Эд Макбейн - Mothers and Daughters

“Sure,” she answered.

“Anyway, I was coming out of Alexander’s when I bumped into this man, literally bumped into him, Gillian. One of my packages fell to the sidewalk. There wasn’t very much in it, just some socks I picked up for Monica. She should have come home for the summer, don’t you think? Why was it necessary for her to go to summer school?”

“I guess she wants to finish quicker,” Gillian said patiently.

“For what? What’s her hurry?” Virginia shrugged, as if unwilling to discuss unpleasant subjects, the cheerful smile coming onto her mouth again. “Guess who it was, Gillian?”

“Guess who who was?”

“The man who knocked my package down.”

“Who?”

“Barry Murdock.”

“Who’s he?”

“Barry Murdock ,” Virginia repeated, and she opened her eyes wide as if expecting Gillian to recognize the name immediately.

“Well, who’s Barry Murdock?”

“Why, he wanted me, Gillian,” Virginia said, and she lowered her eyes. For a moment Gillian thought her mother actually meant “wanted.” Then she realized that what this Barry Murdock had wanted was to marry Virginia. She remembered hearing her mother mention him once before, and she nodded briefly and raised her book again.

“He’s still very handsome,” Virginia said wistfully. “He picked up my package for me.”

“Did you thank him?”

“Of course I thanked him. We had a drink together.”

“I didn’t know you drank, Mom,” Gillian said, suddenly interested.

“Oh, all I had was a little whiskey sour.”

“I see.” Gillian paused, studying her mother. “Where was this?”

“At Thwaite’s. You know, on the parkway.”

“Yes. You drove there?”

“Mmmm.”

“With this Barry Murdock?”

“Yes.” Virginia paused. “He never married.”

“That’s too bad.”

“He told me he’d never found another girl like me.”

Gillian nodded, studying her mother.

“I was rather pretty, you know.”

“Yes,” Gillian said.

“And slender. Of course, after two children... well, I can’t blame you girls for that. But I used to be very pretty, Gillian. Your father thought so. And Barry, of course.”

“Why didn’t you marry him, Mom?” Gillian asked sharply, suddenly annoyed, feeling that this talk was disrespectful of her father.

“Oh, I don’t know. Your father had a great deal of charm, and he loved me very much in those days.” Her mother nodded. Gillian thought she detected a sadness in the nod, and then Virginia shrugged slightly. Her face brightened again. Gillian watched her, feeling something quite curious, something she did not particularly want to feel, and yet something that came nonetheless. “Did I ever tell you about the boat ride?” Virginia asked.

“No. No, you never did.”

“When Barry threw me in the water?”

“No.”

“On the way to Bear Mountain?”

“No.”

“Oh, that was awful, just awful!” Virginia said. “I had made the box lunch. We all belonged to this club, you see, Barry, your father, and me. It was an Irish sort of club — that is, everyone in it was Irish — and we called ourselves The Bunch. We went on all sorts of outings and picnics together, and we held dances, oh we did a lot of things. That was where I met your father, Gillian. And Barry, of course.”

She wished her mother would stop saying, “ And Barry, of course,” in that strange way, which made Barry Murdock seem more important than Meredith Burke. Suddenly she didn’t want to hear her mother’s story; she did not want to know.

“Mom—” she started.

“I told Barry I’d made chicken-salad sandwiches, and he said he despised chicken salad and I said well, if you love me you’ll love my chicken salad or something like that. You know how foolish girls are when they’re young, you know, Gillian.”

“Mom, I don’t—”

“Well, he said he loved me all right, but that didn’t change his feelings about chicken salad. He said he was going to throw that box lunch right over the side of the boat, and we would both starve unless I would feed him with kisses. Everyone laughed, Gillian, except your father, whose date I had refused and who sat on the side of the boat on one of those folding wooden chairs with a dark Irish scowl on his face as if he was ready to take on the whole world, Barry Murdock included. Oh, he was angry that day, I thought he would take a fit. Well, we struggled back and forth, Barry and me, he trying to get the lunch away from me, and me trying to hold it over my head, fat chance I had against those long arms of his. And finally he grabbed at the lunch, and he whirled toward the side of the boat, and me clinging to it, and as he made to throw it over the side, he shoved at me, just playing, you know, and somehow I went over with the lunch. I screamed to high heavens, I remember. All I could think was that I would get caught in the boat’s screw, I didn’t want that to happen, I was only twenty, and all the world watching when I hit the water. They both jumped in after me, Gillian, your father and Barry Murdock, and they both swam to me, and I could hear them arguing about who was to save me when of course I was a very good swimmer, I had learned the crawl at an early age, my clothes all sticking to me, soaking wet as they were.”

Virginia Burke paused, lost in the memory. “I let Barry Murdock save me. I let him put his arms around my waist tight and hold me up in the water. They threw one of those lifesavers overboard, and they pulled us back onto the boat while your father, poor dear, floated in the water, angry as could be. You could see through everything I had on, Gillian, clear through my petticoat, oh I was so embarrassed!”

She looked at her mother, not wanting to hear, not wanting to think of her mother as a young girl, not wanting to hear this girl-talk from her mother, this was not right. She wanted to think of Virginia as her mother, the wife of her father, not a young girl who blushed in wet clothing, trembled on the deck of the boat while Barry Murdock looked through her garments. I don’t want to hear it!

“They found a pair of white ducks for me, one of the boys had an extra pair, and someone gave me a sweater, I think it was your father. The sweater was too large, of course, and all my underclothing had got soaked, so you can imagine the picture I presented that day, everything flying under that big sweater. You know, in those days, Gillian, I was—”

“Mom!” she said sharply.

“He was very handsome,” Virginia said. “Barry was.” She paused. “He still is.” She paused again. “He asked to see me again, Gillian.”

“Well, I hope you—”

“And, of course, I said no. Of course, I told him I was a married woman with two grown daughters. Of course, I said no. Did he think a little drink could turn my head? Ginny, he said to me, Ginny, do you love him? I said, yes, Barry, of course I love him, he’s the father of my two lovely girls. And he said to me, he reached across the table in Thwaite’s, the cars were rushing by outside on the parkway, Gillian, Lord knows where they were going, all those cars in a rush, he reached across the table, and he covered my hand with his, and he said, ‘Does he love you, Ginny? Ginny, does, he still love you?’ and I smiled. I smiled, Gillian.”

“Well, why didn’t you... well, why... why didn’t you...?”

“Because what is there to say, Gillian? What is there to say about Meredith Burke, who ended the day of that boat ride so long ago by punching Barry Murdock in the nose and making him bleed? What is there to say about the man who stays away from this house more often than he—”