What was this?
What was this? Why, she was having lunch with her friends. “You know, my women’s group.” Un-comprehension seized him and then, not much more than a second or two later, a peculiar feeling. A very peculiar feeling. His mouth felt dry. There could be an explanation? Jack too had called Christine. Jack was under some, sort of stress, worse than his, Rodney’s distress. Something so serious that Christine, ever the good Samaritan, had hurried over to see what she could do. Maybe Jack had pneumonia or something. Though that seemed unlikely at this time of year. Well, then, maybe he had a crise, some ghastly bit of news.
Like what? Rodney thought, chilled. And in any case why should Jack Allerton turn to a casual acquaintance for whatever ghastly news had fallen on him? Why? Would he turn to Rodney, who was also a casual acquaintance? How could either of them solve his problem, or whatever it was.
Very odd, thought Rodney, standing indecisive on the street. The man and the Schnauzer had long since passed, in fact had turned the corner at Second Avenue. What the bloody devil was all this about, Rodney pondered, but at the bottom of his mind was a cold and stony supposition that didn’t stay at the bottom of his mind for very much longer, but instead began to surface in quickening stages, like water flooding a basement floor, at first sluggishly and then with increasing rapidity.
Jack got there first.
This was put aside at once. No, he would not settle for that. And no, it was not possible. If it was, he would have guessed it, seen some signs. She would have tipped her hand in some way. Mentioned Jack inadvertently. Then flushed, been disconcerted. And he would have been alerted.
It just was not possible.
It took him a long time to acknowledge that yes, it was not only possible but even probable. The way she had slid out of his invitations, always returning to the tried and true, and safe for her. “Not today, I’m so sorry, Rodney, but I’m longing to see you, so please, please come to dinner, you name the evening.”
He felt a trifle faint. Dizzy and faint. There was a ringing in his ears, his head felt as if someone had tied a band round it and was pulling it tighter and tighter. It couldn’t be that way, he silently insisted. It simply could not be anything like that, he must be crackers to even give it a moment’s consideration.
In the next second his thoughts swung full circle to this conviction: his imagination had been running away with him. Your imagination is running away with you, he told himself. The situation he was picturing was — must be — out of the question, a by-product of his overactive preoccupation with Christine’s desirability. He had been fantasizing about her too much and now he could find no other reason for her to be visiting Jack Allerton than a sexual one. It was all in his mind.
Maybe it wasn’t Christine?
A hope that was dismissed almost at once. Reluctantly, but with resignation. He knew that of course it had been Christine going up those steps and vanishing into the doorway beyond. He might mistake someone else for her a block or so away, but —
It was Christine, all right.
He realized after a while that he had been standing, in the precise same spot, for something like fifteen minutes. Which meant that Christine had been, for those fifteen or so minutes, upstairs in Jack’s flat. What were they doing up there?
A wave of blind anger swept over him. There was hurt mixed in with that violent fury, but he subdued the hurt. The anger was what was sustaining him and he held on to it, which was not at all difficult, as the more he let the hostility build the more vehement it became. It was a way of protecting himself from the terrible letdown, the enormity of his loss. He was unconsciously casting himself in the role of betrayed lover: the fact that this was somewhat uncalled for escaped his attention. He simply would not sit still for this, he decided in a white heat of rage. He would just go up those steps himself and ring that doorbell. Which he would have done in any case a quarter of an hour ago had he not seen Christine precede him in her ascent.
Okay, here we go. You just bet I shall find out what’s going on. You just bet on it, my fine friends; we shall just haul out your dirty laundry; how will you like that?
Okay. He still stood there, however, his hands in his pockets and sketching out an opening gambit. Jack would answer the bell and he would open the door quickly, dash up the stairs to Jack’s landing before the chap knew what hit him. It would be too late for Jack to dissemble, because there would be Christine, large as life, and nothing either of them could do.
Apparently your friends were all at death’s door, Christine, and couldn’t make it for lunch today?
Why, Rodney. Her white face, her shaking hands.
He gained the flight of steps in front of Jack’s building and stopped. Suppose Jack answered the door in a bathrobe? Suppose Christine wasn’t in the living room. Suppose she was concealing herself in the bedroom, cowering there when she heard the familiar voice of her onetime lodger?
Rodney paled. If he were thus confronted so baldly and blatantly with such a contretemps, would he be able to handle it? Would he be able to deliver a speech heavy with irony, dripping with sarcasm?
Would he be able to say anything at all?
His heart began to pump away unpleasantly: abruptly he felt nauseated. For a ghastly moment he thought he might be about to barf. This compulsion was conquered by sheer force of his will, then another thought, heretofore not occurring to him, rushed into his mind. My God, if someone were at the window in Jack’s apartment they would be able to see him standing down here! He was in plain sight of anyone standing at the window!
This latest possibility sent him up the steps two at a time. At the top he hesitated, mentally feeling his way. On the one hand, if he had been seen from above he would have to go ahead and ring the bell. On the other hand, he was increasingly loath to face the truth. It seemed to Rodney that if Jack opened the door in a state of dishabille he would turn tail and make for the stairs again, speechless and ashen. Like a whipped cur.
He opened the outer door and stepped quickly into the vestibule. Chances were no one had been standing at the window. Also — a faint touch of cheer — if he, or she were at the window in the living room it would mean they were not in the bedroom.
Yes, what about that? A casual visit only, maybe on her way to meet her friends she was having lunch with them after all. And on an impulse had stopped in to see how Jack Allerton was doing, it could be that, couldn’t it?
Let’s think it over, he told himself, buying time. Perhaps after all it was nothing, an eerie coincidence only, and he was torturing himself for no reason.
Well, then? Shall we go ahead and ring the bell?
A finger hovering over the bell, Rodney saw in his peripheral vision a shadow to his left which, when he turned to look, proved to be someone coming up the steps from the street. Ah, Christ!
He had to make a hasty decision. Either press the bell or, if he after all was not going to, open the door and go out, make as if he had just left someone’s flat, was now departing. Which was it going to be, and it had to be fast because the person outside — it was a middle-aged woman — was at the top step now.
His uncertainty was the reason he finally pressed it. She came in too quickly for him to mull it over any longer. The fact that she gave him a thorough, comprehensive glance didn’t help matters any: she looked as if she were a suspicious sort, not happy about seeing a stranger standing in her vestibule.
“Good morning,” he said, and plunged his finger down on the bell.
She said, “Good afternoon,” and made an elaborate fuss about finding her keys, groping in her handbag and keeping her eye on him. The keys appeared to be elusive, she was fishing about in the depths of her bag, shuffling through its contents. Rodney had heard a few New York stories: people — particularly women — didn’t like to open the door with an unknown person — particularly an unknown man — standing outside on the threshold.
“Why don’t you ring it again,” she suggested, edging a little closer to the outer doo
r. He gave her a look of utter hatred. This lady seemed intent on making things even more difficult for him.
He rang again, and his mind shifted suddenly from the woman as he realized that when someone rings your doorbell you generally didn’t take all day to answer it, unless you were in the bath, and if Jack had a visitor he wouldn’t be in the bath, would he? The only reason Jack wouldn’t answer the doorbell if he had a visitor — which in this case happened to be Christine — would be that he simply did not want to be disturbed.
There was still no response to either of Rodney’s rings.
“Patently,” woman said, “patently your friend is not at home.”
“Yes, patently,” he echoed, abusing her mentally for only a second or two and then too infuriated with the status quo to give her another thought. “Thank you,” he said, and let himself out. This time he took the steps slowly, funereally, walking down with stately steps with his legs feeling heavy and thick. Into his turbulent muddle of thoughts popped the story of “The Little Mermaid.” by Hans Christian Andersen, where the lovely little sea nymph, falling in love with a mortal, prayed for limbs instead of her fish tail, so that she might be mortal too. She got her legs, but pain along with them, as every step she took proved to be excruiating agony.
Well, he had fallen in love with a mortal too, though he had thought of her as goddess (with a few earthly appetites). Just a mortal after all, weak and designing and corrupt. They were up there and they hadn’t answered the bell. Was any further corroboration needed?
He was all purpose now. He was Nemesis, shadowing a sinner. She would not go unscathed. He took up a position at the foot of the street, on the corner of Second Avenue, which was nearer Jack’s building than Third. He would bide his time, and bide his time he did, even though his legs began to feel more and more like the little mermaid’s after an hour or so of shifting from one foot to the other. Also his eyes, from constant concentration on that building up the block, were strained and bleary.
There was a pizza store across the avenue. He would like a slice, not that he had the slightest desire to eat, it would probably stick in his throat, but simply to help pass the time and take his mind off his misery.
There was no question of his leaving his post, however. That would be foolhardy. Nevertheless, when his watch told him it was now past two, he surrendered to hunger pangs, telling himself that the body had to be refueled; it was a matter of obeying the laws of nature.
The phrase, laws of nature, suddenly made him want to pee. If he were a street urchin in Naples he would go ahead and pee against the wall of the corner building. Hell. Well, he wasn’t going to pee, he wasn’t going to leave this spot, and that was final. He tightened his sphincter and determination, and the compulsion passed.
A kid, about nine or ten, crossed the street and reached the place where Rodney was standing. He stopped the kid. “I say,” he hazarded. “I was wondering — you see I have to stay here, I can’t move, I’m on the watch for someone. It’s very important, don’tcha know.”
He reached in a pants pocket and pulled out a handful of change. “I was wondering if you would be so kind as to go in that pizza place and bring me back a slice?”
“You want a slice? One enough?”
“One will be fine. Thank you very much. Here’s the money, then.” He counted out two dollars in quarters and dimes, handed it over. “You won’t mind?”
“Nope. You gave me too much.”
“Oh. That’s perfectly all right. You keep whatever is left for yourself. I do thank you.”
“Be right back.”
It wasn’t long before he returned, skipping across the avenue. “Here ya go,” he said, tough and streetwise. “This is left over, you want me to keep it?”
“Yes, of course, of course. And many thanks.”
“You a cop? Plainclothes?”
“A cop?”
The kid smirked knowingly. “Okay, let it go,” he said. “Your business. Good luck, I hope you catch him.”
Then he bounced off and Rodney, hooking the Alexander’s bag over an arm, folded the slice the way he had learned to do and ate it, saving the end crust for the last; all the while keeping his eyes on Jack’s building. It couldn’t be long now, he thought wearily, she’s been there for over two hours.
The kid had thought he was a cop. Plainclothes. Maybe that would make his day. He probably watched crime shows on the telly one after the other and today was sure he had met a real live Avenger. He should have asked that boy to get him a Coke too, now he was thirsty.
Half an hour later, at a little after three, Rodney gave up the ghost. The spirit was willing but the flesh was weak. It was asking too much of his muscles and his feet and his fortitude. He felt utterly defeated, weary and impotent. He had tried, but he wasn’t up to another minute of this death watch. It was all for nothing, he had stood here, like one of the guards at Buckingham Palace, to no end. All he knew was that Christine Jennings was still in Jack’s flat and they weren’t answering the doorbell.
With a long last, bitter look up the street he left the corner and crossed to the other side of the street, no destination in mind but heading uptown because he lived uptown and he supposed he might as well go home now. He could scarcely believe his eyes when, at that precise moment, two people came out of the house he had been watching, two people who were, mirabile dictu, Christine and Jack. They came out, stood for a brief moment at the top and then, hand in hand, walked down the steps, with Christine’s handbag dangling from one arm and Jack saying something to her. Her face was upturned and even from this distance he could see the warm coral lips curved in a smile.
Rodney, tense and hugging the corner building for concealment, stared bugeyed, wanting to take in everything he could and yet fearful of being spotted. They stood, Christine and Jack Allerton, at the bottom of the steps for a moment, as if conferring about something, then he saw Christine nod. Right after that they turned left and strolled up to Third, close together and hands brushing.
Stunned and sick, Rodney — his eyes strained and a crick in the neck from the prolonged vigil — walked up Second, in his mind a monotonous, thudding refrain. Guilty as charged. Guilty. Guilty as charged. So. Well, there you were. They had been tried and found guilty. As charged.
He was very well aware that none of this was his business, that what he had discovered was none of his concern. He was ashamed and disgusted at his half-baked adoration of Christine Jennings, like a kid crush, a dumb pash. He was ashamed and disgusted with his self-image and felt he would not be able to face himself in a mirror. He was a wog and a jackass and he wanted to go home. Back home, where home really was.
But he had his pride. He had said a year and, by Christ, it would be a year. He would find a good whorehouse and learn the ropes and then he would go to every singles bar in Manhattan and lay a different girl every night.
He would show her.
First he would go to San Francisco, find his way around another town. He would do something spectacular right away, right away fast.
Where had his bravado gone? His urbanity? His nonchalance? He felt sick at his stomach again, and then his eyes smarted, which galled him almost to the breaking point. Tears too?
When he let himself in his flat the place mocked him. Everything in it was practically labelled with the person who had helped him find these pieces. The Vogue poster, the Steinberg New Yorker cover taking up a whole side wall. The Brown Jordan settee and the Beylerian stackers and the brass étagère. The Saarinen chair.
It had started out so splendidly. Hello, Rodney, my dear, kiss kiss. And where shall we have lunch today, love? He had even, at odd and sundry times, felt sorry for Carl Jennings who, when Christine fell prey to the inevitable, would be a thorn in his conscience. After all Carl was Mum’s friend as well as Christine.
Woolgathering, all of it woolgathering. Dreams of glory. He felt himself a pitiable object, a clod, with neither machismo nor clout of any kind. He was a British Holden Cau
lfield, he belonged in a nursery, riding a rocking horse.
Be that as it may, he would get his digs in. She had said she would call him tonight. If she didn’t he would call her.
He would most assuredly get his digs in.
And then cut her out of his heart.
19.
The telephone rang at a quarter to eleven. “Who’s calling at this hour?” Carl asked.
“For Nancy, one supposes.”
“Or another wrong number. You notice how often that’s happening lately?”
“Um hum.”
Right after that Nancy came to the doorway of the living room. “For you, Mother, it’s Rodney.”
“Rodney? Oh, gosh, I promised to call him this evening. He’ll be reproachful. I’ll take it in my bedroom, Nancy.”
She lit a cigarette on the way. He’d be reproachful, of course. Lonely, he’d said this morning. Well, we must do something about that. When did I ask him to dinner, or didn’t I say?
“Rodney, I’m very sorry,” she said, picking up the receiver. She settled herself on the side of the bed and heard the other extension click off. “I said I’d call, didn’t I? I’m afraid the time got away from me. Now what is this about your not being up to par, hum? First, though, you are coming to dinner this week? How about Friday, is that all right for you?”
“Under the circumstances it would seem contraindicated,” he said, sounding like one of Carl’s medical colleagues. She laughed, amused. “Contra-indicated, Rodney? Why so?”
“You can’t guess?”
“Guess what?”
“What it means, what I said.”
“You’re not making much sense,” she pointed out, then added, the thought suddenly occurring to her, “Rodney, are you drinking?”
“No, I’m not drinking.”
“You seem to be somewhat incoherent, however. Do you mean you have a date on Friday and that’s why it’s contraindicated? But bring your date, I’d be delighted. So what’s the problem?”
“I do hope you don’t mind my calling this late, Christine.”
Classic Love: 7 Vintage Romances Page 28