My Present Age Page 5

  “Shut up, you boor.” Victoria is furious.

  It is clear we are going to fight, so I decide to get my licks in quickly. This is advisable with Victoria, since in seconds you may be pummelled senseless and incapable of retaliation. A charge of calculated disloyalty is often wounding. “On the other hand, we do see marriages dissolving, don’t we? Quite a substantial number. Perhaps once again a case of biology being a hard taskmaster. It’s a tough decision deciding whether to stick with what you’ve got or look for something better, isn’t it, Victoria? If you want better, dump the spouse now while you’ve still got a few good miles in you. What you’ve got to market – as a man or a woman, no sexism, please – is fading fast. The bloom will soon be off the rose. The semi-soft hard-on, bum droop, and saggy tits are just around the corner. Tempus fugit.”

  The muscles of Victoria’s face and throat go rigid, as if she has been slapped. Fasces of tendons spring along her throat.

  “You son of a bitch.” These words are uttered from a depth of sadness and bitterness I hadn’t imagined. Something is very wrong. There is a bright gathering of tears in her eyes, I quickly glance away, partly from shame, partly because if I don’t Victoria will break down. Strange. In seven years of marriage she cried only twice in my presence. But, Christ, when it came. Always against her will, torn out of her. It was worse that way: snot bubbles, face twisted and red, stray hairs plastered in the spit at the corner of her mouth. Just wouldn’t stop. Choking and stuttering on the effort of trying to quit.

  People are passing on the sidewalk beneath us. The exhaust of cars waiting at the intersection for the light to turn green runs in billows against the side of the Café Nice, then spins up to writhe briefly on the warm window glass. The muffled pedestrians, some in stiff nylon snowmobile or ski suits, shuffle through these white clouds like space voyagers on a planet of visible, deadly gases.

  “I ought to have my head examined,” Victoria is saying, “coming to you at a time like this. How did you know exactly what to say to stop me dead in my tracks? What is this sixth sense of yours, Ed?”

  I keep my eyes off her face. The white wine in my glass is gold. “Pardon?” This is a polite, surprised, and diffident request for an explanation. I cannot follow this sudden turn to our conversation.

  “I don’t know what got into me,” she says. I hear her voice growing reedier by the second. “Perhaps I felt you owed me some advice after all these years I carried you draped over my shoulders; maybe I thought that, if nothing else, after nine years of living together you would know me better than anybody else.”

  I feel the old familiar neurotic stab of apprehension. I lift my eyes to her face. “For God’s sake, Victoria, what the hell is the matter?”

  “It never fails,” she says, blundering along, “that anything I have to say gets turned back on me by you, so that I look foolish and pathetic. You never cared if you looked either, but I have my pride. I won’t feel that way.”

  “Victoria, what is it? Please.”

  She knows she will cry now; it can’t be avoided. She begins to gather her things from the table. Head down, she says: “I didn’t think it possible but you didn’t even ask me how I was. How many months? Not even that.”

  “For Christ’s sake, how are you? How are you, Victoria?”

  Her face is dark and bitter with choler. “Guess. Take a hard look and guess, asshole.” Then before I can react, can hoist my bulk out of the unsteady chair, she walks swiftly towards the exit.

  By the time the bill has been calculated and I have paid, Victoria has disappeared. The exhaust pipes of idling cars churn out banks of dense white smoke, the packed snow squeaks under the boots of passersby, the entire street rests stiff, dumb, obscure. My heart pounds and pounds.

  3

  Victoria’s disappearance outside the Café Nice seems ominous, a forbidding sign. It is nearly midnight and I still haven’t managed to reach her. Her old phone number is no longer in service and information has no new listing for her. This leads me to believe that Marsha Sadler was speaking the truth when she phoned me a month ago to drop a ponderous hint that Victoria had given up her apartment and moved in with her new boyfriend, co-vivant, or whatever such people are presently called.

  Although Marsha frequently sees Victoria because they are members of a foreign film society, when she phoned I was inclined to discount the credibility of her information. As a source, Marsha Sadler is not particularly trustworthy. Bill Sadler’s flight from her sinewy arms to the comforting embrace of the Independent Pre-Millennial Church of God’s First Chosen appears to have unhinged the woman. She now resents anyone who is married, happily or otherwise. With dogged determination Marsha seeks the hairline fractures that can be found in any marriage, and into such cracks she scrabbles her witchy fingernails and, tugging with spiteful vigour, does her best to make them gape as wide as the jaws of hell.

  The peculiar thing is that when we meet she carries on as if a strong bond of sympathy exists between us because we have this in common: we were deserted by our mates. During our chance encounters Marsha grips my arm with her painted talons and confides that, although Victoria is her friend, she relates to my “life situation.”

  Marsha resembles a veteran airline stewardess. She displays the hard-bitten confidence, professional grooming, caramel tan, and jingling jewellery of such gals. Of course she isn’t a stewardess. The caramel tan and the jewellery are courtesy of her father, who sends her to Arizona every January to lollygag in the sun. He owns a condominium in Phoenix. The hard-bitten confidence is innate.

  The only woman whom I fear more than Victoria is Hideous Marsha; yet Hideous is my last hope of reliable information. Since six o’clock I’ve been making phone calls to anyone who might know where Victoria is living. At the moment the total stands at eight. No one would tell me anything of any significance; almost to a woman they feigned ignorance. No, they didn’t have Victoria’s phone number. Had I thought to call information? Really? No listing? Living with another man? They hadn’t heard.

  They were all lying through their teeth because of things I’d done to Victoria’s paramours in the past. Not that I ever did anything truly evil. Just light harassment. Telephone impersonations of collection agencies, that sort of thing. Although I did put one gentleman caller’s phone number and vital statistics in the personal column of a homophile tabloid.

  The only scrap of information I managed to turn up was a Christian name: Anthony. I got this out of Miriam, an older woman with whom Victoria works. She is neither as wily nor as militant as some of the others I phoned; nevertheless, she knew she’d done a bad thing letting it slip. Nothing more was forthcoming. Anthony. It isn’t much more than a toehold but I’ll see what I can parlay the name into with Hideous Marsha.

  It just isn’t working. Galloping pell-mell from room to room of my apartment hasn’t eased my apprehension. Elbows crooked and carried high like a racewalker’s, forearms sawing back and forth at my waist, I wriggle down the hallway, veer around the planter spilling plastic ivy, streak across the kitchen, and churn back upstream toward the bedroom like a 240-pound spawning salmon. I’ve lost count how many times I’ve thundered round the circuit, breaking stride only for pit stops to void my bladder in nervous, parsimonious spurts and dribbles, or to change the album on the stereo. Right now Creedence Clearwater Revival is belting out “Proud Mary.”

  Trust Hideous. Trust Hideous Marsha Goddamn Sadler to make a bad day worse. The phone must have rung a dozen times before she deigned to answer it in that cool, distant way she has.

  “Hello, Marsha Sadler speaking. I hope you know what time it is.”

  “Marsha, it’s Ed.”

  There was a slight hesitation while she decided whether to be civil. The possible interest of the call apparently outweighed the inconvenience of the hour. “Ed! How are you? So good to hear your voice again. It’s been ages, hasn’t it? But then I spent the Christmas holidays in Phoenix. You should see me. I’ve got the most glorious
all-over suntan.” Said with a giggle. “But you’ll have to hurry, it’s fading fast. Drop by and have a drink some evening.”

  As conversations go with Marsha, this one began sanely and sensibly enough. There is in Marsha Sadler a bedrock of self-importance and self-interest that makes her reasonably predictable. However, having said that, I have to qualify it by adding that Marsha wishes to be appreciated as a “serious person capable of growth.” Her growing pains are often a trial to those around her. This year she is adding inches to her stature by attending a graduate class in English literature.

  In the past her interest was confined largely to pop psychological treatises available in paperback at the corner drugstore. They pointed out to her many a straight and narrow path down which she sauntered only to discover they opened into Californian box canyons. None of these books altered Marsha’s personality, but they lent her darker machinations and meddlings in other people’s business the appearance of sincerity and genuine concern.

  “What a life you lead, Marsha,” I said jocularly, “grilling your lovely limbs in Arizona.”

  “Ed, you make me sound decadent,” declared Marsha, full of hope. One of her fondest desires is to be thought just that. She revels in sexual innuendo the way a cat rolls in catnip. “Surely you wouldn’t deny me the natural pleasures of life.”

  Taking a firm grip on my gorge, I replied, “Or even the unnatural, Marsha.”

  She tittered. I tittered.

  “Ed, you’re incorrigible!”

  “Marsha, you’re insatiable!”

  Another round of adult chortles. I was beginning to sweat with shame. God only knew how long this would have to go on.

  “Ed, I’d forgotten how quick you are.”

  “Sadly, that’s what all the girls say!”

  A squeal of delight. That’s it; I don’t have much self-respect left to squander. I decided to change the subject, so I cleared my throat. “But, seriously, Marsha, how was Arizona?”

  The adverb was a signal to Marsha. It gave her the opportunity to prove she’s not just a bundle of sexual tensions. “Ed, it’s always an experience. You wouldn’t believe the light.”

  “The light?”

  “The light,” she repeated. “The desert light. I don’t know. It’s kind of spiritual. Anyway, it was great. Then I went on to Palm Springs for a week before coming back.”

  “That’s wonderful,” I said, imagining hecatombs of depleted tennis pros littering the sandy wastes, marking Marsha’s passage.

  “It is wonderful, isn’t it? It’s like I always say – you know what I always say about marriage and Arizona, don’t you?”

  “No. Regrettably, I don’t.”

  “I always say there’s no way I would have married Bill in Arizona. The light there is too revealing, too pitiless. Anyway, shit smells in the sun. He’d have stunk to high heaven.”

  I attempted to head off trouble. Hideous Marsha was getting ready to start in on Bill. I wasn’t going to be sidetracked. “Speaking of light,” I broke in hastily, “I wonder if you could shed a little of it on a matter for me, Marsha. I’ve just about succeeded in demolishing my apartment looking for Anthony’s phone number. Victoria gave it to me and I put it away some place and now I’m damned if I can find it.”

  Marsha didn’t appreciate being interrupted. “Anthony?”

  I took a deep breath. It’s all a venture, isn’t it? “Yes. You know Anthony. Victoria’s Anthony.”

  Her reply confirmed I was correct in my supposition of a connection. At least she didn’t contradict my wife’s claim to him. “Victoria gave you Anthony’s phone number?” she said, making clear she viewed this contention with scepticism.

  “Uh-huh.”

  She paused. “If you’ve lost his phone number, why don’t you look it up in the phone book?”

  This was hardly the time for Marsha to suddenly turn vicious and logical. “Because I thought it was unlisted,” I said, not particularly convincingly. “That’s why I thought Victoria gave it to me – because it was unlisted.”

  “No,” said Marsha in a guarded voice, “he’s in the phone book.”

  On reflection I realize I ought to have given her plenty of time to rubber-hose poor Bill in that startling, revealing Arizona light while I looked on and applauded. Then she would have been more kindly disposed to me.

  “Ah,” I said, casting around in my mind, wondering what to do next. A long, painful wait for her to volunteer information wasn’t a success. “This is really embarrassing,” I confessed at last, “but I can’t recall Anthony’s last name. It’s slipped clean out of my mind. Imagine forgetting the name of your wife’s lover,” I said with a bark of wry laughter. “There must be something psychologically revealing about that.” I was offering bait which the old Marsha, the student of the human mind and human interactions, would have risen to, mouth gaping.

  “Yep,” she said.

  There I was with a phone humming in my ear. Yep, that was it. In my confusion I faltered, lost my grip, and made another appeal to last season’s Marsha. That is, to warm, wise Counsellor Marsha. I worked tremolo into my voice. “It’s so hard,” I said. “I’m finding the adjustment so damn hard.”

  This ploy was not much more successful. “We all carry scars, Ed. You’ve got to learn to live with rejection like everybody else,” she said.

  What was I to do? My situation was that of a desperately unfunny comedian performing his stale patter before a bored, even hostile audience. But if it’s your only routine you have to carry on despite a cool reception. Carry on with rills of nervous perspiration trickling down my sides and the idiocy of what I was saying clamouring louder and louder in my ears. I nattered on breathlessly. I said that just by listening Marsha was helping me get in touch with my feelings. I said feelings were important, it was important to say how you felt. I paused. Marsha said she supposed that was true. I said I felt worried, really worried. Why? she asked with a touch of interest. And having got that far, I gabbled the story of all that had transpired in the Café Nice from the time the first bread stick was crunched until Victoria had fled, weeping. “So you see, Marsha,” I concluded, “Victoria did want to talk to me. Something’s the matter. I’m really worried. Please give me her number.”

  “Let me think,” replied Marsha. “What we’ve got to do in this situation isn’t entirely clear.”

  “We?” I didn’t relish her use of the plural pronoun.

  “I think it would be best if I get hold of Victoria tomorrow – arrange a lunch or something. Leave it to me. I’ll find out what’s going on. Then you can drop by here tomorrow night and I’ll fill you in. In the meantime just relax, get a good night’s sleep, and don’t worry. Marsha’ll take care of everything.”

  This took me so aback I lost my hold on my tongue. “I don’t want a go-between, Marsha. I want a number.”

  “Trust me, Ed. There’s no way Victoria will want to talk to you right now, not after what happened. You must admit you were a bit insensitive.”

  “I don’t have to admit anything.”

  “It seems obvious you were. Otherwise, why did she run away?”

  “Nothing under heaven and earth is obvious. That’s my goddamn point. I want the situation cleared up and I find you running interference. Butt out, Marsha.”

  “Ed, learn to rely on others. There are none of us so strong that we don’t need help at some point in our lives. It isn’t wrong to lean on somebody else.”

  “Come on, Marsha, cut the crap. Give me the fucking phone number.”

  “Not until I’ve talked to Victoria. I’ve got to trust my own judgment. I don’t think this is the proper time for you two to talk – not when you’re both so upset.”

  “Who’s fucking upset?”

  “You obviously are, Ed. And stop using that word. There’s no doubt you’re upset. In the last few minutes – when we started discussing Victoria you’ll note – your voice has gone all high and funny and squeaky.”

  My ears started t
o ring. The old blood-pressure thing. “What is it? Do you want me to crawl? Is that it? Beg? Well, I am. I’m begging.” I actually dropped on my knees beside the phone stand. “You can’t see me, Marsha, but I’m in your favourite position – male submissive. I’m on my knees. Picture it, Marsha.”

  “Ed, get hold of yourself.”

  “Not low enough? Lower? You got it!” I flopped on my belly and the smell of dirty feet rose out of the carpet and assailed my nostrils. “This is Ed reporting. I’m on my belly. I’m grovelling, Marsha. I’m prostrate.” Why do I do these things? “Merciful Marsha, I implore you, give me my wife’s phone number!”

  Marsha neglected to respond. I lay on the floor, panting. How soon our passions are spent. The phone droned in my ear. Finally Marsha spoke with her customary icy authority, customary when addressing me. “Ed, are you still there?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you really on the floor?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then get up.”

  I did.

  “Are you sure you’re quite finished?”

  “Yes.”

  “All right. I’ll see you tomorrow. About nine-thirty.”

  “I’m warning you,” I said half-heartedly, knowing I was beat, “if you don’t give me Victoria’s number I’ll keep phoning all night.”

  “Then I’ll just have to leave my receiver off the hook, won’t I? Goodnight, Ed.” Click.

  She did it, too. Left it off the hook, that is. I’m such a stupid jerk. Never warn anybody. Just do it.

  So now I’m pacing, which is what I always do to keep hysteria at bay. If Victoria hadn’t behaved so completely out of character, I wouldn’t be this strung-out. And because I can’t be with her, can’t reach her, my apprehension is augmented. I expect the worst.

  The engaging Dr. Brandt, the psychiatrist I visited when Victoria and I were newly married, barely had me inside his office door when he decided to roll up his clinical sleeves and go to work on this neurosis of mine. This didn’t please me because at the time what I saw as my problem was a temporary loss of imagination. That is, I was panicky because I could not construct a scenario of success in my future. I didn’t regard the apprehension I experienced when I was away from Victoria as a particularly thorny difficulty. At that point I had resolved I wouldn’t let her out of my sight aside from the eight hours a day we spent apart at work. That solved my problem.