“You’re already up?” He tried to hold himself steady, but he pitched forward slightly and steadied himself on the back of a chair. He looked uncomfortable to have to be talking to her at all. “It’s terribly early, Deanna.”
“Or terribly late. Did you have a good time?”
“Of course not. Don’t be absurd. We sat in the board room until four o’clock. And then we had drinks. To celebrate.”
“How wonderful.” Her voice was like ice. He stared at her, as if hoping to find the key. “What were you celebrating?”
“A new… deal.” He almost said “coat,” but caught himself just in time. “A fur trade arrangement with Russia.” He looked pleased with himself and then smiled at his wife. Deanna did not smile back.
She looked like a statue. “It was a very beautiful coat.” The words fell between them like rocks.
“What do you mean?”
“I think we both know perfectly well what I mean. I said it was a beautiful coat.”
“You’re not making sense.” But his eyes seemed to waver from her gaze.
“I believe I am. I saw you tonight with your friend. I gather this is a lasting affair.” She looked wooden as she stood there, and he spoke not at all. After a moment he turned away from Deanna and looked out at the bay.
“I could tell you that she was passing through.” He turned to face her again. “But I won’t. These have been difficult times for me. Pilar… worries with you…”
“Does she live here now?” Deanna was relentless with those enormous green eyes.
He shook his head. “No, she’s only been here for a few weeks.”
“How nice. Am I to accept this as part of my future, or will you eventually make a choice? I imagine she asks you the same questions. In fact right now I daresay the choice could be mine.”
“It could.” For a moment he seemed to be wavering again, then he stood up very straight. “But it won’t be, Deanna. You and I have too much at stake.”
“Really? What?” But she knew exactly what he meant. They had nothing at stake anymore though. After tonight the baby was hers. Not theirs. Hers.
“You know exactly what. Our child.” He tried to look tender but he only glared. “That means everything to me. To us.”
“Us? You know what, Marc, I don’t even believe there is an ‘us.’ There is a you and a me, but there is no ‘us.’ Your only ‘us’ is with that girl. I could see that in your face tonight.”
“I was drunk.” For a moment desperation crept into his eyes. Deanna saw it, but she no longer cared.
“You were happy. You and I haven’t been happy with each other in years. We cling to each other out of habit, out of fear, out of duty, out of pain. I was going to leave you the weekend after Pilar died. If I hadn’t found out I was pregnant, I would have. And now that’s exactly what I’m going to do.”
“I won’t let you. You’ll starve!” He was angry now, and there was a vicious light suddenly in his eyes. She wasn’t going to take away the one thing he cared about now-the child.
“I don’t need you to survive.” They were words of bravado, and they both knew it.
“What will you do to eat, my darling? Paint? Sell your little sketches to people on the street? Or go back to your own lover?”
“What lover?” Deanna felt as though she had been slapped.
“You think I don’t know, you self-righteous, cheating bitch. You make me speeches about my… activities…” He swayed slightly as he hurled the words at her head. “But you are hardly lily-white yourself.”
She was suddenly pale. “What do you mean?”
“Exactly what you think I mean. I left for Athens and you obviously had a little fling. I don’t know with whom and I don’t care, because you’re my wife and that’s my child. I own you, both of you, do you understand?”
Everything inside her raged. “How dare you say that to me! How dare you! You may have owned me before, but you don’t own me now and you never will, and you’ll never own this child. I won’t let you do what you did with Pilar.”
He grinned at her evilly from the stairs. “You have no choice, my dear, the child is mine… Mine, because I chose to accept it, to be its father, to keep you in spite of what you did. But don’t you ever forget that I know. You’re no better than I am, in spite of all your saintly airs. But remember,” his eyes narrowed and he swayed again, “it is I who will keep your child from being a bastard. I’m giving him my name. Because I want him, and not because he’s mine.”
Deanna’s voice was like measured ice. She stood immobile, watching Marc. “The baby isn’t yours then, Marc?”
He bowed awkwardly at her and inclined his head. “Correct.”
“How do you know?”
“Because the woman you resent so greatly is a diabetic, and if I’d gotten her pregnant it could have killed her. I had a vasectomy several years ago.” He stared back at Deanna, satisfied with the disclosure, as Deanna steadied herself unthinkingly on the back of a chair.
“I see.” There was a long silence between them. “Why are you telling me this now?”
“Because I’m tired of lies, and your miserable pathetic face, and your feeling put upon and used and abused by me. I have not abused you, madam. I have done you a favor. I have kept you, and your child, in spite of your appalling behavior. In spite of the fact that you’re an adulteress. And now he’s gone, and you have no one to turn to but me. You are mine.”
“To do with as you choose, is that it, Marc?” Her eyes raged at him, but he was too drunk to see it.
“Precisely. And now I suggest that you take yourself and my son to bed, and I will take myself to bed. I will see you in the morning.” He marched solemnly upstairs, totally unaware of the effect of his admission. Deanna had been freed.
32
The door to the back of the house, behind the kitchen, had been locked, and she had the key. She had called Kim and asked her to rent a car-a station wagon. She would explain later. She had had the grocery store deliver a dozen boxes. The equipment in her studio went easily into three. Her photographs and albums fit in five. The paintings were all neatly stacked next to the back stairs. Six suitcases waited to be packed. She picked up the phone and asked Margaret for her help. She would not do this alone. She had been working in her studio since six, and it was almost nine. She knew that Marc had probably already left the house. He didn’t follow her to her studio after she left their room, and the silence in the house had been deafening. The end had come quietly, in silence. Now she could put away the past. In a dozen boxes and a few valises. She was leaving him everything else. It was all his. The furniture from France; the paintings; the rugs; and the silver, which had been his mother’s, almost all of it sent from France. All that she had collected over the years was in her studio-art books, brushes, paints, a few trinkets, some bits and pieces that she liked but were worth nothing. She had her clothes. And the jewelry she would take too. She would sell it to eat, until she found a job. She was taking all her paintings, they meant nothing to him, and she could sell those too. All except the one of herself and Pilar. That was not a painting to sell, it was a treasure of a lifetime. The rest he could have. He could have it all.
She unlocked the door at the foot of the studio stairs and hesitantly made her way through the house. What if he was still there? If he was waiting? If he knew what she was going to do and how soon? But it didn’t matter now. He couldn’t stop her. He had told her what she needed to know last night. The baby wasn’t his, it was Ben’s. And he had known all along. But it didn’t matter anymore. None of it did.
“Margaret, is…?” She wasn’t quite sure what to say.
“He left for the office at half past eight.” Margaret’s eyes were brimming with tears. “Mrs. Duras, you’re not… Oh, don’t leave us, don’t go…”
It was the speech that should have been made by Marc, except that he already knew he had lost and he was too drunk the night before to follow through on his fears. He must have figured that if he slept it off and let her hide
