Chapter 7

MAISIE never asked for Sissy and did not seem surprised, either, when her favorite daughter, sane and courageous and pretty again, came back from her emotional tour of the capitals, as it were, and said, "Can I get you anything, Ma-Ma?"

"Where's Willie?" said the old lady, who hadn't mentioned Sissy's husband for a decade. She knew Sissy was married, but Willie made no impression on her at all. And as Willie had always felt uneasy in his mother-in-law's presence, they scarcely spoke when they did by chance meet. Willie used to avoid her eye for fear of her recognizing him (really recognizing him, perhaps) and Maisie used to think, "Now who on earth is that," and "What is he doing here," but he seemed too insignificant to insult and she held her peace; "the plumber maybe."

Sissy made a quick decision. "Willie embezzled one hundred thousand dollars," she said quietly, but it surprised her that she felt as she said it that Willie amounted to something after all.

"How much?" said Maisie. "How much did you say?"

Sissy felt a slight return of hysteria: "Two hundred thousand dollars," she said. "So it did matter 'how much,'" she thought; how foolish she had been to think that "embezzle" was the key word. She quickly added to herself, "It isn't that Willie slept with another woman, but how many other women!"

"A trifle," said Maisie unexpectedly.

"I guess I'm out of step," thought Sissy. She felt calm and, well, almost lighthearted. She smiled at Maisie. "It's a beautiful day, Ma-Ma, it will soon be spring, won't that be nice? Won't it, Ma-Ma... be nice?"

"That All Depends," said Maisie in capital letters. Did it mean anything?

Nobody missed Willie, it was a negligible erosion, his going away, and not much noticed. Paula, after all, was in love and all her attention was very much localized, Janey was off in a circumscribed world of her own; Sissy, after her collapse, seemed born anew, a kind of euphoria protecting her from the facts of life, and Maisie, well Maisie was writing, one might say, her memoirs. Ian wondered a little at his fiancee's detachment, her lack of sympathy for her poor old papa, not to mention her pretty mother, but he enjoyed her lovely looks and warm promise so much that it did not really bother him, he shook it off. It was as if Paula's character was none of his business.

Maggie was the only one. Up until Willie's weakness, as it was gently called, his illness, Maggie had scarcely given her father a thought. She believed she was the only one of the lot who was different, who was capable of dark and dreadful eventualities. (She scorned Paula's palpable innocence and it was good to scorn Paula, who had always been so pretty, so lovable, so popular. It gave Maggie a stance.) But Willie's breaking the law changed her lack of feeling for him into a real kinship. She longed to comfort him and planned long talks with him when he came back, they would understand each other. In the meantime Maggie wanted Ian and she meant to have him. Ian's handsome body and shining eyes plagued her sensibilities from morning till night. She watched him, every move he made stirred her, every word he said caressed her skin, and Ian knew that Maggie watched, also, his love-making. He was angry at himself that the knowledge of this dark child's deep eyes upon him as he kissed her sister, increased to a degree his desire... for whom? Paula, feeling his excitement, rejoiced, but murmured, "Wait Ian, wait Ian." And he waited. "June," she whispered, "will soon be here and then..."

"Do you really know what-then?" asked Ian.

"Almost," said Paula, hiding her face, "how could I help....."

"I think I'll do it now," said Ian.

"Ian!"

"I will," said Ian, "now, why should I wait?" He sounded cross. "I'm going to."

Paula lay in his arms, her blouse undone, her legs bare. Ian could see the dark round shadow in her navel, and he became absent-minded, he almost forgot who she was, he stroked her softly and waited.

She was near bliss when she sensed, womanlike, the change in rhythm, the loss of his personal attention as if she were someone else, as if he were doing it for a reason. She did not think in words and her experience was slight, but his negligence, it might be called, cooled her and she withdrew herself.

"Wait," she said. "It will be lovely in June," she added sweetly.

"What," he said.

"I said, it will be lovely in June."

"Perhaps not... so lovely," said Ian. His love-making with Paula was exhausting him. He felt an evil wish to "give her the works."

"Lovely!" he said sarcastically to himself, but out loud he said, "You're tired, sweetheart, let me carry you upstairs," and he tenderly fastened her blouse, arranged her skirts, and lifted a lock of hair off her forehead, carefully tucked it behind her ear. He kissed her cheek.

"There, dearest, you're all safe and good." At the moment he felt absolutely nothing for her.

"Good night, Ian."

"Good night, sweet."

"If there was only someone in the village," Ian muttered to himself as he walked home, but a disgust shook him, he wanted none of it. He was trapped. He loved Paula. He turned and hesitated as he came to the driveway leading into Maisie's; there were no lights except in the little annex where the colleen, Deirdre, slept, but that thought made him laugh a little uneasily -he wanted a moment with Maisie, was she asleep? What did he want of her anyway?

"Ian?" A warm soft hand slipped into his, the moon lit up but as if from inside her, Maggie. "It's Maggie."

"Who else," he thought, "and who better."

"It's late, go home," he said as if to a friendly dog.

"I love you," said Maggie.

"Soft little paw," murmured Ian, addressing her hand that he did not let go.

"Brother," whispered Maggie, she was so close he could feel her tremble and he felt only compassion.

"I'll take you home," he said, "where it's warm."

Maggie looked at the indentation of Paula's and Ian's bodies on the couch and Ian did not miss her almost furtive glance. He did not move when she put her arms around his neck and laid her cheek against his breast. "She's a little thing," he thought, "and hard, like a boy." It seemed natural-he would feel a heel if he didn't, besides-to return the resilient burden of her embrace. Maggie sensed it like the gentle but tensile and yielding pressure of the sea when she dove in and treaded water, it was delicious. But she felt-sweet as it was, like a little girl being comforted and that is not what she wanted. She wanted to he on the couch like Paula and...

"Like this," she whispered. Smiling as if she knew a secret, she undid her blouse and without a moment's hesitation Ian took one small breast and gently caressed it. Maggie sighed and her eyes closed as if she were going to sleep.

"That's all," said Ian to himself, but all of a sudden Maggie maneuvered herself into his arms and it was over so quick that Ian was amazed when a sob and the sudden relaxation of Maggie in his arms made him realize what had happened.

"Maggie," he whispered, "my little Maggie." He felt an urgent desire for her. Her skin smelled and tasted of love, her body was no longer hard, but soft and pliant and obsessive, her head fell sideways as if she were dead.

"Jesus Christ," said Ian, and it was really a prayer. "Get out of here, Maggie," he pleaded, he felt his desire nagging at him.

"Please," said Maggie. It was like a child asking for a doll and Ian's passion turned to a tender affection. He even laughed softly, "Maggie, sweet, what is it? What is the matter, my littlest love, my baby girl?" and he caressed her, his palms clinging to the smooth warm skin. He took her eager face between his hands and kissed her mouth; it was a special kiss. It was his tribute. He felt no evil desire. She was a little woman, come of age.

"There," he said, straightening up, and his tone said, "you have your doll," and it also had in it a finality, because Ian had made up his mind quick never to touch Maggie again. Something warned him that another encounter would change him from a gentle character into a foul-mouthed beast, spitting lust. Maggie was dangerous, he had known it all along and he saw in her eyes the glow of a conflagration that he did not wish or dare to be the first one to strike a match in the vicinity of....

"If she only knew!" he thought.

What made him think Maggie didn't know?

(Or Lamby, for that matter. Lamby had seen the whole thing. Lamby had peeked and seen plenty, but it was more from habit than for vicarious pleasure; it titillated her mental lobes as if a tiny seismograph were located there, but of bodily enthusiasm there was none. She could have been tossed into the middle of a mythological orgy of nudity and crazy desire in honor of the god Pan without muscular or nervous response. But her intelligence would tell her that she was deprived and so now, as in that imaginary case, she did feel anger, an anger that made her want to kill. It was the only sensation, the only passion that would release her.)

Maggie looked at Ian, the little woman was not satisfied, and her eyes begged and teased for an assignation. Ian's everlasting male curiosity wondered at the everlasting desire of the weaker sex and so he spoiled the finality of his decision by asking her, "Weren't you happy a minute ago, Maggie?" He whispered it, he felt shy with this eager, single-minded child.

Her lips only formed the word, "Yes"; he could not hear her.

"Then let me go, dear."

"It is you I want," she said evenly, as if she had planned to say it for a long time and Ian, the Ian of a good deal of experience with women, blushed. He blushed because it was so evident what Maggie meant under the circumstances. She did want a doll, a very crude one, and he possessed it. "The little beast!" He felt for a moment the way a woman feels most of the time. "She might make some pretense," he thought. "Women!" he said to himself. "What do they know of love!"

"Tomorrow night?" whispered Maggie. "No," said Ian.

Maggie hesitated, then she said, "Just once."

Ian's psyche started, it was a refrain, a begging, idiotic refrain, that he himself had often used, "Just once, for Christ's sake!" Maggie was ruining his self-esteem fast. "Look," he said coldly, "if that's all you want, look elsewhere."

Something had indeed happened to Maggie's ideal of brotherhood and democracy; the essay she had started at school, in an ecstasy, on "My Brother, He Is Everywhere" would remain unfinished as a document; the ecstasy would stick and the title would still be indicative and telling. Ian felt his loss of prestige and was chagrined, his ego hurt.

"Don't make it so difficult for me," Maggie whispered.

"I'll make it just as difficult as I can," said Ian.

"Flirt," said Maggie suddenly.

"Good Lord," snorted Ian, "I'll be a son-of-a-bitch!" He was catching it, this girl child thought like a true son of a woman, a male wanton! Why did she have to keep quoting him.

"Listen," he said, changing the subject-he still felt responsible, in spite of her taking the initiative, and it was easy now that the interview had cooled his natural ardor, "I am, or will be soon, your brother."

"Yes," said Maggie eagerly.

"Do you want to sleep with your brother?"

"Yes," said Maggie sweetly, how slow he had been, "When?" she said.

He laughed. "It's a date," he said. But he didn't know he would keep it. "I'm no seducer of virgins," he said to himself as he walked toward home for the second time that evening, but Maggie's eyes that glistened like wet pavement reflecting skyscrapers stayed with him a long time. He did not hesitate again at Maisie's driveway, but he noticed that there was no light in Deirdre's room. The moon, high now, picked him out and a short shadow followed him like a sleuth in plain clothes, it clung to him almost indecently. Ian, feeling a little lighthearted after his great show of character, twice, turned up his coat collar and peered sideways into the moony shadows and glanced behind him at his dwarfish shade. "I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me," he mimicked, talking like a kid, "r-r-r-r-r-r-t," he machine-gunned it for fun. But the rest of the walk was solemn, he was grown up, he felt his responsibilities. Only Maisie's friendship was a fifty-fifty companionship, and he looked forward to seeing her with relief.