Nine Stories (12 page)

I
said I certainly had been, and that I had heard her voice singing
separately from the others. I said I thought she had a very fine
voice.

She
nodded. "I know. I'm going to be a professional singer."

"Really?
Opera?"

"Heavens,
no. I'm going to sing jazz on the radio and make heaps of money.
Then, when I'm thirty, I shall retire and live on a ranch in Ohio."
She touched the top of her soaking-wet head with the flat of her
hand. "Do you know Ohio?" she asked.

I
said I'd been through it on the train a few times but that I didn't
really know it. I offered her a piece of cinnamon toast.

"No,
thank you," she said. "I eat like a bird, actually."

I
bit into a piece of toast myself, and commented that there's some
mighty rough country around Ohio. "I know. An American I met
told me. You're the eleventh American I've met."

Her
governess was now urgently signalling her to return to her own
table--in effect, to stop bothering the man. My guest, however,
calmly moved her chair an inch or two so that her back broke all
possible further communication with the home table. "You go to
that secret Intelligence school on the hill, don't you?" she
inquired coolly.

As
security-minded as the next one, I replied that I was visiting
Devonshire for my health.

"Really,"
she said, "I wasn't quite bom yesterday, you know."

I
said I'd bet she hadn't been, at that. I drank my tea for a moment. I
was getting a trifle posture-conscious and I sat up somewhat
straighter in my seat.

"You
seem quite intelligent for an American," my guest mused.

I
told her that was a pretty snobbish thing to say, if you thought
about it at all, and that I hoped it was unworthy of her.

She
blushed-automatically conferring on me the social poise I'd been
missing. "Well. Most of the Americans I've seen act like
animals. They're forever punching one another about, and insulting
everyone, and--You know what one of them did?"

I
shook my haad.

"One
of them threw an empty whiskey bottle through my aunt's window.
Fortunately, the window was open. But does that sound very
intelligent to you?"

It
didn't especially, but I didn't say so. I said that many soldiers,
all over the world, were a long way from home, and that few of them
had had many real advantages in life. I said I'd thought that most
people could figure that out for themselves.

"Possibly,"
said my guest, without conviction. She raised her hand to her wet
head again, picked at a few limp filaments of blond hair, trying to
cover her exposed ear rims. "My hair is soaking wet," she
said. "I look a fright." She looked over at me. "I
have quite wavy hair when it's dry."

"I
can see that, I can see you have."

"Not
actually curly, but quite wavy," she said. "Are you
married?"

I
said I was.

She
nodded. "Are you very deeply in love with your wife? Or am I
being too personal?"

I
said that when she was, I'd speak up.

She
put her hands and wrists farther forward on the table, and I remember
wanting to do something about that enormous-faced wristwatch she was
wearing--perhaps suggest that she try wearing it around her waist.

"Usually,
I'm not terribly gregarious," she said, and looked over at me to
see if I knew the meaning of the word. I didn't give her a sign,
though, one way or the other. "I purely came over because I
thought you looked extremely lonely. You have an extremely sensitive
face."

I
said she was right, that I had been feeling lonely, and that I was
very glad she'd come over.

"I'm
training myself to be more compassionate. My aunt says I'm a terribly
cold person," she said and felt the top of her head again. "I
live with my aunt. She's an extremely kind person. Since the death of
my mother, she's done everything within her power to make Charles and
me feel adjusted."

"I'm
glad."

"Mother
was an extremely intelligent person. Quite sensuous, in many ways."
She looked at me with a kind of fresh acuteness. "Do you find me
terribly cold?"

I
told her absolutely not--very much to the contrary, in fact. I told
her my name and asked for hers. She hesitated. "My first name is
Esme. I don't think I shall tell you my full name, for the moment. I
have a title and you may just be impressed by titles. Americans are,
you know."

I
said I didn't think I would be, but that it might be a good idea, at
that, to hold on to the title for a while.

Just
then, I felt someone's warm breath on the back of my neck. I turned
around and just missed brushing noses with Esme's small brother.
Ignoring me, he addressed his sister in a piercing treble: "Miss
Megley said you must come and finish your tea!" His message
delivered, he retired to the chair between his sister and me, on my
right. I regarded him with high interest. He was looking very
splendid in brown Shetland shorts, a navy-blue jersey, white shirt,
and striped necktie. He gazed back at me with immense green eyes.
"Why do people in films kiss sideways?" he demanded.

"Sideways?"
I said. It was a problem that had baffled me in my childhood. I said
I guessed it was because actors' noses are too big for kissing anyone
head on.

"His
name is Charles," Esme said. "He's extremely brilliant for
his age."

"He
certainly has green eyes. Haven't you, Charles?" Charles gave me
the fishy look my question deserved, then wriggled downward and
forward in his chair till all of his body was under the table except
his head, which he left, wrestler's-bridge style, on the chair seat.
"They're orange," he said in a strained voice, addressing
the ceiling. He picked up a comer of the tablecloth and put it over
his handsome, deadpan little face.

"Sometimes
he's brilliant and sometimes he's not," Esme said. "Charles,
do sit up!"

Charles
stayed right where he was. He seemed to be holding his breath.

"He
misses our father very much. He was s-l-a-i-n in North Africa."

I
expressed regret to hear it.

Esme
nodded. "Father adored him." She bit reflectively at the
cuticle of her thumb. "He looks very much like my
mother--Charles, I mean. I look exactly like my father." She
went on biting at her cuticle. "My mother was quite a passionate
woman. She was an extrovert. Father was an introvert. They were quite
well mated, though, in a superficial way. To be quite candid, Father
really needed more of an intellectual companion than Mother was. He
was an extremely gifted genius."

I
waited, receptively, for further information, but none came. I looked
down at Charles, who was now resting the side of his face on his
chair seat. When he saw that I was looking at him, he closed his
eyes, sleepily, angelically, then stuck out his tongue--an appendage
of startling length--and gave out what in my country would have been
a glorious tribute to a myopic baseball umpire. It fairly shook the
tearoom.

"Stop
that," Esme said, clearly unshaken. "He saw an American do
it in a fish-and-chips queue, and now he does it whenever he's bored.
Just stop it, now, or I shall send you directly to Miss Megley."

Charles
opened his enormous eyes, as sign that he'd heard his sister's
threat, but otherwise didn't look especially alerted. He closed his
eyes again, and continued to rest the side of his face on the chair
seat.

I
mentioned that maybe he ought to save it--meaning the Bronx
cheer--till he started using his title regularly. That is, if he had
a title, too.

Esme
gave me a long, faintly clinical look. "You have a dry sense of
humor, haven't you?" she said--wistfully. "Father said I
have no sense of humor at all. He said I was unequipped to meet life
because I have no sense of humor."

Watching
her, I lit a cigarette and said I didn't think a sense of humor was
of any use in a real pinch.

"Father
said it was."

This
was a statement of faith, not a contradiction, and I quickly switched
horses. I nodded and said her father had probably taken the long
view, while I was taking the short (whatever that meant).

"Charles
misses him exceedingly," Esme said, after a moment. "He was
an exceedingly lovable man. He was extremely handsome, too. Not that
one's appearance matters greatly, but he was. He had terribly
penetrating eyes, for a man who was intransically kind."

I
nodded. I said I imagined her father had had quite an extraordinary
vocabulary.

"Oh,
yes; quite," said Esme. "He was an archivist--amateur, of
course."

At
that point, I felt an importunate tap, almost a punch, on my upper
arm, from Charles' direction. I turned to him. He was sitting in a
fairly normal position in his chair now, except that he had one knee
tucked under him. "What did one wall say to the other wall?"
he asked shrilly. "It's a riddle!"

I
rolled my eyes reflectively ceilingward and repeated the question
aloud. Then I looked at Charles with a stumped expression and said I
gave up.

"Meet
you at the corner!" came the punch line, at top volume.

It
went over biggest with Charles himself. It struck him as unbearably
funny. In fact, Esme had to come around and pound him on the back, as
if treating him for a coughing spell. "Now, stop that," she
said. She went back to her own seat. "He tells that same riddle
to everyone he meets and has a fit every single time. Usually he
drools when he laughs. Now, just stop, please."

"It's
one of the best riddles I've heard, though," I said, watching
Charles, who was very gradually coming out of it. In response to this
compliment, he sank considerably lower in his chair and again masked
his face up to the eyes with a corner of the tablecloth. He then
looked at me with his exposed eyes, which were full of slowly
subsiding mirth and the pride of someone who knows a really good
riddle or two.

"May
I inquire how you were employed before entering the Army?" Esme
asked me.

I
said I hadn't been employed at all, that I'd only been out of college
a year but that I like to think of myself as a professional
short-story writer.

She
nodded politely. "Published?" she asked.

It
was a familiar but always touchy question, and one that I didn't
answer just one, two, three. I started to explain how most editors in
America were a bunch--

"My
father wrote beautifully," Esme interrupted. "I'm saving a
number of his letters for posterity."

I
said that sounded like a very good idea. I happened to be looking at
her enormous-faced, chronographic-looking wristwatch again. I asked
if it had belonged to her father.

She
looked down at her wrist solemnly. "Yes, it did," she said.
"He gave it to me just before Charles and I were evacuated."
Self-consciously, she took her hands off the table, saying, "Purely
as a momento, of course." She guided the conversation in a
different direction. "I'd be extremely flattered if you'd write
a story exclusively for me sometime. I'm an avid reader."

I
told her I certainly would, if I could. I said that I wasn't terribly
prolific.

"It
doesn't have to be terribly prolific! Just so that it isn't childish
and silly." She reflected. "I prefer stories about
squalor."

"About
what?" I said, leaning forward. "Squalor. I'm extremely
interested in squalor."

I
was about to press her for more details, but I felt Charles pinching
me, hard, on my arm. I turned to him, wincing slightly. He was
standing right next to me. "What did one wall say to the other
wall?" he asked, not unfamiliarly.

"You
asked him that," Esme said. "Now, stop it."

Ignoring
his sister, and stepping up on one of my feet, Charles repeated the
key question. I noticed that his necktie knot wasn't adjusted
properly. I slid it up into place, then, looking him straight in the
eye, suggested, "Meetcha at the corner?"

The
instant I'd said it, I wished I hadn't. Charles' mouth fell open. I
felt as if I'd struck it open. He stepped down off my foot and, with
white-hot dignity, walked over to his own table, without looking
back.

"He's
furious," Esme said. "He has a violent temper. My mother
had a propensity to spoil him. My father was the only one who didn't
spoil him."

I
kept looking over at Charles, who had sat down and started to drink
his tea, using both hands on the cup. I hoped he'd turn around, but
he didn't.

Esme
stood up. `Il faut que je parte aussi," she said, with a sigh.
"Do you know French?"

I
got up from my own chair, with mixed feelings of regret and
confusion. Esme and I shook hands; her hand, as I'd suspected, was a
nervous hand, damp at the palm. I told her, in English, how very much
I'd enjoyed her company.

She
nodded. "I thought you might," she said. "I'm quite
communicative for my age." She gave her hair another
experimental touch. "I'm dreadfully sorry about my hair,"
she said. "I've probably been hideous to look at."