Present Tense Read online

  “Know about me! I haven’t done anything wrong. You’re the one who’s done wrong.”

  “People won’t see it that way.”

  My face was streaming wet, tears of impotence and fury.

  “Listen man. You were sentenced for assault on me. Don’t try to tell it any other way!”

  “I don’t have any convictions, baby. My record is clean.”

  I could take no more. I heaved the heavy door open, and ran across the lot to the clubhouse.

  6

  I went into the washroom, cleaned up my face and set my clothes straight. On the drive home my tear-swollen eyes, and unsteady hands, set the Jeep shuddering and sliding on the blacktop. Greg’s car was in the drive when I arrived. He had apparently come straight from the office instead of going to Flinty’s. He noticed my clothes, and my agitation, and came up to me and put his arms around me.

  “Hey, who’s a knockout?”

  “I’ve just been to the club.”

  “Fine, sugar. Fine. You look good. That’s the outfit Penny sent you, right? The one you said you never go anywhere smart enough to wear.”

  “Compete with Kitty or die.”

  “What’s the trouble?” he asked, holding me at arm’s length.

  He took my chin and forced me to look at him.

  “Is there somebody else?”

  He fired the words like a rifle shot, flinching as he pulled the trigger. My behaviour had created this doubt. In trying to excuse my worries with overwork, I hadn’t thought sufficiently about the impression I was really creating.

  “God, no! I love you Greg and I’ve never loved anybody else!” I said, burying my face in his shoulder.

  Greg released himself, went into the lounge, and poured himself a shot of bourbon from the liquor cabinet, a sure sign that he was disturbed. He came back to the doorway, leaning on the frame, sipping the drink.

  “You’re a very attractive woman, Loren. Men are always looking at you. I notice it.”

  I felt drained of energy. I couldn’t embark on the monstrosity of the Chadwin story.

  “I just feel a bit rough at the moment, Greg. Could you fix me a drink as well?”

  What did Chadwin mean when he said, Once people know about you? As though I had a past to be ashamed of !

  I had a restless night, thinking about packing up the family and running, but in the headachey sourness of dawn, I decided I was going to take control. The stolen minutes at Abbott’s Point had been useless. I had utterly failed to get my point across.

  On Monday morning, I phoned Chadwin from my office, my gut wrenching. He came on the line with a smarmy tone.

  I said flatly, “Look, I don’t want to leave it the way we did at the club.”

  Chadwin’s lascivious laughter jarred me. “Neither do I honey, neither do I!”

  “We need to understand each other if we’re going to live in the same environment,” I said slowly, almost spelling it out.

  “Yes, of course we do,” Chadwin replied, with mock-seriousness.

  “Well, the understanding has to be this – I’ll lay it out for you: I don’t want to ever have anything to do with you. Do you get that? Do you understand?”

  “I hear you,” he said with a fake yawn.

  “I’ll keep clear of you and your friends, and I want you to do the same.”

  “Not possible. For example, Marty Kutash.”

  “I can gladly keep away from him, and I will.”

  “It won’t work, Loren.”

  “If you come near me again, I’ll call the police and have you charged with harassment. I swear I will!”

  “You’ll land yourself in a heap of trouble if you do that. Yes, mam. You could get your reputation in this town kinda sullied.”

  “I swear to God I’ll have you charged!”

  I cut off the call. I had delivered my message in a low, I suppose tremulous voice, which concealed my temper. Afterwards, I mouthed curses on Chadwin silently, my head in my hands. And there was a streak of anxiety too. What could Chadwin do?

  Then I noticed that Sally was standing by the open door. She was free to come in when she liked, and might even have heard part of the conversation.

  “Can I help, Loren?”

  “Must have been a bug in my breakfast fruit. Could you get me a tablet, Sally?”

  I remained at my desk, and went over the encounter again. I had hoped, simplistically, that with one virulent dose of telling, I could relegate Chadwin to the back of my mind. I had hoped that he could fade into a figure in the crowd, a name amongst many in a conversation. I could not be sure I had succeeded. I had to hope that Chadwin’s cruel desire to intimidate somebody whom he mistakenly took to be in his power, would now fade. I couldn’t have made myself plainer. And there was nothing in what I had said, nothing, which could conceivably be interpreted as giving Chadwin any encouragement. I hoped fervently that I might never hear from him again.

  In the next few days, I began to look on the optimistic side. I might, despite Chadwin’s posturings, have won. Perhaps there was a future for the Stamford family in Cedar Falls. But I was too dispirited to go to Baltimore with Greg and the children on their annual visit to see his parents. I felt the need to be alone, and I told Greg that I would stay at home.

  I thought I might go up to the lake at the weekend, after Greg had gone. I longed for peace away from work, away from the children, and even Greg. Grace would be busy with her own interests in Chesterfield over the weekend, so ‘Pine Hill’ would be mine. I made a messy explanation to Greg of my reasons, aware at the same time that I was chipping away at our warm relationship. I came out with a touch of finishing the mothballing, and wanting to think work problems through. He looked at me searchingly.

  “And you’re going up to the lake this weekend as well.”

  He was suggesting that my explanation wasn’t good enough; that I had an ulterior motive.

  Greg usually took a week of his leave every year with his mother. At first, we all used to visit, but I didn’t get along with Mrs Stamford senior, and stopped going regularly. She was what neighbours call a dear old lady, charming and patient. But she was tolerated rather than loved by her own blood. She found flaws in everybody, and mine were irreparable. Despite my devotion to Greg, my performance as a mother, my intelligence, my good appearance and my career, I was always, to her, the daughter of an unemployed auto-worker from Tarrytown. In my present low state I couldn’t subject myself to Mrs Stamford.

  Greg knew my reservations about staying with his mother very well, and a small excuse to go to Chateaugay on my own would have sufficed. I over-egged it by going on about refuse attracting rats, and the rotten bananas I had found in the folds of one of the tents. I’m not a great house-keeper, so this didn’t sound quite like me. What Greg might have been thinking – and I couldn’t blame him – was that I had an assignation with a man at the lake. Because this simply wasn’t true, I may have given it too little weight.

  I had slept badly over the weekend. I couldn’t entirely rest with the idea that I had dealt with Chadwin. My mind was grasping at the problem as in a dream, where your most reasonable positions are rejected, or not understood by others, and you can’t understand why. Greg had tuned into my mood, and was trying to be his old impeturbable self, but at bottom, he was jealous. The only way to reassure him, was to tell the whole story. But I had a subconscious fear that he might react like my father, and regard me as in some way blemished. It was a thought I tried to dismiss, because Greg was a generous spirited man. I was also tormented by regret that I hadn’t told him years ago. Having to tell him now suggested I hadn’t trusted him earlier.

  Then, I argued to myself, but for the remote chance that Chadwin’s path would cross mine in future, I could have got away with silence. It had been my problem alone before Chadwin came to town, and I had buried it. But now the past had resurrected itself in a grotesque way.

  On Wednesday, Greg and I took the girls into Chesterfield for a treat at McD
onald’s. Greg was perfunctory in his manner towards me. Tonight would have to be the night to tell him, unless I wanted to protract an estrangement. Later, when the children were in bed, and Greg had mixed himself a drink, and sat in the lounge without a book, the CD player and television pointedly not switched on, the moment had come. His silent attitude was that something was due from me. I sat down in one of the armchairs facing the couch, and refused a drink.

  “I’m absolutely not having an affair, Greg. There’s no man in my love life but you, and there never has been.”

  “Thanks. That’s a relief. I know you said so before, but…”

  He seemed to melt. He ought to have known that I meant it. “What is it, then?” he asked sympathetically. “I mean, work … You’ve always been on top of that. You’re a fighter. Some kind of personality clash?”

  “I told you, it’s work.”

  I was clinging to the half-hope that I had dealt with Chadwin, that he would be a figure in the distance if he materialised at all. I made up a story about back-biting at the office. I named people whom Greg had met. It was weak. It was a lie. I could see Greg wanted to believe me, but wasn’t convinced. His manner with me was distant for the rest of the week. He entirely ceased making his usual mild jokes about everything around him, and he didn’t cuddle up in bed.

  On Saturday I stuck to my resolution to go to the lake on my own. When I reached ‘Pine Hill’ I was still determined to try to get through on my own. I had heard nothing more from Chadwin, and my clear determination may have stilled him, despite his bluster. I resumed my clean-up, and by mid afternoon I was feeling tired, and thinking of relaxing in the sun on the patio with a cup of coffee. I heard a car on the forecourt. I opened the door. It was Greg.

  He looked at me shyly. He was uncertain. I didn’t have to ask why he was there, and he didn’t have to tell me. I went down the steps to the car, and put my arms around him. I stopped myself saying, ‘There’s nobody here, and there won’t be. I’m quite alone,’ or anything crass like that. He loved me and I was treating him badly. In my preoccupation with Chadwin, I hadn’t realised how badly. He had just driven a hundred miles with a knife in his heart. I took his hand and led him upstairs. I shut and locked the front door, and drew him into the bedroom. I pulled off my sweater and slipped out of my jeans.

  “Come on, my love,” I said, and he began to undress.

  We made passionate love, and when we were propped up in bed afterwards, with a highball each, I said, “It’s not work, Greg. It’s something I don’t know how to deal with…”

  Greg was feeling good. He was smiling. “If it’s not me, and it’s not work – that’s good … great… ” Then he sat up straight, serious. “My God, it’s not your health, Loren, is it?”

  “This is something else, something completely else…”

  “Well if it isn’t your health, that’s good too …”

  “You know I told you about Grace, what happened to her?”

  “Grace? You mean years ago? Being attacked?”

  “What I didn’t tell you was that I was attacked too.”

  Greg’s brow creased, and the light in his eyes intensified as he recalled what I had told him. Perhaps his recollection of my skimpy outline of the facts was as lurid as the reality.

  “Oh, God, you poor thing… but why now? I want to hear about this, Loren – if you want to tell me.”

  “I didn’t tell you before, because I thought I could bury it forever.”

  “I think I understand. Just talk. Get it off your mind. What happened?” Greg said, gently.

  “I was raped. I was nineteen.”

  The words, as softly as I spoke them, couldn’t be denied their harsh meaning, and hung in the space before us in the bedroom, an ugly cloud. Greg absorbed the reality behind the words. He winced. A net of lines appeared on his face. He looked away.

  “It’s a long time ago,” he began in a thick voice. “And there’s no particular reason why it should worry you now. We have a wonderful life together… Would you like to see a counsellor?”

  “What happened in the past is dictating the present.”

  “How do you mean?” he frowned.

  “Because the man is in town.”

  “Jesus! You’ve seen him?”

  “Met him.”

  Greg’s jaw clenched, and he paled. “Have I met him?”

  I nodded. “Chadwin. Dwight Chadwin.”

  Greg’s mouth opened slackly, gobbling. “The Hudson man? The man – his wife – I wanted you to meet?”

  “I couldn’t be sure it was him until I saw him at the club.”

  While Greg shrank in the bed, I tried to begin the story. But Greg wasn’t capable of listening. He was shattered.

  “Where does it stand now?” he asked after a minute.

  “I don’t know. I may be wrong… I feel he wants to hurt me.”

  “The scumbag. I’ll have to see him.”

  “What would you say?”

  “I don’t know… Tell him to keep clear.”

  I felt a surge of affection for Greg, but he looked frail, and hunched, his fingers twiddling with the empty glass. I compared the brash, ox-like Chadwin with his golden head.

  “No. Whatever we do, let’s do it together,” I insisted.

  I asked Greg if he had organised Grace and the twins for the weekend, and he had. I think he had no idea how the weekend would develop when he left Park Drive.

  “Let’s stay until tomorrow, and do a few things around here,” I said.

  We worked together, packing up the house and workshop for the winter. We clung together like children that night.

  Greg was quiet about what I had told him on the drive back to Cedar Falls, and when we arrived home on Sunday afternoon the time was full of the children. On Monday morning, when I went down to breakfast, Grace had made Greg’s coffee and toast; he was sitting by the window, ignoring it, looking out absently at the children playing on the lawn which was white with dew.

  “Greg, they’re in their school clothes, and the lawn is soaking!”

  Greg was turned away from me, looking but not seeing. “Do you think we should make plans to go away?”

  “I’ve certainly thought of it.”

  “I mean, you can’t avoid this man. It isn’t just Abbott’s Point. It’s the business community, the street. It’s mutual acquaintances.”

  He hadn’t noticed that Grace had come into the room. And she must have heard this and seen our dour expressions.

  “Can you get the girls in, Grace?” I asked. “See whether their socks and shoes are dry.”

  When she had gone, I said, “I know, I know, Greg, but something sticks in my gut about running away. I haven’t done anything wrong.”

  “Sure, it sticks in my gut too, but in the longer term, Loren, could you tolerate this person anywhere near you?”

  “I thought I could if we could each agree to look the other way. Now I’m not sure.”

  “Bloody swine! Do you know I was thinking of inviting the Chadwins to our Thanksgiving party. He’s a big pal of Marty’s!”

  That night when we were in bed, I discussed with Greg my idea that one way to stop Chadwin would be to talk to his wife.

  “Maybe we could get a better understanding that way,” I said. “If she knew he had come on to me, especially with the past, I think she’d say enough to him to cool him off.”

  “That would shock her, and maybe cause damage to their marriage,” Greg said.

  “It would.”

  Greg thought about this. “I feel sorry for her…but Chadwin is some kind of sadist who is seeking to screw up our lives. So yes, it could be the right thing. What Chadwin said to you in his car at the club is something completely beyond civilised behaviour.”

  “OK. I’ll see her. In a strange way, it’ll almost be a relief to tell her.”

  “I reckon I ought to be there. Mrs Chadwin should know that you and I are completely solid on this, Loren.”

  “I thi
nk woman to woman is better. If you were there… No. It’s between Eve Chadwin and me.”

  Grateful as I was for Greg’s support, I felt that in some way that I couldn’t define, it wouldn’t be right for him to be there. He would be an awkward presence.

  “I don’t know. But if you say so…” he said.

  I made discreet enquiries from one of the girls in the office at Abbott’s Point, and found that Eve Chadwin played golf on Wednesday afternoons with a women’s group. I resolved to go to the club, find her, and ask if I could speak to her privately for a few minutes.

  I located Eve Chadwin in the bar on the following Wednesday, and in moments we had found seats in one of the smaller, vacant committee rooms. Eve did not hesitate in the slightest when I said I would like to talk to her privately.

  “Now, Loren Stamford, what is troubling you,” Eve said, settling herself in her chair.

  She spoke as though she was chairing a meeting, and her eyes were keen. I had planned how I might begin, but lost the thread.

  “You remember my name,” I said.

  “I was introduced to you by my husband, was I not? And we spoke, here, one day. My husband explained that he knew you many years ago. Although you denied it when we spoke.”

  “He raped me fifteen years ago, and a friend of his raped my sister.”

  Eve looked up at the ceiling, tightened her mouth, and with the smallest smile said, “A lot of girls say that.”

  “It’s true, there was a court case…”

  “Save the gory details, my dear. I already know them. Now, how can I help?”

  “You don’t know. You only know what that animal told you!”

  “Please be calm, Loren – if I may call you that. What do you want to see me for?”

  “Your husband is harassing me. He’s ringing me up at the office. He’s threatening me.”

  “What is he threatening?” Eve Chadwin asked, like the chair of a meeting elucidating rather boring facts.