38
PARTISAN REVIEW
shadowed lawn. His thought were the same, strange, like birds, there
was nothing there for him to catch.
"I never told you about my father, did I?"
"No."
"He got killed."
"Yes, I know."
" ... in a corn-cutter up at Aldingtons'. Gangrene."
"Aldingtons'?" She had worked there too, before she was a
nurse.
"Funny, isn't it?" He spoke bitterly but it was not against the
Aldingtons: it had been no one's fault, an accident. "Yes, they used
to run a big farm up there, for fun I guess. But that isn't what I
wanted to say.... "
She was leaning toward him, quiet, waiting.
"After that mother used to, I wanted.... "
Now she was coming out, the woman who was getting old-he
watched her heavy step and the sagging grey line of her hair-to take
the sheets in out of the dew. He saw the quick irritated twist of her
fingers plucking the pins from the line. Tiredness came over him
again, the need for sleep, somehow he must strike it down or he would
drown in it. Joan had put the bright pots out of sight, as if they were
unsuitable, and was waiting for him to speak. She watched him sol–
emnly, the doll-nun, but the pressure of her shoulder was alive, full–
beating. He felt as if some-one had wakened in the room while
his
head was turned. But he went on looking across the road where the
Woman had gathered the last sheets, and heavily, almost with anger,
was carrying them to her kitchen door.
"I don't know what you want from me," he said sharply.
She seemed not to have heard: "You were going to tell me
something else."
"I'll never make any money, if that's it." He waved vaguely
toward the other house, the empty clothes-line. "I never did anyone
any good,
I
never will." She had begun to tidy up, folding the torn
brown paper, piling the unopened packages in a chair. His voice rose
shriII and accusing, like his mother's he thought suddenly. "Why don't
you marry Jake Hurlbut? Why in Christ's name couldn't you have
picked a
man?"
Her lips opened in that shy doll-smile,_frightened: "It wasn't
money and Jake'S too fat."
"Well?"
"Well, I ... "
"You love me, I suppose."
He meant that to be deeply sarcastic but it turned out a simple
question.
