There was nothing much more for him to say. Going to the closet he got his coat.
“Are you walking out on me?” she said.
Nat said, “I don’t see any point in staying.”
“Better you should walk out now,” she said. “It’s probably better for you, too, in the long run. Anyhow it’s easier. Isn’t it?”
“No,” he said. “It isn’t.”
“Oh, it is,” she contradicted. “It’s the easiest thing in the world. All you have to do is put on your coat and go back home to Gwen.” She followed after him, to the door. Her face had a white, throbbing quality. “Won’t you kiss me good-bye?” she said.
He kissed her. “I’ll see you,” he said.
“Say hello to Gwen,” she said. “Maybe we could all get together for dinner some evening. Charley should be back from the hospital in another week on so.”
“Okay,” he said. Hardly believing that it was happening, he shut the door after him and walked across the gravel and cypress needles to his can. The outdoor light came on; she had put it on for him. The light remained on until he had backed from the driveway. Then, as soon as his car reached the road, the light went out.
In a daze, he drove home.
Suppose I hadn’t started to clear the dinner dishes, he thought. Would it not have happened? It would have, he decided. Sooner or later. Our mutual hostilities and doubts would have swum up and clashed; it was only a question of time. It was inevitable.
But he still could not believe it, and now, as he drove, he began to be afraid of how he would feel when he did believe it. How it would affect him when it began to become real.
When he drove up in front of his own house he saw a strange can parked there. Getting out, he walked up the steps and into the house.
In the kitchen, Gwen sat at the table with a glass of wine in front of her. Across from her sat a man he had never seen before, a blondhaired young man wearing glasses. Both of them glanced up with dismay. But almost at once Gwen regained her composure.
“Home early,” she said in a brittle, hostile voice. “I thought you were probably going to stay longer.”
“Who’s this?” Nat said, indicating the young man. His heart labored inside him. “I don’t feel like coming home and finding a strange car parked in front of the house.”
“Oh,” Gwen said, in the same voice; its venom, its vast amount of loathing for him, staggered him. He had never heard her speak with such sarcasm, such giving to each syllable a sense of cruelty, the articulation of cruelty toward him, cruelty toward everything. As if, at this moment in their relationship, she could feel nothing but this. Nothing else remained. It was her total feeling. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I thought you and Fay would be together for the nest of the evening. Maybe the nest of the night.”
The young man started to get to his feet.
“Don’t leave,” Gwen said, shifting her attention to him, but still using the same tone. “Why should you leave?” To Nat, she said, “We’re right in the middle of working something out. Why don’t you go away and come back some other time?”
“Working what out?” he said.
“An understanding,” she said. “Between the two of us. This is Robert Altrocchi. He lives down the road. Where the birds are. He raises parakeets and sells them to the dime stones in San Francisco.” Nat said nothing.
“Do you mind?” Gwen said. “If we go on?” She made a motion of dismissal toward him. “Go drive off,” she said.
To the young man, Nat said, “Get out of here.”
Arising with elaborate slowness, Altrocchi pushed away his wine glass and said, “I was going. I have to get to work.” At the doorway he halted and said to Gwen, “I’ll see you at the usual time, then?”
Ignoring Nat, she said, “Yes. Call me or I’ll call you.” Now she had gotten into her voice—no doubt with great care—a tone of affection. “Good night, Bob.”
“Good night,” Altrocchi said. Presently they heard the front door close, and then the man’s car drive off.
“How’s Fay?” Gwen said, still seated at the table. She sipped her wine, eying him above the glass.
“Fine,” he said.
“It’s okay for you to be with her,” Gwen said in a wavering voice, “but not okay for me.”
“I don’t want to come home and find a strange car here,” he said. “I never brought Fay here,” he said. “It’s wrong to bring somebody here. That’s unfair. You can go out and see anybody you want, but don’t bring them here. It’s my house, too.”
“We can’t go to his house,” Gwen said, raising her voice. “He’s married and they have a six-month-old child.”
Hearing that, he felt crushing melancholy and hopelessness. So this was the consequence of his relationship with Fay. Not only had his own marriage been marred, ruined, but somebody else’s, a man he had never seen before in his life, a man with a new baby.
“If it’s okay for you—” Gwen began.
“I gave you the example,” he interrupted.
She said nothing.
“You’re paying me back,” he said. “This is my payment. Some guy I never saw. His wife and child have to suffer so you can get back at me. I want to marry Fay. I’m serious. You’re not. Are you? You know you aren’t.”
Gwen said nothing.
“This is terrible,” he said. “This is the worst thing I ever heard. How could you do a thing like this?”
On his wife’s face the expression of suffering and determination increased. Everything he said only made her feel more strongly.
“One of us has to get out,” he said.
“Okay,” she said. “You get out.”
“I will,” he said. Going into the bedroom he sat down on the bed. “I don’t feel like it right now,” he said. “Later.”
“No,” Gwen said. “Now.”
“Go to hell,” he said, feeling perspiration stand out on his forehead. “Shut up,” he said weakly. “Don’t talk to me any more, or I can’t be responsible.”
Gwen said, “Don’t threaten me.” But she stopped talking to him and went off by herself into the living room. He heard her seat herself on the couch.
The house was silent.
Good god, he thought. We’re through. My marriage is over. Where am I? What’s happened?
While he sat there, Gwen reappeared. “I’ll go,” she said. “So you won’t have to be away from her. I’ll go to Sacramento and stay with my family. Can I take the can?”
“If you take the car,” he said, “how can I get to work?” His heart beat so fast and so hand that it was a great effort to speak; it cost him all his energy and after each word he had to rest.
“Then drive me to Sacramento and come back,” she said.
“Okay,” he said.
“Let me see what I have to take,” she said. “I won’t try to take everything tonight. I’ll come back tomorrow. Maybe I won’t go to Sacramento tonight. It’s too far. It would take all night to get there. I’ll stay in a motel. There’s one in Point Reyes, night here.”
“No,” he said. “I’ll take you to Sacramento.”
She studied him and then, without a word, she went into the other room again. At first he heard nothing, and then he realized that she was beginning to get things together. He heard the sound of a suitcase being dragged from the closet.