Neither Five Nor Three

by Helen Macinnes

  “The way everything smoothes out when we are together. I wish people and things would leave us alone. We do very nicely by ourselves, don’t we?”

  He nodded. Then, half-smiling, “What people and things, Rona?”

  “Oh—just life.” She beat the eggs, added a drop or two of water, salt and pepper. She watched the nut of butter foam in the pan, and poured the eggs into it. “Just work, and duties, and work, and people. Perhaps we ought to go and live in Alaska or some place.” She reached up suddenly and kissed his cheek. “Cheer up, darling.”

  “I’m sorry I couldn’t see you last night,” he said. “Last week was damned busy.” If only we could be left alone, he thought. Rona is right. There’s too much duty, too many people in this life.

  “Oh, Scott, I wasn’t grumbling. Please, don’t think...” She said no more, but the smile had left her eyes. She stirred the eggs, and pretended to be very busy.

  “You don’t grumble,” he said quickly. “Only, you can’t like the way we have to disappoint each other. I don’t enjoy it, any more than you do.”

  “I know you don’t.”

  “What did you do last night?”

  “Oh, very prosaic! I did some laundry. And I read up on that architecture test.” She kept her voice cheerful, although it hadn’t been exactly her idea of how to spend a Saturday evening.

  “Still serious about becoming fully qualified?” he asked.

  She dished the eggs neatly. She said, “Why not be qualified, anyway? I’m more than half-way through the course, you know. Or don’t you want an architect in the family?”

  “Might be useful,” he said with a laugh, and carried the plates into the living-room. Rona took off her apron, and brought the coffee and toast.

  “Some day,” she said, “I can design our own house, and then we needn’t go apartment hunting any more. I’ll do a study for you that will really knock your eye out.”

  They sat down to eat.

  “Meanwhile,” said Scott, “what lousy apartment at what extortionate price have you found?”

  “Let’s wait until we reach a cigarette and our last cup of coffee, shall we?” Rona kept her voice gay, and started talking about yesterday’s parade down Fifth Avenue. But she was thinking that the few apartments on her list didn’t sound too hopeful. Perhaps they ought to live in the suburbs or in one of the new outlying housing developments. But Scott had already pointed out that if they lived any distance from Manhattan, then he’d be away from home a good deal. What with his work and all that, he might even have to spend several nights in the city each week. Not a pleasant prospect, he had said. And she had agreed.

  “How is Trend?” he asked suddenly.

  “Still holding up. The great excitement is that Miss Guttman has got engaged. She’s going to live in St. Louis.”

  “I hear Haydn’s back.” His voice was too casual.

  “Yes, he came about two weeks ago or more,” Rona said, just as casually.

  “Is he bothering you?”

  Rona looked up at him, startled. “Oh, darling,” she said, beginning to laugh, “I haven’t seen him at all, except once in the elevator. His office is in a different corridor from mine, you know.”

  Scott still looked worried.

  Rona said, “I think he’s avoiding me, to tell you the truth. Doesn’t that amuse you?”

  “Not very much, frankly. Why the hell did he come back at all?”

  “Scott, he’s done more than his share in Germany. You couldn’t expect him to go on volunteering to stay in the army forever, could you?”

  “The army’s just his level,” Scott said angrily. “But why did he have to go back to Trend!”

  “Why should he turn down his old job because I’m going to be there for another five months? That wouldn’t make any sense.”

  “I just hate his guts, that’s all,” Scott said gloomily. “I don’t trust him one bit.”

  “I am flattered,” said Rona, laughing again. “But you don’t have to worry, honey. He is not the wolf he used to be. He’s just a very efficient assistant editor.”

  “Better than Blackworth?”

  “Certainly as good.” Rona thought it wiser not to mention the fact that Paul Haydn was probably better, judging by the number of writers who seemed to be interested in his return. “He’s a sympathetic editor, apparently,” she added. “But that’s only office gossip.”

  “He’s working his way in pretty fast,” Scott said bitterly.

  “Well, he knows the job. And he always did have a lot of friends in the publishing business. You see, he actually enjoys the work he’s doing. That’s why he’s so good at it, I suppose.”

  Scott said nothing at all. His lips tightened.

  Rona, suddenly realising she had been tactless—although heaven only knew, she hadn’t been thinking of Scott’s lack of enthusiasm for his newspaper job—said quickly, “Here’s the last cup of coffee, darling. Now, what did you find out this week about apartments? Anything possible?” She tried to quell the annoyance that attacked her, nowadays, when she found herself apologising for having worried Scott. It is all very well to be sensitive, she thought, and I’m sensitive enough too, but it’s going to be a depressing life if we’ve got to guard ourselves continuously from saying wrong things. Scott knows by this time that I wouldn’t ever try to hurt him. Why can’t he let it go at that? She looked down at the tablecloth and hoped he hadn’t noticed the gleam of sudden tears in her eyes.

  Scott began talking about apartments. He was as depressed as she had become.

  “Well,” she said at last, rising and beginning to clear the dishes on to a tray, “let’s not get worried about it. After all, apartment hunting is something of an adventure. We can laugh at the grim and grisly places. And when we do see something we like, but it’s far too expensive for us, we can plan on getting something like that some day. Can’t we?”

  “Why can’t we find a decent place at a decent rent now?”

  She looked around the room. “I think we could make any apartment look fairly decent. It only takes some thought and work.”

  “And money,” he reminded her as he carried the full tray into the kitchen.

  “Less money than you think, Scott. Don’t you remember this apartment of mine when I first took it? The fact is, the more ideas you have the less you need to spend.”

  “All right,” he said, beginning to smile, “I’ll take your word for it. You certainly did a good job here.” He caught her round the waist and kissed the nape of her neck. “Hey!” he said, holding her back to look at her head. “You’ve had your hair cut.”

  “Only a little. You like it?”

  “Yes,” he admitted. “It looks all right. Why didn’t you tell me you were going to have it done?”

  “It wasn’t a very important secret, was it?” She kissed him. Then suddenly she pointed to the kitchen window. “Look, it isn’t raining any more. We’re in luck. I’ll get ready and we’ll set out. What is our first stop?”

  He pulled out a list with three addresses. “I brought the car,” he said, “so that will save time.”

  “I’ve got a list, too,” she called back as she went to the bedroom. I’ll wear my saucy sailor hat, she thought, and the rainmaker can go jump in Croton Reservoir. Scott came to lean against the bedroom door and admire the way she fixed the tight veil over her face. She smiled happily, picked up her freshly laundered gloves and a crisp white handkerchief to tuck into her pocket.

  “You know what you are?” he asked. “You’re a cute little trick.”

  Her smile deepened. She took one last look in the mirror and gave him her hand. “Come on, honey,” she said. Her excitement was infectious. He followed her into the hall, smiling broadly. She stopped at the mirror above the telephone table, drawing him to stand beside her. “See?” she asked.

  “Yes.” He kissed her cheek. “We look pretty good together.”

  “Just right, if you ask me.” She hugged him quickly. “Now, let’s be
the almost-married couple trying to look very serious, very sedate, very budget-minded. That should impress any old superintendent or grouchy landlord, shouldn’t it? Oh, Scott, let’s make today a lot of fun.”

  He nodded. He was thinking, the only time I’m really happy is when I’m with Rona and I let myself forget everything else. But life wasn’t all just Rona. Life was something he had to deal with, not dream through. He led the way downstairs, his brows drawn into a frown, his lips tight, his jaw more marked in outline.

  As they reached the street door, Rona glanced at him and wondered what was wrong now. And all the lightness left her heart.

  * * *

  By five o’clock, they parked the car on a street near lower Lexington Avenue and Gramercy Park.

  “That’s the lot, then,” Scott said, checking the lists of addresses, giving a final look at the classified advertisements in the Sunday Times. “West Side, East Side, all around the blasted town.” And we had to choose a week-end when the elevator operators and doormen were on strike, he thought gloomily. All the pickets had been out.

  “That place on West Eightieth Street wasn’t too bad,” Rona said. “We could make it look very pleasant, actually.”

  “It looks like hell now.” He threw The Times on to the back seat of the car. “The only possible apartment we’ve seen today was that last one. And it cost a hundred and twenty-five dollars a month.”

  She kept silent.

  “We can’t afford more than eighty a month. So solve that problem.”

  “We’ll have to look for an apartment outside of Manhattan, that’s all.”

  He started the car. And Rona was too tired to argue further, either with Scott or herself. If only, she thought, Scott wasn’t so determined on what he wanted...

  They drove in silence through the centre of the city. Then Scott turned the car into Park Avenue. They swept smoothly along its broad clean surface. On the sidewalks, in front of most of the apartment doorways, pickets were parading slowly, quietly. A few people walked determinedly for the sake of their health, even on this grey Sunday afternoon.

  “If we could pay a rent equal to my entire salary,” Scott said bitterly, “we could find something here.”

  Well, she thought, we can’t; so why worry about it? Besides, few of the people who lived here had begun housekeeping on Park Avenue when they were first married.

  “Even if I worked for twenty years,” Scott went on, “we’d still be unable to afford this sort of place.”

  “Who cares, darling? I don’t. Do you?” If anyone did care, she thought, he ought to remember that others had done it; or did Scott only see a future in the same job at the same salary for the rest of his life? She couldn’t quite believe that. What on earth was Scott trying to do—depress her still more? Then she was angry with herself, angry with Scott, angry with Park Avenue.

  “Of course I don’t care,” he answered. Something was amusing him, now. He gave a short laugh and nodded towards the people who were out for their Sunday walk. “Look at them! A bunch of overdressed, overstuffed Park Avenue—”

  “Scott!” She tried to laugh, too, to take away the sharpness from her voice. Would it make Scott happier to see people poorly dressed and badly fed? “These people probably don’t live here any more than we do. See!” She pointed to a New Jersey car that was parking near a corner to let a family descend in all its Sunday finery. “That’s one of the things that I like about New York. When you meet people on the street, you can’t tell from the way they are dressed where most of them live or how much money they make. That New Jersey family, for instance...we’d have thought they were New Yorkers if we hadn’t seen their car’s licence plate. And I couldn’t tell whether the man owns a grocery store, or works in a delicatessen, or runs a bank, or sells bicycles, or is the best carpenter in Trenton. I couldn’t guess whether his family had lived in America for twenty or two hundred years.” Scott was too busy watching the traffic to reply.

  “I shouldn’t be surprised if the New Jersey family probably looked at us in this smart little car and made their guesses, too. If they disliked us for being the gilded rich, I’d be a little amused, wouldn’t you?”

  Scott said nothing, but waited patiently for the traffic light to turn green.

  Rona felt his silence. “Cheer up,” she said, her voice suddenly cold. “We do have a very handsome car even if we can’t afford an apartment to go with it.”

  The edge in her voice cut through his silence. “Rona!” he said sharply. Just like a woman, he thought, bringing up the subject of the new car sideways. He needed this car; it wasn’t an extravagance. They’d both enjoy it, didn’t she see that?

  “Scott,” she said sadly, “won’t you ever compromise? If you are so worried about money, why don’t you let me keep my job when we get married—just for a little time, anyway?”

  “I’m not the one who worries about money.”

  “You do. You hide the worry, and it twists inside you and makes you bitter and spoils everything. This is one time in our lives that shouldn’t be spoiled by anything.” She was almost in tears.

  “Nothing is being spoiled.” He was emphatic about it as if he were persuading himself that it was true.

  She stared at him. Didn’t he even guess the effect his constant criticism was having on her? At first, she had listened to him, thinking how clearly and honestly he saw everything; he wasn’t afraid to speak the truth as he saw it. But it seemed more and more, as if his idea of the truth was one sided. “I wish,” she said slowly, “I wish you’d stop generalising so harshly about everything. Why, sometimes I begin to think you’re a foreigner jumping to conclusions about America. Give it a chance, will you?”

  He looked at her. His voice softened. “You’re tired. Let’s have a drink, and then dinner, and then a Broadway movie. How’s that? Or perhaps there’s a show we could take in.” His voice was gentle, understanding. It was his way of apologising.

  She said nothing for a few moments. Then, “Yes, I suppose I’m tired,” she said. It was all or nothing with Scott, she thought. Either he cancelled Saturday night abruptly, leaving her to mope around the apartment, or he was filling up Sunday as packed as it would go. Then, at that thought, she was angry with herself again. She must be more tired than she actually felt. Suddenly, she noticed that they were almost at Fifty-ninth Street. “Why, we’ve passed my street!”

  “I’m taking you to a party,” he said. “That’s what we need to cheer ourselves up.”

  “But I’m not dressed for a party.”

  “You look wonderful just as you are. Thelma is having a big affair today. She’s been pestering me on the ’phone all week to bring you along.”

  “Thelma...the female with the grapes in her hair?”

  Scott laughed. “You women!” he said affectionately. “Is Thelma never going to live that down?”

  “But I don’t know her. I only met her once, when Murray brought her to our party.” And I don’t like Murray, either, she thought.

  “She’s a quaint old type. But I hear she always manages to gather quite a crowd of celebrities at her parties. It might be fun to go.”

  Rona watched him anxiously. “Will Murray be there?”

  “Everyone and anyone will be there. So I’ve heard, at least.”

  “Is Murray a friend of yours?”

  “Oh, I just know him, that’s all.”

  “Isn’t he a friend of Nicholas Orpen’s?”

  “Is he? Could be. I wouldn’t know. Well, here we are... A place to park, and all.” He drew the car neatly in to the curb.

  Rona, looking in amazement at the building before which they had stopped, was too startled to reply. So Thelma lived on Park Avenue. Why on earth had Scott attacked all its inhabitants so bitterly if he liked Thelma well enough to come to her party? She sat still. “I’m not really very keen on a party at this moment,” she said. “To tell you the truth, I—”

  “Darling, you look swell. You’ll be the smartest girl there
.”

  “It wasn’t that.”

  A disapproving doorman appeared beside the car. “You can’t park here,” he said. “We need a space for taxis.”

  Scott obeyed, but he was angry. He had to drive for almost a block before he found a place to leave the car. “There was plenty of room,” he said, looking over his shoulder at the doorman. “What the hell does he think he is?”

  A man doing his job, Rona thought wearily. And whether you approve of him, or not, depends on whether you’re parking a car or trying to find a taxi.

  “Come on, Rona.” Scott was waiting for her with a smile. He caught her hand, pressing it gently as he drew her out of the car. “Let’s have some fun.”

  She got out of the car. Scott, she suddenly realised, had been as tired and disappointed by their search as she herself. She left her hand in his, and they walked slowly toward the expansive blue and gold awning that sheltered the doorway to Thelma’s apartment house.

  “Where did you hear this talk about Murray and Orpen?” he asked. “Just more office gossip?”

  “Actually, it was at Peggy’s. Remember the night you got entangled with a French journalist and couldn’t come up to collect me, after all? There was quite a discussion going on, that night. I only heard the end of it—I was out of the room when it began. In fact, I was speaking to you on the telephone. I got back to the living-room in time to hear Orpen’s name linked with Murray’s.” She hesitated. Then she added, “You know that Orpen is a Communist, don’t you?”

  “He was one. But he’s had nothing to do with politics for years. I’m pretty sure of that.”

  “Scott, I’ve been worrying how to tell you, but—” She hesitated. Then she kept silent as they passed the doorman, now standing impassively in his blue uniform beside the large glass doors.

  “What, no pickets?” Scott asked him quietly. “There’s a strike on, isn’t there?”

  “This house settled,” the man said. He turned away, angry. I’m no scab, his stiff back told them.

  Scott gave Rona a reassuring smile. “Well, we don’t have to walk up, at least.” He led her into the entrance hall—a long stretch of marble floor and grey carpet. Windows facing an inner courtyard were draped with white satin splashed with large red roses. Red chairs, green couches stood like a guard of honour against the dark charcoal-grey walls. White and gilt sconces held diffused lights. An enormous bowl of waxed flowers stood on an ebony-black table.