Some Came Running (45 page)

“The Communists ain’t human,” Dave said from the bar. “I seen them in Germany.”

“Oh, but they must be,” Gwen said; “biologically. They look human.” She stopped, and continued to stare into the red, tinkling fire. “The men do have it tough, too, don’t they?” she said again, as if to herself.

Dave turned away from the countertop clutching the mixer glass, from which he drank, and looked at her. It was what she had just said, that very last. Suddenly, he understood it all; everything. He started down the long room toward her, but then, with the thought of not frightening her with perhaps the idea of an assault in his seemingly drunken state, he did not continue on to the fireplace, but sat himself down at the big table.

Suddenly, out of a clear blue sky, it had hit him what it was that had been wrong all evening, what it was he hadn’t been able to put his finger on. And it really had nothing to do with him at all. Once you understood it, it was simple. It explained everything. This woman was a nympho. A real, archetypal, bona fide nymphomaniac: Driven forever to sexuality from which frigidity wouldn’t let her get satisfaction; and at the same time driven forever back by her sense of guilt. Just like in the psych textbooks. She was the first one he had ever really met. He was astonished.

“You’re a nympho, aren’t you?” he said in an iron-positive voice from the table.

Gwen turned to look at him uncomprehendingly. Then her face got that taut drawn look it had had before, the expression of the eyes actually withdrawing inward as he watched, leaving them veiled and blank, and guilty. Ha, he had got it!

He should have got it all along. It explained everything, why she had acted like she had, why Bob had been like he had been; it explained why she had flirted with him and then suddenly for no reason withdrawn. Her guilt. She wanted it but she was trying to abstain.

“I’m not dumb! I know what it is!” he burst out, without thinking, proud of his acuteness of perception. “You’re a nympho, Gwen! Aren’t you? That’s what’s been wrong here all evening! That’s why you slept with all those men! That’s why you could never get any satisfaction!” After he had said it, he was sorry that he had.

Gwen looked at him strangely, her face looking as if it were struggling to laugh, or else to cry, and she not letting it. “You are at liberty to think anything about me that you want,” she said in a clear cold voice. “I neither affirm nor deny it.” Then, like a stumbling afterthought, she added, “I never have and I never will.”

“What the hell?” Dave said, embarrassed now. “Sex is nothing to be ashamed of, Gwen. You ought to know that.”

Gwen looked back at him and then suddenly the tautness of her face broke and she laughed. But perhaps it was a little too carefree, he thought, a guilty laugh.

“I do know it,” she said, smiling at him very warmly. “And I’ll tell you one thing, Dave. I’m no nymphomaniac, whether you believe me or not. But you can think that if you want to. And, one other thing: You better give up the idea of being in love with me. Because it’ll never do you any good. I don’t suppose I can keep you from trying to make love to me every now and then; you can no more help trying to make love to every woman you meet than you can help breathing; you had a very insecure childhood. But I can tell you now, I’ll ignore it and it won’t do you any good.”

Dave didn’t say anything. He was still reveling in his discovery. And if she wanted to think she could talk him out of it, that was all right. If that made her feel better, that was okay. Let her think it.

“If you want me to help you with that book,” Gwen said, “I’ll work with you on it just like I work with Wally Dennis. I’ll be a friend and companion to you just like I am with Wally.”

“Thanks,” Dave said dryly. He could feel he was beginning to get pretty tight. It was a good thing he had figured it all out before he got tight.

“Because I’d like to see it get written,” Gwen said earnestly. “If you knew!” she said suddenly. “If you knew the number of people I’ve had in my classes who wanted to be writers! And of all of these how many do you think had even the chance of becoming one? Two! Wally Dennis, and one other boy. Who went off to Chicago three years ago to live the artist’s life and write. I haven’t heard a word about him since. Two, out of all those people. If you knew how rare and valuable a thing it is that you have!” she said.

“Yeah,” Dave said. “Sure. Well, you and me’ll work on it.”

“But that’s all I’ll do,” Gwen said, the taut haunted look coming back in her face. “I love literature, but— Well, don’t expect anything else from me.”

“Okay,” Dave said. “We’ll write it.” He drank off the rest of what was in the mixer. He felt good. He was still mulling over his discovery. Hell, if she was a nympho all he had to do was bide his time. Eventually, he would catch her right. Be bound to. His investment was safe after all, and his self-respect.

“I’ve got to go,” he said getting up. He felt himself sway slightly.

Gwen looked surprised. “Aren’t you going to stay till Dad gets home?”

“No,” he said. “Got work to do for Frank tomorrow. I’ll be back.” He looked around for his topcoat. It was lying across the back of one of the reading chairs, where Bob had put it—how long ago? He started toward it. He was drunker than he’d thought. He had drunk more than he meant to, getting upset and all.

“Well, at least wait till Wally comes,” Gwen said.

“Can’t,” he said. “Anyway, I agree with your dad. I don’t think he’s comin.” He reached the coat.

“Are you sure you’re all right to drive?” Gwen said.

“Perfectly,” he said. “Fine.” He picked up the coat. He was drunk. Wow! In just that short walk from the table. But it didn’t matter, everything was all right now. Just bide your time.

“Here, I’ll help you,” Gwen said. She came over from the fireplace and helped him struggle into the topcoat and he could smell some bittersweet perfume radiating from her body. Dave set his hat on his head, the new hat, from Indianapolis, and looked at her.

“Thank you for a very pleasant evening,” he said.

“You’re welcome to stay the night if you want to,” Gwen said a little anxiously.

“Can’t,” he said. “Got to work for Frank tomorrow.”

“Then come back tomorrow and spend the weekend,” Gwen said.

“Maybe,” Dave said. “Try. Anyway, thank you for a very pleasant evening.” He turned and started toward the door, which was at the far end from the reading chair.

“You’re very drunk,” Gwen said.

“Sober as a judge,” he said. He reached the door. He opened it and went down the three steps to the cellar landing.

“Please do come for the weekend,” Gwen said from the doorway above.

“Maybe,” he said. “Try. Don’t know if I can stand it, you know. Very sensitive person. Try not. Can’t. Writer. Anyway, thank you for a very pleasant evening,” he said. “Goodby.”

“Be careful on the highway,” Gwen said, “please.”

“Perfectly.” He put his hand on the knob, and then remembered he had forgot to fix the fire for Bob. He took his hand off the knob. “I forgot to fix the fire for Bob,” he said.

“That’s all right,” Gwen said. “I’ll fix it.”

“I promised him I would fix it,” Dave said. He started for the steps.

“I know how to fix it,” Gwen said. “I’ll do it.”

“But you don’t understand. I promised him, you see,” Dave said.

“That’s all right,” Gwen said. “He won’t mind.”

“Okay,” he said, turning back to the door. “But you tell him I remembered. Will you?”

“I’ll tell him.”

“You know, you are really quite a person,” Dave said. “I like you.”

“Thank you.”

“I like you just as much. Perhaps I even like you better. Yes, I think I do,” he said.

“Well, thank you,” Gwen said, unable to help grinning.

“Don’t grin. I mean it. Seriously.” He put his hand on the knob again, feeling a vague impression that he should not talk so much. “I really shouldn’t drink this much, you know,” he said.

“Yes, I know,” Gwen said. “Are you sure you’re all right to drive?”

“But I sometimes do,” he said gaily, leaning on the door. He wanted to create the same impression in leaving that Bob had; but a tremendous hiccup suddenly burst out of him ruining the effect. “God!” he said in a startled voice. “That was loud!”

Gwen laughed outright from the doorway above.

“Excuse me,” he said.

“Certainly,” Gwen said. “Please be careful.”

“Perfectly,” he said. “And thank you for a very pleasant evening.”

He opened the door and let himself out, closed it carefully, started for his car and almost fell down. Gwen did not follow him out, and he was glad of that. He staggered seriously along the walk to where the car was parked, trying very hard to keep his balance, but each time he straightened himself from swaying one way he would push too far and sway the other, thinking intently only about getting home and to bed. At the car, after the consummate work of getting in and getting the door shut, he had trouble getting the key into the lock. His eyes would only focus for a second and then his head would begin to whirl sickeningly.

Yes, he had drunk far too much. It was that getting upset and all. It was a damned good thing he could hold his liquor or wow! As it was, he couldn’t even see to drive. And there was still at least one big drink in him which had not even begun to hit him yet. He thought about the liquor somberly, and without feeling in the same way one thinks about an enemy who has battered outwitted and outfought one until even the loss of the game itself shrinks to a measure of complete indifference.

He backed the car and turned it carefully, intent upon focusing his eyes and not hitting anything. At the end of the driveway, he stopped, impregnated with a momentously sly idea. He was afraid to get up on the highway like this, with those big trucks and all. Why not drive home the back way? A splendid idea, old chap, Old Dave! he told himself, mimicking Bob French.

At the end of the drive, he turned right, onto the business street away from town and followed it out under the high loom of the bridge to where it became a graveled country road, and so it was that an hour later he found himself on a dirt lane which had continued on from the end of the gravel and which now ended in the winter cornfield before him, somewhere in the river bottoms. If there had been a road west to the left, he had not seen it. Thinking that it was a good thing the ground was frozen or he would have long since got stuck in this bottomless mud, he turned off the lights and shut off the motor and lay down in the front seat to try and sleep, he was terribly sleepy, but he could not because every time he shut his eyes he started whirling and had to reopen them. The last thing he thought of with a kind of blissful peace of soul was that everything was all right now and his investment was safe because if she was a nympho all he had to do was bide his time and he would catch her right and working on the book was as good a way as any, and when he woke up that was the first thing he thought of, too.

It was three-thirty. Frozen clear in to the bone, still drunk but able to see now, he got the car turned around in the dead-stalked cornfield and, shivering convulsively so that he could hardly hold the wheel, he drove all the way back through Israel (there were no lights in the house as he passed it) and up onto the highway and back to Parkman thinking miserably, wow, what an evening!

At the hotel, he told the decrepit nightman to give strict orders he was still not in, crept up stairs exhaustedly, and after taking a huge shot of his remaining whiskey, slid his frozen body gratefully into bed under all the covers, and tried fitfully to sleep.

G
WEN
F
RENCH HAD REMAINED
standing in the cellar doorway after Dave closed the outside door. She leaned against the jamb, her hand resting above her on the wood, and listened worriedly to the low cursing and the pattern of uneven footsteps but she could not help grinning a little, too, in spite of her anxiety.

What she really wanted to do was follow him out there and stop him. She could take him home in her car and leave his here, if he still insisted on going, and for a moment she almost went. But she knew beforehand that his male vanity would never stand for that, would never admit he was that drunk. So instead, she merely stood in the doorway, listening alertly.

The immemorial status of the female, she thought irately. They also serve.

Eventually, the car door slammed and then there was silence for a long interval. Fumbling with the key, she thought. After a while though, when there was still no sound, unable to help herself, she tiptoed down the four steps to the landing and put her ear against the crack of the outside door. She stood that way, her hand on the knob, still half of a mind to go on out. But then finally, the car started. She listened hard, holding her breath, while it backed up, stopped, turned. There were no bangs or crashes, it proceeded cautiously down the drive. Feeling only a little relieved, Gwen went back up the steps and closed the inside door irritably.

Half of her, she thought, had been half hoping that he would hit something—something minor. So she would have an excuse to go out and stop him. Driving down the driveway safely was one thing. Getting up there on the highway where all those tractor trailer trucks came shooting through over the bridge was something else.

He might very easily get himself killed, she thought, or have a serious crippling wreck.

However she believed that nothing of the sort would happen to him. In fact, she knew it. She knew it because there had been too much of fate in all of this—in his coming back to Parkman, and in his meeting them—and things like that did not just happen through blind chance.

He had a tremendous driving animal vitality, that one. It filled almost to screaming any place he was in as long as he was there, and when he left, it left the place feeling physically empty. Well, she had a flock of theme papers to read and grade before tomorrow, she reminded herself.

If something did happen, it was because it was supposed to happen, and couldn’t have been avoided anyway, whether she made him stay here or not. Bob had taught her that principle long ago. If it did happen it was his Karma, and there was nothing she could do about that. If he died, he died. She walked down to the fireplace.