So Little Time

by John P. Marquand

  “Alf,” Jeffrey said, “stop. It isn’t funny,” but he was laughing. The whole little group seemed to be seized with an unaccountable sort of hysteria. Jeffrey saw that his sister-in-law was doubled up with laughter.

  “Oh, dear,” Marianna said, “it’s like Saroyan.”

  He could not blame Marianna for thinking so because Alf always struck strangers that way until the novelty wore off. Then, when they saw behind that façade, it was not like Saroyan, because you could not die laughing at Alf continually.

  “Alf,” Agnes was saying. “Stop it. No matter what, you always get a laugh out of Alf. Come and settle down on the porch and I’ll get some Orange Crush.”

  “Oh, never mind,” Jeffrey said. “Don’t bother, we just dropped in.”

  And then they were up on the porch and Agnes took his hands in both of hers, and stared meaningly into his eyes.

  “Alf’s brother,” she said, “Alf’s baby brother.”

  Jeffrey found himself shifting from one foot to another.

  “Jeffrey,” she said, “J-e-f-f-r-e-y. Seven. I’ve tried before, but it doesn’t spell anything backwards.”

  “Well,” Jeffrey said, and he shifted his weight to his other foot, “maybe it’s just as well.”

  She was still holding his hands in both of hers. He had never learned what to do on such occasions.

  “Think of you coming here today,” she said, “this particular day.”

  “Well,” Jeffrey said, and he shifted his weight to his other foot. “It’s awfully nice to be here.”

  He looked sideways at Alf who was retying the rope that held up his dungarees.

  “Today, of all days,” she said. “It’s strange. Strange. You didn’t think what day this was, did you?”

  Jeffrey found himself looking through the screen door into a bare room furnished with a sagging couch and a sagging Morris chair and a kerosene heater, a floor strewn with newspapers and a table covered with unwashed dishes. His mind struggled aimlessly with her question.

  “Why, no,” he said, “no, I didn’t think—I just thought I’d like to look in on Alf.”

  She shook her head slowly, smiling at him from a height of superior knowledge.

  “It was more than that,” she said. “Oh, much, much more than that.”

  “Was it?” Jeffrey asked. He made a feeble effort to draw his hand away, but she held it fast.

  “It’s the day,” she said, “the date, the seventh of May. The seventh day. J-e-f-f-r-e-y. Seven. Seven is dangerous, but it’s my favorite number.”

  “I know,” Jeffrey said, “lucky seven.”

  “Not luck,” she said, and she shook her head again. “Numbers never lie. Alf, did you hear? It’s the seventh.”

  “Yes, honey,” Alf said. “Wait, I’ll get some chairs.” Then she dropped his hand and turned to Marianna.

  “This is a very wonderful day,” she said. “This is very thrilling, to see Miss Miller here. What is your year and birthday, dear?”

  “What?” Marianna asked, and Jeffrey felt that he had to say something.

  “She’s a numerologist, Marianna,” Jeffrey said.

  “Yes, dear,” Agnes answered, “and numbers have a great deal to do with God.”

  Jeffrey grew increasingly restless, now that God had entered the conversation. He kept wondering what Alf could ever have seen in her, and how it could have happened.

  “Oh,” Marianna said quickly. “I see. I’m sorry. Why June 2d, 1908.”

  “Dearie,” Alf’s wife said. “Let’s go into the house while I work it out. God is in the numbers.”

  For a few moments, Jeffrey found himself on the porch alone staring at the bathtub and at the car that had brought him there. He heard himself sigh, and he suddenly felt moist and limp, but there was no time to get any of it straight. Alf was returning to the porch carrying two golden-oak chairs with imitation-leather seats surrounded by brass tacks.

  “‘Don’t look at me that way, sonny—’” Alf was reciting the piece he had recited once long ago in Bragg—“‘I’m not one of those small-town hicks …’”

  “I’m all right,” Jeffrey said. “This is quite a place, Alf.”

  Alf looked at him from the corners of his eyes and kept on reciting.

  “‘But I love a little girlie who lives ‘way out in the sticks.’” His voice trailed off, and he looked sideways again at Jeffrey. “See that bathtub and that hopper out there, kid? I’m going to build a bathroom when I get the money for the pipes.”

  Jeffrey had known that it was coming. It was a repetition that seemed to grow more garish with time.

  “How much do you need for pipes?” he asked.

  Alf glanced at the plumbing and waited carefully before answering.

  “‘Her dress, it is pure gingham,’” Alf recited, “‘but her heart is tried and true …’”

  Jeffrey pulled his chair around so that he could face Alf more directly. He could hear one of those Diesel trucks roll by on the invisible highway behind the orange trees. There was a gray color in Alf’s face. His jowls looked heavy. There was nothing bright and handsome to him any more, except that quick sideways look.

  “How much are the pipes going to cost, Alf?” Jeffrey asked again.

  The corners of Alf’s lips twisted upward and then relaxed.

  “How would it be,” Alf asked slowly, “if they cost five hundred dollars, kid? Pipes with a silver lining. You know, kid.”

  Jeffrey did not answer at once and he saw Alf watching him rather anxiously.

  “Just pipes,” Alf said again. “Five hundred kissers. Five yards. It’s like tipping me a quarter. Don’t get mad, kid.”

  “I gave you five hundred,” Jeffrey said, “for your last installment on this place.”

  Alf was looking at the sky.

  “‘She’s a stylish stout and she won’t walk out—’”

  “Stop being a panic,” Jeffrey said. “I gave you five hundred to pay on the place, and I gave you five hundred in March.”

  “Kid,” Alf said, “I wasn’t asking. I was just suggesting. Don’t get sore. Turn on the big smile, kid.”

  “What did you do with it?” Jeffrey asked. “You wanted orange crates and wages. Didn’t you sell the oranges?”

  “Didn’t we sell the oranges?” Alf said. “Stick around a while, kid.”

  Jeffrey wished that Agnes and Marianna would come back, but he knew they would not. Agnes’ knowledge of numbers must have included dollars and cents.

  “I won’t be bothering you forever,” Alf said, and he turned and looked Jeffrey straight in the face.

  “All right,” Jeffrey said. “What are you going to blow it in on this time?”

  Alf still looked at Jeffrey and the corners of his lips turned up again and relaxed again, and his eyes narrowed, as though he were laughing at some private joke.

  “Look at me, kid,” he said. “Did it ever occur to you as the hearse goes by—”

  Jeffrey drew his feet under him. The sand beneath his soles grated on the boards of the porch.

  “What in hell are you talking about?” he asked.

  “Look at me, kid,” Alf said. “The doctor checked me up in March. It’s the old ticker. It won’t be long now, kid.”

  Jeffrey did not answer, because the fact was as tangible as though he held it in his hand.

  “Why didn’t you tell me, Alf?” he asked. “What’s the matter with your heart?”

  The smile left Alf’s face. Then he blinked and smiled again.

  “Dun’t esk,” Alf said. “Dun’t esk. God-damn’ near everything. Thrombosis, kid.”

  Then there was nothing that Jeffrey could think of to answer. His brother Alf was going to die and that truth seemed to stand between them, intimate and terrible.

  “Hell,” Alf said, “don’t take it that way, kid. Don’t say anything. God damn it, shut your mouth.”

  He was grateful for Alf’s words. They freed him from a sort of compulsion and left him only with the
discovery that he was at the end of something which he had thought would last forever. Alf was going to end there in the orange grove under the arch of Rednow. Jeffrey cleared his throat.

  “You never can tell about things like that, Alf,” he said. “Listen, if you’ll come to New York—”

  “Atta boy!” Alf said. “Atta kid. But I’d like those five yards, baby. I haven’t got much time.”

  Something inside Jeffrey turned cold.

  “Yes,” he said, “all right, Alf, and there’s more if you want it.” He saw Alf’s face relax and Alf began to smile.

  “‘She won’t walk out—’” Alf was reciting—“‘with anybody else—and, sonny, this means you!’”

  “Alf,” Jeffrey said, “shut up.”

  “Don’t take it that way, kid,” Alf said. “There’s just one other thing.”

  “What?” Jeffrey asked.

  “Don’t tell”—Alf’s voice became low and insistent—“Agnes or anybody, kid. If you do, I’ll bat your ears back.”

  “Alf—” Jeffrey began.

  “Shut up,” Alf said, “I’ve had a pretty good time, kid, a better time than you.”

  “Maybe,” Jeffrey said, “I don’t know.”

  “Listen, kid,” Alf said, “why don’t you get out? What do you do it for? Look at me. Six weeks in Las Vegas—”

  Alf stopped. The screen door had slammed. Marianna and Agnes were back on the porch.

  “It’s all right, baby,” Alf said. “We’re all through with business.” Alf got himself up to his feet. “Wait till I get that jug from under the bed. Hey, Jeff, have you ever heard this one? I bet you’ve never heard this one. You never hear anything, kid. You ought to stick around. ‘Up to the lips, close to the gums. Look out, guts, for here she comes.’ See? You’ve got to warn them.”

  “Alf,” Agnes said. “You! I always get a laugh out of Alf,” and then they were all silent as the screen door closed.

  “Jeffrey,” Agnes said, “come over here and talk to me. Don’t you think he’s looking well?”

  “What?” Jeffrey said.

  “Don’t you think he’s looking well?” she repeated.

  “Alf,” Jeffrey said. “Oh, yes, Alf. He’s looking fine.”

  When they were driving back, Jeffrey had to pull the brim of his hat down low to shield his eyes from the glare of the sunset. The sun was turning the mountains gold and purple and little clouds had come from nowhere. He had never thought before of the setting of the sun as so inexorable. He was there in the car with Marianna. He was talking to her, but most of him was still involved with that secret between himself and Alf. It was a complete, accepted fact, like the sunset. Time, without any warning, was lopping off a piece of Jeffrey just as the wind snapped the branch from a tree. He was very glad that Marianna did not notice his preoccupation for she was recalling little pieces of the visit, smiling over them as you might over a box of souvenirs brought home from a trip abroad. She was asking whether he noticed this and that, and he was saying yes, that he had noticed.

  “I thought you might like it,” he said. “I’m glad you saw Alf.”

  Then he realized that he was speaking as though they had been to a sickroom to see someone whom they might not see again.

  “He was sweet,” she said. “He talked a lot about you while you and Agnes were working out your birth dates.”

  “Yes,” Jeffrey said. “God is in the numbers.” And now he could see a sad sort of truth in that pathetic groping effort to give order to the unknown.

  “He talked about you and Madge,” Marianna said.

  “He doesn’t know much about Madge and me,” Jeffrey said.

  “He knows more than you think,” Marianna said. “He thinks about you the way I do. I told him—perhaps I shouldn’t have—”

  “You shouldn’t have done that,” Jeffrey said.

  “Dear,” she asked, “do you know what Alf said?”

  But he did not want to know what Alf said.

  “Wait,” he said, “it’s six o’clock. I want to get the news.”

  All he had to do was to press two buttons on the panel and the mellifluous voice of someone from a Hollywood studio was there. It was the news with the compliments of someone. It made him think of the radio in the room in the apartment which Madge had fixed up as a study. Whenever he was at home he always turned it on at six o’clock. That act in Greece was over, and he had always thought that the effort to hold Greece was a strategic mistake, but there were only three votes in Commons against Churchill’s conduct of the war. We were building a two-ocean navy. The navy was taking over the Coast Guard … and then he was thinking about Jim. He had not heard a word from Jim, but then, Jim very seldom wrote. In New York, it would be nine o’clock in the evening. Gwen would be in her room doing her homework and perhaps Madge was out to dinner.

  “Darling,” Marianna said, “turn it off. That’s all the news.”

  “Yes,” Jeffrey said, and he pressed the button on the panel.

  “Jeff.” Marianna’s voice was more insistent. “Do you know what Alf said?”

  He was back in the car again. Whether he wanted to or not, he would have to learn what Alf had said.

  “No,” he answered, “what?”

  He looked at her, but not for long because he had to watch the road. His eyes were back on the road again when she spoke. They were back among the aircraft buildings and the planes were still droning overhead.

  “He thinks we ought to get married.”

  He wished that she had not brought it up. It was not the time or the place.

  “Listen, dear,” he said. “Let’s not talk about it now. We’ll know better about it when I’ve finished that play.”

  He was back with the play again. He had never realized how strongly it held him.

  “It isn’t an excuse,” he said. “If I can write …”

  41

  Nothing Goes On Forever

  There was something that Madge had never been able to understand, or Minot Roberts, either, or any people like them. When Jeffrey had tried to explain it to them, they would listen and say that of course they understood, but he always knew that they did not. After all, it was difficult to explain to anyone the vagaries of literary creation, and “creation” was a pompous, inaccurate name for it. He did not mean to offer his work as an excuse for eccentricity or laziness. He did not like to think that he was different from other people when he was writing. He did not want to ask for special consideration, he only wanted to explain why he was more vague at such times than he was ordinarily and why he was less patient with detail and why he seemed oblivious to the ordinary facts of life. You were living in two worlds when you were writing. You were trying, very unsuccessfully, to be omnipotent in the region of the imagination. You had delusions not so very unlike those of some man in an asylum who thought he was Napoleon Bonaparte. The main difference was that you never possessed the inmate’s sublime conviction. If you had any modesty at all—a very bad thing for a writer—you lived in a little hell of your own uncertainty. Without any help, and out of thin air, you were obliged to create an imaginary world and to people it with what were known as “Characters.” Jeffrey had often explained to Madge that you had to live two lives at once at such a time, to exist with ordinary people and at the same time to adjust yourself to the people of your imagination. They were with you all the time and you could not get away from them. They were there when you were talking to someone else. They were there when you read the newspaper or paid the bills, or went out to dinner. Madge always said that she understood, but there was no reason why she should have. He had often tried to tell her that this process was not agreeable. He simply wanted her to see why he was not good company in the weeks when he was working and why he sometimes did not seem interested in what was going on and why he liked to sit alone, doing nothing, when she thought he should be working. The thing had some of the elements of a nervous malady, except that you knew you would get over it eventually.

&
nbsp; When he was there in California working on that play, he had those same distractions. He could remember the sun and the sea. He could remember Marianna, but it was all like something in the pages of the script. He had that old urge to get on with it, because he knew that there was always a moment at the end, very transient, but a moment of complete relief when everything was finished.

  He wrote most of that play in Marianna’s living room on a card table, but it might have been anywhere at all because the present was away, somewhere, just behind him. When it was finished, he knew the present would all come back—Madge and Jim and Marianna, everything would come back. It was like going to the dentist and taking gas. There was that same lapse into unconsciousness and all at once you were there again.

  When Jeffrey finished the play it was very late in the evening and Marianna was reading. She had said she liked to be there when he was working and she did not disturb him. When he pulled the last sheet from the typewriter the sound was so loud that he was markedly aware of it. He could see the bridge lamp above the table and he could see Marianna with her book. He felt very tired, as he always did at such a time. There was the usual moment of pause and then he knew that he could think of something else—of anything. He would not have to sit in front of that typewriter any longer, he would not have to worry about it any longer, because the thing was finished.

  “Well,” he said, “that’s that.”

  Marianna put down her book.

  “You mean you’re through for the night?” Marianna asked. “You should be—you look tired.”

  “No,” he said, “I mean it’s finished.”

  He was very glad that she was there, because she understood that sort of thing.

  “The last part went very fast,” she said.

  “Yes,” he answered, “as soon as I got hold of the beginning.”

  You had to have the beginning right, and the end would fit almost inevitably.

  “It’s queer,” he said, “isn’t it? No matter how much you’ve worked on these things, you can’t be sure; but I think the first act is right.”