BUtterfield 8

by John O'Hara

  “Oh, have they given the Pulitzer Prize again?”

  “Yes, it’s in this morning’s paper. ‘Alison’s House,’ by Susan Glaspell, won it.”

  “‘Alison’s House.’ Oh, yes. That was about Emily Dickinson, but I never did see it. They do so many good things at the Civic Repertory but it’s such a nuisance to go all the way down there. Well, I’m so glad you can come. At seven-thirty, and black tie for our husbands.”

  “Grand, and thank you so much,” said Nancy.

  She liked Emily Liggett, and she was pleased because she knew Mrs. Liggett had not tried to wave to her on Sunday. That lie was one of the amenities. Nancy Farley knew that what had happened was that Mrs. Liggett had seen her at the club, had thought of her some time, perhaps several times, on Monday, and had decided probably last night to invite her to dinner. Nancy had no hope of being or desire to be an intimate friend of Emily Liggett’s. Emily Liggett was one of a few women whom Nancy always spoke to, addressing them as Mrs., seeing them a lot around the club in the summer and over the heads of people at the theater. She knew Emily liked her—which meant little more than liking her looks, but that was quite all right—and that the liking had in it such qualities as mutual respect and approval. They never would be close friends, because they never would have to be. Nancy knew that if she ever happened to be taking a boat trip or a long train ride with Emily Liggett they would find they had friends in common other than the same general group they knew in New York; but Nancy was satisfied to take that for granted, along with probable tastes in common. There was warmth now in her admiration for Mrs. Liggett; it took a kind of courage for Mrs. Liggett to invite the Farleys to dinner, and it was that which Nancy admired. She called Paul’s office and left word with his secretary that they were going to the Liggetts’ for dinner. Then she went to Paul’s room to see that one of his two dinner jackets was pressed and ready to wear, and she made a routine inspection of his shirts and collars and ties.

  The Farley boys were long since at school and Nancy had nothing to do until five o’clock. Every day at five, unless Paul had other plans, Nancy would drive down Lexington Avenue to the neighborhood of the Graybar Building, where Paul had his offices. She had been doing this for four years. It began accidentally. She happened one afternoon to be in the neighborhood of his offices, which were then at 247 Park Avenue, and she waited for him and caught him coming out. It was such a good idea, they agreed, that it would be fun to do it every day she could. It did have its points; there were many afternoon parties in those days, and she would stop and pick him up and they would go to the parties together. Although they never happened to say so to each other or to anyone else, both Nancy and Paul hated to enter a room alone. But together they put up a good united front, and they were two people who in the minds of their friends were thought of always as husband and wife. Only to his draftsmen and to the employees of his clubs and a few business acquaintances did Paul have an identity of his own. After working hours everyone thought of him as the one in masculine attire of the inseparable Mr. and Mrs. Paul Farley. It was almost true of Nancy, too; as true as it could be of a woman, who, if she has anything at all—beauty, ugliness, charm, bad taste, good taste, sex appeal—begins with a quicker identity and holds it longer than a man does. And so they would go to parties together, or simply go home together. Every day she would meet him.

  After a while it began to be a habit that to Nancy was not an unmixed blessing. At first occasionally, and then every day, Paul would come up in back of the car and gently pinch the back of Nancy’s neck. In the beginning it was cute, she thought. Then she found that she was expecting it. Then she found she was setting herself against it, tightening her nerves and sitting in the very middle of the front seat, hoping he would not be able to take her by surprise. But he always did. It became a game with him, and she could count on the fingers of one hand the number of times when luck was with her and she was quicker than he. They had a phaeton then, a Packard. When they were buying a convertible one thing she had in mind was that she would be able to raise the window on her side and he would not be able to touch her neck. This was no good, though; he would get the same surprise effect by rapping hard with his ring on the raised window. Little by little the custom of meeting Paul every day became a nuisance, then almost a horror. It made her jittery, and all because he was doing something she at first thought was cute, sweet. After they would get in the car it would take her a few minutes to get her mind on what he was saying. A few times, on days when the weather was fine and he had reason to expect her to meet him, she just could not bring herself to face it—although face it was precisely not the word—and she would find excuses not to turn up. At such times he would be so hurt that she would tell herself she was a little beast; Paul was so kind and considerate and sweet in everything else, what on earth was the matter with her that she couldn’t pass over such a slight fault? But this self-reproach did not have any lasting effect. It was a form of self-indulgence that certainly did not solve the problem.

  As for coming right out and telling Paul she objected to his pinching the back of her neck—that was out of the question. From conversations with her friends, and from her own observations, Nancy knew that in every marriage (which after all boils down to two human beings living together) the wife has to keep her mouth shut about at least one small thing her husband does that disgusts her. She knew of a case where the marriage was ruined because of the husband’s habit of allowing just a little of the white of egg to hang from the spoon when he ate soft-boiled eggs. In that case the disgusting thing occurred every morning. She knew of another case where the husband walked out on his wife because he said she was unclean; it took one of those psychoanalytical quacks a month to get the man to reveal that the woman never went to the bathroom without leaving toilet paper floating in the bowl of the toilet. Things like these that you kept quiet about, they were worse than the things you could quarrel about; your husband’s behavior in bed, or your wife’s; his taste in clothes, or hers; cheating at games, flirtatiousness, bad manners, differences of opinion, repetitiousness, bragging and humility and punctuality and the lack of it and all the other things that people can quarrel openly about. Then there was always the hope that please God he might stop. But, no; he probably did it because he thought it was expected of him.

  Now this Tuesday Nancy Farley, with nothing to do all day, began thinking of Paul’s little trick early in the day. It was going to be a fine day. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky and no chance of any legitimate excuse not to meet Paul. This same day, this idleness gave her plenty of chance to think from time to time of John Watterson, the homely actor who everyone said had more charm than—well, everyone said he had more charm than anyone they ever knew. Watterson came of an awfully good Boston family and he had gone to Harvard, and he usually played hardboiled parts, although he looked well in tails. He reminded some people of Lincoln; he was tall and homely like Lincoln, and Lincoln must have had a marvelous voice too. Watterson had. What with one play and another, Watterson had reached that point where he could be identified by his first name: “Are you going to John’s opening?” meant Watterson as surely as Kit and Alfred and Lynn and Helen and Oggie and Jane and Zita and Bart and Blanche and Eva and Hopie and Leslie meant the people that those names meant. Watterson certainly had arrived, and having arrived he had quietly settled down to the practice of his profession, on and off the stage.

  The first thing Nancy said about him when she first laid eyes on him was that there was an honest man, which she amended to there is a man with honesty. He had hair like an Indian’s, straight and black and it fell over his forehead—never with any attempt on his part to keep it from falling. He had big thick lips and out of them came the sounds of this hard strong voice of his in a Chicago accent which he never tried to change, except when he played the captain of an English minesweeper and in his one try at the films, when he played an Indian. He was used to being told he had beautiful h
ands. They were big, and on the little finger of each hand he wore a signet ring which had had to have more gold put in to fit his fingers. He liked women whose buttocks just fit his spread hands, and although Nancy did not quite qualify, she was still on the small side. He wanted Nancy.

  She had seen him probably a dozen times offstage. This was extremely painful to him, as he was every bit as aware of the number of times he had seen her as Nancy was of the number of times she had seen him. But it had always been Mr. Watterson and Mrs. Farley. The last three times she had seen him he had asked her to come in some afternoon, any afternoon, when she was in the neighborhood and had a minute. That was as far as he would go. If she came it would be with the understanding, et cetera. She knew that. And he knew as well as the next one what his reputation was, and all the women he knew also knew his reputation. “I have no etchings,” he would say, “but I’ll bet I can get you tight.” Yes, he had honesty, and he was in the phone book.

  It was Spring and Nancy had nothing to do all day until the daily ordeal with Paul, and last week she had seen Watterson and that time he had said: “You haven’t come in for a drink, Mrs. Farley. What about that?”

  “I haven’t been thirsty.”

  “Thirsty? What has thirsty got to do with it? I’m going away for the week-end, but I’ll be back Tuesday and I’m in the phone book, so I think you’ll need a drink Tuesday. Or Thursday. Thirsty on Thursday. Or Wednesday. Or any other day. But beginning Tuesday.” Then he had laughed to take the curse off it a little and also to let her know that of course he didn’t think for one minute she’d come.

  Once in her life with Paul, Nancy had let herself go in a kiss with another man, a hard kiss, standing up, with her mouth open and her legs apart. Now that she thought of it, that had been an actor too. A young actor, a practically unknown juvenile. This day, thinking about Watterson, and then about the juvenile, she went back to a truth which she had discovered for herself. It was something she discovered watching the progress of the extra-marital love life of her friends—while pretending not to watch at all. The truth was that there is a certain kind of man, attractive and famous in his way and sought after by women, whom sound women, women like Nancy herself, can conceivably have an affair with, but would not marry if he were the last man on earth. Once Nancy had heard the French wisecrack: that you can walk in the Bois without buying it. (It sounded better than the American: why keep a cow when milk is so cheap?) She would use the Bois remark to justify the behavior of some men whom she liked without liking their behavior. Only in the past three or four years had she even attempted to apply it woman to man. Well, she would not marry a man like Watterson, but since there were men like Watterson, why not find out about them? Why not find out about at least one other man? She knew every hair on Paul’s body; they knew everything about each other that they might be likely to learn. A new man would be all strange, and Nancy wondered about herself, too. Maybe she was all strange, to herself as much as to any new man. And this was a good time to find out. As coolly as that she made up her mind to have an affair with John Watterson the actor.

  She was sitting down with The Good Earth in front of her. She put it aside the moment she made her decision, got up and went to the closet where her hats were perched on things that looked like huge wooden collar-buttons. She took two hats, tried on both of them, and went back to the closet and took out a third, which she kept on. Gloves, purse, cigarette extinguished, and she was ready to go.

  The car was parked outside. She got in and drove the few blocks to the block in which Watterson lived. When she came to his house she drove right past without changing her speed. Somehow—not today. She had a hunch. “If my foot had eased its pressure on the accelerator I’d have gone in. But it didn’t, so, not today.” She went to the movies—dear George Arliss, in “The Millionaire.” “I suppose that’s passing up an opportunity,” she said to herself, thinking of Watterson, and enjoyed it over and over again.

  • • •

  “Do you want some coffee? I made some coffee if you can stand it,” said Eddie.

  “Huh?” said Gloria. “Oh. Eddie. Hello, Eddie darling.”

  “Hello, sweet. How about some coffee?”

  “I’ll make it. Just give me a minute to wake up.”

  “You don’t have to make it. It’s made. All you have to do is drink it.”

  “Oh, thank you.” She sat up in bed and reached with both hands for the cup and saucer. She drank some. “Good,” she said. “You make this?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” said Eddie.

  He sat down easy on the bed so he would not jounce it and cause her to spill the coffee. “Did you have a good sleep?”

  “Mm. But marvelous,” she said. Then: “What about you? Where did you sleep? My beamish boy.”

  “Right here.”

  “Where ‘right here’?” she repeated.

  “There. On the chair.”

  “There, there, under the chair. Run, run, get the gun,” she said. “No, where did you sleep, Baby?”

  “The chair, I told you.”

  “You couldn’t. With those legs? You couldn’t sleep in any chair with those legs. What did you do with your legs?”

  “I didn’t do anything with them. I just put my fanny deep in the chair, and my legs—I don’t know. Extended. They extended in a, uh, southwesterly direction and I went to sleep and my legs went to sleep.”

  “Ooh, you must feel like the wrath of God. Are you stiff?”

  “No, as a matter of fact I feel fine. I was so tired when I went to sleep. I read a while after you dropped off, and I went to sleep with the light on. I woke up I guess around three or four and doused the light and got up and got an overcoat. Reminds me. You know that fur coat you came here in Sunday. It’s still in my closet. You better haul off and do something about it. Take it back where you got it, will you?”

  She seemed to think about it.

  “Will you?” he said. “It’s none of my business, Gloria, and what you do is—as I just said, it’s none of my business, only I wish you’d return that coat. That’s the kind of a fast one that—maybe you had every reason in the world to take it at the time, but you can’t keep a coat like that, that cost four or five hundred dollars or more.”

  “Four or five thousand.”

  “Jesus! All the more reason. My God, Baby, a coat like that, that kind of money, they insure those things. The first thing you know they’ll have detectives parked on our doorstep.”

  “I doubt it. I imagine I could keep that coat as long as I wanted to.”

  Eddie looked at her but not long. He stood up. “Do you want some more coffee? There is more if you want it.”

  “You don’t like that, do you?”

  “What difference does it make whether I like it or not? I told you what I thought. I have no say over you.”

  “You could have. Come here,” she said. She held up her hands. He sat on the bed again. She put her arms around his head and held him to her bosom. “Oh, you don’t know what I’d do for you, my precious darling. You’re all I have, Eddie. Eddie, you’re afraid of me. I’m no good, Eddie. I know I’m no good, but I could be good for you, Eddie, Eddie, my darling. Oh. Here. One second, darling. One second. My baby. My baby that needs a haircut. Ah, my—What’s that!”

  “Phone,” he said.

  “Answer it. It’s bad luck not to answer it.”

  “I never heard that.”

  “It is. Go on, darling, answer it.”

  “Hello,” he said into the telephone. “What? Yes. Speaking.” Pause.

  “Why, you son of a—” He slammed the phone into its cradle. “The Bush Brothers Hand Laundry. The bastards.”

  “Is that the laundry you owe the money to?”

  “Oh, God. Maybe it is. I forgot the name of that one. I don’t think I ever did know it. No, it couldn’t be the same one. The Bush Brothers we
re soliciting new work, so that’s not the laundry that has my stuff. They don’t want any new work. I want you.”

  “Do you? Here I am. Can anybody see us from those windows over there?”

  “They might. I’ll get it. I’ll do it.”

  “I ought to get up.”

  “No, don’t.”

  “I’ll have a child.”

  “Don’t you want a child?”

  “Yes, very much. But, all right.”

  He sat up again and looked away. He made his gesture of shooting a foul in basketball, but with his fists clenched. “No,” he said.

  “It’s all right, Eddie,” she said. “It’s all right, darling.”

  “No,” he said. “No, it isn’t. It’s anything but all right.”

  “I’m clean. You needn’t worry about that, if that’s what’s worrying you.”

  “Oh, I know. I wasn’t thinking that.”

  “You used to think it. Didn’t you?”

  “A long time ago. Before I knew you.”

  “I’d never do that to you.”

  “I know. I don’t think that any more. That’s not what I’m thinking now.”

  “Don’t you love me? Do you love Norma?”

  “Nope.”

  “Have you told her you love her?”

  “Once or twice.”

  “Does she love you?”

  “No. I don’t think so. Maybe.”

  “You’re not sure.”

  “Oh, I’m sure. She doesn’t love me. No, it hasn’t anything to do with Norma. I love you.”

  She touched his shoulder. “I know. And I love you. The only one I ever did love, and the only one that ever loved me.”

  “I doubt that. Aw, you’re crazy.”

  “No. I know. I know what it is even if you don’t. Or maybe you do know and won’t say it. It’s because I’ve stayed with so many men that you think—”