A Little Tea, a Little Chat

by Christina Stead

  One night he and Flack were sitting in the gray Ford, some six hundred yards from the blonde’s hotel, talking about the no-strike pledge of the unions, both declaring vivaciously that “labor should never give up its rights.”

  “I was a poor boy myself and I know labor had to fight for every right, however small.”

  “It would be different if there was a Second Front, if there was any possibility of their really helping the Soviet Union,” said Flack.

  Grant trod on his foot. He believed this, but it embarrassed him when Flack said it in the uptown district.

  “You’re only a messenger of fate, a forerunner. After the war, Mr. Bentwink here won’t spit on you, he’ll have lots of work if he doesn’t want to retire,” caroled Flack.

  Bentwink laughed. Grant moved forward suddenly, nudged Flack, trod on his foot. He frowned, “Bentwink, do you want a cup of coffee?”

  It was getting dark. The two men were away only three or four minutes, but when they returned, Flack was waving excitedly from the car, and saying, “Jump in!”

  The blonde and her mother had just left the hotel. First he had observed the doorman looking down the street. Next he saw the blonde and her mother, heads ducked into shoulders, shoulders up and veils down, trotting to the opposite corner. They had hailed a cruising taxi and all one could see of it now was the tail-light where it waited at the intersection for the lights to change.

  The detective put out his cigarette, and they went in pursuit of the taxi, which was held up in Fifth Avenue by a light. They followed through a number of quiet streets and saw the women in the car turn and observe them. The taxi put on speed, so did the following car. The taxi drew up suddenly at the marquee of a restaurant-bar called by its street number. The two ladies got out and entered the bar. The Ford drew up immediately after and Grant went in after them, telling the men to wait. After some time, Grant came round the corner of the street, grinning a bit, disappointed.

  “I paid the dragon in the ladies’ room—no soap. They went out another entrance.”

  “Is there one?”

  “Yes. I’ve used it myself. I taught it to her!”

  He burst out laughing. The detective stayed near the bar; Flack and Grant went to dinner where they milled over the old subjects: markets, war, the U.S.S.R’s chances of survival, the blondine.

  “I’m not getting anywhere.”

  “Why isn’t this famous spy on trial?” asked Flack.

  Grant muttered, “That boy March—think he’s taking pleasure in my pain, you know, bit of a sadist—started to ring me up every day about how they’re catching spies, said had I seen this and that. I didn’t read the blame things. I asked him if there was any danger—after all, I saw my own name on that paper—and he said, not yet awhile. They’re letting her think she got away with it. She’s too big. She’s the key to hundreds of little cockroach spies.”

  “For better or for worse, then, the Government’s leaving her her freedom?”

  Grant smiled broadly, “Yes, she may get away with it. Hope she does, hope she does. Can’t believe she’s really guilty. I saw her poor. I picked her out of the gutter. But what about my file? I’d like to see it. March says Carter’s annoyed and feels I’ve overstepped the mark—couldn’t believe it of a guy like that, in that position you’d think he’d do it for the safety of the State, eh?—and now he wants three thousand dollars for a sample of my file—to show good faith. Ha-ha! Three thousand dollars is without good faith. You don’t need good faith. Show’s he’s a do-gooder, eh? Money and faith. Starry-eyed. Never asked for money and good faith in my life. Why? You put in one or the other. You don’t invest both. Shows March is a pushover for professors. Wouldn’t think it of him? Them Pantalona and O’Sullivan! Anyhow, wants three thousand dollars for a sample of my file.”

  Flack laughed, “A sibyl! The more you pay, the less you hear.”

  “I’d like to see it!”

  “Why? What do you think they have on you? You telephoned the blonde?”

  “Don’t put me off, this is serious.”

  “Unless you’ve been in some monkey business.”

  “Don’t let me hear any more of it.” He frowned and stalked along.

  He continued to pay “the expenses of the investigation” to March and from day to day received messages which summed up much as follows:

  That Mrs. Barbara Kent was the mistress of one James “Alexis,” Boer-Dutch, not her father, who was suspected of being a fascist agent, working for Spain, Germany, Italy, and Japan, one or all of them;

  That Paula Russell had quarreled with her because of “Alexis”;

  That Barbara often went to visit an old woman who ran a boarding house, on upper Lexington Avenue, the old woman, Sudeten German;

  That “Alexis,” just like Grant, pretended to be a “pink” and went round radical society seducing leftist women; and at the same time had a string of other women.

  By July or August it turned out that Grant had spent over $5,000, sent in bills or in checks to March, and that he was now authorizing March to make inquiries in the Argentine, Cuba, and Mexico, where, March declared, she and Alexis were known to have gone during her uninformative absences.

  March had business to attend to in Canada, a gold and asbestos mine which he intended to look into and in which, if the reports were favorable, it was already agreed Grant would be his partner. March had friends in all official circles in Canada, he said, and would inquire about James Alexis and the blonde while there. He had been tipped off by his Washington friends that the blonde might be wanted for smuggling: smuggling what? Say furs and currency across the Canadian border: wasn’t that enough for the Honeybear? And who, said March, was Hilbertson? Another of the Honeybears?

  Grant had become singularly gloomy and declared to March, Hoag, Flack and the boys assembled, “I’ll go no farther; she’s too hot to touch.”

  “Then we’ll call it a day?” said March in his slow way. Grant became troubled at this question, and after a while said, “I’m in too deep. Go and see what they know. Alexis, I’ve met him; but Hilbertson, who is he? But as for the blonde, I’ll swear she’s innocent. But what kind of a gang has she got in with? I know her, I’ll swear she’s too lazy. But what worries me are these names, names I don’t know, they’ve got mixed in. It’s worrying, very worrying. I like this ’ooman, you see. I’ll swear she’s innocent.”

  March, who was going to Canada for a month, offered to see Grant’s friends to solve this mystery; and Grant gave him several private addresses.

  14

  In all this time, Grant had been haunted by living memories of the blondine. Morning and evening, when he shut his eyes, he virtually saw her and regretted his life with her. He was as busy as usual with his lot of little parasites. He saw as many petty harlots and “side-dishes” and “pay-girls,” but the idea that he was getting old and would not have another great passion worried him. He expressed this to no one yet. He could never sit long in one place for fear of this and other disagreeable notions flocking round him. He rang up people all day long, made useless appointments which disgusted him further, and often got tipsy, a thing he had never done. One of his pleasures, when he had an empty hour in the afternoon, had now become to sit in the gray Ford with Bentwink, the detective, with the vague hope that the blondine might dart out of her hotel, thus giving him the amusement of a short, fruitless chase. As he sat, he ruminated over his affairs: they were not encouraging. One afternoon he had in his pocket a letter from Celia Grimm, about Mrs. Jenny Woods, the Negro wife. It asked him,

  What have you done to Jenny? I don’t know what will happen to her. She wants to leave her husband. She believes something you told her about people being equal in love. She thinks you mean it, I know. Do write to her at least telling her you are not serious. You don’t want to be responsible for a tragedy, Robbie. If you don’t do anything for Jenny, I shall think you about the worst man I ever met. I know you came into a world you didn’t understand and i
t seems easy for you to cut a big figure; but why don’t you think of the consequences of what you do? She thinks you are going to take her to some house in Canada, she says it is all ready for her and you. I know this is pure fantasy. But you must not play with people this way. Something will happen to you some day, Robbie. It can’t go on this way, you taking people’s lives for a joke. I don’t understand how you got away with it this long. However that may be, I want you to do something about Jenny—but what, I don’t know. She thinks you love her and want to go away with her.

  He was considerably depressed in the afternoon of this day, by the memory of Celia’s letter. He was born for love, he could not help playing the game. He would have nothing to live for, all told, if he had not that. It was by no means his first insult.

  He threshed about in his heart, trying to avoid, by feinting, these blows from friends and blood-relatives. Though he received many bitter, insulting letters from disappointed friends and hangers-on and mistresses, stupid attempts at blackmail, requests for money with contemptible promises to repay when the work was coming in, complaints, and even beastly language, which he never admitted, showed, nor acknowledged (though he always kept them as if they were some sort of magic), he writhed when the stinging phrases came back. He despised the writers, for only impotence spoke thus. The angry should act; the wronged should try to ruin him.

  He went on preying now, as all his life, upon most of his connections. And he could not help it, it was his nature, they uncovered their weaknesses to him, it was too tempting; and it was his nature to put his hand into the pockets of others, to take up a spoiled business and try to make a profit out of it. He even misled many people, on the off chance, out of instinct. He did it even to keep his hand in when he expected no profit. He loved his game of life. He could “never resist temptation.”

  He thought thus to himself, gaily, but this was not his consistent nature. He defended his vice, but was unhappy for it to come to light, either to others or in his own sight. In the morning Flack had hurt him by saying, “In 1934 I made six thousand dollars for you on my signature; I paid you every cent although Hugo March told me I was a fool to do so: I got nothing out of that for myself. You know it too. Ever since, you have been calculating, and when your out-of-pockets to me and Edda nearly reach the three thousand dollars, no matter what I do for you as a general factotum, you will find some reason for getting rid of me. That is, if I don’t make you another six thousand dollars. But I hate money. You can’t help yourself, Robbie, I know you. This is not an indictment, this is a statement of fact.” It was true about the $6,000 and the $3,000. Grant naturally made such calculations every day of his life. This was his proper life as a merchant. It was unmannerly to say it or make it a moral charge. He felt a slight dislike of Flack. He saw now where Edda got that hard part of her nature which had made her describe him, she a young girl, he a man to dazzle such a tough splinter of virgin, as “avaricious, long-nosed, thin-haired, with a sniffing belly.” The pair became quite repugnant to him, for the moment.

  He rang up Alfred Goodwin and Betty, went over to their flat for cocktails. There he told them all Bentwink had told him yesterday, but became restless under their advice. Alfred was in one of his flamboyant moods, promising to do everything and detailing amazing, improbable acquaintances of his, this “top name” and that “Winchellite”; best-sellers, Senators, millionaires, gossip-columnists. He kept saying, “Anything you want done, I’m your man, I’m Alfred Fix-it. I can pull strings everywhere. Bring it to me. I’ll trail your blondine into the mouth of hell and back, if you want—” He became worse as he got more money in the black market. When Grant objected to obscenity, the dreadful Goodwin shouted that Grant must be “an invert, retarded sexually, lacking something” and did not stop there.

  There was such a noise and it was so shameful that Grant could not make a date with Betty, and faced an empty evening. He went alone to one of the restaurants where Miss Russell and Mrs. Kent still had credit, on his account. He sat down in a corner eying the door, canvasing the women, hoping for a pick-up. He continued gloomy. In two days it would be Saturday, when he expected his son Gilbert from camp. He was obliged to keep on good terms with Flack and daughter, because Grant found the young man insupportable, although he did his best for him while he was in town. Gilbert was what Flack called “a cold-blooded Hotspur” who was rationally intolerant, genially censorious, originally tedious. He “saw no reason why he should not speak his mind,” a genuine puritan. Flack and Gilbert were of an equal purity of life, Edda and Gilbert equally difficult to get along with. After dinner, Grant took two brandies.

  The restaurant was small, long, and narrow, with numerous small rooms, once bedrooms or even closets, turned into dining space. Grant had been badly placed by the owner, Pierre, although they were old acquaintances, because Grant and he had had some small financial misunderstandings. Grant had lent Pierre some money to start the place and had begun to take it out in trade. This was one of the reasons that the blondine and her friend had an account there. Grant and his friends had long ago taken it out in trade, but Grant still fought for a discount. Likewise, the bills for the blondine and other of Grant’s free-living female friends were overdue. One of Grant’s principles was to dispute every bill. He explained it thus, “If they’re wrong, they’ll correct it. In the first place. They won’t overcharge me because they won’t want a battle. In the third place, if someone makes a mistake it won’t be Robbie.”

  “They put it on so you can have the satisfaction of taking it off,” said Flack, making indelicate comparisons.

  Grant only looked the keener at his bills and fought the harder, employing Flack many odd hours, Sundays, evenings ostensibly set aside for conversation, and lunchtimes, to prepare the figures.

  Grant had noticed, over his shoulder, for some time, two women no longer quite young, on the dais, next to the restaurant window. The window was draped with lace and red velvet, according to Grant’s own suggestion. One of the women wore an extraordinary red hat, with six sides, five small sides in front and a long base at the back. The crown was peaked, carried a variety of flowers and a veil. Grant noticed it because somehow he was reminded of the blondine. More, he was irritated by the woman’s lack of taste. He had an odd impulse to improve the woman, buy her a more becoming hat. He turned his chair so that he could see “the woman with the hat.” For a second, a strange, flat face with cat-eyes and pointed cat-lips floated before his eyes; then he saw it was Mrs. Kent. She was sitting on an upholstered bench and had sunk low into it. Her hat covered all her hair, except for the front of the parting. She looked haggard, and was rouged too much. The women were not speaking to each other but simply ate, as if they were at home, “in the kitchen, too,” thought Grant. He began to take his fill of Mrs. Kent. Never before, since the first time, had he narrowly observed her.

  She seemed composed, but he knew she was not quite at ease. She smiled a little to herself and fidgeted, although in a different way from other women. She fidgeted by being in constant, easy, rounded motion. She looked at her plate and all round her plate, at her knife and fork with interest, picked up the salt and pepper with the right hand as she took hold of her bread with the left hand. She ate with one hand while she fetched her handkerchief out of her bag with the other, raised her eyes to note any passers-by, to greet the manager and the waiter at every passing; she observed the tablecloth card, kept putting pieces in her mouth, chewing strongly with a semicircular motion, at the same time pointing her chin and jawbones toward the public, chewing, viewing with tranquillity, observing and at the same time reaching for a bit of bread. She felt in her bag again, not with the fretfulness of most women, but peacefully as if she had a century before her, brought out a mirror, actually observed herself as she was chewing. The other woman made some remark. Suddenly the blondine smiled with unspeakable sweetness. But it was not at the woman but at the waiter who had come over and bent over her, rather too low for good manners. Grant caught gl
impses of the blondine as she lengthened the conversation with the waiter, as practiced a coquette with him as with a monied man she might expect something from. It hurt; and Grant thought, What does he do for her, what commissions? What is he saying now? Grant had used waiters, maîtres d’hôtel, and others such often enough for dirty purposes to know what the waiter might be saying. It was intolerable. He snapped his fingers for the manager and indicated that he was going to the other table.

  It was only at a distance that she seemed to be aging. At the table, he saw that she was still good-looking. Now she had a cold expression and he remarked her violet eyes were angry. She did not introduce the other woman and Grant, sitting down, turned his back to her. The other woman, after stopping a moment, went on to finish her meal. One glance at her had been enough—a fat woman over forty, who looked like a bawd.

  “Hello, sweet!”

  “Why are you having me followed?”

  “I was advised to, I never wanted to, I didn’t believe a word of it. Flack and his daughter put me on to it. They were indignant because you treated me badly.”

  “What about me? Why worry about these people who only want money out of you? They’re just trying to take you over. You trust them but not me. Why should I talk to you again, Robbie?”