Part 36 (1/2)
”No, don't you bother,” he said. ”I'll get it.”
He went toward the bedroom. Mrs. Allen started to follow, then thought of Dr. Langham and stayed where she was. The Doctor would surely consider it somewhat lenient, to go into the bedroom with him, the minute he came back.
He returned, carrying the suitcase.
”Surely you can sit down and have a drink, can't you?” she said.
”I wish I could, but I've really got to go,” he said.
”I thought we might exchange just a few gracious words,” she said. ”The last time I heard your voice, it was not saying anything very agreeable.”
”I'm sorry,” he said.
”You stood right there, by the door-and very attractive you looked,” she said. ”I've never seen you awkward in your life. If you were ever going to be, that was the time to be it. Saying what you did. Do you remember?”
”Do you?” he said.
”I do indeed,” she said. ” 'I don't want to do this any more, Maida. I'm through.' Do you really feel that was a pretty thing to say to me? It seemed to me rather abrupt, after eleven years.”
”No. It wasn't abrupt,” he said. ”I'd been saying it to you for six of those eleven years.”
”I never heard you,” she said.
”Yes, you did, my dear,” he said. ”You interpreted it as a cry of 'Wolf,' but you heard me.”
”Could it be possibly that you had been planning this dramatic exit for six years?” she said.
”Not planning,” he said. ”Just thinking. I had no plans. Not even when I spoke those doubtless ill-chosen words of farewell.”
”And have you now?” she said.
”I'm going to San Francisco in the morning,” he said.
”How nice of you to confide in me,” she said. ”How long will you be away?”
”I really don't know,” he said. ”We opened that branch office out there-you know. Things got rather messed up, and I've got to go do some straightening. I can't tell how long it will take.”
”You like San Francisco, don't you?” she said.
”Oh, sure,” he said. ”Good town.”
”And so nice and far away, too,” she said. ”You really couldn't get any farther off and still stay in America the Beautiful, could you?”
”That's right, at that,” he said. ”Look, I've really got to dash. I'm late.”
”Couldn't you give me a quick idea of what you've been doing with yourself?” she said.
”Working all day and most nights,” he said.
”That interests you?” she said.
”Yes, I like it fine,” he said.
”Well, good for you,” she said. ”I'm not trying to keep you from your date. I just would like to see a very small gleam of why you've done what you have. Were you that unhappy?”
”Yes, I was, really,” he said. ”You needn't have made me say it. You knew it.”
”Why were you unhappy?” she said.
”Because two people can't go on and on and on, doing the same things year after year, when only one of them likes doing them,” he said, ”and still be happy.”
”Do you think I can be happy, like this?” she said.
”I do,” he said. ”I think you will. I wish there were some prettier way of doing it, but I think that after a while-and not a long while, either-you will be better than you've ever been.”
”Oh, you think so?” she said. ”I see, you can't believe I'm a sensitive person.”
”That's not for the lack of your telling me-eleven years' worth,” he said. ”Look, this is no use. Goodbye, Maida. Take care of yourself.”
”I will,” she said. ”Promise.”
He went out the door, down the hall, and rang the elevator bell. She stood holding the door open looking after him.
”You know what, my dear?” she said. ”You know what's the matter with you? You're middle-aged. That's why you've got these ideas.”
The elevator stopped at the floor, and the attendant slid the door back.
Guy Allen looked back, before he entered the car. ”I wasn't middle-aged six years ago,” he said. ”And I had them then. Goodbye, Maida. Good luck.”
”Have a nice trip,” she said. ”Send me a picture postcard of the Presidio.”
Mrs. Allen closed the door and went back into the living room. She stood quite still in the middle of the floor. She did not feel as she had thought she would.
Well. She had behaved with perfect coolness and sweetness. It must have been that Guy was still not over his common illness. He'd get over it; yes, he would. Yes, he would. When he got out there, stumbling up and down those San Francisco hills, he would come to his well senses. She tried a little fantasy; he would come back, and his hair would have gone gray all in a night-the night he realized the anguish of his folly-and gray hair would not be becoming to him. He'd come back to eat crow, yes, and she'd see that he did. She made a little picture of him, gray and shabby and broken down, gnawing at a leg of cold crow, which she saw with all its feathers left on it, black and s.h.i.+ning and disgusting.
No. Fantasy was no good.
She went to the telephone and called Dr. Langham.
The New Yorker, December 14, 1957.
The Bolt Behind the Blue.
Miss Mary Nicholl was poor and plain, which afflictions compelled her, when she was in the presence of a more blessed lady, to vacillate between squirming humility and spitting envy. The more blessed lady, her friend Mrs. Hazelton, enjoyed Miss Nicholl's visits occasionally; humility is a seemly tribute to a favorite of fate, and to be the cause of envy is cozy to the ego. The visits had to be kept only occasional, though. With the years, Miss Nicholl grew no less flat in the purse and no more delightful to the eye, and it is a boresome business to go on and on feeling tenderness for one whose luck never changes.
Miss Nicholl worked as secretary to a stern and sterling woman. For seven hours a day she sat in a small room lined with filing cabinets where at half-past twelve precisely was put upon her desk, next to her typewriter, a tray set forth with the produce of the stern and sterling one's favorite health-food shop. The job was permanent and the lunches insured Miss Nicholl against constipation, yet it is to be admitted that her daily round lacked color and height. Those were fine occasions for her when, her work done, she might cover her typewriter and go to call on Mrs. Hazelton, to tread the gleaming halls, to sit in the long blue drawing room, to stroke the delicate c.o.c.ktail gla.s.s and warm her spirit in its icy contents.