“I suppose she wants to see the boy.”
“Would Doctor Donne permit that?”
“I don’t know, Lois. I have no idea what kind of a man he is.”
“We did a little checking. We know he’s a very successful man. Very. Put it this way. If there was some sort of nose and throat trouble in the royal family and they called in some people for consultation, he would be one of them.”
“Fashionable, eh?”
“As well as very good. And being very good is the best fashion of all, I guess.”
“How will his wife react, I wonder.”
“She died several years ago.”
Jason Brown was startled. “Really! Maybe Jenny wants them both.”
“Or thinks she does.”
A twist of the wind slapped rain against the windows, startling them. She got up and took his glass and fixed him a fresh drink and brought it to him. She went back to the chair with her drink, sat and crossed her long legs, smiled at him with a slight stain of wistfulness. “Even though George works me like a dog, I was really happy about this tour. I don’t know. I guess I’ve been going a little stale or something. But it isn’t the way I thought it would be.”
“Things will work out.”
“That’s so easy to say.”
“Dialogue,” he said.
“I beg your pardon?”
He smiled. “Excuse me. It slipped out. The artificiality of the breed. The writer has to watch it. He’s one step removed from life. So, instead of speaking he finds himself opening his mouth and making bad dialogue, without communication. I even find myself doing it with my daughter. Daddy-Bonny talk, for bad television. So I guess everybody goes stale in his own fashion.”
“You’re married now?”
“No. I was. My wife died when Bonny was almost a year old. We live with my married sister in Santa Barbara.”
She scowled at her drink. “I guess I’m using Jenny as an excuse, really. The thing about staleness, you take it with you. You suddenly find out you’ve brought it to London. I don’t know what it is, really. I run around madly doing a thousand things, and then I have the feeling I’ve done nothing at all.” She looked at him and her gray eyes were very frowning and intent.
“Life is the process of being used, of being satisfyingly used,” he said.
Her eyes changed. She looked pale and uncertain. “Are you … used that way?” she said in a voice so low it was almost a whisper.
“Once in a rare while in my work. Too seldom. Often with Bonny. Otherwise, no.”
She looked away and there was a flavor of strain and awkwardness in the room. “Well,” he said too heartily. “Thank you for delicious Scotch and a place out of the rain, but I better be heading back.”
She stood up also, smiling politely, saying, “Thanks for telling me about how it must have been for her. I understand now.”
They went to the door and he turned toward her. They both started to speak at once, and both stopped. They smiled at each other, and suddenly her smile was crooked and uncertain. Asking himself what the hell he thought he was doing, he reached clumsily at Lois Marney and pulled her into his arms. He kissed her. She felt bulky and resistant in his arms. Her lips were firm and still. He felt that he had blundered into an impossible situation. Then suddenly her arms slid quite shyly around his waist, her mouth turned warm, soft and responsive, he heard her deep shuddering breath, and through some miracle of compliance her body was suddenly smaller, closer, more pliant and useful. He kissed her and held her for a few moments, and let her go at her first stirring toward release. She backed away and looked at him somberly and he was astonished to see her eyes were full of tears.
“A rainy night in London town or something,” he said.
“Please don’t get all humble and apologetic, Jason. I think I asked for it.”
“Then it was a splendid idea.”
“Was it? I don’t know. I don’t know how vulnerable I am any more. I don’t know what I want. But I think I know what did it.”
“Do you?”
“What we were talking about, directly and indirectly, was loneliness. And I think we made each other aware of our own loneliness.”
“But don’t cry about it.”
She smiled. “I feel sorry for myself on rainy nights. Go home, Jason.”
“At the moment, it’s an unpleasant suggestion. But valid. If I tried to stay, if you let me stay, I’d talk it to death. It’s one of my specialities.”
She raised a mocking brow. “Dialogue?”
“Exactly. Good night, Lois.”
“Good night, dear Jason.” He turned and opened the door. “Jason?” she came to him, put her hands on his cheeks, kissed his mouth with precision, emphasis and a brief and startling hint of passion. “If we ever find another rainy night,” she said, “we’ll have to find some way to muzzle you.” She pushed him gently and firmly into the corridor and closed the door.
Jason Brown stood mildly in the corridor, shaking his head. He put on his topcoat as he walked to the elevators. He put his shapeless hat on the back of his head. He fumbled for his pipe and hummed a tuneless tune.
The rain had slowed to a gentle drizzle, and he walked to the Dorchester. Twenty after two on a Monday morning in London. Though he seldom felt attuned to his environment, at this time he felt particularly unreal. Jenny Bowman had run through his life once before, like an unattended bulldozer, and when the dust had settled, he was married to Joyce. There I was, he thought, in the room Betty fixed over for me, sweating out the novel, fretting about the anemic bank account, wondering how soon I would have to phone Sandy and needle him to get me a television script, just for walking-around money. And then the past, in the form of Jenny Bowman, reaches out and snags me, yanks me across one continent, drops me on another, and has me kissing a splendidly structured and sturdy blonde secretary the first time I ever see her.
As he prepared for bed, he wondered if Jenny Bowman would ever know, could ever know the inadvertent disruptions she had caused in a thousand lives. The elemental force and persuasion of talent. He turned off the bed light and thought of Jenny Bowman. The eyes wide set, deeply brown, expressive, constantly changing, and all the breadth of the face across the eyes, tapering to the hearty yet vulnerable mouth, and the small and incurably wistful chin.
(They had come in out of the Acapulco sun, and he had been stretched out on the bed reading a script she had brought along, something they wanted her to do, and he had looked up and seen her measuring her waist with a tape measure and asked her exactly what she thought she was doing. She had come to the foot of the bed, looking puzzled and amused. “Brownie, when I am miserable, I get fat. And when I’m happy I get fat. But how in heck does a girl stay halfway between?” He had suggested that if she was getting too smug, he could beat her once in a while. She could put it in her appointment book and remind him.)
But as he neared sleep, his mind veered to Lois Marney, and he was surprised to find he had so many particularly vivid memories of her. Without realizing he was doing it, he had apparently filed away every tilt of her smooth blonde head, every flicker of expression, every pleasant stretch and curve of the gray wool fabric of her severe suit. “Old goat,” he murmured, and went contentedly to sleep.
four
Jason Brown’s room phone rang at five minutes after nine, and he found it and mumbled into it before he had the slightest idea of where he was, and only a fragmentary notion of who he was.
“You sound like a faulty drain, pal,” George Kogan said. “Rise and glow, Jase. She rooted me out, and now she wants you.”
“Jenny?”
“Jenny Bowman herself.”
“Not the Jenny I remember. Not at this hour.”
“Today would seem to be one of those days. She is full of hectic enthusiasm, and she will not talk to anybody except her old buddy Brownie. The show is on the road, so crank yourself up and come over.”
Ida opened the door of the suite. She tapped
herself on the temple and gestured over her shoulder with her thumb. “In there.”
Jenny was propped up in a big bed wearing a quilted yellow robe, a breakfast table across her lap. “Good morning! It’s a lovely day. Shut the door, Brownie darling.” He shut the door. She held her arms out. He went over to kiss her. There was a toast crumb on her lip. He picked up her napkin and brushed it away and kissed her.
“Always fastidious,” she said. “God, it’s good to see you! Pull that chair close, sweetie. I ordered up a spare cup for you, and there’s oceans of coffee.”
The instant she handed him the cup her mood changed. Her mouth trembled. “Brownie, I have to talk to you. There’s nobody else.”
“Just George and Ida.”
“Their minds are made up. No matter what I said, they’d still be convinced I’m being an idiot. I guess there is room for doubt. I don’t know. Brownie, I trust you. I want you to tell me honestly if I’m being a fool.”
“Or do you want me to confirm something you’ve already decided?”
“Maybe you know too much about me, too. But you will listen? You will tell me what you really think?”
“You know I will.”
“I’m so lucky they put you on this script thing. I suppose because we’re friends, they did that. Terrible coffee, isn’t it? Brownie, I’ve got to tell you all about last night. From the beginning.”
Her mind, conditioned by all the memorizing of parts and lyrics over the years, rebuilt the conversations for him. And her actress talent duplicated the way they were said.
Tom had driven her to the Wimpole Street address, a small stone building with a look of dignity. There were lights on the second floor. She had told Tom not to wait. He had seemed a little upset. She told him she would take a taxi.
“The lights came on and a Miss Plimpton answered the bell. A nurse-secretary sort of person. Quite pretty. Young and sort of pale and quite bosomy and veddy veddy correct. She said that Mr. Donne was expecting me. That was something I didn’t know. When you’re a surgeon, you’re Mister instead of Doctor. She led me back through a foyer and a reception hall and up a curvy staircase. I got part way up and I saw David up there, standing by the railing in the shadows. It’s almost fourteen years, Brownie. A long time. It has to be awkward, I suppose. And I guess it was more awkward because I was forcing myself upon him. He was a handsome young man, Brownie. And now he is a very distinguished-looking man. His features are stronger. He looks fit. Going gray at the temples and over the ears. And, of course, that damned British control. I think they take their men out someplace at age thirty and pump their faces full of cement.”
She had looked up at him and said, “David …?”
“How are you, Jenny?”
“Is this terribly inconvenient?”
“I don’t think so. Come on up.”
She went up and David took her coat and handed it to Miss Plimpton who carried it along the upper corridor and into the consulting room. Behind David Jenny saw a door partially open and beyond it a fire in a hearth, comfortable chairs. Jenny moved toward it and said, “Through here?”
David had effortlessly politely blocked her way. “That’s for social calls. You did want to see me professionally, did you now?”
“Yes, doctor. A business call.”
“Then we go this way, please.” He led the way to the consulting room, where Miss Plimpton stood by the examination chair, under the cold bright medical lighting. He led Jenny over to his desk, seated her, took out a card. “Now if you will tell me what is wrong.” He looked poised, sympathetic and absolutely neutral.
“I suppose you were surprised to hear from me.”
“A little,” he said, and made a notation on the card. “You sang this evening. Charity concert, wasn’t it? How did it go?”
“Ghastly.”
“Of course. That means you were good.”
“No. It’s true. My throat was raw. I couldn’t produce anything. I couldn’t swallow.” She glanced at Miss Plimpton. “Am I keeping your nurse?”
“No. She works here.”
“But this is really awfully late for her, isn’t it?”
“Please tell me the rest of your symptoms. It’s rather late for all of us, I suspect.”
“I … I suddenly felt scared I was losing my voice, David.”
“When did that fear start?”
“When? Oh … since I got to England. And don’t tell me it’s the climate. I thrive on this kind of climate.”
“This is something which has happened previously?”
“Years ago.”
“In Europe?”
“In New York. And my voice did go. And a young English doctor who just happened to be studying there at the time cured me.”
David stopped writing and studied her for a long expressionless moment. “I believe we should have a look. Would you come this way, please?”
She sat in the examination chair. He put on the reflector mirror and picked up the speculum. “How are your sinuses?”
“I guess you’ll have to tell me.”
He tilted her head back gently, dilated her nostrils in turn with the instrument, examined her. “Any colds recently? Hoarseness?”
“No.”
“You used to have colds frequently as I recall.”
“I take vitamins.”
He handed the speculum to Miss Plimpton and she gave him a tongue depressor.
“Open your mouth widely, please.”
“You’ve gotten gray, David.”
“I’m an old man. Open your mouth.” He inspected her throat, made her say ah. “Now,” he said, “we shall have a look at the larynx.” Miss Plimpton had warmed the laryngeal mirror over a spirit lamp and tested it on her wrist before handing it to David. “You remember the proced …”
“I can remember it without liking it. Stick out my tongue, concentrate on breathing quietly in and out through my mouth, and you hold my tongue with that nasty piece of gauze. Yes indeed, I remember I shall relax, David dear, and think of something pleasant.”
When he had finished and put the mirror aside, she said, “Would you like to know what I was thinking about?”
He walked around behind her and began gently fingering the glands and muscles of her neck and throat. “Tell me if you feel any pain.”
“I was thinking of Atlantic City. Do you ever think of Atlantic City? Would you call it a pleasant thought, David?”
“Perhaps. Does this give you any pain?”
“N-No.”
“Swallow, please. Thank you.” He walked around in front of her.
“Am I going to lose my voice?”
“What do you think, Jenny?”
“There’s nothing wrong with me?”
He took off the reflector and handed it to Miss Plimpton. He went to the desk. Jenny followed him. He took out a prescription form.
“Your throat is a bit red, the membranes slightly roughened. After all, you have been singing. And you smoke too much. When do you open your regular stint here?”
“In five days.”
“I shall give you something to ease that minor irritation, Jenny. And if you have five days, I strongly urge you to take off three of them. Rest, sleep, relaxation.”
“Where can I buy that?”
“And I would like to have you gargle with this morning and evening.”
She sauntered over to the sliding doors which she suspected must open into the fireplace room she had seen before. “Couldn’t you prescribe an immediate drink?”
He looked up quickly and smiled, stood up and put the prescription slip in his jacket pocket. “You were determined to go in there, weren’t you? Very well.” He slid the door open. “Come along, if you must.”
They went into the small living room. David went to the bar cabinet. Jenny went to look into the mirror over the fireplace mantel to touch her hair, freshen her lipstick.
“Still Scotch, I suppose?”
“With a little water, please.” G
lancing at him in the mirror she saw him move to screen with his body the quick motion with which he turned a picture face down. He brought her drink to her and she turned and accepted it, smiling.
“No ice, I’m afraid. Please be comfortable, Jenny.” He indicated a chair. He went to the sliding doors and closed them as Jenny sat.
“You have changed, David.”
“Wouldn’t it be rather alarming if I hadn’t?” he said and came smiling toward her and took the chair opposite hers. He lifted his drink. “Salud!”
“David, you’ve become so … so guarded. No. That’s not quite the right word. Careful?”
She thought he looked slightly dismayed. “Have I? Perhaps. Care comes, I imagine. It comes. Possibly the more we acquire in this world the more careful we become … trying to hold to it.”
“I heard about Janet’s death. I do have her name right?”
“Janet, yes. I read about your marriage.”
“Which one? Not that it makes any difference. Neither of them were worth … the time it took to read about them. I should have married you. It would have worked, you know. It really would have worked.”
He looked at her somberly and shook his head. “You’re wrong, Jenny.”
“You seem so sure of that, don’t you?”
“It is better as it is.”
She stood up quickly and began to wander restlessly around the room, agitated but trying to control herself. “Very cozy here, David. Nice and sort of worn and calm and safe. Who keeps it up for you?” He did not answer. She picked up a small recorder from a table, replaced it, turned and smiled at him, “Don’t tell me you’ve given up your study of the harmonica!”
“Completely. Too many complaints. Do you still knit?”
“Rarely.” They looked at each other, both smiling, caught in old memories. She said with a trace of wistfulness, “We must have had fun. I remember it that way, at least. Did we have fun, really? Please tell me.”
“Yes.”
“See? I can twist your arm. Obviously, I’ve come here just to rake up old ashes. Looking for an ember, maybe.”
“Why did you come, Jenny?”
“The truth? Maybe I just didn’t want to be alone my first night in a strange city.”
I Could Go on Singing Page 5