“Because if it hadn’t been for his having a child out of wedlock they wouldn’t have any in it,” I said.
“They’d have gotten another.”
“Not necessarily. In fact very likely not. If you’ll recall, what finally cleared them with the agencies was his reform, fiscal and otherwise. But he reformed and settled down and became a breadwinning husband, because he was scared into it. And he’s becoming more of one every day, as I can tell from the books. Well, if he hadn’t sinned on the scale he did the chances are he wouldn’t have reformed on the scale he did. Think of Augie—this will help—as a kind of Everyman, combining the good and bad in us. Remember that if it weren’t for babies born illegitimately there wouldn’t be any for the salt of the earth to adopt. Augie was just his own source of supply.”
We talked like this long past midnight, and when we gave off were a long time getting to sleep. I was feeling ragged the next day when Augie phoned and asked me to go for a walk with him. It was a Sunday afternoon, and he was going to take the little mimic out for a turn. That meant an easy stroll, rather than one of our grueling marches, and I agreed. I was waiting for him at the road in front of our house when he appeared, pushing the buggy at a brisk clip at that.
“Isolde suspects,” he said as I fell in beside him. “What does Audrey make of this? She looks at me oddly. You’ve told her, haven’t you?”
“I couldn’t get out of it,” I said.
A man carrying a fat Sunday paper was walking toward us up the road, smiling broadly. It was Mr. Goodbread, husband of our sitter (now also the Pooles’). Goodbread had been a gardener for an estate on the Sound which had been recently closed and put up for sale, and he was now working a day apiece for several of us more modest home owners. He stopped to say good afternoon and to dote into the pram. He had on his working dungarees. A brown cardigan full of blowouts and a knit cap bound at the tip like a wurst expressed his indifference to nonessentials.
“Is nize boy,” he said, with an accent that was the product of his having lived in both Germany and Russia. He grinned and bent to pinch a cheek. “Look just like Daddy. Everybody say.”
“Oh, God,” Augie said when Goodbread was gone. He clenched his fists and looked where God lived. “I can’t stand any more of this. I can’t stand Isolde’s not coming out with it. I’m sitting on a powder keg, waiting every day, every minute, for it to blow up. There’s only one way to end the suspense.”
“How?”
“Set it off.”
I clutched his arm. “Now cut it out,” I said, “and get hold of yourself. You’ll set no powder kegs off and maybe have something get back to the agency.”
“Why?”
“Because if they find out it’s your child they’ll take it away from you. What ails you? Have you forgotten this is a probation period? It’s a year before you sign the final papers. You can do what you want then; until then, shut up.”
But Augie knew what there was for Isolde to put two and two together with: the discrepancy about the income declaration; a mysterious and hastily terminated telephone call or two to think back on; nights spent in town. Singly they meant little; together and in the light of the growing resemblance, they formed a basis on which to reassess the fainting fit. And Augie didn’t have enough of a moral balance in the bank of domestic relations to cover what they added up to. He felt it to be only a matter of days before Isolde blurted out a query of some sort; and he sensed, too, the at least slight advantage to be gained by confession, as against being called to account; and so he warned me not to be surprised if I heard him blurt something out first. “Yes, I might very well do it when somebody’s around—cushion the shock. I don’t think I could stand it just the two of us together. But I want to get the explosion over and done with, and let the dust settle and see what we’ll see. Get the damned thing on the agenda.”
Isolde accosted me in the hardware store and told me that Augie had been acting “queer.” He went about with an abstracted, at times distracted, look. “He tells me things he’s said before,” she related. “He’ll get at things around the house he’s already fixed. He talks about moving back to New York.” She paused, frowning at the floor. “And now he has this idea he should be playing the piano all hours.”
I gave her what reassurance I could: that suburbanites thought continually about moving back to the city, that it was no rarity for people to become suddenly obsessed with hobbies (which were in any case a preservative rather than a threat to stability) and that as for repeating things, everyone did that—I did it myself, now and again, when tired.
“Have you ever taken the car down to have it greased twice in the same day?” she asked. “Or been so tired you got up to play the piano in the middle of the night?”
No, I admitted, I hadn’t. Nor had I seen Augie for some weeks. “Has this come on all of a sudden?” I asked.
“Yes, more or less. Drop over tonight if you’re free, and see for yourself,” she suggested. “Isn’t tonight when Audrey’s having the Brownie mothers?”
It was, and so I promised Isolde I’d look in.
I arrived about eight o’clock. Augie was sitting at the piano, playing Christmas carols.
“Rushing the season, Augie?” I said, shaking off my topcoat.
“I guess I am,” he said. “The middle of October.”
Isolde and I exchanged glances. It was the last of November.
“But I like the old carols,” I said, rubbing my knuckles on my palm as I entered the living room. “I don’t see why we shouldn’t play them oftener.”
Augie swung round on the stool. “It’s funny nobody writes any new Christmas carols—except old Mrs. Likely. Remember her, Isolde? I ran into her the other day. That’s a handsome jacket you’ve got on,” he complimented me.
“Thanks,” I said.
We sat down with brandies; Isolde and I did, that is—Augie walked about the room.
“How’s little Augie?” I asked.
Augie turned vague eyes to me. “Who?”
“The little nipper.”
“Oh, he’s fine.”
We talked about him some, and I learned his latest achievements. Which reminded Isolde to slip in and see that he was covered. When she returned, Augie said:
“Did I tell you that I ran into old Mrs. Likely on the street?”
“Yes, you did.”
There was something wrong here. And it wasn’t long before I thought I had my finger on it.
Augie had recently phoned the magazine office about a cost-of-living adjustment check he had coming, and I remembered the punctuality of his inquiry as well as the notable accuracy of his estimate of the figure due him. No want of mental clarity there. Nor in other details relative to business matters, othet dates and sums pertaining thereto. So it was borne in on me that I was witnessing a performance, like that conducted at Elsinore. His object was, of course, to portray himself as not responsible for his actions. He was using a broad brush because there was no time: events were closing in on him.
Presently I perceived something else.
“Augie hasn’t been sleeping well lately,” Isolde said.
“Not just lately,” Augie put in. “It’s been over a year, actually, though I’ve tried to keep from worrying you with it. It goes back to when—” He hesitated, then went on: “Maybe you remember the fantods I had once last July? I never told you about it, but at that time I sank a thousand dollars into some stock that turned out to be worthless. It was the first of July. I don’t know what could have come over me. I suppose even then I wasn’t myself. . . .”
So that was part of the plan. He was trying to establish his incompetence as pre-existing far enough back to cover the time of the act responsible for the pickle he was in; was trying, in other words, to make it retroactive. But good God, I thought to myself, don’t lay it on so thick. For now he bent down to peer at and finger the goods in my coat. “That’s a mighty handsome jacket you’ve got on,” he said. “Did you have it tail
ored?”
“No,” I said miserably and a little resentfully, looking into my brandy glass and crossing my legs. “I bought it at Rogers Peet. They had a sale.”
Isolde set her glass down. “Who’d like a game of Scrabble?”
“I would!” I said, glad for any escape from the form of scrabble we were in as it was. Augie excused himself, pleading fatigue. “I’ll kibitz,” he said.
He sat down and rambled at the piano, however, soon after Isolde and I had started a game. Giving that up, he went over and turned the radio on. He got some recorded classical music and, shading the volume to our joint liking, went over and stretched out on the sofa, which he affected not being able immediately to locate. From there he kept up a sporadic chatting.
“Guess who I ran into in town the other day, looking exactly the same as ten years ago. Old Mrs. Likely. I asked her if she was writing Christmas carols and she said yes—the church choir was going to sing one this season.”
This attempt to offer a disintegrating façade was one I was able to be tolerant of as well as see through, because of my own Weltschmerz act which was a degree of the same bid for consideration. But it was a difficult transaction at best, and I was dying to tell him that better men than he had failed to bring it off, and for God’s sake in any case to put on the soft pedal. At this rate it wouldn’t be long before Isolde saw through it herself. Even already, I felt some response on her part to my own ill-concealed skepticism. Finishing a turn at the Scrabble board, she leaned back and said: “Augie, what was the stock you bought?”
“I don’t want to bother you about it, baby,” he said. “It’s water over the dam. I don’t even remember the name of it.”
“But you remember the date you bought it.”
“It was around the Fourth of July.” He laughed through his nose. “I guess some connection about burning money up, like fireworks. Oh, well.” He went to the radio, on which a recording of a quartet by Bartók had begun. “Do you mind if I get something else?” he asked. “Bartók always makes me want to walk sideways.”
I felt Isolde looking at me.
“That’s exactly the effect he has on me, Augie,” I said and, laying out my letters, sat back. “Your turn, Isolde.”
She pushed back her chair and rose.
“I’ll be right back,” she said. “I want to take another look at that baby.”
So Augie saw that Isolde saw that he could tell a hawk from a handsaw, all right, and that he wasn’t bringing this thing off. Yet he abandoned the act with the keenest reluctance. Isolde’s refusal to credit his lunacy was a bitter blow to him—in fact it almost drove him out of his mind. I suppose his pride was involved. The two lived under a steadily mounting voltage of constraint, exposed to one another’s nerves as to live wires. Somebody had to give, and soon. That was why I avoided going to the Pooles’ as often as I could, remembering Augie’s stated hope for a buffer when the situation broke. But I couldn’t decline invitations indefinitely, and so at last I let my wife accept one for dinner on an evening in the middle of the week.
There was a Turf Guide in evidence when we got there, suggesting that Augie had lapsed into an interest, long suspended, in the horses. That was when I made the famous crack about posting with such dexterity to racing sheets, putting us all in stitches at the table. Augie, however, resumed a look at once remote and edgy, and when, as we settled down to coffee in the living room, he cleared his throat to say something, I threw in hastily: “Have you ever noticed what a ringer Mr. Goodbread is for Tito? One of those amazing resemblances.”
“Oh, you must hear Augie’s imitation of Mr. Goodbread,” Isolde said. “Do it, Augie.”
“Oh, no.”
“Please do,” we all said.
“Oh, all right. De sep feeds de gress like de blod de vessels. Dis wary good ting, big horse lawn mower ronning over de gress make de blade lay down flat if no sep—but if sep, springs ride beg op again.”
“Priceless?”
“Wonderful.”
Augie drew a deep breath and continued nervously:
“So de otter day I was over to see Hinkle de dog catcher aboud how much topsoil he’ll need in his beg yard, wants to seed it, and I was explaining how de gress needs deep ort what can nourish de sep, when who should ring but de phone. Hinkle rons in de house a while, and pretty soon comes beg out mad. ‘Woman calling me op because dead dog in de road in front of her house,’ he says. She says, ‘Can you come right over and pick it op?’ I says, ‘No.’ She says, ‘Why not?’ Says ‘Big horse.’ She says, ‘Big horse why?’ Says, ‘Big horse I only dill wit live dogs. Dad’s my jurisdiction—I’m de dog catcher.’ She says, ‘Who shall I call?’ Says, ‘I don’t care, lady. Call de ondertaker. I only pick up what I have to catch.’ She gets med flies off de handle. Dad’s the poblic for you every time. Dey’re worse dan anybody’—Look, I’m the father of that child.”
I don’t know why Augie chose that particular moment. His take-off had gone well, we were having a good time. Maybe that was why—an impulse to spring it in a state of grace. Or maybe the very unreality of the moment was useful to him. Maybe it was for both of these reasons, or neither, or one altogether different. But he sprang it and there we sat. The damn thing was on the agenda. Not only on the agenda, but before the house.
Augie went over and raised a window. He wiped his brow with a handkerchief and came back to his seat. Isolde was running her forefinger round the rim of her cup. My wife and I were looking into our laps.
“There was a child, you know. This is it. There’s no doubt about it. Why try to hide it, why pretend? I suggest we hang me from a sour apple tree. I suggest we cut me up into little pieces for fish bait. I hate to do this to Dick and Audrey, but they wouldn’t be spared it anyway—I’d have to face them finally, so why not now? I figured we might as well get it all over with in one crack.” He rose and walked toward a crib in a far corner of the room where Junior was parked tonight. “I’ll do anything you think fair. This little cherub—”
Isolde came over and thrust herself between them, her back to the crib. “Don’t you dare touch that child!” she said.
“Now, Isolde,” I said rising, not knowing quite what line I was taking.
“Get out,” Isolde said to Augie.
“Forgive me.”
“I’ll forgive you if you get out. Get out and don’t ever let me see you again.”
Augie stood looking at her with his mouth open. I stood with my hands spread. Audrey got up. “I think we’d better go.”
“No, stay. I’m glad myself about that part of it—now I won’t have to tell you myself. And I’d rather not be alone tonight,” Isolde said.
“Well, then I’ll leave with Augie,” I said. “Audrey and you can stay together.”
“You want to do that then?” Audrey said. It was all getting idiotic—as though we were discussing who would ride with whom to a party or something.
Augie turned to us. “I have a few more things to say.” I supposed he meant in castigation of himself, but couldn’t be sure; because Isolde strode to the door, flung it open, pointed through it, and said: “Get out! You—coyote!”
There was once a movie—perhaps it was All About Eve—in which some actress had done that to George Sanders and he’d said, “You’re too short for that gesture. Besides it went out with Mrs. Fiske.” Isolde was short, but she wasn’t too short for the gesture. And Augie got out. But he hesitated first and said, “I ought to pack a few things.”
“I’ll send your things. Just get out now.”
“Forgive me.”
“Later.”
“Then we’ll let it that way. I’ll let you know through Dick where to send my things. I’ll probably stop at the Algonquin.”
“You wouldn’t stop at anything,” was another rejoinder I recalled, this one from a musical comedy, in a brisk exchange also involving hotels. The mind has its own shock absorbers when emotions are under stress.
When Augie started for the cl
oset to get his coat and hat (having shut the door a moment because of the draft) I went for mine too.
“Wait,” Audrey called to me. “I’d like you to stay a minute and tell Isolde all the things you told me the other night. You know—how if it hadn’t been for Augie’s bad side there wouldn’t be this good, and so on. How it’s thanks to that and all.”
“Well, all right,” I agreed, though I’d have liked an hour or two alone to prepare a few notes. I was certainly more than happy to do all I could to help my two friends get this straightened around. I stood with my overcoat in my hands. “But shouldn’t I at least drive Augie to the station, if he’s going to New York?”
“I’d rather walk,” Augie said. “It’s only two and a half miles.”
So we watched as he got into his coat and put on his hat. He opened the door and then paused, as if waiting for something. I felt we were waiting too—for what? For something more substantial than a mere exit, perhaps, something more clarion and conclusive, as befits a man who through Spanish living had come to a Greek end. But there was nothing, and the moment passed as a hesitating doubt whether he should wave or not. And at last he didn’t wave, but gave us a rather charming smile and then, glancing into the corner where the crib was, went out, closing the door quietly behind him. We heard his foot-steps a moment on the gravel outside and then no more, a faint sharp dwindling sound which seemed to give us something of the recessional touch we missed, like the last color fading from a sunset clothing some particular doom, leaving to us a silence in which we could only suppose that we had seen the last of Augie Poole, a figure already vanishing up the road, a memory and a means, a phantom digested by the evening shadows.
Twenty-One
CONFESSION is good for the soul only in the sense that a tweed coat is good for dandruff—it is a palliative rather than a remedy. Augie’s admission solved nothing and helped nobody. It eased one tension only to create another as bad, or worse. What was to become of the Poole family, now three? Isolde, who must be judge and jury, realized soon that this state of affairs could not continue without reaching the ears of Rock-a-Bye. Agencies by no means relax their vigil of a house after they have given it a child. Rock-a-Bye would still be many months on the watch. A representative dropped in less than two weeks after Augie’s expulsion, as a matter of fact, but it was during the day when there was no need to explain his absence from the premises. But Isolde knew agencies have ways of finding things out and was constantly afraid theirs might get wind of the rupture. Still she could not find it in her heart to take Augie back. So she delayed: hesitating, doubting, weighing. And waiting. As though something would turn up to help her make up her mind, or make it up for her.
The Tunnel of Love Page 21
