Clemmie (24 page)

“Craig Fitz, you know perfectly well what I’m talking about. The florid forties, or whatever you want to call them. We marry our men young. And we have to become budget experts. We paint the walls of shabby apartments and make our clothes last and last. We put on frantic little dinner parties for the boss. Oh, we can look back and think what a fun time it was. What a gay time. But an awful lot of it was a gray time. Then your man comes up in the world. Fool that you are, you think you had a share in it. If you fish long enough, he’ll sometimes tell you you’ve been of help. So there you are, faded by the years, still trying to look your best, and finally able to enjoy some of the leisure and some of the luxuries you’ve helped him acquire. But then he gets the scent of girl flesh, young and fragrant and a hell of a lot more resilient than you are. She is all awed by the ‘dweat big successful man’ with the nice big thick wallet, and she can tell him he is
so
much more interesting and virile than all the silly young men. Which is just what he needs to hear so he can forget his sagging waistline and his bald spot. So he has to prove he is quite a guy. And if you are lucky, it will turn out to be just an affair and he’ll come bumbling back, terribly ashamed, of course, but secretly pleased with himself. And you can try to pick up the pieces of your marriage and get it back on the rails. If you’re a fool you’ll be so hurt and indignant you’ll punish him by consorting with your golf
pro, art teacher or a friend of a friend. Then grandma and grandpa can have all the declining years during which they are not quite friends.

“If you’re completely unlucky, like Anita, the fragrant chippy takes him away for keeps, and can henceforth sit on her piquant little can and enjoy the fruits of his success. If she springs for a baby, there will be nurses and maids and hundred-dollar bed-jackets. And she need only keep from looking too impatient until he receives that final cachet of success, the acute and fatal coronary. It’s a pattern. The two-wife two-step. Change your partners. Dos-à-dos. One for the labor and the second for show. Anita got trampled in the dance. Do I sound very bitter?”

“It’s—a little unexpected, Irene.”

“I know. Placid Irene. Please do have another stuffed shrimp, Mrs. Flapsaddle. And tomorrow I
must
re-pot the geraniums. Don’t look alarmed, Craig. It’s one of my pet peeves. I’m not against men. They are fine things. But I wish they weren’t so emotionally gullible. When they are at the height of their powers it only takes one overly obvious little sex-pot to plow up the pea patch. Jeanie and I sat here for two hours, snuffling and blowing noses and being bitter about men.”

“Let me know the time and place of the funeral, will you? I want to go.”

“Of course. By the way, Craig. Jeanie said she met you on the street yesterday and that you acted quite odd.”

Now he knew the reason for the tirade. “Did I?”

“She says there was an odd-looking little girl with you. Quite attractive in an unusual way.”

“Oh, I remember. I’d just run into that girl and I couldn’t for the life of me remember her name or where I’d met her. If I acted odd it was because I was trying to keep from having to introduce them.”

“Jeanie says she got into your car with you.”

“That’s right. She asked for a lift. She was parked about ten blocks away. It was too hot for anybody to have to walk.”

Irene stared at him for a few moments and then seemed to relax. He felt that he had kept his voice bland, his manner casual, and he had avoided trying to explain in too much detail. He suspected that Irene and Jeanie, after they had worn out the subject of Anita, had done some
speculating about him. Just as Clemmie had guessed. Take care of Craig. The poor dear is at loose ends, staying alone all summer. You know how men are. And he got into trouble with the Westerling woman already.

“I don’t know what’s keeping Al. He’s working too hard.”

“Are you taking a vacation, Irene?”

“Next month. Both kids are going to camp for the full month of August, and we’ve half decided to fly down to Mexico City. But you know Al. We’ll probably end up with a week end in Montreal. You and Maura are taking an October vacation, aren’t you? Where are you going?”

“We haven’t decided yet. Someplace inexpensive, anyway.”

“You can get acquainted all over again. You must miss her very much.”

Suddenly, without any warning, he found himself on the verge of unexpected tears. He got up quickly, his eyes stinging, and said in a thickened voice. “You’re ready for a refill.” He took her glass and his own into the kitchen. When he came back he was all right. But he knew he was getting tight. The floor had a far-away look. And when he sat and looked at Irene he experienced a curious distortion of vision. One moment her face would look very close, enormous. Then it would be far away, a pale little blur. Her voice sounded as though she spoke in an echo chamber.

Al arrived at midnight. He acted very tired. He sat with them and there was some desultory conversation about Anita, about how hot it had been today and how hot it would be tomorrow. Irene went to bed and Al fixed Craig one for the road, and a nightcap for himself.

“You can relax on the Westerling thing, Craig. They’re leaving in the morning. I had my talk with Dave. They’re going to try to, quote, make it up to each other, end quote.”

“Thanks.”

“You’ll get a bill. You’ll pay for it.”

“Okay. I’ll pay for it.”

“Are you as loaded as I’m beginning to think you are?”

“Maybe. Yes.”

“Remember me asking you about trouble?”

“Of course I remember.”

“It’s the job, isn’t it? I heard something. I heard one
hell of a big shakeup is in the offing. Ober has imported a couple of young hatchet-men.”

“I know. He put one of them in my section.”

“Is that good?”

“I’m tight right now. But I can answer a question with a question. You know any outfit in town where something might be open?”

“That bad?”

“I don’t read Ober. Maybe he’s not going to push me out. But maybe it isn’t a good gamble to hang around and find out. But I can’t have any other outfit checking back with Quality after I apply.”

Al thought for a time and said, “Ever run into Kyle Webb, president of Donner Plastics?”

“Slightly. I played in a foursome with him one time.”

“He’s both shrewd and lucky. He’s got a rubber stamp board—until he starts making mistakes. Here is some confidential information. They’ve quietly picked up a tract of land on the Sanderville Road and next week they’re going to announce a new plant to be built there. It’ll be a big operation, a new product line. Employ a thousand people even with a lot of automation. There’s a crash priority on plant construction. They’ll keep the old plant going and detach certain key people for the new place. It’ll leave them thinned out on the executive level, particularly in production, and I don’t think they’re having an easy time lining up people. I’ve got a good friend over there. Johnny Maleska. He’s Webb’s special assistant. If you want me to, I’ll brief him and set up a date for you.”

“I’ll say yes right now. Go ahead, Al.”

“No, boy. You phone me tomorrow and say yes or no. Major decisions shouldn’t be made out of a bottle.”

As Craig started to leave Al took him by the arm and said, “Are you in shape to drive home?”

“Always in shape, old Al.”

“Let me get you a cab.”

“I’m okay. I’ll creep along.”

“Go right home, Craig. Tomorrow is another one of those days.”

He meant to go home. But it was like the night he had left with Floss. Consciousness flickered off and on. It was like a very amateur and unedited home movie.

He was aware of driving down the alley and of bumping into the shed when he tried to park.

He dropped the key and took a long time to find it.

And he was in front of her door, thumping the door and kicking it, his voice echoing hollowly as he called out to her and cursed her.

And he was alone in his own kitchen with the light on and he was on his hands and knees, being sick.…

Craig, dearest,

We arrived back here from London an hour ago, and it is now three o’clock on a dingy afternoon. The clouds are small and low and sullen and they are going by so close overhead you can almost touch them. The girls have gone scampering off to make full reports to their new friends, but I know those reports will be made in a carefully offhand way, as they have learned that obvious enthusiasms are contrary to protocol.

Darling, I am quite burdened down with
weltschmerz
. In a sense, that is our city, you know. Our place. And I should have been there with you. With the girls in Elizabeth’s safe hands, I walked alone for a very long time, very dim and moony indeed, walking where we had walked. I seem to be so often wrong about things. I expected my sentimental journey to bring back a lot of vividness, but do you know I actually had difficulty locating the places that once, for me, were the most important places in the world. I did find the corner where we were both certain we had lost each other. There is a great ugly new building there, and a weedy little man smirked at me. I wanted to take him by his nasty little shoulders and shake him until his teeth rattled and say, “What do you know about this spot? What do you know about anything?” But I was a lady. Sometimes it is a great burden to remain a lady.

I tried to find us in the city, but I could not. There was no such couple, no American officer, bravely mustachioed, with a slight limp, walking a rather awkward young girl
with a face too round, and body a bit bulgy with baby fat, a girl in a grisly uniform trying not to look at her officer with too much love because, after all, it is a public place. They were utterly gone, and I mourned them. The city they knew is gone too, and it can never come back. No other great city in the world will ever have that flavor again, because wars will never be that way again. No city in the future can be struck and struck and still endure. Now I can romanticize it, with a flavor of knights and heraldry.

All of that excitement is gone. It is a weary gray place sprawling for angular miles about a filthy river, and it is full of closed gray faces and dark threadbare cuffs and a kind of plodding hurry. It made me think of that book we read.
Cards of Identity
. There were so many identical little men, all with the same purpose, that I felt that if somehow the contents of their pockets could be switched, they would accept the new wife and flat and position without anyone being aware of the change. I do not mean to be so utterly grim, my dear. But I am constantly being struck anew by the knowledge this is no longer my country. It is a gray place, and grayer without you. The girls and I have quite violent discussions about who misses you most of all.

Please write us and tell me all the unimportant little details. Bore me with your misadventures at golf. Tell me what you eat and wear and where you go, and what other people wear and say and do. I do love you. Now I am going to be very diligent, and write letters to Irene, Alice, Jeanie, and Anita. If there is strength left, I shall add Bobby and Lollie to the list. And if the strength is superhuman, I shall include Bunny, though I have serious doubts as to whether she can read. There has never been such a long summer. The earth has slowed. Someone quite obviously forgot to wind it up. All of my love.

Maura

Craig refolded the letter and put it back in his pocket. He felt guilty about the letter. Evidently it had been delivered on Saturday and when it had been pushed through the mail slot it had fluttered to one side and was partially under the hall table. He had happened to notice it just before he left for work. There had been no time this morning for breakfast. Betty was due back any moment with
coffee. His hangover was severe. He did not like to think of the picture of himself kicking Clemmie’s door, shouting—a noisy amorous drunk, devoid of dignity. And it alarmed him to think how easily he could have fallen down the steel stairs or piled up the car.

Betty closed the door when she came in with the coffee. Her face was bright pink with sunburn. The awkward episode at the cottage had apparently been thrust firmly out of her mind. She was brisk and confident. “I slept like the dead,” she said. “But, darn it, my shoulders are going to peel. Mother told me she told me so. She couldn’t understand why we didn’t drown one of the children. That Mr. Upson was already in when I got in.”

“Was he?”

“He lounged over to my desk. Very suave and friendly. I hardly noticed the pump he was holding behind his back.”

“What did he want to know?”

“Nothing specific. He isn’t that obvious. He just wanted me to start chattering. But I didn’t. I put on a Miss Commerford act. Have you—thought about what we were talking about?”

“A little.”

“It needs more than a little, Craig.”

“Miss James, I’ll give it careful consideration.”

“Now don’t get that way with me.”

“Would you bring your book, please?”

“
Yes
sir, Mr. Fitz. Immediately, sir.”

He did not want to phone Clemmie from the office. He had a chance to use a pay phone at lunch time. He dialed her number, and she answered on the third ring.

“Hello?”

“Clemmie. This is Craig.”

There was a decisive click.

“Clemmie? Hello?”

He fumbled for another dime, called her back. He counted twenty rings before he hung up. The dime rattled down. He went to the counter and ordered his lunch. This, he thought, is an ideal solution. It makes it very simple. It takes it out of my hands. It ended right there with that click, and now all I have to do is leave well enough alone. Now I can feel an enormous relief. A great
weight lifted. It’s over, and I have no more responsibility, and no more desire. She’s too young and too erratic. She is trouble. Now the danger of trouble is ended.

Upson had questions to ask that afternoon. Searching questions that required complete attention and orderly thought. The session lasted an hour and a half. Several times his mind wandered to Clemmie and he would come back to see Bud looking at him curiously.