The Complete Stories of Morley Callaghan - Volume Three Read online

  “It certainly doesn’t,” she said, and she was full of relief, for she knew by his face that the things she had blurted out hadn’t disturbed him at all.

  “I wrote my people about you,” he said. “They want to see you. I sent them a snapshot.”

  “That was a very bad one; I look terrible in it.”

  “Can you get your holidays in August, Sylvia?”

  “I think so. I’ll ask a long time ahead.”

  “We’ll go to the country and see my folks. I swear you’ll like them,” he said.

  That moment at the door was the one fine free moment they had had since coming in, and it did not seem to belong to anything that had happened in the house that night. While they held each other whispering, “Good-bye, goodbye,” they were sure they would always be gentle and faithful, and their life together would be good. Then they laughed softly, knowing they were sharing a secret contempt for the wisdom of her people.

  Without waiting to hear the sound of his footfalls outside, she rushed resolutely to her parents’ bedroom and turned on the light, and called sharply: “Mother.”

  But her mother and father, who were lying with their heads together on the pillow, did not stir, and Sylvia said savagely: “Wake up — do you hear? I was never so ashamed in my life.”

  One of her father’s thin arms hung loose over the side of the bed, the wrinkled hand drooping from the wrist, and his shoulders were half uncovered. Her mother was breathing irregularly with her mouth open a little, as though her dreams too were troubled. They looked very tired, and Sylvia wavered.

  Then her father stirred, and his blue eyes opened and blinked, and he mumbled sleepily: “Is that you, Sylvia?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “All right. Turn out the light,” he said and he closed his eyes.

  Yet she stood there, muttering to herself: “It’s just that I don’t want to get to feel the way you do about people.”

  Then she grew frightened, for the two faces on the pillow now seemed like the faces of two tired people who had worked hard all their lives, and had grown old together; and her own life had been simply a part of theirs, a part of whatever had happened to them. Still watching the two faces, she began to long with all her soul that her own love and her hope would be strong enough to resist the things that had happened to them. “It’ll be different with me and Max. It must be different,” she muttered.

  But as she heard only their irregular breathing, her fright grew. The whole of her life ahead seemed to become uncertain, and her happiness with Max so terribly insecure.

  Poolroom

  Hardly anyone was on the street, the afternoon sunlight was shining so steadily on the pavement and the air was heavy, sticky, and hot. Steve, carrying his coat in one hand and fanning himself with his hat, was going to the rooming house where Shorty Horne lived, to take a lesson on the banjo. He was going along slowly and lazily, feeling the hot sun burning his neck.

  The front porch of the rooming house was badly in need of paint, and on such a dry afternoon it looked even worse with the blistering flakes of paint curling in the heat. Mrs. Scott, who had many roomers, was very clean and tidy inside the house, though she did not seem to care what her place looked like from the street. Shorty Horne had the small attic room, two flights up, with the small window over the front porch and another window looking out over a flat, graveled roof.

  Steve, who had known Shorty three or four months, had met him one afternoon in Hudson’s poolroom over the cafeteria downtown. Shorty was a small, old fellow, about fifty-five, with very heavy veins on his temples and thin hair he hardly ever bothered combing. His straggly moustache was the same color of his hair, only it was much thicker and stiffer, curling down over his lips, and when he had his hat on, the moustache made him look more vigorous and determined than he was. He always wore a hat with a wide brim. He used to come into the poolroom in the afternoon, look carefully at the men around the tables, and then sit down on one of the long benches by the wall, watching the fellows play while he slowly ate a bag of peanuts. Gradually a small space on the floor at his feet was covered with peanut shells, the sole of his shoe crunching the shells. Yet he was not really untidy, for when he had finished eating he bent down and laboriously scraped the shells into a small pile, got them all into the bag that had been in his pocket and threw it into the wastepaper basket. He used to do that nearly every day. If he hadn’t known J.S. Hudson, the proprietor of the poolroom, a large-framed, casual yet formidable man, who stood around snapping his suspenders, he might not have been so clean, though he did seem to enjoy getting the shells into such a neat little pile on the floor. For years he had known Hudson, not intimately, but just as one man knows another from seeing him often and getting used to him. At times he had done a little work for Hudson at Hudson’s home, and if the poolroom janitor needed temporary assistance they hired Shorty for a few hours.

  Once, after playing a game of billiards, Steve had sat down on the bench beside Shorty, who had begun to make friendly conversation, offering polite criticism of certain shots. Though Shorty rarely played billiards he watched all the interesting shots very critically.

  Steve found out that Shorty Horne had no money and no prospect of ever getting steady work. There seemed to be nothing for him to do but pass in and out of the poolroom very quietly without speaking to anyone. He acted like a man who was hiding from the police in a strange city. There was so little to know about him you couldn’t help thinking he was deliberately withholding something. He couldn’t work steadily because he suffered from some terrible kidney trouble. For two or three hours at a time he would be all right and very genial and happy, and then his insides would seem to get into knots as he bent down holding his sides with his elbows and gripping his hands tightly over his body. Around the poolroom they thought most of his time was spent enduring pain. There seemed to be nothing he could do for it. Steve wondered why he did not die, or why he did not long for death. Yet whenever it rained hard in the afternoons and Shorty couldn’t walk from his rooming house to the poolroom where he could sit and talk cheerfully, he was miserable, for this routine seemed to give him happiness; he knew that a few of the steady customers at the poolroom, on the bad days when he did not appear, took it for granted that he had died or had killed himself. They liked him, but felt sorry when they saw him holding his sides. They knew he couldn’t sleep at night.

  He had casually asked Steve once if he could play the banjo and when Steve replied that he would like to be able to, Shorty had offered to teach him. Steve was surprised; no one thought of Shorty spending much time playing a banjo, and yet, as Steve found out when he went to visit him, that was the way he spent an hour of the early afternoon. He got up late, for it usually was hard for him to get to sleep, and when he had had some bran flakes, a little orange juice and a piece of dry toast, he sat for an hour by the window slowly strumming the banjo and looking out over the roof covered with gravel. He looked forward eagerly to having someone there with him and was delighted when Steve began to learn rapidly. The two of them took turns playing the banjo. Whatever pleasure they got out of each other’s company had to be immediate and spontaneous, for Shorty would not talk about himself.

  So, on this afternoon when Steve was going down the street to Shorty’s rooming house, he was looking forward to a drowsy hour or two, sitting with his shirt off, feeling the faint breeze coming over the roof, cooling his bare shoulder while he strummed at the banjo.

  Usually he rapped on the front door and spoke to Mrs. Scott, asking if Shorty were in, before he climbed the long flight of stairs, but today no one answered the door. Mrs. Scott had gone out. Steve went up the carpeted stairs, darkened, for there was no window, dark all the way up to the attic to the door of Shorty’s room at the end of the hall. Usually Steve pushed open the door and stood there in the light from the window till Shorty told him to enter. But today, when he tried to open the door, it was locked. Irritated, he rapped and called, “Shorty!”
r />   “Who’s there?” Shorty answered.

  “Steve.”

  He heard Shorty getting up and fumbling with the lock, then the door opened onto a kind of a twilight, for the blind, a green one, slit in many places and cracked, was down over the window, with the strong sunlight filtering in to the floor. Shorty, after letting Steve in, went back to the chair by the window. The banjo was leaning against the chair. Shorty was crouching down, his arms wrapped around his waist. Steve, glancing at him, thought he was having pains and wanted to rest.

  “Do you mind if I pull up the blind, Shorty?”

  “No, go ahead.”

  “Are you going out this afternoon, Shorty?”

  “No.”

  “What’s the matter?”

  “Nothing, I just been thinking a bit, I guess. I been thinking. I mean I was downtown last night and saw a fellow. I think I’m going to get bumped off.”

  “Who’d bump a guy like you off?” Steve said, laughing out loud.

  “A couple of hoods,” Shorty answered.

  “What for?”

  “Squealing on them.”

  “When?”

  “Oh, quite a while ago.”

  His lower lip was trembling. “It isn’t that I’m afraid,” he said apologetically. “Only I just can’t stand the thought of really dying.”

  “If you don’t mind me saying, Shorty, I don’t think a guy who puts up with as much as you put up with ought to be much afraid of dying, even if you’re not kidding me.”

  “No, I’m not kidding. I just mean that I’d like to go on living for a long time. I’d like to think about it that way.” He spoke so casually and honestly, Steve felt ashamed of himself.

  “Well, who are the guys you’re afraid of?”

  “I’m really not afraid of them, only I know what’s going to happen. I guess it’s coming to me.”

  “Who are they, unless you don’t want to say?”

  “I don’t mind. You didn’t use to hang around Hudson’s poolroom in the old days about five years ago, did you? I don’t remember you, anyway.”

  “No, didn’t know the place at all.”

  “I used to hang around there then. I knew most everybody of a certain kind. It was just about the time I got real sick. If you don’t mind me telling you, Steve, I used to pick a pocket now and then, and had a little more money. Hudson was slugged one night when he had a lot of money there, a couple of thousand, I think. I had a hunch who did it. And they were going to get caught for sure, and they came to me.”

  Steve pulled up the shade on the window. The strong light flooded the room, shining on the rug on the bare floor, on the banjo by the chair, on the iron bedstead painted white and chipping, on some dishes, a can and pail on an upturned box covered with a piece of tin used for a table; and it shone on Shorty, crouched down on the chair, his knees curled up a little, the heels caught on a rung. The toes of the shoes were turned far up. One of the shoes was laced with a piece of brown string.

  “Maybe you don’t want to fool around with the banjo today, Shorty.”

  “Oh, I’m feeling all right, Steve.”

  “Aren’t the pains getting you?”

  “No.”

  “Well, what’s the matter with you, all hunched up?”

  “I’ll sit up,” he said.

  He sat up straight and asked Steve to hand him the banjo. Though he smiled a lot, he was obviously trying to be friendly while his thoughts were far away. The banjo did not interest him, though he strummed it idly, looking out over the graveled roof. At the end of the roof was a short wall of concrete on a brick foundation and behind that a higher wall of brick. The sun shining on the white surface of the concrete made it a heavy white streak against the pinkish light on the brick. In some places on the roof the light gravel had been worn away and the black tar could be seen melting in the heat. Steve, waiting for Shorty to speak, went on looking out the window till he noticed Shorty’s eyes blinking. He saw his head perspiring, beads of moisture at the temples and on the heavy blue veins.

  “Did your guts bother you as much then?”

  “Sure, only it had just started. I couldn’t work. That’s why these guys came to me. They said they’d arranged to fix it so it would look as if I’d done the job. They knew they were going to get it. They offered me a thousand to go down, to take the rap, and said to a guy like me it would be just the same, and maybe better because they’d look after me in prison, and I said all right. A little later I squealed on them.”

  “Why did you do that, Shorty?”

  “I got to thinking about Hudson. He was always kind of nice to me and I couldn’t stand to have him thinking I had done it. I just hated to have him think I had slugged him. But it was mainly because I was sick and couldn’t stand the thought of being shut away. So I told the two guys it was all off and I gave them back their money. They wouldn’t take it. I tried to tell them money wasn’t much good to me, and I wanted to keep on going down to the poolroom. Well, they slapped me a bit and said they had pinned it on me and I had to take the rap after taking the money. The trouble was, when I took the money, I didn’t realize how much I liked the poolroom. But I knew all the time that they’d get me in the long run for squealing. I ought to have got out of the city, but what would I do if I left, the way I am? The poolroom was all I wanted. Where could I go?”

  “But what’s got into you now?”

  “Those guys are out. I saw one downtown last night. He had been asking for me in the poolroom. He just smiled at me.”

  “If I felt like you do, Shorty, I’d tell the cops, and then get on my horse and beat it.”

  “I got no more chance than a rabbit. I haven’t got much use for a squealer myself, I just seem to fit in around the poolroom. See?”

  “Sure.”

  “Well, I figured the way he smiled at me they’d be around sometime today. I know they’ll come.”

  “Is that why you had the door locked?”

  “I suppose so. I was sitting here playing the banjo a bit, but it got so I just couldn’t stand the notion of someone bumping me off, and I couldn’t stop thinking about dying. I hate thinking about dying and I can’t help it, it kinda fascinates me.”

  He picked up the banjo again and looked out the window. His head was sweating. Shorty twanged the strings slowly, three times. “Don’t do that,” Steve said suddenly, getting up and feeling scared. “I’ll stay here with you, Shorty,” he said.

  “If you don’t mind, I’m not gonna give you a lesson today,” Shorty said. His blue eyes were wide open.

  “Don’t you want me to stay?”

  “I’d rather be alone.”

  “I’ll come and see you later, then.”

  “All right.”

  “There’s nothing you want me to do?”

  “No, thanks. Nothing.”

  “I’ll get going, then.”

  Steve went out, leaving Shorty sitting on the chair, the banjo on his knees, his face turned to the window and his teeth biting into his lower lip. The sun was shining full on his small, round wrinkled face. As Steve went downstairs he heard faintly the twanging of the banjo. He walked along the street as far as the corner, then turned and walked back to the house, looking up at the front window. The blind was down. Then, because he was uneasy in his own mind, he went up to the house and sat down on the veranda. Shorty was upstairs waiting, and Steve, wondering how such a sick man could be so eager to go on living, felt young and a little ashamed. Alert, he looked at every passerby, expecting always to see men coming down the street to the house and hear them ask for Shorty Horne. The men, he thought would be well dressed, only they would wear gold bracelets. Steve was trying to think of something very comforting he could say to Shorty. Across the road, down about half a block, was a schoolyard, half the yard cinders and cement, and only a small stretch of green lawn. A bell sounded in the school. Within a few seconds kids came out the wide doors, little girls in light dresses, who did not remain long on the hot cement but ran
yelling to the green lawn to play a while before going out the gate.

  An automobile stopped opposite the house. A woman was driving the car. Sitting beside her was a young man who talked intimately, leaning toward her, holding her by the arm and refusing to let her get out of the car. Suddenly they both began to laugh out loud, leaning back in the seat.

  Though it was late afternoon, hardly anyone came down the street, for the sky was still cloudless and the pavement was hot. Steve sat on the veranda for over an hour. He would not go home and leave Shorty alone in the house.

  Then he saw Mrs. Scott coming down the street, a large, ample woman wearing a light blouse and a blue skirt, and carrying a heavy shopping bag. She was leaning forward. From some distance away she began to smile at Steve. He said to her: “I’m going up to see Mr. Horne. He was lying down a while ago resting. I’ll go up and see him soon now.”

  “The poor man!” she said, wiping the moisture off her large red face. “I don’t see how he can go on living in weather like this.”

  “It’s rotten weather for anybody,” Steve said.

  “I don’t know how he can stand it at all,” she said, shaking her head and drawing in a deep breath before going into the house. “It just burns me to a frazzle.”

  Steve remained on the veranda twenty minutes longer. Before going he intended to speak to Shorty and then speak to Mrs. Scott, but the woman herself came to the door, breathing heavily after coming downstairs, and said to him: “Steve, would you do something for me? I rapped on Mr. Horne’s door and couldn’t get an answer. The door’s locked.”

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “Please open the door for me,” she said nervously.

  Steve went ahead of her up the stairs. As they got closer to the attic the air seemed to be mustier, as it was in all the old rooming houses. He tried the door and called out, but Shorty did not answer. Mrs. Scott was standing behind him, her hands up to her face. Finally Steve swung his shoulder against the door, which opened easily. The room was darkened with the blinds down again. The odor of escaping gas made Steve cough and cover his nose with his handkerchief as he hurried to throw up the window and turn off the gas jet.