Neither Five Nor Three (Helen Macinnes) (2 page)

“At the Pentagon?” That seemed unnecessary, Paul thought.

“No. At my own office. I’m becoming a civilian, too.”

Paul Haydn stared.

Brownlee said, nodding in the direction of the congressmen, “This is my last job in uniform.”

“But—” began Paul, and then stopped. You didn’t ask Brownlee questions.

“Because the job I want to do now is better done as a civilian,” Brownlee said quietly.

“But your seniority, your—” Paul stopped again. If Roger Brownlee was giving that all up, then he was really worried. Paul looked at him, and buttoned the slip of paper safely into his tunic pocket. Then, like everyone else in the plane, he concentrated on the landing for the next minute or two.

“Reporters,” Brownlee said, looking out of the window as he unstrapped his safety belt. “Time I was joining my congressmen, again. Did I tell you they were very upset about the hordes of new DPs all streaming into our Zone?” He was smiling wryly.

“About time someone was getting upset,” Paul answered grimly. Then, as he rose to follow Brownlee who had become very much the capable colonel again, he told himself to forget it, he had had enough of being harrowed and harried, now he was going to cut himself a slice of peace. He was five years behind most of his friends, but he’d still back himself a good slice. There was plenty to go around.

He stopped beside the sergeant. “Are you going straight to the hospital? I’ll give you a lift.”

“The colonel said he’d take care of me, sir,” the sergeant replied. Normally, he would have a cheerful pugnacious look on that square face with its wide mouth. But now, worried by the news of his wife’s illness, he was grim and sullen.

“The colonel may be held back by the reporters: I’ll give you a lift.”

The sergeant picked up his kit and followed Paul. “Her mother wrote,” he began to explain, if only to talk out his troubles, “she said there might be a chance if the wife could see me.”

“Then the sooner the better.”

“Yes, sir.” He looked patiently at the congressmen still asking last questions of the brigadier-general, while the secretaries recounted the bulging suitcases. The ECA men were talking politely if condescendingly to the colonel, who after all had only a military mind. Paul Haydn managed to catch Brownlee’s eye, and he nodded towards the sergeant. Brownlee understood quickly enough. He was that kind of man, Paul thought, as he watched Brownlee speak quietly to the general. In a few minutes, the plane’s exit was clear. The civilians were somehow persuaded not to be photographed from the gangplank, not to pose there while they made their statements to the Press. They were grouped together on the lower eminence of solid ground, and the sergeant and Paul had a free path before them.

Yes, Brownlee was that kind of man, Paul thought as he stepped out of the plane. He gave his last official salute, colonel sir, and caught an answering smile in Roger Brownlee’s eyes.

As he fell into step with the sergeant away from the plane and the little groups of VIPs being photographed, toward the long line of buildings with their stretches of smooth concrete and shining glass, he was still thinking about Brownlee and what he had said yesterday in Berlin. Odd that Brownlee should go off on such a tangent as that... Then Paul remembered these were not the thoughts he had intended to land with. As he left the plane, as he reached good American ground, he was going to have said, “Well, there’s the last of Europe. Here’s where I begin my own life again. Here is where I find peace.” But like most dramatic speeches, it had been left unsaid. Because of Brownlee...

A reporter caught up with them. “And how’s Berlin?” he asked.

“Ask them,” Paul Haydn said with a grin and nodded back towards the plane. “We’re just a couple of guys who hitched a ride.”

“No story?” The reporter, young, eager, stared at them in disappointment. He had been sure that there was a good story somewhere, when a brigadier-general had got off a plane so hurriedly to let a sergeant and a major get out.

The sergeant shifted the weight of his kit. “No story, Jack,” he said decidedly.

“He’ll go far,” Paul said, looking after the reporter, “as soon as he learns to play his hunches.” Then he looked at the sergeant in consternation. “He’s only a kid—why, he’s a good ten years younger than we are!” A new stage in my life, he thought wryly. He began looking at the men who were polishing the glass and steel doors, at the men inside the hallways and waiting rooms, at the men behind the information desks. In this new discovery, he almost forgot to look at the girls. That would have been indeed a sign that to be thirty-three was practically verging on dotage.

“How about a sandwich and some real American coffee?” he asked the sergeant. And the man, forgetting his nagging worry for a moment as he looked round the enormous building alive even at this early hour with people, his own people, smiled.

“Sounds good to me, sir,” he said.

“Yes,” Paul said, listening to the voices around him. “Everything sounds good.” He smiled, too.

* * *

Rona Metford had been sleeping lightly because she had warned herself, last night, that today was a day for rising early, a day for a rigid timetable. The plane, flying so low over Manhattan, wakened her completely. She looked at the small clock beside her bed. “Oh no!” she said. It was five o’clock in the morning.

“There should be a law,” she told the plane’s roar angrily as it receded to leave peace and sleeplessness. Then she remembered there was a law; so she thought bitterly of the pilot, instead.

But her annoyance didn’t last long. Her mind was too full of today’s plans. She lay in bed, stretching comfortably, enjoying its warmth and softness. Outside the blankets, the little room was cool and fresh, partly because of its green curtains against white walls, partly because the early April air had still a sharp edge to it—last week, there had been snow. She could tell from the bright colour of the gently moving curtains that this morning was sunny and clear-skyed. (On grey threatening mornings, their green was cold and lifeless.) That cheered her. At least, her guests wouldn’t arrive for the party tonight with rubbers and heavy coats to jam the tiny hall or with dripping umbrellas to fill the small bathroom.

“Oh, I hope it goes well!” she said to the ceiling. Then she sat up in bed and she looked at Scott’s photograph on the dressing-table. Of course it would go well. She blew him a kiss and pulled the green ribbon off her hair. Last night, she remembered with a smile, last night had been a good night... She looked down at her left hand and its engagement ring. Yes, all her recent worries had been pointless. Last night, everything had been normal again, everything had been happy and gay and all the fears of last month had become so many silly shadows. Scott had told her he loved her, in a hundred ways he had told her. She knew just by the way he had looked at her, had talked for her and laughed with her, even by the way he had fallen silent as he watched her. She was the loveliest girl in the whole place, he had said at the theatre. She was the most wonderful girl, he had said as they danced. She was his girl, he had said afterward.

He does love me, after all he does love me, she thought as she hugged her bare shoulders suddenly: I am the luckiest girl in all New York. And she slipped out of bed to run and open the curtains and welcome a new day. Then she turned to the dressing-table to brush her dark hair—it was too long, now, but Scott wouldn’t let her cut it. Her large brown eyes, emphasised by well-shaped brows and black eyelashes, laughed at her in the mirror. What did Scott say last night about the curve of the lashes, and the curve of her cheek?—Enough, she told herself, or you’ll end by thinking you are Récamier. What sweet nonsense Scott could talk! But as she looked at herself, critically now, she found she was vain enough to be glad that her hips and breasts curved as they did from her slender waist. And she laughed again, and kissed the photograph.

The alarm sounded its warning. Enough, enough, she told herself again, and slipping a dressing-gown around her she ran to the kitchenette to start the coffee. Her quick shower made her still more practical. I’ll get to the office early this morning, she thought as she dressed, and I’ll clear that desk of mine so completely that Burnett will give me permission to leave early and I can be back here by five o’clock. The guests were arriving at six. Scott would come before then, of course. He was the host, tonight. She gave a last look at the photograph, at the rather solemn face which didn’t do Scott justice—he wasn’t so cold and intent as the camera pretended he was. His face was much more gentle than that. In fact, the usual adjective that women used for him was “sweet”; that was the gruesome effect that his charm and his smile combined with his height, fair hair, and blue eyes had on them. But what I like most of all, Rona decided as she pulled the blanket and sheets off the narrow bed, is the way he pays no attention to any of them. In the beginning, when she had first met Scott, he hadn’t wanted to pay much attention to her either. But he did, all the same. She was smiling as she hurried to the kitchenette to stop the kettle whistling itself hoarse.

After breakfast, there was the usual tidying of the two small rooms which Rona called “my apartment” so proudly. (Mrs. Kasprowicz was coming in later, to clean and polish for three hours. At a dollar an hour, Rona could only afford her twice a week.) It was a simple apartment—the top floor of a brownstone house that had been converted into small flats—but everything it contained was Rona’s: Rona’s work, Rona’s ideas. This is something I’ve produced, she thought as she stood looking at the living-room. And then she wondered, as she did at least once each day, where Scott and she would live, and when. Perhaps by this summer, he would feel he had saved enough money. Last night, she thought wryly, had been no help to his budget, but what could she have done? Remonstrate gently? And risk making him angry, risk spoiling the evening? He didn’t like nagging women or interference. He liked to enjoy his impulses, even if they cost forty dollars.

She had started worrying again. So she picked up a pencil and found a shopping pad and gave herself some practical worries to think about. She must order crackers, cheese. Flowers. Smoked salmon, olives, lemons, nuts. Liver pâté from the delicatessen on Third Avenue. Soda water. Scotch for Scott’s father, certainly. Perhaps some of the other men preferred that too. Martinis for the others. Cigarettes, she had nearly forgotten cigarettes. What else?

She must take her party shoes to the cobbler to get the ankle strap fixed. And remind the cleaner to deliver her silk suit by five-thirty. What else, what else? A note for Mrs. Kasprowicz, printed carefully so that there would be no mistakes, about the glasses to be washed and polished. Oh, and ice...she must order extra ice.

Then, with a last quick look around her, she went into the small hall. On the telephone table, near the door, she left the instructions for Mrs. Kasprowicz. She glanced in the mirror that hung over the table, readjusted the angle of her neat white sailor hat and tucked away a stray end of the heavy-meshed veil fitting closely over her face. She pulled on her freshly washed white gloves which matched the piqué waistcoat she wore with her grey wool suit, checked the seams of her stockings, and opened the door. The morning paper was lying at the threshold, in time for an eight o’clock breakfast. She lifted it, decided not to take it with her, and glanced at the headlines. The navy plane was still missing in the Baltic: ten young men who would never come back to their families... New York reservoirs were still low... Further investigations in Washington... The case of Dr. Fuchs was still going on, even if it was over... A Communist demonstration in New York against the President of Chile... Nazi trouble rising once more in Hamburg: desecration of graves.

As she laid the paper with a frown on the hall table, the ’phone rang. I’ll be late, she warned herself, but she lifted the telephone. She was hoping it wouldn’t be Peggy, her sister, calling to say that she and Jon couldn’t come to the party because the baby was sick or they couldn’t get a sitter. But it was Scott’s voice that answered her. “Hello, darling,” he began. And she forgot all her worries, public and private.

* * *

Scott Ettley had been wakened at five o’clock, too. His apartment, only a few blocks away from Rona’s, lay almost underneath the incoming plane. He listened for engine trouble, and then—reassured that he wasn’t going to be killed in his bed with the biggest hangover he had had in weeks—he cursed the pilot as heartily as his splitting head would let him. He made out the time with some difficulty on his watch. Oh, God!... He stared angrily at the darkened room, at the litter of living—the scattered clothes, the misplaced books, the tailored cover of the divan which he had ripped off last night, no, it was this morning, and left lying beside his shirt on the floor. He pushed an overflowing ashtray farther away from his nose, and then pulled the sheet over his head as if to blot out all the joys of a bachelor apartment.

Waking is always hell, he thought. Or I’m getting old. Twenty-nine. I can’t take night club air and the great indoor spaces any more. Twenty-nine, and already giving up the simple pleasures of the poor. Forty bucks, that was what simple pleasures cost nowadays. Forty little bucks. But Rona had enjoyed it. Made up to her for the quarrel last week. My fault, of course. She never says it, but she might as well. I know it was all my damned fault. And why am I admitting it now, anyway? Just to add the final touch of joy on a lousy morning at five o’clock and sleep all gone and this head spinning like an empty boat in a whirlpool? He groaned in pity, and lay with his eyes closed. Because he was so sure that sleep had gone, it came drifting back.

When the alarm went off, it was ten minutes to eight. He felt slightly better. But waking, he told himself again, was always hell. Slowly, he sat up. He stayed sitting on the edge of his bed, looking down at his crumpled pyjama legs. Then he groped for his slippers, couldn’t find them, and padded into the bathroom on his bare feet. His reflection in the mirror made him feel worse, but a cold shower pulled him half-back into life. He remembered then that he must call Rona.