Two Serious Ladies

by Jane Bowles

  Many of the women were naming aloud to their friends the colors that they were able to distinguish. Everyone on the train seemed to love it except Arnold, who, now that he had asserted himself, felt terribly depressed, partly as a result of having had to move from his couch and consider the prospect of a dull evening and partly also because he doubted very much whether he would be able to make it up with Lucy Gamelon. She was, he felt certain, the type of person who could remain angry for weeks.

  "Oh, I think this is terribly, terribly gay," said Miss Goering. "This rainbow and this sunset and all these people jabbering away like magpies. Don't you think it's gay?" Miss Goering was addressing Arnold's father.

  "Oh, yes," he said, "It's a real magic carpet."

  Miss Goering searched his face because his voice sounded a little sad to her. He did, as a matter of fact, appear to be slightly uneasy. He kept looking around at the passengers and pulling his tie.

  They finally left the train and boarded the ferry. They all stood at the prow together as Miss Goering had done on the previous night. This time when the ferry landed, Miss Goering looked up and saw no one coming down the hill.

  "Usually," she said to them, forgetting that she herself had only made the trip once before, "this hill is swarming with people. I cannot imagine what has happened to them tonight."

  "It's a steep hill," said Arnold's father. "Is there no way of getting into the town without climbing that hill?"

  "I don't know," said Miss Goering. She looked at him and noticed that his sleeves were too long for him. As a matter of fact, his overcoat was about a half-size too large.

  If there had been no one on the hill going to or from the ferry, the main street was swarming with people. The cinema was all lighted up and there was a long line forming in front of the box office, There had obviously been a fire, because there were three red engines parked on one side of the street, a few blocks up from the cinema. Miss Goering judged that it had been of no consequence since she could see neither traces of smoke nor charred buildings. However, the engines added to the gaiety of the street as there were many young people crowded around them making jokes with the firemen who remained in the trucks, Arnold walked along at a brisk pace, carefully examining everything on the street and pretending to be very much lost in his own impressions of the town.

  "I see what you mean," he said to Miss Goering, "it's glorious."

  "What is glorious?" Miss Goering asked him.

  "All this." Suddenly Arnold stopped dead. "Oh look, Christina, what a beautiful sight!" He had made them stop in front of a large empty lot between two buildings. The empty lot had been converted into a brand-new basket-ball court. The court was very elegantly paved with gray asphalt and brightly lighted by four giant lamps that were focused on the players and on the basket. There was a ticket office at one side of the court where the participants bought their right to play in the game for one hour. Most of the people playing were little boys. There were several men in uniform and Arnold judged that they worked for the court and filled in when an insufficient number of people bought tickets to form two complete teams. Arnold flushed with pleasure.

  "Look, Christina," he said, "you run along while I try my hand at this; I'll come and get Pop and you later."

  She pointed the bar out to him, but she had the feeling that Arnold was not paying much attention to what she was saying. She stood for a moment with Arnold's father and they watched him rush up to the ticket office and hurriedly push his change through the wicket. He was on the court in no time, running around in his overcoat and jumping up in the air with his arms apart. One of the uniformed men had stepped quickly out of the game in order to cede his place to Arnold. But he was now trying desperately to attract his attention because Arnold had been in such a hurry at the ticket office that the agent had not had time to give him the colored arm-band by which the players were able to distinguish the members of their own team.

  "I suppose," said Miss Goering, "that we had better go along. Arnold, I imagine, will follow us shortly."

  They walked down the street. Arnold's father hesitated a moment before the saloon door.

  "What kind of men come in here?" he asked her.

  "Oh," said Goering, "all sorts of men, I guess. Rich and poor, workers and bankers, criminals and dwarfs."

  "Dwarfs," Arnold's father repeated uneasily.

  The minute they were inside, Miss Goering spotted Andy. He was drinking at the farther end of the bar with his hat pulled down over one eye. Miss Goering hastily installed Arnold's father in a booth.

  "Take your coat off," she said, "and order yourself a drink from that man over there behind the bar."

  She went over to Andy and stretched her hand out to him. He was looking very mean and haughty.

  "Hello," he said. "Did you decide to come over to the mainland again?"

  "Why, certainly," said Miss Goering. "I told you I would."

  "Well," said Andy, "I've learned in the course of years that it doesn't mean a thing."

  Miss Goering felt a little embarrassed. They stood side by side for a little while without saying a word.

  "I'm sorry," said Andy, "but I have no suggestions to make to you for the evening. There is only one picture show in town and they are showing a very bad movie tonight." He ordered himself another drink and gulped it down straight. Then he turned the dial of the radio very slowly until he found a tango.

  "Well, may I have this dance?" he asked, appearing to brighten up a bit.

  Miss Goering nodded her head.

  He held her very straight and so tightly that she was in an extremely awkward and uncomfortable position. He danced with her into a far corner of the room.

  "Well," he said, "are you going to try and make me happy? Because I have no time to waste," He pushed her away from him and stood up very straight facing her, with his arms hanging down along his sides.

  "Step back a little farther, please," he said. "Look carefully at your man and then say whether or not you want him."

  Miss Goering did not see how she could possibly answer anything but yes. He was standing now with his head cocked to one side, looking very much as though he were trying to refrain from blinking his eyes, the way people do when they are having snapshots taken.

  "Very well," said Miss Goering, "I do want you to be my man." She smiled at him sweetly, but she was not thinking very hard of what she was saying.

  He held his arms out to her and they continued to dance. He was looking over her head very proudly and smiling just a little. When they had finished their dance, Miss Goering remembered with a pang that Arnold's father had been sitting in his booth alone all this time. She felt doubly sorry because he seemed to have saddened and aged so much since they had boarded the train that he scarcely resembled at all the chipper, eccentric man he had been for a few days at the island house, or even the fanatical gentleman he had appeared to Miss Goering on the first night that they had met.

  "Dear me, I must introduce you to Arnold's father," she said to Andy. "Come over this way with me."

  She felt even more remorse when she arrived at the booth because Arnold's father had been sitting there all the while without having ordered himself a drink.

  "What's the matter?" asked Miss Goering, her voice rising way up in the air like the voice of an excited mother. "Why on earth didn't you order yourself something to drink?"

  Arnold's father looked around him furtively. "I don't know," he said, "I didn't feel any desire to."

  She introduced the two men to each other and they all sat down together. Arnold's father asked Andy very politely whether or not he lived in this town and what his business was. During the course of their conversation they both discovered that not only had they been born in the same town, but they had, in spite of difference in age, also lived there once at the same time without ever having met. Andy, unlike most people, did not seem to become more lively when they both happened upon this fact.

  "Yes," he answered wearily to the questi
ons of Arnold's father, "I did live there in 1920."

  "Then certainly," said Arnold's father sitting up straighter, "then certainly you were well acquainted with the McLean family. They lived up on the hill. They had seven children, five girls and two boys. All of them, as you must remember, were the possessors of a terrific shock of bright red hair."

  "I did not know them," said Andy quietly, beginning to get red in the face.

  "That's very strange," said Arnold's father. "Then you must have known Vincent Connelly, Peter Jacketson, and Robert Bull."

  "No," said Andy, "no, I didn't." His good spirits seemed to have vanished entirely.

  "They," said Arnold's father, "controlled the main business interests of the town." He studied Andy's face carefully.

  Andy shook his head once more and looked off into space.

  "Riddleton?" Arnold's father asked him abruptly.

  "What?" said Andy.

  "Riddleton, president of the bank."

  "Well, not exactly," said Andy.

  Arnold's father leaned back against the bench and sighed. "Where did you live?" he asked finally of Andy.

  "I lived," said Andy, "at the end of Parliament Street and Byrd Avenue."

  "It was terrible around there before they started tearing it up, wasn't it?" Arnold's father said, his eyes filled with memories.

  Andy pushed the table roughly aside and walked quickly over to the bar.

  "He didn't know anyone decent in the whole blooming town," said Arnold's father. "Parliament and Byrd was the section—"

  "Please," said Miss Goering. "Look, you've insulted him. What a shame; because neither one of you cares about this sort of thing at all! What nasty little devil got into you both?"

  "I don't think he has very good manners, and he is clearly not the type of man I would expect to find you associating with."

  Miss Goering was a little peeved with Arnold's father, but instead of saying anything to him she went over to Andy and consoled him.

  "Please don't mind him," she said. "He's really a delightful old thing and quite poetic. It's just that he's been through some radical changes in his life, all in the last few days, and I guess he's feeling the strain now."

  "Poetic is he?" Andy snapped at her. "He's a pompous old monkey. That's what he is." Andy was really very angry.

  "No," said Miss Goering, "he is not a pompous old monkey."

  Andy finished his drink and swaggered over to Arnold's father with his hands in his pockets.

  "You're a pompous old monkey!" he said to him. "A pompons old good-for-nothing monkey!"

  Arnold's father slid out of his seat with his eyes cast downward and walked towards the door.

  Miss Goering, who had overheard Andy's remark, hurried after him, but she whispered to Andy as she passed him, that she intended to come right back.

  When they were outside they leaned together against a lamp post. Miss Goering could see that Arnold's father was trembling.

  "I have never in my life encountered such rudeness," he said. "That man is worse than a gutter puppy."

  "Well, I wouldn't worry about it," said Miss Goering. "He was just ill-tempered."

  "Ill-tempered?" said Arnold's father. "He's the kind of cheaply dressed brute that is more and more thickly populating the world today."

  "Oh, come," said Miss Goering, "that is neither here nor there."

  Arnold's father looked at Miss Goering. Her face was very lovely on this particular evening, and he sighed with regret. "I suppose," he said, "that you are deeply disappointed in me in your own particular way, and that you are able to have respect in your heart for him while you are unable to find it within that very same heart for me. Human nature is mysterious and very beautiful, but remember that there are certain infallible signs that I, as an older man, have learned to recognize. I would not trust that man too far. I love you, my dear, with all my heart, you know."

  Miss Goering stood in silence.

  "You are very close to me," he said after a little while, squeezing her hand.

  "Well," she said, "would you care to step back into the saloon or do you feel that you've had enough?"

  "It would be literally impossible for me to return to that saloon even should I have the slightest desire to. I think I had better go along. You won't come with me, will you, my dear?"

  "I'm very sorry," said Miss Goering, "but unfortunately this was a previous engagement. Would you like me to walk down to the basket-ball court? Perhaps Arnold will have wearied of his game by this time. If not, you can easily sit and watch the players for a little while."

  "Yes, that would be very kind of you," said Arnold's father, in such a sad voice that he almost broke Miss Goering's heart.

  Very shortly they arrived at the basket-ball court. Things had changed quite a bit. Most of the small boys had dropped out of the game and a great many young men and women had taken the place of both the small boys and the guards. The women were screaming with laughter and quite a large crowd had gathered to watch the players. After Miss Goering and Arnold's father had stood there for a minute they realized that Arnold himself was the cause of most of the merriment. He had removed his coat and his sweater and, to their surprise, they saw that he was still wearing his pajama top. He had pulled it outside of his pants in order to appear more ridiculous. They watched him run across the court with the ball in his arms roaring like a lion. When he arrived at a strategic position, however, instead of passing the ball on to another member of his team he merely dropped it on the court between his feet and proceeded to butt one of his opponents in the stomach like a goat. The crowd roared with laughter. The uniformed guards were particularly delighted because it was a pleasant and unexpected break in the night's routine. They were all standing in a row, smiling very broadly.

  "I shall try and see if I can find a chair for you," said Miss Goering. She returned shortly and led Arnold's father to a folding chair that one of the guards had obligingly set up right outside of the ticket office. Arnold's father sat down and yawned.

  "Good-by," said Miss Goering. "Good-by, darling, and wait here until Arnold has finished his game."

  "But wait a moment," said Arnold's father. "When will you return to the island?"

  "I might not return," she said. "I might not return right away, but I will see that Miss Gamelon receives enough money to manage the house and the food."

  "But I must certainly see you. This is not a very human way to make a departure."

  "Well, come along a minute," said Miss Goering, taking hold of his hand and pulling him with difficulty through the crowd over to the sidewalk.

  Arnold's father remonstrated that he would not return to the saloon for a million dollars.

  "I'm not taking you to the saloon. Don't be silly," she said. "Now, do you see that ice-cream parlor across the street?" She pointed to a little white store almost directly opposite them. "If I don't come back, which is very probable, will you meet me there on Sunday morning? That will be in eight days, at eleven o'clock in the morning.

  "I will be there in eight days," said Arnold's father.

  When she returned with Andy to his apartment that night, she noticed that there were three long-stemmed roses on a table next to the couch.

  "Why, what lovely flowers!" she exclaimed. "This reminds me that my mother had once the loveliest garden for miles around her. She won many prizes with her roses."

  "Well," said Andy, "no one in my family ever won a prize with a rose, but I bought these for you in case you came."

  "I'm deeply touched," said Miss Goering.

  Miss Goering had been living with Andy for eight days. He was still very nervous and tense, but he seemed on the whole to be much more optimistic. To Miss Goering's surprise, he had begun on the second day to talk of the business possibilities in town. He surprised her very much too by knowing the names of the leading families of the community and moreover by being familiar with certain details concerning their private lives. On Saturday night he had announced to Miss G
oering his intention of having a business conference the next morning with Mr. Bellamy, Mr. Schlaegel, and Mr. Dockerty. These men controlled most of the real estate not only in the town itself but in several neighboring towns. Besides these interests they also had a good many of the farms of the surrounding country. He was terribly excited when he told her his plans, which were mainly to sell the buildings he owned in the city, for which he had already been offered a small sum, and buy a share in their business.

  "They're the three smartest men in town," he said, "but they're not gangsters at all. They come from the finest families here and I think it would be nice for you too."

  "That is not the kind of thing that interests me in the least," said Miss Goering.

  "Well, naturally, I wouldn't expect it to interest you or me," said Andy, "but you've got to admit we're living in the world, unless we want to behave like crazy kids or escaped lunatics or something like that."

  For several days it had been quite clear to Miss Goering that Andy was no longer thinking of himself as a bum. This would have pleased her greatly had she been interested in reforming her friends, but unfortunately she was only interested in the course that she was following in order to attain her own salvation. She was fond of Andy, but during the last two nights she had felt an urge to leave him. This was also very much due to the fact that an unfamiliar person had begun to frequent the bar.

  This newcomer was of almost mammoth proportions, and both times that she had seen him he had been wearing a tremendous black overcoat well cut and obviously made of very expensive material. She had seen his face only fleetingly once or twice, but what she had seen of it had so frightened her that she had been able to think of very little else for two days now.

  This man, they had noticed, drove up to the saloon in a very beautiful big automobile that resembled more a hearse than a private car. Miss Goering had examined it one day when the man was drinking in the saloon. It appeared to be almost brand-new. She and Andy had looked in through the window and had been a little surprised to see a lot of dirty clothes on the floor. Miss Goering was completely preoccupied now with what course to take should the newcomer be willing to make her his mistress for a little while. She was almost sure that he would, because several times she had caught him looking at her in a certain way which she had learned to recognize. Her only hope was that he would disappear before she had the chance to approach him. If he did, she would be exempt and thus able to fritter away some more time with Andy, who now seemed so devoid of anything sinister that she was beginning to scrap with him about small things the way one does with a younger brother.