by Roald Dahl
The office was bedlam. The telephones alone nearly drove Anna mad. She kept running from one cubicle to the next, taking messages that she did not understand. And there were girls in the waiting room, young girls with ashen stony faces, and it became part of her duty to type their answers on an official form.
"The father's name?"
"Don't know."
"You've no idea?"
"What's the father's name got to do with it?"
"My dear, if the father is known, then his consent has to be obtained as well as yours before the child can be offered for adoption."
"You're quite sure about that?"
"Jesus, I told you, didn't I?"
At lunchtime, somebody brought her a sandwich, but there was no time to eat it. At nine o'clock that night, exhausted and famished and considerably shaken by some of the knowledge she had acquired, Anna staggered home, took a stiff drink, fried up some eggs and bacon, and went to bed.
"I'll call for you at eight o'clock tomorrow morning," Liz had said. "And for God's sake be ready." Anna was ready. And from then on she was hooked.
It was as simple as that.
All she'd needed right from the beginning was a good hard job of work to do, and plenty of problems to solve-other people's problems instead of her own.
The work was arduous and often quite shattering emotionally, but Anna was absorbed by every moment of it, and within about-we are skipping right forward now-within about a year and a half, she began to feel moderately happy once again. She was finding it more and more difficult to picture her husband vividly, to see him precisely as he was when he ran up the stairs to meet her, or when he sat across from her at supper in the evenings. The exact sound of his voice was becoming less easy to recall, and even the face itself, unless she glanced at a photograph, was no longer sharply etched in the memory. She still thought about him constantly, but she discovered that she could do so now without bursting into tears, and when she looked back on the way she had behaved a while ago, she felt slightly embarrassed. She started taking a mild interest in her clothes and in her hair, she returned to using lipstick and to shaving the hair from her legs. She enjoyed her food, and when people smiled at her, she smiled right back at them and meant it. In other words, she was back in the swim once again. She was pleased to be alive.
It was at this point that Anna had to go down to Dallas on office business.
Liz's office did not normally operate beyond state lines, but in this instance, a couple who had adopted a baby through the agency had subsequently moved away from New York and gone to live in Texas. Now, five months after the move, the wife had written to say that she no longer wanted to keep the child. Her husband, she announced, had died of a heart attack soon after they'd arrived in Texas. She herself had remarried almost at once, and her new husband found it impossible to adjust to an adopted baby.
Now this was a serious situation, and quite apart from the welfare of the child itself, there were all manner of legal obligations involved.
Anna flew down to Dallas in a plane that left New York very early, and she arrived before breakfast. After checking in at her hotel, she spent the next eight hours with the persons concerned in the affair, and by the time she had done all that could be done that day, it was around four thirty in the afternoon and she was utterly exhausted. She took a cab back to the hotel, and went up to her room. She called Liz on the phone to report the situation, then she undressed and soaked herself for a long time in a warm bath. Afterwards, she wrapped up in a towel and lay on the bed, smoking a cigarette.
Her efforts on behalf of the child had so far come to nothing. There had been two lawyers there who had treated her with absolute contempt. How she hated them. She detested their arrogance and their softly spoken hints that nothing she might do would make the slightest difference to their client. One of them kept his feet up on the table all the way through the discussion, and both of them had rolls of fat on their bellies, and the fat spilled out into their shirts like liquid and hung in huge folds over their belted trouser-tops.
Anna had visited Texas many times before in her life, but until now she had never gone there alone. Her visits had always been with Ed, keeping him company on business trips; and during those trips, he and she had often spoken about the Texans in general and about how difficult it was to like them. One could ignore their coarseness and their vulgarity. It wasn't that. But there was, it seemed, a quality of ruthlessness still surviving among these people, something quite brutal, harsh, inexorable, that it was impossible to forgive. They had no bowels of compassion, no pity, no tenderness. The only so-called virtue they possessed-and this they paraded ostentatiously and endlessly to strangers-was a kind of professional benevolence. It was plastered all over them. Their voices, their smiles, were rich and syrupy with it. But it left Anna cold. It left her quite, quite cold inside.
"Why do they love acting so tough?" she used to ask.
"Because they're children," Ed would answer. "They're dangerous children who go about trying to imitate their grandfathers. Their grandfathers were pioneers. These people aren't."
It seemed that they lived, these present-day Texans, by a sort of egotistic will, push and be pushed. Everybody was pushing. Everybody was being pushed. And it was all very fine for a stranger in their midst to step aside and announce firmly, "I will not push, and I will not be pushed." That was impossible. It was especially impossible in Dallas. Of all the cities in the state, Dallas was the one that had always disturbed Anna the most. It was such a godless city, she thought, such a rapacious, gripped, iron, godless city. It was a place that had run amok with its money, and no amount of gloss and phony culture and syrupy talk could hide the fact that the great golden fruit was rotten inside.
Anna lay on the bed with her bath towel around her. She was alone in Dallas this time. There was no Ed with her now to envelop her in his incredible strength and love; and perhaps it was because of this that she began, all of a sudden, to feel slightly uneasy. She lit a second cigarette and waited for the uneasiness to pass. It didn't pass; it got worse. A hard little knot of fear was gathering itself in the top of her stomach, and there it stayed, growing bigger every minute. It was an unpleasant feeling, the kind one might experience if one were alone in the house at night and heard, or thought one heard, a footstep in the next room.
In this place there were a million footsteps, and she could hear them all.
She got off the bed and went over to the window, still wrapped in her towel. Her room was on the twenty-second floor, and the window was open. The great city lay pale and milkyyellow in the evening sunshine. The street below was solid with automobiles. The sidewalk was filled with people. Everybody was hustling home from work, pushing and being pushed. She felt the need of a friend. She wanted very badly to have someone to talk to at this moment. She would have liked a house to go to, a house with a family-a wife and husband and children and rooms full of toys, and the husband and wife would fling their arms around her at the front door and cry out, "Anna! How marvellous to see you! How long can you stay? A week, a month, a year?"
All of a sudden, as so often happens in situations like this, her memory went click, and she said aloud, "Conrad Kreuger! Good heavens above! He lives in Dallas…at least he used to… She hadn't seen Conrad since they were classmates in high school, in New York. They were both about seventeen then, and Conrad had been her beau, her love, her everything. For over a year they had gone around together, and each of them had sworn eternal loyalty to the other, with marriage in the near future. Then suddenly Ed Cooper had flashed into her life, and that, of course, had been the end of the romance with Conrad. But Conrad did not seem to have taken the break too badly. It certainly couldn't have shattered him, because not more than a month or two later he had started going strong with another girl in the class.
Now what was her name?
A big handsome bosomy girl she was, with flaming red hair and a peculiar name, a very oldfashioned name. What was it? Ara
bella? No, not Arabella. Ara-something, though. Araminty? Yes! Araminty it was! And what is more, within a year or so, Conrad Kreuger had married Araminty and had carried her back with him to Dallas, the place of his birth.
Anna went over to the bedside table and picked up the telephone directory.
Kreuger, Conrad P., M. D.
That was Conrad all right. He had always said he was going to be a doctor. The book gave an office number and a residence number.
Should she phone him?
Why not?
She glanced at her watch. It was five twenty. She lifted the receiver and gave the number of his office.
"Doctor Kreuger's surgery," a girl's voice answered.
"Hello," Anna said. "Is Doctor Kreuger there?"
"The doctor is busy right now. May I ask who's calling?"
"Will you please tell him that Anna Greenwood telephoned him."
"Who?"
"Anna Greenwood."
"Yes, Miss Greenwood. Did you wish for an appointment?"
"No, thank you."
"Is there something I can do for you?"
Anna gave the name of her hotel, and asked her to pass it on to Dr Kreuger.
"I'll be very glad to," the secretary said. "Goodbye, Miss Greenwood."
"Goodbye," Anna said. She wondered whether Dr Conrad P. Kreuger would remember her name after all these years. She believed he would. She lay back again on the bed and began trying to recall what Conrad himself used to look like. Extraordinarily handsome, that he was. Tall…lean…big-shouldered…with almost pure-black hair…and a marvellous face a strong carved face like one of those Greek heroes, Perseus or Ulysses. Above all, though, he had been a very gentle boy, a serious, decent, quiet, gentle boy. He had never kissed her much -only when he said goodbye in the evenings. And he'd never gone in for necking, as all the others had. When he took her home from the movies on Saturday nights, he used to park his old Buick outside her house and sit there in the car beside her, just talking and talking about the future, his future and hers, and how he was going to go back to Dallas to become a famous doctor. His refusal to indulge in necking and all the nonsense that went with it had impressed her no end. He respects me, she used to say. He loves me. And she was probably right. In any event, he had been a nice man, a nice good man. And had it not been for the fact that Ed Cooper was a super-nice, super-good man, she was sure she would have married Conrad Kreuger.
The telephone rang. Anna lifted the receiver. "Yes," she said. "Hello."
"Anna Greenwood?"
"Conrad Kreuger!"
"My dear Anna! "What a fantastic surprise. Good gracious me. After all these years."
"It's a long time, isn't it."
"It's a lifetime. Your voice sounds just the same."
"So does yours."
"What brings you to our fair city? Are you staying long?"
"No, I have to go back tomorrow. I hope you didn't mind my calling you."
"Hell, no, Anna. I'm delighted. Are you all right?"
"Yes, I'm fine. I'm fine now. I had a bad time of it for a bit after Ed died "What!"
"He was killed in an automobile two and a half years ago."
"Oh gee, Anna, I am sorry. How terrible. I I don't know what to say "Don't say anything."
"You're okay now?"
"I'm fine. Working like a slave."
"That's the girl.
"How's…how's Araminty?"
"Oh, she's fine."
"Any children?"
"One," he said. "A boy. How about you?"
"I have three, two girls and a boy."
"Well, well, what d'you know! Now listen, Anna.
"I'm listening."
"Why don't I run over to the hotel and buy you a drink? I'd like to do that. I'll bet you haven't changed one iota."
"I look old, Conrad."
"You're lying."
"I feel old, too."
"You want a good doctor?"
"Yes. I mean no. Of course I don't. I don't want any more doctors. All I need is well… "Yes?"
"This place worries me, Conrad. I guess I need a friend. That's all I need."
"You've got one. I have just one more patient to see, and then I'm free. I'll meet you down in the bar, the something room, I've forgotten what it's called, at six, in about half an hour. Will that suit you?"
"Yes," she said. "Of course. And…thank you, Conrad." She replaced the receiver, then got up from the bed, and began to dress.
She felt mildly flustered. Not since Ed's death had she been out and had a drink alone with a man. Dr Jacobs would be pleased when she told him about it on her return. He wouldn't congratulate her madly, but he would certainly be pleased. He'd say it was a step in the right direction, a beginning. She still went to him regularly, and now that she had gotten so much better, his oblique references had become far less oblique and he had more than once told her that her depressions and suicidal tendencies would never completely disappear until she had actually and physically "replaced' Ed with another man.
"But it is impossible to replace a person one has loved to distraction," Anna had said to him the last time he had brought up the subject. "Heavens above, doctor, when Mrs CrummlinBrown's parakeet died last month, her parakeet, mind you, not her husband, she was so shook up about it, she swore she'd never have another bird again!"
"Mrs Cooper," Dr Jacobs had said, "one doesn't normally have sexual intercourse with a parakeet."
"Well…no…
"That's why it doesn't have to be replaced. But when a husband dies, and the surviving wife is still an active and a healthy woman, she will invariably get a replacement within three years if she possibly can. And vice versa."
Sex. It was about the only thing that sort of doctor ever thought about. He had sex on the brain.
By the time Anna had dressed and taken the elevator downstairs, it was ten minutes after six. The moment she walked into the bar, a man stood up from one of the tables. It was Conrad. He must have been watching the door. He came across the floor to meet her. He was smiling nervously. Anna was smiling, too. One always does.
"Well, well," he said. "Well well well," and she, expecting the usual peck on the cheek, inclined her face upward toward his own, still smiling. But she had forgotten how formal Conrad was. He simply took her hand in his and shook it once. "This is a surprise," he said. "Come and sit down."
The room was the same as any other hotel drinking-room. It was lit by dim lights, and filled with many small tables. There was a saucer of peanuts on each table, and there were leather bench-seats all around the walls. The waiters were rigged out in white jackets and maroon pants. Conrad led her to a corner table, and they sat down facing each other. A waiter was standing over them at once.
"What will you have?" Conrad asked.
"Could I have a martini?"
"Of course. Vodka?"
"No, gin, please."
"One gin martini," he said to the waiter. "No. Make it two. I've never been much of a drinker, Anna, as you probably remember, but I think this calls for a celebration."
The waiter went away. Conrad leaned back in his chair and studied her carefully. "You look pretty good," he said.
"You look pretty good yourself, Conrad," she told him. And so he did. It was astonishing how little he had aged in twenty-five years. He was just as lean and handsome as he'd ever been-in fact, more so. His black hair was still black, his eye was clear, and he looked altogether like a man who was no more than thirty years old.
"You are older than me, aren't you?" he said.
"What sort of a question is that?" she said, laughing. "Yes Conrad, I am exactly one year older than you. I'm forty-two."
"I thought you were." He was still studying her with the utmost care, his eyes travelling all over her face and neck and shoulders. Anna felt herself blushing.
"Are you an enormously successful doctor?" she asked. "Are you the best in town?"
He cocked his head over to one side, right over, so that the ear a
lmost touched the top of the shoulder. It was a mannerism that Anna had always liked. "Successful?" he said. "Any doctor can be successful these days in a big city-financially, I mean. But whether or not I am absolutely first rate at my job is another matter. I only hope and pray that I am."
The drinks arrived and Conrad raised his glass and said, "Welcome to Dallas, Anna. I'm so pleased you called me up. It's good to see you again."
"It's good to see you, too, Conrad," she said, speaking the truth.
He looked at her glass. She had taken a huge first gulp, and the glass was now half empty. "You prefer gin to vodka?" he asked.
"I do," she said, "yes."
"You ought to change over."
"Why?"
"Gin is not good for females."
"It's not?"
"It's very bad for them."
"I'm sure it's just as bad for males," she said.
"Actually, no. It isn't nearly so bad for males as it is for females."
"Why is it bad for females?"
"It just is," he said. "It's the way they're built. What kind of work are you engaged in, Anna? And what brought you all the way down to Dallas? Tell me about you."
"Why is gin bad for females?" she said, smiling at him.
He smiled back at her and shook his head, but he didn't answer.
"Go on," she said.
"No, let's drop it."
"You can't leave me up in the air like this," she said. "It's not fair."
After a pause, he said, "Well, if you really want to know, gin contains a certain amount of the oil which is squeezed out of juniper berries. They use it for flavouring."
"What does it do?"
"Plenty."
"Yes, but what?"
"Horrible things."
"Conrad, don't be shy. I'm a big girl now."
He was still the same old Conrad, she thought, still as diffident, as scrupulous, as shy as ever. For that she liked him. "If this drink is really doing horrible things to me," she said, "then it is unkind of you not to tell me what those things are."