Boys and Girls Together (17 page)

He was failing, that's all. He was no longer tireless, that's all. He was getting along and the gimp was in
him for ever now, to let him know. His carcass was fat now, his gut swollen, his neck thick. He was a bigger load than he ought to ask himself to carry, but he just couldn't get things back to form, back to the good old limits, back to resilience, ease and speed. He was slowed down, overloaded and wearing out. His face was puffy from eating more than he needed, and yet if he didn't eat so much he couldn't carry the load at all.

Well, he thought, there it is, that's all: old and fat and slow at a time when a man ought to be stepping out into his best vigour. Old, fat, slow and foolish. That's fine. The thing to do is sleep. Sleep on it. Sleep around it. Sleep through the day because the night got away. Sleep not to catch up, not to get back to sleep at night and work at day, not to get the order straight, but to forget for a few hours, to rest enough for a few hours in order not to fall into abject stupor. Sleep, not to be restored and refreshed and sent back to work, but to die a while. Sleep to die a little more, to let dying move in a little deeper, to add another layer to the fat, to make the slowness slower still, to push away a little farther the zest and decent resignation of the worker alive in a mournful world at daybreak, going to his work. Sleep, to escape life, to embrace death.

He was up at twelve, and downstairs in time to see the kids before they went to their naps.

They were fine, full of games and stories about their adventures with Marta, and how Rosey climbed out of her crib and went out into the hall again and again, and how she kept Johnny awake and laughing half the night.

He picked the girl up, hugged her tight and walked into the living-room with her, wanting her not to get up all night but not knowing how to tell her in a way that could be equal to the fun for her of doing it, or if it wasn't fun, equal to the need of it; for he knew that unless her mother and her father were in the house she would climb out of her crib and wander into the hall; and that even if they were in the house she would do it sometimes, but not nearly so much as she would with others, especially Marta, who loved her so much; and Negro girls and women who were always loving and knew about sitting in the dark and talking softly, or singing softly, to keep her from climbing out. He knew she had to climb and would if she believed she could get away with it. The new nannies fought it out with her, each in her own way, but they were fired if they spanked her (not because they spanked her but because they weren't interested
enough to figure out a better way of keeping her both at peace and happy). He had never been able to understand what she meant by climbing out of her crib, but she had begun to do it very early, long before most kids learn to climb at all, long before one had a right to feel that she was up to doing it safely; she often fell. He'd heard her fall. She got up, bawling the way her mother bawled, stunned, startled, frustrated, angry, and came out into the hall. And ten minutes later climbed out again and didn't fall. She meant something by it. She just didn't have to put herself to all that trouble for nothing. She just didn't have to leave a warm bed for a cold hall for nothing. But if she were wandering about searching for the scent of her mother, or the heat of her mother's body around her, or the sound of her mother's voice speaking to her with love, when she got these things she soon tired of them, she did not fall asleep in her mother's arms. She was just a little girl who had to climb out her crib again and again, as long as she could get away with it, that's all.

He didn't scold her about it but pressed his face against hers and stood at the window of the living-room. Then he turned her over to Marta who washed her and undressed her. He sat in the kitchen chatting with the boy, answering a dozen or more questions about God, and then when Johnny and Rosey were in bed for their naps, he poured a cup of coffee for Marta and a cup for himself, and they sat and talked.

‘She gets up,' Marta said, ‘but I say
let
her get up.
She wants to. No use taking that away from her. I don't mind.'

‘Can you imagine
why
she wants to?'

‘No reason. She's a lively girl and very bright, just like her mother. She's exactly like her mother.'

‘Yes, she is, isn't she?'

‘Exactly. I have never seen anything like it. So many kids I have seen, but none like their mother like this one. And that boy, he's a real brother to her. He puts up with her the way I've never seen a brother do.'

‘He hits her.'

‘Call that hitting? It's nothing. She's just like her mother, and he's just like you. I watch them and listen to them and it makes me feel good. I just smile and laugh at everything, but those words, those dirty ones that they don't know are dirty. They say them so sweetly, so nicely, at just the right time.'

‘Can you stay a while?'

‘As long as you like. I'm never happier than when I'm with those kids. Go away. Take your beautiful girl for a trip. You don't have to worry about anything. The gate is there. The phone is here. I'm an old Sunday-School teacher, and this is the greatest happiness for me.'

‘If there's anything you want, please let me know. I'll bring some ice cream. I know they like
that
.'

‘I
have
ice cream. We bought a quart on our walk yesterday afternoon. We're going for a walk this afternoon, too. I have my list. Everything's fine. Just forget
all about the kids. Take your beautiful girl some place nice and talk to her.'

He went downstairs to the basement and had a look at the mail, but it was nothing. He drove to the bank and deposited the money. He drove to Ernie Perch's and asked Ernie to drive by the house and have a look at it from the outside, and to see what he might be able to get for it furnished. Ernie said he'd ask for twenty-seven fifty and would telephone only if he had somebody who would be apt to buy.

He bought an afternoon paper and turned to the entries. The eighth looked best: Like His Daddy, Nanby Pass, Brokers Sign, Sea Flyer, Adorable Torch, Shuffle Toe, Vain Doctor, Tia Juana, and Val Zun. Well, there it was. Like His Daddy, but he wouldn't bet. He wouldn't bet two dollars. He didn't want to. He couldn't. The horse would come in of course. It wouldn't pay much better than five to two, but it would come in. But let it. He wouldn't bet, that's all. And he didn't. (Later in the day he saw that Like His Daddy ran third to Nanby Pass and Sea Flyer.)

It should have won, he thought, especially since I didn't bet.

He drove home and went up and found the woman just opening her eyes.

‘What time is it?'

‘Two o'clock, that's all.'

‘Can I stay in bed a little longer?'

‘You can stay as long as you like. The kids are fine.
Marta says for me to take my beautiful girl for a long drive somewhere.'

‘Did she say that?'

‘Those are her own words.'

‘She's a crook, then. She hates me.'

‘I don't think so.'

‘Well, I hate her. I can't stand the sight of her.'

‘Anyhow, they're fine, and we can do anything we like. But take your time because I've got some letters to answer anyhow.'

‘That damn Lucretia, Why hasn't she phoned yet?'

‘Because she's still asleep. She'll be that way for days. Well, how about it?'

‘Nothing yet,' the woman said. ‘I guess I'm caught all right. I guess I'm stuck.'

‘Serves you right.'

The letters were difficult to write. They seemed irrelevant, purposeless and pathetic, as all writing had long since come to seem. It made him feel sick to go near the work-table.

What was there to say?

In letter, poem, story or play?

‘It's tough. The going's tough. You'll never know the half of it. I'll never be able to tell the half of it. Somewhere along the line I was overwhelmed. I lost my luck. I'll never be able to tell the half of it. I'll never be able to get just a little of it straight. It doesn't want to come out straight. Living was always better than I ever knew how to tell; always more hideous than I ever knew how to tell. I lost it. I had to lose it. Everybody has to lose it. It's given only to be lost. I'll tell you what I wanted. Well, I don't think I can even tell you that straight. I guess I wanted plenty, but I can't tell it straight. What I wanted got tangled up in what I didn't want, and pretty soon I couldn't tell one from the other. I didn't want everything, but I wanted something like everything. I'll never know how to tell what I wanted. Well, there was the idea that all of it could be
received;
decently understood; decently accepted, but I can't tell it.'

There was a letter from his lawyer saying an instalment on his income tax was due: almost two thousand dollars. He wrote out a cheque and sent it to the man and got that out of the way. That left less than four thousand.

There was a letter from a man in Oklahoma getting out a college text-book on the short story who wanted permission to reprint ‘The Man with the Red Nose' and a few words for college students to read about how he came to write the story.

I was in San Antonio, Texas, one evening ten years
ago (he wrote), waiting for an automobile mechanic to find out why my car was getting overheated. I was waiting in the coffee shop across the street from the garage. A man came in and ordered coffee and two plain doughnuts. Two boys and two girls were at the far end of the place putting nickels into a juke box and dancing. The waitress who had given me a cup of black coffee brought the man coffee and two plain doughnuts but the coffee had milk in it and the man said he was sorry, he had forgotten to say that he wanted black coffee and would she please let him have a cup black? The waitress said she would have to charge him for the first cup, and the man said it was all right. The man's nose wasn't red, it was no colour at all. Nobody had a red nose in the place. I hadn't seen anybody with a red nose in years. Perhaps I had never seen anybody with a red nose, except a clown in a circus. I took a piece of paper out of my coat pocket and wrote on it:
Write a story called The Man with the Red Nose
. Three months later when I found the piece of paper among a lot of other pieces of paper, I sat down (I was in San Francisco) and wrote ‘The Man with the Red Nose'. I have no idea why it wasn't ‘The Man with the Black Nose'.

Whatever it is, everybody has to lose it. Johnny had it and would lose it. Rosey had it and one day would find it gone. Would she cry? He hoped she wouldn't, but just thinking of Rosey finding it gone made him sick. He didn't want her to lose it. It was all right for
Johnny to lose it, but just thinking of Rosey finding it gone made him angry. He didn't even know what it was.

The next letter was to his agent in London who mentioned some offers from Italy, Sweden and Germany. They were poor offers and they would mean at most four or five hundred dollars in six months or a year, but he wrote and told the agent to accept the offers. There was no use telling him to try to improve the offers. Improve them for what?

The telephone bell rang, the woman answered it, and from her voice he knew it was Lucretia or Alice.

He answered a letter from a man in New York who said he had been a big producer in Vienna until Hitler got in there and that now he was producing in New York and would be honoured to produce one of his plays. He told the man to telephone Maloney and talk things over with him. Then he wrote Maloney and told him to expect a call from the man and to hear him out even if it looked as if he had no money. Let the man from Vienna have
Free For All
if he wanted it.

Writing the letters irritated him. He stopped after the one to his agent because it was all silly. He picked up the afternoon paper, sat on the sofa and had another look at the entries. Well, he'd have to give it another whirl, after all. What else? The two-thousand tax instalment was something he'd forgotten all about.
He'd bet two hundred across, win, get the two thousand back, or more, or lose six hundred.

‘It was Lucretia,' the woman said on her way to the bathroom. ‘Tell you all about it when I come back.'

He dialled Leo and said, ‘Two hundred across on Family Circle in the sixth.'

‘Well,' the woman said, ‘she's got a terrible hangover. Alice and Oscar want to go back this afternoon. Oscar says he's got a bad cold. Alice isn't talking to Oscar. She may not go back with him. After all, the kids aren't her own. They're only adopted. She wants kids of her own.'

‘What are you talking about?'

‘Well, after we left last night the two of them got pissed and Lucretia told Alice she was going to marry a man who could get her pregnant, so why shouldn't Alice marry a man like that, too? Of course Oscar doesn't know anything about this.'

‘She'll go back with him all right,' he said.

‘Lucretia doesn't think so.'

‘O.K., what's the schedule?'

‘I told her we'd be there in an hour.'

‘O.K.'

They found the retired villain and his young wife at the widow's, and he saw that hard times had come for the actor. Daisy and Alice began to speak loudly to one another about Lucretia (who was in the bath), so he began to speak to the actor, because the man needed help.

‘Stay on,' he said. ‘Don't fly back this afternoon. You won't have any fun to speak of here, but you won't have any at home, either. I mean, I hear you've got a bad cold. I've had a bad one most of my life. I'm sure you have, too. I mean, the hell with it. Alice hasn't got a bad cold. Make her happy.'

‘I feel something in my bones,' the actor said. ‘I've been feeling jittery ever since I saw it happen. I wish I'd missed that. I've
acted
having an attack dozens of times and seen great actors act it, too, but it's not that way at all. It's not art, it's not acting. It's in the eyes, the damned light shoots out of them. It's like electrical flashes. But that isn't it, either. I mean, it's dying. It's getting it quick, and it's you, and you don't want to believe it. Do you know, he tried to brush it off even while it was happening because he was ashamed? He wanted to be alive, maybe young, and he was dying and wasn't young, and neither am I. Everybody's crazy about young tail. Well, there's mine over there
with yours. You're not old but you're not young either, certainly not as young as your tail is, and hell, I'm so much older than mine, it's not funny, that's all. I love it. Who doesn't? But if you saw that poor phoney—he must have been a phoney all his life to try to brush it off the way he tried, he must have been a phoney to be ashamed because his young tail with her fine young sex all over her was seeing him made a fool of that way—if you had seen him get his and then keep getting it, you'd feel a little older than you are, even. But I'm glad you didn't see it. I only wish to God he'd dropped dead before I ever got here because I've seen them dead and that's not so bad, but seeing them die, seeing that enemy take them, that's another story. I didn't sleep all night. I didn't mind being alone until five in the morning when Alice came by and took off her clothes and wanted fun. Wanted me to get her pregnant, she said. Right then. Get me pregnant, you old man, she said. What's the use not talking plainly? And sick as I was, drunk as she was, I wanted her, I forgot the phoney dying and everything else and wanted her, wanted to make her pregnant, would have given anything in the world if I could, but there it is. She was young, drunk, and gorgeous, and I wanted all of it but couldn't have any of it. I mean, the poor body can't keep up with the mind, it fails, it's still there, it's still supposed to be alive, it's still supposed to have its vigour, but it doesn't, it's old, it's tired, and it's teased by the foolishness of the mind,
it's teased by the eye, still looking, still wanting. I hope you don't mind my spilling all this. I'm troubled. She's not for me, that's all. I mean, I don't want to let her know I know. I don't want to let myself know, even. But she's not for me, just as Lucretia wasn't for that poor phoney Leander. I know he couldn't really paint. He could flatter and get a lot of money for a phoney portrait of a female monster, making her look like a fierce spirit, but he couldn't paint. Even I know he couldn't. But she's not for me. I'll be damned if I can pretend she is. I've buffaloed her into thinking she
is
for me or she's buffaloed herself into thinking she is, but it's not so. I don't even think she's for one man at all, even the youngest, even the horniest, a man who lived for nothing else. He'd never be able to fill that hole. The more he tried the further away he'd be from succeeding. I'll stay on, though. Why not? I'm almost as much for her as any man could be. The kids love her, need her, and so do I, but what about what she needs? She
does
need it, too. She needs it, has a right to need it, has a right to try to see about working it out somehow. I thought money would get it all straight for me, but I've had more money than I know what to do with for more than thirty years. I need her—not Alice, if you know what I mean. I need
her
, and Alice has got her all over the place. She's her in good measure and the best I've ever known, but I don't need her as much as she needs him—a hell of a lot of him, more than I am, more
than I could ever be, more than I've ever been. And there was a time not more than twenty years ago when I was a lot of him, almost enough. That's what's bothering me. But now I'll shut up, that's all, and we'll pretend I haven't said anything.' The actor's eyes brightened, and then he laughed. ‘I'm not giving her up. If it kills me, I'm not. Let it kill me. Something's bound to, in any case, something
ought
to, let it be her. I want her, more and more of her, and I'm going to see about eating a little better today than I did yesterday. I've got to eat, that's all. Whatever's ahead, I want to have beans in me when the day's over and she's taking off her clothes, that's all. We're staying on. I'll tell her in a minute. It'll be like saying, “O.K., Mama, I want more of you, I want it on your terms, I want it on any terms, and wait until tonight.” You watch what happens, and watch me ham it up a little, too. Look at her, for God's sake. Look at the both of them, talking over the big problem. Look at how serious they are about it. Well, watch how Oscar works on Mama.'