“I don’t feel you’re on my side,” McCallum said to Marshall.
“Then what made you decide to come to my house?”
“Because I thought if our unspoken suspicion of one another could be brought out in the open we might have a real exchange.”
Marshall sank down on the sofa next to Sonja. He said to her: “You know about Livan Baker? The trip to Boston?”
“He says she’s psychotic,” Sonja said.
“It never happened?” His eyes went to McCallum.
“It didn’t happen the way she says it happened. Nor did she ever state the — how should I say? — unexpurgated version to me, only to her roommate, Timothy, who tore into my office ready to murder me and left an hour later apologizing.”
“When did Timothy do that?” Marshall said. Almost the minute he spoke, he realized how ludicrous this was, his asking after somebody who had been at the library as if he knew him.
“Days ago,” McCallum said, picking up the mug and sipping. He replaced it on the coaster. He ran his hand over his forehead. “She’s had an eating disorder since puberty,” he said. “I have, in my wallet, several hysterical notes she’s written me, accusing me of progressively more horrendous crimes. When I show you, you’ll see they’re more than a little self-incriminating. On the now disastrously mythologized Boston trip, she didn’t have proper winter clothes, and I felt sorry for her and bought her a coat and a hat. It seems this is a ‘mistake’ her godfather once made, buying her a coat and then, according to her, spreading it underneath her and screwing her on top of it the same afternoon. In Chicago, when she was nine or ten. Why she doesn’t cut up her clothes instead of eating and vomiting, I’ll leave to the experts to decide. Why men feel they should buy shivering waifs proper clothes I understand completely. Also, whether the godfather, if that’s what he was, did anything more than I did, I must also leave for them to decide, though I hope whoever they are, they will factor in my own account of the day that has now grown so monstrous in her recollection.”
“She’s apparently quite crazy,” Sonja said.
“As is my own wife, at the moment,” McCallum said. “She feels that in not telling her I had a research assistant, I have somehow made a mockery of our marriage vows. She also feels that our son, who has attention deficit disorder, is a misunderstood genius whom I, and his teachers, in collusion with the doctors, are trying to destroy, in wanting to provide him with medication that will mitigate his behavioral problems so he might sit still, keep quiet, and follow a line of thought.” He looked at Marshall. “By the way,” he said, “I agree with you. I am incapable of talking like a normal human being. When I try not to be derisive, I am inevitably derisive. Though I’ve heard the students say the same of you, Marshall. I wonder whether it might not be a pitfall of the profession.”
“Leave me out of it.”
“You’re going to spend the night, is that right?” Sonja said to McCallum. Marshall could see that Sonja realized how unstable the man was; that she was prompting him, cueing a disturbed person about what he wanted to do.
“I could go to a motel,” McCallum said, staring into the distance between the two of them.
“McCallum, it’s fine if you want to stay,” Marshall said, “but right now I’ve had enough of being dragged into your problems, and I would like to go to bed myself. Without dinner, and having just driven all the way to Livan Baker’s apartment, only to find that she’s no longer hysterical. She has reunited with her boyfriend. He’s come to visit, and she’s having a pizza with him. In the morning, when we’ve all had some rest, we can discuss this further.”
“Just like that, you believe I didn’t do it?”
“I’m not sure what you did, but Livan Baker didn’t impress me, and if you have crazy letters from her, I’m willing to consider that we’ve both been had.”
“Can it be that I’m going to have an ally?”
“You’re going to have the guest bedroom,” Marshall said. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
“You two won’t whisper behind my back?”
“McCallum, while we whisper, you can talk to yourself and have a running commentary mocking whatever you’ve just said.”
“I did kiss her,” McCallum said wearily, getting out of the chair.
“Keep it to yourself,” Marshall said.
“But apparently the girl is quite crazy,” Sonja said, to no one in particular. She was almost out of the room, tired enough, herself, not to bother saying goodnight to McCallum as she left.
“So she’s got a boyfriend,” McCallum said, standing with his hands in his pockets as Marshall silently probed the fire, turning over one glowing log, poking the hot ash tip off another.
“Not the friendly type, either,” Marshall said.
“Sweet on Cheryl?” McCallum asked quietly.
“No,” Marshall said.
“But you did go to a bar with her.”
Marshall looked up at McCallum, surprised. “How did you know that?” he said.
“Oh, it’s all over town,” McCallum said.
It was only when McCallum smiled wickedly that Marshall realized that about that, at least, he was kidding.
“I found out during a moment of male bonding with Timothy,” McCallum said.
“You try to make yourself unlikeable, don’t you?”
“Bad self-image.”
“But the thing is, I don’t have much invested in our getting along,” Marshall said. “I guess what I’m saying is, I’m not looking for friends.”
“Not the currently socially approved attitude for males,” McCallum said. “Supposed to be out bonding in the woods, beating the drums.”
“McCallum,” Marshall said, “I know what things you find absurd and ironic. Is it fair to assume there are also at least a few things you think of as serious?”
“Bad self-image,” McCallum said again. “Easier to negate than to accept.”
“You kissed her?” Marshall said. The large log glowed with a core of deep orange. It was not about to burn out, and it always made him nervous to turn in when a fire was untended. “Why the hell did you kiss her?”
“You continue to ask serious questions of a man you know habitually dodges them?” “Try,” Marshall said.
“Oh, because we were walking past Boston Common and there was a bag lady on the sidewalk, poking around in a shopping cart filled with all kinds of junk. As we walked nearer I started thinking, What if that were me? What if I were standing around presiding over a heap of rubble? What if Beckett were prescient and knew his characters in their ash cans were literally what our cities would become? What if he were a simple realist slightly ahead of his time? As we passed the bag lady, she looked up and said, ‘In the summer I’m a swan boat,’ pointing to the pond. Livan started walking faster, but I’d just been struck by the amazing idea of reincarnation, not reincarnation after death, but being one thing in one season, and another thing in another. Isn’t that true? We’re one thing in winter and another in spring. But Livan had gotten ahead of me, and I rushed to catch up with her, catching hold of her so we’d be in step again — don’t you love it? — and when I touched her sleeve she stopped, instead of walking she stopped, and do you know what? I could see the bag lady was watching. She expected to see something romantic; she expected me to kiss the lady. Then something told me that for whatever reason, Livan wanted to be kissed for the bag lady’s benefit. Then do you know what I thought? That I was an old guy, compared to Livan, and if I kissed her, the bag lady might say something terrible, and Livan might be hurt, I might be humiliated. And then the kiss just happened. The bag lady seemed to be watching for a split second, and then she lost interest. I was thinking about Boston Common in the spring, the flowers, all that green grass, the swan boats out on the lake.”