A Little Tea, a Little Chat

by Christina Stead

  “Ah, they’ve accepted your conditions,” he said, turning round and eying her sharply.

  “Of course, tomorrow I sign the papers. I’m going to have houses, too. I got a lot of business done this week before I went to the factory, and for some time I’ve been thinking, Why pay rent for my father and young brother and for myself? I save the rent and get their rents. I’ve always a roof over my head. I’ll fix the place up as a home elegantly, there’ll be two floors I’ll keep for myself, if I want them, if I marry, I’ll have one. Father and my brother will have the other, or a smaller one.”

  “A smaller one,” he said, screwing back his head and eying a lock.

  “In a few days I’ll be a landlord, and pay myself back in three years. I’ve heard of a small estate up in the country, in the borsch belt, which has gone to seed. The owner is away at the war and doesn’t want it, and I can get it for the taxes, a farm with barns, fifteen hundred dollars. It’s on a mountainside, with no road to it, but they’re going to build a road to it. This will do for my family and me in the summer. It’s at an elevation of eighteen hundred feet. You can grow all vegetables in spring.”

  “Where will you get the money for all this?” he asked cautiously.

  “My family will lend me some to get back the family property. I’ll use my savings and my business is solid, I’ll pay out of that.”

  “You’re pyramiding, aren’t you? I don’t like that.”

  “Don’t worry about me, Robert. I want to show you I’ve got everything you can ask for.”

  “I’ll wait till I see, you got to show me,” he laughed, wagging his great head at her.

  “I’ll show you the deeds, you’ll see everything.”

  He laughed maliciously, remarked, “Well, I’m glad you’ve got something to depend on, the boom won’t go on forever.”

  She said, “So I own a house, two, two houses, and a farm. Now you know another woman who owns a house and a farm, two in one, I put my cards on the table. Gilbert’s mother owns a farm, I own a farm. Laura made a contribution. I make a contribution.”

  Grant grinned, “Well, I’m glad of it, but don’t get into deep water over me, sweetie. You know me, I’m an eel, I can’t help sliding out from under, that’s the way I get about. I wouldn’t want to be the ruin of you. We have our bargain, if it doesn’t work, no recriminations, gentleman’s agreement, eh? He-he-he! You’re a high style of woman, my sort of woman, you got character, and I wouldn’t want to have you on my conscience if you went bankrupt.”

  She said, “I know what the score is.”

  He turned his back to her, suddenly shouting to Mrs. MacDonald for the parcel of shoe covers. Livy flounced bravely and cried, “Now I’ve got to see my lawyer, go to the factory, and I’ll be back at two-thirty. Be good.”

  As she put on her coat and powdered her face, she watched Miss Robbins making out a laundry list, in an adjacent room. Without lowering her voice, she said to Grant, “And another thing I have to reform in you is your secretary. You let any girl with a temper run you. I wouldn’t trust anyone the way you trust that woman. I don’t like the way she dresses, I don’t like the way she talks to you, I don’t like the way you confide in her. She signs your checks, doesn’t she? Is that good business? You’re soft as a marshmallow, you’re soft as a rotten tire, I’ll see about that when I come back. One of these days I’ll take you over, my bully-boy. I’d let no one get at my bank balance, old top. I’ll get you a young woman out of high school, doesn’t know her nose from her elbow, and I’ll train her and I’ll look after your private affairs myself. I never saw such a messer and such an amateur, for a business man.”

  Grant looked up at her from his heels, and laughed, winking at Gilbert. She continued, “One of these days you’ll get taken over, you’ll see. You trusted this Laura and bought her a house and she lets you down. You’re getting out of business. You’re retired, you’re getting soft. I’m still making money. I got to manage strikes and salesmen, and sell my goods. I’m different. You’re an old-timer, you’re out of the running. You don’t know what it’s like today. I’d get rid of that woman and get rid of her fast. Get a youngster, too—an ugly one.”

  When she left, Grant called them together, Mrs. MacDonald, Miss Robbins, and Gilbert, and asked softly, “What do you think of her? She’s got character? She wants to take me over, buy me out, eh? She’s making a proposition, what do you think of that? Two houses and a farm. She hasn’t got a bean, I know her finances, I looked her up. But what do you think of it? I’m quoted higher today than yesterday; the farm came into it, because of the chicken farm! Eh? What a girl! That’s what I need—maybe!” And he went off into a splendid carillon, slapping his bent knee and exclaiming about Livy’s aggressiveness, ending with, “But she likes me, eh, she must like me, what do you think? Maybe I showed her the pretty pictures a bit; maybe I put in a few arabesques, serenaded her—but she’s a fine woman; and I didn’t always tell her the truth, maybe; but at the time I meant it. Can’t help myself, like to please a pretty woman. A serenade costs nothing and look at the results. Now she’s out to lassoo me. Oh, boy!”

  He said to Gilbert, “And she wants your farm too, son! He-he-he. I give them full details—they fancy they see the figures in my bank account, maybe they think they’re in my will! Ha-ha-ha. I’ll give them my house on the Pinchem every day. Stay with me a month, a year, two years—ha! Why not? I don’t mean to cheat ’em. I swear it. It just comes out of my mouth and they think I have to stand by it. Is there anything down on paper? Believe me, my boy, anything down on paper, signed, sealed, and witnessed, if anything is dubious and I got to take it to arbitration and the judgment goes against me, I pay. If I can’t get the judgment reversed. Ha-ha!”

  He looked thoughtfully at his work and continued at once, “She bought the watches herself and she’s taking a loss, but let her! I’ll make it up to her some way. I’ll see. I’ll see how she shapes up. Got to lead her on a bit to see what’s in her. I liked her last month a lot, told her we might get together. Don’t like her so much now. She disappointed me. Don’t like this bullying, this screaming. Not used to it. I like a lady. But I’ll give her a chance. Maybe I wasn’t quite aboveboard with her. Sang her a song and dance. H’m…Why isn’t Flack here with the collar case? Ring him, Miss Robbins. What did that bloody ’ooman want to come here for breakfast for? I like my breakfast alone. Miss Robbins is not used to seeing women around me in the morning. I don’t want women looking in my papers. To hell with her, she’s out, she talked herself off my payroll. I do what I like! She can buy a hundred houses on a shoestring and I’ll see her in bankruptcy next month and give a horse-laugh. She can’t buy me with her ten cents. Listen, Gilbert, Mrs. MacDonald, don’t leave me alone with her! Mrs. MacDonald isn’t used to seeing women promoting me at breakfast time. You don’t understand, my good woman; neither do I. You’ll go to Largo Farm, Mrs. MacDonald, and mother Gilbert and me: no Xantippe! Not a nice way to behave. Not a lady. I never had a woman in my office. Miss Robbins is my confidential—Never had women to breakfast! Livy got the wrong idea. Always called her my sister, treated her as a sister, respected her, never laid a finger on her. Where’d she get the idea? Thinks she can buy me with a shoestring…Ha! She’ll ruin herself! Let her! Ha! Bloody fool! Gilbert, go and get me the key of the desk in my bedroom.”

  Taking advantage of Gilbert’s absence, Miss Robbins approached and said, “I don’t think you ought to let Gilbert see your private life like this. Why don’t you send him to the country as you said? It isn’t fair to him.”

  “Gilbert! Forty of him wouldn’t make one of me! To hell with him! Let him see! D’you think I give two cents for what he thinks? Let him know the worst! He eats out of my hand for a farm, like the rest of ’em, doesn’t he? I can buy and sell them all! You’re the only decent one, Miss Robbins, you and Mrs. MacDonald. Let him see me at my worst. Let him find out where his money came from! If he doesn’t like where it came from, let the schlemihl go and make his
own.”

  “Shh! He’ll hear—I brought the boy up.”

  “Let him bloody well hear. What do I care for the Gilberts? He and she and the youngster can take my medicine and like it. I saw Livy’s father. I sang him a sweet song. I’ll marry your daughter when I’m free. The old man thought he was on Easy Street. The old woman brought me a turkey. What’s it to me? They want my money! Let them try and get it. My object is to keep it. That’s all there is between us. Pull bear, pull baker. That damn blonde woman is worth the whole pack. I don’t care if she’s all they say she is, she’s more to me than the whole pack. Let him hear! I’ve got to hold my tongue for a clerk in my office?—that’s all he can do, if that! I’ll speak my mind when I like and if he don’t like it, let him starve. He’ll do what I say, or starve. He’s Grant’s son. Let him sink in shame, let him have the mud from my wheels. He stole my woman, he’s not so good. He’ll get my money; he’ll take it.”

  He ended in a terrific roar, which echoed through the apartment. Gilbert must have heard everything. Now Grant stamped up and down for a while as he cooled. At last he said in a quiet voice, as his son entered, “Gilbert! Well, you’ve seen me at my worst, best thing, blessing in disguise. We have to understand each other. I’m no angel.”

  Gilbert said, “What you said is true! I made up my accounts with myself, the black and the red as you say, and I am Grant’s son. I couldn’t earn my living. I must swallow my pride. Pride is ignorance. And very often honor is just another word for a neat income: I don’t have to black shoes, I’m honorable. But when I have your money, I’ll bring honor into it.”

  Grant gave him a stern look, “The money will have the same stamp. Oblige me by trying that desk key in the hatbox. Your mother was always too good for me. Sweet woman. Probably my fault we didn’t get along. An angel. But, my boy—he-he!—between you and me, it’s hard to live with an angel. You’re turning it in the wrong direction. You didn’t get shaved this morning, and look, you’ve nicked your cheek twice, from yesterday. Very dangerous, go and put rubbing alcohol on it. No, it doesn’t work. Now put the key back in the drawer, no, put it in the left-hand corner of the uppermost drawer in the bureau. Gilbert, come back—”

  The young man re-entered with the key still in his hand. Grant grumbled, “I want you to follow my instructions. You actually left the door key on the desk that time in Jigago! Can’t understand it.”

  Gilbert left the room while his father kept shouting at him. Miss Robbins said, “This key does not fit the hatbox, that’s certain.”

  He grumbled, “But it fits something! Should have bought keys in Woolworth’s. Go to the man on the corner, buy up his odd keys. No foresight. That’s it! This fits! You should have said to yourself, ‘If this key doesn’t fit the hatbox or the trunk, it will fit something,’ and brought along every key you could find at home.”

  “Why can’t you have a locksmith or valise man and fit the lock?”

  “God damn it, don’t put me off, I do things my way.”

  Presently Edda and Flack arrived and he had them all fitting keys in the locks, muttering meanwhile against the carpenter. Flack said, “Today he has to carpent, perhaps. Stop rumbling like Vesuvius.”

  “Can’t get anything done! No one listens to me! Why didn’t you lock the kitchen closet?”

  Flack screamed at him, “I did lock the kitchen closet, also the closet with your precious Scotch and brandy.”

  “Quite right, you’re quite right, but what I can’t understand is why you didn’t bring your own valise keys so I could try them. You and Edda must have plenty. You should have brought ’em along! There you see, my boy, the difference between a dawdler’s, a scribbler’s brain, and the brain of a Scotsman who made his own way in the world, forget nothing, leave nothing to chance. The literary brain thinks, it may not fit, it may; romance. I won’t bother with it. I’ll leave it on the desk in Jigago!”

  “What?”

  “It don’t matter if I can’t open the hatbox, I’ll leave it to chance. This is the way you don’t earn money, Flack. I made money in business by thinking about details. Why don’t you go home, my boy, take a taxi and get me your keys? Edda, you do it.”

  “One more word and I’ll throw the key ring out the window!”

  “Do me a favor and try those keys again on the hatbox! Don’t get shirty, my boy, try and help me. I need consolation, I don’t want to be put off.”

  “I told you, Robbie, they don’t fit. If you had half an eye, and any kind of an observation, you’d see what kind of a key your hatbox needs, a small English-style key, it’s an English hatbox. This key is a large trunk key and this a small closet key, and doesn’t fit anything here. This is a jewel-case key and this key—”

  “Try them all again, I want to see it done, oblige me by trying—Here, Gilbert!”

  Gilbert said, “Now this hatbox and key turmoil is an example of—”

  “What was the example of leaving the key lying on the desk in Jigago? Could you open the door with it? No. Could I find it when I expected it in the right-hand corner of the collar drawer? No. Could a thief get it, or the maid pick it up and put it in her pocket? Yes. Now did you put that key in the upper left-hand corner—?”

  “Fuss, fuss, you’re like an old woman,” said Gilbert, trying the keys.

  “If you were a socialist as you pretend, you’d leave the trunks open,” said Flack.

  “What? Never!” declared Grant, wagging his head prodigiously. He grinned, “Must a socialist turn out his pockets and say, ‘Rob me’? No, sir. Must socialist mean Nitwit? I believe in socialism and when it comes I’ll be in line to give up my property. If you look down at the end of the line, and look at the last man, that’ll be me with my titles and bonds. And I’ll be the first one on the Committee for Compensation of Landlords; and if we’re dispersed, I’ll present a petition to the Government if I’m not in arrears for taxes; and if all else fails, I’ll retire to Switzerland and live on my Swiss funds. Yet I’m a socialist. I won’t fight for the fascists; but I won’t fight for the socialists. If I buy and deliver guns for reactionaries, I’ll see they get lost and go to Guerrilleros. I won’t join the anti-Soviet committee, but I won’t either send my luggage away without keys…Now this key might fit anything?”

  “Oh, it might fit the secret archives, the desk of your friend in the F.B.I., and we’ll get the file on Mrs. Downs,” said Flack.

  “Not such a joke, not such a joke!”

  “And you’d be arrested as a spy! And have to go to Leavenworth with Al Capone.”

  “Al Capone made his own money at any rate. He wasn’t a cop. I wish I knew which key it was.”

  “What key?”

  “The key the bee-expert here left on the desk in Jigago. It might have been the hatbox key.”

  “You know it was the desk key, Dad.”

  “It might have fitted the hatbox. I’ve got it, I’ve got it!” he cried. He rushed around, holding them by the shoulders, and then pushing things aside as he looked for something, “Where’s the collarbox? The key’s in the collarbox. Where’s the collarbox, Flack?”

  Flack became hysterical, “I told you I put it inside the desk, as you said, and locked the desk!”

  Grant shook his fist, “That’s better, that’s good! A key locked up inside a locked desk! You knew I’d want it, god damn it all. You put me off, I’ve got no time to lose. Where is the key to the locked desk?”

  “That’s the one you gave to Gilbert.”

  “Where is it? Where is it?”

  “In the upper left top-hand corner of—the upper left-hand top corner of—you know where it is!”

  “Get it! Don’t leave it lying on the desk like you did in Jigago, an example of the agricultural brain, a key that could open anything—”

  “I’m on strike,” said Flack.

  “A literary brain says, ‘Leave the valises open, it doesn’t matter if things get lost and people steal your goods and you arrive in Havana without socks’; a beekeeper�
��s brain says, ‘Leave the key lying round, it’s of no value, what does it matter?’—you leave the barn doors open, too, on the farm; let the cattle and horses stray out and Mr. Knight gets them, what does it matter?—leave the incubation houses open. Let them black-market thieves come with the trucks in the night and steal the chickens, what does it matter? So Upton let them come in the daytime; what’s the difference? It doesn’t matter. Because neither of you never made a sou for yourselves in your life. But I know the value of money and the value of keys. My entire life is under lock and key. It’s here—” he said, putting his hand on the top of the old-fashioned leather hatbox. He picked the hatbox up, weighed it in his big fist, and shook it at them, showing that it was heavy, “It’s here, in here under lock and key, everything! No Land of Canaan, no lead you up my garden, no etchings—property, property, money, money, money! And where is the key? You lost the key! The key’s in the collarbox locked up in a desk, and the desk key is—”

  Gilbert said, “Here it is. What are you waving the hatbox in my face for?”

  “Here, here—” said his father and stopped with a grim smile. He took the desk key.