My American

by Stella Gibbons

  “Hullo? Supper’s all ready.”

  He came slowly across to her, and stood looking down at the page covered with round untidy writing.

  “Don’t you ever use a typewriter?”

  “No, I hate them. Shall we have supper now?”

  “If you’re ready.”

  He set a chair for her at the table and they sat down, facing one another across the bowl piled with fresh leaves and yellow fruit, and the sophisticated squat shapes of the alcohol bottles. He poured out two drinks, then leant back and sipped his own in silence while Amy put the food on to the plates.

  He was soothed by the shower and the rest, but he was still deathly tired; too tired to talk; certainly too tired to notice how unlike the usual meaningful silence of a man and a girl in an unusual situation was the unembarrassed quietness in which they were eating. They might have been two old friends seeing each other through a bad time. And although he had lifted his glass—how many times!—in a toast to how many pretty girls in the past, to-night it never even entered his head to raise it to her in silence, with a smile. Yet dimly he felt grateful to her for not talking, for moving so quietly and being so pretty, like a bright-eyed little bird.

  She’s nice to be with. Kind of restful, he thought, slowly and dazedly eating his food.

  The clock softly struck ten as Amy got up.

  “Do sit on the divan. I’m only going to make coffee,” she told him.

  The strong coffee roused him a little, and when they had been sitting on the divan drinking it in silence for a while, he said:

  “I came here to borrow twenty dollars from Boone. That was all I could think about. I just thought: I’ll get twenty dollars from Boone, and eat, and get some shoes, and then maybe something’ll turn up. Now he isn’t here, I don’t know—I can’t think ahead. I suppose it’s because I’m so tired.”

  “Please, may I lend it to you?”

  “No, thanks, Miss Lee, I guess not.”

  “But why not?”

  “Because you’re a girl.”

  “I can’t see that that matters.”

  “Well, maybe it doesn’t. I don’t know. All I know is, I’ve done a lot of darn queer things in the last few months but I haven’t taken to sponging on women—yet.”

  “I think that’s silly. A … a friend is a friend, whether they’re woman a or a man.”

  “So you’re my friend, are you?”

  “Well, please, I’d like to be,” said Amy, turning red but speaking composedly. “I like Lou so much, and you’re her brother. I should like to help you, if I could.”

  “That’s fine of you,” he answered, while his sad young eyes rested steadily upon her earnest face. “But I don’t think anyone can do anything, now. Nothing seems to matter. I’ll see the girls to-morrow, because—well, there doesn’t seem any reason why I shouldn’t see them. But I don’t know what I’ll do after that.”

  There was a lengthy silence, during which he leant back against the wall with his arms behind his head, staring past Amy at the sparkling lights and scarlet neon signs above the avenue. But she had a strong feeling that he wanted to talk, and presently she said timidly:

  “Why didn’t you come to see your brother before?”

  “I only got into New York yesterday morning. I hitchhiked from Harrisburg. I had a job there, but I walked out.”

  “Why?” she ventured to ask, still timidly.

  “Well——” He suddenly took his arms from behind his head, and folded them as he turned to look at her. “Miss Lee, please tell. Just how much do you know about me?”

  For the first time in years Amy resisted the instinct to lie, for she longed that there should be nothing between him and herself but the truth.

  “I only know what Lou told me,” she answered at once. “She said that you—you killed a little girl in a car smash and injured a little boy, and then you went crazy because the trial wasn’t a fair one. She said you let a gangster fix the jury, so that you got off, and then you went away with the gangster afterwards.”

  “I was yellow,” he said in a hard voice. “I couldn’t go on living in Vine Falls, knowing I’d got off through a crook lawyer and a fixed jury. So I went off with Dan Carr. Yes, that’s right.”

  “Is that the gangster?”

  He glanced at her quickly. “That’s a big thrill for you, isn’t it? For weeks I lived with gangsters. Now you feel you’re more my friend than ever, don’t you?” And he gave her a miserable smile.

  “It doesn’t make any difference at all to the way I feel,” she answered quietly. “But I can’t help wondering what the gangsters are like. Anybody would.”

  “Oh——” he said impatiently. He got up and helped himself to a cigarette, then sat down beside her again. “They aren’t so different as all that from ordinary people. There’s only one big difference.”

  “What?”

  He glanced at her in surprise. “Why, they kill. They don’t care if they kill. That’s the big difference, isn’t it? You needn’t be afraid” (she was watching him with her eyes widened and her lips parted) “I didn’t kill. I didn’t see much of that sort of thing while I was running around with Dan, either. Dan’s a particular kind of guy; he has his killing done for him. He doesn’t like things all mussed up; he likes things tidy.” He spoke almost indulgently, as if making excuses for someone he knew well whose peculiarities he had learned to accept.

  “You don’t hate him, then?”

  “Why should I? He can’t help being what he is. Nobody can.”

  “Well, you said you walked out of a job in Harrisburg. I thought you might have had a row with him.”

  “That job wasn’t with Dan. It was playing the piano for two bucks a night in a dive. I left Dan weeks ago. I haven’t seen him since.”

  “Why did you leave him, if you don’t hate him?”

  He did not answer for a minute, but sat staring at the cigarette he held, moving his lips once or twice as if he were trying to find his way to the expression of a difficult thought. At last he said:

  “Have you ever seen anyone dead?”

  Amy started.

  “I saw my mother, when I was a little girl.”

  “Oh, I don’t mean dead like that, lying tidily in a coffin with everybody upset and people praying. I meant just dead. Alive one minute, and then dead on the floor. Smashed up, and nobody taking much notice.”

  She shook her head.

  “I have.” He bent forward and knocked the ash off his cigarette. “I saw a man killed. That was what made me leave Dan.” He was quiet for a little while, then he said as if to himself:

  “All that marvellous machinery, smashed up. That was what finished me.”

  “Did Dan kill him?”

  “No. (I told you Dan never kills.) He and I were in a joint one night run by a pal of Dan’s, and a man got bumped off for squealing. He was sitting at a table with a girl, laughing, and a man walked in and shot him through the face.”

  Amy leaned a little closer. She did not shudder.

  “They pulled him out of the way behind a curtain in a corner and put a tablecloth over him. He wasn’t dead. We had to sit there as if nothing had happened. We sat there for half an hour, while he was dying. I heard him. It was the first time I’d ever heard a man die. I wanted to do what I could for him. You see, my job is—my job was going to be saving life. That’s a doctor’s work, isn’t it? So I guess that made me want to help, even more than just a natural instinct. But Dan wouldn’t let me.”

  “Wouldn’t let you?”

  “He covered me with his gun until the man was dead. He said he deserved to die for squealing, and he’d die anyway, whether I helped or not. So we sat there staring at each other for half an hour, until the man was dead.

  “I’m glad you didn’t try to help. You might have got killed yourself.”

  “Oh, Dan wouldn’t have killed me. He was laughing. I think he enjoyed the whole thing. He used to like watching the way I reacted to the things they took
for granted. He’s a queer guy.”

  “I think he sounds horrible,” she exclaimed violently.

  “Well, he had a raw deal as a kid. He was clever, but there wasn’t anyone to do anything for him. He wanted power more than anything in the world and the only way he could get it was by turning gangster. He quite understood how I felt about that man dying. The next day I said I was going, and he never even tried to stop me.”

  “Wasn’t he afraid you’d tell the police about him and the gang?”

  “Of course not. Why should he be? He and I were kids together; I couldn’t squeal on Dan.”

  “But you won’t go back to them again, will you?” said Amy, comforted by the detached way in which he spoke of his life with the gangsters but longing to hear him say in so many words that he would never return to it.

  He shook his head.

  “I told you, seeing that man shot finished me. I talked with Dan for hours (he talked, rather, and I listened. He loves talking). I made him see I wasn’t their sort and never could be. He was sorry. He wanted to make a super-crook out of me, I guess. He says crooks only fail because they’re stupid and uneducated. He’s got a great respect for education and culture. It’s queer.”

  “I think he sounds a beast,” repeated Amy stubbornly.

  “We’re all beasts,” he said gently, leaning back and looking at her. “But don’t worry. I’m never going back.”

  “Oh, I am so glad,” she said, curling her feet under her, with a long sigh.

  “Are you?”

  His grave, lingering gaze travelled slowly, with a pleasure that he had not known for months, over the fineness of her white skin and dark hair, her tiny ear, the brilliance of her long-shaped eyes. And she was so clean! like a freshly-washed and powdered child.

  “Yes. I was so afraid you’d go back.”

  “Well, you needn’t be.” And suddenly he put his hand over her own and held it tight, and they stayed like that for a moment, quite still.

  Amy knelt like a Japanese girl, her eyelashes lowered, staring at the big hand with unkempt nails that covered her own. The whole side of the divan sagged under his weight, though hers hardly moved it, and all his manhood, the strangeness of his presence there, seemed concentrated in that heavy clasp on her hand. It was the first time that a young man had ever touched her, and yet she was not trembling. Her hand crept out slowly until her fingers lay on his wrist, and then she made a little stroking movement as though trying to comfort him but still she did not look up, and when he began to pull her gently towards him, at the same time making room for her, she turned her head away; and when, trembling at last, she lay down against his side and he drew her close so that her head rested on his shoulder, she had not once looked at him.

  “You don’t mind?” he asked in a low voice.

  She shook her head. He could see her heart-beats shaking the dark red silk of her jacket.

  “Are you comfortable like that?”

  Again she nodded. The room was very quiet. Outside, the lights flashed and quivered through the weary summer night and there was no slackening of the noise in the streets, but the room only seemed to sink deeper into its enchanted hush because of the city’s sleeplessness.

  After a little while he went on softly, as if he were beginning to feel drowsy:

  “When Dan and I were kids (you don’t mind if I talk, do you? I haven’t talked in weeks, not to anybody) he lived back of our place, and there was an old rail fence round their cabin, with a hole in it. I used to go through there when I wanted to go shooting with him. I was always crazy to get on the other side of that fence. Dan’s folks were bootleggers; I was only a kid, and that thrilled me. I’ve often thought about that hole in the fence since everything went smash. I’m on Dan’s side of the fence now, and I can’t get back.”

  “But you haven’t done anything. You did go away with Dan, but you didn’t kill anyone.”

  “I only killed one kid and put out another’s eye,” he retorted bitterly.

  “You didn’t mean to. And anyone can see how sorry you are!”

  “It wasn’t killing the little girl that put me on the wrong side of the fence. It was letting my father hire a crook lawyer to defend me, and letting Dan fix the two people on the jury who didn’t know me and might be difficult. I’m not a balanced enough type to be a doctor. That’s why I can’t ever go back to my home town, or study to be a doctor again.”

  “You could if you tried. If you went back now——”

  “It would be hell.”

  “But you won’t feel better until you have gone back!” she cried, suddenly lifting her head and looking up at him. “Nothing can ever make you feel better except going back to Vine Falls and being with all the people who know you, and working to be a doctor again. That’s the only thing to do.”

  “I know it!” he answered violently. “I’ve known it ever since that night when I went off with Dan. But if I did go back——”

  He paused, and a long silence followed.

  “Nothing could ever be the same,” he said at last.

  “Why not?”

  “Because I’m a different person. I used to have everything worked out so neat and tidy. Now I’m not sure about anything. I’m not even sure about what’s right and what’s wrong. I’ve been on the wrong side of the fence, and I can’t be comfortable on the right side any more——”

  Then she interrupted him, sighing and moving a little closer to him because she was beginning to feel sleepy:

  “But a doctor has to know about everything, doesn’t he?”

  After the words had sounded through the hush in the room, there was a very long silence. He sat quite still, holding her against his breast and staring across her dark head at the restless quivering lights, and the simplicity and truth of what she had said sank deeper and deeper into his soul, until the words reached the beautiful truths that he himself felt lingering there in the darkness, the truths that he could live by. He continued to stare at the harsh lights with eyes that found it more and more difficult to keep awake, and suddenly the sweetness of hope broke over him, and he caught Amy close and put his face against the black softness of her hair.

  The movement awoke her from a light sleep, and she opened her eyes to see above her the face that had come to her in the dream in London. It was smiling at her, as it had smiled then, but now the eyes were wet.

  “It’s you,” she murmured, putting up her fingers and gently touching his cheek. “How lovely. I was dreaming.”

  “Go to sleep again, darling. I will, too.”

  And the last thing she saw, before she lay down beside him and fell into sleep as deep and peaceful as his own, was his arm stretched over her head to put out the light. The long cool wind from the sea, blowing the torn paper along the deserted streets in the blue light of early morning, did not awaken them.

  CHAPTER XXII

  AT SEVEN O’CLOCK the noises in the street roused Amy. She cautiously moved her cramped limbs and turned to see if he were awake, but he was still deeply asleep, breathing heavily with arms flung behind his head, looking exhausted and young. She slid carefully off the couch and went into the kitchen to put the coffee on over a low current, then to the bathroom to take her shower. All the time she was washing and dressing she thought of nothing but being quiet, for he was so tired! he must have his sleep out; but while she was brushing her hair in the bedroom a muffled shout came from the next room, and she dropped the brush and ran in to him, her black hair floating loose.

  “What is it—what’s the matter?” she gasped.

  He was crouching on the divan, staring at her dazedly.

  “Do you feel bad?” She knelt beside him and put her arm round his shoulders.

  “I dreamt I was fighting,” he answered hoarsely, and turned his face against her breast. After a silence he sighed deeply and said:

  “I’m sorry I frightened you.”

  “That’s all right. Are you better now?”

  He nodded, smil
ing faintly up at her. She moved away and got off the divan.

  “I’m so hungry again. Sorry.”

  “The coffee’s nearly ready.”

  “Don’t you have tea for breakfast? I know English people usually do.”

  “Oh, I like coffee sometimes. This morning I’ll have it.”

  While she spoke she was twisting up her hair, holding the pins in her mouth, and he was leaning back, watching her with eyes that were still dazed from his nightmares. Suddenly he said:

  “I know who you are now, you’re the Swimming Girl, of course, that’s who you are.”

  “Pardon?” said Amy, dropping a coil of hair and staring at him, while her voice, in her alarm, went straight back into the thin polite cockney accent of twelve years ago.

  “It’s all right. Nothing; I guess I was still dreaming,” he answered more naturally but with a little embarrassment. “Can I take a shower now, if you’ve had yours?”

  “Oh, yes, and then breakfast’ll be ready,” she answered, and was making for the kitchen to finish dressing herself and sort out her feelings in solitude, when he picked up a tress of her hair and kissed it without looking at her.

  “Please kiss me, will you?” he muttered and suddenly put his arms round her.

  “I’m sorry, I can’t help it, you’ve been such an angel to me, you’re so sweet and lovely,” he said, kissing her mouth and eyes and hair.

  “It’s all right——” she said breathlessly, “I—I like you to, as a matter of fact——”

  “Do you? Oh, darling!” And he lifted her off her feet.

  “The coffee’s boiling over!” Amy twisted round quickly, suddenly overcome with shyness and fear. “Oh, please let me go!”

  He let her go at once.

  “You aren’t mad at me, are you?”

  “Oh, no,” said Amy, retreating backwards into the kitchen, “only you see, nobody ever kissed me before and—and it’s all a bit strange at first, that’s all,” she ended in a mutter, snatching the coffee off the stove.