Chapter 4
Lorna jumped as she heard the front door open. Voices filled the old house, the judge's twangy New England rasp, his wife's machine gun delivery, and Dan's college-boy effusions that would always sound like cheers no matter how old he got.
A mantle of hopelessness and depression descended on Lorna. Quickly, she put the dictionary back in its place on the shelf and went out to greet her "family." Often she felt as though she had been adopted rather than married; the three of them, parents and precious only son, always traveled in a pack, and she had been adopted into it like some sort of foundling. They felt sorry for her because her father had committed suicide; when she married Dan, her mother-in-law promised her "the joys of real family life to make up for what you missed." Missed! Wouldn't they die if they knew just what family joys she hadn't missed!
As she looked at her husband with his parents Lorna wondered which of them were guilty of incest. There was something revolting and unnatural about the way the trio clung to one another. At least, she thought, Daddy and I went ahead and did it.
Dan kissed her quickly and perfunctorily, his face guilty. He looked at his mother as if in apology, seeming relieved that she had already turned to go into the kitchen.
"What did you do with yourself this afternoon, child?" the judge said.
Lorna felt her face grow hot as she answered him as calmly as she could.
"I took a ride," she said, then, unable to stop herself and terrified at her own compulsion, she added: "I was going to pick some wild flowers in the woods for the table, but I saw a convict from the prison and I was afraid."
Dan sat up with a start, his broad face stiff with shock and fear.
"Good God, Lorna, you could have been raped! You know better than to go into the woods around here. They're full of trusties from the camp. Promise me you won't do it again."
She looked at his sandy hair, pug nose and bright blue eyes, thinking that he fit the bill for the all-American boy, yet how cruel his face was. It was the face of a dedicated, paranoid rookie cop determined to follow his father's footsteps on the force.
"Yes," said the judge, "those trusties are still jailbirds, and damned untrustworthy if you ask me. I never did approve of that system and I'll have it changed if it's the last thing I do on the bench. Dan's right. You've got no business out there. If a man has been sent to jail, his place is behind bars, not being 'trusted' to do anything."
Lorna could not drop the subject; something thrust her into speech and made her court danger.
"But they don't let rapists or murderers be trusties, only the white collar criminals, isn't that so?" she asked with wide-eyed innocence. Her tone and expression suggested that butter wouldn't melt in her mouth. As she heard her own voice a thrill coursed through her at the duality of her naive playacting here, contrasted with her wanton behavior in the woods with Steve Atkins.
"Lorna, child, you're a married woman," the judge said reproachfully. "You know perfectly well that a man kept behind bars, even for a white collar offense, is a man without women. That's enough to make him a rapist even if he were only an embezzler before."
Dan flushed at the words married woman, as though embarrassed that his father should even obliquely refer to the fact that he and Lorna had sex together.
He burst into sudden angry speech.
"And the trusties aren't 'white collar' criminals if you ask me. There's no such thing as a white collar criminal. Dad, they've got Steve Atkins working as a trapper, did you know that?"
The judge frowned. "The prostitution trafficker?
No, I didn't know, but I'll certainly speak to the Attorney General about it," he grumbled.
Dan grinned balefully. "Too late, Dad. Don't you remember? He was sentenced four years ago. He's getting out in a few days."
The old judge looked up with a start. "For God's sake, so he is. How time flies. I thought I gave him longer than that!"
"You did," Dan said wryly, "but they second-guessed you in Augusta. Said you 'over-reacted'. " His sneer made Lorna want to attack him with her nails. How she would love to rake that ruddy, recruiting-poster face to shreds!
She loved sitting here with the two of them, talking about Atkins as if he were simply a faceless animal that her father-in-law had locked in a cage, when she knew that that same animal had unlocked the cage in which these two sanctimonious men had placed her.
Dan took a tired pull on his drink. It always surprised her that he and his father should consent to a cocktail hour, much less allow her to have a daiquiri.
"You know perfectly well," he sighed, "that Atkins will go right back hammer and tongs to his old. activities."
"Not in Maine, he won't," said the judge with an ominous threat in his voice. "He's got too much sense for that."
And where will he go then? Lorna wondered. Fear smote her; in a few more days, Atkins would be free . . . free to go far away from her. She couldn't bear it, not now after today. It would have been better not to. have laid him at all than to know what his kind of sex was like, and then never see him again. Frenzied lust and desperation grew in her as she looked at her husband, the judge, the dark old-fashioned house. Men without women.. . . Once more the phrase reminded her of something. The vague sensation of familiarity came over her once again. Men in the woods without women. The judge had used that expression just-a moment ago. The phrase seemed to be haunting her, following her. Why? All those jokes she had heard about the whores in the trailers in the woods, the many times townspeople had bemoaned the existence of the prison nearby and the trusties that ran free. . . . She must have heard people speak of the "womenless men" and the trusties in the woods, the famous whores hundreds of times. It was as if the expression had been stalking her all this time, pursuing her in the certainty that one day, the expression would apply all too aptly to herself.
It seemed a kind of fate, but why? She shivered suddenly, and a silence fell. Loma listened to the clink of ice in their glasses, the muffled sounds of dinner being prepared in the kitchen. Yet no one spoke.
The judge noticed it and chuckled.
"A ghost is passing over, it seems," he said.
Again Lorna shivered despite the warm summer sun outside and the sound of the cicadas that heralded more heat. A lightheaded feeling gripped her and she thought: I'm not really here, I don't belong here. It was just an accident that put me here, a wrong turn along a road that has no name.'
Without conscious intellectual process of thought, she sensed, she knew that she belonged with Steve Atkins, not here with these grim, lifeless men whom she hated. The familiar words from the reference book filtered through her mind like a song that refused to leave.
Pompadour Complex: A compulsive desire to be a prostitute, often caused by a desire to please the father.
Rebellion boiled in her as she sat quietly, looking down into her drink while the men talked. Wouldn't it serve them right if-
If what? If. . . . The short, sharp, hissing word was all that stood between her and some hideous fate as yet unknown and without a name. If. . . . It sounded like the short end of a piece of frayed rope that held her precariously to the respectable life she hated. If. . . . It sounded like the relentless brisk snip of a pair of scissors cutting into the last shards of that lifesaving rope. She could imagine the sound of the blades-if, if, if.
She jumped as her husband's voice cut into her thoughts.
"How would you like to be a Congressman's wife, Lorna? They want me to run."
Her mouth opened slowly as she stared at him, then looked at her smug, puffed-with-pride father-in-law.
"Yes, it's true all right," Dan grinned. "That's why we were so late getting home today. We've been to see the Republican State chairman."
"Isn't it wonderful?" said the elder Mrs. Perkins, coming into the room. "They said after all Dan has done to clean up these dirty movies that he'd be a sure bet to win. The Decent Film League is behind him one hundred percent, and they're some of the most influential people in Maine."
Lorna saw her life spread out before her, a life even more restricted than the one she led now. A politician's wife I Garden clubs, ladies aid societies, prayer meetings on television-
"I always said my boy could pull himself up by his bootstraps," Mrs. Perkins said fondly.
Anger spread through Lorna. Pull himself up by his bootstraps, indeed! With a judge for a father! Dan was a spoiled, pampered repressed brat if she had ever seen one! The hypocrisy in the room was almost physically stifling. She took a deep breath, which they all mistook for excited delight and surprise. Goddamn them all, she thought darkly.
The last straw came later that night, when Dan and his father were closeted in the den making political plans. Mrs. Perkins took Lorna aside and sat her down at the kitchen table. It was going to be an intimate kaffeeklatch.
"Lorna dear, now that Dan is going to run for Congress, there's something very important that you can do for him. You know, voters expect a young couple like you two to have children. There are some people who just won't vote for a childless man. It makes him look irresponsible, like a pleasure-seeker who's too selfish to accept family responsibilities. Don't you think it would be nice if you got pregnant as soon as possible, so that you'll show by campaign time?"
Her mother-in-law's eyes were a dizzying combination of fake solicitude and rancid hate. The old bitch must have had to slip a few slugs of gin to bring herself to suggest that her precious only son be screwed. Only raw ambition could have made her even mention anything to do with sex.
"Maybe you ought to speak to Dan about that," Lorna said slowly.
The woman's face flamed. "Oh, well, you know. . . . I mean after all, we're both women here." Her confusion was evident, but she mastered it and went on, the pupils of her eyes growing into cold pinpoints.
"What I meant, Lorna dear, is that I hope you aren't doing anything to prevent pregnancy. Naturally, I spoke to you first, and not Dan, because it's you who take pills or do whatever you girls do nowadays. Are you doing anything to keep from having a child?"
"No," Lorna answered truthfully. "I'm not. But I suppose there's something wrong with me, isn't there? There couldn't be anything wrong with Dan, could there?"
"Well, of course it's God's will, but-"
"Mother Perkins," Lorna said in a shaking voice, "there's something else about me that I think is more serious than merely not having children."
She paused, her heart pounding. Some perverse imp was making her say this, making her skirt so close to the truth. Scenes of the afternoon's tryst in the woods flew through her mind. The self-accusatory words bubbled up in her throat. I'm a whore, Mother Perkins, I have a Pompadour complex! I'm no good and I love it! There's something bad in me and I'm proud of it! I fucked a convict today in the woods and I'm going to run away with him if he'll take me!
The shock of the decision stunned her, so that she said nothing at all, merely looked at her mother-in-law with blank staring eyes.
The older woman looked down and sighed.
"I know what you're thinking, Lorna. I know all about it."
Fear lashed Loma. How could she know? Had she somehow seen them? Had someone else seen them and told her?
"Your father. . . . I know, dear. We talked about that in the meeting today."
Lorna looked up with a start. For one crazy moment she thought her mother-in-law meant something else. Guilt had her firmly in its grasp, so that she was certain they all knew that she had slept with her father.
"But we figured out a plan," the woman went on. "There are ways to change certain records, you know," she said slyly. "There's no way to change your father's death certificate because too many people know what happened. But we can change other things, and let the word get around naturally. Then, if we're challenged, we can produce the record."
The woman folded her hands and gave Loma a broad wink.
"What record?"
"Why, your adoption papers, of course. If people think you weren't your father's child they won't think about things like . . . inherited weaknesses."
Lorna sat back, stunned. Her hand trembled and the coffee cup clattered noisily in the saucer, nearly toppling. Both women jumped and Mrs. Perkins made a ragged gesture to prevent spillage.
Lorna righted the cup and put both hands around it.
"You mean, you're going to fake adoption papers for me, and file them in the right places?"
"Yes. It'll work out fine. After all, you were born far away in Connecticut. It's not as if people around here knew you all your life. To Down Easters, Connecticut is 'from away'. We have enough contacts all over New England to get this taken care of."
Lorna's mind went back to the nights in bed with her father. If he adopted her, what they had done would not be wrong, would not be incest.
They were trying to take her Daddy lover away from her!
They were trying to take her badness away from her and make her respectable. Would she never escape their grim respectability? The joy she had taken in her many secret readings of the psychiatric dictionary now seemed to dim under her mother-in-law's suggestion. I want to be bad, I am bad, she thought. I won't let them stop me. They can't take that away from me! It's all I have to fight them with.
She forced an understanding smile to her lips.
"All right, Mother Perkins. You go ahead and fix the papers and I'll back you up. You know I'd do anything to help Dan win the election."
As her mother-in-law cooed her grateful approval, Lorna felt the presence of the demon in her brain. She would do anything to help Dan lose the election!