‘I’ll be over in a little while, then. Have to stop by the house, first. So long —’
‘Oh, Geo – this is nice! Au revoir!’
But he is so utterly perverse that his mood begins to change again before he has even finished unloading his purchases into the car. Do I really want to see her? he asks himself; and then, what in the world made me do that? He pictures the evening he might have spent, snugly at home, fixing the food he has bought, then lying down on the couch beside the bookcase and reading himself slowly sleepy. At first glance, this is an absolutely convincing and charming scene of domestic contentment. Only after a few instants does George notice the omission which makes it meaningless. What is left out of the picture is Jim, lying opposite him at the other end of the couch, also reading; the two of them absorbed in their books yet so completely aware of each other’s presence.
Back at home, he changes out of his suit into an army surplus store khaki shirt, faded blue denims, moccasins, a sweater. (He has had doubts from time to time about this kind of costume; doesn’t it give the impression that he’s trying to dress young? But Jim used to tell him, No, it was just right for him – it made him look like Rommel in civilian clothes. George loved that.)
Just when he’s ready to leave the house again, there is a ring at his doorbell. Who can it be at this hour?
Mrs Strunk!
(What have I done that she can have come to complain about?)
‘Oh, good evening —’ (Obviously she’s nervous, self-conscious; very much aware, no doubt, of having crossed the frontier-bridge and being on enemy territory.) ‘I know this is terribly short notice. I – we’ve meant to ask you so many times – I know how busy you are – but we haven’t gotten together in such a long while – and we were wondering – would you possibly have time to come over for a drink?’
‘You mean, right now?’
‘Why, yes. There’s just the two of us at home.’
‘I’m most terribly sorry. I’m afraid I have to go out, right away.’
‘Oh. Well. I was afraid you wouldn’t have time. But —’
‘No, listen,’ says George, and he means it; he is extremely surprised and pleased and touched. ‘I really would like to. Very much indeed. Do you suppose I could take a rain-check?’
‘Well, yes, of course —’ But Mrs Strunk doesn’t believe him. She smiles sadly. Suddenly it seems all-important to George to convince her.
‘I would love to come. How about tomorrow?’
Her face falls. ‘Oh well, tomorrow. Tomorrow wouldn’t be so good, I’m afraid. You see, tomorrow we have some friends coming over from the Valley, and —’
And they might notice something queer about me, and you’d feel ashamed, George thinks, okay, okay.
‘I understand, of course,’ he says, ‘but let’s make it very soon, shall we?’
‘Oh yes,’ she agrees fervently, ‘very soon —’
Charlotte lives on Soledad Way, a narrow uphill street which at night is packed so tight with cars parked on both sides of it that two drivers can scarcely squeeze past each other. If you arrive after its residents have returned home from their jobs, you will probably have to leave your car several blocks away, at the bottom of the hill. But this is no problem for George, because he can walk over to Charley’s from his house in less than five minutes.
Her house is high up on the hillside, at the top of three flights of lopsided rustic wooden steps, seventy-five of them in all. Down on the street level there is a tumbledown shack intended for a garage. She keeps it crammed to the ceiling with battered trunks and crates full of unwanted junk. Jim used to say that she kept the garage blocked in order not to be able to own a car. In any case, she absolutely refuses to learn to drive. If she needs to go some place and no one offers to give her a ride, well then, that’s too bad, she can’t go. But the neighbours nearly always do help her; she has them utterly intimidated and bewitched by this Britishness which George himself knows so well how to employ, though with a different approach.
The house next to Charlotte’s is on the street level. As you begin to climb her steps, you get an intimate glimpse of domestic squalor through its bathroom window (it must be frankly admitted that Soledad is one whole degree socially inferior to Camphor Tree Lane): a tub hung with panties and diapers, a douche-bag slung over the shower-pipe, a plumber’s snake on the floor. None of the neighbour’s kids are visible now, but you can see how the hillside above their home has been trampled into a brick-hard slippery surface with nothing alive on it but some cactus. At the top of the slope there is a contraption like a gallows, with a net for basketball attached to it.
Charlotte’s slice of the hill can still just be described as a garden. It is terraced, and a few of the roses on it are in bloom. But they have been sadly neglected; when Charley is in one of her depressive moods, even the poor plants must suffer for it. They have been allowed to grow out into a tangle of long thorny shoots, with the weeds thick between them.
George climbs slowly, taking it easy. (Only the very young are not ashamed to arrive panting.) These outdoor staircases are a feature of the neighbourhood. A few of them have the original signs on their steps which were painted by the bohemian colonists and addressed, apparently, to guests who were clambering upstairs on their hands and knees, drunk. Upward and onward. Never weaken. You’re in bad shape, sport. Hey – you can’t die here! Ain’t this heaven?
The staircases have become, as it were, the instruments of the colonists’ posthumous vengeance on their supplanters, the modern housewives; for they defy all labour-saving devices. Short of bringing in a giant crane, there is absolutely no way of getting anything up them except by hand. The icebox, the stove, the bathtub and all of the furniture has had to be pushed and dragged up to Charley’s by strong savagely cursing men. Who then clapped on huge extra charges, and expected triple tips.
Charley comes out of the house as he nears the top. She has been watching for him, as usual, and no doubt fearing some last-moment change in his plans. They meet on the tiny unsafe wooden porch outside the front door, and hug. George feels her soft bulky body pressed against his. Then, abruptly, she releases him with a smart pat on the back – as much as to show him that she isn’t going to overdo the affection; she knows when enough is enough.
‘Come along in with you,’ she says.
Before following her indoors, George casts a glance out over the little valley to the line of boardwalk lamps where the beach begins and the dark unseen ocean. This is a mild windless night, with streaks of sea-fog dimming the lights in the houses below. From this porch, when the fog is really thick, you can’t see the houses at all and the lights are just blurs, and Charlotte’s nest seems marvellously remote from everywhere else in the world.
It is a simple rectangular box; one of those pre-fabs which were put up right after the War. Newspapers enthused over them, they were acclaimed as the homes of the future; but they didn’t catch on. The living-room is floored with tatami, and more than somewhat oriental-gift-shop in decor. A tea-house lantern by the door, wind-bells at the windows, a huge red paper fish-kite pinned to the wall. Two picture-scrolls; a madly Japanese tiger snarling at a swooping (American?) eagle; an immortal sitting under a tree, with half a dozen twenty-foot hairs growing out of his chin. Three low couches littered with gay silk cushions; too tiny for any useful purpose but perfect for throwing at people.
‘I say, I’ve just realised that there’s a most ghastly smell of cooking in here!’ Charlotte exclaims. There certainly is. George answers politely that it’s a delicious smell and that it makes him hungry.
‘I’m trying a new kind of stew, as a matter of fact. I got the idea from a marvellous travel-book Myrna Custer just brought me – about Borneo. Only the author gets slightly vague, so I’ve had to improvise a bit. I mean, he doesn’t come right out and say so, but I have a suspicion that one’s supposed to make it with human flesh. Actually, I’ve used leftovers from a joint —’
She is a lot y
ounger than George – forty-five next birthday – but, already, like him, she is a survivor. She has the survivor’s typical battered doggedness. To judge from photographs, she was adequately pretty, as long as her big grey eyes were combined with soft youthful colouring. Her poor cheeks are swollen and inflamed, now, and her hair, which must once have made a charming blur around her face, is merely untidy. Nevertheless, she hasn’t given up. Her dress shows a grotesque kind of gallantry, ill-advised but endearing; an embroidered peasant blouse in bold colours, red, yellow and violet, with the sleeves rolled up to the elbows; a gipsyish Mexican skirt which looks as if she had girded it on like a blanket, with a silver-studded cowboy belt – it only emphasises her lack of shape. Oh, and if she must wear sandals with bare feet, why won’t she make up her toenails? (Maybe a lingering middle-class Midlands puritanism is in operation here.) Jim once said to her kiddingly, about a similar outfit, ‘I see you’ve adopted our native costume, Charley.’ She laughed, not at all offended, but she didn’t get the point. She hasn’t gotten it yet. This is her idea of informal Californian playwear, and she honestly cannot see that she dresses any differently from Mrs Peabody next door.
‘Have I told you, Geo – no, I’m sure I haven’t; I’ve already made two New Year’s resolutions – only they’re effective immediately. The first is, I’m going to admit that I loathe bourbon.’ (She pronounces it like the dynasty, not the drink.) ‘I’ve been pretending not to, ever since I came to this country – all because Buddy drank it. But, let’s face it, who do I think I’m kidding now?’ She smiles at George very bravely and brightly, reassuring him that this is not a prelude to an attack of the Buddy-blues; then quickly continues, ‘My other resolution is that I’m going to stop denying that that infuriating accusation is true; Women do mix drinks too strong, damn it! I suppose it’s part of our terrible anxiety to please. . . . So let’s begin the new régime as of now, shall we? You come and mix your own drink and mine too – and I’d like a vodka and tonic, please.’
She has obviously had at least a couple already. Her hands fumble as she lights a cigarette. (The Indonesian ashtray is full, as usual, of lipstick-marked stubs.) Then she leads the way into the kitchen with her curious rolling gait which is nearly a limp, suggesting arthritis and the kind of toughness that goes with it.
‘It was sweet of you to come tonight, Geo.’
He grins suitably, says nothing.
‘You broke your other appointment, didn’t you?’
‘I did not! I told you on the phone – these people cancelled, at the last minute —’
‘Oh, Geo dear, come off it! You know, I sometimes think, about you, whenever you do something really sweet, you’re ashamed of it afterwards! You knew jolly well how badly I needed you tonight, so you broke that appointment. I could tell you were fibbing, the minute you opened your mouth! You and I can’t pull the wool over each other’s eyes – I found that out, long ago. Haven’t you – after all these years?’
‘I certainly should have,’ he agrees, smiling and thinking what an absurd and universally-accepted bit of nonsense it is, that your best friends must necessarily be the ones who best understand you. As if there weren’t far too much understanding in the world already; above all, that understanding between lovers, celebrated in song and story, which is actually such torture that no two of them can bear it without frequent separations or fights. Dear old Charley, he thinks, as he fixes their snorts in her cluttered none-too-clean kitchen, how could I have gotten through these last years without your wonderful lack of perception? How many times, when Jim and I had been quarrelling and came to visit you – sulking, avoiding each other’s eyes, talking to each other only through you – did you somehow bring us together again by the sheer power of your unawareness that anything was wrong?
And now, as George pours the vodka (giving her a light one, to slow her down) and the scotch (giving himself a heavier one, to catch up on) he begins to feel this utterly mysterious unsensational thing – not bliss, not ecstasy, not joy – just plain happiness – das Glueck, le bonheur, la felicidad – they have given it all three genders but one has to admit, however grudgingly, that the Spanish are right, it is usually feminine, that’s to say, woman-created. Charley creates it astonishingly often; this doubtless is something else she isn’t aware of, since she can do it even when she herself is miserable. As for George, his felicidad is sublimely selfish; he can enjoy it unperturbed while Charley is in the midst of Buddy-blues or a Fred-crisis (one is brewing this evening, obviously). However, there are unlucky occasions when you get her blues without your felicidad, and it’s a graveyard bore. But not this evening. This evening he is going to enjoy himself.
Charlotte, meanwhile, has peeked into the oven and then closed its door again, announcing, ‘twenty more minutes’ with the absolute confidence of a great chef, which by God she isn’t.
As they walk back into the living-room with their drinks, she tells him, ‘Fred called me; late last night.’ This is said in her flat underplayed crisis-tone.
‘Oh?’ George manages to sound sufficiently surprised. ‘Where is he now?’
‘Palo Alto.’ Charlotte sits down on the couch under the paper fish, with conscious drama, as though she has said, ‘Siberia’.
‘Palo Alto – he was there before, wasn’t he?’
‘Of course he was. That’s where that girl lives. He’s with her, naturally. . . . I must learn not to say ‘that girl’. She’s got a perfectly good name, and I can hardly pretend I don’t know it: Loretta Marcus. . . . Anyhow, it’s none of my business who Fred’s with or what she does with Fred. Her mother doesn’t seem to care. Well, never mind any of that. . . . We had a long talk. This time, he really was quite sweet and reasonable about the whole situation. At least, I could feel how hard he was trying to be. . . . Geo, it’s no good our going on like this. He has made up his mind, really and truly. He wants a complete break.’
Her voice is trembling ominously. George says without conviction, ‘He’s awfully young, still.’
‘He’s awfully old for his age. Even two years ago, he could have looked after himself, if he’d had to. Just because he’s a minor, I can’t treat him like a child – I mean, and use the Law to make him come back. Besides, then, he’d never forgive me —’
‘He’s changed his mind, before this.’
‘Oh, I know. And I know you think he hasn’t behaved well to me, Geo. I don’t blame you for thinking that. I mean, it’s natural for you to take my side. And then, you’ve never had any children of your own. . . . You don’t mind my saying that, Geo dear? Oh, I’m sorry —’
‘Don’t be silly, Charley.’
‘Even if you had had children, it wouldn’t really be the same. This Mother and Son thing – I mean, especially when you’ve had to bring him up without a father – that’s really hell. I mean, you try and you try – but everything you do or say seems to turn out wrong. I smother him – he said that to me once. At first I couldn’t understand – I just couldn’t accept it – but now I do – I’ve got to – and I honestly think I do – he must live his own life – right away from me – even if he begs me to, I simply mustn’t see him for a long long while – I’m sorry, Geo – I didn’t mean to do this – I’m so – sorry —’
George moves closer to her on the couch, puts one arm around her, squeezes her sobbing plumpness gently, without speaking. He is not cold; he is not unmoved. He is truly sorry for Charley and this mess – and yet – la felicidad remains intact; he is very much at his ease. With his free hand, he helps himself to a sip of his drink, being careful not to let the movement be felt through the engaged side of his body.
But how very strange to sit here with Charley sobbing and remember that night when the long-distance call came through from Ohio. An uncle of Jim’s whom he’d never met – trying to be sympathetic, even admitting George’s right to a small honorary share in the sacred family grief – but then, as they talked, becoming a bit chilled by George’s laconic yes, I see, yes; his cu
rt no, thank you, to the funeral invitation – deciding no doubt that this much talked-of room-mate hadn’t been such a close friend, after all. . . . And then, at least five minutes after George had put down the phone, when the first shock-wave hit, when the meaningless news suddenly meant exactly what it said, his blundering gasping run up the hill in the dark, his blind stumbling on the steps, banging at Charley’s door, crying blubbering howling on her shoulder, in her lap, all over her; and Charley squeezing him, stroking his hair, telling him – the usual stuff one tells. . . . Late next afternoon, as he shook himself out of the daze of the sleeping-pills she’d given him, he felt only disgust: I betrayed you, Jim; I betrayed our life together; I made you into a sob-story for a skirt. But that was just hysteria; part of the second shock-wave. It soon passed. And meanwhile Charley, bless her silly heart, took the situation over more and more completely – cooking his meals and bringing them down to the house while he was out, the dishes wrapped in tinfoil ready to be reheated; leaving him notes urging him to call her at any hour he felt the need, the deader of night the better; hiding the truth from her friends with such visibly sealed lips that they must surely have suspected Jim had fled the State after some sex-scandal – until at last she had turned Jim’s death into something of her own creation entirely, a roaring farce. (George is grinning to himself, now.) Oh yes indeed, he is glad that he ran to her that night. That night, in purest ignorance, she taught him a lesson he will never forget – namely that you can’t betray (that idiotic expression!) a Jim, or a life with a Jim, even if you try to.
By now, Charlotte has sobbed herself into a calm. After a couple of sniffs, she says ‘sorry’ again, and stops.
‘I keep wondering just when it began to go wrong —’
‘Oh, Charley, for Heaven’s sake, what good does that do?’
‘Of course, if Buddy and I had stayed together —’
‘No one can say that was your fault.’