John Gardner - October Light

Sally Abbott could say truthfully that she had never in her life been afraid of death, though she minded pain and was glad to know her death, if her plan failed, would be a quick one. Nor did she hesitate to admit to herself that, if her death must be by violence, she was glad to have her friends and relations out there, sitting in their cars, anxiously looking up through the rain toward her window, witnessing it. She’d always had, she knew — and Horace had often mentioned — a truly outrageous theatrical streak. Born in another time and place, she might well have been a Broadway actress. She’d been beautiful in her youth, she had photographs to prove it — though with a beauty not fashionable in the present age. She’d worn ringlets and high-necked, floor-length dresses, and had been forced, for the most part, to play demure, though she knew tricks, never doubt it, tricks with her hands, with her eyes and eyelashes, tricks of posture and of voice. Oh Lord but she might have been a wanton, as her father would say, if she’d only had the luck to be born in her own proper time! She regretted now that she hadn’t been a good deal more wanton than she was. Years and years ago, when she was seventeen, and the juices flowing so that sometimes she had thought she would simply faint … well, never mind. She had had her good times, there was no denying it, though never such times as she might have had. What she wouldn’t give to be growing up now, when a girl might go anywhere she pleased and do anything she liked! Those things in that novel, now, how incredible to realize that they were all, in a sense, true! Hundreds of people smoked pot every day, though she’d never gotten a chance to — she could count herself lucky she’d got a bit of sherry! — and hundreds of people had sex orgies. She’d read stories in magazines, seen movies and plays on television. There were even special magazines that brought “adventuresome adults” together — magazines kept locked behind the counter in grim old Vermont. She, Sally Abbott, had missed all that, such were the cruel mechanics of the universe, as her novel would say. Her body — once so beautiful that when she stood in her bedroom, gazing in the mirror, she had thought it tragic that she must cover it with clothes, deny it to men’s eyes — that once lovely body was withered away to pure horror now, and virtually unused, unexploited. Not, heaven knows, that she was dissatisfied with her life with Horace, in general. But to think that she had never had the chance to make love with a single, solitary other man, except the Beeman boy — and that (she had to smile) hardly counted. She’d waited too long — it was out in the granary beyond the cowbarn (torn down long since) — and before he could even get it out and into her he’d gone off all over himself, poor silly, and was so embarrassed he wouldn’t even touch her though she lay there panting and perspiring and almost dying. It had been a ghastly time, those “good old days” she’d grown up in. Walking home from school with the other boys and girls, she’d see a bull mount a cow, or often a cow mount another cow, and she must stare like an idiot at the ground and say nothing — even if some boy made so bold as to mention it — must bury her talents, hide her light under a bushel. She might have made up for it. She might have had a lover almost anytime she pleased, if she’d chosen to. There had always been attractive young men available — Horace’s assistants, people who made deliveries, neighbors, friends — even Estelle’s handsome Ferris. He’d eyed her more than once, don’t think he hadn’t, and she’d smiled, head tilted, not exactly saying “yes” but certainly not saying “watch yourself, buster!“—considering the matter from every angle, watching developments; and in the end, for Estelle’s sake, or so she’d always told herself — but more likely, she thought now, because she was tyrannized in a world of unwitting male chauvinists and old fashioned jealous wives — she had neglected to bring that suggestion in the air to a reality. No one was troubled with such scruples nowadays, not the youngsters, anyway. She thought of the party in San Francisco that was mentioned in the book. Incredibly enough, there were such parties; one heard of them often, or anyway read of them in magazines. And perhaps there had always been such parties, if it came to that. Ancient Rome, France, England … She’d read something somewhere about a Prime Minister in England, many years ago, who’d even had orgies with young boys. Even United States Presidents did it — all of them, probably, except possibly Wilson. Certainly Grover Cleveland and John F. Kennedy, probably Teddy Roosevelt — she’d heard something of the sort, if she wasn’t mistaken — and didn’t Thomas Jefferson have a beautiful Negro mistress whose name was Sally? God bless you, Sally, she thought, casting her blessing back through time, and smiled. She’d always liked Jefferson — she and Horace had visited Monticello once, and Horace, as usual, had taken wonderful slides. She hoped Thomas Jefferson’s Sally was very, very dark, and beautiful and kind. “Would you have minded terribly, Horace?” she whispered to the bedroom’s shadows, and thought sadly, “Yes, you would.” Well, never mind. The lives she might have lived, the lovers and children she might have had (Horace had gone through World War I and was afraid to have children; the world was, he thought, too dark a place), the career she might have had as an actress on the stage, or even as a prostitute in New Orleans — why not? why not? the young people were right! — she’d missed them all for all eternity, and no use regretting it. Horace had dozens of women, he’d told her. Prostitutes in France. It had hurt her terribly, fool that she’d been. She was glad for him now. Perhaps even then what she’d felt, really, was that his having prostitutes and her having no one but Horace — dear as he was — was bitterly unfair.

It was curious, now that she noticed it: she hadn’t thought of sex in quite some time, and here it was rising in her mind almost as strongly as it did when she was young. For that she could thank her trashy novel, and, by heaven, she did thank it. Shame was for old biddies! The reawakening was not just in her mind, in fact. Her whole body felt younger, sexually aglow, the girl rediscovering herself in the dry old woman.

There was very little time, but she moved without hurry, climbing the attic stairs, feeling for the string that turned the light on. She groped and groped and was beginning to think it must have broken when at last, lower than she’d expected, it came to her fingers. When she’d turned the light on she continued to the top and crossed, still unhurried, to the apples. One of the crates was less than half full and she picked it up then, changing her mind, set it down on the floor to drag it. It scraped quietly to the top of the stairs and — without hurry, as if time were in the hands of some invisible guardian who would not allow James to move till she was ready — she managed to get the crate down, stair by stair, and over near the foot of the bed.

Now things became more difficult. She stood at the door a moment, listening. He was still in the bathroom. Noises of his going to the toilet came to her, and sometimes a groan — poor old bastard! She saw in the mirror that she was smiling. On the way to the bed she paused and glanced out the window. The cars were still there. “Good,” she said aloud. Some of them were running, her friends trying to keep warm, no doubt. The rain was drizzling steadily, now and then shaken by a gust. Surely any moment the police would arrive. She hoped they did of course, yet in this mysterious state of serenity she didn’t really care — perhaps she even, with a part of her mind, had a hope that they’d arrive too late.