Classic Love: 7 Vintage Romances (29 page)

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 Caulfield, 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.

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.”

“I don’t mind. You should know, having lived with us, that we don’t go to bed with the chickens.”

She smiled. “You’re mad at me for not calling you tonight when I said I would. Please forgive me, dear. The time somehow got away from me. You know how it is sometimes. So you’ll come on Friday with a girl, all right? Is it Jeannie or a new girl?”

“I don’t have a new girl, I don’t want a new girl, I don’t want any girl at all and I’m going to San Francisco.”

“Does your mother know that?” she asked sharply.

“Why are you going to San Francisco?”

“Because this town’s Sodom and Gomorrah, that’s why.”

“When did you discover that?” she asked dryly.

“Today.”

“Rodney, I’m sure you’re drinking and you’ll end up sick as a dog. We’re coming right over. Carl and I will be right over. In the meantime don’t take another swallow, you hear?”

His voice suddenly had something ugly in it. Some weird undertone that came over the wires when he answered. “Don’t come over,” he said, in that strange, hard, ugly voice. “I won’t open the door to you.”

“Rodney, my God, what is this all about?” she demanded, really alarmed. “What could possess you to say a thing like that? What could possibly — ”

“Christine? I just thought I’d ask you if you enjoyed your lunch today. Your lunch with your friends. The women’s group, I believe you said.”

The tone of his voice and the sudden switch to her day’s activities, which should be of no import or interest to him, gave her pause. Did it mean that he was, for some petulant reason, really angry at her for not cancelling the plans she said she had, was he actually going to hold that against her? He had said, to be fair, that he was not up to par — did it mean that he was in some kind of emotional dither, the way kids got into so suddenly, with their lightning changes of mood?

“Yes, I did,” she said slowly. “Why do you ask? That is to say, Rodney, why do you ask something like that at this late hour?”

“Oh,” he replied. “I thought you said you weren’t jarred by a call at this hour.”

“Something’s wrong,” she said flatly. “Something’s wrong and I want to know what it is, Rodney. I’m waiting, love. If you don’t tell me what it is, I promise Carl and I will hop into a cab and if you don’t let us in I’ll call the super.”

“One moment,” he said. Clear and distinct. “Just one moment, if you please, Christine.”

“Yes. Go ahead. Speak up, Rodney. I want to know what’s wrong with you, what you’re talking about.”

“I’m talking about your group lunch,” he said. “Your group lunch on Sixty-first Street. With a mutual friend, name of Jack Allerton.”

“I beg your pardon?” she said, a flutter setting up in her chest. “Would you mind repeating that?”

“Why would you want me to repeat it, Christine?”

“You’re right, I don’t want you to. What I do want is that you retract it. Unsay it, Rodney. I have no idea what you think you know but I assure you you’re barking up the wrong tree. And now, if you don’t mind, apologize, please. Apologize and say you’re sorry.”

“A pleonasm,” he informed her. “Apologizing and saying you’re sorry is the same thing.”

“Don’t trifle with someone who’s your good and true friend, and don’t be rude and uncouth, you were brought up better than that. Rodney, how dare you be unkind to me, who loves you! Flooding me with accusations, how
could
you?”

“How could
you
?” he countered, and the recollection, nothing at all but now meaning so much, flashed in on her. The bell rang: “Aren’t you going to answer it, Jack?”

“Not expecting any deliveries these days,” he said. “It’s just someone who forgot their keys, they want to be buzzed in. I won’t do that, uh uh. It’s just the way goons get in, you can’t be too careful in these brownstones. Well, you must know that, you lived in one once.”

“How could you is more to the point,” Rodney went on. “I saw you, Christine. I saw you going in there. I was on my way to his flat myself, wanting some company, which you had denied me, and there you were, just ahead of me on the street. I saw you going in. And now I know you’re having an affair with him.”

“Whatever you saw, or whatever you think you saw, is meaningless,” she said, her voice hard and determined. “Also
— also
, if I
were
having an affair with someone it would have nothing whatever to do with you. Don’t interfere in my life, Rodney, don’t ever do that. I’m sorry you felt called upon to spy on me, and I’m sorry your imaginings led you to believe that I was at Jack Allerton’s today. When I tell you I’m going to do something, that’s what I’m going to do, and if you should happen to think otherwise, why it’s unfortunate as well as insulting. I’m a big girl, Rodney, and I conduct my life as I see fit. It’s time, high time, that the same should apply to you. That is, if you want to attain the status of a responsible adult.”

“Are you telling me you weren’t
there
?” he asked belligerently.

“I’m telling you that I was having lunch with my friends at a midtown restaurant and that’s what you’re going to accept.”

“Can you explain why I should accept it?”

“Because I insist you do. A final period after that, Rodney. I’ll try not to hold this against you, because your mother is a cherished friend of mine. But you’ve succeeded in hurting me deeply, as well as blemishing yourself in my eyes because of your flagrant intrusion into my private life.”

At the other end of the line silence now. He was there, though, the wires still hummed. After a second or two she said, “Rodney?”

“Yes, what?”

“Did you understand what I said?”

“Very well indeed. You want me to keep my mouth shut.”

She closed her eyes. God. Who would have thought? Rodney. Upsetting the apple cart. She knew now that Jack had been right. “He’s in love with you too.”

Of course she had sensed it, his youthful admiration, the goo-goo eyes. It was such an
everyday
occurrence. Such a dreary cliché, a young boy responding to an older woman who somehow put ideas, all unwittingly, into his head. Rodney had gotten it into his mind that he might charm her into some sort of flirtation, innocent or otherwise, but at least something he could dream about, a love object, maybe not available but
there
, where he could give into his fantasies.

And then, somehow, he had come to know about her and Jack. Had seen her today. Had actually
seen
her.

And now he was vengeful.

She cleared her throat. “I want you to act like a decent human being,” she said quietly. “And that, my friend, is that. Either you give me some assurance that you
can
behave in such a manner or else you bow out of our lives. I can’t have it any other way. If you want to think about it, do so, then call me when you’ve made your decision. And now, Rodney, I’m going to say good night.”

She didn’t hang up right away. She waited, to give him time to recollect himself. It didn’t appear to be going to happen, so she started to put down the receiver.

“Don’t hang up,” he said quickly.

“I’m still here.”

“You want me to apologize for what’s only the truth?”

She said, “Good night, Rodney.”

“No. Wait. I apologize. I apologize because — ”

“It doesn’t matter because why. You’ve apologized and I take it you mean it.”

“At the same time it’s bitter fruit,” he said in a defeated voice. “I just would like you to understand that.”

“I just would like
you
to understand that it’s of no importance to me what your opinion is. And if that’s bitter fruit too, there’s plenty of that in a lifetime, as we all come to discover. One thing more, Rodney. In spite of this breach of friendship and good faith you’re still part of our lives. If you wish to be. You’re Peggy’s son, and at heart a fine boy, only you’ve gone into spheres that don’t have anything to do with you. We’ll skip dinner on Friday, because it’s better for both of us to wait for a while. Just the same, try to remember that you are very much loved by me and my family, always will be. And now go to bed.”

She waited, but nothing more seemed to be forthcoming.

“Good night, Rodney,” she said, and put down the receiver.

She hadn’t bothered to switch on a lamp when she came in. The room had sufficient illumination from the light that shone in from out of doors. She was glad to be sheltered in shadows, the way she felt and the way she knew she was going to feel when she had been able to sort this all out. Her heart was pounding away, she could see its acceleration stirring her shirt.

How could such a rotten coincidence come about, that Rodney had been on his way to Jack’s today too. How sick and sad and besmirched she felt, how robbed.

There was a slight sound from the other bed, a faint creak of springs. She turned slightly. “Who’s there?”

Carl’s voice. “Me.”

“How long have you been in here?”

“Long enough,” he said. “I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, I thought you knew I was here.”

“I didn’t know, but it’s all right. This is your room too.”

“Also my life. What’s up Christine?”

“You must have heard. And now you know.”

“Do I? All I heard was denials.”

“There was nothing to do but deny. It’s nothing to do with him. Just me. Us.”

“You are seeing someone else, then?”

“Yes, I have been.”

“Somehow,” he said quietly, “somehow, in my fatuous way, I never anticipated anything like this.”

“I never anticipated anything like this either.”

“What happens now?”

“Nothing. Unless you want a divorce.”

“Why would I want that?”

“You’ve just learned that your wife is having an affair with another man. That’s considered A-one grounds for divorce.”

He didn’t say anything. She didn’t know whether he was sitting stiffly, as she was, or lying down, what his face looked like, what expression he wore, if it was angry or wounded or uncomprehending. “It wouldn’t change things to say how sorry I am that you had to know about this,” she told him. “But I am sorry, terribly, agonizingly sorry, Carl. That you had to be hit over the head so swiftly and brutally. I never wanted to hurt you, just as I never wanted you to hurt me. And now I have.”

“You sure have,” he said then. “You sure as hell have. I must have been cockeyed not to have sensed something was going on. Seventeen years — you think you know someone. Especially if you’re a fatuous ass like me. You don’t expect anything to go wrong.”

“I never have stopped loving you,” she said. “Maybe you won’t be able to believe that. But it’s true.”

“You must admit it isn’t the easiest thing to believe.”

“Carl, this has happened to other couples and it will happen until the end of time. I can’t demand that you live with it, though, I realize that.”

“Do
you
want a divorce?”

“I don’t know what I want. Maybe to be dead.”

A creak of the springs again as he rose and came over to her, sat down beside her. “Would you like a cigarette?” he asked.

“Yes.”

He got up again. “Be right back, I’ll get some from inside.”

“Don’t turn on the light.”

“I won’t.”

When he returned he lit one for her and positioned the ashtray on the bedside table. Then sat down. “Please don’t say that again,” he said urgently. “That maybe you want to be dead. And please don’t think of me as the enemy.”

“The enemy? You? I should think I would seem the enemy,” she cried.

“Neither of us should think that. No matter what’s happened, or what will happen. For God’s sake, darling, we’ve been in each others’ lives for a long, long span of years. Two intelligent, caring people. I know you’re not, and couldn’t be, a promiscuous woman, so what I meant was if you consider that I’d be standing in your way, if you’re into something that’s more than just, just an affair — ”

He looked down and then up again and went on. “If that should be the case, then — ”

“Are you telling me that you’d step aside? Or are you saying that you want to? You can’t hack the status quo and you want out. For which I assure you I wouldn’t blame you, Carl. There are lots of things we don’t know about each other, just as there are lots of things we don’t know about ourselves. Surprises are constantly in store. God, I didn’t really believe I’d get to be this age, but here I am, things being taken away from me bit by bit, things you always took for granted. I’m a figurehead, I’m an empty paper bag, I have no place in the scheme of things.”