Too Much Happiness Part 6

"Not her. Or if she did and I tried anything she'd be awake like a shot."

Just to give Mrs. Winner some practice, as Nina said, we left the house one evening and took a bus to the city library. From the bus window we watched the long black car having to slow and dawdle at every bus stop, then speed up and stay with us. We had to walk a block to the library, and Mrs. Winner pa.s.sed us and parked beyond the front entrance, and watched us-we believed-in her rearview mirror.

I wanted to see if I could check out a copy of The Scarlet Letter The Scarlet Letter, which was required for one of my courses. I could not afford to buy one, and the copies from the college library were all out. Also I had an idea of getting a book out for Nina-the sort of book that showed simplified charts of history.

Nina had bought the textbooks for the courses she was auditing. She had bought notebooks and pens-the best fountain pens of that time-in matching colors. Red for Middle-American Pre-Columbian Civilizations, blue for the Romantic Poets, green for Victorian and Georgian English Novelists, yellow for Fairy Tales from Perrault to Andersen. She went to every lecture, sitting in the back row because she thought that was the proper place for her. She spoke as if she enjoyed walking through the Arts building with the throng of other students, finding her seat, opening her textbook at the page specified, taking out her pen. But her notebooks remained empty.

The trouble was, as I saw it, that she had no pegs to hang anything on. She did not know what Victorian meant, or Romantic, or Pre-Columbian. She had been to j.a.pan, and Barbados, and many of the countries in Europe, but she could never have found those places on a map. She wouldn't have known whether or not the French Revolution came before the First World War.

I wondered how these courses had been chosen for her. Did she like the sound of them, had Mr. Purvis thought she could master them, or had he perhaps chosen them cynically, so that she would soon get her fill of being a student?

When I was looking for the book I wanted, I caught sight of Ernie Botts. He had an armful of mysteries, which he had picked up for an old friend of his mother's. He had told me how he always did that, just as he always played checkers on Sat.u.r.day mornings with a crony of his father's out in the War Veterans' Home.

I introduced him to Nina. I had told him about her moving in, but nothing, of course, about her former or even her present life.

He shook Nina's hand and said he was pleased to meet her and asked at once if he could give us a ride home.

I was about to say no thanks, we'd get a ride on the bus, when Nina asked him where his car was parked.

"In the back," he said.

"Is there a back door?"

"Yes, yes. It's a sedan."

"No, I didn't mean that," said Nina nicely. "I meant in the library. In the building."

"Yes. Yes, there is," said Ernie in a fl.u.s.ter. "I'm sorry, I thought you meant the car. Yes. A back door in the library. I came in that way myself. I'm sorry." Now he was blus.h.i.+ng, and he would have gone on apologizing if Nina had not broken in with a kind, even flattering, laugh.

"Well then," she said. "We can go out the back door. So that's settled. Thanks."

Ernie drove us home. He asked if we would like to detour by his place, for a cup of coffee or a hot chocolate.

"Sorry, we're sort of in a rush," said Nina. "But thanks for asking."

"I guess you've got homework."

"Homework, yes," she said. "We sure do."

I was thinking that he had never once asked me to his house. Propriety. One girl, no. Two girls, okay.

No black car across the street when we said our thanks and good nights. No black car when we looked through the attic window. In a short time the phone rang, for Nina, and I heard her saying, on the landing, "Oh no, we just went in the library and got a book and came straight home on the bus. There was one right away, yes. I'm fine. Absolutely. Night-night."

She came swaying and smiling up the stairs.

"Mrs. Winner's got herself in hot water tonight."

Then she made a little leap and started to tickle me, as she did every once in a while, without the least warning, having discovered that I was extraordinarily ticklish.

One morning Nina did not get out of bed. She said she had a sore throat, a fever.

"Touch me."

"You always feel hot to me."

"Today I'm hotter."

It was a Friday. She asked me to call Mr. Purvis, to tell him she wanted to stay here for the weekend.

"He'll let me-he can't stand anybody being sick around him. He's a nut that way."

Mr. Purvis wondered if he should send a doctor. Nina had foreseen that, and told me to say she just needed to rest, and she'd phone him, or I would, if she got any worse. Well then, tell her to take care, he said, and thanked me for phoning, and for being a good friend to Nina. And then, having started to say good-bye, he asked me if I would care to join him for Sat.u.r.day night's dinner. He said he found it boring to eat alone.

Nina had thought of that too.

"If he asks you to go and eat with him tomorrow night, why don't you go? There's always something good to eat on Sat.u.r.day nights, it's special."

On Sat.u.r.days the cafeteria was closed. The possibility of meeting Mr. Purvis disturbed and interested me.

"Should I really? If he asks?"

So I went upstairs, having agreed to dine with Mr. Purvis-he had actually said "dine"-and asked Nina what I should wear.

"Why worry now? It's not till tomorrow night."

Why worry indeed? I had only one good dress, the turquoise crepe that I had bought with some of my scholars.h.i.+p money, to wear when I gave the valedictory address at the high school commencement exercises.

"And anyway it doesn't matter," said Nina. "He'll never notice."

Mrs. Winner came to get me. Her hair was not white, but platinum blond, a color that to me certified a hard heart, immoral dealings, a long b.u.mpy ride through the sordid back alleys of life. Nevertheless I pressed down on the handle of the front door to ride beside her, because I thought that was the decent and democratic thing to do. She let me do this, standing beside her, then briskly opened the back door.

I had thought that Mr. Purvis must live in one of the stodgy mansions surrounded by acres of lawns and unfarmed fields north of the city. It was probably the racehorses that had made me think so. Instead, we travelled east through prosperous but not lordly streets, past brick and mock-Tudor houses with their lights on in the early dark and their Christmas lights blinking already out of the snow-capped shrubbery. We turned in at a narrow driveway between high hedges and parked in front of a house that I recognized as modern modern because of its flat roof and long wall of windows and the fact that the building material appeared to be cement. No Christmas lights here, no lights of any kind. because of its flat roof and long wall of windows and the fact that the building material appeared to be cement. No Christmas lights here, no lights of any kind.

No sign of Mr. Purvis either. The car slid into a bas.e.m.e.nt cavern, we rode in an elevator up one floor and came out in a hall dimly lit and furnished like a living room with upholstered hard chairs and little polished tables, and mirrors and rugs. Mrs. Winner waved me ahead of her through one of the doors that opened off this hall, into a windowless room with a bench and hooks around the walls. It was just like a school cloakroom except for the polish on the wood and carpet on the floor.

"Here is where you leave your clothes," Mrs. Winner said.

I removed my boots, I stuffed my mittens into my coat pockets, I hung my coat up. Mrs. Winner stayed with me. I supposed she had to, to show me which way to take next. There was a comb in my pocket and I wanted to fix my hair, but not with her watching. And I did not see a mirror.

"Now the rest."

She looked straight at me to see if I understood, and when I appeared not to (though in a sense I did, I understood but hoped to have made a mistake) she said, "Don't worry, you won't be cold. The house is well heated throughout."

I did not yet move to obey, and she spoke to me casually, as if she could not be bothered with contempt.

"I hope you're not a baby."

I could have reached for my coat, at that point. I could have demanded to be driven back to the rooming house. If that was refused, I could have walked back on my own. I remembered the way we had come and though it would have been cold to walk, it would have taken me less than an hour.

I don't suppose that the outside door would have been locked, or that there would have been any effort to bring me back.

"Oh no," said Mrs. Winner, seeing I still did not make a move. "Do you think you're made any different from the rest of us? You think I haven't seen all you got before now?"

It was partly her contempt that made me stay. Partly. That and my pride.

I sat down. I removed my shoes. I unfastened and peeled down my stockings. I stood up and unzipped then yanked off the dress in which I had delivered the valedictory address with its final words of Latin. Ave atque vale Ave atque vale.

Still reasonably covered by my slip, I reached back and unhooked the fastenings of my bra.s.siere, then somehow hauled the whole thing free of my arms and around to the front, to be discarded in one movement. Next came my garter belt, then my panties-when they were off I balled them up and hid them under the bra.s.siere. I put my feet back into my shoes.

"Bare feet," said Mrs. Winner, sighing. It seemed the slip was too tiresome for her to mention, but after I had again taken my shoes off she said, "Bare. Do you know the meaning of the word? Bare."

I pulled the slip over my head and she handed me a bottle of lotion and said, "Rub yourself with this."

It smelled like Nina. I rubbed some on my arms and shoulders, the only parts of myself that I could touch with Mrs. Winner standing there watching, and then we went out into the hall, my eyes avoiding the mirrors, and she opened another door and I went into the next room alone.

It had never occurred to me that Mr. Purvis might be waiting in the same naked condition as myself, and he was not. He wore a dark blue blazer, a white s.h.i.+rt, an ascot scarf (I did not know it was called that), and gray slacks. He was hardly taller than I was, and he was thin and old, mostly bald, and with wrinkles in his forehead when he smiled.

It had not occurred to me either that the undressing might be a prelude to rape, or to any ceremony but supper. (And indeed it was not to be, to judge by the appetizing smells in the room and the silver-lidded dishes on the sideboard.) Why had I not thought of such a thing? Why was I not more apprehensive? It had something to do with my ideas about old men. I thought that they were not only incapable but too worn down, made too dignified-or depressed-by various trials and experiences and their own unsavory physical decline to have any interest left. I wasn't stupid enough to think that my being undressed had nothing to do with the s.e.xual uses of my body, but I took it more as a dare than as a preliminary to further trespa.s.s, and my going along with it had more to do with the folly of pride, as I have said, more to do with some shaky recklessness than with anything else.

Here I am, I might have wished to say, in the skin of my body which does not shame me any more than the bareness of my teeth. Of course that was not true and in fact I had broken out in a sweat, although not for fear of any violation.

Mr. Purvis shook hands with me, making no sign of awareness that I lacked clothing. He said it was a pleasure for him to meet Nina's friend. Just as if I was somebody Nina had brought home from school.

Which in a way was true.

An inspiration to Nina, he said I was.

"She admires you very much. Now, you must be hungry. Shall we see what they've provided for us?"

He lifted the lids and set about serving me. Cornish hens, which I took to be pygmy chickens, saffron rice with raisins, various finely cut vegetables fanned out at an angle and preserving their color more faithfully than the vegetables that I regularly saw. A dish of muddy green pickles and a dish of dark red preserve.

"Not too much of these," Mr. Purvis said of the pickles and the preserve. "A bit hot to start with."

He ushered me back to the table, turned again to the sideboard and served himself sparingly, and sat down.

There was a pitcher of water on the table, and a bottle of wine. I got the water. Serving me wine in his house, he said, would probably be cla.s.sed as a capital offense. I was a little disappointed as I had never had a chance to drink wine. When we went to the Old Chelsea, Ernie always expressed his satisfaction that no wine or liquor was served on Sundays. Not only did he refuse to drink, on Sundays or any other day, but he disliked seeing others do it.

"Now Nina tells me," said Mr. Purvis, "Nina tells me that you are studying English philosophy, but I think it must be English and philosophy and philosophy, am I right? Because surely there is not so great a supply of English philosophers?"

In spite of his warning, I had taken a dollop of green pickle on my tongue and was too stunned to reply. He waited courteously while I gulped down water.

"We start with Greeks. It's a survey course," I said, when I could speak.

"Oh yes. Greece. Well as far as you've got with the Greeks, who is your favorite-oh, no, just a minute. It will fall apart more easily like this."

There followed a demonstration of separating and removing the meat from the bones of a Cornish hen-nicely done, and without condescension, rather as if it was a joke we might share.

"Your favorite?"

"We haven't got to him yet, we're doing the pre-Socratics," I said. "But Plato."

"Plato is your favorite. So you read ahead, you don't just stay where you're supposed to? Plato. Yes, I could have guessed that. You like the cave?"

"Yes."

"Yes of course. The cave. It's beautiful, isn't it?"

When I was sitting down, the most flagrant part of me was out of sight. If my b.r.e.a.s.t.s had been tiny and ornamental, like Nina's, instead of full and large nippled and bluntly serviceable, I could have been almost at ease. I tried to look at him when I spoke, but against my will I would suffer waves of flus.h.i.+ng. When this happened I thought his voice changed slightly, becoming soothing and politely satisfied. Just as if he'd made a winning move in a game. But he went on talking nimbly and entertainingly, telling me about a trip he had made to Greece. Delphi, the Acropolis, the famous light that you believed couldn't be true but was true, the bare bones of the Peloponnesus.

"And then to Crete-do you know about the Minoan civilization?"

"Yes."

"Of course you do. Of course. And you know the way the Minoan ladies dressed?"

"Yes."

I looked into his face this time, his eyes. I was determined not to squirm away, not even when I felt the heat on my throat.

"Very nice, that style," he said almost sadly. "Very nice. It's odd the different things that are hidden in different eras. And the things that are displayed."

Dessert was vanilla custard and whipped cream, with bits of cake in it, and raspberries. He ate only a few bites of his. But after failing to settle down enough to enjoy the first course, I was determined not to miss out on anything rich and sweet, and I fixed my appet.i.te and attention on every spoonful.

He poured coffee into small cups and said that we would drink it in the library.

My b.u.t.tocks made a slapping noise, as I loosened myself from the sleek upholstery of the dining room chair. But this was almost covered up by the clatter of the delicate coffee cups on the tray in his shaky old grasp.

Libraries in a house were known to me only from books. This one was entered through a panel in the dining room wall. The panel swung open without a sound, at a touch of his raised foot. He apologized for going ahead of me, as he had to do since he carried the coffee. To me it was a relief. I thought that our backsides-not just mine but everybody's-were the most beastly part of the body.

When I was seated in the chair he indicated, he gave me my coffee. It was not so easy to sit here, out in the open, as it had been at the dining room table. That chair had been covered with smooth striped silk, but this one was upholstered in some dark plush material, which p.r.i.c.kled me. An intimate agitation was set up.

The light in this room was brighter than it had been in the dining room, and the books lining the walls had an expression more disturbing and reproving than the look of the dim dining room with its landscape pictures and light-absorbing panels.

For a moment, as we left one room for the other, I had had some notion of a story-the sort of story I had heard of but that few people then got the chance to read-in which the room referred to as a library would turn out to be a bedroom, with soft lights and puffy cus.h.i.+ons and all manner of downy coverings. I did not have time to figure out what I would do in such circ.u.mstances, because the room we were in was plainly nothing but a library. The reading lights, the books on the shelves, the invigorating smell of coffee. Mr. Purvis pulling out a book, riffling through its leaves, finding what he wanted.

"It would be very kind if you would read to me. My eyes are tired in the evenings. You know this book?"

A Shrops.h.i.+re Lad.

I knew it. In fact I knew many of the poems by heart.

I said that I would read.

"And may I ask you please-may I ask you please-not to cross your legs?"

My hands were trembling when I took the book from him.

"Yes," he said. "Yes."