Boys and Girls Come Out to Play

by Nigel Dennis

  “We only peeped in, you know,” said Mrs. Waters. “Perhaps you were in the middle of something important.”

  “Perhaps we ought to go away and leave you alone,” said Miss Greener.

  “Do stay,” said Mrs. Morgan.

  “I really think we shouldn’t.”

  “You’ve only just come.”

  “I think we were going to do something ourselves; I’ll remember what it was in a minute.”

  “Let’s all go and sit in the summerhouse,” said Mrs. Morgan, “and perhaps Jimmy would tell Rosa to bring out some iced tea.”

  He went off at once, and was not seen again until the guests had left.

  Passing the summerhouse, just before dusk, the secretary heard Mrs. Morgan’s voice and paused.

  “… unbearable for both of us.”

  “I’m sorry if that’s the way you see it,” said her son. His voice was faint and uninterested.

  “You could at least have some thought of what a spectacle you make of your mother. Do you never stop to think of how shameful it is for me when you behave in such a way that people go off with the feeling that I keep you in prison?”

  “Why do you have to imagine that? You imagine it, so you think it happens. Then you blame me.”

  “I don’t know what I’m going to do about you, Jimmy; I’m at my wits’ end; I’ve never felt so discouraged.”

  “I’m sorry, Mom; really sorry.”

  “I don’t think you are sorry. I think you’d cause any pain just so as to have your way.”

  “I never do have it.”

  “And none of the other questions ever seem to occur to you. Do you ever think, for instance, of where the money would come from to send you to Poland, if I did say you could go—which I am not saying.”

  At this, the secretary’s eyes opened wide; she stood amazed for a few seconds and then ran as fast as she could to the tutor’s cabin. “He’s going to go!” she burst out.

  “What!”

  “She’s saying yes right now.”

  “I be damned,” said the tutor.

  They pressed their faces against the wire screen: through the tendrils of wisteria, across the picket fence, between the big trees and over the lawn they saw the summerhouse. Mrs. Morgan stepped out first, her arms wide apart, shaking her head dolefully. Her son followed on her heels, emerging in a parabola like a springing deer; he grasped one of his mother’s hands in both of his and began to kiss it madly. Pushing him away impatiently, still shaking her head, Mrs. Morgan began to walk rapidly toward the house. Her son bounced behind her, patting at her arm.

  “You’d better start looking for a new problem child,” said the secretary.

  “I’m not so sure …” said the tutor.

  “Don’t be dumb,” said the secretary, stamping her foot as though she had been betrayed. “She’s flat on her back. All she can do now is say she’ll never forgive herself if anything happens to him.”

  *

  “My mother says could she see you a moment before the luncheon, Mr. Divver,” said Morgan, looking warmly into Divver’s face when he stepped out of the car the next Sunday.

  “Sure thing,” said Divver. The drive from the station had pleased him, the scenery was so pretty; he was humming a tune, and he strode down the passage with a good muscular action.

  Mrs. Morgan rose when Divver entered the library, she laid aside her horn-rimmed spectacles, and advanced to meet him with a fluid gait, the top of her body bent forward unusually graciously, and a peculiar smile, suggesting secret tenderness, parting her teeth.

  “It was a very kind proposal, Max dear,” she said. “And to a young person—so much.”

  He looked at her, puzzled, trying to recall recent good works that would fit a young person and so much.

  “I don’t think there is a single other person I can think of,” said Mrs. Morgan, “to whom I would have said yes.”

  It was as though he had asked her to marry him. Had someone signed his name to a forged proposal? “I’m not sure that I quite know what you mean,” he said, cocking his head.

  A trace of hardness touched her face. “Oh yes, I think you do,” she said. “My son was a little troubled afterward, it seemed to him that you might have made the offer in just a friendly, joking way. I was able to assure him that he had misjudged his man. I confess I would have preferred it if you had brought the suggestion to me first; but don’t think me ungrateful because I say that; it’s just the old mother-dictator coming out in me, I expect.” She smiled. “It has taken me these two weeks to make up my mind.”

  I am a dead man, Divver thought. Through his horrified mind flashed the memory of leaving the library, sporting a ninny’s grin and babbling out his quite unintended invitation to—that psychotic, he thought, and trembled with anxiety. “I have had a strong feeling lately,” he said, “that it was very irresponsible of me to make the offer before I had had time to really think it over.”

  “In a sense, yes, Max, I agree that it was. I don’t think you thought twice about Jimmy’s health; I think you acted on impulse—where a less generous person would have paused. But the responsibility is mine, not yours. I hope you are going to take good care of my Jimmy, but I surely don’t have to say that if he meets with difficulties in Poland, the blame will rest entirely on me.”

  “‘You think it is really, on the whole, wise?”

  “It has been very hard for me to see the matter as a whole. First, of course, there is the international situation. At first glance that would seem to be enough to dismiss the whole idea—for Jimmy.”

  “It looks graver every day.”

  “Every day, that’s right. On the other hand, there is the psychological question. One’s first impulse is to think only of the realities of life, and forget the mind. This is most misleading in a case like Jimmy’s, where psychology simply has to be considered as important as good sense. He is wild to go; he talks of nothing else: incidentally, you have become a real hero to him; he reads everything of your’s he can find.”

  “Oh, that is really very nice of him—see no reason why; no reason.”

  “He says you are by far the most intelligent of his old mother’s friends.”

  “Well, I hardly know …”

  “It all adds up to what he’s going to get from this trip.”

  “Exactly that, I would say.”

  “It may have an amazing effect.”

  “Yes.”

  “And after all, you have no intention of staying more than a few months. After that—a spree, for him—he may feel far more like buckling down; I hope he will really start working for college. So I look at it as just a temporary change that may broaden his view of everything without seriously disrupting anything. You could perhaps, ah, encourage him to see it as such.”

  “You really do think his specific nervous system could absorb such a disintegrating change of environment?”

  “That’s the funny thing about Jimmy; he has the steadiest nerves of anyone I ever met.”

  “That is strange, isn’t it? But perhaps it would be otherwise in a basically different environment?”

  “I think you would have to keep an eye on him. But I can assure you that he is a most independent boy; you will certainly not find him in your way.”

  “Oh, fine.”

  “I hope you won’t feel terribly insulted if I raise the sordid question of money. What I thought was that in addition to the financial arrangements we discussed last time, you might let me add a little bit. I thought, say, it might be a good idea if you and Jimmy could have adjoining rooms in whatever hotel you went to—at my expense.”

  “Honestly, I don’t see why you should …”

  “I think it would be only fair. And that’s really the only precaution I feel you’d have to be burdened with, except, of course, that I don’t think alcohol is a good thing for him, or too much smoking, and he shouldn’t get over-excited and should be in bed by eleven and sleep well. I imagine that sexual excitement is al
so bad and should be avoided, but I have a feeling that he is not worried by that problem, as yet. Of course, he is well aware of all these things himself. I think you’ll only have to remind him from time to time. And one other thing: you were planning to go to Tutin City, you told me, rather than Warsaw?”

  “I think Tutin’s the hot-spot—at the top edge of the Corridor. I hope that doesn’t make you uneasy?”

  “On the contrary, Max; it encourages me to think that Jimmy would have a port right at his door, so to speak, if anything happened. At the same time, I wondered if it wouldn’t be possible for you and Jimmy to be outside the city rather than right in the middle of it. Isn’t Mell quite near Tutin? Wouldn’t that be a good place? It’s one of the better tourist towns, a fascinating old place for a boy, and I’m sure everyone speaks English. And country air, you see, fresh.” Mrs. Morgan took a big atlas from one of the shelves; it opened at North Poland, which made Divver feel that all the plans he had just heard had been pre-fabricated, pre-ordained, by centuries of Forces.

  “Only twenty miles, you see,” said Mrs. Morgan, raising her finger, which trembled, from where the little word lay, below the blue spread of the Baltic.

  Divver looked at the map. Four thousand miles away he saw the jagged boundaries of the tinted provinces, the looping, meandering lines of the railroads, the long estuaries running in narrowing twists inland from the sea, the capitalized cities whose names were thrilling in their ominous context of blood, misery and dramatic horror. Divver gave a start, like a man who has peeped at sin and been shocked by the depth of his exhilaration. In this moment of sudden shame, he turned away from the map and collected his strength in a last effort to save himself. “Mrs. Morgan,” he said, “I think I should mention what’s on my mind; I hardly know how to put it; a personal matter …” Still clinging to safety, his mind wound in toward its point from the evasive distance of a half-dozen removes. “In our society, it seems to me, the position of women, let us say wives, and doubtless mothers, mothers, I mean, of young children, the same as wives really, is a hard one.”

  “I think it’s no less hard for you men, Max,” said Mrs. Morgan, stiffening somewhat.

  “But not in the same way. A man always has his job, is what I mean. Sometimes a man feels almost ashamed if his work takes him away from domesticity. Frankly, what I meant to say was: I’ve honestly had serious doubts lately as to whether it is right for me to go to Europe. Today, I’d almost decided not to go. I haven’t told Lily, for that reason, that I had any intention of going. In fact, when the subject of my going to Europe at all happened by sheer accident to come up the other day, I more or less suggested—in fact, I virtually said—that I very much doubted if I should ever seriously consider going: I may even have said I had absolutely no intention of going in the near future.” He was flushed, and looked grimly at his employer.

  “I think you are being a little unfair to Lily,” she said, after a moment’s thought. “I know Lily; she never struck me as the kind of woman who is selfish where her husband’s career is concerned.”

  “I certainly didn’t mean that, Mrs. Morgan.”

  “I’m sure Lily is very, very proud of the work you do.”

  He said nothing.

  “It’s very useful work, isn’t it? Doesn’t somebody have to do it? Doesn’t somebody have to tell the American public what’s really going on in Europe?” When he still made no reply, she changed the subject—or imagined she was changing it. “I often wonder why more of our people don’t bring their wives with them when they come up here.”

  “Yes, it’s strange,” he said.

  “Now, if Lily were expecting another child …”

  “Oh, I assure you; nothing of the sort.”

  “Then why should you worry, Max? Now, it’s nearly one o’clock, and if you don’t mind I know Jimmy’s dying to thank you.” She went to the door and called her son.

  Divver bent his head and stood stock-still, alone in the library. The shock of being told that he was to take Morgan with him to Europe had already disappeared; in its place was the shock of knowing inexorably that he was going to Europe himself, that he had meant to do so all along, that he would somehow have to tell his wife, and that for reasons he could not understand he had just pretended to Mrs. Morgan that he had doubts about going. It was the trembling shock of yearning fulfilled, of a game turned into a war, the sight of the altar that makes successful bridegrooms faint.

  When Divver raised his guilty head he found himself confronted by a speechless figure, who shook his hand with fervour and looked at him with eyes that were at once humble and ecstatic. They mumbled a few words—not with the air of generals confidently embracing after a splendid victory, but with the sheepish air of miscreants who fear to see the truly sordid nature of the victory reflected in one another’s eyes.

  “I just don’t know what to say, Mr. Divver.”

  “Skip it, skip it! … Ah, fog comes down the estuary, I’m told—bad at times; very bad.”

  “I’ll take a warm topcoat, Mr. Divver.”

  “That’s the idea. I’m sure you won’t need it, though.”

  *

  “Artie won’t sleep till you’ve been in to him,” said Lily, when Divver got home that evening. “Just say good-night quickly; don’t get him excited.”

  Art was lying in the dark, wide awake. Divver felt for his hand; and when Artie seized his father’s fingers with a murmur and pulled them up against his own cheek, Divver felt love for him at once. But of course that can’t be a true feeling, he told himself promptly, a man can’t love a child all the time the way a woman can.

  “You going to stay and sing something?” said Art.

  “No singing; it’s too late. Let me go. Good-night; sleep tight.”

  On his way back to the living-room, Divver suddenly thought of his first wife; or rather, he saw himself as he had been in those days, preaching from a chair. How could I ever have done it! he thought with horror; oh, if I had the chance again! She was so kind to me.

  Lily had the oven open and was pushing a roast back into it; clouds of blue smoke were breaking into her face; the gravy crackled and spit; her face was twisted and vexed: he had seen this scene a hundred times, and this time the movements and expressions and sounds were more dreary than his nerves could bear. He turned hastily toward the whiskey bottle, saying, “Well, honey …”

  “I didn’t expect you’d be so punctual,” she said indignantly. “You’ll have to wait to eat.”

  “Suits me fine.”

  “When I heard your key in the door, I’d have sworn it was someone else if anyone else had a key.”

  “I usually get back on time.”

  “That’s what you always seem to think.”

  “I’m entitled to think so, no? Certainly I’m a lot more punctual than most husbands we know.”

  “I wouldn’t use that as a recommendation. It’s not hard to get home ahead of a bunch of alcoholics. If you want to stand right by the stove, will you please hand me that bag of flour.”

  “Did you ever ask yourself what makes them drink?”

  “If you mean do I agree that all women are monsters, no I don’t.”

  “Have I suggested that all women are monsters?”

  “Well, they’d have to be, wouldn’t they, if you think that all your friends are dipsos because of them?”

  “All my friends are not dipsos, as you call it. They all work hard and don’t spend their time feeling injured.”

  “You mean, that instead of looking after your son and feeding you, I just spend my time wishing I was a man? And won’t you please sit in the living-room where there’s plenty of space.”

  “Do you know where you put the Book Section? It’s not on the piano with the rest of the paper.”

  “It’s in Artie’s room; he was reading it; but don’t go in now.”

  “Certainly not.”

  “But you might well.”

  He had a cold, wearied look on his face when he
sat down with the rest of the Sunday paper; but thanks to Lily his conscience was much easier. It had sometimes seemed to him that life would be sweeter if Lily had some really certifiable defect—say, an irresistible urge to torture Artie, or a large hole in the back of her head which she knew he had discovered but was too good a fellow to explore. He thought there was something unjust in the fact that by remaining merely spiteful she never gave him a chance to escape feeling sorry for her because she was unhappy; but no judge would look benevolently on a husband who said frankly that he had murdered his wife because she was never quite bad enough to make him feel really good. But Lily did her little best in this regard: this was not the first time he had concluded a conversation with her feeling relieved by her instant readiness to make things difficult; he valued the skill and speed she had developed in so re-phrasing his remarks that he could depend on her to seize any word he uttered and fling it back so venomously that any doubt of her responsibility for their unhappy condition was removed.

  In short, he was now ready to collect his arguments for going to Poland. He began to speak them to himself in measured tones; after supper would be the best time to deliver. His stomach, unfortunately, would have none of his dignity; it hammered away inside him like a nasty boy in a tantrum: one might have thought Divver was pregnant.

  “What’s on your mind?” said Lily, coming in from the kitchen.

  How easily she guessed that their recent talk had been nothing but a warm-up!

  He put his hand to his mouth and took a deep breath.

  “Well, if it’s going to take a long time, I’ll turn down the vegetables,” said Lily.

  That alone is grounds for murder, thought Divver, trembling with indignation.

  “Well, go ahead,” she said, returning from the kitchen and sitting in a chair. She sighed, lit a cigarette, and looked at him in a way he didn’t like at all—as though she were only too well prepared. He was terrified.