Desperate Asylum

Section 1

Emerson usually handled the bar himself until Roscoe came in around eleven. Mornings were slack, and it was hardly worth hiring someone to do the job, and besides, Emerson liked to do a share of work around the place. It kept his hand in and gave him a good, solid feeling of personal intimacy with the things he had created and developed and loved. He was polishing glasses and looking through them against the light for smears when the postman came in.

“Well,” he said. “The good man in gray.”

The postman put his leather pouch on one stool and sat down on another. His name was Marvin Groggins, and he hated all people who wrote letters and was very proud of his casual rapport with all the business men on his downtown route, no matter how God-damn important they were, or thought they were.

“Crap,” he said.

Emerson grinned. “What do you mean, crap? You better watch out, Marv, or you’ll be getting investigated for subversive talk or something. You got to show proper respect for public servants, even if you happen to be one of them yourself.”

“Oh, sure. Public servant. You know what I am? I’m a God-damn errand boy for a lot of fatheads, that’s what I am. You see that bag? Look at it. Just look at the God-damn thing. Bulging. Running over. And you know something? I could take at least half of that stuff and throw it down the nearest storm sewer, and no one would be a damn bit the worse off for it, and the truth is, they’d probably be a hell of a lot better off.”

“Except you, Marv. You’d be worse off. You’d be in the pokey, as a matter of fact.”

“I know. Durance vile. Just for throwing away a bundle of lousy trash. I’m not so sure I’d be worse off, at that. You got to put up with a hell of a lot in this postman racket. Take Aunt Lucy, for instance.”

“Who’s Aunt Lucy?”

“Well, she’s just a for-instance, damn it. The point is, she hasn’t got anything worth while to do with herself, so she writes letters. She writes them to everyone in her lousy family right down to umpteenth cousins, and no one wants the letters, and probably don’t even read them, and all they really want is for Aunt Lucy to mind her own damn business, but after they get the letters their lousy consciences won’t let them alone until they’ve answered them, and the thing keeps going on in a vicious circle, and it’s the postman who suffers. Trouble is, stamps are too damn cheap. If stamps cost more, there wouldn’t be all this stuff to peddle. By God, I’ll vote for the first guy who runs for president on a platform calling for dollar postage stamps, and I don’t give a damn if he’s a Republican or a Democrat or a Druid.”

“Druid? Druidism’s a religion or something, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know what it is, and I don’t give a damn. All the guy has to do is advocate dollar stamps. Minimum, that is.”

“You’re pretty bitter this morning, Marv. What you need is a couple fingers on the house.”

Marv shook his head. He had a long, lugubrious face with a big nose that was now bright red from the cold. Emerson liked to get him going when there was time to listen, and he knew damn well that Marv loved his job and wouldn’t have traded places with the postmaster general.

“Not while I’m on duty,” Marv said. “Everyone else can take time out for a little drink if he pleases, but if a postman takes a drink on duty it’s a stinking crime or something.”

“How about a cup of coffee?”

“Well, coffee’s something else. Even a postman can have a cup of coffee, I guess.”

“Okay. You can have the coffee now and come back on your own time for the drink.”

“Thanks, Em. I’ll do that.”

“Meantime, while I’m getting the coffee, you can dig my mail out of that bag. I want to get it before you decide to take it out and throw it down the sewer. You take cream and sugar?”

“Hell, no. You know better than that.”

Emerson went back to the kitchen and got the coffee and brought it into the bar. Marv had sorted out half a dozen envelopes, and Emerson set the coffee down in front of Marv and picked up the envelopes. He went through them slowly, reading the return address on each one.

“Well, I’ll be damned!” he said.

Marv had his big red nose stuck down into the fragrant steam rising from the coffee. He rolled his eyes up at Emerson without removing his nose from the steam. “Bad news?”

“No. I don’t suppose so. How the hell would I know, Marv? I haven’t even opened the envelope.”

“The way you sounded...”

“I was just surprised. It’s from Mexico City, as a matter of fact. From Avery Lawes.”

“Avery Lawes? I thought Avery went to Miami.”

“He did, but apparently he went on to Mexico City later. He told me he might do that when he was in here the night before he left town.”

“Some guys sure lead a hard life. I suppose he’ll come back with the birds, after it gets nice and warm and everything. You a particular friend of Avery’s?”

“Not particular. I’ve known him sort of casually ever since we were kids.”

Emerson held the envelope against the light to locate the letter inside and tore a strip off the end of the envelope. Removing the single sheet of stationery, he began to read. The letter was very brief, only a note, and the reading required no more than half a minute. Marv lifted his coffee cup and drank from it and tried to act as if he wasn’t interested. Emerson put the letter back into the envelope and began to laugh.

“What’s funny?” Marv said.

“Nothing. Nothing’s funny.”

“What the hell you laughing for, then?”

“I was just thinking about something Avery told me once.”

“Oh, well, pardon me all to hell. I certainly wouldn’t want to intrude on a private joke. How’s Avery managing to get along down there with all those Mexican gals and everything?”

“Fine. He’s married.”

“The hell you say!”

“That’s right. He married a girl in Miami and took her to Mexico City with him.”

“Well, I’ll be! Imagine old Avery doing something like that. Maybe he got hooked. You think so? Sometimes when these highbrow guys get out of town on the loose, they really pop their corks.”

“I doubt that Avery popped his cork.”

“He never seemed like the kind that would. I’ll admit that.”

“He’s not highbrow, either. Avery’s a mighty nice guy when you get to know him.”

“Hell, I didn’t mean any offense. If you say so, Em, he’s a ring-tailed wonder. He’s the greatest guy in the world. Did he say who he married?”

“Yes. A girl named Lisa Sheridan. Apparently she’s the sister of some fellow Avery knew in college. She’s from Midland City. She and her brother and Avery got together down in Miami, and it was just a natural development from there, I guess. I’m glad for Avery myself. It was time he got married.”

“Why?”

“What do you mean, why? Because he’s thirty years old and the last of his family, that’s why. Because a man needs a warm bed to get into at night, that’s why.”

“Nuts. A guy with Avery’s dough wouldn’t have any trouble finding someone to warm his bed for him. The truth of the matter is, it just drives a married guy crazy to see another guy who’s had sense enough to stay single. Misery loves company, as the saying goes.”

“Well, speaking of misery, you’re just about the most miserable bastard I’ve seen in a long time, Marv. Maybe you better have a shot in spite of the rules.”

“Nope. Can’t do it, Em. Thanks just the same.” Marv finished his coffee in a big gulp, his prominent Adam’s apple jumping over the swallow, and stood up. “Got to be on my appointed rounds. Neither sun nor rain nor sleet nor snow, et cetera. Or something like that. See you tomorrow with another load of ads for bar supplies.”

“Just so you don’t bring anything from Aunt Lucy.” Marv heaved his bag onto his shoulder and walked toward the front door. He was wearing galoshes, and the tops flopped together in passing with a harsh rasping sound. At the door he met Roscoe coming in.

“Hello, courier,” Roscoe said.

“Crap,” Marv said.

He went on out into the street on Aunt Lucy’s business, and Roscoe walked back to the rear of the bar and hung his hat and overcoat and suit coat in a closet. From the same closet he removed a starched white jacket and put it on. Back in the old days, in the old owl diner, he’d been sloppy about his clothes, and his shirts had been more often soiled than not, but since he’d come to work as bartender for Emerson, there had been a complete reversal of this, and he was always scoured and polished and pressed until he looked positively antiseptic. He walked up behind the bar from the closet to where Emerson stood looking at the rest of his mail.

“Bills?” he said.

Emerson laughed and shook his head. “Too early for bills, Roscoe. Look for them next week.”

“Just ads, I guess. Everyone selling something.”

“Mostly. There’s a letter from Avery Lawes.”

“No kidding? Looks like he’s adopted you or something. Didn’t you get a card from Miami about a month ago?”

“Nearer six weeks. He’s in Mexico City now.”

“My God, isn’t it awful to have money? Here we are, wading around in this God-damn slop, and Avery takes it easy in the sun. Wonder when he’s coming home?”

“Early spring, probably. He said so in the letter.”

“Nice. Gets cold, go away. Gets warm, come back. Well, I wish I could afford to do the same thing. Can’t take the winters like I used to. When you get older, they get rougher. Can’t shake the colds, somehow. I’ve had a snotty nose for three months.”

“You been feeling bad? Why the hell didn’t you say so? Anytime you’re feeling bad, you knock off work, Roscoe. You hear me? Anytime.”

“Who wants to knock off? As far as I’m concerned, this is the best place in the world to be. Right here in this bar. I hope I die here. Go out fast, before I know what’s hit me, no regrets and no expectations, right here with this strip of mahogany between me and the world. Mahogany’s nice, you know? Best wood there is. Only request I’ve got to make, Em, is to be buried in a mahogany box. Will you see to it?”

“You’re tough as cowhide, Roscoe. I’ll be six under long before you are.”

“Not so, Em. How old do you think I am? Close to seventy, I’ll tell you. I’ve damn near had my three score and ten. Biblical allotment, you know. The old pump has to work at things now. I can hear it breathing with its mouth open. Well, to hell with that. Anything new with Avery?”

“A wife.”

“What?”

“You heard me. A wife, I said. He’s got himself married.”

“Jesus Christ, just wait until that news breaks!”

“Why? What happens?”

“Are you kidding? It’s treason, that’s what it is. When Avery got hitched, it was supposed to be with a Corinth gal. You know that. Among the mothers with eligible daughters there will be such a weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth as hasn’t been heard since the fall of Jerusalem.”

“You think so? You can start listening for the first sounds, then, because I just told Marv Groggins, and you know what that means.”

“Sure. If Marv had been living in 1775, Paul Revere wouldn’t have had a chance. And where would that have left Longfellow? What the hell rhymes with Groggins?”

“Noggins, toboggans, floggin’s.”

“No fair dropping g’s. Longfellow was a Harvard graduate. Wasn’t he?”

“I wouldn’t know. Anyhow, I think you’re exaggerating a little. About the reaction to Avery’s getting married, that is.”

“Well, maybe. It may not be noisy, but it will damn sure be real. Foreigners are all right in their places, you know, but Avery Lawes’ bed isn’t one of the places where they’re all right. Not with a license for it, anyhow. If I were Avery’s wife, I’d be preparing myself for dissection. Who’d you say she is?”

“I didn’t say. Her name was Lisa Sheridan, though, according to Avery’s letter. She comes from Midland City.”

“Native state, anyhow. That may help a little. How did it happen?”

“It was just a short letter. Just a note. All I know is, Avery knew her brother in college, and they happened to be staying in the same hotel in Miami. The girl and her brother were there together. I don’t think Avery had ever met her before.”

“I had an idea Avery was a confirmed bachelor. Like me. Anyhow, the best of luck to him. Good bedding, good breeding, good fortune.”

“That sounds like a toast. Did you make it up?”

“Right in my old bald head.”

“I’d like to drink it to him, Roscoe. To Avery and his new wife. In good bourbon.”

“Old Taylor, Old Crow, Old Grandad?”

“You pick it and pour it.”

Roscoe set out two glasses and reached for a bottle. “What’s given you this sudden affection for Avery Lawes?” he said.

“Can’t a man wish another man well in his marriage without being in love with him?”

“Sure, he can, Em. A guy like you wishes everyone well, because it’s the way he’s put together, but I’ve got a feeling this is a little more than that. It’s almost you’re worried about him. Like you’re afraid he isn’t going to have the luck you’re wishing for him.”

Emerson looked into the good bourbon and remembered the night he’d driven Avery home. He had remembered it often, and it bothered him, and he didn’t like being bothered, and he wished there was some way to get it out of his mind for good and all. The trouble was, he couldn’t lose the feeling that Avery had been appealing for help that night, and that he, Emerson, had given him none whatever. But what the hell! A guy all fouled up inside might need help, and he might need it bad, but Emerson Page was the last person on earth he ought to go to to try to get it. Emerson Page just wasn’t any good at that kind of stuff, even if he tried, and the only kind of trouble he could understand a guy’s having was something like going broke or getting arrested or having a fight with his wife.

“Did I ever tell you about the night I drove Avery home?” he said. “Last November, it was. The night before he left for Miami.”

“I remember the night. You never told me anything about it, though.”

“Actually, there isn’t a lot to tell. He was just all wound up, that’s all. But it didn’t seem like something recent. You know what I mean. Not like something that had come in a hurry, over something in particular, and would leave the same way. It was something that had been building up in him for a long time. For years.”

“Maybe he just needed what he found in Miami and took to Mexico City.”

“Sure. That’s probably it. Well, anyhow, here it is, Roscoe. To Avery Lawes and Mrs. Avery Lawes. Good bedding, good breeding, good fortune.”

They touched glasses and drank the mellow bourbon. Roscoe took the glasses and dripped them in a solution of disinfectant and began to polish them. Through the archway in the dining room, the luncheon crowd had started to gather, and Emerson stood listening to the undulation of voices in the aggregate and the small, brisk sounds of service. Three men came in from the street and lined up at the bar, and Roscoe went to take care of them. He set out three bottles of Budweiser with glasses and returned to Emerson.

“It’s almost noon. You having lunch now?”

“Pretty soon. I think I’ll go up and see if Ed wants lo come down. She was asleep when I left this morning.”

“Sure. You go see Ed. I’ll handle things here. Give Ed my best.”

“I’ll do that. How about you? You had anything to eat?”

“Not yet. I’ll grab a sandwich later.”

“Want me to have one sent in from the kitchen?”

“If you don’t mind. Make it roast beef.”

“Right. See you later, Roscoe.”

He went through the dining room, skirting the edge, and into the kitchen. After stopping long enough to give instructions about Roscoe’s sandwich, he went on up the stairs to the apartment, reflecting on the way that it was really quite remarkable how he kept on feeling year after year when he was returning to Ed, even after a very short time of being away, not exactly excited, because excitement is something that is for very special occasions and would not be possible or desirable as emotional accompaniment for every small event, but quietly alive with a feeling of anticipation and eagerness and expectancy. You never quite knew with Ed. You never quite knew what would be next, but you knew, whatever it was, that it would be interesting.

He went into the living room, and she wasn’t there, and so he crossed over to the bedroom door and looked in, and she was. She was dressed in a dark blue wool dress that fit her like a kid glove, and she was standing in front of the full length mirror on the back of the closet door, with her back to the mirror, and she was holding up the skirt of the dress and looking over her shoulder into the glass to see if the seams of her stockings were straight.

“They are,” he said.

She saw him in the mirror and smiled and turned her head lazily.

“Hello, darling. What are?”

“Your seams. Straight, I mean.”

“Yes. They do seem to be, don’t they? The stockings are a new shade. Do you like them?”

“They’re well-filled. I’ll say that for them.”

“Thank you. One of the very nicest things about you is the way you say flattering things with only the slightest prompting.”

“With you, it’s easy. Is that a new dress too?”

“I bought it a couple days ago. And don’t ask how much it cost, because I won’t tell you.”

“Who’s asking? All I want to know is, do you put it on or paint it on?”

“Really? Is it that tight?”

“I was just joking, darling. You have nothing to hide.”

“Oh, you. Was I asleep when you left this morning?”

“You were. With your mouth open.”

“That’s a dirty lie. Malicious slander. I could sue you for saying that.”

“For what? Divorce?”

“Well, no. I don’t think I want a divorce. Not even separate maintenance. Just wife support, let’s say. In return for a consistent and satisfactory performance of wifely duties, of course. I’ll tell you what. Right now I’ll settle out of court for enough to do some shopping with this afternoon.”

“Agreed. I always like to keep these family hassles in the home, if possible.”

He walked across to her dressing table, removing his billfold from the right hip pocket of his trousers as he went, and laid some bills on the glass top of the table beside her hair brush. She came over and picked them up and counted them and brushed his lips with hers for each bill.

“Thank you, darling.”

“Not at all. You smell very good. I like that scent you’re wearing. It’s sharp and clean. There’s a word to describe it, but I can’t think of the word.”

“Astringent?”

“That’s it. Astringent. Isn’t it lucky that I have a wife who reads too?”

“What’s the exact implication of that too, man?”

“Well, do you cook? Do you sew? Shall I continue making an inventory of your talents?”

“Never mind. The trouble with you is, you have a distorted sense of values. You’re just blind to all my other fine accomplishments.”

“It’s your fault. Once I was a clean lad with a pure mind, but you’ve corrupted me.”

“Whoa! Down, boy! Let’s think about lunch.”

“That’s what I really came up about, come to think of it, to see if you want to have lunch with your husband. However, I’ve been distracted. It always distracts me to see a wife in a new blue dress. There’s sautéed chicken livers.”

“Oh, good. That’s what I’ll have. Just give me time to go over my face lightly. Talk to me. Tell me what happened downstairs this morning.”

“Nothing much. I handled the bar until Roscoe came in. Marv Groggins had a cup of coffee on the house and bellyached about Aunt Lucy.”

“Marv Groggins has an Aunt Lucy? I find that incredible. I find it wholly incredible that Marv has any relatives at all. I assumed that he was born by a kind of spontaneous combustion in a rotten stump.”

“Oh, Marv isn’t so bad. Just windy, that’s all. Anyhow, he doesn’t actually have an Aunt Lucy. Aunt Lucy is just someone who stands for anyone who is sadistic enough to write a letter for some poor postman to peddle.”

“I see. What’s his solution? Slaughter Aunt Lucy and sell her to the glue factory?”

“No. Nothing so drastic. He only wants to charge her a dollar for a stamp.”

“That figures. In Marv’s little mind, almost anything figures. Did we get a letter from Aunt Lucy?”

“Not Aunt Lucy. Avery Lawes.”

“You don’t tell me. Has he got himself cleaned out? Wasn’t that the way he put it?”

“Yes, that was the way. Apparently he’s done a damn good job of it in a pretty short time. He’s married.”

“Is that so? Good for Avery. Blessings on him and everything.”

“You don’t seem very surprised about it.”

“Why the hell should I be surprised when a man thirty years old gets married? It’s something that could have happened any time.”

“I mean, Avery being what he is and all. Or was. Or seemed. You remember what I told you about the night I took him home last November.”

“That hocus pocus about the Mexican musician? How long does a man go on brooding about something that happened when he was a kid?”

“Maybe the Mexican business was just part of it. Incidentally, Avery and his wife are in Mexico City right now.”

“Yes? Do you suppose there’s a psychological reason for Avery’s going back there? Something like a criminal returning to the scene of his crime? Well, maybe he’ll stray off and have a female Mexican musician for himself, and that will fix everything up. Sort of cancel out the other time.”

“That would be very neat.”

“Wouldn’t it? I like things to work out neatly. Do we know his wife?”

“No. Her name was Sheridan. Lisa Sheridan. She comes from Midland City.”

“That close? It’s funny, isn’t it, how two people so near each other have to go all the way to Miami to meet?”

“I guess so. Lots of people go to Miami in the winter, though. The ones who can afford it.”

He moved up behind her and put his hands on her shoulders. She stopped fooling with her lipstick and tipped her head back and looked up at him through her lashes.

“Sautéed chicken livers, you say?”

“Yes.”

“Just keep them in your mind. Concentrate on them. Keep thinking about chicken livers, and you’ll be perfectly all right. Darling, you’re not concentrating.”

“I’m trying, but it doesn’t seem to be working.”

“Damn it, Em, you’re messing me up.”

“Chicken livers, chicken livers, chicken livers. Why doesn’t it work, Ed? What is this sudden madness that will not submit even to the thought of chicken livers?”

“Really, Em! After all this hard work! Oh, well, if you’re going to do a job, you might as well do a good one. Mess me up good, darling...”

Section 2

In the established cycle of measured time, January came to February, February came to March, and Mr. and Mrs. Avery Lawes came to Corinth. For the purpose of presenting the new wife, there was a party in the brick house on High Street to which people came who moved in the level of society that included the Laweses, which was top level and did not include Mr. and Mrs. Emerson Page. Not that Avery would have objected to including them or have had the slightest hesitation in inviting them if he had thought for a moment that they would have wanted to come, but he knew very well that they would not. He did not know Ed Page well and had no particular feeling about her one way or another, but for Emerson he had a natural liking that was stronger than any feeling he had for any other living man.

Avery had not entertained since becoming master of the High Street house, and the party limped, and the dissecting of Lisa proceeded with quiet deadliness and complete inaccuracy, and after the guests had crawled into their Buicks and Chryslers and Lincolns and Cadillacs and driven away, Lisa went upstairs to her room, and Avery got some ice and two glasses and a bottle of Scotch and followed her. He knocked on her door, and she told him to come in, which he did. It was the same room in which his father had once told his mother that it would possibly be a good idea to kill her.

“I thought you might like a nightcap,” he said.

“I would,” she said. “I would like one very much.”

She sat erectly on the edge of the bed while he fixed the drinks. When he handed her one, she took it and held it in both hands, the hands cupped around the glass, and lifted it to her lips as if it were something very heavy. With his own in hand, he sat down carefully in a chair: and stretched his legs and thought, looking across at her, that her appearance of frailty was even more pronounced than usual and that she was surely, beneath her superficial surface rigidity, on the verge of collapse. She was still wearing the dress she had worn at the party, a white dress pinched in at her tiny waist and cut low in the bodice to reveal partially the upper slopes of her small breasts, and she looked very young, and he was very sorry for her.

“It was rather deadly, wasn’t it?”

“Yes. I’m afraid I won’t be very good at entertaining. Will we have to do it often?”

“No. Not at all if you don’t want to.”

“I will try to do it once in a while. I don’t want to keep you from your friends.”

“Nonsense. I wish you wouldn’t talk like that. The truth is, I don’t like this kind of thing myself. Are you very tired?”

She thought of the depressing party and, beyond the party, of the arid, passionless, exhausting Mexican nights that had achieved nothing, and she was certain that it would have been impossible for anyone to be more tired than she was at that moment.

“Yes,” she said. “Are you?”

“Rather. I’ll finish my drink and go away and let you rest.”

“Don’t hurry. You are welcome to stay as long as you like.”

“Do you feel like talking a little?”

“If you want to talk, I’ll talk.”

“Tell me. How do you feel about it now? Now that we are settled in the house and you have met some of the people you will know?”

“Honestly?”

“Yes, of course. Honestly.”

“I feel just as I have felt from the first. Just as I told you in Miami and later in Mexico City. I feel that I have done you a great harm that you did not deserve and that I have taken the first step toward ruining your life and that I had better leave before I ruin it entirely.”

“That’s really a joke, Lisa. That part about ruining my life. You have no idea how big a joke I find it. I’ve tried and tried to tell you that this thing which is impossible between us does not matter. It is simply of no importance. Without it, we can still make something for ourselves that will be solid and secure and good for both of us. Can’t you understand that?”

“It is you who don’t understand.”

“Perhaps not. If I don’t, I wish you would try to make ft me.

“I can’t. It is something I simply can’t do.”

“Do you really want to leave me? If you really want it, I won’t try to stop you, but I wish that you wouldn’t.”

“No. I remember what I promised you that particularly horrible night in Mexico City. Do you think I have forgotten? I promised that I would try for a year, and I will keep my promise. I will try sincerely.”

He stood up and finished his drink standing, pretending a certainty that he did not feel.

“Good. It will work out for us in a year. I’m sure of that. I’m very fond of you, Lisa. Really I am. I should hate to lose you.”

“I’m fond of you too. I’m rather surprised that I am, to tell you the truth, but nevertheless it is so. You are kind and patient and much too good for me.”

“You mustn’t say that. Believe me, I’m not too good for anyone.” He turned and went to the door. “Tomorrow night I’d like to take you out to dinner. To Em Page’s place. Will you go?”

“Of course.”

“I think you’ll like it there. It’s quiet and comfortable, and the food’s the best in town. I think you’ll like Em too.”

“You have mentioned this Emerson Page several times. Are you very old friends?”

“I don’t think you could quite say that. I like him, that’s all. He’s a nice, simple guy who does things.”

“I see. Well, I suppose there is a virtue in that. Doing things, I mean. Will you be home tomorrow?”

“Not until evening. Do you mind?”

“No, no. Of course not. I only wondered.”

“Are you sure there is nothing I can do for you before I leave?”

“Quite sure.”

“You look very tired. Why don’t you sleep late in the morning?”

“Perhaps I shall.”

“I believe I would, if I were you. Goodnight, now!”

“Goodnight.”

As soon as he was gone, she got up immediately and went into the bathroom and undressed and showered and put on a nightgown. Returning to the bedroom, she was aware of the presence of the piece of bottle and wondered if he had merely forgotten it or had left it deliberately. In either case she was thankful, and she poured some of the Scotch over ice and sat down again on the edge of the bed and drank the Scotch slowly.

When the glass was empty, she turned out the light and lay down on the bed in the darkness and tried to achieve complete relaxation in a way she had learned and had sometimes found effective, but now it was impossible because she kept thinking in spite of herself of the sterile Mexican nights. Parallel to revulsion and despair, which were concomitants of the nights and remembrance of the nights, was the heretical hunger grown great in abstinence, and this was the oppressive menace, the presence of passion and not the lack of it, and it was this that Avery did not understand and that she could not explain, and it was this, she thought, that would surely b; in the end, the destruction of her, who deserved it, and perhaps of him, who did not. She was exhausted, but she could not sleep, and after a while she got up and had another drink and lay back down again, and a long time after that, near daybreak, she went to sleep at last and slept heavily until noon. During the afternoon she ate nothing and drank nothing and succeeded in thinking very little, and in the evening she went with Avery to Emerson Page’s restaurant.

She liked it there, as Avery had thought she would, and she was glad she had come. From her position at a table across from Avery, she could look at an angle through an archway into the bar and see the back of a woman on a stool between the backs of two men on stools, and she could hear modulated canned music, and a drink, which she had denied herself all afternoon, was now permissible. A waitress came to take their order, and she told Avery to use his own judgment about dinner but that she would like a martini first of all, and he gave the order for the dinner and the martinis, and the waitress went off to the kitchen and returned immediately and went into the bar and returned from there with the martinis. Lisa sipped hers, which was very dry and good, and saw a man come through the archway from the bar and pause and look around and see them and make his way toward them among the intervening tables. He was an inch or two under six feet, with a compact body, and he walked with a slight limp. His face was rather dark-skinned and had a quality of boyish openness about it that made him look younger than he probably was, and she was absolutely certain, though she had never seen him before or heard him described physically, that this was Emerson Page, who was a nice, simple guy who did things. However, though her conviction of recognition was immediate and correct, it had in her mind no special significance and was accompanied by no particular emotional reaction. She watched him come with indifference.

Avery stood up and extended a hand and said, “Hello, Em. Good to see you again.”

Emerson took the hand and released it. “Good to have you back, Avery. Nice winter? I guess I don’t have to ask that, though. Congratulations.”

“Thanks. And here she is, Em. My wife Lisa. Lisa, this is Emerson Page.”

Emerson looked down at Lisa and smiled and made a minimal bow from the waist and said, “How do you do,” with an appealing suggestion of shyness, and she responded and said that she felt like she already knew him because he seemed to be the only person in Corinth Avery ever mentioned.

“It that so?” he said. “I’m flattered.”

“You have a very nice place. Avery said it was nice, and it is. I like it.”

“Thank you. I hope you come often. How do you like Corinth by now? It must seem pretty small after Midland City and Miami and Mexico City and all those places.”

“I haven’t noticed. I don’t think I will mind its being small.”

He turned back to Avery. “I was at the bar when your letter came. The one saying you were married. Roscoe and I drank a toast to your happiness.”

“Did you? That was a nice gesture, Em. I appreciate it”

Emerson lifted a hand as if he were going to put it on Avery’s arm and then halted the motion before it was completed. The hand dropped to his side.

“Well, I won’t intrude any longer. Just wanted to say hello. Has your order been taken?”

“Yes. Can’t complain about the service.”

“Good. I hope you enjoy your dinner and will consider yourselves as my guests for tonight.”

“That’s extremely generous of you.”

Emerson smiled again at Lisa, the smile suggesting the same hesitancy that had interrupted and deflected his gesture toward Avery, as if he were uncertain of its reception.

“I’m pleased to have met you, Mrs. Lawes. I wish you much happiness.”

“Thank you.”

He walked away, the limp barely apparent as his weight descended on his right leg, and Avery sat down.

“Nice guy,” he said. “Deserves a lot of credit. He was a poor kid, you know. I remember him delivering papers and parcels and things like that almost as far back as I can remember. He started this place on a shoestring and has made something of it.”

“Is he married?”

“Oh, yes. Didn’t I tell you that?”

“I don’t remember that you did.”

“His wife’s name is Edwina. He calls her Ed. Quite a pretty woman, everyone seems to think. She’ll probably be down later. They live in an apartment upstairs, and she often comes down. Perhaps you will meet her.”

The martini in her empty stomach was having an immediate and powerful effect. Shapes and sounds were softened and subdued, had lost in minutes the effect of harsh or discordant impact on her senses, and the face of Avery, across the table, was the identification of someone she knew and rather liked and who was for the time being no particular problem. The world was reduced to the dimensions of a small restaurant in a small town, and the biggest problem in the reduced world was whether there was time before dinner for another martini, or granted the time, whether it was advisable to have it.

She thought that it would possibly be wiser to have dinner before the second martini, because the first martini was really having a remarkably potent effect, and it was not at all impossible that she might, at this rate, become quickly drunk. The thought of Mrs. Avery Lawes publicly drunk on her first night out in Corinth seemed to be a very good joke that amused her considerably, and she looked down at the olive lying naked in the thin shell of her martini glass and laughed quietly at the good joke.

“What’s the matter?” Avery said.

“Nothing. Nothing whatever is the matter. I was only wondering if it would be advisable to have another martini while we are waiting for dinner.”

“Well, I don’t know. Maybe we should wait until afterward.”

“All right.”

“I don’t want to be arbitrary about it, however. If you really want the martini, I’ll get it.”

“No. You are probably perfectly right. It would be better to wait.”

“You know how it is sometimes on an empty stomach.”

“Yes, I know.”

“Are you sure it’s all right? I don’t want to be arbitrary.”

“You said once that you didn’t, and I believe that you don’t. I am convinced that you are right in saying that we should wait until after dinner. Is that satisfactory? If it is, we can quit discussing it.”

“Are you annoyed?”

“No.”

“You sound as if you are.”

“I am not annoyed. I just don’t want to spend the rest of the night discussing whether we should have another martini or not.”

He looked at her for a moment and then got up and walked into the bar and returned a few minutes later with a fresh martini. He placed it in front of her and sat down without saying anything, and she picked it up and drank some of it and wondered why she had been so nasty with him when she was actually feeling quite affectionate and not inclined to be nasty at all. Granted that it was irritating to want a martini and have it denied you, it was nevertheless nothing to warrant a quarrel, especially when the martini was not exactly being denied you, but was only being postponed for a while. “Thank you,” she said.

“You’re quite welcome.”

“Have I made you angry?”

“No. Of course not.”

“If I have, I’m sorry.”

“Really I’m not angry. If you want a martini, it’s your right to have one.”

“I’m a nasty bitch.”

“Don’t say that.”

“I am, though, just the same. You have been much too kind to me, and I repay you by being the nastiest kind of bitch.”

“Look, Lisa. Please don’t talk like that. Here. Let me have a sip of the martini, will you? I should have got another for myself.”

She handed the glass across to him, and he took it and drank a little of the martini, and she was truly sorry for the way she had behaved. She was about to say so for the second time, but the waitress came at that moment with the dinner and prevented her. The second martini was verifying what the first had indicated, that it was essential to get some food into her stomach if she was to continue drinking, but the food was revolting and absolutely inedible, not because it was bad or badly prepared, but simply because it was food, and she ate some salad and a bite or two of meat and could force herself to eat no more.

“Aren’t you hungry?” Avery said.

“I don’t seem to be. I thought I was, but the sight of the food has taken away my appetite.”

“It’s very good.”

“I don’t doubt it. It’s not that. It’s nothing to do with the way the food is prepared or anything.”

“You ought to eat more, Lisa. You eat so little.”

“It’s a bad habit of mine. I eat too little and drink too much.”

“I don’t mean to lecture you. You understand that, don’t you?”

“Yes, I understand. You only mean to be kind. You are thinking of my welfare.”

“Will you have a dessert?”

“I couldn’t. Really I couldn’t.”

“Some coffee, at least?”

“Well, all right. A cup of coffee.”

After a while the waitress came back and took the order for coffee, and a boy with a cart came and cleared the table. Avery sat erect and stared across the room, his attention caught by someone behind Lisa. She was still feeling remorse for her behavior regarding the second martini, and she had a strong compulsion to be especially friendly with him in order to make up for it.

“Do you see someone you know?” she said.

“Yes. That elderly couple over there. You can’t see them from your position, of course. Their name is Chalmers. As a matter of fact, they’re very old friends of the family. They used to come to the house quite frequently years ago, but recently they scarcely get out at all. I suppose I had better go speak to them. They’ve certainly seen me and will be expecting it. Would you like to come?”

“Is it necessary?”

“I think it would be nice if you would, but it isn’t necessary, of course.”

“If it isn’t necessary, I won’t go.”

“All right. I’ll make some kind of explanation. Do you object to my leaving you for a few minutes?”

“Not at all.”

“Excuse me, then.”

“Certainly.”

He got up and walked past her and out of her range of vision, and she thought with a renewal of remorse that her compulsion toward friendliness and compatibility had not been very strong if it could not compel, so slight a concession as the exchange for his sake of a few inanities with an elderly couple. The coffee was brought and left, and she sat looking into hers but not drinking it. Minutes passed and the coffee cooled and Avery did not return. He was being delayed, it seemed, for quite a time by the elderly couple named Chalmers who were old friends of his family and who were probably garrulous and tenacious and given to exercising the prerogatives of old family friends, among which is the earned prerogative to be a bore. She was really becoming impossibly irritable, she thought, which was not good and could be corrected by a third martini, and she wished that Avery would come back and arrange it. Looking up through the archway into the bar, she saw that Emerson Page, the nice guy who did things, was sitting at the bar doing something, and what he was doing was having a drink for himself. She saw also that the stool on his right was empty, and it occurred to her that she had a perfect right to go in and occupy the stool and arrange for herself what Avery would not come and arrange. It would be quite easy to arrange in such a place of vantage, because everything was available, including a bald bartender who could be seen functioning. Getting up, she went in and occupied the stool.

“Hello, Mrs. Lawes,” Emerson said. “Decide to come in where it’s handy?”

“Yes. Avery is talking with someone, and it looks like going on for quite a while, so I thought I would have a martini. A third martini, to be exact.”

The bartender came along, and Emerson laughed and said, “A third martini, Roscoe.”

Roscoe made the martini and poured it and left on business. Lisa leaned forward on her stool and put both elbows on the bar and lifted the fragile glass in both hands.

“Your martinis are very good,” she said.

He smiled. “If you like martinis. Most women seem to. My wife Ed drinks them almost exclusively. Usually I drink bourbon myself. Did you have a good time in Mexico City?”

“No,” she said. “I had a perfectly horrible time in Mexico City.”

Which was, she thought, what came of third martinis. On an empty stomach, anyhow. You said things that you meant but had not meant to say. You were truthful, in short, and this was dangerous and should be avoided. Since the truth was out, however, and could not be retracted, there was probably nothing imperiled in having a fourth martini, which could be had just as soon as this one was finished. She finished it and pushed the empty glass away from her on the bar with the idea that Roscoe would soon notice it and fill it.

“Why do you call her Ed?” she asked.

“What?”

“Your wife. You called her Ed. Why?”

“Her real name is Edwina. I just call her Ed for short.”

“Oh. The affectionate diminutive. Is she pretty? Avery said almost everyone thinks she is.”

“Well, I think so, of course. I don’t know about almost everyone, however. She’ll be down pretty soon, and you can judge for yourself.”

“I can hardly wait,” she said.

And there, she thought wearily, you go again. You are really quite impossible. All that is required is to be compatible and pleasant and to say the right things at the right time, and this is what you want to do and arc: resolved sincerely to do, but every time you open your mouth, here are these words with the most sarcastic sound, and the reason for it is that you are a coward and are afraid of these people and of what they may do to you. You are anticipating the hurt that you feel they will surely do you sooner or later, and you are therefore trying to hurt them first, including Avery, as was evident at the table, in whatever little way is available to you. Is this logical? Is this actually the reason? Well, if it is not logical, it is at least very good rationalization, and I am quite clever to think of it, and here at last is this ridiculous bartender named Roscoe to fill my glass with the fourth martini, and so it no longer matters in the least.

She lifted the full glass and also her eyes and saw Avery approaching her in the mirror. He stopped behind her and said, “Oh, here you are.”

“Yes,” she said. “Here I am.”

He nodded to Emerson. “Been getting acquainted with Lisa, Em? Hello, Roscoe. Scotch for me. You know how.”

“Right, Mr. Lawes. On the rocks.”

Emerson stood up and said, “Here, Avery. Take this stool.”

“No. Not at all. You keep it.”

“Oh, come on. The guest always sits. That way he stays longer and drinks more.”

“Well, if you put it that way.”

Avery got on the stool and picked up the Scotch that Roscoe had poured.

“Did you have an interesting conversation with the old family friends?” Lisa said.

“Not very interesting, I’m afraid. I’m sorry it took so long.”

“It did, didn’t it? Take a long time. It took so long, in fact, that I decided to come in here and arrange for a third martini.”

“Good. I’m glad you did.”

“That’s not all, however. I am now drinking my fourth, martini, which is one more than the third, and this will give you an idea of just how long it took.”

“It’s difficult to get away from an old couple like that.” Avery twisted on the stool and looked over his shoulder at Emerson. “How did things go in Corinth this winter, Em?”

“Oh, fine. Everything as usual. Not as exciting as the places you’ve been, I guess.”

“I don’t know about that, Em. They’re really not what they’re blown up to be.”

“That is right,” Lisa said. “That is quite right.”

She smiled and lifted her martini. Avery did not smile and lifted his Scotch. Behind them, Ed came through the archway. Emerson saw her in the mirror and turned to meet her. She was wearing a very pale blue dress that left her shoulders out, and her shoulders, he thought, were something to make you want to know what the lest of her would be like out, which was something he already knew and was happy about. Watching her approach, he felt fiercely possessive and almost exultant. “Hello, honey. I was hoping you’d come.”

“Did you doubt it? Darling, I’ve been drooling over the thought of one of Roscoe’s martinis for an hour.”

“Good. You can have one with Mrs. Avery Lawes. Mrs. Lawes, this is my wife.”

Lisa revolved on her stool, and Avery vacated his, stepping back beside Emerson.

“Call me Lisa,” Lisa said.

“Thank you. My name is Edwina.”

“Your husband says he calls you Ed. Why does he call you that?”

“Because he thinks it’s cute, I think.”

“Really? He told me it was only because it’s short.”

“Isn’t that just like a man? He tells every woman something different.”

“I called a girl Al once. Everyone else called her Alison, but I called her Al. I was the only one who did it. It was my special name for her.”

Which was really an insane thing to say, a perverse expression of sudden pain that left her poised perilously on a razor’s edge between a chasm behind and a chasm before, and she looked into the glass that had held the fourth martini and wondered why, why, why. Why did she deliberately jeopardize herself, and why did she put her fingers around her own heart, and why did she now feel in an instant, with the appearance of Ed, the intolerable and destructive way she felt? She revolved again on the stool, facing the bar, and Ed got onto the stool beside her, and Roscoe came along with the soft look on his face that was the look he kept for Ed and no one else.

“Martini, Ed?”

“Dry, Roscoe. Very dry.”

“Do you have to tell me? I know just how you like them.”

He fixed it that way and pushed it across to her. From the same shaker he poured the fifth that Lisa was obviously ready for and expecting.

“Avery said everyone thinks you’re pretty,” Lisa said. “Your husband said he doesn’t know about everyone, but he thinks you are, anyhow, and I think you are too. I think you’re very pretty.”

“Thank you,” Ed said. “You are too, you know.”

“Oh, nonsense. You’re just saying that. I’m much too thin and pale. Don’t you think so, Avery? Don’t you think I’m much too thin and pale?”

He laughed. “I think you’re much too full of gin, if you want to know the truth. I think maybe we’d better be going home.”

“I don’t want to go home. Things are only now becoming interesting. I want to sit right here where this talented bartender can arrange martinis for me. You are lucky to have such a bartender, Mr. Page. He arranges martinis better than any bartender I have ever known.”

“All right. If you want to stay, all right. But I wish that you would come home.”

She looked up into the mirror, at his face in the mirror, and then she drained her glass and slipped off the stool and was at the end of the movement somehow small and contrite and all at once exceedingly tired.

“You are quite right,” she said. “It is certainly time to go home.”

Without saying good-night, she turned and walked through the archway into the dining room and back to the small room at the entrance where they had left their wraps, and she waited there for Avery to come, understanding that he was being polite to the Pages and saying the good-night that she had failed to say, or had deliberately refused to say through perversity, and she thought that Emerson Page, the nice guy, was someone she would probably hate more than she had ever hated anyone before.

Avery came and got their wraps, and they went outside and got into the black Caddy. She sat beside him in the front seat and leaned her head back and closed her eyes.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “Truly I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“For being a perverse, nasty, unnatural bitch.”

“All of that? Just because you drank too many martinis? Don’t be silly, Lisa. I’ve been known to drink too much in Em’s bar myself. It was the night before I left for Miami last November. Did I tell you about that?” It was apparent that he was going to pass it off lightly, as of no consequence, and this was probably out of kindness, which was the last thing she wanted at the moment, to be treated with kindness, and she would have preferred to have him strike her in the face.

“No,” she said. “You didn’t tell me.”

She kept her head back and her eyes closed, and he began to tell her about it, and she sat there feeling the destructive thing that had started, and thinking that the prognosis of all this with Avery was now hopeless if it had ever been anything else and that she had better run away at once, tomorrow if not tonight, and knowing in spite of this that she would not run.

Section 3

Ed came out of the bathroom in nothing.

“What was the matter with her?” she said.

Emerson, in red-and-white-striped pajamas, was sitting up in bed with his back against the headboard. He looked at Ed and kept on looking at her.

“With whom?”

“You know whom. Lisa Lawes.”

“She drank too many martinis.”

“I know that. But why?”

“Lots of people drink too many martinis. Especially Roscoe’s martinis. Roscoe’s martinis, I understand, are considered exceptionally tempting.”

“Don’t try to high-brow talk me, you low-brow. It won’t work.”

“I’m not a low-brow. I’m a middle-brow. Most of the time, anyhow. The only time I’m a low-brow is when you corrupt me.”

“Personally, I find you much more acceptable as a low-brow. However, that’s neither here nor there when it comes to Lisa Lawes and the martinis. You know what I mean.”

“Do I?”

“Certainly. Some people drink to be sociable, and some people drink for pleasure, and some people drink for other reasons of their own which are personal and usually not pleasant. That’s the way it was with her. With Lisa.”

“And you accused me of high-brow talking you. Honey, you’re positively intellectual.”

“You needn’t be sarcastic, Em.”

“Who’s being sarcastic? I’m honestly impressed. Well, go ahead. Diagnose her for me. Tell me why Lisa drank too many martinis.”

“To escape, naturally.”

“Escape what?”

“How the hell would I know? Whatever she has inside her that needs escaping from. You saw how she went about it, Em. You can always tell that kind of drinker. There’s a sort of deadly purpose in them.”

“Is that really you saying all those things? You sound like a psychiatrist or something. Which gives me a good idea of how we could get rich fast. You could open an office and conduct all your sessions just the way you are now. For men only, of course. You’d be sensationally successful. No other psychiatrist in the world could touch you when it came to establishing rapport with the patient. Did you hear that? Rapport, I said. Don’t get the idea you’re the only one who knows any words.”

“You’re making fun of me. You aren’t taking me seriously at all.”

“On the contrary, I’m taking you very seriously, and I couldn’t agree with you more. It’s just that I don’t consider the diagnosis of Lisa Lawes particularly interesting.”

“Don’t you?”

Ed walked over and sat down on the edge of the bed and looked pensive. Besides looking other ways. Emerson’s attention was given mostly to the other ways.

“Not as interesting as you, anyhow,” he said. “Not nearly as interesting.”

“That’s because you’re not sensitive to subtleties. You respond only to the most obvious stimuli. As for me, I find her extremely interesting. Do you know why? Because she’s vulnerable, and vulnerable people are always interesting. You keep wondering what their particular vulnerability is.”

“Vulnerable? Vulnerable, for God’s sake?”

“Yes, vulnerable. And don’t sound so damned outraged about it, because it’s true. You heard the thing; she said. Bitter little remarks that were intended to hurt, and she said them as if she had to say them, as if she couldn’t help saying them in spite of not really wanting to. People who hurt others like that for no apparent reason are people who are afraid of being hurt themselves, and they are afraid of being hurt because they are somehow vulnerable. They anticipate the hurt to themselves and try to get in a few cracks first. What it amounts to is a kind of premature reprisal.”

“Honey, you’ve been reading books again. Which one did you get that from?”

“I didn’t get it from any books, damn it. You just don’t give me credit for having any brains of my own.”

“Of course I do. I not only give you credit for having brains but also for much other superior property, absolutely all of which is now on display.”

“Never mind that, now. Just stay where you are. What did she say at the bar before I got there?”

“Nothing much. I asked her if she had a good time in Mexico City, and she said no, she had a perfectly horrible time.”

“You call that nothing much? A brand new wife saying something like that? I consider it very significant.”

“So do I, to tell the truth. I also consider it none of my damn business.”

“Don’t be stuffy, Em. We’re not harming anyone just by discussing it between ourselves. What was it you said Avery told you that night? You remember. About not liking women.”

“Oh, oh. I thought you’d get around to that.”

“You did, did you? Which means we’ve both been thinking the same thing. Do you suppose that’s why it’s gone sour already?”

“You’ve lost me, honey. What’s gone sour?”

“Damn it, Em, don’t be deliberately obtuse. You know perfectly well what I mean. Their marriage, of course.”

“Has it gone sour?”

“You’re probably the most irritating man I’ve ever been married to. You were there at the bar tonight, weren’t you?”

“Sure, I was there. I was there and heard too many martinis talking. You ever listened to too many martinis? They say the most peculiar things.”

“Oh, to hell with you, Em Page. Be as evasive as you like. Furthermore, since you obviously want to be left alone, I think I’ll just go out and sleep on the sofa.”

“All right, all right. Wait a minute, woman. So I’ve got the same idea you’ve got. So the guy’s impotent or something. So he got down there in Miami and met this gal and began to think he could beat it. So he found out he couldn’t. After it was too late. So the gal’s hungry. So she’s starving, and she’s about to start prowling if she hasn’t already. So I’ve come clean with everything in my dark little mind. Satisfied?”

“Your mind’s not dark. It’s only little. What happens if she starts prowling around Emerson Page?”

“Worried, honey?”

“Not much. I think I can still take care of my own, which I may shortly demonstrate, just possibly. Why do I dislike her so much, Em? I thought I was a reasonably warm-hearted and generous person. It isn’t like me to dislike anyone so intensely in so little time, even someone so deliberately unpleasant.”

“Every married woman dislikes a woman she thinks is on the prowl, or about to go on the prowl.”

“Hear the sage of Corinth. Wisdom in a capsule. Seriously, though, I guess it isn’t exactly that I dislike her. It’s more than that, really. She makes me crawl.”

“Crawl! For God’s sake, how many martinis did you have?”

“Just two, and I can carry four with difficulty. Not all of me, of course. Crawls, I mean. Just my flesh. On my bones, sort of. You know how it is when you see something that’s repugnant to you. And I can’t understand because I can’t see any reason for it. She’s very attractive, really, in a pale sort of way. It disturbs me.”

“Look, honey. While you’re crawling, why don’t you just crawl into bed? Not just your flesh. All of you. Bones and all.”

“Yes. I guess I’d better.”

Ed sighed and stood up and stretched. She put on her nightgown, which had been lying across the bed, and instead of being in nothing she was in something that was just a little more than nothing and somehow gave the appearance of being just a little less. Emerson watched the accomplishment of this delightful paradox with curiosity and pleasure.