Thunder on the Left (1925)/Chapter 17
HE WAS startled to find Phyllis at work in her nightgown. Another hallucination, perhaps, he thought sardonically. Everything seems to burlesque everything else.
She had thrown aside her blue quilted wrapper and was busy slicing and spreading. The table was crowded with bread, ham, beef, lettuce, mustard, jam, and cheese. The Picnic. George had forgotten the menace of the Picnic. It struck him as pathetic to see her valiantly preparing the details of this festival which was already doomed and damned. She was chopping off little brown corners of crust. Wasteful, as usual; besides, the crust is the best part. He managed not to say so, remembering that he had made the remark every time he had ever seen her cut sandwiches. The lace yoke at her neck had two tiny buds of blue ribbon stitched in it. There was something pitiably nuptial about them. How soft and young she was in her flimsy robe. Her eyes were smudged with fatigue. How beautiful she would have looked to any other man.
"My dear child, cutting sandwiches in your best nightgown."
"I haven't anything better to do in it, have I?"
"Yes, you have. Go to bed in it."
He held the wrapper for her.
"Put this on. I'll open the door. Whew, it's hot in here. I'll finish all this for you."
The blade of the long carving knife continued, small definite crunches.
"You can have your sardines. I found a box in the pantry. There isn't any key for them, you'll have to use the can opener."
The warm kitchen air was like a stupor. This was the steady heart of the house. Ghostly moonlight might wash up to the sill, fragile fancies pervade other rooms: here strong central life went calmly on. In the range red coals slept deep, covered and nourished for the long night. The tall boiler, its silvery paint flaked and dulled, gave off drowsy heat. Under the table the cat Virginia, who was not to be shocked, lay solidly upright with her paws tucked in, sated with scraps and vibrating a strong stupid purr. The high grimed ceiling was speckled with motionless flies, roosting there after a hard day. Packages of groceries, series of yellow bowls and platters, were ranged on the shelves in comfortable order. This was not a modern kitchen, shiny, white and sterile, like a hospital. It was old, ugly, inconvenient, strong with the memory of meals arduously prepared; meals of long ago, for people now vanished.
"The weather's changing," he said. "I don't know if to-morrow will be fine or not."
He wondered at himself: able to speak so lightly, as if everything was usual. His mind was still trudging back, up clogging sand hills, from a phantom bend of shore.
"If it rains, we'll have our sandwiches at home. I've promised Lizzie the day off."
He saw a quick horrible picture of the Picnic spread in the dining room, rain driving outside, the children peevish, themselves angrily mute.
"There's cold chicken in the ice box; please get it out and slice it for salad sandwiches. I don't think Mr. Martin cares much for beef, I noticed at lunch."
"What does he think he is? Some kind of Messiah? If he doesn't like our ways, what did he come butting in for?"
He checked himself. The moment was ripe for quarrel, the gross mustard-sharpened air seemed to suggest it. He put the carcass of fowl on the scrubbed drain board by the sink and began to carve. Standing so, his back was toward her. He made some pretext to turn, hoping to divine her mood; but her face was averted. There was ominous restraint in the shape of her back. The anticlimax of all this, the delicatessen-shop smell, after his ecstasy in the garden, fretted his nerves. Brutal shouts of wrath clamoured in his mind. It was infuriating to see her so appealing: can't one ever get away from it, must a man love even his wife? He wanted to ask her this, but feared she would miss the humour of it. He longed to horrify her with his rage, so that he could get rid of it and then show the tenderness he secretly felt. Certainly I'm the colossus of sentimentalists, he thought. I can turn directly from one kind of love to another. Queer, the way it looks now it's my feeling for Joyce that is disinterested and pure, my love for Phyl that's really carnal. How did this morality business get so mixed up?
He amused himself by putting the slivers of chicken in two piles: the dark meat for Martin, the white for Joyce. How white she had been in the surf. . . . But that was only a dream. This is real, this is earnest. This is Now, I'm cutting sandwiches for the Picnic. This is what Time is doing to me; what is it doing to her? How did our two Times get all knotted up together? He found himself affectionately stroking a smooth slice of chicken breast.
There was something in Phyllis's silence that pricked him. He looked uneasily over his shoulder. She had sat down in the chair by the table, her chin leaning on one wrist, watching him. He went to her and touched her shoulder gently.
"Go to bed, Phyl dear."
"George, can't we get away from this house?"
"What on earth do you mean?"
"Get away. Take me away, George; we'll take the children and go. To-night. Before anybody wakes up."
She rose suddenly.
"I'm frightened. Take me away. George, I can't live through to-morrow, not if it's like to-day."
Just the way I feel, he thought.
"There, there, little frog, you're all frazzled out. It'll be all right, don't worry. Go and get your sleep."
"No, I'm not tired. I wish I were. I'm all burning up with not being tired. George, we could take the babies and just get in the car and go. Go anywhere, anywhere where there isn't anybody.—We'll take Miss Clyde with us if you like. She's frightened too."
"Don't be absurd."
"George, it would be such fun; when they all came down to breakfast, Ben and Ruth and Mr. Martin, we just wouldn't be here. Never come back, never see this place again."
"You're raving, Phyl. Why, I took this house specially for you. Besides, you know I can't go away now, I've got this booklet to finish."
She looked so miserable, so desperate, his anger began to throb.
"You can write a booklet about something else. You know you can, they're all crazy to get your stuff. George, you're so big and clever, you can do anything. Miss Clyde can illustrate it. I don't mind your loving her, I'll be sensible, just take us away before the Picnic. Go and wake her now, she can go in her wrapper, you'll like that."
"Damnation," he burst out, "don't talk such tripe. I believe you're crazy. It's this half-wit Martin who's got on your nerves. I've got a mind to wake him up, throw him out of the house. What the devil did you ask him in for?"
"It's my fault. But he's changed so, since this morning. We've all changed. We're not the same people we were."
She pushed her arms up inside the sleeves of his coat and caught his elbows. He remembered that cherished way of hers, unconscious appeal to old tendernesses. He looked down on the top of her head, into the warm hollow where his head had lain. Her neck's prettier than Joyce's, he thought bitterly.
"It's queer you should hate him so," she said.
"What do you mean?" He pulled his arms away.
"Oh, I don't know what I mean. Perhaps he—perhaps he is what you said."
"What, a half-wit?"
"A kind of Messiah. They come to make silly people unhappy, don't they?"
He looked at her in cold amazement and disgust. Only a few moments ago he had been afraid of her; but now, by showing her poor thoughts, she had put herself at his mercy.
"You go to bed," he said. "I'm sick of this nonsense." He gripped her shoulders roughly and pushed her toward the door.
"Please, just let me put away the sandwiches. I want to wrap them in wet napkins so they'll keep fresh."
"Forget the damn sandwiches."
"Not damn, ham sandwiches." She couldn't help laughing. It was so paltry to have him propelling her like a punishable child.
"Ham, jam, or damn, forget them!" he cried, raging. "You and your Messiah have ruined this Picnic anyhow. You spoiled it because you knew I looked forward to it. You've plotted against it, sneered at me and at Joyce because you knew I admired her."
"Admired her! Oh, is that the word?"
The little sarcasm hummed like a tuning fork in some silent chamber of his mind.
"You fool," he said. "Are you trying to push her into my arms?"
"I guess she can find the way without pushing."
"Well, you are a fool," he said slowly, in a dull voice that struck her deeper than any temper could have done. "You throw away love as if it was breadcrusts."
With a furious sweep he was about to hurl the neat piles of her handiwork on the floor. In one last salvage of decency he altered the course of his hand. He seized a fistful of the little brown strips of crust and flung them wildly across the room. The carving knife clattered off the table.
"You're frightening Virginia," was all she said.
Anger, the red and yellow clown, burst through the tight paper hoop of his mind and played grotesque unlaughable capers. Bewildered by his own ferocity he strode to the corner, swung open the door of the back stairs, and pointed savagely upward. She went without another word. Her blue eyes were very large and dark, they faced him with the unwavering defiance he detested and admired. Good old Phyl, he couldn't help thinking. She's unbeatable. Now, as usual, he had put himself in the wrong. He crashed the door behind her, and stood listening to her slow steps.
He soothed the cat with some sardine-tails, finished making the chicken sandwiches, wrapped them carefully as Phyllis had suggested. I wonder what we'll be thinking when we eat them? As he put them away in the ice box he noticed the cocoanut cake on a shelf. With a sense of retaliation he cut himself a thick slice. He became aware of the scrambling tick of the alarm clock on the dresser. A quarter past eleven. The house was thrillingly still. The serenely dormant kitchen slowly sobered the buffoon dancing in his brain.
He fetched his precious bottle of Sherwood and poured a minim dose. The golden drug saluted him gently. In this fluid too the flagrant miracle lay hidden, the privy atom of truth and fury. The guest of honour, he thought ironically, feeling his vitals play host to that courteous warmth. The guest of honour, always expelled. A spark falls into your soul. Shall you cherish it, shelter it to clear consuming flame; or shall you hurry to stamp it out? Can a man take fire in his bosom and his clothes not be burned? The smell of burning cloth is mighty disagreeable. Vacantly he studied the label on the bottle. Manufactured prior to Jan. 17, 1920. These spirits were tax paid at the non-beverage rate for medicinal purposes only. Sale or use for other purposes will subject the seller or user to very heavy penalties. Well, certainly this is a Medicinal Use, he thought. "If ever a seaman wanted drugs, it's me." Where did the phrase come from? . . . Yes, old Billy Bones, in Treasure Island.
Well, these foolishnesses would have blown over by to-morrow. Do a little work on the booklet and then turn in. He must get the thing done, earn some money. The gruesome burden of expenses. How little Phyllis realizes the load a man's mind carries. I suppose she carries one too, poor child. Every mind carries the weight of the whole world.
He was on hands and knees, picking up the scraps of crust that had fallen under the boiler. In a luxurious self-pity he found himself humming a hymn tune. Blessed solitude, where a man can sing to himself and admire the sweet sorrow of his own cadence! An almost forgotten poem came into his head and fitted pleasantly to the air.
She said, "I've come to wait on you and keep your cabin clean;
To wash your face and hands and feet, and make your forehead cool—
I'll get you into Heaven yet, you Damned Old Fool!"
Something in this appealed nicely to his mood. He allowed himself an encore. His voice, rising behind the stove, got a good resonance. Then he heard a footfall, a door opening. Ah, he thought, Phyl has come down to say she's sorry for being so crude. Well, I'll let her speak first. I'm tired of always being the one to make advances.
He waited, industriously gathering crusts, though he felt that the posture of Lazarus was not advantageous. There was no word.
"Well," he said impatiently, "have you had enough of your funny business?"
He turned, and saw Nounou's amazed face in the aperture of the back door. With an incoherent murmur he rose, took his bottle, and stalked out of the kitchen.