Nightwork

by Irwin Shaw

  “I would,” I said.

  We went up and packed our bags and were paid up and out of the hotel and on the road north in twenty minutes. We didn’t stop, except for gas, until after midnight, when we had passed the border and were in Monte Carlo. Evelyn insisted on seeing the casino and playing at the roulette table. I didn’t feel like gambling, or even watching, and sat at the bar. After a while she came back, smiling and looking smug. She had won five hundred francs and paid my bar bill to celebrate. Whoever would finally marry her would marry a woman with sound nerves.

  Evelyn drove out to Orly with me in the rented car with a chauffeur. The Jaguar was in the garage, waiting for Fabian. Evelyn was going to stay in Paris a few more days. She hadn’t been in Paris for years and it would be a shame just to pass through, she said. Anyway, I was going to Boston and she was going directly to New York. She had been carefree and affectionate on the trip through France. We had driven slowly, stopping often to sightsee and indulge in great meals outside Lyon and in Avallon. She had taken my picture in front of the Hospice de Beaune, where we toured the wine cellars, and in the courtyard at Fontainebleau. We had spent the last night of the trip just outside Paris at Barbizon, in a lovely old inn. We had dined gloriously. Over dinner I had told her everything. Where my money had come from, how I had met up with Fabian, what our arrangement was. Everything. She had listened quietly. When I finally stopped talking, she laughed. “Well,” she said, “now I know why you want to marry a lawyer.” She had leaned over and kissed me. “Finders keepers, I always say,” she said, still laughing. “Don’t worry, dear. I am not opposed to larceny in a good cause.”

  We slept all night in each other’s arms. Without saying it to each other, we both knew a chapter in our lives was coming to an end and tacitly we postponed the finish. She asked no more questions about Pat.

  When we reached Orly, she didn’t get out of the car. “I hate airports,” she said, “and railway stations. When it’s not me that’s going.”

  I kissed her. She patted my cheek maternally. “Be careful in Vermont,” she said. “Watch out for changes in the weather.”

  “All in all,” I said, “it’s not been a bad time, has it?”

  “All in all, no,” she said. “We’ve been to some nice places.”

  My eyes were teary. Hers were brighter than usual, but dry. She looked beautiful, tanned and refreshed by her holiday. She was wearing the same dress she had worn when she arrived in Porto Ercole.

  “I’ll call you,” I said, as I got out of the car.

  “Do that,” she said. “You have my number in Sag Harbor.”

  I leaned into the car and kissed her again. “Well, now,” she said softly.

  I followed the porter with my luggage into the terminal. At the desk, I made sure I had all the checks for my bags.

  I caught a cold on the plane and was sniffling and running a fever when we landed at Logan. The customs man who came up to me must have taken pity on my condition because he merely waved me on. So I didn’t have to pay any duty on the five Roman suits. I took it as a favorable omen to counterbalance the cold. I told the taxi driver to take me to the Ritz-Carlton, where I asked for a sunny room. I had learned the Fabian lesson of the best hotel in town, if I had learned nothing else. I sent down for a Bible and the boy brought up a paperback copy. The next three days I spent in the room, drinking tea and hot rum and living on aspirin, shivering, reading snatches from the Book of Job, and watching television. Nothing I saw on television made me happy I had returned to America.

  On the fourth day my cold had gone. I checked out of the hotel, paying cash, and rented a car. The weather was wet and blustery, with huge dark clouds scudding across the sky, not a good day for driving. But by then I was in a hurry. Whatever was going to happen I wanted to happen soon.

  I drove fast. The countryside in the changing northern season was dead, desolate, the trees bare, the fields muddy, shorn of the grace of snow, the houses closed in on themselves. When I stopped once for gas, a plane flew overhead, low, but unseen in the thick cloud. It sounded like a bombing raid. I had crossed this stretch of the country, at the controls of a plane, hundreds of times. I touched the silver dollar in my pocket.

  I reached Burlington just before three o’clock and went directly to the high school. I parked the car across the street from the school and turned the motor off and waited, with the windows all turned up to keep out the cold. I could hear the three o’clock bell ring and watched the flood of boys and girls surge through the school doors. Finally, Pat came out. She was wearing a big, heavy coat and had a scarf around her head. With her myopic eyes I knew my car, forty yards away from her, was only a blur to her and that she couldn’t tell whether anyone was in it or not. I was about to open the door and get out and cross over to her when she was stopped by one of the students, a big fat boy in a checkered mackinaw. They stood there in the gray afternoon light, talking, with the wind whipping at her coat and the ends of her scarf. The window on my side was beginning to mist over from the condensation of my breath in the cooling car, and I rolled it down to see her better.

  She and the boy seemed in no hurry to be on their way, and I sat there looking at her for what seemed like a very long time. Consciously, I made myself assess, at that one moment, what I felt, on the deepest level, as I watched her. I saw a nice enough little woman, ordinarily pretty, who in a few years would look austere, who had no connection with me, who could not move me to joy or sorrow. There was a faded, almost obliterated memory of pleasure and regret.

  I turned on the ignition and started the car. As the car moved slowly past her and the boy, they were still talking. She did not look at the car. They were still standing there, on the windswept, darkening street, when I took a last look back in the rearview mirror.

  I drove to the Howard Johnson Lodge and put in a call for Sag Harbor.

  “Love, love!” Fabian was saying disgustedly. We were in the living room of his suite in the St. Regis. As usual, as in anyplace he lived even for a day, it was littered with newspapers in several languages. We were alone. Lily had had to go back to England. I had driven directly to New York. I had told Evelyn on the phone that I would get to Sag Harbor the next day. “I thought that you had at least gotten over that,” Fabian was saying. “You sound like a high-school sophomore. Just when everything is going so smoothly, you’ve got to blow up the whole thing. …”

  Remembering the morning on the dock at Porto Ercole, I was displeased with his choice of words. But I said nothing. I was going to let him talk himself out.

  “Sag Harbor, for Christ’s sake,” he said. He was pacing up and down, from one end of the big room to another. Outside there was the sound of the traffic on Fifth Avenue, reduced to a rich hum by thick walls and heavy drapes. “It’s just a couple of hours from New York. You’ll wind up with a bullet in your head. Have you ever been in Sag Harbor in the winter, for God’s sake? After the first fine flush of passion dies down, what do you expect to do there?”

  “I’ll find something,” I said. “Maybe I’ll just read. And let you work for me.”

  He snorted and I smiled.

  “Anyway,” I said, “I’ll probably be safer in America surrounded by millions of other Americans than in Europe. You saw for yourself—I stick out like a lighthouse among Europeans.”

  “I had hoped to be able to teach you to blend into the scenery.”

  “Not in a hundred years, Miles,” I said. “You know that.”

  “You’re not that unreachable,” he said. “I saw certain signs of improvement even in the short time we were together. By the way, I see you went to my tailor.”

  I was wearing one of the suits from Rome. “Yes,” I said. “How do you like it?” I flipped the lapel of the jacket.

  “A welcome change,” he said, “from the way you looked when I met you. You got a haircut in Rome, too, I see.”

  “You never miss anything, do you?” I said. “Good old Miles.”

  “I dread to t
hink of what you’re going to look like after a visit to the barber at Sag Harbor.”

  “You make it sound as though I’m going to live in the wilderness. That part of Long Island is one of the swankiest places in the United States.”

  “As far as I’m concerned,” he said, still pacing, “there are no swanky places, as you so elegantly put it, in the United States.”

  “Come on, now,” I said. “I remember you come from Lowell, Massachusetts.”

  “And you come from Scranton, Pennsylvania,” he said, “and we both should do our damndest to forget the two misfortunes. Righto, marriage. I grant you that. You’re pleased at the prospect of having a son. I’ll grant you that, even though it’s against all my principles. Have you ever taken a good look at American kids today?”

  “Yes. They’re endurable.”

  “That woman must have bewitched you. A lady lawyer!” He snorted again. “God, I should have known I should never have left you alone. Listen, has she ever been to Europe? I mean before this—this episode?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Why don’t you make this proposition to her—You get married. Righto. But she tries living in Europe with you for a year. American women love living in Europe. Men chase them until they’re seventy—especially in France and Italy. Let her talk to Lily. Then she can decide. Nothing could be fairer than that, could it? Do you want me to talk to her?”

  “You can talk to her,” I said, “but not about that. Anyway, it’s not only the way she feels. It’s the way I feel. I don’t want to live in Europe.”

  “You want to live in Sag Harbor.” He groaned melodramatically. “Why?”

  “A lot of reasons—most of them having very little to do with her.” I couldn’t explain to him about Angelo Quinn’s paintings and I didn’t try.

  “At least can I meet the lady?” he asked plaintively.

  “If you don’t try to convince her,” I said. “About anything.”

  “You’re some dandy little old partner, partner,” he said. “I give up. When can I meet her?”

  “I’m driving out tomorrow morning.”

  “Don’t make it too early,” he said. “I have some delicate negotiations starting at ten.”

  “Naturally,” I said.

  “I’ll explain everything I’ve been doing over dinner. You’ll be pleased.”

  “I’m sure I will,” I said.

  And I was, as he talked steadily across the small table late that evening at a small French restaurant on the East Side, where we had roast duckling with olives and a beautiful, full Burgundy. I was considerably richer, I learned, than when I had watched his plane take off from Cointrin with Sloane’s coffin in the hold. And so, of course, was Miles Fabian.

  It was nearly six o’clock by the time we got to Evelyn’s house, the rural, gentle landscape through which we passed neat in the seaside dusk. Fabian had checked into a hotel in Southampton on the way, and I had waited for him while he bathed and changed his clothes and made two transatlantic telephone calls. I had told him that Evelyn expected him and was readying a guest room for him, but he had said, “Not for me, my boy. I don’t relish the idea of being kept awake all night by sounds of rapture. It’s especially disturbing when one is intimate with the interested parties.”

  I remembered Brenda Morrissey reporting at breakfast on the same phenomenon in Evelyn’s apartment in Washington and didn’t press him.

  As we drove up to the house, the outside lamp beside the door had snapped on. Evelyn was not going to be taken by surprise.

  The lamp shed a mild welcoming light on the wide lawn in front of the house, which was built on a bluff overlooking the water. There were copses of second-growth scrub oak and wind-twisted scraggly pine bordering the property, and no other houses could be seen. In the distance there was a satiny last glow of evening on the bay. The house itself was small, of weathered, gray, Cape Cod shingle, with a steep roof and dormer windows. I wondered if I would live and die there.

  Fabian had insisted upon bringing two bottles of champagne as a gift, although I had told him that Evelyn liked to drink and was sure to have liquor in the house. He did not offer to help as I unloaded my bags and picked them up to carry them into the house. He considered two bottles of champagne the ultimate in respectable burdens for a man in his position.

  He stood looking at the house as though he were confronting an enemy. “It is small, isn’t it?” he said.

  “It’s big enough,” I said. “I don’t share your notions of grandeur.”

  “Pity,” he said, grooming his moustache. Why, I thought, surprised, he’s nervous.

  “Come on,” I said.

  But he held back. “Wouldn’t it better if you went in alone?” he said. “I could take a little walk and admire the view and come back in fifteen minutes. Aren’t there some statements you want to make to the lady alone?”

  “Your tact does you credit,” I said, “but it isn’t necessary. I made all the required statements to the lady on the telephone from Vermont.”

  “You’re sure you know what you’re doing?”

  “I’m sure.” I took his arm firmly and led him up the gravel path to the front door.

  I can’t pretend that the evening was a complete success. The house was charming and tastefully although inexpensively furnished, but small, as Fabian had pointed out. Evelyn had hung the two paintings I had bought in Rome and they dominated the room, in a peculiar, almost threatening way. Evelyn was dressed casually, in dark slacks and a sweater, making the point, a little too clearly, I thought, that she wasn’t going to go to any extra lengths to impress the first friend of mine she had ever met. She thanked Fabian for the champagne, but said she wasn’t in the mood for champagne and started for the kitchen to mix martinis for us. “Let’s save the champagne for the wedding,” she said.

  “There’s more where that comes from, dear Evelyn,” Fabian said.

  “Even so,” Evelyn said firmly, as she went through the door.

  Fabian glanced thoughtfully at me, looked as though he was about to say something, then sighed and sank into a big leather easy chair. When Evelyn came back with the pitcher and glasses, he played with his moustache, ill at ease, and only pretended to enjoy his drink. I could see he had had his taste buds ready for the wine.

  Evelyn helped me carry my bags upstairs to our bedroom. She was not one of those American women who believe that the Constitution guarantees that they will never be required to carry anything heavier than a handbag containing a compact and a checkbook. She was stronger than she looked. The bedroom was large, running almost the full width of the house, with a bathroom leading off one side of it. There was an oversized double bed, a vanity table, bookcases, and two cane and mahogany rocking chairs set in an alcove. I noticed that there were lamps, well placed for reading.

  “Do you think you’ll be happy here?” she asked. She sounded uncharacteristically anxious.

  “Very.” I took her in my arms and kissed her.

  “He’s not very happy, your friend,” she whispered, “is he?”

  “He’ll learn.” I tried to make my voice sound confident. “Anyway, he’s not marrying you. I am.”

  “One hopes,” she said ambiguously. “He’s power-hungry. I recognize the signs from Washington. His mouth tightens when he’s crossed. Was he in the Army?”

  “Yes.”

  “A colonel? He seems like a colonel who’s sorry the war ever ended. I bet he was a colonel. Was he?”

  “I never asked him.”

  “I get the impression that you’re very close.”

  “We are.”

  “And you never asked him what his rank was?”

  “No.”

  “That’s a funny kind of very close,” she said, slipping out of my arms.

  Fabian was standing in front of the mantelpiece, on which stood his half-drunk martini. He was staring at Angelo Quinn’s painting of the main street. He made no comment when we came down the stairs and into the living roo
m, but reached, almost guiltily, for his glass. “As for refreshments,” he said, falsely hearty, “let me buy you two dear children a magnificent seafood dinner. There’s a restaurant in Southampton I …”

  “There’s no need to go all the way to Southampton,” Evelyn said. “There’s a place right near here in Sag Harbor that serves the best lobsters in the world.”

  I saw Fabian’s mouth tighten, but all he said was, “Whatever you say, dear Evelyn.”

  She went upstairs to get a coat and Fabian and I were alone for a moment. “I do like a woman,” he said, a hard glint in his eye, “who knows her own mind. Poor Douglas.”

  “Poor nothing,” I said.

  He shrugged, touched his moustache, turned to look at the painting over the mantelpiece. “Where did she get that?” he asked.

  “In Rome,” I said. “I bought it for her.”

  “You did?” he said flatly, but with a hint of unflattering surprise. “Interesting. Do you remember the name of the gallery?”

  “Bonelli’s. It’s on the via …”

  “I know where Bonelli’s is. Old man with sliding teeth. If I happen to be in Rome I may look in …”

  Evelyn came down from the bedroom, with her coat over her arm, and Fabian was quick to help her on with it. Somehow, as was the case with any woman whom he considered attractive, his movements at moments like that were caressing, like a lover’s, not a headwaiter’s. I took it as a good sign.

  The lobster turned out to be every bit as good as Evelyn had promised, and Fabian ordered a bottle of American white wine from Napa Valley that he said was almost as good as any white wine he had drunk in France. Then he ordered another bottle. By then, the atmosphere had relaxed considerably and he teased me gently about my Roman suits, praised my skiing to Evelyn and told her that she must allow me to teach her, mentioned Gstaad, St.-Paul-de-Vence, Paris, all very casually, told two funny, unmalicious anecdotes about Giuliano Quadrocelli, listened seriously as we described the blowing up of the boat in the harbor, did not bring up the names of Lily or Eunice, stayed away from the topic of business, deferred at all times when Evelyn wanted to say something, and in general behaved like the most charming and considerate of hosts. I could see that for better or worse he had decided to win over Evelyn and I hoped he would succeed.