A Population of One

by Constance Beresford-Howe

  Well, single people never realize how lucky they are. It must be great to be footloose, with no ties or responsibilities at all. But I don’t intend to criticize or complain. After all, I suppose you don’t owe us anything. I hope you had a nice trip. Write soon.

  Love, Lou.

  Slowly but with some vehemence I tear up this message into very tiny pieces. I drop them into the wastebasket. After that I stand at the window looking out at the quiet air for some time. Then, suddenly, the buzzer sounds, making me start. Who on earth can that be?

  “Hullo?”

  “A word with you, miss.” The rich voice growling out the speaker is unmistakable, but I can hardly believe my ears.

  “Archie! Come on up.”

  While I wait for him to appear, I thrust the suitcase into the bedroom and dart into the bathroom to wash my face. My own eyes, large with astonishment, meet me in the mirror. The rasp of the buzzer still seems to tingle in the air.

  “Come to apologize,” he says, while still in the hall. He pulls up short in the doorway, a portly, aggressive figure, confronting me with truculence. He is wearing a handsome light-grey suit I’ve never seen before, the trousers sharply creased. A mulberry waistcoat with gold buttons adds a touch of splendour to the whole outfit. His blue eyes are diffident under a formidable scowl. He looks as defiant as an old boar at bay, except for those eyes. I pull him in, close the door, and without a word throw my arms around him. He returns a fierce hug redolent of cigars.

  “I passed your house a few minutes ago and almost rang the bell.”

  “It’s all right, then?”

  “Of course it is.”

  “Shouldn’t have said those things.”

  “Neither should I.”

  “Not fair to blame you for the Armstrong mess.”

  “No, but you were right. I handled it badly.”

  “Quite. But I had no right to speak like that. It was curmudgeonly.”

  “Damn right it was. Oh, I’m so glad to see you, Archie.”

  He beams at me. Each of my cheeks receives a smacking kiss. I blow my nose. He blows his.

  “Come on in properly,” I say, tugging at him. “Take off your coat. I was just about to make a bit of supper — have you eaten?”

  “No, no. Sackcloth and abstinence. Haven’t eaten a proper meal all week.”

  “Well, stay and have something now. I was going to make a quiche.”

  He follows me into the kitchen area and there at once begins to rummage in the grocery bag and inspect the contents of the little fridge with a critical eye. “I shall make you a quiche,” he says. “Out with the pastry board, wench. Been away all week, have you? I have telephoned you several times.” He throws me an eloquent look.

  “Yes, I went down to Virginia.”

  “Enjoy it?”

  “Not very much.” I add no details, not because I am afraid or ashamed, but simply because the sight of him peering at me over the tops of his glasses as he breaks eggs makes me too absurdly happy. There is not a single detail about that week that I could not tell Archie, and because I know that, there is no hurry to do it. He will be perfectly furious, of course, when he hears the whole story. In fact, there will doubtless be another monumental quarrel. I’m actually looking forward to it. But it can wait.

  “What’s this about seeing your doctor?” I ask, girding an apron with some difficulty around the grey suit.

  “More or less routine. He periodically links me up to an electrocardiogram machine that for some reason has his confidence. I had a heart attack some years ago. Healed up quite well. He’s pleased I’ve lost some weight. The one compensation for giving up Scotch. You haven’t even noticed that I’m wearing my last Savile Row suit, have you, miss? I can get into it again now, after ten years. Anyhow, the heart in this old fossil appears in fair shape for one of my temper and habits.”

  “Only fair?”

  “Fair enough, one hopes, for ordinary purposes.”

  “Well, I hope they don’t include retirement. I’ve heard hints you’re thinking of resigning.”

  “From the Chair? Never.”

  The magnificence of this pledge is slightly marred when he adds, “Of course they are going to throw me out. But that is quite different.”

  “Quite,” I agree, grinning. “But are they really …?”

  “They are. Everybody’s been informed but me, it seems. Adding insult to injury. They hope it will hurt. Instead it gives me a certain grim pleasure to find them so predictable.”

  “That’s the spirit! How I love you, Archie.”

  Nevertheless, the row with Archie occurred punctually a day or two later when I told him about the Virginia trip. The scene wasn’t quite the pleasure I expected, either, because instead of exploding with anger, he became (and remains) remote, sad, and cool. I find this so depressing that I accept Emma’s invitation to a supper party the night before exams begin. She has pressed me to come, which is nice of her. After all, the world is not exactly spilling over with people who crave the pleasure of my company.

  Early Sunday evening I zip up the blue mini-dress and apply some blue eyeliner, acquired in a light-hearted Washington moment. It gives me a highly bizarre look, which is perhaps not inappropriate in the circumstances.

  For hours I have tried not to listen for the phone. Two weeks ago it would have been natural for Bill to ring and arrange to pick me up so we could go to the party together. Now, apparently, it is no longer natural. All week long I’ve only seen him for a moment or two at a time. The phone is silent as a toad. At eight-thirty I set out alone, with raincoat and umbrella, through mizzling rain. The street lights print swinging shadows of half-open leaves on the dark sidewalks. A lovely smell of earth and water breathes out over the city from the wooded mountain above and the broad river below. They enclose the vast city trivia of steel and glass and concrete with tolerance. It is spring. They can afford to be generous.

  Reluctantly I turn up the path to the gaunt row of duplexes where Emma lives and furl my umbrella at her blue door. Well do I know I’d be far happier walking for a mile or two in the sweet, misty darkness, and then going peacefully home. But the penalty for being an optimist must be paid.

  Emma swings the door wide. She looks even more immense than usual in a voluminous patterned robe like those fancied by the Queen of Tonga. Behind her in the hall and sitting-room I can see a swarm of people milling about with drinks; beyond, in the dining-room, others are thick around the buffet. Clasping my arm cosily Emma assures me, in the cheerful, lying way of hostesses, that I know everybody, but before abandoning me she hooks a passing male and introduces him as Rudolph Osmond, the new Registrar.

  He is a cadaverous young man with a slight facial tic that at irregular but unnerving intervals arrests his mild expression in a look of violent alarm. He immediately fastens an intense and hopeful gaze on my bosom and forces a glass of clouded purple punch into my hand.

  “Well, Miss Doyle, Emma says you’re new at Cartier too. Where are you from?”

  “Toronto.” I look over his shoulder, while trying not to seem put off by the tic. I had thought Archie would surely be here, but there is no sign of him.

  “Toronto the Good, eh? Ha ha ha.” He actually accompanies this remark with an elbow-dig in my ribs. I edge aside. Off in a distant corner I can see Bill telling a story with animated gestures to Ruth Pinsky. She is laughing.

  “Yes, sir, quite a contrast to Montreal the Bad, eh? Why the number of brothels in this town is higher than anywhere else in North America, did you know that? But what would a charming girl like you know about such things? Especially from Toronto the Good. Ha ha.” In the middle of a tic he leers at me. A bubble of craziness rising in me almost makes me leer back. Wildly I look around for help. There is none. In a voice of appalling falseness, I say, “Lovely to have met you, but do please excuse me — there’s someone over there I simply must see —” And I make for Bill, afraid to look back for fear Osmond is following. There is such a crush t
hat for a moment I can make little or no progress.

  “Of course they can do it,” somebody says over my shoulder. Somebody else holds a cup of punch dangerously poised over my head as he tries to manœuvre sideways in the other direction. “The chairmanship is an annual appointment.” Another voice says, “Somebody from Syracuse, I heard.” I twist around, but both speakers seem to have disappeared. My party headache, I find, is already well established. Surely it was Archie they were gossiping about. But where is the man?

  Bill is surrounded by a noisy group, including Molly and Harry, and at first he doesn’t notice me. He is looking particularly well in the white sweater that sets off his new tan and the lustre of his dark eyes. Something in the timbre of his voice tells me he has had a little more of the purple punch than is altogether good for him.

  “— my dear, insatiable!” he is saying. “They tell me it’s the way with that age group, but really —” He catches sight of me then and calls gaily, “Hi there, Willy,” but then turns aside to say something more to Ruthie that a burst of laughter behind me cuts off. I linger on the outskirts of the group for a minute or two, keeping a smile pinned firmly in place. Nobody else is near me that I know. I edge around a faded chintz armchair. Emma is a casual housekeeper. Under its pleated skirt a doll and a crust of toast have been imperfectly kicked out of sight. Cautiously I peer about. Osmond is mercifully invisible. After hiding my punch on a windowsill I help myself at the buffet to salad and spaghetti, carrying my plate into a deserted little breakfast bar to eat in blessed privacy. Not that I am hungry. In fact my throat closes after the first bite or two. No, it’s neurotic to imagine that Bill was talking about me to those people. He couldn’t possibly do such a thing. Nor would he. We are friends. There’s no cruelty or treachery in Bill, I assure myself. But do I really believe this?

  Someone is strumming “Georgia” on the piano in the other room. I take my plate out to the kitchen and scrape its contents into the garbage. As I do so I catch sight of someone sitting under the kitchen table. It is a girl of about three in a crumpled blue flannelette nightgown. She is eating Ritz biscuits out of a box with calm and silent absorption. Her bare feet are dirty and her banged fair hair hangs around a fat countenance full of complacent self-esteem.

  “Hi,” I say, squatting down.

  “Hi.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Jade.”

  “Jade! What a pretty name.”

  “I’m not in my damn bed,” she says with satisfaction.

  “No. Do you like parties?”

  “They’re silly. Why are your eyes so funny?”

  “I don’t know.”

  After a pause for thought she offers me a chipped Ritz. Her expression is severe as she judges how many are left in the box. She has nothing more to say, and no interest whatever in my boring presence. I look at her with admiration. Is she what I will be, with luck — or, poor little bitch, am I what she will become? But just then Emma’s husband, a small and harassed-looking man, appears behind me, saying sharply, “Go to bed at once, Jane.” Without the slightest loss of dignity or any empty farewells she scrambles out and disappears down the hall. When I turn, Osmond is there, tic and all. “Care to trip the light fantastic?” he asks. He takes my arm in a bony clutch. The player in the next room has moved on to “Jamaica Farewell,” and there is some ragged singing. I pull my arm free and give Osmond a glittering smile to match his own.

  “See you later, maybe,” I tell him, and move off with decision to the bathroom. There I shoot the bolt and sit down on the one available seat, propping my feet on the tub. I light a cigarette. For some time I occupy myself with an old copy of Punch. Eventually, however, the knocks, rattles, and nudges at the door become more insistent and I get up reluctantly. The moment I unlock the door, an indignant redhead flounces in. I wonder whether she too is a refugee from Osmond.

  After some search through a choked cupboard I find my coat and thank Emma’s husband (now doing dishes) for the nice party. On the way out I glimpse Emma overflowing the piano bench, a sight that makes me think of Fats Waller’s remark to himself before beginning a performance — “Is you all on?”

  At the open door I meet Archie just arriving.

  “Good evening,” he says stiffly.

  “Good evening, Archie.”

  “Off home already?”

  “I’m early. But you’re late.”

  “Spot of indigestion. Fell asleep over TV, if you want the truth.”

  “Oh.”

  We stand there looking at each other.

  “Alone, are you?” he asks.

  “Yes.”

  Another pause.

  “I suppose you wouldn’t like to walk me home.”

  He promptly buttons up his coat again. “Yes, I’ll walk you home.”

  The rain has stopped and cleared room for a scatter of little stars. We walk along in easy and total silence. There is a faint chuckle of running water in the gutters. Down in the harbour a big ship hoots in its hoarse voice, and a police siren keens. Big-city music. He walks on the outside edge of the pavement to protect me from runaway horses. I find this soothing. Vaguely I think I’ll not bother to go to any more Women’s Lib meetings.

  “Good party?” he asks finally.

  “There are no good parties, really.”

  He grunts agreement.

  As we approach my building we find ourselves walking more and more slowly.

  “Once more round the block?” he asks.

  “Yes, let’s.”

  A few minutes later he takes my cold hand and puts it, folded in his large, warm one, inside his coat pocket. We walk more and more slowly till we hardly seem to be moving at all. I find myself smiling, smiling at nothing and for no reason at all. We go round the block once more, still in silence. At last he says brusquely,

  “No, it would be ridiculous.”

  “What would?”

  “Totally unfair to you. I’m sixty.”

  “I know that.”

  “And not even what the insurance people call a very good life. No, of course I could never ask you. I’m not even very well off.”

  “Archie, are you —”

  “No. Don’t say anything. Not yet. Please, not another word.” The canopy of my apartment once more comes gradually into view. “I’ll have to go back to Emma’s now,” he adds matter-of-factly. “Rude not to. But before I go —”

  And before I can do anything to promote or discourage the manœuvre, he has engulfed me in a powerful arm and I am receiving a kiss of quite astonishing voltage. Afterwards it’s hardly polite of me to look so amazed, I suppose; but I do, and he begins to laugh, in loud, explosive guffaws. I laugh too. A stout woman walking a pug of the same shape throws us a look of alarm. We clasp each other, feeling young, guilty, and happy. “There, be off with you,” he says, giving me a little push. “And ponder the wisdom of Auden. His prayer was ‘Make me chaste, Lord; but not yet.’ Good night t’ye.” And he adds, “My dear,” in a voice so low I almost miss it. But not quite. Minutes later in the elevator, rising somewhat dizzily upward, I find myself still smiling, as it were, all over, in the most ridiculous way. Why didn’t I say “Good night, love”? But perhaps there was no need.

  Exam Week opens its jaws at nine the next morning and engulfs us all so totally there is no time for the minor metaphysics of the heart. At opposite ends of the gym, Archie and I pace up and down the aisles between long rows of desks where the candidates hunch over papers, desperately twisting their hair and munching Life Savers as they scribble. A brilliant sun plays heartlessly on the wall as these poor prisoners sit sighing through their ordeal, and the electric clock jerks away the rationed minutes. A rustling silence broods over us all. There is a feeling that the least life itself can do is remain suspended while this solemn academic ritual runs its course.

  When not on invigilation duty I am crouched over a desk of my own, reading my way through volumes of handwritten exam books. This activity soon
creates the kind of intellectual and physical fatigue that would result from trying to swim through jelly. Long class lists appear in our boxes; elaborate forms; stacks of computer cards. Deadlines for the submission of final grades are underlined in red with menacing politeness. I meet Bill briefly in the hall on his way to the coffee machine. His tan has faded to a wan yellow. He leans against the wall as if even light conversation might prove a dangerous drain.

  “Ghastly, isn’t it.”

  “Oh God.”

  “By the way, Bill” — here, uncomfortably, I lower my voice — “I found a silk tie of yours among my things; shall I —?”

  “Oh, just stick it in my box some time, Willy.”

  A brief, intensely constricted silence descends. I hasten into hectic conversation.

  “I fell asleep over my Novel papers last night and woke up with my neck all crooked. Are you nearly finished?”

  “Yes,” he says heavily. “Well, I must be off.” He then pushes himself away from the wall with the brisk air of a man who has just remembered important business, but a second later I see him turn into the door marked Men. Yet I feel no real resentment of poor Bill. He has been little more than a note on the margin for what seems like a long time.

  At different intervals throughout the week I go to Archie’s office to see him — though exactly why, or to say what, I really am not sure — but he is always busy. Once I find him patting a tearful girl who has apparently, in a panic, tried to answer all twenty questions on a paper requiring answers to only five. Another day he is on the phone shouting at some unfortunate soul on the other end. Late one afternoon I try again, thinking that at this hour he is surely likely to be alone. But this time I find him at his office door talking to a dark, short man in horn-rims and a striped suit. By the tension of their legs and the heartiness of their voices I can tell it is not a casual chat they are having.

  “Miss Doyle, may I present the newly appointed Chairman of the Department: Dr. Mortimer Shift, from Syracuse.”

  “How do you do,” I murmur, careful not to catch Archie’s eye. “I just stopped by — it’s not important —” and I make my escape without delay, having seized only a fleeting impression that Shift has large teeth, a dry hand, and the fixed eyes of a worrier. I am also aware that in a sardonic sort of way Archie is enjoying himself, which is a relief.