“It does you credit, Barb,” he muttered.
He had her on his mind more than any other woman. How to reform her? She, meanwhile, spoiled by him, took no thought even for the afternoon. He would find her in her dressing jacket, discontented, because the dress she had set her mind on wearing was soiled. She did not bank any money nor get up a wardrobe to help her through hard times. He had to keep buying things for her: he bought her two or three fur coats, dresses, underwear, merely out of anxiety about the time when he should leave her. He thought, I must help her through the hard time she doesn’t foresee herself. She is a child, she is naïve. She doesn’t try to keep a man. Now look at me. What a sucker! When will she get a sucker like me again? But she doesn’t think about herself at all. Not like that pig Paulie, always on the make. You’ve got to say that for the blonde.
One day he saw her sitting with her naked back turned toward him and her thick long hair coiling over one shoulder. She turned to him. He saw the light on her skin, how fair it was. He thought of this all day and night and called her to himself “The Blondine.” Next day he found her lying on her side, all her fair skin exposed, her hair in its loop at the nape of the neck, her arm curved round the neck of a toy Angora cat she always had on her pillow and took to bed with her. She had once had a cat like that, deaf, she said, which slept all day and mewed all night. She preferred this one. The woman, the cat, the pillows, and the expanse of linen moved him. “The Blondine,” he said to himself, “how she is wasting herself.”
But as he had foreseen, he tired of her. All this took months. It was autumn. Miss Russell and the blonde sometimes quarreled, though usually friends, and both remained in the same relation to Grant. Mrs. Kent did not use her opportunities to meet richer men than Grant, though Miss Russell urged her to and gave her a very despicable account of Grant’s character. Mrs. Kent became surly, fretful, self-indulgent, and told Grant that he stood in her way. She seemed to be trying to lose him. Grant meanwhile had seen too much of her. He had pursued his usual habits, meeting other women every day and carrying on intrigues of all calibers with girls in the office, girls introduced by cronies, of living promiscuously and entirely for himself.
The woman seemed pleased to be left alone and this was no cure for her. He had long ago promised to marry her. Now he told her he never would marry anyone: “He had suffered too much from women; and he could see she would make him suffer.” She did not even try to rake up his promises. She told him she was tired of him. He raged and determined to stop paying her hotel expenses; but the next month when the bills came in from the most expensive stores in town, he paid, after his usual cautionary hesitation, and even sent her flowers when she telephoned him and explained in a sharp, cruel voice. He sometimes felt he could not get on without her and yet he hated her when he felt that she did not love him, was sucking him dry. “I’ll send her back to the street,” he said to himself. Meanwhile, he had arranged for the mother to come from Ireland to keep Barb company.
One Sunday after a quarrel, when he had found her in bed at three o’clock in the afternoon, he told her the affair was finished. She must pack up, find somewhere else to go. On this afternoon, he telephoned Mrs. Coppelius, the little dark woman, who had been the wife of a scapegrace physician somewhere out in the Middle West. Coppelius was not her real name. Her husband, a physician, a gay person, met too many women in his calling. She felt the disgrace, especially because she loved him deeply. Whenever any serious affair was going on, she came to New York, lived in a hall bedroom, and got a job as a salesgirl. When the affair was through, the physician would call her back. She had refused to see Grant for months, saying that he was only a man-about-town, that she would have been interested in him if he had been serious. She explained to Grant that she was “too passionate—she believed in love” and it was no use her getting into an affair with a man like him, “with a painted heart.” Grant, though he protested that he was only looking for a woman to fill his life, did not like this and left her alone. Once when he insisted strongly, she had had a cocktail with him and gone up to his apartment and had undressed. But she would only kiss him. She said, “I do it to show I am not ugly, and that it is only because you don’t love me, I don’t—.” He was indignant but puzzled by her act, and she remained in his mind as a very odd, attractive, almost girlish figure. Before she went, she explained, “I would fall in love with you, but to you I am only a woman you take upstairs.” His future troubled him a little. He wondered if she were like Laura, the great romance of his life. Laura was a Roman woman of good family and wealthy, who had left a rich, successful Milanese business man for Grant. Laura was his greatest trophy, had captivated him for years, turbulent, shallow, fickle, passionless as he was.
That Sunday evening he made up his accounts and found that the expense of the blonde for six months had been $23,000 more or less. “Too much, little Coppelius works honestly for a living, she’s Sea Island-staple, the other’s rotten.” He sat in his hotel some time, but did not ring Mrs. Coppelius.
He telephoned Martha Anderson, salesgirl in Goodwin’s fur loft. He assured her her stills were very good. He thought she might get an agent to promote her in Hollywood. She had a mother to support. Grant held out hopes of a loan, and the girl put on her hat and came to see him at once, in the White Bar. He told her she was a real beauty, would certainly make her way, and that he was interested in her career. What he wanted was a woman of character: he was tired of drunken pigs and lazy sows and women he had spent $23,000 on for six months of boredom. He told her about Laura, about Barbara, and about Miss Russell, “an adventuress,” and about his wife, “a sweet woman, an angel.”
“If I had a woman with ambition and looks—who wanted to go on the stage—I’d be proud and glad to help her and not even ask anything from her.” He repeated this, embellishing it. When he said he had to make a long-distance telephone call, she went upstairs with him, and he amused himself for a while. But though she was a handsome young woman, she was obedient and serious, and her smile was not seductive.
When she went he sat down quite desolate in front of his sun lamp and thought over his position. It was very difficult for him to think about himself. He could not think about his sexual life. This was repugnant to him. He thought, “I need a sensual woman. I can’t help it.” He tried to think about politics. He smelt a big change, big money, but he did not know from what quarter it was coming; he was afraid of the autumn, he did not like the looks of anything “in the political sphere,” as he liked to say, and yet he smelt money too. He would follow his instinct but he must have someone to listen to. Out of a flood of opinion he would pick the one that meant money, yet he felt that without guidance he would lose a lot of money.
He always tried to read best-sellers, especially about international politics, reportages, spy rings, books about Trotsky, whom he secretly admired because “he had stood out on his own,” but whom he felt obliged to criticize because of his few Stalinist friends; and books about Mussolini, though he was obliged to make bluff objections for the same reason…He sought vaguely for some life-plan and some political views. As he sat grousing to himself, a temptation came to him. He longed to speak to David Flack as in the old days.
Flack had understood and admired Grant’s youthful business energy. Grant then had only $30,000 and the meeting took place a few months before Grant seized the opportunity to make half a million dollars out of a certain agency that was given to him by an old English cotton firm which was too rich, too old, and too widely distributed—one of those mercantile empires which do not belong to the modern world…It was not then too late in the day for Grant to establish his own small dominion. He presently had relations in many countries, even in India and elsewhere. He did it on his own. He had no political or financial friends.
During this time, David Flack, a financial journalist, was his friend, gave him intelligent information on financial markets, and steered him through the welter of daily-paper politics. David Flack was a M
arxist. It became Grant’s fashion to call himself a Marxist too, but only among people with empty pockets and few chances.
Flack’s daughter, Edda, was a slender, sharp-tongued young brunette who naturally disliked Grant. She had drawn a caricature of him, showing his woman-hunting nose, and the thin yellow hair trained over his head. As he had often brought Edda a cake of scented soap or a bottle of toilet water, he called the whole thing “uncalled for, and unwomanly.” She was too sharp, she had no charm. She was seventeen and always was ready for a tussle. Flack himself had always been a yielding, loving person, though tough in the wits. Grant locked the caricature away in a drawer but took it with him wherever he went—he could not throw it away.
He felt his passionate genial manhood, his old experience welling up in him; he wanted to go and throw himself between them, as he had so often done, give them an idea of his exploits; but the caricature kept sticking in his throat.
He called up Mrs. Betty Goodwin and arranged to meet her the next afternoon. Betty and he were a seasoned couple by this. They thought nothing of their afternoons together, but would chatter about barroom personalities, mutual friends, and business affairs before, during, and after their encounters. Betty, on the telephone, gave him enough opinions on the events of the day to keep him going during the evening, but at night, he was restless. His brain was going to sleep; he was afraid he would miss a big hand. He could not see into the future, and he worried, as he had often worried lately, was he aging? If so, to hell with the world, he would have the wildest time he could before he collapsed altogether. Did he have ten years? Twenty?
The next day as he rushed through the corridors of the Cotton Exchange to the street, he thought he saw a familiar figure; but he rushed on, perverse, romantic as a lover. When he returned to Hanover Square, he found a note for himself from David Flack; it was David Flack he had seen. As soon as he got back to his hotel, he telephoned his old friend and a meeting was arranged for the same afternoon. Grant put off Mrs. Betty Goodwin.
Grant was overjoyed, his feelings overflowing at the coming meeting. “Falling out of faithful friends, renewing is of love.” He went to a Turkish bath, had a shampoo, manicure, and suntan and was perfumed all over. He put on a suit never worn before, and new shoes.
“She will see. Edda will see I am not the man she drew. She’ll be sorry she lost me, she’ll appreciate me more, see my good points, perhaps she gave him the good advice, Go back to Robbie,” he muttered to himself.
He rushed out to get some mixed cocktails and brandy and cakes for the event.
“She called me avaricious, she’ll see I’m generous.”
They arrived slightly before the hour, David Flack’s old way. David Flack and Robert Grant actually kissed each other and wept. Then they started walking about the room and declaiming about the market and the political situation, the likelihood of war, what Grant should do with his accounts, trust funds, and property abroad, and the new industries in Mexico and Brazil, all just as in the old days. Grant said, “You and I are going into this thoroughly, David. If war’s coming, I want to make a profit, that’s all. I’m too old to fight, all I can do is to make a profit, eh?”
Edda sat and grinned. He noticed her pretty legs and at once addressed himself to her.
He said boisterously, “I’ve changed. You know, it took me two-three months to get over that picture you did of me. But one day I said to myself, ‘Let’s be fair. Who is right, Edda or me?’ I looked in the mirror. Mirror, mirror, hanging on the wall”—he burst out laughing and hung on to the mantelpiece, gesticulating—“have I got shoulders like a prizefighter? Yes. Have I got a big nose? Well, not so big as she made out—but she was a girl, then. I said to myself, ‘Are you going to keep up a grudge your whole life against a girl, a schoolgirl?’”
The girl laughed out loud and said now she was used to men. She was a floater but wanted to be a journalist.
“A writer! A writer? I can give you material! You want to write reality! I can give you stuff—a best-seller. Just come here every day, any time you like, I’ll just give you my life. Make a writer’s fortune. In my office is a table, a typewriter, I’ll dictate to you. You write a book. I’ll give you all the details. Just take it down in shorthand.”
“But I’m working, Robbie: it’s paid work: I can’t afford to speculate.”
“My darling, I feel I’m floundering from day to day. I’m looking for an affair big enough for me, enough to engross me, take all my energy, all my heart—without absolutely committing me for the rest of my life, ha-ha! They’re all short-lived in my family. All got thick necks, red faces. My two brothers are dead. Listen, darling, trust to me. I’ll make your forchun. I’ll take you to winter resorts, we’ll go to Mont-Laurier, even Europe. Rich Americans are still everywhere in Europe: this is your passport! Ha-ha!” He slapped his pocket.
“There’s a war on. The Germans are sweeping through the Ukraine.”
Grant changed countenance, “If the Russians lose, it’s the Dark Ages. We’ll go and hide our heads somewhere, there’ll be nothing to live for.” There was a pause. Grant suddenly cried, “They’ve got to win. They use talent. They got new methods. They have the same idea as the Americans. Don’t ask who their father was: don’t ask if they wipe their nose on a handkerchief or throw it in the gutter; they got no handicaps, they take ’em from the farm, they take ’em from the factory, they take ’em from the schools, they take old men and teach ’em ABC, they’ll win, they have what the U.S.A. had. Now it’s Valley Forge. They’ll come out the other end. Trust me, I have a hunch. Let’s drink to them. Let’s drink to us!”
He rushed to the closet, brought out the drinks and the cakes, got the glasses, did everything himself, saying, “Just wait a moment: let’s drink to our reunion.” He overfilled her glass in excitement and ran to get a cleaning fluid and a clean towel for her dress. He got down on his knees, briskly rubbing away and murmuring words of consolation; then up with a snort, and to his drink, which he drank at a gulp. “You don’t know me, Edda. Now you know me better. In Canada they have women in Turkish baths and my woman told me my face looked forty-five, but my body thirty-five; a masseuse ought to know. My conscience is younger than that. I kept it young, virgin. Didn’t use it!” He burst out laughing, “I’ve reformed, Edda. Also, you didn’t know me. No good making fun of people. Got to see the good side. I’ve reformed. I had a girl this year, right here in this city, who appealed to me physically, but she was very selfish and I held off, for there was a deep attraction there; but I knew one day I would wake up and see her bad side. The blondine was honey, physically, but no character. I left her. I’m fifty, I thought this year, I’ve got to remake my life. My life’s a desert, I said, I’m looking for an oasis. My life was a well gone dry, eh? You see, I was looking for another Laura.”
His face shone, he shouted, “There she was at seven in the morning, sitting at the table per-r-fectly gr-r-roomed, and on the table everything sweet, nice to make it look appetizing. I said, ‘Look, Laura darling, you need your sleep, you’re not very big, and you don’t rest enough; you entertain too much.’ But she would get up in the morning for me, and she drove me to wor-rk in a powerful car, like the wind, like a racer, and she only weighed a few pounds. She kept the house wonderful, in the house everything perfect, a perfect lady. Why don’t you take a few notes?”
“If you think I can’t remember that—”
He filled up their glasses urgently, “And in the morning, in the morning my head is clear, I’m practical, I have no illusions, every morning I said to myself, ‘If there’s anything wrong, I’ll see it.’ But I said to her, ‘I’m going to pay you a compliment, it’s a great compliment, and if any other time, it happens that any other man says it to you, you’ll know it’s sincere and a great compliment, for a man can see in the morning. You look so sweet in the morning, Laura, I want to kiss your hand.’ And she took it as a great compliment.”
He sat down. “Always looking for another. I am
sorry, but I can’t go back. She caused me too much sorrow, gave me too much hurt. I plunged into another affair, headfirst, when I got away from her, but I didn’t like it, it was like this Paulie, woman you don’t know, but it was only to set up competition in my heart. Maybe I was outclassed; I don’t think so. Something else—the ’ooman’s not loyal—not Sea Island-staple. A woman must be loyal. Wholesome. Constructive. Not a destroyer, not a grave-digger morally. She, Laura, the Roman woman, broke down my morale. Told me I was only a roughneck, a business man. I said I never pretended to be aught else. I told her, ‘I relied upon you to build me up, you pulled me down and made me a laughing-stock.’ Well, I didn’t marry her—but she prevented me. Now, little girl, just to show you don’t know me—you called me—mr-mur-mur too, Mary, my wife, an angel, just to show you, I’m looking to get married; I’ll easily get papers because she has someone else too—only it’s funny, I don’t like that. I thought—at least she’s loyal, something the other cows haven’t. It broke me—morally.”
The young girl laughed bitterly, “Love affairs always break you morally.”
“Correct,” said the father admiringly.
“Don’t agree with you both at all, and as I happen to know something of your father, David, he is moral and he thinks I’m immoral.”
Her father gave Edda a tender warning glance, which Grant caught.
He said roguishly, “Yes, listen to me, David knows me; my great affairs have been Continental women, I don’t look for them, but they have been, and this time I’m looking for one too—I found one, beautiful, modest, she draws back—I’m a hothead, eh? She’s a physician’s wife. She loves him but he two-times her. A bad business. It disappointed her: she’s suspicious about men. I said, ‘Leave it to me to educate you.’ I said, ‘If you’re the right woman, life’s an empty well, if you fill it up—you can even fill it up with tears—you’re my woman. I’ll teach you about loyalty.’ I said to her, ‘I’ll buy you a lavaliere, you’ll find out about loyalty.’ She said, ‘Don’t buy me anything, I don’t want anything, that would spoil everything between us.’ Eh?”
A Little Tea, a Little Chat Page 5