A Little Tea, a Little Chat

by Christina Stead

  He burst out laughing, sat with an arm round each woman. “All’s fair in love. Caveat emptor.”

  “What does that mean?” asked Mrs. Lawrence.

  “Beware of the dog,” said Grant, with an innocent gaiety. Gilbert laughed. Grant said, gathering them all, with a gesture, into his arms, “Let’s ring up my Polish friend, Karolyi, let’s go somewhere, have a good time. We’ll go over to his place, Hotel Benevento. I got a play he’s writing for me, All I Want Is a Woman. Let’s go and hear our play! He’s nearly finished the dialogue. Going to be a smash-hit. Our names in lights on Broadway. All our names. Let you all in on it. You all brought me luck. And my name’ll be on the program. You’ll see my name with five—or six stars! Walter Winchell. A smash-hit, sensation of the year. Sell to Hollywood for three million dollars.”

  He gave a great laugh; then, energetically, “Wait till I get started; I’ll show them some new tricks. I can sell anything. But what we got, it’s a marvel, it’s a marvel, a smash-hit.” He sidled toward Mrs. Lawrence, put his hand on her lap, grinned at her, and poked his nose into her veil, “I’ll wipe the rest of them off Broadway. Roy Rodgers, Mamoulian, Cole Porter, Orson Welles—they’ll be trembling when they eat their breakfast: ‘What’s that Grant fella got up his sleeve today?’ We’ll be a sensation. Our names in lights, Karolyi, Grant—” he cried, looking round in a jolly rascally manner, winking at them—“wait till my novels come out—All I Want Is a Woman. Best-seller, a million copies, cover the bookstores, Brentano’s, Macmillan’s, you’ll go up Fifth Avenue and just see All I Want Is a Woman by Robert O. Grant. H’m! Eh? How do you like it? I’ll throw a big party, we’ll all have a good time, the day it comes out. Advance, four hundred thousand. I’ll show ’em how to sell it, if I have to buy a pushcart and hire a lot of fellas and set them at the corner of Fourteenth Street and Fifty-seventh Street and Thirty-fourth Street, Beaver Street, and outside every Longchamps in town.”

  “Bully-boy, bully-boy,” said Livy.

  Grant turned his back to Livy and seized Mrs. Lawrence’s arm, patted her plump hand, now gloved, “Eh? Eh, Sue? What do you say? All any man wants is a woman, and every woman thinks she can be that woman. That gets them, eh? Then you have a constructive story, beautiful woman, she has talent, she’s a success, and she says, ‘I’d rather come home and fry you two eggs and bacon in the morning.’ He says, ‘No, no, go on with your career. No for you and no for me. You recover my investment.’ She says, ‘I’m a success, but I’m going to give it up. I want to bring you an aspirin when you have a headache, I want to get up in the morning and pour out your coffee.’ Eh?”

  “It has general appeal,” said Mrs. Lawrence.

  Grant looked round triumphantly at the circle and murmured to Mrs. Lawrence, “Don’t understand it at all, a fine woman like you, not married again. You got me turned round like a spinning-top. You got me where you want me. But I’m afraid of you. You put me off. Even on the telephone I’m afraid of you. You’re a lady. You make me neurotic. You keep me at a distance.”

  He bent closer, speaking into her veil, “Come on, give me some encouragement. Don’t hold me off that way.”

  She began to glow and charm covered her again, like a sea animal which opens its colors and fringes to the tide. Her large eyes swam under the veil. “I’m afraid of you too,” she said.

  Grant pressed forward, “What have you got? What do you do to me? Eh? Tell me! Don’t keep me at arm’s length. You’ve got charm. You’re dangerous. You keep the boys away. Don’t do that to me. I’m afraid of you.”

  “That’s all right, that’s a good one,” said Livy, licking her lips, and staring at them.

  “I mean it,” said Grant, turning round.

  “You always mean it.”

  He burst out laughing and released Mrs. Lawrence. He leaned back, crossed his arms, surveying them with a genial eye, “I always mean it when I say it—afterwards, I don’t know. I get carried away.”

  “One of these days you’ll hit the wrong woman,” said Livy.

  “There is no wrong woman,” said Grant.

  Mrs. Lawrence had retired again and watched them resentfully from her shadow.

  “Let’s go, we’ll call on Karolyi, make him go over his scenes. Wonderful situations, that fella doesn’t work but he has the stuff in him. Let’s go. I want your opinion. It’ll be a smash-hit, believe me. Five stars, our names in lights on Broadway. Wipe the floor with Cole Porter, Roy Rodgers—”

  “Richard Rodgers,” said Gilbert, laughing.

  “Don’t get Karolyi, he’ll sting you for a meal,” said Livy.

  “Want your opinion, he won’t sting me for nothing,” declared Grant.

  Livy got up.

  Grant took her by the arm, “Come, darling, I want your opinion. You’re a business woman. A woman is never negative. She sees the human side. Let’s have some fun. Do you love me? Eh? You’re not laughing at me? You love me?”

  He led her off ahead of the others and stopped at the head of the broad stairs, lined with palms, to kiss her. The others followed; Livy leaned heavily on Grant.

  33

  At the top of the stairs, Gilbert touched his father on the arm, “Let’s get Karolyi, he’s poor, he needs the dinner, and he won’t sting you, I’ll see to that. And let’s get Celia Grimm, I know she’s at home this evening—I happened to see her at Manetti’s yesterday.”

  The father half turned his head, “I don’t want the ’ooman. She’s no good, no fun. I want fun. She likes colored people; I don’t like mixed drinks. It’s neurotic. Don’t want her. Let’s get Betty and Alf Goodwin.”

  The son planted himself in front of his father and said, “I don’t agree with you. I think Miss Grimm is good company, and if we pick up Karolyi, we’ll need another woman. Besides, she’s an amateur actress. She knows theater.”

  Grant looked at his son in astonishment, “I didn’t know that.”

  He took his son by the arm, led him in front a bit, leaving the women to straggle after them. He said, “Took the bloody ’ooman out a few times, bought her dinners, took her to Café Society, thinking I’d get in cheap, and I had to pay for ten people—and I didn’t make any progress. Four, five times—that’s all I give a woman. Didn’t even kiss me. I don’t throw good money after bad. The installment system’s my system. A bit down and they deliver the goods. I don’t like to be taken for a ride. Forget her. No good, my advice. We’ll get Betty Goodwin—or—Mrs. Kent. I know a fine little widow, her husband fought in Spain.”

  He looked up into the face of his son, and saw nothing there. He took his son’s arm with bonhomie, and led him ahead, “But let’s get another woman, you’re right, I’m sick of these cows. Let’s get Betty. She’s theater. She can talk to Karolyi. Never understand what the fella is talking about. She’ll amuse him. Eh? List’n, my boy, wait till you hear the play—we’ll make a smash-hit, names in lights along Broadway and sell to Hollywood. We’ll sell the damn farm and the day-old chicks and go to Rome or Lake Como. You can write sonnets, serenade some Italian girl. We’ll have our day in the sun. We’ll leave your mother behind, she’s no good to me, and I’ll get me a real woman, not these cattle, and we’ll have a good time. You can walk down Lover’s Lane and later you’ll get a woman to marry. You can live where you like, I got places everywhere. I’ll get them back when the war’s over. To him that hath shall be given; that’s true. We’ll float on the tide, whichever way it turns. Don’t worry, my boy. Trust me.”

  Gilbert tried to shake his father’s arm from him. The father, his great face thrust forward, haggard suddenly, like an old gossip, said hurriedly to the young man, “I showed them my etchings and they were satisfied. Let’s duck after we’ve given them dinner. I want to spend the evening with you. Take a little stretch, hear the news, no damn cows.”

  The young man shook his arm from his father’s. Grant looked curiously up into the young face, and began to gabble, beset by a sudden need. He had never had anything but hangers-on. His wife
had never known anything of him. Swindlers and prostitutes had received all his confessions. He had never dared to show his ragged, rotted side to his honest friends, whom he kept in one closet of his acquaintance, for the sake of his self-respect. He had been much surprised at Gilbert’s calm attitude before the revelations of this afternoon and supposed him now “broken in,” perhaps an accomplished petty lecher. He chuckled suddenly in a senile way, such as Gilbert had never heard, clutched his son’s arm, and chattered, “I thought over what you said about the letters, the sherry woman, you’re quite right, her husband disappointed her. Must be. You’re always right. You’ve got an instinct. So she fell in love with me! But what can I do about it? Never meddle with a married woman. On that you can depend; I’m strict about my friends’ wives. Nothing to be done. He-he. I get into enough jams as it is. I’m a romantic, my boy, must be a bit of the gypsy in me, or Spanish blood, eh, what do you think? Doesn’t look as if it’s in you, though. Well, a maverick, maybe. Listen to this, I need your advice. The other day I met a girl at Betty’s. She has a lot of people around I don’t like, talking unpatriotic. I say to her, ‘What do you want with them? What do you get out of it?’ She says, ‘You’re a snob.’ I say, ‘Not at all, I’m a democrat, but it pulls down my morale to associate with certain types.’ This girl came from Cleveland—so she said, left her husband; some story, I didn’t inquire, not interested. But good-looking girl. We went down in the elevator together and I—I perhaps gave her a little serenade. She says to me, ‘Come uptown with me to my hotel, Seventy-first Street, till I change and we can dine and dance. I go. Why not? I do anything once. When I get inside the door, I put my arms round her, kiss her, she draws back and says, ‘I want to talk to you about the financial reconstruction of Germany after the war. I have worked out the reorganization of India and now you can help me with Germany.’…Crazy!”

  He slapped his thigh, “Did you ever hear anything like that? I said, ‘Come, my dear, we’ll leave all that to the men in Washington, we’ve got something else to think about, love.’ I thought perhaps she was fooling. She says, ‘You’re very kind, Mr. Grant, but I think we ought to do something for the world.’ I’m thunderstruck. She gives me a drink and I sit down. She goes into the bedroom and I think—shall I follow her? First time I ever got into such a thing. Perhaps she’s clean crazy and she’s waiting for me with a gun. Presently she comes out, only her slip on, but stockings, slippers, and her bracelets and two little brown bows in her hair. She sits down and says, ‘I think we should put a wall around Germany. I think we should put a brass or steel wall around Germany and then go inside and reorganize their finances. Shut them off from mankind for fifty or a hundred years, until they’ve forgotten about the rest of the world.’ Eh? Clean crazy. I was a bit nervous by that time and I said, ‘Never mind about steel walls, sweetie, let’s think about us.’ I kissed her and tried to make a bit of progress. But she pushed me away and said, ‘I like you very much but I feel that we ought to purify the world, not think of our own egos.’ I was turned to stone, my boy. I thought, Here I am, shut up with a madwoman. I looked for the door; and picked up my hat. She said, ‘Yes, let’s go out, dine and dance.’ She went inside and presently came out in a nice black dancing dress, long, with black shoes, but no stockings. I danced with her and she told me she never wore anything under a long dress, it wasn’t necessary. Dress is only for decency, isn’t it? I didn’t know what to make of her. Then she wanted to go to a late show. She had to go home and change again! She said her sister was coming from Cleveland and she might be there already. I didn’t mind waiting in the lobby; I was afraid. When she came down, a man followed her out of the elevator, and I went up quick and said, ‘Let’s go.’ In the movies I found out she had nothing on under the dress, we were very tight-packed. I took her home and she smiled at some man outside the hotel, a friend, I thought. He followed her in and she started to smile at him. I took him aside and I said, ‘Don’t go with her, be careful, she’s crazy.’ Something wrong. I let her go upstairs. What do you make of it, eh? I know her address.”

  The young man walked a few steps with his father, then stopped and said in a stranger’s voice, “You’re in terrible danger, you don’t seem to know anything. I’m afraid for you.”

  Grant said eagerly, “You think I was in danger, crazy, eh? Might have had a revolver?”

  The son sighed but did not manage to say anything. He turned toward the women and drew them to the curb, where he signaled a taxi. In the taxi he said, “I tell you what, let’s get the Flacks.”

  “No, no.”

  “Yes, I want them.”

  “It’s a good idea,” Grant burst out. He put his arms through the women’s arms. The young man faced him. He said sentimentally, “I need friends. I need consolation. You can take my word, I never did harm to a single human being. Sometimes, though, fate takes a hand. Women weren’t always kind to me. I don’t pretend I’m always a success. One Christmas I stayed in New York, I had business, had to see—” he mumbled a name like Sam-Positive. He leaned forward and patted the boy’s arm, “There’s nothing wrong in the story. Shows how fate can walk in the door. Dangerous, living alone. I was invited to the Delafields’, but later on, and there I was waiting alone in my place when the phone rang and it was a woman’s voice. She said, ‘I’m Lisbeth,’ a woman I met at a theater once, someone introduced me, maybe I serenaded her, I don’t remember. She said, ‘I’m all alone for Christmas and I’m coming over to see you, otherwise, I’ll throw myself out the window.’ I tried to put her off, but nothing doing, so I said, ‘All right, I’m invited out, so you can come over for a drink.’ That was my big mistake.”

  He caressed his jowl and said, “You never know. She said on the phone, she only wanted to see me for a minute, she loved me. She said she loved me. Maybe I had had tea with her. I don’t remember. Naturally, I let her come. When she came I saw she had a little valise. ‘What’s that for?—I’m going out later.’ She said, ‘I’m going on somewhere.’ She was a beautiful woman, but looked a bit—drinking, I thought. I gave her a drink and when I saw her sitting around, I said I had to dress. I went in and locked the door!”

  Everyone laughed, but Grant proceeded gravely, “No joking matter. When I came out, she ran to the window sill and put one foot on it and she said, ‘If you leave me, I’ll throw myself out.’ Well, I tried to telephone. She wouldn’t let me telephone. So—you know—I did my best—thinking she just needed a little affection; then I said, ‘Now you must go, my dear girl’; and she ran to the window again. She said, ‘I’ll throw myself out.’ I said, ‘Go ahead.’ On my word of honor, I never thought she would do it! She threw herself out. I looked for my key and overcoat and picked up all her clothes and threw them out the window after her. I started to go quietly out of my door when I heard a sound, I looked and saw her coming up the fire escape, just her head and shoulders, with a bundle of clothes in her arm! She was coming in again!”

  He stopped and laughed. “Imagine my astonishment! An apparition! Resurrected already. I thought, they got American efficiency now. I ran out the door, leaving it open. I didn’t come home all night. Naturally next morning she was not there. I looked out the window, and I saw there was a kind of cage round the fire escape. She had only fallen one floor. Of course, she knew about it, she must have gone and looked—maybe she knew the apartment house! A narrow escape anyhow for me, eh? Maybe I gave her a song and dance once—” he acknowledged dolefully, nodding his head, and patting the women on the knees. “It just shows the seed doesn’t always fall on barren ground. Neurotic! Supposing she had hurt herself. She was going to commit suicide, but she came back to me with her skirt on her shoulder. Suppose she had made a mistake, but still had a few minutes to live, and mentioned my name! It’s dangerous. I want to find the right woman. Get settled. No crazy people!”

  When he got out of the taxi, Livy took his arm and leaned heavily on him, while Mrs. Lawrence, after a few minutes of silence, began murmuring maternally to G
ilbert, “Is that a friend of yours, Miss Grimm? Haven’t I met her somewhere?”

  34

  They had reached the midtown hotel where lived Karel Karolyi, Polish playwright famous in Berlin, Vienna, London, who had fled from Hitler’s régime at the last possible moment. He had overstayed his time, for his revenues and property left in Europe were considerable. Now he had lived for several years, by the courtesy of friends, alone in one room, here, there, and everywhere, dreaming of American millions, looking for a sponsor or an “angel,” and writing as he could. The floor on which Karolyi lived was composed of small parlor-bedrooms, rented mostly to musicians, continuity writers, divorced men stripped by large alimony grants, peddling promoters, and successful street women. At this time, after some years of war, there was not a hotel nor an apartment house in town which had not this assortment of the half-poor and the fringe-people of Manhattan. The girls made a quick turnover, paid their rent; no one cared to harass members of the armed forces when they paid visits to “friends.” For the time being the rascality and the skimmers were accepted. Everyone scooped greedily in the great cream pot of war. All criminals drove their trades in the open, carried their banknotes from store to bank, and loaded their women with precious stones and furs. The town reeked of easy, greasy “dough.”

  Karolyi was in. They saw him first against the smutty green carpet in a boxlike entry. He was a tall, dark, agreeably neat-boned townsman of about fifty, agitated, dressed with Paris taste. He went in behind the women, running his long nervous hands down their backs and buttocks with rapid electric strokes. He brought his hands up again, caressing the midline of the backs, with a delicate pressure. He was then introduced to the women and began gazing with indifferent penetration at them, slightly smiling. Grant, who had just noticed seriously the etchings on the pale green wall, tried to place the women on Karolyi’s divan, but the playwright sat them both on the long piano stool, so that they could observe these several erotic drypoints, which were of the thighs of naked women placed in defenseless attitudes. Through the thin steel and concrete walls of the skyscraper they heard, on the right, a violinist practicing the Paganini variations; on the left, the feigned ecstasies of two bought girls at their trade. The playwright, indicating the drypoints, said with elegant candor, “Rodin, you know; do you like them?”