“And now,” he said, “I can start to do things.”
“You haven’t been doing things up to now?”
“I mean New York things. Let’s go to a film tomorrow. I have a whole list of ones I want to see. How about La Cage Aux Folles? I’ll pick you up, we can go to the two o’clock showing.”
“Tomorrow I rest.”
“Oh please, Christine.”
“Learn to go alone, Rodney. It’s what I do. I often go to an art film by myself. I enjoy it and so will you.”
“I’d enjoy it more with you.”
“You’d enjoy it more with someone your own age. Find a perfectly adorable girl, which should be the easiest thing in the world. I can tell you that if I were some nubile maiden I’d give a lot to meet a dashing young blade like yourself.”
“Gels my age are such wogs,” he said jadedly. “I can’t take them seriously. It’s a woman I appreciate, and for that matter almost any chap would say the same. There’s a — well, a smoldering quality about a woman, a real woman.”
“Smoldering?” she echoed, and giggled. “Do I, for example, smolder? If so I had no idea.”
“Perhaps an ill-chosen word,” he said offhandedly. “But you know what I mean.”
“No, I don’t,” she said, and tweaked his nose. “Most of us women are not of the sultry variety. You’ve read too much Colette. I’m not Léa.”
“Are you sure? I confess readily, you know, that there’s a lot of Chéri in me. And it does seem rather a waste.”
“I think I’ll phone your mother and tell her you propositioned me.”
“Oh, do. She’ll laugh her head off. She thinks I’m about ten. About the film tomorrow. You’ll go, won’t you?”
“Some other time, thanks.”
“Bother,” he said crossly, but let her off the hook, though he kept trying for a while, trying to cajole her in subsequent days, obviously eager for company in his perambulations. He had them all over for Sunday afternoon cocktails a week later, preparing a very nice little spread, though it was mostly to show off his snuggery and be praised for its comfort and elegance.
There were frequent telephone calls from him, reports on his multifold adventures. He certainly did get around, discovering restaurants like II Vagabondo, which was so “in” that most people had never even heard of it, and out of the way places like Sniffen Court and Amster Yard. He was seeing all the Fassbinder, Herzog, Buñuel and Bertolucci films he could cram in. He came to dinner once or twice, didn’t stop talking for a minute, and ate like a horse.
Christine liked having him in the vicinity, Peg’s boy, and felt that he had adjusted very well. She wrote the Thornleys and told them that their son Rodney had completely taken over the city and she expected to hear any day that he was running for public office.
Jack Allerton had phoned in early May, to say hello. She was astonishingly glad to hear his voice. He had moved, he said, was slowly getting things to rights, and would very much like to knock off some day this week and take her to lunch.
She was in the midst of project number two, she told him, furnishing Rodney’s flat and the sooner she got that over the better. Could they table it until, say, the first part of next month, and by that time both he and Rodney would be in better shape.
“Me too,” she added wryly. “What I really need is a rest cure. Jack, why don’t I call you when this razzmatazz is over? I want your phone number anyway.”
She didn’t tell Rodney about the call, because he would only have wanted to slow up the proceedings and waste away an afternoon, and besides she wasn’t sure Jack had meant both of them, Rodney as well as herself. She had the vague impression he had meant it only for her.
School was out at the end of the month and Nancy hied herself off to Massachusetts, where she was to spend June and July with her friend Amy Longworth, whose family had a country cottage in Hadley. Bruce had signed up for a summer job at the concession in Central Park, where he would waiter at the outdoor terrace. Carl thought it was unconscionable, taking bread out of the mouths of less privileged kids, but most of the kids came from just such homes as Bruce, so it didn’t seem an inequity to Christine, and she liked his enterprise: she had certainly never suggested it.
At any rate, now she was more or less on her own again, just as she was when the children were at school. There was no reason not to call Jack Allerton, see how he was faring.
“Well, hello,” he said. “Does this mean you’re at leisure once more?”
“I have done my job well and truly. Results are fine, Rodney’s like a clucking hen, you’re afraid to disturb the position of a single item, and he keeps jumping up to straighten lampshades. He’s very happy. And how are you coming along, Jack?”
“Not bad, and I want you both over, but that will have to wait until it looks like something other than a junk shop. I have quantities of reference material, an overflow of books, and my working equipment. I’m trying to calculate just what I can buy in the way of cabinets that will accommodate things I don’t know what the hell to do with. I’m not the most organized person in the world.”
“I see. If I can help, let me know.”
“You can help a great deal. You can help, for instance, by having lunch with me and talking to me. I’ve been talking to myself so much lately I’m afraid they’ll figure me for a nut around here, that someone passing my door will call Bellevue. I’ve been cursing a lot, mostly at the top of my lungs. I move a pile of stuff, look for a better place to put it, but there isn’t a place to put it so I set it down again. And then curse some more. I junked some file cabinets, in a reckless moment, because I didn’t want to clutter up this stately room with file cabinets, than which there is nothing less stately, and now I have to find replacements. You know, good fruitwood pieces, preferably one good fruitwood piece with compartments. Roomy and serviceable and at the same time furniture, not officey stuff.”
“That shouldn’t be too difficult, Jack. You should easily come across something like that.”
“Yes, but I want it day before yesterday. Now about lunch. When? Today?”
“Yes, if you like.”
“You bet I like. Where do you want to go, Christine?”
“I’d just as soon the same place. Where we were before. Anthony’s. There’s no bustle there, it’s very relaxing.”
“You’re sure?”
“Um hum. About one?”
“Great, I’ll be waiting.”
“See you, Jack.”
He was at the bar when she walked in, talking to Mario, who greeted her with a smile and a hello. “Nice to see you again,” he said. “Martini with olive, right?”
“You have a good memory. Yes, thanks. Hi, Jack.”
“Hi, Christine. Come on, let’s find a booth.”
“Were you waiting long?”
“No, just got here a few minutes ago. You’re right on time.”
“One of my few virtues, punctuality.”
It was earlier than the last time they had been here, and the place was very well occupied today, with two waiters serving and Mario behind the bar. It was cheerful and pleasantly lively, with men in business suits and a few young girls dressed rather well. This modest-looking midtown cafe-restaurant apparently attracted a respectable clientele.
They slid into one of the booths and then a waiter came over with the drinks. “This is something I didn’t anticipate when I got up this morning,” Jack said, and picked up his glass. “Here’s to you, Christine, long time no see.”
“To you,” she said, lifting her own glass. “Long time no do anything except solve the many problems of Rodney Thornley, Esq., that’s about it.”
“And now they’re all solved?”
“More or less one hundred percent. He doesn’t know anyone his own age, but I can’t figure out what to do about that.”
“Isn’t it up to him?”
“Except that he’s a stranger in a strange city, which can throw anyone off.”
“Otherwis
e how are you, Christine?”
“Why, tip-top. Cardiogram’s good, blood pressure normal and nothing wrong with my appetite. How’s your bill of health, Jack?”
His laugh rang out. “Is that the way it sounded? I guess it was for instead of the weather. Isn’t it a nice day. Wonderful temperatures, not too chilly, not too warm. Dandy not to have to wear a topcoat. A lead-in. We’re strangers, when it comes right down to it, no longer any housing perplexities to gas about, and my fervent wish is to sit here unhurried for as long as I can hold your interest.”
“Aren’t you funny, did you think I wanted you to perform? I’m very pleased to see you, Jack. Well, I called you, didn’t I? Tell me about your apartment, why don’t you, I’ve been wondering if it’s come up to expectations.”
“It has. Very much so. It’s diverting to be in a new place. You wake up and wonder for a minute where you are, and then you realize, oh yeah, I’m in this new place. Nothing is where it was before. You reach for a light switch and now it’s not there anymore, it’s somewhere else. You have a feeling you’ve gone to another city, not just another neighborhood. Good for the soul, moving. Everyone should pull up stakes once every five years or so, it shakes you up.”
“Maybe. Out of the old groove. I enjoy being in a foreign city. Opening your eyes to entirely different sights. And sounds. And smells. Other cities — that is, cities in other countries always smell so different. Don’t you think?”
“Oh, sure. Paris smells like Paris. Paris has the most pungent smell of any city I can think of. Rome smells like newsprint, I’ve always thought, maybe it’s just because they have so many newspapers there. Any city in Spain you’re in, you know it’s Spain, all right, it couldn’t be anywhere else.”
“Spain always smells like hot brick.”
“That’s because Spain is, let’s face it, hot brick. Baked daily by the sun.”
“Seville. I couldn’t get dry after my bath. I sat on the edge of the tub and cried.”
“In a hotel?”
“It was so ridiculous, we chose this hotel because it was a beautiful old monastery, one of those restored places, with a garden like Eden. It was late September, we were sure it would be cooling off by then. This beautiful old picturesque monastery hotel was not air conditioned. We knew we were taking a chance, but mostly it was naiveté.”
“You picked the wrong city for a hotel with no air conditioning. Seville’s more humid. Did you really cry?”
“Oh yes, I’m not kidding. I got sick too. Lived on tea and toast for two days. Maybe three. You seem to have traveled a lot.”
“Yeah, bumming it. I think every young person should do that.”
“So do I, if possible.”
“It used to be possible, I guess it’s getting tougher. The way the economy is these days.”
“Everything’s going out of reach. Rents are the worst, of course. My first apartment, I paid $160.”
“Those were the days, my friend.”
“I suppose people will be saying that until the end of time.”
“No doubt. You’ve traveled a lot too, it seems.”
“Quite a bit. Just Europe, not the East or Africa or places like that. I’m for where history was made. I mean, the history I’m interested in. Kings and queens and dynasties, music and art and … you know.”
“Yeah. You’re a romantic. Me too.”
“Glad to hear it. We’re a dying breed.”
“I don’t think we are, no. I really don’t.”
“Is your building quiet, Jack? Any distracting TV sets blaring away at late hours? That kind of thing?”
“Thankfully, no. In the main tranquil and typically shabby genteel. Very comforting. There’s someone in the apartment adjoining mine who wakes me up every morning at precisely seven o’clock. No sooner, no later. Seven on the dot. He sneezes. Just once, but it does the trick, snaps my eyes open as if he pulled a string. This loud, resounding sneeze that may eventually put a crack in my bedroom wall. I don’t need an alarm clock.”
She tittered. “Is that a plus or a minus for the apartment?”
“I would say a plus. There’s a touch of intimacy about it, a kind of long-distance greeting. Friendly, in a way. Neighborly. I’ve never seen him.”
“How do you know it’s a him.”
“My dear girl, no female could possibly unleash such a thunderclap.”
“I don’t know. I imagine Gertrude Stein, for instance, sneezed like a donkey.”
“Possibly. But she wasn’t really a gender, was she?”
“Apparently not. Did you find a shade for your bedroom window? I can’t imagine you with cretonne curtains.”
“I can’t imagine me with cretonne curtains either. Yeah, I did what you told me to, bought a cedar-toned bamboo blind. It looks nice.”
“What do you mean, I told you to? I suggested it, that was all.”
“I knew you’d be right, so I did it.”
She laughed. “Do I seem infallible to you?”
He studied her. “In a way, yes. I think I’d take your advice about almost anything.”
“I’ll have to be careful what I say, then.”
“Oh, please don’t. Anyway, yes, that matter’s taken care of, and some progress in other directions, though storage space is high on the list of necessaries. I’ll have to take some action soon. I have a tendency to think too much and do too little.”
“Doesn’t everyone?”
“I doubt Rodney puts off what he wants done. He seems a determined sort.”
“The English are like that, I find. No flies on them, they forge ahead regardless. Has he tried to get in touch with you?”
“As yet, no. Will he?”
“Yes, I imagine. Right now he’s too taken with his new toy to need bulwarks. He’s happy as a clam. But I suppose he’ll get your number from new listings and hit you with an invitation to survey his castle. He keeps saying, if it weren’t for Jack …”
“Nice to be someone’s savior. How do you happen to know him, Christine?”
“His parents are friends. I’ve known them quite a few years, met them on one of my trips abroad. He’s here only for a year or thereabouts. I’ve enjoyed having him on the scene. It’s given me kind of a boost.”
“Did you need a boost?”
“Yes, I guess I did.”
“Why?”
“The usual. Everything sameish. This must be Sunday because there’s no mail. That kind of thing, that’s about all.”
“I know what you mean. Particularly since I’m not dashing out to an office in the morning. The days don’t have a specific meaning. It looks as if you’re ready for another drink, so am I.”
“Yes, I guess I am. I wonder if we could have some of that garlic bread with it?”
“Absolutely.” He half rose from his seat, drew the attention of their waiter. “Two of the same, please, and may we have some garlic bread too?”
Their seconds arrived shortly, along with a napkin-covered basket of bread, its redolence steaming the air. A crock of sweet butter. “That’s a-nice,” Christine said contentedly.
“Yes, that is a-nice,” Jack agreed. “A lot of garlic bread simply pretends, but Mario doesn’t stint on the garlic, as you’ve noticed. I sometimes come here and order a big bowl of minestrone and this bread. It’s one of the best lunches in town.”
“I could go for that today.”
“So could I, except that they have Calamari fritti on Thursdays, and today’s Thursday. Or don’t you dig it?”
“I’d kill for it. Not very many places have it on the menu. Man, oh man. The minestrone will have to wait for another day.”
He got up. “Be right back.”
When he returned he looked satisfied. “It occurred to me that the well might run dry,” he told her. “I was afraid the Calamari’d be gone when we got around to ordering. Mario just laughed. He said, hell, Jack, you know I wouldn’t let you down, especially with such a lovely lady, you think I’d cut your throat?
”
“So we’re safe.”
“We’re safe. Lord, this is great. Talking to a real live human being. Not going to an office means you can’t unload a lot of stuff. You don’t yammer with this person and that person, and after a while your voice gets rusty. Or it feels like that, as if it’s drying up inside you. What you really want to do is cover up that threatening typewriter and go out for a whole day’s walk, like maybe over to Brooklyn or somewhere. Or take in half a dozen movies. Escape. You try not to give into it, though, so you sit there with that blank sheet of paper in the machine. There’s that dumb sheet of paper, blank as a wall, and you’re not a Sunday writer anymore, but a working one, a seven-day-a-week one, and you type a few lines and it laughs back at you. I remember a New Yorker cartoon picturing just such a situation. This harried-looking author sitting at a portable. There’s a piece of paper in the typewriter with one line, his beginning line.”
He lit a cigarette. She waited. He was smiling faintly. “What was it?” she asked expectantly.
“‘Call me Ishmael…’”
“Oh, marvelous! I guess every author in the city thumbtacked it on his wall. How about you, Jack? Ever find yourself starting with something like, ‘Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather … ’?”
“Not yet,” he admitted. “But it would be a damned, natural thing to do. Melville or Joyce or any of them. Their opening sentences are graven on your mind, so much so that you have to be always pushing them out of the way to find your own.”
He regarded her. “As a matter of fact,” he said, “the Joyce sentence isn’t, to be perfectly truthful, graven on my mind with the same exactitude it appears to be on yours. I’m a little abashed. Now I’m trying to remember the rest of it. ‘… bearing a bowl of lather …’”
“ ‘… on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed.’”
Classic Love: 7 Vintage Romances Page 8