A Little Tea, a Little Chat

by Christina Stead

  18

  In some such manner passed the four weeks of March’s absence in Canada. Flack, meanwhile, had written humorously to March, telling him that he wondered if it was worth his valuable time to pursue the inquiries for Grant, “since the poor old jackass is doing his best to get in with the harpy again, and I suppose it is a love affair, as much as he can understand one, so why not let him enjoy it? When it comes to clinches, I know who will win—”

  He said as much to Grant in the office one day when they had received a demand for money from March, but Grant persisted in his idea of a showdown.

  Flack said, “What is it worth, all he’s told you?”

  Grant muttered in his way, “Uzzazuzz—Hilbertson—New Orleans—h’m!”

  “Who is Hilbertson?”

  “Man I once knew in business; old man, retired now. Don’t understand how he got that name.”

  “What about Hilbertson? Is he a spy?”

  “No, no, no: knew him once, in on a deal: retired now.”

  “If you’d ever tell me anything straight, Grant, I’d help you maybe.”

  “Never mind, never mind, never mind! Let’s go out and celebrate: forget all our troubles. Let’s go to the movies.”

  March returned from Canada shortly after receiving Flack’s letter. He had made a little money on his speculations up there, visited many addresses given to him by Grant, some till that moment unknown to Flack, had a tale to tell. He liked Canada the more he saw of it; he said, “It’s a hideaway, in case I ever find the air of the U.S.A. getting less fragrant. They’re a disciplined people, obey the law, never talk bawdy, pay their taxes, believe in God, King and country, hate the Reds and wouldn’t stand for any goddamn bastard like Wallace; trouble with us is our democratic tradition. It’ll get us out on a limb some day; we ought to take a line from our northern neighbors.”

  He was out of pocket some $2,785 on Grant’s behalf, but he had found out, he said, from the generous, law-abiding, respectable R.C.M.P. much more than from his friends in Washington: “Son, she’s left marks all over the map from Los Angeles to Ottawa. He picked a daisy. I’m beginning to think my friends weren’t as frank with me as they might have been, but perhaps they have more on her. But when I compare them with British loyalty—what you pay for, you get in British territory. My countrymen, God bless them, want to take the cream off the top, and then get a profit out of the residue as well: the first is due to their wits, the second is theirs by law, and if there’s any left, they’ll make plastics out of it and sell you the junk for a dollar seventy-nine, as a bargain.”

  Flack laughed, “Yankee thrift. What’s the news from the honest Dominion?”

  “It’s a sizzling anecdote. I want your opinion. Should we give it unvarnished to your Romeo? I’m beginning to love this. He picked her out of the gutter. It turns out she’s a Mata Hari. Then he gives me an earache telling me she’s innocent; then he wants me to get her criminal record. What is he, sick?”

  “Just give me an outline.”

  It boiled down to a long and still continuing association with the old man called James Alexis, wealthy international figure, with confiscated estates in territory now occupied by the Germans and large properties also in South Africa and South America, particularly the Argentine. Grant and Flack had looked up Alexis and knew all about his holdings and his international relations, suspicious in wartime. The reputed wealth of Alexis was about five times that of Grant. To make it worse, he came from a well-known family, although he had discarded their name. His brother was a famous painter and he himself had written several political essays and novels.

  “Prepare your Romeo for the bad news; and tell him it was damn good of them to mention Alexis’ name for a couple of bedbugs like him and me. They only did it because I know Captain X, and I did him a favor once.”

  Flack said, “A tip. Find out who she met at Grand Central yesterday evening. Grant is half mad because she stood him up and at the same time met some European friend. He suspects the German skater, almost anyone, the painter—I gave you the list. He also suspects a fellow named Ruiz, who’s a Franco agent. I may as well tell you, his position has changed. He’s furious with her; and he’s beginning to get some sense and see how repulsive she is, with her fascist tendencies. I said to him, ‘Every harpy favors conservatism in the end, if not fascism.’ They don’t like work. What have they to hope for from the working class? Why are they playing with radicalism now? Why do half the tramps Grant meets say they’re pink? First, because they think it’ll please him—and then he, misled, thinks it will please them. Then, as one girl bitterly pointed out, he gets them cheaper, they think it right; and last, they are floating on the fringe of society, feel ill at ease, and they think that’s true discontent. Grant and all wholesale swallowers of women, and all petty profit-takers, are restless, half in distress, they believe justice is not being done. A shark, hanging outside a school of dolphins which has driven fish into a beach to devour, probably would say he too is a liberal: there should be fish for all.”

  March frowned and growled slowly, “They want something for nothing—that’s the root-drive behind EPIC, and old-age pension and workmen’s compensation and all boondoggling, isn’t it? And these damn fish, too. I wouldn’t hand out a cent to anyone in the country. Then you’d have no pipedreams about getting the government to put in toilets for you and pay you for putting in too much cotton. People would learn to think ahead. That crowd around Grant live from hand to mouth. Aren’t you all getting your pickings from him?”

  Flack turned pale, “Am I?”

  “I don’t give a damn what your arrangements are—but if you don’t, you’re worse than I thought you.”

  “At a time like this, when every monopolist in the country is getting a handout, you object to the workers getting a handout?”

  “The workers want to get paid for not working. The monopolists, as you put it, work day and night, they never let the country out of their minds for a minute. All the workers, as you call the steel gorillas, never think of a damn thing but going to the movies and kissing their girls and turning on the jukebox. Who deserves it—us or them? Don’t forget to tell Grant, by the bye, that that little jaunt cost him two thousand, seven hundred and eighty-five dollars. And tell him with my compliments that I wouldn’t pay that much for the Queen of the Congo.”

  Flack went back to the office and begged Grant not to go near the woman. “Pay March what you owe and let that be an end of it; you’re a patriot with all your faults and your big blowing and I’m-out-for-myself, you don’t want to be mixed up in such things, and since you give yourself out as a socialist—” he continued bitterly, eying Grant hard—“kindly have some respect for socialism. What would happen if your name came out in the press connected with such a harpy and a spy?”

  Grant grumbled and shifted, apologized for his behavior of the night before, but had no excuse and would not promise.

  “The damn woman cost me a forchun, a forchun, got to get some return: throw good money after bad, but I’ll make her sweat it out.”

  He felt uneasy, sank into himself, looked at Flack with a grudge, but at Flack’s first kind word, he said, “My life’s so empty, I need her. I’ll go down with her if she’s a spy. I’ve got to have the virtues of my vice. Why would James Alexis go round with a spy? She gets her money from him.” He went on about James Alexis, of whom he was extremely jealous. Alexis, richer, famous for his personal achievements, not only had the blonde woman but, like Grant, went round declaring himself a socialist, better, “a Marxist.” He actually had read Lenin and could argue about it. Grant’s lip fell and he went on rumbling, “I’ll do better than that fella. I need her. I’m as bad as she is. I’m no more a socialist than she is. She didn’t read Lenin. I didn’t either. I’ll go down with her. I’ll get my name in the papers. It’ll be a sort of glory, the only sort I deserve. You’re right. I’ll drag socialism in the mud. Alexis couldn’t afford that; he’d draw off from her. What am I? I’m
not better than that ’ooman and I’ve never pretended to be. What do I expect out of life? I’ve wasted my life. I’d rather have a big splash of scandal, something to fill up with. My life’s a desert. Then she’d have to come back to me and stick by me; no one would have her. Alexis wouldn’t. He’s got a wife and his family would get after him. Then he writes papers on economics and agriculture. He has a reputation. He couldn’t do it with a scandal like that, a tramp, a spy. I’d come and rescue her and I’d say, ‘Look, darling, I came when everyone else turned their backs. I stuck by you, now you stick by me. You hurt me, all right, I forgive you. Maybe I hurt you. We’ll start from scratch. We’ll go away to Monte Carlo or Rome or the Thousand Islands, and we’ll spend a quiet time there. I’m tired of messing round, you’ve had enough.’ With these connections I have, March, Washington fellas—not that I think much of them—the R.C.M.P., I could buy her out of it; and I will. Then I’ll take her away. Get my name in the papers. What do I care for that—in Boston! It’ll force my hand. I’m afraid you were right the other day. This thing’ll force my hand. Force her hand too. There she’ll be with all her cards on the table, stripped naked, in public. They want to give her a whipping. I go and say, ‘Look, darling, this is where I stand by you. You didn’t expect it of me, but now you see the kind of man I am. I need you, you need me—’ I’ll take her away where she can’t spy!”

  He driveled on. Flack nearly wept out of pity and boredom.

  As soon as Flack had got down to studying Grant’s investment position, Grant went into the outside room and telephoned Bentwink’s office to call Bentwink off the job and send in a final report and account, and to Miss Celia Grimm’s home, to ask her to get him a free copy of Robison’s study of the Negro—he had seen a mention of it somewhere and wanted to get it: “Don’t mention my name, just do it for me, sweets, will you? And I’ll do something for you, I promise I’ll see Jenny one of these days and see how she’s feeling, eh? Don’t want to do any harm.”

  Last he telephoned March and said in a mysterious voice, “See if the name—yesterday—was M. Yves Troland; I see he’s in town and that’s the French liberal minister she knew in Paris.”

  He waited till two-fifteen, doing business and nervous because of the expected calls; and then rushed uptown leaving Flack to “close the shop.” His friends were not in at the Charles Wagoner; he left the parcel of toothpaste, aspirins, and so forth that his secretary had tied up for him into one packet, and went out again, once more to walk the streets. When he came out of a newsreel theater at Grand Central, he telephoned to Miss Livy Wright and had dinner with her. The woman seemed half in love with him and had put on a new dress with a low-cut bodice, which offered him her firm breasts. She was boisterous, rude, just as yesterday, but there was imprudence and abandon in her today. He took advantage of it and this seemed to flatter her; in a moment of passion she told him any woman could love him, no woman could help herself. It was a long time since he had felt so flattered.

  When the woman left, he telephoned Peter Hoag about the promised dinner with Mrs. Kent, but heard that Mrs. Hoag was out of town. Then he telephoned the Charles Wagoner, from which he got no satisfaction. In distress, he telephoned Mrs. Goodwin, who at once came out to have cocktails with him at the White Bar; but when she had gone home, he felt exhausted, and knew he would toss all night. What should he do with his life? That no one could tell him! Only the blonde had known how to organize things to his taste: she was a consummate time-waster, not brilliant, but then she had found out Grant’s physical nature at once.

  “I don’t regret anything. She filled my life, if only with headaches!” He tried to fight down the amount of $2,785 with March. March had rebuked him, “We’re dealing with an honest country. You don’t suppose you can buy them for peanuts? You’re damn lucky you got it for that. They wouldn’t have given it to you for five thousand dollars—not for ten thousand. And if you let it out where you got it, they’ll shut up like a steel trap. It’s not like this country, where eleven government monkeys stand in line, in Times Square, with their hands out asking for their cut.”

  Naturally, he had sent the check but he felt the blow. March had now cost him $9,500 with his research, and the detectives $680.

  “Well, I’ll take it and dump it into her lap and say, ‘Explain this, my sweetie!’ I’ll get her back and it’ll be worth it. That blonde is worth ten thousand, one hundred and eighty dollars—”

  He took several tablets but had only a few hours of dull sleep. He got up as usual and began his ablutions, following a system which filled in more than two hours of his morning. He took a bath, a douche, a scented bath, a hot and cold shower, a footbath, a pedicure and manicure, a suntan from his special lamp. His teeth gleamed, his nails were buffed, and he wiped out, as far as possible, every sign of age. He emerged in fresh linen and a different suit, with a hot towel held to his chin with one hand, and he looked over his stores. After ten minutes’ steaming, he applied eau de cologne, powder, hair cream, eyebrow dye, and while he put on his cocoa, he inspected his coat for the day. It was eight o’clock. He turned on the radio, rushed through the morning papers, polished his shoes, cleaned his teeth again, and was ready for work.

  It was still far too early. In the old days he had been at work at seven-thirty. He still rose early, but as he had nothing to attend to but his personal affairs, his partner doing most of the business, he was at a loss. All his friends were still in bed, if they were not at business. At nine he telephoned Flack: Flack was in bed or bathing, for he did not answer. Grant went downstairs, started to walk down Fifth Avenue, retraced his steps, went into a florist’s—to whom should he send flowers? He dispatched them to the Hotel Charles Wagoner, to Mrs. Kent; others of a cheaper sort to Mrs. Jones, whom he had begun to detest.

  “Where a pup goes wrong, look at the dam,” he thought to himself. He thought he would break her down, make her reply. She did not reply and no word came from the mother.

  He did his business in a frenzy and spent half the day pouring out his miseries to Flack, “I feel like a scorpion biting its own tail and biting itself to death, when it thinks it’s stinging the other fellow.”

  “If you would only study something, Robbie; you have nothing to fill that big empty head of yours.”

  “Behind everything in a man’s life, there’s a woman, you don’t know that, Davie. If I had the right woman I might study—but it’s too late now.”

  March telephoned to say that he had made inquiries and the man Mrs. Kent had met at the station had been the ex-minister, Yves Troland, now in exile. His informants also said that her ex-husband Adams was in town and that that was a danger for Grant, as the gigolo had been a love affair for her.

  “She handed him all your money. Now he’s probably come to collect dough from Alexis. Why don’t you lay off her? She’s too hot for my money. You’re outclassed, Grant. I hear she’s been bragging that she took your money and gave you nothing but a Bronx cheer. I wouldn’t let any —— treat me that way. She buys and sells you. She told Peter Hoag you’re just a tired business man who will end up by being kicked around by every woman in town who’ll look at you.”

  Grant’s eyes grew large and seemed about to fall from his head; he looked at the telephone girl to see if she was listening. He said, very low, “Where did you hear that?”

  “Paula Russell, that sidekick of hers, Hoag told her. Miss Russell said she thought it was a damn shame the way you were being led by the nose. She said all your friends were talking about it. They’d like to find a cure for you.”

  Grant put down the phone and sank into his chair, overwhelmed with defeat. As soon as he could, he left the office and took a taxi uptown to see Mrs. Goodwin. At five he was having tea with the Goodwins and a couple of their friends, who included a middle-aged lawyer, named Walker. They all gave advice about the woman, Goodwin asking insolently how much he could take of such punishment from Barb, that if he took any more, he hoped he choked on it; and went on to say the
whole thing had been Grant’s fault. The women listened gloomily to this, but broke in at the end with their cackling: each had something against her. Only Betty Goodwin, to please him, said Barb was very lovely and had nice manners. Then the newcomer, the dark-faced lawyer, Walker, said, “Is it the pen or expulsion you want? I can get one or the other for you and you’ll be rid of this bloodsucker. We can get her on twenty counts.”

  “Robbie, too,” cried Goodwin, laughing knowingly. He went on to say what misdemeanors and felonies Grant must have committed—some he, to his knowledge, surely had committed—with the woman. He went on to the end shamelessly, showing Grant’s passion in tatters. Grant, appalled, disgraced, listened to the end, saying, “No—no—that I never did—let them try that—I took a chance, but not a crime—”

  But the lawyer listened to all, while Goodwin swelled with his role and Betty Goodwin’s eyes became profound. At the end, there was a silence, one of the women sighed, and Grant said, “I’ve done everything for the woman. She’s dragged me into a wallow. I’m sunk in up to the neck.”

  And in an abject manner he went on again, telling them a thousand details of his love for the woman and how she had mistreated him: “She is my vice, I may as well marry her.”

  As soon as he got home, Mrs. Kent telephoned, reproached him for not calling upon her that afternoon, and made an appointment to meet her mother and herself at once in the lobby of the Charles Wagoner. Grant rushed to meet them.