At last she was settled, with a cup of tea and some magazines and her prescription painkillers within reach, and only now did she seem to take notice of Jean as an individual with her own separate existence.
“What have you been doing with yourself all this time, anyway?” she inquired.
I have been spending the nights with my married lover, under the nose of his neighbors, leaving the house abandoned and the milk to curdle on the doorstep.
Tomorrow, perhaps, when her mother had settled back in properly, there was a difficult conversation to be had, but not today.
“I’ve taken down the runner beans and written to Dorrie. And bought some new towels for the bathroom. Nothing out of the ordinary.”
34
The call to Gretchen had to be made, but Jean kept procrastinating, finding ingenious reasons to defer it until some other, less onerous task was done. For as long as a meeting could be avoided, she had no trouble dodging her conscience over Howard, but face-to-face she would sooner or later have to resort to lies, or evasion, behavior she despised.
This was not the only reason for her discomfort. Since talking to Kitty Benteen, Jean had a dark sense that something less than holy had taken place at St. Cecilia’s. Until she had evidence, there was no question of disclosing her suspicion, but it would be there between them, a malevolent spirit, and another barrier to honesty.
In the event, it was Gretchen who rang her, asking if they could meet as soon as possible. She sounded agitated on the phone, the foreignness of her accent suddenly apparent.
“I can come tomorrow, if you like,” Jean offered.
Now that the nettle was grasped there was no point in further delay. It was a workday, but then this was work, and she still had not addressed the problem of leaving her mother alone outside these hours.
“No, it will have to be Wednesday or Friday, because that’s when Martha’s teaching. We’ll have the place to ourselves.”
Jean refrained from asking why Martha’s absence was a precondition of their meeting, noting only her own relief. Since hearing of her tepid efforts to welcome Margaret into her household, Jean had been incubating a certain hostility toward Martha and had no wish to have it tested by another prickly encounter.
“Could I ask a favor?” Gretchen added when the time and date were settled and the conversation had run its course. “You can say no if it’s inconvenient. I left behind a patchwork eiderdown on my bed at home. I wonder if you could fetch it and bring it with you. It’s pink and green.”
“Yes, I know the one you mean,” said Jean without thinking.
“I would ask Margaret to bring it on Saturday, but it’s a bit bulky for her to carry.”
“Of course. I’ll call in tonight after work and pick it up.”
“Thank you. It gets so cold here in the basement.”
Later, when she remembered this exchange, Jean had a moment of pure panic. How could Gretchen not have noticed her casual familiarity with the furnishings of her bedroom? Perhaps it had been a deliberate trap, into which she had positively sauntered. In matters of duplicity she was an amateur; if she was to survive the forthcoming encounter without giving herself away, she would need to remain watchful.
The missing pane of stained glass from the front door of Luna Street was still unrepaired and had in fact been joined by a fresh breakage, also covered in plywood. In the shared hallway were a bicycle, a twin stroller and an umbrella left open to dry. Coats ballooned from the rack of hooks, almost occluding the passage. Jean decided to keep hers on as she fought her way past. It looked as though the weight of one more would bring the whole thing off the wall. It was, in any case, bitterly cold.
Gretchen was waiting for her in the doorway of the apartment, dressed in woolen trousers, thick socks, jersey and a whiskery, handwoven tabard resembling a pair of hearth rugs stitched together at the shoulders. Her once-lustrous hair was greasy and there were dark semicircles under her eyes. If this was emancipation, she didn’t look well on it.
They embraced clumsily across the quilted bedspread that Jean was carrying rolled and trussed up with string. Any awkwardness was forgotten in the warmth of Gretchen’s welcome.
“Come in, come in,” she urged. “I’m so pleased to see you. I’ve made spitzbuben. Do you remember them?”
“Of course,” Jean laughed. “It wasn’t that long ago.”
“It feels like it,” said Gretchen, her face falling. She cheered up on being reunited with her quilt, which she untied carefully, saving the string in a neat skein. “Thank you for bringing it. It’s icy in here. We can wrap it round us on the couch.”