Rich Man, Poor Man (32 page)

Just as well now as any other time, she thought. ‘I may not be able to take a job next season,’ she said.

‘Why not?’ He raised on one elbow and looked at her curiously.

‘I went to the doctor this morning,’ she said. ‘I’m pregnant’

He looked at her hand, studying her face. He sat up and stubbed out his cigarette. ‘I’m thirsty,’ he said. He got out of bed stiffly. She saw the shadow of the long scar low on his spine. He put on an old cotton robe and went into the livingroom. She heard him pouring his beer. She lay back in the darkness, feeling deserted. I shouldn’t have told him, she thought. Everything is ruined. She remembered the night it must have happened. They had been out late, nearly four o’clock, there had been a long loud argument in somebody’s house. About Emperor Hirohito, of all things. Everybody had had a lot to drink. She had been fuzzy and hadn’t taken any precautions. Usually, they were too tired when they came home to make love. That one goddamn night, they hadn’t been too tired. One for the Emperor of Japan. If he says anything, she thought, I’m going to tell him I’ll have an abortion. She knew she could never have an abortion, but she’d tell him.

Willie came back into the bedroom. She turned on the bedside lamp. This conversation was going to be adequately lit. What Willie’s face told her was going to be more important than what he said. She pulled the sheet over herself. Willie’s old cotton robe flapped around his frail figure. It was faded with many washings.

‘listen,’ Willie said, seating himself on the edge of the bed. ‘Listen carefully. I am going to get a divorce or I am going to kill the bitch. Then we are going to get married and I am going to take a course in the care and feeding of infants. Do you read me, Miss Jordache?’

She studied his face. It was all right. Better than all right.

I read you,’ she said softly.

He leaned over her and kissed her cheek. She clutched the sleeve of his robe. For Christmas, she would buy him a new robe. Silk.

Boylan was standing at the bar in his tweed topcoat, staring at his glass, when Rudolph came down the flight of steps from Eighth Street, carrying the overnight bag. There were only men standing at the bar and most of them were probably fairies.

‘I see you have the bag,’ Boylan said.

‘She didn’t want it’

‘And the dress?’

‘She took the dress.’

“What are you drinking?’

‘A beer, please.’

‘One beer, please,’ Boylan said to the bartender. ‘And I’ll continue with whiskey.’

Boylan looked at himself in the mirror behind the bar. His eyebrows were blonder than they had been last week. His face was very tanned, as though he had been lying on a southern beach for months. Two or three of the fairies at the bar were equally brown. Rudolph knew about the sun lamp by now. ‘I make it a point to look as healthy and attractive as I can at all times,’ Boylan had explained to Rudolph. “Even if I don’t see anybody for weeks on end. It’s a form of self-respect.’

Rudolph was so dark, anyway, that he felt he could respect himself without a sun lamp.

The bartender put the drinks down in front of them. Boylan’s fingers trembled a little as he picked up his glass. Rudolph wondered how many whiskies he had had.

‘Did you tell her I was here?’ Boylan asked.

‘Yes.’

”Is she coming?’

‘No. The man she was with wanted to come and meet you, but she didn’t’ There was no point in not being honest

‘Ah,’ Boylan said. The man she was with.’

‘She’s living with somebody.’

‘I see,’ Boylan said flatly, it didn’t take long, did it?’

Rudolph drank his beer.

‘Your sister is an extravagantly sensual woman,’ Boylan said, ‘I fear for where it may lead her.’

Rudolph kept drinking his beer.

They’re not married, by any chance?’

‘No. He’s still married to somebody else.’

Boylan looked at himself in the mirror again for a while. A burly young man in a black turtle-neck sweater down the bar caught his eye in the glass and smiled. Boylan turned away slightly, towards Rudolph, ‘What sort of fellow is he? Did you like him?’

‘Young,’ Rudolph said. ‘He seemed nice enough. Full of jokes.’

‘Full of jokes,’ Boylan repeated. ‘Why shouldn’t he be full of jokes? What sort of place do they have?’

Two furnished rooms in a walk-up.’

‘Your sister has a romantic disregard of the advantages of money,’ Boylan said. ‘She will regret it later. Among the other things she will regret.’

‘She seemed happy.’ Rudolph found Boylan’s prophecies distasteful. He didn’t want Gretchen to regret anything.

‘What does her young man do for a living? Did you find out?’

‘He writes for some kind of radio magazine.’

‘Oh,’ Boylan said. ‘One of those.’

Teddy,’ Rudolph said, ‘if you want my advice I think you ought to forget her.’

‘Out of the depths of your rich experience,’ Boylan said, “you think I ought to forget her.’

‘Okay,’ Rudolph said, ‘I haven’t had any experience. But I saw her. I saw how she looked at the man.’

‘Did you tell her I was still willing to marry her?’

‘No. That’s something you’d better tell her yourself,’ Rudolph said. ‘Anyway, you didn’t expect me to say it in front of her fellow, did you?’

‘Why not?’

‘Teddy, you’re drinking too much.’

‘Am I?’ Boylan said. ‘Probably. You wouldn’t want to walk back there with me and go up and pay your sister a visit, would you?’

‘You know I can’t do that,’ Rudolph said.

‘No you can’t,’ Boylan said. ‘You’re like the rest of your family. You can’t do a fucking thing.’

‘Listen,’ Rudolph said, ‘I can get on the train and go home. Right now.’

‘Sorry, Rudolph.’ Boylan put out his hand and touched Rudolph’s arm. ‘I was standing here, telling myself she was going to walk through that door with you and she didn’t walk through. Disappointment makes for bad manners. It’s a good reason never to put yourself in a position in which you can be disappointed. Forgive me. Of course, you’re not going home. We’re going to take advantage of our freedom to have a night on the town. There’s quite a good restaurant a few blocks from here and we’ll start with that. Barman, may I have the check, please?’

He put some bills on the bar. The young man in the turtle-neck sweater, came up to them. ‘May I invite you gentlemen for a drink?’ He kept his eyes on Rudolph, smiling.

‘You’re a fool,’ Boylan said, without heat.

‘Oh, come off it, dearie,’ the man said.

Without warning, Boylan punched him, hard, on the nose. The man fell back against the bar, the blood beginning to seep from his nose.

‘Let’s go, Rudolph,’ Boylan said calmly.

They were out of the place before the barman or anyone else could make a move.

‘I haven’t been there since before the war,’ Boylan said, as they headed towards Sixth Avenue. The clientele has changed.’

If Gretchen had walked through the door, Rudolph thought, there would have been one less nosebleed in New York City that night

After dinner at a restaurant where the bill, Rudolph noted, was over twelve dollars, they went to a nightclub in a basement that was called Cafe Society. ‘You might get some ideas for the River Five,’ Boylan said. They have one of the best bands in the city. And there’s usually a new coloured girl who who can sing.’

The place was crowded, mostly with young people, many of whom were black, but Boylan got them a little table next to the small dance floor with an accurate tip. The music was deafening and wonderful. If the River Five was to learn anything from the band at Cafe Society it would be to throw their instruments into the river.

Rudolph leaned forward intently, gloriously battered by the music, his eyes glued on the Negro trumpeter. Boylan sat back smoking and drinking whiskies, in a small, private zone of silence. Rudolph had ordered whiskey, too, because he had to order something, but it stood untouched on the table. With all the drinking Boylan had done that afternoon and evening, he would probably be in no condition to drive and Rudolph knew that he had to remain sober to take the wheel. Boylan had taught him to drive on the back roads around Port Philip.

‘Teddy!’ A woman in a short evening dress, with bare arms and shoulders, was standing in front of the table. Teddy Boylan, I thought you were dead.’

Boylan stood up. ‘Hello, Cissy,’ he said. ‘I’m not dead.’

The woman flung her arms around him and kissed him, on the mouth. Boylan looked annoyed and turned his head. Rudolph stood up uncertainly.

‘Where on earth have you been hiding yourself?’ The woman stepped back a little, but held on to Boylan’s sleeve. She was wearing a lot of jewellery that glittered in the reflection of the spotlight on the trumpet Rudolph couldn’t tell whether the jewellery was real or not. She was startlingly made up, with coloured eyeshadow and a brilliantly rouged mouth. She kept looking at Rudolph, smiling. Boylan didn’t make any move to introduce him and Rudolph didn’t know whether he ought to sit down or not. ‘It’s been centuries,’ she went on, not waiting for any answers, continuing to look boldly at Rudolph. ‘There’ve been the wildest rumours. It’s just sinful, the way your nearest and dearest drop out of sight these days. Come on over to the table. The whole gang’s there. Susie, Jack, Karen… They’re just longing to see you. You’re looking absolutely marvellous, darling. Ageless. Imagine finding you in a place like this. Why it’s an absolute resurrection. She still kept smiling widely at Rudolph. ‘Do come over to the table. Bring your beautiful young friend with you. I don’t think I caught the name, darling.’

‘May I present Mr Rudolph Jordache,’ Boylan said stiffly. ‘Mrs Alfred Sykes.’

‘Cissy to my friends,’ me woman said. ‘He is ravishing. I don’t blame you for switching, darling.

‘Don’t be more idiotic than God originally made you, Cissy,’ Boylan said.

The woman laughed. ‘I see you’re just as much of a shit as ever, Teddy,’ she said. ‘Do come over to the table and say hello to the group.’ With a fluttery wave of her hand, she turned and made her way through the jungle of tables towards the back of me room.

Boylan sat down and motioned to Rudolph to sit down, too. Rudolph could feel himself blushing. Luckily, it was too dark for anyone to tell.

Boylan drained his whiskey. ‘Silly woman,’ he said. ‘I had an affair with her before the war. She wears badly.’ Boylan didn’t look at Rudolph. ‘Let’s get out of here,’ he said. ‘It’s too damned noisy. And there are too many other coloured brethren on the premises. It’s like a slave ship after a successful mutiny.’

He waved to a waiter and got the check and paid it and they redeemed their coats from the hatcheck girl and went out. Mrs Sykes, Cissy to her friends, was the first person Boylan had ever introduced Rudolph to, not counting Perkins, of course. If that’s what Boylan’s friends were like, you could understand why Boylan stayed up on his hill, alone. Rudolph was sorry the woman had come over to the table. The blush reminded him painfully that he was young and unworldly. Also, he would have liked to stay in there and listen to that trumpeter all night. They walked east on Fourth Street, towards where the car was parked, past darkened shop fronts and bars which were little bursts of light and music and loud conversation on their way.

‘New York is hysterical,’ Boylan said. ‘Like an unsatisfied, neurotic woman. It’s an ageing nymphomaniac of a city. God, the time I’ve wasted here.’ The woman’s appearance had plainly disturbed him. ‘I’m sorry about that bitch,’ he said.

‘I didn’t mind,’ Rudolph said. He did mind, but he didn’t want Boylan to think it bothered him.

‘People’s filthy,’ Boylan said. “The leer is the standard expression on the American face. Next time we come to town, bring your girl along. You’re too-sensitive a boy to be exposed to rot like that’

I’ll ask her,’ Rudolph said. He was almost sure Julie wouldn’t come. She didn’t like being friendly with Boylan. Beast of prey, she called him, and the Peroxide Man.

‘Maybe we’ll ask Gretchen and her young man and I’ll go through my old address books and see if any of the girls I used to know are still alive and we’ll make it a party.’

‘It ought to be fun,’ Rudolph said. ‘Like the sinking of the Titanic’

Boylan laughed. “The clear vision of youth,’ he said. ‘You’re a rewarding boy.’ His tone was affectionate. ‘With any luck, you’ll be a rewarding man.’

They were at the car now. The was a parking ticket under the windshield wiper. Boylan tore it up without looking at it

‘I’ll drive, if you like,’ Rudolph said.

‘I’m not drunk,’ Boylan said curtly and got behind the wheel.

Thomas sat in the cracked chair, tilted back against the garage wall, a grass-stalk between his teeth, looking across at the lumberyard. It was a sunny day and the light reflected metallically off the last blaze of autumn leaves on the trees along the highway. There was a car that was supposed to be greased before two o’clock, but Thomas was in no hurry. He had had a fight the night before at a high school dance and he was sore all over and his hands were puffed. He had kept cutting in on a boy who played tackle for the highschool team because the tackle’s girl was giving him the eye all night. The

tackle had warned turn to lay off, but he’d kept cutting in just the same. He knew it was going to wind up in a fight and he’d felt the old mixture of sensations, pleasure, fear, power, cold excitement, as he saw the tackle’s heavy face getting darker and darker while Thomas danced with his girl. Finally the two of them, he and the tackle, had gone outside the gym where the dance was taking place. The tackle was a monster, with big, heavy fists, and fast That sonofabitch Claude would have pissed in his pants with joy if he had been there. Thomas had put the tackle down in the end, but his ribs felt as though they were caving in. It was his fourth fight in Elysium since the summer.

He had a date with the tackle’s girl for tonight.

Uncle Harold came out of the little office behind the filling station. Thomas knew that people had complained to Uncle Harold about his fights, but Uncle Harold hadn’t said anything about them. Uncle Harold also knew that there was a car to be greased before two o’clock, but he didn’t say anything about that either, although Thomas could tell from the expression on Uncle Harold’s face that it pained him to see Thomas lounging like that against the wall, chewing lazily on a stalk of grass, Uncle Harold didn’t say anything about anything any more. Uncle Harold looked bad these days - his plump pink face was now yellowish and sagging and he had the expression on his face of a man waiting for a bomb to go off. The bomb was Thomas. All he had to do was hint to Tante Elsa about what was going on between Uncle Harold and Clothilde and they wouldn’t be singing Tristan and Isolde for a long time to come in the Jordache household. Thomas had no intention of telling Tante Elsa, but he didn’t let Uncle Harold in on the news. Let him stew,