Point of No Return

by John P. Marquand

  The clock in the Episcopal Church was striking and then he heard the other bells. He remembered the deeper timbre of the Baptist Church and the almost nasal ring of the Unitarian bell. It was five o’clock and the Historical Society closed at exactly five.

  2

  Home Free

  It was still too early in the season for raking up front yards and too early for ball-playing by the courthouse. Though the stores on Dock Street were open until six, everyone was hurrying home without lingering on the corners. There were a good many people on Dock Street but for some time Charles recognized no one, though they all had types of features he remembered, and the whole appearance of the street was just the same. The Dock Street Bank had its old grim, evening look. There was a display of seeds and gardening tools in the hardware store, a promise for the future that did not apply to the present. The North End bus was moving up the street and a few mud-spattered cars were following it. There was the same slow sound of traffic that he had always known, and the gentle, splashing sound of overshoes upon the wet brick sidewalks. All of Clyde was going home to supper.

  It was just the time in the evening when everyone used to gather in the Meaders’ back yard. The light was much the same as Charles remembered it. The shadows would be deeper downstairs in the bam and behind the carriage shed and you could run and hide behind the cordwood or behind the pung in the corner of the bam while the voice of whoever might be It counted five hundred by fives. You would hide where you could watch Home, which was the Meaders’ back porch, or else you would sneak around the carriage house and wait until the coast was clear. There was always that uncertain moment for deciding whether to risk everything and run or whether to wait longer and risk being seen. Then there was that dash across the yard and the sharp, triumphant moment when you touched the steps of the Meaders’ back porch first and shouted, “Home Free!”

  In a way, Charles thought, Dock Street was like the Meaders’ yard, now that he was walking down it. He was back at the start of everything, among the hidden reasons for everything, but he was not yet home. He saw the window display in Walters’s Drugstore that had always been created for April, pyramids of bottles containing assorted spring tonics—Beef, Iron and Wine, Sulphur and Molasses, and also remedies that were guaranteed to break up a cold in twenty-four hours, all connected together by paper streamers which led to a colored cardboard cross section of the human nose and throat.

  Beyond the bottles he could see the soda fountain and the booths, all newer than they had been but in exactly the same position. He could see a boy, wearing a Clyde High School sweater, and a girl, with a scarf tied over her head and wearing a green-and-white mackinaw, standing by the fountain. He should have known who they were, but of course he did not. He had stopped in front of Walters’s Drugstore without realizing that he had stopped.

  A woman was walking toward him holding a bag of groceries and it seemed to him that he should have known her, too, though there was nothing distinctive about her except that her face belonged to Clyde. He remembered thinking that she was too old to be wearing one of those silk scarves tied over her head and that it was not becoming. The scarf was too bright for her gray coat and its worn fur collar and for her blue mittens. Suddenly Charles recognized her—when the light from the drugstore window struck her face, making it look less worn and tired. They had been to Walters’s Drugstore together. They had stood by the fountain just as that boy and girl were standing now, and he had often worn a maroon sweater with “CHS” lettered on it. It was Doris Wormser. Her yellow hair was darker, there were deep lines on her face, but it was Doris Wormser, and she recognized him, too, at almost the same moment.

  “Why, Charley Gray,” she said, and her voice was high and nasal, although he remembered that it had sounded delightfully musical once.

  “Why, hello, Doris,” he said.

  “Well, of all the people I didn’t expect to see,” Doris Wormser said. “It’s the funniest thing. I can’t believe it, Charley.”

  “Well, I can’t either. How about a soda, Doris?”

  “Oh, no,” she said, “I couldn’t. I’ve got to go home and get supper on,” and then she laughed. “But it’s funny, right in front of the drugstore. You look like everything’s agreed with you. You look just the same.”

  “So do you,” he said. “Exactly the same.”

  “Oh, you go on, Charley,” Doris Wormser said. Her voice rose as it did when he used to tell her in high school that she was awfully pretty. “You wait till I tell Willie.”

  Then he remembered that Doris Wormser had married Willie Woodbury.

  “How’s Willie?” he asked her.

  “He still has the farm machinery agency. Let him know if you want to buy a tractor,” Doris said. “We’ve got three children now, all boys. We’re living in the old Adams house. You know, on River Street.”

  “Oh, yes,” he said, and he was glad that she took it for granted that he knew. “I’d like to come and see Willie and the boys.”

  She smiled at him and held out her left hand because she had the bag of groceries in her right.

  “I wish you would,” she said, “if you get time, Charley,” but she obviously could not ask him then because she had to get supper on and there was a place for everything in Clyde and everything was in its place.

  “I’ve only got two children,” he said. “A boy and a girl.”

  “Yes,” she said, “I know. I always knew you’d get ahead, Charley.”

  He knew what she was saying. She was saying that their lives were entirely separate and that everything was in its place in Clyde, but she was saying it without bitterness or rebuke.

  “If you get time, come down and see us,” she said, but at the same time she was saying that she would understand if he did not. Just because they had been to high school together was no reason why he should go down to River Street. She was saying it without saying it and of course he understood. “But it’s funny, isn’t it, right in front of the drugstore, just as though we were meeting for the picture show.”

  She looked away from him up Dock Street and he knew what she was thinking. She was thinking that people would be wondering to whom she was talking so long in front of Walters’s Drugstore. She was thinking that everyone would have noticed that she had met Charley Gray, not that it mattered any longer, not that it had ever mattered.

  “Well,” she said, “I’ve got to be getting on. It’s been nice seeing you.”

  “Tell Willie he’s lucky,” Charles said.

  “Oh, you go on,” Doris Wormser said. “Good-by now, Charley.”

  In Charles’s recollection, the Clyde Inn had been a dingy hotel that one passed thoughtlessly on one’s way to the public library. He remembered that strangers sat on its porch in summer, their chairs tilted back, their feet on the railing, staring in a bored way at Dock Street and already abysmally convinced that Clyde had no recreational possibilities. There had been no service during prohibition for transporting liquor to a lonely drummer’s room and there were certainly no merry girls on call for an informal evening party, because the hotel was right on Dock Street and everyone would have known about it. It had always been a place where one took a compulsory one night’s rest and ate a mediocre meal and passed on to somewhere else.

  That was the way it was when Charles had lived in Clyde but things were different now. The hotel had been transformed into one of those jolly little taverns, a delightful place for a weary motorist to drop in for the night. Everything had been done to bring back its Georgian lines and its new porch was solid and substantial, behind a thick grouping of evergreen shrubs. Its doorway and blinds were painted Colonial smoky gray and there was a pretty sign with a stagecoach and also the approving stamp of the American Automobile Association and the Lodging-for-a-Night Association.

  “The Clyde Inn,” the sign read, and beneath it in smaller letters, “The Fife and Drum Taproom, A Murgatroyd Hotel.”

  Each detail contrived to give a gentle hint that the C
lyde Inn was a suitable place for a sophisticated, urban visitor compelled to stay in a provincial town. It was a Murgatroyd Hotel, and the inference was that Mr. Murgatroyd knew how to make you comfortable with a foam-rubber or an innerspring mattress and a private bath. Then, too, there was the Fife and Drum Taproom. It was disturbing to enter the Clyde Inn after his meeting with Doris Wormser. Its bright upholstered chairs and the mushroom-like ash receptacles that could not tip over did not belong to Clyde. Neither did the clerk behind the informal, semi-Colonial desk. He was not a Clyde native, he was trained by the Murgatroyd chain.

  “We’ve been waiting for you, Mr. Gray,” the clerk said. You could tell it was a piece of the Murgatroyd thoughtfulness that made that nice young man immediately catch his name and realize that he came from a larger world. “We were afraid you might have lost yourself somewhere,” and he laughed in a way that indicated that one could hardly lose oneself in Clyde.

  “Oh, no, I was just walking around,” Charles said.

  “Well, we’re glad you didn’t get lost,” the clerk said, and he laughed again, “because you’re only our fifth guest today. Things are slow this time of year, but you ought to see us in summer. How long are you staying with us, Mr. Gray?”

  “Just overnight, I’m afraid,” Charles said.

  “I suppose you’re making business calls,” the clerk said. It was a natural question. Obviously he was not a tourist or he would not have been stopping there in April.

  “Yes, a few calls,” Charles said. “I’m just passing through.”

  “Mr. Jaeckel’s here, calling on Wright-Sherwin,” the clerk said. “He’s from the Henderson-Wilckes Pump Company, the New York office. Perhaps you’re acquainted with Mr. Jaeckel.”

  “No,” Charles said, “I don’t know him but I know the company.”

  The clerk did not belong to Clyde and plainly he was lonely.

  “We have some nice little industries here in Clyde,” the clerk said. “There’s the shoe business. Clyde’s an old shoe town. We have some nice ship pictures in the taproom. Mr. Murgatroyd collected them personally. We still build boats here, runabouts and cabin cruisers, and then there’s Wright-Sherwin, brass precision instruments.”

  “Yes,” Charles said, “I’ve heard about Wright-Sherwin.”

  “It’s a fine company,” the clerk said, “but that isn’t all there is to Clyde. I wish you could see us in summer.”

  “Ought I to see you in summer?” Charles asked.

  “You really ought to, Mr. Gray,” the clerk said. “There’s a lot to do in Clyde in summer.”

  “Is there?” Charles asked. “What is there to do?” He was interrupted by a distant strain of music and he recognized the tune. “Have you got a juke box here?”

  “Yes,” the clerk answered. “In the Fife and Drum Room. You have to have something these days,” and he laughed apologetically. “Some of the local boys and girls come to the Fife and Drum Room for beer in the afternoons but they don’t disturb anyone. You were asking what there is to do in Clyde? It isn’t fair to Clyde to see it in April. I know how I felt when I came here a year ago myself, right from the Stars and Bars at Atlanta. Did you ever stop at the Stars and Bars, Mr. Gray?”

  “No,” Charles said. “I never stopped in Atlanta.”

  “Well, it’s quite a shock to come from there to here,” the clerk said. “I didn’t think I was going to be able to stand it. I didn’t realize the charm this place has, or the quaintness. It doesn’t quite come through in April.”

  He was right, it did not quite come through in April.

  The clerk reached beneath his counter and produced a small, narrow booklet. It was entitled Stop Awhile in Clyde.

  “Take it with you, Mr. Gray,” he said, “and read it when you have time. Clyde is really a lovely, unspoiled place. There are some very fine old homes here and beautiful gardens. There are several homes here owned by the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities, and then there’s Johnson Street—I don’t know whether your walk took you along there. Authorities say it is the most beautiful street in America—of its kind, of course.”

  The clerk paused and Charles looked at the title of the booklet in his hand, trying to imagine what Clyde would seem like if he had not lived there.

  “You really ought to take five or ten minutes in the morning and walk up Johnson Street and especially you ought to see the old Lovell house, even if it isn’t open to the public. It’s in the Federalist style and there’s a description of it here in the book. I’ll mark it for you and I’ll mark it on the map.”

  “Thanks very much. That’s very kind of you,” Charles said.

  “It’s just an unspoiled Yankee town, Mr. Gray,” the clerk went on, “and the natives are friendly. Peculiar and ingrown, some of them, but friendly. And then there are plenty of recreational facilities.”

  “What sort of recreational facilities?” Charles asked.

  There was an inviting pause before the clerk described them.

  “There’s a fine bathing beach and boating on the river and deep-sea fishing. We have a native here, Captain Willie Stevens, who knows where the big ones are, and there’s another native, Captain Earl Wilkins.”

  “Are they both captains?” Charles asked.

  The clerk laughed sympathetically.

  “Well, you know how natives are. We call them captains here at the inn anyway … And then we’re in easy motoring distance of some of the sportiest golf courses in America and we can issue cards to most of them right here at the desk to guests—most guests.”

  But he was tired of hearing about Clyde and he put the booklet in his pocket.

  “Well,” he said, “it sounds like a wonderful town.”

  “It is a wonderful town,” the clerk said, “if you get the spirit of it, a wonderful town with lovely people, although most of them don’t seem to come here much except for the Rotary Club luncheons. They all seem to like to eat at home and they’re pretty tight with money, Yankee types. Well, the dining room opens at six-thirty and the Fife and Drum Room’s open now, and if there’s anything I can do for you just let me know, Mr. Gray.”

  “Thanks,” Charles said. “Thanks very much. Can you tell me where the telephone is?”

  “There’s a booth down the hall to the left, on the way to the dining room,” the clerk said, “but if you want to make a call from your own room, I can put you through on the switchboard.”

  “Thanks,” Charles said, “the booth’s all right.”

  It was time to face the situation. It was time to find who was alive and who was dead and in the course of it he knew he would have to hear about the Lovells. At least he knew from his mother’s letters that the Masons were all alive. He wanted to call them and tell them he was here. He could not bear the thought of being alone with the juke box or alone at a table in the dining room.

  When he put his five cents in the telephone coin box and gave the number, he kept the narrow booth open for air. He was sure that he had found the correct number—Virgil Mason, Spruce Street—and he remembered that it was their old number, 693. He could hear the ring at the other end of the line, not the steady, automatic signal of the city. There was an interminable wait and a long, dull silence between the rings but he was sure the Masons would be at home, unless there was a Unitarian supper, because it was six o’clock by then.

  As he sat crouched in that narrow booth he tried to picture what was going on in the Mason house at Spruce Street. Mrs. Mason might be out in the kitchen doing something about supper, but certainly Mr. Mason would be in the parlor. Jackie might be upstairs in his room fixing himself for supper. Jackie never thought it looked well to get careless at home. Charles remembered that his mother had written not long ago that Jackie was still at Wright-Sherwin and a great comfort to his mother. He began jiggling the hook.

  “Operator,” he said, “will you ring them again, please?”

  “What number are you calling?” the operator asked.

  �
�The same number you’re ringing, I hope,” he said. “The number is 693.”

  “I’m ringing 693.” The operator’s voice sounded exactly like Doris Wormser’s.

  “Yes,” I know,” Charles said, “but would you ring it again, please?”

  There was a silence and a very long and vicious ring on the other end of the line. He and the operator were both annoyed by then. His struggle with the telephone was as frustrating as both that walk down Dock Street among the unfamiliar faces and the Clyde Inn under the Murgatroyd management.

  Then someone was answering and he closed the door of the booth very quickly although he could not imagine why he should be so anxious for privacy.

  “Hello,” he said, and he tried to sound bright and cheerful. “Is this Mr. Mason’s house?”

  “No, it isn’t,” a woman’s voice answered. “What number did you want?”

  “I wanted 693,” Charles said.

  “Well, you have the wrong number.” The voice was acid and triumphant. “This is 603.”

  “Oh,” Charles said, “I’m sorry,” and he began jiggling the hook again.

  “Operator,” he said, and he had a strange feeling of defeat and hopelessness, a feeling that he would not get anywhere in Clyde and that nothing would come out right. “You gave me the wrong number. You gave me 603. I asked for 693.”

  “Oh,” the operator said, “well I’ll try them again.”

  “Don’t,” Charles said, “don’t try them again, Operator. Try 693.”

  He was extraordinarily grateful when he heard Mrs. Mason’s voice. Enclosed in that telephone booth, he had felt like a disembodied spirit, speaking through a medium, but at last he had got through to earth from the spirit world. He was as far away as that. New York, the bank, and Nancy and the children, and life, all lay between him and the Masons’ house on Spruce Street.

  “This is Charley, Mrs. Mason,” he said. “Charley Gray.”

  She asked him where he was and where he had come from, and he could hear her calling, “Virgil, it’s Charley Gray on the telephone.”