Mr. Bridge_ A Novel - Evan S. Connell [11]
He had explained his position and he knew he was right.
“Are you disappointed in us?” he asked. “Are you disappointed in your mother because she enjoys a small glass of sherry?”
Carolyn would not respond.
For a long time they confronted each other. Finally the silence became unbearable, so he let her go.
13 Life Begins at Forty-three
One evening when they had been invited out he decided to wear a suit he had not worn for several months. When he pulled on the trousers they felt tight. He could not understand this because he did not think he had been gaining weight; however, to be sure he walked into the bathroom and stepped on the scale. He peered at the dial and found he weighed no more than usual, perhaps a pound or so, but not enough to make the pants uncomfortable. He took them off and looked at them suspiciously. After a few moments he put them on again. But again they did not fit, so he once more took them off and sat down on the bed to think.
Presently he stood up, holding his pants in one hand, took a deep breath in front of the mirror, and observed his chest and his waist. Naturally one’s body changed shape with the passage of time and he was no longer twenty, but he was not seventy. He could see no change in his body. It had always been a lean body, generally supple and not ungraceful considering its length, never a body that caused women to turn around, yet it was not bad—it was not bad, it was Lincolnesque, he thought, and he felt proud of it. And because it looked the same as always he did not know why his pants would not fit.
He went back to the bed and sat down again.
He thought about the Mission Country Club where he had paid dues for a number of years. He had not used the club very much. There was a swimming pool and he had intended to stop by for a swim after leaving the office; and there were tennis courts and he had thought he would find time for tennis. Then there was the golf course. But he had remained at the office every afternoon until it was too late. That was the way it had been, and the weekends mysteriously slipped away.
He tried to remember the last time he had gone swimming. It had been the year before last, or perhaps the year before that; and he had not once used the tennis courts or the golf course. Occasionally there was a party or an event of some sort, otherwise he almost never visited the club. His wife went more often because her women friends liked to spend afternoons at the pool, and of course as the children grew up they would be using the club facilities, so it was worthwhile to retain the membership. But he ought to be using it himself. Certainly it was his own fault if he did not; he could arrange to leave the office earlier and go for a swim, play tennis, or do whatever else he felt like doing. Yet somehow this was impossible. He knew he could not quit work at three o‘clock or four o’clock. Some men did this and he resented the fact that they did; they ought to keep working until five or six.
Mr. Bridge frowned at his pants. He lifted them and gave them a shake in case they were getting wrinkled. Then he relapsed into thought.
If it was not feasible to go to the club at least he could do calisthenics in the bedroom. Many people did that, and no doubt it was beneficial. Five or ten minutes every morning ought to produce results. Then, too, it would be easy enough to go for a brisk walk around the block every evening. And downtown there ought to be more walking and less taxi riding.
Mrs. Bridge came into the bedroom. She looked at him sitting on the edge of the bed in his shorts with his trousers across his knees.
He said to