401: With the marriage ...
Herb ’n’ Lorna, Chapter 20 continues
WITH THE MARRIAGE of Mark and Margot, the trio seemed to have found a solution to their Situation, a conventional, traditional solution. Martha was maid of honor at the wedding, and after Margot and Mark left the reception, they didn’t see Martha for months. Naïvely, simplemindedly, all three imagined that their Situation had been left behind in their crazy past, part of a complicated courtship that they would recall with laughter in the years to come. None of them knew how much more complicated their Situation would grow.
Margot and Mark had been married for a little more than a year when Mark had to travel to Washington for a conference. He didn’t have to go; going was supposed to be good for his career. For several reasons, he didn’t want to go. For one thing, he was afraid to fly. For another, he was afraid of making a fool of himself at the conference. In the end, he decided that he ought to go. The night before he was to leave, while Margot and he were packing his things, he was nervous, as one might expect. He would be the most junior person attending, and he knew that this was his big chance to improve his standing among his colleagues and, of course, his big chance to make an ass of himself. He was also feeling sentimental; he and Margot would be apart for a week, and they hadn’t spent a single night apart since they had been married. Margot seemed a little “on edge,” and Mark was touched by what he took to be a reaction to the thought of their being apart, concern for his safety, for his chances, for them, their chances. When Margot got into bed, she turned onto her side, away from Mark. He turned the light off, reached out for her and stroked her hip.
She said, “I’m sorry. I’m just too tense.”
Mark told her that he understood, and he rolled onto his side, facing away from her, facing the wall in fact, for at that time they were sleeping on a ridiculous and uncomfortable bed that Mark had built from two-by-fours, a bed that was shoved into a corner of the bedroom, so that Mark slept nearly surrounded, with a wall at his head, a wall on one side, and Margot on the other. The truth was that Mark didn’t understand at all; he was hurt and annoyed. He felt that Margot owed him something, a demonstration of her love for him, her confidence in him, her pride in him, since he would be taking a real risk by getting into an airplane and flying to a distant city for the sake of improving his position among people whom he regarded as a bunch of pompous, egotistical, capable, urbane, and frightening bastards, all for the sake of making life better for him and Margot in the future, a little more luxurious, a little more exciting. He had expected to get from her a token, something to carry with him through his ordeal: he had expected not just that they would make love on the night before he left — their marriage was only a year old, after all — but even more, that there would be in Margot’s lovemaking new heights of passion and abandon that he would remember with a smile during the days in Washington, drawing from the memory new strength and wit when he was doing verbal battle with some hoary luminary in one of the symposia. Instead, he got nothing.
In the morning, before Mark left for the airport, Margot was up early, and she made him an elaborate breakfast. While he was eating his waffles and sausage and drinking his orange blossom, outwardly composed, inwardly contending with a clamorous mob of emotions, she sat across from him and simply watched him. She was happy. She was experiencing, Mark could see, genuine pleasure; it manifested itself in a Grin-Twin grin, a luxurious stretching, an unfamiliar way of savoring her coffee. Mark finished eating. He went to the bathroom and urinated and washed his hands and brushed his teeth. When he came out, Margot was waiting in the hall with his coat, scarf, gloves, and suitcase. When they kissed good-bye, she kissed him with a tenderness that made him feel absolutely wonderful.
“Mark,” she said, pulling away, taking his hands in hers, and looking him in the eyes, “when you get back, I won’t be here.”
“Oh, my God,” Mark said. The effect her words had on him, dropping him in an instant from wonderful to miserable, was to return, an hour and a half later, when the plane to Washington hit an air pocket.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” she said at once. “I didn’t mean it that way. I’m not leaving you. I love you, Mark.” This had the effect that the plane’s leveling off had later. Mark was relieved, but his confidence had been shaken; he had been reminded how little holds us up. “I just need a vacation from you,” Margot said. And then it all came rushing out of her. “You worry too much, Mark, and you try too hard to plan ways to be content and happy, and worst of all you worry about being happy or not being happy, and you’re always worrying about the future, about whether you’ll amount to anything, whether we’ll be comfortable, and your worrying’s wearing me out. Besides — ” She turned away from him and looked out the door. “ — it isn’t fair. It isn’t fair to Martha. I think about her, alone, and I can’t — enjoy myself with you. I need a vacation, and she needs a turn with you. She’ll be here when you get back. She’s going to take my place for a while.”
[to be continued on Tuesday, December 13, 2022]
In Topical Guide 401, Mark Dorset considers Popular Misconceptions: “Air Pocket” from this episode.
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