Rich Man, Poor Man (7 page)

She lights a last cigarette, takes off her robe, the cigarette hanging carelessly from her lower lip, and gets into bed. She lies there smoking. She will sleep a few hours. But she knows she will wake when she hears her husband coming heavily up the steps, rank with the sweat of his night’s work and the whiskey he has drunk.

The office clock stood at five to twelve. Gretchen kept typing. Since it was Saturday, the other girls had already stopped working and were making up, ready to depart. Two of them, Luella Devlin and Pat Hauser, had invited her to go out and have a pizza with them, but she was in no mood for their brainless gabble this afternoon. When she. was in high school she had had three good friends, Bertha Sorel, Sue Jackson, Felicity Turner. They were the brightest girls in the school and they had made a small, superior, isolated clique. She wished all three of them or any one of them were in town today. But they all came from well-off families and had gone off to college and she had found no one else to take their place in her life.

Gretchen wished that there were enough work to give her an excuse to remain at her desk the whole afternoon, but she was typing out the final items of the last bill of lading Mr Hutchens had put on her desk and there was no way of dragging it out.

She hadn’t gone to the hospital the last two nights. She had phoned in and said she was sick and had gone home directly after work and stayed there. She had been too restless to read and had fussed over her entire wardrobe, washing blouses that were already spotlessly clean, pressing dresses that didn’t have a crease in them, washing her hair and setting it, manicuring her nails, insisting on giving Rudy a manicure, although she had given him one just the week before.

Late on .Friday night, unable to sleep, she had gone down into the cellar where her father was working. He looked up at her in surprise as she came down the steps, but didn’t say anything, even when she sat down on a chair and said, ‘Here, pussy, pussy,’ to the cat. The cat backed away. The human race, the cat knew, was the enemy.

‘Pa,’ she said, ‘I’ve been wanting to talk to you.’

Jordache didn’t say anything.

‘I’m not getting anywhere in this job I have,’ Gretchen said.

And once the war is over, they’ll be cutting down and I’ll be lucky if I can hang on.’

The war’s not over yet,’ Jordache said. There’s still a lot of idiots waiting that have to be killed.’

“I thought I ought to go down to New York and look for a real job there. I’m a good secretary now and I see ads for all sorts of jobs with twice the pay I’m getting now.’

‘You talk to your mother about this?’ Jordache began to shape the dough into rolls, with quick little flips of his hand, like a magician.

‘No,’ Gretchen said. ‘She’s not feeling so well and I didn’t want to disturb her.’

‘Everyone’s so damn thoughtful in this family,’ Jordache aid. Warms the cockles.’

‘Pa,’ Gretchen said, ‘be serious.’

‘No,’ he said.

‘Why not’

“Because I said so. Be careful, you’re going to get flour all over that fancy gown.’

‘Pa, I’ll be able to send back a lot more money… ‘

‘No,’ Jordache said. When you’re twenty-one, you can fly off anyplace you want. But you’re not twenty-one. You’re nineteen. You have to bear up under the hospitality of the ancestral home for two years. Grin and bear it.’ He took the cork out of the bottle and took a long swig of whiskey. With deliberate coarsness, he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, leaving a smudge of flour across his face.

‘I’ve got to get out of this town,’ Gretchen said.

There are worse towns,’ Jordache said. ‘Ill see you in two years.’

Five minutes past twelve, the clock read. She put the neatly typed papers in the drawer of her desk. All the other clerks were gone. She put the cover on her typewriter and went into the washroom and stared at herself in the mirror. She looked feverish. She dabbled some cold water on her forehead, then took out a vial of perfume from her bag and put a little on under each ear.

She went out of the building and through the main gate, under the big sign, ‘Boylan’s Brick and Tile Works’. The riant and the sign, with its ornate lettering that looked as though it advertised something splendid and amusing, had been there since 1890.

She looked around to see if Rudy was by any chance waiting for her. Sometimes he came by the Works and walked her home. He was the only one in the family she could talk to. If Rudy had been there they could have had lunch in a restaurant and then perhaps splurged on a movie. But then she remembered that Rudy had gone with the highschool track team to a neighbouring town for a meet.

She found herself walking toward the bus terminal. She walked slowly, stopping often to look into shop windows. Of course, she told herself, she was not going to take the bus. It was daytime now and the fantasies of the night were safely behind her. Although it would be refreshing to drive along the river and get out somewhere and breathe a little country air. The weather had changed and spring was announcing itself. The air was warm and there were little white clouds high in the blue sky.

Before leaving the house in the morning, she had told her mother she was going to work in the hospital that afternoon to make up for the time she had lost. She didn’t know why she had suddenly invented the story. She rarely lied to her parents. There was no need. But by saying she had to be on duty at the hospital, she avoided being asked to come and work in the store to help her mother handle the Saturday afternoon rush. It had been a sunny morning and the idea of long hours in the stuffy store had been distasteful to her.

A block from the terminal she saw her brother Thomas. He Was pitching pennies in front of a drug store with a gang of rowdyish looking boys. A girl who worked in the office had been at the Casino Wednesday night and had seen the fight and told Gretchen about it. ‘Your brother,’ the girl said. ‘He’s scary. A little kid like that. He’s like a snake. I sure wouldn’t like to have a kid like that in my family.’

Gretchen told Tom that she knew about the fight. She had heard similar stories before. ‘You’re a hideous boy,’ she said to Tom. He had just grinned, enjoying himself.

If Tom had seen her she would have turned back. She wouldn’t have dared to go into the bus terminal with him watching. But he didn’t see her. He was too busy pitching a penny at a crack in the sidewalk.

She drifted into the terminal. She looked at the clock. Twelve thirty-five. The bus upriver must have left five minutes ago and of course she wouldn’t hang around there for twenty-five more minutes waiting for the next one. But the bus was late and was still standing there. She went up to the ticket window. ‘One for King’s Landing,’ she said.

She got into the bus and sat up front near the driver. There were a lot of soldiers on the bus, but it was still early in the day and they hadn’t had time to get drunk yet and they didn’t whistle at her.

The bus pulled out. The motion of the bus lulled her and she drowsed with her eyes open. Trees flashed by, newly budded; houses, stretches of river; there were glimpses of faces in a town. Everything seemed washed and beautiful and unreal. Behind her the soldiers sang, young men’s voices blending together, in ‘Body and Soul’. There was a Virginia voice among the others, a slow Southern tone, sweetening the song’s lament. Nothing could happen to her. Nobody knew where she was. She was between event and event, choiceless, un-choosing, floating among soldiers’ yearning voices.

The bus drew to a halt. ‘King’s Landing, miss,’ the driver said.

Thank you,’ she said and stepped down neatly on to the side of the road. The bus pulled away. Soldiers blew kisses at her through the windows. She kissed her fingers to the young men in return, smiling. She would never see them again. They knew her not, nor she them, and they could not guess her errand. Singing, their voices waning, they disappeared north.

She stood on the side of the empty road in the hushed Saturday afternoon sunlight. There was a gas station and a general store. She went into the store and bought herself a Coke from a white-haired old man in a clean, faded, blue shirt The colour pleased her eye. She would buy herself a dress that colour, fine, clean, pale cotton, to wear on a summer evening.

She went out of the store and sat down on a bench in front of it to drink her Coke. The Coke was icy and sweet and stung the back of her mouth in little tart explosions. She drank slowly. She was in no hurry. She saw the gravelled road leading away from the highway to the river. The shadow of a little cloud raced down it, like an animal running. It was silent from one coast to the other. The wood of the bench under her was warm. No cars passed. She finished her Coke and put the bottle down under the bench. She heard the ticking of the watch on her wrist. She leaned back, to catch the weight of the sun on her forehead.

Of course she wasn’t going to go to the house on the river. Let the food go cold, let the wine go unpoured, let the suitors

languish by the side of the river. Unknown to them, their lady is near, playing her single, teasing game. She wanted to laugh, but would not break the wilderness silence.

It would be delicious to push the game further. To go halfway down the gravel road between the stands of second-growth birch, white pencils in the woodshade. Go halfway and then return, in inner mirth. Or better still, weave through the forest, in and out of the shadows, Iroquois maiden, silent on her stockinged feet over last year’s leaves, down to the river, and there, from the protection of the trees, spy out, Intelligence agent in the service of all virgins, and watch the two men, their lusty plans prepared, sitting waiting on the porch. And then steal back, her crisp dress flicked with bark and sticky buds, safe, safe, after the edge of danger, but feeling her power.

She stood up and crossed the highway towards the leafy entrance of the gravel-top road. She heard a car coming fast, from the south. She turned and stood there, as though she was waiting for a bus to take her in the direction of Port Philip. It wouldn’t do to be seen plunging into the woods. Secrecy was all.

The car swept toward her, on the far side of the road. It slowed, came to a halt opposite her. She did not look at it, but kept searching for the bus she knew wouldn’t appear for another half hour.,

‘Hello, Miss Jordache.’ She had been named, in a man’s voice. She could feel the blush rising furiously to her cheeks as she turned her head. She knew it was silly to blush. She had every right to be on the road. No one knew of the two black soldiers waiting with their food and liquor and their eight hundred dollars. For a moment she didn’t recognise the man who had spoken, sitting alone at the wheel of a 1939 Buick convertible, with the top down. He was smiling at her, one hand, in a driving glove, hanging over the door of the car on her side. Then she saw who it was. Mr Boylan. She had only seen him once or twice in her life, around the plant which bore his family’s name. He was rarely there, a slender, blond, tanned, cleanly shaven man, with bristly blond eyebrows and highly polished shoes.

‘Good afternoon, Mr Boylan,’ she said, not moving. She didn’t want to get close enough for him to be able to notice her blush.

‘What in the world are you doing all the way up here?’ Privilege, his voice suggested. He sounded as though this unexpected discovery, the pretty girl alone in her high heels at the

edge of the woods, amused him.

‘It was such a lovely day.’ She almost stammered. ‘I often go on little expeditions when I have an afternoon off.’

‘All alone?” He sounded incredulous.

‘I’m a nature lover,’ she said lamely. What a clod he must think I am, she thought. She caught him smiling as he looked down at her high-heeled shoes. ‘I just took the bus on the spur of the moment,’ she said, inventing, without hope. ‘I’m waiting for the bus back to town.’ She heard a rustle behind her and tnmed, panic-stricken, sure that it must be the two soldiers, growing impatient and come to see if she had arrived. But it was only a squirrel, racing across the gravel of the side road.

“What’s the matter?’ Boylan asked, puzzled by her spasmodic movement.

‘I thought I heard a snake.’ Oh, goodbye, she thought.

“You’re pretty jittery,’ Boylan said gravely, ‘for a nature lover.’

‘Only snakes,’ she said. It was the stupidest conversation she bad ever had in her life.

Boylan looked at his watch. ‘You know, the bus won’t be along for quite some time,’ he said.

‘That’s all right,’ she said, smiling widely, as though waiting for buses in the middle of nowhere was her favourite Saturday afternoon occupation. ‘It’s so nice and peaceful here.’

‘Let me ask you a serious question,’ he said.

Here it comes, she thought. He’s going to want to know who I’m waiting for. She fumbled for a serviceable short list. Her brother, a girl friend, a nurse from the hospital. She was so busy thinking, she didn’t hear what he said, although she knew be had said something.

I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘I missed that.’

‘I said, have you had lunch yet, Miss Jordache?’

‘I’m not really hungry, really. I…’

‘Come.’ He gestured to her with a closed hand. ‘I’ll buy you lunch. I despise lunching alone.’

Obediently, feeling small and childish, under adult orders, she crossed the road behind the Buick and stepped into the car, as he leaned over from his side to open the door for her. The only other person she had ever heard use the word ‘despise’ in normal conversation was her mother. Shades of Sister Catherine, Old Teacher. ‘It’s very kind of you, Mr Boylan,’ she said.

I’m lucky on Saturdays,’ he said as he started the car

She had no notion of what he meant by that. If he hadn’t been

her boss, in a manner of speaking, and old besides, forty, forty-five at least, she would have somehow managed to refuse. She regretted the secret excursion through the woods that now would never take place, the obscene, tantalising possibility that perhaps the two soldiers would have glimpsed her, pursued her… Limping braves on tribal hunting grounds. Eight hundred dollars’ worth of war paint