Deep Water Page 5

  Melinda yawned. "What're you reading so hard?"

  "About defectors. If the Americans go over to the Reds, they call them 'turncoats.' If the Reds come over to us, they're 'freedom-loving.' Just depends from what side you're talking." He smiled at her.

  Melinda made no comment. He hadn't thought she would make a comment. He got up slowly from the bed. "Good night, honey. Sleep well." He bent and kissed her cheek. "Did you enjoy the evening?"

  "Umm-m, I did," Melinda said with no more expression than a little girl might have used in replying to her grandfather after a day at the circus. "Good night, Vic. Don't wake Trixie when you go by her room."

  Vic smiled to himself as he went out. Three weeks ago she wouldn't have thought about Trixie. She would have been thinking about calling Ralph as soon as he had left her room.

  Chapter 5

  June was a delightful month, not too warm, not too dry, with twice- or thrice-weekly rains that came around six in the evening, lasted about half an hour, and brought the raspberries and strawberries in the woods behind the house to a fat, juicy perfection. Vic went out with Trixie and Janey Peterson on several Saturday afternoons and gathered enough to supply both families with berries for cold cereal, pies, and ice cream for a week at a time. Trixie had decided not to go to camp this summer, because Janey wasn't going. She and Janey had registered at the Highland School four miles away from Little Wesley, a semiprivate grade school which offered sports and arts and crafts classes five days a week from nine to four in summer. It was the first summer that Trixie had caught on to swimming, and she did so well that she won first prize in a swimming contest for her age group. Vic was glad Trixie hadn't wanted to go to camp this summer, because he liked to have her with him. He supposed he had the Petersons' comparative lack of money to thank for Trixie's being with him. Charles Peterson, an electrical engineer in a leather factory in Wesley, made less money than most of Little Wesley's inhabitants. Or, rather, he supported his family on what he earned, whereas many people in Little Wesley, like himself and Phil Cowan, for instance, had incomes with which to supplement their earnings. Melinda, to Vic's regret, looked down on the Petersons as a bit uncouth and couldn't see that they were no more uncouth than the MacPhersons, for example, and that perhaps what she objected to was their white clapboard house. Vic was glad it didn't bother Trixie.

  In a distinguished British publisher's annual that came out in June, the Greenspur Press of Little Wesley, Massachusetts, was cited for "typography, fine workmanship, and general excellence," a tribute Vic valued more than any material success that could have come to him. It was Vic's boast that in the twenty-six books he had published, there were only two typographical errors. Xenophon's 'Country Life and Economics' was his twenty-seventh book, and there were as yet no errors that either he or his meticulous printer, Stephen Hines, could find, though they had the added peril of the left side of the pages being in Greek. The likelihood of typographical errors in spite of rigorous proofreading was going to be the subject of an essay that he would write one day, Vic thought. There was something demoniacal and insuperable about typographical errors, as if they were part of the natural evil that permeated man's existence, as if they had a life of their own and were determined to manifest themselves no matter what, as surely as weeds in the best-tended gardens.

  Far from noticing any coolness in their friends—which Melinda still insisted she did—Vic found their social relations much easier. The Mellers and the Cowans no longer issued an invitation tentatively, half-expecting that Melinda would make a date with Ralph or somebody else at the last minute, as she often had. Everybody treated them as a couple now, and as a couple supposedly happy and getting along. Vic had loathed, in the last years, being coddled by understanding hostesses, being pressed to take second helpings and big pieces of cake as if he had been a neglected child or some kind of cripple. Perhaps his marriage with Melinda had been something short of ideal, but there were certainly many worse marriages in the world—marriages with drunkenness, with poverty, with sickness or insanity, with mothers-in-law, with unfaithfulness but unfaithfulness that was not forgiven. Vic treated Melinda with as much respect and affection as he had at the beginning of their marriage, perhaps with even more now, because he realized she missed Ralph. He did not want her to feel bored or, lonely, or to think that he was unconcerned if she did feel that way. He took her to two or three more shows in New York, to a couple of Tanglewood concerts, and on one weekend they drove up to Kennebunkport with Trixie to see a play that Judith Anderson was in, and they spent the night at a hotel. Nearly every evening Vic came home with a little present for Melinda—flowers, a bottle of perfume, or a scarf he had seen at the Bandana, the only chic women's shop in Wesley, or simply a magazine that she liked, like 'Holiday', which they didn't subscribe to because Melinda said it was expensive and that the house was already cluttered with magazines that came every month, though 'Holiday' in Vic's opinion was better than many of the magazines whose subscription they continually renewed. Melinda's sense of economy was odd.

  She had never wanted a maid, for instance, and yet she never did much to keep the house straight, either. If the bookshelves were ever dusted, Vic did it—about every four months. Occasionally Melinda would get started with the vacuum cleaner, and give up after one or two rooms. When people were due to come over, the living room, kitchen, and bathroom were "checked," Melinda's undefined term. But she could be relied on to keep a supply of steaks in the freezing compartment of the refrigerator, green vegetables and potatoes and plenty of oranges, and one of the things that Vic appreciated very much in her, she could be relied on eventually to come home for dinner with him regardless of what she did in the afternoon. Perhaps she considered she owed him this much, Vic didn't know, but she was as determined about it as she was determined sometimes to keep her appointments with her lovers. And about once a week she managed to cook one of his favorite dishes—frogs' legs provençale, or chile, or potato soup, or roast pheasant, which she had to get from Wesley. She also saw to it that he was never out of his pipe tobacco, which had to be ordered from New York and was hard to keep track of because Vic smoked his pipe sporadically, and sometimes the tobacco humidor was in the living room and sometimes in the garage or his own room, which Melinda seldom went into. Vic thought that his friends, even Horace, did not always remember the nicer things about Melinda, and Vic often took the trouble to remind them.

  On Saturday night of the July fourth weekend, Vic and Melinda went to the annual dance at the club, the biggest affair of the summer. All their friends were there, even the Petersons and the Wilsons, who didn't belong to the club but had been invited by members. Vic looked around for Ralph Gosden, expecting to see him, but Ralph was not there. Ralph had been seeing a good deal of the Wilsons, according to Evelyn Cowan, who had been advising June Wilson about her flower garden. Evelyn was an enthusiastic gardener. The Wilsons had been in Little Wesley only four months, and they lived in a modest house on the north side of town. Evelyn Cowan had told Vic, when they met one day in the drugstore, that Don Wilson was taking a very serious view of the story he had told Ralph about Malcolm McRae, and Vic felt sure that Ralph was helping to rub it in by making himself out a victim of Vic's jealousy, ill will, and general "bad taste." Ralph would of course have said that Melinda had been nothing but a dear friend of his and, since the Wilsons were rather out of the group who knew him and Melinda well, Vic supposed that they had swallowed it. People in Little Wesley had not been particularly friendly to the Wilsons since their arrival, and Vic thought it was Don's fault. He was humorless and standoffish at social gatherings, perhaps because he considered smiles and conviviality unintelligent or unbecoming in a writer. And he was such a hack—western stories, detective stories, love stories, some of which his wife collaborated on, though Vic had heard from somebody that her speciality was children's books. The Wilsons had no children.

  Don Wilson and his wife stood against the wall, Don looking lank and unhappy, and his w
ife, who was small and blond and usually animated, looking rather subdued. Vic supposed it was because they didn't know many people, and he had nodded and smiled a hello to them and was about to go and chat with them, but Don Wilson's unmistakably cold response stayed him. Perhaps Wilson was surprised to see him there at all, Vic thought, much less to see him greeted by all his old friends as if nothing had happened.

  Vic circulated around the edge of the dance floor, chatting with the MacPhersons and the Cowans and with the inevitable Mrs. Podnansky, whose two grandsons were here tonight. The younger grandson, Walter, had just got his law degree from Harvard. That evening Vic realized that there was something in what Melinda said about people shunning him—people he did not know at all. He saw people pointing him out to their dancing partners, then discussing him volubly, though always out of his earshot. Other total strangers turned away with self-conscious little smiles as he passed them, when at another time they might have introduced themselves and started talking. Strangers often started conversations with Vic about his printing plant. But Vic did not mind the shunning and the whispers. It made him feel strangely more comfortable and secure, in fact, than he usually felt at parties, perhaps because the whispering and pointing, at both him and Melinda, fairly guaranteed that Melinda would behave herself tonight. Melinda was having a good time, he could see that, though tonight she would probably tell him that she had not had a good time at all. She looked beautiful in a new amber-colored taffeta gown that had no belt and fitted her strong narrow waist and her hips as if it had been cut for her to the millimeter. By midnight she had danced with about fifteen partners, including a couple of youngish men Vic didn't know, either one of whom might have been Ralph Gosden's successor under ordinary circumstances, but Melinda was merely pleasant and gracious to them without being coy or hoydenish or femme fatale or pretending to have been swept off her feet by them—all of which tactics he had seen her use on other occasions. Neither did she drink too much. Vic was extremely proud of Melinda that evening. He had often been proud of the way she looked, but seldom, that he could remember, of the way she behaved.

  As Melinda came toward him after a dance, he heard a woman say, "That's his wife."

  "Oh, yes? She's lovely!"

  Someone's laughter obliterated part of the conversation. Then: "Nobody knows, you see! But some people think so… No, he certainly doesn't, does he?"

  "Hi," Melinda said to Vic. "Aren't you tired of standing up?" Her large green-brown eyes looking slurringly at him, as she often looked at men, though usually with a smile. She was not smiling now.

  "I haven't been standing up. I've been sitting with Mrs. Podnansky part of the time."

  "She's your favorite party girl, isn't she?"

  Vic laughed. "Can I get you something to drink?" "A quadruple Scotch."

  Before he could go off to get her anything, one of the young men who had danced with her before came up and said a solemn, "May I?" to Vic.

  "You may" Vic said, with a smile. He didn't think the emphatic "May I?" was a result of the McRae tale, though of course it might have been.

  Vic glanced over at Don Wilson and saw that Don was watching him again. Vic got himself a third helping of lemon ice—liquor had no charm for him that evening—and seeing Mary Meller looking rather detached, he took another portion of ice for her. Mary accepted it with a warm, friendly smile.

  "Evelyn and Phil want us to cool off with a dip over at their house after the dance is over. Can you and Melinda come?" Mary asked him.

  "We didn't bring our suits," Vic said, though that hadn't stopped them on other occasions when they had jumped into the Cowan pool naked. Melinda had, at least. Vic was a little shy about such things.

  "Drop by your house for your suits—or not?" Mary said gaily "It's such a dark night, who cares?"

  "I'll ask Melinda," Vic said.

  "She looks lovely tonight, doesn't she? Vic—" Mary touched his arm and he leaned a little closer. "Vic, you're not feeling uncomfortable tonight, are you? I wanted you to know that all your real friends are still your friends, the same as ever. I don't know what you've heard tonight, but I hope nothing unpleasant."

  "Didn't hear a thing!" Vic assured her, smiling.

  "I talked to Evelyn. She and Phil feel the same as we do. 'We' know you just said it as a—as a joke, in spite of what people like the Wilsons are trying to say."

  "What're they trying to say?"

  "It's not her, it's him. He thinks you're odd. Well, we're all odd, aren't we?" Mary said, with a gay laugh. "He must be looking for another plot for a story. I think he's 'very' odd!"

  Vic knew Mary well enough to know that she was more concerned than she was pretending to be. "What is he saying?" Vic asked.

  "Oh, he's saying—that you don't react normally. I can imagine what Ralph Gosden's been saying. I mean the fuel he's added to the fire. Oh, Don Wilson's just saying that you ought to be watched and that you're very mysterious." Mary whispered the last word, smiling. "I told him we'd all had the opportunity of watching you for the past nine or ten years, and that you're one of the finest, sweetest, most unmysterious men I've ever known!"

  "Mrs. Meller, may I have this dance with you?" Vic asked. "Do you think your husband would mind?"

  "Why, Vic! I can't believe it!"

  He took her ice plate and carried it with his own to the refreshment stall a few feet away, then returned and swept Mary out onto the floor to the music of a waltz. The waltz had always been his favorite dance. He waltzed very well. He saw Melinda notice him and stop short with surprise. Horace and Evelyn were looking at him, too. Vic shortened his steps so that he would not look silly, because a joyous exuberance had filled him as if a long-repressed desire had burst forth. He felt he could have flown with Mary, if it had not been for the other couples that cluttered the floor around him.

  "Why, you're a wonderful dancer!" Mary said. "Why've you been hiding it all these years?"

  Vic did not try to answer.

  Long after the dance was over Vic felt a tingling exhilaration is if he had achieved a triumph. When Melinda had finished a lance, he went over to her, made a little bow and said, "May I, Melinda?"

  She hid her surprise almost immediately by closing her eyes, turning her head away from him. "Oh, darling, I'm tired," she said.

  On their way home, when Melinda asked, "What inspired you to dance tonight?" he was able to pass it off, to forestall her kidding him with "I thought I might as well baffle people by being inconsistent as well as odd. I'm supposed never to dance, you know."

  Melinda hadn't been in the mood for the Cowans' swimming pool, though she had declined their invitation very graciously.

  "I thought you were charming tonight," Vic said to her at home.

  "I have to put myself out to counteract some of the damage you've done," she replied. "I worked hard tonight."

  Vic shrugged involuntarily, smiled a little, and said nothing. Melinda had had just as good a time as she'd had at other club dances when she had got too high, or flirted, or got sick, or created some other kind of disturbance that hadn't enhanced their popularity, either.

  Lying in his bed that night Vic relived the moments on the dance floor with Mary Meller. Don Wilson's scowling face. The whispering people. He thought that a few people there tonight really believed that he had killed Malcolm McRae—the people who knew him least. That was what Mary had tried to tell him. If Mary hadn't known him so well, or thought she knew him so well, she might be one of the people who suspected him, he thought. She had as much as said it that night of the party. 'You're like somebody waiting very patiently and one day—you'll do something'. He remembered the exact words, and how he had smiled at their mildness. Yes, all these years he had played a game of seeming calm and indifferent to whatever Melinda did. He had deliberately hidden everything he felt—and in those months of her first affair he had felt something, even if it was only shock, but he had succeeded in concealing it. That was what baffled people, he knew. He had seen it
in their faces, even in Horace's. He didn't react with the normal jealousy, and something was going to give. That was the conclusion people came to. And that was what made his story so good: something had given, and he had murdered one of Melinda's lovers. That was more believable than that he had taken it for four years without saying or doing anything. To have burst out, finally, was merely human. People understood that. Nobody on earth could prove that he had murdered Malcolm McRae, he thought, but neither could anybody prove that he hadn't.

  Chapter 6

  It was a little more than two weeks after the Fourth of July dance, when Vic was breakfasting with Trixie one morning, that lie saw the item in the 'New York Times':