“But, Charlie,” she protested, feeling caught and flustered, “it would mean dragging everybody with you, all the office staff, the craftsmen, the machinists. Cleve and Jean—”
“Cleve and Jean don’t need to worry about it any longer,” he said, and he was gazing down at his drink now, lines of concern on his forehead.
“Why not? What does that mean?”
“Cleve isn’t with the company now. It’s just—Ayers Toys.”
Beth’s mouth dropped open a little. “What happened?” she breathed at last.
“He climbed into that damn bottle and stayed,” Charlie said. “He was coming to work drunk all the time. It was getting bad when you left, Beth; you must have heard in me mention it a couple of times….Well, it just got worse. It got intolerable, to tell the truth. He wasn’t doing anything, he wasn’t contributing anything. He just sat in his office and tipped the bottle. I did all the work. And goddamn it, I didn’t feel like sharing the credit and the money with a souse who didn’t raise a finger for either one.”
“Oh, but Charlie,” she said, and there were tears in her voice, “it was his business, his idea. You were the newcomer not so long ago. You were the one he took in, and taught the ropes, and made an equal partner.” She was hurt for a moment, as Cleve must have been hurt when it happened.
“Well, damn it!” he cried defensively. “It didn’t have to happen that way, Beth. I begged him to quit drinking. I dragged him around to a couple of specialists. I got Jean to help me, and Mrs. Purvis. And Cleve tried. When it got too bad, he felt the same way I did.
“Honey, you don’t think I went in there and fired the guy, do you?” he said, flinging out his hands in a plea for sympathy. “No! Hell, no. Cleve brought it up himself. I couldn’t do a thing like that. He just came in one morning about a month ago and told me he thought it would be better for the business and for himself if he quit.”
“Who’s going to hire him now if he’s been drinking?”
“Beth, it’s rough, I know. It’s a rough life, nobody needs to tell me that.”
“Maybe Jean will get a job and support them for a while,” she said.
“He’s leaving her!”
“What?” It was impossible. “They were always so happy!” she exclaimed. They had seemed so stable as a partnership.
“It’s a trial separation,” Charlie said. “I think they love each other, all right, but they just can’t stand each other, if you know what I mean.”
“I always thought Jean took everything in her stride. I thought there was nothing that girl couldn’t face with a smile. I even used to resent that smile of hers, because I thought it meant inner peace. I thought she had learned to cope with life, and because I was jealous I used to tell myself it was only because she was so stupid. I thought anybody as smart as me could never be happy. Only the nice, jolly, stupid people like Jean.”
“She isn’t stupid, honey,” Charlie said, sitting down on the bed beside her. “Her only answer to her problems was to smile. She and Cleve have been just—roommates for years. Not husband and wife. I think that’s why he drinks. It had something to do with Vega, too. He never did explain it all to me. Just little hints and remarks when he was tight. I guess he and Vega were too close or something. When they were younger, I mean. He even made me think, one time, that it went as far as—” He stopped.
“As far as what?” she prompted with unhappy curiosity. “Well, as a sort of affair,” he said, obviously embarrassed to talk about it. “Anyway, they were abnormally close. For a long time. And suddenly there was an awful fight. I guess they both got scared and ashamed when they got a little older and realized it wasn’t very healthy for a brother and sister, and all that. And they both turned on each other. Vega blamed Cleve because he was a man and men are always responsible for these things. And Cleve blamed Vega because she was the oldest and she showed him the way and encouraged it. And all of a sudden, where there had been so much love, there was hate. They hated each other with real dedication. I guess to hide the fact that they would always love each other anyway, no matter how they tried not to.
“Well, it was too much for both of them. Vega turned to women for relief and affection. And Cleve tried to find a substitute in Jean for Vega. But Jean was the wrong girl entirely. They were different as night and day—the two women. I guess that’s why Cleve chose her. He didn’t want to be eternally reminded of his sister. But it didn’t work, for either of them.”
After a pause Beth said softly, “Explains a lot of things, doesn’t it? God, it makes you wonder, though. It just makes you wonder if Cleve and Vega wouldn’t both have been better off to stay with each other and let the world go to hell.”
“You know it wouldn’t,” he said, and though his voice was even she could feel the sudden rise in his emotional temperature.
“At least Vega wouldn’t have ended up horribly dead on the floor of a hotel room.”
“I wouldn’t count on it. It’s never better to prolong a sick relationship. She might have ended up dead even sooner.”
“If prolonging a sick relationship will keep you alive, it’s worth it.”
“Things would have been much worse for them if they lived together,” he said positively. Anything abnormal he automatically loathed, without understanding it, without questioning himself.
And rather than fight him in an area where his will and his
