The Man in the Net Read online

  “Those poor dear boring clods! What have I done to deserve them?” The frown smoothed away and she smiled a quick, affectionate smile. “Darling, you’d better be thinking about changing. We’d got to be at Vickie’s party by six.”

  He’d forgotten Vickie Carey’s birthday party. Why was there always some little extra thing to make it worse? Should he postpone it then? No. To hell with the party.

  “Look, darling. Look, John. Look at me.” Linda touched his wrist and then, picking up folds of skirt in each hand, pirouetted in front of him. “Do you like me? Do you like my new hair?”

  The very faintest hint of thickening in her voice told him the story. It had started. He was sure of it now. He felt a flattening exhaustion. She began to dance around the shabby wicker furniture.

  “There’s a new girl at Madame Helene’s. She did my hair for the first time today. She said she found some grey hairs.” Linda let the folds of skirt drop and came back to him. “Darling, do you see them? Look, can you see the grey hairs? Here?” She raised a hand to her temple. “I can’t. I swear I can’t. It’s the sun, isn’t it? You know how the sun always bleaches it out in summer.”

  He could see the grey hairs. There were only a few of them and they were hardly visible, but they were there. So that’s what had done it, he thought. Just a chance remark from a tactless girl had been enough. That was why she’d been making such charm to Steve, too. She’d been defying the girl, reassuring herself. Why did he always have to understand her so well? And why, understanding her, did he still find it so touching? Other women got grey hairs. They didn’t have to be lied to, propitiated, bolstered.

  “That girl should be fired,” he said lightly, making a joke of it. “If you’ve got any grey hairs, I’ll eat them.”

  “Oh, you wouldn’t notice. You’re far too sweet. But she said she found some. Not many, but some.” Linda shrugged. “Well—who cares? I’m twenty-nine. Lots of women get grey hair before they’re thirty.”

  She was thirty-three. He’d seen her birth certificate once and she knew he’d seen it. But that hadn’t stopped her from keeping up the legend. Before she could drag him too far into the realms of unreality, he took the letter out of his pocket. It was going to be disaster anyway. It didn’t matter anymore about how he handled it.

  He said, “Linda, I got a letter from Charlie Raines.” “From Charlie?” For a moment she wasn’t interested; then she was. Quickly, suspiciously, she said, “But you brought the mail before I went to Pittsfield. Why didn’t you tell me then?”

  “I wanted some time to think about it.”

  “Think about it? Think about what? What did he say?”

  He held the letter out to her. “Want to read it?”

  “Yes. Of course.” And then, “No. You read it to me.”

  He’d forgotten how she hated putting on her reading glasses. His fingers unsteady, he took the letter out of the envelope and smoothed it.

  “It’s long,” he said pointlessly. “Typical Charlie.”

  He read;

  Dear Johnny:

  How is life in the great outdoors treating you? Don’t think we’ve forgotten you. You’ve been very much on our minds. To the extent, in fact, of a long, bang-up conference at the summit this afternoon. First, we all want you to know how badly we feel about the show at the Denham Galleries. We realize, of course, that half these art critic boys don’t know what they’re talking about and that they’re just gunning for you because your first show, when you were still with us, was such a success. But we also realize it must be a disappointment to you, financially, if for nothing else, since we understand, when you left us, that you would have to depend in the long run upon a steady sale of canvases if you were going to make this painting deal work out.

  I hope you know us all well enough to be sure we aren’t a bunch of Philistines around here. Nor do I want you to think of me as a mean old Mephistopheles picking a “weak” moment in which to tempt you. But it so happens that H. C. has been forced by his doctors to retire as the head of the art department. For a couple of weeks we’ve been desperately looking for someone who could swing the job. The combination of first rate executive and first rate commercial artist doesn’t grow on trees, as you know, and, even though you felt at one time that the set-up here was too restricting for you, you are still considered by us as one of the most outstanding men in the field.

  Yes, Johnny, let’s get down to brass tacks. This letter is frankly a plea for you to come back to us. The salary we are prepared to offer is the salary that H. C. has been getting plus the regular bonuses etc. It will, I would say, be about double what we were paying you when you left us. God knows, I don’t want to butt my nose into your private affairs, but we all feel that, just perhaps, after ten months of it, you might be getting a little bit tired of poverty in a garret (do they have garrets in the country?) and that, just perhaps, you might consider returning to the Raines and Raines family which has never stopped thinking of you as “one of us”.

  Think it over, Johnny, and let us know as soon as possible. Speaking personally, I don’t see that it’s at all impractical for you to swing the job and have a considerable amount of time to continue your “serious” painting on the side. Maybe you’d drop down to the office one day this week and talk it over. We’d love seeing you anyway.

  All the best and to Linda,

  Sincerely …

  While he was reading he had deliberately put the thought of his wife, standing by the mantel, out of his head. He had made himself concentrate on the things that really mattered—the fact that he knew, in spite of the critics, in spite of the burden of Linda, that he was gradually groping toward achievement in his painting; the fact that he was overwhelmingly sure a return to the sleek high-pressure commercialism of Raines and Raines would destroy in him the only thing he cared about any more; and the other fact—almost as important—the fact that Linda had been far worse in New York than she’d been in the country. She would have forgotten it, of course, because she was bored now and playing the role of the exiled martyr. But another desperate bid for competition with the Mrs. Raines, the Parkinsons, all those mercilessly chic and sophisticated women in Manhattan would break her.

  Dr. MacAllister, the only person he’d confided in, had been emphatic about that.

  “Since Linda won’t come to me as a patient, John, I can only give an opinion based on my observations. But I’d say if you don’t take her out of this rat-race she’ll be a hopeless alcoholic in a couple of years.”

  As he put the letter down on a table, he looked at his wife for the first time. He had expected a virago explosion; he’d even expected her to break in before he’d finished reading the letter. But, as so often before, he’d been wrong about her. She’d lit another cigarette and was standing watching him, very quietly, with the forlorn dignity of someone who has abandoned hope because there was no point in hoping.

  “You’re not going back,” she said.

  He felt amazement and gratitude and a stab of guilt. Had he then underestimated her?

  “So you do understand?”

  “Of course I understand. You know you can paint. The critics haven’t changed that at all. And you want to paint. That’s all you want. That’s all you care about.”

  “I couldn’t go back, Linda. Not unless we were starving, and we’re not starving. We’ve got enough to go along the way we’re going for five years, at least. You know that.” Because she wasn’t fighting him, all his old only partially destroyed affection for her was flooding in. He went to her, putting his hands on her arms. “Going back would be the end. You do understand, don’t you? You can see what a weasel letter that is. Charlie knows what that job would really be! Up to my eyes in it twenty-four hours a day. Doing my painting on the side! I couldn’t do anything on the side. Painting isn’t something you can do on the side anyway. I’ll go to New York tomorrow and explain. Charlie will understand.” It was heady, this realization that, against all expectations, he could s
till talk honestly with her. “After all, I made my decision when I made it. You remember, don’t you? We decided it together. You as much as I. You know it was the right thing. Not only for me but for you, too. You .. .”

  “For me?” Suddenly her body stiffened. “What do you mean—for me?”

  “You were just as fed up with New York as I was. You …”

  “Me? Fed up with New York? Are you out of your mind? New York was my whole life.”

  He felt the sense of well-being—that absurd, deluded sense of well-being—draining away.

  “There hasn’t been an hour,” she said, “not an hour when I haven’t been dreaming that just possibly, one day, just possibly all this would be over and I would be back in my apartment, with my friends, with my kind of life. I haven’t said anything. I’ve tried so desperately not to say anything. And I’m not going to say anything now. But when you claim that it was for me, that it was only because of me that you dragged us here . .

  “Linda, I didn’t say just for you. You know I didn’t. I said …”

  “It doesn’t matter what you said. Nothing matters.” Her lower lip under the cigarette was trembling. “I’m not important anyway. I’ve always known that. I’m just the woman around the place—the woman to cook the meals, to clean the house. That’s a woman’s function, isn’t it? While you go off and lock yourself up all day in that dreary barn, painting your pictures. Off somewhere—God knows where—in a world of your own. And then, when you do have some free time, when we might be together doing things, getting closer—when you might be making it better for me, you just sit here blaring that phonograph or go off in those goddam woods with those goddam children like—like a-” She suddenly dropped into a chair, throwing her hands up to cover her face.

  “Oh, hell. Oh, hell. Oh, hell … .”

  “Linda!” Because he’d once again let himself be fooled and because he’d been idiotic enough to minimize the fact that the drink had started to work in her, all the affection had gone. He looked down at her, wearily, almost hating her.

  “You think you can paint!” Her voice came, husky with spite, through the covering hands. “There’s something I’ve never told you. I swore I’d never tell you. I shouldn’t be telling you now. You can’t paint. You’re no good at all. Everyone knows that—not just the critics —everyone. Ask anyone in Stoneville. Anyone at all. They all laugh at you. And they all laugh at me. You, they say, you who are so charming, so bright …”

  She got up jerkily like a puppet. Not looking at him, still pouring out the babble of words, she started across the room.

  “You who’s so charming, so attractive. Why, in God’s name, have you saddled yourself with that crazy, untalented oaf who’s dragging you down as surely as you’re standing right there, who …”

  The words—the stale, dead words which he’d heard innumerable times before—fell on his nerves like water drops.

  “I could have married many other men. I could have married George Krasner, the president of the Krasner Model Agency. I could have married …”

  She was at the bar now. Casually, almost as if she wasn’t conscious of what she was doing, she was stooping down for the gin bottle.

  “Linda,” he called.

  She went on fumbling.

  “Linda,” he called again.

  She straightened, bristling with outraged hauteur.

  “Why are you shouting at me like that?”

  “Don’t,” he said. “For God’s sake, don’t.”

  “Don’t? Don’t—what? What on earth are you talking about?”

  “Linda, please. As a favor to me. You don’t have to start it. It won’t help.”

  “What won’t help?” Her face was scrawled now with astonishment and shock. “My God, you’re not accusing me of going to take a drink, are you? I was only arranging the bottles.”

  He didn’t say anything. He just stood with his arms dangling at his sides.

  “Well, are you?” Her voice tilted higher. “Is that how you’re going to justify yourself? I suppose you’ll say I had a drink in Pittsfield, just because some stupid, ignorant girl said some stupid, ignorant thing about my hair. Oh, you’re so clever. You know how to do it, don’t you? I’m here to tell you I haven’t had a drink for months. For that matter, there’s hardly been any time in my life when I drank anything more than—well, a couple of cocktails at a party or …”

  She gave a little whimper and ran across to him. She threw herself in his arms, pushing her face against his chest.

  “Oh, help me. Help me, John. Darling, help me.”

  It was a real cry from her heart. He knew it was. This wasn’t acting. But, as he put a hand on her waist, all he felt was the panic of an animal caught in a net.

  “It wouldn’t do any good,” he said, stroking her hair. “Going back to New York wouldn’t change anything.” “I’m so afraid.”

  “I know.”

  “I didn’t want to say all those things, John. I didn’t want to.”

  “I know.”

  “They weren’t true. Really they weren’t. I didn’t want to say them. Oh, John, if you’d help …”

  Hope, or an illusion of hope, stirred in him. He might as well try again anyway.

  He said, “If you’d talk to Bill MacAllister.”

  Her body, pressed against his, started to tremble. “No,” she said. “You can’t do that. You can’t do that to me. You can’t have them shut me up in a …”

  “You know it wouldn’t be anything like that. Bill? He’s an old friend. He’d understand …”

  “No. Don’t talk about it. No.” At least it had its secondary value of shocking her back. Her fingers, clinging to his shirt, relaxed. “I’m all right. Honestly, I’m all right. And, darling, I’m so sorry. How could I have said those things? Of course I see you’ve got to turn Charlie Raines down. We’re better here. We’re both better here. And I did have a drink. Only one. I swear it. But it’s all right. It’s nothing to worry about.”

  She drew away from him, smiling up at him, her huge green eyes glistening with the suggestion of tears.

  “It’s just that I needed time to get used to it. Don’t you see? Springing it on me like that. It wasn’t easy. Right away … having to take it. You know it isn’t easy for me. If you’d done it another way, if you’d been a little more tactful …”

  Her hand moved up from his shirt collar and caressed his neck. Already she was rewriting the scene in her mind. Already she was seeing herself as the sensitive wife who’d been a little unreasonable because her husband had handled her clumsily.

  Even now she was still capable of staggering him.

  “Darling, you’ve got to hurry and change. You should be leaving for Vickie’s right now.”

  “Me? You’re not going?”

  “Oh, I couldn’t possibly—not now.”

  “Then I won’t go either.”

  “But of course you’ve got to go. One of us must go. What would she think? It’s her birthday. We’ve got the present and everything. Give her my love and say I’ve got one of my migraines. I’ll lie down on the bed for a while. I’ll be all right.”

  From where he stood, the bar-table was in his direct line of vision. Almost without his realizing it, his eyes settled on the bottle of gin.

  Linda’s voice came quick and sharp. “Trust me, John. Trust me just for once. If you knew how important it is to trust me.”

  There it was again—the cry from the heart, and the dilemma. If he called the Careys to say neither of them were coming, he’d be undermining her with an obvious lack of faith. But, then, if he did leave her here alone …

  He turned back to her. Her face was imploring—a little girl’s face.

  “She knows about my migraine. They all do. Tell her I didn’t call because I was hoping right up to the last minute that I’d feel well enough to go.”

  Didn’t he have to trust her? If he didn’t, after a direct plea like that, wouldn’t it be admitting the total defeat of the
ir marriage?

  He said, “You really think it’s best for me to go? That’s really what you want?”

  “Yes, yes. And I won’t—I swear I won’t …”

  “Okay, then. Where’s the present?”

  “It’s upstairs in the bedroom. It’s all beautifully wrapped. I wrapped it myself.”

  She was smiling happily now. She slipped her arm around his waist. They started up the stairs together. John was remembering that they’d bought the tray for Vickie together three days before in an antique shop. It had been the woman in the store who had gift-wrapped it.

  In the bedroom Linda lay down on the bed. John peeled off his work clothes and took a shower. When he came back from the bathroom, she was still lying there with her eyes closed. He put on a shirt and tie and a summer suit. As he was brushing his hair, she called softly: “John, John darling.”

  He put down the brush and turned to her. Her eyes were open and she was stretching her arms up toward him. He crossed to the bed.

  “Kiss me, John.”

  He bent over. She put her arms around his neck, drawing his mouth down to hers. Her lips clung to his in a long, passionate kiss. Her breath smelt of peppermint life-savers with a faint metallic back-taste of liquor.

  “I’m sorry, John.”

  “It’s okay.”

  “I want you to be happy. That’s all I care about in the world—that you should achieve what you want to achieve—that you should live the life you want to live. Nothing else matters but that.”

  “Sure, Linda.”

  Her arms were still around his neck. Her mouth slid to his cheek. “Darling, if it was twice as much as you were getting before, it would be about twenty-five thousand, wouldn’t it?”

  “I guess so.”

  She giggled. “My, we’re being poor in the grand manner, aren’t we?”

  She patted his hair and released him.

  “I’ll just lie here for a while and then I’ll make myself something to eat. Don’t hurry home. I don’t want you to spoil your evening worrying about me. And give Vickie my love. Give them all my love. Say how terribly sorry I am.”