The Maples stories - By John Updike Page 0,52

all the goddamn jobs around this place.’

Sobbing, safe within his tears and the champagne, John explained, ‘It’s not just the separation, it’s the whole crummy year, I hate that school, you can’t make any friends, the history teacher’s a scud.’

They sat on the crest of the rise, shaking and warm from their tears but easier in their voices, and Richard tried to focus on the child’s sad year – the weekdays long with homework, the weekends spent in his room with model airplanes, while his parents murmured down below, nursing their separation. How selfish, how blind, Richard thought; his eyes felt scoured. He told his son, ‘We ‘ll think about getting you transferred. Life’s too short to be miserable.’

They had said what they could, but did not want the moment to heal shut, and talked on, about the school, about the tennis court, whether it would ever again be as good as it had been that first summer. They walked to inspect it and pressed a few more tapes more firmly down. A little stiltedly, perhaps trying now to make too much of the moment, Richard led the boy to the spot in the field where the view was best, of the metallic blue river, the emerald marsh, the scattered islands velvety with shadow in the low light, the white bits of beach far away. ‘See,’ he said. ‘It goes on being beautiful. It’ll be here tomorrow. ’

‘I know,’ John answered, impatiently. The moment had closed.

Back in the house, the others had opened some white wine, the champagne being drunk, and still sat at the table, the three females, gossiping. Where Joan sat had become the head. She turned, showing him a tearless face, and asked, ‘All right?’

‘We’re fine,’ he said, resenting it, though relieved, that the party went on without him.

In bed she explained, ‘I couldn’t cry I guess because I cried so much all spring. It really wasn’t fair. It’s your idea, and you made it look as though I was kicking you out.’

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I couldn’t stop. I wanted to but couldn’t.’

‘You didn’t want to. You loved it. You were having your way, making a general announcement.’

‘I love having it over,’ he admitted. ‘God, those kids were great. So brave and funny.’ John, returned to the house, had settled to a model airplane in his room, and kept shouting down to them, ‘I’m O.K. No sweat.’

‘And the way,’ Richard went on, cozy in his relief, ‘they never questioned the reasons we gave. No thought of a third person. Not even Judith.’

‘That was touching,’ Joan said.

He gave her a hug. ‘You were great too. Very reassuring to everybody. Thank you.’ Guiltily, he realized he did not feel separated.

‘You still have Dickie to do,’ she told him. These words set before him a black mountain in the darkness; its cold breath, its near weight affected his chest. Of the four children, his elder son was closest to his conscience. Joan did not need to add, ‘That’s one piece of your dirty work I won’t do for you.’

‘I know. I’ll do it. You go to sleep.’

Within minutes, her breathing slowed, became oblivious and deep. It was quarter to midnight. Dickie’s train from the concert would come in at one-fourteen. Richard set the alarm for one. He had slept atrociously for weeks. But whenever he closed his lids some glimpse of the last hours scorched them – Judith exhaling toward the ceiling in a kind of aversion, Bean’s mute staring, the sunstruck growth in the field where he and John had rested. The mountain before him moved closer, moved within him; he was huge, momentous. The ache at the back of his throat felt stale. His wife slept as if slain beside him. When, exasperated by his hot lids, his crowded heart, he rose from bed and dressed, she awoke enough to turn over. He told her then, ‘Joan, if I could undo it all, I would.’

‘Where would you begin?’ she asked. There was no place. Giving him courage, she was always giving him courage. He put on shoes without socks in the dark. The children were breathing in their rooms, the downstairs was hollow. In their confusion they had left lights burning. He turned off all but one, the kitchen overhead. The car started. He had hoped it wouldn’t. He met only moonlight on the road; it seemed a diaphanous companion, flickering in the leaves along the roadside, haunting his rear-view mirror like a pursuer, melting under his