The Dark Descends (16 page)

One thing I'm going to insist on—that we split fifty-fifty this time. So never mind any of the jazz about the lion's share of the bread going to the breadwinner. Anyway, you put a lot of work into refinishing the pieces. Remember how you used to stay up till all hours of the night oiling that table?

You don't have to worry about making the arrangements. The storage company has an office in Boston and I should be able to dispose of the stuff in a jiffy, given the passion for antiques that prevails in this academic neck of the woods. I'll get busy on it right away.

Hope you're okay in other respects. If there's anything else I can do for you, please don't hesitate to let me know. Any time. Any place. But I guess I don't have to tell you that.

Love, Eliot

...

Kitty Shanks's wall no longer opened prospects to the entire globe; the travel posters had given way to a coat of flat black paint. And the group had changed. Del and the other militants were gone ("They found the rest of us too docile," Kitty explained, rather tartly. "More inclined to talk than act. The trouble was, the kind of action they plumped for was on a par with taking pot-shots at Andy Warhol'), and the four faces new to Joyce looked as though they would have fitted smoothly into the social scene in Moccasin or some community just like it. Camaraderie was higher than it had been with the former membership, but the steady stream of banter did not lack bite. Now and then, a remark from which the teeth had been drawn was tossed Joyce's way, in line, apparently, with a policy of "include her but go easy."

Paula Vesey, one of the new faces, a rosy-cheeked butterball with thick, shining, prematurely gray hair, got things going. Her problem was her boyfriend, an engineer at the recording studio where she was the manager. To compensate for having to take orders from her by day, the engineer subjected her to the most humiliating indignities by night. She described them in some detail, her face suffusing with crimson, and then confessed that most of them followed blueprints set down in the works of Henry Miller. "He's really gone on Miller. He knows most of the books by heart—he can quote page after page without getting a word wrong. I've read Miller, too, so I can more or less guess what he's going to pull on me next. I feel in my bones that he's working up to that carrot deal or something equally horrible, and I don't know what to do to ward it off."

Nobody had much to say to this. There were a few murmurs of sympathy, and then somebody said, "Find yourself a new boyfriend." Paula gave a despairing nod, the tears trickling slowly down her cheeks, and that was that.

Next in the arena was sex-pot Veronica Stanton, never one to hide her light under a bushel, Joyce remembered. Veronica, too, was having problems with a boyfriend, but of a different order. This boyfriend was a major-league pitcher, a twenty-game winner four years in a row, but fallen upon hard times the past season. The owners of the ball club, greatly concerned, were subjecting him to a barrage of medical, dental, and psychological examinations. One psychologist had suggested that there might be a castrating female behind the difficulties and wanted to undertake an intimate study of the pitcher's life with the aid of cameras and tape recorders. "It sounds like a pretty screwy diagnosis to me. Bobby's been thinking all along that the trouble is the hop is gone from his fast ball and he hasn't got enough control of the sinker to really be effective with it, but now he isn't sure anymore. Now they've almost got him convinced the trouble could be mental. How do you know? How do you ever know? He's a great guy and I hate like hell to stand in the way of a cure, but shit, having a Peeping Tom—even a mechanical one—in the bedroom seems a bit much. I don't know what to do."

This provoked quite a bit of discussion. Some of the women thought that the problem was the pitcher's, not Veronica's, and she was under no obligation to help him solve it. Others thought that if he really was a great guy, if he wasn't exploiting her or keeping her down, she might just as well go along with the idea. Still others thought that it was up to Veronica to make her own decision.

And so it went. Most of the women were having problems with some man, and one by one the problems were aired. In no instance did the airing seem to point the way to a solution. By far the most hopeless was the problem stated by Rebecca Rosenberg—a new, aggressive Rebecca, very different from the timorous, tearful creature of a few months ago (though her nails were still bitten down to the quick). Her boyfriend was black and had grown up in Harlem, where the chief white oppressors, apart from policemen, were Jewish shopkeepers; Rebecca was Jewish and, inevitably, served as a psychological punching bag for his internal conflict. The advice that had been given to Paula, the only sensible advice under these circumstances, too, was not given to Rebecca. Instead everybody felt duty-bound to say something constructive ("Maybe you could take him to a synagogue—show him Jews are human, too." "Maybe you could adopt a black foster child"). Even among liberated women, it seemed, the conventions were something to reckon with, though they were a far cry from the conventions that had bound previous generations.

Later, bidding her guests goodbye at the door, Kitty took Joyce's hand and pressed it gently. "We've missed you, Joyce. Do come again next week."

Joyce's response was a noncommittal smile.

Come again? What for?

She was drinking too much. Much too much. It became harder and harder to postpone the first drink of the day untill the late afternoon. It took a real effort of will, and the effort was pretty futile, when you came right down to it, because making herself wait only caused her to tank up all the faster, the way the English, haunted by the specter of closing time, race the clock in pubs.

Joyce, too, was racing the clock. Only she was running ahead of it. Way, way ahead of it. Her metabolism had speeded up to an alarming degree. She could feel the blood rushing through her veins; could hear the accelerated thump, thump, thump, thump of her heart. Or imagined she could feel and hear, which amounted to the same thing. It was essential to slow herself down. Drinking helped. Nothing else did. She felt hemmed in by the four walls, but no sooner did she set foot outside than she longed to be back inside. What was there outside? No distraction that really distracted. No amusement that really amused. A temporary state of affairs. She would get back in stride when she returned to work. The three weeks would pass. Time always passed. Meanwhile, it was important to refrain from looking at the clock. Mind over matter—the tenet of a lifetime.

One morning the telephone rang. It rang at the crack of dawn, or what seemed like the crack of dawn. The sound was unearthly, surrealistic. How long had it been since the telephone had summoned her from sleep?

It was Irene. "Hi, kiddo. Thought I'd catch you before you left for the office. Something's come up that might interest you. A friend of mine is moving to San Francisco and giving up her apartment. I know you're not exactly overjoyed with your place, and believe me, Sal's would be a big improvement. It's only one room, but it's twice the size of yours. The rent's a hundred and sixty a month. A hundred and fifty-eight, ninety-seven, to be precise. It's rent-controlled. Interested?"

"
Interested?
I'm practically turning handsprings. It sounds too good to be true. What's the catch?"

"No catch. Not even an agent's fee. The landlady won't have anything to do with agents because they've sent her too many dogs in the past. She prefers personal recommendations from her tenants. She lives in the building, but that's not as bad as it sounds—Sal says she's strictly live and let live. It's a good deal, Joyce. The location's good, too. West Seventy-first Street."

The Lincoln Center area—one of the few pockets of relative safety left in Manhattan. Joyce's heart leaped. "When can I see it?"

"The sooner the better. If you could possibly get part of the morning off—"

"No problem about that. I'm on vacation."

"Vacation?
Now?
With Thanksgiving just around the corner?"

"Well, I'm new. I had to wait until everybody else got back. You said the place is large?"

"Twice the size of yours at least. You'll like it, I promise you. I'll get right on to Sal and tell her to go to work selling you to the landlady."

"Thanks, Irene. Thanks very much."

It required superhuman effort on Joyce's part to write down the particulars, her hand was trembling so. A miracle. Nothing short of a miracle to have something like this served up to her on a platter. Her present finances would just cover it. Just. She might have to borrow to meet the moving expenses, but what the hell. A miracle was a miracle. Who would ever have imagined Irene in the role of miracle worker?

Yet another miracle awaited her in the mailbox downstairs—a check from Eliot for five hundred dollars. Her share of the furniture money, his note explained. For a moment, disappointment pushed her spirits down. The dining room sideboard alone was worth at least a thousand dollars, and as for the table—Had Eliot decided against a fifty-fifty split? Or had he simply closed with the first offer that came to hand because he didn't want to be bothered?

Why worry about it? What did it matter? The sum would suffice when the heavens were on her side. That thought sent her spirits soaring again. She tried to tell herself that such elation was irrational. She hadn't even seen the place yet. What if she didn't like it?

But she did like it. She not only liked it, she loved it. The room, situated on the top floor of a renovated brownstone, was enormous by anybody's standards; additional attractions were a ceiling high enough to dwarf a basketball team and a wall with four windows that appeared to be all sunshine. Joyce also liked the landlady, Mrs. Rostow, a rotund, genial Russian with an un-lined skin, large, soulful black eyes, and only a few threads of gray in the thick black hair plaited into a coronet on top of her head. More important, Mrs. Rostow liked Joyce, once it was established that she was not a musician ("I will not have musicians in my house. I love music, but with them it is practice the same little phrase over and over again, and even then they do not get it right") and that she worked for
Yardstick
("I take it every week. Wonderful, wonderful pictures. Do you think you could get me a subscription? We talk about it, yes?"). The agreement was that the place was Joyce's, unless one of the other people who had been promised a viewing turned out to be a better prospect ("It is not likely, darling. They are men. I adore men, but I have not been lucky with the ones I take in. I always find out later they are pansies"). One way or another, Mrs. Rostow promised, Joyce would know by the end of the day.

Joyce floated home on cloud nine. While she waited for the phone to ring, common sense made efforts to assert itself, and she berated herself for premature chicken-counting. But she couldn't prevent her mind from revolving around matters of decoration: where to put the sofa; how to distribute the shelves and cupboards over a wall large enough to allow plenty of options; whether to have curtains or shutters. It seemed as though part of her mind had awakened after a long slumber. And where was the harm, after all? Mrs. Rostow had practically promised, hadn't she? A reliable woman, Mrs. Rostow. Not the sort of woman to string anybody.

But when the telephone rang, late in the afternoon, it wasn't Mrs. Rostow, it was Irene. A furious Irene. "That was a damn-fool stunt to pull. What kind of saps do you think people are anyway? I told you the landlady lives in the building. You might have taken it for granted she'd go and check references. So what was the point of telling that stupid lie?"

"I don't know what you're talking about, Irene. What lie?"

"Oh, come off it! About being on vacation, of course. Of all the knuckle-headed—"

"I wasn't lying. I am on vacation." Joyce felt a sudden tightening in her throat. "Until next Monday."

"Oh, you are, are you? It's funny
Yardstick
doesn't seem to know it. According to them, you got the sack two weeks ago. I thought that vacation story sounded fluky. For God's sake, Joyce, why didn't you level with me? We could have cooked up some other reference for you. This way I feel like a jerk, recommending somebody who—"

"There's some mistake, Irene." Joyce felt pressure on her lungs now. "I'm sure it's a mistake. Look, I'll telephone
Yardstick
and have them call Mrs. Rostow right away and—"

"It's too late. She's already rented to somebody else." Irene's tone had softened; it was sympathetic now. "It's a drag, having
Yardstick
cross you up like that. But that's how it is with these big outfits sometimes—one hand doesn't know what the other hand's doing. Better luck next time, Joyce."

Next time? Somehow it seemed hard to believe there would be a next time. Joyce had to strike three matches before her trembling hand could get a cigarette lit. The phone call she had to nerve herself up to make disclosed only that everyone in the
Yardstick
copy room was gone for the day.

In the morning, there was no need to telephone
Yardstick
again. It was in the mailbox.

...

Dear Joyce,

The enclosure should have gone out to you days ago, but there was some kind of foul-up in Accounts. Sorry about the delay.

As you've probably guessed by now, we won't be needing you back in the copy room. By a wonderful piece of luck, we pulled off a great coup and stole a girl from Time—six years' experience as a copy-reader. Sorry this means we have to give you your walking papers, but a coup is a coup. I'm sure you'll understand.

Best of luck from all of us.

Cordially, Margaret

...

The enclosure was a check for one week's salary.

...

"Hi, doll." A dry, rasping voice, without resonance.

Joyce lifted her head. He was tall, a black-haired, black-bearded beanpole in a tie-dyed T-shirt and wide-legged, cuffed trousers. A trendy specimen, but not young. Or was he? Odd how the fashions of youth seemed to make so many people look as though they'd never been young.