A Little Tea, a Little Chat

by Christina Stead

  “Where is the collarbox?”

  Flack told him and refused to get it for him.

  “Mrs. MacDonald, my dear good woman, you’re my only friend, kindly take this key and—a woman’s instinct is for housekeeping and keeping things under lock and key! But don’t try to open the collarbox, I’ve got the key to that here,” and he slid a finger into his vest pocket and produced a small key. He cried triumphantly, “Not a literary brain, not an agricultural brain—” He turned the little key in the collar case, where it stuck. After wrestling with it for a few moments, he looked thunderstruck and exclaimed in a high voice, “It isn’t the key! I know, for I remember the key—what key is that? Here’s a key—it opens something! Keep it, never mind. It opens something. Keep it. Miss Robbins, try all these little keys. Mrs. MacDonald, please go through these other keys again on that other lock.”

  “Go call a locksmith,” muttered Flack.

  “No locksmith! Send for the carpenter!”

  “Send to the druggist for a pair of patent-leather shoes,” said Gilbert.

  “What good is a key lying on a desk on a table—it fits something, someone will find out what it fits,” said Grant, passing him with a threatening frown.

  Miss Robbins said, “If you think he wouldn’t send to the druggist for shoes: he gets his liquor there, he thinks it’s cheaper.”

  43

  At length Jones, the carpenter, arrived and managed to fix the obstinate lock and was sent away, with a warning that he must be there at nine on the next day. Grant then suddenly began to dismiss them severally, Flack to get a “‘sports-jack’ with a ribbed collar, not the one with the leather collar”; Miss Robbins with Flack, to hunt for a very particular envelope containing photographs of the blonde, which no one but they must see; Mrs. MacDonald to go home and receive telephone messages; and Gilbert to go to the newsreels for a couple of hours. Grant said, “I got to take an aspirin and rest.”

  Gilbert went out of the front door, took out his notebook, consulted his balance-sheet of self-analysis, hesitated some time, walking up and down the landing, and then quietly re-entered the apartment. He heard his father inside, talking on the telephone, “I am not showing temper, sweetheart, and I am very sorry you have money troubles, I will do the best I can, but I can’t get exchange and you can’t get blood from a stone. I don’t want to leave you in disgrace, and I don’t see why you should have to go to a psychoanalyst. I’ll send you a check for Walker as soon as I can. I haven’t seen Walker! I’ve been very generous to you, sweetie, and I know you are strong, physically all right and mentally all right. You just need a couple of sleeping tablets, which I’ll send round to you—or meet me down in the Awning Bar at seven-thirty. Send Goodwin round to me tonight at nine-thirty here and I’ll go into the question of your expenses. I don’t want you to be put out on the street. Don’t exaggerate. You’re the romantic, Barb, not me, you’re the one living in a dream world. I am very much horrified by what you tell me and I must think it all over. It shades extortion, it looks like blackmail—I’m very much shocked and depressed. You can imagine, darling, that I am not feeling very happy.”

  Gilbert listened for some time to his father’s expostulation, and idly picked up the little key which had not fitted the collar case and which lay on top of the hatbox. He put it into the keyhole; it turned and opened. He lifted the lid, looked in, and had turned toward his father’s room to call out when that door shut with a great bang, as if it had been kicked shut. The conversation droned on inaudibly behind the door.

  Gilbert started to open the hatbox again, instead slid the key into his own vest pocket, and looking about, saw on the dresser shelf some bottles of wine and Scotch whisky that Flack had brought from the other apartment. He quickly drank down two glasses of Scotch, sat down, yawned, and tried to stretch in either armchair. Valises, paper, and clothes had been piled on the long brocaded reclining couch standing by the wall. Gilbert started to clear these off and once more changed his mind, meticulously replacing the valises and clothes in their exact positions. He stretched out behind these, instead, against the wall, and in a few minutes fell asleep.

  Meantime, Grant had finished with the blondine and telephoned Livy, asking her not to return till five. He had to go out and was going to lock the place up. This done, he threw himself on the bed, rested for a few minutes, took an aspirin, went and washed and came back into the sitting room in his shirt sleeves with his spectacles on, to read the paper. He sat near the window and did not observe the young man sleeping.

  After he had read the paper for half an hour, he went to the phone again and said tranquilly, “I am expecting some messengers and a typist: three young women—send them up.” He went back to the window and began to skim through the pages of a magazine. He looked very different now, like a benevolent small storekeeper airing himself at home on Sunday. He had a contented expression and made no noise at all, being extremely smooth and light in his movements, when he had no one to impress.

  Someone knocked. He took his time at opening the door, then he said, briefly, “Come in, Violetta? Where’s Janet? I phoned her to come at two-thirty, too.”

  Violetta was about twenty-two, with handsome long legs, a fresh skin, pink cheeks, very pretty, and somewhat shy. She wore a plain brown street coat with a blue dress, a small hat with a veil. She was ill at ease and advanced into the room with hesitation, looking about her and at Grant, without a word.

  “I expected you, Violetta, about half an hour ago, but a good thing you didn’t come. Sit down over there.”

  The girl sat down facing him and the window, about twelve feet away. After an expert look at the lower part of her body, Grant took up his paper and went on reading. The girl said nothing and sat without fidgeting. After some time, he looked at her over his avuncular spectacles, said, “I’ll wait till Janet comes,” and went back to his reading.

  Presently the girl said, “Perhaps I ought to go?”

  “Did Janet say she was coming? Then wait for her.”

  They resumed the first pose. After a quarter of an hour, there was another knocking. Grant thrust down his paper, peered at the girl over his spectacles, and padded over to the door. He had kicked off his slippers, showing holes in both socks. He opened the door as before, saying briefly, “Come in, come in.”

  This visitor was a thin-faced, oldish girl with a work-tired skin and brown hair. She wore a very cheap brown fur coat and a silk dress low-cut over a shapeless full bosom. She wore a pair of plush earpieces and a gold cross on a chain. Her thin shoes left wet patches on the French gray carpet, showing where the holes were. She greeted Violetta and chattered with her a little, then sat down on the seat that Grant pointed out to her, pointing with his finger, without a word, and looking strongly at her over the tops of his spectacles. He went on reading, coughed, looked at them, went on reading. The girls chattered quietly a little; then the newcomer said, “Are you really going away tomorrow, Robbie?”

  He looked at her as before, “Did you bring the things? Where’s the bill? Let me see.”

  She handed him the package she had brought.

  He pounced on it, unwrapped it, went through the contents, grumbling at things he supposed were missing and later found; and checked over the bill. It bore the name of a pharmacist from far uptown, in a poor district. Janet was a housewife who sometimes ran messages for the pharmacist.

  Grant said, “All right, come into the other room, Violetta; I want to give you a message for Delafield.”

  The young girl looked as if she were about to refuse, but changed her mind and with embarrassment followed the man into the inner room. He shut the door. While they were shut up in the room, came a third knocking at the door, which Janet answered when it was repeated.

  The third visitor was a woman of thirty or more, in poor winter clothes, with sloppy hair but alert, dark business eyes, a flushed skin ruined by late hours. She also had a parcel with her.

  “Hello, Katia! He’s inside.”

/>   “He’s going away? I brought him three dozen pairs of nylon, at two dollars a pair; I suppose he’s taking them.”

  “He’s going to Havana, I think.”

  “I’ll get him to pay me today.”

  “I would.”

  The door opened within, and Grant and the girl came out. Grant, when he saw the new girl, cocked his head and said without greeting: “Did you bring the stockings?”

  “Yes! So you’re leaving us,” she said, with a dusty, beaten bravado.

  “Friend of Murray’s doing a big business in Havana, Sam—Positive,” he said, swaggering to the window, and sitting down with his newspaper.

  “Not doctor’s orders?” said the newcomer, Katia, sympathetically.

  He gave her a look, frowned, and went back to his newspaper. The first young girl came back quietly and stood near the door. After a minute he coughed, raised his eyes, went back to the paper, looked up again, got up, putting his fist into his pocket.

  “No need to wait, Violetta,” he said amiably. He accompanied the girl to the door and there kissed her, clasped her arm, and gave her a five-dollar bill, saying, “Buy yourself a blouse.” Then he padded back to the window and sat down, looking the other girls over pensively. He murmured, as he eyed them, “How’s your brother, Katia? You let me down, my girl, last week; and now you’re late. I hope you brought the stockings. I need them for my business friends. Got to go on a business trip to—”

  He took up the paper, glanced at it, and dropped it. He looked out the window, jingled his money. Then he looked back at Katia and laughed, “What’s the matter, Katia? You don’t look well today.” He got up and walked near and round the seated women, looking them over negligently, then he blurted out, “Janet, you needn’t wait, I’ll send a check to the pharmacy—tomorrow. How’s your father? I’m going away for a while, I won’t see you, sweetie, come inside, I want to say a few words to you.”

  He repeated the previous maneuver, except that this time he merely half-closed the door and could be heard whispering to the woman. In a few minutes he came out, as before, swaggering, rolling his head, looking blackly before him. He stood near the door and when the woman came out, he seized her by her thin arm, marshaled her to the door, with a couple of bills in his hand, and pushed her out with these, muttering, “I’ll send you a postcard. Good-bye. I’ll call you when I come back, think of me, sweetie.”

  He shut the door and came back with a satisfied but serious expression. He motioned Katia to an easy chair, standing by the window, “Let’s see the stockings. Not seconds, are they? Show them to me! How much?”

  “You know the price.”

  “Now, do me a favor, oblige me, my dear good girl, and show them to me. Why can’t I see them?”

  She undid the packet and showed him the stockings. He scarcely examined them. She sat with them in her lap, and leaning forward toward him, her face in the unflattering street light, she began, “When are you coming back, Bertie, dear? I had a letter from my mother this week and from my husband in Vichy. If I could get to the south of France like you promised, I could either wait there till it is over, or get through the occupied zone. No one has anything against me. We were always anti-Soviet. I could get through to Vichy, or where my mother is. You say your Rome manager is in Bordeaux now, you just had a cable, so won’t you write to him, Bertie, as you said, and help me before you go away? I waited more than two years already on your promise. You said your word was your bond. That’s all I ask. I’m sick of work here and the black market is going to close up soon, I know that. I don’t want to get a job or be unemployed, and I’m not a citizen, they’ll throw me out if I’m unemployed, and where will I go?”

  “You should have become a citizen. Not nice, here nine years and not a citizen, you can’t blame them,” said Bertie.

  “But why would I, when you promised five years ago that you’d do something for me and it’s two years since you heard from your manager the first time and told me he’d make all arrangements? I was waiting on you, Bertie.”

  Robert turned the conversation for a few minutes on to some common acquaintance called Reverend Blank, apparently an acquaintance of all these three girls and others known to Katia and Robert, and to the gentleman’s housekeeping arrangements, “You mean Mrs. Taylor is doing the house for him now—ho-ho-ho!”

  The two went into some scandalous details, whispering eagerly by the window. Grant held his hand on the woman’s shoulder and bent closer, chuckling with his insatiable curiosity. She cut this off abruptly and asked for the payment of her bill. Grant told her he would send a check from Havana, but she insisted upon payment now, “Besides, I’m sick of work and want to go to Sun Valley for a change.”

  “How are you going to get out there? Have you got enough money?”

  “Oh, I’ll hitchhike. I can always find someone to buy me dinner.”

  “You need more than dinner.”

  “Oh, I’m used to hitchhiking.”

  “Well, I’ll send you your check, look after yourself, my good girl.”

  “And what about France, Bert? You know you promised right in the beginning to help me over there, with your connections.”

  He laughed, “Your memory’s too good, my girl. You know if I had to help to Europe everyone I’d promised, I’d be bankrupt. They’d skin me alive to get to Europe, I can’t help it if they take me at my word. They’ve not got anything on paper and have I got to watch every word? Other people can talk and not have to pay through the nose for every word! But the moment I open my mouth, people act on it. I should have been a statesman, a Mussolini, good grief! Look, my dear woman, I can’t pay the passage of half the U.S.A. to Europe. I can’t have a thousand people under one roof in my house on the Pinchem Hill. You aren’t reasonable and no one is. I’m no fairy godmother. I’m goodhearted, that’s my only weakness. I get interested in my friends and I promise things. You can’t blame me, I do it in the excitement of the moment. That’s the way I am. Sue me! I’m a Presbyterian, my dear woman. I don’t like to see people hanging round with their tongues hanging out. They don’t show any character. You might call me the punishment of God. Not of God, but of fate. I promise and then nothing happens! That’s life, isn’t it? It happened to me. Take your medicine, my dear girl. You delayed too long. I like to see girls with character and I thought you had character. You ought to have gone over long ago…I thought you had character when I saw you making your way with that little store—fine, fine, very good. ‘That girl’s got character,’ I said; ‘she may not be the Queen of Sheba but she has character.’”

  “Oh, can it, Bertie. You promised to put up money for the store, and you never gave me a cent for it.”

  “I’m generous, I can say that, and you managed all right? I should have helped you out if you’d needed it. You didn’t. I admired that. You’re a fine little woman. Now, I’ve got someone coming at five-thirty. Sam Positive from Jigago, law case, so I got no more time.”

  “Well, pay me the stockings at any rate, but in my humble opinion, Bertie, you’re a welsher and always will be.”

  “Oh, welsher—you know me, little girl. You know I’m not a schoolboy. Caveat emptor. I don’t pretend to be an angel. I’d say it shows a poor sort of character if anyone tries to pin me down to a promise when I’m excited, interested in them, feeling generous. That means you’re trying to take a bonus out of fun, consolation, friendship, doesn’t it? Now I like a girl to love me for myself. I call that character.”

  He jingled his coins, paid her half her money, and led her to the door. At the door he fondled her and pushed her out, with a five-dollar bill, saying, “Now don’t go off to Sun Valley unless you have enough money; you don’t want to behave like a tramp, girlie. I’ll telephone you when I get back.”

  Grant banged the door, heaved a sigh, and picked up the keys. Gilbert rose up behind his back, hearing the clinking, came forward to the table. His father stepped back a pace and stood sturdily looking up at him. Gilbert withdrew his t
wo fingers from his pocket, with the small key, and put it on top of the hatbox, “I found your key. Then I had a drink and lay down on your couch. I fell fast asleep; probably snored. I thought I heard voices and woke up.”

  “There were some girls here. Why didn’t you get up and announce yourself? I would have introduced you.”

  “I should have looked like a blamed fool, coming out of the valises.”

  His father burst into a shout of laughter. He flushed and bent merrily to the hatbox, then waved his son away and toted the hatbox to the bedroom. When he came padding back he was thoughtful. He explained that Violetta was a typist that he was going to engage to write his autobiography—he had had to put it off for months, but when he came back he would make notes and let Flack write it up for him.

  “It will be a best-seller, my boy. It’ll make us all rich. Nothing like this trash, Green Corn Valley, My Son Is My Undoing, nothing like that, best-seller to beat all the records, we’ll keep going for years, and constructive, nothing unnecessary like Gone with the Wind: no sex. Then we’ll go into the one-dollar book distribution business, tie up with some chain store, or radio network, and we’ll be the vanguard of the book monopolies.”

  “That’s a good idea!”

  “Katia’s a good girl, she gets me all the black-market nylons I want. She’s a good girl, but a character weakness, not too honest, not too clean—morally, you know—and doesn’t like to work. Works five months and then spends seven months bumming round the country.”

  “Wish I could do that, how does she do it?”

  “Yes, yes, very weak character. White Russian, too, and family in Vichy, don’t want you to meet her. You wouldn’t like her. Janet’s one of Delafield’s girl friends. I don’t inquire. I know nothing; but not a very good character. The trouble with these girls, my boy, is that I like them, I want to like them, I need a friend, and I’m fond of women, I’m a democrat, poor girl workers, I respect them; but when I look closer, I see they’re not very careful. Not very clean morally. Then they all want something.”