So Little Time (2 page)

“Where she is every weekday,” Madge said, “at school, of course. Other people's families get up in the morning.…” She began to open letters from the pile beside her plate. “Jeffrey, they want us to be patrons for the Finnish Relief Dinner. It's on the twenty-third.”

Jeffrey lighted a cigarette and sipped his coffee. It was like every other morning. He always felt better when he drank his coffee. Madge picked up her silver pencil and a block of paper.

“Twenty-five dollars for the Finnish Relief,” she said. “You'll have to have lunch on a tray today. Some of the girls are coming to lunch.”

“That's all right,” Jeffrey told her, “I'm going out.”

“Where?” Madge asked.

“You can get me at the Astor,” Jeff said, “and after the Astor I'll be at the theater. They're going to start rehearsing right after lunch. They may be going all night.” Jeffrey was feeling better now that he was drinking his coffee. “This show is very lousy, darling.”

“Can't you ever tell me your plans sooner, dear?” Madge asked. “They won't want you tomorrow, will they? Tomorrow's Saturday.”

“What's happening Saturday?” Jeffrey asked.

“Darling,” Madge said, “I wrote it down myself on your engagement pad. What good does it do if you don't ever read it? We're going to Fred's and Beckie's for a nice October week end, and you know what happened last time. You can't keep putting it off. Fred and Beckie don't understand it, and I can't keep explaining to them.”

“Oh God,” Jeffrey said. “All right, all right.”

“I know the way you feel about them, dear,” Madge said, “but you know the way I feel about Beckie. Other people don't let old friends down.”

“All right,” Jeffrey said, “don't try to explain it. There's nothing to explain.”

“Beckie keeps being afraid you don't like them,” Madge said, “and I have to keep telling her that it's only the way you are. You know how hard they try to get people for you to talk to.”

“I can talk to anybody,” Jeffrey said, “as long as they don't play pencil and paper games.”

“Darling,” Madge said, “it's only because she wants you to do something you're used to and they don't play bridge.”

“All right, all right,” Jeffrey said, “as long as it isn't the names of rivers, and as long as I don't have to be tongue-tied and go out somewhere into the hall.”

Madge reached across the table and patted the back of his hand.

“When you go anywhere,” she said, “if you ever do go, you know you really do have a good time when you get there. Why, I can't ever get you to go home to bed.” Madge frowned, and then she smiled. “It's just your act. Who do you think they're having for the week end?”

“Who?” Jeffrey asked.

“They're having Walter Newcombe,” Madge said, “the foreign correspondent who wrote
World Assignment
. He's just back. He was at the evacuation of Dunkirk.”

“What?” Jeffrey said.

“It's true,” Madge told him. “You may think Fred and Beckie are dull, but interesting people like to come to their house. We never have anyone around like Walter Newcombe.”

“My God,” Jeffrey said, “Walter Newcombe? Is he back again? Why, he was here in April.” And he saw that Madge was looking at him.

“You don't know him, do you?”

“Yes,” Jeffrey said, “of course I know him.”

The little perpendicular lines above her nose grew deeper. She was looking at him curiously as she still did sometimes.

“Jeff,” she asked, “why do you keep things from me, as though you led a double life, as though I were your mistress? Where did you ever know him?”

Jeffrey began to laugh. “Why, he was one of the Newcombes who lived on West Street. The old man ran the trolley to Holden, and Walter was on the paper in Boston. He started out in the telegraph room just before I left, and he used to be on the old sheet down here too.”

“Darling,” she said, “I wish you'd tell me—why is it you never bring friends like that around here?”

“He isn't a friend,” Jeffrey said. “I just know him. Besides you wouldn't like him much.”

She lighted a cigarette, still looking at him, and the lines above her nose were deeper.

“It's like a wall,” she said, “a wall.”

“What's like a wall?” he asked.

“You never tell me things,” she said, and she put her elbows on the table and rested her chin on the palms of her hands. “Even now, these little things come out. It makes you like a stranger; it's like waking up and finding a strange man in the bedroom; it isn't fair. I've told you again and again I want to know everything about you.”

“When I try to tell you, you're always thinking about something else,” Jeffrey said, and then he began to laugh again.

“What is it,” she asked, “that's so funny?”

“I was thinking,” Jeffrey said, “about a man I met once on the train when I was going into Boston to the old telegraph room. I used to commute, you know. That was the day Walter got his job there. He was a prize fighter.”

“Who was a prize fighter?” Madge asked.

“Not Walter,” Jeffrey told her, “the man on the train. It's funny—I haven't thought about it for years. It was in the smoking car of the old 8:
12
and it hasn't got anything to do with anything at all, but it's just the sort of thing I don't tell you because you'd be bored. You ought to get dressed and order the meals, but I'll tell you.”

When he told her things like that it always amused him to watch her, because she never understood—neither she nor anybody like her. It was in the summer of 1919, just after he got back from the war, and the smoking car of the old 8:
12
hadn't changed. Just as many cinders blew through the open windows in the summertime and the seats had the same black leather and the same crowd got on at Norton and the same group turned the seats back to play pitch, when old Mr. Fownes, the conductor, brought out the pitchboard. They all took their coats off and sat in their shirt sleeves. It must have been at one of those stations before you got to Lynn that a stranger slumped into the seat beside him.

“Is this seat taken, Bud?” the stranger asked. It was obvious from the new occupant's breath that he had been drinking. He was a small wiry young man with a short nose and a red face and light blue eyes. He wore a purple suit with padded shoulders and a silk shirt with green stripes on it and a celluloid collar with a bright red necktie.

“Bud,” the stranger said, “do you take anything?”

“Take any what?” Jeffrey asked.

“Any whisky, for Christ's sake,” the stranger said, and he pulled a black pint bottle from his back hip pocket, extracted the cork and wiped the neck with his sleeve. “Here,” he said, “for Christ's sake.”

There was something appealing in the other's bid for friendship.

“Why, thanks,” Jeffrey said. It was very bad whisky.

“Bud,” the other asked him, “was you overseas?”

Jeffrey said he had been and he asked if the other had been there too, and he wiped the neck of the bottle and handed it back.

“They t'rew me out,” the other said, and he beat his chest with his fist. “T.b.; they t'rew me out.”

Jeffrey told himself that whisky was antiseptic.

“I'm in the game,” the stranger said, and he looked proud and took another drink.

“What game?” Jeffrey asked him.

“The fight game,” the stranger said, and his voice was louder.

“Oh,” Jeffrey said, “you're a fighter, are you?”

“That's what I've been telling you, Bud,” the stranger said. “They t'rew me out because I have t.b., and I can lick any son-of-a-bitch my weight.”

The man's voice rose higher. He was disturbing the concentration of the pitch players.

“It must be nice to know you can,” Jeffrey told him.

The stranger scowled at him. “You think I'm kidding, don't you, Bud?” he said. “You don't think I'm a fighter, do you, Bud?” and suddenly he thrust his fist under Jeffrey's nose. “All right, bite my thumb.”

“Why should biting your thumb prove anything?” Jeffrey asked.

The stranger's voice grew belligerent.

“Go on,” he shouted, “I tol' you, didn't I? Bite my thumb.”

The little man had risen and was holding his thumb under Jeffrey's nose. The scene had caused a flurry, and nearly everyone else in the car was standing up.

“Sit down,” Jeffrey said, “and have a drink.”

“Go on,” the stranger shouted, “like I tol' you, and bite my thumb.”

There was a novelty in the invitation which appealed to the smoking car.

“Go ahead and bite it, fella,” someone called, “if he wants you to.”

There was only one thing to do under the circumstances. Jeffrey took the stranger's thumb and placed it between his back teeth and bit it hard. The little man did not wince. On the contrary, he seemed pleased.

“You get me, do you?” he inquired. “No sensation; I bust it, see? On Attell's jaw, seventh round at the Arena. Now you know me, don't you, Bud?”

“I ought to,” Jeffrey said, “but I've been away for quite a while.”

The stranger held out his hand, which was marked by the indentations of Jeffrey's teeth.

“I can lick any son-of-a-bitch my weight,” he said. “My name's Kid Regan—get me, Kid Regan, Bud, and if you don't believe it, look at this.”

With a quick gesture, he unbuttoned the front of his green striped shirt and displayed a blue spread eagle tattooed upon his chest.

“Now,” he asked, “you believe I'm Kid Regan, don't you, Bud?”

“Yes,” Jeffrey said, “that certainly ties it all together.”

The stranger sank back in his seat.

“Well, for Christ sake, let's take something—” he said, and he pulled out his bottle.

Jeffrey stopped and poured himself another cup of coffee while his wife sat looking at him. He could still hear the sounds of the smoking car, and he could still feel it sway.

“Jeffrey,” Madge asked, “did you make that up?”

“No, I didn't make it up,” he said. “It's the sort of thing that happens. People act that way sometimes.”

There was another silence; he could still hear the rattle of the car.

“Well,” Madge asked, “go on, what else?”

“There wasn't anything else,” Jeffrey told her. “When I got to the telegraph room, there was Walter Newcombe. Old Fernald had hired him that day. I just happened to remember it—there isn't anything else.”

There was another silence while Jeffrey stirred his coffee.

“Darling,” Madge said, “why didn't you ever tell me about that little man before? I love it when you tell me things, and it's quite a funny story.”

Jeffrey shook his head. “It isn't really funny. Basically, it's sad. Maybe that's why I never told you.”

“Sad?” his wife repeated. It was exactly what Jeffrey had meant. It was not her fault, but you could not tell her things like that.

“Yes,” he said, “he was a sad little man. You see, he knew that he was through. He knew that he couldn't lick any son-of-a-bitch his weight in the world, darling.” And Jeffrey looked out of the window at the buildings stretching beneath them, and there wasn't anything more to say.

“Tell me some more about Walter Newcombe,” Madge asked him.

“There isn't any more to tell, darling,” Jeffrey said, “he was just in the old telegraph room.”

“But you haven't told me anything,” she said, “not anything at all.”

Jeffrey picked up his own mail beside the coffee cup.

“Maybe I'll think of something later,” he said, “but it's getting late now.” And Madge sat looking at him.

“Darling,” she said, “I love it when you tell me things. That little man—maybe he was sad.”

Jeffrey's mind was not where he wanted it, at all. He did not seem to be in New York; he did not seem to be anywhere. That was the trouble with getting mixed up in reminiscence which had nothing to do with Madge and the children. When he looked at the walls of his study and at the pictures, and at the books which he and Madge had bought and had arranged together, he had a most uncomfortable sensation. He could not believe that he owned such things as the red-backed Aldine Poets and the green Smith and Elder Thackeray and the Currier and Ives print of the “Country Home in Winter.” He and Madge had bought them because they had both liked and wanted them, but he did not seem to own them.

“It's funny how people pop up when you least expect it,” he said. “As a matter of fact, I saw Walter last April. He spoke at the Bulldog Club lunch.”

“What's the Bulldog Club?” Madge asked.

“Oh, nothing much,” he said. “Just one of those newspaper clubs.”

“You never told me,” she said. “Jeffrey, why don't you ever tell me anything?”

It made him feel wretched, because he could not think of any convincing reason.

“I don't know why,” he said. “It didn't have anything to do with you and me.”

She sat there silently in her blue kimono. Her brown eyes looked wide and hurt.

“Other people,” she began, “other people—”

Jeffrey reached across the table and took her hand.

“Never mind about other people,” he said, “I love you, Madge.”

He had not realized he was going to say it, and when he did, it sounded like a complete answer to everything. She was looking back at him, still puzzled.

“I wish you'd say that more often,” she said, and she sighed. “You're awfully hard to understand.”

He never could see what there was in him that was puzzling, because to himself he seemed extraordinarily uncomplex. It was only that you could not share your whole life with anyone else in the world, although this was what women seemed to want. No two people, whether they were married or not, could possibly look at any subject in exactly the same way. Everyone's vision was warped by individual astigmatism. He picked up one of his letters and opened it and began to read before he heard her voice again.