The Lonely

by Paul Gallico

  The small slip of paper Jerry held in his fingers was like a chain that bound him indissolubly to Catharine. He remembered how beautiful and glorious and right the world had seemed the day it was published. Now it haunted him. Everyone had seen it, had read that he and Catharine were promised to each other, had looked upon her picture. It had happened. It could not be erased . . .

  The pain of Patches was a misty longing, as though a grey veil had descended between them. She was there. He could feel her presence, but he could not reach her. And confronting him was the visible, public proof of what had once been his heart’s desire. He stood there, wearily looking at the clipping, no longer seeing the type, and not knowing what to do. He was too tired to think any more.

  Harman Wright was in the library, waiting and smoking quietly when his wife came in. Her eyes were swollen, and she looked like a wraith. The shock of the domestic disaster had really made her ill. She was torn between love for Jerry and love for Catharine, the desire to see and be with him, fear and hope, the disruption of all her plans as well as by the change in Jerry. Harman went to her at once.

  “Helen, my dear . . . You shouldn’t have come down. You’re—”

  “Harman . . . I had to know. Where’s Jerry? Has he gone out? Has he gone over to see . . .” She couldn’t finish the expression of fear that was so painful to her.

  “To see Catharine? No, I don’t think so. He went up to his room to think things out. I haven’t heard him come down.”

  Helen began to cry nervously. “Harman, I want to go to him. He’s my baby. I haven’t seen anything of him since he’s been home. He needs me . . .”

  Harman Wright said: “Wait, Helen. Let him be a little longer. He has to work this out by himself.” His eyes went quickly to the wall clock. It was past eleven. Every second that ticked by made it more certain that Jerry would not see Catharine that night. In his heart he felt the danger was over and the victory assured. He was sure that once Jerry got past this hurdle he would come to his senses.

  Helen sank into a chair and continued to cry bitterly. “I’m so afraid, Harman, Jerry’s different. Something has happened to him. I can feel it. I’m his mother. We mustn’t let him do it, for his own sake. It’s only Jerry I’m thinking about now . . . I don’t know what to do . . .”

  Harman said gently: “He’s growing up, Helen. War does that. But he’s still our boy. And when he was in trouble he came home to us. Jerry will do what is right. He won’t try to see Catharine tonight. When it came to the point where he was leaving to go over there, he realized by himself that he couldn’t do it. I had a little talk with him. I told him . . .” he checked himself. “He knows how much it would hurt you . . .”

  His quiet manner had a soothing effect upon Helen, and made her turn more strongly to him for comfort and reassurance. She cried: “How could he say he loved this other girl? Catharine was meant for him. We’ve made everything so right for him, for both of them. It’s his whole future . . .”

  Harman said: “He knows he loves Catharine. Things like the other girl sometimes happen to boys when they’re away from home and under the stress of war. When they have the stuff in them that Jerry has, and the right background, they come through.”

  He put his arm around his wife’s shoulder. “See here, Helen, buck up. Years from now, when Jerry and Catharine are married and have kids of their own, we’ll look back on our carryings on tonight and laugh . . .”

  “Harman . . . promise me . . .”

  Helen was so eager and pathetic in her trust of him that Harman almost smiled. He patted her hand. “I don’t think you need worry too much. I’ll promise you that Jerry is a hundred percent. It’s getting late. I’ll go upstairs for a moment and see how he’s making out. Wait here . . .”

  “You promised, Harman . . .”

  He went up the stairs not quite at ease but hoping strongly that things would come out as he had said. These hopes rose when he knocked on the door of Jerry’s room and went in. Jerry was standing by an open desk drawer with a newspaper clipping in his hand. As his father came in he dropped it quickly into the drawer and closed it. Harman had seen that it was his engagement announcement to Catharine, but he wisely refrained from alluding to it. But the very fact that Jerry had got it out . . .

  He said: “I just thought I’d look in, Jerry, and see how things were . . .”

  “Come in, Dad.” Jerry was glad that there was no longer any anger in his heart against his father. He asked: “Is it late?”

  “Eleven-thirty.” Harman Wright came into the room and sat down on the edge of the bed as he used to when Jerry was a little boy. He lit a cigarette and smoked silently for a moment, waiting for Jerry to speak, but when his son said nothing, he came to the point.

  “Have you made up your mind what you think you’ll do?”

  “Be on that ship when she takes off at two in the morning,” Jerry replied with a kind of grim decisiveness that made his father smile.

  “I can see your point.” Harman glanced at his watch again. “And Catharine? You can hardly—”

  Jerry said briefly: “There’s no use in my seeing Cat tonight, the way things have turned out . . .”

  “I think you’re being very wise, Jerry . . .”

  Jerry did not feel wise, but it was curious that he could not help feeling good when his father praised him. It had always been that way. He said: “I don’t know about that, sir. I just know I’ve got to be on that plane if I don’t want the book thrown at me. I’ve done a lot of figuring until I just can’t think any more. I’ve got to go back and I’ve got twenty more missions, and that’s that.” He hesitated, and then went on: “I’d rather Cat didn’t know I’d been here. I’d just like to skip the whole thing—”

  He had been about to add: “—for the time being,” but his father interrupted him with a lusty: “Good boy, Jerry!”

  To Harman’s wishful mind it was Jerry’s final decision as he had hoped for it, and he did not notice the sharp way his son’s head came up, or his look. He sprang up from the bed and took him by the arm. leading him towards the door. “We’ll have a drink on that. And your mother will be very, very happy. She’s waiting downstairs . . .”

  When they came into the library Helen arose with a little cry: “Jerry, darling . . .” and came to him.

  Moved by her appearance and her unhappiness, Jerry took her in his arms and held her, letting her cry, patting her shoulder tenderly, and saying: “Aw gee, Mother, don’t cry so!”

  Harman too stood by, saying: “Now, Mother. Pull yourself together. It’s all right. Everything is all right. Jerry is—”

  Helen heard him through her tears and held her son off for a moment, searching his face and then that of her husband to see whether he was telling the truth. “Jerry, darling . . . Harman . . . are you—”

  Harman said: “Perfectly sure, Helen. Jerry has told me he is going back to England and has decided against doing anything foolish. Everything is quite straightened out and just as it was before. Catharine need never know that Jerry has been home . . .”

  Jerry again looked sharply at his father. It was wrong of him to lie to his mother, even to calm her. He had never known him to do that. And then, with a kind of slowly growing panic, he realized that Harman Wright was not lying. He was perfectly sincere and believed completely in what he was saying.

  Before Jerry could speak a word his mother’s arms were about him again and she was sobbing her happiness, kissing him, and then leaning her head on his shoulder in the weakness of the relief she felt. She said: “Oh, Jerry . . . you’ve made me so happy! I just couldn’t have borne it otherwise . . .”

  Bewildered, Jerry could only hold his mother, one hand still automatically patting her shoulder. He had never said that he was giving up Patches. He didn’t even know in his own mind what he would do or what would happen to him. He had come to no solution of his problem. He had said no more than that he was returning to England to finish his tour of duty without seeing Catha
rine . . .

  His mother was saying: “Come sit beside me, Jerry,” and he let her lead him to the low, leather divan, where she held him off and looked at him long and searchingly. She said: “Jerry, dear, you’ve made me happy again. I couldn’t bear the thought of anything coming between you and Catharine. It destroyed me, Jerry. It kept me from being with you when I wanted to enjoy every second of your stay.”

  Jerry stole a quick glance at his father, but there was no hint of trickery in his face. His was the calm, satisfied expression of a man who has ridden out a domestic tempest and seen all his fleet safely into harbor. All was right with his world again . . .

  Helen Wright took her son’s face between her hands. She was still emotionally shaken and nearly hysterical with relief. She said: “Jerry, darling, believe me, I was only thinking of your happiness. You’re my baby and everything in the world to me. To see you making a mistake was more than I could bear. You and Catharine were meant for one another from the day you were born. Now that it’s all over I can tell you how much it means to your father and to me . . .”

  Jerry was no longer capable of protest or even of thinking. He said lamely: “I know, Mother,” for he had neither the energy nor the will to contradict her and upset her again.

  He could not even know what was in his mind any longer, or be sure of what he wanted. He felt herded and crowded into a blind alley, a corner from which there was no escape. Everything that had happened—his struggles with himself, his surroundings, his physical and mental weariness engendered by lack of sleep, and now the powerful impact of the will and the desires of his father and mother—all combined to weaken and sap his own will so that he was incapable of co-ordinating his thoughts.

  He was startled by the sneeze of the soda siphon. His father was mixing a drink. Helen Wright sniffed, dabbed at her eyes, and said: “Pour me one too, Harman. I need it,” and then she even achieved a kind of rueful smile as her husband prepared a Scotch and soda and brought it to her. When she took it from him, she leaned her cheek against his hand for a moment and looked up at him like a child for whom someone had fixed a broken toy.

  Harman raised his glass and said: “Here’s how, and good good luck, son! . . .”

  Helen Wright murmured: “To your safe return, dear . . .”

  Patches said: “God bless, Jerry . . .”

  It was as though she were standing there in the room as he had known and loved her. For that one moment every detail of her face and figure was clear. Nothing was missing. Patches had returned.

  He saw everything—the hang of her silken blouse about her small wrists, the luminosity of her eyes, their shine and color, the little shadow smiles and movements at the corners of her mouth, and the soft coils of light-brown hair braided at the sides of her head.

  She was all there—the proud, gentle set of her head upon her neck, the slight turn of her chin, the fall of her clothing about her figure, the straight, slim legs ending in flat-heeled shoes. Every tender, loving, meaningful inflection was remembered in her voice when she seemed to speak the familiar toast: “God bless, Jerry . . .”

  For an instant the room seemed to quiver, to be filled with the illumination of her presence, and then Jerry found himself staring through her, as it were, at his father and mother as they raised their highball glasses to him, and he had the queer and uncomfortable feeling that they were strangers to him and that he was wishing that he were away from them.

  He felt more lonely and lost than ever before in his life. For these were people he knew in his heart he really loved, and yet he wished to be quit of them. He knew it was not their fault that he had failed to find in them the sympathy and support, the understanding of his dilemma, that he needed. But because of the clarity of his knowledge that there was no help to be found here, and because the clear, beloved vision of Patches had emphasized his loss, the realization that he did not know to whom to turn or what to do, he wanted now only to escape from their presence, their voices, the house, the room, the objects therein that were strangling him . . .

  Harman Wright looked at his watch and cleared his throat. “I hate to do this, but . . . it’ll take us about fifty-five minutes . . .”

  It was like a release, and Jerry was on his feet almost instantly over his mother’s protests. He moved automatically through the farewells, retrieved his cap from the hall closet, picked up Skipper and ruffled his head and rubbed his nose. His father asked: “Did you have a bag, son?” and then shook his head over a war where one made a three-thousand-mile jump without so much as a brief-case. Then he thought about money and said: “How are you fixed for cash, son? Here, better let me give you some,” and pressed some bills on Jerry. Reston appeared momentarily to say good-bye and wish him luck.

  Helen put her arms around him and kissed him again and again with a kind of desperate fervor and said over and over: “Write often, dear . . . Do be careful . . . Remember how we worry over you here . . . We love you, Jerry . . .”

  In the end his father broke it up by saying with something of the air of a conspirator: “I’ve got the car out in back. It will be less conspicuous to leave by the side driveway. Well . . .”

  And then at last Jerry was in the soft, cool darkness, spinning down the white ribbon of concrete through the tunnel carved out of the night by the headlights of his father’s roadster. He was so tired by then that he seemed to be drifting from dream to dream as he listened to his father, who was at the wheel, talking of plans when the war should be over.

  Harman Wright said: “You may not want to go back to school when you come back. I guess you’ve learned a hell of a lot in the Air Force for that matter. On the other hand, once you’ve started, there’s nothing quite as weak as half a college education. A degree is something you’ll never regret, but you’ll make up your own mind about that. And for that matter, there’s nothing to prevent you from marrying Catharine when you come home and then finishing up at Williams. You know that you won’t want for anything. There’ll probably be a lot of chaps who will do just that . . .”

  The tires made a fat, whining noise on the road.

  Harman went on: “Do you remember the Owens house, the little brick one out on Fenimore Road next to the pond, a half-mile down from the turnpike? It’s for sale. Your mother and I stopped in last week and looked at it. It’s in perfect condition.”

  Jerry saw himself standing outside the Owens brick house down by the pond, looking at it, but he could not go inside or see anything but the door and the white shutters on the windows.

  Harman said casually: “I dropped in on Griggs, the agent, and had a little talk with him. It would be ideal for you two . . .”

  His father continued to rattle on with plans for his future through a ride that to Jerry seemed dizzying, unreal, and interminable, until at last the weaving searchlight beacon of La Guardia Airport began to finger the night sky in the distance. Shortly they rolled up into the pool of dazzling lights that marked the entrance to the passenger depot.

  Jerry said good-bye to his father in the car, a smile and a handshake. “Good-bye, son. Take care of yourself.”

  “Good-bye, sir.”

  Looking at his father sitting at the wheel of the roadster—pink-faced, fresh, young, looking smart as a clothing ad in tweed coat and bow tie—Jerry for a moment felt as though he were bidding good-bye to a stranger, someone who had picked him up and given him a lift. And then as he recoiled from the thought, his father’s hand still holding his, he came to another, that it was himself at the wheel to whom he was saying farewell, perhaps forever . . .

  The hands of the clock over the information desk in the central waiting-room stood at one o’clock exactly as Jerry came in and found Eagles there waiting for him. The big pilot grinned appreciatively.

  “Atta boy! I knew you’d be right on the button. My big shot arrived about ten minutes ago. We’re taking off in half an hour. Well, how was it?”

  Jerry had forgotten that he would have to report to Eagles, that his f
riend had ferried him across the ocean expressly so that he might see Catharine. He started to say: “Gee, it was swell to be—” But luckily Eagles was occupied with thoughts of the coming flight as they made their way to the ATC Pilots’ Ready Room.

  Eagles said: “I’ll G-2 you on the way over. The weather looks okay. It’ll be a breeze.”

  A little later, Jerry sat strapped in his seat up in the big transport as it taxied down the field and parked off the runway while Eagles revved up his engines. Looking out of the window, Jerry could see in the distance the line of lights of the Queensboro Bridge and the dark outlines of tall buildings in the perpetual night glow of New York.

  He was so exhausted that the sight meant nothing to him. He had never been quite so tired in all his life, not even after a hard mission. It was Sunday morning. He tried to think when he had last slept for a few hours. It was either Thursday or Friday . . . When was it Patches had left for Kenwoulton? . . . It seemed ages ago. He could not focus his mind. The last thing he remembered was hearing, in Eagles’s headset, the muffled voice from the control tower saying: “ATC, C-87 at the east end of the field. You’re cleared. Go ahead,” and the thunder of the engines beating the old takeoff tune. Lights began to slip past the window . . . He was asleep before the wheels left the ground and tucked themselves into the belly of the silver ship.

  Jerry slept all the way to Prestwick, where they came down through the overcast and landed in a drizzle. There Eagles passed him along to an RAF pilot who was ferrying a four-hundred-mile-an-hour Mosquito bomber to Basingwell Airbase, close to Kenwoulton. They took off at once, and fifty-five minutes later touched wheels to earth again. They transferred to a jeep and drove to town, where the pilot dropped him off with: “All right if I leave you here, old man? I’m going on. You’ll be able to find one of your chaps who’ll give you a lift out to Gedsborough. Cheerio!”