“It’s tiring, especially at the beginning. But I’ll babble. I won’t talk about you, or any of your problems. I’ll talk about me.”
“I’m ready,” he said.
“Come with me, dearest innocent.”
X
They saw one another every day. They ate together, either in Washington Mews, or in restaurants that they kept “discovering.” They were deeply, quickly, in love. They went to theatre together, concerts, ballet, museums, art exhibits, jazz joints, coffee houses, and opera. They slept, frequently, under one roof, separately.
Oscar Blinney, quiet, reserved, laconic, and outwardly bland, but harried, suffering, miserably happy at odd moments and deeply despondent at others, had had the double experience — for the first time in twenty-nine years — and one within three months of the other — of the ecstasy and nadir-reaction of fulminating infatuation with one woman and the profound, humble, beatific, and expanding emotion of love with another, when, on the seventh day of June, the woman to whom he was married announced that she was pregnant.
He came home, perspiring, at midnight of a warm Friday, and Evangeline was waiting for him, cool and pony-tailed, in orange ballet-tights, orange slippers, and a tight orange sleeveless backless scoop-necked blouse.
“Hi, Dad,” she said. “Nice to see you once in a while.”
“Likewise,” he said.
“Nice to see you, Dad,” she said. “And the Dad ain’t jazz-type talk, Dad. The Dad is real Dad.”
“Oh, now, what the hell this time?” he said wearily.
“Dad, you’re going to be a father, Dad. Like I’m a little bit knocked up.”
He could not have predicted his reaction. Adrienne had called him an innocent and right then he knew, for all time, that he was. His heart leaped within him and the elixir of total forgiveness was part of his blood. Suddenly Adrienne Moore was an impropriety. Suddenly the salve of love was a blistering ointment. Suddenly the garish woman before him, hatefully attractive, was Mother, was the Mother-Of-All, was Eve, was Mary with Miraculous Child. Suddenly there was hope, transcendence, reformation of the accursed. The new-born, the young, the progeny would purify.
Suddenly there was hope, of child, children, family, purpose, a knitting together, a striving-forward, a balance, a meaning, a plan and design no matter how jaggedly fitted together. Now the edges would smoothen; life stirring in one would perform amelioration upon all. Suddenly perspiration was of emotion rather than climate. He thrust off his jacket, pulled down his tie, opened his shirt.
“Are you sure?” he said.
“Too goddamned sure,” she said.
And still the nirvana was upon him. “How do you know?”
“I went to a doctor, that’s how I know. I had the whole bit, the rabbit bit, everything. There’s a babe, no doubts, no angles, no anything else. Like no tumor, you know?”
“Now look, Eve, maybe this is it. Maybe this is what we needed. Maybe we settle down, you know? Kids, a family, little ones, something to punch for, something to get together about, something to give us focus, a reason, a meaning...”
“Rave on, McDuff.”
“No, Eve, seriously, this could be it.”
“In a pig’s eye it could be it.”
“No, Eve, listen—”
“Now you listen, and listen real close. I’m going to have this thing aborted. Now in Cuba, Havana, they do it like legal, real nice, in a hospital, antiseptic, you know what I mean. I’m going. I’m flying down, fast. I want you to pay. If you don’t pay, I use my own loot. You got me into this. Get me out.”
“No,” he said.
“Yes,” she said.
“Eve, listen to me—”
“Sure, listen to you — because it’s not you. Well, you listen to me — because it’s me. I’m not going to carry your brat. It makes me sick, just to think of it. You’re so good, you’re so considerate — why don’t you try to understand that? I don’t want — and either you send me, or I go myself. Now which way do you want it, Daddy-boy? Nice, proper, ethical fella — which way do you want it? You send me, or do I send myself?”
And at last, he knew. Finally, completely, sickeningly — he knew. Suddenly he was whole again, forever. “I’ll send you,” he said.
“Nice Daddy,” she said. “Now the sooner I go the better. In a day or two. All right?”
“How much?”
“I’ll go for a month. Take care of it, rest up, you know. I figure two thousand for the whole deal. Two thousand should do it. Any more, I’ll pay out of my own.”
Evangeline returned on the second day of July. She had been gone twenty-three days. It was a Saturday at ten o’clock in the morning. Blinney was in pajamas, in the kitchen, frying bacon and eggs. Adrienne Moore was in Chicago, on business, for the weekend. He heard the outside door slam and he called, “Who is it?”
“It’s me,” she said.
He had never seen her looking better. She was deeply tanned, glowing and her expression was radiant.
“I brought a friend,” she said.
Her arm was linked through the arm of her friend. Her friend was tall, dark, slender, erect, and handsome. Her friend was dressed in beautiful fashion: charcoal-grey pin-stripe suit of silk, shiny black shoes, oyster-grey shirt of the finest cambric, conservative tiny gold-figured tie of black foulard.
Her friend had a black curly Vandyke beard, charming, dashing, Bohemian, well-tended and trimmed. Her friend had dark eyes as soft as a woman’s, and an amused, bemused, somewhat sardonic expression.
“This is Bill Grant,” she said.
“How do you do,” said Blinney.
“My husband, Oscar Blinney.”
“How do you do,” said Bill Grant.
“Bill is an old friend from Miami,” said Evangeline.
“Ran into each other in Havana,” said Bill Grant. “Americans can’t miss in Havana. There are only a certain number of places that Americans frequent Sooner or later, they meet.”
“You going to stay in the States now, Mr. Grant?” said Blinney.
“For a short while. Perhaps six weeks or so. Actually, I’m en route to London.”
There was a sizzle from the kitchen. “Bacon burning,” said Blinney. “You people hungry?”
“Starved,” said Evangeline.
“Bacon and eggs?” said Blinney.
“Fine,” said Bill Grant.
After breakfast Evangeline said, “Are you going to need the car, Oz?”
“Not especially. Why?”
“There’s a good motel a couple of miles down on the Highway. Silver Crest, I think it’s called. I’d like to drive Bill over.”
“What about your bags, Mr. Grant?”
“They’re outside in your foyer.”
“So are mine,” said Evangeline. “I wish you’d take them up for me, Oz. All right about the car?”
“Certainly,” said Blinney.
“Thank you,” said Bill Grant.
“Not at all,” said Blinney.
Whether Oscar Blinney was driven by unconscious motive to go home the next Thursday night he could never say. Whether the conscious rationale of feeling suddenly very tired was a screen for the unconscious motivation, he could never say. He had never gone home on a Thursday night since he was married. He went home on this Thursday night.
He had no conscious desire to sneak, to peek, to pry. He went home because Adrienne had a bad cold and couldn’t see him and the Gun Club meeting seemed an intolerable alternative. He went home in order to wear a clean unstained suit the next day; he went home in order to bathe and sleep in the house where he was born; he did not go home to spy upon Mrs. Evangeline Ashley Blinney.
The house was dark when he arrived. There was no hum from the air-conditioners. The foyer was hot and airless when he put on the light. He threw off his jacket and went directly upstairs to the bedroom. He opened the door to a heavy admixture of many odors: perfume, perspiration, bourbon, stale cigarettes, smell of human breathing.