The Tiger in the Tiger Pit (17 page)

Emily rushed toward Tory at the speed of thought, hurtling through air. Don't stop, she wanted to beg the pilot. This was her preferred relationship to the past: skimming over it in the arms of a Boeing 747.

Montreal was a long way off, eight years to starboard.

But New York and Tory came closer by the minute.

(ii)

“I think it's Thursday,” Victoria said to herself, aloud. She wrote it at the top of her page, and then she wrote
New York. Dear Emily
, she continued.

It is beautiful here in Jason's apartment. There are soft things and white things and the sofa feels like lying on rough grasses doum by the creek near old Mr Hamilton's house. You remember, the school cleaner? Ruth's kitchen smells of cinnamon. I love it here and I hope I won't have to leave. At the place where I was staying everything smells of nurses. Jason has a Ruth, did you know? But they do not sleep in the same bed which is very wise in case Father finds out.

I am so excited you are coming. Jason said he will bring you home tonight. From the airport. I remember the airport. When you came to the airport you were with a young man but I promised I would not tell Father and I have never told. I keep my promises though you did not keep yours, Emily. You did not write to me. You promised to write and you did not did not.

Jason says Australia and England and all over Europe. Did you come to Elsinore in Denmark? There's something rotten in the state of Denmark and in the rest of the world too. Remember how Father made us memorise Shakespeare? These tedious old fools. Or was it just me and Jason? Did he make you too? Still harping on his daughter. I am but mad north-north-west; when the wind is southerly I know a hawk from a handsaw.

Til tell you a secret Emily. I wanted to go all over the world, I wanted to have young men. You have got too much and have to share. In our family haven't you noticed
_}
I got all the loneliness? Do you think this is fair?

One is one is one is one.

What's this on the butcher's bench

slit open.

for all the doctors to stare at?

They feed her honeysuckle

which is poisonous,

and take measurements

analysing

analysing

You owe me letters. Letters and letters. You owe me 416 letters, one a week for eight years, since you sent me away from Montreal with promises. You say to yourselves: Tory will forget, she knows nothing.

When I saw your pretty young man at the airport I said it would result in a son. Remember I said that?

When I said son, seeing him through the veins

of blood,

your skin blanched like almonds

in fire.

But the young man touched you

and said

tell we more.

Jason said yes, there is a son. When he comes I will see if he has the young man's eyes.

Emily, I will forgive the letters, only speak to Father for me. We are going to see Father, did you know? Someone has to tell him I am sorry so he will not be angry with me. I'm sorry for vomiting, I'm sorry about the young man. I promise I will stay away from the honeysuckle. If he is angry, will Mother protect us, that is the question? Will she remember us?

It's easier when I write to say these things. My words when I speak are not good swimmers,they scatter in different currents, sometimes they drown. I have a special request: everyone should share and not be greedy, isn't that right? Now that you have your son, can I have your young man? Just for a little while. He was so lovely, golden and sweet as fresh-churned butter. On Russell Davison's farm he had two cows and they made butter and we shared. Do you remember? No one lets me have anything of my own now, though Jason is very kind to me. Wlien you were little I used to push you and Jason on the swings. I gave you all my books and my old dolls. They took away my young man and I never found him again but if I can have yours it will be all right.

How should I your true love know

From another one?

By his cockle hat and staff

and his sandal shoon.

He is dead and gone, lady,

He is dead and gone:

They strangled him with honeysuckle

And left you all alone.

I know a place in Central Park where you can watch children sail boats. Tomorrow I will show you. This afternoon Jason's Ruth is going to take me downtown to the shops and a restaurant, and on Saturday afternoon we are all driving up to Ashville for a party on Sunday.

Will you promise to speak to Father for me?

Love, Tory.

(iii)

Over the intercom Jason's secretary said: “Stephen Waller is here. Shall I send him in?”

“Give me five minutes to make a call first. I'll buzz when I'm ready.”

He began dialling Jessica's number then hesitated, indecisive, and replaced the receiver. But yes, it really was time. Lately, making love to her, even being with her, was like losing hold of the reins of a team of galloping horses.

Jason did not care ever to surrender power.

And yes, it was time. Before Ruth was hurt, before Jessica was too badly hurt, before he himself became irreversibly vulnerable. Already he had been distancing himself from the white-water turbulence of her presence.

Mentally he rehearsed: Two weeks, I know, I feel guilty as hell ,.. incredibly busy … too hectic even to
think
about you, which is criminal (nicely ambiguous) … and now the craziest thing … my sister flying in from London this evening … family reunion … another whole week, I'm afraid.

Easing out, not without regret. In any case, she had known from the start.

“Nothing can come of this.” Always he made that clear right at the beginning. “I have an ongoing commitment.”

One of his saving graces, he felt, was his honesty, including his unblinking acceptance of his own deficiencies. I'm a bastard to live with, he would say to himself. He had also said this to Nina, and to Ruth, and to a number of other women. Laying his cards on the table. No rose-tinted illusions. Though to himself he would add: but considering everything …

There was also his gentleness, the fact that he took no pleasure in causing pain. If he had to hurt, if there were women who willed themselves to forget the agreed-upon terms, then he did so with as light a touch as possible.

Decisively he dialled Jessica's number. Now that it was over, a vision of her lithe brown dancer's body filled him with exquisite sorrow. When, on the fifth ring, she had still not answered, he imagined her doing
pliés
before the bedroom mirror, or standing naked in the bathroom, still wet from the shower, high-kicking one sun-gold leg after the other, her dainty foot pointed like a swallow at the ceiling, the petal-soft honey-warm crevice between her legs opening and closing like a rare orchid.

He drew strength from the knowledge that, having reached a decision, he was immune. Regardless of the misbehaviour of his blood and the sentimentality of his sexual organ (which he stroked gently as though calming a foolish and exuberant puppy) he would not, in fact, consent to any tearful pleas for “just one more time”.

She was letting the phone ring an unconscionably long time, but he knew she would be at home at this hour of the morning. It was entirely probable that she was willing herself not to answer in order to punish him for the last two weeks. Of course sleeping pills were always a possibility, a syndrome with which he was not unfamiliar either as a therapist or as a lover extricating himself from relationships that had run their course. But in Jessica's case he thought the refusal to answer was more likely. Part of her attraction was the stubbornness that went along with her coltish grace.

“Well,” she had said lightly right at the beginning — at the Schonbergs' party where they had met. “That would be perfectly all right because I have one too. An ongoing commitment.”

He had been leaning, whiskey-mellow, on the piano and had whispered that he desired her inordinately but he was afraid nothing could come of it, et cetera.

“It is,” he said reproachfully, “quite uncalled for in your case. A commitment. He's here at the party?”

“As a matter of fact, he's in Europe for a few months. Company assignment. But I couldn't possibly pass up the show I'm doing at the moment so I stayed behind. And your wife?”

“Ruth's at a board meeting. What does your husband do?”

“Not husband, in point of fact.”

“Ah. In my case also, actually not wife. We intend a more lasting commitment.”

“Indeed?” She raised a sardonic eyebrow. “It's working well, I see.”

Chagrined he explicated: “An open and honest one.”

“Oh of course. Ned and I, on the other hand, are just playing it by ear. No specific vows of permanence.”

“And what does Ned do?”

“Corporation lawyer. Aren't you? Do the Schonbergs know any other kind of people, allowing for minor divergences into international law, industrial law, and taxation law?”

“As a matter of fact, I'm a clinical therapist. And a psychology professor on the side, I teach a couple of courses.”

“How did you get in the Schonbergs' front door? You're not her shrink, are you?”

“No. She took one of my courses.”

“Contemporary Neuroses
or
How to Get More Out of Your Sex
Life?”

“Cruel,” he said. “To both of us.”

“Therapists bring out the worst in me.”

“You've had a bad experience with one?”

“I wouldn't touch one.”

“What a blow,” he said archly. “And here I was hoping.”

“But we already agreed that this could go nowhere.”

“Your hostility is definitely showing. What do you have against therapists?”

“They manipulate. They're power freaks. Also I have several friends who've been turned into dependency junkies. Have to call their therapists every second day for a fix.”

“In my defence, let me say only that there have been people who came to me incapacitated with misery, who went away functioning and happy.”

“But most of all, I hate their arrogance. That sickening sense of themselves as God.”

In retrospect, he thought, it was not surprising that she had induced a mild frenzy of possessive desire.

On what must have been the twentieth ring, the phone was answered. Breathlessly.

“Sorry. (Gasp.) Heard it ring as I unlocked. (Gasp.) Just ran up the stairs.”

It was not Jessica's voice.

“Excuse me. I must have the wrong number.”

“Did you want Jessica?”

“Ah … yes. Who are you?”

“New tenant. Lise, Jessica moved out a week ago.”

“Moved out? Thats impossible. Why?”

“Don't ask me. I just answered her ad on the bulletin board at the theatre. Because of the guy, I suppose. Some guy came back into her life, she said.”

“Oh. Ned from Europe.”

“Ned? No, that wasn't his name. I met him when I was moving in. But I remember now: she said if Ned called, tell him she'd write.”

“I see. Any other messages?”

“Not that I recall. Oh yes. Just that I wasn't to give anyone her phone number. She said anyone who mattered knew where to find her at rehearsal. But she still has to come back to pick up a couple of things if you want to leave a message … Hello? … Hello?”

He was stunned. Outraged. Two weeks of disciplined self-denial designed to convey a subtle message, to accustom her gently …

Tramp, he thought.

Good riddance.

As he pressed the intercom button he noticed that his hand was trembling. Was it possible, after such tempestuous nights, such profound discussions over wine, that he could mean so little to her? Not even a pretence at farewell? It was monstrous.

“Send Stephen Waller in, Julie.”

No. It was not possible. It was not possible to fake the kind of passion that had been between them for months. Without question she was in love with him. This was a devious revenge for his not calling for two weeks. Collusion with some girl friend, designed to shake him. Well, they would see who was the smarter game player. He would simply ignore the whole thing. Spare himself the trouble of easing out.

“Of course,” Stephen Waller was saying, feeling the coarse weave of a vest made high in the Andes as though doing a quick check on his ID, “I don't accept the validity of anything you say. Your task is to iron out the exceptional, the worst kind of moral reductionism really. Bring everything down to the level of the well-adjusted. That is to say the banal.”

Such an intense memory of Jessica swamped Jason that the room seemed full of musk and jasmine, her tropical odours, overpowering. He could scarcely breathe and rose abruptly from his desk, crossing to the window. Disoriented at finding it already open, he turned on the fan.

“What are you doing?” Stephen asked sharply. “You've activated something, haven't you? Is the room bugged? I would have thought at least some places were sacred.” He laughed. “Is it possible I still have illusions?”

The smell of Jessica hung between them like incense. Jason leaned on his desk, his head in his hands. “It's a question of deciding what one wants,” he mused aloud. “Are the possible consequences worth it?”

“Well” Stephen responded out of a different world, “I know all about possible consequences, don't I? My problem is, do I have any right whatsoever to bother about personal consequences considering what
they,
what the consequences for
them
…”

Jessica was dispersing, blowing out the window. Now that he thought about it, the fact of her not saying goodbye was proof. If she were genuinely indifferent, of course she would have called, explained, invented excuses, planned a farewell dinner. He could breathe again.

“How can even syntax — you see the scope of the problem?” Stephen went on. “How can anything hang together? I find I can't … even connect words … If you'd seen her, you'd understand. I think I'm going to be sick, you'll have to excuse me.”