Barbara Greer by Stephen Birmingham Read Free Book Online Page A

said.
    â€˜Why do you put up with her?’
    â€˜She’s an old friend,’ she said simply.
    â€˜I’ve got old friends. They don’t act like that.’
    â€˜I know.’
    She finished putting up her hair and turned off the light. She undressed in the dark, placing her clothes across the chair. Then she got into bed beside him.
    â€˜I’m sorry,’ she said.
    â€˜Gracious living!’ he said.
    â€˜Please. I feel sorry for her.’
    â€˜So you said.’
    â€˜She told me the most dreadful thing this afternoon. Do you want to know what she told me?’
    â€˜Not very much.’
    â€˜She’s had this—this affair with a doctor. Not the Jewish one she mentioned, but another one. She got pregnant by him.’
    â€˜Of course,’ he said.
    â€˜She wanted an abortion. He said he could do it himself—knew how, that is—but he wouldn’t. He said he’d help pay for it. Not pay for it—just help pay! He sent her to someone he knew—not even a doctor but some old horrible nurse who’d been in jail once. Nancy went to her. The nurse did it in her kitchen. How horrible! The nurse’s old mother was right in the room, smoking a cigarette and playing solitaire! Then the old mother had to come—to hold Nancy down. The nurse said, “If you scream I’ll hit you.” And Nancy did scream and the nurse hit her and blacked her eye. Oh, Carson! I don’t think I’ve ever heard anything so horrible ever, in my whole life!’
    â€˜Well,’ Carson said, ‘yes. It is horrible. But typical.’
    â€˜Oh, darling, don’t say that!’
    â€˜It is, though.’
    â€˜Afterward, something—an infection—developed. She went to the hospital. They cut her all up, Carson. It ended up being a hysterectomy!’
    For a while they lay silently in the darkness.
    Then Barbara said, ‘Carson?’
    â€˜What?’
    â€˜How temporary is this place? Locustville.’
    â€˜What do you mean?’
    â€˜How temporary? How many more years?’
    â€˜Two or three.’
    â€˜Oh, God! That’s not temporary. That’s forever!’
    There was another silence. Then: ‘Are you crying?’
    â€˜No.’
    And then there was another, longer silence.
    Then Barbara said, ‘Carson? We’re not like that, are we? We’re not horrible or sordid or anything like that, are we? We have two beautiful children, don’t we, and there’s really nothing unhappy about our lives, is there? There’s nothing mean or selfish or cruel …’
    â€˜Of course not,’ he said.
    â€˜Of course not,’ she repeated. Then, ‘Oh, I wish you weren’t going away tomorrow!’
    â€˜So do I. But I’ve got to.’
    â€˜You were right,’ she said, ‘this afternoon in the car. I was wrong, Carson. I shouldn’t have let her stay. I see that now, Carson. She ruined our last evening together. I’m sorry.’
    â€˜That’s all right.’
    â€˜It isn’t. I’m sorry and I’m sorry I complained about Locustville tonight. I know we’ll leave eventually, and as you always say, when we’re here we should try to be happy …’
    â€˜Yes.’ he said.
    â€˜And we are happy, aren’t we? Most of the time?’
    â€˜Yes.’
    â€˜And you were right to remember the rules,’ she said.
    A little later she put her arms around him. ‘Are you awake?’ she asked.
    But he was asleep.
    Her eyes were growing accustomed to the darkness.
    The nights in Locustville, Pennsylvania were certainly the most beautiful time. They had, in summer at least, much of the quality of Italian nights that she remembered from trips to Europe, summer trips, with her mother and father when she was a girl. Italian—in that the darkness had a colour to it, a prismatic, purplish colour. From the bedroom which faced a corner of the patio and