The Complete Stories of Morley Callaghan - Volume Two Page 12

  “David,” she said, a little timidly, “David, I was thinking—”

  “I’m tired,” he said in a surly voice, and when he didn’t even look at her, she suddenly remembered that he liked Eva and used to ask her questions about her family on the farm, so she said, casually, “You may be interested to know Eva stole that beaded bag of mine.”

  “What’s that? What bag?” he exclaimed.

  “You know the one, the one I had a year ago.”

  “Why, the kid wouldn’t touch it,” he said sharply. “You know that as well as I do. She’s a fine kid. You’ve been trying for weeks to find some little flaw in her, and you’ve had to admit, yourself, you couldn’t. Don’t start picking away at her.”

  It seemed so unjust that he should challenge her, and as they faced each other, she said bitterly, “I’m not picking at her or you. I’m telling you a fact. The bag was there this morning and it’s gone.”

  “I don’t think she’s taken it, that’s all,” he said.

  “We can soon find out if you doubt it,” she said.

  “Well, I certainly doubt it.”

  “Of course you do,” she replied, “of course you do. You mean you doubt my judgment about everything. Well, I’ll show you,” she said, and she smiled very brightly at him.

  She went into the kitchen where Eva was getting the dinner ready. She sat down and watched the girl’s soft hair, and her plump young shape as she moved around. The girl grew nervous and began to smooth her apron and look scared. Mrs. Evans kept watching her, never smiling, never speaking, and when Eva reddened and half turned, she offered no explanation. Eva could no longer stand the shrewd, calm, knowing expression in Mrs. Evan’s eyes, and she turned nervously. “Is there anything wrong, ma’am?” she asked.

  “Do you remember that purse this morning?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Weren’t you going to throw it out?”

  “You know I wasn’t throwing it out, Eva.”

  “Well— ”

  “Somebody took it.”

  “Maybe I threw it out in the trash barrel,” she said, and she looked at Mrs. Evans, as if pleading with her to make some friendly little remark about it being unimportant and that she was sure the bag would turn up.

  But Mrs. Evans, seeing how disturbed the girl was, said easily, “Eva, would you run down to the drug store and get me some cigarettes?” and she smiled.

  “Right now?” the girl asked reluctantly.

  “Yes, right now, please.”

  Eva was frightened and sullen, trying to make some kind of plan as she stood there. Then she turned to go back to her room, but Mrs. Evans called sharply, “You don’t need your coat, Eva. Just go as you are.” They faced each other, and for just a moment Eva resisted an antagonism she did not understand. In the last month she had hardly spoken to either Mr. or Mrs. Evans. When she heard them quarreling at night she was afraid they would call her to bring them a drink and her hand would tremble and Mrs. Evans would be impatient, and then Eva would hear Mr. Evans defending her good-naturedly. But now she nodded obediently and went out in a wild rush, for she was scared of losing her job.

  Mrs. Evans went straight to the girl’s bedroom and David followed, scowling at her. She trembled with excitement going through Eva’s dresser drawer, pushing aside little boxes of cheap powder, an old photograph of Eva’s father, who was a big, poorly dressed man, a few letters which she held in her hand wondering if Eva had talked about her; and then with her heart pounding with excitement as she listened for the sound of the girl’s footsteps, and feeling strangely like a thief herself, she went to the cupboard and pulled out the girl’s club bag and fished through the nightdress, the old tattered prayer book, the love story magazine. At the bottom was the damaged white beaded bag. She stood up triumphantly and smiled at her husband who turned away as if he was sick. As she followed him into the living room the door slammed and the girl came rushing in, flushed, her eyes full of apprehension, and she handed Mrs. Evans the cigarettes.

  “Thanks, Eva,” she said, a little coldly, and the girl reddened and wheeled around and went into her bedroom.

  “Well, now, was I right? Am I right about something?” she said to David.

  “No, you weren’t right,” he said quietly.

  “It was in her bag, you saw it yourself,” she said. “Don’t you believe your own eyes?” But it bothered her terribly that he only stared at her. She whispered, “Haven’t I got a perfect right to find out if I’ve got a thief in the house? What are you staring at me for, wasn’t I right?” He sat there as if she were a stranger who puzzled him.

  Then they heard Eva calling. “Mrs. Evans, could I speak to you a moment, please?” and she came in, holding out the dainty little white purse, trying to smile innocently. But her eyes showed how completely helpless she felt with the little white purse, as if something bright and elusive had betrayed her.

  “You found it,” Mrs. Evans said uneasily.

  “Yes, I found it, don’t you see,” she whispered, nodding her head eagerly, begging Mrs. Evans to just take the purse and not make her a liar.

  “Where did you find it?” Mrs. Evans asked.

  “In the trash barrel,” Eva said, never taking her eyes off Mrs. Evan’s face. “I must have picked it up with some papers and things. I remembered I put all those things you wanted thrown out in one pile, and I thought I might have picked it up, too, and I went and looked. I’m very sorry, Mrs. Evans.”

  “Why, thanks, Eva, thanks,” Mrs. Evans said, hesitating, and when the girl hesitated, too, and then went, she hoped it was all over, but when she turned to David he was more distressed than ever. She grew ashamed, yet she fought against this shame and said, indignantly, “What’s the matter with you? She took it and she knows I caught her.”

  “Maybe you’re satisfied,” he whispered.

  “I don’t know what you mean,” she said.

  “You know she didn’t intend to take it. You know you made her a thief. You humiliated the kid, you took away her self-respect,” he said, coming close to her as if he was going to shake her. “My Lord, if you knew what you looked like going through the kid’s things.”

  “I didn’t, I didn’t,” she whispered.

  “You’re ruthless when you get started — just like I told you last night, utterly ruthless.”

  “It’s got nothing to do with us,” she said angrily.

  “Yes, it has. You’re still at me, and it doesn’t matter about the kid,” he said. “Keep it up, keep getting everything tighter till it snaps and then we’ll hate each other.”

  He looked so disappointed that she put out her hand and touched him on the arm. “I didn’t mean it like that. I knew I was right, that’s all.”

  “Sure, you were right. You’re right about so many things,” he said, shaken a little because she looked frightened, and he muttered, “I don’t know what’s the matter with you,” and he swung away from her and she heard him going out.

  She sat down with her hands up to her face. As she looked down at the little beaded bag, so small and unimportant, it seemed that day after day with her doubts and discontent she did a whole succession of little things that were right but they only cheapened her life and David’s, as she had just cheapened Eva’s.

  She got up and hurried to Eva’s bedroom and called anxiously, “Eva, may I come in?”

  Eva was sitting on the bed, sullen and fearful, waiting.

  “Eva — this purse,” Mrs. Evans said, holding it up and trying to smile. Eva looked away, her face red. “I only wanted to see if it could be fixed,” Mrs. Evans said. “There are a few beads loose. You’re good with a needle, aren’t you? Couldn’t you fix it up for yourself?”

  “I don’t know. It’s awfully pretty isn’t it?” Eva said, taking it in her two hands and fingering it shyly. “It’s terribly pretty.”

  “Take it, please take it,” Mrs. Evans whispered, and Eva looked up astonished because Mrs. Evans had one hand up to her lips and though her voice was eage
r her eyes were brimming with tears as if she were begging Eva to help her.

  Hello, America!

  In those days, times were tough and getting worse. In the winter men were still wandering across the country looking for work, and so old Herrmann, who ran the little white diner down near the station, got hold of Henry Stevens. The young Englishman came in shivering one night and offered to wash dishes for a meal. He had no overcoat on and no socks. His fair hair hung down on the back of his neck. His voice was soft and polite, but his blue eyes showed how discouraged he was.

  Old Herrmann always was on the lookout for someone who would work for nothing. Sometimes he picked up a man on the highway when he was driving along in his old car with his wife, and sometimes he got them when they came in looking for a handout. Being a very suspicious man, he had it figured out that anyone who was completely discouraged and easy to browbeat would be too scared to be dishonest. His big round face actually glowed when he saw Henry, though he tried to look just a little sad. He had been working day and night himself and was so tired he had even thought of paying someone to help him.

  “Sure you can wash the dishes,” he said. “Come on, kid. Go to work and get warm and get it off your chest, it’ll do you good.”

  As Henry washed the pile of dishes and talked a little brokenly, old Herrmann listened like a rough, affectionate father. He wrinkled up his fat face and made clucking, sympathetic noises in his throat. The kid sounded just right. He hadn’t worked for four months. He had come from England after his mother had died and there was no money left in his family. He had come, he said, because he had read so much about the friendliness of the people of North America. All the lovely names of the places he wanted to see — Colorado, Algoma, Tia Juana, Sault Ste. Marie, and Oregon — he recited them to Herrmann, with a dreamy, eager look in his eyes as he stirred the brush in the water and scrubbed the dishes.

  Listening with his hands on his big hips as he eyed the kid shrewdly, Herrmann said, “I know what it’s like. Stay here a while, kid. Maybe I can let you sleep on the couch in the back room there. Maybe you can wait on the counter a little. Of course I can’t afford to keep you around long, I’m a poor man,” Herrmann said, wanting Henry to go on feeling terribly insecure. “But you can eat, see, and by jingo, maybe I can give you a couple of dollars.”

  “I’ll do anything you say, sir,” Henry said.

  Herrmann liked the way Henry had called him “sir.” Leading him into the back room when he had finished the dishes, he had him hang up his jacket. He didn’t seem to have any possessions but a little brown book of Edgar Allan Poe’s poetry and a picture of his father and mother. To show what a deep personal interest he was taking in him, Herrmann got a pair of scissors and gave him a haircut and promised to bring him a pair of his old socks in the morning.

  Henry started working behind the counter in the morning. Every little while Herrmann kept bobbing in from the back room to make sure he was treating the customers right and putting the money in the till. But after a few nights, old Herrmann was so tired he simply had to go home and get some sleep. A little after midnight, his wife, a big-boned, surly woman, who looked at Henry as if she had seen a hundred like him around the place, called for Herrmann in the old car and took him home. For a few hours Henry was alone.

  The late shift from the station yard came in at that time, powerful-looking men in overalls and grease-marked faces, who shouted at Henry for their hot bowls of stew and took turns putting coins in the slot of the big jukebox. They soon started calling Henry “Limey.” But he liked them for their friendliness. He liked their rough, free, laughing conversations.

  After the last of the night shift had gone out and Henry was alone at the counter, a man in a long brown overcoat, so long at the sleeves it completely covered his hands, came in and sat down at the counter. He was grimy and bristly and his face was smeared with soot, but he grinned at Henry. “How about it, buddy?” he asked.

  “How about what?” Henry asked.

  “Slip us a bowl of soup, eh, pal?”

  It was a very cold night outside, the place was still full of the smell and the warmth of the well-fed night shift from the station yard, and this fellow looked as if he might have come from the other end of the earth on an empty stomach. He certainly looked as if he needed companionship even more than Henry did.

  “All right,” Henry said, getting him a bowl of soup. “Where are you from?”

  “St. Paul, brother,” he said, and then while Henry waited eagerly, he wolfed the hot soup down. Then he took a paper napkin, wiped his mouth, grinned broadly and took out a tiny cigarette butt from his pocket. “Okay,” he said, expanding. “You’re swell, kid.” So they started talking like two old friends. “Jimmy Dyes is the name,” he said. He was a carpenter by trade, trying to make his way to Boston, where he had a brother. Off and on he had been working at jobs all over the country. Sometimes the jobs didn’t last, he said. Sometimes he just got restless. Holding up the sleeve of his coat, he said, “See that? It belonged to Overcoat Charlie. Never did a day’s work in his life. Died in the boxcar on the way east. Maybe he’s been in here and put the touch on you.” They went on talking about what it was like in different cities. Henry’s face was glowing with friendliness and excitement.

  “If you’re ever in St. Paul you go and see my cousin, Dave,” Jimmy Dyes said. He was writing the name on a paper napkin when Henry looked up and saw old Herrmann coming in.

  Herrmann was unbuttoning his coat and taking out his handkerchief as if he had begun to sweat as soon as he got out of the icy air. He had a sad and disappointed expression on his face. Jimmy Dyes took one look at him and went out.

  “You gave that bum a hand-out,” old Herrmann said.

  “Well, I guess I did,” Henry said, nervously.

  “Put the cash in the till.”

  “I haven’t got any cash, Mr. Herrmann.”

  “Henry, I guess I’ll have to throw you out,” Herrmann said. It seemed to worry him. It seemed to touch his gentle heart. He said nothing more to Henry that night, though. Then in the morning, he was almost indulgent. “Don’t be worrying, Henry,” he said. ‘Maybe I’ll let you stick around awhile.” Around midnight, when his wife called for him in the car, he slapped Henry on the back. “What the hell. Don’t look so scared!” he cried. “I trust you. Come on. I’m going to buy you a glass of beer.”

  They left his wife behind the counter, and they walked along the street together to the tavern that was a few blocks away. They took a short cut through the little square behind the church, and the path was lined with benches, and on every bench was a huddled-up, shivering man. “Just look at those poor guys,” Herrmann said. A cold wind was blowing dust and twigs along the path. The men on the benches were wrapped up in old sacks. One had his coat lined with dozens of newspapers that stuck up around his ears and kept the wind from his neck.

  “Ain’t it terrible?” Herrmann said. “Don’t tell me they haven’t got it tough.”

  “Don’t I know it,” said Henry, his voice breaking.

  “And just think, maybe some of them have got an education just like you, Henry,” Herrmann said.

  Henry didn’t have much chance to enjoy the glass of beer they had together in the tavern. Not that Herrmann talked of throwing him out. The old fellow simply sat there with a sad, wondering expression on his face, as if he never would be able to forget the row of benches in the square. The lonely, frightened look came into Henry’s eyes. Herrmann’s warm little white diner began to seem like the most beautiful spot in the world.

  Back in the diner, Henry worked all night, and then in the morning when he was lying down, in spite of himself, he found he was thinking of the friendly, eager conversation he had had with Jimmy Dyes. He tried to put it out of his head. It only made him feel insecure. Then he lay on the bed, his face burning with shame. He knew he was scared even to dream. It made him think of his father and mother and fellows he had grown up with in England, and his eagernes
s to come to America. He got up, wanting desperately to prove to himself he was still like what he had been, and he sat down and tried to read a few of the poems in the little book. In a while he found that all he was hearing and thinking of was the sound of engines shunting in the station yard and the cry of the freights skirting the hills behind the city.

  Later, at the counter, he was so servile with his “Yes, Mr. Herrmann, as you say, sir,” that the old man was delighted and almost tender with him. Henry told himself he had no right to have dreams about seeing the country. But every night men kept coming up from the station yard when he was alone. They kept coming in, independent migratory workers with water frozen on their caps, or just bums speaking with twangy accents and drawls, covered with boxcar dirt and with cinder-torn faces. He tried hard to drive them all away. But he was lonely and longed for their free and easy and exciting conversations.

  Herrmann hadn’t given him any money since he had come, and he found himself figuring out that even if he gave away as many as twenty bowls of soup in a week it would only amount to change out of Herrmann’s pocket. Surely, he told himself, he earned much more than his food and the right to sleep on the little iron bed.

  So, when a kid came in one night with a coat-sleeve frozen stiff by water and steam from the engine, he handed him a bowl of soup. Leaning across the counter, they talked eagerly to each other. The kid was independent and foot-loose, and very American and sure of himself and just hungry. It was funny how many were like that. None of them were really scared. Henry learned in these nights that most of the men were just trying to get from one place to another on the continent. He had a collection of names written on paper napkins they had left with him.

  One night two fellows in leather jackets, bricklayers out of work for the winter and making their way south, came in and hung around and got warm and kidded each other and Henry, and obviously expected a bowl of soup. They had just got Henry interested in them when a young black came in and stood at the door sniffing the aroma from the steaming pots and looking desperately at Henry.