Secret Ingredients

by David Remnick

  “About lunch—it was a good idea,” Miss Tell said tenderly into his collar.

  But it was not until three in the morning that Miss Tell told Plymbell what the idea was.

  And so, every weekday, there is the modest example of Mr. Plymbell’s daily luncheon. The waiter takes the empty soup plate away from Miss Tell and presently comes forward with the meat and vegetables. He scrapes them off his serving dish onto her plate. She keeps her head lowered for a while, and then, with a glance to see if other customers are looking, she lifts the plate over to Mr. Plymbell’s place. He, of course, does not notice. Then, absently, he settles down to eat her food. While he does this, he mutters, “What did you get?” She nods at her stuffed basket and answers. Mr. Plymbell eats two lunches. While this goes on, Miss Tell looks at him. She is in a strong position now. Hunger is the basis of life and, for her, a great change has taken place. The satisfactory has occurred.

  For two or three years have passed. Letters from America have come to the shop. Lady Hackthorpe is talking about cutting her American losses and coming back. On the one hand (Plymbell clearly sees), there is civilization, there are all those sauces; on the other, there is a woman with those ration books, not merely a human being—in Plymbell’s sense of the word—but three human beings.

  Miss Tell has put it plainly: “If that woman comes in here, out I go.”

  It is bad enough when Lady Hackthorpe sends food parcels, but Plymbell has been able to hide two of them and eat the contents secretly. He has failed, though, to think of any way of hiding Lady Hackthorpe. Blatancy is her life. The only plan that has occurred to Plymbell is one he tries out on the occasional foreign customer.

  “There are times,” the speech runs, “when one is inclined to indite a brief but cogent epistle to any valued friend one may, hypothetically, have in lands less corrupted by necessity than one’s own, making the possibly disloyal suggestion that they postpone their return to their native hearth until what one can only call the war on the stomach has been, to use a vulgarism, mopped up. One is saddled with degradation; one hardly cares to be observed positively enjoying.”

  Miss Tell has heard this speech once or twice. All she wants, she says, is to see the letter with her own eyes and post it herself. She wants to make sure, as well, that he has mentioned selling the furniture. It is the only unsatisfactory thing left.

  1952

  “I think I speak for my entire generation when I say, ‘Yes, I will have another drink.’”

  THE SORROWS OF GIN

  JOHN CHEEVER

  It was a Sunday afternoon, and from her bedroom Amy could hear the Beardens coming in, followed a little while later by the Farquarsons and the Parminters. She went on reading Black Beauty until she felt in her bones that they might be eating something good. Then she closed her book and went down the stairs. The living-room door was shut, but through it she could hear the noise of loud talk and laughter. They must have been gossiping or worse, because they all stopped talking when she entered the room.

  “Hi, Amy,” Mr. Farquarson said.

  “Mr. Farquarson spoke to you, Amy,” her father said.

  “Hello, Mr. Farquarson,” she said. By standing outside the group for a minute, until they had resumed their conversation, and then by slipping past Mrs. Farquarson, she was able to swoop down on the nut dish and take a handful.

  “Amy!” Mr. Lawton said.

  “I’m sorry, Daddy,” she said, retreating out of the circle, toward the piano.

  “Put those nuts back,” he said.

  “I’ve handled them, Daddy,” she said.

  “Well, pass the nuts, dear,” her mother said sweetly. “Perhaps someone else would like nuts.”

  Amy filled her mouth with the nuts she had taken, returned to the coffee table, and passed the nut dish.

  “Thank you, Amy,” they said, taking a peanut or two.

  “How do you like your new school, Amy?” Mrs. Bearden asked.

  “I like it,” Amy said. “I like private schools better than public schools. It isn’t so much like a factory.”

  “What grade are you in?” Mr. Bearden asked.

  “Fourth,” she said.

  Her father took Mr. Parminter’s glass and his own, and got up to go into the dining room and refill them. She fell into the chair he had left vacant.

  “Don’t sit in your father’s chair, Amy,” her mother said, not realizing that Amy’s legs were worn out from riding a bicycle, while her father had done nothing but sit down all day.

  As she walked toward the French doors, she heard her mother beginning to talk about the new cook. It was a good example of the interesting things they found to talk about.

  “You’d better put your bicycle in the garage,” her father said, returning with the fresh drinks. “It looks like rain.”

  Amy went out onto the terrace and looked at the sky, but it was not very cloudy, it wouldn’t rain, and his advice, like all the advice he gave her, was superfluous. They were always at her. “Put your bicycle away.” “Open the door for Grandmother, Amy.” “Feed the cat.” “Do your homework.” “Pass the nuts.” “Help Mrs. Bearden with her parcels.” “Amy, please try and take more pains with your appearance.” She looked at them through the glass doors. Her mother was wearing the red stole that matched the window curtains, but it didn’t conceal the fact that the zipper on her dress was broken. Her father was wearing the gray flannel suit that had belonged to Uncle Robert before he died. She could never understand how a man as rich and successful as her father—a vice-president in charge of distribution—could go around wearing the clothes of a dead man. It made her sick. Mrs. Farquarson had big, white, doughy legs, and she was wearing tennis shorts, so you could see how ugly her legs were.

  They all stood, and her father came to the door and called her. “We’re going over to the Parminters’ for supper,” he said. “Cook’s here, so you won’t be alone. Be sure and go to bed at eight like a good girl. And come and kiss me good night.”

  After their cars had driven off, Amy wandered through the kitchen to the cook’s bedroom beyond it and knocked on the door. “Come in,” a voice said, and when Amy entered, she found the cook, whose name was Rosemary, in her bathrobe, reading the Bible. Rosemary smiled at Amy. Her smile was sweet and her old eyes were blue. “Your parents have gone out again?” she asked. Amy said that they had, and the old woman invited her to sit down. “They do seem to enjoy themselves, don’t they? During the four days I’ve been here, they’ve been out every night, or had people in.” She put the Bible face down on her lap and smiled, but not at Amy. “Of course, the drinking that goes on here is all sociable, and what your parents do is none of my business, is it? I worry about drink more than most people, because of my poor sister. My poor sister drank too much. For ten years, I went to visit her on Sunday afternoons, and most of the time she was non compos mentis. Sometimes I’d find her huddled up on the floor with one or two sherry bottles empty beside her. Sometimes she’d seem sober enough to a stranger, but I could tell in a second by the way she spoke her words that she’d drunk enough not to be herself any more. Now my poor sister is gone, I don’t have anyone to visit at all.”

  “What happened to your sister?” Amy asked.

  “She was a lovely person, with a peaches-and-cream complexion and fair hair,” Rosemary said. “Gin makes some people gay—it makes them laugh and cry—but with my sister it only made her sullen and withdrawn. When she was drinking, she would retreat into herself. Drink made her contrary. If I’d say the weather was fine, she’d tell me I was wrong. If I’d say it was raining, she’d say it was clearing. She’d correct me about everything I said, however small it was. She died in Bellevue Hospital one summer when I was working in Maine. She was the only family I had.”

  The directness with which Rosemary spoke had the effect on Amy of making her feel grown, and for once politeness came to her easily. “You must miss your sister a great deal,” she said.

  “I was just sitting
here now thinking about her. She was in service, like me, and it’s lonely work. You’re always surrounded by a family, and yet you’re never a part of it. Your pride is often hurt. The Madams seem condescending and inconsiderate. I’m not blaming the ladies I’ve worked for. It’s just in the nature of the relationship. They order chicken salad, and you get up before dawn to get ahead of yourself, and just as you’ve finished the chicken salad, they change their minds and want crabmeat soup.”

  “My mother changes her mind all the time,” Amy said.

  “Sometimes you’re in a country place with nobody else in help. You’re tired, but not too tired to feel lonely. You go out onto the servants’ porch when the pots and pans are done, planning to enjoy God’s creation, and although the front of the house may have a fine view of the lake or the mountains, the view from the back is never much. But there is the sky and the trees and the stars and the birds singing and the pleasure of resting your feet. But then you hear them in the front of the house, laughing and talking with their guests and their sons and daughters. If you’re new and they whisper, you can be sure they’re talking about you. That takes all the pleasure out of the evening.”

  “Oh,” Amy said.

  “I’ve worked in all kinds of places—places where there were eight or nine in help and places where I was expected to burn the rubbish myself, on winter nights, and shovel the snow. In a house where there’s a lot in help, there’s usually some devil among them—some old butler or parlor maid—who tries to make your life miserable from the beginning. ‘The Madam doesn’t like it this way,’ and ‘The Madam doesn’t like it that way,’ and ‘I’ve been with the Madam for twenty years,’ they tell you. It takes a diplomat to get along. Then there is the rooms they give you, and every one of them I’ve ever seen is cheerless. If you have a bottle in your suitcase, it’s a terrible temptation in the beginning not to take a drink to raise your spirits. But I have a strong character. It was different with my poor sister. She used to complain about nervousness, but, sitting here thinking about her tonight, I wonder if she suffered from nervousness at all. I wonder if she didn’t make it all up. I wonder if she just wasn’t meant to be in service. Toward the end, the only work she could get was out in the country, where nobody else would go, and she never lasted much more than a week or two. She’d take a little gin for her nervousness, then a little for her tiredness, and when she’d drunk her own bottle and everything she could steal, they’d hear about it in the front part of the house. There was usually a scene, and my poor sister always liked to have the last word. Oh, if I had had my way, they’d be a law against it! It’s not my business to advise you to take anything from your father, but I’d be proud of you if you’d empty his gin bottle into the sink now and then—the filthy stuff! But it’s made me feel better to talk with you, sweetheart. It’s made me not miss my poor sister so much. Now I’ll read a little more in my Bible, and then I’ll get you some supper.”

  The Lawtons had had a bad year with cooks—there had been five of them. The arrival of Rosemary had made Marcia Lawton think back to a vague theory of dispensations; she had suffered, and now she was being rewarded. Rosemary was clean, industrious, and cheerful, and her table—as the Lawtons said—was just like the Chambord. On Wednesday night after dinner, she took the train to New York, promising to return on the evening train Thursday. Thursday morning, Marcia went into the cook’s room. It was a distasteful but a habitual precaution. The absence of anything personal in the room—a package of cigarettes, a fountain pen, an alarm clock, a radio, or anything else that could tie the old woman to the place—gave her the uneasy feeling that she was being deceived, as she had so often been deceived by cooks in the past. She opened the closet door and saw a single uniform hanging there and, on the closet floor, Rosemary’s old suitcase and the white shoes she wore in the kitchen. The suitcase was locked, but when Marcia lifted it, it seemed to be nearly empty.

  Mr. Lawton and Amy drove to the station after dinner on Thursday to meet the 8:16 train. The top of the car was down, and the brisk air, the starlight, and the company of her father made the little girl feel kindly toward the world. The railroad station in Shady Hill resembled the railroad stations in old movies she had seen on television, where detectives and spies, bluebeards and their trusting victims, were met to be driven off to remote country estates. Amy liked the station, particularly toward dark. She imagined that the people who traveled on the locals were engaged on errands that were more urgent and sinister than commuting. Except when there was a heavy fog or a snowstorm, the club car that her father traveled on seemed to have the gloss and the monotony of the rest of his life. The locals that ran at odd hours belonged to a world of deeper contrasts, where she would like to live.

  They were a few minutes early, and Amy got out of the car and stood on the platform. She wondered what the fringe of string that hung above the tracks at either end of the station was for, but she knew enough not to ask her father, because he wouldn’t be able to tell her. She could hear the train before it came into view, and the noise excited her and made her happy. When the train drew in to the station and stopped, she looked in the lighted windows for Rosemary and didn’t see her. Mr. Lawton got out of the car and joined Amy on the platform. They could see the conductor bending over someone in a seat, and finally the cook rose. She clung to the conductor as he led her out to the platform of the car, and she was crying. “Like peaches and cream,” Amy heard her sob. “A lovely, lovely person.” The conductor spoke to her kindly, put his arm around her shoulders, and eased her down the steps. Then the train pulled out, and she stood there drying her tears. “Don’t say a word, Mr. Lawton,” she said, “and I won’t say anything.” She held out a small paper bag. “Here’s a present for you, little girl.”

  “Thank you, Rosemary,” Amy said. She looked into the paper bag and saw that it contained several packets of Japanese water flowers.

  Rosemary walked toward the car with the caution of someone who can hardly find the way in the dim light. A sour smell came from her. Her best coat was spotted with mud and ripped in the back. Mr. Lawton told Amy to get in the back seat of the car, and made the cook sit in front, beside him. He slammed the car door shut after her angrily, and then went around to the driver’s seat and drove home. Rosemary reached into her handbag and took out a Coca-Cola bottle with a cork stopper and took a drink. Amy could tell by the smell that the Coca-Cola bottle was filled with gin.

  “Rosemary!” Mr. Lawton said.

  “I’m lonely,” the cook said. “I’m lonely, and I’m afraid, and it’s all I’ve got.”

  He said nothing more until he had turned in to their drive and brought the car around to the back door. “Go and get your suitcase, Rosemary,” he said. “I’ll wait here in the car.”

  As soon as the cook had staggered into the house, he told Amy to go in by the front door. “Go upstairs to your room and get ready for bed.”

  Her mother called down the stairs when Amy came in, to ask if Rosemary had returned. Amy didn’t answer. She went to the bar, took an open gin bottle, and emptied it into the pantry sink. She was nearly crying when she encountered her mother in the living room, and told her that her father was taking the cook back to the station.

  When Amy came home from school the next day, she found a heavy, black-haired woman cleaning the living room. The car Mr. Lawton usually drove to the station was at the garage for a checkup, and Amy drove to the station with her mother to meet him. As he came across the station platform, she could tell, by the lack of color in his face, that he had had a hard day. He kissed her mother, touched Amy on the head, and got behind the wheel.

  “You know,” her mother said, “there’s something terribly wrong with the guest-room shower.”

  “Damn it, Marcia,” he said, “I wish you wouldn’t always greet me with bad news!”

  His grating voice oppressed Amy, and she began to fiddle with the button that raised and lowered the window.

  “Stop that, Amy!” he said
.

  “Oh, well, the shower isn’t important,” her mother said. She laughed weakly.

  “When I got back from San Francisco last week,” he said, “you couldn’t wait to tell me that we need a new oil-burner.”

  “Well, I’ve got a part-time cook. That’s good news.”

  “Is she a lush?” her father asked.

  “Don’t be disagreeable, dear. She’ll get us some dinner and wash the dishes and take the bus home. We’re going to the Farquarsons’.”

  “I’m really too tired to go anywhere,” he said.

  “Who’s going to take care of me?” Amy asked.

  “You always have a good time at the Farquarsons’,” her mother said.

  “Well, let’s leave early,” he said.

  “Who’s going to take care of me?” Amy asked.

  “Mrs. Henlein,” her mother said.

  When they got home, Amy went over to the piano.

  Her father washed his hands in the bathroom off the hall and then went to the bar. He came into the living room holding the empty gin bottle. “What’s her name?” he asked.

  “Ruby,” her mother said.

  “She’s exceptional. She’s drunk a quart of gin on her first day.”

  “Oh dear!” her mother said. “Well, let’s not make any trouble now.”

  “Everybody is drinking my liquor,” her father shouted, “and I am Goddamned sick and tired of it!”

  “There’s plenty of gin in the closet,” her mother said. “Open another bottle.”

  “We paid that gardener three dollars an hour and all he did was sneak in here and drink up my Scotch. The sitter we had before we got Mrs. Henlein used to water my bourbon, and I don’t have to remind you about Rosemary. The cook before Rosemary not only drank everything in my liquor cabinet but she drank all the rum, kirsch, sherry, and wine that we had in the kitchen for cooking. Then, there’s that Polish woman we had last summer. Even that old laundress. And the painters. I think they must put some kind of a mark on my door. I think the agency must have checked me off as an easy touch.”