A Little Tea, a Little Chat

by Christina Stead

  Livy’s voice said, “Have you gone in for table-turning? How did you know it was me? Or did I cut in on another dame?”

  “No—got to meet you downstairs tomorrow at six-thirty, tomorrow, can you get in? Must consult you about my play. I’ll call you back.”

  He came rushing out to his friends and servants with a merry expression, “Got them both at once, Gabriel Bitkoff and Sam Positive.”

  “Positive can’t be his name.”

  “Got to call Uzzazuzz, expressed interest—they’re going to put in forty thousand dollars each if they like the play. I’ve got to get ahold of Karolyi, seems a bit of a bungler. Think he’ll make good? Misses the point.”

  He gave them another frenzied monologue, praising “my dialogue” and “my smash-hit,” “The public is buying everything that costs money—they’re in a good mood, they’ll haggle over fifteen-cent ice cream with no cream in it maybe, but that’s only to soothe their consciences; so they can go ahead and pay out twenty-dollar cover-charges, seven dollars for a seat at a bum show, and twenty-five dollars for a seat at the opera. But that’s old stuff. Wait till they take it to the safe-deposit. We’ll all be rich. When I get started, they won’t know they ever heard Billy Rose’s name, we’ll go to Hollywood and start our own company, no Poverty Row, no B. Films; and in two years—”

  He came to the end of this pleasant fever suddenly, “Where’s that damn Pole, that crazy welsher? Davie, you go and find him and bring him here. I paid out one hundred and eighty dollars and I want my play. I got some beautiful situations, I gave him wonderful dialogue, it’s the real thing, why write about a lot of Green Valleys and Green Corn, all green, I got a smash-hit and that double-Dutchman hasn’t even written them down; I give the ideas and I sell, he’s only got to take notes. He gives me a dialogue, it’s a skeleton—can’t get people in to pay seven-fifty with only a skeleton, ‘Yes,’ ‘No,’ ‘Is that so?’ He took my one hundred and eighty dollars for that kind of dialogue. Say he was wonderful in Europe, made millions, can’t figure it out, perhaps fell on his head somewhere, on the way here.”

  41

  Flack dispatched, he begged Mrs. MacDonald to make him some lunch, while Edda was to sit down and make notes of a brilliant idea he had for a new play, The Rainbow Girl. He begged Gilbert to listen to the story which had come to him last night and to give his opinion. It was a true story, realism. He had once met a beautiful girl, all in black, in a transcontinental train and he serenaded her: figured she’d had a little trouble, would be glad of a friend. He said to her, “Don’t wear black, wear the colors of the rainbow, for hope. I’ll bring you hope.” She told him a terrible story about going to Hollywood to try her luck because she took beautiful stills, and about being given the runaround—she showed him photographs, nothing on, had to be that way, they insisted, swimsuit, nice figure, unnecessary he thought it, terrible story, and was only employed by a gangster agency for wild parties and director would say, “Send up a pretty girl at four-thirty, no time to look around,” and they would send her and they said, “You must sleep with everyone, someone will make good,” but she didn’t get a job, poor girl, terrible story, terrible story. Well, he wouldn’t go into details. As she told, she burst into tears. He was touched. Perhaps he serenaded her. He went with her to New York and fell in love with her, wanted to make her forget. He went on with warm, muted voice, “Perhaps I went too far, I swear by all that’s holy I never meant to harm her, one day she fell out a window—just as I came into the hotel with a message from her sister, and to take her out, cheer her up. In a way, it was a blessing in disguise, because I’m susceptible and perhaps I would have harmed her. But I was saved from that, nothing to reproach myself with. I can give you more experiences. We want to fix it up a bit, gay, lighthearted, no funeral urns, modern, no tears, no lilies, we extract the gloom and put in the honey: that’s our formula, what do you think of it?”

  Struck by this formula, Grant said it over and over, burning with his power and glory to be, “We’ll be famous! We must put in something about reconstructing Greece, America’s generosity, and salvaging the yellow East. The U.S.A. is going to have to compete with the European movie houses after the war and they don’t want boom-boom, bang-bang, war stuff, Wings over the Pacific, Green Valleys, Green Corn, mine-boys, no interest, they want reconstruction; lots of honey. Western civilization has to be reconstructed if it’s going to stand as a barricade against Russia—that’s the idea they want—ask me, I’m a socialist, I know. We’ll sell them what they want, eh? Why not? Reconstruct Western Europe, bring democracy to Asia, make them a barricade, American style, against Russian terrorism. Don’t impose but give them the American week end! No work, no police at your front door, but the American week end! Meanwhile, they won’t know what they’re getting! We won’t do no harm.”

  “Let’s put in the suicide, a blessing in disguise,” said Edda.

  “It’s my own experience, reality, my dear girl, nothing uncalled for, nothing cynical. We’ll see how it goes. All collaborate, participate: democratic production, eh? A new plan.”

  She put down the book in which she had made some notes and began walking about the room. She stopped in front of Grant and said very high, “Why the hell should you pension Dad and me? Unless you’re crazy or a philanthropist or an angel! But you got me because I had an ulterior motive. Dad is very sick. He doesn’t know he’s very sick. And I thought it would be good for him to live on a farm. That’s why I hung on to you all this time. You know the time I asked you, ‘Can I see Mrs. Grant? I don’t want to go out to a family farm, a strange girl, without seeing your wife. It looks so queer.’ You said, ‘Yes.’ That was a showdown and you came up to meet it. I was impressed. I believed in you then. So I hung on another ten months! Now I see I’m a fool. I don’t blame you, I blame myself…No more fairy tales. You sung me a serenade. I’m a working girl.”

  Miss Robbins looked gloomily at her. Gilbert listened closely.

  Grant puffed out energetically, “Stand by me, my girl, till we get this play through and write down these notes for me. We’re partners in this. It’s a masterpiece, a work of art, also it’ll be a smash-hit. Truth and honey is money. Your troubles will be over. You can go away with Flack to Florida, to the mountains, to the West Coast, wherever he should go. You won’t have to worry about me. It’s a work of art, it’s a true story, a heart story, it’s touching and romantic. We’ll get up a kitty from those bozos and we’ll all get our expenses out of it.”

  “It’s junk. Where’s my hat? I’m going out to get a job.”

  “It’s superb, it’s a unique story, it’s fresh, beautiful, it’s art,” cried Grant.

  “It’s garbage,” said Edda.

  Gilbert interposed, “Why are you doing it then?”

  “For money! Only Robert has to go through his act.” She laughed, sat down and crossed her legs.

  Grant frowned at her, “Nonsense, nonsense, it’ll be a sensation. Look, here’s twenty dollars.”

  “I’ll take it.”

  Grant put it back in his pocketbook and said quickly, “We’ll get Karolyi and the typist to help make up a kitty and we’ll pay you out of the kitty. Will that satisfy you? I admit you ought to get something. I paid ’em some money, now they can make up a kitty; this is a co-op, eh? We’ll form a co-op. They can pay you out of the co-op kitty. Now make a note for me, like a good girl. I was in the West End Hotel, and I saw a young woman—”

  Edda burst out laughing and said nothing.

  “What’s the matter, what’s the matter?”

  “I can’t afford to support a shoestring promoter. I thought you were rich.”

  He did not understand her at all and began to dislike her. He watched her as if she had been a barking dog, but when she started to go to the door, he rushed to her, seized both arms, laughed, cried, kissed her, called her Little Sister, kept her.

  Eventually, the carpenter’s boy came; and Grant permitted several of his listeners to leave. He spent so
me interesting hours with Jones trying the locks. This carpenter had become his handyman. He was like many handymen, a good-natured, unselfish man, absorbed chiefly by the casual problems of his business. Grant got on well with him, put on several representations for him, of Ford, Will, the Money-Egotist, the Genial Capitalist, and sandwiched his boyhood socialism in between. The carpenter did not care much about money, even though he had a family to support, and allowed Grant to take a few dollars off every bill, on one pretext or another. He fixed all the locks but one, and promised to get several keys made. Grant made a great scene over the lock not fixed, but looked lugubrious when the carpenter moved off, saying he would find a locksmith. Grant muttered, “You could do it, my dear boy, if you worked a little longer.”

  As soon as the carpenter had gone, he forced Mrs. MacDonald to call up several locksmiths in succession, and get “estimates” for the fixing of the lock. Each was informed that he had to come to the hotel as Grant would not allow the valise out of his sight.

  “But there is no reason whatever for your obstinacy,” said Mrs. MacDonald.

  “My dear good woman—”

  “Well, you will pay through the nose.”

  “I don’t think Jones put his mind to it. Call Jones and I’ll speak to him.”

  When all these had gone, he had lunch with his son, telling him a romantic story of his relations with Mrs. Downs which in no way fitted his previous mischievous play-acting. After he had dismissed the inexperienced young man, he had several conferences with Miss Robbins (about certain mysterious affairs known only to him and to her), with the Goodwins, and last with the blonde lady, downstairs in the lobby. There, Mrs. Downs told him that Churchill was “out for blood” and would hear of no settlement, the case was going to the courts and would be on the calendar next week. There was nothing that could be done. He and she were in this together for better or for worse.

  He left Mrs. Downs and sent for his son. There, without telling him that he had met Mrs. Downs, he began an accusation, “She does not know my hideout, thank God, and I swear before God, I shall never see the —— again. She led me by the nose. I thought I was in love with her and she thought she would go through my pockets. I had my head in the air, she bewitched me, she turned me head over heels, and I thought her so innocent. If you knew the innocent picture she made—I should not say this, but perhaps I was not always as I should have been, but without any thought of harm, I swear, I was carried away. I saw her, by lamplight, on the fresh linen, with her blonde hair uncoiled and a white cat there, a picture of innocence, asleep, with a rosy cheek and hardly breathing, like that princess, the ‘Sleeping Beauty,’ I kissed her forehead and up there woke a rascal and a criminal.”

  As he warmed up, he began to twinkle and blush, his eyes growing big, the corners of his handsome mouth turned down.

  “She bought me at one corner and sold me at the next. Can you believe it of an old merchant like me? But now it is too late. She lost me.”

  He listened to a few moral remarks of his son, sat down near him, sideways, leaning on the table, and began another of his stories, secret things, but turning them as well as he could with his rough imagination, to his advantage, as he thought; he said intermittently, “Your mother is an angel. Perhaps I would have been better if I had stayed at home and been a good boy—but I don’t think so, ha-ha, I don’t think so. It isn’t for you, but I’m not the same man…I knew a girl, Celia Grimm, I took her out several times and I got nothing for it, not even a kiss. It isn’t correct, I thought, but perhaps she’s a Presbyterian. Then I find she is always going listening to the Negroes sing. She’s a pervert, going native. Don’t waste your time on her, my boy, I went out with her. I could give you tips. There’s a secret to everything. Now there’s a man upstairs in the Pickwick, an old Greek, and I, one day, am sitting in the lobby, waiting for Delafield, when I see several girls ask for him, not all at the same time, one after the other. What is this secret? I ask. I knew several of the girls. After they made his acquaintance, they never even had tea with me. What is his secret? I ask him and he tells me. He thinks of them, too! Imagine. Not for me, I said. I don’t need that for my pleasure. I’m not a pervert. I don’t believe in it. I’ve been in one or two wild parties, just got led into it, but I didn’t enjoy it, didn’t like to refuse.”

  He laughed pridefully and mentioned a few of his exploits. “I get led on. But not you.”

  “Are the Flacks going to live on Largo Farm?”

  “I don’t mind them coming down for a week end once or twice.”

  “You promised them to live there.”

  “It’s mine to do what I like with it.”

  “Then they’re not going on it?”

  “Do you think I can be a Christmas tree to everyone? Let them work!”

  Grant returned to his romance.

  After several hours of this, with the vague idea of getting his son’s sympathy, of confiding in someone who could never leave him, and even of debauching the young man a bit, bringing his kin nearer to him, Grant sent Gilbert home to the Pickwick and went to bed. He tossed, worrying about Mrs. Downs. He tried to see what scheme she had up her sleeve. The best thing was certainly for him to fly, yet he hated to leave her free to act. Life had nothing else of interest to offer him. He had been asleep only about ten minutes when the telephone rang.

  It was two o’clock. At first he could not understand the voice at all, one he had never heard, and in a language he had never heard, the whole thing like gibberish in a dream, an effect of flying clouds late on a lonely night. There was a sort of laughing and crying in foreign tongues, and from time to time Grant, who had a gift for spoken language, picked up three or four words out of the babble-fit. The voice went out at a great rate, at terrific speed sometimes, over four hundred words a minute, as Grant guessed, laughing and pleading always but for what, he did not catch. Now he knew it was Karolyi. He heard the words, in German—“and in koronas and lev and lei and rubles, and Swiss francs you can exchange—my dear sir, my dear beloved Robbie—” and the voice ran on once more.

  “Speak German or French,” said Grant.

  The voice broke into a torrent of speech in German but blacked out once more into what was perhaps Polish, with suddenly in English, “You understand the magnificent gentleman has no exchange.”

  “What’s the matter? You woke me up. I tried to get you all day, Karel. Where’s the script?”

  “I have it, a tremendous success, an unprecedented success, will sweep them into the Atlantic, always, a wonderful success, played in Paris, London and Berlin, a multimillionaire, though the exchanges have fallen and I don’t—kroner, gulden, six hundred thousand—I’m very famous, I assure you, there I do not go to publishers, not I, but they come begging, pleading and praying, asking, ‘Karolyi, have you nothing for me?’ But given a chance, I will conquer here, too, I do not beg and pray in my turn, I say, I can show you all—” The voice of Karolyi, about things incomprehensible, drifted on furiously, “I am more than ready, I assure you, and I have a fine actor to read it. But bring several ladies with good taste, I beg you—and Mrs. Downs promised me likewise that Mr. March would bring me ten thousand dollars—work is not a torture for me, but I must eat, though I had an excellent dinner, to begin with there is the typist—early tomorrow morning—”

  Grant said firmly, “Come to my place tomorrow morning at eleven and bring the script. If you have something to show I will let my partners Positive and Bitkoff know and I will give you the money for the typist. If there are three copies—I pay for them—if not, no soap. I don’t pay for nothing.”

  The voice started again and Grant hung up. When he heard the telephone again, he listened for a moment and hung up. Karolyi’s telephone bill was $40 monthly; he sat at home, played solitaire, and telephoned. Grant did not believe there was any finished play.

  Grant was up, shaved, and half-dressed when Karolyi called upon him the next morning at seven-fifteen. It was very cold. Karolyi was well-dres
sed and with clean clothes, though himself far from fresh, and unshaven. He had with him a small package. This package, undone, proved to be the script, written in an elegant small fast hand, one copy only. Karolyi had put on his name, The Subway Princess. Grant grabbed it, held it tight between his powerful hands, weighed it, spun the leaves to see the quantity of writing, peered critically at the words on page one. He sent for coffee for two and sat down, keeping the script in his hands. He was deeply gratified. He believed he had created a “drama.” But, suspicious, ignorant, and a hardened merchant, he began by quarreling, at first about the title. It must not be The Subway Princess, which would attract no one, but one of two sure-fire titles created by himself.

  Grant could see the poor, rakish, sick fellow had been up all night and he suspected that Karolyi had fabricated the play overnight, just reeled it off, to get $20. He turned the things in his hands, working himself into a pet, observed some short phrases like “Is that so?” and pages not entirely filled. He screamed, “It seems to me there are holes in the play—you haven’t finished it. You can’t present a thing like that to a producer. There are hardly any words in the dialogue! Where’s the dialogue? This is only a skeleton. I pay nothing until I get a complete play. No skeletons. I want good work and I want it finished. Take this back and fill in the words.”