Strange Fugitive

by Morley Callaghan

  The orchestra, nearly exhausted at three o’clock, was resting when O’Reilly came over to the bar. Harry was sitting down in a corner. A slim girl had fallen asleep on his shoulder. Harry, sitting there on the floor, didn’t have any thoughts. He asked O’Reilly to sit down beside him. O’Reilly shook his head and said, “I’m going home now, Trotter.”

  “Have a good time?” Harry asked.

  “He’s not so bad, he’s a good sort,” Anna said, leaning on O’Reilly’s arm. “He wants me to go home with him. Think I will, as a matter of fact.”

  Harry got up slowly. He was sore at Anna. Maybe she was kidding, but it seemed he had really been sore at her for months, and unable to understand it.

  “I was talking to Nash,” O’Reilly said, fumbling with his limp collar.

  “That’s right.”

  “Did he tell you about tomorrow?”

  “No.” Harry was hanging on tightly to his thoughts, watching O’Reilly. He didn’t like his soft fat face. He didn’t like the way he shook his head sadly. “What’s up?” he asked.

  “We want you to meet us tomorrow in my hotel. Asche and Weinreb and myself’ll be there. They think one of your boys got Cosantino.”

  “The hell they say so.”

  “Not me though. I don’t know, but let’s get together anyway, eh?”

  “Sure Mike, it’s all the same to me.”

  “Nice and friendly too, eh, no need to get excited either, I mean, just friendly and peaceable like. See what I mean?”

  “It’s all right with me, O’Reilly. Only I ain’t taking anything. I know just how I stand.”

  “Sure, but we’re friendly, ain’t we? And it’s too bad about Cosantino, isn’t it?”

  “It is. It really is.”

  “Tomorrow then, eh Trotter, two o’clock, eh?”

  O’Reilly went home. Anna stood there, uncertain of herself, looking stupidly at Harry. He regarded her as if he had known her a long time, and there was no use saying anything. There was really no reason for feeling that way about her but he wouldn’t talk. He wanted her to go so he could be alone.

  A few people still danced slowly on the floor. Some of the orchestra were dozing. Women had fallen asleep on chairs, or stretched out awkwardly on sofas. Three waiters were clearing tables. At eight o’clock in the morning a good breakfast would be served. Harry walked over to a sofa and stood beside Jimmie who had fallen asleep with Eva in his arms. Eva was a peach of a girl, the same build as Vera.

  His thoughts, he realized, were getting confused and he was thinking of Vera, Anna, Cosantino and O’Reilly, all at the same time. Their faces blurred into each other and he could not separate them. He wanted to go home. In the morning the edge would be worn off the good time. Girls at breakfast would look bad. Nobody really happy. Talk would not come easily. He decided to go home. He didn’t awaken Jimmie. People in the morning could look after themselves.

  He took Anna’s arm and they went into the cloakroom and got their coats. The elevator went down rapidly and Anna’s knees fell away, but she straightened up. In the cool air they walked a block to the parking space. They drove home. The streets were quiet in the gray morning light. The air was wonderful. He didn’t speak to Anna on the way home.

  3

  He got into bed clumsily. He lay flat on his back, his body very tired. He lay on his back to get the maximum of feeling from sheets resting lightly on him. He had imagined he would go right to sleep and coming home in the car had thought of bed. “I would rather be in bed than any place on earth,” he had thought. He was so tired, his body so heavy it ached and he couldn’t get to sleep. Anna had gone to her own room. He turned over on his side, wide-awake. Anna was probably sound asleep, stretched out, sprawled, breathing heavily. Too many pictures in his head. He tried thinking of tomorrow and talking to O’Reilly and Asche, getting difficulties straightened out. Asche, O’Reilly, Weinreb, sitting there in front of him, talking, explaining, getting sore occasionally. He couldn’t get beyond a point where he imagined himself sitting talking to them. Beyond that his thoughts drifted and he had to keep coming back. He stopped thinking about them. He had a clear picture of Anna in the next room sound asleep, untouched, probably wishing, before going to sleep, she had gone home with O’Reilly. Any new kind of adventure was good enough for her. Anybody’s dame. Any big guy’s meat. Still, they were getting along all right, he had nothing against her; only he couldn’t get hold of her and exhaust her. He clenched his hands, detesting her so much he thought of going into her room and shaking her.

  Then he was sorry for himself and thought of Vera. This time last year she had wanted him to buy a house, so they could have a garden and flowers. Vera, with her legs, wonderful Vera. He was alone in the bed, his body very heavy. “Anna ought to be thrown out on her ear,” he muttered suddenly. His thoughts becoming disinterested hardly seemed to belong to him, then he was asleep.

  In the morning he woke up at ten o’clock, tired but without any kind of a head. He took a bath and rubbed himself with the towel. Standing in the bathroom, the towel around one shoulder and under the other arm, he jerked and rubbed so vigorously that his shoulder and back glowed and he felt the hot sting. He rubbed his big chest, slapped his hips and stood looking at himself in the mirror.

  He dressed slowly, and pulling on his socks, wondered if Anna were awake. He had been thinking of Anna the night before. His feeling for her had so changed he wondered why she was sleeping in the next room, and why they had been living together. He began to dress rapidly. “The trouble is I’m really thinking too much of Vera,” he said, sitting on the bed.

  He went into Anna’s room. She was still sleeping, the covers thrown back from her right shoulder. Her face looked flabby. He sat down on the edge of the bed and shook her roughly. She tossed her head slightly, opening her eyes.

  “Whasamatter?” she said.

  “Get up.”

  “Won’t get up.”

  “Get up, I tellya.”

  “Oh hell,” she said, turning over on her side, trying to get comfortable again.

  He shook her. Her eyes, wide open, stared at him angrily. “You go to hell,” she said.

  “Anna, get up.”

  She looked at him steadily, then grinned. She sat up in bed stretching slowly, her wide shoulders and full breasts moving easily, then at rest again, one hand patting her hair. She rubbed her eyes and yawned, ready to stretch again. She looked at him, pouting her lips, then laughed out loud, wide awake.

  “Get into bed,” she said.

  “No, I’m dressed.”

  “What’s the matter, what are you sore about? You look like a ton of bricks fell on you.” She threw off the covers and attentively examined the length of her body, and the tips of her toes. She had nice feet for a big woman.

  “I want to talk to you. That’s why I wanted you up.”

  “What do you want to talk about, Harry?”

  “Nothing much I guess, nothing in particular.”

  “Just feeling talky eh, atta boy.”

  “Go on, get dressed,” he said, turning away, going over to the window. He heard Anna getting out of bed, heard her bare feet moving on the floor, slowly, lazily. Her bare foot lifted, then put down again, stockinged. There was a pause. He was thinking only of Anna’s bare feet. “She gets on my nerves,” he said to himself. He tried following her movements while she dressed. She still had the one bare foot, he thought, as she moved around slowly, standing up, silk rustling. A garter snapped. She was dressing more rapidly. Why the one bare foot? He turned quietly, feeling silly. She was standing in her stocking feet. She had fooled him by putting on the other stocking. He knew he was irritable and told himself not to be a fool and quarrel with her. “I’m sick and tired of her,” he thought.

  With his chin down he went out of the room. He looked at his watch, eleven o’clock. The maid came along the hall to go into Anna’s room. He told her to go back and get some breakfast ready. He went into his own room, walking around
slowly, gradually letting himself think about O’Reilly. He went down the hall to telephone Jimmie, mainly to hear him talking. He sat down and, lifting up the receiver, suddenly thought of phoning Vera. The operator said, “Number, number,” and he sat there thinking of Vera. He had nothing to say. It would be stupid to phone her. He put down the receiver and got up to walk around the room.

  Anna came along the hall, talking casually to the maid, and they went into the dining room to have breakfast. He didn’t talk while eating. She was in a good mood, but knowing he was sullen, didn’t pay attention to him. Watching her eating, and looking at her face and neck, he was interested because her face looked entirely different from the face he had seen in the bed. After all, she was a good sport and so they exchanged talk in good humour.

  Anna, quite hungry, ate rapidly. They were both hungry. He drank black coffee and laughed very agreeably. They smoked a cigarette, and Anna, putting plump elbows on the table, blew smoke at Harry, making pretty faces behind the thin cloud. The food made him feel better, and sensing it, she became lively, instead of lazy; talkative, anxious to hold his attention. She was entertaining him, not merely sitting there having breakfast. The black coffee awakened her and she laughed voluptuously as though having breakfast after a night of lovemaking. At first he enjoyed it very much, smiling, reaching over the table to pat her shoulder.

  They got up from the table.

  “What are you going to do now?” she said.

  “Guess I’ll go downtown.”

  “I guess I’ll lie down and read.”

  She lay down on the sofa in the front room, linking hands behind her head, eyeing him. He stood in the middle of the floor, frowning.

  “For God’s sake, stop flirting with me,” he said.

  “Hello, big boy.”

  “I don’t feel like it I tellya.”

  “Kiss momma, big boy.”

  He did not move. She made it impossible for him to take her for granted and be sure of her, treating him as though he had come along the street and on a corner she had winked at him, feeling her way, deliberately voluptuous, anxious for an adventure. No peace nor rest with her, and at this particular time he wanted to enjoy a feeling of security and quiet possession. “God knows what’ll happen this afternoon,” he thought.

  “Kiss me bye-bye. Right here behind the ear.”

  “Lay off, Anna, I don’t feel like it. I’m fed up.”

  “Fed up with what?” she said, sitting up.

  “Fed up with all this stuff. Why can’t you go slow and easy, instead of monkeying around like a mink all the time. D’ya have to keep it up, can’t ya get on without it? Can’t you come down to earth and be normal? Do you think you’re trying to pick me up and keep me on the merry-go-round? Stop workin’ at it.”

  “Say big boy, what’s got into you?”

  He sat on the arm of the sofa. She stretched her leg, touching his thigh with the tip of her toe. She smiled, then was serious, smiled again, then sneered.

  “Why so high and mighty all of a sudden?” He didn’t answer her, staring at her moodily. “Jump off the high horse,” she said, sitting up, her arms around her knees. “Harry old boy, don’t you like Anna? You wouldn’t really give me the run-around, would you, Harry?”

  “You have a hell of a time, don’t you?” he said.

  “Hell of a time doing what?”

  “Just living.”

  “Sure, just living, that’s me all over. Should I be sad when you’re sad, and grow bunions on my feet when you get corns, eh? Just living, sure, that’s me. I figured that stuff out years ago when Jennie Wren was young. I’m not missing anything coming my way, see. I’m happy, I’m born happy. I’m not born sad like all the bums who sing hymns. I’m born happy and all I’ve got to do is to keep on being happy, see?”

  “You haven’t got the brains to be unhappy.”

  “What, brains?”

  “Sure, brains. I said it.”

  “Yes, I heard you, but brains don’t mean anything to me. I know what I want and I’m going to stay happy, and when I ain’t got any pep left I want to die, that’s all.”

  “Shut up, shut up.”

  “Well, take off the high hat.”

  “I’m fed up. There’s no use talking, I’m just fed up.”

  “Fed up with what?”

  “You. Who do ya think, the guy next door?”

  “Fed up, eh?”

  “Yeah, you heard me didn’t ya? I don’t need a megaphone. I said fed up.”

  She laughed out loud, her head down on the arm of the sofa. She sat up quickly and crawled along the sofa and put her forehead on his knee. He pushed her head away but she hung on to his leg and he looked down at the back of her neck. He stood up, feeling she was alien, someone he had never known. Her head bounced on the sofa. She got up, following him across the room, her big body trembling. “Don’t do that,” she said. “Listen, big boy, what’ll I do if you don’t want me? You know what I’ll have to do? I’ll have to go back to my husband. He’s only a little runt, Harry. You’re a big guy, see? He simply don’t belong, see?”

  Her soft arms slipping around his neck held him and he was staring at her eyes but couldn’t go on thinking of her. He tried to shake her, loosen her arms, but she hung on tightly, rubbing against him, smiling drunkenly, her lips pale under the rouge.

  “Lay off that, you little slut,” he said, pushing her roughly. She sat down clumsily on the floor, legs spread out, a puzzled look on her face, her lips moving but unable to form words. “I’m through,” he shouted, going out the door. He heard her dragging herself up from the floor. She yelled after him: “You’re the biggest guy in town, you are, oh yes. You’ll get it, do you hear?” she screamed. “You’ll get it, right where the chicken got the axe.”

  4

  He went downstairs to the street. He didn’t take his car out of the garage because he felt like walking in the spring air. He took off his hat. At noontime not many cars were on the avenue. Apartment houses looked new, brick-fresh and clean, some lawns not sodded yet, a gardener working on a flowerbed parallel with a walk. Harry watched the bent back of the gardener. He would phone Vera from the store, he thought. The bent back straightened, the gardener, kneeling, put his hands on his hips.

  He left the avenue and turned down the hill. At the top of the hill houses were big, further down they got smaller, dirtier, older, many rooming houses. Then the houses further down were bigger — tea rooms near Bloor Street. He walked down the hill and all the way downtown. On Bay Street some showgirls were walking a few paces ahead, three girls, poorly dressed. “That show isn’t doing very well,” he thought, passing the girls at the corner, the bookstore sign in sight “The show will close at the end of the month.”

  In the store Eva Lawson was talking to a fat man with a new soft hat, her best customer. Smiling, Harry took off his hat and went into the office. He sat down and got up at once, the office seemed to have become uncomfortable. He looked out of the window to the lane leading to the stage door. The three girls he had passed at the corner were going up the lane, two of them arguing vehemently, the other one holding aloof, a few paces away. The two girls appealed to the third one excitedly, but she shrugged her shoulders. They went in the stage door. He sat down again. He lit a cigarette, his feet up on the desk. He closed his eyes, closing them tightly, having only vague improbable thoughts.

  The main thing was he was rid of Anna, positively free of her. He knew he would never go back to the apartment while she was there. He wanted to be absolutely alone, and the thought of it seemed surprisingly fresh and exciting. Anything O’Reilly, Asche or Weinreb had to say was unimportant, of no interest at the moment, for he was enjoying a fine feeling of relief. For a long time he hadn’t bothered about Anna. He took her for granted till he was unable to stand aside, and she was a part of his life and thoughts. For the first time in months he could look all around him.

  He heard a car outside the store. He knew Jimmie and Sam and Eddie were
coming in. They came through to the office.

  “’Lo, Jimmie.”

  “’Lo, Harry.”

  “’Lo, Sam.”

  “Hello, Harry.”

  “’Lo, Eddie.”

  “How’do, Mr. Trotter.”

  Jimmie, smoking a cigar, puffing it slowly, blew out smoke carefully. They all sat down.

  “What’s the move?” Jimmie asked.

  “We’ll be taking Sam and Eddie along eh, Jimmie?”

  “I’m for taking more than that.”

  “That’ll be plenty. Go sit in the car, Sam. You too, Eddie.”

  Sam and Eddie got up. They walked out with quaint dignity. Sam sucking his cheeks, let them out with a whistling noise. He was practical. His clothes didn’t fit him very well. Eddie hadn’t been the same since Joe disappeared. He had cultivated a sad smile and whenever he went out he carried two guns. He used the guns when there was trouble and was much sadder. The two men left the office.

  “Soon be time to go up to O’Reilly’s,” Harry said.

  “Yeah.”

  “I been thinking. We got to watch our step,” Jimmie said. “There’s no knowing what’s on their minds. They’ll talk a lot about Cosantino but I don’t think any one of them gives a damn for him. How you feeling after last night?”

  “Fine, good party wasn’t it?”

  “A swell party.”

  “Say Jimmie, I was thinking of phoning Vera now.”

  “Why now? Still I don’t know. We may both want to get out of this any time now, eh?”

  “It’s a hard thing to get out of. You simply can’t get out of it once you’re in deep, see what I mean?”

  “Sure, only you’ve either got to keep going ahead or get walked on. One or the other. Why think of Vera? How’s Anna?”

  “Anna’s a slut.”

  “Holy smoke, what’s up? Why?”

  “I don’t know, she just is.”

  “Well, don’t let her bother you, don’t let her get on your nerves.”

  “She’s got a fat chance, I’ll tellya. What time is it?”