you taste some new kind of food.” “Don’t wipe the silverware with your napkin at the table.” Oh, the list became longer every day! “Don’t hang onto my arm——” How could she not cling to him, in the confusion of traffic, a curb that was always a surprise, the strange hostile glances of the city people. He solved problems so easily, so swiftly, and often he did so much to please her. When, after they were married, she had gently suggested that she would like it if Grand-mère knew that all was well with her, he had miraculously found a Western Union, and as she leaned over his shoulder saw how he neatly printed the message that she was married and happy and sent her love, and she thought with delight of the cubbyhole in Emile’s general store where his taciturn younger brother would somehow mysteriously receive it on the chattering little key.

Kneeling beside her bed and folding her hands, she said her prayers, something she hadn’t been able to do since the night before they had fled from the Falls. Whispering, she asked God to bless her beloved, to teach her not to be a stubborn, silly girl, to obey her husband as she had promised.

There was the sound of a key in the door, and quickly she jumped into bed, pulling the covers around her. Charlie’s voice, talking to someone else, and then the rumble of another man’s voice, made her eyes widen. He had brought someone back with him! She was about to leap from the bed and run into the bathroom to hide—maybe it was a bellboy for something—when the door opened.

“Hi, honey,” said Charlie cheerfully. “Not asleep yet, you naughty baby!” He leaned over and kissed her. His mouth was wet and soft, and he breathed a sour stench of whisky and garlic.

He waved his guest inside the door. “Come in, Art, it’s all right, she’s covered up.”

Art was a glassy-eyed individual, in dinner jacket, with blooming cheeks, a small paunch, and a cheerful grin.

“Want you t’meet the bride, Mrs. Carewe, Mr.—ah—Affonston, did you say, Art?”

“Haversmith. How do you do, Mrs. Carewe.” His
h
’s and
c
’s seemed to come from his throat, like phlegm.

“Never mind the formalities,” Charles said, weaving a little as he went to the phone on the desk “It’s Art and Mavis—pretty name, huh, Art? Got it from her English mother—she’s French and English, speaks both languages perfectly, don’t you, sweetheart?”

“Look, you’ll have t’excuse us, Mrs. Carewe, butting in like this, but Charlie said you were a good sport and wouldn’t mind—you don’t mind, do you, now, do you? I ’preshiate it!” He cracked his cheerful face and bowed cavalierly.

Mavis sat frozen, the blankets up around her chin. On the phone Charlie was ordering ice and soda in loud obscenities. Over his shoulder he said, “Make yourself at home, Art—take off your coat—the glasses are in the bathroom, I’ve got the rye in my suitcase—wait’ll you taste it, it’s the las’ bottle I brought from New York—none of this swill we’ve been drinkin’.” Art disappeared into the bathroom, and Charlie spoke to Mavis in a loud stage whisper: “Get up, get up, put your robe on, you look fine. Be nice to this guy, now will you?”

“Charles,” whispered Mavis, “how could you bring—a stranger——”

“Now, damn it, I mean it!” He spoke roughly and Mavis hastily pulled on her robe and sat on the edge of the bed, trembling. “Now, try not to act like a damn clod—this man is my friend,” and then more gently, “Don’t worry, hon, I’ll tell you after he’s gone why he can be very important to us. We’re jus’ gonna have one nightcap and that’s all.” From the bathroom came the sound of loud prolonged urination.

Mavis sat opposite the two men stiffly, while the level of the bottle of rye went down. For a while they had tried to include her in their conversation, and once Art had attempted to apologize for their smutty speech. Charlie had interrupted. “Never mind her, she hasn’t the faintest idea, not the faintes’, what we’re talking about. She understands a lot of things though,” he cackled loudly. “Boy, oh, boy! A virgin wife, can you imagine that, Art! A pure lil thing, couldn’t get her without that golden ring, and God, I love her so, don’t I, sweetiekins?” He winked over at her and waggled his fingers at her. Somehow his arm became very heavy and it dropped to the coffee table of its own accord, knocking over a glass. Mavis got up, quietly, and brought a towel from the bathroom and cleaned up the spilled drink. She had cleaned up after drunks before, and her embarrassment faded as they took their place in her mind with the lumberjacks back at the Inn.

It all became a very bad dream, as she watched the two sitting together on the plush sofa, arguing about politics, stocks and bonds, finances. They now ignored her completely, absorbed in their own profound discussion. Charlie was smoking a cigar, which kept going out but which served him as a pointer for emphasis. Art fastidiously aimed for the ash tray to flick his cigarette ashes with his forefinger, but the ashes fell to his knees before he could make it. Then, brushing at them, he would stub out the cigarette and light a new one from a silver case. They were extremely polite to each other at this point. “Excuse me for disagreeing with you, old boy . . .” “Just a minute, just a minute, wait’ll I finish . . .” “Listen, listen, par’n me for int’rupting, but you called the guy a son’fbitch, and I say you’re absolutely right, except”—and Charlie’s cigar would point—“except that he’s not only a son’fbitch but he’s full of bull——”

Mavis grew chilly as the night wore on; outside the window there was the sound of rain, as though someone were throwing granulated sugar at the panes. She could not move, although she ached simply to leave them and crawl back into her bed unnoticed. As drunk as he was, Charlie seemed to sense it, and would shake his head at her, elaborately reproving. Once she shivered, and solicitously he asked her, “Cold, honey?” and getting up from the sofa, surprisingly steady, got his own coat from the back of the desk chair and threw it over her shoulders. Taking advantage of his proximity, she appealed to him in a whisper, “Charles, I’m so sleepy—please!” Kneeling down in front of her, he took one of her clammy little hands, and speaking as though she were a little child, he smiled his most dazzling smile. “Mavis, honey, baby, you just
have
to learn to be a gracious hostess!”

“At four o’clock in the morning? Charles, you’ve had too much to drink, haven’t you?”

Coldly, he rose, and slowly shook an admonitory finger. “And you mustn’t cri’icize me, it’s bad taste.” And as he turned away she again ceased to exist.

From the depths of the suitcase, which Charlie had bought somewhere along the line to supplement the hunting bag, appeared another “las’ bottle,” and by the time its level was just a little above the halfway mark Charlie and good ole Art were Indian wrestling. The conversation, if such it could be called, had got around to athletic prowess in college.

The phone rang, and Mavis hurried to pick it up.

“Charles—Charles! It’s the man downstairs, people are complaining!”

“Aw, th’ hell with ’em!” said Charlie, stumbling over a fallen lamp. “Come on, Art, two falls out of three, now——” But Art was sound asleep, full length on the sofa, his hands folded peacefully on his chest. In a moment Charlie too flung himself prone onto the bed, a pillow bunched around his face. Lifting his head, he looked around, but the strain on his unco-ordinated neck muscles was too great, and it flopped like a weight back into the pillow. “Mavis! Come t’ bed! You gonna stay up all night?”

Mavis had sat still and exhausted, with Charlie’s coat drawn tightly around her, until the light began to gray the room. Dressing, she tidied up as best she could around the two snoring men.

Her disappointment, her disillusionment were too deep for her to pay attention to the shallower levels of shyness, and she walked into the coffee shop off the lobby of the hotel as soon as it opened. The few early risers, salesmen perhaps, were engrossed in their own coffee, their early morning mood, and the newspaper, glancing up only at movement, tropistically, indifferent.