Collected Fiction

by Irwin Shaw

  “You’re awfully cold-blooded, darling,” Archer said. He was unpleasantly disturbed by the news that anyone wanted to marry Jane, but he had sense enough not to bring up the subject.

  “Mother understands,” Jane said. “Don’t you?”

  “Yes, dear,” Kitty said placidly.

  “Anyway,” Jane said, “I gave him a life preserver. I told him if he wanted to take a chance he might drop in for an hour later. If he promised not to yearn.”

  “Some day,” Archer said, “some man is going to make you pay for this.”

  “I dare them,” Jane said coolly. “I just dare them.”

  “Oh,” Kitty said. “Dominic Barbante kept calling all afternoon for you, Clement. He wants you to call him.”

  “I’ll call him,” Archer said. “Later.”

  “He said to call him as soon as you came in,” Kitty said. “He sounded impatient.” She looked inquiringly at Archer. “Is anything wrong?”

  “No,” Archer said. “Nothing.”

  “You look tired,” Kitty said. “Did you have a bad day?”

  “No, not at all,” Archer said. “I just wandered around.”

  “Why don’t you take a little nap?” Kitty asked. “You really look dreadfully tired, Clement.”

  “I’m not tired,” Archer said, his voice louder than he expected it to be. Women, he thought, are convinced that one way of showing a man they love him is by telling him how badly he looks from time to time. “I feel fine.”

  “Dad,” Jane said, putting down her scraped plate reluctantly, “what are the distinguishing characteristics of a thirty-year-old woman?”

  “What?” Archer looked at her puzzledly.

  “I want to know how a thirty-year-old woman acts,” Jane said. “In all situations.”

  “Why don’t you wait and find out?”

  “I can’t,” Jane said. “I have to know next week.”

  “She’s in a play at school,” Kitty explained. “And she has to be aged for it.”

  “Oh,” Archer said. “What’s the play?”

  “The Male Animal,” Jane said. “I’m the wife of a professor.”

  “Why don’t you watch your mother?” Archer said. “I guarantee she’s thirty years old.”

  “Don’t be ugly,” Kitty said.

  “I thought about that,” Jane said candidly. “I’ve been watching her for an hour.”

  “Well?”

  “She just acts like everybody else. Anyway, she’s just Mother, I can’t make head or tail out of her.”

  “I’m mysterious,” Kitty said. “I’m an enigma in a dressing gown. I’m a pregnant enigma.”

  Archer grinned. “I understand your problem, Jane,” he said gravely. “I wouldn’t be able to describe the way the old lady acts myself. And I’m in the business.”

  “What makes it worse,” Jane said, “is she’s supposed to be funny. It’s a comedy and she’s supposed to make you laugh.”

  “Act very serious,” Archer said. “That’ll have them roaring.”

  “I have to act exactly twelve years older,” Jane said soberly. “It’s not easy.”

  “No it isn’t, darling,” Archer said. He felt touched and curiously moved as he looked at his daughter, sturdy and troubled on the sofa next to his wife, pondering on the problem of seeming exactly twelve years older than she was, reaching uncertainly out to capture the signs and portents of maturity. “Well,” he said, “I’ll try to help. Before you go on the stage,” he said reflectively, “consider your troubles, because that’s what makes people thirty years old. Think of how hard it is to make both ends meet on a college instructor’s salary. Think of how differently your husband acts now, after so many years of marriage, from the way he did when you first met him. Worry about his complexion and if he’s getting enough exercise and if he remembers to wear a coat in the springtime when the weather is changeable. Look in the mirror before you go downstairs for dinner and search for wrinkles and wonder if the wife of the chemistry professor who’s coming to dinner is prettier than you. Worry about what you said to the dean’s wife at the last Community Chest meeting and whether she was offended. Be annoyed at the dress you have to wear because it’s the year before last’s and the length of the skirt isn’t right. Go into the nursery and look down at the baby and wonder if he’s coming down with the measles and if he is going to grow up and be bored with you and if he’s going to be killed in the next war …”

  “Clement!” Kitty said sharply. “Don’t be morbid.”

  “I’m sorry,” Archer said, displeased with himself for allowing his mood to expose itself this way. “I was just running on.”

  “But, Daddy,” Jane wailed, “none of this is practical.”

  “I suppose not,” Archer said wearily. “I’ll try to think of something better over the week-end.”

  “I’ll call Vic,” Jane said. “I’ll bet he’ll have dozens of hints.”

  “I bet he will.” Archer stood up slowly. He peered at his daughter. “You’re not planning to become an actress, are you?”

  “Oh, no,” Jane said carelessly. “It’s just to break the utter boredom. Why? Would you object?”

  “Yes.”

  “Clement,” Kitty said warningly. She had nervous theories about allowing children to develop themselves.

  “Why?” Jane asked.

  “Because one person who depends upon the ups and downs of public favor is enough for one family,” Archer said.

  “Don’t worry, Dad,” Jane said. “I intend to marry and have four children. Let my husband worry about the ups and downs of my favor.”

  “Excellent,” Archer said. “I approve. Now I’m going to go upstairs and try to nap.”

  “Will you call Barbante?” Kitty said. “I promised him faithfully.”

  “I will call Barbante,” Archer said. “Faithfully.”

  He went out of the room.

  “I’m going to have just one more insignificant, imponderable piece of cake,” Jane said as he left.

  Archer lay down on one of the twin beds. He closed his eyes. The lids felt weighty and hot. The hell with Barbante, he thought. I’ll call him tomorrow. I’ve done enough for the radio industry today.

  He fell asleep quickly, as though he had been exhausted for a long time. He began to dream. Jane was in the dream, in a short, little-girl’s dress, smudged with chocolate cake. There were many boys around Jane and she had a lot of papers in her hand. The papers were like the ones that Archer had marked term grades on when he was teaching in college. Jane had a fountain pen in her hand and she began to mark the papers. Zero, she put down on sheet after sheet, zero, and boy after boy disappeared. Then Jane was a woman of thirty, in a mink coat, looking like Frances Motherwell, and there were grown men around her. She was still marking papers. The faces of the men swam into the dream. O’Neill, Hurt, Pokorny, Atlas, Herres, Archer. “You’re too yearny,” Jane was saying, and she marked zero, zero, on the papers, dropping them on the floor. One by one the men vanished. Archer was the last one left. “You’re utterly weary-making,” Jane said and put a zero on Archer’s sheet. Archer dissolved in the dream. Zero.

  “Clement. Clement.” It was Kitty, bending over him, and shaking his shoulder softly. “Wake up.”

  “Zero,” Archer mumbled, blinking.

  “What?” Kitty asked.

  Archer shook his head to clear it. “Nothing,” he said. “I was dreaming.”

  “Mr. Barbante’s downstairs,” Kitty said. “I said you were sleeping, but he said he’d wait.”

  Archer sat up. “Have I been asleep long?”

  “A half hour,” said Kitty.

  “How long has Barbante been here?”

  “Twenty minutes. I told him you were tired and I wouldn’t disturb you for awhile. If you don’t want to see him, I’ll tell him you’re not feeling well.”

  Archer swung his legs over the side of the bed. “I’ll see him,” he said wearily. He went into the bathroom and rubbed his face with col
d water, waking himself up.

  He put on his jacket and went downstairs, leaving Kitty in the bedroom. Kitty was standing in front of the mirror, staring speculatively at herself.

  7

  ARCHER WENT TOWARD HIS STUDY, FROM WHICH HE HEARD THE SOUND of Jane’s voice.

  “Soda or water?” He heard Jane say and then Barbante’s voice, very precise and actorish, answering, “Water, please. I always take water.” He opened the door. Barbante was sitting in the big chair, fluent in a dark suit, tapping a cigarette on his gold case. The bottle of Scotch in Jane’s hand seemed, to Archer, incongruous and vaguely disturbing.

  “Hello,” Archer said, coming into the room.

  “Daddy,” Jane looked up from the bar. “I’m entertaining for you.” She finished mixing the drink.

  “Hello, Clement,” Barbante said, getting up politely. “She’s doing it handsomely, too.”

  Archer shook hands with Barbante. “Glad to see you, Dom,” he said, trying to sound as though he meant it.

  “I was passing by,” Barbante said, seating himself again, balancing his glass on the arm of the chair. “And I thought I’d take a chance and drop in. There’re one or two things I have to talk to you about.”

  Archer sat down, conscious suddenly of the heavy smell of Barbante’s toilet water in the room. God, he thought, that man leaves a trail wherever he goes. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here,” Archer said, “when you called …”

  “Perfectly all right.” Barbante waved graciously. “It gave me a chance to become acquainted with the charming member of the family.”

  “Daddy,” Jane said, “can I make you a drink?”

  “No, thank you,” Archer said. He really wanted one, but he preferred not to have the scene too cosy and friendly.

  “I think I’ll have a Martini,” Jane said. She looked obliquely at Archer, half-daring him to object. She had been permitted to drink for the last two years, but only a little wine before and during dinner, and this, as far as Archer knew, would be her first Martini.

  “Here,” Barbante said, standing up and going over to the little bar, where Jane was irresolutely facing the collection of bottles, “let me make it. I have an objection to lady bartenders. Old family prejudice. Roughens the hands and coarsens the female spirit. You just get a glass, Jane,” he said easily, “and sit down and leave the rest to me.”

  My, Archer thought, putting up a cloud of smoke, he really makes himself at home fast. Twenty minutes and he’s taking over the bar, ordering the child around … Archer watched Barbante deftly mix the drink, his large gold cuff links flickering expensively over the shaker. Jane brought him a glass and Barbante rewarded her with one of his slow, enigmatic, ambassadorial smiles. Jane sat down on the couch near the bar and watched him seriously.

  “There,” Barbante said, giving Jane the brimful glass. “Salut.”

  “Salut,” Jane said self-consciously. “This is an utterly delicious Martini.”

  How would she know, Archer thought resentfully; why does she have to put on these grownup airs?

  “I was telling Jane about my father’s ranch, before you came in,” Barbante said, seating himself with his glass. “In California. About the roundup in the spring when the range begins to go dry and the drive up to the pastures in the mountains for the summer …”

  “He’s a cowboy, Daddy,” Jane said. “He can rope a steer.”

  “That must come in very handy,” Archer said, “at the Stork Club.”

  Barbante laughed easily.

  “You’d never guess he was a cowboy,” Jane said. “He looks so urban.”

  “Dom,” Archer said, “what is it you wanted to see me about?”

  “Oh, yes,” Barbante said. “Jane,” he turned familiarly to the girl, “don’t you think you’d better go up and dress? You can finish your drink while you’re doing your face.”

  “I’ll be down in a flash,” Jane said, standing obediently, subtly flattered at the conception of herself among the company of women who did their faces with the aid of alcohol.

  “Are you going out?” Archer asked.

  “Yes, Daddy,” Jane said. “Mr. Barbante has two tickets for the ballet tonight and he’s invited me. And he’s going to give me dinner. Isn’t he a nice man?”

  Barbante, the ever-ready man, Archer thought, roaming the world with two tickets to something in his pocket at all times, always ready for any emergency.

  “Didn’t you have a date for tonight?” Archer asked, not looking at Barbante. “With Bruce?”

  “We left it up in the air,” Jane said carelessly. “I’d rather go to the ballet, anyway.”

  Poor Bruce, Archer thought.

  “Look,” Barbante said, “if your boy-friend—what’s his name …”

  “Bruce,” Jane said, standing at the door.

  “If Bruce shows up,” Barbante went on, “why don’t you leave a message for him? Tell him to meet us for a drink after the theatre. Say, the Oak Room of the Plaza, about eleven-fifteen.”

  “Daddy,” Jane said, “if Bruce happens to call, will you tell him?”

  “I’ll tell him.” Archer nodded. “The Plaza. Eleven-fifteen.”

  “I’ll just be a minute,” Jane said, starting out of the room, carefully holding her drink.

  I’ll bet she pours it down the drain, Archer thought, as soon as she gets upstairs. “Darling,” he said, “will you tell your mother we’ll be alone for dinner?”

  “I’ll pass on the happy news,” Jane said. She went out, leaving Archer vaguely annoyed at her flippancy. She wasn’t flippant with him at other times. Young people, Archer thought, turning to Barbante, invariably pick the most unpleasant techniques of appearing adult.

  “A delightful child,” Barbante said, making it sound like an official proclamation. “So fresh and unspoiled.”

  “Yes,” Archer said bleakly. “You said you had one or two things to talk to me about …”

  “Oh, yes.” Barbante rolled the ice around in his glass. Say, listen, amigo, what’s this about Pokorny?” He looked curiously at Archer.

  “What about Pokorny?” Archer asked carefully, trying to figure out instantaneously how much to tell Barbante.

  “He called me today,” Barbante said, “and I went down to see him. He’s sick in bed.”

  “What’s the matter with him?” Archer said, stalling for time.

  “Cold, grippe, general dissatisfaction with life,” Barbante said. “Viennese weltschmerz.”

  “I’ll call him tomorrow,” said Archer, “and see how he’s doing.”

  “He’s really in bad shape,” Barbante said. “Not only from the cold.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “He told me you fired him,” Barbante said. “Is that true?”

  “Not exactly,” Archer said. He filled a pipe and took a long time lighting it, conscious of Barbante’s eyes on him, critical through the thick lashes. “We’re trying someone else. Temporarily.”

  “Who?”

  “We haven’t decided yet,” Archer said.

  “Amigo,” Barbante said, pretending to be hurt, “you are going into the old agency double talk. I never thought I’d live to see the day.”

  I wish he’d stop calling everybody amigo, Archer thought, resenting the short, richly dressed, self-confident man with his gold appointments and his familiar manners. We all know he comes from California and his family is of old Spanish stock; he doesn’t have to remind us in every sentence,

  “Actually, Dom,” Archer said, keeping his voice friendly, “Pokorny is a big grown man. He can take care of his own problems.”

  “Actually, amigo,” Barbante mimicked Archer’s tone, “Pokorny is not a big grown man. He’s a naked, unhappy child and he’s been through a lot and he has a tendency to fall to pieces over his problems, as you call them.”

  “Still,” Archer said stubbornly, angry with Barbante because everything Barbante had said was true, “I don’t see where you come into the picture.”

/>   “Well,” Barbante drawled, getting up and pouring himself some more of Archer’s whiskey, “for one thing, I’m his friend, if he can be said to have any friends. For another thing …” Judiciously he dropped a cube of ice into the glass and poured a few drops of water on top of it “…it’s to my advantage to see that the show does as well as it can.” He smiled agreeably at Archer. “From a purely crass, materialistic basis, you understand. When the rating goes up, I buy my hardware at Carrier’s. When the rating goes down …” He shrugged and seated himself, once more, crossing his legs deliberately, exposing a gold buckle on his garter. “I might have to start handling cattle again.”

  “Don’t give me that, Cowboy,” Archer said shortly. “You’re one of the top writers in the business and you’ll do all right, no matter what.”

  Barbante chuckled. “Don’t sound so gloomy about it,” he said. “You don’t begrudge me my sordid little success, do you?”

  “Of course not,” Archer said hastily. He looked at Barbante. The expression on Barbante’s face was cold and amused. He would gladly do me harm, Archer thought, if he had a little more ambition.

  “I have a more personal interest, too,” Barbante said, veiling his eyes. Fleetingly, Archer wondered, if Barbante, too, was mixed up in Pokorny’s politics. Oh, no, he thought. I mustn’t start that. “Pokorny and I,” Barbante said, “are collaborators.”

  “I know you are,” Archer said. “After all, I got you together.”

  “I don’t mean only on University Town. We’re writing a musical comedy together. In the spare time we steal from the air waves.”

  “I’d like to hear it when you get through with it,” Archer said politely. “I’m sure it will be very good.”

  “Maybe.” Barbante smiled deprecatingly. He took a long drink. “It’s about the West.” His smile continued into a chuckle. “You’d be surprised how Western your friend Pokorny can be. The spirit of Texas, New Mexico and Nevada in every bar. And he’s never been past Buffalo.”

  “He’s a very talented man,” Archer said.

  “He certainly is,” said Barbante. “That’s why I’m curious about his losing his jobs.”

  “What do you mean jobs?” Archer asked, noting the plural.