John Steinbeck - The Winter of Our Discontent

“What I hear is the love music of a blue-bottom baboon.” And I did—it blatted from the living room, where Allen importuned his soul in a phlegm of revolt. “Just when I was ready, to ask you to go steady, they said I didn’t know my mind. Your glance gives me ants whenever we romance, and they say I couldn’t know my mind.”

“I think I’ll burn him up, heaven wife.”

“No, you won’t. Not when you hear.”

“Can’t you tell me dirty?”

“No.”

I went through the living room. My son responded to my greeting with the sharp expression of a piece of chewed gum.

“I hope you got your lonely lovin’ heart swept up.”

“Huh?”

“Huh, sir! Last I heard, somebody had took and threw it on the floor.”

“Number one,” he said, “number one in the whole country. Sold a million copies in two weeks.”

“Great! I’m glad the future is in your hands.” I joined the next chorus as I went up the stairs. “ ‘Your glance gives me ants whenever we romance, and they say I couldn’t know my mind.’ ”

Ellen was stalking me with a book in her hand, one finger between the pages. I know her method. She would ask me what she thought I might think an interesting question and then let slip whatever it was Mary wanted to tell me. It’s a kind of triumph for Ellen to tell first. I wouldn’t say she is a tattletale, but she is. I waved crossed fingers at her.

“King’s X.”

“But, Daddy—”

“I said King’s X, Miss Hothouse Rhubarb, and I meant King’s X.” I slammed the door and shouted, “A man’s bathroom is his castle.” And I heard her laugh. I don’t trust children when they laugh at my jokes. I scrubbed my face raw and brushed my teeth until my gums bled. I shaved, put on a clean shirt and the bow tie my daughter hated, as a declaration of revolt.

My Mary was flittered with impatience when I faced her.

“You won’t believe it.”

“Seo leo gif heo blades onbirigth. Speak.”

“Margie is the nicest friend I ever had.”

“I quote—‘The man who invented the cuckoo clock is dead. This is old news but good!’ ”

“You’ll never guess—she’s going to keep the children so we can have our trip.”

“Is this a trick?”

“I didn’t ask. She offered.”

“They’ll eat her alive.”

“They’re crazy about her. She’s going to take them to New York on the train Sunday, stay all night in a friend’s apartment, and Monday see the new fifty-star flag-raising in Rockefeller Center and the parade and—everything.”

“I can’t believe it.”

“Isn’t that the nicest thing?”

“The very nicest. And we will flee to the Montauk moors, Miss Mousie?”

“I’ve already called and reserved a room.”

“It’s delirium. I shall burst. I feel myself swelling up.”

I had thought to tell her about the store, but too much news is constipating. Better to wait and tell her on the moor.

Ellen came slithering into the kitchen. “Daddy, that pink thing’s gone from the cabinet.”

“I have it. I have it here in my pocket. Here, you may put it back.”

“You told us never to take it away.”

“I still tell you that, on pain of death.”

She snatched it almost greedily and carried it in both hands to the living room.

Mary’s eyes were on me strangely, somberly. “Why did you take it, Ethan?”

“For luck, my love. And it worked.”

It rained on Sunday, July third, as it must, fat drops more wet than usual. We nudged our way in the damp segmented worms of traffic, feeling a little grand and helpless and lost, like cage-bred birds set free, and frightened as freedom shows its teeth. Mary sat straight, smelling of fresh-ironed cotton.

“Are you happy—are you gay?”

“I keep listening for the children.”

“I know. Aunt Deborah called it happy-lonesome. Take flight, my bird! Those long flaps on your shoulders are wings, you juggins.”

She smiled and nuzzled close. “It’s good, but I still listen for the children. I wonder what they are doing now?”

“Almost anything you can guess except wondering what we are doing.”

“I guess that’s right. They aren’t really interested.”

“Let us emulate them, then. When I saw your barge slide near, O Nile serpent, [66] O Nile serpent: Antony and Cleopatra, I.v.25. The actual line refers to “my serpent of old Nile.” I knew it was our day. Octavian will beg his bread tonight from some Greek goatherd.”

“You’re crazy. Allen never looks where he’s going. He might step right out in traffic against a light.”

“I know. And poor little Ellen with her club foot. Well, she has a good heart and a pretty face. Perhaps someone will love her and amputate her feet.”

“Oh! let me worry a little. I’ll feel better if I do.”

“I never heard it better put. Shall we together go over all the horrid possibilities?”

“You know what I mean.”

“I do. But you, highness, brought it to the family. It only travels in the female line. The little bleeders.”

“No one loves his children more than you.”

“My guilt is as the guilt of ten because I am a skunk.”

“I like you.”

“Now that’s the kind of worrying I approve of. See that stretch? Look how the gorse and heather hold and the sand cuts out from under like solid little waves. The rain hits the earth and jumps right up in a thin mist. I’ve always thought it is like Dartmoor or Exmoor, and I’ve never seen them except through the eyes of print. You know the first Devon men must have felt at home here. Do you think it’s haunted?”

“If it isn’t, you’ll haunt it.”

“You must not make compliments unless you mean them.”

“It’s not for now. Watch for the side road. It will say ‘Moorcroft. ’ ”

It did, too, and the nice thing about that lean spindle end of Long Island is that the rain sinks in and there is no mud.

We had a doll’s house to ourselves, fresh and ginghamy, and nationally advertised twin beds, fat as muffins.

“I don’t approve of those.”

“Silly—you can reach across.”

“I can do one whole hell of a lot better than that, you harlot.”

We dined in greasy dignity on broiled Maine lobsters sloshed down with white wine—lots of white wine to make my Mary’s eyes to shine, and I plied her with cognac seductively until my own head was buzzing. She remembered the number of our doll house and she could find the keyhole. I wasn’t too buzzed to have my way with her, but I think she could have escaped if she had wanted to.

Then, aching with comfort, she drowsed her head on my right arm and smiled and made small yawny sounds.

“Are you worried about something?”

“What a thought. You’re dreaming before you’re asleep.”

“You’re working so hard to make me happy. I can’t get past into you. Are you worried?”

A strange and seeing time, the front steps of sleep.

“Yes, I’m worried. Does that reassure you? I wouldn’t want you to repeat it, but the sky is falling and a piece of it fell on my tail.”

She had drifted sweetly off with her Panic smile. I slipped my arm free and stood between the beds. The rain was over except for roof drip, and the quarter-moon glistened its image in a billion droplets. “ Beaux rêves, [67] Beaux rêves: French for “pleasant dreams.” my dearling dear. Don’t let the sky fall on us!”

My bed was cool and oversoft but I could see the sharp moon driving through the sea-fleeing clouds. And I heard the ghost-cry of a bittern. I crossed the fingers of both hands—King’s X for a little while. Double King’s X. It was only a pea that fell on my tail.