Alison Lurie - The War Between the Tates - A Novel

“I see.” Erica begins on her own sandwich. “I thought of you as rather formidable too,” she says.

“Really? That’s pretty funny.” Wendy smiles a pale, distracted smile. “I guess you’re the first person who ever ... thought that. Mostly—” She slows, then stops speaking, drops the crusts of her sandwich, and puts her hand on her stomach with an expression of great unease.

“Are you all right?”

“I d’know.” Wendy shoves her chair back and stands up. “I guess maybe not. I better—” She looks around the kitchen, takes two steps toward the door, another step back.

“Uh—Can’t—” Bending suddenly over the drainboard, she throws up into Erica’s kitchen sink, at first in a continuous loud rush, then more intermittently, punctuated with choking gasps of apology. “Oh, shit—Jesus, I’m sorry—”

Erica stands a few feet off, wincing as her whole-grain bread, lettuce, tunafish salad, coffee and cream reappear in the sink, much the worse for wear. I have poisoned her just as she feared somehow, magically, she thinks. But how? “That’s all right,” she says distantly several times.

Slowly, Wendy leaves off and straightens up, still holding on to the sink. Erica hands her some paper towels, and then a garbage bag; finally she removes the drain basket from the sink and turns on the hot water hard.

“God, how gross. Hey, I’m really sorry,” Wendy says, looking at Erica like a sick puppy.

“That’s all right.” Erica puts the top back on the trash can. “How do you feel now? Would you like to lie down for a bit?”

“Well. Okay, for a couple of minutes, maybe I better,” Wendy says blurrily. Leaving go of the sink, she staggers after Erica into the sitting room. “Wow. I’m really dizzy.” She slumps onto the sofa and collapses sideways in a small heap. Erica hands her a pillow; then she unfolds the crocheted afghan from the rocker and covers Wendy with an elaborate pattern of blue, green and red geometrical flowers.

“I knew I should never have eaten that sandwich,” Wendy says meanwhile. “How could I be so stupid, stupid, stupid!” She hits her forehead weakly with one fist.

“I don’t see how it could be the sandwich,” Erica defends herself. “I had the other half myself, and I don’t feel ill. Unless you’re allergic to fish.”

“It’s not that. Anything would have done it, the way I am now.”

“Mmhm,” Erica murmurs sympathetically, though the phrase which has begun to run through her head is hysterical psychosomatic vomiting. “Of course this is a difficult time for you.” Perhaps Wendy ought not to go to friends in New Jersey. Perhaps instead she should go home to her family and a good psychiatrist.

“Yeh. It’s really been a bummer, these last couple weeks. I mean I thought, all right, morning sickness; I can hack it until I get to the city. Nobody told me it could go on all day.”

“You. Have. Morning. Sickness,” Erica hears herself say in a very cool high voice, the voice of an ice giantess eight feet tall.

“So-called. With me it’s not so bad in the morning. It starts about noon and lasts like practically till bedtime. Did you ever have that?”

“No. Not really,” replies the high voice. “You’d better rest for a while now,” it adds, with what strikes Erica as great aplomb. “And I think I’ll go and finish my lunch.”

“Okay.” Wendy closes her eyes obediently.

For a moment Erica stands looking at her. “You’re sure you’re pregnant, I suppose,” she says. Wendy opens her eyes. “Sometimes people imagine—”

“Yeh, I’m sure. I had a test at the clinic. You know, that test where they kill the rabbit.” She shuts her eyes again; then she pulls Erica’s afghan up over her head and snuggles down into it, disappearing completely. A casual observer might not have suspected there was anyone but Erica in the room, were it not for the two dull-pink plastic suitcases, still standing in the center of the rug where Wendy had dropped them—how long ago?

Walking carefully around the suitcases, Erica returns to the kitchen, where she is surprised to find it is not yet two o’clock. She finishes her lunch by pouring the coffee down the sink and putting the remains of her sandwich into the garbage. Then she sits down, rests her chin on her hand, and tries to order her ideas, which are now tangled together like frozen garden hose, or one of those complicated designs knitted out of snakes in the Book of Kells.

Wendy is one person, not three

Wendy is here, in her house.

Wendy is pregnant.

This last idea explains several things: why Wendy threw up into the kitchen sink, why she is leaving Corinth, and why she needs money. It shocks Erica because of what it reveals about her husband: that Brian Tate, that serious, righteous man, that well-known liberal professor and household moralist, has knowingly and deliberately seduced, impregnated, and abandoned a child.

Wendy is leaving town.

Wendy is going to Jersey City, where a friend will lend her money.

Now a new, terrible idea strikes Erica. She thinks that Brian has not only seduced and abandoned Wendy, he has in effect delivered her into the hands of a Jersey City abortionist. She recalls horror articles in Brian’s Village Voice in which that very city was mentioned as a center of the illegal abortion racket; descriptions of filthy makeshift operating rooms, bloodstained tables; callous and venal doctors whose names have been struck from the Medical Register because of drink or drugs.

But this cannot be allowed to happen. It must be stopped. If it is not stopped, in a few days Wendy may be lying dead in some slum cellar or alley.

Wendy must not be allowed to go to New Jersey. Probably she ought not even to leave town until she feels better, stronger—until a good, trustworthy, sympathetic doctor has been found to help her.

But who is going to find such a doctor, and how? And where is Wendy going to stay meanwhile? Who is going to take care of her? Her Ma is apparently no use; and it is clear that Brian has no intention of taking any responsibility; that he has made no move to do the decent, civilized, generous, right thing.

Erica looks out of her kitchen window. The strong cold wind is still blowing, bending the trees between her yard and that of the new Glenview Home next door. Heavy flat clouds slide by rapidly, slate-gray, smoke-gray. Time is passing, and somebody must do something. She, Erica, must do something. She must do the right thing.

7

Three Telephone Conversations

1.

“HELLO.”

“Mrs. Tate? This is Dr. Bunch.”

“Oh, hello, Dr. Bunch. I wanted to see you, but your nurse said you were going away this weekend, she suggested I call Dr. Keefe, but I don’t really know him, and the problem is ...Well, the problem is we have a friend, a graduate student at the University; it’s her I’m calling about actually. You see, she’s in trouble.”

“Trouble? What type of trouble?”

“I mean, she’s found out she’s pregnant ...And she’s just terribly unhappy about it. You see, she’s studying for a degree, and if she has a baby she’ll have to leave school, and her whole future will be disrupted. So she came to me, today, and I thought you might have some idea about what she could do. You might know where someone in her condition could go, or someone who could help her.”

“Hm. Well. Has this pregnancy actually been medically confirmed?”

“Oh yes. She’s had a test. With a rabbit—”

“Hm. Of course this is a difficult experience, a shock—”

“Yes, it’s very—”

“—and probably there hasn’t been time for you to seriously consider how very wrong, not to say hazardous—”