Some Came Running

by James Jones

  Frank noted, rather sarcastically to himself, that her illness had not made her lose any weight; if anything, she had gained a little. Nevertheless, she remained in bed and in constant pain; and little Walter waited upon her like some miniature slave. Even Frank himself was forced to wait on her quite a bit himself, which he did ungrudgingly, because he was not even at all sure himself that she wasn’t sick. She had Doc Cost out to examine her once she was home and firmly ensconced upstairs—explaining to Doc that she had moved herself up there because of her illness with which she did not want to disturb Frank—and Doc’s diagnosis confirmed that she might very easily have something wrong with her gall bladder. But he advised against taking it out unless absolutely necessary because it would make her a semi-invalid the rest of her life. Instead, he advised her to diet.

  This was all right with Frank, because Frank didn’t want anything to happen to her. But even so, he could not quite overcome a suspicion that a lot of it was more put-on than real. And yet, on two different occasions the first month she was home, she had acute attacks in the night, after dinner parties; and it looked to be damned real. Just the same, he noted that it never bothered her from getting out of bed to cook, or to go to some club meeting somewhere; and it did not prevent her from accepting all the flocks of high-toned dinner invitations they were still getting. And it did not prevent her from entertaining in return. But if that was what she wanted to do, it was all right with him. As for the diet, there began to appear a lot more stewed vegetables and stewed fruit, a lot more “New England boiled dinners,” amongst her cooking, and a lot less meat and potatoes; and Frank did not like that. But he did not say anything. He was willing to put up even with that, to have her home here with him and to look after him and Walter, damn her.

  He didn’t know what he was supposed to do. Perhaps she wanted him to come sit by her and hold her hand and wait on her, and gradually talk her back into being in love with him again and—after she finally got over her pique—get her to start sleeping with him again. Perhaps that was what she wanted: for him to talk her into it over her own protests. But if that was what she wanted, he was damned if he would. There was a limit to what even a loving husband could take. Damn her. She had ruined everything else; he was damned if he would go and beg her for her damned affections. Let her be a damned invalid. And he would be a damned peeping tom. Oh, God! he thought terrifiedly; and yet there was still a high excitement in the thought, too. Let her stay upstairs. If she thought that hurt him—her moving up there, she couldn’t have been more wrong. He was glad to have the downstairs bedroom to himself. It gave him more freedom than he had had in years, really; he could go out at night anytime he wanted; and at the same time having her back home kept him from getting that curious panic.

  God! Where had it gone, that year of happiness they had had? What had happened? Why couldn’t they get it back? He had never loved anyone or anything as much as he had loved her during that year. And now, it was gone. She had forced him to give up his mistress—the having of which wasn’t hurting her any; not a damned bit—and then she had agreed to come home, and had entrenched herself upstairs, giving nothing, and he had entrenched himself downstairs, and the house in effect had become an armed camp—with little Walter the UN go-between. Except, of course, when there was company there; or they were out somewhere. Why did it have to be like that? If she was going to do that, she could at least have let him keep his mistress!

  And an almost uncontainable outrage and humiliation and sort of a vague self-destructiveness would sweep over him. And the only way he could get rid of it was to put on dark clothes and go out “walking” and come home half drunk, viciously pleased at what he was taking away from her, goddam her. Edith, of course, was already gone by this time. There would be no more chances at her again, ever. And the thought of that—and the memory of that one perfect night—would make him catch his breath, and hurt him with hunger that was almost unbearable. But she was gone. She had finished up her two weeks of training the new little girl and then, three days before Agnes and Walter returned, she had gone. On her last day, she had come around to him where he was standing with Al Lowe discussing the new store, and had made her farewells to both of them. She shook hands with them, smiling, and once more—for the last time—she called him “Boss.” There was nothing whatever about her to indicate that she felt the least bit bad about leaving him, or felt the least bit more affection for him, than she felt for Al. True to the last, Frank thought. True to the act that they had chosen to play. And he could not dampen a strong sense of admiration for her that made her leaving just that much more painful. What was she thinking, he wondered? What was she feeling? She certainly didn’t show she was feeling anything. That was the last time he had seen her.

  And three days later, Agnes and little Walter arrived home.

  Frank was downtown at his new offices working, when they got in that afternoon, and Agnes called him there from the house. Half deliberately, he told her that he could not get away just now, that he was in an important conference about the shopping center. He was, in fact, in an important conference on the shopping center; but it was not any conference that he couldn’t have got away from, if he had really wanted to. It gave him considerable pleasure to tell her what he did. Damn her.

  Later on, when he did wind everything up, and did get home, it was nearly evening and Agnes and little Walter were just finishing moving all of Agnes’s things upstairs. Frank mixed himself a good, stiff drink and came to the foot of the stairs in the hall which they were going up and down with the things. He had not known what he was going to say when he went in there, and neither did they apparently. He and Agnes were both constrained. Even little Walter was constrained. They all three stood in the hall looking at each other, Walter eyeing both of them out of a solemnly expressionless face. It seemed silly to merely say only the single word hello to each other; but that was what they all said.

  “Movin upstairs?” Frank said finally.

  “Yes,” Agnes said crisply, with an added overtone of wailfulness in her voice. “I’m not at all well.” You wouldn’t think anybody could speak crisply, and at the same time still sound wailful; but Agnes could.

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” Frank said. Then he looked down at little Walter and emotion welled up in him, and he set his drink down and squatted down and put out his arms. “Well, hello there, buddy-boy,” he grinned. “How’s it feel to be back home?”

  Walter cast his mother one swift glance, as if checking to make sure she would not be offended, and then came into his arms and put his own arms around Frank.

  “Fine, Dad,” he said in his solemn way. “I’m glad to be back. We’re both of us glad to be home,” he said.

  “I’m sure you are,” Frank said, patting him on the back. “And I’m just as glad to have you both home.” He looked up at Agnes and smiled, and she smiled, too. Both were constrained.

  “Did you get to see any ball games while you were out there?” Frank said, patting the small back.

  “We saw one game,” Walter said. “But it wasn’t big league. Me and Aunt Mary Ellen’s boys went, by ourselves.”

  “Well, that’s good,” Frank said. Reluctantly, he released the little boy.

  “Walter,” Agnes said, “why don’t you go out and play with your road equipment for a while? We’ll finish all this later.”

  “Yes, Mother,” Walter said, and with another covert careful glance at both of them, he went out through the living room.

  “I put all your road equipment in the garage,” Frank called after him, “to keep it out of the weather.”

  “Yes, sir,” Walter said. “Thank you.”

  “Well, let’s get it over with,” Frank said thinly, after he was gone. He picked up his drink again.

  “I just want to make it plain to you that I’m not in good health,” Agnes said, crisply, wailfully, “and also the conditions under which I’m willing to come back. As far as you and I are concerned, it’s purely a
business deal for the good of the child. I intend to sleep upstairs from now on, by myself.”

  “Okay,” Frank said stolidly. “Anything else?”

  “Yes,” Agnes said. “Is that whore gone?”

  “She’s gone,” Frank said. “But she’s not a whore. She’s a nice girl. I guess I done her more harm maybe even than I done you.”

  “I expect so,” Agnes said thinly. “I expect so. What about the house?”

  “Well,” Frank said; and then he lied. He couldn’t help it. “She wanted to keep the house, and since it was in her name, there wasn’t very much I could do about it. She’s having Judge Deacon rent it for her and give the money to her father.”

  “You mean she’s not moved back out there with him?” Agnes said, looking a little surprised.

  “No,” Frank said. “She’s leaving town. Already left, in fact. Moved to Chicago.”

  “Well!” Agnes said. “And she kept the house? Well, there’s a pretty nice sum of money down the drain, isn’t it?” she said bitterly.

  Frank did not say anything for a moment. He pulled his chin down into his neck, like a man out in a hail storm. “We can afford it,” he said shortly. “There’s plenty more where that came from.”

  “Eight thousand dollars!” Agnes said.

  “We can afford it,” Frank said again.

  “Well, at least, the whore is gone!” Agnes said.

  “What’s for supper?” Frank said, taking a drink.

  “I don’t know,” Agnes said wailfully. “I’ll have to look around. Well!” she said more crisply. “Eight thousand dollars!”

  Frank did not answer. If that was the way it was going to be, well, that was the way it was going to be. He turned to go and mix another drink. Hell, he had known what to expect, hadn’t he?

  Agnes followed him part way into the living room. “Yes, I can plainly see that that girl was no whore,” she said bitterly. “I can see that by the way she insisted on keeping the house. Eight thousand dollars! Whoring’s going up.”

  For a moment, he debated telling her the truth: that Edith had, in fact, wanted to sign the house back over to him; and that it was himself who had, because of his guilt, insisted on her keeping it. But that would only rile her up even more. And Edith was already gone. Well, if this was the way it was going to be, this was the way it was going to be.

  Edith Barclay, three days earlier, had been thinking almost exactly the same thing; but in a slightly different way: If that was the way it was going to be, that was the way it was going to be. And better so, really, she added to herself. Better this way than some other way it might have all turned out. It was, she thought, somewhat similar to what the military analysts back during the war would have called “an untenable position.” Hers and Frank’s both; and always had been. She had always known, deep down, that if it ever came actually to the sticking point Frank would stick with Agnes. She had never thought it, consciously, but she had known. She had never let herself think it. It was funny what one’s mind could do to one if one allowed it to. The truth was, shibboleths were crashing down all over, for Edith Barclay. And she merely stood, and watched them smash, and felt nothing, really.

  She never should have allowed herself to take the house. She had done that because of Jane. And she never should have let herself be seated “within the ribbon” at the wedding. She had done that because—? She didn’t know why. But even had she not allowed herself to do these two things, it would have made no difference. If not because of those two acts, then because of some others. Because it was, after all, an “untenable position”; and she had known it all along.

  Love. What was love, after all? She didn’t know. She only knew what she felt. But she had learned—the hard way—that what she felt was not the whole of it. Not by any means.

  She did not wait around any, once the job at the store was done. That same Saturday that she received her last pay check, she left. There was no point in staying and prolonging the unpleasantness. The new little girl was adequate to handle the work at the store now. So there was no point in staying any longer.

  Her packing she had already done before, in the evenings after work. And her business with the house was already taken care of with Judge Deacon. Edith suspected, from the way the judge looked, that he guessed the whole story pretty clearly; but he did not say anything to her. All she had to do was pack the one bag she was taking, lock the door, and go. The rest of her things she had, in the evenings, moved out to John’s. Once she got settled in Chicago, and found an apartment, she would have John express them to her. The little house had grown increasingly empty the last week, as she packed and moved her things out to John’s. Even so, while it caused a hollowness in the house, she preferred doing it that way to spending two or three hectic days moving everything after she had quit the store. She was, she found, able to live with the hollowness in the house as easily as she was able to live with all the thoughts that she used to not let herself think, but which now she did think. It was just a matter of adjustment.

  It was all, of course, Old Jane, really. Old Jane and her diverticulitis and her discharge she had so desperately tried to hide. That was, really, what had made her take the house in the first place. It was, in a way, a sort of penance to Old Janie. Well, she had paid it, and so it had served its purpose. She was through with it. And she had felt that way ever since the night two weeks ago when Frank had come over to tell her about Agnes. She had been Frank Hirsh’s “mistress;” Frank Hirsh’s kept whore; and that was what she had wanted to be—because of Janie. Now it was over. Maybe in some secret way that was partly why she had taken the house; just in order to bring this end about that much sooner.

  Certainly, anyone who thought they could fool Agnes Hirsh indefinitely were only kidding themselves. And now with the humiliation of being kicked out by her lover’s wife, she had in some obscure way, she felt, paid her debt to Old Jane. She could not, however, resist the one last luxury of telling it all to John. The last evening, when she took her last load out to his house, she sat and talked with him quite a little while, and explained to him how she was being kicked out by Agnes. Agnes had left Frank, she explained. Over her: Edith. The only way Frank could get his wife back was to kick her, Edith, out. That meant out of her job, too. Naturally, she was leaving town. John was, of course, naturally—in his dull way—distressed over his daughter. But more about the possibility of public scandal than anything else.

  “I don’t think you’ll have to worry about the publicity,” she had told him. “It’s all been kept very quiet.

  “Of course,” she added coolly, “it will all get around town eventually, I’m sure. But it will never actually be public scandal; only private scandal.”

  That, of course, distressed him even more: her allusion to his fear of publicity; and he tried to apologize. He was really a kind man; there wasn’t really anything mean about him. In fact, he was just too damned dull to even be capable of being mean. Edith sat with him in the kitchen of the little old house—so full of memories of Jane—and drank a last cup of coffee with him, and told him she was leaving tomorrow. Then she kissed him and said goodby.

  And so on Saturday, there was nothing to keep her, once she got off work and got her one bag packed. That was the way she had planned it. And she was glad she had handled it this way, rather than waiting to do her moving. Carefully, she went around the little house making sure there were no lights left on, no water running. Then she picked up her bag and went outside to where the taxi—Hirsh Bros. Taxi Service, only it wasn’t called that—she had called, was waiting. In its own right, she had really liked the little house, and had enjoyed fixing it up. Well, she could do the same thing with an apartment in Chicago. The taxi took her uptown, and she caught the evening bus to Terre Haute where she was going to catch the train.

  She had no regrets at all, and no fears. If she had it all to do over again, probably she would not have done it—knowing what she knew now. But then, how could she know now what
she knew, if she had not done it? And as for going off to a strange city and looking for work, she had no qualms whatever there. She was good at her work, and she knew it; and she could please a man with the best of them, now—whether she herself liked it or not. She ought to make a nearly perfect private secretary.

  Actually, she felt freer than she had ever felt in her life. Freer, and more unencumbered. And she could look forward with equanimity, even adventure, to anything that came.

  Only once, really, as she left, did she have any real feeling of pain and unhappiness: After she got to Terre Haute, knowing she had something over an hour to wait for the evening Chicago train, she walked the block or so up to the Marine Room bar to have herself a cocktail, and maybe a sandwich. And that was when she saw Dave Hirsh.

  He was sitting by himself over on the far side of the bar, having dinner, obviously pretty tight, and kidding loudly with the waitress. He did not see her. Edith gave up her idea of a sandwich and sat down on the near side, in the little room where they served only cocktails and ordered a manhattan. She did not want to speak to him. She had never liked him very well. But seeing him had momentarily stopped her. Round, blocky, fat-faced, ball-headed and barrel-bodied, he looked so much like his brother Frank that it made Edith’s stomach fall away with the memory of him: of poor old Frank. Frank her lover. He rose up vividly in her mind. So many memories of him. And her sorrow and pity for him, in spite of all his foibles, were still strong in her. Stronger even than she had expected.