Ten North Frederick

by John O'Hara

  He sat with his elbows on his knees and his finger tips at his temples, and for a long time he did not speak. At last he spoke and softly: “This is something that I could easily have lived all my life for. I’ll tell you now, Kate, that I love you as I’ve never loved anyone else. As surely, and deeply, and completely, and happily—never like this, never anyone. When it happens, you know. You’re sure. And the millions of men it never happens to, and the millions of women. But it happened to me.

  “And now I’ll tell you what I was going to tell you, and why I wanted to have an evening together.

  “Everything you’ve told me, I knew. Except, of course, your breaking off with the other gentleman. But I realized two weeks ago, three weeks ago, maybe four—I knew you’d have to take another apartment, and all the rest of it. Seeing me every month or two. Hiding from people. Never going out. Kate, my dearest Kate—what do you think I was going to tell you?”

  “You have to tell me,” said Kate.

  “Two things. I was going to ask you to marry me, although I know better than you do the objections to that. And since I knew what you’d say—I was going to tell you to stop thinking and to stop worrying. You can’t be my mistress. You alone in an apartment, waiting till I came to New York, and then hiding from people while I was in New York? Would I let you do that?”

  “No, I don’t think you would. But I’m willing.”

  “I said to you the night we went out, when I was saying good night to you, I told you I was past the point with you where I ever thought I’d be with anyone again. Well, that was only my way of saying that I was already in love with you. But now that I’ve actually told you I love you, I can add something. I can add that I always will love you, and that I’ll always feel that you loved me.”

  “And I do,” said Kate. “I wasn’t going to say it. But I do.”

  “Will you marry me?”

  “No,” said Kate.

  “Why?”

  “Because my marrying you would be just as bad as your making me your mistress. It would do almost the very same things to your life. Cutting you off from your friends. You’d be embarrassed when you saw my father. You’d worry about what Ann was thinking. You’d be conscious of the difference in age between you and my friends. Even now, on account of Ann, I can’t quite make myself call you Joe.”

  He smiled. “I noticed that.”

  “I was afraid you had.”

  “Then it’s settled, and I’m not unhappy, Kate. I can’t tell you how un-unhappy I am. The fact that you love me and that I love you. I want you to let me give you a wonderful present. I don’t know what. But something exquisite and extravagant. Will you let me?”

  “Yes.”

  “A ruby. Would you like a ruby?”

  “Yes.”

  He stood up. “Now I think I’ll leave you,” he said.

  “No,” she said. “You’re not going to leave me tonight.”

  “I’m not?”

  “I want you to remember all your life that I meant it when I said I love you. You’ll have to leave me tomorrow, but tonight I want you to stay, just as though I were your mistress or married to you. We’ll make love and sleep together, and we’ll always have it.”

  In the morning when she awoke he was leaning on his elbow, smiling down at her. “It’s morning, Kate,” he said. “Good morning, my love.”

  “Good morning, Joe,” she said. “What time of morning?”

  “About twenty of eight,” he said.

  “Naked as the day we were born. Isn’t it nice?”

  “Yes.”

  She reached out and folded up the traveling clock on the night table. “Turning off time,” she said. “Let’s ignore it.”

  “All right,” he said.

  “I want you,” she said.

  “You’re going to have me,” he said.

  “Not just right away, very sensually, darling. Very sensually and nicely. And sleepily. Are you wide awake?”

  “Yes.”

  “Isn’t it wonderful? I’m not. But I know what’s going on, sweet. Oh, do I ever?”

  That day they had lunch together at one of the hotels where they were not likely to encounter anyone who had seen them the night before. At the coffee Joe said: “I know the moment you leave me the sadness will begin. But I’ve been putting it off, and I haven’t really been thinking all day.”

  “No, neither have I.”

  “Kate! In a few minutes—do you realize? It’ll all be over?”

  “Yes, I realize. But we’ve got to stick to it.”

  “That’s why it’s going to be so sad, because right now I feel as though my full life had just begun.”

  “Don’t think of it as beginning or ending. Think of last night as a separate part of your life. That’s what I’m going to do. You know, that song that Grace Moore sings, ‘One Night of Love.’”

  “Tonight I’ll be in Gibbsville, going from the station to my house. And I’ll know every face I see, and the houses I’ve passed a thousand times. I know which sidewalks are brick and which ones are concrete. Everything the same as when I left there yesterday morning. But I won’t be the same. Practically nobody in the town will know I’ve been away, and won’t know I’ve come back to what? To nothing. To everything that’s away from you, Kate. To nothing. To death. To the end of life. To death. To life away from you.”

  “Oh, Joe, I know. Please.”

  “Then I’m coming back tomorrow, Kate.”

  “No, please. Everything we said last night is true, all the things we thought out.”

  “They’ve stopped being true, Kate.”

  “No, they haven’t. They’re worse true. More true and worse true.”

  “No, you’re wrong.”

  “I won’t be here. I’m going away.”

  “Where?”

  “I won’t tell you, but I’m going. And I won’t tell Ann where I’m going. It’s the only solution.”

  “Wait till tomorrow, Kate. I’ll have my talk with my wife when I get home tonight.”

  “By that time I’ll be gone. I mean it, Joe. I’ll be far away.”

  “You’d really go away, Kate?”

  “I’m going. Please believe me. Please impress it on your mind. I’m going, and I don’t know when I’ll be back. So don’t say anything to your wife, don’t do anything that will make your life different.”

  “That’s already happened.”

  “But I mean your life in Gibbsville. Your home, your law practice. Joe, you decided everything that I decided, we decided the same things, and then I weakened because I love you. But everything we said was true. And I take that back. I didn’t weaken. I wanted you, and I love you, but everything else is wrong for us. So don’t say anything to your wife, because if you do you won’t change a thing. You’ll only make things worse for us and for goodness knows how many other people. Please see that. Do you love me?”

  “Oh, Kate.”

  “And I love you. I love you just as much as though we were both going to be killed today. Love me that way, Joe. As far as love is concerned, it’ll never change. But the other things won’t change either.”

  “Waiter, will you bring me the bill, please?” said Joe.

  “My dearest,” said Kate.

  “You’re right,” said Joe. “But you don’t have to go away, Kate.”

  “Yes, I’m going.”

  “But don’t go because you want to run away from me. I give you my word of honor, I’ll stay away, I’ll stay out of your life.”

  “I want to go away.”

  “Yes, I’m beginning to see that, too. Yes, I guess you have to go.” He looked at the check and put down a fifty-dollar bill. “You may keep the change.”

  “Twelve-forty, gentleman. This is a fifty, gentleman. Keep the change?”

  “I want t
o make somebody happy,” said Joe.

  “Merci, m’sieur, and much happiness to you, sir, and mademoiselle. Thank you.”

  The waiter stood away from the table. “The waiter now thinks that the middle-aged gentleman has persuaded the beautiful young lady—well, we know what he thinks,” said Joe.

  “The unhappy young lady thinks that the middle-aged gentleman will be with her till the day she dies, in her heart.”

  “The unhappy middle-aged gentleman loves you, Kate, and is grateful to you for being all that you are. I have a soul now, and I never believed in it before. But I wouldn’t have missed it for the world. I want you to go home now, and start packing, and I know you’ll cry when you get home, but Jesus, we’ll always have this, won’t we?”

  She suddenly kissed him and walked away from him fast, much faster than he could have walked even if he had tried to pursue her.

  • • •

  It was late evening in the den at 10 North Frederick Street and Edith sat looking at her husband while he spoke of this and that in New York.

  “Did you get a chance to stop in at Lord & Taylor’s?” said Edith.

  “No, I’m sorry I didn’t.”

  “Oh?”

  “I’m sorry, but a lot of things went wrong. I didn’t get downtown till this afternoon.”

  “Downtown?” said Edith.

  “Yes. Wall Street. Where did you think I meant?”

  “I didn’t know whether downtown meant downtown from the Seventies or the Sixties or what.”

  “Downtown in New York always means the financial district. Wall Street. Broad Street. Cedar. So forth.”

  “Well, since I hate New York I never have learned much about it. How did you come home? By way of Philadelphia?”

  “No. Reading. I was downtown, more convenient to go over to Jersey City.”

  “Did you see Dave?”

  “For a few minutes. And Alec. I got everything done that I wanted to do, but I’m sorry about Lord & Taylor’s.”

  “Where did you spend the night?”

  “Yale Club. I might as well get something out of my membership.”

  “No, Joe. You registered at the Yale Club, but that isn’t where you spent the night.”

  “Oh, didn’t I? I thought I did.”

  “Well, you didn’t.”

  “Well, if you’re so positive, I guess I stayed at the Harvard Club by mistake,” said Joe.

  “I’d believe you if you told me you were with Alec Weeks. He’s always been that kind. Is that where you were?”

  “I saw Alec this afternoon.”

  “Were you with him last night?”

  “Don’t you think you ought to swear me before asking a lot of these questions? I declare, I feel as though I were on the stand. What’s got into you?”

  “Were you with Alec last night?”

  “Now look here, Edith, let’s have a little common politeness. Have I ever said to you, ‘Edith, what did you do while I was in Philadelphia, while I was in New York?’ Have I?”

  “No, you haven’t. You’ve been so smugly complacent about me that you were never even curious.”

  “I don’t call it smugly complacent. I call it trusting you. You’re right if that’s what you mean. I have trusted you, and do.”

  “It would be unthinkable that I might sleep with another man.”

  “Why, yes, I guess it would. Yes, I’d say that.”

  “Why?”

  “Why? Because you’re not that sort of person. Because our marriage has been a happy one.”

  “What sort of person am I? How long is it since you gave any thought to me as a person. Not as your wife, but as a person.”

  “The sort of person you are? Well, I think the answer to that is in how long we’ve been married, with never the slightest suspicion on your part or certainly on mine.”

  “Don’t be so gracious. I’m suspicious of you right this very minute, but the reason you haven’t been suspicious of me is that I happen not to be pretty or flashy or cheap. But you’ve had good reason to know that I’m not a cold woman, and wouldn’t it take some of the wind out of your sails to hear that someone else knows that?”

  “Are you trying to tell me that you’re having an affair with another man?”

  “What if I were?”

  “Are you? Or have you?”

  “Yes, damn you, I have.”

  Joe lit a cigarette before asking another question. “Since we’ve been married, of course?”

  “Yes.”

  “Recently?”

  “I don’t think I’ll answer that.”

  “Just as of course you won’t tell me who the man was.”

  “Of course I won’t.”

  “But you’ll let me guess.”

  “You’ll try to guess, I suppose for the rest of your life, but I’ll never tell you.”

  “Is it someone I know?”

  She hesitated. “I’ve decided I’ll answer that just to infuriate you. Yes, it’s someone you know.”

  “Well, you don’t like Arthur, so it wasn’t Arthur. And he’d be the only one that would infuriate me.”

  “No, I don’t think so. If you ever knew, you’d be infuriated.”

  “A friend of mine rules out Harry Jackson.”

  “Oh, it wasn’t a servant,” said Edith.

  “I didn’t think so. You’re too much of a snob for that. Well, I suppose I’ll spend the rest of my life studying how you and Henry Laubach look at each other, and the rest of our men friends.”

  “If you’d studied me a little more carefully it might not have happened.”

  “I wonder if you’ll answer this question. Have you discontinued it?”

  “I think I’ve indicated that I have.”

  “Well, have you?”

  “It is not going on now.”

  “Well, will you answer this? Would you resume it?”

  “I’ve thought of it,” said Edith.

  “Your best opportunity, of course, was after I broke my leg. Was there just one man, or have there been others?”

  “One.”

  “Yes, a woman can probably get away with one, but when two people have been married as long as we have, they know each other too well for the woman to be promiscuous. And men gossip. They brag about their conquests, which is not only ungentlemanly, but I’ve always thought unsound.”

  “Women know that.”

  “And that’s what keeps so many of you from being promiscuous?”

  “No more questions. Let me ask a few. Did you spend the night with Alec?”

  “No.”

  “But you didn’t stay at the Yale Club.”

  “Edith, you’ve been so astute, suppose you arrive at your own answer to that one.” He picked up the telephone and asked for Long Distance, and then gave the BUtterfield 8 number of Ann’s and Kate’s apartment.

  “Why are you calling Ann?” said Edith. “You’re surely not going to tell her.”

  Joe smiled at her. “Keep ringing,” he told the operator.

  “You might as well hang up,” said Edith, suddenly, triumphantly. “Ann’s in Bermuda.”

  “So she is,” said Joe, and hung up.

  “Why should you tell Ann? I know why. You wanted to make her feel better about her elopement. You wanted to make her feel superior.”

  “No, I didn’t, Edith,” said Joe. He stood up. “You’re going to hate me because you told me, but I’d like to tell you something. There’ll be no reprisals. Whether we like it or not, we’re both getting old, and I’m going to bed. Good night, Edith.”

  PART TWO

  The biographer has certain rights and duties and among them is the right, which is also a duty, to say that at such-and-such a point the biographee’s life left one phase and entered another. I
t is not the same as saying that a change occurred overnight, for there are few occurrences—if there are any—that bring about radical and quick change in the lives of human beings. Change is almost always fluid; rapidly fluid, or slowly fluid; but even major events in a human life do not make the overnight personality changes that they are too often said to make. Marriage, parenthood, the successful culmination of an enterprise, a severe punishment, a dreadful accident resulting in blindness, a frightening escape from danger, an exhilarating emotional experience, the unexpected report of a five-inch gun, a sudden view of something loathsome, the realization of a great major chord, an abrupt alteration in a human relationship—they all take time, to be absorbed by the soul, no matter how infinitesimally brief a time they took in occurring or in being experienced. Only death itself causes that overnight change, but then of course there is no morning.

  If it is foolish to say a man’s life is over while there is life in him that will respond to new life (whether the new life is in the form of a drug out of the live earth, or new love exchanged)—it is just as foolish to deny that in a man’s life a time comes when he does not respond, because he is unwilling, or unable. It is that time, that point, which now has been reached in the chronicle of Joe Chapin. And what does the biographer gain by saying more than that Joe Chapin went on living for those extra years? When Joe Chapin had begun to cease to feel—unable and unwilling to respond to new life—the story became not Joe Chapin’s but the stories of other people, and with Joe’s part in the stories one of diminishing importance. Their stories, to be sure, are just as important as Joe’s story, but they are other stories, not Joe’s, and this is his.

  Well, then, what was Joe’s life during the final, unresponding years?