Some Came Running (124 page)

She put her hands up over her face and blotted out the sight that was not the solid ground, either. Not even competition for a fat, sloppy pig of a female animal! Not with this haggard, haunted face that got bonier and bonier and drier and drier every year that passed, this
old maid’s
face. She pulled her hands down compulsively, until her fingertips pressed against her mouth and stared into herself that stared back from the mirror. As she looked, all of them began coming back to her again: all of those old-maid jokes she had heard so many of in her lifetime. There must be thousands and thousands: like the one about the old maid on the train that was stopped and robbed; the robber came into the car and announced he was going to rob the men and rape the women, and a preacher stood up and said gallantly,
Take our money but spare the women,
and the old maid who was sitting up in front stood up and said, “
Sit down! Who the hell’s robbing this train
?”

Have you heard the one about the old maid who ran up an ice bill? the iceman said if she didn’t pay, he would bang her. She refused, so he screwed her and marked the bill paid. The old maid said,
Oh no, you don’t! You brought that ice in here ten cents at a time and you’re going to take it out the same way!

Or how about the one about the old maid who took a tramp in the woods and had a fine time?

Is there anything happier in the world than two old maids playing squat tag in an asparagus patch?

Or how about this one . . .

And how about that one . . .

Oh yes! she knew them all. Her fingertips were pressing themselves defensively against her jawbone, as open-mouthed, tears running from her eyes, Gwen stood looking at herself, laughing hysterically.

Well, at least, there was one thing, she thought again: At least, Bob had not come home. At least, she
did
have that. It was, she felt, about the only consolation left her.

But when Bob came home, to find her sitting dry-eyed at the table, cool and calm and with a drink before her that she had not touched, the first thing she did was tell him all about it. As perhaps she had known she would all along.

“I had a visitor while you were gone,” she said lightly when he had shucked off his heavy overcoat and his debonair old hat and came down toward her. If she could ever just be half the man her father was, she thought again for perhaps the ten thousandth time.

“Oh yes?” he smiled. “Who?” His bright, kind eyes studied her.

“A girl from Parkman,” Gwen said. “Name of Ginnie Moorehead.”

“Ah?” Bob said. “Is that someone I should know?”

“I rather doubt if you’ve ever met her,” Gwen said and smiled. “She works in the brassiere factory. She’s Dave Hirsh’s mistress.”

“Oh?” Bob said, surprised; and then his eyes clouded. “Ahhh,” he said, sympathetically.

Gwen continued to smile, feeling for a moment that she must break and crumple.

“And what was she doing here?” Bob smiled. “Did Dave bring her?”

“No. She came herself,” Gwen said. “She came to ask me if I please wouldn’t help her to keep Dave.”

“I see. And what did you tell her?”

“I told her,” Gwen said, “that she had nothing to fear from me.”

“I see,” Bob said.

“Oh, Dad!” Gwen said desperately. “Oh, Dad! What am I going to do?”

“Well,” Bob said thoughtfully. He came on down to where she still sat clutching the untouched drink glass, and made as though to put his hand on her shoulder, then refrained, as if he thought perhaps she might prefer him not to. Instead, he sat down in the ladder-back beside her and leaned it back on its rear legs. “I take it she was not a very prepossessing person?”

“No,” Gwen said. “No, she was not.”

“Hmm,” Bob said, and eased the front legs of the chair back down. “Well, dear Gwen, it’s not entirely uncommon you know, to find one man carrying on love affairs with two—or for that matter, more—women at the same time. It is, in fact, I believe, only slightly less uncommon than finding one woman carrying on love affairs with two or more men. I rather expect it’s an experience that happens to nearly all of us, at some time or other. All of us seem to have two sides to our natures. The oldest bronze in existence is Janus, you know.”

“But, oh Dad, if you could only have seen her!” Gwen said.

Bob smiled. “I must say, I’m rather glad I didn’t,” he said. He stroked his mustache back on both sides with two fingers. “It does make Dave out rather a cad,” he said. “Doesn’t it?”

“Cad!” Gwen said. “Cad?” It was, from her viewpoint, just about the greatest understatement she had ever heard. Her eyes suddenly brimmed with tears; in spite of herself.

“See here, you mustn’t let this upset you so, dear Gwen,” Bob said. He leaned over and patted her on the knee. “We must try and look at it objectively. Try to imagine it as if it were two strangers, whom you don’t even know.”

“Oh, Dad!” Gwen said.

“Yes, I suppose it is rather hard to do,” Bob said unhappily. “In your case. When one gets as old as I am, dear Gwen—” It petered off, and he smiled. Then he raised the chair up on its hind legs again, his lips pursed beneath the mustache, looking off at the ceiling. “You know, I’ve rather followed—ah—your love affair—yours and Dave’s. Since it began. Back last year. I must say, I was quite pleased by the whole thing.” He paused, and cleared his throat. “I—ah— It’s rather hard to say, dear Gwen, what it is that makes men do as they do. When two people are in love and sleeping together and also are in a nearly complete accord on things, on life, such as you and Dave were (an experience, I might add, which I have only had twice in my life,” he said sadly; “and, as you probably know, neither of them was your mother) well—when two people have such a relationship, it’s rather difficult to explain what makes one of them, usually the man, desire additional sexual relations with another woman.” Gwen listened, horrified: Bob, too, thought she had been sleeping with Dave, like Agnes and Frank—and, Ginnie Moorehead, and probably everybody else. Her own father! Well, she thought, catching hold of her mind; well, that was reasonable—since, like everybody else, he did not know the truth. The truth that she was still a virgin. Well, that answered one problem for her, anyway: She had always wondered, anxiously hoping that he did not, whether Bob had seen through her act. Now, when she discovered that he, in fact, did not, she found herself feeling a little disappointed in him. She had always thought Bob was smarter than that; she had always felt that if there was anyone in the world who understood her fully, it was Bob. Now, obviously, it was clear not even he did. Even Bob had been fooled. Oh, God, wasn’t there anybody! Wasn’t there anybody anywhere! It was a fearfully appalling prospect to have to face. Gwen fixed her eyes and her mind on Bob and tried to listen to him. At least, she was going to have to appear to listen to him. Because he must never know. She would be too ashamed. So she composed her face. All of this had slid through her mind, sliding on the greased skids of momentary panic, in just the split second it had taken him to draw a breath to go on; her expression had not even had time to change, before she controlled it; and so she sat, still listening to him concentratedly.

“But speaking as a man myself,” Bob was going on, “I can assure you that it really means very little. To the man. I know you’ll find that rather hard to believe,” he said awkwardly. Then suddenly, he broke off, staring at her as though he had sensed the change in her. “Did I upset you by what I said about your mother?” he said gently.

“No,” Gwen said. “No, I’ve known it a long time, of course.”

Bob nodded. “I assumed that you had,” he said, and laced his fingers together and stared down at them. “Your mother was a peculiarly sexless woman,” he said to them; “I never did understand just why.” Again, he cleared his throat. “But that is neither here nor there. Well, what I was trying to say about men was that only when
pity
and
sympathy—
and
guilt
—enter into this other—ah—extracurricular sexual relation, only then is there any danger to the previous love, I think. And this, of course, is what all women strive to activate in men. I—ah—” Again he broke off and stared at her. “I—ah— I’m not really saying anything, am I?” he smiled sadly. “I mean, I’m not really saying anything that helps you, am I?”

Gwen tried to smile back at him, and suddenly tears came in her eyes again. She loved him so much, and he was trying so hard, and she was lying to him. And after all, he was the only one to turn to, who understood at all.

“Let me try and put it this way,” Bob said. “In men of a high degree of spirituality, like Dave—”

“Spirituality!” Gwen cried.

“Yes,” Bob said; “after all, he is a writer. And a very fine one. He may, even, become a great one. With some little help from you and me.”

“From you,” Gwen said bitterly. “Not from me.”

“As I said,” Bob went on; “in these men, then, who have a high degree of what I can only call spirituality, there seems in some strange way to be, also, this inordinately high degree of sexuality.”

Gwen sniffed.

But Bob shook his head. “You’ve studied the writers, dear Gwen,” he said. “Tolstoy, Stendhal, Byron, and the rest. It isn’t so much that they have more or greater desires than other people; it’s just that their desires are more intense. Everything is more intense. And as the degree of spirituality is more intense, so also is the sexuality; and this is what they must work to conquer. If only to keep from being physically destroyed by it. Probably none of them ever fully do so in any one life,” he smiled. “But that appears to be their task. And, of course, their art, their creations, are only the residue, the inconsequential by-product if I may use such a term, of the strife and suffering they undergo.” He shook his head again, sadly. “But, of course, you know all this; it is the theme of your own book, dear Gwen.”

Gwen merely nodded.

“Would you expect Dave, who, in fact, formed part of the group you’re studying, actually to be exempt from your own theory?” Bob said gently.

“Well, what do you want me to do?” Gwen cried.

Bob shook his head and spread his hands. “You must, of course, do what you
have
to do, dear Gwen.”

“Oh, Dad!” Gwen said, on the verge of tears again. “It’s easy for you,” she said. “You’re not in love with him.”

“Are you?” Bob said.

Gwen stopped, brought up short. “Am I?” she said, almost in a comedian’s double-take. “No, I’m not. Not anymore. Oh, Dad! If you only could have
seen
her! She was horrible!”

“As I said, I’m glad that I did not,” Bob said. “As I also said, he’s really quite a bit of a cad. A real rotter. Well, what are you going to do, my dear Gwen?”

“Do? What
can
I do?”

“Do you intend to go on working with Dave?”

“No,” she said. “I’m not. Yes. Yes, I am. Oh, I don’t know.”

“I suspect there is a very strong possibility that Dave may never finish this novel,” Bob said, “unless you do go on working with him. It purports to be a fine novel. It might even be a great one.”

“It’s far enough along now that he doesn’t need me,” Gwen disagreed. “I don’t think anything could stop him from finishing it.”

“Don’t be too sure.”

“But I am sure. No. Yes, I’m not sure. Oh, I
don’t know!
I don’t know anything. Just how much am I expected to suffer and accept? I’m just not equal to such responsibilities! Why me?”

“None of us are,” Bob said sadly.

“Oh, Dad! I just can’t!” Gwen wailed, letting loose all that she had been so tightly holding back. She slipped suddenly her knees and laid her head in her father’s lap and wrapped her arms around his legs, like she had done so often, as a little girl.

“I’m going away,” she wept. “I’ll finish out the term at school. But after that, I’m going away. I’ll work with him till then—if he needs it. But after that, I’m going away. And to hell with all of them! Let them all write their own damned books! Not a damned single one of them appreciate the help I give them anyway.”

Bob patted her gently on the head.

“I’m no good,” Gwen wept against him. “I’m a liar, and a cheat, I’m a coward. You don’t know me. You don’t know me at all.”

“Which of us knows the other, dear Gwen?” Bob said sadly. “I know that you’re a fine woman, and that I’m proud you are my daughter.”

Gwen only wept louder, and burrowed her head against him.

It was just two days after that that Dave, after having been gone over a week, appeared with his new story.

H
E DID NOT KNOW
exactly what he expected from them. Certainly he had expected praise. And he had gotten praise. Of course, he
knew
what he had
really
expected: He had expected them to brag on him, and be proud of him, and to be happy with and for him. And, in a way, they were all of these things. But with what reserve!

Bob was pretty much his old warm, enthusiastic, friendly, helpful self. But even he was awkward and disturbed. And Gwen: Gwen was so far away, it was as if he was talking to her through a thick glass wall. It was terrifying. Though, of course, being Gwen, she was kind and sweet and pleasant all the time—but that just made her seem just that much farther off. And when she came out with her announcement about leaving town after the current term, Dave felt the bottom drop out of his stomach with a kind of terrified unrational panic.

He stayed over there six hours that night, and it was after one o’clock when he left. And when he left, he knew no more about what had happened than when he came. Bob himself stayed up with them until after eleven before he finally gave up and went to bed. But even then Dave could not bring himself to leave: He had to find out what had happened. So he stayed, resolutely playing out chess moves on the board, resolutely playing records on the player, resolutely helping himself to more and more martinis, while he tried desperately to find something to talk to Gwen about that would last longer than one minute and thirty seconds, and while the panic grew in him.

For one thing, he had belatedly realized he was still in love with her—hopelessly, miserably in love with her. Finding her so distant made him abruptly aware of that. And for another thing, he was suddenly shockingly aware of how much he depended upon both her and Bob. In the past year, the closeness he had had with them, the understanding, had become so much a part of his life that he had ceased to even be aware of it. Until something like this happened. They gave him confidence in himself he sorely needed, they perhaps of all people really understood what he was trying to do, they gave him hope that he might even accomplish part of it. They were necessary to him. All he could do was stare at her and try desperately to find something to talk about, while in the back of his mind once again appeared that damnable picture of impending danger to them all.