Chapter 17 insert

(page 342)

SHADOWS CLOSE IN

"She had lost a son, perhaps, some love-or perhaps not really love, only some illusion. Ah! Love... Why should any spirit yearn, why should any body, full of strength and joy, wither slowly away for want of love?" - The Dark Flower

Malcolm and I returned to the Claridge quite late. I was reluctant to see the end of a happy day we'd shared as a family. I wondered where Malcolm's thoughts took him in the companionable silence, as he unlocked the door to our suite and followed me inside.

"We missed our curfew." he joked. "It looks like our chaperones gave up on us, too."

No light came from beneath Corinne's or Christopher's doors. They were resting, after their graduation ceremonies.

Malcolm went into the adjoining room, in search of a glass.

"Well, I know you'd have preferred it if Corinne had gone with us, but I'm glad we went out, anyway." I said, when Malcolm returned. "I must say, it made me feel my age. Young people are all so... beautiful. Even the unlovely ones seem beautiful."

Malcolm settled into a chair.

"What makes me uneasy-when I think about it-is the thought that, if I live as long as my father, I will have only ten years left."

It had never occured to me to wonder what he thought about growing older; he had just passed his fifty-first birthday, in March.

"You, Malcolm, will live to a very advanced age, I am sure. My grandmother would have said it's because Heaven is ambivalent about letting certain people in."

"I wonder what John Amos would say about that. Some of his theories seem just as far-fetched. Even you," he added when he saw my frown, "have to admit that."

I began to brush out my hair, experiencing a pang of dismay when I saw the strands that came away in the bristles of my hairbrush. It was certainly thinning. My hair, of auburn, just escaping red, was now tinged with gray. My eyes were not remarkable. My features, though fairly regular, had no claim to beauty. So little distinction was there in my personal appearance, that, I supposed, a passer-by would not spare me a second glance. I would not suffer the crisis of lost confidence that besets many women when their looks begin to fade.

I retreated to the other side of the room, and stepped out of my dress, picked up my nightdress, and walked into the bathroom where I removed my slip and turned on the shower. I was tired, but I could not sleep unless I had a bath, and we would be too rushed in the morning. Feeling a bit revived afterward,
I smoothed lotion into my skin, and gathering a jar of cold cream and hairpins, began packing away everything I would not need in the morning. Only then did I get into bed and pick up a book.

"I've been thinking, Olivia," said Malcolm, "we should do some traveling."

He had often spoken of our taking trips abroad to various places, had promised it, but somehow, it never happened.

"I thought, in September, if Corinne hasn't... has she decided about a college?"

"I've told you. Bryn Mawr, she says."

"But she may change her mind." he said. I, too, hoped Corinne's choice would be something other, but not for the same reasons.

I laid my book aside and took off my reading glasses.

"The world is changing, in spite of the fact that you and I don't like the changes. The boys would have wanted separate lives. Corinne will want a life of her own, as well."

"You don't have to tell me again."

"Well, if she chooses Bryn Mawr, at least she won't be so far from home." I said, consoling myself with that.

He resumed talk of vacations.

"Once the kids are back in school, we could get away."

"Yes," I replied, not liking the lack of enthusiasm in my response. "We should do that."

"Where do you think you'd like to go? Do you have a preference?"

"Oh. Bermuda." I answered. The thought of a rented house with a private beach appealed.

Restlessly, I walked to the window and parted the curtains to look out at the lights of Atlantic City below. Brassy swing music could faintly be heard,
and the lateness of the hour hadn't slowed the bustle of high-spirited tourists as they walked along.

"You look like a thundercloud. What's it about?"

"I can't say, Malcolm."

"I thought the plan would meet with your approval. You always say how depressing September is." He was irritated that his gesture at consideration went unappreciated. "You shouldn't stand there, brooding."

I suppose I had been brooding. Seeing Christopher accept his diploma had stirred up feelings which had grown manageably numb to casual prodding, to the random comment or thought. But today I had been extremely happy, and now happiness had given way to its opposite extreme. With a flash of anger, I gestured toward the window.

"I can't see any of that anymore; it's all ugly and dead to me-as dead as I feel. Nothing is good in life, anymore. A vacation won't change that."

"You're thinking of Mal and Joel." he said quietly.

"Yes. It's impossible not to." I said, thinking of the tour of the Yale campus Christopher had given us, though of course we had seen everything before, with Mal. "And it would have been Joel's year to graduate-if he'd finished college."

"Last year. Try not to think about it, Olivia. We can't know what might have happened."

I turned away from the window, letting the draperies fall back into place.

"It was a foolhardy course for Joel to take-going to Europe." said Malcolm.

I thought of Joel's upbeat letters, full of interesting descriptions of the people he met, of the churches he saw. He had written about visiting Munich,
and of Switzerland, then taking a boat on to Italy. I remembered the closing lines from one of his last letters home.

"Am enjoying the tour, but miss you very much. If you can get Father to take a trip this summer, you would enjoy seeing Venice. I can show you around. Will write to him about it in March, in enough time for him to plan." And then the post script I could not forget: "Does he read my letters?"

Joel had always had a keen interest in other cultures and countries, while Mal's more solid plan was to stay near home, and follow in his father's footsteps-a job for which Mal was well equipped. In the end, the child I'd always thought more fragile than the others, Joel, had been unafraid to go out into the world.

But I knew what Malcolm meant. The irony was that it had been an accident of nature which had stolen Joel from us, not the war in Europe. If Mal and Joel had lived, we might have lost one or both of them; they might have been casualties of America's participation in this terrible war. Because Christopher was going into medical school, he had been deferred from joining the Armed Services.

"Is this what you want, to force us to talk about what will only be upsetting? I don't see that there's any point in it."

"Whether we talk or don't talk, it will be upsetting. I don't know what you expect of me or of yourself, but this won't simply fade away; in three years,
it hasn't. That is the point, Malcolm."

He was angry that I'd broken our pact of silence, that I'd been indiscreet enough to break our habit of maintaining surface cordiality. Sometimes I longed to speak freely, to extend kindness to my fellow sufferer, to end this pointless blame we each had for the other, a blame that masked self-blame. I wanted to turn to him and say: "Can't we find a way to call a truce? I grow weary of the debate that has always been our way of life. We have lost our children.
We have lost the one you hadn't learned to appreciate, and the one you did, and had high hopes for. We probably argued when they were born and we were arguing when Mal died, and I can't bear it any longer!" ... But I could not say any of that aloud.

"Just when I think I'm going to be all right again, something reminds me of one of them, and it's as if it is that day, and we've just seen Corinne running up the driveway. I keep hearing her words." I took a breath, trying to quell the sobs that were building. "I told him to... to be careful! I called to him to be careful, but he didn't... he didn't... hear me."

"Olivia, please!"

"Sometimes, I forget, and I make a mental note to write Joel and tell him something. Or I think: I will have to call Mal, since he's not much of a writer of letters. Then I remember that I can't. There's no one to write to or call. They aren't just away at school. There's a part of me that can't accept that they are truly gone. Their rooms are just as they left them-"

"Why haven't you done something about that, or had Mrs. Tethering do it for you?"

It was Malcolm's way to remove painful reminders immediately. He had sold Mal's car within weeks of the funeral, and sold the horses off by the following summer. I hadn't objected to any of it; no one had the spirit or interest left to object.

"I can't. Not yet. I think a part of me believes that they will come home. How long will it be before I stop expecting that? Why can't they just... come home? Why can't I see them one last time?"

My eyes smarted, but I would not cry. I hadn't been able to cry for so long. Some grief was too deep and long-lasting to be eased by tears.

Malcolm looked at me uncertainly for a moment, then, with a sigh of resignation, put his paper aside, and came toward me. I buried my face against his shoulder.
It was what I'd wanted to do from the first night we met; surely, by now, I'd grieved enough to have earned the right to expect some solace from him.

We stood clasped together long enough for me to regret my thoughtless torrent of words. It was cruel of me to have unearthed this sorrow again. I tried to take comfort from the uncharacteristic tolerance of my feelings. In many ways, Malcolm's hard edges had been smoothed out by his own bereavement, and by the help of John Amos.

"You must pull yourself together." The words lacked the harshness with which he usually said them.

"Yes. I will." I promised. "It's just that I can't bear the way no one talks about them anymore, as though Mal and Joel never existed. It helps to hear their names aloud now and again, but no one says them."

"We won't forget." he said. Malcolm's embrace, warm and solid, brought immeasurable comfort, and I did not feel I wanted to leave it.

"I should take these glasses away, and I need to-"

"You need to be taken to bed."

It wasn't an invitation; there was nothing uncertain or cautious in his manner. I tightened my arms about him, and Malcolm kissed me, without preamble,
his mouth tasting of the champagne that coursed through my system, warming me. His breath, too, was warm on my temple as his hands slipped beneath my dress seeking contact with this flesh that still lived.

"Ah," I said, involuntarily digging my fingers into his shoulder with the quickening of my pulse. "I'd like that."

"You will."

I smiled at his limitless arrogance. It had been nearly four years since Malcolm and I had been anything more than casual companions together. The loss of the boys had driven us to a state of separation which seemed insurmountable, and I'd had no will to change it.

I'd thought the needs of youth finished. I had not felt able to before, but surely it was a small matter to give him the comfort of my body. As long as I could prolong the abstraction, I did not have to think; I did not have to grieve, and so I reached out and switched off the lamp.

I allowed myself to be convinced, allowed this distraction, for that was what Malcolm intended it to be. I did not stop him when he fumbled at the lace at the top of my nightdress, unfastening the buttons, and laid the gown on a nearby chair. I reached to undress him, and waited as he moved across the room to hang his clothes in the closet, for Malcolm was as fastidious about well-made clothing as Joel had been.

My clamoring senses, I discovered, had not forgotten pleasure, nor the intimate knowledge acquired through years. It was not only an answering lust, but a kind of consolation, as his kisses commanded equal return, as if contact were nourishment. I could have lain there all night, languorously accommodating, his silky hair against my cheek, my arms around him. But he eventually turned away, wordless, resigned. I did not feel much disappointment, for there was tomorrow,
and the thousands of tomorrows after that. After twenty-six years, there is not as much need for urgency.

"You ought to get some sleep if you still plan us to get an early start." I said, softly.

"I heard one of the kids up and about, a while ago."

"It's Christopher."

"He'd better be alert in the morning to drive." said Malcolm, and drifted off, soon afterward.

As always, it was an hour before I could sleep. The bed was too soft, the pillow too flat. I lay on my back, listening to the unfamiliar sounds of the hotel and the city, finally turning onto my side, and slept.

Later, I was partially awakened, as I had been, the previous night, by Malcolm's coughing. I listened to the stertorous breathing, uncertain whether to wake him, only to have him irritably insist that he was all right. I reached over, brushed a hand across his back, said his name, sleepily. He murmured something, and half turned toward me.

I was too tired to fully waken, registering only that it was still dark when dreams were dispersed by the warmth of undreamed touch. Malcolm's heavy thigh lay across my knees, his hands adeptly searched, lifting the hem of my gown, parting my thighs, traversing a known path to the desire he created. A quick,
liquid heat radiated outward, even to the tips of my fingers. I was too eager for him to object to anything he wished to do, or to feel surprise at this unexpected generosity-for Malcolm rarely did anything which did not also enhance his own enjoyment. His hands moved over me, inside me, as sure as if they had been my own, to bring forth the response he required. I wanted more, but could be satisfied by this, if nothing further was possible, (as, soon, it would be.)

"Tomorrow, at home." he whispered against my ear, when I reached for him. "Tomorrow."

"We'll have to leave soon, if we're to reach home by tonight." stressed Malcolm, when we joined Christopher and Corinne for breakfast.

Corinne, I was pleased to see, wore the single strand of princess-length pearls I'd given her as graduation gift. Because Malcolm bestowed so many gifts upon her, it was always challenging to choose something she would like. Of course, no gift could elicit the same level of enthusiasm evoked by Malcolm's gift of the convertible, but the pearls were as flawless as Corinne's complexion. They did look lovely on her, as I'd known they would.

"What time will we be home?" asked Corinne.

"By nine or ten, I should think."

"Coffee, Olivia?" asked Christopher, pouring a cup which I gratefully accepted. He was the only one of us who seemed ready to face the day, and in the end,
he did most of the driving.

I spread honey onto a croissant. I couldn't help noticing that Corinne only picked at her omelet, and she took no coffee.

Her appearance was, as ever, neat; she wore a new aqua-striped summer frock, and had her shoulder-length, wavy hair parted on the side, styled in the fashion of some actress or other. But yesterday, as we'd spent the afternoon together having our hair set for Christopher's graduation, I had noticed her pallor.

"Are you feeling poorly, darling?" I asked, taking her aside shortly before we left the hotel.

"No, no." she assured me, blushing. She moved about the room, picking up hairpins and a silver compact, putting her pink satin lingerie bag into a suitcase.
"It's just... Mama, I must speak to you."

She latched the case and turned to look at me, running the cool beads of her necklace through her fingers, like a nun with her rosary.

"It's getting late." called Malcolm.

"It can wait." Corinne said, smiling.

I stepped, phlegmatically, out into the bracing sea air and bright morning sunshine, eyes blinking rapidly against the glare. Everything looked too fresh,
too glisteningly wonderful to be real. But this morning, I felt just a little less encumbered by the miserable past, the past that made the present seem emptier than it was. Corinne and Christopher had a bright future to look to, and they were our future.

"I wish we didn't have to hurry home." I said. "It would be nice to stay and see more of the city."

"Oh, yes, Daddy. We must see the boardwalk. Can't we stay until tomorrow?" Corinne asked, turning an imploring gaze on Malcolm.

"The rest of you may have the summer free, but I do not." said Malcolm. He deplored having his plans changed by other people or circumstances, it unsettled him.

We arrived at Foxworth Hall late, as Malcolm had predicted. Christopher took his luggage up to his suite in the north wing, and I didn't see him again that night. I retired to my room soon after we reached home, not remembering that Corinne had wished to talk to me. The next morning, I entered the dining room and found Malcolm breakfasting alone.

Minnie served my breakfast, and withdrew.

"Are you going in?" I asked Malcolm, meaning in to Charlottesville, to his office.

"No. I'll be working here."

We all needed a quiet day at home, after traveling.

"I hope Corinne hasn't made plans to have friends in." he said.

"She hasn't told me anything about it. If anything, she'll go out."

I hadn't meant my speaking of the boys to throw Malcolm back into his somber mood, but an hour later, I came upon him standing in the north salon, staring in the direction of the pictures of Mal and Joel, with unfocused eyes and bowed shoulders. I thought he hadn't heard my approach, but he spoke as I entered the room.

"I thought if I could keep him home... that's all I meant to do, Olivia." he said quietly.

Malcolm had threatened to cut Joel out of the will, seeking to exert some control in that way. At the time, I didn't recognize it as fear of losing him,
as we had lost Mal. The sad part of it was that the threat might have worked with Mal, but Malcolm hadn't known his second son well. Establishing his own identity through his music was what mattered most to Joel. I could see that thinking of Joel still caused anguish. If Malcolm didn't express this now,
it would continue to torment him.

"I was proud of Mal in a way I can't be about Corinne. And Joel-perhaps if he'd had a few more years, more maturity... I didn't fully realize until...
but I-"

"You loved them? Was that what you wanted to say?" I asked, sharply.

I wasn't the one who needed to hear this admission. Why could he say this to John Amos, and why, only now, when the boys would never hear it could he finally express his feelings?-feelings born, belatedly, of guilt.

"I'm sorry." he said.

"Don't tell me that you're SORRY."

My anger descended just as quickly into a deep sadness that would remain with me. I still found it difficult to accept that Malcolm was capable of feeling remorse, though I knew from my talks with John Amos that he did.

"I am sure they knew that." I said, making my choice, making the effort. "You saw Joel's letters. He always wrote that he was thinking of us-both of us."

Our sons were gone. Malcolm would live on, and I must live on with him. Although I didn't want to concede anything, if I could free him from some of the guilt, wasn't I obligated to try? Perhaps as recently as the year before, I would not have cared to, but John Amos had forced me to ask for God's forgiveness,
and to forgive myself. Forgiving Malcolm couldn't be more difficult than that.

"You're clutching at straws."

"You think they didn't know you cared about them? Malcolm, I had many talks with the boys-with Mal in particular, and I do think he understood that it wasn't your way to speak in such direct terms. You showed it in other ways." He looked unconvinced. "With your confidence in him. By giving him responsibilities,
by taking for granted that he would succeed."

"He shouldn't have bought that goddamned motorcycle."

It took me a few seconds to realize that his anger wasn't with me, but with Mal, who, even gone, needed his mother to come to his defense.

"Why... why did he do it?" I asked, frightened of my question, afraid to bring up what we had never discussed. I felt an urgency; perhaps it was time I faced the answer. And if I knew the answer, maybe I could understand and accept why Mal had died.

Malcolm's expression became guarded.

"What? You did not see the reports." he said quickly. "There WAS something wrong with that bike."

Malcolm-or had it been John Amos?-had identified Mal's body. Although I had resented such high-handedness, at a time when I was so distraught, it was a kindness that Malcolm insisted I be excluded from that necessary part of the procedures.

"He told Corinne to jump. Why couldn't he-"

"You've got the wrong idea, and I won't discuss it, Olivia. Please, leave it be."

I picked up one of the photographs, and looked at it rather than at Malcolm.

"All right." I said at last, choosing to drop the subject. By pursuing it, I would only destroy myself, so I chose to accept his word, as he had accepted mine.

At length, I went away to have a word with the cook, and with John Amos, who asked many questions about our trip and the graduations. At ten o'clock, I gathered the week's mail, and went into my small office. Over a second cup of coffee, I took my paper-knife to each envelope in turn, until I came to the large manila one, addressed to Christopher.