BUtterfield 8

by John O'Hara

  “Don’t talk. Don’t say anything.”

  “All right,” she said, and was silent, as was Eddie. Then she went on: “If you didn’t know I’d stayed with so many men would you love me?”

  “I do love you.”

  “But it would be different, wouldn’t it? Of course. It’s stupid of me to ask you that. But will you answer this truthfully? If you had just met me, without knowing a thing about me, what would you think of me?”

  “How do you mean? There isn’t a better-looking girl in this town, is my honest opinion. Your face, and you have a beautiful build.” He stopped. She was staring ahead, not listening to him.

  Despair.

  “What are you thinking?” he said.

  “Mm?”

  “What are you thinking about so seriously?”

  “It’s all right with you now, isn’t it? You’ll be all right if I get up now, won’t you? I mean and get dressed. Will you be all right?”

  “I’ll be all right.”

  “Because I know about men when they get excited and nothing happens. I wouldn’t do that, either. If it’s just a question of—oh, I don’t know. I don’t know how to talk to you now, Eddie. If you’re going to be uncomfortable the rest of the day because we started something and didn’t finish it, then let’s finish it.”

  “Not that way I won’t. I don’t even feel like it now.”

  “No, neither do I, but I don’t want you to feel as if you’d been pulled through a wringer.”

  “I won’t. Don’t worry about me.”

  “Then I guess I’ll get up and take a shower.”

  “I’ll get you a clean towel. I have one.”

  “All right.”

  “Here, I’ll get you my bathrobe,” he said, and stopped on his way to the closet. “The melancholy Dane has come, the saddest of the year.” He smiled at her.

  “What made you say that?”

  “Damned if I know.”

  “What was it? ‘The melancholy Dane has come, the saddest of the year.’ Did that have any special meaning?”

  “No, not a bit. I just thought of myself as melancholy, and you as melancholy, and melancholy made me think of the melancholy Dane, and then I got melancholy Dane mixed up. The melancholy Dane has come, the saddest of the year. It’s nothing. I get rhythms and words mixed. The melancholy Dane has come, the saddest of the year. You used to come at nine o’clock but now you come at ten. I’ll get you the bathrobe.”

  “And the towel. The towel’s more important.”

  “No, it isn’t. Not in my present state.”

  “Oh—do you really feel—”

  “No, no. Not seriously.”

  She got out of bed and put on his bathrobe with her arms folded in front of her and her shoulders slightly hunched. She smiled at him and he smiled back. “I guess—I guess I never felt worse. Not sad. It isn’t sadness the way I and you think of sadness and everybody else thinks of it. It’s just this, that the one thing we have—nope. I won’t say it.”

  “Oh, you’ve got to finish it now.”

  “Must I? Yes, I guess I must. Well, it’s awful when you think that you’ve stayed with so many men and made such a mess of your life, and then someone you really want to stay with because you love him, that person is the one person you mustn’t stay with because if you do he immediately becomes like the rest, and you don’t want him to become like the rest. The thing he has that the rest haven’t is that you haven’t stayed with him.”

  “No, that’s wrong. I don’t want you to think that. It isn’t true. Maybe it is, but I don’t think so.”

  “No, I guess not, but—I don’t know. The hell with it. You go on out for a walk. Ten minutes, and when you get back I’ll be dressed.”

  “I’ll buy a coffee ring.”

  She stood at the bathroom door, watching him put on his coat. “I’m a real bitch, Eddie. Do you know why?”

  “Why?”

  “Because I know what’s right, but I’m so strongly tempted. You’ve never seen me without any clothes on, have you?”

  “I’ll get the coffee ring.”

  “That’s right,” she said.

  When he did not return in fifteen minutes she began to worry, but he did return in ten minutes more, and they had more breakfast. He brought also a container of orange juice for her and a morning paper. “Mm. Legs Diamond’s arrested,” she said. “I met him once.”

  “Who didn’t?” said Eddie. “What did they arrest him for? Parking near a fire plug, I’ll bet.”

  “No. The Sullivan Law. That’s uh, buzz buzz buzz buzz. Weapons. Deadly weapons in his possession. By Joel Sayre. This is an interesting article. Yes, I met Legs Diamond. What did you say? Who didn’t? Lots of people didn’t. I met him and the boy I was with didn’t know him, even by reputation, and he kept making cracks. Governor Roosevelt’s mother is sick and he’s going to Paris where she is. She’s in the hospital. Did you know that he has infantile paralysis? I never knew that till about a month or two ago. It never shows in his pictures, but he’s always holding on to a state policeman’s arm. Mm. As an aftermath of the. It says here as an aftermath of the airplane crash in which Knute Rockne lost his life the Fokker 29’s are being given the air by the Department of Commerce. I can use Fokker in a sentence.”

  “I can use identification in a sentence. I’m not going away this summer because identification till October.”

  “Mine was dirty. Oh, the Pulitzer Prize. ‘Alison’s House’? Now for God’s sake. ‘Alison’s House.’ And The Collected Poems of Robert Frost. Well, I suppose that’s all right. Edmund Duffy. Have you read The Glass Key?”

  “No.”

  “It’s by the same man who wrote Maltese Falcon, but it’s not nearly as good. Oh, here’s one for you. Listen to this. This is old Coolidge. ‘Collins H. Gere, buzz buzz buzz buzz belongs to a generation of strong character and high purposes. Their passing marks the end of an era.’ Whose passing? Does he mean strong character and high purposes’ passing? Maybe he does. Maybe he’s right. Do you know anybody with strong character and high purposes?”

  “You.”

  “No, that’s insulting. Think of someone. It has to be our generation, not older people, because Coolidge says their passing marks the end of an era, I guess he means the era that had strong character and high purposes. You, now. Let me see. Have you a strong character, darling?”

  “No character.”

  “I’d say yes. About the high purposes, I’m not so sure. How are you on high purposes?”

  “Low.”

  “No character and low purposes.”

  “Not low purposes,” he said. “I just said I was low on high purposes. It isn’t exactly the same thing.”

  “No, you’re right. Well, I can’t think of anyone I like that has strong character and high purposes. The Giants beat Brooklyn, if you’re interested. Six to three was the score. Terry tripled, scoring when the Giants worked their squeeze play, Vergez laid down a perfect bunt. That shouldn’t sound dirty, but when you have a mind like mine. I must look at Bethlehem Steel. My uncle has some of that. Closed at 44

  5

  8

  . That’s enough of that. Oh, here is sad news. Clayton, Jackson and Durante are splitting up. Schnozzle is going to Hollywood and they’re breaking up. Oh, that’s sad. That’s the world’s worst. Why did you have to show me this paper? No more wood number? No more hats? No more telegrams like the one he sent: ‘Opening at Les Ambassadeurs as soon as I learn how to pronounce it.’ Ah. That makes me sad, really sad. I hope he divides his salary with the others. Do you like this hat? On the right hand page. . . . On me.”

  “No. It hides the eyes.”

  “All right. I must go home to the bosom of my family. A flat chest if I ever saw one. Shall I call you tomorrow?”

  “Yes. Oh, how about
that fur coat?”

  “I don’t know. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

  “Well, aren’t you going to give it back to this fellow?”

  “Well, I can’t just take the coat to him, can I?”

  “I don’t see why not,” said Eddie. “If you want to return the coat, you can. The way you do it is up to you.”

  “All right, I will then, if it’ll make you feel any better. I’ll call him up right now.” She telephoned Liggett. “He’s out of town, his office said.”

  “Well, phone him tomorrow.”

  She went home and there was a telegram there from Liggett, asking her to meet him at their favorite speakeasy at four. They had told her at his office that he was out of town, but her life was full of inconsistencies like that.

  She was there before four, and took a small table by herself and watched the world come in. That afternoon the speakeasy was visited by a fairly representative crowd. On their lips soon would be her name, with varying opinions as to her character. Most of these people were famous in a way, although in most cases their fame did not extend more than twenty blocks to the north, forty blocks to the south, seven blocks to the east and four blocks to the west. There were others who were not famous, but were prominent in Harrisburg, Denver, Albany, Nashville, St. Paul-Minneapolis, Atlanta, Houston, Portland, Me., Dayton and Hartford. Among these was Mrs. Dunbar Vicks, of Cleveland, in town on one of her three or four visits a year to see a friend’s private collection of dirty movies and to go to bed with a young man who formerly worked for Finchley. Mrs. Vicks was standing at the bar, with her back to Walter R. Loskind, the Hollywood supervisor, who was talking to Percy Luffberry, the director. Percy owed a great deal to Walter. When Percy was directing “War of Wars” he had small charges of explosive buried here and there in the ground, not enough to hurt anyone, but enough so that when the charge was set off the extras in German uniforms would be lifted off the ground. The extras had been warned about that and were being paid a bonus for this realism. It went all right until Percy decided he wanted to have one extra crawling along the ground instead of walking. When the charge was set off the extra lost both eyes, and if Walter hadn’t stood by Percy, Percy would have been in a hell of a fix. Seated directly across the room was Mrs. Noel Lincoln, wife of the famous sportsman-financier, who had had four miscarriages before she found out (or before her doctor dared tell her) that a bit of bad luck on the part of her husband was responsible for these misfortunes. Mrs. Lincoln was sitting with pretty little Alicia Lincoln, her niece by marriage, who was the source of cocaine supply for a very intimate group of her friends in society, the theater, and the arts. Alicia was waiting for a boy named Gerald, whom she took to places where girls could not go unescorted. Bruce Wix, the artists’ representative, came in and tried to get the eye of Walter R. Loskind, but Walter did not look. Bruce stood alone at the bar. Henry White, the writer, was told he was wanted on the telephone—the first move, although he did not know it, in the house technique of getting rid of a drunk. On the way out he bowed to Dr. (D.D.S.) Jack Fry, who was arriving with one of his beautiful companions. It was afternoon, so the companion was not wearing the Fry pearls, which Dr. Fry always loaned to show girls and actresses while they were out with him. Mr. and Mrs. Whitney Hofman, of Gibbsville, Pennsylvania, arrived at this time, wishing they had been better friends so they could find something to talk about without self-consciousness. They were joined by Whitney’s cousin Scott Hofman, a cross-eyed fellow who at the age of thirty did not have to shave more than once a week. Mike Romanoff came in, looked around the room, and went out again. A party of six young people, Mr. and Mrs. Mortimer House, Mr. and Mrs. Jack Whitehall, and Miss Sylvia House and Mr. Irving Ruskin, were told at the door that they could not come in because they had not made reservations. They had to make way for a Latin-American diplomat whose appointment to Washington showed what his country thought of this. He had had malaria before he caught siflis, which is the wrong order for an automatic cure. Inside again, banging on his table for a waiter, sat Ludovici, the artist, who had several unretouched nude photographs of Gloria which she wished she had back. He was with June Blake, show girl and model, who after four days was still cheerful over winning nearly a thousand dollars on Twenty Grand. The bet had not been made through a bookmaker, and involved no cash outlay on her part. It was a slightly intricate arrangement between herself and Archie Jelliffe, the axle man, who told June he would place the bet for her if she would agree to bring to his country place a certain virgin he wanted to know better. Was it June’s fault that the former virgin was at this minute in a private hospital? Robert Emerson, the magazine publisher, came in with his vice-president, Jerry Watlington. Emerson was trying to make life pleasanter for Watlington, who had just been blackballed at a good club which Emerson belonged to. Emerson sincerely regretted the blackball, now that he had put it in. Mad Horace H. Tuttle, who had been kicked out of two famous prep schools for incendiarism, was there with Mrs. Denis Johnstone Humphries (whose three names seldom were spelled right), of Sewickley Heights, near Pittsburgh. Mrs. Humphries was telling Horace how she had to drive around in a station wagon because strikers stoned her Rolls. The worst of it was she was riding in the Rolls at the time, personally holding her entry for the Flower Show, and when the stones began to beat against the car she had presence of mind enough to lie on the floor, but forgot about the roses and crushed them. Her story was not interrupted when Horace nodded to Billy Jones, the gentleman jockey, who walked quickly to the bar with two dollars in his hand, had a quick double whiskey-soda, and walked out, with the two dollars in his hand. The bartender simply entered it against Billy’s account—Billy was supposed to be a little screwy from knocks on the head. Kitty Meredith, the movie actress, came in with her adopted son, four years old, and everybody said how cute he was, what poise, as he took a sip of her drink.

  “I’m sorry I’m late,” said Liggett.

  Gloria looked up. “It’s all right,” she said. “In five more minutes I’d have gone, or at least I wouldn’t have been alone.”

  “Who? That one that’s looking at you now?”

  “I won’t tell you,” she said.

  “Uh, what are you drinking?”

  “Ale.”

  “One ale, and a brandy and soda.”

  “Well, what’s it all about?” said Gloria. “I went home and your telegram was there. I phoned you at your office, but they said you’d gone away.”

  “Where were you last night?”

  “Oh, no. Not in that tone. Who do you think you are?”

  “All right, I’m sorry.” He went through the business of getting a cigarette lit, then he remembered and offered her one. That doubled the delay before he said: “If what I want to ask you makes you very angry will you try not to hold it against me? First of all—please let me talk—first of all, I think you know I’m crazy about you. You know that, don’t you?”

  No answer.

  He repeated: “You know that, don’t you?”

  “You said not to interrupt.”

  “Well, you do know that, don’t you?”

  “I’m not so sure. Crazy about me doesn’t mean anything.”

  “Well, I am. In the worst way. Don’t make a joke about it. I am crazy about you. I can’t think of anything but you. I can’t make sense for thinking about how long it’s going to be before I see you again. When I don’t know where you are, like last night. I was here and all over, trying to find you.” He saw she was not paying much attention.

  “You’re right,” he went on. “That’s not what I want to talk about. At least not now. Or I mean I want to talk about it, now, but there is another matter.”

  “That’s what I thought.”

  “That’s what you thought. Well—Jesus, I wish we were some place else. Drink your drink and we’ll get out of here. What I want to say I don’t want to say in this madhouse, all these people yelling their
heads off.”

  She gulped some beer and left some in the glass. “That’s all I want.”

  He left two dollar bills and a quarter on the table and they went out. He refused the taxi at the door, but walked down the block towards Fifth Avenue and took a taxi that was moving. “Fortieth Street and Seventh Avenue,” he told the driver.

  “Where are we going?”

  “That place you took me to the other night. The newspaper place.” He took off his hat and held it on his knee. “You know, Gloria, I’m in a bad way about you. The thing that’s happened to me usually happens to men I know who have been good husbands. I don’t mean that I’ve been an especially bad husband. I’ve been good to my wife in most ways. I’ve always kept things from her that would hurt her—”

  “You’re the kind of man that would have a mistress and insult her in front of your wife because you thought that would mislead her.”

  “You’re wrong. No, you’re right. The only time I had a mistress that my wife knew I did say disparaging things about her, the mistress. How do you know these things? You’re not more than I’d say twenty-two. How do you know these things?”

  “How do I know them? What else has there been in my life but finding out things like that? But go on, tell me about what happens to men of your age.”

  “What happens to men of my age. What happens to men of my age is this, if they’ve been good husbands. They go along being good husbands, working hard and having a good time, playing golf, making a little money, going to parties with the same crowd, and then sometimes it’s a woman they’ve known all their lives, and sometimes it’s a filing clerk in the office, and sometimes it’s a singer in a night club. I know of one case where it was a man and his sister. Not that they ever did anything about it, except that the man committed suicide, that’s all. He’d been happily married—oh, what the hell am I talking about, happily married. Is anybody happily married? I often wonder whether anybody is.” He stopped talking.

  “What made you stop all of a sudden? You were going great.”