So Little Time

by John P. Marquand

  He remembered the occasions when all that furniture had stood in the street, suddenly naked and insignificant on its passage in and out of moving vans, but when it was arranged in some new place, it all came alive again, expanding like those Japanese sticks which swelled up and turned into flowers when you dropped them into water. Jim had crawled on that sofa when he was a baby and once he had soiled it so that the whole thing had to be reupholstered. Once Jim had pulled the drum table on top of himself and there was still a slight scar on his forehead where it had struck him. Jim had also smashed one of the pink dogs and you could still see the marks where it had been mended, but there was no danger of Jim’s being destructive any longer. You did not have to watch him and tell him not to pull the cigarettes off the table, and not to tip over the flowers because the flowers were meant to be looked at and not to be torn to pieces. You did not need any longer to tell him to go upstairs for a minute and then he could come right down after he had been upstairs for a minute, because Jim was entirely grown-up, although the chairs and tables were just the same. Jim was standing in front of the fireplace between the two pink dogs, looking almost like a stranger, not even adolescent. He had his mother’s brown eyes, but his nose and hands and the set of his shoulders were like the pictures which Jeffrey remembered of himself, and something like Jeffrey’s mental image of his own father.

  Jim stood there, a combination of complex circumstances dressed in a tweed suit made by J. Press, that ubiquitous school and college tailor. His brown hair, which used to be rumpled, was now held in place by some sort of lotion which Jim always spilled all over the bathroom. His soft collar was held in place by a clip and his trousers were held in place by a belt with a monogram buckle, but nothing held up his blue wool socks, which cascaded toward the uppers of his crepe-soled low shoes, one of which was untied.

  “Hello, Pops,” Jim said. “Where’s everybody?”

  “What’s the matter?” Jeffrey asked. “What’s the trouble, Jim?”

  “Why is it,” Jim asked him, “when I drop in you always ask me that? I just came down on the one o’clock. I’m going back tomorrow.”

  “You just came down on the one o’clock,” Jeffrey said. “What are you doing, commuting?”

  “Listen,” Jim answered, “don’t be sarcastic, Pops.”

  “Don’t call me ‘Pops,’” Jeffrey said.

  “What else can I call you?” Jim asked him. “I always think of you as ‘Pops.’”

  “Well, think of something else,” Jeffrey said, and he stood and looked at Jim. If it wasn’t Jim at college it was Charley at school, and if it wasn’t Charley it was Gwen.

  “It’s all right,” Jim said, “relax, Pops. I’m not here for anything you think. I just came down on the one o’clock. Didn’t you ever come down on the one o’clock?”

  “No,” Jeffrey answered, “I never used to have money to travel on Pullmans. I used to stay there and like it.” But he was not sure that this was true.

  Jim shifted his weight from one foot to the other while Jeffrey watched him. He could not understand what boys did with their time at college now. He could remember vaguely what he had done, but everything had been different then.

  “Jim,” he asked, “what good is a day in New York?”

  Jim’s eyes grew wide. His whole face was incredulous.

  “That’s a hot question,” Jim said. “‘What good is a day in New York?’ Why, a day in New York is everything.”

  When Jeffrey considered his own day he could sympathize with Jim, though only academically. It was like reading a book of travel about some distant country where one had been once and which one would never see again. Talking with Jim was becoming very much like that. Jeffrey was always striving to remember what things had been like when he had been Jim’s age. They must have been as new as they were to Jim; the values and the impulses and the wishes must have been essentially the same. Yet, though they used the same language and the same words, for each of them the words had a different meaning and a different value.

  “How do you mean ‘everything’?” Jeffrey asked.

  “What I say,” Jim answered: “New York has everything. Everything’s in New York.”

  “‘New York has everything,’” Jeffrey repeated. “‘Everything’s in New York.’” He spoke the words with a cadence that made them sound like a song. They sounded as tinny and at the same time as poignant. They sounded like “The Red Mill” and all the others … “In old New York, in old New York”… “Me and Mamie Rorke, tripped the light fantastic on the Sidewalks of New York.”

  “What are you laughing at?” Jim asked him. “What’s so funny about it?”

  “I’m laughing,” Jeffrey said, “but it isn’t very funny …”

  Out of the window he could see the East River. The sky above Queens was hazy and the buildings along the waterfront were fading into dusk. The tide was ebbing and three sand barges were being pulled against the current and the cars on the bridge upstream looked like little drugstore toys. Even with the windows closed, he heard the sound of a plane and the faint droning of the motors made him turn again and look at Jim.

  “Just try to remember,” Jim said, “just remember you were young once yourself.”

  “Thanks for reminding me,” Jeffrey said, “but when you’re my age, don’t be your age. Suppose you remember that.”

  “Okay,” Jim answered, “but I’m not your age. What’s so funny now?”

  “Nothing,” Jeffrey said. “Have you told Albert you’re here? Are you going to be in to dinner?”

  Jim moved from one foot to the other.

  “Stay in here to dinner?” he said. “When I have only one day in New York? I don’t mean I don’t want to see the family, but I called up Sally and we’re going out some place.”

  “Sally,” Jeffrey repeated the name, “Sally who?”

  Jim’s face assumed a patient, pained expression.

  “She says her father knows you,” Jim said. “He knew you back in the war or somewhere. Sally Sales.”

  “Oh,” Jeffrey said, “well, that was a pretty big war and there were a lot of people in it.”

  “Well, he remembers you,” Jim said. “Listen, just remember you were in love once yourself.”

  “What?” Jeffrey said.

  “Just remember you were in love once yourself.”

  Jeffrey sat down on the sofa and opened the cigarette box on the coffee table.

  “Yes,” he said, “it happens sometimes.”

  “Then don’t be so hard-boiled,” Jim said.

  “I’m not hard-boiled,” Jeffrey answered, “I’m just trying to adjust myself. This spring you’re in love with a girl named Sally Sales. All right. I didn’t know.”

  “In love with her?” Jim’s voice made him look up. “Why, I’m practically engaged to her.”

  It was nice of Jim to tell him. It made Jeffrey feel that they were friends in spite of all the difficulties that stood in the way of friendship between a father and a son, but he should probably have reminded Jim that he was in his second year of college and that he would have to earn his living.

  “I mean,” Jim said, “we’re not really engaged. You know the way it is, I’m just telling you because it’s different this time and I know you’ll keep it under your hat. There are a lot of things I want to talk to you about sometime, you know—you were young once yourself.”

  There were a lot of things Jeffrey knew he should have said, but instead he felt proud and grateful because Jim had told him and had not told anyone else.

  “I’d like to meet her sometime,” he said.

  “You’d like her,” Jim said, “she’s swell.” And Jeffrey found it hard to think of anything further to say.

  “Well,” he said, “I’ve got to get dressed. I’m going out. Ring the bell for Albert.”

  He was smiling when Jim turned back to him.

  “What’s so funny now?” Jim asked. “Don’t you believe me?”

  “Yes,” Jeffrey sai
d, “I believe you. New York has everything, there’s everything in New York.”

  He watched Jim searching for the bell and it afforded him a moment’s amusement because he always had a hard time remembering about the bell himself.

  “It’s behind that thing on the wall,” he said. “It’s a bell pull, only don’t pull it.”

  The antique belt of petit point from England which Madge had bought at the Anderson Galleries was, like so many decorative ideas, self-conscious and only remotely functional.

  “No, no, no,” Jeffrey said, “don’t pull it.” He became nervous just as though Jim were in the destructive age of childhood. “There’s an electric button just behind it. Push the button.”

  “Say,” Jim said, “pretty trick, isn’t it?”

  “All right,” Jeffrey said, “ring it.”

  After all, he paid the bills and he might as well get something out of Albert, but Albert was like Jim, something with which Jeffrey was not entirely familiar. Albert appeared, wearing a black alpaca housecoat which was too short in the sleeves and a trifle tight around the shoulders, since it had been purchased for Ferdinand, the male half of the previous couple. Ferdinand had left with six bottles of Scotch and half a dozen neckties, but he had left the coat. Albert’s wrists dangled from the sleeves when he stood up straight.

  “Did you ring, sir?” Albert asked.

  Everything that Albert said was vaguely annoying. It was all correct, but it did not seem to belong to Albert.

  “Yes,” Jeffrey said, “would you put out my evening clothes, please, Albert?” And somehow Jeffrey himself did not sound exactly natural. It was a little as though he and Albert were both playing a game which neither of them particularly liked.

  “White tie or black tie, sir?” Albert asked. At any rate, Albert did not use the expression “Formal or informal, sir?” which Ferdinand had used.

  “Black tie.”

  “Thank you, sir, anything further, sir?”

  “No,” Jeffrey said, “nothing further, Albert,” and he and Jim were silent while Albert walked away.

  “Pretty trick, isn’t he?” Jim said.

  “Yes,” Jeffrey answered, “he’s trick.”

  “Where did you get him?” Jim asked.

  “I don’t know,” Jeffrey answered, “they come and go.”

  “Where are you going?” Jim asked.

  Jeffrey sat looking at the ancient bell pull with the electric wiring behind it.

  “We have a dinner once a year,” he said. “The Contact Club—the old Air Squadron I was with in France.”

  He spoke self-consciously, because it made him sound unnatural, like a retired army officer, and somehow it did not fit in with Jim or with anything that he and Jim had known together.

  “Say,” Jim said, “does that racket still go on?”

  Jeffrey’s common sense told him that it was ridiculous to be annoyed. He could even see what the boy meant, but it did not help.

  “I mean,” Jim said quickly, “I should think you would want to forget about it. I wouldn’t want to remember.”

  Jeffrey was trying to do the impossible and put himself in the position of his son.

  “I mean,” Jim said, “I’m not blaming you, or any of your generation. It was a matter of mass hysteria wasn’t it, and the old British propaganda? It just doesn’t work with my generation. Personally, my generation thinks that war stinks.”

  “You mean,” Jeffrey said slowly, “that we all made a big mistake—is that your point of view?”

  “Sure,” Jim said, “it’s obvious isn’t it? The best minds of your generation have been saying it. You’re not sore, are you? I mean, you’re not so dumb—I mean, it’s perfectly obvious.”

  Then the apartment door was opening and Jeffrey stood up.

  “Here’s your mother and Gwen,” he said.

  “You’re not sore, are you?” Jim asked again. He looked anxious, almost hurt.

  Jeffrey stood looking at him, and he had to answer something.

  “You see, some of us were killed,” he said, “not so many, but quite a lot.”

  Jim looked surprised, as though he had never thought of it in that way.

  “Maybe it wasn’t such a bad way to die,” Jeffrey went on, but it sounded old and dusty, and he seemed to be speaking from a great distance. He was sorry that he had brought it up.

  “Well,” he said again, “here’s your mother and Gwen.”

  Madge and Gwen came into the room together and Jeffrey found himself trying to remember what it was they had said they were going to do together that afternoon. It always left him confused because it was never clear to him exactly what it was that women did do in New York. They were always out somewhere on meaningless errands of their own. They filled the busses and Schrafft’s and all the teashops and the Museum of Modern Art and the Plaza and all the department stores. Madge was dressed in her light brown broadcloth suit with her hat that looked too small and her gloves that always fitted her without a wrinkle and with a little sable scarf tight about her neck. She was one of those timeless people who sometimes looked younger as they grew older. When she saw Jim her face lighted up and she might have been a girl whom he had asked to a college dance.

  “Why, Jim!” she cried and she ran to him and threw her arms around him and Jim bent down and kissed her forehead.

  “Hello, Mom,” Jim said, “you’ve got a new hair-do, haven’t you?”

  Jeffrey wished that he had not read the works of Sigmund Freud, for they made even the most normal family relationship, when you stopped to think of it, seem slightly clinical.

  “Daddy,” Gwen said, “Daddy, darling.”

  Jeffrey had noticed lately that Gwen’s whole manner toward him had changed. Gwen was now making him into a romantic character, a quaint old lovable gaffer who bumbled about, making mistakes because of growing senility.

  “Where do you think we’ve been, Daddy darling?” Gwen asked. “We’ve been out shopping.”

  She seemed to expect him to express incredulity that such a slip of a girl could ever have been shopping. In spite of himself, Jeffrey discovered that he was doing what Gwen wanted, speaking just like a dear old gentleman.

  “Well,” he said, “shopping, eh?” If he had let himself go, he would have pinched her cheek playfully. It was the subconscious again, for the time had passed when he could be natural with Gwen. He would never spank Gwen again, and he would never wash her face.

  “And what do you think we bought, Daddy?” Gwen asked. Jeffrey pulled himself together.

  “My God, Gwen,” he said, “I don’t know.” But Gwen’s mind had already leapt to something else.

  “Why, Daddy,” she said, “oh, Daddy.” Her voice was reproachful, and her eyes were wide. “Hasn’t anyone brought you your pipe and your tobacco?” And then she turned on Jim before Jeffrey had time to answer.

  “Jim,” she said, “at least you might see that Daddy has his pipe when he comes home tired.”

  Jim gazed at her critically.

  “We all see you,” he said; “we’re right in there with you, Gwen. Where did you buy the lipstick?”

  But she was living a life of her own and no brother of hers was going to spoil it.

  “Well, Daddy likes it,” she said, “don’t you, Daddy dear? It’s Orange-Tan.”

  “All right,” Jim said, “if you want to look like a hostess, that’s all right with me.”

  “Jim,” Madge cried, “what a thing to say to Gwen. What do you mean by a hostess, dear?”

  Jeffrey pulled himself together. The atmosphere was heavy with a new sort of emotional tumult.

  “I’ve got to get dressed,” he said. “I know I’m missing a lot, but you’ll excuse Daddy dear, won’t you?”

  “Why, Jeff,” Madge said, “are you going out? Jeff, you never told me.”

  “Madge,” Jeffrey said, “I told you yesterday. It’s the Air Squadron dinner. Minot’s coming here to pick me up at seven.”

  “You never t
old me,” Madge said again. “Have you ordered cocktails? Minot always likes one. Jim, ask Albert to get the cocktail things.”

  Jeffrey was tying his tie when Madge came upstairs. He was sure he had told her that he was going out. He could remember it distinctly.

  “Jeff,” she said, “I’m awfully glad you’re going to have a good time. You always do at the Contact Club dinner, don’t you?”

  Jeffrey examined his tie in the mirror.

  “What’s the matter with Gwen?” he asked. “Where did she get that ‘Daddy darling’ stuff?”

  “Darling,” Madge told him, “it’s just a phase. I used to be that way with Father. Don’t you remember?”

  Jeffrey shook his head. He did not remember.

  “Jeff, what were you and Jim talking about when we came in?”

  “Oh, this and that,” Jeffrey told her. “About the war.”

  “Jeff,” she said, “he’s going out somewhere. Do you know where he’s going?”

  “Oh, out with a girl, I guess,” Jeffrey answered.