Ancient Lineage and Other Stories

by Morley Callaghan

  In the front room he took off his overcoat and hat and sat down, noticing, out of the corner of his eye, that she was slim and had nice fair hair and lovely eyes. But she was moving nervously. He had intended to ask at once how she’d found out his name, but forgot as soon as she sat down opposite him on a camp bed and smiled shyly. She had on a red woollen sweater, fitting tightly at the waist. Twice he shook his head, unable to get used to having her there opposite him, nervous and expectant. The trouble was she’d always seemed so aloof.

  “You’re not very friendly,” she said awkwardly.

  “Yes I am. I am.”

  “Why don’t you come over here and sit beside me?”

  He sat beside her on the camp bed, smiling stupidly. He was slow to see that she was waiting for him to put his arms around her. He kissed her eagerly and she held on to him, her heart thumping, and she kept on holding him, closing her eyes and breathing deeply every time he kissed her. He became very eager and she got up suddenly, walking up and down the room, looking at the cheap alarm clock on a bureau. The room was clean but poorly furnished.

  “What’s the matter?” he said.

  “My girlfriend, the one I room with, she’ll be home in twenty minutes.”

  “Come here anyway.”

  “Please sit down, please do,” she said.

  He sat down beside her. When he kissed her she did not object but her lips were dry, her shoulders were trembling and she kept watching the clock. Though she was holding his wrist so tightly her nails dug into the skin, he knew she would be glad when he had to go. He kissed her again and she drew her left hand slowly over her lips.

  “You really must be out of here before Irene comes home,” she said.

  “But I’ve only kissed and hugged you and you’re wonderful.” He noticed the red ring mark on her finger.

  “You sure you’re not waiting for your husband to come home?” he said irritably.

  Frowning, looking away, she said, “Why do you have to say that?”

  “There’s a ring mark on your finger.”

  “I can’t help it,” she said, and began to cry quietly. “I am waiting for my husband to come home. He’ll be here at Christmas.”

  “Too bad. Can’t we do something about it?”

  “I love my husband. I do, I really do, and I’m faithful to him too.”

  “Maybe I’d better go,” he said, feeling ridiculous.

  “He’s at a sanitarium. He got his spine hurt in the war, then he got tuberculosis. He’s pretty bad. They’ve got to carry him around. We want to love each other every time we meet, but we can’t.”

  “That’s tough, poor kid. I suppose you’ve got to pay for him.”

  “Yes.”

  “You have many men?”

  “I don’t want any.”

  “They come here to see you.”

  “No, no. I don’t know what got into me. I liked you, and felt a little crazy.”

  “I’ll slide along. What’s your first name?”

  “Lola. You’d better go now.”

  “Couldn’t I see you again?” he said suddenly.

  “No, you’re going away tomorrow,” she said, smiling confidently.

  “So you’ve got it all figured out. Supposing I don’t go?”

  “Please, you must.”

  Her arms were trembling when she held his overcoat. She wanted him to go before Irene came home.

  “You didn’t give me much time,” he said flatly.

  “No. You’re a lovely guy. Kiss me.”

  “You got that figured out too.”

  “Just kiss and hold me once more, George.” She held on to him as if she did not expect to be embraced again for a long time, and he said, “I think I’ll stay in the city a while longer.”

  “It’s too bad. You’ve got to go. We can’t see each other again.”

  In the poorly lighted hall she looked lovely, her cheeks were flushed. As he went out of the door and down the walk to the street he remembered that he hadn’t asked how she had found out his name. Snow was falling lightly and there were hardly any footprints on the sidewalk. All he could think of was that he ought to go back to the restaurant and ask Steve for his job again. Steve was fond of him. But he knew he could not. “She had it all figured out,” he muttered, turning up his coat collar.

  1929

  THE CHISELER

  Old Poppa Tabb was never really cut out to be a manager for a fighter. He seemed too short and too fat, although he’d only got soft around the waist during the last year as Billy got a lot of work in the small clubs, fighting at the flyweight limit. If it hadn’t been for his old man, Billy would have been a chesty little bum standing at night on street corners spitting after cops when they passed. The old man and Billy were both the same size – five foot two in their bare feet – only the old man weighed one hundred and thirty-five pounds and Billy one hundred and twelve.

  Poppa Tabb had always wanted his son to amount to something and didn’t like the stories he heard about his son being chased by policemen. It hurt him when Billy was sent down for three months for tripping a cop and putting the boots to him. So he thought his son might want to be a fighter and he made an arrangement with a man named Smooth Cassidy, who was very experienced with young fighters, to act as Billy’s trainer and handler, and he himself held the contract as the manager. After Billy started fighting in the small clubs, Poppa Tabb bought two white sweaters with “Billy Tabb” on the back in black letters, one for himself and one for Smooth Cassidy. It was at this time that Poppa Tabb began to get a little fat around the waist. He used to sit over in the sunlight by the door of the fire hall and tell the firemen about Billy. He used to sit there and talk about “me and Billy,” and have a warm glowing feeling down deep inside.

  Late at night he used to wait for Billy to come home from drinking parties with fast white women. He waited, walking up and down the narrow hall of their flat, and he shook his head and imagined that Billy had gotten into an accident. When Billy came in and started to take off his shoes, Poppa Tabb, sitting opposite him, was so worried he said: “I don’t want you strolling your stuff so late, Billy.”

  Billy looked at him. Standing up and coming closer, he said to his old man: “You tryin’ to get on me?”

  “No, only I know what’s good for you, son.”

  “Yeah. Maybe I know what’s good for me. Maybe I know you ain’t so good for me.”

  “There some things you got to do, Billy.”

  Billy raised his fist. “You want something? You want some of this?”

  “You don’t go hitting me, Billy.”

  “Say you want some and I smack you. Or get off me.”

  After that, when Billy came in late Poppa Tabb just looked at his bright sharp eyes and smelled the cologne on his clothes and couldn’t say anything to him. He only wished that Billy would tell him everything. He wanted to share the exciting times of his life and have the same feeling, talking to him, that he got when he held up the water pail and handed the sponge to Smooth Cassidy when he was ringside.

  Billy did so well in the small clubs that bigger promoters offered him work. But they always talked business with Smooth Cassidy, and Poppa Tabb felt they were trying to leave him out. Just before Billy fought Frankie Genaro, the flyweight champion, who was willing to fight almost anyone in town because the purses for flyweights were so small, Poppa Tabb heard stories that Dick Hallam, who liked owning pieces of fighters, was getting interested in Billy and taking him out to parties. At nights now Billy hardly ever talked to his old man, but still expected him to wait on him like a servant.

  Old Poppa Tabb was thinking about it the afternoon of the Genaro fight and he was so worried he went downtown looking for Billy, asking the newsboys at the corner, old friends of Billy’s, if they had seen him. In the afternoon, Billy usually passed by the newsstand and talked with the boys till smaller kids came along and whispered, staring at him. Poppa Tabb found Billy in a diner looking to see if his name had gott
en into the papers, thrusting big forkfuls of chocolate cake into his wide mouth. The old man looked at him and wanted to rebuke him for eating the chocolate cake but was afraid, so he said: “What’s happening Billy?”

  “Uh,” Billy said.

  The old man said carefully: “I don’t like this here talk about you stepping around too much with that Hallam guy.”

  “You don’t?” Billy said, pushing his fine brown felt hat back on his narrow brow and wrinkling his forehead. “What you going do ’bout it?”

  “Well, nothing, I guess, Billy.”

  “You damn right,” Billy said flatly. Without looking up again he went on eating cake and reading the papers intently as if his old man hadn’t spoken to him at all.

  The Genaro fight was an extraordinary success for Billy. Of course, he didn’t win. Genaro, who was in his late thirties, went into a kind of short waltz and then clutched and held on when he was tired, and when he was fresh and strong he used a swift pecking left hand that cut the eyes. But Billy liked a man to come in close and hold on, for he put his head on Genaro’s chest and flailed with both hands, and no one could hold his arms. Once he got in close, his arms worked with a beautiful tireless precision, and the crowd, liking a great body-puncher, began to roar, and Poppa Tabb put his head down and jumped around, and then he looked up at Billy, whose eye was cut and whose lips were thick and swollen. It didn’t matter whether he won the flyweight title, for soon he would be a bantamweight, and then a featherweight, the way he was growing.

  Everybody was shouting when Billy left the ring, holding his bandaged hands up high over his head, and he rushed up the aisle to the dressing room, the crowd still roaring as he passed through the seats and the people who tried to touch him with their hands. His gown had fallen off his shoulders. His seconds were running on ahead shouting: “Out of the way! Out of the way!” and Billy, his face puffed, his brown body glistening under the lights, followed, looking straight ahead, his wild eyes bulging. The crowd closed in behind him at the door of the dressing room.

  Poppa Tabb had a hard time getting through the crowd for he couldn’t go up the aisle as fast as Billy and the seconds. He was holding his cap tightly in his hands. He had put on a coat over his white ‘Billy Tabb’ sweater. His thin hair was wet as he lurched forward. The neckband of his shirt stuck up from under the sweater and a yellow collar-button shone in the lamplight. “Let me in, let me in,” he kept saying, almost hysterical with excitement. “It’s my kid, that’s my kid.” The policeman at the door, who recognized him, said: “Come on in, Pop.”

  Billy Tabb was stretched out on the rubbing-table and his handlers were gently working over him. The room smelled of liniment. Everybody was talking. Smooth Cassidy was sitting at the end of the table, whispering with Dick Hallam, a tall thin man wearing well-pressed trousers. Old Poppa Tabb stood there blinking and then moved closer to Billy. He did not like Hallam’s gold rings and his pearl-grey felt hat and his sharp nose. Old Poppa Tabb was afraid of Hallam and stood fingering the yellow collar-button.

  “What’s happening, Pop?” Hallam said, smiling expansively.

  “Nothing,” Pop said, hunching his shoulders and wishing Billy would look at him. They were working on Billy’s back muscles and his face was flat against the board. His back rose and fell as he breathed deeply.

  “Have a cigar, Pop!” Hallam said.

  “No thanks.”

  “No? My man, I got some good news for you,” he said, flicking the end of his nose with his forefinger.

  “You got no good news for me,” Poppa Tabb said, still wishing Billy would look up at him.

  “Sure I do. Billy gonna be big in a few months and I’m gonna take his contract over – most of it, anyway – and have Cassidy look after him. So he won’t be needing you no more.”

  “What you say?” Old Poppa Tabb said to Cassidy.

  “It’s entirely up to you, Poppa Tabb,” Cassidy said, looking down at the floor.

  “Yes sir, Billy made good tonight and I’m going to take a piece of him,” Hallam said, glancing down at the shiny toes of his shoes. “The boy’ll get on when I start looking after him. I’ll get stuff for him you couldn’t touch. He needs my influence. A guy like you can’t expect to go on taking a big cut on Billy.”

  “So you going to butt in?” Poppa Tabb said.

  “Me butt in? That’s ripe, seeing you never did nothing but butt in on Billy.”

  “I’m sticking with Billy,” Poppa Tabb said. “You ain’t taking no piece of him.”

  “Shut your face,” Billy said, looking up suddenly.

  “Shut your face is right,” Hallam said. “You’re through buttin’ in.”

  “You don’t fool me none, Hallam. You just after a cut on Billy.”

  “You just another old guy trying to chisel on his son,” Hallam said scornfully.

  Billy was sitting up listening, his hands held loosely in his lap. The room was hot and smelled of sweat. Old Poppa Tabb, turning, went to put his hand on Billy’s shoulder. “Tell him to beat it, Billy,” he said.

  “Keep your hands off. You know you been butting in all my life.”

  “Sure I have, Billy. I been there ’cause I’m your pop, Billy. You know how it’s always been with me. I don’t take nothing from you. I don’t take a red cent. I just stick with you, Billy. See? We been big together.”

  “You never went so big with me,” Billy said.

  “Ain’t nothing bigger with me than you, Billy. Tell this hustler to run.” Again, he reached to touch Billy’s shoulder.

  “You insult my friend, you got no call,” Billy said. He swung a short right to his father’s chin. Poppa Tabb sat down on the floor. He was ready to cry but kept on looking at Billy, who was glaring at him.

  “Goddamn, he your old man,” Hallam said.

  “He can get out. I done with him.”

  “Sure you are. He’ll get out.”

  They watched Smooth Cassidy help Poppa Tabb get up. “What you going to do about this?” Smooth Cassidy was muttering to him. “You ought to be able to do something, Poppa.”

  Old Poppa Tabb shook his head awkwardly. “No, there’s nothing, Smooth.”

  “But he your boy, and it’s up to you.”

  “Nothing’s up to me.”

  “It all right with you, Poppa, then it all right with me,” Cassidy said, stepping back.

  Old Poppa Tabb, standing there, seemed to be waiting for something. His jaw fell open. He did not move.

  “Well, that be that,” Hallam said. He took a cigar out of his pocket, looked at it and suddenly thrust it into Poppa Tabb’s open mouth. “Have a cigar,” he said.

  Poppa Tabb’s teeth closed down on the cigar. It was sticking straight out of his mouth as he went out, without looking back. The crowd had gone and the big building was empty. It was dark down by the ring. He didn’t look at anything. The unlighted cigar stuck out of his mouth as he went out the big door to the street.

  1930

  THE RED HAT

  It was the kind of hat Frances had wanted for months, plain and little and red with the narrow brim tacked back, which would look so smart and simple and expensive. There was really very little to it, it was so plain, but it was the kind of felt hat that would have made her feel confident of a sleek appearance. She stood on the pavement, her face pressed up close against the shop window, a slender, tall, and good-looking girl wearing a reddish woolen dress clinging tightly to her body. On the way home from work, the last three evenings, she had stopped to look at the hat. And when she had got home she had told Mrs. Foley, who lived in the next apartment, how much the little hat appealed to her. In the window were many smart hats, all very expensive. There was only one red felt hat, on a mannequin head with a silver face and very red lips.

  Though Frances stood by the window a long time she had no intention of buying the hat, because her husband was out of work and they couldn’t afford it; she was waiting for him to get a decent job so that she could buy clothes for her
self. Not that she looked shabby, but the fall weather was a little cold, a sharp wind sometimes blowing gustily up the avenue, and in the twilight, on the way home from work with the wind blowing, she knew she ought to be wearing a light coat. In the early afternoon when the sun was shining brightly she looked neat and warm in her woolen dress.

  Though she ought to have been on her way home Frances couldn’t help standing there, thinking she might look beautiful in this hat if she went out with Eric for the evening. Since he had been so moody and discontented recently she now thought of pleasing him by wearing something that would give her a new kind of elegance, of making him feel cheerful and proud of her and glad, after all, that they were married.

  But the hat cost fifteen dollars. She had eighteen dollars in her purse, all that was left of her salary after shopping for groceries for the week. It was ridiculous for her to be there looking at the hat, which was obviously too expensive for her, so she smiled and walked away, putting both hands in the small pockets of her dress. She walked slowly, glancing at two women who were standing at the other end of the big window. The younger one, wearing a velvet coat trimmed with squirrel, said to the other: “Let’s go in and try some of them on.”

  Hesitating and half turning, Frances thought it would be quite harmless and amusing if she went into the shop and tried on the red hat, just to see if it looked as good on her as it did on the mannequin head. It never occurred to her to buy the hat.

  In the shop, she walked on soft, thick, gray carpet to the chair by the window, where she sat alone for a few minutes, waiting for one of the saleswomen to come to her. At one of the mirrors an elderly lady with bleached hair was fussing with many hats and talking to a deferential and patient saleswoman. Frances, looking at the big dominant woman with the bleached hair and the expensive clothes, felt embarrassed, because she thought it ought to be apparent to everyone in the shop, by the expression on her face, that she had no intention of taking a hat.

  A deep-bosomed saleswoman, wearing black silk, smiled at Frances, appraising her carefully. Frances was the kind of customer who might look good in any one of the hats. At the same time, while looking at her, the saleswoman wondered why she wasn’t wearing a coat, or at least carrying one, for the evenings were often chilly.