“Yes.”
“She lied about Birdie leaving, too. Birdie didn’t leave, I kicked her out. You’re not good enough for my son Earl, I told her. Pack your bags and start moving, we don’t need your help to get along, I said.”
“What kind of help?”
“Money. Earl was temporarily unemployed—the firm he was working for went out of business—and Birdie took a job as a waitress. That’s when they came to live with me. Birdie managed all the money, wouldn’t let me do any of the shopping, treated me like a child. She even gave me an allowance. Yes, and you want to know how much? A dollar. A dollar a week. Every Saturday she’d give it to me and say, very sarcastic, don’t spend it all in one place. A dollar. What can you buy with that?”
Two bottles of dago red, Meecham thought.
“And then she started to accuse me of pilfering, taking money from her purse. She told Earl and Earl came to me, and I said, Earl, I’m only your mother but I have some rights, and what am I going to do when the poor paper boy comes for his money and I don’t have a cent? It isn’t fair to ask that poor paper boy to come back again and again when Birdie’s purse is lying there right out in the open, I said. Earl understood perfectly. You know what happened?” She let out a crow of laughter. “They raised my allowance to five dollars. I beat Birdie at her own game, didn’t I?”
“I guess you did,” Meecham said.
The little story, with its interlocking links of deceit and truth, humor and sordidness, was oppressive. The old lady had spoken with such a complete sense of right and justification. Petty theft?—never. Saving the poor paper boy a second trip?—of course. Meecham felt a flash of sympathy for the vanished Birdie.
Mrs. Loftus uncorked the bottle again. This time she didn’t sip quite so daintily, and her reaction wasn’t so immediate and distinct. It came gradually, into her speech and mannerisms—an occasional slurring of s’s and omission of final consonants, grand but vague gestures, and a constant widening and narrowing of her eyes in an attempt to blink away a film that wasn’t there. Meecham wanted to take the bottle from her and hide it some place, at least temporarily, so that she wouldn’t get too drunk to talk. He had a curious and irrational desire to hear more about Loftus and Birdie, as if Loftus’ relationship with his wife and mother might explain more about the murder of Margolis. Yet he was sure that there was no link except the psychological one—the effect of A and B on C had determined C’s conduct toward D.
“You bet I beat her at her own game. Yes, sir,” the old lady went on. “Birdie never fooled me. First time I saw her I had her spotted. She wasn’t any twenty-eight, as she told Earl, and she wasn’t any innocent virgin. Any woman could have sheen srough her but not Earl. Earl was always a pure boy, a good boy, took after my side of the family. Never smoked or drank like other boys, or went out carousing to parties. He stayed home nights and read, or we played carj together. It was a good innocent life he led until the day he met Birdie. Didden tell me he met her, didden say a word about her till the day he brought her home and said, this is my wife. Like that. This is my wife. And there she stood, with that hennaed hair and that hard look, forty if she was a day, forty, and him just a boy.”
She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, but it was a meaningless gesture. The tears that had been wept had long since dried and formed a crust of salt over an emotion long since dead.
“If you knew Earl—how good he is, this deep feeling of love inside of him. But he gave it all to her. Never saw her as she was, a hard exshperienced woman. The day he got the divorce papers she sent him from Nevada he sat in his room. All day, just sat, looking out the window. You’d think he expected her to walk past. Well, she didden walk past. She coulden. She was in Nevada. Issen at right? Eh?”
“I suppose so.”
“You bet it’s right. And good ridushe to bad rubbish. Go, I told her. Go.” She pointed toward the door with majestic dignity. “Go! And she went. She . . .” Her hand fell to her side. “You go too. I’m tired. You go home.”
“I will in a minute. Have you heard from Birdie since she left?”
“No.”
“Has Earl?”
“Has Earl? What has Earl?”
Meecham said patiently, “Did she write to Earl?”
“She coulden write her own name. Ignorant, understand? Ignorant. Whyn’t you go home?”
“I’m going.” He picked up his coat and the package of letters. He stripped the brown paper from the package. Inside, there were about fifty or sixty letters, arranged, as far as Meecham could tell, in order of date. They were addressed to Earl Loftus in writing that was large and hesitant, like a school child’s. “Tell her to reread them” Loftus had said, and then he’d changed his mind: “No, don’t tell her anything.”
One of the envelopes was blank and new, and heavier than the others. Meecham put it in his pocket. He felt a kind of helpless anger against Loftus for giving him the responsibility of delivering the money, and against Mrs. Loftus, fumbling around in her twilit world where money could buy only one thing, darkness.
The old lady had closed her eyes, and her head had sunk like a tortoise’s into the worn fur collar of her coat.
“Mrs. Loftus, listen to me for a minute.”
“Whyn’t you go home?”
“These are your letters. I’m leaving them here on the table. I have some money for you too. I’ll give it to the Garinos to take care of. The fact is that you were right about Earl. He is in trouble. You’ll be hearing about it very soon anyway. If it will make it easier for you I’ll tell you myself right now. . . . Mrs. Loftus? Hey, Mrs. Loftus!”
The old lady let out a delicate snore. Darkness had been bought.
Cursing under his breath, Meecham put on his coat, turned out the ceiling light and went into the hall. Mrs. Garino was just coming up the steps from her apartment in the basement. She looked pale and calm, like the sea after a storm. She was carrying a metal tray with a pot of coffee on it and a sandwich cut daintily into diamonds and garnished with a radish rose.
“She’s asleep,” Meecham said.
“I can wake her. She has to eat.”
“She should be in a hospital.”
“You know what that means, getting commitment papers for her as a habitual drunk. The booby hatch, that’s what it means,” she said bitterly. “Did you give her the money you brought?”
“No.”
“How much is it?”
“Over seven hundred dollars.”
“Where would Earl get that kind of money?”
“He sold his car,” Meecham said. “And a few other things.”
“But Earl knows his mother. It’s not reasonable for him to sell his things and send her a lot of money in a lump sum like that. He knows what she’d do with it.”
“He wanted her to take the money and leave town for a while, go on a little holiday.”
“A holiday, where?”
“Hasn’t she any relatives she can visit?”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Mr. Meecham. I mean, if she was your relative would you invite her for a visit? Earl must be crazy. A holiday. He must be . . .”
“About this money,” Meecham said. “I don’t want to keep it. I hardly know Loftus, he isn’t my client and I’m not taking any fee for this trip.”
She was watching him suspiciously. “You must have had some reason for coming.”
“Put it down to curiosity. Anyway I came, I accomplished nothing. . . .”
“You found her and brought her home. That’s a lot and I’m grateful. But I know what you’re going to say about the money and the answer is no. I won’t keep it for her.”
“It was just a passing thought,” Meecham said dryly.
“Why should I keep it—and dole it out to her in dimes and quarters, have her come
wheedling . . .? No. I won’t. Take it back to Earl. Or send it to her a little at a time so at least she won’t starve.”
“Is her rent paid?”
“Up to the new year.”
“I’ll pay you for January then, and give you some extra to keep her in food.”
“Earl pays her rent.”
“He won’t be paying it from now on.”
“Why? What’s happened?”
Meecham told her, while she stood resting the tray on the railing of the banister. She didn’t express shock and incredulity as he expected her to and as the other people had who knew Loftus.
When he had finished she said, quietly, “Did you tell her?”
“I tried to. She went to sleep.”
“It’s just as well.”
“She has to know sometime. It’s probably written up in your own newspaper tonight.”
“Maybe. I haven’t looked at it yet.” She sighed and turned away. “I’ll tell her myself, tomorrow.”
“She may take it hard.”
“You think so, do you? Well, you’re wrong. She’s not human any more. She’s like one of those things you see at a carnival, pickled in a bottle. I don’t know why I try to keep her alive.” She looked down at the tray grimly. “I don’t know why.”
Meecham took a hundred dollars out of the envelope, and put it on the tray.
“I’ll give you a receipt,” Mrs. Garino said. “If you’ll wait a minute.”
“That won’t be necessary.”
“It’s a funny way to do business.”
“This isn’t exactly business.” It’s not business, he thought, it’s life; and it’s not money that’s involved, but human beings. The dainty sandwich with its radish rose couldn’t have been bought for a thousand dollars.
15
The following morning Meecham reached his office a little after ten o’clock. The secretary whose services he shared with the two senior partners in the firm was behind her typewriter, a thin, stringy-haired, vivacious girl with glasses.
She looked at him with highly exaggerated surprise. “My goodness, it’s Mr. Meecham. I hardly recognized you, it’s been so long.”
“I’m a little too tired for banter this morning, Mrs. Christy.”
“Wild night?”
“Pretty wild.”
“At your age. Well. Here’s the score board. Mr. Cranston is howling mad because his wife bought an antique highboy, and Mr. Post just went home with a migraine because the Doretto case has been dismissed. And there’s a girl waiting in your office, a blonde.”
“Who’s the girl?”
“A Miss Dwyer. She’s been waiting nearly an hour. I gave her a copy of Fortune to read. She looked like the intellectual type.”
“She’s not.”
He opened the opaque glass door of his office. It had his name on it, Eric J. Meecham, in firm black letters, and whenever he saw it he felt a little firmer himself, sharp and clear around the edges.
His office was small and overfurnished, but it had a wide window with a leather-covered seat as long as a couch, where you could sit and watch the street, five stories below, or the sky, a stone’s throw away.
Alice was watching the street, her chin cupped in her hand. The morning sun had turned her hair to tinsel, and Meecham wondered whether she bleached it a little. The thought of the small deception pleased him. It seemed to him charming and feminine for a woman to improve on nature.
“Hello.”
She jumped in surprise at the sound of his voice and made a motion to get up.
“No, don’t move,” Meecham said. “You look pretty.”
“Do I?”
“I should hire you to come and sit there by the hour.”
She gazed at him, unsmiling. “I wish you wouldn’t say smooth things to me.”
“Why not?”
“It puts me off, makes me feel that you’re ordinary. Anyone can be smooth, it’s just words.”
“You’re cross because I kept you waiting.”
“I guess,” she said. “A little.”
He sat down beside her on the window seat. “You shouldn’t be.”
“I kept listening for you so hard, I—well, that’s a bad sign, isn’t it?”
“Very bad.”
He took both her hands and held them against his chest. They looked down at the street together, remote and serene, like angels on a cloud.
Alice stirred finally. “Naturally it isn’t going to work out.”
“Naturally. What isn’t?”
“You know. Even if you feel the same way as I do. Everything’s against it. I don’t like the town and the climate’s terrible and I’m so far from home. And then you’re not very young any more and they say the older a man gets the less adjustable he is to marriage. Naturally it won’t work out.”
“Naturally.”
“You don’t have to keep repeating that word.”
“I’m agreeing with you. You’re such a sensible young woman, I have to. Of course, there are a few other points you didn’t mention. You can’t cook, for one thing. And you bleach your hair.”
“How did you know? Anyway, just a little bit.”
“Also my great-uncle James was a crackpot. I don’t own a house. I haven’t much money, and . . .”
“Oh, Meecham.”
“Have I forgotten anything?”
“Oh, Meecham, I love you.”
“At this point I think I might kiss you, if I didn’t have one foot in the grave.”
“I didn’t say you had one foot in the grave. I said you weren’t very young and adjustable and . . .”
“I accept the apology.”
He took her in his arms and kissed her for a long time, feeling that he had never kissed a girl before, it was so strange and perfect.
She looked very solemn. “I will love you forever, Meecham.”
“You’d better. . . . Are you happy?”
She shook her head.
“Well, for Christ’s sake,” he said helplessly. “Why not?”
“I’m just not, that’s all. I feel awful.”
“Well, for . . .”
“I can’t help it. All that sweet stuff that’s been written about love, and this is how I feel, just plain awful. I ache, and my insides are hollow as if I could eat forever, only nothing fills me up and the sight of food makes me sick. I’ll probably starve to death. I’m too thin anyway.”
“No, you’re not. You’re perfect.”
“No. I don’t have enough of a figure, you know?”
“I have a rough idea.”
“I look terrible in a strapless evening gown. I tried one on in a store once. My collarbones project.”
“I happen to be very fond of projecting collarbones,” he said. “It’s a regular complex.”
“You know what I mean. I’d like to be perfect for you. I’d like myself to be perfect and things to be perfect.”
“If you and things were perfect, you wouldn’t look twice at me.”
“Oh, I would,” she said passionately. “I couldn’t help it.”
“The town isn’t so bad. There are worse climates, and you could always go home for visits.”
“I know.”
“We can work things out. Things don’t work themselves out.”
She looked up at him, still pale and still solemn. “On top of everything else, you’re nice, aren’t you?”
“Sometimes I think so. Not often.”
“The climate—people get used to it, don’t they? And I bet it’s pretty in the spring, isn’t it?”
“Very pretty.”
“With little green sprouts and buds coming out all over. I think I’ll lik
e that part of it very much.”
“I think you will.”
“Anyway, I don’t feel quite so hollow anymore.”
“That’s good.” He lifted her tinseled hair and kissed the soft nape of her neck. Standing there, with his mouth against her skin, he felt that he loved all women because he loved Alice.
“We’ve never even had a date together,” she said. “Isn’t that funny, Meecham?”
“Yes.”
“We haven’t had a chance to fall in love. How did it happen? How could it have happened?”
“If I knew I’d go out and tell the world.”
The buzzer on his desk sounded, harsh and sudden, like an alarm clock disturbing a dreamer.
He reached over and turned on the switch. “Yes?”
“There’s a Mrs. Hamilton on the phone,” Mrs. Christy said. “Do you want to talk to her?”
“No, but I will.”
“O.K., go ahead.”
He turned off the switch and reached for the telephone. Alice put her hand on his arm to stop him. “Did she say—Mrs. Hamilton?”
“Yes.”
“Tell her I’m not here. Tell her you haven’t seen me or heard from me.”
“All right, if that’s what you want me to say.” He picked up the phone. “Hello.”
“Mr. Meecham, this is Mrs. Hamilton. How are you?”
“Fine. And you?”
“I’m fine too. Everything is.” She sounded so falsely cheerful that he wondered if anything at all was fine. “We seem to have a bad connection, Mr. Meecham. Will you talk louder?”
“All right.”
“The fact is, I’m a little concerned about something. I suppose it’s absurd to worry about a sensible girl like Alice. But then it’s sometimes the sensible ones who do and say silly things, isn’t it?”
“Sometimes.”
“Have you seen her this morning?”
“No, I haven’t.” He looked across the desk at Alice. She was sitting on the window seat again not watching the street, but watching him, her eyes wide and anxious. He smiled at her reassuringly but she didn’t smile back. “What reason have you to worry, Mrs. Hamilton?”
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