The Studs Lonigan Trilogy - James T. Farrell [377]
“Yes, he’s so understanding on things like that. You know this same thing must happen to lots of others, and they get married so there’s no scandal, and they don’t really love each other. I wouldn’t want that. I would rather have our baby and face the world alone than marry if you didn’t want to and didn’t love me.”
“Yes. You know that’s where the Church is wise. It’s in men like Father Geoghan who inherit all the Church’s two thousand years of experience and wisdom.”
“But Bill, we do love each other, don’t we? And we want to marry?”
“Of course, Kid.”
“I felt so much better after seeing Father Geoghan, too. He made me just feel different about it. That’s what made him seem so much more understanding than Mother and Dad. They’d never understand, and all I could do was say we’re going to get married, the same as you did.”
“Well, my old man and old lady weren’t any more hot on the idea than yours.”
“I’ll bet they don’t like me.”
“That’s not it at all, Kid.”
“I think it is maybe.”
“Not at all. No! It was just like your folks felt, you know, surprised at the suddenness of it.”
She seemed to him to lapse into a thoughtful mood. With-out attracting her attention, he caught the reflective look on her face, blue. Her mood and his own both seemed to press down the more forcibly because of the sunny appearance of the Sunday street, the people dressed up, strolling along, the pretty girls, the couples laughing, going some place, people who didn’t have the troubles on their minds that he had.
“Bill!” she exclaimed suddenly in a questioning tone of voice.
“What?” he asked in apparent apprehension.
“We don’t care what anybody else thinks, do we?”
“Of course not, Kid,” he said, trying to be casual.
“And today is a lovely day, and it’s going to be ours, too, isn’t it? No matter what we got ahead of us, we’re not going to worry today, are we?”
He agreed with her by a cryptic nod of the head, and thought, if she would only forget to worry, and would go along, chattering away, it would make him feel lighter. It would be like a kind of sleep. It made him realize how, of late, she had seemed to slide away from all the things she used to do, from her girl friends, and bridge club, and every-thing like that. It made him feel a little lousy about it all, because look what she was getting for all this sacrifice!
“Maybe it would be a good idea for you to go to the next meeting of your bridge club.”
“You’re not trying to pawn me off, are you?” she asked, surprised.
“Why, no, no, Kid. I was only wondering if it might not be a nice change for you from a guy like me, and you know, help you to keep your mind off worrying.”
“You silly boy! You men! You’re not just a guy, and I’m not worrying, and I never will because I know you love me, darling.”
“I don’t want you to be worrying, you know.”
“You’re such a sweet boy. Why should I be worrying when you’re going to be all mine, my husband in just three short weeks? What could I be getting to make me happier?”
“Well, now ... ” he halted because he didn’t know what he really wanted to say.
“I hope the water isn’t cold,” she said.
“It won’t be,” he said, just to make the conversation go on.
“I won’t be able to go swimming soon.”
Her remark brought it all back to him clearly. Christ, if he could only get her to take some medicine that would bring her around. But after what Father Geoghan had said about such things: murder, killing an innocent, unborn soul, fat chance he had of convincing her. Maybe if she ran around the beach and got plenty of exercise, it might happen naturally.
“Come on, let’s walk faster,” he said.
II
Studs and Catherine descended over a small area of rocky, sandy beach to the shore line, and the lake, blue, with sunlight on it, stretched out and out, like some vast cloth.
“Gee, it’s crowded all right today,” Studs said.
“Naturally, since it’s Sunday.”
“But, no, it’s crowded even for a Sunday,” Studs said weightily, looking around him at the lively, noisy crowd, their bathing suits lending a variegation of color to the scene. His eye caught a slender girl, her body bronzed from sunlight and pinched into an abbreviated one-piece red swimming suit. She stood looking toward the water like a girl in an advertising picture, her head flung back. The glimpse of her caused Studs to see Catherine as small, and plain, and dumpy, and he felt sorry for her. He wanted to look again at the slender bronzed girl, but feared that Catherine might notice him. If she guessed his thoughts and wishes now when he saw other girls, she