ONE

Steve Irwin reluctantly awoke from a restless sleep and looked about his unkempt room. The wall-mirror made him look dissolute. He had not lived as slovenly since bachelor days. He would be happy to have his wife home again. He sat propped against the headboard and looked out the window to see a brightly painted Tugboat pushing a string of overloaded Barges, cascades of tumbling waves and pounding Diesels fading as they moved downriver to New York, forty miles away.

Glancing at the sky he saw high Cirrus foretelling an approaching Front, and judging by scattered layers of Stratus clouds, today would be bright and clear. A good day for her homecoming. A good day to make a fresh beginning. A good day to start a marriage anew. The glare of the sun on the water created a ribbon of light flowing between the Highlands where the Fog Horn of a brick Lighthouse sounded its mournful tones long after the mist had burned away. Across the river the hills flowed together each hollow and curve delineated by the soft morning light. Watching scattered wisps of fog settle in the valley he could see windows on the far shore reflecting the sun as daylight erased shadows on the granite cliffs.

He had seen sunrise and observed the weather in a daily ritual originating so far back in his past he could not remember when he first began watching each new day reveal itself to his wondering childlike gaze. Dawn never failed to evoke feelings of awe and expectation. It pleased him to watch the sun illuminate the Palisades across the river before leaving his bed and stepping into the shower. A pleasant beginning. Watching the sun rise and then the feeling of hot water spreading down shoulders and back, thawing and stretching muscles, luxuriating in the penetrating heat. Yes, this was a good time, if not the best time of day, and, as he turned off the water and dried himself, he could feel his flesh come alive and he paused remembering that morning long ago when he awoke and for the first time his wife was beside him, a woman of such beauty he trembled as he watched her sleep, a trusting child, head resting on one arm, her tanned body sprawled under the sheets. It was all promise then. Expectation. Love beyond his wildest imaginings now within his grasp if somehow he would reach out and find the courage to commit himself. He smiled and hung the towel on the rack to dry. Who could predict the future of an adoring smile?

He dressed quickly, donning a sweater before walking to the garage. He had a habit of leaning forward, bursting with animal energy as he walked, the bounce and swing of his body creating an appearance of power and compactness that made him seem shorter than his true height. Hunching over the typewriter had rounded his shoulders, thickening the sinews of his neck and when he stepped from his desk at the end of the day stretching his aching muscles, he looked upon his work as an ordeal. To endure and perhaps achieve something out of no other materials but himself was no small ambition, and he had learned that writing was an exhausting profession that consumed all that he had ever felt, thought, or seen in a lifetime dredging-up from his mind and spirit, his daily bread.

He drove slowly, following the Post Road along the river, knowing he had traveled this route before, reminded that this would be one more day of high expectations and renewed hopes. He had believed many things into existence. His career had no genesis other than his belief that he could do what he had been doing these many years, and this marriage was an expression of his faith that they could make something of their lives, and now that he no longer believed they were making anything of value he was possessed by a feeling of futility. This was not the first time he drove his wife home from this and other Sanitariums. And he knew it would not be the last. They lived a recurring cycle of in-and- out with only the names and faces of Doctors changing whenever his wife willed one more alteration in behavior or location. Yes, it had taken him too many years to recognize the hatred masquerading in the diaphanous gowns of love.

He shifted gears climbing the high bluff overlooking the river, driving towards the large Victorian mansion jutting against the sky, its faded white paint and overgrown grounds rundown as if all magic had fled from this mountain leaving only echoes of past glories and careers, autographed and framed under glass, gathering dust and curious glances in the hallway where the walls displayed photographs of the "celebrities" who had returned to the Limelight temporarily dried-out or tranquillized for their next encounter with reality.

He turned into the parking lot, switched-off the engine and glanced at his watch. He was early. He looked into the rear-view mirror and smoothed his hair, peering at a face that had grown thinner and more lined. His habitually questioning gaze, his way of intensely concentrating on people aroused doubt among those unaccustomed to looking at the world with genuine interest. He knew his interest in people made it seem he was asking something from them. Was it love? Or was it just knowledge that was expensive in time, money, and heartbreak? Now that he knew, more than he cared to know, about his wife, he realized how little he understood. In seeking the answer to her mystery he had missed what was before his eyes all the time.

They had been happy, their lives illuminated by a deep abiding love. Each day brought excitement and an unfolding passion bringing them together in sudden explosions of desire that convulsed them like reverberating shock waves. Their happiness was a broad, sweeping river that held them in its irresistible power. They told themselves, again and again, how fortunate they were to have met and fallen in love and to have had that love grow. Yes, they were committed, abandoning themselves to deep, true, overwhelming feelings. They were considerate, they were tender, they did what they could for each other and they delighted in a touch, a glance, a brief moment of silence when something deep within them stirred and reached out for communion. Their love grew more intense. They became demanding. Possessive. And now it all seemed like a dream one has difficulty remembering with the bitter taste of restless sleep its only residue.

He stepped from the car and nodded at her Doctor waiting in the doorway, a tangled beard and graying hair flowing down to his shoulders. The Old Man. An Old Testament Prophet shivering in a starched, white coat bulging with a thick fountain pen clipped inside his breast pocket. He could not resist smiling. The Old Man looked as if he had exhausted all the sorrow tracing lines across the parchment of a face glowing with kindness and wisdom. Steve valued their meetings in his cluttered office filled with books, diplomas, and dust. He healed with a word, a look, his voice enveloping patients in a warmth they had not experienced before. Steve followed him into the building, past the grim, unattractive receptionist who jabbed her finger under the desk, pressing the buzzer that unlocked the door leading to the narrow corridor where softly playing music accompanied the hum of overworked air conditioners. The Old Man opened his office door and gestured towards a chair as he sat behind his desk.

Steve had explained their happiness, knowing it seemed unreal, a fantasy. When speaking of the good years his words sounded hollow, and after many retellings he abandoned all effort to describe emotions that had long since atrophied. Today, there was nothing more for him to say.

"Your wife," the Old Man spoke slowly, leaning back in his chair, "your wife is anxious to return home." He opened a thick folder and turned the pages. "she has been eating and sleeping well, taking full advantage of the therapy we offer here." The Old Man continued, his voice flowing in a calm, monotonous rhythm as if reciting a memorized elocution exercise whose subject was reassurance and confidence. Steve felt no compulsion to listen, the airy tones, and joyous lilt of the Old Man's words communicated the essence of the message. His wife would now be on her own. She would make her own future. As you know, all available therapies are unable to cope with alcohol. Take her home with our blessing and we'll hope for the best. The Old Man's voice was a musical performance, slow, stately passages of profound depth and meaning segueing into lighter, more melodic movements gradually building to a climax celebrating the beauty, charm, and extraordinary talent of this absolutely terrific woman and it was indeed a privilege, the Old Man said, his voice climbing to a final, swelling moment of dramaturgy, it was indeed an honor to be of some assistance to this troubled spirit. The cymbals did not clash nor did the drums roll as his voice continued its bouncy sing-song tones, fading into the natural rhythms of conversational speech. Steve heard these words and their softy playing music accompanied the hum of the overworked air conditioners. The Old Man opened his office door and gestured towards a chair as he sat behind his desk. Steve had explained their happiness, knowing it seemed unreal, a fantasy. When speaking of the good years his words sounded hollow, and after many retellings he abandoned all effort to describe emotions that had long since atrophied. Today, there was passion, his work. He had grown accustomed to long nights and cold beds and days filled with the satisfactions of his own creating.

She had awakened him. Or rather, they had awakened each other, and, as he felt himself come alive, he looked back at the barren years with wonder. How did he ever live that way? Alone. So alone. A Monk in a cell. Hammering away at the words. He remembered reading a Camus quotation that stayed with him during that time.

"What a Man's mind would accomplish, will be undone by his scrotum." These words no longer amused him.

He had met Helen Irwin at a casting session of one of his plays that ran four performances and closed to indifferent revues. She had waited patiently, seated at the back wall of the theater, keeping herself apart from the group of young actresses who stepped into center stage peering over the work lights, reading bits of flat, lifeless scenes that evoked increasing despair as they performed, smiled gallantly at rude rejection, and then exited to the wings, faceless, anonymous aspirants who converged on each new production with inexhaustible hope and limited skill. Helen walked into the spotlight, staring out at the increasing gloom, script in hand as she waited for the Director to speak. She remained motionless, concentrating on the text, as if alone, the silence providing a background for a performance that began without a gesture, a movement or word to announce that a living, radiant character was now being created on stage. She waited calmly, the audience on the other side of the footlights staring at the tall, slender figure dressed in black, skirts covering her knees, barefoot on the un-swept boards littered with crushed cigarettes and candy wrappers. He could hear traffic in the street, and seats creaking, the Director choking-back a cough as they watched her smile, eyes slowly rising from the script to look over the footlights, staring boldly at them, compelling attention as her mouth widened into a grin, then broadened to a full smile that illuminated her face, her eyes radiating a bright joy felt by the startled audience. Then she began reading, each word a distinct creation, each word a clear sharp assertion of the beauty and power of the human voice, each word a cry, an echo of her love for the speech filling the theater with a rhythm and life that continued growing as her voice lowered to a whisper, drawing them forward in their seats, straining to hear each nuance, each shading of intonation evoking and shaping emotions that flowed across the footlights, suddenly growing louder, more insistent as she finished reading, closed the script, and walked offstage, taking her magic with her.

She got this and many other parts, her career building slowly, opening and closing several plays that were distinguished by his workmanlike energy and her performance. Steve and Helen were serious, disciplined and devoted to each other and their work, excluding everything from their lives but writing, acting and marriage. He maintained a reputation that brought neither fame nor fortune in plays and films that paid for their home overlooking the river, the first and only home that either of them had ever owned and been possessed by. Her drinking became more than a hazard of the trade as he worked longer and harder and drank less. She began destroying her fragile career, drinking and fighting and missing performances, her talent inadequate to pardon her behavior for though Stardom has its privileges she was not a Star nor indispensable to any production, and, as she became unemployable her drinking increased.

Her devotion to her appearance intensified. Exercise, diet, and long hours apprenticed to a mirror maintained a beauty that flourished as the planes of her face thinned, her long, angular neck turning her head as if forever searching for the Key Light focused and scrimmed with no other purpose but to enhance and illuminate a profile that could have been famous had she remained before the public. Her look was created by a sharp, steady intelligence gazing at the world with knowing, almost cunning glances that happily merged in an overwhelming smile that projected her joy at being alive, onstage, facing an audience. She was Helen Irwin, she seemed to say, and though her nose was badly shaped and her mouth too large and her hair difficult to manage, something inside her transformed ungainly features into true beauty with only a little help from her hands. She had studied her face, analyzing its possibilities, passionately sculpting not in stone or clay but with tweezer and pencil, shadowing and shading flesh, emphasizing the folds of skin that gave her eyes an oriental, hooded look. Yes, he was caught up in the madness of her beauty. His obsession.

The Old Man continued. Case number such and such, a well-known face and name, prognosis indefinite, undetermined, diagnosis unanalyzed and probably un-analyzable, to be perfectly candid with you, my dear sir! The Old Man had the facts, all the episodes between the covers of a thick folder on his desk and he truly cared for this woman who was so many different women at one and the same time, with or without drink or love, or the devoted concern of her husband and Doctor. Steve signed the release as the Old Man walked around the desk and opened the door.

"Good luck," the Old Man said, and of course, should you ever need me, I'll make myself available." He escorted Steve down the corridor, the loudspeakers announcing the day's schedule of meals, games and television, soft music displacing the strident voice of the Head Nurse who attacked the silence with each announcement. He could not help thinking that the human voice mirrors and distinguishes the soul, the unforgettable voices of Presidents, actors and people expressing their uniqueness more powerfully than their eyes. He would never forget this voice, precise, brittle, orderly, so without doubt, contrasting with Helen's little-girl's voice that seemed helpless and weak when once it had been the most vivid color of her flamboyant personality.

Following the Old Man he passed locked doors concealing mystery and tragedy not dispelled by music. Who lived behind these doors could only be imagined. Survivors of Shock Treatments, basket weaving, Play Therapy, and Saturday night dances for patients and hopeful visitors who parked their sense of reality at the door, entering a make-believe world made dreary by streaked lipstick and shrill laughter rising over the dance floor like flotsam surfacing through layers of pain and terror.

The Old Man unlocked the door to the Visitor's Lounge admitting Steve. Helen's luggage was at the entrance. He knew that room well. Rows of magazines precisely tabled, overlapping in parallel stacks, each issue revealing the masthead of the previous month's copy flanked by polished ash trays and chairs precisely angled under a reading lamp.

Christ! How little anyone knows. Yes, he did see Helen's problems many years ago. In his wallet he carried a photograph taken when she was eight. A thin, long-limbed girl crouching at the edge of the sea, one knee pressing into wet sand, clasped hands digging a hole that quickly filled with water, head tilted back, looking into the camera, mouth grim, as if startled by a threatening intruder, and he remembered being shocked by the look in her eyes in the photograph when first she gave him the picture, for she was not a child playing on a beach but rather a frightened animal cornered in her lair. A picture of innocent terror he would never forget and the first hint of fears to come. He always carried that photo, studying it in search of mysteries forever beyond his understanding, and though she grew taller, and added flesh to that thin body, the beautiful woman she became, forever looked out upon the world through fear-stricken eyes.

He had recognized the core of her being in the photo, and had denied his insightful grasp of who she was. It was more than he was prepared to live with at that, or any other time, and so he had waited many years before marrying. Watching his feelings grow from a seed of doubt and hesitation, he fell in love blindly, knowing he was blind, obsessed, ignoring the evidence of her distress every time he looked at that picture.

He picked up the suitcases and carried them to the car, stowing them carefully, and when he returned to the building Helen was leafing through the pages of Vogue, and when she turned towards him he again saw the startled young child on the beach, the fear in her eyes abruptly transformed into a look of pleasure as he leaned over and kissed her cheek. He noticed her dress hanging loosely, her face lean and hard.

"You've lost weight," he said, "seems like I've married a teen-ager, by God!" He looked her over. A hungry look. A leer without the whistle.

A hint of a smile acknowledged his tribute. Helen hesitated, considering her reply. Opening lines established the tone of all her best scenes. Today was important.

"You like me this thin?" she asked, her long, graceful fingers touching her hair in a familiar gesture. "With my boobs, I'd never be taken for a fashion model. Never."

He laughed. She really is her old self. "Very becoming," he said, arms opening in a welcome embrace which she did not enter. Yes, it was too soon. Give her time, he told himself. The flesh that was once one and indivisible was now separate, estranged. The bond that had so passionately locked them together now tenuous. Yes, give her time.

She stepped back. Withdrawing. Suddenly angry.

"The food was incredible. They kept firing cooks, each one worse than the one they fired. Last week I didn't eat a thing. Not a mouthful." She patted her flat stomach. Point made. He held the door, and then they walked slowly towards the car, her legs unsteady, and he was grateful no one insisted on a wheel chair. When she slid into the front seat he leaned over and kissed her again. A proper little girl kiss. Without passion. Two people who once knew each other. Very well. Very well indeed.

"I missed you," he said. The truth.

"Good," she answered. "I'm glad."

He drove slowly, the road crowded with school buses stopping at intersections, trucks and cars patiently waiting until the flashing red lights turned off. He accelerated up the familiar winding road towards home remembering her seated next to him, her thigh pressed lightly to his, the countryside flowing past in a changing panorama of beauty, the two of them singing and talking, endlessly talking, her hand resting in his lap.

"I see your driving hasn't improved."

"Nervous?"

"As a cat."

He slowed, rounding the curve on top of the hill and when he glanced at her he saw she was staring out the window, studying the flat, windless river, the sun glaring on the water. She reached into the glove compartment and put on a pair of dark glasses. She loved wearing dark glasses. And riding with him in a car.

"May I have your autograph?" he asked.

"I'm only a housewife, sir. No one famous."

"Is that what you want?"

"Yes. That is all I want."

He turned into the side road leading off the highway, driving through woodlands and meadows, passing groves of Birch trees budding into leaf. The forest smelled damp from last night's rain.

"Spring," she said.

"The wettest in ten years."

"Did you get much work done?"

"There was nothing else. Work, and listening to the rain."

"It's good to be home."

"I know."

She was leaning against the head rest, staring out the window, and he reached out to hold her hand. He could feel tension dissipate as she turned and smiled as if to touch the world with a promise.

"Last time," she said. "Never again."

"I hope so."

She smiled and turned to the window and he could feel her pulse quicken, her fingers clasped in his, squeezing hard, and suddenly she seemed old, the lines around her eyes sagging as she studied her brooding reflection in the glass. She noticed him watching and suddenly she resumed her bright, hopeful face. Her tomorrow face.

"That's better," he said.

That's the way it will always be, he thought. Her expression changing with each mood, no matter what he said there was no way of anticipating her reaction. No way of preventing sudden descents into depression or flights of euphoria.

"What was it like?" he asked.

"This time it was wallpaper," she said. " They had this pukey-green Colonial design that repeated every other panel and when I woke in the morning the first thing I saw was this mismatched sheet sprouting a Church Steeple out of a cow's ass. Sears Roebuck surrealism out of Salvador Dali. Did you hear that Musak?"

"Yes."

"And the Head Nurse? Every night, at midnight, in a voice like sandpaper she called for piss in a bottle! Sleep and piss. Piss and sleep. Christ I was bored. Couldn't read or listen to any decent music. Everybody laughing all the time at God knows what. A bunch of Hyenas. Just four walls, a window, and a door that rattles in its frame every time some heavy footed Elephant walked past. And when the food cart rolled by on wheels not oiled in twenty-five years, I jumped right out of my skin! Speaking of torture, Amnesty International should do something about this place! The bell rings, you get up. The door opens and you eat. They hand you a bottle and you piss! Christ! They tested my urine fourteen times a day!"

"To protect your kidneys."

"It's my liver. You got it all wrong. They're trying to regenerate my Liver so it will purify my rich, juicy red corpuscles. Did you pay the bill?"

"Of course."

She smiled her charming smile. Her voice rising. "Con men with Doctor's degrees turning everybody into vegetables! The Old Man is so dull. He's got an identity crisis. I really gave that man something, you know that? He says I have uncanny insight into what makes people tick. He wants me to study Psychology. You know, what's the sense of wasting all these years on the couch? He knows all the shortcuts to a degree! But its not for me. I could never sit and listen to that garbage from people's minds. That's why Shrinks are suicidal. Highest incidence of any profession. I think he's madly in love with me. You know we really talk! He's truly amazed at the insights I give him. It's quite a responsibility having someone in love with you. It's a sacred trust what's between a Therapist and patient. Privileged information! Not even the FBI could get that man to breath a word. He's so moral its disgusting. Some good woman should climb into his bed. He's too Goddamn shy to ask. I didn't want him to fall in love with me. No way! It's just that he's so lonely."

He rounded the curve and climbed the hill leading to the white stucco house on the Point, the broad river sweeping past the rocky peninsula evoked a feeling of homecoming. Helen leaned forward in her seat, restless, eager to arrive. He parked in the driveway and removed the luggage.

"Welcome home," he said.

They walked through the garden to the back door, Helen, with a forlorn look, examining the flowers bordering the footpath. Her flowers. Her children.

"Must have been one hell of a winter," she said.

"It was."

"Garden's dead."

"It won't take you long to get it right."

"I wouldn't know where to start."

They entered the house, Steve carrying the suitcases upstairs, placing them on an unmade bed, and when he returned to the kitchen water was boiling on the stove.

"I don't see how anybody can live this way," she said, rinsing two cups in the sink, drying with a tattered dish towel as the kettle whistle shrilled. She turned off the flame, added coffee and slowly stirred the brew. "A Cleaning Lady rearranging the dust once a week is not enough."

"Apparently."

They walked into the living room, Helen sitting gracefully on the sofa, placing her cup on the coffee table, leaning against thick cushions, back straight, glancing around the room as if she was an elegant character in a long-running play.

"You didn't spend much time in this room."

"It's too big and lonely."

She smiled indulgently. "The only clean room in the house." She watched him place a log in the fireplace.

"You've lost weight."

"I thought you'd like it."

"I do. You look years younger."

He placed kindling and paper under the log and struck a match. The flames curled, enveloping the dry wood as he shoved an iron poker against the log, exposing the dry underside to the fire. He turned and looked at her. She was staring into her cup, cradling it between both hands, the steamy vapors rising as she swirled the coffee in a circular motion. He poked the fire. She looked up, suddenly ravaged, desolated. He had seen that expression before. Many times. All of them bad.

"For God's sake all I really ask is to let me be me! That's all! Me! I want to be me! Why is it so God damn hard? Is there something wrong with my being myself? God damn it to hell anyway If I can't be me I don't want to be anybody else! Come Hell or High Water I am going to be myself no matter what the hell you do I am going to be the best God damn me you've ever seen. I just want to be me!"

"Let's not talk about that right now," he said, walking to the window, opening the blinds, the sun slanting into the room, illuminating specs of dust wavering in the light.

"You think its easy being me? You think I'm having a ball? You, without a nerve in your body, do you know what it's like hurting so bad you can't stand it anymore? Hurting so bad you can't breathe! Believe me there's hurt inside some people can drive them out of their skulls and until you're in their heads you have no right saying anything about anyone in that kind of agony. There's something squeezing you so tight you want to die. Christ! You and this house are driving me up the wall. I walk in the door and I can't breathe! I'm suffocating. The walls are closing in. I'm trapped."