Her toe touched Shawn’s below table. “The door,” she breathed. “Quick.” And then made a noise with plate and cutlery, to dissemble.
He slipped from his chair, made an elongated half circle around behind, came back again on the opposite side, and the door was sleekly closed. The sound had been smothered.
She stood up in turn, addressing herself. “You may remove the plates now, Gretchen. Yes, ma’am, thank you, ma’am, that I will. And you’re owing me a week’s wages since last Friday, ma’am, so don’t get guffy about it.” She went out, sideward this time, using the point of her elbow.
Reid’s smile was a flickering film accompanying the sound track of Shawn’s resonant laughter.
The door flashed open and she looked in again, ruefully. “The pièce de résistance needs a tractor, I’m afraid. This time I think I will let you give me a hand.”
Instantly Reid’s hand flashed out toward Shawn’s forearm, resting on the table; sought to pin it down there where it was. “Don’t both get up at once. Don’t leave me sitting alone in here.”
“I won’t go out there,” Shawn promised. “I’ll stand here just inside the door, see, where you can see me. You hand it to me here,” he said to her. “I’ll carry it in the rest of the way.”
She came back to the table in his wake.
“How would you like to carve for us?” she asked Reid brightly.
Then both her eyes and Shawn’s flicked to the sharp-edged carving knife.
“Oh, on second thought I’ll do it myself,” she said. And as she went to work, “You know, one big advantage of Weeks—er— taking the night off is by doing my own carving I can be sure of getting just the piece I want. He had me browbeaten.”
“Weeks is not coming back,” Reid said stonily.
“Why, certainly!” she said in bright amazement. “He simply asked me for the night off, and I let him have it. He’ll be back the first thing—”
Shawn cleared his throat a little.
“You can bring in the champagne, Tom, and start working on it,” she said quickly. “It goes with this.”
Shawn turned a delighted face toward Reid. “Did you hear what she called me? Tom.”
“And if I call you that before the champagne, you can imagine what I’ll call you after it.”
They were both talking a little too rapidly, as if in a sort of running competition. It would not have gone over with anyone not in Reid’s condition.
He came in again with the champagne. She began to give him amused instructions, jogging Reid’s arm intermittently to attract his attention while she did so. “Work the cork out gently. It’s going to pop in a minute, you know that, don’t you?”
“Don’t they all?”
“Is he going to be surprised! You’ve never heard a cork pop until you’ve heard a champagne cork pop. Get your sleeve back out of the way, or you’re going to have a nice soggy cuff.”
“What is this,” Shawn wanted to know, “opening a wine bottle, or a wrestling match?”
It thudded back from the opposite wall, and he jumped.
“Quick, catch it!” she shrieked.
Shawn ran headlong for the glasses, filled them.
“It’s angry stuff, isn’t it?” he said disconcertedly, flipping down his hand to get rid of some of the excess that had foamed over. He approached his glass warily, quirked his head at it suspiciously. “And now look how quiet it is.”
“But don’t let it fool you.”
He sat down. “Is it going to do that every time?”
“No, just the first. What do you think it is, some kind of geyser that erupts every ten minutes?”
They avoided touching brims this time. That perhaps emphasized instead of effaced the previous incident.
“Well, here’s to the three of us, anyway,” she said vivaciously. “You’re here, and I’m here, and— Wait a minute, I’d better find out about him.” She reached over and felt insultingly of Shawn’s upper arm. “Well, partly, anyway. Up to the neck. Above that, I don’t guarantee.”
“You let the boy alone,” Reid said weakly. “He’s all right.” He even tried to drop one eyelid amiably in Shawn’s direction.
Instantly her foot had nudged Shawn’s again, in momentary triumph.
“Oh, the poor defenseless boy,” she cooed. “He only weighs about—”
“Go ahead, finish it,” Shawn challenged her.
She mumbled something about “mostly bone.”
They drank in unison. Lovely lips curved to the champagne goblet, and thin firm ones, and quivering frightened ones that sought its support. The spangled dots piled upward through the golden liquid.
“They used to drink this out of women’s slippers,” she remarked reflectively.
Shawn, the practical-minded, revolved his glass, squinted at it dubiously from all sides.
“He doesn’t believe me. They didn’t have the open-toed kind in those days. The sides were built up. They were like little boats.”
He said, “Oh,” with lukewarm conviction.
She leaned forward engagingly, arms across table. Looking now at them, now at the glass held between the enclosure of her two hands. “I can remember the first drink of champagne I ever had. It was at a night club in Rome. It was brought on by emulation, and I was sixteen. You weren’t with us that night,” she said in an aside to Reid. “Louise and Tony Ordway had taken me out with them. And at the next table there was this stunning woman; a little—you know what I mean—demimonde, I’m afraid.”
“What does that mean?” Shawn asked.
“A girl who gets a great many proposals. But none of marriage.”
He nodded soberly, and that made her laugh.
“I was all eyes,” she went on, “just as everyone else in the room was. Why is it that the demimonde always holds such a fatal fascination for children in their teens? She kept sipping it, and sipping it, and growing more composed, and more statuesque, and more dignified all the time. She must have had a hollow leg. So finally, at an unguarded moment when both the Ordways were visiting at a neighboring table, I ordered some for myself. And I started in. I didn’t like it, it needled my tongue. But if that woman at the next table was going to drink it, I was going to drink it too. She played a dirty trick on me. She saw what I was doing, and she must have known why I was doing it. But instead of laughing at me, as she probably felt like doing, she was charming. And they can be charming, let me tell you. She raised her glass and gravely saluted me across tables, as one does an equal. That was all I needed. You can imagine the compliment. At sixteen. I saluted her back. And every time she filled and raised her glass, I filled and raised mine. I did see her mouth quiver treacherously once or twice, but she was too well-bred to let her feelings escape her, and that was my undoing. When the Ordways returned to the table, there was a horrified commotion, but I was only blurredly aware of it by that time. I do remember stopping and insisting on shaking hands good night with her before they could half carry and half walk me out of the place. And do you remember when they brought me home to you? Oh, you tried to be so severe and so disapproving in front of them—particularly of them— but as soon as we were alone together, you helped me undress, and you had to keep turning your head away every other moment. I knew you were laughing, I saw you, and I knew you thought I was cute, I wasn’t too tipsy for that.”
“My little girl,” Reid said almost inaudibly. His eyes slowly fell closed.
She turned quickly to Shawn, almost too quickly, too abruptly. “Now you tell us about your first.”
“It wasn’t as glamorous as yours,” he said, hunching confidentially toward them. “It wasn’t in Rome, it was in Jackson Heights, New York. It wasn’t champagne, it was gin. And there wasn’t anyone involved but an old uncle of mine, rest his soul, a retired captain on the police force. He didn’t live with us habitually, but he was visiting us for a few days at that time. The family had always suspected him of taking little nips on the side, but he was a bachelor and no one had
ever been able to prove it. Oh, and the main factor was this: I had you beat by about two or three years. I was exactly thirteen at the time.”
“No!” she marveled, and Reid chuckled.
“Anyway, I’d been out roller-skating around the streets and I came in all steamed up and parched for a drink. He must have been in the room there just ahead of me, and stepped out of it to get his specs or his paper or his stogie.There was this half glassful of colorless, refreshing-looking liquid standing there on the table right under my nose. Did you ever watch a thirsty boy that age drink water? They don’t fool around with it, you know; gulp-gulp-gulp and it’s gone. There was never any liquor around our flat, so how was I to know? First I thought all the plaster came down off the ceiling and beaned me. Then I thought I’d caught fire inside and was going to burn to death. Anyway, when they heard all this strange noise and came rushing in, they found me hugging my own stomach and doing an Indian war dance all around the room, complete with howls and whoops and foot stamps. For five whole minutes they chased me, they couldn’t get me to stand still long enough to find out what happened. And chairs went over, and it was terrible. At the end of that time, I had the most perfect bun on you ever saw, complete with singing, staggering, and hiccuping. Then my mother smelled my breath, and she quit crying into her apron and calling on the saints. Quit cold. And the injustice of it was this: he never got blamed. They thought I’d gone looking for it and poured it for myself. They let me sleep it off that night, but the next day I got the whacking of my life.”
“Well, why didn’t you—”
“I was brought up that way; not to blame other people or pass the buck. And it was worth it, anyway, in more ways than one. When he left he slipped a five-dollar bill into my hand on the q.t. and gave me a wink to show what it was for. And I was so completely cured, before I’d even begun drinking, that even today I can’t stand the smell or taste of the stuff, at least not gin. I’m a beer drinker, by inclination. It was like a Keeley cure taken ahead of time.”
Reid’s head had turned furtively, to glance behind him.
“That door, Jean.”
“But it’s the pantry door, darling, you know that. It’s hinged, it can’t be latched tight.”
“But I saw it swing a little just now. It swung out a little, then back again.”
“Some current of air, maybe. A little draft,” Shawn tried to say reassuringly.
She got up and went over, and swung a chair out in front of it, blocking it. “There, now it won’t move any more.”
She came back to them, stood behind him. Her arms crept down his shoulders. He couldn’t see her face for a moment, it was above him. Shawn could.
“Drink a little more champagne, darling. Before it goes flat. Here, we’ll make a loving cup together, you and I.” They linked their arms and drank.
“Does the gentleman on the other side of the table want me to drink a loving cup with him too? He has a sort of wistful expression, but he’s stuck for words. Either that, or it’s heartburn.”
She reached out toward him, took the end of his bow tie and pulled it out, dissolving the knot. “That used to be an invitation, if I remember correctly.”
“But to what?” asked Shawn.
“That’s right, I never did find out,” she admitted. “I never was taken up on it. Most likely to tie the tie up over again.”
He suddenly struck out at her when she wasn’t expecting it, seized the garnet velvet bowknot on her shoulder, tried to pull it undone. Nothing happened.
“Idiot,” she said. “It’s made that way.”
“Yeah, I know that now,” he said, looking at his own fingers ruefully.
She struck back in turn. Her hand raked through his hair, and it was left standing on end like a feather duster.
He folded his arms, eyed her with patronizing self-control. “You know, you’re playing with dynamite. You’re going to get in trouble before tonight’s ov—” He quickly checked himself.
A sudden stab of chill air—or of loneliness—seemed to knife Reid. He hunched his shoulders together defensively. “You’re both too far away. There’s so much empty space around me. Move up closer,” he pleaded. “Just a little closer.”
“All right. I’ll move right up to the very corner, on my side. You move up to the corner on yours, Tom.”
“Move around it,” Reid faltered. “Get in right next to me.”
They shifted chairs.
“But that leaves that side opposite you awfully bare, doesn’t it?” Shawn remonstrated with kindly intent.
“I have the table in front of me,” Reid said simply.
“It is chummier this way,” she seconded. “After the main course, it doesn’t matter where you sit. In fact you get cleaner places that way.” Her arm draped itself about Reid’s opposite shoulder. Shawn raised his own and crossed it over from that side.
“Here, we’ll all put our heads together close, like this,” she said. “Anybody know any stories? This is the time for telling good stories, with our heads close together. They don’t have to be pasteurized, just so long as you use euphemisms.”
“I know one about a cop,” Shawn said. “It’s clean, but I don’t know how good it is.”
She reached toward the pack of cigarettes he’d put down before them. “I hate women who don’t bring their own to a dinner party.”
Shawn told his story. It wasn’t very good. But it meant well. She overcomplimented it with her laughter.
“Now you.”
She told one, of rapierlike wit and subtlety.
His face remained unchanged. “I didn’t get it.”
“He just wants me to say that word over again,” she protested. “Enceinte. There, now are you satisfied?”
“On scent? But what was she driving at when she said that? It sounds like an expression about bloodhounds or some—”
She gave the back of his hand a pat of finality. “You and I will have to have a good long talk sometime real soon, my lad. I can see there are things that haven’t been told you.”
“Only French things,” he said.
She rose, and as she did so, swept her hand insultingly past his face, with a defiant snap of the fingers. He bucked his head back, pretending it had frightened him.
She brought demitasses on a tray. “There’s cognac in this coffee. Want to see a pretty blue flame? Give me a match and I’ll show you.”
He was genuinely startled, evidently never having seen lighted café-cognacs before. “But how d’ya get it down?” he demanded innocently.
She laughed. “I like you that way. I think men should be simple. God, how I hate sophisticates. You blow it out first, chéri.”
“Then why d’ya light it in the first place?”
“I give up,” she said. “It would take a lifeti—” Again she checked her phrase, as he had before. They seemed to be running into those tabus all the time. And each one of them registered on Reid’s face, like a ripple on taut transparent silk.
“Let’s have a little music!” she exclaimed, pounding the table commandingly. “I feel like dancing. Put something on the machine in there.”
The music reached them first; then he rejoined them. He tapered the door, so that the music could be heard plainly enough, yet without leaving it entirely open.
She stood and thrust back her hands to shoulder height. “Come on,” she invited. “You’ve been tapped.”
Reid turned worriedly sideward in his chair, so that he could still have them in sight. “Not too far away,” he whispered, looking up at her beseechingly.
“Right here behind you,” she promised. “Right here back of your chair. We’ll stay in one place, as if we were on a dime-sized night-club floor.”
Shawn was rocking, as though not knowing when to begin. “What is it?” he asked.
She listened to the beat. “It’s a tango. You must have put a tango on there without noticing. Come on, I’ll show you how.” She shook him slightly, from the hands upward. “All right
, start. Break loose. What is it, are you glued fast?”
He drew her to him. “Now whaddye do?”
“You just break the handclasp open. Stretch it out to a point. Like this. Then you go toward it on the bias. That’s it, you’re doing it.”
“But that gets you over to the wall.”
She rolled her eyes ceilingward. “Look, we’re dancing, not surveying. Then you reverse, go back the other way.”
“And what happens to the handclasp?” he asked, glancing around at it over his shoulder.
“That trails after you, that’s the caboose this time.”
A nasal tenor began to sing the vocal refrain in the distance.
“Oh-oh.” She stopped short as though something were wrong, gave him a surreptitious push away from her. “Go in quick and get rid of that one,” she said in an undertone. “The Spanish lyric may sink in; we both speak it, you know.”
“What’s the matter with it?”
“‘Adios, Muchachos.’ A song of farewell.”
He hustled out. She clasped her father lovingly by the head, and as she did so managed to press her hands to his ears as if in a caressing gesture.
The thing stopped short with a reluctant snarl. Something in a livelier tempo began. Shawn came back again, blowing out his breath.
They sat down again, one on each side of him. They began to sing the accompaniment themselves, this time. She began it. Then Shawn joined her, in a willing but not very reliable voice.
“Come on, you too.”
She draped an arm about Reid’s shoulder. Shawn raised his, on the opposite side, and linked the three of them together in an intimate little close-harmony group.
Reid’s parchmentlike lips began to move at last too; he began to falter the words after them.
They held their three heads close together. She swung a gay accompaniment with her free hand hoisted in air, wielding an imaginary baton. Shawn struck notes against the stem of the nearest champagne goblet with the edge of a fork.
Night Has a Thousand Eyes Page 26
