There was a pause. Then, ‘Nine-thirteen, sir.’
‘I thought I asked to be called at nine,’ Carson said.
‘Sorry, sir.’
Carson hung up the phone, letting it drop with a bang. He was in that sort of mood. It was not that he expected de luxe service—far from it; certainly not in a hotel like this one. But even at the incredibly low rate of a guinea a day he expected a few minimal things, like being called in the morning when he had asked to be called. He raised his knees, making two mountains under the bedspread, lifted the ashtray from the night stand, floated it in the valley between the mountains, and lighted another cigarette. The sunshine and the quiet of the room did little to rid him of his disgruntlement; the faded yellow wallpaper and chipped and bubbled plaster ceiling were the features that annoyed him most, that cancelled out any cheeriness the day itself offered. He smoked, enjoying feeling martyred and enjoying the thought that he had got out on the wrong side of the bed, a singularly lumpy bed.
What he was doing was playing the system. His official hotel for the trip, the one stated on his itinerary, was the Dorchester. This hotel—and this morning he couldn’t even remember the name of it—had been one he’d found last night running through the list of hotels in the telephone directory at the airport. It was in Paddington, near the station, some distance from the Dorchester. This morning, after breakfast, he would wander over to the Dorchester, leave his name at the desk, ask that messages and mail be held for him, tip the message clerk ten shillings and that would be that. That was the way the system worked. The difference between the Dorchester and the place where he was staying was four pounds, or about eleven dollars, a day. This was the difference between what the company paid him for a hotel room, and what he paid. It was differences like this that had bought Clyde Adams his Rolleiflex camera, his slide projector and screen. It was what had paid for Muriel Hodgson’s Schiaparelli cocktail dress from Paris and it bought countless leather handbags, bottles of perfume, French gloves, English shoes for other salesmen and their wives. In the fraternity of salesmen for the Locustville Chemical Company there was no secret made of it. It was the system.
It was a little too simple to say that he disapproved of it; it was too late for disapproval. He had been participating in it for too long. He knew it was dishonest, and looking back, perhaps, if he had wanted to be a crusader, he might have made an issue of it. At one time, he could have. But not now. He had let himself be pulled into it by the others and by now the system had worked to his advantage too many times. It would be even more dishonest if now he should suddenly, indignantly, protest the system, and expose it. If he wanted an excuse for playing the system, one had been given him, plainly enough, by Jesse Talbot, head of the Export Division.
It had come as a result of something that happened during his first foreign trip.
Carson had arrived in Paris, where he had been scheduled to meet Bert Hodgson, who was flying in from Geneva. Both men were to be staying at the Georges Cinq, and when Carson got to the hotel, he asked whether Bert had arrived. Bert had not. Carson registered, went to his room, and unpacked his suitcase. A little later, after phoning several times to see whether Bert had checked in, Carson decided to go down to the bar for a drink.
He was crossing the lobby when he saw Bert Hodgson come through the door from the street, wearing his hat and coat but carrying no brief-case, accompanied by no luggage. Bert greeted him warmly.
‘Hey,’ Bert said, ‘I got a real swell place—over near the University. It works out to about a buck-eighty a day.’
‘Aren’t you staying here?’ Carson asked.
‘Hell, no,’ Bert said. ‘Are you?’
‘Yes.’
‘What the hell for?’
‘It’s on the itinerary,’ Carson said. And then he said. ‘Besides, it’s one of the nicest hotels in Paris.’
Bert’s eyes had clouded. ‘Is that so?’ he asked. ‘Well. Pretty fancy, aren’t you, Greer?’
When he got back to Locustville, Jesse Talbot had said, ‘By the way, Bert Hodgson says you two did fine in Paris.’
‘It went pretty well.’
‘You like to treat yourself in style, Bert says. You like the finer things of life.’
‘I don’t know what Bert means by that.’
‘Says you were staying at the Georges Cinq.’
‘That’s right.’
‘What were you doing there?’ Talbot asked.
‘That was my hotel,’ Carson said. ‘On my itinerary.’
Jesse Talbot paused and scrutinised him for a moment. ‘Are you kidding?’ he asked finally. ‘You really stayed at the Georges Cinq?’ Then, cheerfully, he had said, ‘Well, you’re new here. You’ve got a lot to learn. Yes, you’ve really got a lot to learn.’
Jesse Talbot was a division head, and a vice-president. So, if he wanted, Carson could rationalise that the company actually expected him to cheat it. Looking around the room of his third-class hotel now, he thought: yes, they’re giving me the glorious opportunity to cheat them out of eleven dollars a day, and I, by accepting it, am expected to give them my labour and devotion, some of my youth and, I suppose, part of my pride. He snuffed out his cigarette in the ash tray and, doing so, tipped over the ash tray, scattering black ashes across the top of the bedspread. He brushed at them angrily with his hand.
He had never told Barbara about the system. It wasn’t just because he was ashamed of it, though that was part of it. It was mostly because he knew that the system would give her just one more reason to resent Locustville. And so, as far as even Barbara knew, he was always at the Dorchester in London … the Georges Cinq in Paris … the Excelsior in Rome.
But the thing was, of course, that Barbara was right. At least partly. The trouble—most of it—came from working in, and out of, the town where the company’s main office was. It was the town, more than the company, that had put them in the peculiar situation they were in. Everyone knew, apparently, that Carson and Barbara—as the Locustville friends would put it—‘had money from somewhere else.’ And they did—inheritances, a couple of small trusts, stock that brought them a small income. They did not have as large a private income as Locustville probably thought they had but they had some; enough to make Locustville suspicious, God knew he had heard a few remarks made—not pointed ones, but little, casual, half-smiling, half-resentful remarks about them, about money, about things the Greers could afford that the others couldn’t. A small mistake, an oversight, like staying at the Georges Cinq that first time, was enough to confirm the suspicions. After all, everybody connected with the company knew pretty much—or could guess—what he earned. Asked to estimate the size of Carson’s semimonthly paycheque, any one of their friends could have come within ten dollars of the exact figure. And his semimonthly paycheque was not large.
Locustville permitted the Greers to have their private income. But it did not permit them to show it. Barbara had managed to collect, on birthdays and anniversaries, three good fur coats, a diamond cocktail ring, an emerald bracelet, two pairs of diamond earrings. None of these could be worn in Locustville. An exception was having Flora, their maid. Barbara had insisted on that, even though the other salesmen’s wives did not have maids. Still, she had lied about it—telling the others that she paid Flora much less than she actually did. In fact, both Carson and Barbara had become accomplished poseurs, skilful liars; they nodded sympathetically when their friends complained about the size of their monthly car payments. ‘Yes, of course, we know,’ they said, as they sat at cocktail parties discussing mortgages, pay-as-you-go plans, interest rates on personal notes, freezer-plans and endowment policies that would one day assure their children of a college education. Actually, Barbara had never worried about paying a bill and foresaw no time in the future when she ever would worry. At least there was no need to worry as long as they lived in Locustville, where they were forced to live on less money than they had. Carson smiled. Life in Locustville might be inhibitive, but it was econom
ical.
He kicked the bedspread to the foot of the bed and swung his legs over the side. This put him in view of a crazed and yellowed door mirror and he examined himself, dispassionately, in its reflection. Hair receding perhaps, but neatly, in two even arrows above his temples, but not on top. And there was, he knew, an invisible roll of stomach under his shirt that appeared when he sat down, but otherwise he was in good shape. He decided to get up, finish dressing, and get some breakfast. He did not like to lie around in bed too much, even on a Sunday. But the trouble was, after breakfast what could he do? This was one reason he hated to start a trip on a Sunday. Sundays, in the selling business, were solitary days, especially the very first, the arrival Sunday. Later on, if you were lucky, you met someone who asked you to Sunday dinner, or one of the distributors asked you out to his house for the afternoon. But today, this Sunday, loomed blankly ahead of him with nothing to do but walk around, looking in the windows of closed stores, walk in the park, walk to the Thames embankment and look at the excursion boats. Or else sit in his room and look at the walls. Barbara had packed a couple of books, but he didn’t feel like reading. Still, he thought, perhaps that was what he would do—carry a book out to breakfast with him and, afterward, take it to Hyde Park or to the Thames embankment, find a bench and read it. He stood up beside the bed, feeling at loose ends, thinking: where do I go from here?
He walked to the window and stood in his shirt, shorts and socks, looking out. Opposite him was a blank brick wall. Below, the passageway—a street, really, but too narrow for traffic—ran a short cobblestoned distance, then turned the corner of the building and went out of sight. It was empty and he rested the heels of his palms against the window sill and looked down at the emptiness. A boy—tall, golden and oddly flowery—appeared from around the corner and suddenly, unexpectedly looked up and saw him there. Surprised, Carson noticed that the boy looked remarkably like Woody deWinter. And the boy stopped, tilted his head and smiled at him. Blushing, Carson stepped quickly back into the room. (Christ, a fairy! he thought.) He went back to the bed and sat down upon it, staring at his stockinged feet.
The trip was beginning all wrong. All the auspices were wrong. It had started wrong as long ago as Friday night with Nancy Rafferty arriving, getting tight, acting like an ass. He tried to be tolerant of Nancy; after all, she was an old friend of Barbara’s. Barbara felt sorry for Nancy and so, he supposed, did he, but somehow—to him—feeling sorry for someone was a pretty fruitless occupation. You could spend your whole life, he supposed, feeling sorrier and sorrier for someone. He could feel sorry for that boy in the alleyway just now, for instance, the boy who had looked like Woody. Or he could feel sorry for Woody. In fact, at one time, he had felt sorry for Woody.
He thought: Ah, poor Woody.
It was through Woody that he had first met Barbara. He and Woody had been in the same class at Princeton. And for the first semester of their freshman year, they had been roommates—not through choice, but as a result of one of those arbitrary room assignments made by the dean’s office. They could not have had less in common.
They had tried, of course, to be friends during the first few weeks of college. They had tried because all roommates were supposed to be friends. But it soon became clear to both of them, in one of those subtle understandings that only two young men can reach with one another—understandings that evolve wordlessly, without rancour, that call for no explanation or apology—that friendship was not destined for them. They planned to join different clubs. They allied themselves with different groups of friends. Carson, who that summer before going off to college had been fattening himself and muscling himself with exercise, eight hours of sleep every night, and three quarts of milk every day because he wanted to make the football team, got on the freshman squad. When he and Woody met on campus, they smiled pleasantly and called ‘Hi!’ to each other. Studying together, in their room, they exchanged a few pleasant, casual remarks, then lapsed into silence, each retreating carefully into his own book. If they spoke at all during these quiet, studious evenings, it was with elaborate politeness.
‘Mind if I open the window, Woody? It’s getting a little smoky in here.’
‘Sure, Carson. Go ahead.’
‘There. How’s that? Too much air for you, old man?’
‘No, no, that’s fine, Carson. That’s perfect.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Sure.’
And then, a little later: ‘Carson, would you mind if I lowered that window about an inch? It’s getting a little chilly in here.’
‘No, I don’t mind, Woody. Go right ahead, please.’
‘There. How’s that? Is that all right for you …?’
And like any two young men who must live together and yet acknowledge, mutely, that some design, biological or celestial, has set them for ever at variance to one another, they were fiercely loyal to each other in the company of others. ‘You know what I think?’ one of Carson’s friends had said. ‘I think your roommate deWinter is a queer.’ And of course there were jokes made about Woodcock deWinter’s somewhat dandified name.
‘It’s a damned dirty lie,’ Carson had said. ‘Woody’s a great guy.’
Woody was an inch or two shorter than Carson, blond and slightly built someone had told Woody once that his face resembled one of the faces of the Sistine ceiling—the face of the young Adam stretching out his fingertips to God: it was not an ascetic face, but it was pale, soft and brooding. At seventeen, Woody liked to fancy himself both intellectual and musical, although, for some reason, he was poor at his studies and only mediocre at music. He dreamed, too, in those days of becoming an actor. ‘I want to contribute,’ he told Carson earnestly. He had come to Princeton with a phonograph and a large collection of records. He studied better, he said, while listening to music. Often at night, he would turn to where Carson sat—they had desks at opposite sides of the room and sat back to back—and ask, politely, ‘Mind if I play my Vic, Carson?’
Without turning, keeping his eyes focused on the page of the book in front of him, Carson would reply, ‘No, I don’t mind. Go right ahead, Woody.’
‘I’ll keep the volume low,’ Woody would say.
Listening to his records, however, Woody would not appear to be studying. He would sit, tailor-fashion, on the floor in front of the record-player, staring into space with a rapt expression, his hands moving to the rhythm of the music, as though he were conducting the orchestra. Carson continued to study. Sometimes one or two of Woody’s friends dropped in and together they would listen to the music, whispering occasional words of conversation until Woody said, ‘Ssh! Carson’s studying.’ Then it would be quiet in the room except for the strains of—almost always in those days—Ravel.
They were days, as Carson looked back on them, that passed like an odd, unhappy dream. With music hovering behind them, he and Woody moved within the framework of the suite on tiptoe, as though each boy was treading cautiously, taking care not to brush against a raw edge of feeling or step upon an exposed and tender nerve. Nerves and feelings and little tendrils of pain stretched like cobwebs all about them, and when they were alone in the suite together, Carson began to notice a strange heaviness and thickness around his heart. The suite had two rooms, a common study and a common bedroom. One night Carson took a deep breath and said, ‘You know, Woody, I’ve been thinking. You like to listen to your music so much and—no kidding—I enjoy it, too. I really do, but—well—sometimes when I’m studying, with the music going and all—well, sometimes it’s a little hard to concentrate. Do you know what I mean? Honestly, I don’t want you to stop playing your Vic—hell, Woody, I enjoy it as much as you do—but, well, I’ve been thinking. After all, we’ve got the two rooms here. I could move my desk into the bedroom and you could move your bed out here, where your desk and Vic are. Then we could close the doors between …’
Woody was silent, his face grave. Woody had a nervous mannerism of reaching up, with the first two fingers of his right hand a
nd tugging at the forelock of his blond hair, his two fingers working like scissors. He began to do this now. Finally, he said, ‘Sure, Carson. Sure. That’s a good idea.’ And then he said, ‘I hope—’
‘What?’
‘Nothing.’
They moved the furniture that night.
The door that closed between them, separating them more than physically, might have severed them completely from each other. They might have stopped speaking. They almost stopped speaking, but not quite.
That was how it happened that, one afternoon about a week before the Triangle Club dance, Carson returned from a lab and found Woody with his dinner jacket out across the bed, brushing lint from its midnight blue lapels. Carson said a polite ‘Hi,’ and then, just before going into the other room and shutting himself off, he paused and said, ‘Who’re you bringing down for the weekend, Woody?’
Woody shrugged. ‘My cousin Barbara,’ he said.
‘Are you kidding? Your cousin?’
‘Yes,’ Woody said. ‘She’s my second cousin.’ And he added, ‘I’ll probably end up marrying her some day.’
Carson laughed. ‘You don’t sound too pleased with that idea, old man,’ he said.
‘Oh, she’s all right,’ Woody said. ‘She’s not so bad.’ He pulled his wallet out of his back pocket. ‘I’ve got a picture of her. Want to see it?’ he asked.
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