Paul Theroux - My Secret History

“It’s a nice beach,” I said. “Funny there aren’t more people around. Especially at this time of year. I wonder if they need a lifeguard?”

Lucy was looking down.

“What happened to the whale?”

“One day it was there, the next day it was gone. The tide took it away.”

That was perfect — the dead stinking thing with its jelly-eye just floated off and left the beach clean. I prayed for that easy solution for us.

Lucy had started to cry. Was she thinking of the whale?

“We’d better go back,” I said. “Your mother will be wondering where we are.”

She blew her nose and then looked up at me with hatred. She said, “Why did you lie to me? You’re nineteen years old. You don’t know anything. Tuck that shirt in. Don’t you know any better?”

We walked back to the house, not saying anything. I wanted to go — just leave on the next bus. But I felt guilty and I didn’t want them to know it, so I stayed. I talked, because Lucy didn’t say anything. In my nervousness I told them the whole plot of The Stranger —and it seemed silly and pointless when it was reduced to a few sentences.

Mrs. Cutler said, “These French books can be very interesting.”

I knew she was bored and frightened by me, and I hated Lucy for not saying anything. I tried to get her to talk, because I thought if she kept quiet she might begin to cry.

Mrs. Cutler said, “Won’t you have some apple pie?”

“I’d love some,” I said, and then I had another piece to please her.

“You have a good appetite,” she said. “That’s a good sign. Lucy’s hardly eaten anything.”

Lucy looked up, and at first I thought her expression was angry. But then I saw she was sick. She got up from the table and hurried out of the room. I heard her tramping down the hall.

Mrs. Cutler said, “Lucy tells me you’re a lifeguard. You must be a very good swimmer.”

“It’s a pool, so there’s not much swimming involved. The kids push each other under. That’s the real problem.”

“I’ve always loved the water. I can’t imagine what it would be like to live in Ohio, say, and never see the ocean.”

I thought I heard Lucy throwing up several rooms away.

“The dangerous part of a pool is the deep end,” I said. “People go in over their heads. You have to watch them like a hawk.”

It all seemed innocent and easy to me, and I wanted it that way, and wondered why I hadn’t been satisfied with it. I hadn’t watched them like a hawk. I had read books in the lifeguard chair and hardly looked up except to see what time it was or what Muzzaroll was doing. I hated myself for searching for more than I should have and for complicating my life and ruining Lucy’s. And what about Mrs. Mamalujian? I said that I was a lifeguard but that obvious thing was the most untrue thing about me.

When Lucy came back to the table her face was chalky, and it seemed much whiter because she had put on lipstick.

She said, “I think Andre wants to go.”

“No,” I said. “I want to help with the dishes.”

They said they wouldn’t let me, but I insisted and snatched up dishes and silverware. I resented doing it, and I wanted to go, but I was unable to bring myself to say it. I stacked the plates by the sink, and looked for a dishcloth and they kept saying, “Don’t bother.”

“You could sit down and read the paper,” Mrs. Cutler said.

That horrified me — being a sort of husband or father, sitting in a wing chair, reading the Globe under the lamp, while the women clanked the dishes and whispered. I wanted to go.

“You’ve missed the last bus,” Mrs. Cutler said.

“That’s all right,” I said.

“You can stay here. Lucy, make the bed in the spare room.”

“No, no,” I said, because I saw myself in a box upstairs all night, and then more of this at breakfast tomorrow. “I’ve got a friend in Plymouth. He’s expecting me to stay.”

Lucy looked sharply at me.

“I’ll just put these dishes away and then I’ll shove off.”

“I wish we could drive you,” Mrs. Cutler said. “We used to have a car. We used to have a lot of things.”

I hated the way she said that, and I wanted to leave before she said anything more. But she offered me a coffee and I couldn’t refuse.

Mrs. Cutler sat there looking bleary-eyed. How much worse she would have looked if she had known what was happening here.

Lucy said, “Go to bed, Mother. You know you never stay up this late.”

“We’ve got company, Lucy.” Then she yawned. She still wore her apron. There was a stack of knitting next to her chair — ropes of wool and a half-made sweater. “But I can’t keep my eyes open.”

When she stood up I realized that I would soon be alone with Lucy, and I was nervous again. The hole opened in my stomach and weakened me.

“I have to go, too,” I said. “Thanks a million for the dinner, Mrs. Cutler.”

“Come again,” Mrs. Cutler said.

Lucy went as far as the front gate and said, “What’s this about a friend? You didn’t mention any friend.”

“I forgot to.”

“I’m frightened,” she said. “You don’t seem to realize that.”

“I realize it,” I said. Why couldn’t the tide come up and take me away?

“What are you going to do about it?” she said in a low desperate voice.

I had no answer, so I hugged her and kissed her and told her again not to worry. Then I said I would have to get going or I’d be late, because it was a long walk to Plymouth. I let go of her and ran into the darkness and down the road.

But I turned back and took the narrow path to the beach. I could see the edge of beach from the froth on the breaking waves. I went to the far end, where they had found the washed-up whale. I crouched on the sand and lay down. It was a clear moony night, and the sand was still warm, but after a few hours the air turned cold and the sand became damp. But I had nowhere else to go. I had been lying. I didn’t have a friend.

I shivered all night, and in the morning Lucy was standing over me.

She said, “You’re nineteen. Why did I ever believe you? You’re sleeping on the beach!”

I was startled and too cold to think of anything.

“That’s what nineteen-year-olds do. They sleep on the beach. They’re brainless.”

Lying on the damp sand had made my muscles ache. I stood up and almost tipped over.

Lucy said in a hard voice, “I’m going to need some money. Three hundred dollars. You’d better find it, sonny.”

It was like a challenge. She was a different person from the one I had fallen in love with as I knelt in her closet on Pinckney Street. It was hard to remember how we had laughed or made love. She didn’t trust me anymore. She was like an enemy. I was afraid of her.

I said, “Don’t worry — I’ll get the money.” I knew where I could.

Then there was no more to say. We walked heavily through the sand to the cliff. That little conversation about money took away the rest of our love.

On Labor Day, the end of summer, Kennedy was back in Boston campaigning — marching in a parade, shaking hands, being bright. He was a living reminder that I had nothing. I did not wish him ill, but it was impossible to see his smile and not wish to see it wiped off his public face. But I disliked him most because I was certain that he would be elected. Nixon had a sloping and snoopy-looking face and shifty eyes. Very few people liked or trusted him. I wanted this unpopular man to be president, so that he would be opposed and mocked. A charming and glamorous person like Kennedy could get away with murder.

But I could not have gone to the parade even if I’d wanted to. It was the last day the pool was open, but because it was the middle of the week there was a foul-up in Accounting and we were paid for two weeks. At lunchtime we cashed our checks at the Harvard Gardens. I had one hundred and seventy-two dollars, including last week’s money, which I had been intending to deposit.