The Complete Stories of Morley Callaghan - Volume Three Page 18

  “I think his head is cool now,” Marthe said. “Maybe he’ll be all right.”

  She got up and walked away from the bed, over to the window with her head down. Standing up, George went to follow her, but his son shouted tyrannically so he had to kneel down and hold the paper moustache under his nose and say, “Look here, look, Walter.”

  Marthe was trying to smile as she watched them. She took one deep breath after another, as though she would never succeed in filling her lungs with air. But even while she stood there, she grew troubled. She hesitated, she lowered her head and wanted to say, “One of us will find work of some kind, George,” but she was afraid.

  “I’ll get dressed now,” she said quietly, and she started to take off her kimono.

  As she held it on her arm, her face grew full of deep concern. She held the kimono up so the light shone on the gay silken flowers. Sitting down in the chair, she spread the faded silk on her knee and looked across the room at her sewing basket, which was on the dresser by the mirror. She fumbled patiently with the lining, patting the places that were torn; and suddenly she was sure she could draw the torn parts together and make it look bright and new.

  “I think I can fix it up so it’ll look fine, George,” she said.

  “Eh?” he said. “What are you bothering with that for?” Then he ducked down to the floor again and wiggled his paper moustache fiercely at the child.

  With an Air of Dignity

  The Langleys, a highly respected, well-off family, lived in a big red brick house on the outskirts of the prairie town. Old Mr. Langley had been the bank manager until he suffered the stroke that left him crippled. Living with him was his housekeeper, a pretty young woman named Rita, a stranger in town from the east, who was working her way to the west coast, and the Langley children — Pauline, the town librarian, and her brother, twenty-two-year-old Steve.

  When Steve was eighteen and a little wild, he had refused to go to school and had hung around the poolroom and the dance hall with big Kersh and his friends. After the furniture store had been robbed, Steve, under police questioning, admitted he had heard Kersh planning to break into the store. Kersh had been sent to jail for three years. Steve, changing his life, had gone on to the university in Saskatoon and was now working in the bank. When Kersh got out of jail he came back to town and whenever he got drunk he went looking for Steve and when he found him, even if it was at the entrance to the bank, he beat him up.

  Kersh was a long-nosed truck driver with pale hard eyes who was over six feet tall. Steve was only five foot eight and he had small hands. When Kersh came after him yelling, “All right, pigeon, get out of town,” Steve would battle him but he always looked like a slight freckle-faced boy with despair in his eyes. Kersh had beaten him in a restaurant, he had beaten him out on the street, and once in the snow in front of the Langley home. The police had thrown Kersh in jail for a week, but everybody knew Kersh would keep on beating Steve Langley.

  On a Saturday afternoon, Rita Whaley, the stranger among the Langleys, saw Kersh’s old car turning in from the highway. She was in her attic room standing by the window brushing her hair, letting it hang loose on her shoulders in the long bob she used to wear back east. There was bright sunlight glistening on the banked snow on the Langley drive and from the high window she could see the way the road ran for miles beyond the town into the vast prairie snow. There was sun and mist and dryness in the air, yet it was very cold, twenty below zero.

  As the car stopped in the drive, Rita watched Kersh lean back surveying the house. He was wearing a leather jacket and a brown cap. He was not alone. Whitey Breaden, in the front seat with him, was a slow-witted fellow in a moth-eaten coon coat, who worked in a garage and had once dreamed of being a professional boxer. Kersh always brought someone along with him, an audience. Kicking the car door open, he stumbled out and stood staring at the house with all his half-drunken arrogance.

  Kersh’s big grin made Rita feel sick, for Steve Langley had become important to her. Unlike Pauline, he treated Rita with a gentle respect, as if she were a fine friend of the family and not just a stray working her way to the coast. Maybe he understood that in Montreal she’d had a bad time, but his courteous respectful manner, filling her with gratitude, seemed to caress and restore her. With Kersh out there now she knew what was going to happen, so she rushed downstairs.

  Mr. Langley was in the wheelchair by the grate fire, and beside him in the rocking chair, Pauline was stitching the hem of a dress. Steve, peeling an orange, was thinner, nervous, and more serious these days. Everything was warm and peaceful. “Kersh,” Rita blurted out. “It’s Kersh.”

  “Where?” Steve asked, his face white.

  “Out there in the car with a pal.”

  The orange slipped from his hands and his eyes grew despairing as he watched it roll to the floor. Then, as he looked at his sister, her face seemed to fascinate him. “Steve, what’ll you do?” Pauline whispered.

  “I don’t know,” he said helplessly. “Lock the doors, I guess. Yeah, lock the door, Rita.” Sitting down, he took a deep breath and closed his eyes. “The drunken lout,” his sister cried fiercely. “To come right to our home. All right. I’ll have the police out here in ten minutes.”

  “We’ve already tried that,” Steve said lifelessly. “A fine exhibition.”

  His father watched him. Old Mr. Langley had lost the power of speech but he followed everything with his lively eyes. The stroke had caused a curl to his lip and Steve could never be sure if the curl was also contempt.

  “Hey, Langley,” Kersh yelled. “Come on out. I want to see you.”

  “Don’t say anything,” Steve said.

  “What if he tries to come in?” Pauline asked. “I’m frightened, Steve.”

  “If he’s good and drunk he’ll go away.”

  But Kersh had begun to pound on the door. “Come on out here, little pigeon,” he roared.

  “Steve, don’t,” Pauline cried.

  “I’ll get him out of here. I’ve got to.”

  “No. Please Steve. My God. Not again. This is our house, our home,” Pauline pleaded.

  “I’m not afraid of him. I’m not,” he said doggedly. Then he swung around to his father who sat so motionless in the wheelchair. The crippled man still looked like a dignified figure with his white hair and his neat black coat. Before he had been stricken old Mr. Langley had been a tall powerful man with a commanding presence and Steve had always had great respect for him. His father’s eyes were bright and critical.

  “I’m not afraid of him, don’t you understand?” he said, making an angry apology to his father. “I’m just not big enough. I can smack him again and again. And then what? I can’t go on.”

  When his father turned away, Steve looked at his sister who nodded sympathetically, and then at Rita Whaley, who tried to hide her concern with a nervous shy smile.

  “Hey, Langley,” Kersh yelled. “I’m right here on your doorstep. Come on out. Or maybe I should come in.”

  “If he tries to come in,” Steve whispered, going slowly to the window, “I’ll kill him. Somehow I’ll kill him. I’ve got a right to kill him.”

  There was a heavy frost on the windowpane and Steve breathed on it and began to rub away the frost so he could look out. Then he saw Whitey Breaden’s face at the lowered window of the car. Whitey was waiting with a big derisive grin. Kersh was over to the right of the path, scowling, blinking because the sun on the snow dazzled him, and then he lurched suddenly in the snow, going down on one knee cursing. In the cold bright sunlight his heavy red face shone with so much mean drunk brutal contempt that Steve’s right leg began to shimmy and he couldn’t control it. He turned with a crazy smile and left the others and hurried upstairs to his room. He got the twenty-two he used to hunt rabbits with and came down to the window again.

  “You big fool, Steve,” his sister cried out. “Oh you big fool.”

  “Get away,” he said as she came close to him.

  “It
’ll only make it worse for you, Steve,” she cried.

  “I’d shoot him like a rabbit,” he said.

  “Hold on to yourself, Steve,” she said.

  “Maybe I could talk to him,” Rita said.

  “Keep out of this, Rita,” he said.

  “No, listen, Steve,” she cried, “a girl can do things with a guy like that.” She touched his arm gently. She had an apologetic smile, as if she felt her confidence in her ability to handle Kersh revealed an aspect of her life she had tried to hide from them.

  “I know how you feel, Steve,” she said. “I can get him to go away.”

  “Forget it,” Steve said.

  “I know Kersh,” she said.

  “Yes,” Pauline said. “Rita knows Kersh. Kersh knows her.”

  “What’re you talking about? I said no,” he said.

  “Steve,” Pauline said. “This is nothing to her.”

  “Pauline,” he shouted.

  “It’s all right, Steve,” Rita said, fussing with her hair. She got her muskrat coat from the peg in the hall and went out.

  Steve peered through the spot on the windowpane that he had rubbed clear of frost. He waited until she came into the sunlight. She was holding the collar of her coat tight across her throat, taking slow delicate steps in the snow because she had on low shoes. A bright sun glowed against a shimmering prairie mist.

  While Kersh waited, Whitey Breaden got out of the car and stood beside Kersh as she came to them with an easy smile. Then, the three were talking and she looked like a little girl beside Kersh in his leather jacket. Kersh pointed at the house, laughed and patted Whitey on the back, and then he took Rita’s arm in a confidential gesture. She shrugged, hesitated, and looked back at the house. Suddenly she left them and came in quickly.

  “I knew he wouldn’t go,” Steve said to her.

  “They’ll go all right,” she said.

  “No, they’re not going.”

  “Well,” she said awkwardly. “Kersh wants me to go into town and have some dinner with them. I don’t know. What do you think?”

  “If it’s just a matter of going to town,” Pauline said quickly, “then why not?”

  “Maybe I can talk some sense into Kersh,” Rita said.

  “You’re crazy,” said Steve.

  “No, go ahead, Rita,” Pauline said.

  “I’ll change my dress,” Rita said, and hurried upstairs.

  Steve and his sister, silent with their father watching, were suddenly embarrassed. But Pauline, a severe proud girl, said irritably, “I’m not worried, Steve. A girl like Rita can always handle a man like Kersh.”

  “A girl like Rita?”

  “Yes, a girl like Rita can look after herself. She won’t stay with us long. It’s not as if she belongs here with us.”

  Rita was coming downstairs in a green dress and she had a lot of lipstick on. Hurrying to the hall, she stepped into her overshoes, but as she knotted the lace on the right shoe, she looked up and paused as if she suddenly understood what they were saying about her.

  “If you’re worrying about me it’s a mistake,” she said. “It’s nothing. I’ll be back in an hour or two.”

  Steve and Pauline watched her get into the car with Kersh. When the car turned out to the road, Steve, wherever he moved, was sure his father’s eyes were on him. An hour passed, and then it was dinnertime. He could not eat, nor could he read after dinner. He found himself saying, “She knows Kersh. Rita’s been around.” He went up to his room and stood by the window watching the road in the long lonely prairie twilight. His hurt bewildered him.

  Finally, he began to get dressed and in a slow methodical fashion he shaved carefully, put on a clean white shirt and his best blue suit. He wanted to look like an important man who didn’t belong in Kersh’s world. When he went downstairs where his father was dozing by the fire, he saw how the hot coals were throwing a fiery reflection on his father’s broad calm forehead, and he frowned. He put on his overcoat and the expensive fur cap they had given him at Christmas and went out and along the road to town walking slowly.

  In the night air, there was a shining winter brightness and great height to the darkness, with a sweep of yellow-green and red northern lights across the sky. His feet crunched on the frozen snow. It sounded as if he had on squeaky new shoes. A freight train moaned in the long night. Down the road, the cluster of lights in the center of the town shone and then the houses were closer together and he began to walk faster, as if he had made a plan. But he had no plan at all.

  The quiet street led to the park in front of the big white hotel and a row of stores was across from the park, all closed with no lights except in one narrow window, Mike’s restaurant. When he got to the window, he peered in: Mike was at the counter with his pointed bald head and his moustache, sitting on one of the row of counter stools with the torn leather seats, and back in the corner by the kitchen, at the end table, Kersh, Breaden and Rita and a barber named Henry Clay were joking and laughing. Kersh was the first to see Steve come in and he frowned and scowled and stood up slowly. “Mike,” he called. “You were closing up, weren’t you?”

  “I want no trouble, Kersh,” Mike said.

  “You said you were closing up.”

  “I’m closing.”

  “Go ahead, then.”

  “What’s the game, Steve?” Rita said, her face flushed. She was ashamed that Steve had found her laughing. “I thought you wanted to keep away, Steve,” she cried. “So why don’t you?”

  “I was passing by,” he said. “I thought you might want to come along with me.” In his good clothes, he looked like a serious young man.

  “Listen, pigeon, beat it,” Kersh said, grinning at Whitey Breaden who smirked and took out a nail file and began to clean his nails. “Or maybe I don’t make myself clear, Mr. Langley?” he added.

  “I’ll go in my own time, when Rita’s ready,” Steve said.

  “I try to make you understand I feel lousy about my whole life when I see you, pigeon,” Kersh said. He had had a lot to drink and his pale blue eyes were half shut. “Okay,” he grunted, “it’s always a pleasure.” He slapped Steve viciously on the mouth and then he waited. “Come on, hit me,” he said. “Come on, come on.”

  “No, I’m not going to hit you, Kersh.”

  “So what’s this?” Kersh asked, and when Steve saw the confusion in the pale blue eyes his heart leaped. “So now the punker’s yellow,” Kersh said. “See, now he’s yellow.”

  “He was yellow three years ago,” Whitey said. “A yellow pigeon.”

  But Kersh didn’t like Steve’s tight superior smile as he held his hands straight at his sides.

  “Superior little punk, eh,” Kersh yelled and grabbed Steve by the collar, choked him, slapped his face, and kept on slapping in a frantic eagerness to make Steve raise his hands and resist, but his hands didn’t come up, and Kersh, slamming him against the wall, grunted, “Grin at me you bastard, grin.”

  “You’re making a big mistake, Kersh,” Steve whispered.

  “How can a guy take it?” the barber said, and Rita stared at Steve.

  “Here,” Kersh coaxed, thrusting out his own jaw eagerly. “Hit me here.”

  “I don’t need to,” Steve gasped.

  “Hit me right here, baby,” Kersh pleaded, tapping his jaw delicately with his forefinger.

  “I don’t need to. No.”

  “So what’s this?” Kersh blurted out. Blinking his eyes, he looked at the others to see if they felt he was being mocked. He was enraged. Then he smashed Steve on the jaw; he smashed him again and waited, but the crazy smile remained on Steve’s face, and he would not back away. His fine fur hat had been knocked off, his white shirt was flecked with blood from his mouth, and there was a silence, a silence that embarrassed them all, and then Steve touched his swelling eye with his hand, swaying a little as he tried to smile. Rita put her hands over her face. She started to cry.

  “It’s a gag,” Kersh whispered, feeling the others w
ithdraw from him. Bewildered, he cracked Steve on the jaw and watched him slump to the floor.

  “It’s not right, Kersh,” Mike protested. “That’s not right.”

  The barber, who had got up, leaned over the table and looked down at Steve. “It’s wild,” he said softly. “Very wild.”

  “Shut up,” Kersh yelled as Steve, raising himself on one knee, wiped the blood from his mouth.

  “What’s the matter with you, Kersh?” Steve whispered.

  “Me?” Kersh yelled. “What the hell is this?” and went to hit him again, but stopped suddenly. A sick look came into his eyes. “The guy ain’t right in the head, I sucker myself hitting him,” he said slowly, turning his back on Steve and appealing to the others. “Did I go after him? He came after me. The broad wanted to come along. All I want is that the guy should keep away from me.”

  “I’ll tell him,” the barber said.

  “Come on, let’s blow this joint,” Kersh said. He wanted to swagger but he was afraid the others weren’t going to come with him. “So what about it?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” the barber agreed. “I think we should go. Come on Whitey.”

  As they went out, Mike said, “I kinda think that guy won’t bother you again, Steve.”

  “I don’t know,” Steve said, sitting down and straightening his collar.

  “A guy like Kersh ain’t used to feeling like a punk,” Mike said.

  Going to the counter, Mike poured a cup of coffee and brought it to Steve. Rita had dipped a handkerchief in a glass of water and was wiping his face. “You don’t look so bad, Steve,” Mike said. “Are you all right?”

  “It’s nothing,” Steve said, gulping down the coffee. Neither he nor Rita spoke. When he had put on his fur hat he said, “Come on, Rita,” and he smiled at Mike and they went out.

  The cold air stung the cuts on his face. He noticed Rita had forgotten to put on her gloves. “Put on your gloves, Rita,” he said.

  Walking in step, she kept her head down. It was a long time before he realized she was crying.

  “Hey, what’s the matter?”

  “Nothing.” Stopping, she took out her handkerchief and wiped his mouth. “That blood is drying in the cold,” she said. “Look, I know I can’t stay around your place any more.”