“It’s a principle, Pauline.” Sylvie looked around her: “It’s different in here.”
It was different. The pretty striped armchairs appeared to be dusty; a bulb had gone out on one of the Chinese vase table-lamps, leaving it to the other one to light up the rather dim interior.
“Is it?” Pauline looked around abstractedly. “No, it’s just the same . . . Whose principle is this? Is it Amy’s?”
“In a way . . . When she was born, she was—I can’t tell you—so shiny white, it was like you could look through her, like she was an angel. We said, we must give her nothing but angel food—it was a joke really, but we were eating very simple food ourselves, so my milk I was giving her came out as pure and white as she was . . . I don’t know what she eats at school; what the other girls give her. Children always want to do the same as everyone else. If only we could get her away.”
“She wants to go, more than anything.” Pauline leaned across her desk: “But do you want to?”
“Of course. That’s what we’re saving for, putting everything away . . . That reminds me.” She was embarrassed; so was Pauline: it was past the beginning of the month and she had not yet paid Sylvie. “I’m sorry to ask you,” Sylvie said, acutely apologetic, “but it’s important for us.”
“No, I’m glad you did because I was going to mention it myself . . . I was going to ask you if you would mind very much waiting maybe till the middle of the month, or when I get paid for something I’m putting through now.”
Sylvie tried the switch of the table lamp; but the bulb really was dead, and moreover when she withdrew her hand, it was dusty. “Don’t you think, Pauline, you should—maybe—you know—a little bit, so it would look nice for clients who come in.”
“What clients?” This escaped Pauline, with bitterness, before she could stop herself.
“Why, Pauline, you’ve got hundreds of clients! And you just said there’s a big deal coming through in the middle of the month—not that I care about getting paid, if you can’t you can’t, I mean I would be happy to wait—”
“But Theo wouldn’t?”
Sylvie leaned back in her chair with a sigh. It was so difficult to explain, but she tried. “There’s two things. One is that Theo is really quite businesslike, he doesn’t look it but it’s the sort of family he comes from and that’s how they’ve made a lot of money. It’s sort of in his genes.”
“And the other thing?”
“The other thing is Amy and I. He’s doing it for us, saving and so on. So he can take us away. Well! Aren’t you sick and tired of us, even though you are a saint, you must be counting the days till we move out.”
“And will he take you where Amy wants to go?”
Sylvie smiled, her sad smile, as at something too desirable to be possible.
“Because if he doesn’t, I will.”
Pauline hadn’t thought she was going to say this—she hadn’t thought of it at all—but now suddenly it was there: a possibility, something she could do, something not fantastic but within her reach. Too excited to stay still, she got up: “Let’s go home,” she said. It was Sylvie who protested it was only the middle of the afternoon, that a client might come: Pauline turned off the one remaining lamp and then shut the office door behind them and padlocked it.
And next day she did not reopen it. She had too much to do. She had spent the previous evening elaborating her idea, explaining it to Amy, talking it over with her and Sylvie. Amy was wild with enthusiasm, and between them they swept Sylvie along. Pauline conclusively proved to them that it was something that could be achieved within a short time. All Pauline had to do was dissolve her savings and her pension fund; and she could sell her apartment, or rent it out furnished, and maybe she could sell her business too, to some big company, and if she couldn’t, she would just lock up and go away; at least she would be saving the overdue rent on it, and the landlords could do what they liked. She became light-headed, she was so busy proving to them that Theo was not the only one who was practical.
First thing in the morning, she started phoning around the airlines, to get a price on fares; from there on they could work out the rest of their budget. Amy wanted to stay home from school to help her—anyway, she argued, what was the use of continuing with school now? Pauline helped Sylvie persuade her to leave; though afterward she wished she were back again because, without Amy there to prop her up, Sylvie began to falter. She kept biting her underlip and saying, “Are you sure it’s all right, Pauline, that you want to do this?” until Pauline, in between her telephone calls, replied, “I’ve never been so sure of anything in my life.” And truly it seemed to her that she had shaken off the burden of her past and her personality—and was ready to step out unencumbered into a new world of freedom and light.
However, this mood vanished when Theo appeared in the afternoon. It was left to Pauline to tell him of their plan while Sylvie sat by, biting her lip. When Pauline had finished, Theo laughed; and then Sylvie laughed too, though glancing nervously at Pauline.
“Yes, isn’t it a hoot,” Pauline said to him. “You’ve kept them hanging with your promises for years together, and when I come in, it’s all done within hours. Here are the figures: an economy couple ticket for Sylvie and me, and half-fare for Amy because she’s under twelve.” She held out the yellow pad on which she had been scribbling all morning.
Theo peered at it, as if he were near-sighted, which he was not. He said, “Yes, you’ve got it all worked out.” He looked up and at Sylvie: “Pauline’s got it all worked out, for you and Amy and herself . . . I’d like to come, I really would,” he said to Pauline. “But I do have obligations here—unfortunately one can’t just pack up and leave and turn his back on everything. Sylvie understands that.” He put his arm around Sylvie’s shoulders and looked apologetically at Pauline.
Again it struck Pauline how alike they looked, like twins, a boy and a girl—though from another planet, a different one from Pauline’s. But she spoke up courageously, as if there were hope of communication: “Does Amy understand? You’ve been promising her since the day she was born, almost.”
Theo said, “If you promise a child Santa Claus, you’re not exactly obliged to deliver him on Christmas Day.”
“So that’s all it is: Santa Claus.” Pauline looked toward Sylvie, not hopefully, not really expecting help.
Sylvie spoke gently to her, as if she felt sorry for her and wanted to explain things: “Without Theo, it’s only a hut on a hillside, and anyway it’s probably fallen down by now.”
“We can always find another hut,” Pauline said.
“But why should you? When you’ve got this nice apartment—” Theo looked around, the way he always did, with that set smile that told Pauline what he really thought of her modest little interior. “Two bedrooms, and everything so cozy and tasteful, not to speak of your office—”
“Pauline doesn’t want to keep her office,” Sylvie told him. “She says she owes the rent and is not making any money.”
“Oh?” Theo said.
“She says she can’t pay me anything this month,” Sylvie said.
“Of course I can!” Pauline had jumped up. “And next month I’ll be able to give you more, there’s some big deals coming up.” She waved Sylvie away impatiently before she could even speak. “You don’t think I would ever give up my office, turn my back on it, just pack up and leave? That’s not the way I was brought up.” She was going to say more, but Theo put up his hand in warning. They all three listened to the key turn in the lock of the front door—it was Amy, delivered by her car pool, letting herself in.
“Don’t tell her,” Sylvie whispered. She held out her hand for the yellow pad Pauline was holding and looked around for somewhere to hide it. Theo took it from her and slid it inside the back of Pauline’s sofa. Then all three turned to face the door with that false smile of adults who have promised children something that they have no intention of delivering. Only Pauline had difficulty keeping up her smile: for Amy e
ntered with a radiance of expectation that Pauline, settling for a lesser good, had only just managed to extinguish within herself.
PARASITES
Paul opened the door of the brownstone, and Dora asked, “How is she?”
“Stella’s fine! Great!” Stella called in a stentorian voice from the stairs.
Actually—she knew it, everyone knew it—she was dying. The doctors had said six months. So when she claimed to be fine and great, Dora, her niece, looked wry. She went into the drawing room, and in the few moments before Stella could get down the stairs, Paul said to Dora, “She really has been all right—not bad at all!”
“Guess who’s here, upstairs,” Stella said to Dora, smiling to herself with pleasure.
Dora couldn’t guess who it was, and Paul didn’t give her any help. He was very busy dusting some of Stella’s treasures—her Mogul box, her Wedgwood bowl—doing it carefully and with pursed mouth, like a dutiful servant. He tended to turn himself into a servant whenever he wanted no part in something, and no one could object to that, because, as a matter of fact, he was paid for his services.
“It’s Annette,” Stella said finally. She stretched out one stout leg to the small fire in the fireplace and smiled down at it, still with that same mysterious pleasure.
Paul continued dusting, giving no help to Dora, nor did he look up when Annette herself came in.
“Dora, darling!” cried Annette, in a rather high, shrieky voice. “All grown up! A real big grown-up lovely girl!” She seized both of Dora’s hands and looked up into her face with dancing black eyes.
Annette was small, smart, and animated; Dora rather stringy, somewhat dowdy. When Annette called her a lovely grown-up girl and looked at her with those amused eyes, Dora knew that she was really thinking something quite different. She disengaged her hands from Annette’s tiny, plump, warm ones as soon as she could.
But Stella was so obviously pleased at this meeting, at having her favorite niece and her favorite friend (not to mention dear Paul) under her roof at the same time, that they all knew they would have to make the best of it.
Annette, in any case, did not have to pretend to be pleased to be there; she really was. She loved Stella’s house. It was a heavy, five-story brownstone in Murray Hill, with a broad, old-fashioned front stoop, and brass railings that ran up the stone banisters. Although in recent years the neighborhood had grown shabby and decayed, Stella’s house had retained its well-kept appearance. Inside as well as outside, it was as polished, as prosperous, as comfortable as it had ever been. Stella did not stint on her living arrangements, and Annette knew how to enjoy them to the brim. Nor did Annette hesitate to make full use of Paul’s services, since these happened to be available. After all, she might have argued, that was what he was being paid for—to cook and clean and look after Stella and her guests.
Dora had an apartment of her own, and also a job to go to, in the conservation department of a small museum, but she came every day to see her aunt. And every day she saw that Annette had dug herself in a little deeper. Paul and Dora realized that Annette had come to stay till the end—till Stella’s end.
Dora’s mother had phoned often from the Vineyard, where she now lived year-round, to ask about her sister Stella. “Should I come?” she asked. “Does she want me?”
“Not yet,” Dora kept saying.
Dora’s mother was much disturbed by Annette’s presence in the house. It had been enough, she felt, with just Paul there, but now this other one as well . . . The whole family, all Stella’s relatives, were upset. The only counterbalance was the presence of Dora, and for the first time the family really appreciated her and no longer thought of her (in contrast to her successful, married cousins) as poor Dora.
Apart from Dora, Stella had never cared for her family. She had gone her own way and made her own friends. These had always included one special friend—usually someone like Annette, many years younger than herself. Before Annette, there had been a German woman called Lisa, and before Lisa various other women, almost all of them Europeans of assorted nationalities (though once there was an Indian girl, a great beauty). But after Annette left her, eight years ago—walked out on her, actually—Stella did not make any more special friends. Perhaps she felt too old by then, perhaps she had been disappointed too many times. Also, her illness (though at that time undiagnosed—indeed, unsuspected) may have begun secretly to undermine her. In those years, the person she drew closest to was Paul, who had been a waiter in an expensive and fashionable hotel restaurant that she frequented. He left that job when she invited him to come and live with her. Although he was quite a young man—about Dora’s age—Paul was extremely responsible and took good care of her, and of her house and possessions, which he loved passionately. Between him and Dora, she had all the company she needed in these last years, and she had seemed more contented than she had ever been before.
Nevertheless, she had sent word for Annette to come back again. “As soon as I got the letter,” Annette told Dora, “I gave up everything and came at once. At once,” she added, satisfied at her own behavior. She did not specify what it was she had given up. She had been living in London, and she also didn’t specify what she had been doing there. But that was typical of Annette—the details of her life were always left vague, a subject for the speculations of anyone who cared to speculate. But she herself was a very definite little person.
She told Paul, “I came because she needed me.” Paul didn’t ask why Stella should have needed Annette, when he himself was there. Paul was a disciplined young man, and he did not allow himself to ask questions that people might not wish to answer. Instead, he tightened his face and busied himself with household tasks; there was always something to do around the house, and he did it. His discipline was partly that of a conscientious servant and partly of a military officer—not that he had been in the army, but he was German, and it must have been something in his blood. Though of humble origin, he looked like a German officer. He held himself very erect and had brushed-back fair hair and clear eyes and thin lips.
Never would he allow any word of complaint to escape through those lips. He did not like Annette—he could not stand her—but since she was there, a guest in the house, he was prepared to serve her. He cooked her meals and cleaned up after her and cleaned out her bathtub, silently, uncomplainingly, and very thoroughly. Annette took all this for granted—or, rather, she didn’t even notice it; she was the sort of person who ate and drank and dressed herself, and walked away and let someone else clean up after her. If there was no one, then she lived in such disorder, such squalor, that sooner or later she had to abandon that place and start again somewhere else.
Dora didn’t like to see Paul do so much for Annette. But when she told him this, one afternoon, he said it was all right, he didn’t mind doing his duty. Dora bridled at that last word, but before she could say anything more he said, “Sh-h-h, she’s coming.” Although they were in Paul’s own room at the top of the house, where they might have thought themselves private, Annette had not hesitated to follow them up there, and she walked straight in.
She began at once to question them about Stella. She was always doing that, wanting to know exactly what the doctors had said, what was wrong with her, and was it really true that she had only a few months to live. This last Annette would not believe at all; she pooh-poohed it as one of those doctors’ things—doctors trying to make themselves important and then sending in fat bills. And anyway, she suggested, everything was changed now that she had come. There wouldn’t be any more nonsense—she would see to that. And she looked at Paul and Dora as if they were part of the nonsense. It was no use their giving her medical details about Stella; she wouldn’t listen to them. “Well, we’ll see” was all she said. She seemed to be mentally rolling up her sleeves, ready to clear up this mess that they had managed to create during her absence. Then she looked around Paul’s room, which was very comfortable, with some of Stella’s excellent pieces of furniture in it,
and she said, “So this is your room,” as if it were one more thing that might have to be looked into and changed.
It really was true that with Annette there Stella’s condition seemed to improve. Annette certainly kept her very cheerful, from early morning on. In the few weeks since she had arrived, Stella had spent a large part of each day in bed, and in the morning Paul would come in with her breakfast tray and open the curtains and tidy the room. Annette was a late riser by nature, but from the day she came she made a point of being up at Stella’s breakfast hour and going down to her room and slipping in next to her in the big double bed. So now Paul had to bring in two breakfast trays every morning, and while he worked he had to hear the cheering chatter that Annette made to amuse her sick friend. And there was no doubt about it, Stella was amused. She just loved every moment of it, having Annette next to her, being so wonderfully loving and entertaining. Most of Annette’s chatter pertained to their past together—“Yes, and what about Saratoga?” “Annette! No, please!”—and the fun they had had together; and Stella bloomed and thrived in living it over again. Paul listened, too, grimly dusting, except when Annette said, “Darling Paul, I think we need some more toast, thank you, darling”—holding out the empty toast rack to him by dangling it from her finger like bait. He would take it from her without a word and go down to the kitchen, his special domain, and make the toast, and more coffee, too, and when he came back Stella would often be blushing and smiling like some big, heavy girl, and she would say, “Annette, Annette”—half reproving, half approving—and Annette would toss her head, bold and unrepentant, and say, “That’s the way it was, and I’d do the same tomorrow.”
Dora’s mother telephoned. “Is she still there?” she said to Dora.
“Of course she is,” Dora said, challenging the distressed silence at the other end. “You don’t think she’d come all this way and then go off again tomorrow? She’s here to stay. Anyway, what’s wrong with her?”
East Into Upper East Page 25
