The Complete Stories of Morley Callaghan - Volume Three

by Morley Callaghan

  “Maybe I oughtn’t to have come at all,” he said.

  “Why shouldn’t you come, if you wanted to?”

  There was the sound of someone moving in the kitchen. A short, broad-shouldered, bony-faced young man with thick light hair appeared holding a pail in his hand. He was wearing a short leather jacket, as if he had just expected to go out, and he stood grinning a little at Mona and eyeing Greg with a frank curiosity.

  “You’ve heard me speak of Greg Henderson, Frank,” Mona said.

  “Hello, Mr. Henderson,” Frank said with a kind of good-humored warmth. There was a broad comprehending smile on his strong face as he put out his hand and said, “Are you hungry? Not at all? You’ll be staying the night with us anyway, won’t you?”

  “I hadn’t thought about it.”

  “Stay the night,” Mona said.

  “Maybe I’d better stay.”

  “Come on upstairs, and I’ll show you we’ve got a room,” Frank said.

  “Little Mike is asleep, but maybe we could take a peek at him when you’re ready,” Mona said.

  Greg followed Frank up the narrow twisting staircase that was built in the thick wall of the old farmhouse, and into a little room with a window, a low-beamed ceiling and a narrow bed. “You’ll be comfortable for the night,” Frank said. “Feel at home while you’re here. We want you to feel at home. Mona has told me all about you.” He was speaking in an easy, jolly, friendly way, but the composure that was in his voice made Greg feel his own utter unimportance. Greg was an opinionated, arrogant man with a natural fierceness in his nature, and he could not help saying, “Did she tell you about me?” but then in a panic, without waiting for an answer, he went on: “This is a fine place in the country. A man ought to have such a place. The country is very beautiful but a little melancholy. I felt it in me walking on the road, maybe it was just the darkness and the softness of the hills,” and he kept on talking till they started to go downstairs again.

  “I was just going down the road a piece to get the milk,” Frank explained. “Maybe you’ll be wanting to take a peek at Mike with Mona.” Picking up the can that he had brought from the kitchen, he went out brusquely, leaving Mona and Greg listening first to his footfalls and then to the sound of his whistling as he went down the road.

  Mona smiled in a sympathetic, agreeable way as she said, “You can come and see Mike if you want to.” Greg followed her meekly, going upstairs again and tiptoeing into another little room and standing beside her, bending over a cot. There was enough early moonlight flooding the room to show the soft lines of the sleeping boy’s face. Mona and Greg bent down together over the bed, and Greg began to feel a strange excitement, then a vast uneasiness like a rising and falling of life within him, as he tried to make out the shape of his own boy’s head. It was for this that he had come, after a few years of forgetting and then a short month of restless wondering, and now, bending over the bed and feeling the mother so quiet beside him, he had a wild hope that the great, heavy beating of his own heart might sound so loud in the room it would wake up the boy.

  But Mona, with her finger to her lips, was beckoning him, and he tiptoed out behind her and followed her downstairs.

  While he walked up and down the room, not daring to look at Mona or speak to her, he felt how undisturbed and peaceful she was as she sat in the rocking chair. Mona had always been so tender when there had been any suffering in him, and yet now when he was most wretched and deeply suffering, she waited, quiet, still, without any emotion. In her peacefulness he could feel how unimportant he had become. He could almost hear her husband saying to her, “A no-account lawyer, a little bourgeois, his little middle-class emotions and his sentimentality, it’s no longer important that he once loved you and left you. The poor fool.” Greg began to stare at Mona, staring at her white, round, soft face, and then, he went over to her and whispered, “Mona, it’s unnatural for you to be so calm with me now,” and he put out his hand to touch her.

  Her hands had been quiet in her lap and her face had been full of soft contentment, but when he came toward her, reaching out to touch her with his hand, her face took on a wretched fearful look that destroyed swiftly all her calmness and she looked now like she had looked the last times he had seen her and she was saying, frightened, “Don’t come near me, don’t touch me.”

  “I won’t, Mona. You must forgive me. It’s just meanness I was feeling because you were so peaceful and content and I wanted to disturb you.” Greg really was ashamed because he knew, too, that it was out of his resentment of her husband’s confidence that he was trying to disturb her and trying to assert his own strength. “The boy is feeling fine, isn’t he?”

  “His health has been good. In the morning you can talk to him and play with him.”

  “I can have him for hours?”

  “As long as you wish.”

  Then Frank came in with the milk and took off his leather jacket and the three of them sat down to talk. They asked Greg about the city. They were living in the country, but they longed for any bit of news about the city. Frank began to talk about social problems with enthusiasm because it was the subject that had most power over all his thoughts, and he talked at Greg, knowing he had another point of view. His voice rose and he waved his hands, and then his voice softened and he was patient with Greg who hated every word he said. When he interrupted there was a sharp hostile silence between them. In these moments of silence they looked at each other: they realized they were there together, they felt the country silence outside, and they did not like it.

  Then Mona said, “Maybe Greg is tired, Frank, after walking most of the way from the station. Maybe he wants to go to bed.”

  “I’m sorry,” Frank said considerately. “Don’t let us keep you up. We go to bed early around here, anyway. Are you sure there’s nothing we can do for you?”

  “Nothing at all,” Greg said, and after saying good night to them he went up to the bedroom. But he was so wide awake he could hardly keep still. He stood at the window looking out over the little valley lit by the moonlight. He heard the trickling of water in the nearly dried-up creek, but every other part of the night was dreadfully still. He was thinking that everything that had been hurt deeply in Mona’s life had been smoothed out here in the quietness of this mist-laden valley And he was thinking, too, “She never looked as lovely when she loved me as she did sitting there in the chair tonight.” It was terrible to feel that once there had been such strong passion in both of them and now he was here, welcomed calmly by her, as though he were a visitor or a stranger. He wanted to cry out in a loud voice and break the night’s calmness, but he threw himself on the bed and rubbed his head in the pillow and groaned within him, feeling it a terrible thing that all the ecstasy, all the joy of loving that used to be between them was gone, didn’t live at all tonight. Then he heard them coming up to bed. He heard them undressing. They must have lain down together, for soon he heard them whispering peacefully. The whispering between them had a fine evenness, her whispering and murmur blending and made one with the low murmur of his voice. “There’s nothing I’ve held on to. I possess no part of anything that’s here,” Greg thought. “I don’t touch their life at all,” and he felt humility and even a little peacefulness in himself.

  In the morning he went downstairs with a humble eagerness to see his son, feeling that something mysterious but very gratifying was about to happen. He was shy and smiling when he said good morning to Mona and Frank.

  “Mike is in the kitchen finishing his breakfast,” Mona said.

  “Can I go in?”

  “Come on along,” she said, and they went together into the kitchen where a dark-haired, round-faced little boy was eating a piece of toast very seriously. His eyes were large and brown and soft like his mother’s. He was so sturdy, handsome, and rosy-cheeked that Greg felt a marvelous delight in just looking at him and he said suddenly, “Hello, Mike.”

  The boy looked at him gravely and then said without smiling, “A
re you my uncle?”

  “A kind of uncle.”

  “Mother said my uncle might come and see me today. Aren’t you really my uncle?”

  “Sure, I’m your Uncle Greg.” Greg looked at Mona and they both smiled to each other, then they began to laugh easily. “Will you go for a walk with your uncle while Daddy and I drive into town, darling?” Mona asked.

  “All right,” the boy said laconically, and he went on eating his toast.

  Later on, in a straightforward simple way, Mona and Frank got ready to go to town in order that Greg might be alone for a few hours with the boy. He stood at the door watching them get into the old battered automobile. It was a fine, clear spring day. The car was on the other side of the little garden near the barn and beside a pile of red shale. The ground on that side of the house was covered with this powdered red shale. When the car started, Greg and the boy standing beside him waved their hands.

  Speaking soft and coaxing, Greg said to Mike, “Will we go for a walk down the road, maybe all the way down the road to the river? Is it too far?”

  “I’ve often walked that far with my father in the spring when he went fishing. I can walk twice that far. I can walk three times that far.”

  As soon as they started to walk the little boy put up his hand and took Greg’s hand firmly in his. The simple gesture moved Greg more than anything that had happened since he had come. He stared down at the boy’s neck as they walked hand in hand along the red clay road, waiting for something mysterious to happen between them.

  “Where are you from, Mister?” Mike asked.

  “I’m from New York.”

  “I guess it’s too far away to walk there today, eh?”

  “Much too far. It’s miles away.”

  “Are there a lot of little kids there?”

  “The streets are full of little kids shouting and playing.”

  “Do you know them? I’d like to see some kids. It’s nice here, I like it here, but there are hardly any kids to play with,” he said gravely. Then he hesitated, looked up at Greg, wondering if he could be confided in completely. “Would you let me come and see you in New York some time, Mister?” he asked.

  Greg let his hand fall with a light gentleness on the boy’s shoulder, caressing the shoulder timidly. “I certainly will,” he said. But Mike shook his shoulder free of the hand, not that he was offended, but he was simply asserting that he was a boy and not to be petted. Greg loved his unspoiled childish directness. He longed to sit down with him and explain that they belonged to each other, or do some significant thing that would bring a swift light of recognition into the boy’s eyes.

  Mike was saying, “Do you see that broken fence along there?”

  “I see it.”

  “Would you bet me an ice cream cone I can’t jump over it?”

  “Sure I will. Do you want a cone, Mike?”

  “Well, when we get this far on the road my father always bets me an ice cream cone I can’t jump that fence.”

  “Go ahead then.”

  The little boy went leaping forward with short strong steps and took a broad jump over the broken scantling that was only a foot off the ground, and he landed on his knees in the long thick grass by the roadside and rolled over on his back, laughing. Greg ran after him and stood beside him, watching him rolling around while he shouted, “I fooled you. You’ve got to buy me a cone now.” Bending down over him, Greg grabbed him and lifted him high in the air, holding him tight while he squirmed with helpless laughter. When Mike was all out of breath, Greg put him down on the ground again.

  When they came to the little bridge over the creek and were standing a moment watching the skitters on the surface of the shallow water, Greg turned his head, looking far down between the hills, and he was surprised to see how the valley opened up from this point with the hills and the red barns with the hex signs over the doors and the dilapidated farmhouses flowing wide away into the immense valley of the Delaware that was full of noonday light; and down there the great river shone silver white on the green flat land, and farther beyond the river was cultivated land and maybe town land all rolled into soft blue hills, rising grandly with the color of a new, unknown country that was suddenly touched by the same sunlight that was overhead. Greg kept looking away off with a leaping excitement. He had promised Mona that he would not tell Mike that Frank was not his father, but he could not stop thinking, “Why can’t I take him away with me now? Why shouldn’t I do it?” Without answering he gripped the boy’s hand tight and began to walk faster, still looking ahead far down the valley.

  “Isn’t it a fine sight over there on a clear day, Mike?”

  “That’s nothing,” Mike said. “From the top of our hill on a clear day you can almost see the ocean.”

  “The ocean. There’s no ocean there to see.”

  “My father said one day if you could only see far enough you’d see an ocean, and that’s the furthest of all away.”

  “Think of all the towns you’d look over, Mike,” Greg said, and they kept on walking fast, going straight ahead. At the little store where the roads crossed in what was called the village, they stopped to buy ice cream and an orange drink for Mike. Behind the counter was a lean, slow-moving man with a completely disinterested expression on his face, who said with surprising amiability, “You’ve got Molsen’s kid along with you, eh?” and he made a very comical face at Mike, who was eating the ice cream greedily.

  Then they went on again, going farther down the road, going toward the river and away from the hills, with Greg always holding the boy’s hand tight and making him trot beside him. They were off the red clay road and down the flat land where the road was gray and dusty when Mike said, “I’m tired, Mister. Can’t we stop a minute?”

  “Are you very tired, Mike?”

  “I want to sit down,” he said.

  So they sat down by the ditch a few feet from the road in long grass and weeds covered thick with gray dust, and they didn’t say anything, nor were they shy, but Mike mere-ly began to cross his legs at the ankles the way Greg had crossed his. Then Greg, watching the boy, leaned all his weight back on his hands, and Mike did that too, smiling quickly. And after they had looked at each other a while, Greg leaned forward and linked his hands around his knees, whistling between his teeth and pretending to look seriously across the fields; and soon he heard a thin whistle coming from Mike, and glancing out of the corner of his eye, he saw him, too, gravely staring at the fields. This moment became the most beautiful moment that Greg could remember in his life. As they sat there in the strong sun with the dust from an automobile blowing over them, he began to think, “Maybe when he grows up he’ll have many little gestures just like mine. Maybe he’ll hold his head on one side the way I do, or his voice will sound like mine.” But while he was clinging to this fine moment and feeling real joy in these thoughts, he became aware that Mike, bit by bit, was snuggling closer to him, and when he looked down at him he saw that his eyes were slowly closing. He did not know why he was so fearful of having him fall asleep. He dared not let him fall asleep.

  “Maybe you’d like to go back to the store, Mike, and get another ice cream cone,” he said quickly. They got up and went back along the road, and Mike was walking with the solemn, expressionless face of a tired little boy.

  After Mike had had another cone and another orange drink they both sat down together on the edge of the store veranda. Mike said suddenly, “I wish mamma would come,” and he kept looking down the road toward the highway. He could not stop his head from drooping and bobbing up and down. It was past his lunchtime. As they sat close together, raising their heads together whenever a farmer or a few city people there for the summer came into the store, Greg was wondering how it was that Mona could be happy with Mike here in these hills. “Don’t you get tired of this little place, Mike?” he asked. Mike heard him but did not answer; he was doing nothing but opening his eyes wide and then letting them close slowly. “I’ll pick him up and carry him to the
station,” Greg thought. “Why should I leave him here in this melancholy place to grow up with the socialist wild notions of that arrogant man?” And while he was planning and pondering he felt the boy’s head heavy against him. Mike was in a sound sleep. For a long time Greg stared at the boy’s closed eyes and at the long lashes touching the cheeks, and then he thought with utter misery, “He was sitting there thinking and talking of Mona. I’ve no right whatever to take him away from her. I’m nothing to him really.” In a kind of panic he picked Mike up and began to hurry back into the hills, saying angrily, “Why does Mona stay away like this and not care what happens to him?” He hurried on, going back to the house, clutching the sleeping boy and feeling more and more wretched.

  He was almost in sight of the farmhouse before he heard the honking of a horn behind him. When he stepped off the road and looked back, he saw the Molsens’ old car swaying in the ruts. Mona was leaning out, waving her hand cheerfully.

  Full of resentment, Greg said, “He’s sound asleep. What do you think of that?” and he stared at her as if she ought to give an account of herself to him. But she only said, “The poor little boy,” without noticing Greg at all. Frank, who had nodded with his old, good-natured tolerance, simply put out his arms for Mike, lifted him into the car and put him on Mona’s knee. Without moving, Greg stood on the road, flustered, knowing only that he had not wanted Frank to take the boy from him in that way, and then he realized that they were wondering why he did not get into the car. So he sat in the back seat, leaning forward, with his head only a foot from Mike’s, listening to Mona clucking sounds all over his head: and yet he was utterly detached from them. They did not even ask him where he had been with Mike, for it did not occur to them that anything important could have happened. So he said, “I must leave at once. I ought to have left an hour ago.”

  “Why didn’t you say you had to go? We’re so sorry,” Mona said.

  “It’s all right. Everything’s all right,” Greg said.