The Complete Stories of Morley Callaghan - Volume Two Page 11

  Before going out in the evenings, whenever she had a new hat or dress and was sure of her beauty, she used to pretend to annoy her father, who was reading his paper, by saying coaxingly, “Please tell me that I don’t look a fright. Could anybody say I looked pretty, Dad?” She would smile to herself with secret amusement while he was saying, “You’re a beauty, Ellen. Bless my soul, if you’re not! When I was young, I’d twist my neck if a girl like you passed by.” Until she went out the front door he would wait, apparently interested only in the paper; then he would hurry to the window with his pipe in one hand and the paper under the other arm and watch her hurrying along the street with her short, rapid steps.

  From the beginning she had been very much in love with Joe Baton. Joe was handsome and good-natured — a big, broad-shouldered young man with a fine head of untidy brown hair who laughed often, was always at ease, and was marvelously gentle with Ellen. This gentleness in such a big man used to make Mr. Mason warm with joy, and sometimes when he went to bed after watching Joe and Ellen, it seemed wonderful that Ellen should have the love of a man who had so much tenderness for her. Joe Baton hadn’t much money but he wanted to be an architect and he loved the work, and he liked talking about the things he planned to do, especially when he and Ellen had come into the house with the elation of two children after the evening out together. Ellen used to listen to him with a grave wonder, and then, a little later, with laughter in her eyes, she would try to get him to tease her father. Joe could tell stories that would keep them all laughing till two o’clock in the morning, especially if he had brought a bottle or two of red wine. Three times Mr. Mason coaxed Joe to play a game of checkers and then enjoyed giving him a bad beating; Joe was too impulsive to be good at the game.

  Mr. Mason hoped that Ellen and Joe would get married and have a place of their own, and after a year, perhaps, he hoped they might invite him to go and live with them. But instead of that, Joe stopped coming to the house. “He’s gone, It’s over. We won’t see him again,” Ellen said. Her solemn face could not conceal her fierce resentment.

  She went from day to day with a set little smile on her face, and there was growing in her a strange gravity and stillness that made her father, watching her, ache with disappointment. They used to get up in the morning at the same hour and have breakfast together before going out to work. Her face on these mornings looked pinched and weary, as if she had not slept, and her blue eyes, which at first had shown so easily that she was hurt, now had a dull expression of despair. Yet she walked along the street in the old way, dressed smartly in bright colors, her body erect, and when she came home in the evenings and saw her father looking at her anxiously, she smiled and said, “Do you know, Dad, the most amusing thing happened today . . .” She would start to tell some trivial story, but in a few moments she was so grave again that she frightened him.

  Mr. Mason was so upset that he hardly knew what he was doing. One night he left Ellen sitting by herself in the living room and went into his bedroom to read himself to sleep. He was standing on the carpet in his bare feet, staring at the reading-light with his evening paper under his arm. The pillows were propped up on the bed, as they were every night, and he patted them with his hand. At last he sighed, half smiled, and dragged himself into bed, his old body heavy with disappointment. The reading-light shone on his white head and on the intricate network of veins on his red neck as he lay back with his glasses in his hand. “There’s no use worrying and wondering about these things,” he said to himself, so he set his glasses firmly on his nose and started turning the pages of the paper. But no matter how he stared, or even rubbed his hand over his eyes, he kept having the same thought. He sat up and felt a surge of anger. The hand holding the paper began to tremble, his face got red with a sudden rush of blood, and it looked as if he were going to have one of his bursts of bad temper. He felt a hatred of Joe Baton, a resentment against all the days of the past year. “This has got to end,” he thought. “Ellen’s not going to worry herself and me into the grave. What’s she doing sitting in that room by herself at this hour? I’ll put an end to this once and for all.”

  He hurried, throwing his old brown dressing gown around him, feeling strong with independence. With his slippers slapping on the floor, and his white hair, ruffled by the pillow, sticking out from his head, he went striding along the hall to the living room.

  The light was out, but from the door he could see Ellen sitting by the window with her elbows on the sill. First he coughed, then he walked over softly and sat down on a chair beside her. Moonlight was shining on the side of her face, and her wide forehead where her long hair was pushed back from her temples. He wanted to touch her cheek and her hair, but he was determined to speak firmly. He did not know how to begin such a conversation. He said very hesitantly, “Aren’t you up late, Ellen?”

  “Weren’t you able to sleep, Dad?” she said.

  “Yes, but I didn’t want you sitting in here feeling alone.”

  “It isn’t late, and I’m all right.”

  “The house seemed so quiet,“ he said. “I got thinking you might be feeling lonely. I got thinking of Joe Baton, too. Are you thinking he might still marry you?”

  “He can’t marry me. He’s not here to marry me. He’s gone away to Detroit.” And, still without turning her head to look at him, she said, “It will get unpleasant for you, Dad. If you don’t want me to stay here, I won’t. Soon the neighbors will notice me and begin to talk.”

  He thought she must hear his heart beating with such slow heaviness that it hurt him, and he said, “I wasn’t thinking anything like that.”

  “It doesn’t take people long to notice things,” she said.

  “Ellen, it’s all right. Don’t waste yourself on such thoughts. I know you can’t be happy, but try not to feel miserable,” he said. His voice faltered, he thought he was going to lose control of himself. Then he said with simple dignity, “I’ll look after you as long as I live, you know. Please don’t feel miserable.”

  “I don’t, Dad,” she said, turning toward him. He saw the soft light on her face. Her face was so smooth and serene that he was startled. There was a contentment in it he had never seen before. The soft light gave her face a glow.

  “Ellen,” he whispered. “You look happy, child.”

  “I’m very happy,” she said.

  “Why are you so happy? How can you have such a feeling?”

  “I feel very contented now, that’s all,” she said. “Tonight everything is so still on the street outside and in the dark here. I was so very happy while Joe was with me,” she whispered. “It was as though I had never been alive before. It’s so sweetly peaceful tonight, waiting, and feeling so much stirring within me, so lovely and still.”

  “What are you waiting for?” he asked.

  “It seems now he’ll come back again,” she said.

  “When, Ellen?”

  “I don’t know. I just feel that he will.” She smiled patiently, with such a depth of certainty and peace that he dared not speak. For many minutes he sat beside her, stirred, and deep within him was a pain that seemed to be a part of all his years, but he could really feel nothing but her contentment now. Nothing that had ever happened to him seemed as important as this secret gladness Ellen was sharing with him.

  He got up and said quietly, “I’ll go now, Ellen. Good night.”

  “Good night, Dad,” she said.

  On the Edge of a World

  On our street, the best houses were large and always well painted, and in each house there was only one family. The corner house belonged to a wealthy man name Dirk Henders, who lived there with his young wife and thirteen-year-old son, Paul.

  Farther up the street, the houses were smaller, and some were broken into flats. These houses were always in need of paint, and grass never grew on their front lawns. On the third floor of one, Johnny Roberts lived with his father and mother and three older sisters. Johnny’s father was a bus driver and the family had a hard
time getting along. Johnny was the same age as Paul Henders, but he was small for his age, and Paul was three inches taller. The two boys did not like each other. In fact, none of the neighborhood children liked Paul, who was a clumsy, awkward, pale-faced boy.

  In the evenings, Johnny would sometimes watch Paul and his father and mother coming along the street together. Mr. Henders was a tall, solemn, fine-looking man. Paul’s mother, who was years younger than her husband, wore expensive clothes; she was a pretty woman and had a superior air. Johnny believed that Paul felt superior too, because of his fine parents.

  When Johnny was going along the street with his own father and mother and they met the Henders family, he wished he were more friendly with Paul because Paul’s father bowed and spoke with such distinction and his wife had a cheerful smile. Their voices were soft and excitable, and Johnny couldn’t help wishing that his father wouldn’t go out in the evenings in his bus driver’s leather jacket. He wished his father and mother spoke slowly and politely to each other, as he was sure Paul’s parents did. He blamed Paul for these things he was wishing and the way he was feeling.

  In the summer evenings, Johnny and Fred Stewart, a tall thin boy, used to box with each other in the lane. One hot evening, Johnny was trying out a punch he would not have used against a good boxer. He waited till the taller boy came at him, crouched, then suddenly leaped in the air, snapping out his left; he got Fred on the nose every time. But as a punch it was no good, because a smart boxer could duck and counterpunch when he was off the ground and helpless. As they mauled each other and laughed, Fred said, “Look who’s here.”

  Paul Henders was watching them with an earnest scowl on his face. “How’s it going?” Paul said, looking at Fred, who was his own size. “Why do you let him keep his glove in your face? Why don’t you stick your arm out?”

  “You don’t think I do so good?” Fred pulled off his gloves. “Here, Paul, old pal, you show me. Come on, Johnny; he wants to show me.”

  “I don’t know what I can show you,” Paul said. He suddenly looked lonely.

  “Sure you can,” Fred said. “Here. Let me tie your gloves on.”

  When Paul faced Johnny, he did not show much confidence. Crouching a little and losing the advantage of his height, he thrust his left arm out. Grinning, Johnny moved around him warily, for he had never seen him fight and there was a chance he might be good. Paul pawed at him and Johnny jabbed at his eyes, then did it again and again, liking the way Paul blinked stupidly. He saw that Paul was simply a big, clumsy, strong fellow with no talent, so he began to clown and amuse himself. He tried out the fancy sucker punch. Crouching, he waited till Paul came at him; then he leaped, shooting his left over Paul’s arm and smacking him on the face every time, and every time he seemed to become taller than Paul. Blood began to trickle from Paul’s nose.

  “Okay, Paul,” Fred said. “You’ve had enough.”

  “I guess it looks easier than it is,” Paul said apologetically. He was sucking in his breath. When they had taken his gloves off, he sat down and held his handkerchief over his nose. He did not seem to be ashamed, just interested.

  It began to get dark, and Fred and Johnny quit boxing. That was the part of the night, or the beginning of the part, that Johnny liked best for, after pummeling each other and sweating, there was a warm friendly feeling which lasted for hours between him and Fred. He was disappointed when Fred said he had to go home.

  “Say, Johnny,” Paul began awkwardly, when Fred had left, “you know that punch of yours — the one where you leap up and it doesn’t do a fellow any good to be a lot taller than you?”

  “That punch? That’s amateur stuff.”

  “I’d like to learn to do it, Johnny.”

  “It only looks good against a big, slow guy.”

  “How about letting me practice with you?”

  “It’s too dark,” Johnny said flatly.

  “Come on down to my place,” Paul pleaded. “We can practice in the cellar.”

  It was embarrassing because they had never liked each other, yet Paul was making it seem important. Johnny had never been in the Henders’ house. “Okay,” he said. “Just for a while.”

  At the big house they went down the cellar steps. “Is that you, Paul?” his mother called. It was a low, warm, easy voice, and Johnny liked it. “It’s me, Mother,” Paul answered.

  “Let’s see now,” Paul said grimly, when they had the gloves on. Crouching low, he jumped up in the air about a foot, lashing out with his left. Johnny grinned. It looked awful. “Maybe only a little guy should try a punch like that,” Johnny said doubtfully. “It looks all right if you can leap like a dancer. You just don’t look like a guy who ever danced, Paul.”

  “Show me again,” Paul said earnestly. He was so desperately serious that Johnny tried hard to give him a picture of the punch. He had him leaping all over the cellar — crouching, then leaping. Gradually, Paul began to look a little better. But Johnny couldn’t imagine him really hitting anybody with that kind of punch.

  “Look, Paul, I don’t think a tall fellow like you should try to use such a punch. You’d only use it against somebody taller and slower. You’re pretty tall.”

  “That’s the way I figured it,” Paul said. “If it was someone big and strong and tall, too tall for me, but someone who couldn’t box, it might work — mightn’t it?”

  “It might at that. Who’ve you got in mind?”

  “I’ve had a couple of fights . . .” he started to say. Then his voice went very low. “I’ve had a couple of fights with my father.”

  “Oh-oh,” Johnny said.

  “It’s not easy,” Paul said quietly. “And it isn’t just me.” He looked at Johnny. “He starts in on my mother. I try to stop him, see?”

  “I see,” Johnny said, but he was listening to the sound of quick, eager footsteps overhead, the footsteps moving in a circle. Then there was a heavier step at the front of the house — a long, firm step going along the hall, turning into the room overhead, stopping, then turning away and going on upstairs. Johnny stood up. “I guess I’ll be going,” he said.

  Paul accompanied him to the street. It was dark, and the moon was rising. “It’s always there,” Paul said slowly. “My mother keeps saying she has a right to some life of her own. And then he . . . Could we box again soon?”

  “Oh, sure, ”Johnny said.

  Going up the street, he could hardly think clearly. The Henders were the last people he would expect to be cruel to each other. He went into the living room of his own home, where his father was reading the newspaper and his mother was sewing. They hardly looked up. Johnny seemed to be still listening for the sound of footsteps moving overhead, while he stared raptly at the faces of his parents. They often quarreled and there were sharp words.

  “Going out again, Johnny?” his mother asked.

  “No. There’s nothing to do,” he said. It was peaceful there in the living room, and neither his mother nor his father was bothering about whether they had lives of their own. Maybe they didn’t know it was what they wanted. Maybe that was why his father and mother never broke openly with each other as Paul’s parents did. It was not hard to imagine either one saying angrily, “I’ve got a right to some life of my own.” It could happen easily. But it did not happen.

  He went out to the back porch and looked over the backyard fences at the long rows of lighted windows. On other nights those lights had seemed like the lights in the windows of peaceful homes. Suddenly, he felt that he had no idea what was going on behind the drawn shades against which shadows sometimes moved. All kinds of wild things could be going on, but he would never be able to know anything about it just from meeting people politely on the street; and so, standing there at the porch rail was like standing at the edge of a frightening, complicated, exciting world, which he might someday have to try to understand.

  A Little Beaded Bag

  When young Mrs. Evans came in at dinnertime and noticed that the little white beaded bag she h
ad tossed on the chair in the bedroom that afternoon was gone, she was sure Eva, the maid, had taken it. The girl, helping her clean out the chest of drawers in the bedroom, had found the bag she’d put aside a year ago because the little white beads had come loose around the metal clasp. Mrs. Evans had hesitated, remembering the night she’d carried it to a party after returning from Europe, and then she’d sighed, knowing she would never get it fixed, and tossed it at the rubbish on the paper spread out on the floor.

  “My, it’s pretty, isn’t it?” Eva said as she picked it up. Mrs. Evans took it from her, looked at it, wondering if she ought to keep it after all, and undecided, tossed it onto the bedroom chair.

  When her husband who was a young lawyer came home she might never have mentioned the bag if he hadn’t sat down sullenly and refused to speak to her. They had quarreled the night before. They had been married only a year, but in the last few months there seemed to be some tension and strain between them that puzzled her and made them sometimes want to hurt each other terribly. When she saw him hiding gloomily behind the newspaper, she was touched and regretted the quarrel: she wanted to tell him that he was wrong about last night, that he was crazy if he thought she really expected him to drop all his old friends, and that she understood he could still be in love with her and yet want to have some freedom of his own.