Against the Season Read online

“Have you eaten?”

  “No.”

  “Well, wade out of that stuff and go sit down. I’ll get you something.”

  “You don’t have to.”

  It was Agate’s turn not to answer. It wasn’t alcohol, and he didn’t use anything else. But something was wrong, really wrong. He sank down in the chair, put his chin in his hands and stared ahead of him, taking no notice of Agate as she cleaned up the milk and then went about making him a sandwich.

  “Dina was trying to get you earlier,” Agate said finally, as she put the sandwich and a new glass of milk in front of him.

  “Oh.”

  “She phoned a couple of times.”

  “I wasn’t home,” Cole said.

  “No,” Agate said without much energy in her sarcasm, “you weren’t.”

  “What time is it?”

  “About three.”

  “It wasn’t in the paper,” Cole said.

  “What wasn’t?”

  “Thanks,” Cole said, nodding to the sandwich.

  “What wasn’t in the paper?”

  “What did I say?” Cole asked.

  “What’s the matter with you?”

  “Tired,” Cole said. “I’m awfully tired.” He picked up the sandwich and took a bite of it. Then, as if he’d just remembered, he said, “I’m sorry about Nick’s tonight. I just couldn’t make it.”

  “We all have our busy days,” Agate said.

  “Yeah.”

  She watched him eat. It was the only entertainment he provided, having nothing more to say. He was the awful color he had been when she first met him. Any blond got such easy mileage with suffering. She could be into the last aria, TB, gout, and voice strain overcoming the final high notes, and she’d still look an ad for a good laxative. Why had Dina been trying to reach him?

  “Is it something about that kid?” Agate asked.

  “What kid?”

  “The one who jumped ship.”

  “That cock-sucking bastard,” Cole said, nearly under his breath.

  “Who’ve you been playing with to learn such bad language?”

  “You.”

  “Me?” Agate answered in surprise. “That wouldn’t have been my first guess.”

  “All of you!”

  Agate looked around her. “How many of me do you think there are?”

  “Stop talking to me like that!” Cole said angrily, getting to his feet.

  “What in hell’s eating you?”

  “I hit a woman today,” Cole said.

  “I’m supposed to be impressed? Run from the room screaming? What?”

  “Don’t talk to me like I’m the village idiot…”

  “King Cole, from now on…”

  He had taken her by the shoulders, as if to shake her, needs scattering in his eyes like broken glass, not knowing what he was doing, what he wanted done to him. Agate stepped toward rather than away from him, hands on his rib cage, not hard and breaking, simply holding him there to give him balance.

  “Agate…”

  She lifted her mouth to his, taking her name from his tongue, as if they—mouth, tongue, name—all belonged to her. Against him, separating them, was the object of her belly. But her hands moving now, one to the small of his back under his shirt, the other to his cock, distracted him from that horror of life, growing there, his need growing, being made known to him.

  “We can’t…” he said, turning his mouth from hers. “I can’t…”

  “You don’t even know,” Agate said, touching him carefully and surely. “Come on. Come upstairs… to my room.”

  He let her lead him, so tired he stumbled on the stairs, let her kiss him again, let her hands move against his skin, his hairless nipples, his lean, tight buttocks, his cock rising to whatever judgment, helpless finally, glad to be, even as he felt her go down on him, as a boy might, as a man might, as anyone might but never had, to suck the need out of him. He came and slept.

  “You’re all bastards,” Agate said quietly. “Well, we all are really,” the sweetness of green seed in her mouth.

  Where was the anger, the sense of revenge? She had never had a boy before, lying naked and asleep on her bed, his hands and genitals in the same rhythm of collapse, comic, vulnerable. Mythical. How would he be in the morning? Horrified. In a moral sweat to get rid of her or marry her. She was going to have to be fairly careful with him for some hours, until be felt well enough to remember the simple pleasures of rape. She covered him, wrapped her robe about her and went to Cole’s room to sleep, but the child in her was restless in desires of its own. She lay, her hands on her belly, unwilling jailor to this punishing life, refusing to think, unable to stop.

  XIV

  THOUGH AMELIA HAD BEEN up every day for two weeks, this was the first morning she had come downstairs for breakfast. Peter and Harriet were coming for dinner that night, her first dinner guests since she’d been ill, and she wanted to help Agate as much as she could. She realized, by the uncertainty of the routine, that Cole and Agate must be accustomed to having breakfast in the kitchen. There was an embarrassment between them about who would clear away the fruit dishes and who would feed the toaster. Cole was, in nearly any circumstance, even more nervous than usual these days. He had been since the night he had stayed out so late, apparently to avoid taking Agate to Nick’s. But whatever disagreement there was between them, they’d work it out better without interference.

  What concerned her more was a conversation she’d had with Rosemary several days ago, during which Amelia learned that Agate hadn’t made up her mind what she was going to do with the baby when it was born. Amelia herself had no convictions, but experience had shown her the importance of a firm decision well before the birth of the child. Agate had only two months now, and it was time for her to face the problem. Perhaps today wasn’t the day to bring it up, but Amelia could always find a reason these days for postponing anything difficult. She had not completely recovered, she told herself, but she knew that, at her age, she wouldn’t. This growing tiredness of spirit was irreversible, and, therefore, like the pain she had learned to ignore, she must learn to ignore reluctance.

  Cole had hurried through his meal and excused himself to take his dishes to the kitchen.

  “I’m going to arrange flowers when I won’t be in your way in the kitchen,” Amelia said to Agate.

  “Any time,” Agate said. “There’s not much to do.”

  Cole came back into the dining room and stood.

  “On your way, then?” Amelia said, smiling at him.

  “Yes,” Cole said.” About tonight…”

  “They’ll be here about six thirty; so you’ll have plenty of time for a shower and a look at the paper.”

  “The trouble is, I might have to work late. I wouldn’t want to bother anyone, I thought maybe I’d get something downtown.”

  “And miss Peter and Harriet?” Amelia asked.

  “Well, it’s just that I might be late.”

  “That doesn’t matter. They’d be really disappointed not to see you.”

  “And I told some of the guys I might go to a movie…”

  “You do what you want, of course.”

  “I’ll get here if I possibly can,” Cole said quickly. “Well, I guess I better…” If he finished his sentence, he did so as he went through the kitchen on his way out.

  “Does he not want to be here tonight?” Amelia asked. “He’s usually very pleased to see Peter and Harriet.”

  “Oh, you know Cole,” Agate said.

  “In ways.”

  “More coffee? Or do we behave as if feeding a couple of people takes all day at a dead run?”

  “If it really were coffee…” Amelia said wistfully.

  “Think coffee,” Agate said.

  “All right.”

  Agate took the cup and went out into the kitchen, moving with a slowness not entirely accounted for by her increasing size. It was a lethargy that expressed restlessness. The novelty and real need in the house had va
nished together, and Amelia saw that Agate was bored, therefore more vulnerable to worry.

  “All the talking we’ve done,” Amelia said, as Agate returned with her Sanka, “and I haven’t any idea what you’re interested in.”

  “I’m not.”

  “Truly?”

  “No, not truly. I used to like acting and singing. I was going to major in drama until I realized that, the way I major in drama, I might as well be on a street corner as on a stage. I mean, I do major in drama. I don’t need a degree in it.”

  “And now?”

  “It’s too early in the morning to make you laugh.”

  “It’s never too early,” Amelia said.

  “Comparative religions. The mythology’s fun. I always liked a good story. But what really gets to me is comparative morality. So I’m probably an anthropologist, except they keep away from the moral issues, really. As a career, I’d like to write articles for ladies’ magazines, sort of like Margaret Mead but more practical and preachy, like ‘What Really Should Be Done with the Afterbirth’ or ‘Taboos, Uses, and Abuses of Menstrual Blood.’”

  “What would you say?” Amelia asked, her own practical interests aroused.

  “I’m not serious,” Agate confessed.

  “What are you then?”

  “Oh, I don’t know, I don’t know,” Agate said, rubbing her face as if it ached. “A bit fed up, I guess.”

  “What are you going to do with the baby?”

  “Bake it? Stew it? Can’t decide till I see it. I don’t even know what color it’s going to be.”

  “You can’t wait until then. Or at least you shouldn’t…”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it’s a matter of your life as well as the baby’s.”

  “Well, I didn’t make up my mind to have it, and I didn’t make up my mind not to have it. If I don’t make up my mind to keep it, if I don’t make up my mind not to keep it, it will work itself out, as they say.”

  “Work itself out, yes, with some help from you, but then there it is, still needing help from you or someone. Either way, you have to plan.”

  “I’ve never been good at that,” Agate said.

  “Do you want a baby?”

  “Any baby?”

  “Yours.”

  “Mine,” Agate said. “I don’t know. If we turned out to like each other…”

  “Could you support yourself?”

  “I guess so,” Agate said.

  “What about your family?”

  “They aren’t fond of kids. They wouldn’t just collect them any way.”

  “Do they know?”

  Agate shook her head. “They think I’m in Europe. We’re none of us letter writers, so…”

  “If you had to work, if there was no one to look after a baby…”

  “How would you like to have it?” Agate asked brightly. “I mean, along with me … if we turned out to like it, that is. If not, we could always find somebody who wasn’t so particular, who…”

  “Child,” Amelia said gently.

  “I wish you wouldn’t call me that,” Agate said, her eyes green with tears it was too late to stop.

  “Child’s a good name for you,” Amelia said, hoisting herself out of her chair and moving around the table to Agate, taking the weight of her head from her hands and transferring it to her own old bosom. “Child.”

  Agate cried for a long time without any dramatic flare at all, noisily and soggily, and Amelia stood beside her, rocking her, rubbing her back, crooning at her as if she were a colicky baby. It was a kind of moral colic, very painful, nothing to worry about seriously, however. Finally Agate was quiet, but Amelia did not let her go. She held her quiet and waited.

  “All right,” Agate said, her cheek still pressed against that ancient warmth, “I’ll tell her. I’ll tell her I’m giving it up.”

  Peter had to hurry, because this morning, remembering that he had not called Harriet since she’d invited him to dinner, he had phoned to say he’d pick her up to take her to the Larsons’. Though he had not really thought of her in days, Harriet was, in a way, very much a part of all that had been happening and changing in him. Now that he did think of her, he wished that they were going to have time to talk, for what he had thought would simply and properly shock Harriet he now hoped she might understand. For the first time in years, Peter wanted to explain himself. Why? He smiled. He approved of himself and he enjoyed it. He wanted to extend that pleasure.

  The drive across town to Harriet’s, then halfway back to the Larson house, which had once seemed an exercise in empty courtesy, was a pleasure to Peter this evening. It had been a gray, cool day, as so many were here even in the deep summer, the sea fogs protecting the town from the intense heat that lay just the other side of the coastal mountains. The lawns stayed green, the flowers intense in color—things Harriet saw and took delight in.

  “Begonias,” Peter said, testing his very recently acquired knowledge. “Marigolds.”

  Would he some day own a house and be a gardener? He’d never had a domestic image for himself.

  Harriet was waiting for him outside the house. When he saw her, he glanced at his watch. He was only a couple of minutes late, and he knew her being there was not a reprimand but a simple thoughtfulness.

  “How pretty you look,” he said as he got out of the car to open the door for her, “And my favorite dress.”

  “Thank you,” Harriet said.

  “No books tonight?”

  “I didn’t think I’d bother. I’ll be going over again in a few days.”

  “I’m awfully sorry I couldn’t come over and help with that roast the other night,” Peter said. “It was a bad weekend for me, and I couldn’t really explain.”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Actually, it does,” Peter said. “Sometime soon I’d like to tell you about it. How’s your week been?”

  “When you couldn’t come, I decided to phone Mr. Hollinger and ask him. We had a lovely evening. He’s so easy to talk to. I don’t ever really forget he’s old enough to be my father, but it’s like being with a father you could only invent. It’s a shame he didn’t have children. He wouldn’t be as lonely as he is now.”

  “How long has he been a widower?” Peter asked.

  “Only two years, and his wife was a dear person… no, not ‘dear’, much more than that. She was very lively and funny and intelligent. They must have had a marvelous life together.”

  “Does he talk about her a lot?”

  “Do you mean is he a bit of an old bore?”

  Peter laughed. “I guess so.”

  “Actually…” Harriet hesitated.

  Peter glanced over at her.

  “He wants to marry Miss Setworth.”

  “Good for him.”

  “But she can’t make up her mind. I think she wants to, but she says the whole idea is ridiculous.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, I suppose, when you’re that old—she’s a lot older than he is—and you’ve never been married… I can remember my mother laughing about a woman only in her fifties.”

  “I don’t see why,” Peter said.

  “No, I guess men don’t,” Harriet said. “I tried to explain to him how she might feel. Do you know, I was helping him to plan strategies for persuading her.”

  “Oh, Harriet, I love you,” Peter said, embarrassed at that only after it was out.

  “Aren’t the begonias beautiful?” she said, turning away from him.

  “I thought so on the way over.”

  “You won’t say anything to anyone, though,” Harriet said. “I think Miss Setworth’s really horrified at the idea that anyone would know, particularly people like Mrs. Montgomery. And Miss A, too, I guess.”

  “Miss Larson wouldn’t make fun of her.”

  “No, but Miss B would have. You know, I sometimes think she kept all three of them single.”

  “How?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. She always saw the ridi
culous, but she never accepted it. She laughed at things and people.”

  “I don’t think I would have liked that woman.”

  “Well, you would have, though. Respected her anyway. And she was very entertaining before she had her strokes…”

  “What were you going on to say?” Peter asked, hearing the uncertainty in her pause.

  “A lot of people are remembered better than they were. In a curious way, Miss B gets worse, as if nobody ever dealt with the problems she posed at the time and wants to now that she’s gone. Even Mr. Hollinger seems to resent her in retrospect. It’s the diaries, I guess. They weren’t pleasant reading apparently. Agate finally persuaded Miss A to burn them before she’d finished them. She started feeling better right away.”

  “Good for Agate.”

  “You know, you’re wrong about Agate,” Harriet said. “You should like her.”

  “Should I? All right, I will.”

  It was Amelia rather than Cole who greeted them at the door. Though Peter was delighted to see her, he noticed how much thinner she was, how uncertain her physical energy. But the welcome was reassuring. She was as glad to see them as she always was.

  “I’m sorry Cole’s not home yet,” she said, as they went to the library. “He said he might have to work late, but I imagine he’ll come in later.”

  But the half hour passed and Agate announced dinner.

  “I guess we’d better not wait for him,” Amelia said. “He said he might catch a bite downtown if he was very late.”

  “That’s too bad,” Harriet said. “It’s ages since I’ve seen Cole.”

  Amelia led the way into the dining room and looked at the table. “What’s this, Agate?”

  “I’ve already had mine, and I haven’t dropped dead; so you’ll be all right,” Agate said, to explain the two places she’d removed from the table.

  Amelia was somehow troubled by being waited on in a way she had been accustomed to for thirty years. She had come to enjoy the company of both Agate and Cole at the table, their joint efforts to provide her with food and entertainment. Now, though Harriet and Peter sat down with her, she felt alone at the table without Beatrice, confronted, therefore, with the whole weight of responsibility again. She hadn’t the energy. She had spent it on Agate this morning. Learn to live without it then, but under that sternness she was heavy with a sorrow only the children could relieve her of. Harriet was chatting about Carl. Amelia didn’t want to think about Carl, struggling in his own loneliness.