The days passed slowly while he waited to hear from her. He avoided other managers and wasn’t interested in clerks, and ate all his meals at the Chinese restaurant. When he did get the letter from Nora he was bewildered and unsure of himself because the letter read too easily. He was a dear and a darling, she said, and told him there was a splendid opportunity to go abroad. There were many kisses at the foot of the letter but nothing about coming home. She was having a good time, working hard, and she would let him know the right time to come down and see her. He went home early, telling Mr. Carlton he wasn’t feeling well.
Three weeks later he was sitting in a movie house near the apartment watching a western. The cinema was dark, unhealthy, and smelly. He liked the movies in the neighborhood because he couldn’t be bothered getting dressed to go downtown. Staring at the film, he found himself thinking of the store. They were opening a branch in the West, and he made up his mind to suggest to the general manager that he take over the gents’ furnishings in the new store.
He was surprised the next day when the general manager agreed with him so readily, saying the change would do him good, he was too valuable a man to lose altogether. Bill felt uncomfortable looking at the general manager’s shiny shoes and bright tie. He rubbed his hand over his face and smiled pleasantly but he didn’t feel like the manager of the gents’ furnishings. His suit needed pressing, and he wondered if the hole in the heel of his sock was noticeable. He thought of telling the general manager he had become poor, and needed to save money but he simply shook hands with him and said he would do much better out West.
He heard from Nora before he left the city. The letter had a Spanish postmark, and a clipping was enclosed with a picture of Nora and three fine Englishmen, and one had an arm around her waist. They were in Spain, she said. His Highness was in Spain and she knew Bill would love the country! He stared at the letter, excited inside, and then tore it in two. “To hell with His Highness,” he said.
The day before he went away he said soberly to Carlton: “The wife is in Spain. His Highness and his party are there.”
He spoke deliberately, and didn’t intend Carlton to answer him. He walked away quickly, glad that he had said it, fiercely insistent that no one should say anything to him. The department was gone. What he told Carlton belonged to a tradition. It should all go together.
One Spring Night
They had been to an eleven o’clock movie. Afterward, as they sat very late in the restaurant, Sheila was listening to Bob Davis, showing by the quiet gladness that kept coming into her face the enjoyment she felt in being with him. She was the young sister of his friend, Jack Staples. Every time Bob had been at their apartment, she had come into the room, they had laughed and joked with her, they had teased her about the way she wore her clothes, and she had always smiled and answered them in a slow, measured way.
Bob took her out a few times when he felt like having a girl to talk to who knew him and liked him. And tonight he was leaning back good-humouredly, telling her one thing and then another with the wise self-assurance he usually had when with her; but gradually, as he watched her, he found himself talking more slowly, his voice grew serious and much softer, and then finally he leaned across the table toward her as though he had just discovered that her neck was full and soft with her spring coat thrown open, and that her face under her little black straw hat tilted back on her head had a new, eager beauty. Her warm, smiling softness was so close to him that he smiled a bit shyly.
“What are you looking at, Bob?” she said.
“What is there about you that seems different tonight?” he said, and they both began to laugh lightly, as if sharing the same secret.
When they were outside, walking along arm in arm and liking the new spring night air, Sheila said quickly, “It’s awfully nice out tonight. Let’s keep walking a while, Bob,” and she held his arm as though very sure of him.
“All right,” he said. “We’ll walk till we get so tired we’ll have to sit on the curb. It’s nearly two o’clock, but it doesn’t seem to matter much, does it?”
Every step he took with Sheila leaning on his arm in this new way, and with him feeling now that she was a woman he hardly knew, made the excitement grow in him, and yet he was uneasy. He was much taller than Sheila and he kept looking down at her, and she always smiled back with frank gladness. Then he couldn’t help squeezing her arm tight, and he started to talk recklessly about anything that came into his head, swinging his free arm and putting passionate eloquence into the simplest words. She was listening as she used to listen when he talked with her brother and father in the evenings, only now she wanted him to see how much she liked having him tonight all for herself. Almost pleading, she said, “Are you having a good time, Bob? Don’t you like the streets at night, when there’s hardly anybody on them?”
They stopped and looked along the wide avenue and up the towering, slanting faces of the buildings to the patches of night sky. Holding out her small, gloved hand in his palm, he patted it with his other hand, and they both laughed as though he had done something foolish but charming. The whole city was quieter now, the streets flowed away from them without direction, but there was always the hum underneath the silence like something restless and stirring and really touching them, as the soft, spring night air of the streets touched them, and at a store door he pulled her into the shadow and kissed her warmly, and when she didn’t resist he kept on kissing her. Then they walked on again happily. He didn’t care what he talked about; he talked about the advertising agency where he had gone to work the year before, and what he planned to do when he got more money, and each word had a feeling of reckless elation behind it.
For a long time they walked on aimlessly like this before he noticed that she was limping. Her face kept on turning up to him, and she laughed often, but she was really limping badly. “What’s the matter, Sheila? What’s the matter with your foot?” he said.
“It’s my heel,” she said, lifting her foot off the ground. “My shoe has been rubbing against it.” She tried to laugh. “It’s all right, Bob,” she said, and she tried to walk on without limping.
“You can’t walk like that, Sheila.”
“Maybe if we just took it off for a minute, Bob, it would be all right,” she said as though asking a favor of him.
“I’ll take it off for you,” he said, and he knelt down on one knee while she lifted her foot and balanced herself with her arm on his shoulder. He drew off the shoe gently.
“Oh, the air feels so nice and cool on my heel,” she said. No one was coming along the street. For a long time he remained kneeling, caressing her ankle gently and looking up with his face full of concern. “Try and put it on now, Bob,” she said. But when he pushed the shoe over the heel, she said, “Good heavens, it seems tighter than ever.” She limped along for a few steps. “Maybe we should never have taken it off. There’s a blister there,” she said.
“It was crazy to keep on walking like this,” he said. “I’ll call a taxi as soon as one comes along.” They were standing by the curb, with her leaning heavily on his arm, and he was feeling protective and considerate, for with her heel hurting her, she seemed more like the young girl he had known. “Look how late it is. It’s nearly four o’clock,” he said. “Your father will be wild.”
“It’s terribly late,” she said.
“It’s my fault. I’ll tell him it was all my fault.”
For a while she didn’t raise her head. When she did look up at him, he thought she was frightened. “What will they say when I go home at this hour, Bob?”
“It’ll be all right. I’ll go right in with you,” he said.
“Wouldn’t it be better . . . Don’t you think it would be all right if I stayed the night with Alice — with my girl friend?”
She was so hesitant that it worried him, and he said emphatically, “It’s nearly morning now, and anyway, your father knows you’re with me.”
“Where’ll we say we’ve been till this h
our, Bob?”
“Just walking.”
“Maybe he won’t believe it. Maybe he’s sure by this time I’m staying with Alice. If there was some place I could go . . .” While she waited for him to answer, all that had been growing in her for such a long time was showing in the softness of her dark, sure eyes.
A half-ashamed feeling came over him and he began thinking of himself at the apartment, talking with Jack and the old man, and with Sheila coming in and listening with her face full of seriousness. “Why should you think there’ll be trouble?” he said. “Your father will probably be in bed.”
“I guess he will,” she said quickly. “I’m silly. I ought to know that. There was nothing . . . I must have sounded silly.” She began to fumble for words, and then her confusion was so deep that she could not speak.
“I’m surprised you don’t know your father better than that,” he said rapidly, as though offended. He was anxious to make it an argument between them over her father. He wanted to believe this himself, so he tried to think only of the nights when her father, with his white head and moustache, had talked in his good-humoured way about the old days and the old eating-places, but every one of these conversations, every one of these nights that came into his thoughts, had Sheila there, too, listening and watching. Then it got so that he could remember nothing of those times but her intense young face, which kept rising before him, although he had never been aware that he had paid much attention to her. So he said desperately, “There’s the friendliest feeling in the world between your people and me. Leave it to me. We’ll go back to the corner, where we can see a taxi.”
They began to walk slowly to the corner, with her still limping though he held her arm firmly. He began to talk with a soft persuasiveness, eager to have her respond readily, but she only said, “I don’t know what’s the matter. I feel tired or something.” When they were standing on the street corner, she began to cry a little.
“Poor little Sheila,” he said. Then she said angrily, “Why ‘poor little Sheila?’ There’s nothing the matter with me. I’m just tired.” And they both kept looking up and down the street for a taxi.
Then one came, they got in, and he sat with his arm along the back of the seat, just touching her shoulder. He dared not tighten his arm around her, though never before had he wanted so much to be gentle with anyone; but with the street lights sometimes flashing on her face and showing the bewildered whiteness that was in it, he was scared to disturb her.
As soon as they opened the apartment door and lit the lights in the living room, they heard her father come shuffling from his bedroom. His white moustache was working up and down furiously as he kept wetting his lips, and his hair, which was always combed nicely, was mussed over his head because he had been lying down. “Where have you been till this hour, Sheila?” he said. “I kept getting up all the time. Where have you been?”
“Just walking with Bob,” she said. “I’m dead tired, Dad. We lost all track of time.” She spoke very calmly and then she smiled, and Bob saw how well she knew that her father loved her. Her father’s face was full of concern while he peered at her, and she only smiled openly, showing no worry and saying, “Poor Daddy, I never dreamed you’d get up. I hope Jack is still sleeping.”
“Jack said if you were with Bob, you were all right,” Mr. Staples said. Glancing at Bob, he added curtly, “She’s only eighteen, you know. I thought you had more sense.”
“I guess we were fools to walk for hours like that, Mr. Staples,” Bob said. “Sheila’s got a big blister on her foot.” Bob shook his head as if he couldn’t understand why he had been so stupid.
Mr. Staples looked a long time at Sheila, and then he looked shrewdly at Bob; they were both tired and worried, and they were standing close together. Mr. Staples cleared his throat two or three times and said, “What on earth got into the pair of you?” Then he grinned suddenly and said, “Isn’t it extraordinary what young people do? I’m so wide-awake now I can’t sleep, I was making myself a cup of coffee. Won’t you both sit down and have a cup with me? Bob?”
“I’d love to,” Bob said heartily.
“You go ahead. I won’t have any coffee. It would keep me awake,” Sheila said.
“The water’s just getting hot,” Mr. Staples said. “It will be ready in a minute.” Still chuckling and shaking his head, for he was glad Sheila had come in, he said, “I kept telling myself she was all right if she was with you, Bob.” Bob and Mr. Staples grinned broadly at each other. But when her father spoke like this, Sheila raised her head, and Bob thought that he saw her smile at him. He wanted to smile, too, but he couldn’t look at her and had to turn away uneasily. And when he did turn to her again, it was almost pleadingly, for he was thinking, “I did the only thing there was to do. It was the right thing, so why should I feel ashamed now?” and yet he kept on remembering how she had cried a little on the street corner. He longed to think of something to say that might make her smile agreeably — some gentle, simple, friendly remark that would make her feel close to him — but he could only go on remembering how yielding she had been.
Her father was saying cheerfully, “I’ll go and get the coffee now.”
“I don’t think I’d better stay,” Bob said.
“It’ll only take a few minutes, ” Mr. Staples said.
“I don’t think I’ll wait,” Bob said, but Mr, Staples, smiling and shaking his head, went into the kitchen to get the coffee. Bob kept watching Sheila, who was supporting her head with her hand and frowning a little. There was some of the peacefulness in her face now that had been there days ago, only there was also a new, full softness; she was very quiet, maybe feeling again the way he had kissed her, and then she frowned as though puzzled, as though she was listening and overhearing herself say timidly, “If there was some place I could go . . .”
Growing more and more uneasy, Bob said, “It turned out all right, don’t you see, Sheila?’
“What?” she said.
“There was no trouble about coming home,” he said.
As she watched him without speaking, she was not at all like a young girl. Her eyes were shining. All the feeling of the whole night was surging through her; she could hardly hold all the mixed-up feeling that was stirring her, and then her face grew warm with shame and she said savagely, “Why don’t you go? Why do you want to sit there talking, talking, talking?”
“I don’t know,” he said.
“Go on. Please go. Please,” she said,
“All right, I’ll go,” he muttered, and he got up clumsily, his face hot with humiliation.
In the cold, early-morning light, with heavy trucks rumbling on the street, he felt tense and nervous. He could hardly remember anything that had happened. He wanted to reach out and hold that swift, ardent, yielding joy that had been so close to him. For a while he could not think at all. And then he felt a slow unfolding coming in him again, making him quick with wonder.
Absolution
Jennie Hughes had been a steady customer at Jerry Mallory’s bar. She was about forty-five years old, the wife of a lawyer who had abandoned her ten years ago, but who still sent her money to pay for her room and liquor. At one time she had been active and shapely; now she was slow and stout and her cheeks were criss-crossed with fine transparent veins. When she had first come to the neighborhood people called her Mrs. Hughes, but now everybody called her Jennie.
When she was not quite sober, if anybody on her street disturbed her, she was apt to yell and scream at the top of her voice. Neighbors, who at one time had felt sorry for her, were now anxious to have her move away. Jennie’s landlady, Mrs. Turner, had been trying for two months to get rid of her, but Mrs. Turner had been unfortunate enough to try to argue the question when Jennie was tipsy.
One night Jennie was wondering if Jerry Mallory would give her whiskey on credit. For two weeks she hadn’t paid him. She had been drinking in the afternoon and now felt it necessary to have a bottle for Sunday. There were only about two fingers
in the bottle standing on the bureau. She put on her hat and looked at herself in the mirror. Though she was aware that styles changed, she didn’t seem able to keep up with them; now she was wearing a short skirt when everybody else was wearing their dresses long, and two years ago she had worn a long dress when other women were wearing short skirts. She heard somebody coming up the stairs. Turning, and staring at the door, for she expected her landlady to appear, she thrust her chin out angrily. “Come in,” she called out when there was a knock on the door.
A man over six feet came in, a big serious-looking priest with thin gray hair, a large red face, and a tiny nose. “Good evening, Mrs. Hughes,” he said politely without smiling.
“Good evening, Father,” Jennie said. She had never seen the man before and she began to feel uneasy, nervous and ashamed of herself as she looked at the bottle on the bureau. She said suddenly, and shrewdly: “Did somebody send you here, Father?”
“Now never mind that,” the priest said. “It’s enough that I’m here and you can thank God that I came.” He was an old, serious, unsentimental priest who was not at all impressed by the fawning smile and the little bow she made for him. Shaking his head to show his disgust with her, he said flatly: “Mrs. Hughes, there’s nothing more degrading in this world than a tipsy woman. A drunken man, Lord knows, is bad enough, but a drunken woman is somehow lower than a beast in the field.”
Jennie’s pride was hurt, and she said angrily, without inviting him to sit down: “Who sent you here? Who sent you here to butt into my business? Tell me that.”
“Now listen to me, Mrs. Hughes. It’s time someone brought you to your senses.”
“You don’t know me. I don’t know you,” Jennie said abruptly.
“I know all about you. I know you ought to be looking after your two children. But I’m not going to argue with you. I want to give you a very solemn warning. If you don’t change your life you’ll go straight to hell.”
The Complete Stories of Morley Callaghan - Volume Two Page 17
