It was seven miles and just a little over from the country club to the Gibbsville Bank & Trust Building, and practically all of the last three miles was a new and nearly straight stretch of road, which had been easier to clear; it was protected from winds by a railroad embankment on one side. Al Grecco had to step on it some more when English hit the stretch, because English was letting it out for all the sedan would take. Al kept his mind on the driving now. He did not want to get too close to English, and make English sore; but he did not want to lose him; he wanted to be close by if English got into trouble. But English was all right. One of those guys that can drive when they’re drunk or sober, the only difference being that when they’re drunk they have no consideration for what they might be doing to the car.
When the two cars reached Gibbsville Al Grecco made up his mind that he would best please Ed Charney by following English all the way home, so he turned up Lantenengo Street after the sedan. He followed about a block behind the sedan, all the way out Lantenengo Street to Twentieth Street. The Englishes had their house on Twin Oaks Road, but you could see all of Twin Oaks Road from Twentieth and Lantenengo. Al stopped. English had shifted into second for the uphill grade and the snow of Twentieth Street. He made the turn all right, and in a few seconds he stopped in front of the house. The lights of the car went out, and then the porch light went on, and Al could see Mrs. English on the porch, opening the door, the light on in one of the rooms of the downstairs floor. Then English himself on the porch, the downstairs light snapped out just as a light was turned on in a bedroom upstairs. English was leaving the car out all night. He must be cockeyed. Well, that was his business.
Al Grecco put his car in reverse and backed into Twentieth Street and then turned the car and drove down Lantenengo Street. He would go right to the Apollo, the all-night restaurant where you usually looked for Ed Charney. But suddenly he realized he wouldn’t find Ed there. This was the one night of the year you wouldn’t find Ed there. “Jesus Christ,” said Al Grecco. “Me forgetting it was Christmas.” He lowered the window of the car and addressed the darkened Lantenengo Street homes that he was passing: “Merry Christmas, you stuck-up bastards! Merry Christmas from Al Grecco!”
2
Julian English snapped awake, and knew that he had beaten the arrival of Mary, the maid, by one step. He was correct: Mary appeared in the doorway and said: “Mrs. English says it’s eleven o’clock, Mr. English.” In a lower key she add: “Merry Christmas, Mr. English.”
“Merry Christmas, Mary. Did you get your envelope?”
“Yes, sir. Mrs. English give it to me. Thank you very kindly, and my mother says to tell you she made a novena for you and Mrs. English. Shill I close the windows?”
“Yes, will you please?” He lay back until Mary left the room. Such a pretty day. Bright; and there were icicles, actually icicles, hanging in the middle of the windows. With the holly wreath and the curtains they made you think of a Christmas card. It was quiet outside. Gibbsville, the whole world, was resting after the snow. He heard a sound that could mean only one thing; one of the Harley kids next door had a new Flexible Flyer for Christmas, and was trying it out belly-bumpers down the Harley driveway, which was separated from the English driveway only by a two-foot hedge. It would not take long for the room to get warm, so he decided to lie in bed for a few minutes.
There ought to be more days like this, he thought. Slowly, without turning his head, he pulled himself up to a half sitting position and reached out for the package of Lucky Strikes on the table between his bed and Caroline’s bed. Then he remembered to know better than to look in the direction of Caroline’s bed—and looked. He was right again: Caroline had not slept in her bed. Everything returned to him then, as though in a terrible, vibrating sound; like standing too near a big bell and having it suddenly struck without warning. His fingers and his mouth lit a cigarette; they knew how. He was not thinking of a cigarette, for with the ringing of that bell came the hangover feeling and the remorse. It took him a little while, but eventually he remembered the worst thing he had done, and it was plenty bad. He remembered throwing a drink at Harry Reilly, throwing it in his fat, cheap, gross Irish face. So now it was Christmas and peace on earth.
He got out of bed, not caring to wait for warmth and luxury. His feet hit the cold hardwood floor and he stuck his toes in bedroom slippers and made for the bathroom. He had felt physically worse many times, but this was a pretty good hangover. It is a pretty good hangover when you look at yourself in the mirror and can see nothing above the bridge of your nose. You do not see your eyes, nor the condition of your hair. You see your beard, almost hair by hair; and the hair on your chest and the bones that stick up at the base of your neck. You see your pajamas and the lines in your neck, and the stuff on your lower lip that looks as though it might be blood but never is. You first brush your teeth, which is an improvement but leaves something to be desired. Then you try Lavoris and then an Eno’s. By the time you get out of the bathroom you are ready for another cigarette and in urgent need of coffee or a drink, and you wish to God you could afford to have a valet to tie your shoes. You have a hard time getting your feet into your trousers, but you finally make it, having taken just any pair of trousers, the first your hands touched in the closet. But you consider a long, long time before selecting a tie. You stare at the ties; stare and stare at them, and you look down at your thighs to see what color suit you are going to be wearing. Dark gray. Practically any tie will go with a dark gray suit.
Julian finally chose a Spitalsfield, tiny black and white figure, because he was going to wear a starched collar. He was going to wear a starched collar because it was Christmas and he was going to have Christmas dinner with his father and mother at their house. He finally finished dressing and when he saw himself in a full-length glass he still could not quite look himself in the eye, but he knew he looked well otherwise. His black waxed-calf shoes gleamed like patent leather. He put the right things in the right pockets: wallet, watch and chain and gold miniature basketball and Kappa Beta Phi key, two dollars in silver coins, fountain pen, handkerchiefs, cigarette case, leather key purse. He looked at himself again, and wished to God he could go back to bed, but if he should go back to bed he would only think, and he refused to think until after he had had some coffee. He went downstairs, holding on to the banister on the way down.
As he passed the living-room he saw a piled row of packages, obviously gifts, on the table in the middle of the room. But Caroline was not in the room, so he did not stop. He went back to the dining-room and pushed open the swinging-door to the butler’s pantry. “Just some orange juice and coffee, Mary, please,” he said.
“The orange juice is on the table, Mr. English,” she said.
He drank it. It had ice, glorious ice, in it. Mary brought in the coffee and when she had gone he inhaled the steam of it. It was as good as drinking it. He drank some of it black, without sugar, first. He put one lump of sugar in it and drank some more. He put some cream in it and lit a cigarette. “I’d be all right if I could stay here,” he thought. “If I could just stay here for the rest of my life and never see another soul. Except Caroline. I’d have to have Caroline.”
He finished his coffee, took a sip of ice water, and left the dining-room. He was standing in front of the table, with its pile of gifts, when he heard someone stamping on the porch, and almost immediately the door opened and it was Caroline.
“Hello,” she said.
“Hello,” he said. “Merry Christmas.”
“Yeah,” she said.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “Where’ve you been?”
“Took some things to the Harley kids,” she said. She hung up her camel’s hair coat in the closet under the stairs. “Bubbie said to wish you a Merry Christmas and he told me to ask you if you wanted to ride on his new Flexie. I told him I didn’t think you would, this morning.” She sat down and began to unbuckle her arctics. She had beautiful legs that not even the heavy woolen plaid stockings co
uld distort. “Look,” she said.
“I’m looking,” he said.
“Don’t be funny,” she said, and pulled her skirt down. “I want you to listen. This is what I want to say: I think you’d better take that bracelet back to Caldwell’s.”
“Why? Don’t you like it?”
“I like it all right. It’s one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen, but you can’t afford it. I know how much it cost.”
“So what?” he said.
“Well, just this. I think we’ll probably need every cent we can save from now on.”
“Why?”
She lit a cigarette. “Well, you fixed it last night. No point in going into why you threw that drink at Harry, but I just want to tell you this much, you’ve made an enemy for life.”
“Oh, no. Naturally he’s sore, but I’ll be able to fix it. I can handle that.”
“That’s what you think. I’ll tell you something. Have you any idea how news travels in this town? Maybe you think you have, but listen to me. I just came from the Harleys’, the only people I’ve seen except Mary since last night, and almost the first thing Herbert Harley said when I got in the house was, ‘Well, I’m glad somebody put Harry Reilly in his place at last.’ Of course I tried to laugh it off as if it were just a joke between you and Harry, but do you realize what that means, Herbert Harley’s knowing about it so soon? It means the story’s got all over town already. Somebody must have told the Harleys over the phone, because I know Herbert hasn’t had his car out. There aren’t any tracks in their driveway.”
“Well, what of it?”
“What of it? You stand there and ask me what of it? Don’t you realize what that means, or are you still drunk? It just means that the whole town knows what you did, and when Harry realizes that, he’ll do anything short of murder to get even with you. And I don’t have to tell you that he won’t have to commit murder to get even with you.” She stood up and smoothed her skirt. “So—I think you’d better take the bracelet back to Caldwell’s.”
“But I want you to have it. I paid for it.”
“They’ll take it back. They know you.”
“I can afford it,” he said.
“No, you can’t,” she said. “Besides, I don’t want it.”
“You mean you don’t want to take it from me?”
She hesitated a moment, and bit her lip and nodded. “Yes. I guess that’s what I mean.”
He went to her and put his hands on her arms. She did not move except to turn her head away from him. “What’s the matter?” he said. “Reilly doesn’t mean anything to you, for God’s sake, does he?”
“No. Not a thing. But you’d never believe that.”
“Oh, ridiculous,” he said. “I never thought you were having an affair with him.”
“Didn’t you? Are you sure you didn’t?” She freed herself. “Maybe you didn’t actually think I was having an affair with him, but part of the time you wondered whether I was. That’s just as bad. And that’s the real reason why you threw the drink in his face.”
“I might have thought you kissed him, but I never thought you were having an affair with him. And the only real reason why I threw a drink in his face was I just happen to dislike him. I can’t stand his stupid Irish face, that’s all. And those stories.”
“His face looked pretty good last summer when you needed money, and by the way, here’s something you’d better not overlook. Perhaps you think people are going to be on your side if it comes to the point where people take sides in this. Perhaps you think all your friends will stick by you, and maybe you think that’s going to frighten him because he wants to run the Assembly. Well, just don’t count too much on that, because practically every single one of your best friends, with one or two exceptions, all owe Harry Reilly money.”
“How do you know?”
“He told me,” she said. “Maybe Jack and Carter and Bob and the rest would like to be on your side, and maybe in any other year they would stick by you, but I don’t have to tell you there’s a depression in this country, and Harry Reilly’s practically the only man around here with any money.”
“I’ll bet he comes to our party,” said Julian.
“If he does you can thank me. I’ll do my best, but my heart won’t be in the work.” She looked at him. “Oh, God, Ju, why did you do it? Why do you do things like that?” She began to cry, but when he went to her she held him away. “It’s all so awful and I used to love you so.”
“I love you. You know that.”
“It’s too easy. The things you called me on the way home—whore and bitch and a lot worse—they weren’t anything compared with the public humiliation.” She accepted his handkerchief. “I’ve got to change,” she said.
“Do you think Mother and Dad know about it?”
“No, I doubt it. Your father’d be over here if he knew. Oh, how should I know?” She walked out and then came back. “My present is at the bottom of the pile,” she said.
That made him feel worse. Under all the other packages was something she had bought days, maybe weeks, before, when things were not so bad as they now appeared to be. When she bought that she was concentrating on him and what he would like; rejecting this idea and that idea, and deciding on one thing because it was something he wanted or something he would want. Caroline was one person who really did put a lot of thought into a gift; she knew when to choose the obvious thing. One time she had given him handkerchiefs for Christmas; no one else had given him handkerchiefs, and they were what he wanted. And whatever was in the package, she had bought with him alone in mind. He could not guess from the size of the box what was inside it. He opened it. It was two gifts: a pigskin stud box, big enough to hold two sets of studs, with plenty of room inside for assorted collar buttons, collar pins, tie clasps—and Caroline had put in a dozen or so front and back collar buttons. The other gift was of pigskin, too: a handkerchief case that collapsed like an accordion. Both things had J. McH. E. stamped in small gilt letters on the top cover, and that in itself showed thought. She knew, and no one else in the world knew, that he liked things stamped J. McH. E., and not just J. E., or J. M. E. Maybe she even knew why he liked it that way; he wasn’t sure himself.
He stood at the table, looking down at the handkerchief case and stud box, and was afraid. Upstairs was a girl who was a person. That he loved her seemed unimportant compared to what she was. He only loved her, which really made him a lot less than a friend or an acquaintance. Other people saw her and talked to her when she was herself, her great, important self. It was wrong, this idea that you know someone better because you have shared a bed and a bathroom with her. He knew, and not another human being knew, that she cried “I” or “high” in moments of great ecstasy. He knew, he alone knew her when she let herself go, when she herself was not sure whether she was wildly gay or wildly sad, but one and the other. But that did not mean that he knew her. Far from it. It only meant that he was closer to her when he was close, but (and this was the first time the thought had come to him) maybe farther away than anyone else when he was not close. It certainly looked that way now. “Oh, I’m a son of a bitch,” he said.
II
In the middle of the front page of the Gibbsville Sun, the morning paper, there was a two-column box, decorated with Santa Claus and holly doo-dads, and in the center of the box was a long poem. “Well, Mervyn Schwartz finally got it.”
“What?” said Irma.
“Shot in a whorehouse last night,” said her husband.
“What!” exclaimed Irma. “What are you talking about?”
“Here it is,” said her husband. “Right here on the front page. Mervyn Schwartz, thirty-five, of Gibbsville, was shot and killed at the Dew Drop—”
“Let me see,” said Irma. She took the paper out of her husband’s hands. “Where?…Oh, you,” she said, and threw the paper back at him. He was laughing at her with a high, soft giggle.
“Think you’re funny,” she said. “You oughtn’t to say
things like that where the children might hear you.”
He continued to laugh and picked up the paper and began to read Mervyn Schwartz’s Christmas poem. Mervyn Schwartz formerly had contributed his holiday poems (Christmas, Washington’s Birthday, Easter, Memorial Day, July 4, Armistice Day) to the Standard, the afternoon paper; but the Standard had not run his Armistice Day poem on the front page, so now he was in the Sun. Lute Fliegler read the first verse aloud, very sing-song and effeminate.
“What time do you want dinner?” said Irma.
“Whenever it’s ready,” said Lute.
“Well, you only had breakfast an hour ago. You don’t want dinner too early. I thought around two o’clock.”
“Okay by me,” he said. “I’m not very hungry.”
“You oughtn’t to be,” she said. “The breakfast you ate. I was thinking I’d make the beds now and Mrs. Lynch could put the turkey on so we could eat around two or ha’ past.”
“Okay by me.”
“The kids won’t be very hungry. Even Curly was stuffing himself with candy a while ago till I hid the box.”
“Let him eat it,” said her husband. “Christmas comes but once a year.”
“Thank heaven. All right. I’ll give them the candy, on one condition. That is, if you take care of them when they have stomach ache in the middle of the night.”
“I’ll be only too glad. Go ahead, give them all the candy they want, and give Teddy and Betty a couple highballs.” He frowned and rubbed his chin in mock thoughtfulness. “I don’t know about Curly, though. He’s a little young, but I guess it’d be all right. Or else maybe he’ll take a cigar.”