The Incredible Charlie Carewe

by Mary Astor

  Virginia laughed. “Have another! It’s good to hear you talk.” She rose and stretched her long arms over her head. “Let me go and pry Jeff loose from that board for a while—I know he’ll want to see you. And let’s skip the subject of Charlie; I’m happy as can be about your news; maybe he’ll give Zoë fewer headaches now; but you know Jeff, he kind of dismisses Charlie as a hopeless louse!”

  Gregg watched the tall figure, tall even in the ballet flats she wore around the house, as she went across the hall to knock gently at the door of the studio. She looked so much like Charlie, they seemed cut from the same design, but it was as though Virginia were the model, the original work of the sculptor, and Charlie the empty, counterfeit reproduction.

  Charlie got his release from the Navy by the simple method of wetting the bed each morning before he got up. His months of “picking Larry’s brain” paid off, beautifully, as he had planned. He had studied the subject very carefully so that it never occurred to the examiners that his enuresis was malingering, as it was with some. His patriotism, his desire to be a part of the Navy, were obviously sincere. His co-operation, his intelligence, superior. His shame, his pleading for another chance, and finally his admission that deep down he was terrified, were impressive. He was given an honorable discharge on a disability, unspecified.

  At the office he carried a “let’s make the best of it” attitude, and people assured him that he was more valuable at home than on a battleship. He dodged any questions that were directly concerned with his discharge, by being slightly mysterious, by “not wanting to talk about it” and at the same time pressing his hand gently over the area of his left breast pocket. It could mean “my heart” or else simply that he was checking the fold of his handkerchief.

  There was only one real disappointment in the whole delightful coup to Charlie. Zoë was stubborn or stupid or lacking in appreciation, because she didn’t applaud his cleverness. Naturally he had told her; as his wife, he was sure she would enjoy the secret, delightful way he had put one over on the whole damn Navy.

  He waited for just the right moment, the intimate cozy time of pillow conversation. She had been saying how wonderful he was at hiding his disappointment, how proud she was that he hadn’t used his money and influence to get an armchair job in Washington. With his head pillowed on her shoulder, he let her go on thinking she was salving a wounded ego for having been rejected. As though anybody could reject old Charlie boy! Finally he could restrain himself no longer and when she said, “What on earth are you laughing at!” he gave her the detailed, day-by-day account of his brief hitch in the Navy.

  At first Zoë was too stunned to move and then the darkness of the room, the weight of his arm over her body, became unbearable. She got up and put on the light. Closing the windows against the chill of an early March wind, she shivered and drew on a soft red wool robe. Still in bed, Charlie was apparently unaware as yet of what she was feeling, for he was continuing, “I had soaked my handkerchief at the drinking fountain outside, and kept mopping my brow with it—which of course made it look like I was sweating, and the doe would take a quick look and then look away as though he hadn’t noticed, and all the time I was shaking like this—look, Zoë!” And he held out his long fingers moving in a fine tremor. “But of course, while I had all the symptoms down pat, I talked against them, you know—saying, ‘I’ll be all right—really—it’ll just take a few more days,’ and the exasperation angle: ‘I can’t imagine why I should be like this! I’m as stable and fit as any guy in the outfit’—hey, where you going, Zoë, wait a minute, I want to tell you——”

  Zoë had walked into the living room, turned on the switch that lighted the bar, and was pouring a stiff two ounces of brandy into an old-fashioned glass. “Do you want a drink?” she asked, her eyes on the bottle and the glass.

  Charlie was momentarily irritated at the interruption of his story. “At two in the morning? Hell no! Well, maybe, just a nip. You sure drink a lot, Zoë. You want to watch it a little.” He yawned and stretched like a contented cat. “Yes, sir! That was a good investment!” he said, and walked with his glass over to the bookshelves, where he studied the title of a thick volume.

  “What was?” asked Zoë, without expression.

  “What was what?”

  “What was a good investment?”

  “The fund—the fund for the great Dr. Payne!” He poked a finger at the book “This is great—boy, I learned a lot from this book. Payne thought it was too technical, thought I’d be bored. Ha! Don’t ever tell the poor guy, will you?” It was a statement of a foregone conclusion, rather than a question.

  “You know, it’s interesting.” He wandered back to the bar, swinging a long, pajama-clad leg over the brown leather stool. “You might say I’ve done a good turn for humanity, in exchange for a little, but very valuable, information.”

  Suddenly Zoë burst into tears.

  For a while he was too astonished to say anything. It was unusual for Zoë to cry about anything. She was just not the weepy type. There was a fleeting moment when he thought maybe the reason was that she was disappointed that he wouldn’t be wearing a uniform. Well, there was that, of course, but, as he said, “Good lord, Zoë, isn’t it more important to you that I don’t have to be killed, maybe?”

  “What about the man who takes your place, Charlie? Have you been able to think about him?”

  “Sure, maybe he’ll get a medal for bravery! That’s possible too, you know.”

  Zoë was looking at him in a strange way. It was a familiar look. It was a long-ago look—the O-faces of his playmates and sisters; it was more concealed in adults; he had encountered it often. Always it stopped him dead in his tracks, confused him, made him review what had just been said, trying to find a cue. Zoë now had the same look, and it gave him the familiar “itchiness,” making him a little angry. “What is the matter with you, anyway, Zoë! God, I thought you’d be so pleased—and that you’d say so. You’re looking at me as though I were a criminal.”

  “Well, aren’t you, Charlie?”

  “Now look.” He spoke patiently, as to a child. “There’s no penalty attached to this, if nobody knows about it. And I’m quite certain you’re not going to be the one to tell anybody.”

  “No, I guess not. I can live with it, I suppose. I’m just not very noble; but what I can’t understand is how you’ll be able to live with it.” She poured herself another drink, and this time didn’t sip it. “You know, my darling,” she smiled, “Santayana said, ‘Perhaps the true dignity of man is his ability to despise himself.’ If he is correct, then you are completely without a means to acquire dignity.”

  Charlie knitted his dark brows. “Honey, you’re getting swacked. Take it easy!”

  But Zoë went on. “I have a good chance of becoming enormously dignified. I’ve watched you and covered for you. Your little frauds and your big frauds. The way you are able to perform an act of real goodness, without giving it a second thought. You need me, Charles. You don’t have any idea how much you need me! You need me to sort out things for you, to emphasize and exploit the good acts, to explain away, or as now—to conceal the bad ones. You need me to keep your damned hide intact!” And she buried her head in her arms and wept, deeply.

  “Whew! I don’t know what’s got into you. Don’t you love me any more? You know how I worship you. I couldn’t bear it if you didn’t love me.”

  Zoë’s mouth became bitter, hard. “What’s love, Charlie dear? Answer me that, if you can. Is it having a romp in bed, introducing me as Mrs. Carewe, having a pretty woman like the latest model car for your very own? Would it be too corny to suggest that love is supposed to make us better human beings? I didn’t marry you blindly, I felt that you needed someone to believe in you. I’m sure you have no idea how many people think you’re just plain screwy!”

  Charlie’s listening face was quite blank. His eyes followed her separate movements, the gestures of her hands, the twisting of her mouth, the bareness of her forehead
from which she had pushed her hair, the skin so finely textured that it shone. He picked out a word here and there of what she was saying, but her whole attitude was incomprehensible to him.

  “Who for instance? Who thinks I’m screwy?”

  “Well, I do ‘for instance’—now. I think you’re a genius in reverse. I’ve known a lot of men, and I never met one who seemed to have more than his share of great qualifies, as you do. I was always proud of the fact that you seemed to be one jump ahead of the other fellow mentally, that your attractiveness was more than skin deep——”

  Charlie grinned, reaching across the bar to put his palm to her face. “Go on, tell me more, sweetheart, I love it!”

  Viciously she slapped his hand away. “You’re not listening to me!”

  “Hey!” laughed Charlie. “You play rough!”

  She covered her face with her hands, sobbing in the effort to down her climbing rage.

  Charlie patted her shoulder. “You know, sweetheart, you’re very beautiful when you’re mad? I must say, I don’t know what you’re so steamed about, but I like a gal with spirit. It’s exciting and fun!”

  “Fun!” she barked it out. “Would you think it exciting and ‘fun’ if a wife of one of those Navy men who were killed at Pearl Harbor got ‘steamed’ at what you’ve told me?”

  “What in hell has that got to do with us! Come on, honey, let’s have one more drink and then go to bed—you’re just making yourself sick about nothing.”

  Zoë was about to echo again, “Nothing!” but stopped in angry futility, and said instead, “Sure, let’s have a drink, my darling.” She was shocked at the sexual feeling that swept over her, gripping her in a shivering animal desire. Reaching over the bar, she grasped his head fiercely in her hands and crushed her mouth to his. Her hands slipped to the fabric of the collar of his pajama shirt, and she felt the desire to rip and tear, to destroy—and suddenly the emotion drained away as quickly as it had risen. She drew back instinctively, quickly, at Charlie’s unresponsiveness as, still with her hands behind his neck, he seemed to be looking at something over her shoulder. “You know we’re almost out of vermouth?” he said casually. “Unless there’s another bottle underneath—take a look, will you, dear?”

  Her laughter pealed to the rafters. Suddenly the space behind the bar was too confining, and she spun from the opening, kicking off her high-heeled sandals as she pirouetted swiftly to the big davenport angled from the long windows. Still laughing, she threw herself flat down upon it and twisted at the dials of the radio integrated into the end table. The music burst into the room, cutting off her hysteria like a slap in the face.

  Charlie had taken her place behind the bar and was breaking some ice cubes from the small refrigerator into a pair of clean tall glasses. “Looks like we’re going to make a night of it,” he exclaimed cheerfully. “Think I’d better make us a long one; don’t want you getting drunk on me.”

  The Andrews sisters chanted “My mamma done tol’ me . . .” and Laverne took it away alone for a bar high and clear, and Zoë joined them when they came to “bluuuuu-es—in the night!” softly, clearly.

  She took a long gulp of the drink which Charlie handed her, wrinkling her nose. “You know, it’s all that soda that gets you drunk.”

  “Feeling better, darling?” Charlie inquired, sitting down cross-legged on the soft dark blue rug in front of her.

  “I feel fine—I don’t know whether or not I’m drunk—yet. What do you think, Charlie darling heart?”

  “You’re just plain wonderful—utterly beautiful, utterly enchanting. There isn’t a woman in this world who can hold a candle to you!”

  Zoë smiled and, imitating him, reached a palm to his cheek “Go on, tell me more, sweetheart, I love it.”

  Grasping her hand, he kissed her fingers lightly. “You see, I’m a good boy, I don’t slap your hand away! You know, you really are a devil sometimes—and I love it. You’re no meek little brown bird, like Mavis. God, how I despise meek women.”

  Zoë came up for air from her drink. “Who’s Mavis?” she asked casually.

  “My wife,” said Charlie, tipping his own glass to his lips.

  “Funny, funny boy!” Zoë giggled.

  “I’m not kidding. Mavis Durand, her name was.”

  Zoë went along with the joke. Curling her legs under her, she settled herself like a child getting ready for a bedtime story. “Now, tell me all about her. Was she your childhood sweetheart? Was she on the list before or after Jane what’s-her-name?”

  “Ah, honey, I don’t want to talk about it, please. It was just one of those silly, sentimental, springtime and moonlight things.”

  “No, please, I want to hear about the little brown bird, please tell me a story about the little brown bird?”

  Charlie laughed. “Promise you’ll never tell?”

  “Cross my heart ’n’ hope to die!”

  “Well, I was on this hunting trip. Long before I met you, so I can tell you, I guess. You won’t act hurt now, will you?”

  “I promise!” said Zoë, and sealed her own destruction.

  The story in Charlie’s hands could not remain uncolored, and Mavis was much more beautiful, Mme. Durand a snooping witch, and Louis became a sinister threat to Mavis’ purity, which he, Charlie, had to protect. He became absorbed in recounting the trouble he went to, the secrecy involved. He needed no prompting from Zoë, who simply sat there, listening, suddenly quite sober.

  “I think the real reason she disappeared,” he was concluding, “was probably because the hundred dollars I put into her bag the day after we were married seemed like a damn fortune to her. Of course, she probably used some of it up in getting back home. If she went home.” He got up to mix a fresh drink, musing on the problem.

  Zoë found her voice. “How did you get a divorce if you didn’t know what became of her? She’d have to be served——”

  Charlie didn’t answer, busy at the bar.

  “Charlie?”

  “What, honey?”

  “When did you get your divorce?”

  Charlie waggled a finger at her. “Now you promised you wouldn’t act hurt, and you promised you wouldn’t tell.”

  Zoë smiled, ever so faintly, as the floor became nothing under her feet. She felt suspended in a clear dry atmosphere, devoid of feeling. She patted her hands together in a light applause.

  “You are right, my darling Charlie’s always right. I won’t ‘act hurt’ and I won’t tell. You never did get a divorce, did you?”

  “Nope. It seemed foolish to stir up a lot of trouble, when——hey! Don’t pass out on me!” And he strode over to where Zoë had fallen in a small red woolen heap onto the dark blue floor.

  Zoë awakened with what she acknowledged to herself as a crashing hangover. She peered at the clock in the dimness of the room but to make out whether it was ten past ten or ten to two was too difficult. The bed was empty beside her. She was thirsty, and there was a throbbing, hissing sound in her ears. She fumbled for the push button on the bed table. When Myra entered, she had already dozed back to sleep. Startled, she opened her eyes quickly, and as quickly shut them again. “Myra?”

  “Yes, madam, can I get you something?”

  “Yes, Myra—everything, and nothing.”

  The girl waited. “Start with coffee, please. And while I’m in the shower straighten up and air the room.”

  “Yes, madam—like I always do?”

  “With a difference, Myra dear. Don’t let me see you doing it. I couldn’t bear to watch someone bustling about.”

  She took a long shower, without attempting to find the soap or the back brush or the face cloth; just standing there, she let the water pour over her, spreading and diffusing the various localized discomforts. As she toweled herself, she muttered, “Muddle through, old girl. One thing at a time. Headache first. Stomach next, and then we’ll see what else is the trouble.” From the medicine cabinet she found and mixed a Bromo, gulping its salty bubbles. She was about t
o slip on another nightgown and get back into bed, but the sense of something-that-had-to-be-done made her feel that the bed would not be comfortable. Instead she put on a robe, and winced at the rush of blood to her head as she leaned over to pull on a pair of silver sandals.

  “Myra?” she said as she went back into the bedroom.

  Myra was smoothing the covers, the light in the room seemed dazzling, even though the day was overcast.

  Zoë cleared her throat, and tried again. “Myra.” Still it was only just above a whisper.

  “Yes, ma’am?”

  “Myra, I feel just—horrible. I seemed to have got caught drunk last night.”

  “Well, you’ve been under a strain, Mrs. Carewe,” said the woman kindly. “I guess the news that Mr. Carewe won’t have to leave you was—well, a relief, in a way—you might say.”

  There was something that wanted to get through to her consciousness, something that she didn’t want to recognize, not just yet. Whatever it was, her heart knew about it, because it started thudding. Whatever it was, her hands knew it, because they started trembling violently. “Not yet, not yet!” she said to them. “Just give me a minute.”

  “Myra—what time did Mr. Carewe leave?”

  “About an hour ago, madam. And some flowers came——”

  “I hate to disrupt your schedule, Myra, especially when I’m such a tyrant about it, but I don’t think I could bear the sound of a vacuum cleaner this morning. I don’t want to go back to bed. I don’t want to receive any phone calls, and I want only the minimum of food. Do you think you could adapt yourself to all that?” The effort left her breathless.

  “Of course, Miz Carewe, now don’ you fret.” Myra’s refinement of speech escaped her occasionally. She was very proud of being “nearly white,” but occasionally, when she wasn’t speaking “officially,” her voice grew richer and she slipped into the softness of the speech of her background.