A Little Tea, a Little Chat

by Christina Stead

  “No, no, it’ll sweep them into the Atlantic. We’ll give Winchell a cocktail party and we get a smash-hit, sell to Ollyvood—Hollywood—three million dollars. Go on, the lady wants to hear it.”

  “The hell I do. I have a date; but thanks for the memory,” said the actress, getting up.

  They all rose. Grant rushed up, holding her by the arm, begging her, trying his endearments. She only laughed and shook him off, but she said, “Call me some time—dream boy; I’ll make a date with you if you’ll bring your friends too. I wouldn’t have missed it for worlds. Good-bye.” And suddenly, elegantly, she sailed out of the door. They stood round her at the elevator.

  Grant, returning sadly to the apartment, began to upbraid Flack, but this scolding was broken into by Goodwin, who thrust the packet of new drawers under Grant’s nose and repeated his threat. Pretty soon they all left but Flack. Flack and Grant had a long, miserable talk. Why had the actress gone, Grant asked over and over again, and wanted to blame it on Flack. Flack blamed it upon Grant’s meddling with the script. Grant walked up and down discontentedly, jingling the money and keys in his pockets and repeating, “It’s a smash-hit, she’s old, she’s worn out, she doesn’t see it. She’s a has-been. It’s a diamond of the first water. It’ll sweep them into the Atlantic. It’s artistic. It has an idea, it has appeal. Appeal to every man, every ’ooman! I want my dream girl, or dream boy. General appeal. No problems. Nothing unnecessary. No sex, no scandal. Suitable for Hays Code. Broadway hit, first-night hit, and can’t get seats for months ahead. Hold out for three million dollars. You get your cut. She doesn’t see it. She’s an old fool, a has-been. The world’s changing. Got to have humor and romance too. Democratic. Every girl, every boy, their dream. She’s no good. Turns down a gold mine.”

  When Flack remonstrated with him and said his additions to the script had turned it from a hit to a misfit, Grant yelled, “You shut up. It’s my play. You don’t know how to make money.”

  “No: I hate money. So money eventually hates me,” said Flack.

  He laughed, dropped his arms, cast his gay, arched eyes at Grant, “Don’t ask me to explain the mystery of life; but if money meets a person who not only hates money but actually does not want money, it wants to kill him, but I mean kill—”

  Curiously enough, when he said “Kill,” Flack’s voice became shrill, even hysterical, certainly full of fear, as an honest man seeing the approach of a fascist policeman who had once tortured him.

  Grant was touched for the moment, “I respect you for that, my boy, respect you, wish I could be like that. If there’s a law preventing me from putting my hand—”

  Flack broke in with, “Those who really love, like myself, are hated by the rascals, business men, and peddlers of love.”

  “Eh? Eh?”

  “Anyone who is decent, Robbie, is hated by your rabble. You don’t understand because you’re naïve, Robbie. Your rabble are monkeys, they’re not men yet. They don’t like to be decent. If you force them to be decent, they simply crap in the public square when you’re not looking and then hide behind a telephone booth to grin at your growl, when you see the neat little pile.”

  “Not at all, unnecessary, not at all, we must have a constructive view of people,” said Grant. He walked up and down once or twice, then burst out laughing, clapped his friend on the shoulder, yelled with laughter and remarked, “That’s a damn funny picture, though. Where’d you get it? That’s very good.”

  “I got it from Koehler’s apes.”

  He frowned at once. “H’m? H’m? Never mind.”

  51

  Flack filled in the time for him just the same, but when he had gone at twelve, because Edda would be home and waiting for him, lonely, Grant felt lonely indeed. For a moment, he actually sat and felt lonely, realized his life was empty, that his friends had moved off in swarms, in families to amuse themselves and each other, and that even his son—but his energetic nature refused such moments.

  He sprang up from the chair and threw himself into a mood—any mood was not only entertainment, but preferable to the sorrow of thinking of his old age and uncompanioned state. He thought at length of Gilbert. It was two o’clock and Gilbert had not yet returned. He flung himself down on the couch and imagined a series of letters, of unfortunate incidents provoked by him, striking down Celia Grimm, a young woman pretending to be radical, who had gone out with a radical like himself, honest, since after all he had all that money to give to Spain or the Spanish refugees if he chose, therefore, more honest than all of them—an honest radical, he saw himself, with dilated eyes, sitting in Café Society, in some other leftist night club, in the company of radicals, a real radical better than those who spoke too much, even than David Flack who, inexplicably, was a wonderful mass-stirrer at radical meetings—because he had a good heart and could hand them, if he wished, one million dollars—enough surely to solve the problems of a few radicals, of poor men without shirts, with no teeth, and who lived on concentration-camp soup. His million dollars, that could purchase them all back to humanity, made him, of them all, the most radical, a thousand lives in a bankbook—especially as he had a good heart. He lay, being very sleepy, and thought bitterly of Celia Grimm. He had taken the woman out a number of times and received nothing for it—a couple of kisses. She was not a child and she had accepted dinners from a man, they had become intimate, talked a lot about Negroes’ rights and Spanish refugees in the south of France; they had had plenty of drinks and he had even once taken a whole party to Café Society Uptown, just to please her, to see Hazel Scott. And what was the result that evening? She had gone home with someone else. She had no honor, then, as a woman, not even any commercial honor, a bargain is a bargain, a woman knows what she is doing. Now she had entranced his young idiot, his son, by romantic talk about the South. He felt his troubles would be over, the woman punished, and his son ridiculed, if he showed the woman up. Thinking it over, his lips became red, he licked them, he smiled, his eyes shone like jewels, and he arose and drew a little map. He then wrote a form letter, more or less in this style,

  The Sheriff, Clay County.

  Dear Sir,

  Our country is at war and we do not want any unrest among our workers. I know that Miss Celia Grimm is leaving New York City on [date] for [place] in order to give Communistic ideas to hard-working local Negro women. I recommend you as a loyal northern friend to look out for her at the railroad station or bus depot, about [date].

  Yours sincerely,

  A. Goodwind,

  Broker,

  N. Y. City.

  P.S. I met this woman recently in the company of two Negroes. It seems to me she is mad about color. I do not like to see anyone I know in that situation.

  When the young man came home, staggering with fatigue and with an expression of bliss and raggedness, about three A.M., Grant, full of his new idea, gave his son a drink, talked again to him about Celia Grimm, and sent him to bed.

  He slept soundly that night—the play was finished and read to an actress; he had accounted for the insult to his honor given by Miss Celia Grimm; his son—he knew now where to find him. With some tenderness, he got up at seven-thirty and made breakfast for Gilbert. Gilbert did not rise till after nine. Grant stayed away from his office, and spoke again of Celia Grimm, who was leaving the next day for the South.

  In the next week there were some, for him, interesting developments in the “blonde” case. Having once more employed his old friend, Bentwink, a pleasant and modest and tranquil detective, he had found out (what he might have found out, perhaps, by employing a spyglass, a pair of spectacles, or a lawyer) that the blonde’s lover, Mr. X, was a highly placed Washington man of Catholic connections, upon which he depended much, married to a rich girl, and that he could in no way allow the scandal to come to light. Grant was delighted at this, and exclaimed several times to numerous persons that, “It is the triumph of decency. No scandal, he made a mistake and he pays, and no scandal. Everyone who made a mistake is sor
ry for his sins, and no scandal, a profit, and nothing to pay for the rest. For him, he had the most to lose, so he has the most scandal. His weakness is her strength. His weakness—h’m—at any rate, he’ll pay the money, and I’ve advised the blondine not to divorce. That idiot, her husband, does not want to marry, and he says if the blonde deceived him, with that innocent lovely face, any woman can, and he doesn’t want that. Well, I don’t suppose he’s very strong, either. I’m going out to put that in My Dream Girl. ‘You deceived me, so no other woman counts. I’ll never look at another woman again, she hurt me too much.’ That will appeal to everyone.”

  He met the blonde every day, having conferences with her about the amount of money “Mr. X” was to pay and to whom it should be awarded. He was quite happy and forgot about his son. However, the younger man suddenly became fretful and tyrannical, and Grant found out not only that Celia Grimm had left for her Southern tour but that she had told Gilbert she might never see him again, such was her work and such the difference of their views of life. Grant felt he could write his letters of denunciation with impunity. The more he thought of Celia Grimm’s tricking, the angrier he became. These letters to sheriffs all sent off, he sat down in a pleasurable quiet and played Russian Bank with his son and the Goodwins.

  A week later, Gilbert told him, with tears in his eyes, that Celia was in a southern jail for inciting the Negroes to break contracts, and that he was going down at once. Grant forbade this in a fury, “If you do a thing like that, you’ll get nothing from me. Remember your twenty thousand dollars which you will get in a few months for Sergey, or for the farm, it depends what I think is conditional, subject to—”

  The young man said harshly, “When you met Sergey you promised money next year in Europe, not here and now; I know you promised to give the farm back to Upton. You are treating me like a child and you let everyone think I am a dupe.”

  Grant continued without noticing this: “If I don’t like you, you don’t get a penny. It’s my money. Never mind what I promise. I promise here, I promise there, if I see a good thing, if I believe in a man. You bring me something and you’ll get your money, subject to my approval and you’ll sign for it, and you’ll take it all on your own responsibility and not come to me for it afterwards; I’m clean about money, I don’t pay twice. You got to respect my money. If it weren’t for my money you’d be a laborer, a workman in a mill or a white-collar man in an office with no brains and no chance. You’re Grant’s son. I’m not saying that to insult you, my boy; I don’t consider it an insult. All right, you can’t make money. Everyone can’t. If everyone could I wouldn’t have had such a streak of luck myself. Ha-ha. But no going down with woman who likes colored people. Or go on your pocket-money. Get her out on it. Don’t ask me for any. If you ask for my money you have to take my opinions along with it. If you don’t, to hell with you, do without it.”

  “You get on the high horse and talk about yourself and your money when a friend of yours, a woman you knew, is in jail down there. Perhaps they’re doing something to her, hurting her.”

  “She asked for it, it’s the risk of the business, isn’t it? She can’t go into a business and howl afterwards. Everyone knows the risks. Let the committees and councils that are always sending me appeals for five-dollar dinners and twenty-dollar dinners get her out. This is New York. They must have collected thousands. I was at a meeting myself and saw them collect two hundred and fifty-seven thousand dollars! What a business, oh, boy!”

  He looked seriously at the young man, then slapped his side, shouted, “Someone got up and just asked for it—I couldn’t turn a trick like that. Oh, boy. And he got it. Listen to me, my boy. Flack says to make the revolution you don’t need money. You can’t buy the revolution on a silver teatray. That’s what Flack says. You get high-paid officials, you give them out-of-pockets, you give them banquets and you get corruption. A lot of people think you can buy the revolution like you buy a pound of sugar, and it’s as high as that too. Record high prices for revolution. Now revolution is pure, my boy, take it from me, I was a socialist as a boy. Don’t try to buy your way into the revolution or way out. If she’s sincere, and we’ll see, my boy, I don’t say she isn’t, now is the time for us to find out. She’s a nice girl. I don’t say she doesn’t mean it. But she took me for a ride. She’s not straight.”

  “I’ve got to go down there, it’s a question of honor.”

  At the young man’s crestfallen air, he triumphed, but worked himself into a greater fury, saying, “You don’t know the woman, it’s blackmail, it’s social blackmail, that’s all the radicals and leftists are good for, social blackmail. I did maybe something she didn’t like, why not, it’s none of her business, and now she goes out of her way to involve you. Revenge, an old song. Ha, you’re a mouthful to her. Nothing doing! She’s got no respect for the rules of the game. To hell with her. Let her stay in jail. And when she comes out, I don’t want you near her. That’s all play-school stuff, playing round with—”

  Seeing his son made no response, he continued for some time. At last, feeling he had won him over, he began to reason with him paternally. Gilbert went to bed very quietly. Grant, full of affection, went out to the kitchen and set Gilbert’s tray for the morning. Grant thought to himself that now he had a reasonable young man—why not take a new apartment for the two of them with separate entrances, not as gaudy and expensive as the Pickwick, and so spend his remaining years decorously, with the love of one member of his family? He spent a few of his usual sleepless hours working it out. There were embarrassing details, but the young man had grown up; he too, for example, had affairs—Grant even thought, “My God, I should forgive him for wanting this girl gone native; I went with a real black girl myself.”

  When Grant got up in the morning, there was a note for him next to the letter which they had both written to Maxwell and Flora in Florida demanding $1,000. This note was from Gilbert, and said he had taken twenty-five dollars from his father’s pocketbook, which, together with some money of his own, he calculated would get him down to Celia.

  “I will expect you to send the rest, as you promised to Celia; and in the meantime, please take this as a general I O U for any expenses for myself and Celia. Please get Sam Banks for Celia.”

  Grant folded the note, went to the hatbox, and locked it in it. Then he started to think about the situation. He reviewed what Gilbert had told him, about the trusties, about the danger of organizing Negroes in the South, the terror and backwardness of the country. The town in which Gilbert would be, within twenty-four hours, was very violent, famous not only for its oppression of the black people but for its murder-rate. Grant at once telephoned his most serious radical friends, the Flacks. Gilbert had got himself in a jam just as bad as Claud March, and he wanted their advice before he went to a lawyer.

  Flack said, “What do you want me to do? I’ll take the train tonight. Is that what you want?”

  “We don’t want to act hastily. Let’s give it our consideration. The young fool got himself into a jam. Let him learn. If I get him out right away, he’ll follow her round, get in another tomorrow. He’s got to learn his lesson. I learned mine. I got my fingers burned with the blonde, now I know. Let him learn.”

  “Get him out, with a lawyer, and get her out, too,” said Flack.

  “Boloney. Nothing doing! That’s just what she wants. She wants to marry him. She found out he has a forchun. Let her learn something too. I don’t pay for women I take out to a couple of dinners and not even a kiss. They know why you take them out. You’re married. They know why! Nothing doing. I’m not a sucker. She couldn’t get me so she got her claws onto him. Nothing doing. We’ll get him out, if they put him in.”

  “Good God, you can’t go and bail out your son, the son of a rich man, and leave her in—The whole press will have it. What will you look like? He’ll never forgive you.”

  “To hell with him! But the press—to hell with the press. I’ll ring up a couple of journalists, tell them, g
ive them a couple of brandies, tell them she went native and tried to get in my boy—”

  They wrangled for a long time. At last Grant, furious with the world, yelled, “O.K.! O.K.! He wanted it this way. Let him stay there and find out what it’s like. He won’t be so romantic. He’s a romantic. He’s got to burn his fingers. She’s a blonde, too. Let him stay there. There’s a Southern Negro Congress, you say, is looking after him. Let them look after. They put up the money? Let them. I don’t put up a cent. I didn’t know they had any money. What kind of funds have they?”

  “Not too much—about one hundred thousand dollars—at the utmost, not that.”

  Grant became thoughtful. He said at last, “Well, if I go to them and I say, ‘Here’s my son, a fine boy, but romantic, doesn’t know that he’s burning his fingers, some woman, a blonde, nice man, no doubt, but he’s naïve, doesn’t know—get him out and I’ll give you a contribution’—how much, Flack? Eh? Twenty dollars? I give them a contribution, no check, in bills, twenty dollars, and I say, ‘Get him out, he doesn’t know what he’s doing, just a Huck Finn, an escapade.’ Eh? ‘Young fellow got loose, lot of sympathy, don’t take it seriously’—eh? ‘Get him out. You have influence and here’s my twenty dollars, no discount, the affair’s a bonus to you.’ Eh? ‘And if you do it I’ll tell everyone about your work, get you converts.’ I’ll get you lady converts, especially. Eh? No, I won’t go there myself and you won’t go there as my agent. We’ll teach him a lesson and we’ll go to them and give them a song and dance and say, ‘A naïve young fellow, a Huck Finn, wants to save the world, whole responsibility of the capitalist monopolist system isn’t on his shoulders, but he has no theory, and he runs after a blonde,’ eh?—that’s an intimate touch, a romantic touch, they’ll get him out. I give them twenty dollars in bills. You go along, Flack, you say—‘Here’s fifteen dollars—and he’ll send a check—ten dollars and ten dollars if you get him out—’”