Songs in Ordinary Time Read online

  “Maybe you should see a doctor,” she said hesitantly.

  “That wouldn’t do any good,” he said with a long sigh. He turned and looked at her. “Besides, all the doctors I’ve seen don’t want to hear what’s really wrong.”

  In the uneasy silence she began to twist the apron string around her wrist, binding it tighter and tighter. “What’s that?” she asked, though she already knew.

  “I just want to touch you. That’s all I want. That’s all I think of every minute, all day long. And now here I am right next to you, and I can’t, because I’m not supposed to. Because it’s wrong. Because of who I am. Because you’re young. Because…because you might not even want me to.”

  She unwound the apron string, pulling it up into the air. Her mouth was dry. She kept swallowing. She heard his breathing quicken.

  “Alice! Do you know what I’m talking about? Do you?”

  She looked up and nodded.

  “Tell me what to do,” he whispered. “Is it all right?”

  She closed her eyes as he moved toward her.

  “Oh you sweet girl,” he kept whispering. “You sweet, sweet girl.” His entire body was trembling. His hands shook as they touched her face.

  She told her mother she was getting rides home with different girls from work. Night after night he was there. Always on time, freshly shaven, cheeks slapped pink with spicy cologne, glowing when she appeared, grinning at her so often that he was always swerving away from parked cars, from oncoming cars, jerking the wheel back into the lane. She rode gripping the door handle. He wore a white T-shirt, his black clerical pants, black shoes. His Roman collar and black shirt were in the glove compartment. The Monsignor was at Lake George with the Hinds family these last few days, and there was a visiting priest helping out, so he could come and go as he pleased. Mrs. Arkaday went to bed early, and he always left a note on his door telling when he’d return in case there were any sick calls.

  Even if there had been anything open this late at night, they really couldn’t be seen together in public, so they would drive around and talk; then, right before it was time to bring her home, he would stop on a back road and move across the long, deep seat to take her in his arms. He no longer trembled, but now his apprehension had taken the form of apology. Her back was against the door handle, he was sorry. She was rubbing her chin. Had he hurt her mouth? Was it too hot in here for her? Too cool? Too buggy? Was he too heavy? His hands too rough? His embrace too desperate? He was so afraid of hurting her, he said, afraid of forcing himself in any way on her.

  “Just tell me to stop,” he whispered at her wet ear. “And I will. That’s all you have to do,” he panted. The choice was hers. He was kissing her throat, her shoulder.

  Eyes closed, she shook her head, panting herself. Don’t talk, she wanted to say. His breathing was enough, his lungs, his heart against hers. The sound of his voice, his groaning, stirred her, blinded and deafened her. Words ruined it. Words turned them back into Alice Fermoyle and Father Gannon, both in uniform, in the Monsignor’s car, on a dark road dense with brambles and guilt. “I’ll do anything, anything you want,” he pleaded at her breast.

  She shook her head, her bra dangling loose.

  “Tell me. Please tell me.”

  Her eyes opened. Where were they? Was that a car coming? She raised her head to see, and he writhed with the sudden motion. She slid across the seat, half onto the floor. He was pulling down her pants and then she helped him with his.

  “My God,” he groaned when she held him. “Oh my God, I’ll do anything for you. Anything!” he cried with the anguished fervor of prayer.

  She pushed away and got back up on the seat. “No,” she whispered, pulling up her pants and reaching back awkwardly to hook her bra.

  “I’m sorry. I hurt you, didn’t I?” He reached to touch her, then drew back. “It’s all too fast, isn’t it? I’m sorry.” He covered his eyes. “I don’t know what I’m thinking of. You’re so young. My God, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Alice.”

  It was all right, she kept trying to tell him. She had gotten scared, that was all, afraid that someone might drive by and see them. She couldn’t explain it, but what she feared was this presence she felt, this sense of all that was between them. She said it again. “I guess I just panicked, that’s all.”

  “Oh God, I’ve got to be careful,” he said, buttoning her shirtfront as if she were a child. He straightened her collar and smoothed back her hair. “I won’t let anything hurt you, I promise.”

  As much as she believed him, she was still afraid.

  Norm sat up in bed when he heard Duvall’s car pull in. For the last two hours his mother had been pacing from room to room and up and down the stairs. At one point she had gotten into her car and roared off down the street, only to peel into the driveway soon after, slamming the car door, the back door, cupboard doors, as if doors both fueled and exorcised her rage. He knew better than to offer to help or ask what the problem was. You, she would say. You are the problem. You are the cause of all my pain. Once my pride and my hope, you are now my greatest disappointment. He was through battling with her. She was too shrewd, too quick to attack, and she was inexhaustible. And yet with Duvall she continued to be so passive, so gullible that it was not only bewildering, but, lately, frightening.

  It was one-thirty and Duvall was just getting back. Alice had arrived awhile before with some lame story about going to a girl’s house after work. His mother might believe it, but he didn’t. Whoever was driving Alice home was dropping her off at the corner. He’d look out the window and see his sister hurrying down the shadowy street, and he’d be filled with rage, wondering who the son of a bitch was who couldn’t even see her safely home. She denied it, but he was certain it was Lester. The fag probably had some weird rule about driving down a dead-end street after midnight.

  Duvall came in the back door. Norm tiptoed to the top of the stairs.

  “You said you’d be here by eight,” came his mother’s clipped voice as the light went on down in the kitchen. Glasses clinked. The refrigerator door squealed open.

  “I know,” Duvall sighed. “I just got further and further behind with every appointment.”

  “You could have called.”

  “I should have.” The refrigerator door opened again. “You’re right, I should have.” Footsteps. A drawer opened. The silverware drawer rattled open. “You look tired, Marie.” Duvall was talking with food in his mouth. Probably eating cold spaghetti, leering at her while he chewed, red sauce on his lips: the pig, the disgusting pig.

  “I feel as if everything’s starting to cave in on me. The first payment’s due. It’s all going crazy with the kids. I can’t think straight at work. Mr. Briscoe’s always on my back. ‘What’s wrong, what’s wrong,’ he keeps saying, as if I knew. As if I could tell him.”

  “You’re just tired,” Duvall said over a clinking fork.

  “No. No, I can feel it. Something’s going to happen. It’s like this big thing that keeps swelling up around me, and then you say you’ll be here no later than eight, so I count on that. I…I need that, do you understand?”

  “Yes, I do,” Duvall sighed. “I most certainly do.”

  “There’s something wrong, isn’t there? I can tell,” she said, her voice rising.

  Duvall insisted there was nothing wrong. She insisted there was.

  “Get him!” Norm said under his breath. He leaned over the railing. They were still in the kitchen. Their long shadows faced each other on the living-room wall at the bottom of the stairs.

  “I am just not accustomed to accounting for every waking moment of my day,” Duvall said.

  He tensed with the abrupt silence. Okay, now, Duvall was finally going to get his ass kicked right through that front door. And if he said one word to her, one word…

  “Of course you’re not. I’m sorry, Omar. I’m so sorry.”

  He threw up his arms in disbelief. Jesus Christ, that was her chance!

  Duvall s
ighed. “You see, it’s hard, Marie, hard being around a woman you…I don’t know how to put this…but it’s being here all the time and never being able to…You see, aside from being a very busy man right now, Marie, I’m a loving man, a robust man with a healthy appetite, and you can’t expect me to sit here night after night aching with desire. So I try to keep busy! Keep my mind off of…those kind of things, if you know what I mean.”

  “That asshole!” he groaned.

  “You’re a good Christian woman, Marie,” Duvall continued in a pained voice, “and I know you’ve been hurt, but there has to be more between a man and a woman than a peck on the lips and laying side by side. Comes a time when it just ain’t natural!” he said with a bawdy laugh that enraged Norm.

  Her reply was indistinct and small with apology. Duvall was whispering.

  He could hear a window being closed, the click of a light switch. Her flat shoes scuffed grittily along the floor toward the living room. He stiffened back. She wasn’t going to bring him up here to her bed, was she? And she couldn’t very well do it right out in the open down there on the couch. A chair scraped out from the table.

  “Come here,” Duvall coaxed through the darkened kitchen. “Come on, now. Oh,” he sighed. “You are light as a feather. Just as soft as fluff.”

  He waited until he couldn’t stand it another moment, then he came down the stairs. When he turned on the lamp in the living room they pulled apart. She started to get up from Duvall’s lap, but he held her there.

  “What do you want?” she said as Norm went to the refrigerator.

  “I’m hungry,” he said, taking ice cream from the freezer. Behind him he heard her trying to struggle free of Duvall. “Let her go, you asshole!” he said turning, wielding the quart box like a brick. “I said—”

  “Norm!” she cried, then burst into tears. She ran into the bathroom.

  “Now look what you’ve done,” Duvall said, coming toward him. “Your mother’s a good woman and she deserves better than that.”

  “Come on! Come on!” He held up his fists, but Duvall just shook his head, chuckling as he went past him to the bathroom door, where he called in softly to tell Marie he thought it best to leave now. He’d call her tomorrow.

  Norm hugged the pillow over his head so he wouldn’t have to hear his mother crying.

  Marie’s day had started badly. Alice had come in late last night, her cheeks raw with whisker burns while she continued to insist she had been hanging out with a bunch of girls from work. Instead of being contrite for his behavior last night, Norm had announced at breakfast that he wasn’t going to spend the rest of his summer grounded. He intended to go out that night. Actually, she’d been relieved. It would mean a little more privacy in the house for herself and Omar. But then, right before she’d left for work, Omar had come by to tell her his good news. Claire Mayo had agreed to give him his room back in the boardinghouse. “She thinks she’s so shrewd, but I know,” he said, laughing. “She figures by keeping track of me, she can keep track of her sister May’s franchise investment.”

  She watched him take his razor and shaving cream from the back of the toilet. “But you can stay here. You know I want you to,” she said.

  “I know that, but it’ll be better, Marie. Just for a time. Alice is staying away more and more. Norm and I could go to the mat any moment, you know that, and Benjy, my Lord, I worry about that boy. I think he needs his mother right now.”

  “No, what he needs is a man in his life.” Her fierce stare held his bright eyes.

  “Maybe, but not me, not right now. I seem to be the agitating factor in this whole situation, and so I’ll remove myself. But just for a time.” He took her chin and lowered his face to hers. “I’ll still be coming down that driveway right about suppertime. I just won’t be cluttering things up for a time, for the children, Marie.”

  For a time. She kept repeating the words. For a time. She had lost control these last few weeks. She would get it back. She would be just as strong, just as tough as she used to be, and she would get her life and her children back on track. So when Mr. Briscoe offered to take Benjy fishing the following Sunday, she accepted gratefully.

  All week long, whenever she reminded Benjy of his fishing date, he’d mutter, “I’m not going,” and she’d growl back, “Oh yes, you are!”

  Mr. Briscoe arrived early Sunday morning, laden with poles, tackle boxes, and bait. He was wearing a wide-brimmed canvas hat with feathery lures tucked into the leather band. Benjy would be right out, she said through a hard smile. He offered to wait in the car, and she could tell he was disappointed when she agreed.

  Benjy was in the bathroom. “I’m not going,” he said at the other side of the locked door.

  “You have to. He’s out there. He’s waiting.”

  “Tell him I’m sick.”

  “You’re not sick!”

  “I’m going to throw up.” He gagged.

  “Goddamn you, Benjy, open this door!”

  “I can’t,” he moaned. “I’m throwing up.”

  The retching intensified.

  “You’re not sick! You’re afraid. You can’t do this. You’ve got to go!”

  “I’m sick.”

  “Open this goddamn door or I’ll smash it open!” she cried, beating it with her fists and kicking it. The hollow door banged against the frame. Benjy’s gagging grew louder. Mr. Briscoe’s car idled in the driveway. “Benjy, how can you do this to me? That’s my boss out there! Don’t you understand? He’s out there, waiting!” The bones in her hands throbbed.

  “Mom! Stop it! Stop it!” Alice cried, pulling her away as Norm hurtled down the stairs in his underwear. “Jesus Christ!” he said, then raced to the door and told Benjy to come out.

  “Make him go,” she groaned.

  “I’ll tell him Benjy’s sick,” he said, starting for the front door.

  “No,” she said. That wasn’t what she meant. She couldn’t lift her head. Here it was, all over again, the never-ending chain of weakness and failure. “You make Benjy go with him.”

  “He’s sick, Mom.”

  She looked up now. “Don’t you understand? He needs to go. He has to!”

  “No, Mom, not like this, you can’t make him. You can’t!”

  “Yes, I can and I will!” she said, pushing past their reaching hands. “Benjy, you open this door!”

  It opened, and on the floor Benjy sagged against the spattered toilet bowl. The smell of sickness spewed out of the damp little bathroom. His skin was white and there were circles under his eyes.

  She burst into tears. “Now what do I do?” she sobbed. “I don’t know what to do.”

  “I’ll go,” Norm was saying. He ran upstairs to put on his pants, then ran back down, carrying his sneakers. “Me and Mr. Briscoe’ll have a good time. Everything’s going to be all right, Mom. You’ll see,” he said at the door.

  Here, in the middle of the lake, soft breezes undulated their drifting lines. Waves stirred by distant boats slapped the sides of Mr. Briscoe’s dinghy. Mr. Briscoe had packed ham-and-cheese sandwiches. There were crunchy dill pickles and hard-boiled eggs, peanuts, potato chips, cupcakes, and ice-cold sodas. Out here everything was different. The food tasted great, and Mr. Briscoe wasn’t half the creep Norm had always thought he was. “This is the life, isn’t it, Norm?” Mr. Briscoe sighed again. He stretched back in the boat, arms under his head, his hat brim covering his eyes, his white legs crossed at the ankles.

  “Sure is,” Norm sighed, squinting back at the crowded green haze of the shore.

  “Keeps me sane,” Mr. Briscoe said.

  “Fishing?” he asked, the conversational shorthand more natural as the day wore on.

  “Not even. The daydreaming.”

  “Yah?”

  “Sometimes things get too much, I put my head down on the desk and see myself out here just floating along, not a care in the world, not a one.”

  “Yah,” he said, eyes closed, his face and bare chest baking in the
sun.

  “Too bad about Benjy,” Mr. Briscoe said.

  “He’ll get over it.”

  “I know how it is.”

  “Probably the grippe or something.”

  “I mean his, uh, his problems.”

  Norm opened one eye into the searing sun. He clenched the oarlock. The asshole was still an asshole. “What problems?”

  “Well, you see, Norm, I caught Benjy taking something from the store. I told him it would be our little secret. I promised him.”

  He sat up, shielding his eyes. “Then how come you’re telling me?”

  “Because I know how it is for a boy, how hard it can get and how much it can hurt. A boy needs a man in his life.” He reached out to touch Norm’s knee. “Do you know what I’m talking about?”

  “No,” he said, moving so that Briscoe’s hand fell away. He felt drained by the ease of Mr. Briscoe’s familiarity.

  “Just try to be the man in your brother’s life, Norm. He needs that. And don’t say anything to your mother about the glove. I’ve been really worried about her lately. Really worried.”

  Suddenly the air glittered with sunlit spray as they heaved back and forth in the wake of a speedboat skimming past. Norm gripped the seat, feeling puny and naked. He had been the man in his brother’s and his mother’s life. Until Duvall.

  Benjy sat stiffly in Mr. Tuck’s living room. A cat jumped onto his lap and rubbed her back against him. Mr. Tuck’s little girls peered through the glass door. The taller child with the long sausage curls was making faces at him. Her younger sister giggled and held herself as if she had to go to the bathroom.

  Mr. Tuck had taken the afternoon off. He was all dressed up in his best suit, his only suit, the one he wore during the school year. He didn’t own a summer suit. All he needed at the swimming pool was a T-shirt and bathing suit. He came down the stairs, annoyed to see his daughters giggling at his first patient. Two quick whacks on their bottoms sent them howling through the house. He lifted the cat by the scruff of its neck and threw it out the door. He sat down across from the boy and tried to appear thoughtful, as if preoccupied with an earlier patient. This took the form of a scowl. He was grateful to his wife’s uncle Ferdinand Briscoe for this opportunity. It might be the beginning of everything, he’d told Grace in bed last night. Sending away for college catalogs for seniors and setting up class schedules for terrified freshmen was not enough. Who knows, he’d sighed to his wife, after the Fermoyle kid there just might be an avalanche of parents bringing their troubled offspring to his door for counseling. Exhausted, he steadied his frown on Benjy. He’d been up half the night figuring out how much of the house expenses, including the mortgage, would be tax-deductible if he used the living room as his office. One sixth of everything would amount to quite a savings.