Evan Hunter - Far From the Sea

His mother’s letter was still in the pocket of his jacket. He went to the closet and took the letter from his pocket. He looked at the envelope. He sipped at the drink. He walked to the window and looked down at the pool area. The South American party had not yet arrived. The pool looked empty and deserted. He sat down again. He drank a bit more. Then he looked at the envelope again. To Mom, with love, David. Why had his father put the letter in an envelope that had David’s handwriting on it? So that it would immediately catch David’s eye? Had he wanted him to find the letter? Why had he saved it at all?

He opened the envelope.

His mother’s small delicate hand. The pages browning around the edges, the ink fading. He kept staring at the letter in his hand. Then he began reading.

Dear Morrie,

I am writing this because when I talk I get too excited and of course it stands to reason. I honestly was giving you a fair chance but I guess you did not want it as you are still lying to me. Even this week if I did not ask you about how much money the store made Wednesday, you would not have told me you had taken the day off as you said to go to your brother’s in New Jersey.

So please this is such a simple request. I am asking you please...

He stopped reading exactly where he had stopped yesterday morning, in his father’s apartment. Did he really want to know? Was it really important that he know? He picked up the glass, took a long swallow of whiskey. He put down the glass. He looked at the letter again. He began reading again.

So please this is such a simple request. I am asking you please to sit down and ask yourself if you must continue this lying and cheating and if this is really what you want then please go away as I am getting ill and I don’t think I deserve that, do you? You said last night that what you do is none of my business. That is really not so and you know it. Husband and wife must tell one another everything if they wish to be happy. Oh please I’m asking you in God’s name, if this is what you really want from life then please oh please go away and leave me here to make a happy home for our boy who was away so long. So please again is that what you want? If it really is then good-bye and may God bless you. Please answer this honestly and please don’t tell me that what you do is your own business because that is not what I am asking you.

He thought that was the end of the letter. He had been putting the handwritten pages one behind the other as he’d finished reading them, and her signature seemed to indicate an end. There was yet another page, he realized. It began without a P.S., as though his mother had not quite concluded her thoughts and, despite her closing signature, felt compelled to add to them, to make herself finally and irrevocably clear.

If you want to continue this sort of thing then there is nothing anyone can do but give you your freedom. I know who the woman is Morrie. I know who you bought those diamond earrings for, we both know who she is, and that you can have her and her husband in our house to have dinner and play cards is shameful. I do not know how she can be doing this to my home, I do not understand. I am so embarrassed all the time. You are making me ill Morrie. So please I beg of you please answer this and tell me what it is you want. If you want to stay here with me and our son then it must be without any more of the lying and cheating that is killing me. But if your answer is that you want to go, then there is nothing I can do.

She did not sign the final page. He looked over the letter again. There were three pages in all, each headed with a Roman numeral. I, II, III. He folded the letter. He felt his eyes misting with tears. He put the letter back into the envelope. His mother’s constant sniping at his father. She’d known he’d never stopped lying and cheating, and had decided to live with it. No wonder it was a heart attack that finally killed her.

He carried the letter back to the closet and put it in his jacket pocket again. He was starting back toward where he’d left his drink when the telephone rang.

He’s dead, he thought.

It always comes on the telephone, he thought.

He picked up the receiver.

“Hello?” he said.

“David? Hi, it’s Hillary.”

“Hello,” he said.

“I’ve been trying to reach you.”

“I was at the hospital.”

“How is he?”

“Well, not so hot.”

“I’m sorry.”

He said nothing. There was a long silence on the line.

“You’d had quite a bit to drink last night, hadn’t you?” she said.

“A little.”

“I suspected as much.” She paused. “Do you remember phoning me?”

“Yes.”

“Do you remember what you asked?”

“Vaguely.” He remembered completely.

“Why’d you want to know what I was wearing?”

“I really don’t know,” he said.

“Did you want to have sex?” she asked. “On the phone?”

“I suppose,” he said. “Maybe. I don’t know.”

“Might have been interesting,” she said. She paused again. “I’m here at the pool,” she said. “It’s like a mausoleum. Why don’t you come join me for a drink and some sun?”

“I have to be back at the hospital at four.”

“That gives us at least an hour.”

“Well...”

“Do come,” she said, and hung up.

He went to the window. He looked down at the pool. He could see her walking from the telephone to one of the lounge chairs. She was wearing a white string bikini and high-heeled sandals. She had become very tan in the past several days. She took off the sandals, smoothed the towel on the lounge, and stretched out on her belly. He saw her reaching behind her to untie the strap of the bikini top.

He looked at his watch, and then went into the bathroom, where his swimming trunks were draped over the shower-curtain rod. He thought suddenly of the enema bag in his father’s apartment. How long had he been struggling alone with what he’d called his “blockage?” How many secret enemas had he taken in that overflowing apartment? He’s a man dying because he couldn’t shit, David thought. He filled his apartment with shit, he lived his life wallowing in shit, and now he’s dying because he couldn’t shit. He looked at his watch again. He did not want to go back to that hospital at four o’clock. He did not want to continue this senseless vigil. Die already, he thought. For Christ’s sake, die !

He looked into the mirror.

“Die,” he said aloud, and then he put on his trunks and went downstairs to join Hillary.

“I lied to you,” she said.

No more lies, he thought. Molly’s words last summer. But the lies persisted.

“You told me,” he said. “You’re not really twenty-nine.”

“That, yes,” she said. “But about being divorced as well.”

They were stretched out on lounges side by side. They were drinking gin-tonics. Gin and quinine, she called them. He was on his back, his eyes squinted against the strong glare of the sun. She was on her belly, the bikini strap untied, her blond hair loose. Her arms were dangling over the end of the lounge. The drink was on the tiles before her. She kept toying with the straw. She smelled of coconut oil.

“Matter of fact,” she said, “I’ve never been married.”

A cloud passed over the sun, bringing temporary relief.

“It was easier to lie,” she said.

No more lies, he thought. Please.

The cloud passed, the sun blinked on again. He squinted his eyes against it. In England, he remembered, a person with a “squint” was cross-eyed. Language barrier, he thought. He waited.

“You see, I’ve just ended a rather long-term relationship,” she said. “With a man, of course. These days, one feels compelled to clarify. I’m not that way, though on occasion I’ve been sorely tempted.”