Young Mr. Keefe

by Birmingham, Stephen;

  “I’ll mix the first and you can mix the second,” Claire said. Jimmy heard the rattle of ice-cubes and the clink of bottles.

  He set the suitcase down. “We’d better go soon if we’re to find any place open,” he said.

  “Oh, no hurry.”

  Claire crossed the room, carrying two brown drinks in low, fat Mexican glasses. Jimmy took one. “To you,” he said.

  “No, to you,” Claire said.

  They touched glasses. Jimmy looked into Claire’s eyes. She smiled brightly. They sat on the low white sofa.

  “God, this is a terrific apartment,” Jimmy said. The drapes were pulled wide open all around the room. In the black glass, the room was reflected back at them, and, beyond it, the lights of the city sparkled and shone—hill after hill. On the two great bridges, the sulphur lights created double strands of orange beads. “The city of gold,” he said.

  “Does it unnerve you?” Claire asked. “Shall I close the curtains? It unnerves me sometimes.”

  “No, I like it,” Jimmy said.

  “Sometimes there’s such a thing as too much view,” Claire said. “When I’m up here alone, I get to feeling uneasy—naked and self-conscious. I realize it’s the view that’s doing it. The people downstairs did a clever thing—they enclosed a whole room with redwood, so they’d have a place to go and get away from the view!”

  “Well, it’s a pretty place to live.”

  “Yes, I suppose so.”

  They sat in silence for a moment. Jimmy sipped his drink. “Where did Blaze go?” he asked.

  “Oh, off on one of his wretched trips. Selling sheets! He went to Los Angeles. How he hates it.”

  “Does he hate it?”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Claire sighed. “I guess I just wish he hated it. I guess he likes it all right, actually. It’s a good job.”

  “Oh, I know that.” He paused. “Well, why did you want me to come?” he said. “You said on the phone that it was important.”

  She hesitated. “Well,” she said, “it was important. I was just lonesome. I was going view-crazy. I wanted to hear a friendly voice. It was like when you phoned Jeep Tanner—I wanted to bend a sympathetic ear.”

  “Well,” Jimmy smiled, “that’s me. Father Confessor Keefe. Bend away.”

  “Oh, don’t make me talk,” Claire said. “You talk.”

  “Me? What shall I talk about?”

  “Well—” They were silent. Then they both laughed.

  “Here,” Claire said, handing him her glass. “Stiffen my drink, will you? That will loosen our tongues.”

  Jimmy rose and went to the bar, carrying their glasses. As he splashed whisky on top of the drinks, Claire slipped off her shoes, raised her feet, and tucked them beneath her on the sofa. “Did you ever meet Diane Higbee?” she asked.

  “Blonde?”

  “No, brunette.”

  “Fairly tall?”

  “No. Short. You didn’t know her. Well, she may be coming through town.”

  “Oh?”

  “No special reason. She’s quite cute and fun. If she comes, I thought you might like to meet her.”

  “Could be,” Jimmy said noncommittally. He returned, carrying the drinks. “Skoal,” he said.

  “Skoal.” She sipped. “Ah, much better.”

  “Has Blazer forgiven me about last week-end?” Jimmy asked.

  “Forgiven you? Why should he forgive you?”

  “For getting stewed—up there on the mountain.”

  “Oh, heavens, Blazer didn’t mind. You know Blazer—I think he thought it was kind of funny, actually. As long as he didn’t have to carry you down or anything.”

  “Well, I’m sorry,” Jimmy said.

  “You were fine. You were perfectly fine. It was only—well, it upset me a little.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “You—you get stewed so quietly. So privately. That’s what worries me. I’d enjoy it much more if you got roaring drunk and smashed up furniture, I think.”

  “Would you?”

  Claire laughed. “I remember one time,” she said. “I remember one funny, funny time. Do you remember the time—” She laughed again, remembering it. “Remember? It was when we were all in college. We went down to New York, you and Blazer and I—and Lucy somebody was your date—such a prim little thing in a Peter Pan collar. And we went way down around Delancey Street. Remember?”

  “Oh, yes. Lucy Simms.”

  “Simms! Yes—and do you remember the drunk sailor?”

  “Oh, yes …”

  “The Shore Patrol came along and picked him up in the paddy wagon, remember? They tossed him in the back, closed the door, and went around to the front of the truck. And you”—she laughed—“you simply went over, opened the back of the paddy wagon, and let him out! He tipped his cap, said thank you, and went reeling off. The paddy wagon started up and went barreling away without him!” She laughed a long, giggly, tinkly laugh and lay back against the cushions. “Oh, that was funny,” she said mistily.

  “Just tipped his hat and said thank you—I remember,” Jimmy said.

  “Blazer and I are having a party next Saturday,” Claire said. “Can you come?”

  “Hey,” he said, “don’t you think these week-ends with me hanging around might be getting to be too much of a regular thing?”

  “Don’t be silly,” she said, sitting up. “If they were, we’d tell you. I’d tell you. Can you come down?”

  “Sure,” he said. “You know me—my social calendar is empty all the time.”

  “Good,” she said. “I’m having Sue and Alec Fry, the Browers, Arnold Williams plus date, Tweetums DeMay plus date—”

  “Ye gods,” he said. “Tweetums DeMay!”

  “Oh, I know,” Claire said. “She’s a funny old thing, but she’s got a heart as big as a mountain. She always fits right in.”

  “How old do you guess she is? Forty?”

  “Oh, at least!” Claire said.

  “It strikes me kind of odd,” Jimmy said. “A woman that age—running around with people so much younger …”

  “I think it’s kind of sad. She’s divorced—she’s lost. She’s like so many—” She stopped short. “Present company excepted,” she said. “Your case is different.”

  “Ha!” he said. He swirled the ice-cubes in his glass and looked down.

  “Those men Tweetums brings!” Claire said. “I don’t know where she finds them.”

  “I know,” Jimmy said. “She finds them at the Mare Island Naval Training Station. Anything from an ensign up.”

  “Yes, and at Jim Dolan’s.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Jim Dolan’s? That’s that creepy, crawly place on Sutter. Haven’t you ever heard of that? It’s a hangout for queers.”

  “Oh.”

  “Tweetums took Blazer and me there one night. Brrr!” She shivered. “Jimmy,” she said suddenly, “what do queers do?”

  He laughed. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, what do they do? You know.”

  “Use your imagination,” he said.

  “I have—I often have. I can’t imagine.”

  “Well, ask Blazer—”

  “I did. Blazer just laughed at me!”

  “Well, read Krafft-Ebing.”

  “Oh, I’ve read that. All the good parts are in German … or is it Latin?”

  Jimmy looked at his watch. “Look,” he said, “it’s nearly ten. Don’t you think we ought to be going?”

  “Oh, there’s no hurry, is there?” Claire said. “It’s Saturday night—places stay open. Fix me another drink.”

  Later, as they talked, Claire rested her shoeless feet on the marble top of the coffee table. She had placed a glass ash-tray on her stomach, into which she periodically tapped her cigarette. Jimmy lay back into the cushions, legs crossed at the ankles, feet out, with a drink in his hand. Claire had placed a Harry Belafonte record on the phonograph.

  I peeked in to say good night,


  And I heard my child in prayer—

  ‘And for me, some scarlet ribbons–

  Scarlet ribbons for my hair.’

  Claire put her head back, listening to it. They were talking about places where they would like to live. “Anywhere but Somerville,” Jimmy said.

  “Arizona—” Claire said. “I’d like to live in Arizona. In the winter, anyway. The desert in bloom! Century plants … pipe-organ cactus …”

  “Yes,” Jimmy said. “That’s nice—or Colorado …”

  “Too wild, too many mountains. How about Santa Fe, or Taos? There you can have mountains and desert, too. I think I like the South-west. The air is so clear! It’s so clear it has a colour to it—a brilliant purple colour!”

  “I’d like to live by the sea,” Jimmy said. “Would you ever like to live in Italy?”

  “Oh, Italy … of course. I’d love to live in Italy! Portofino … or Spain? Along the Costa Brava!”

  “I’ve never been there …”

  “Estoril … Portugal. The sea is green …”

  “Or the Vale of Kashmir,” Jimmy said.

  Claire laughed softly. “The snows come so early in Srinagar,” she said. “‘Pale hands I loved beside the Shalimar—’” She extended the fingers of her right hand in demonstration.

  “There you could live on a house-boat, floating in the lotus blossoms …”

  “I could take that,” Claire said. “That I could take, as they say in California.”

  “Or how about Tahiti?”

  “Tahiti I would absolutely adore,” she said. “Let’s go. I want to go where the wild goose goes.”

  He smiled at her. “Why?”

  “Because,” she said softly, picking up her glass and stroking its frosted side with the tip of her finger, “because my heart knows what the wild goose knows.” She looked at the glass, frowned at it intently.

  “Which is?”

  “Ah!” She put her feet on the floor and stood up a little unsteadily. “Do you mind if I close the curtains?” she said. “I’ve had enough view, haven’t you?” She went around the room, pulling the cords and closing the heavy white drapes silently across the windows.

  “That’s cosy,” Jimmy said. And the closed curtains made the sound of his voice quiet and muffled. It drew everything, suddenly, inside the room. “Hey!” He laughed nervously. “Hey, speak up. I can’t hear you.”

  Claire padded silently across the room to him. “Fix my drink,” she said.

  “Look,” he said, “it’s after eleven. Don’t you honestly think we’d better eat?”

  “I have an idea,” Claire said. “Let’s eat here. I’ll fix something.”

  “That doesn’t seem fair,” Jimmy said. “I promised you a dinner.”

  “Oh, let’s just stay here,” Claire said. “Fix me a drink and leave me alone in the kitchen for a minute.”

  Later, she came out with a tray of sandwiches. “Scrambled egg,” she said, placing the tray on the coffee table.

  “There’s something wrong with this picture,” Jimmy said. “A glamorous apartment—a beautiful girl—and scrambled-egg sandwiches!”

  “Oh? Do you really think I’m beautiful?”

  “Sure,” he said cheerfully. “Of course I think so. So do you.”

  She pouted. “You’re mean,” she said. She sat down beside him on the sofa. They ate in silence. Claire finished a sandwich and licked her fingers. “Isn’t this better than the India House?” she said.

  “Sure is.” Jimmy glanced at his watch again. “God,” he said, “it’s after midnight. I’ve got to get over to the Clift or they won’t hold a room.”

  “Oh, don’t go yet.”

  “Well—don’t you think I’d better phone?”

  “No, they’ll hold it—I told them you’d be in late.”

  “Well, I’ve got to go soon,” he said.

  “Oh, no—don’t.”

  Jimmy glanced at her. She sat looking straight ahead at the opposite wall. He looked away. The air was suddenly tense and charged between them. “What do you mean?” he said slowly.

  Up to that point, Claire had not actually decided whether or not to tell Jimmy about her trip to Rio Linda. In her mind, she had run the gamut between not telling him at all and blurting the whole story out, rehearsing all the gentle, graceful ways of telling him in between. When he said, “What do you mean?” that way, in that tight, strained voice, she had decided instantly to tell him—gently, gracefully, which ever way it came out. She had to tell him, she figured, if the thing she had done were ever to make any sense, or have any meaning or purpose. To justify what she had done—to justify it to herself—she felt she had to tell him.

  “Because I haven’t finished telling you what I want to tell you,” she answered him.

  “What?”

  “Jimmy,” she said, “I’ve been thinking about you and Helen. It was all pretty dreadful, wasn’t it?”

  He paused. “Well—” he began, trying to make his tone sound cheerful and easy.

  “I mean, there weren’t any happy times, were there?”

  “Oh, sure,” he said. “Sure there were happy times.”

  “When?”

  “Well,” he said, “right after we were married, for example. You know we were married two times—once by a justice of the peace in Nevada, and then a church wedding. In between those times, we were off on our own—in the car—for about a week, just driving around. We went to Yosemite—and, well, that was a happy time.”

  “And after that?”

  “Well, after that—you know, my folks got into the act. They made us get married all over again, and my mother—she sent us on a damned trip to the Caribbean. And—well, everything got all loused up.”

  “You’re not telling me everything.”

  “No,” he said openly, “I’m not.”

  “I don’t mean that you should,” she said hastily. “But what I mean is—your marriage, most of it was pretty unhappy, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes,” he said. “But why? Why the third degree?”

  “Because I think you’re still carrying the torch for Helen!”

  He shrugged. “Well, perhaps—”

  “I think you should say the hell with her!”

  “Hey,” he said. “Come on. Lay off, will you? Let me—”

  “I saw her to-day!”

  “What? What did you say?”

  “I went to see her to-day.”

  He stood up abruptly. “What?” he said. “What in Christ’s name are you talking about, Claire?” His hands shook.

  “I went to Rio Linda …”

  “God damn it!” he shouted at her. “Can’t you keep your lousy nose out of anybody’s business? Who the hell do you think you are—God?”

  “Jimmy, please—”

  “Look,” he said. “You mentioned that last week—you asked me if I wanted you to go. And what did I say? I said no, didn’t I? Damn it, Claire, if I ever need your help, I’ll sure as hell ask you for it! And I won’t ask you to go snivelling around like a God-damned sob-sister newspaper reporter or something, digging up smut and patching up people’s lives. Leave me alone!”

  “Jimmy, Jimmy!” she cried. “I didn’t mean to make you angry! Please, please, Jimmy! I know it was wrong—I only wanted to help!” She looked up at him. There were tears in her eyes.

  He looked at her for a moment, then turned away. “I’m sorry,” he muttered. He walked to the bar, splashed whisky in a glass, and drank it down. “I’m sorry. What’s done is done. What did she have to say?”

  Claire fell forward on the sofa, her head buried in her hands and her shoulders shaking. “She’s pregnant,” she sobbed.

  “What?” he said softly. He went to the sofa and sat down beside her. “What did you say?”

  “She’s pregnant!”

  “Oh, no—”

  “Yes, yes, yes!” Claire sobbed into the pillow. “Yes! Oh, Jimmy! She’s a dreadful girl—I think! She doesn’t deserve you! She’s going to
have a baby, and she doesn’t plan to tell you, or let you have any part, or even be considered in it—or—”

  “Hush, hush,” he whispered.

  “What kind of a woman would do that? What kind of a cold, unfeeling woman?” She sat up, her face streaked with tears, her mascara blurred. “Jimmy,” she said, “let her go! Let her go, darling! Don’t let her blight your life! Let her go—in your mind! You’re too good for her, Jimmy—to let her destroy you!”

  He put his head in his hands. “Hush—let me think—”

  She put her hands on his shoulder. “Look at me! Jimmy, please look at me! Bury her!”

  He looked at her. His mind reeled. Suddenly he was kissing her, deeply and hungrily, and she lay back beneath him on the sofa, her fingers gripping his arms. She whispered, “Oh, God! Oh, my God! Oh, darling! Darling—for ever—”

  He half lifted her from the sofa. Her bare foot swung, striking her glass on the coffee table. The glass shattered, the contents spilling, spreading a dark stain across the polished floor. “Oh, God forgive us!” Claire said, as he carried her towards the bedroom.

  10

  That evening Blazer Gates returned to his room at the Ambassador Hotel fairly early. The kick-off meeting of the sales convention had been a success—he guessed so, anyway. As much of a success as those things ever were. The convention had been badly time-tabled, that was the main thing. Kicking off on a Saturday like that, with an empty day Sunday with not a damn’ thing to do, well—it seemed like a lot of wasted time. The delegates would find plenty to do on Sunday, of course. By five o’clock in the afternoon the upper floors of the hotel would be clattering with cocktail parties. Movie starlets, so called, would be in giggling profusion and a large amount of cheap glassware would end up smashed on the floor or dropped from open window-sills into courtyards and light wells. Delegates, lipstick-smeared and wearing their plastic-coated convention badges, would charge out of the hotel in the early evening to investigate Olivera Street, Skid Row, or the glossier spots along the strip. Blazer had turned down three invitations to cocktail parties and one invitation to join a bus tour of the movie stars’ homes. He didn’t know why he turned them down; he wasn’t trying to act superior to these people. He just didn’t want to go. He planned to stay in his room on Sunday, and loll around and read.