The Man Who Loved His Wife - Vera Caspary Femmes Fatales

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I need vitamins or a tonic or something?”

      He suspected the cause of her nervousness, but was not licensed to ask about her relations with her husband. She would have liked to speak out, but could not say aloud that she lived in the constant dread of her husband’s suicide. In Fletcher’s every sigh and whim, his frequent rages, his sudden bursts of tenderness, she saw the compulsion. When they were alone and Fletcher croaked out his ideas and opinions, she listened for words that might reveal his intentions. It would have relieved her to relate these fears to Dr. Julian. She could not. They shook hands in parting and the doctor came out to the waiting room for a word with Fletcher.

      Months passed before she saw Ralph again. She thought about him endlessly, held long conversations . . . in her bed, in the bathtub, swimming in the pool, digging in the garden, while she tended the kitchen machines . . . poured out a stream of fear and evidence of the increasing danger. In this harmless way a certain portion of her fear was absorbed. A shade, never clearly seen, Ralph became not a lover but a compassionate listener.

      “How Fletch adores that diary of his. Isn’t it awfully good for him to be so interested in something?” No response, but none was expected. “Don’t you think that means that underneath everything, deeply, he wants to live?” In finding words for the question she had framed her own answer. “He hides the diary like a priceless treasure, a guilty secret. If I come in when he’s writing, he sneaks it into a desk drawer. With a new Yale lock. And the look on his face! An anarchist hiding his bomb.” She laughed at the simile. “Fletch is such a child, really. Have you ever noticed that wide-eyed look? So unexpected in a big, tough, successful business man. I fell in love with that little-boy look.” Facing the absent confessor she dared hope. “I believe, I honestly do, that the fatal mood is dwindling. He can enjoy himself. Did I tell you we went to the movies? It was a good comedy for a change and then we went to a Chinese place to eat. He had such an appetite, like the old days. Almost the same, but . . .” Here she faltered for she could not, even in revery, permit herself to play out another one of those teeth-clenching climaxes, the failure and remorse. She changed the subject. “That doctor! A good man, they say, in his field, but specialists can be too special, People aren’t all bone and flesh. Doesn’t he know what’s underneath? Fifty sleeping pills! Can you believe it for a man in Fletch’s state? I have the prescriptions filled myself and keep the pills hidden. He gets two a night, never more. I don’t want him getting the habit, first two, then three, and so on. Fletch pretends to be amused, but I wonder. Perhaps it’s all in my own mind; do you think I’m worrying uselessly?” As though the man were talking she answered herself hastily, “Of course it is. My own crazy imagination. There’s really no danger.” And finally like a prayer repeated as self-hypnosis, “I worry because I love him so much. I do, you know.”

      ONE NIGHT IN a dream, a sleep-dream rather than revery contrived as appeasement of an unborn wish, she walked with Ralph Julian on the deck of a ship. A band played, banners fluttered, her hand was locked in a firm warm palm. Suddenly, with the angular movement of nightmare, the mood changed. Shame chilled her like a sharp wind, and she knew she was not properly dressed for the journey. The chiffon nightgown did not half cover her breasts and the flimsy material whirled about her bare legs. Horrified strangers stared. She knew that dozens of lovely dresses, colored slippers, jackets, and sweaters had been packed in her mother’s old wardrobe trunk, which she could see clearly on the pier. The ship moved off, faster and faster. She trembled and perspired in the cold wind, cried out, and woke to find herself locked in shivering tension. At once, in another fruitless fantasy conversation, she asked Ralph Julian if the dream had significance. Was there evil in her unconscious mind? “Do I want to be free? Do I, down deep in me, want Fletcher to die?” The question was as shocking as the nightmare.

      At once she forced herself out of bed and walked on bare feet to Fletcher’s room, saw that the man-made mouth at the base of his neck was uncovered, heard the click of his breathing. Like a criminal reprieved she hurried back to bed. As punishment she gave up the talks with Ralph Julian, vowed to forget him, and on Thursdays tried not to listen for his car. And from this time on, it became her habit to creep into Fletcher’s room once or twice a night to listen to his breathing.

      He noted in the diary:

      At night she visits my room to watch me sleep. What does she hope to find? How easy it would be to end it all with a man who breathes through a hole in his neck. Is she trying to work up the courage?

      And again he wrote:

      She is so dreamy nowadays that she does not always know I am in the room with her. When she comes out of it she will look at me in a sly way and wonder who the stranger is. Then she will suddenly smile and kiss me and get all girlish and flattering. I wish I did not enjoy it so much when she is sweet to me. Oh, my God, to love a woman who dreams about being rid of you. I live in hell.

      SEPTEMBER IS THE INTOLERABLE MONTH. GRAY mornings and cool nights of early summer become memories of the improbable; soothing fogs are burned out by relentless sunshine. Heat as solid as metal strikes like a blunt instrument. Nerves are unsteady, energy unthinkable, lethargy ill-tempered. In the Strode house the tensions were aggravated by the presence of visitors.

      Fletcher’s daughter and son-in-law had come to spend their summer vacation. This is how they wrote of it when they announced their intentions, and the way they spoke of it when they arrived in the white Jaguar. “My vacation,” said Cindy almost daily. Since nursery school she had been taught that special conditions—my graduation, my school, my holidays, my debut, our neighborhood, people of our sort, my engagement, my wedding, my vacation—deserved special privilege. Six years younger than Elaine she seemed, by contrast, a child, for she had never taken responsibility of any sort, never held a job, never even finished college. Before her engagement the great event of Cynthia Strode’s life had been a debut, along with fifty-nine other girls whose parents had contributed to a charity whose board of governors sponsored a dance at the Hotel Plaza in New York.

      In her father’s house she accepted the double privileges of bride and visitor. “No maid?” she asked when Elaine went into the kitchen to prepare their first meal.

      “Your father doesn’t like having anyone around. We have a cleaning woman once a week. She’s very thorough.”

      “Doesn’t Daddy object to her?”

      “We usually go out that day, drive someplace, or he plays golf. Your father loathes these women chattering at him. Besides,” Elaine hated herself for using the tone of apology, “there’s very little to do with only two of us in the house.”

      As though bestowing a favor, Cindy offered to make the twin beds in the guest room. Often they were left unmade until late afternoon. Did it matter that she and Don liked to sleep late? After a very few mornings under her father’s roof, Cindy learned there was not much to get up for. No parties were given for the visitors, no introductions offered, no invitations sent by people who dutifully entertained friends’ houseguests. Instead, the young people endured long drives with Fletcher and Elaine, went on sightseeing trips to the few unexciting places that contrasted so drearily with the glowing advertisements of the California All-Year Club. Over endless dinners in overdecorated, overpriced, high-style restaurants, Fletcher sat dumb while Elaine made conversation, laughed at Don’s jokes, hastened to answer when Cindy forgot that she was not to ask Fletcher direct questions in public places.

      “I think you’re hurting Daddy more than helping him with all this privacy stuff,” Cindy said when she was alone with Elaine. “In my opinion he’d be a lot better off if you’d make an effort to have some kind of social life.”

      “He doesn’t want it.”

      “He may tell you that, but believe me, a man of his sort, always so lively and social, with so many connections, I mean! Not even belonging to a country club.”

      “He prefers the public course. He doesn’t want a lot of people getting chummy and compassionate.”

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