“Not if you don’t want to learn.”
My apartment was actually a comfortable, fairly expensively furnished two rooms and bath, which was cleaned daily by a colored woman who worked full-time elsewhere in the building. But Charley Ellis’s first remark when he arrived with Nancy Preswell was: “Why, look, he’s had the place all spruced up. Is all this new?”
“All goes back to Sloane’s in the morning,” I said. “How do you do, Mrs. Preswell?”
“Wait a minute. You haven’t been introduced,” said Charley. “You could have put me in a hell of a spot. What if this hadn’t been Mrs. Preswell?” He was in high good humor, determined to make this a pleasant evening.
“I often wish I weren’t,” she said, without bitterness, but as her first words to me they were an indication that she knew Charley confided in me. “By the way, how do you do?”
“I’ve often seen you. Well, pretty often,” I said.
“And always pretty,” said Charley.
I looked at him and then at her: “You’ve done wonders with this guy. I hardly recognize the old clod.” My remark pleased her, and she smiled affectionately at Charley. “Gallantry, yet,” I said.
“It was always there,” said Charley. “It just took the right person to bring it out.”
“I like your apartment, Mr. Malloy. Is this where you do all your writing?”
“Most of it. Practically all of it.”
“Oh, you type your stories?” she said, looking at my typewriter. “But don’t you write them in longhand first?”
“No. I don’t even write letters in longhand.”
“Love letters?”
“I type them,” I said.
“And mimeographs them,” said Charley. “Shall we have a free drink here, saving me two and a quarter?”
“The market closed firm, but have you ever noticed that Charley hates to part with a buck?”
“No, that’s not fair,” said Nancy Preswell.
“Or true. What’s the name of that friend of yours, that writes the Broadway stories?”
“Mark Hellinger?”
“Hellinger. Right. I thought he was going to have a stroke that night when I paid a check at ‘21.’”
“I very nearly had one myself.”
“No, now that isn’t fair,” said Nancy Preswell.
“I’m softening him up for later,” I said.
We had some drinks and conversation, during which Nancy slowly walked around, looking at my bookshelves and pictures. “I gather you don’t like anything very modern,” she said.
“Not in this room. Some abstract paintings in the bathroom.”
“May I see your bedroom?”
“Believe me, that’s the best offer he’s had today,” said Charley.
“A four-poster,” she said.
“Early Wanamaker,” I said. “Circa 1930.”
“All you need is a rag rug and a cat curled up on it. I like it. That’s not your father, is it?”
“My grandfather. Practically everything in this room is a copy of stuff I remember from when I was a kid. I depended entirely on their taste.”
“But you bought it all yourself, so it’s your taste, too,” said Nancy Preswell. “Very interesting, and very revealing, considering what some of the critics say about your writings.”
“What does it reveal to you?” I said.
“That basically you’re very conventional.”
“I could have told you that,” I said.
“Yes, but I probably wouldn’t have believed you if I hadn’t seen your apartment.”
“I think I ought to tell you, though. I went through an all-modernistic phase when I lived in the Village.”
“Why are you for Roosevelt?” she said.
“No! Not tonight, please,” said Charley.
“You shouldn’t be, you know,” she persisted.
“Shall we not argue about it? I’m for him, and you’re not, and that’s where we’d be if we argued till tomorrow morning,” I said.
“Except that I think I could convince you. You don’t know my husband, do you? I know you’ve met him, but you’ve never talked with him about Roosevelt.”
“When was he most convincing?” I said. “When he was with him, or against him?”
“He was never in the least convincing when he was for him. And he’s not very convincing now. But as a writer you should be able to disregard a lot of things he says and go beneath the surface. Then you’d see what a man like Roosevelt can do to an idealist. And my husband was an idealist.”
“Don’t look at me. I’m not saying a word,” said Charley.
“I do look at you, for corroboration. Jack was an idealist. You may not have liked him, but you have to admit that.”
“Yes, he was,” said Charley.
“And so were you. But Jack did something about it. You played it safe.”
“Jim is wondering why I’m not taking this big. The reason is we’ve had it out before,” said Charley.
“Many times,” said Nancy Preswell. “And probably will again.”
“But not tonight, shall we?” said Charley Ellis.
“I hate Mr. Roosevelt,” she said. “And I can’t stand it when a writer that I think is good is for him. I’m one of those people that think he ought to be assassinated, and I just hope somebody else does it, not my poor, drunken, disillusioned husband.”
“Is he liable to, your husband?” I said.
“I don’t suppose there’s any real danger of it. But it’s what he thinks of day and night. I don’t want you to think I love my husband. I haven’t for years. But Jack Preswell was an idealist, and Roosevelt turned him into a fanatic.”
“He might have been a fanatical idealist.”
“He was! Four years ago, that’s what he was. But there’s nothing left now but the fanaticism. Don’t you see that, Mr. Malloy? Mr. Roosevelt took away his ideals.”
“How are you on ideals, Mrs. Preswell?”
“If that’s supposed to be a crusher, it isn’t . . . I have a few, but they’re not in any danger from—that awful man. Now I’ve said enough, and you probably don’t want to have dinner with us.”
“Yes, I would. You’re a very attractive girl.”
“As long as I don’t say what I think? That’s insulting, and now I’m not sure I want to have dinner with you.”
There was a silence, broken by Charley: “Well, what shall we do? Toss a coin? Heads we dine together, tails we separate.”
“I’ll agree to an armistice if Mr. Malloy will.”
“All right,” I said. “Let’s go. Maybe if we have a change of scenery . . .”
“I promise I’ll be just as stupid as you want me to be,” said Nancy Preswell.
There was not another word about politics all evening, and at eleven o’clock we took a taxi to a theatre where I was to meet an actress friend of mine, Julianna Moore, the female heavy in an English mystery play. Julie was about thirty, a girl who had been prematurely starred after one early success, and had never again found the right play. Her father was a history professor at Yale, and Julie was a well-educated girl whom I had first known in our Greenwich Village days. We had been lovers then, briefly, but now she was a friend of my ex-wife’s and the mistress of a scenic designer.
Nancy Preswell began with compliments to Julie, ticking off six plays in which Julie had appeared.
“You must go to the theatre all the time, to have seen some of those sad little turkeys,” said Julie.
“I go a lot,” said Nancy.
“Did you ever do any acting?”
“Did I? ‘Shall I speak ill of him that is my husband? / Ah, poor my lord, what tongue shall smooth thy name . . . ’”
“‘When I, thy three-hours wife, have mangled it?’ Where and when did you do Jul
iet?” said Julie.
“At Foxcroft.”
“I’ll bet you were a very pretty Juliet,” said Julie.
“Thank you. If I was, that says it all. I was cured.”
“Well, I was the kind of ham that never was cured, if you don’t mind a very small joke . . . I always thought it would have been fun to go to Foxcroft. All that riding and drilling.”
“Where did you go?”
“A Sacred Heart school in Noroton, Connecticut, then two years at Vassar.”
“Where did you go to school, Charley,” I said.
“I don’t know. Where did you?” he said.
“Oh, a Sacred Heart school in Noroton, Connecticut. Then two years at Foxcroft,” I said.
“Too tarribly fonny, jost too tarribly fonny,” said Julie.
“That’s her Mickey Rooney imitation. Now do Lionel Barrymore,” I said.
“Too tarribly fonny, jost too tarribly fonny,” said Julie.
“Isn’t she good?” I said. “Now do Katharine Hepburn.”
“Who?” said Julie.
“She’s run out of imitations,” I said.
We went to “21,” the 18 Club, LaRue, and El Morocco. We all had had a lot to drink, and Julie, who had played two performances that day, had soon caught up with the rest of us by drinking double Scotches. “Now the big question is, the all-important question—is,” said Julie.
“What is the big question, Julie dear?” said Nancy.
“Ah, you like me, don’t you? I like you, too,” said Julie. “I like Charley, too. And I used to like Jim, didn’t I, Jim?”
“Used to, but not any more.”
“Correct. Jim is a rat. Aren’t you, Jim?”
“Of course he’s a rat,” said Nancy. “He’s a Franklin D. Roosevelt rat.”
“I’m a Franklin D. Roosevelt rat. You be careful what you say,” said Julie.
“The hell with that. What was the big question?” said Charley.
“My big question?” said Julie.
“Yes,” said Charley.
“I didn’t know I had one. Oh, yes. The big question. Is. Do we go to Harlem and I can’t go on tomorrow night and I give my understudy a break. Or. Or. Do I go home to my trundle bed—and you stay out of it, Jim. You’re a rat. I mean stay out of my trundle. Nevermore, quoth the raven. Well, what did my understudy ever do for me? So I guess we better go home. Right?”
“Yeah. I haven’t got an understudy,” said Charley. He signaled for the check.
“Jim, why are you such a rat? If you weren’t such a rat. But that’s what you are, a rat,” said Julie.
“Pretend I’m not a rat.”
“How can I pretend a thing like that? I’m the most promising thirty-year-old ingénue there is, but I can’t pretend you’re not a rat. Because that’s what you are. Your ex-wife is my best friend, so what else are you but a rat? Isn’t that logical, Jim? Do you remember Bank Street? That was before you were a rat.”
“No, I was a rat then, Julie.”
“No. No, you weren’t. If you were a rat then, you wouldn’t be one now. That’s logical.”
“But he’s not a bad rat,” said Nancy.
“Oh, there you’re wrong. If he was a good little rat I’d take him home with me. But I don’t want a rat in my house.”
“Then you come to my house,” I said.
“All right,” said Julie. “That solves everything. I don’t know why I didn’t think of that before. Remember Bank Street, Jim?”
“Sure.”
She stood up. “Goodnight, Nancy. Goodnight, Charley.” On her feet she became dignified, the star. She held her mink so that it showed her to best advantage and to the captains who said, “Goodnight, Miss Moore,” she nodded and smiled. In the taxi she was ready to be kissed. “Ah, Jim, what a Christ-awful life, isn’t it? You won’t tell Ken, will you?”
“No. I won’t tell anybody.”
“Just don’t tell Ken. I don’t want him to think I care that much. He’s giving me a bad time. Kiss me, Jim. Tell me I’m nicer than Nancy.”
“You’re much nicer than Nancy. Or anybody else.”
She smiled. “You’re a rat, Jim, but you’re a nice old rat. It’s all right if I call you a rat, isn’t it? Who the hell is she to say you aren’t a bad rat? She’s not in our game, is she?”
“No.”
“We don’t have to let her in our game. But he does, the poor son of a bitch.”
When she saw my bedroom she said: “Good Lord, Jim, I feel pregnant already. That’s where Grandpa and Grandma begat. Isn’t it? I hope we don’t beget.”
I was still asleep when she left, and on my desk there was a note from her:
Dear Rat:
You didn’t use to snore on Bank Street. Am going home to finish my sleep. It is eight-fifteen and you seem good for many more hours. I had a lovely time and have the hangover to prove it. Want to be home in case K. calls as he said he would. In any case we are better off than Nancy and Charles. Are they headed for trouble!!!
Love,
J.
P.S.: The well-appointed bachelor’s apartment has a supply of extra toothbrushes. My mouth tastes like the inside of the motorman’s glove. Ugh!!!
J.
The motorman’s glove. Passé collegiate slang of the previous decade, when the word whereupon was stuck into every sentence and uzza-mattera-fact and wet-smack and swell caught on and held on. I read Julie’s note a couple of times, and “the motorman’s glove” brought to mind two lines from Don Juan that had seemed strangely out of character for Byron:
Let us have wine and women, mirth and laughter,
Sermons and soda-water the day after.
The mirth and laughter, the wine and women were not out of character, but there was something very vulgar about Byron’s taking soda-water for a hangover as I took Eno’s fruit salts. An aristocrat, more than a century dead, and a man I disliked as cordially as if he were still alive. But he had said it all, more than a hundred years ago. I made a note to buy a copy of Don Juan and send it, with that passage marked, to Julie. At that moment, though, I was trying to figure out what she meant by Nancy and Charley, headed for trouble. There was trouble already, and more to come.
I waited until four o’clock and then telephoned Julie. “It’s the rat,” I said. “How are you feeling?”
“I’ll live. I’ll be able to go on tonight. Actually, I’m feeling much better than I have any right to, considering the amount I drank. I went home and took a bath and fiddled around till Ken called—”
“He called, did he?”
“Yes. There isn’t going to be anything in the columns about you and me, is there?”
“My guess is a qualified no. If we went out again tonight there would be, but—”
“But we’re not going out again tonight,” she said. “I don’t have to tell you that last night was a lapse.”
“You don’t have to, but you did,” I said.
“Now don’t get huffy,” she said. “It wouldn’t have happened with anyone else, and it wouldn’t have happened with you if it hadn’t been for the old days on Bank Street.”
“I know that, Julie, and I’m not even calling you for another date. I want to know what you meant by—I have your note here—Nancy and Charley headed for trouble. Was something said? Did something happen that I missed?”
“Oh, God, I have to think. It seems to me I wrote that ages ago. And it was only this morning. Is it important? I could call you back?”
“Not important.”
“I know. I know what it was. Is Nancy’s husband a man named Jack Preswell?”
“Yes.”
“Well, he was at Morocco last night. Standing at the bar all alone and just staring at us. Staring, staring, staring. I used to know him when I was a prom-trotter, back in the
paleolithic age.”
“How did you happen to see him and we didn’t?”
“Because I was facing that way and you weren’t,” she said. “Maybe I should have said something. Maybe I did.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“I don’t think I did. No, I guess I didn’t, because now I remember thinking that I wasn’t positively sure it was he. But when you and I left I caught a glimpse of him, and it was. If anybody was tighter than we were, he was. His eyes were just barely open, and he was holding himself up by the elbows. I’ll bet he didn’t last another ten minutes.”
“Well, just about,” I said.
“What do you mean?”
“Have you seen the early editions of the afternoon papers?”
“No. I don’t get the afternoon papers here.”
“Preswell was hit by a taxi at 54th and Lexington. Fractured his skull and died before the ambulance got there. According to the cops he just missed being hit by a northbound cab, and then walked in front of a southbound. Four or five witnesses said the hack driver was not at fault, which is another way of saying Preswell was blind drunk.”
“Well, I guess I could almost swear to that, but I’m glad I don’t have to. I won’t, will I?”
“Not a chance. He wasn’t with us, and none of us ever spoke to him. The Times and the Trib will print the bare facts and people can draw their own conclusions. The News and the Mirror will play it up tonight, but it’s only a one-day story. However, there is one tabloid angle. If the Mirror or the News finds out that Nancy was in Morocco with Charley—well, they could do something with that.”
“And would you and I get in the papers?”
“Well, if I were the city editor of the News or the Mirror, and a prominent actress and an obscure author—”
“Oh, Lord. And I told Ken I went straight home from the theatre. Jim, you know a lot of those press people . . .”
“Julie, if they find out, your picture’s going to be in the tabloids. I couldn’t prevent that.”
“And they are going to find out, aren’t they?”
“The only straight answer is yes. You spoke to a lot of people as we were leaving. Waiter captains. People at the tables. If you can think of a story to tell Ken, I’ll back you up. But maybe the best thing is to tell him the truth, up to a certain point.”