Young Mr. Keefe

by Birmingham, Stephen;

  The little doctor came running down the stairs, carrying his bag. “Arlene,” he said. “Now, Arlene! Be brave. He’s out of his pain now, Arlene.” He put his arm around Mrs. Warren’s shaking shoulders and led her through the house, out into the garden.

  Jimmy stayed in Rio Linda for the funeral. Afterwards, he and Helen drove back to Sacramento. They drove in silence.

  Once he turned to her and said, “Would you like to take a trip? Go away somewhere for a few days?”

  “To the Caribbean? Take another honeymoon?” she asked bitterly. “No, thank you.”

  It was about a week after the funeral. Jimmy went out alone to a small neighbourhood bar a few blocks from the apartment, and had several drinks in rapid succession. Had he known then? Had he planned it that way, engineered the end himself? Perhaps. He rolled the bartender for another drink, won, and drank it. He remembered looking up at the Pepsi-Cola girl on the poster behind the bar—“Refreshing, but not filling,” she said. He lifted his glass and drank to her. Someone, with a soft, stubby pencil, had indicated more explicit features on her body. “Here’s to the girl who refreshes without filling,” Jimmy said.

  The bartender winked. “I could sure fill her up,” he said.

  Jimmy picked up the dice, dropped them in the can, and shook it. “Call it,” he said.

  “Odd.”

  “Even.” The dice spun across the bar again. “Looks like this is my lucky night,” Jimmy said.

  When he got back to the apartment, Helen was standing in the bathroom brushing her hair. (Why was it, in every picture of her, she was brushing her hair—her short brown hair standing out about her head, snapping with electricity under the brush, lifting to meet the brush like a dark cloud of smoke?) She was wearing a full skirt and a light peasant blouse.

  “Hello,” he said.

  “Hello.”

  He went to her and put his arm around her waist. “Here’s to the girl who refreshes without filling—but the trouble is she’s never willing,” he said.

  She stiffened. “Please let go,” she said.

  “Miss Pepsi-Cola—” He tried to kiss her.

  “Let go!”

  “Helen, please …”

  She looked up at him. “Are you going to rape me?”

  “Helen, for Christ’s sake—”

  “Are you? Just like him?”

  “For God’s sake, will you stop comparing me to him! I’m your husband!”

  She tried to pull away. “No! You are him!”

  “Shut up,” he said. “Shut up, damn you!”

  “Yes!” Her eyes were filled with terror. “Oh, help!” she cried. “Help!”

  “Listen to me!”

  She began pounding his chest with her clenched fists. “Let me go!” she screamed. “Hurting—oh, help!”

  His arm slid up her back, and, as she twisted, struggling to get away from him, his fingers caught in the double strand of pearls at her throat. The beads snapped, fell, scattered and rolled across the tile.

  His arms went limp. She turned and ran out, through the living-room and out the door. In the mirror was only his own face.

  He remembered lying in bed in the darkened apartment, waiting for her. It was after midnight. Finally, he heard the key. The door opened and he saw her, framed in the light, her wide skirt swirling around her. Then the door closed. Saying nothing, she stepped towards him, and when she reached the bed, she looked at him, and, gradually, in the darkness, he made out the shape of her head, though her face was obscured.

  “Are you awake?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  “I’m going home to-morrow.”

  “For good?”

  “Yes.”

  Some sort of searchlight turned on his brain for a moment then, came out of a cloud, swirled in the protoplasm, and dissolved in darkness. “For a while,” he said, trying to make his voice steady, “I thought you were going to stay for ever. Is the honeymoon over?”

  “Yes.”

  She sat in one of the chairs and lighted a cigarette. Her hand, holding the match, trembled. “I’ve talked to Mother on the phone,” she said. “We had a long talk. About everything. She wants me to come home.”

  “All right.”

  They sat in silence, on opposite sides of the room, Helen smoking, he sitting cross-legged on the bed, watching her. Intermittently, as she drew on her cigarette, her small, sculptured face was lighted with a yellow glow. Somewhere in the night then, he remembered, there had been a scream of tyres and brakes on the street outside, and a wild peal of laughter from a car, then the loud roar of the hot-rod engine. In the beat, the pause, that followed, he thought: I must think only of thunder, only of nothing. Or home. I could think of home.

  Blazer stood over him in his dripping trunks and shook his wet hair. “Are you drunk, Keefe-o?” he asked.

  “Yes,” Jimmy said. “I’m afraid so.”

  Claire said, “Oh, Jimmy! What are we going to do? We’ve got to get back.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “I know how to sober him up,” Blazer said.

  “How?”

  “Like this.”

  Blazer lifted his gun out of his knapsack. “This revolver is one of the best little weapons made,” he said. He aimed it across the water. “Now listen to this!” He pulled the trigger.

  Distractedly, in the disorder of echoing and re-echoing that occurred, Jimmy wondered if they had all been killed. For in the hollow of the mountains, the report refused to die.

  They stood there—for with the sudden sound he had jumped to his feet—the three of them, like statues, marooned, fogged in by noise. The silence, shattered, lay about them like pieces of broken crockery. A ripple developed across the lake, expanded, sank, and disappeared. Another echo came, pounded, and came again. In Jimmy’s head, everything seemed to rock. The trees seemed to shake their branches, their Christmas ornaments tossed off.

  Claire’s eyes were filled with tears. “Oh, Blazer!” she cried. “Why did you have to do that? Why did you?”

  Jimmy tried to say something. “Well,” he said finally, “that does it.”

  He knelt and was sick.

  PART TWO

  8

  The apartment on Russian Hill had a spectacular view. It was on the top floor, and, on three sides, it was solid glass from floor to ceiling. To the east, across roof-tops, was the Bay Bridge, stretching towards the white-dotted hills of Berkeley and Oakland. To the north, from the living-room, was the bay—the Marina, Alcatraz, and Tiburon in one direction, Mount Tamalpais and the Golden Gate in the other. To the west were more roof-tops, fringed by the trees of the Presidio. Everyone said that Claire and Blazer had been lucky to find it.

  Actually, they had not found it. Junius Denison, Claire’s father, had found the apartment for them, through a friend, Winston Applegate, an officer in the Crocker Bank. The apartment, and the building it belonged to, had been owned by Mr. Applegate’s mother. After the senior Mrs. Applegate died, her son took over the building and managed it as part of her estate.

  Originally, Mr. Applegate had planned to have his mother’s furniture stored, but, under Mr. Denison’s persuasion, he had agreed to leave it for Claire and Blazer to use. The furniture had been collected by Mrs. Applegate on a series of trips to the Orient; it was low, lacquered, ancient, and serene. Two painted Chinese screens separated the large living-room into two areas, one for sitting and one for dining; in this room, the only Western touch was the concert and grand piano in one corner. The floor was bare, highly polished wood. The bedroom floor was covered with thin sea-grass mats. Before Claire and Blazer moved in, Mr. Applegate took out considerable insurance on the furnishings in the apartment. This had proved wise. Already, at one of Claire’s parties, a precious tea chest from an ancient dynasty had been sat upon and destroyed.

  When Claire returned to the apartment that Saturday morning, it was still early. The heavy, blanketing fog—which is common to San Francisco summers—had not ro
lled in from the sea; the air was clear and prismatic. The drive back from the airport, along the bay, with the top down, had blown her hair and flushed her cheeks. It had also wakened her considerably more than her breakfast cup of coffee had. She had been up since six, getting Blazer to the morning plane for Los Angeles. Claire felt clearheaded and exuberant, and yet, when she entered the cool immaculate apartment, she felt somehow let down. Blazer would he in the South until Thursday. She had a long, uneventful week-end to look forward to.

  She took off her coat and gloves, placed them in the closet, and closed the sliding doors. She went into the living-room, closed the drapes on the sunny side, and sat down on the sofa. She kicked off her shoes, put her feet up on the cushions, and lay back. She felt bored. She wished the telephone would ring. She got up then, went into the bedroom, unplugged the telephone, and carried it out and plugged it in beside the sofa. Then she lay down again. A friend from Smith, Diane Higbee, had written that she might be passing through. But, Claire thought, with a vagueness that was typical of Higbee, she had given no indication as to when. For a while, Claire concentrated on making the telephone ring, on making it be Diane Higbee on the other end of the wire, calling from the Fairmont.

  On the way to the airport, she had suggested to Blazer that they have a party on the following Saturday night. They had not had a party for quite a while. The occasion for the party would be to welcome Blazer home from Los Angeles. She had thought of painting a banner and stretching it across the windows—a banner that said, “Welcome Home from L.A., Blaze!” It was a little silly, but perhaps some of their friends might think it was funny. Blazer had seemed agreeable to the idea of the party. She began making a little mental list of the people they would ask. She would have Sue and Alec Fry—she had known Sue in New York—and Arnold William and that girl, whatever her name was, that he was dating, and Bill and Phyllis Brower, Tweetums DeMay—Tweetums was older than the rest of them, but lots of fun, and could be counted on to bring an interesting man for herself—and she would have Diane Higbee if she showed up and Jimmy. Diane could more or less be Jimmy’s date. Had Jimmy ever met Diane at Smith? She couldn’t remember. It was odd thinking about getting Jimmy a date; she had grown so accustomed to thinking of Jimmy as one-half of a married couple. Now she would have to make a mental effort to think of Jimmy as single again. Poor Jimmy. She wished he wouldn’t drink so much. Was that the reason they had broken up? she wondered. Jimmy’s drinking? No, probably he drank a lot because he was trying to forget all the unpleasantness. And besides, he didn’t always drink too much, did he? Only sometimes, but still it was too bad. In college she didn’t remember him that way. In college, he had been wonderful, funny, handsome Jimmy. Ah, she thought, he was handsome … and so proper! And so sweet.… She had often thought about him, wondering what he would be like, what would happen …

  She let her thoughts wander deliciously off. The sun moved, came through the glass, and shone down upon her; dust motes swirled and floated in the air. Whom was it Zeus came to in a shower of gold? She tried to remember. But Jimmy wasn’t Zeus. He was Hermes … Apollo. She imagined herself somewhere. Parnassus—and he, bronzed with the sun, in a shower of gold …

  Poor Jimmy, she thought. Poor, sweet Jimmy. That morning on the mountain. He had looked so sad, so lost. It had been Blazer’s fault, really, that he had started drinking like that. Blazer had started analysing his problem, saying to her, “Well, what do you think he should do?” Of course Jimmy had hated to hear them talking like that. What man wouldn’t? Sometimes Blazer was so callous. She knew how Jimmy must have felt, but what could she say at that point? Well, she thought, it was a measure of Jimmy’s manhood that he’d been able to climb back up to the top of that mountain, and across that ridge, after so much to drink. And he had.

  Poor Jimmy. She wondered what he was doing now. Probably in his apartment, brooding, thinking too much. Instinctively, she disliked Helen. Though she knew nothing about her, she disliked her. She must be a fool, Claire thought, not to see what a good deal she had with Jimmy—handsome, sweet, and rich, too. She wished Jimmy had married someone like—like, for instance, herself. If she, for example, were married to Jimmy instead of Blazer … It was a tantalizing thought, and a darkly treacherous one; she let her mind tiptoe towards it, then moved away quickly. Blazer—why did she have, more and more lately, this odd twinge of misgivings when she thought about Blazer? After all, there was nothing wrong with Blazer. She loved Blazer—very much. It was not so much Blazer now that bothered her, but it was the thought of Blazer five years from now … or ten years from now. Blazer was like a fine, crackling fire that was dying down. Some day she would be left with the ashes, the grey ashes. The conceit pleased her; she thought about getting up and writing it down, but the sunlight on the sofa was too warm, too wonderful.

  She would like to be able to do one specific, concrete, definite thing to help Jimmy. He needed help, no one had to tell her that. She remembered her mother’s, the Mars Hill attitude when marital differences cropped up among their friends. It was, “Let’s not see them for a while until it’s settled, one way or another.” Well, that attitude was wrong. Why shouldn’t a person’s friends gather around at a time like that? Why shouldn’t they look for specific, concrete, definite ways to help? Why should they be afraid to get involved? Jimmy clearly still carried a torch for Helen … why shouldn’t she, Claire, do whatever she could to help? If she went to see Helen, for example, if she talked to her, it might help Jimmy. And it might do another thing, she thought guiltily. It might help her soothe her own, vaguely troubled conscience.

  She imagined going to see Helen. She was at her mother’s, Jimmy had said, in Rio Linda. Where was Rio Linda? She could find it on the map—that was no problem. When she got there, she could look up Mrs. Warren’s address in the phone book. Then, seriously, Claire began to explore her motives. Did she want to see Helen just out of curiosity? Did she, somehow, want to see Helen to satisfy herself that Jimmy’s marriage was indeed permanently and irrevocably over? Was there a green-eyed monster? No, no. No to all three questions. Jimmy was an old friend—of hers, and of Blazer’s. If Jimmy really did want Helen back, and she thought he did, and she could really do something to help—and who knew whether she could—then wouldn’t she really be accomplishing something important in two people’s lives? Sometimes her own life seemed so purposeless and meaningless, so selfish and ungiving. Even if she accomplished nothing, wouldn’t it be something just to have tried? Was it really so maudlin and foolish—the way Blazer said? Perhaps she could explain it to Jimmy.

  Claire picked up the telephone and cradled the receiver between her shoulder and her chin. She dialled Operator, and gave her the Sacramento number which she knew. She let it ring for several minutes. There was no answer at Jimmy’s apartment. She replaced the receiver. Where could he be …?

  Yes, she thought, my life is purposeless. Look at me, right now, lying on the sofa in my stocking feet with absolutely nothing to do for forty-eight hours, till Monday morning. At least on Monday morning there was a job to go to. All I need, she thought, is a pound of chocolate-covered cherries and a pile of movie magazines to complete the picture—the complete, indolent, parasitic life. She stood up abruptly and walked across the room to the desk. She rummaged through the drawers for the California highway map, found it, and returned with it to the sofa. She spread it out in front of her. After a little trouble, she found Rio Linda, and, suddenly, seeing it there on the map—not far from where she was, an hour, perhaps—she was filled with a swift flutter of excitement. All right, she thought, I’ll go. It was now quarter-of-eleven. If she left, say, at twelve, she would be there by one. She would spend perhaps an hour, then leave, and be back well before dark. All right—I’ll go.

  She stood up and looked around the room. Already, instead of being bored, she felt as though’ all at once she had a million things to do. What would she wear, for one thing? Something simple, she decided, in dark colours—nothing extreme
. And a hat … and white gloves. And what would she say? Well, she would go to the door … ring the bell … introduce herself, explain …

  She went to her closet and began pulling out dresses. Then she remembered the party. If she were going to get anybody at home, she had better phone her invitations now. She ran through the list of names in her head. She would call them now, quickly, and then get dressed, fix a quick something to eat, then get in the car and go. She then remembered Scarlet O’Hara—the red Jaguar. It did not fit, exactly, into the picture she had planned to create with white hat and white gloves. Well, perhaps with the top up …

  She went to the telephone and dialled Sue Fry’s number.

  “Susie?” she said when she reached her. “Hi! This is Claire.… Can you come to a party next Saturday night? Can you? Oh, wonderful! It’s for Blazer—the poor guy’s spending the week in Los Angeles on business.… Oh, come any time, Susie—you know our parties …”

  By twelve-ten—miraculously, it seemed—she was ready to go.

  Mrs. Walker Warren had three things to do that afternoon, and one of them, the most important one, was to water her garden. In California, watering the garden is a ritual, an almost daily one, as necessary as having a garden itself. But to Mrs. Warren that afternoon, watering the garden loomed up as just another of the heavy, unpleasant chores that life had lately been thrusting upon her. She dreaded it. Standing in her living-room on her shrimp-coloured carpet, with the chore ahead of her, she thought of her friends, her own contemporaries, who had either gardeners or husbands to do such things for them. She thought of Agnes Miller … Dorothy Widener. She looked out through the french windows at the garden, at the tall blue agapanthus, the tree roses bleeding at the end of thick woody stems, and felt sorry for herself. She turned and went upstairs to her room to change.