married to you. Was it (a) Russell or (b) Pete? or (c) none of the above? Tell me, doll, because it is of great importance to me.”
I didn’t make the call. But I was tempted.
But it had finally gotten to be Wednesday night, and I had run out of patience at about the same time that I had learned nothing significant from the last logical avenue for exploration. I had essentially narrowed the field to one suspect, which should have been a victory for me, but it didn’t amount to much. There was nothing I had learned which would conceivably make a jury deliberate an extra five minutes before finding me guilty as charged.
At yet another lunch counter over yet another cup of coffee I closed my eyes and saw again my once-wife. I focused quite intently upon the image, trying to bring back her impact upon all five senses. How she looked, her head cocked to the right when she concentrated upon something, the way her hands moved in conversation. The sound of her voice, the several words she habitually mispronounced (exquisite, for one, the middle syllable of which she accented, and which was, incidentally, her favorite laudatory adjective). The smell and taste and touch of her, and these less in a sexual sense than in the manner in which they helped to constitute her essence, her presence, the actuality of all that was Gwen.
I had spent some years as this woman’s husband. It had never occurred to me, in all that time, that she might have been having an affair with someone. No doubt my vision had been obscured by my preoccupation with my own endless rounds of compulsive infidelity, stemming from some unknowable and unopposable dark need, and neatly blinding me to my mate’s acts.
Had she so done? And with whom?
I realized with a measure of surprise that I had no intuitive answer to either of these pertinent questions. They had to he answered, but the answer would have to be found; I could not find it within myself. And this discovery brought quick understanding of how little I had known the woman. I had thought that I knew her, and I had been wrong. I never knew her at all.
Who did?
Certainly, if she were having an affair, someone beside her lover would know of it. As far as I knew, she did not have a friend in the world close enough to her to enjoy her confidences. But, if I could postulate an unknown lover, by the same token I could gift her with a dozen unknown and unknowable confidantes. Q.E.D.
There was one possible confidante known to me. Her older sister, Linda, whose name I had already failed to find in the phone book. Her hip sister, her brassy sister, her several-marriages-much-psychoanalysis-two-suicide-attempts sister.
Whom, unfortunately, I devoutly loathed, and who had always loathed me in return.
It wasn’t late. Eight-thirty by the luncheonette wall clock. I finished my coffee and waited for a boy with girl-length hair to get done on the phone. Then I dropped my dime in the slot and dialed Doug’s number. It rang twice, and Kay answered it.
I dropped my voice a notch and asked for Mr. MacEwan. This didn’t work. There was a fractional pause, then, “Alex? Alex?”
“Is Doug there, Kay?”
Her voice went shrill. “You have to leave us alone, Alex! You have to leave us out of it you can’t come here, you can’t keep calling us! It was years ago! Years ago—”
“Kay, I just—”
It means nothing now, can’t you understand? It’s over and done with, we’ve forgotten all about it—”
Then the phone was taken from her, and there was some off-stage banter which I did not catch, and then Doug said my name.
What I said was, “I think Kay’s secretly in love with me.”
“She’s a little shaky. Alex. That’s all.”
“Sure.”
“We all are, really. What’s up?”
“I have to know Gwen’s sister’s address.”
“Huh?”
“I said—”
“No, I heard you. Hell, I don’t know it I only met her—what? Twice? Three times?”
“I don’t care if you saw her on television,
I didn’t make the call. But I was tempted.
But it had finally gotten to be Wednesday night, and I had run out of patience at about the same time that I had learned nothing significant from the last logical avenue for exploration. I had essentially narrowed the field to one suspect, which should have been a victory for me, but it didn’t amount to much. There was nothing I had learned which would conceivably make a jury deliberate an extra five minutes before finding me guilty as charged.
At yet another lunch counter over yet another cup of coffee I closed my eyes and saw again my once-wife. I focused quite intently upon the image, trying to bring back her impact upon all five senses. How she looked, her head cocked to the right when she concentrated upon something, the way her hands moved in conversation. The sound of her voice, the several words she habitually mispronounced (exquisite, for one, the middle syllable of which she accented, and which was, incidentally, her favorite laudatory adjective). The smell and taste and touch of her, and these less in a sexual sense than in the manner in which they helped to constitute her essence, her presence, the actuality of all that was Gwen.
I had spent some years as this woman’s husband. It had never occurred to me, in all that time, that she might have been having an affair with someone. No doubt my vision had been obscured by my preoccupation with my own endless rounds of compulsive infidelity, stemming from some unknowable and unopposable dark need, and neatly blinding me to my mate’s acts.
Had she so done? And with whom?
I realized with a measure of surprise that I had no intuitive answer to either of these pertinent questions. They had to he answered, but the answer would have to be found; I could not find it within myself. And this discovery brought quick understanding of how little I had known the woman. I had thought that I knew her, and I had been wrong. I never knew her at all.
Who did?
Certainly, if she were having an affair, someone beside her lover would know of it. As far as I knew, she did not have a friend in the world close enough to her to enjoy her confidences. But, if I could postulate an unknown lover, by the same token I could gift her with a dozen unknown and unknowable confidantes. Q.E.D.
There was one possible confidante known to me. Her older sister, Linda, whose name I had already failed to find in the phone book. Her hip sister, her brassy sister, her several-marriages-much-psychoanalysis-two-suicide-attempts sister.
Whom, unfortunately, I devoutly loathed, and who had always loathed me in return.
It wasn’t late. Eight-thirty by the luncheonette wall clock. I finished my coffee and waited for a boy with girl-length hair to get done on the phone. Then I dropped my dime in the slot and dialed Doug’s number. It rang twice, and Kay answered it.
I dropped my voice a notch and asked for Mr. MacEwan. This didn’t work. There was a fractional pause, then, “Alex? Alex?”
“Is Doug there, Kay?”
Her voice went shrill. “You have to leave us alone, Alex! You have to leave us out of it you can’t come here, you can’t keep calling us! It was years ago! Years ago—”
“Kay, I just—”
It means nothing now, can’t you understand? It’s over and done with, we’ve forgotten all about it—”
Then the phone was taken from her, and there was some off-stage banter which I did not catch, and then Doug said my name.
What I said was, “I think Kay’s secretly in love with me.”
“She’s a little shaky. Alex. That’s all.”
“Sure.”
“We all are, really. What’s up?”
“I have to know Gwen’s sister’s address.”
“Huh?”
“I said—”
“No, I heard you. Hell, I don’t know it I only met her—what? Twice? Three times?”
“I don’t care if you saw her on television,
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