He closed the door of the room he had taken in the Blackwell and turned
to face her. Beth couldn’t look at him. She sat down on the bed—a
spacious double bed that unnerved her slightly—and kicked off her shoes.
Slowly she glanced up at him.
“I’ll order us a drink if you like,” he said.
“I’d love one,” she said thankfully, and he called room service and
ordered two vodka collinses. Beth was burning to know by what miracle
she had been released, but she didn’t want to drag it out of him. Let
him tell her in his own good time. He understood how anxious she was.
She supposed he was waiting for the drinks to come and lighten the
atmosphere a little.
“I’m going to take a bath and change my clothes,” she said.
“Good idea.” He showed her where he had put her things and she took a
change of underwear and a dressing gown into the bathroom with her and
bathed herself, weeping softly with relief in her first privacy in
forty-eight hours. Warm water, a leisurely bath, a refreshing drink on
the way—all the foolish little symbols of a serious and necessary
condition to her life: Freedom.
Only Charlie disturbed her. She had been so glad to see him that she had
run to his arms and wept. And now she sat in her tub suddenly full of
misgivings about him again. She knew enough now to know she loved him,
in a way. Only it was the wrong way; it was not sufficient for him or
for a marriage. It was enough to make her want him forever as a friend,
too little to make her want him back as a lover. If only he could
understand that. If only he could accept it. She tried, while she
bathed, to clear her mind and think of a way to tell him her feelings
which would not offend him.
When she came out, clean and fresh and powdered, the drinks had arrived.
He lighted a cigarette for her and handed her a glass.
“How did it happen?” she said, sitting down again on the bed. She
couldn’t hold it back any longer. She wondered why he was so reluctant
to get started with it. The whole thing seemed slightly fantastic. A
little less than an hour ago she had been a prisoner in jail, a murder
suspect; now she was free.
“Well....” He turned his back to her and gazed out the window. “Heinrich
saved you—” he began.
“Heinrich?” She broke in. “Who’s he?”
“He’s a—well, a sort of detective we hired—”
“Who hired?” she demanded.
“Your uncle John and I. Are you going to let me tell you this, Beth, or
are you going to keep interrupting me?”
“I’m sorry,” she said, but she felt the flush of indignation on her
cheek.
“Beth, we hired him because we were so damned scared,” Charlie said
suddenly, turning to face her. His voice, his gestures, pleaded for her
understanding. “He was supposed to be the best and we wanted only the
best. He did a couple of jobs for Uncle John once, long ago. John trusts
the guy and I went along. I was out of my mind worried about you the
first couple of weeks. When John phoned to say you’d run away from him,
too, I told him to go ahead and hire Heinrich.”
“I see.” She looked down into her glass, humiliated.
“We never meant to—to spy on you, darling,” Charlie said. “But when he
found you, in New York, we were—well, anything but reassured by what he
told us. We told him to stay with it, and he took a room next to yours
at the Beaton.”
“He what?” she cried. “Oh, Charlie, that was going too far.” _My God, we
even shared the same bathroom!_ she thought.
“It was going pretty far, maybe, but he was doing his job, Beth.”
“Well, I guess there’s nothing I can tell you about my stay in New York
that he hasn’t already told you!” she exclaimed.
“Not much,” Charlie said quietly, as if embarrassed.
“I suppose he was peeking through the keyhole when Vega showed up,” Beth
said, near to tears with indignation. The fact that it might have saved
her life was lost momentarily in the shame of the situation.
“Not exactly. He had the room wired,” Charlie said. “He recorded
everything. He just gave the tapes to the police and explained to them
that Vega was in love with you. The whole thing became clear as a bell.
She damn near killed a kid in Pasadena named P.K. Schaefer. With that
same gun. P.K. took a chance and ran for it. Vega fired and missed her.”
He shrugged. “Well, Heinrich’s testimony and P.K.’s and the doctor’s
Vega was seeing—they were too much for the police. It was plain that she
was unhinged. And that you didn’t do it.”
There was a silence then while they were both absorbed in their
thoughts.
“My children,” Beth said. “My poor kids.”
“They don’t know anything about it,” Charlie said quickly. “They’ve been
in Chicago all this time. I’m going to keep them there till it blows
over. You’ve been exonerated, Beth.”
“But Vega was a Lesbian. That part of it you can never wipe out. That
part will haunt me. I guess that’s what she meant by killing herself to
make me suffer.”
“I guess it is,” he said. “I heard the tapes,” he added diffidently.
“She sounded pretty desperate.”
Another pause. Beth finished her drink and Charlie ordered two more.
“How can you take those children back to Pasadena to live?” she asked.
“It doesn’t need to be Pasadena,” he said. “California’s a big state.”
“But the business is in Pasadena. It’s all established. You can’t just
pick up and move out.”
“For something like this I could. And I would.” He gazed directly at her
as he said it, wanting her to see all the hurt and determination and
love in his face.
“But, Charlie,” she protested, feeling caught and flustered, “it would
mean dragging everybody with you, all the office staff, the craftsmen,
the machinists. Cleve and Jean—”
“Cleve and Jean don’t need to worry about it any longer,” he said, and
he was gazing down at his drink now, lines of concern on his forehead.
“Why not? What does that mean?”
“Cleve isn’t with the company now. It’s just—Ayers Toys.”
Beth’s mouth dropped open a little. “What happened?” she breathed at
last.
“He climbed into that damn bottle and stayed,” Charlie said. “He was
coming to work drunk all the time. It was getting bad when you left,
Beth; you must have heard me mention it a couple of times.... Well, it
just got worse. It got intolerable, to tell the truth. He wasn’t doing
anything, he wasn’t contributing anything. He just sat in his office and
tipped the bottle. I did all the work. And goddamn it, I didn’t feel
like sharing the credit and the money with a souse who didn’t raise a
finger for either one.”
“Oh, but Charlie,” she said, and there were tears in her voice, “it was
his business, his idea. You were the newcomer not so long ago. You were
the one he took in, and taught the ropes, and made an equal partner.”
She was hurt for a moment, as Cleve must have been hurt when it
happened.
“Well, damn it!” he cried defensively. “It didn’t have to happen that
way, Beth. I begged him to quit drinking. I dragged him around to a
couple of specialists. I got Jean to help me, and Mrs. Purvis. And Cleve
tried. When it got too bad, he felt the same way I did.
“Honey, you don’t think I went in there and fired the guy, do you?” he
said, flinging out his hands in a plea for sympathy. “No! Hell, no.
Cleve brought it up himself. I couldn’t do a thing like that. He just
came in one morning about a month ago and told me he thought it would be
better for the business and for himself if he quit.”
“Who’s going to hire him now if he’s been drinking?”
“Beth, it’s rough, I know. It’s a rough life, nobody needs to tell me
that.”
“Maybe Jean will get a job and support them for a while,” she said.
“He’s leaving her!”
“What?” It was impossible. “They were always so happy!” she exclaimed.
They had seemed so stable as a partnership.
“It’s a trial separation,” Charlie said. “I think they love each other,
all right, but they just can’t stand each other, if you know what I
mean.”
“I always thought Jean took everything in her stride. I thought there
was nothing that girl couldn’t face with a smile. I even used to resent
that smile of hers, because I thought it meant inner peace. I thought
she had learned to cope with life, and because I was jealous I used to
tell myself it was only because she was so stupid. I thought anybody as
smart as me could never be happy. Only the nice, jolly, stupid people
like Jean.”
“She isn’t stupid, honey,” Charlie said, sitting down on the bed beside
her. “Her only answer to her problems was to smile. She and Cleve have
been just—roommates for years. Not husband and wife. I think that’s why
he drinks. It had something to do with Vega, too. He never did explain
it all to me. Just little hints and remarks when he was tight. I guess
he and Vega were too close or something. When they were younger, I mean.
He even made me think, one time, that it went as far as—” He stopped.
“As far as what?” she prompted with unhappy curiosity.
“Well, as a sort of affair,” he said, obviously embarrassed to talk
about it. “Anyway, they were abnormally close. For a long time. And
suddenly there was an awful fight. I guess they both got scared and
ashamed when they got a little older and realized it wasn’t very healthy
for a brother and sister, and all that. And they both turned on each
other. Vega blamed Cleve because he was a man and men are always
responsible for these things. And Cleve blamed Vega because she was the
oldest and she showed him the way and encouraged it. And all of a
sudden, where there had been so much love, there was hate. They hated
each other with real dedication. I guess to hide the fact that they
would always love each other anyway, no matter how they tried not to.
“Well, it was too much for both of them. Vega turned to women for relief
and affection. And Cleve tried to find a substitute in Jean for Vega.
But Jean was the wrong girl entirely. They were different as night and
day—the two women. I guess that’s why Cleve chose her. He didn’t want to
be eternally reminded of his sister. But it didn’t work, for either of
them.”
After a pause Beth said softly, “Explains a lot of things, doesn’t it?
God, it makes you wonder, though. It just makes you wonder if Cleve and
Vega wouldn’t both have been better off to stay with each other and let
the world go to hell.”
“You know it wouldn’t,” he said, and though his voice was even she could
feel the sudden rise in his emotional temperature.
“At least Vega wouldn’t have ended up horribly dead on the floor of a
hotel room.”
“I wouldn’t count on it. It’s never better to prolong a sick
relationship. She might have ended up dead even sooner.”
“If prolonging a sick relationship will keep you alive, it’s worth it.”
“Things would have been much worse for them if they lived together,” he
said positively. Anything abnormal he automatically loathed, without
understanding it, without questioning himself.
And rather than fight him in an area where his will and his emotions
could not be moved, she simply said, “He always managed to write and
tell me how you and the kids were. No matter how drunk he was. And
sometimes those letters looked like he had palsy when he wrote them. But
I was so grateful for them.”
“He was writing to you?” Charlie said, turning where he sat to look at
her, surprised.
She nodded, her eyes on the floor. “I asked him to,” she said. “I knew
you wouldn’t write, and I had to know how you were.”
He seemed touched. After a moment he reached for her hand and she let
him have it, dreading to argue with him.
“Beth,” he said quietly. “Have you had enough now? Enough of this
running around and trying to ‘find yourself,’ or whatever it is you
think you’re doing?”
He meant to be kind but he sounded condescending, and it wounded her.
“You mustn’t laugh at me, Charlie,” she said.
“No, darling, I’m not laughing. I know it’s serious. God knows I have
nothing to laugh about,” he said quickly.
Beth made herself look at him and for a brief moment she saw him the way
he had been nine years ago in college when she had loved him so
romantically. Or thought she had. The tenderness was reflected on her
face and he brightened a little to see it. “Charlie, darling, I’m so
grateful to you for so much,” she said. “I owe you a lot and I wish
there were some way to repay it.”
“There is. Come home with me.”
She almost bit her lip. She hadn’t meant to give him an opening like
that. She wanted to steer him out of the idea without inflicting pain on
him. He had come a long way and put up with a lot.
“I—I wish to God I could,” she said.
“You can. Oh, Beth, I’ve been so damned miserably lonesome—”
“I know, so have I,” she broke in swiftly, afraid to let him start
telling her what he had been through. It would be very bad, it would
hurt them both, and it would make her feel more obligated than ever to
him.
She stood up, walking away from him a few steps, as if that would help
her to think clearly. “I’ll never be proud of what I’ve done to you,
Charlie,” she said. “I’ve failed as a wife to you and as a mother to my
children. For a woman that’s the ultimate disgrace. I suppose it sounds
pretty hollow to say that I couldn’t help it. But I was as much a
failure to myself as a human being as I was to you. When you fail
yourself how can you be any good to anyone else?”
She turned a supplicating face to him.
“I don’t understand it,” he said. “You were all I ever wanted. The only
thing wrong with my life now is that you’re not in it.”
“The only thing wrong with your life when I _am_ in it is me. I had to
leave,” she said, feeling that old needling desperation that plagued her
when she tried to explain her private self to Charlie. He felt it too,
as he tried to grasp it all, and came away with a head full of her words
and no meanings to hang them on.
“I thought when I found Laura it would all come clear, all be explained
to me,” she said, speaking as though explaining it to a child. “But when
I found her, it was more like the beginning of the search than the end
of it. I guess I’ll never know the answer to who I am. Or why. I guess
the answer is that there is no answer.” She gave a shy hopeless little
laugh. “Does that make things any clearer?”
“No,” he said and shook his head, an earnest sweat of concentration on
his face. “I hope you aren’t telling me you won’t come back with me.
That’s the only thing that matters.”
“But Charlie, darling, we’re right back where we started. That isn’t
enough. Not for me. If we could only be friends and—”
“Friends!” he flared, and she knew she was in for it now. “How can a
husband and wife be just friends? Do you want to live like Cleve and
Jean lived all these years? A pitiful farce of a marriage? It may fool
their friends but it doesn’t fool them.”
“Charlie, let’s face it, ours wasn’t much better.”
“It was till you got a bunch of goddamn half-baked ideas in your head!”
“I don’t think I could go back to you now, even loving you,” she said.
“You mean you don’t love me enough? Beth, Beth, I’ve always known that.
In a marriage, one always loves more than the other. I’m willing to be
that one.” He had risen and come toward her and now he stood behind her
with his big warm hands on her shoulders, feeling her sobs and aching to
stop them with kisses.
“Oh, don’t!” she cried, shaking him away from her. “Don’t talk that way.
You’ll break my heart.”
“Come home with me then.”
“I can’t!” she cried, moving still further away from him.
“I need you.”
“I can’t, Charlie.”
“The children need you. Think of them if you can’t think of me, for
God’s sake.”
“I have, I have, I’ve almost lost my mind over them. I wish somebody had
cared that much about me when I was a child! I can’t go home!”
“You can, goddamn you! You will!” he exclaimed.
She whirled and faced him and shrieked with desperate determination,
“No!”
There was a trembling silence for several moments while they stared at
each other, both shaking with the intensity of their love, their hate,
their helplessness.
“Beth, not once since I found you and got you out of that jail and
brought you here have I said anything about what you’ve done to me. I
was hoping I wouldn’t have to. I haven’t told you about the nights I’ve
spent alone and the restaurant dinners I’ve eaten and the stories I’ve
had to make up for the kids about you and the things I’ve had to tell
the neighbors. I haven’t told you—”
“Don’t!” she cried in anguish. “Don’t tell me unless you want to kill
me.”
“I want you to know what I’ve been through!” he said fiercely.
“Charlie, I’m telling you now and forever, once and for all, I can’t
come home with you. I can’t go back to you. I—”
“You said you loved me.” He had turned quite pale and was staring at
her.
“I want a divorce,” she said, and crumbled into a chair at the foot of
the bed.
They sat in utter silence then for ten minutes, neither of them moving,
neither speaking. At last he said, “I could have killed you when you
left. I felt that way for a long time. But when I heard about Vega, all
the mess in the papers, everything changed. I was so worried about you.
I knew you couldn’t have done it and I wanted to forgive you. I don’t
know why, I guess I’m just a glutton for punishment. I just wanted you
back, no questions asked.”
“You didn’t need to ask. Mr. Heinrich had all the answers,” she said
sharply.
“I came here to forgive you, to rescue you and start over.”
“I can’t be rescued,” she said firmly.
“You’re not worth it,” he said grimly. “I didn’t know that till now. Or
rather, I couldn’t face it. I guess because I loved you so much.”
She covered her face with her hands, refusing to look at him or answer.
At last he rose.
“I’ll take another room,” he said. “I’ll be leaving tomorrow, I guess.
There isn’t much point in staying on.”
She listened to him moving about the room, taking his things from the
drawers where he had put them the night before, and her heart
contracted. But still she didn’t move, didn’t try to stop him. It was
better that he go off mad. It would give him strength and reassure him
in the future that he had done the right thing. It would help him give
her up.
He stopped at the door and she looked up then, aware that he was
leaving. His chin was set and his eyes were hard. He was very handsome
and straight.
“Charlie, I wish—with all my heart, I wish—”
“I know. So do I,” he said.
“I’ll never know, all the rest of my life, if what I’m doing is a brave
thing or a cowardly thing, Charlie. A right thing or a wrong one. I only
know I have to do it.”
He listened, quiet and uncomprehending, and then he said, almost gently,
“Goodbye, Beth.”
“Goodbye,” she whispered.
He shut the door softly after him.