Clemmie, page 9
He would return her to the kids, gratefully. He felt a thousand years old. When the endless day finally ended, he drove home. He was too tired to eat. He showered, tumbled into an unmade bed and fell endlessly down black velvet cellar stairs.
He awakened at seven, after thirteen hours’ sleep. The muscles which had been sore from the ballet exercises she had made him do had stiffened. He got out of bed like an elderly man. He remembered the exercises she had told him would limber him up. He grunted his way through them and then took a very long and hot shower. They seemed to help. He went to a better place than usual and ate a monstrous breakfast. The previous day’s work was like a dream remembered.
On Tuesday he worked with a drive and intensity he had not been able to manage for weeks. Though numerous problems required his attention, he was able to handle those and also dig deeply into the back work that had piled up. He drove all of his people and drove Betty James particularly hard. Though she claimed to thrive on pressure, she was looking particularly harassed at the end of the day. At five-fifteen, when the others had gone and the only shop noise was on the double shift over in C Building, Betty leaned limply against the door frame and said, “Is that all, I hope? Uncle.”
“That’s all, Betty. And thanks.”
“If you aren’t a madman tomorrow too, Craig, I ought to be able to finish the typing by late afternoon, if both of us work on it.”
“No latrine-o-grams today?”
“Gosh, no!”
“When does your vacation come up? I’ve forgotten.”
“The last two weeks in August.”
“Where are you going?”
“Staying in town, I guess. We’ve got a nice backyard. It’s easier to take care of kids at home than on a trip. And Mother doesn’t like to travel. Well, good night now. Don’t you stay too long.”
“ ’Night, Betty.”
He sat at his desk for another fifteen minutes, with blank paper in front of him, and he devoted those fifteen minutes to Ober’s curious request to “Think wild. Think big.” He made aimless doodles. He crumpled the paper in disgust. The chair creaked as he leaned back. All through the long demanding day he had held image and memory of Clemmie Bennet back in a neatly sealed compartment of his mind. Now, with caution, he let her out. She stepped out of the compartment, smiling, vivid and nimble. He felt a hollowness in his stomach, a sudden heavy pressure in his loins, a weightiness. And he breathed lightly and quickly, using the shallow tops of his lungs. His heart raced. He could not have responded more quickly or violently had she suddenly slipped onto his lap. It frightened him. It was actual fright. The thrust of desire was as tangible as her hard, smooth legs.
He went out to Betty’s typewriter, rolled paper into it, and typed a letter to Maura. He made it quite a long letter. He knew he was saying very little, but at least it was long. He felt as though he were writing to a stranger. When he slipped it into an envelope, he knew the whole letter was a lie. But he sealed it, and when he left, he took it with him to mail.
As he was on a party line at his house, he phoned Clemmie from a drugstore booth.
“Yes?”
“Clemmie?”
“Oh, darling! You didn’t call yesterday.”
“I just barely got through the day.”
“Poor dear. Poor old beast.”
“What have you been doing?”
“I don’t know. I’ve gone all helter-skelter. I tried to paint, but you got completely in the way. Then I drove. I went out to the pike and I had the top down and I went just as fast as the bug would go.”
“Hey!”
“I’m a wonderful driver. I sang at the wind, and then I cried a little and had to go slower because it blurred the road. I cried a little while ago, too. First time in years. I’m so terribly happy.”
“Now wait a minute.”
“Can’t I be happy without permission? You have a nice voice on the phone, darling. What will we do tonight?”
“That wasn’t the agreement, was it?”
“Did we have an agreement? I forgot to take minutes of the meeting.”
“Clemmie, listen. I just want to get my stuff and—”
“Poor baffled beast. I know what you mean of course, darling. But I have an idea. Nothing like last time. There’s no harm in it. Nothing bawdy and decadent. Just boy and girl. I saw a fair. A county fair, forty miles away, with midway and cotton candy and rides, harness racing and square dancing. There’s no harm in that, is there? Is there?”
“But—”
“I hope you have a ratty work shirt and a corny hat. Because I have a beautifully faded cotton dress, dearest, and we can go sort of in costume and play my game, Fitzlovely. Please don’t disappoint me. I’ll pick you up at the corner of Federal and Butternut in one half of an hour.” She hung up. He could hear her voice, like a distant echo … “There’s no harm in it. There’s no harm in it.”
She swung the little car up to the curb and clambered over into the other bucket seat so that he could get behind the wheel. The black top was down. He felt extraordinarily conspicuous. He knew it would not be wise to be seen too often with this girl. Though Stoddard had a half-million inhabitants, if he was careless he would be seen by someone who knew Maura was away for the summer, someone who would make the correct inference and delight in passing the information along. He hesitated, but felt it would be awkward to try to put the top up. He grinned at her. She had a look of clean glowing youth, of virginal eagerness. She looked so young it touched his heart.
Her thin cotton dress was a blue and white print, quite faded, with a small edge of lace around the bodice. She had made a kerchief of a blue and white bandanna and it was knotted under her chin. He felt relieved to see that she had confined the sharp impudence of her breasts in a bra that rounded them.
“You don’t shift very well yet. Miss me?”
“Like being hit on the head with a hammer.”
“Get on the pike. The hat is perfect, ole Fitz. Look, I bought this because it suits.”
He glanced at the purse she held up. It was a confection of a purse, a shiny blue embellished thing, in the worst possible taste.
“Now drive fast, Craigman. Pour it to her. Goose this bucket.”
The wind sound was too loud to make conversation easy. It was not long before he found the driving rhythm of the little car. The steering was quick, and it sat deep and stable on the road.
He remembered a movie he had seen long ago. A horror movie, full of trick camera work. The villain had stood, and an alter ego had sort of slid out and away from him, stepped away and become another person, a younger person, smiling and plausible. Craig had the sensation that he had remained back in the house, with the news magazines, the television programs, the dusty silence of the house, the gargle and hum of the refrigerator. This other person had left him back there, this younger man. This was being twenty-four, with a scented date, money in hand, a place to go.
That other Craig Fitz, alone in the house on Federal Street, would never put on a work shirt with patched elbows and a billed khaki cap that smelled faintly of fish and take a young girl to a county fair. But this Craig Fitz could, and would.
Suddenly he felt very good, very strong and young and alive, and he laughed aloud. Anything that could make you feel this good and this alive could not be harmful.
“What’s funny?” she shouted against the wind roar.
“A man I used to know.”
“What about him?”
“Nothing about him. He’s just a silly bastard. Very self-important.”
He drove into the dusty, lumpy lot, and when he turned the motor off they could hear the sad nostalgia of the merry-go-round. They put the top up and locked the car. She took his arm and they walked toward the main gates. She took small steps, prim and shy, and he sensed she was fitting herself into a character.
“Pa wants you to find out if he deeds us that forty acres on the mill road, your father will give you the rest of the piece down to Thompson’s line.”
“Said he would, honey. Now hush and let’s have us some fun here.”
“Where do you figure on putting the house?”
“On the little rise near the southwest corner. Best place,” he said firmly.
“Maybe it’s better by the crick,” she said dubiously.
He paid their way at the main gate. The midway was crowded. He could hear the talkers, the music, the mumbling of the crowd, the ratchety slam of the rides and yelp of the women. They played her game as they toured the fair grounds. They built new identities, staying within the rules. He took her around the corner of a tent and kissed her, and somehow she made her lips dainty and fresh and shy for him.
The summer dusk came and the lights went on. They saw the exhibits, rode on the crack-the-whip and the caterpillar, and banged into each other enthusiastically on the dodge-em cars. There was a group of young and husky boys, sleeves rolled high and tight over bulging bronze biceps. They dominated the dodge-em car rink, ganging up on the prettiest girls. Clemmie had almost no competition. They drove into her grimly, riding her off into corners, swinging around and coming back to thump her again just as she was getting clear of the boards. Clemmie squealed in a manner that Craig guessed, sourly, was most satisfactory to them. Craig could not duplicate their dexterity with the little electric cars. When he tried to get near Clemmie, he was thumped away expertly. He was glad when that ride was over. As they left, one of the boys who had been most diligent about whacking into Clemmie strolled along a little behind them, thumbs tucked in the belt of his jeans, arm muscles tensed for display, hair and brows burned to the color and texture of straw. He knew Clemmie was aware of her new admirer. Her voice became more clear and high, she giggled more frequently, and twitched her hips as she walked. It annoyed him. He maintained the pretense of the game, but his responses were glum and uninspired. He thought she was acting like a damn filly with a frail fence between her and the stallion.
She wanted a ride on the merry-go-round. She sat primly sidesaddle on her wooden horse, one on the outside. Craig took the one next to hers. They went up and down in opposite rhythm, suspended from the shiny brass poles. Craig realized he had made a tactical error. The husky boy took the horse directly in front of Clemmie’s. Sweat stuck his khaki shirt to his thick back muscles. Both the boy and Clemmie reached daringly for the rings. Clemmie whooped each time she snared an iron ring, and the boy grinned back at her. Near the end of the ride he reached and Craig saw that it was a gold ring. The boy almost took it and pulled his hand back. Clemmie hooked it and yelped and waved it at Craig, her face alight. “Free ride! I got a free ride!”
The boy spun around, laced his hands behind his neck, leaned against the brass pole, crossed his legs, resting them along the rump of the wooden horse, and grinned at Clemmie as he went up and down in perfect balance. Craig felt depressed, asinine in his work shirt and billed cap. He felt as though he should be riding in one of the unmoving swan chairs with the aunts and grandmothers. He paid for another ticket and endured Clemmie’s free ride. The boy ahead of her showed off until the attendant made him stop his acrobatics. Clemmie squealed with delight at each new trick, and Craig found himself mildly despising her.
When they got off, the boy, bolder now, sauntered along beside Clemmie and said, “It’ll get a lot better later on. You going to the dance?”
Clemmie turned to him a little too sweetly and said, “We are, aren’t we, dear?”
“I don’t know.”
“Me and my brother got some damn good corn stashed in the car if you folks want a drink. It goes down smooth.”
Craig stopped walking, holding Clemmie’s arm. The boy came to a stop, his eyes on Clemmie.
“No thank you,” Craig said.
The boy looked at him. He shifted his feet uneasily. He half shrugged and said, “See you around.” He moved away slowly, holding his shoulders very square.
“Honey! It would have been real corn. I’ve never had any.”
“Too bad.”
“What’s making you so grim?”
“Maybe I’m the sensitive type. Maybe it offends me to watch you waggling your butt at a plow jockey.”
Her eyes narrowed and she thrust her chin forward. “We came here to have a good time. You’ve spoiled the game. You’re acting like a—” She stopped suddenly and eyes went wide and her mouth widened in a pleased smile and she took hold of his wrist hard and gave it a little shake. “Oh, you great lamb! You’re jealous! Over that big baby with his cute muscles.”
“That big baby is going to get full of corn, and when he does, he’s going to be as easy to stop as a runaway truck.”
“But we have to go to the dance.”
“No thanks.”
“Please. If there’s any kind of trouble, we can leave right away. Now I want root beer. A big mug with that creamy foam on top, and then I want to go on that ferris wheel and hold hands and be kissed when we’re right at the very top. Then after that I want to go see those awful things in the bottles. Come on.”
He kissed her when their chair was at the very top of the wheel. It was full dark. They could see all the lights of the fairgrounds, see traffic on the pike. He felt good again, and felt ashamed of the way he had acted.
The dance was held in an open pavilion. Electric bulbs in paper Japanese lanterns were strung criss-cross under the eaves. It cost fifty cents a head to get into the pavilion. The man at the small gate stamped the back of your hand. There was a low wall around the four sides, and folding chairs aligned against the wall, facing inward. The band was on a raised platform in one corner. They would play one set of round dances, sodden, thumpy, uninspired fox trots and waltzes, then a set of square dances. The band came alive for the square dances, fiddles squalling, caller yelling incomprehensible directions through the metallic blur of the P.A. system, spectator heels thumping the wooden floor, the dancing groups stamping in unison.
He danced a round set with her and was surprised to find she was not easy to dance with. She had a tendency to lead, and she was more resistant than pliant in his arms. They sat out the square set, and she watched avidly, leaning forward on her chair, heel tapping, lips parted.
When the next square set came she said, “Let’s try!”
“Not for me. I don’t know what he’s saying or what to do next.”
“They all know. We can do it.”
“Let’s just watch. God, it’s fascinating.”
The groups were forming. He looked away from her for a moment. When he looked back she was gone. The husky boy was leading her onto the floor. She looked back at him with expression and gesture to show that she was helpless.
He half stood up to go after her when the music started. He sat down again. He watched her. She was in a set with the huskies from the dodge-em rink, four of them, and three slim young girls. Of all the groups, they were the wildest, the most muscular. The girls were swung completely off the floor, hurled from man to man with a roughness almost brutal. Clemmie handled herself without confusion, controlled and graceful. When the other girls flapped like rag dolls, Clemmie could not strike a pose without grace. He looked at all the flushed faces. He looked out into the night. On the dark side of the pavilion three men passed a bottle around, each wiping the neck on the palm of his hand, keeping it tilted for long seconds. After the second circuit they tossed the bottle away. It gleamed in the light.
After the set the boy came back with Clemmie, flushed, proud and swaggering, just slightly unsteady on his feet.
“Craig, this is Mickey.” Craig was not set for the childishness of matching grips. His knuckles ground together and he barely kept from wincing visibly.
“Clemmie can really fling that thing,” Mickey said. “She’s got it. By God one time there she got aholt of me and if I wasn’t set right I’da got flang out into the weeds.” He squeezed Clemmie’s arm. “Clemmie, you got a muscle on you there. Where’d you get all that?”
“Pa says a girl’s got to be strong. He had me chinning myself when I was so high.”
Mickey lowered his voice. “Come on out, folks. I know where my brother is.”
Craig was very dubious about it, but he fell in with it. They went around to the dark side of the pavilion. Mickey spoke to a group of half-seen figures under the trees. “Ralph? Get on over here, boy. Bring the juice.”
Ralph came over. He was an older, shorter, wider version of Mickey. “This here is Clemmie and this is her friend Craig. I want they should sample some of that smooth corn.”
“You got a cup for the girl?”
“I can drink out of the bottle.”
She took the pale, unlabeled bottle. She wiped the neck professionally, tilted it high. Craig could see her pale throat work, and he counted five swallows. She lowered it and said, “Haaah.”
Ralph said, “Mickey, you got you a drinkin’ woman here. Here you go, Mr. Craig.” He took the bottle from Clemmie and gave it to Craig. He tilted it up. It was lukewarm, and it burned like battery acid. Three swallows was all he could manage before he felt his gag reflex threaten to work. Mickey took the bottle, carefully braced his feet, tilted it and finished it.
“Well damn you,” Ralph said. “You’re a damn hog, Mickey.”
“Go get another jug. You saving it all for yourself?”
Ralph disappeared into the shadows. The band was plodding its way through Paper Moon. Ralph came back with another bottle thumped the bottom of it with the heel of his hand and pulled the cork with his teeth. “My turn,” he said, and drank sparingly.
He held it out toward Clemmie.
“Well, just to be sociable,” she said. And again she drank five full swallows.
