The Seasons Hereafter (19 page)

“
You
used to bag up?” Rob laughed incredulously.

“I certainly did. Oh, I drowned out the smell of the beans and john-nycake when I came into the kitchen.”

“That's the truth, Rob,” Barry said proudly. Across the table his eyes brimmed with appreciation of her conduct. “Y gorry, I thought she was coming to our wedding in dungarees and rubber boots, but they hogtied her and sewed her into a dress.”

Rob looked at her, shook his head, and then began to eat with good appetite. I be damned. I thought you'd been a teacher or a nurse, or something like that.”

“He's making it sound good, Van,” said Mag mischievously. “When he first laid eyes on you, he came home and told me you looked like one of them artists down on Monhegan.”

“
You're
making it sound bad, woman,” Rob protested. “Like I thought artists were immoral or something.”

“Well, maybe I am,” said Van. “How do you know?” Everyone laughed.

Before the children went to bed they wanted a song. Maggie was embarrassed, but pleased when they urged her. Diane brought out a guitar and Mag stopped her blushing and grimacing and began to tune it, her face sharp with concentration, her small square hands competent

“
Now
.” She struck a chord and looked into the girls' faces. “One tune apiece and that's all. Folks weren't invited to a concert, you know. Diane?”

“Bendemeer Stream.” She ran over and climbed into her father's lap and laid her head against his chest. Maggie's voice was a surprise, low but unexpectedly strong and true. Van felt a start of genuine pleasure and then exasperation; she was always disturbed by the sentimentality aroused so easily by certain voices singing certain words. She knew Barry would be blinking back tears, and what bothered her was the fact that she too could be moved; it was something absolutely false, it was like taking a lot of drinks and becoming lustful so that any man would do. Maggie was a nice simple young woman who could play the guitar and sing nice simple words, and the fact she happened to have a voice with which to give the words poignance was no more to her credit than the fact that children have silky hair and velvet skins. It was all a matter of glands.

She finished, and in the silence Diane said with infinite longing, “I wish I could hear a nightingale sometime.”

Barry blew his nose and lit a cigarette. Tammie said, “Well,
I
want ‘Whistle.'”

“I hope that song doesn't give you any ideas for when you grow up,” her mother told her.

“I like the funny words.”

“My father was Scotch,” Maggie said to Van. “I know a lot of old songs and the kids love the sound of 'em even when they don't understand.” She began to trot her foot and sing. The pressure was relieved and Van enjoyed the song and Tammie's delight in it until suddenly the words took on a piercing significance.

There was more, but Van didn't hear it. She sat looking blindly at her hands in her lap until the last words rang gaily into her head.
O whistle and I'll come to you, my lad
.

“And now you two go to bed,” said Maggie. “And dinna ye lallygag . . . or something . . . or I'll give ye a blink of my bonny mouse-colored e'en, and that won't be all,” Laughing at her, the little girls took the flashlight she handed them, and went out to the toilet. Tiger went ahead, growling militantly in case.

There was no need for Van to say anything about the singing beyond a conventional remark. Barry could fill in all the gaps, praising and marveling, while Rob was complacent. Mag, getting the children off to bed, apparently was too busy to listen.

“Where'd you ever learn to sing like that?” Barry asked her when she came back to the kitchen.

“I didn't
learn
. I could always sing. Father taught me the guitar chords.” She grinned. “Then my aunt had me singing hymns at her seances, but not with Father's permission. Of course
I
felt as important as all-out. The medium—she was this fat lady who worked in the fish factory where my aunt did—she said she never could get off into a real good trance without me singing ‘There is a Happy Land' or ‘Love Lifted Me.'”

“Was she real?” Barry sat forward.

“Of course she was,” said Maggie. “And she had this control named Jenkins. He put her in touch with the folks that had gone to Summer-land.” She smiled at him. “That's what we call it. Isn't that nice? There was one man—I can't tell you his name, my aunt swore me to secrecy and even now I couldn't break my oath, but he was real important in Limerock—well, he was always coming to Ida to get in touch with his mother. My, it was pathetic, the way he'd be. Like a little boy. He kept saying, ‘Mama? Is that you, Mama?'” She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “Wasn't that something now, a grown-up man, president of a bank, and him so lost and helpless?”

“He warn't all that lost,” said Rob. “If he got to be president of a bank.”

“Well, he never got married,” said Mag.

Mama? Is that you, Mama
? Nightmare touched Van lightly again, but she drove it away. Hundreds of thousands had asked that question besides the banker, besides the child waking up in the night probing the dark with eyes and ears because she dreamed someone had spoken to her. I must have been very small, she thought, or else when I dreamed I forgot what I knew in the daytime.

“Ayuh, but what did she say to
him
?” Barry persisted. “You hear her, with your own ears?”

“Of course I did. She called him ‘Sonny' and told him not to worry, how beautiful it was there and someday they'd be together . . . And oh yes, sometimes she told him about handling different deals at the bank.”

Rob said solemnly, “I wouldn't ever keep any money in that bank. Don't seem hardly reliable. I mean, how did you know if the old lady was a real financial expert?”

“Oh
you
.” For a moment they were still, gazing into each other's eyes, then as if a signal were passed between them color flashed into her freckled cheeks and Rob's amiable witless grin took on a new dimension. It was only for a moment, and then he leaned back and took out his pipe.

Mag hung up her apron. “Anybody feel like a game of Sixty-three?”

“Sure, sure!” cried Barry, snapping his fingers at a prancing Tiger. “I was just saying to Van the other day, ‘We haven't had a good game of Sixty-three for a hell of a long time.' Didn't I, Van?” His eyes beamed loving kindness at her, he was as much carried away by the characters they were playing as she was by The Day.

Later, walking home by Terence Campion's, she heard peep frogs from the marshy spot on the edge of Long Cove, and she wished she could keep on walking straight by the house, and have the frogs and the May night to herself. But they went inside, and while she was lighting the lamp Barry come up behind her and put his arms around her, gently squeezing her breasts. “You were some handsome tonight. They winked and blinked at sight of you. Never knew what you looked like dressed up.” He nuzzled into her neck. “I'd forgotten too. God, I was hardly able to keep my mind on the cards all evening. Didn't you see me squirming?”

She wanted to go quietly to bed without hurting or being hurt. She stood still in his embrace. “It was a nice evening, Barry. And now I'm tired.”

“Too tired to talk?” His hands slid and slid.

“Yes.
Don't
.” She tried not to snap or sound annoyed.

“But honey, I haven't had you in a skirt for so damn long.”

“Barry, please.” She went over the rim of patience and put his hands violently away from her. Across the kitchen from him, watching him so he couldn't surprise her, she said with an effort at calm, “I'm too tired for anything, and that's final.”

He did not look hurt. He shrugged. “Okay.” He kicked off his moccasins and went upstairs. She took off her blouse and washed her face and brushed her teeth, then read for a while at the kitchen table.

She was brought back by the lamp dimming; the oil in the clear glass base was almost gone. She turned it out and felt her way silently upstairs and undressed in the dark. She looked forward to tomorrow, in which anything could happen, and she put this day efficiently out of mind as if crossing it off a calendar. It was gone, it would never have to be endured again. She slid quietly into her side of the bed, and began to think of a way to get her own room. Barry was willing to put up with almost anything, but the thought of separate rooms or even separate beds could send him into a tantrum. As if she'd disappear if she wasn't where he could hear her breathing, and then what would he be? Alone, and therefore nothing. . . . Barry was terrified of solitude. It was almost as if he believed he existed only in other people's eyes. He could sleep soundly beside her, only occasionally furious because she repulsed him, and still draw something even from her indifferent or contemptuous denials.

She stretched and sighed. Instantly Barry said, “Van.”

“Did I wake you up?” She imitated a good yawn. “'Night.”

“I've been waiting for you. I thought to God you'd never get through reading.” His voice was quiet but unblurred; he had never sounded more awake. “I thought you were too tired for anything.”

“You know I have to read before I go to sleep. It settles my mind.”

“You mean you wanted me to conk out before you got up here.”

“Have it your own way.” She yawned again and turned over facing the window.

“Listen,” he said. “I'm not going to touch you, goddammit. I just want to talk to you. Now will you do me the favor of listening like I was a human being?”

“I'm listening.” It occurred to her that if they ever could talk reasonably, she might be able to mention a room of her own without his going to pieces. “Go ahead, Barry,” she encouraged him.

“Well, when we came out here I said this was a place where we could put down roots and belong, didn't I? And I said that we could even start thinking about kids of our own. Well, I've been thinking about that right along. And after tonight, seeing those little girls of Rob's, I made up my mind to—” he was beginning to lose his momentum—“to say something about it.” Belligerence rushed in. “I want a kid of ours more than I want anything else.”

“More than staying here? More than owning your own boat and your own house?”

“That goes along with it. It's because I've got more than a chance being my own man that I'm talking about a kid. And I figger we'd better get started on it right away because sometimes it takes quite a while.”

“Oh, does it?” she murmured. She'd made a mistake by reading so long. He'd been lying up here rehearsing the whole thing over and over.

“You like kids, Van,” he said eagerly. “And you'd be a damn good mother. Any baby of yours would be smarter than all these others put together.”

“Even smarter than Bennett babies?”

He laughed, put at ease by her, and felt for her hand. “You said it. And I don't care whether we have a boy or a girl. Maybe we could have both. You and I know what it is to be a loner.” He squeezed her hand. “Will you start thinking about it, Van? Right off?”

“I've thought about it,” she lied. “Barry, if you wanted babies you should have married somebody else.”

“Jesus, I married you because I thought we
were
going to have one!”

“And when you found out it wasn't so, you should have walked out on me and gone back home. You could have four or five of your own by now.”

“I didn't want to walk out on you! Baby or not, I wanted
you
!” He was outraged. “Go home and eat crow? You think I'd do that, after the way they treated me? And you?” he added belatedly. “I didn't want anybody else. I still don't. Aw, listen, Van, don't say no right off, promise me you'll think about it. I know I've never made enough to take care of a family but I'm making enough now and I'll keep making more.”

“That's not the reason. That was never the reason.” That, at least, was the truth. “Barry, it won't do any good for me to think about it, because thinking'll never get me over being scared.” Now she was lying, but with genius, because at once he was anxious and solicitous.

“I sh'd think almost every woman is scared, but they get over it when the time comes, and they forget it. You ever notice that, Van? I guess having the baby is worth everything. And you don't have to suffer when you have it, Van. They can put you right out.”

“Thank you, dear aunt Barry.” They both laughed. Barry put his arm around her; he had never before been allowed to comfort or encourage her in anything. Well, at least I'm giving him some pleasure now, she thought wryly. “Listen, Barry, there's something I never told you. The reason I'm scared isn't the pain. I could stand that. But I could die having a baby. Or the baby could. Or both of us.”