Constance by Patrick McGrath Page B

man, Daddy—what else was I going to call him?—in his halting way repeated, when we were alone together, that he wanted me to know the truth before it was too late. It took some effort not to voice the clamor of angry responses that sprang to my lips and I pretended not to hear him. I waited for him to get up the courage to say why he’d done this to me but no, he couldn’t. He sat at the kitchen table waiting for Iris to walk through the door. When she didn’t he shuffled to his feet and left the room without another word.
    Iris tried harder. She was dismayed by the chill that had sprung up between us. But any sympathy I may have felt for her, I crushed it out. I had no intention of letting her down easy. And when she looked at me in that imploring way I felt the anger rising and I didn’t trouble to stem it. I was more hurt by my sister’s complicity in Daddy’s deception than anything else.
    —We all washed up?
    I was in the bedroom, packing. I was catching a train back to the city and Iris was driving me to the station. I didn’t trouble to straighten up and turn around.
    —I don’t know, are we?
    —I hate this, said Iris quietly. You don’t even know if it’s true.
    I didn’t respond to this. My mind was made up. It made sense of everything. Iris left the room, saying she’d be out in the truck when I was ready. I went downstairs. Daddy stood in the hall. He was angry now.
    —Constance.
    —
Daddy
.
    —I’m very disappointed you won’t try to see this from my point of view. I did what I thought was right.
    —But you got it wrong, didn’t you?
    I was at the front door. In the driveway Iris sat in the truck with the engine running. She was resting her forehead on the steering wheel. I seized the old man’s arm. I gripped it hard. I drew close to him so he wouldn’t be in any doubt as to what I was telling him.
    —You’ve always hated me and now I know why. You bastard.
    I walked out to the truck and tossed my suitcase in the back and climbed in. As we drove along the river I saw tears suddenly spill down Iris’s face and I was glad.
    —You were glad, said Sidney.
    —Yes, Sidney, I was glad!
    I glared at him, my face pushed forward and my hands laid flat on the table. He moved to the chair beside me and I let him hold me for several minutes. Then I stood up from the tablewithout looking at him. I left the room and went down the hall, then into the bedroom and closed the door quietly behind me.
    It was grotesque, what Sidney proposed. My life had been devastated by a doctor and he wanted me to see a shrink. Even to suggest it—! The idea that he should hand me off in this way, commit me to the care of a
doctor
, it showed the limits of his imagination. I told him it would do more harm than good. Shrinks, doctors, I said, they do more damage than anyone. I was sick at what Daddy did to me. Why would I give myself over to a psychiatrist? Sidney said he understood. He said sometimes there’s virtue in not knowing. I let him think it. He had to think something.
    For several days after my return he didn’t mention what had happened upstate. Then one night he apparently thought I might be receptive. As we sat at the kitchen table he suggested in a studiously offhand manner that my father was at an age when he wanted to get last things cleared away. It was a primal human need, he said, to put matters in order before a journey. He meant death. I’d been distracted earlier but hearing this I became at once alert and angry.
    —Yes, but why didn’t he figure out what it would do to me? And Sidney,
he’s not my father.
    —Are you sure?
    He wasn’t sure. He didn’t think the old man was reliable anymore.
    —
Yes.
    We sat in silence. I’d cooked us a couple of steaks and opened a bottle of wine. Howard was asleep and Gladys had gone home.
    —So what about Iris? he said.
    —I don’t know.
    —I don’t think you’ll be estranged over this.
    It was important to him that we not be estranged. He