week, two weeks, as if it were a contest that must be won by willpower,
by refusal to give up. At the end of the second week she began to drive every afternoon after work first to the paint factory parking lot, leave the car there, and cross the fields to the wood. She found she was beating a path in the dry August grass and changed her route, going round about one way or another each time, so as to leave no track for others, that other, to follow. But there was nothing to hide. The woods; blackberry thickets; a path; a culvert; after a while a barbed-wire fence straggling across the foot of a hill among the trees. A couple of sparrows chirping, the faint drum of the cars on the highway, and the sound of the city like the breathing of an animal thirty miles long, so big you couldn’t hear it. The hot, late sunshine and the soft, bluish air. Usually she stood a minute where the path came down, where the threshold should have been, then turned around, plodded back across the fields to her car, drove to the apartment, a few blocks west of Chelsea Gardens Avenue.
Patsi and Rick had been having a hectic sexual reconciliation, the last flare-up. On a Saturday night after a visit with her mother she got back in the middle of the biggest fight yet. She could not get out of it. She was part of the family. When Patsi accused Rick of sleeping with Irene she had to defend him and herself; when Rick accused Patsi of not sharing fair on the money she had to stand up for Patsi, who then turned on her for pushing everybody around. After hours and hours of it she realised that the only thing to do, and she should have done it hours ago, was to pack up, pay up, and get out.
Patsi and Rick were sullen, shellshocked. Patsi made an
elaborately fair division of the raspberry preserves they had put up together last month, insisting that Irene take exactly half the jars; she kept crying, tears rolling slowly down her cheeks, but she did not say goodbye. Rick helped Irene carry her stuff down to the car and kept saying, “Ah, shit. Well, shit.” It was after eight on Sunday morning when Irene got away. She drove her car, loaded with her worldly goods in two grocery cartons and a handleless suitcase, down Chelsea Gardens Avenue and Chelsea Gardens Place across the road to the farm. The three little dogs began to yap and the Doberman to bellow at the sound of the car in the Sunday-morning silence. Except for the dogs, the farmhouse, surrounded by gutted automobile carcases, looked derelict. She backed out of the yard, turned right on the gravel road, drove to the parking lot below the paint factory, and parked there. She locked the car and set off once more across the weedy fields already simmering in the heat of what was going to be a fierce day. If the way’s closed I’ll wait there, she thought. I’ll sit down and wait there till it opens. I don’t care if it takes a month … . She was crazy-headed from the endless night of quarreling, arguing, explaining, recriminating, excusing. She had had no breakfast, though between four and five A.M. she had eaten a box of pretzel sticks and drunk a quart of milk while Rick was telling Patsi how she played power games and she was telling him that he was a male chauvinist … I’ll go to sleep there in front of the threshold, and wake up every now and then and see if it’s open yet, Irene told herself. Open, open, open, the word jolted in her
head as her steps jolted her body. Hot daylight glared in her eyes. Open, eyes. Open, door. There’s the woods, there’s the way into the woods. There’s the ditch, there’s the ivy patch. There’s the big thicket, there’s the path down, the pine with the red trunk, the gateway and the gate, the opened door, the way into my country, my own country, my heart’s home.
She entered into the twilight. She drank from the stream, then crossed and went a little way upriver to a nook sheltered by two big elder bushes where, years ago, she had used to sleep. She
by refusal to give up. At the end of the second week she began to drive every afternoon after work first to the paint factory parking lot, leave the car there, and cross the fields to the wood. She found she was beating a path in the dry August grass and changed her route, going round about one way or another each time, so as to leave no track for others, that other, to follow. But there was nothing to hide. The woods; blackberry thickets; a path; a culvert; after a while a barbed-wire fence straggling across the foot of a hill among the trees. A couple of sparrows chirping, the faint drum of the cars on the highway, and the sound of the city like the breathing of an animal thirty miles long, so big you couldn’t hear it. The hot, late sunshine and the soft, bluish air. Usually she stood a minute where the path came down, where the threshold should have been, then turned around, plodded back across the fields to her car, drove to the apartment, a few blocks west of Chelsea Gardens Avenue.
Patsi and Rick had been having a hectic sexual reconciliation, the last flare-up. On a Saturday night after a visit with her mother she got back in the middle of the biggest fight yet. She could not get out of it. She was part of the family. When Patsi accused Rick of sleeping with Irene she had to defend him and herself; when Rick accused Patsi of not sharing fair on the money she had to stand up for Patsi, who then turned on her for pushing everybody around. After hours and hours of it she realised that the only thing to do, and she should have done it hours ago, was to pack up, pay up, and get out.
Patsi and Rick were sullen, shellshocked. Patsi made an
elaborately fair division of the raspberry preserves they had put up together last month, insisting that Irene take exactly half the jars; she kept crying, tears rolling slowly down her cheeks, but she did not say goodbye. Rick helped Irene carry her stuff down to the car and kept saying, “Ah, shit. Well, shit.” It was after eight on Sunday morning when Irene got away. She drove her car, loaded with her worldly goods in two grocery cartons and a handleless suitcase, down Chelsea Gardens Avenue and Chelsea Gardens Place across the road to the farm. The three little dogs began to yap and the Doberman to bellow at the sound of the car in the Sunday-morning silence. Except for the dogs, the farmhouse, surrounded by gutted automobile carcases, looked derelict. She backed out of the yard, turned right on the gravel road, drove to the parking lot below the paint factory, and parked there. She locked the car and set off once more across the weedy fields already simmering in the heat of what was going to be a fierce day. If the way’s closed I’ll wait there, she thought. I’ll sit down and wait there till it opens. I don’t care if it takes a month … . She was crazy-headed from the endless night of quarreling, arguing, explaining, recriminating, excusing. She had had no breakfast, though between four and five A.M. she had eaten a box of pretzel sticks and drunk a quart of milk while Rick was telling Patsi how she played power games and she was telling him that he was a male chauvinist … I’ll go to sleep there in front of the threshold, and wake up every now and then and see if it’s open yet, Irene told herself. Open, open, open, the word jolted in her
head as her steps jolted her body. Hot daylight glared in her eyes. Open, eyes. Open, door. There’s the woods, there’s the way into the woods. There’s the ditch, there’s the ivy patch. There’s the big thicket, there’s the path down, the pine with the red trunk, the gateway and the gate, the opened door, the way into my country, my own country, my heart’s home.
She entered into the twilight. She drank from the stream, then crossed and went a little way upriver to a nook sheltered by two big elder bushes where, years ago, she had used to sleep. She
Similar Books
