Some Came Running

by James Jones

  “You got lots of other men!” the girl cried out again. “Don’t take him!”

  Gwen could not think of anything else at the moment except getting her out of the house. Away. Anywhere. Besides, what if Bob should come home and find her here? and thus find out the whole farcical wretched story? That must never happen; she got up and went over to her and put one arm around her tenderly, and with the other raised her to her feet. Ginnie Moorehead was dully sniffling, with her head down.

  “Now you must go on home, and don’t worry,” Gwen said. “Everything will be all right. You have no competition to fear from me, believe me. Dave and I have never been lovers, and are not about to be. I have only helped him with his writing some, that’s all. You’ve made a mistake.”

  “I was so scared, Miss French,” Ginnie Moorehead said, looking at her carefully. Apparently, she was not yet entirely convinced.

  “Well, there was no need to be,” Gwen said. “Now you just go on home and don’t worry. I was just getting ready to leave when you came, and I have to go out.”

  “All right, Miss French,” Ginnie Moorehead said; but she still made no move to go. She continued to stare at Gwen, her dull face a twisted mask of forlornness—a sufficient disguise in itself to hide those target-round hawk-predator’s eyes and the quivering hungry eyebrows. And there was that set stolidness about her, which told emphatically that if she did not want to move there was nothing in God’s world that was going to move her. Oh, God! if Bob came in!

  “If there ever had been any possibility of anything between Dave and me,” Gwen said, searching desperately, “which there never was, it would be gone now after what you’ve told me.”

  Apparently, that was what Ginnie Moorehead wanted to hear, because without her even moving, the stolidness in her relaxed and she allowed herself to be led. “Come on, now,” Gwen said gently. “Don’t be unhappy anymore.” She walked with her down to the stairs at the other end of the kitchen, one arm still around her broad thick back, the other hand grasping her arm. It was sickening. It was physically sickening. There, at the stairs, she released her and took her other arm from around her shoulders, the skin of both of them burning dully within her, and watched her go on down to the landing.

  “He’s a very fine man in a lot of ways,” Gwen forced herself to say, “as most men go. And he has a chance to be a very rich and very famous writer someday, if he is handled properly. Don’t forget that.”

  At the last sentence, Ginnie Moorehead had stopped dead, one hand still on the knob.

  “You ain’t goin to quit helpin him now, are you, Miss French?” she said.

  “No. Of course not,” Gwen said. “There’s no reason why I should.”

  “Thank you,” Ginnie Moorehead said. “Thank you so awful much, Miss French. For everthing. You’ve done set my heart at ease,” she said before she closed the door. “I really do got to go. I got to get my girlfriend’s car back. I borryed it to come over here.”

  “Goodby,” Gwen said. As the door closed, she turned back to the kitchen—the same kitchen, it was; the same kitchen he had stood in so many times, and drunk in, and worked with her in, and laughed in with that bull-throated laugh; she had walked with him down the length of it to the door, too, and had stood at the head of the stairs looking down at him on the landing, as she had done now; the first time he had ever been here she had done that, him so drunk he could hardly stagger, and he had wound up going to sleep in a cornfield; the same kitchen, it was—and she stood looking at it frantically because it was not the same kitchen. It was not the same kitchen and nothing in it was the same. All the familiar things looked suddenly strange and new and different. And it never would be the same kitchen again, to her. Not now. She had an almost irresistible impulse to call up Shardine right now and start her to scrubbing; she herself would help her and they would scrub it all from top to bottom. She had the same feeling about her two arms, which still burned dully at her sides; she wanted to scrub them the same way, till the very hide of them rolled up like dirt. Convulsively, Gwen raised both her arms and rubbed them hard. But it was not enough and she dug her fingernails into them painfully. Well; well; well, at least, Bob didn’t come home and find out all about it. That was something, she thought, sickening at the very thought of it.

  Almost dazedly, she inspected her forearms and the red-purple crescent marks of her fingernails in them. Childish. Yes. Childish. But what she wanted to do was tear them out by the sockets and throw them away on some trash heap somewhere. It was easy to know why Cranmer had thrust his own hand down into the fire at the stake. In crisis, she had not acted properly, either. She had not acted like the Gwen French she liked to think she was should have acted. She had lied, and had acted, and had been wishy-washy. She had been “genteel.” God! and she had put her arms around her—around that thing! God! Dropping her arms, she went back down to the table where the theme papers still lay and sat down staring blankly at the red pencil B– she had made just before answering the door.

  Dully, she picked it up and put it on the graded pile and picked up the red pencil. Mechanically, she noted the name of the student on the next one and read the first paragraph and marked the paper C and put it with the others. Methodically and swiftly, wanting only to get done, she went on through the others the same way. For the first five, she read the first paragraph before she graded them, but after that she only read the student’s name. She had only to glance at the student’s name and she could tell automatically what grade he or she would in fact earn, if she read the whole theme through. She did not give any A’s. She gave three or four A–’s to students who invariably got A’s or A–’s, and with a kind of malicious pleasure she docked each paper one grade below what she knew in her mind it should have had. The little sons of bitches. They would all look at their papers tomorrow and say to each other that Miss French must have had a rough evening last night. Well, let them. Miss French had. But at least Bob had not come home.

  When she finished them, she slid them into her briefcase and zipped it shut and laid it down on the end of the table where she always kept it. That done, she sat down again, not knowing what to do next. Her mind no longer mechanically in use, the sheer stomach-turning physical sickness of it all began to rise up again, dizzying, choking. She fought to keep from retching as it filled her nose and mouth. God! O God! Well, at least, the constant refrain ran through her mind again; at least, Bob had not come home and found out all about it.

  So that was what they were like!? What all men were like apparently— Anything— No matter how horrible. Just any old thing, as long as it was female, and walked on two legs.

  And her—with all those foolish romantic dreams—thinking all the time he was giving something up for her—was deliberately holding himself back to help her—was adjusting himself to her fears and foibles, patiently, lovingly, until she could find her own way clear with him—and all the time he was actually sleeping with that—that— She could find no word sick enough. An animal. A female animal. No mind, no brains. Why, she probably couldn’t even read the words in his novel, least of all help him with them! God! It sickened her.

  Unable to sit still, wishing now that Bob would come home, she got up and walked across to the small mirror on the kitchen wall. All around the big room, wherever she had looked, she had seen a dozen Dave Hirshes, like some montage: all the thousand and one positions and attitudes and actions she had seen him make or take since he had first come here to this room. She had seen and heard them all. Now she looked at herself in the mirror, as if desperately seeking the one point left of solid ground: Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who’s the dumbest of us all?

  Gwen French, the old maid, Miss Gwen French, Miss Guinevere French, the dried-up virgin old maid.

  She put her hands up over her face and blotted out the sight that was not the solid ground, either. Not even competition for a fat, sloppy pig of a female animal! Not with this haggard, haunted face that got bonier and bonier and drier and drier every
year that passed, this old maid’s face. She pulled her hands down compulsively, until her fingertips pressed against her mouth and stared into herself that stared back from the mirror. As she looked, all of them began coming back to her again: all of those old-maid jokes she had heard so many of in her lifetime. There must be thousands and thousands: like the one about the old maid on the train that was stopped and robbed; the robber came into the car and announced he was going to rob the men and rape the women, and a preacher stood up and said gallantly, Take our money but spare the women, and the old maid who was sitting up in front stood up and said, “Sit down! Who the hell’s robbing this train?”

  Have you heard the one about the old maid who ran up an ice bill? the iceman said if she didn’t pay, he would bang her. She refused, so he screwed her and marked the bill paid. The old maid said, Oh no, you don’t! You brought that ice in here ten cents at a time and you’re going to take it out the same way!

  Or how about the one about the old maid who took a tramp in the woods and had a fine time?

  Is there anything happier in the world than two old maids playing squat tag in an asparagus patch?

  Or how about this one . . .

  And how about that one . . .

  Oh yes! she knew them all. Her fingertips were pressing themselves defensively against her jawbone, as open-mouthed, tears running from her eyes, Gwen stood looking at herself, laughing hysterically.

  Well, at least, there was one thing, she thought again: At least, Bob had not come home. At least, she did have that. It was, she felt, about the only consolation left her.

  But when Bob came home, to find her sitting dry-eyed at the table, cool and calm and with a drink before her that she had not touched, the first thing she did was tell him all about it. As perhaps she had known she would all along.

  “I had a visitor while you were gone,” she said lightly when he had shucked off his heavy overcoat and his debonair old hat and came down toward her. If she could ever just be half the man her father was, she thought again for perhaps the ten thousandth time.

  “Oh yes?” he smiled. “Who?” His bright, kind eyes studied her.

  “A girl from Parkman,” Gwen said. “Name of Ginnie Moorehead.”

  “Ah?” Bob said. “Is that someone I should know?”

  “I rather doubt if you’ve ever met her,” Gwen said and smiled. “She works in the brassiere factory. She’s Dave Hirsh’s mistress.”

  “Oh?” Bob said, surprised; and then his eyes clouded. “Ahhh,” he said, sympathetically.

  Gwen continued to smile, feeling for a moment that she must break and crumple.

  “And what was she doing here?” Bob smiled. “Did Dave bring her?”

  “No. She came herself,” Gwen said. “She came to ask me if I please wouldn’t help her to keep Dave.”

  “I see. And what did you tell her?”

  “I told her,” Gwen said, “that she had nothing to fear from me.”

  “I see,” Bob said.

  “Oh, Dad!” Gwen said desperately. “Oh, Dad! What am I going to do?”

  “Well,” Bob said thoughtfully. He came on down to where she still sat clutching the untouched drink glass, and made as though to put his hand on her shoulder, then refrained, as if he thought perhaps she might prefer him not to. Instead, he sat down in the ladder-back beside her and leaned it back on its rear legs. “I take it she was not a very prepossessing person?”

  “No,” Gwen said. “No, she was not.”

  “Hmm,” Bob said, and eased the front legs of the chair back down. “Well, dear Gwen, it’s not entirely uncommon you know, to find one man carrying on love affairs with two—or for that matter, more—women at the same time. It is, in fact, I believe, only slightly less uncommon than finding one woman carrying on love affairs with two or more men. I rather expect it’s an experience that happens to nearly all of us, at some time or other. All of us seem to have two sides to our natures. The oldest bronze in existence is Janus, you know.”

  “But, oh Dad, if you could only have seen her!” Gwen said.

  Bob smiled. “I must say, I’m rather glad I didn’t,” he said. He stroked his mustache back on both sides with two fingers. “It does make Dave out rather a cad,” he said. “Doesn’t it?”

  “Cad!” Gwen said. “Cad?” It was, from her viewpoint, just about the greatest understatement she had ever heard. Her eyes suddenly brimmed with tears; in spite of herself.

  “See here, you mustn’t let this upset you so, dear Gwen,” Bob said. He leaned over and patted her on the knee. “We must try and look at it objectively. Try to imagine it as if it were two strangers, whom you don’t even know.”

  “Oh, Dad!” Gwen said.

  “Yes, I suppose it is rather hard to do,” Bob said unhappily. “In your case. When one gets as old as I am, dear Gwen—” It petered off, and he smiled. Then he raised the chair up on its hind legs again, his lips pursed beneath the mustache, looking off at the ceiling. “You know, I’ve rather followed—ah—your love affair—yours and Dave’s. Since it began. Back last year. I must say, I was quite pleased by the whole thing.” He paused, and cleared his throat. “I—ah— It’s rather hard to say, dear Gwen, what it is that makes men do as they do. When two people are in love and sleeping together and also are in a nearly complete accord on things, on life, such as you and Dave were (an experience, I might add, which I have only had twice in my life,” he said sadly; “and, as you probably know, neither of them was your mother) well—when two people have such a relationship, it’s rather difficult to explain what makes one of them, usually the man, desire additional sexual relations with another woman.” Gwen listened, horrified: Bob, too, thought she had been sleeping with Dave, like Agnes and Frank—and, Ginnie Moorehead, and probably everybody else. Her own father! Well, she thought, catching hold of her mind; well, that was reasonable—since, like everybody else, he did not know the truth. The truth that she was still a virgin. Well, that answered one problem for her, anyway: She had always wondered, anxiously hoping that he did not, whether Bob had seen through her act. Now, when she discovered that he, in fact, did not, she found herself feeling a little disappointed in him. She had always thought Bob was smarter than that; she had always felt that if there was anyone in the world who understood her fully, it was Bob. Now, obviously, it was clear not even he did. Even Bob had been fooled. Oh, God, wasn’t there anybody! Wasn’t there anybody anywhere! It was a fearfully appalling prospect to have to face. Gwen fixed her eyes and her mind on Bob and tried to listen to him. At least, she was going to have to appear to listen to him. Because he must never know. She would be too ashamed. So she composed her face. All of this had slid through her mind, sliding on the greased skids of momentary panic, in just the split second it had taken him to draw a breath to go on; her expression had not even had time to change, before she controlled it; and so she sat, still listening to him concentratedly.

  “But speaking as a man myself,” Bob was going on, “I can assure you that it really means very little. To the man. I know you’ll find that rather hard to believe,” he said awkwardly. Then suddenly, he broke off, staring at her as though he had sensed the change in her. “Did I upset you by what I said about your mother?” he said gently.

  “No,” Gwen said. “No, I’ve known it a long time, of course.”

  Bob nodded. “I assumed that you had,” he said, and laced his fingers together and stared down at them. “Your mother was a peculiarly sexless woman,” he said to them; “I never did understand just why.” Again, he cleared his throat. “But that is neither here nor there. Well, what I was trying to say about men was that only when pity and sympathy—and guilt—enter into this other—ah—extracurricular sexual relation, only then is there any danger to the previous love, I think. And this, of course, is what all women strive to activate in men. I—ah—” Again he broke off and stared at her. “I—ah— I’m not really saying anything, am I?” he smiled sadly. “I mean, I’m not really saying anything that help
s you, am I?”

  Gwen tried to smile back at him, and suddenly tears came in her eyes again. She loved him so much, and he was trying so hard, and she was lying to him. And after all, he was the only one to turn to, who understood at all.

  “Let me try and put it this way,” Bob said. “In men of a high degree of spirituality, like Dave—”

  “Spirituality!” Gwen cried.

  “Yes,” Bob said; “after all, he is a writer. And a very fine one. He may, even, become a great one. With some little help from you and me.”

  “From you,” Gwen said bitterly. “Not from me.”

  “As I said,” Bob went on; “in these men, then, who have a high degree of what I can only call spirituality, there seems in some strange way to be, also, this inordinately high degree of sexuality.”

  Gwen sniffed.

  But Bob shook his head. “You’ve studied the writers, dear Gwen,” he said. “Tolstoy, Stendhal, Byron, and the rest. It isn’t so much that they have more or greater desires than other people; it’s just that their desires are more intense. Everything is more intense. And as the degree of spirituality is more intense, so also is the sexuality; and this is what they must work to conquer. If only to keep from being physically destroyed by it. Probably none of them ever fully do so in any one life,” he smiled. “But that appears to be their task. And, of course, their art, their creations, are only the residue, the inconsequential by-product if I may use such a term, of the strife and suffering they undergo.” He shook his head again, sadly. “But, of course, you know all this; it is the theme of your own book, dear Gwen.”

  Gwen merely nodded.

  “Would you expect Dave, who, in fact, formed part of the group you’re studying, actually to be exempt from your own theory?” Bob said gently.

  “Well, what do you want me to do?” Gwen cried.