“Obviously that’s because we overwork it so heartlessly. The English language isn’t too rich in nuances. But I think it’s because we’re leery about overreaching. Or oversimplifying. The trouble is, we’re inclined to equate it with happy forever, like the fairy tales. And they lived happily ever after. Well, you know damned well they didn’t live in a state of uninterrupted bliss for every day of their lives. You know damned well they piled up a list of grievances against each other, thought of breaking each other’s necks at odd and sundry times.”
He broke off, grinned. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to pontificate. I could have said right off, yes, happy’s a word I’ll stand by, I think it’s what gets us out of bed in the morning, looking for it. Christine, you were telling us about your friend when I preempted the floor.”
“No, just that her man is, or was, a writer. And yes, I think she’s happy, there, I’ve said it. Certainly Anton must be an interesting companion, with his European ways, and his anecdotes and stories that give her a new look at like. Like the Schnorrer business.”
“The what?” Rodney demanded.
“Schnorrer, that’s a man who cadges, a down and outer, failed in his profession or else a victim of bad luck for some reason. A Schnorrer isn’t able to earn a living, so he exists through the bounty of relatives and friends, managing to keep afloat on their largesse. It’s not like a Bowery bum, we’re talking about a man with creases in his trousers and a homburg on his head, maybe. A faded gentleman. Anyway, Clover tells us about these things and we’re all fascinated. Sometimes I’m almost envious of her, of this thing she has. That she’s part of another world, that she has this glimpse into another culture, and that she’s assuaging this Third Reich survivor, Anton, giving him her strength and her love and her young prettiness when I’m sure he thought there would be nothing forevermore but bleakness. And now Clover, just one day running into someone like her, and he not young anymore.”
She gestured. “The rest of us are living static lives, stuck in a time warp, American provincials, supermarket types, but Clover knows about something else, sees it at first hand. In that way yes, I do envy her. And yes, I will have some more punch, apparently I’ve decided to stop counting glasses. More caviar too, Rodney, that is if you can spare some.”
“Oh, was I pigging it? Frightfully sorry.”
“Nobody minds, so don’t look so dashed.”
“By the way,” Jack said, “I’m no stranger to the term Schnorrer. My mother’s Czech, or at least by ancestry. It was called Bohemia in her grandmother’s time, and it was all part of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, as I’m sure you’re very much aware. I’ve heard my own stories. As a matter of fact I was raised on just such fancifications — Wind in the Willows — just like any other child but also Schnorrer stories, and yarns about Baron Munchausen.”
“It sounds like an interesting childhood, Jack. Imagine you knowing about Schnorrers!”
“Imagine you knowing about them.”
“It’s only because of Clover Martinson. Do you have a liking for lieder? And the Viennese schmaltz? Kaiman and Lehar and Stolz — of course Strauss too?”
“Unabashedly. You?”
“Sure do.”
“As for Strauss, both Strausses. Johann and Richard. Ah, yes. I think I could even do without books if it came down to a choice. I know I couldn’t live without music.”
“You don’t have a stereo, though.”
“I don’t need a stereo. It’s a lot of fuss and bother. I get all the music I could ask for, music is part of all my waking hours, except when I plant myself at night in front of the TV set. QXR, it’s an old friend. That’s an old Zenith radio near my desk, but it has an exceptionally good tone, it’s my old familiar. I’m always afraid it will conk out, I think I’d consider tearing all my hair out.”
“So you have music on while you’re working.”
“Certainly. Oh, I know some people demand utter quiet when they’re concentrating, but not me. God, not me. There’s that to keep me company, and the window view, seeing people moving around on the street; it’s like having friends around. I couldn’t work in a place where I wasn’t able to see other people.”
“Yes, it must be horrid not to have a window in your office.”
“I worked in an office without a window once,” Jack said. “Two of us, this young kid and I. He was a character, I liked him very much. He came from a very moneyed family and he had the job through connections, right after he graduated from college, it was noblesse oblige. He was incensed at being closed off that way, so he hunted through magazines and came up with a full page color photo of the New York skyline seen through a window frame. I came in one morning and there he was, sitting at his desk looking pleased as punch, with the photo tacked up on the wall next to him.”
He chuckled. “Funny thing was, it was very effective. It made you feel there really was a window, quite remarkable. His name was Richard, I’ve never forgotten him. Rodney, I meant to ask you, how do you British feel about your new Prime Minister?”
“Thatcher? Mixed feelings, but on the whole no riots in the streets. She’s very pretty.”
“Yes, she is,” Christine agreed. “She certainly dresses better than the Royal Family. I never saw such frumps.”
“They seem to consider it de rigeur to look dowdy. Is there a reason for that, Rodney?”
“English women are tweedy types, that’s all. Stumping along in layers of clothing, it’s a cold country, you know.”
“That’s no excuse for those awful hats. Your mother doesn’t stump along in layers of clothing. Peggy has incredible style. You’d think people in public life would want to — They all look like dressmaker’s dummies. But oh, I do love England, with its misty moors and lovely leas and its thatched roofs in the provinces. Creamed teas and pubs and all that clipped speech.”
“And its stiff-necked pride.”
“You Americans make a mystique about it,” Rodney said cheerfully. “You’ve all read too much Shakespeare.”
Jack chuckled. “We’ve all seen too much Masterpiece Theatre.”
“Maybe too much Maugham.”
“I hate it that there’s no Empire anymore, where the sun never set, and all that pomp. Okay, that’s reactionary, but I can’t help it.”
“It’s not what it was,” Rodney admitted. “Still, nattering won’t help.”
Jack said he was a confirmed Anglophile too. “I felt so in place when I was there, as if after a long journey, I’d come home. Whitehall and Trafalgar Square and the Inns of Court, all those bewigged barristers. I put up in a hotel in Kensington, the door porter was costumed like someone out of Dickens. I couldn’t believe it in this day and age. Kippers for breakfast. Marylebone and Christopher Wren and St. Mary’s in the Fields. Nice.”
“We went to a Lyons, for the fun of it,” Christine remembered. “Not the Corner House, the one near Marble Arch. We just wanted tea and crumpets, but it’s all divided into separate rooms, one for fish, one for meat, and so forth. Nothing that said tea. Except that I spotted a sign reading ‘Restful Tray,’ which proved to be where you got tea. It was so prototypically British.”
“They have their ways.”
“Listen, Jack, about an easy chair, which you said you want. Did they give you any extra material? They usually do. Not that we’d be able to match the fabric on this sofa, but at least it would give us the color tones. Don’t you think?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact, there was a plastic envelope with some material. I’ll get it now, before I forget. Be right back.”
“And bring it along with you tomorrow.”
“What’s this about tomorrow?” Rodney wanted to know.
“We’re going to look at that armoire. Maybe we can find some other things for this place at the same time.”
“Good, I’ll come along.”
“Darling, no. If you please. You’ll only get tired straight off, and want an early lunch. This is no laughing matter. Naturally Jack wants to
get everything he possibly can off his mind, so just let the two of us polish off the necessary, it will be so much quicker.”
“Well, if I’m not wanted.”
“You know better than that. I helped you, it’s Jack’s turn now.”
He returned with the material. Christine shook the fabric out of the envelope. “Oh, these are the arm pieces. See? Look, this is what you do with them, Jack.”
She got up, fitted the shaped pieces properly, stood back. “For what, though?” Jack asked. “It’s just another layer of material.”
“People run their hands down the arms of a sofa, or a chair, for that matter. They get soiled quicker than the rest. So you have these for protection, you have them cleaned whenever necessary.”
“I don’t think I like them, Christine.”
“Neither do I,” she admitted. “I never make use of them. To me, they’re simply antimacassars. Just keep them for match-up purposes.”
“So you’re going furniture hunting,” Rodney said. “I offered to go with you, do my bit, but Christine said nothing doing. I’d be in the way seemed to be the burden of her refrain.”
“I’m sure you want Jack to have a free mind too.”
“I still think it’s asking a hell of a lot. There are quite a few things I have in mind to look for. I’m afraid you’ll start looking askance. Why the hell am I wasting so much time on this dithering dolt?”
“I have more time than I know what to do with.”
“Somehow I can’t believe that.”
“It’s true.”
“Why, Christine?”
“I suppose it’s because I’m in the middle, like maybe when you’re writing a book, for example. There’s generally a beginning, a middle and an end. Or a play, perhaps. The first act is over, the last act is still to come and the second act is in progress. And this second act is not particularly action-filled. If I were in the audience I don’t think I’d bother to stay for the last act.”
“I’d suggest some revisions,” he said.
“So would I, but my mind’s a blank. Maybe it’s just a case of miscasting, the wrong person in the role. Maybe I wasn’t cut out for keeping home and hearth together.”
She was instantly aghast at what she had said. To a stranger. And with Rodney listening. A betrayal of sorts. Would he now report to his mother, via a transatlantic phone call, that her friend Christine Jennings seemed to be in some sort of snit?
“I didn’t mean a single word of that,” she cried, reaching for a cigarette. “Talking just to hear myself talk, that’s about it. What nonsense! I think I’m just showing off, trying to impress you, Jack, with flashy metaphors. By the way, those books you had published. You belittled them, rather, but could I read them? Or anyway, one or two of them? I meant to ask you before. May I?”
He hesitated. “I wouldn’t refuse, of course, and I’m far from ashamed of them, it isn’t that. I’d rather not, since they were outright potboilers, to make a quick buck, but I will because it would seem churlish and self-conscious to refuse when someone shows interest. The thing is I have no idea, until I can properly arrange my books, where my few little published gems are. As you can see — or maybe it isn’t immediately apparent — I just shoved them in the shelves helter-skelter, no organization at all. So — ”
“Another time?” he asked tentatively.
“Whenever, Jack.” She understood, or thought she did. He probably would feel exposed: she could sympathize with that. A writer must cringe at possible criticism. Maybe he was fearful his work would meet with lukewarm praise, dutiful encomiums. She thought that if she wrote a book and had it published she would probably hand it out to strangers on the bus, but then that situation wasn’t likely to arise.
“But thanks for asking, for being interested, Christine.”
“Needless to say, I’m interested too,” Rodney assured him. “As a matter of fact, it’s one of the reasons I scanned your books, I was hoping to come across something of yours.”
“Well, you’re not missing much for now, the big project is just getting under way. That will keep me busy for a while.” He looked uncomfortable. “I guess I am a little self-conscious about my output,” he admitted. “Defensive. Oh, well, shut up, Jack, come on, you two, drink up, we have to finish this brew. Rodney, let me fill your glass.”
“Thanks, Jack.”
“Christine?”
“Okay, seeing as how there’s just about enough for the three of us. I may be sorry later on, but right now it doesn’t seem to matter. And then, in a very short while, we must go. I must, at any rate.”
“I had hoped today would never end.”
“What a superlative host. Not one of those who already have their minds focused on cleaning up the dishes in the sink. Oh, must you go, here’s your hat.”
“I told you she was endless fun,” Rodney said, chortling.
“Have you two been talking about me?” Christine demanded. “When could that have been, may I ask?”
“On the phone. Monday, when Jack called. I told you we had a good chat.”
“And yes, we did talk about you,” Jack agreed, laughter behind his eyes. He did that sometimes. No overt smile, but in the depths of those deepset dark eyes a quiet amusement. He filled her glass, Rodney’s and then his own. The caviar, thanks to Rodney, was down to nothing but a scrape.
And the shadows were lengthening. She realized, with a kind of mild astonishment, that she would stay on for the evening, if Jack should suggest it. She would simply make a phone call home and tell them to manage dinner without her.
“Well,” she said briskly, finishing her drink and putting the glass back on the table. “May I use your John, and then, Rodney, we must go. Much as I regret putting an end to this utterly delightful afternoon.”
“You know where it is,” Jack said, rising. “Guest towels and all that.”
The bathroom now boasted a shower curtain. It must have been hard going, with all those rainbow-hued tiles. He had been canny, however. The shower curtain was in a pale yellow, with a design that was at first just a shadowy pattern of lines and curlicues but which, on closer inspection, proved to be a subtle mosaic of mouths, women’s mouths. At first almost indecipherable, their curved lips and dimpled chins popped out at you when you finally made out what they were. Smiling, soft, full-lipped mouths, delicate, gentle, and yet sensual and inviting.
Very amusing, she reflected. A little challenging too. He said he had no imagination beyond his authorship, but he had found this, and it was a first for her. It was — well, sexy, really. Of course maybe he had only wanted an almost plain shower curtain, with no discernible pattern, and so had chosen this without much thought or plan. Yet …
Very amusing, she thought again, and sat down on the seat, glancing round. There was a rack against the farthest wall which held two very large, very masculine terry towels in a mustard color, and a matching washcloth draped over the side of the tub. It was still damp.
There was also, next to the basin, a neat little row of fingertip towels, three of them, obviously the guest towels Jack had mentioned. One was yellow, one was violet and one Nile green. All of them were fringed and, when she looked, the label read ‘Cannon.’
It was somehow so touching. This man living alone, a man who had once been married, perhaps even very recently. He had asked people to come and visit him and then one of the things he had done in preparation, besides making his Planter’s Punch and buying the staples, was to lay out three pristine little towels in his bathroom. The amenities.
She washed her hands and picked up one of the towels, the one nearest the basin. It was the yellow one. She dried her hands and then, not folding the towel, replaced it on the rack. That way he would be sure it had been used, congratulate himself for his thoughtful provisions and know he had done the right thing.
Then she switched out the light and went inside again.
Their voices came to her on the way. Rodney’s voice at the moment, that correct, perfe
ctly modulated British voice that had a touch of the arrogant in it. She thought of Queen Elizabeth, those high-pitched, high-born accents, that mellifluous, monotonous drone. She couldn’t picture that woman engaged in fellatio, but one supposed she must do it all the same. Did a queen cry out when taken?
“Like The Magic Mountain,” Rodney was saying, very serious and pontifical, like some Oxford don. “Settembrini, you know, was to me simply such a tiresome bore. Of course I shouldn’t have read that book when I did, I understood practically none of it.”
Rodney swept back that abundant fair hair that sometimes Christine felt like anchoring with a bobby pin. He gestured, very studied and theatrical. “I think,” he said, “that certain books should be forbidden people until they reach the age of reason. Don’t you agree, Jack?”
“No,” Jack replied, shaking his head. “My feeling is that anyone of any age should have free access to all the libraries within walking distance. What makes no sense at one age will later on meet with comprehension. Ready or not doesn’t matter. It’s like coming across an old friend you might not have hit it off with years ago, but now you’re on the same wave length. That’s the way I feel about it, Rodney. Oh, hi, Christine, I have some ginger brandy around, we could get a little drunker on that. Someone gave it to me. I thought it looked like shit and was rather offended, but I find I like it very much. How about it?”
“Another time, Jack. It’s been a perfect afternoon, I’ve enjoyed every minute of it. Coming along with me, Rodney?”
“Righto.”
“So tomorrow morning, Jack? Ten-thirty at Sloane’s.”
“Eighty-fifth between Second and Third. See you there. I’m very grateful.”
He stood there on the landing as they walked down the carpeted stairs. He was still standing there when they let themselves out. She knew that because she glanced back up, just before closing the outside door. He was there looking down at them, leaning over the railing, an arm, in its striped shirt with the rolled-up sleeves, visible as well.
Classic Love: 7 Vintage Romances Page 11