Mrs. Buhay stayed there until she heard Tom going home and then she came out and tried to joke with Alca, who didn’t laugh at all.
Alca kept bringing Tom to the house and one night Mrs. Buhay saw her glance at him with an uneasy question in her eyes, trying to see him as she had been told to. Whatever it was she saw, it made her look lonely and troubled, and Mrs. Buhay knew Alca was in love with him. Until then she hadn’t known how much she herself loved Alca. “That smooth guy with his soft soap knows she’s a soft touch for him,” she thought, and was angry. Until Tom went home she couldn’t sleep.
Each night it seemed to her that he stayed longer, and she took it as a sign he looked down on them. It outraged her. She used to look at the clock then get up and go to the bathroom noisily and call out warningly, “Alca, you know you have to get up in the morning.” “All right, Mrs. Buhay,” Alca answered and her tone, quick and placating, seemed to tell Mrs. Buhay what was going on between them, and her heart would ache for Alca.
One night a few minutes before twelve, she lay in bed listening and worrying, and when she couldn’t hear them talking at all, she got out of bed and put on her dressing gown and went along the hall to the living room where they were sitting on the sofa close together. All her suspicious shrewdness was in her eyes as she stared at them. “I was going to get a glass of milk,” she said, shuffling along in her slippers to the kitchen.
Tom looked at Mrs. Buhay and then at Alca, who flushed as if she knew he was getting a picture of her she didn’t want him to have, and she was ashamed. When Mrs. Buhay came back from the kitchen Alca smiled self-consciously, but then she seemed to see herself mirrored in Mrs. Buhay’s eyes, and she slumped back on the sofa.
Another night they hadn’t come home and it was midnight. It had been raining hard, and Mrs. Buhay, lying in bed, worried about Alca not having a coat with her. She caught cold easily. Then she heard them come in. They closed the door quietly and she could feel them listening outside her room, and then they tiptoed along the hall.
After that she could hear nothing at all, and hating Tom Prince for making Alca furtive and sly, she got up cursing him, threw her dressing gown around her and strode out into the living room. They weren’t there. The kitchen door though was closed. She went grimly to the door and pushed it open. “What’s going on here?” she demanded.
Alca stood by the stove where the coffee pot was on, and Tom was at the end of the kitchen table with his coat off, and as she stared at him he stood up and Mrs. Buhay was sure they had heard her footsteps and were both acting now.
“Why are you in here with the door closed?” she said sharply to Tom.
“We are going to have a cup of coffee,” he said, and he reddened and stared right back at her.
“You were asleep, Mrs. Buhay,” Alca said. “We didn’t want to wake you. We were just sitting here, really.” Then angered by her own apology she put her hand on the coffee pot to show it was hot, and then had to jerk it away.
“Mrs. Buhay, do you object to me coming in for a cup of coffee? How about it?”
“I heard a noise,” she said, hating him for his tone. “There was no one in the living room. Naturally I wondered why there was a light in the kitchen. Well, all right.”
They were both stiff and tense, their eyes meeting as they waited for her to go, and when she got back to her bedroom and lay down she was sure she had been fooled somehow because Alca had looked so ashamed.
A faint streak of light from the window was on the ceiling and she watched it till she heard them come along the hall and say good night, and when finally she heard Alca go into her bedroom she relaxed and sighed, and turned over on her side and fell asleep.
A little sound woke her up suddenly, a little clicking noise like the latch on the door. Throwing the covers back she grabbed at her dressing gown, turned on the light, went out to the hall, then to Alca’s bedroom. Alca wasn’t there.
Hurrying out she forgot that she was a heavy woman and could easily trip in her slippers. She grabbed the stair banister and went running down. On the first landing she looked down the stairs that led to the apartment entrance and there was Alca sitting on the second step, her raincoat on, putting on her shoes.
“Alca, Alca,” Mrs. Buhay called hoarsely, and she felt a little dizzy with relief. Holding her dressing gown in tight at the waist, she came heavily down the stairs and into the light while Alca backed away, staring at her.
“Alca, you little fool,” she said, but she had to wait to catch her breath. “Where do you think you’re going at this hour?”
“Out,” Alca said sullenly.
“To be with that guy,” and then she grabbed her by the arm. “Where was he taking you at this hour?”
“Just . . . just somewhere,” and she jerked away from Mrs. Buhay.
“Where were you going? To his place?”
“I don’t know.”
“Answer me, Alca.”
“I don’t have to,” she whispered defiantly.
“To his room,” Mrs. Buhay said bitterly. “Where is he?” And she went to the big glass door and looked out. It was still raining, but just a little, and the pavement gleamed in the street light. Across the road was a cigar store and she could make out a figure half hidden in the entrance. “There he is. Come here, you little fool,” she said, and took Alca’s arm roughly and drew her to the door.
“Look at him, skulking around, waiting till I fell asleep. Like a dog when the moon is right, knowing you’ll come running. Oh, dear,” she said, sighing bitterly. “How nicely he played you. The boy with the elegant manner, the charm and the education. Slumming. Didn’t I tell you you’d lose your head? Didn’t I?” she asked furiously, and her fury frightened Alca, who still stood with her face pressed against the glass.
Then she turned to protest, but as she met Mrs. Buhay’s knowing and scornful glance her own eyes were lonely and stricken. “Yes, it’s wrong. I know it’s wrong,” she whispered. She ran up the stairs. Mrs. Buhay watched her legs in the light rounding the turn and then she sighed wearily. “Well, that’s that,” and gathering her dressing gown around her, one hand holding it in tight at the waist, she climbed the stairs slowly, breathing hard.
In the hall, she heard Alca crying and she thought grimly, “Maybe now she’ll be wise to that guy,” and she went back to her bedroom.
She lit a cigarette, sat on the edge of the bed and wished she had a drink, and then the sound of the heartbroken sobbing in the next room began to worry her; it tore at her affection for Alca. Slowly, she got up and went into Alca’s bedroom and in the dark she could make out Alca huddled on the bed, her face buried in the pillow.
“Alca, be sensible,” she said, kneeling on the bed, and as the spring sagged and rolled Alca toward her she reached out to touch her and was hurt when Alca drew away.
“Would you rather I hadn’t stopped you, Alca?”
“No, I’m glad you did.”
“Then why are you sore at me?”
“I’m not sore at you at all, Mrs. Buhay.”
“Well, then,” she said, puzzled. “If you’re a little wiser now, it’s all right. If you had gone to the guy’s room and been easy for him then you’re cheap stuff. Don’t you see that?”
“I do see it.”
“Well, then . . .”
“But you don’t understand, Mrs. Buhay,” she said half pleading as she sat up slowly. “When we came in tonight we didn’t intend to go out, we didn’t.”
“As if you knew what was in his mind, Alca.”
“It wasn’t in his mind, Mrs. Buhay,” and she shook her head with a desolate conviction. “Not in the beginning. We were just sitting in the kitchen with the door closed to be by ourselves. Then you came along; then it got that we had to be alone. I mean — it got different—”
“Wasn’t I right about the guy?”
“No.”
“Alca, Alca.”
“You weren’t right about him; you were right about me.”
“How’s that?”
“Well, you were sure I was no good.”
“Alca, I never said you were no good.”
“You didn’t need to,” she said, her voice breaking. “You said it every time you looked at me. You said it to Tom in the way you watched us, and tonight, well, I got mad and didn’t care, and I said let’s go somewhere else.”
In the dark Mrs. Buhay pleaded, “Alca, your own mother would have taken the attitude I did.”
“No, she wouldn’t,” Alca said quickly.
“She would.”
“No, she would never make me feel that Tom was too good for me. But, of course, she’s my mother, and maybe there’s things she wouldn’t see.”
“Alca, you took it the wrong way,” Mrs. Buhay whispered, shaken by Alca’s lonely acceptance of her being no good and, bewildered at the failure of her own affection, she drew her dressing gown across her chest as if she were cold and rubbed her neck slowly with her right hand. As Alca, troubled and wondering, stared at her, she felt old and unknowing and glad of the darkness.
“Alca, I’m a fool.”
“A fool about what?”
“Making you see things my way.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“It’s a fact, a fact,” Mrs. Buhay said, then she shook her head and got up and shuffled out of the bedroom.
It was dark in the living room and she stood by the window looking down at the wet street. She couldn’t see the cigar store where Tom had been waiting. As she watched to see if he would come along the street she thought of her own life and all who had passed through it and the two men who at one time had loved her, and how they had parted from her, and it seemed a very long time ago, and she felt lonely. And then she thought, “Oh Lord, if I wasn’t like I am, Alca wouldn’t be in there feeling cheap and common.”
A shaft of light came suddenly from Alca’s bedroom; she had turned on the light and was getting undressed. Mrs. Buhay went slowly toward the light. Alca was pulling her dress over her head. Mrs. Buhay stood behind her, hesitated, then helped her draw the dress over her head.
“Alca, listen to me,” she said. “You were a good straight-forward girl when you came here. A girl with good feelings.” She groped for the right words, then went on urgently. “There’s something I want you to do, Alca. Tomorrow I want you to go and get a room for yourself, you understand?”
“Leave here? Don’t you want me here anymore?”
“That’s not it, Alca.”
“You’ve been kind to me, Mrs. Buhay. You’ve done everything for me. I know you like me.”
“No, get a room for yourself tomorrow. I’ll help you find one. Tomorrow, right, tomorrow. Take a chance with your own heart. It’s good. You’ll be all right.” She fumbled the words because they were cutting her off from Alca, but all she knew was that she didn’t want Alca’s life to be like hers.
The Insult
In the early evenings at the playground, Wilkins, the school janitor, sat on the school steps wearing his wide suspenders and watched Miss James, the university girl, who was the playground supervisor. She was only there for the holidays and so she tried to be civil to Wilkins. But he had been surly, hostile and malicious.
“You fancy girls who come around here are all the same,” he said. “You don’t know how to handle these kids and you don’t understand this neighbourhood. See that you keep the kids out of the school and see that you lock up in time so I can get away on time. That’s all.”
She wasn’t responsible to him. He was only the janitor. But he made her feel self-conscious.
She had no trouble controlling the little children who were her charges; there was only a sand pile, a few quoit games and three slides. But she was sure he was inviting the whole drab neighbourhood of dilapidated rooming houses with its swarm of children to share his resentment. He complained bitterly when school windows were broken and tried to blame her, though the wilder kids broke the windows every summer. It seemed to her that he encouraged older boys like the big good-natured lout, Tom Daly, to sit on the fence and offer her mocking advice. When she refused to take any non-sense from an interfering, abusive mother who came to the schoolyard after her child had been sent home for bad behaviour, Wilkins had scowled and stood and circled around the two women, muttering, and she’d known he was mimicking her cultivated tone. He made her hate the whole drab neighbourhood.
One night, a tough little tramp named Annie Jones came into the yard. She pushed over one of the heavy slides. “Pick it up, Annie,” Miss James said. “Try and make me,” Annie said, bumping against Miss James. “I’ve a mind to beat you up good.”
“Why, you vulgar . . .” Miss James said. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Wilkins, who had been sitting with his hands hanging between his knees, stand up expectantly. His malice so plain that it shocked her. She turned away from Annie and raised the slide herself.
Three times a week Wilkins’ wife called for him just before the street lighting came on. She was a plump, solid, flat-faced woman who looked threateningly respectable.
Wilkins wanted to have the school closed up promptly so he could get away to a late movie, but sometimes at the closing hour a kid would run off with a quoit and toss it to a big fellow sitting on the fence, who made Miss James coax him to give it to her while he flirted with her. Wilkins would fume because his wife would be scolding him loudly: “So again we miss some of the picture because no one will show any respect for you.”
One night, while Wilkins’ wife was waiting, Miss James went to lock up and found that the lock had been taken from the school door.
“Mr. Wilkins, Mr. Wilkins,” she called.
“What is it?” he grumbled, as he strode across the yard. “You’re five minutes late already.”
“Hurry, please, Mr. Wilkins. Those children are in the school. Can’t you hear them?”
“I warned you. I warned you,” he shouted angrily as he ran into the school to chase the squealing children, who fled from room to room, knocking over chairs and desks.
“You scamps!” he yelled, collaring them one by one. “No one to look after you. No one you have any respect for.” He herded them to the door, drove them out and turned on Miss James. “I’m supposed to be through here and I have to go around cleaning up your mess with my wife waiting out there.”
“Don’t be silly,” she said haughtily. “The lock was taken off the door with a screwdriver. Go and see for yourself.”
“You don’t know how to get the respect of those children.”
“Don’t you dare to talk to me in that fashion.”
“No, I won’t talk to you,” he muttered. “I’ll get you fired.”
On the next day she got a call from Mr. Gatsby, the chief supervisor, asking her to come and see him during her lunch hour. As soon as she entered his office she asked, “Has that caretaker been around here complaining, Mr. Gatsby?”
“He has indeed, Miss James,” Mr. Gatsby said, patiently. He was a mild, worried, good-hearted man with a high forehead and glasses, who had been doing his job for twenty years.
“You know yourself what that man is like,” Miss James said bitterly. “Did he tell you the lock was taken off the door?”
“No, he didn’t.”
“You see, he lies. That ignorant, uncouth man hates all the girls who come around there. Are you going to believe him, Mr. Gatsby?”
“I know what he’s like,” the supervisor said soothingly. “I complained to his boss last year that he wouldn’t cooperate. I complained the year before. He was on the carpet. Another complaint and they’ll get rid of him and he’ll lose his pension. I don’t want that.” Then he sighed. “You’d be doing me a great favour, Miss James,” he said wearily, “if you could only indulge him.”
“I see,” she said, reflecting and realizing that she ought to be superior enough to Wilkins to indulge him for the rest of the summer.
All afternoon she spoke to Wilkins with great respect. It was almos
t comical. He didn’t know how to cope with her. When she asked his opinion of the neighbourhood boys he couldn’t resist giving an opinion, with a gruff condescension. One of the children threw a ball into a neighbouring yard; the woman wouldn’t return it; Miss James asked Wilkins how to deal with the woman. He advised her not to quarrel but to report the incident to Mr. Gatsby.
As she flattered and soothed him he rubbed his thin hair and frowned. She asked him if he thought more sand was need-ed for the sandbox. Her tone was always gentle and considerate and deferential, and believing she accepted his authority he strutted around, making the playground his dominion, interfering with the children, yet making no real difficulty for her.
But when he stood with his hands on his hips watching her with those pale, troubled, washed-out blue eyes, she knew she would always be uneasy about him.
It had been unbearably hot one afternoon, then a puff of wind blew a cloud of cinder dust across the schoolyard. Suddenly it poured. All the children ran home and Miss James went into the schoolroom assigned to her for the keeping of her records. There she had to keep track of how many children played the quoit games, how many were at the sand pile. She sat at the desk with her legs crossed and her blonde hair falling across her cheek, until a noise at the door made her look up.
Wilkins was there. The heavy patches of hair on his bare arms caught her eye. He smiled; it startled her. He had never smiled at her. Coming closer, he put his hands on the desk.
“Busy?” he asked.
“Just catching up on my records.”
“Can you let it go for awhile?”
“I suppose so. Why?”
“Come with me.”
“Where?”
“Come on,” he said, patting her hand awkwardly. “You’ll see.”
Maybe it was the lash of the rain against the window as his hand touched hers, and his soft tone, but she heard her heart beating and leaned back in the chair. “I’ve got to get this stuff finished,” she said. Then he came around the desk, reached out and took her arm, and with a foolish smile gave her a playful jerk toward him and drew her out of the chair. His coaxing tone terrified her. “If you can wait a minute,” she said, feeling her throat tightening. “I have to put in a call. It’ll only take a minute.”
The Complete Stories of Morley Callaghan - Volume Three Page 25