“I thought it was very beautiful,” she said simply.
He replied, as they climbed the steps to the hotel: “I wonder why he called it Erste Freundschaft? That means ‘First Friendship’. But it was love, not friendship.”
That evening Austen took them to the theatre to see a popular play that none of them liked, and the next morning they left for Southampton and boarded the Normandie.
* * * * *
One morning in the spring of 1939 Carey was walking along Fifth Avenue when she saw a man coming out of a shop who looked so much like Paul that she caught her breath. She stared fascinatedly while he sauntered across the pavement to signal a taxi, lighting a cigar as he did so. Then, because he suddenly saw her and spoke her name, she caught her breath again, with astonishment not only that it was Paul indeed, but also, and illogically, that he had changed so greatly.
“Carey, this is really incredible. How ARE you?”
They shook hands, and for a moment she could not call herself to any kind of order. It was not so much that he looked older (after all, it was almost a decade since she had seen him, and presumably she looked older too), but he had become weightier in a way that somehow suggested mental rather than physical substance; his head seemed bigger and his eyes brighter and smaller, and there was a sombre twinkle in the greeting he gave, stooping slightly over her hand with a gesture that offered the verdict she had been fumbling for in her mind—that he looked every inch, and in all dimensions, a maestro. Which was (as Foy had once said at the old Hampstead theatre) a Continental trick; and in a flash of whimsy she saw this changed Paul, dressed more Gallically, but with the same brooding effervescence, on some Paris poster advertising an apéritif.
“Carey… have lunch with me… Of course you will… Taxi!…”
A cab came up, and before she could think of an objection (if there were any) he had bundled her inside and ordered the man to drive to Twenty-One. A bit of a character, this driver, independent-spirited but not surly, and honest enough to remark that since Twenty-One was only round the corner it was hardly worth getting in for. Whereupon Paul replied, mock-suavely (exactly as to some callow actor’s suggestion that a line in a play be changed): “May we have a ride, please, instead of a geography lesson?” To which the man retorted, with a shrug: “Okay, buddy, any way you want it.” This little incident, so convincing in its message that Paul had not changed altogether, would have amused Carey had she not been gathering her wits to realize what would happen if they did lunch at Twenty-One—a minor sensation on the spot and later in gossip columns. She was not going to let herself in for this at any price, but she had barely time to countermand Paul’s instructions and tell the driver to turn on Sixth Avenue and enter the Park.
“Okay,” Paul then said, grinning at her. “Any way YOU want it.”
“I’m sorry, Paul. I hope you don’t mind. But some other place— “
“Of course—wherever you like. Now tell me about yourself— all the news of what’s been happening to you.”
But it was not so easy to begin, besides which she knew how incapable he was of letting anyone else talk. Nor did he help by exclaiming, loudly enough for the driver to hear: “So you married Moneybags in that Mexican place that dogs are named after.” He spoke indulgently, as of a childish escapade for which she had already been forgiven, and she recognized his familiar technique of making a remark in such thoroughly bad taste that there was nothing to do but put up with it or start a row. As she did not want to start a row she said merely: “Please don’t shout, Paul.”
“Are you happy, that’s the main thing?”
“Yes.”
“You’ve retired from the stage?”
“I suppose so, though I’ve never definitely—”
“You like being idle?”
“I’m not idle.”
“Any children?”
“No.”
“Just the two of you, alone and rich?”
“My husband has a son by his previous marriage—a boy now at college. Rather clever. He’s interested in films. He’s studied your work and admires it.”
“Well, bully for him.”
She said, after a short pause: “You’ve been away from this country too long.”
“I have?”
“People don’t say ‘bully’ any more.”
“I know. I was a boy when they did. But _I_ didn’t, not then. I never cared to be in a fashion.”
“I suppose you speak other languages now?”
“French and German like a native… So he’s interested in films, is he? You’re not by any chance asking me to find him a job?”
“I think he’ll find one quite well himself when he leaves Harvard. What he seems to want to do is to write.”
“For films?”
“Not particularly. Not at all, so far as I know.”
“Written anything already?”
“A few short stories. You might like them.”
“Are you hinting I should buy them for pictures?”
“I don’t believe they’d do for pictures, and apart from that I wouldn’t recommend anyone to have business dealings with you.”
“Listen—I’ve made money lately. I can pay top prices for all the movie rights I want.”
“I dare say. I’ve followed your career. You’ve done very well.”
“So have you, by God.”
And then they both laughed. Antagonism between them, though genuine, had always had to take its turn with countless other emotions. She knew he had been trying to be as rude as he could, and she hadn’t been too polite herself; it was all some kind of preliminary bout, not to be held of much importance even if the traded blows were hard. She said seriously: “I saw Erste Freundschaft. A great picture, Paul.”
His face lit up with a delight in being praised that had enough wonderment in it to make his boasting almost tolerable. “You really think so? You MEAN that?”
“And I liked Als ob nichts vorgefallen sei nearly as well.”
“You liked WHAT?”
“Als ob nichts vorgefallen sei.” She did not know much German and to repeat the words, possibly mispronounced, with his smile widening on her, made her blush with embarrassment. “Isn’t that right?”
“Sure… But your native sounds even worse than mine.”
She began to giggle. “Paul…”
“And you laugh just the same—and as if that were not enough, you’re lovelier than ever when you do it. I hope our friend in front realizes how privileged he is.”
“You bet,” the driver called out over his shoulder. “I’ve driven ‘em all in my time—Groucho Marx, Dorothy Parker, Katie Hepburn, Maurice Chevalier, Sophie Tucker… Who are you two?”
“Did you ever hear of Carey Arundel?”
“Who?”
“Carey Arundel.”
“Can’t say I… sounds kind of familiar, though. Are you him?”
“No, my friend. But you are so right about the name. It sounds familiar, yet nobody remembers it… Well, Carey, what did you expect after ten years?”
She laughed again through her fresh embarrassment, and thought how exempt she had been from this kind of thing during the years of what Paul called ‘idleness’. Just to imagine Austen exchanging three-way badinage with herself and a taxi-driver was as fantastic as the concept of some natural law in reverse; yet she knew it did not prove that Austen was a snob, or even that Paul was democratic. It proved nothing, in fact, except that Paul was still Paul.
She said: “I didn’t expect to be remembered, so it doesn’t bother me at all to find I’m not. You, of course, can’t understand that… Why don’t we lunch somewhere on Upper Broadway?”
“Suits me. Take us to the best place you know, driver.”
“On Upper Broadway? All among the hoi polloi? Okay, buddy.”
He drove them to a restaurant that was supposed to look like an English chop-house. Paul tipped him extravagantly and was very regal with a head waiter who was not used to r
egality; the table waiter, however, turned out to be a Frenchman on whom he could lavish exuberant conversation in that language. Carey noted that though his command of it was fluent, his accent was execrable. Eventually, having manœuvred themselves into the centre of a whirlpool of fuss, they were served with exactly the kind of average food they would have got with no fuss at all. Paul ate voraciously, seeming not to be aware (thank heaven) of any deficiencies. She remembered he had always had that sort of innocence; a steak that sizzled was good, and crępes suzette pleased him so much as a spectacle that he could enjoy them even when they were leathery. Until the coffee stage they had the waiter almost constantly at hand for Paul to demonstrate his French on and his personal importance to; finally, however, having brought Paul a double brandy, he edged behind the scenes with obvious readiness to escape.
And then for several moments Paul had nothing to say. She wondered if he were actually uncomfortable to be alone with her, and if his behaviour had been designed to postpone that as long as possible; he looked deflated, as so often when the stimulus of an audience had been removed. How well she knew that look, the look that said: “I have spent all my brilliance on others; now you, my wife, are privileged either to share my silence or talk me out of my fatigue…” But she was not his wife now, nor was she disposed to assume an old function. She watched him quizzically, till at length he broke the silence himself by saying, with a sudden sweetness that touched her more than she had been prepared for: “It’s good to see you again, Carey. I’m glad you’re happy.”
She controlled herself to ask how long he intended to be in New York.
“I’m sailing in a few hours.”
“Back to Europe? TODAY?”
“Midnight. It’s been just a short visit. Less than a week. I was in time for what I came for.”
“Some of those top-price movie rights?”
“No. My mother died.”
“Oh, Paul…” She reached out her hand to touch his across the table. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know, or I’d have—”
“Nothing anybody could do. A chill and then pneumonia. She kept herself alive till I got here.”
“I can believe that, Paul. She was always devoted to you.”
“Yes, she really was, and so was I to her. I had her over with me in Europe for a few years, but she hated foreigners and after the Munich crisis she insisted on coming back. She wanted me to come back also, and I promised I would, as soon as I’d cleared up existing commitments, but I wonder if I should have. I wonder. The promise made her happy, anyway. And now, of course… “
She said: “Now you don’t have to do anything unless YOU want to.”
“That’s about it. When something happens like this you feel lost and free at the same time… YOU didn’t like her, did you?”
“I liked her more, I think, than she did me.”
“That may have been partly my fault—I mean, how she felt about you. I let her think I didn’t care for you much. It pleased her. But then, of course, it made her think I’d be better off without you.”
It was on her tongue to ask: “Have you been?”—but she quelled the impulse, feeling nevertheless that he read the question in her eyes. After a pause he went on, perhaps evading it in his own way: “And once she got an idea, no matter how absurd it was, she wouldn’t let it go. For instance, she insisted there was going to be war last September. I told her it would all blow over, as of course it did, but that didn’t stop her fidgeting.”
“It hasn’t stopped a good many other people, Paul.”
“I know. And there’ll probably be more scares. But actual war—my bet’s still against it, and I do have hunches about things, don’t I? Remember when I sold out at the top before the crash?”
She remembered. She remembered also that it had not been any hunch of his at all, but the simple fact that he had wanted money at a particular time for a particular purpose. Presumably since then he had built the whole situation into drama, with himself as the clairvoyant speculator; and if that could give him pleasure at such a time as now, she had no wish to spoil it.
She said: “I only hope you’re right about things in Europe. I’m not nearly so optimistic.”
“You read too many newspapers. If you were working you wouldn’t have time. What kind of job could an artist do if he worried over headlines every morning? The artist never did believe in security, so he isn’t upset to find it doesn’t exist. And he’d always rather take chances than play for so-called safety. Why, I’m taking a chance now, merely being here.”
“How do you make that out?”
“Your husband could cause me a lot of trouble if he knew I was on this side of the Atlantic. He could sue me over that Everyman affair—maybe he could even have me arrested or jailed or something.”
“Oh, don’t be silly, Paul. First, he wouldn’t, and second, I’m pretty sure he couldn’t. Anyhow, if you’re really going about in fear of arrest, why did you want to lunch at Twenty-One where just about all New York would recognize you?”
“Taking a chance, as I said.”
But she knew it wasn’t that at all. It was just a secondary drama he had improvised to embellish the occasion. More and more, as she talked to him, she wondered how she could ever have accepted his tricks and tantrums, all that mercurial pretence and deviousness, as part of the norm of life; she wondered how her nerves had survived the wear and tear of those feverish years. And yet she knew she was excited to see him again, an old excitement without any of the old heart-strain. For she had no qualms about him now, or anxieties on his behalf; he was a success, as he had always wished to be, and she could enjoy the spectacle warmly, but with detachment. Her enjoyment, moreover, eased everything between them, so that he began to bask in it happily—too happily even to show off his French again when the waiter reappeared. He ordered another brandy, in English, and launched suddenly into a declaration of his future plans—a picture, he said, based on the Book of Job. For over an hour he talked about this, not grandiloquently or boastfully, but with the subdued eloquence of a mature mind operating at a peak of capability; and she was entranced. She knew then that the years had increased his stature in his own infallible world, and listening to him, she felt a certain dreamy contentment, a pride in having been once his wife, in being still whatever she was to him even if they should never meet again. She wondered if they would, not hoping it especially, but with an awareness that she was storing up a reserve of memories impossible yet to assess or classify. To have met Paul, for these few hours before he returned to Europe, to have heard him talk about something which in due course the world would perhaps find worth talking about—how remarkable it might all seem in retrospect. Presently she realized he had stopped talking and was staring at her.
“You’re not listening, Carey.”
“I WAS… I think it’s a great idea… GREAT.”
But this time he seemed to derive no pleasure. He said, in a troubled voice: “You say you’re happy. Tell me, what sort of a man is he?”
“Who?”
“This Austen Bond.”
“Oh, HIM… He’s… why, he’s older than—than you, and rather quiet in manner, and… and he’s kind.”
“Sounds like an epitaph.”
She smiled, glad of his change of mood to break the spell she had recently been under. “If it does, Paul, it isn’t such a bad one.” She looked at her watch. Four o’clock already—she must be getting back home. It was all over.
He knew that too, and signalled the waiter.
They shared a taxi as far as Saks’, where she said she had to make a call. During the journey they talked incessantly and quite trivially. As the cab drew up outside the shop she said: “Paul, I’m glad we met. And I do hope you keep on having success… Goodbye, Paul.”
He took her gloved hand and put his lips to it, whether impulsively or from Continental habit she could not tell. “God rest your soul, Carey. We’ll see each other again.” (Drama in that too, doubtless, both in the Cathol
ic invocation and in the emphatic prophecy of something so uncertain.)
She smiled and kept smiling from the kerb till the cab drove away. As if to complete an ordered cycle of events, she entered Saks’, walked round, then left by a different door and took another taxi home. Norris was at college, Austen had not yet returned from downtown, and Richards (the butler whom they still called ‘new’, though it was four years since Dunne’s death) said there had been no calls. She sat by the fire in the library and glanced through the afternoon papers. News from Europe looked bad again. She thought of Paul packing in his hotel room, having dinner somewhere (he could find company if he wanted it), perhaps going to a theatre, then driving down to the pier to catch the boat. He had not named it, and she consulted the list to find what sailed at midnight. The Bremen.
Austen came in, and they had the usual drink before going up to change, then another drink before dinner. She gazed at him admiringly, challenging herself to think how handsome he was for fifty-five. And so KIND… “Carey, you look exhausted.”
“Do I? Goodness knows I haven’t done much—just a few odds and ends of shopping.” (IDLE? Could the word be used about her life? She managed Austen’s domestic affairs efficiently, she was on committees of various organizations, she gave teas and lunches to raise funds for good causes…)
“Must be the weather, Carey. When it began that sleeting drizzle this afternoon I kept wishing we’d stayed a few weeks longer in Florida.”
She hadn’t really noticed the sleeting drizzle. She said: “We can look forward to the summer. It’s nearly April already… Do you think there’ll be a war in Europe?”
“I imagine so.”
“When? This year?”
“Oh, I can’t say that. I thought you meant within the foreseeable future.”
“How far into the future can you foresee?”
He smiled. “Why do you ask? The news in the paper?”
“It’s serious, isn’t it?”
“I think it is.”