Some Came Running (36 page)

And when it did, she would have the glass. If she decided to wait that long. She did not expect to. She intended to break it open as soon as he got home. It was a shame it had to be like that. It was a shame she had to do it. But there it was.

So she had gone ahead and done it, she thought, knowing she would get sick, and then had gone ahead and gotten sick because thusly she would have two strings to her bow, would have another plan, the infallible one, if the first plan should have failed—

But the moment she had seen him come into the kitchen, she had known the first plan, which was the gossip she had started among her friends, had not failed, had only been slow in starting.

She would not need the other plan—the infallible one—now, but she did not begrudge the energy spent on it. She anticipated ahead like any good field commander, that before it was all over, before the last shot was fired, she would probably need to bring in her reserves. This was the first time since it had started that she had known for sure she
had
won. The mopping up might take a while yet, but she
had
won. She had never been sure before.

Contrary to what Geneve Lowe had said to Frank, Agnes was not without pride. She had thought a long time before deciding to embark upon a planned campaign of gossip among her friends. She did not relish at all the idea of weeping on her friends’ shoulders and confiding to them that her husband was having an affair with Geneve Lowe and what had she ought to do? But she also knew that it was the best way—if not the only way—to get at Geneve Lowe: In her still vulnerable position with Dotty Callter, she could simply not afford talk like that. It had hurt her pride terribly, to make those weeping visits—carefully spaced over a period of eight weeks: ten friends; eight weeks. Not only did it hurt her pride, it made her feel as though she had no integrity.

She did not know why it always made her sick. She supposed it must be because it was so embarrassing, and because in a way it was like admitting that the only way she could keep her husband from sleeping with other women was by
force.
She didn’t care if he never slept with her again, sex had always been a vastly overrated pastime, she thought, her face burning with indignation, but she would be goddamned to hell if he was going to go around sleeping with other women.

Again, Agnes felt her face burning with indignation: She did not care if she got sick, and stayed sick—from now until Doomsday—as long as she was married to him. Frank Hirsh was not going to step out on her with other women, not for very long anyway. After all, as a wife, she had some rights.

She should have more rights than most. She wasn’t so much a wife as a partner. When her father died unexpectedly, leaving her as his only heir, she had signed the store over to Frank, lock, stock, and barrel. Had he left anything to Frank, who worked for him? He had not! She had not asked for any recompense, had not expected any; and she had not gotten any. That entitled her to something. Of course, it had only been a cheap notion store then, in danger of being run out of business by Woolworth’s, and everything that had been done with it had been done by Frank. She was willing to admit that. It had been his idea to convert to a jewelry store. Practically everything had been his idea. Nevertheless, he could not have done it without her and her store because he could have worked all his life and never made enough money to buy one. He owed her something. If not love, then at the very least, loyalty. And she intended to have it—whether collecting it made her sick or not.

Agnes got up from her seat at the mangle agitatedly—she did not feel like ironing any more damned sheets; she was going to start having Old Jane Staley two days a week, by God, if she could get the old harridan to come that often—and went into the dining room and sat down at the big table.

She could have died! actually gotten so sick she’d have died; and he’d not even have known it! and he had not even asked her whether she felt well.

Agnes longed to go in the bedroom and snatch him up off that bed and give it to him straight right now. But—she knew it wasn’t wise, he’d had enough to swallow for one dose, and she contained herself.

But to not even notice that she’d been sick! She had come home from Dotty Callter’s shop, put the new lingerie and slips neatly away in her bureau, and then as regular as clockwork had gone in the bathroom and begun to vomit. When she was empty and had gotten over the dizziness and strain, she had gone to the phone and weakly called Doc Cost’s new hospital. The girl on the switchboard informed her that Doctor Cost was not in but would probably be at the Elks Club about now, since it was mid-afternoon. So Agnes called for him there. He was in the bar. He came right out.

Agnes was in bed when he got there. As if he expected that, Doc Cost only rapped perfunctorily once or twice and came on in, carrying his battered old black bag which, in spite of the new hospital and all the money he had made, he still carried. He was a big man, and he almost filled the bedroom door as he came through it.

He was too big to look like a doctor, with mild embarrassed eyes (which were nevertheless astute) and which were always vaguely apologetic because he had made such a lot of money in a profession which was—or was supposed, at least to be—a profession of service rather than of profit. He was—as he himself often said—on the wrong side of fifty-five, though not yet nearing sixty—and looked a great deal younger; and he drank a lot and showed it. Right now he was something more than half drunk, and he sat down on the other bed and wafted over Agnes a breath of partially assimilated whiskey, which for some years now had been one of the most comforting and safest odors Agnes was aware of.

Doc Cost—almost no one called him anything but that—had been the Hirshes’ family physician since their marriage, and before. Ever since, in fact, the time when Frank’s father had run off with Doc’s first wife and Doc’s savings; which was when Frank had started to cultivate him and had called him in on all the Hirsh family illnesses. Doc had apparently understood this. He had been Frank’s doctor ever since. He had not apparently held it against Frank: what Frank’s father did; and they had become good friends.

She looked at him weakly from the bed.

“What is it this time, Agnes?” he said, the breath of whiskey getting thicker and wafting pleasantly about her. “Same old thing?”

Then, before she could answer, he suddenly got up and walked to the foot of her bed and stood, his arms folded and swaying ever so slightly, looking down at her. As if belatedly realizing he perhaps might be swaying a little, he took two or three steps backward and propped his back against the wall, and continued to look at her, arms folded.

“I’ve been vomiting,” Agnes said. “Dizziness and sick at my stomach. Nervous indigestion, I guess.”

He nodded and unfolded his arms.

“You haven’t been drinking too much?” he said.

“No more than usual,” Agnes said, and shook her head weakly. It was strange that his drinking did not upset her any, but it had always been that way. You knew without thinking about it that whenever he needed to be sober, he would be—and would not be hung over, either. You also knew he would never fumble, never reach around in his bag and come out with the wrong pill. That was just Doc Cost. A big man and all meat except for his heavy stomach, he inspired confidence in the same way that most other people inspire just the opposite. You knew he
knew—
whatever it was; and that he would never censure.

“I’ll give you something to quiet you down and settle your stomach,” Doc said, looking at her gently. “I don’t guess it’s anything to get worried about.”

“Oh no; I’m sure,” Agnes said. “I thought I knew what it was. But I just thought I ought to call you anyway.” She was sitting half up in the bed, with the covers tucked around her just under her breasts, and she was aware of him looking her body under the covers, but she did not mind. The nightgown was not a very sheer one. She was not an unattractive woman, for her age, even if she was thickening a little; and if her breasts sagged a little, they were still ample and fairly shapely, she thought. And it was nice to know there were still
some
men who wanted to look at you. And besides, Doc would never do anything, he was always a perfect gentleman, she had known him for years. “I just wanted to be sure, you know,” she said.

Again Doc nodded. “I’ll just take your temperature and your pulse,” he said, coming around between the beds where his bag was. His hands were sure, reaching in it for the thermometer, and his big sausage fingers—so light of touch for their size—were gentle on her wrist as he felt the artery. “I suppose Frank must be out of town,” he said casually, “or you’d have called him.”

“Oh yes,” Agnes said quickly. “Or I would have. But he’s up in Chicago on a big Jewelers’ Association convention.”

Doc took the thermometer out of her mouth, read it, wiped it with an alcohol swab of cotton, and put it away. “Both normal. I don’t think I’ll need to check your heart. Our bellies are connected to our heads, Agnes,” he said. “I guess nobody really knows just how much of our sickness is due to our mental attitude at the time. Maybe it all is. I don’t know. Or why some people get tuberculosis when we all of us have the germs in our bodies all our lives. The AMA wouldn’t much like me for saying that, I guess,” he grinned. “Have you still got those sedatives I gave you?”

“Some,” Agnes said. “I still use them to help me sleep, sometimes. But I’ve used them sparingly,” she added.

Doc nodded. “Guilts have a lot to do with our sicknesses, I think,” he said. He poured a handful of sedatives out of a big-mouthed bottle and slid them into an envelope. “But not like the head shrinkers think, I don’t think.” He had disliked psychiatrists for years. “Don’t use any more than you have to,” he said, handing it to her together with the medicine. “And never more than one at a time. Don’t want to get to needing them.”

“Thank you, Doctor,” Agnes said.

“I guess the AMA wouldn’t like that, either,” Doc grinned, closing the bag and getting up, “but then I don’t do it with everyone.” He smiled down at her, the wide, open eyes seeming not even to be focused. Abruptly, he ran his hand back through his hair. He’s really a very big man, she thought, huge; and it always surprised you. “Guess I better get back to my poker game,” he said, grinning again that strange grin which all seemed to take place on his mouth and face and the skin around his eyes. “Boys are takin me. Stay in bed a few days if you want to. That man who said A man’s home is his castle was wrong. There’s always too many people around. What he should have said was one’s bed is one’s fortress. If you feel like you want me again for anything, just call me. If I don’t hear from you, I’ll figure you’re all right,” he said. “Goodby.”

“Goodby, Doctor,” Agnes said.

She listened until she heard the door close, and then in a moment the sputtering of the little MG on the drive, backing out. He drove it winter and summer although he had a four-car garage at home, which in addition to the two foreign cars also contained a big Chrysler sedan. He was a strange man. She already felt much better. Guilts, he had said: Doc. Thinking with comforting satisfaction of the packaged Swedish glass up on the shelf, and the lingerie and slips in the drawer, she turned over and went soothingly to sleep.

She woke in the evening to the sound of a voice. It was Dawn on the telephone. She listened in the semi-darkness of the bedroom.

“Where?” Dawn was saying. “No, Wally. Thanks, but I really can’t tonight.”

…

“Mother isn’t feeling well. Yes. And I think I ought to stay around the house tonight. Anyway I have some work to do on my French.”

…

“No. Nothing serious.”

…

“No. She doesn’t need me. When Mother’s sick, she likes to be let alone. But I want to stay around.”

…

“No. Really, Wally. I don’t
want
to go out tonight.”

…

“You’ll have more fun without me anyway.”

…

“Well, there. You see?”

…

“Goodby.”

The phone was hung up, and then she came to the bedroom door, her shadow making a silhouette in the lighted door frame on the wall. Then she quietly went away. Happily, Agnes went back to sleep.

Sitting at the big dining room table, and looking toward the bedroom door where Frank had disappeared, Agnes loved her daughter. Loved her very deeply. So much so it almost made the tears come. Dawn understood her.

She had stayed in bed three days, getting up only to make herself a light meal now and then. Dawn took care of herself, and cooked her own meals, and left her alone. She had been through these sessions before, Agnes thought; she understood. But the fourth day was the day Jane came to clean, and she did not want Jane to see her in bed, so she had gotten up, and getting up had stayed up.

And she was reasonably proud of it.

That was the same day that Dave, with a strange urgent note in his voice, had called her about Frank. Evidently, they were going to go ahead with it.

Again, she found herself looking toward the bedroom door where Frank had gone. After a moment, she got up from the table and went to get the new novel she was reading.

I
T TOOK SEVERAL DAYS
to get the taxi service set up, almost another week to get it operating. There was the building and lot to rent. Then the cars to buy. Titles and licenses to be applied for, corporate papers to be made out, the contracts to sign. Frank did almost all of the work himself. For a week, they hardly saw him at the store and Edith and Al ran it. As he worked, he was already planning that if this worked out, if it paid for itself, he was going to get hold of a couple good secondhand buses in Indianapolis and start a city bus service in a year or two.

The building he finally rented was a block off the square on South Plum Street, one of a cluster of tacky little buildings that had never been replaced by anything better. It had been a rundown lunch counter, which had gone under a year ago, and had been in disuse since then and showed it. He did not care. He did not want a good building, he wanted a cheap one. And this one was on an alley and had a back lot on the falling hillside which had been built up level and would park several cars. He would rather have had a lot on Wernz Avenue, the main street, but nothing was available there, and he would not have paid the price if any had been.