Plexus (56 page)

Exhausted by this unintended flight, Caccicacci took leave abruptly in embarrassment and confusion. We who had listened in silence remained seated in the corner by the window. No one seemed able to summon breath for a few minutes. Arthur Raymond, usually immune to such disquisitions, looked from one to another defiantly, ready to pounce upon the slightest provocation. Spud Jason and his “consort” were already three sheets to the wind. No argument coming from that quarter! Finally it was Baronyi who broke the ice, remarking in a gentle, perplexed voice that he had never imagined Caccicacci to be so serious. Trevelyan groaned, as if to say—“You don't know the half
of it!” Then, to our stupefaction, without the slightest preliminary, he launched into a long monologue about his own private troubles. He began by telling how his wife, who was not only pregnant but mad, mad as a hatter, had tried to strangle him in bed while asleep just the night before. He confessed, in his bland, suppressed, underdone way—he was British to the core—that he had certainly treated her abominably. He made it painfully clear that from the very beginning he had loathed her. He had married her out of pity, because the man who had made her with child had run out on her. She was a poetess and he thought highly of her work. What he couldn't abide was her moods. She would sit for hours, knitting woollen socks which he never wore, and never a peep out of her. Or, she would sit in the rocker, doing absolutely nothing, and while swaying back and forth would hum, hum for hours. Or, she would suddenly get a talking jag, corner him in the kitchen or the bedroom, and fill him with dreamy stuff which she called inspiration.

“What do you mean—dreamy stuff?” asked O'Mara, grinning maliciously.

“Oh,” said Trevelyan, “it might be about fog, fog and rain … how the trees and bushes looked when the fog suddenly drifted away. It might be about the color of fog, all the shades of gray which she could discern with her catlike eyes. She had lived on the coast of Cornwall during her childhood—they're all a bit loony there—and she would relive her walks in the fog, her experiences with goats and cats, or with the village idiot. In these moods she talked another language—I don't mean a dialect, I mean a language of her own which no one could understand. It used to give me the creeps. It was a sort of cat language, as best I can describe it. She yowled now and then, a real yowl that made your blood curdle. Sometimes she imitated the wind, all kinds of wind, from a gentle breeze to a ripping gale. And then she would snuffle and weep, trying to convince me that she mourned the flowers
which had been cut down—the pansies and the lilies particularly, they were so helpless, so defenseless. Before you know it she would be walking through strange places, describing them intimately, as if she had lived there all her life. Places like Trinidad, Curacao, Mozambique, Guadeloupe, Madras, Cawnpore and such like.
Eerie?
I'll tell you, I thought for a while she had second sight.…
By the way, couldn't we have another drink?
I haven't a farthing, as you probably know.…

“She's a queer one, all right. And a bloody, obstinate cuss, too. Get in an argument with her and you're doomed. She knows how to block all the exits. You're trapped, once you start in with that one. I never realized that women could be so utterly logical. It wouldn't matter what you were discussing—odors, vegetation, diseases or sunspots. Hers is always the last word, no matter what the subject. Add to all that, a mania for detail, a mania for minutiae. She'll sit at the breakfast table, for example, with a broken petal in her hand, and she'll examine it for an hour. She'll ask you to concentrate on a minute piece of this petal no bigger than the merest sliver of a splinter. Claims she can see all sorts of curious and wondrous things in this piece of nothingness. All with the naked eye, mind you. Her eyes are not human eyes, by God. She can see in the dark, of course, even better than a cat. She can see with her eyes closed, believe it or not. She demonstrated that to my own satisfaction one night.
But what she can't see is the other person!
She looks right through you when she talks to you. She sees only what she is talking about, whether it's fog, cats, idiots, remote cities, floating islands or floating kidneys. In the beginning I used to grab her by the arm and shake her—I thought perhaps she was in a trance. Nothing of the sort! Just as wide awake as you or I. Even more awake, I'd say. Nothing escapes her. ‘Did you hear that?' she says sometimes, right in the middle of a sentence. ‘Hear
what?'
Maybe a cake of ice slipped just the fraction of an inch in the icebox. Maybe a leaf just fell to the
ground in the back yard. Maybe a drop of water dripped from the kitchen faucet.
‘Did you hear that?'
I'd jump whenever she said it. After a while I began to think I was growing deaf—she gave such importance to these inaudible nothings. ‘It's nothing,' she'd say, ‘it's just your nerves.' And with all that she has absolutely no ear for music. All she hears is the scratching of the needle: her pleasure is derived solely from detecting whether the record is an old one or a fairly new one, and how new, or how old. She can't tell the difference between Mozart, Puccini and Satie. She likes hymns. Dingy, melancholy hymns. Which she always hums with a seraphic smile, as if she were already among the angels. No, really, she's the most detestable bitch imaginable. There's not a spark of joy or gaiety in her. If you tell her a funny story she's bored. If you laugh she's outraged. If you sneeze you have bad manners. If you indulge in a drink you're a sot. … We've had intercourse—if you can call it that—about three times, I guess. She closes her eyes, lies rigid as a pole, and begs you to get done with it as quickly as possible. Worse than raping a martyr. When it's over she gets a pad, props herself up in bed, and writes a poem. To purify herself, I suppose. I could kill her sometimes.…”

“What about the brat?” O'Mara piped up. “Does she want the child?”

“Search me!” said Trevelyan. “She never mentions the subject. It might just as well be a tumor, for all it seems to matter. Now and then she says she's getting too stout … she wouldn't say ‘fat,' that's too coarse.
Stout
. As though it were strange to be blowing up like a balloon when you're seven months along”

“How do you know she
is
pregnant?” asked Spud Jason sleepily. “Sometimes it's only imaginary.”

“Imaginary, huh! I only wish to Christ it were; she's pregnant all right.… I've felt it moving inside her.”

“It could be wind,” said someone.

“Wind doesn't have arms and legs,” said Trevelyan,
getting irritated. “Wind doesn't roll over or have conniption fits.”

“Let's get out of here,” said Spud Jason. “You'll be giving this one ideas,” and with this he gave his sidekick a poke in the ribs that almost knocked her off the chair.

As if it were a game they played time and again, Alameda rose quietly, walked round him, then gave him a resounding thwack on the face with the palm of her hand.

“So that's it?” cried Spud Jason, leaping from his chair and twisting her arm. With his other hand he grabbed her long mane and pulled it vigorously. “Behave yourself, or I'll blacken your eyes for you!”

“You will, will you?” Alameda was brandishing an empty bottle.

“Get out of here, the two of you!” shouted Mona. “And don't come back again,
please!”

“How much do I owe you?” said Spud Jason sheepishly.

“You don't owe anything,” said Mona. “Just get out and stay out!”

To my surprise MacGregor dropped in one night, ordered a drink, and paid for it without a murmur. He seemed unusually mellow. Inquired solicitously how we were doing, what the prospects were, did we need any help
—legal
help—and so on. I couldn't make out what had come over him.

Suddenly, when Mona had turned her back, he said: “Couldn't you pull yourself away for a few hours some night?”

Without waiting for me to say yes or no, he went on to
tell me that he was in love again, head over heels, in fact. “Guess you can tell it, can't you.” She was a funny gal, in a way, he explained. A divorcee, with two kids on her hands. “How do you like
that?”
He then said that he wanted to impart something very confidential. He knew it was hard for me to keep my trap shut, but just the same.… “Tess, you know, doesn't suspect a thing. I wouldn't hurt her for the world. Damn it! Don't laugh! I say it only because you might spill the beans some night in one of your chivalrous moods.”

I grinned.

So that was the setup. Trix, the new one, lived in the Bronx. “To hell and gone,” as he put it. He was out every night till three, four or five in the morning. “Tess thinks I'm gambling. The way the money's going I might just as well be out shooting crap every night. But that's neither here nor there. What I'm asking you is—can you steal away some night, just for a few hours?” I said nothing, just grinned again. “I'd like you to look her over… tell me if I'm cuckoo or not.” Here he paused a minute, as if embarrassed. “To focus it a little better for you, Hen, let me tell you this: every night after dinner she gets the kids to sit in my lap, one on each knee. And what do you think
I
do? Tell them bedtime stories!
Can you picture that?”
He burst out into a loud guffaw. “You know, Hen, I can hardly believe it myself. But it's a fact. I couldn't be more considerate of them if they were my own kids. Christ, I've already brought them a whole menagerie of toys. You know, if Tess hadn't had her insides cleaned out, we would have had three or four brats ourselves. Maybe that's one of the reasons why we've drifted apart. You know Tess, Henry—she's got a heart of gold. But she's not much to talk to. Interested in her law work and that's about all. If I stay home of a night I fall asleep. Or else I get drunk. Why the hell I ever married her I don't know. You, you bastard, you never said a word: you let me sail straight into it. Thought it would do me good, didn't you? Well,
I'm drifting.… You know, sometimes, listening to myself, I hear my old man talking. He can't stick to the point longer than two minutes. Mother's the same way.…
How about another drink?
I'm paying for them, don't worry.”

There was silence for a few moments, then I asked him point-blank just why he was so eager to have me meet his new gal. “I know damned well,” I added, “that you don't want my approval.”

“No, Hen,” and he looked down at the table top, “to be serious about it, I wanted you to come for dinner some night when the kids are eating with us and….”

“And what?”

“And give me some pointers about these damned fairy tales. Kids take these things seriously, you know. I have a feeling I'm doing it ass-backwards. Maybe I'm telling them things they oughtn't to hear till they're five years older.…”

“So that's it?” I blurted out. “Well, I'll be damned! And what makes you think I know anything about this business?”

“Well, you had a kid of your own, didn't you? Besides, you're a writer. You're up on this crap, I'm not. I start a story and I don't know how to finish it. I'm all at sea, I tell you.”

“Haven't you any imagination?”

“Are you kidding? Listen, you know
me
. All I know is law, and maybe not too much of that. I've got a singletrack mind. Anyway, it's not just for that I want you to come.… I want you to meet Trix. I think you'll like her. Boy, she's some cook! Tess, by the way—well, I don't have to tell you—but Tess can't even fry an egg. This one'll make you think you're dining at the Ritz. She does it with class. She has a bit of a cellar, too—maybe that will get you. Listen, what are you hemming and hawing about? I'd like you to have a good time, that's all. You've got to have a change once in a while. O'Mara can take over for
a few hours, can't he? That is, if you trust him! Personally, I wouldn't trust him out of my sight.…”

Just then Tony Maurer popped in, carrying a thick book under his arm. As usual, he was extremely cordial. Took a seat at the table alongside of us and asked if we wouldn't join him in a drink. He held the book up in order for me to read the title:
Decline of the West
.

“Never heard of it,” I said.

“You will before long,” he answered. “A great work. Prophetic.…”

MacGregor burst in under his breath: “Forget it! You have no time to read anyway.”

“May I borrow it when you're through?” I asked.

“Of course,” said Tony Maurer. “I'll make you a present of it.”

MacGregor, to excuse himself, inquired if it were a mystical work. He wasn't a damned bit interested, of course, but he saw that Tony Maurer was not an idiot.

Told that it was a philosophy of history, he mumbled: “It's all yours!”

We had a couple of drinks with Tony Maurer, and by this time I was feeling rather high. It was just dawning on me that we might have a very good evening, or dinner at least, chez Trix. Trix Miranda was the full name. I liked the sound of it.

“Which bedtime story do they like best?” I asked.

“Something about the three bears.”

“You mean
Goldilocks and the Three Bears?
Why, Jesus, I know that thing backwards. You know, I'm just thinking… how would the night after next do?”

“Now you're talking, Henry. I knew you wouldn't let me down. By the way, you don't have to, of course, but if you could bring a bottle of wine along, Trix would appreciate it. A French wine, if you can.”

“Easiest thing in the world! I'll bring two or three.”

He got up to go, and as he shook hands with me he
said: “Do me a favor, will you? Don't get tight before we put the kids to bed.”

“It's a bargain. And now I'll ask
you
a favor. Let
me
tell them the story about the three bears, eh?”