"Nothing's going on, Helen," Garp said. "There was a little trouble here, and I didn't want to leave Duncan."
"Where is that woman?" Helen asked.
"In bed," Garp admitted. "She passed out."
"From what?" Helen asked.
"She'd been drinking," Garp said. "There was a young man here, with her, and she wanted me to get him to leave."
"So then you were alone with her?" Helen asked.
"Not for long," Garp said. "She fell asleep."
"I don't imagine it would take very long," Helen said, "with her."
Garp let there be silence. He had not experienced Helen's jealousy for a while, but he had no trouble remembering its surprising sharpness.
"Nothing's going on, Helen," Garp said.
"Tell me what you're doing, exactly, at this moment," Helen said.
"I'm washing the dishes," Garp told her. He heard her take a long, controlled breath.
"I wonder why you're still there," Helen said.
"I didn't want to leave Duncan," Garp told her.
"I think you should bring Duncan home," Helen said. "Right now."
"Helen," Garp said. "I've been good." It sounded defensive, even to Garp; also, he knew he hadn't been quite good enough. "Nothing has happened," he added, feeling a little more sure of the truth of that.
"I won't ask you why you're washing her filthy dishes," Helen said.
"To pass the time," Garp said.
But in truth he had not examined what he was doing, until now, and it seemed pointless to him--waiting for dawn, as if accidents only happened when it was dark. "I'm waiting for Duncan to wake up," he said, but as soon as he spoke he felt there was no sense to that, either.
"Why not just wake him up?" Helen asked.
"I'm good at washing dishes," Garp said, trying to introduce some levity.
"I know all the things you're good at," Helen told him, a little too bitterly to pass as a joke.
"You'll make yourself sick, thinking like this," Garp said. "Helen, really, please stop it. I haven't done anything wrong." But Garp had a puritan's niggling memory of the hard-on Mrs. Ralph had given him.
"I've already made myself sick," Helen said, but her voice softened. "Please come home now," she told him.
"And leave Duncan?"
"For Christ's sake, wake him up!" she said. "Or carry him."
"I'll be right home," Garp told her. "Please don't worry, don't think what you're thinking. I'll tell you everything that happened. You'll probably love this story." But he knew he would have trouble telling her all this story, and that he would have to think very carefully about the parts to leave out.
"I feel better," Helen said. "I'll see you, soon. Please don't wash another dish." Then she hung up and Garp reviewed the kitchen. He thought that his half hour of work hadn't made enough of a difference for Mrs. Ralph to notice that any effort to approach the debris had even been begun.
Garp sought Duncan's clothes among the many, forbidding clots of clothing flung about the living room. He knew Duncan's clothes but he couldn't spot them anywhere; then he remembered that Duncan, like a hamster, stored things in the bottom of his sleeping bag and crawled into the nest with them. Duncan weighed about eighty pounds, plus the bag, plus his junk, but Garp believed he could carry the child home; Duncan could retrieve his bicycle another day. At least, Garp decided, he would not wake Duncan up inside Ralph's house. There might be a scene; Duncan would be fussy about leaving. Mrs. Ralph might even wake up.
Then Garp thought of Mrs. Ralph. Furious at himself, he knew he wanted one last look; his sudden, recurring erection reminded him that he wanted to see her thick, crude body again. He moved quickly to the back staircase. He could have found her fetid room with his nose.