They stopped and looked along the wide avenue and up the towering, slanting faces of the buildings to the patches of night sky. Holding out her small, gloved hand in his palm, he patted it with his other hand, and they both laughed as though he had done something foolish but charming. The whole city was quieter now, the streets flowed away from them without direction, but there was always the hum underneath the silence like something restless and stirring and really touching them, as the soft, spring night air of the streets touched them, and at a store door he pulled her into the shadow and kissed her warmly, and when she didn’t resist he kept on kissing her. Then they walked on again happily. He didn’t care what he talked about; he talked about the advertising agency where he had gone to work the year before, and what he planned to do when he got more money, and each word had a feeling of reckless elation behind it.
For a long time they walked on aimlessly like this before he noticed that she was limping. Her face kept on turning up to him, and she laughed often, but she was really limping badly. “What’s the matter, Sheila? What’s the matter with your foot?” he said.
“It’s my heel,” she said, lifting her foot off the ground. “My shoe has been rubbing against it.” She tried to laugh. “It’s all right, Bob,” she said, and she tried to walk on without limping.
“You can’t walk like that, Sheila.”
“Maybe if we just took it off for a minute, Bob, it would be all right,” she said as though asking a favour of him.
“I’ll take it off for you,” he said, and he knelt down on one knee while she lifted her foot and balanced herself with her arm on his shoulder. He drew off the shoe gently.
“Oh, the air feels so nice and cool on my heel,” she said. No one was coming along the street. For a long time he remained kneeling, caressing her ankle gently and looking up with his face full of concern. “Try and put it on now, Bob,” she said. But when he pushed the shoe over the heel, she said, “Good heavens, it seems tighter than ever.” She limped along for a few steps. “Maybe we should never have taken it off. There’s a blister there,” she said.
“It was crazy to keep on walking like this,” he said. “I’ll call a taxi as soon as one comes along.” They were standing by the curb, with her leaning heavily on his arm, and he was feeling protective and considerate, for with her heel hurting her, she seemed more like the young girl he had known. “Look how late it is. It’s nearly four o’clock,” he said. “Your father will be wild.”
“It’s terribly late,” she said.
“It’s my fault. I’ll tell him it was all my fault.”
For a while she didn’t raise her head. When she did look up at him, he thought she was frightened. “What will they say when I go home at this hour, Bob?”
“It’ll be all right. I’ll go right in with you,” he said.
“Wouldn’t it be better . . . Don’t you think it would be all right if I stayed the night with Alice – with my girlfriend?”
She was so hesitant that it worried him, and he said emphatically, “It’s nearly morning now, and anyway, your father knows you’re with me.”
“Where’ll we say we’ve been till this hour, Bob?”
“Just walking.”
“Maybe he won’t believe it. Maybe he’s sure by this time I’m staying with Alice. If there was some place I could go . . .” While she waited for him to answer, all that had been growing in her for such a long time was showing in the softness of her dark, sure eyes.
A half-ashamed feeling came over him and he began thinking of himself at the apartment, talking with Jack and the old man, and with Sheila coming in and listening with her face full of seriousness. “Why should you think there’ll be trouble?” he said. “Your father will probably be in bed.”
“I guess he will,” she said quickly. “I’m silly. I ought to know that. There was nothing . . . I must have sounded silly.” She began to fumble for words, and then her confusion was so deep that she could not speak.
“I’m surprised you don’t know your father better than that,” he said rapidly, as though offended. He was anxious to make it an argument between them over her father. He wanted to believe this himself, so he tried to think only of the nights when her father, with his white head and moustache, had talked in his good-humoured way about the old days and the old eating-places, but every one of these conversations, every one of these nights that came into his thoughts, had Sheila there, too, listening and watching. Then it got so that he could remember nothing of those times but her intense young face, which kept rising before him, although he had never been aware that he had paid much attention to her. So he said desperately, “There’s the friendliest feeling in the world between your people and me. Leave it to me. We’ll go back to the corner, where we can see a taxi.”
They began to walk slowly to the corner, with her still limping though he held her arm firmly. He began to talk with a soft persuasiveness, eager to have her respond readily, but she only said, “I don’t know what’s the matter. I feel tired or something.” When they were standing on the street corner, she began to cry a little.
“Poor little Sheila,” he said. Then she said angrily, “Why ‘poor little Sheila?’ There’s nothing the matter with me. I’m just tired.” And they both kept looking up and down the street for a taxi.
Then one came, they got in, and he sat with his arm along the back of the seat, just touching her shoulder. He dared not tighten his arm around her, though never before had he wanted so much to be gentle with anyone; but with the street lights sometimes flashing on her face and showing the bewildered whiteness that was in it, he was scared to disturb her.
As soon as they opened the apartment door and lit the lights in the living room, they heard her father come shuffling from his bedroom. His white moustache was working up and down furiously as he kept wetting his lips, and his hair, which was always combed nicely, was mussed over his head because he had been lying down. “Where have you been till this hour, Sheila?” he said. “I kept getting up all the time. Where have you been?”
“Just walking with Bob,” she said. “I’m dead tired, Dad. We lost all track of time.” She spoke very calmly and then she smiled, and Bob saw how well she knew that her father loved her. Her father’s face was full of concern while he peered at her, and she only smiled openly, showing no worry and saying, “Poor Daddy, I never dreamed you’d get up. I hope Jack is still sleeping.”
“Jack said if you were with Bob, you were all right,” Mr. Staples said. Glancing at Bob, he added curtly, “She’s only eighteen, you know. I thought you had more sense.”
“I guess we were fools to walk for hours like that, Mr. Staples,” Bob said. “Sheila’s got a big blister on her foot.” Bob shook his head as if he couldn’t understand why he had been so stupid.
Mr. Staples looked a long time at Sheila, and then he looked shrewdly at Bob; they were both tired and worried, and they were standing close together. Mr. Staples cleared his throat two or three times and said, “What on earth got into the pair of you?” Then he grinned suddenly and said, “Isn’t it extraordinary what young people do? I’m so wide-awake now I can’t sleep, I was making myself a cup of coffee. Won’t you both sit down and have a cup with me? Bob?”
“I’d love to,” Bob said heartily.
“You go ahead. I won’t have any coffee. It would keep me awake,” Sheila said.
“The water’s just getting hot,” Mr. Staples said. “It will be ready in a minute.” Still chuckling and shaking his head, for he was glad Sheila had come in, he said, “I kept telling myself she was all right if she was with you, Bob.” Bob and Mr. Staples grinned broadly at each other. But when her father spoke like this, Sheila raised her head, and Bob thought that he saw her smile at him. He wanted to smile, too, but he couldn’t look at her and had to turn away uneasily. And when he did turn to her again, it was almost pleadingly, for he was thinking, “I did the only thing there was to do. It was the right thing, so why should I feel ashamed now?” an
d yet he kept on remembering how she had cried a little on the street corner. He longed to think of something to say that might make her smile agreeably – some gentle, simple, friendly remark that would make her feel close to him – but he could only go on remembering how yielding she had been.
Her father was saying cheerfully, “I’ll go and get the coffee now.”
“I don’t think I’d better stay,” Bob said.
“It’ll only take a few minutes, ” Mr. Staples said.
“I don’t think I’ll wait,” Bob said, but Mr, Staples, smiling and shaking his head, went into the kitchen to get the coffee. Bob kept watching Sheila, who was supporting her head with her hand and frowning a little. There was some of the peacefulness in her face now that had been there days ago, only there was also a new, full softness; she was very quiet, maybe feeling again the way he had kissed her, and then she frowned as though puzzled, as though she was listening and overhearing herself say timidly, “If there was some place I could go . . .”
Growing more and more uneasy, Bob said, “It turned out all right, don’t you see, Sheila?’
“What?” she said.
“There was no trouble about coming home,” he said.
As she watched him without speaking, she was not at all like a young girl. Her eyes were shining. All the feeling of the whole night was surging through her; she could hardly hold all the mixed-up feeling that was stirring her, and then her face grew warm with shame and she said savagely, “Why don’t you go? Why do you want to sit there talking, talking, talking?”
“I don’t know,” he said.
“Go on. Please go. Please,” she said,
“All right, I’ll go,” he muttered, and he got up clumsily, his face hot with humiliation.
In the cold, early-morning light, with heavy trucks rumbling on the street, he felt tense and nervous. He could hardly remember anything that had happened. He wanted to reach out and hold that swift, ardent, yielding joy that had been so close to him. For a while he could not think at all. And then he felt a slow unfolding coming in him again, making him quick with wonder.
TIMOTHY HARSHAW’S FLUTE
Although both were out of work, Timothy Harshaw and his wife were the happiest people in the Barrow Street house. Timothy was a very fair young man who never thought of wearing a suit coat with trousers to match, and yet somehow he looked carefully groomed and even distinguished.
In the evenings, Mr. Weeks, a bank teller who lived in the one-room apartment behind the Harshaw’s, heard Timothy playing his silver flute. When Mr. Weeks could stand the flute-playing no longer, he rapped on the Harshaws’ door and pretended he was making a social call. Mrs. Harshaw opened the door. A plain grey sweater made her look slim and attractive. She was at least thirty-two, but she was so effusive, with her short, straight black hair, her high-bridged nose and her sparkling eyes that she seemed like a young girl. Mr. Weeks was welcomed so enthusiastically by the Harshaws that he began to feel ashamed of his surliness; both bowed politely and hurried to get him something to drink. They explained that Timothy had learned to play the silver flute at the Sorbonne in Paris, where he had had a scholarship.
Louise Harshaw had never been to France but she talked about Paris as if she knew every boulevard, bistro, bal musette, and café, until she was ready to laugh at her own eagerness. On this night both the Harshaws seemed jubilant, as if they had suddenly settled all their important problems. Mr. Weeks couldn’t help asking, “What’s making you so happy tonight, Mrs. Harshaw?” and she burst out at once, “We’ve just decided we’ll never get anywhere in this country. We’re going to go away for good and live in Paris, aren’t we, Timothy?”
Mr. Weeks looked at Timothy, who was sitting cross-legged on the bed, holding his silver flute loosely in his hand. The Harshaws had cut the posts off their bed so it would look more like a couch. “That’s right, Louise,” Timothy said, his face brightening. “There’s nothing here for us, Weeks. I ought to have seen that long ago. I’ll live as a translator in Paris. The main thing, though, is to get there.”
“Are you going right away?”
“Oh, no,” they both said together, “we’re awfully poor now.”
“How are you going to do it, then?”
“We’ll both get a job and work,” they said.
“Then we’ll save.”
The Harshaws went out every morning looking for work. At noontime they met in Childs’ restaurant and amused each other, mimicking the peculiar mannerisms of everyone they had encountered. They seemed to have all of the shining enthusiasm that makes every obstacle a stimulation. Timothy was the first to get a job, in the advertising and publicity department of a publishing house. The more he talked about it to Louise, the more he felt like celebrating, so he borrowed five dollars from the bank teller, who loaned it with reluctance, though he became more cheerful when Timothy, slapping him on the back, invited him to help spend the money. They went to a delicatessen store to buy some cheese. “People don’t seem to understand that a gentleman ought to know his cheeses every bit as well as his wines,” Timothy explained, and he bought brie, camembert, gorgonzola, munster, and gruyere. He also bought a bottle of red Italian wine. When they got home, Mr. Weeks thought Mrs. Harshaw might resent Timothy’s initial extravagance, but instead she moved around getting plates and glasses as though they were about to start playing a new, delightful game. It occurred to her, too, to phone her friend, Selma Simpson, who did publicity for a small theatrical producer, so they would have more of a party.
That night the Harshaws talked a good deal about France. Timothy had been so happy at the Sorbonne. And, there were the trips you could take to places like Chartres: Louise was dying to see the cathedral.
“We’d like to make the whole darn tradition ours, personally, if you see what we mean,” Timothy said, leaning forward.
“It sounds swell. Maybe I’ll take a trip like that some day,” Mr. Weeks said. “When are you going?”
“In the spring. Everybody goes to Paris in the spring – it’s the season. Why don’t you come with us?”
“I may at that,” Mr. Weeks said, ashamed of himself for lying. Timothy was making forty dollars a week and they put ten in a bank that gave them a red bank book. In order that they would not sacrifice money on foolish pleasures, they decided to stay home at night and Timothy would teach Louise French. When they began the lessons, Louise learned rapidly. Timothy was full of joy, and they were both so pleased with themselves they thought their friend, Mr. Weeks, might like to take lessons, too. At first, Mr. Weeks tried seriously to speak French, but they were both so eager to help him he became self-conscious and made a joke of the whole business.
In the second week of November Timothy lost his job at the publishing house, for a reason that perplexed and angered him. As he told it to Louise, walking up and down rubbing his hand through his hair, it seemed ridiculous. He had got into an argument with his boss about theosophy and had suggested that modern Americans might be the ancient Egyptians reincarnated. The boss, slamming his fists on the desk, had begun to tell Timothy everything that was wrong with him – when he wrote advertising, he couldn’t understand he was appealing to the masses; he was always making sly jokes for his own amusement; and anyway, it was obvious he couldn’t adapt himself to the routine of the office. Timothy was fired. “There was something underhanded about it, Louise. We didn’t seem to face each other like gentlemen at all.” He kept looking anxiously at his wife.
Louise wanted to cry. Her face was white and pinched, as if once again in her life she had reached out and tried to touch something that had always eluded her. But she said earnestly, “It’s all right, Timothy. You can’t destroy your character for such people. I’ll get a job and we’ll go right on saving.”
There were two difficult weeks when they hardly spent a cent for food, because Louise wouldn’t draw money out of the bank. They ate canned soups and cereals, and were most hungry when they talked about the good times they would
have in Europe in the spring.
Then they had an unbelievable piece of good fortune. They could hardly believe such luck: Louise’s friend, Selma, quit her job to get married, and she asked Louise if she would like to take it. Louise wouldn’t say anything; she kept swallowing hard till she went around to see the producer with Selma. He listened while Selma swore there wasn’t a girl like Louise in the whole country; then he smiled benevolently. Louise got the job.
For a while the Harshaws were happier than they had been at any time since they were married; they had a splendid goal ahead of them – Europe, with a tradition and environment that would appeal to Timothy – and they had some money in the bank. Louise worked hard, rebuffed her sly, sentimental employer sweetly, and hurried home every night to Timothy, who cooked the dinner for her. He stood at the window waiting for her, with one of her aprons around his waist. He had taken a fancy to cooking.
Toward the end of December, the Harshaws had the calmness and deep inner contentment of people who can see ahead clearly. They had one hundred and twenty dollars in the bank. They talked of going third-class on the boat. Whenever they talked for very long about it in the room, they became silent, almost hushed with expectancy, and then one night they put on their coats and hats and went out together to walk through the rain without talking at all. They went into a church and knelt with their heads down and prayed, and when they had finished praying, they sat there in the pew instead of going home. They sat there, very close together.
Then, Louise began to get very tired and nervous. Timothy noticed that she was sometimes short-tempered. When Selma, who often dropped in on them, came around intending to speak to him about Louise, he was so happy and confident he made Selma feel like an old chaperon who wasn’t wanted, so she said: “Keep your eye on Louise, Timothy,” and looked at him searchingly. Timothy smiled, thanked her for her solicitude, and became silent and very worried.
The New Yorker Stories Page 6