“I am relaxing.” The pain came once more.
Then there was a long, shuddering silence. In this void, years passed blackly, and only in the very centre was some vaguely shining thing. Effortlessly, she was back in her mother’s garden, walking under hollyhocks and tea roses and thick trumpet vine, and, even before that, she was naked on the sand somewhere, long ago. And then the shining thing—a candle, or a mirror held to the sun—beckoned flickeringly, then went out. In the total dark, she gave up, and curled lovingly in the womb. “I’m very tired now!” she said.
“Push down hard, Mrs. Keefe …”
“I can’t, I can’t …”
“You’re doing fine.”
“Did I make that noise? Oh, God!”
“There, there.”
“Did I do that?”
“Can you push down very hard now, Mrs. Keefe?”
“I don’t want to make any noise.” And then, “Oh, it’s not working! Help …”
“It’s working nicely, Mrs. Keefe … you’re doing nicely …”
“Give me that thing again!”
“There you are!”
She felt it against her face and sucked her breath in sharply. The flickering mirror went out again, and she was alone again in the sweet-smelling dark, surrounded by murmuring voices.
It was six o’clock, Wednesday night, the following week. Jimmy stood alone in the kitchen of his apartment, looking out at the street. It was almost dark, but not quite. Through the bare trees he watched the newsboy coming down the street on his bicycle, splashing through rain puddles on the sidewalk. The newsboy tossed a rolled newspaper deftly on to the steps of the big grey-shingled house across the street, then cut back towards the apartment house, bounced over the curb, and disappeared, momentarily, in the courtyard underneath. Jimmy watched the empty street for a while longer. Then, with amusement, he realized that he was waiting for a signal—for the woman at number 3360 to emerge from around the corner, from her back-yard terrace, to collect the paper, carrying iced tea in a fat, cherry-decorated pitcher. But to-night lights glowed palely inside the house from behind drawn shades. California had moved indoors. He turned away from the window and went to the refrigerator, took out eggs, milk, and butter. He had planned to make scrambled eggs for supper, but when he had the ingredients out on the counter top, he realized he wasn’t very hungry. He replaced the eggs in the refrigerator, removed a slice of bread from the loaf, and placed it in the electric toaster. When it popped up, he spread the toast with butter and stood there, in the centre of the kitchen, eating it. He looked around the apartment. The place was a mess. He hadn’t really cleaned it since he got back from Connecticut. There was dust everywhere. The sink was filled with sticky coffee cups. It would take, he figured, a full evening to clean it. Perhaps he would do it to-night. He had nothing else to do. Halfheartedly, he ran hot water in the sink over the coffee cups. The water came out in steaming, scalding gasps. He turned off the faucet and wandered into the living-room. The appearance of things there was no better. The hell with it, he thought. He would go to a movie instead. He flopped down on the sofa and stretched his legs in front of him, staring despondently at the opposite wall. On nights like this, when he was alone with nothing to do, he became more aware than ever of the oppressive ugliness of the apartment with its motel-like furniture, its garish attempts to be “modern.” Perhaps, he thought, it would do him good to move to another place. Perhaps rent a little house farther out of town. But he reminded himself that he had to keep an eye on his pocket-book.
He jumped off the sofa and went to the door. He opened it and went down the redwood steps to the courtyard to pick up his paper. He opened his mail-box, pulled out the paper, and then saw that there was a special-delivery letter inside. He picked it up and saw that it was from Eldridge Gurney, Helen’s lawyer.
He was almost sure, as he ripped it open, standing there in the chilly courtyard, that he knew what it said. He had been expecting it. He had tried not to think about it, but knew that sooner or later it must come. He unfolded the letter and read it. It was very short. It advised him that a son, William Warren Keefe, had been born Sunday morning, November third. Mrs. Keefe and the child were doing nicely. That was all. It did not say how much the baby weighed. It did not give the name of the hospital. It said that his son, William Warren Keefe, had been born November third, and that was absolutely all it said. He folded the letter carefully and placed it in his inside jacket pocket. He turned, with the newspaper in his hand, and mounted the steps again, slowly.
At the door of the apartment, he stopped. He stood there with his hand gripping the door-knob. He had a sensation now that he knew. It was a feeling that went everywhere within him. It was behind his eyes, in the corners of his mouth, in his stomach, and in his fingers. Mostly it was the aching dryness in the corners of his mouth. He wanted a drink. It was very simple. He smiled, examining this feeling vicariously, exploring it. He had not had it for a long time. With a peculiar excitement, he felt it spread. He released the door-knob and reached slowly towards his back pocket for his wallet. He had plenty of money, really. He thought of the little bar nearby. There was a package store on Fourteenth Street. His heart pounded. A pale, floating shape passed before his eyes, then vanished: a drink. He half turned towards the steps.
He was not aware of resisting. He was not aware of fighting anything. But looking down the shadowy steps, he knew that he was not going. He was not going yet. It was not strength, not fortitude, he knew. But he was not going yet. There was too much to think about. He turned back to the door, opened it, and let himself in. He pushed the door closed behind him and leaned against it, not with a sense of triumph, but of despair.
20
When he opened his eyes on Saturday morning and looked out at the grey, rain-filled sky, he thought suddenly of Squaw Valley. He felt like getting away, out of Sacramento, going somewhere alone in the car, driving a long way with the radio going. He thought of the mountains in winter. All at once, the prospect of seeing snow again excited him. He decided to go. He ate breakfast hurriedly, tossed warm clothes into a suitcase, and was on the road by nine-thirty.
It was one o’clock when he arrived at the lodge. He checked in, changed his clothes, and went down to the ski shop, where he rented skis, boots, poles, and bindings. By two o’clock, he was on the chair lift, swinging up the side of the mountain, his ski bottoms brushing the soft, powdery snow underneath.
The mountains looked different now. Shielding his eyes from the glare, he searched the white slopes for the shale-covered trail they had climbed across in June. The wind had carved sharp ridges that concealed the old landmarks. The mountain was new and strange, the summit hidden in a cloud of swirling snow. Then, as the wind dropped momentarily, the cloud vanished and Squaw Peak appeared. At the very top, the wind had swept a clean scar where the black rocks showed through. At the top of the lift, he swung himself off.
Jimmy had been a fair skier in college, but had done little since then. That afternoon, he felt some of his old form coming back. He skied by himself, taking a long cross-country run to keep away from the more popular trails. By five o’clock, it began getting dark, and he skied towards the lodge in the twilight with the sun at his back. He took the last slopes with speed and ease, watching his long shadow race in front of him.
That evening, after supper, he went into the bar and had a Coca-Cola. There was a week-end college crowd there, from Berkeley, Mills, and Stanford, and the room was bright with ski clothes and noisy with voices, laughter, and tinkling ice-cubes. Sitting on the bar stool with his elbows on the bar, Jimmy felt drowsy and self-contained. His muscles ached pleasantly, and his face was hot and burned from the sun and wind. The rise and fall of sounds in the room seemed far away, and then, this time almost lazily, the phantom of a drink passed before his eyes. The glass he held contained ice-cubes, tinged pale brown with dregs of the Coke, and he stared at it, letting the cubes swirl slowly about inside the glass. In front of him t
he dark brown bottles glittered behind the bar.
He realized that he had always thought of drinking in terms of things that sparkled, like the glittering parties of his youth. He thought of cocktail parties on south-facing patios in New England, girls in long white dresses holding champagne glasses at débutante parties in New York. Perhaps, he thought, it was the sound of the voices in the room, college voices that sounded the same everywhere, that seemed to pull him back to this shining oblivion of crowds gathering in Yale fraternity houses after the game, of headlong rides into the night in open cars.
He saw himself in white flannels standing in the grass on Derby Day, waving to a crowd of people with a silver cocktail shaker. A couple came running towards him, a girl in a beaver coat and a slender, crew-cut boy who wore a blue jacket with brass buttons—Claire and Blazer. “Jimmy! We’ve been looking all over for you,” she said. And then, on the Yale boat at the crew races in New London, Claire had suddenly for no reason at all kicked off her shoes and thrown them overboard. Jimmy had dived into the water after them and had been pulled aboard, soaking wet, holding the shoes.
At that moment, someone did cry out, “Jimmy!” but it was a second or two before he separated the sound of the voice from his thoughts. Then, turning on the stool, he saw Claire, threading her way through the crowd towards him. “Jimmy!” she cried. “Jimmy!” She reached him and took his hand impulsively. “What in the world are you doing here?” she asked, her eyes shining brightly. She laughed a little hysterically. “Wonderful,” she said, “wonderful to see you! I can’t believe my eyes!” She stood there, wearing a full black velvet skirt and a black jersey top that glittered with rhinestones. Her bright hair was pinned back with two rhinestone clips in the shape of angel wings. “I drove up for the week-end,” Jimmy said. “But what are you doing here? Where’s Blazer?”
“Blazer’s in Honolulu,” she said. “I came up Thursday. I was going view crazy—really view crazy. I was opening and shutting the curtains … talking to myself … oh, Jimmy!” she gasped. “I’m so sorry!”
“What about?”
“I heard—about your father. I had a letter from Mother. Oh, I can’t tell you how sorry I am!”
“Oh, that’s all right,” he said.
“Dreadful—” she whispered. And then she said, “Ah, Jimmy, it’s wonderful to see you. You look wonderful. Have you forgiven me for saying what I did that night? I didn’t mean it, honestly I didn’t. I wrote you a letter—”
“Yes, I’m sorry, I meant to answer it—”
“Then am I forgiven?”
“Of course. There’s nothing to forgive.”
“Oh, I’m glad. Blazer will be glad, too. He thought—well, he and I wondered, when we didn’t hear from you again. Goodness, it’s been months since we’ve seen you. Let’s find a table. I’d like a drink.”
They pushed through the crowd.
After a little trouble, they found a table in a corner and sat down. Claire rested her bare elbows on the table top. The angel-wing clips in her hair caught the light and sparkled. “I can’t believe it,” she said. “It’s really kind of funny—both of us coming up here alone.”
“Was the view really getting you?”
“Oh, yes. And boredom. Nothing to do. I shouldn’t have given up the social work. On Thursday I suddenly looked at Scarlet O’Hara all parked and lonesome and thought I must get away. I was going to take ski-ing lessons, but I haven’t. I’ve just been sitting here for two solid days relaxing.” She smiled. “Now tell me why you came here.”
“Pretty much the same reason,” Jimmy said. “I was getting kind of bored with California winter—I thought I’d see what real winter looked like.”
“You see,” she said, “we’re just alike! You can’t change us. But you know,” she said seriously, “even this isn’t real winter. Have you seen the pool?”
“What pool?”
“The swimming-pool—outside. I went swimming this morning. Isn’t that incredible? You walk to it through snowdrifts, and there it is—all heated, carved out of the snow. Isn’t it preposterous? But then everything’s preposterous in California, isn’t it? Preposterous on purpose.”
Jimmy smiled. “Ready to go back to Mars Hill?” he asked her.
She looked at him intently. “How was Mars Hill?” she asked him. “Mother said you came by. That was awfully nice of you, Jimmy, to go by. How was everything? Was it just the same?”
“Just the same. Big—overwhelming. The biggest damned house in the world.”
“Oh,” she sighed wistfully, “but I love it so! It sounds silly, but I do. Do you know that house has a secret room? At least it’s supposed to be a secret room. Daddy tells guests about it and tries to make them find it. Very few people can. I know where it is, of course, but it does have a secret panel leading into it. During Prohibition, they kept it filled with liquor Daddy had shipped down from Canada …”
A waiter approached them.
“Will you buy a girl a drink?” Claire asked brightly. “I’d like Scotch-and-water.”
“One Scotch-and-water,” Jimmy told the waiter.
Claire looked at him. “Aren’t you having anything?” she asked.
“No, thanks,” Jimmy said, “I’m off the stuff.”
“Why?”
“Well—I guess it was getting to be a habit.”
“Oh, no!” she said. “Really? When did all this come about?”
“Well, I actually haven’t had a drink since your party.”
“What was that you were drinking at the bar?”
“A Coke.”
“Why, Jimmy!” She reached out and covered his hand quickly with hers. “Was it because of that party? Was it because of what I said? Were you afraid you’d hurt me?”
“Well, that was part of it, I guess.”
“Poor Jimmy!”
“Why do you say that?”
“I must have hurt you terribly that night. But I didn’t mean to. It was all—it all happened so quickly that I really didn’t know what I was saying …”
“No, it wasn’t that,” he said. “It really wasn’t that.”
“Stan is really a nice guy,” she said.
“Yes,” he said dryly.
“Well,” she said defensively, “at least he’s somebody for Tweetums. Tweetums needs somebody like that, poor thing. She has a heart as big as a mountain, you know that—but, well, I guess she thinks she’s past her prime, and he’s been very kind to her, taken her out a lot. Even though she’s years older than he is.”
“Let’s change the subject,” Jimmy said.
“Well, I like Tweetums,” Claire said emphatically. “I like everybody. Don’t you like everybody?”
Claire’s drink arrived. She picked it up and held it in front of her eyes, staring through it. “Well,” she said, “here’s to—here’s to Squaw Valley.” She gestured around the room. “This is a house-party crowd, isn’t it? All these well-scrubbed faces! I feel old already. Does it bother you to see me drink?”
“No. Not especially, no.”
“I—I think it’s very strong of you,” she said. “Not to drink, I mean. You make me feel like a weakling. But then, you always have.” She looked up at him and smiled. “You look absolutely wonderful,” she said. “You’ve put on a little weight—but that’s good. And you’re sunburned and healthy. Just wonderful.”
“Thanks.”
“Which is your cue,” she said, “to tell me I look positively ravishing. Do I?”
He laughed. “Yes,” he said, “you do.”
“Blazer never compliments me, you know. Or if he does, he does it in such a way—” She broke off, sipping her drink.
“What’s he doing in Honolulu?”
“Blazer?” she said, looking dreamily across the room at the crowded tables. “He’s gone there to write a long epic poem. He’s gone there to paint beautiful pictures of brown-skinned girls bathing in waterfalls with hibiscus blossoms in their hair.” She laughed. “He’s gon
e there to sell sheets. What else would he have gone there for? It’s almost—obscene, isn’t it? Native huts by blue lagoons—furnished with hundred-and-eighty-count percales. But he may take a new job.”
“Really?”
“Yes. Have you ever heard of Harry Masterson?”
“No, I don’t think I have.”
“Well, he’s a friend of Daddy’s—also in the textile business. He’s interested in Blazer. Oh, I just dread it.”
“Why?”
“Well,” she said, “I suppose it’s a good deal for Blazer. It’s a West Coast managership. But it means we’ll have to stay in this dreadful state.”
“You’re really fed up with California, aren’t you?”
“You know,” she said slowly. “You know where I’d like to go …”
“I’ve forgotten—”
“Never mind.” She looked up brightly. “Buy me another drink, will you? It’s so wonderful to have you to talk to again.”
Jimmy signalled the waiter.
“You didn’t really need to cut yourself off from us, you know,” she said. “Really, it did upset us—not hearing from you, never hearing a word.”
“I should have called, I guess,” Jimmy said.
“Yes.”
Claire’s drink arrived, and she said, “I think it’s wonderful you’ve gone on the wagon. I couldn’t do it. To me, it would be like—like giving up Arpège, or giving up baths! Oh, I’m being silly, aren’t I? But what I mean is, was it really that bad? I mean, I always thought you held your liquor awfully well—you never went off the handle or anything. You always became—well, more you. Laughinger, gayer—the way you always were.” She looked at him, her eyes clouded, lifting the glass to her dark red lips, then looking away.
Jimmy laughed nervously. “Don’t tempt me to fall off again,” he said. And the shining thing came again, hovered in his vision, and he watched it inwardly. He reached for a cigarette. He remembered, be careful of that lighter …
“Am I forgiven?” Claire asked.
“Forgiven for what?”
Young Mr. Keefe Page 24
