Experiment in Springtime

Chapter 6

Time passed slowly for Steve. Each day dragged by on its club feet and fell exhausted into the grave of its brothers.

There were a hundred things he had planned on seeing and doing as soon as he returned; he had even made a list of them in a diary to while away the time in the English hospital. But now, when he took out the list and read it over, the things he’d written seemed pretty silly to him, futile excursions into the past. The past had been distorted or erased.

The city had never been bombed but it gave that effect. Time itself had been the bomb, annihilating the landmarks that he knew, destroying his friends and their houses and scattering their families. Some rebuilding had been done; his favorite bar was a supermarket, and the Star Building, where he’d worked as a cub reporter, had been torn down and risen from its ashes, a steel and concrete phoenix.

He paid a visit to the city editor one day. The city editor was the same man, but he had changed his style to match the new building. He wore a neat pin-striped suit, a tie and an efficient smile. The air-conditioned offices were dustless and sterile, and there wasn’t a single cigarette butt on the floor. Steve departed with a strong feeling of unreality.

Meanwhile he stayed on at the Neal Hotel. Once the symbol of elegance, the Neal catered now mostly to traveling salesmen and people like himself who wanted to avoid the five-day limit imposed by the better hotels. It was a depressing place, but it would do until he found an apartment. He had no desire to stay with his only relatives, a cousin and aunt who lived in the west end.

He had visited them out of politeness. It was the night after he met Martha on the street and he was feeling bitter. The long ride out on the streetcar depressed him even more.

They must have been watching for him, for as soon as he came in sight of the house Aunt Vi thrust the door open and shouted, “Steve!”

His cousin Beatrice stood behind her on the porch. She didn’t say anything, but she was smiling at him in a fixed, idiotic way.

He kissed them both, noticing and feeling ashamed of noticing, that Aunt Vi was a great deal fatter. Her plump prettiness had turned flabby and her soft chin had grown into jowls that sprouted coarse white hairs.

“Steve! My goodness, let me look at you!” She put her hands on his shoulders and turned him around, half-weeping. “My goodness. Here he is, Bea. Just look at him.”

“He looks the same to me,” Beatrice said. She seemed unable to stop smiling, and she was still blushing from his kiss. It was practically the only thing he remembered about Beatrice, that she blushed easily.

“I was hoping someone would say that,” Steve said.

“Oh, but you are the same.”

They were both looking at him, very intensely.

“Well,” he said in confusion.

His aunt was a widow, and she and Beatrice, who was nearly thirty now, had lived alone together for so many years that it was impossible to think of them individually or even as females. Vi-and-Bea might have been broken down into Vi and Bea, but no one had ever tried very hard. Beatrice was a nice girl, she dressed well and had a good job, but she wasn’t the type who got married without some parental maneuvering.

“You’re both looking swell,” he said cheerfully.

“I’m miles too fat,” his aunt said. “Can’t be helped. Did you bring it, like I asked on the phone?”

“Bring what?”

“The medal — your D.F.C.”

“Sure.”

“Bea, run over and fetch Mrs. Henderson, will you? Steve won’t mind.”

He glanced at her suspiciously. “Mind what?”

“I want Mrs. Henderson to see your medal. She’s been so miserable about the whole thing, always kidding Beatrice because she wrote to you so often, and you never answered.”

Without a word Beatrice turned and went down the porch steps. She had on a light green wool dress that clung to her hips, and in the late afternoon sunlight her brown hair had glints of red. She looked a lot better from behind, Steve thought.

He frowned, angry at the unknown Mrs. Henderson, and at Beatrice for minding, and at himself for not answering her letters. All the time he was away, she wrote to him once a week and every month she and Vi sent him a box of food and cigarettes. He knew it must have been Beatrice who packed the box, his aunt wouldn’t have taken the trouble to select and wrap the articles so carefully. Instead of paper and twine, the box was sewed up in heavy white cloth, and inside there was always a box of his favorite chocolates, homemade cookies and two cartons of Luckies.

“I told Mrs. Henderson,” his aunt said, “I told her, Steve hasn’t got a mother and father like a lot of boys have. He’s just got us, and it’s the least we can do to write him letters. It’s a small enough sacrifice, I told her.”

He waited in some trepidation for the arrival of the formidable Mrs. Henderson. She turned out to be a small, weary woman whose shoulders had a permanent sag. She brought her children with her, two half-grown boys who had been obviously cleaned and shined for the occasion, and were consequently ill-at-ease and silent.

The medal was passed from hand to hand, while Beatrice dispensed tea and chocolate cake. She avoided his eyes, and when the medal was passed to her, she barely glanced at it.

He didn’t know at what point, or why, his nerves began to crack, whether it was the change in Beatrice, or his aunt’s incessant talking, or the two boys surreptitiously filling their pockets with cake, or Mrs. Henderson’s melancholy voice asking him to tell them all about his experiences.

“I haven’t had any experiences,” he told Mrs. Henderson irritably.

“Well, my goodness, Steve,” his aunt cried. “You must of. They don’t give medals away like that every day, I can tell you.” She turned dramatically and faced Mrs. Henderson. “He nearly died. He was wounded here.” She pressed her hand against her breasts, while Mrs. Henderson reminded her none too gently that she knew where Steve was wounded, having heard about it at least a dozen times. Undaunted his aunt went on, “It’s the very worst place, so near the heart. He’s filled with bullets even yet, aren’t you, Steve?”

“Flak,” he said. He felt himself shaking, and the tea balanced on his knees began to rattle against the saucer. “Listen, Aunt Vi. I don’t want to...”

“Real bullets?” one of the boys asked, and his brother answered, “What do you think, you dumb cluck.”

Mrs. Henderson slapped them both absently, and told them to shut up and let the hero talk. In passing through her mouth, the word had absorbed acid.

“There’s nothing heroic about stopping a few pieces of flak...”

“Now, Steve,” his aunt interrupted. “There’s such a thing as carrying modesty too far, if you ask me.”

“Modesty is a wonderful thing,” Mrs. Henderson said with a significant glance at Aunt Vi. “There’s too little of it in this world, not mentioning any names.”

Beatrice rose suddenly and stood at the door. Everyone appeared to recognize this signal and to be accustomed to obeying Beatrice. They all departed abruptly, though the older Henderson boy hung back and whispered to Steve, “Gosh, I’d love a real bullet.”

Beatrice said, “Hurry up, Bobby. Your mother’s waiting.”

The boy left, and Beatrice began to gather up the empty tea cups. She had narrow white hands and delicate wrists that moved bonelessly as snakes.

“Can I help?” Steve said.

She shook her head quite violently. When she had piled up the saucers she took them out to the kitchen. She stayed out there quite a while. He could hear the water running into the sink, but there was no clatter of dishes. After a time, he followed her.

She was standing at the sink. She hadn’t even put the pile of saucers down yet, she was holding them in front of her in a careless, relaxed way, as if she couldn’t decide whether they were worth washing or whether she should simply let them drop. She hadn’t heard him come in because the water was making so much noise. Feeling like an intruder, he turned and went back to the parlor and picked up a magazine. When she returned she found him slouched in a chair reading and smoking, with one leg dangling over the arm of the chair.

She smiled at him, and he noticed that she had put on fresh makeup.

“I thought I’d better wash up the dishes,” she said. “They’re easier to do if you do them right away.”

“Are they?” He closed the magazine and let it slide to the floor. It had hardly landed before she was across the room and kneeling to pick it up. Her hair looked very clean and shiny and smelled faintly of flowers. He reached out and touched it. It felt soft but not so soft as he remembered a woman’s hair should feel. (He hadn’t touched a girl since he’d gone into the hospital and seen some of the v.d. cases.)

But still, soft enough, so he patted it. Good, kind, clean, sweet Beatrice, he thought.

She seemed annoyed by his touch. She rose briskly and slammed the magazine back on the table.

“Well, Bea,” he said. “How’s business?”

“Oh, fine.” She sat down opposite him, smoothing her dress carefully over her knees. “Same as usual.”

“I thought the old bas — tyrant would have made you vice president by this time.”

“It’s all right. You can say bastard as long as mother’s not around.”

They both laughed, but he knew he had offended her by changing the word to “tyrant.” It was like moving her back a generation.

She said crisply, “Remember the cartoon in Esquire years ago? ‘I may be an old maid, but I’m not a fussy old maid.’ Well, that’s me.”

She apparently expected him to say something reassuring about her age, but he couldn’t think of anything except a flat, “You’re not old,” so he kept quiet. He wondered why women became sensitive about their age after twenty-five, especially unmarried women like Beatrice. There were no special virtues or privileges attached to being twenty-five. Everyone who was thirty had been twenty-five for exactly one year. Women had so many queer emotional attitudes about unimportant matters. Here was Beatrice, with a good job, a house, the best of clothes and nice legs...

He looked again and thought, very nice legs. But the fact remained that they were attached to Beatrice.

“What are you frowning about?” she asked.

“Nothing. Just wondering what’s happened to Aunt Vi.”

“She’s probably arguing with Mrs. Henderson. She usually is. It’s her way of getting a kick out of life.”

“She’s quite a girl.”

He stifled a yawn and Beatrice said immediately, “Can I mix you a drink or something?”

“No, thanks. I’ve got to be going in a few minutes.”

“You just got here. It’s not even dark yet.”

“I go to bed pretty early.”

“We’ve hardly talked — or anything... But of course you need your rest, don’t you?”

The light in the room was quite dim and he couldn’t see her very well, but he had the impression she was smiling again. He wondered whether her smile was a nervous tic; when she couldn’t think of anything to do she smiled instead of lighting a cigarette or something like other people.

“You’re thinner,” she said.

He moved restlessly in the chair. “Oh, am I?”

“Mother and I were thinking if you — wanted to stay here, we have an extra bedroom and we wouldn’t bother you, and you’d get the right kind of food...”

She spoke very coldly, as if she were trying to make it clear that they didn’t give a damn if he starved, but they didn’t want to waste that extra bedroom.

“That’s awfully nice of you,” he said.

“We just thought, if you wanted to, you might as well stay here.”

“It’s swell of you...”

“Of course, it’s pretty far out, isn’t it, and you wouldn’t find it very interesting, living with two older women.”

“It isn’t that,” he said, not realizing until the words were out that he had refused her offer, and that she had known he was going to.

“It was mother’s idea,” she said. “She thought you might want a little home life since you’ve been away so long.” She got up and switched on a lamp, averting her face from the splash of light. “But I told her, if Steve wanted home life, he’d want his own, he’d get married. What ever happened to Martha?”

He had the impression from her careful, measured tones that she’d been waiting all the time to ask him about Martha.

“She got married,” he said.

“Oh. I hadn’t heard. I’m sorry.”

He laughed suddenly, and the noise seemed to jar the room. “There’s a home life for you. You can measure it by the ton. Maybe you know her husband. His name’s Charles Pearson.”

“I’ve heard of him. He has something to do with a trust company.”

“I didn’t know that. Oh, Lord.” He began laughing again. He didn’t know why, and neither did Beatrice.

She said anxiously, “I’d really like to mix you a drink.”

“Sure. Go ahead.”

“We’ve got Scotch and brandy.”

“Scotch.”

He went out into the kitchen with her and watched her while she mixed his drink. She had remembered exactly the way he liked it, with water and a twist of lemon peel. She fixed one for herself, too, though he knew she didn’t enjoy drinking and was doing it only to please him. He felt very grateful to Beatrice. When she handed him the glass, he said, “You’re a very nice girl, Bea.”

“I’ve been called that before. It’s an apology, not a compliment. What’ll we drink to?”

“How about to trust companies?”

“All right.”

Their glasses touched and he said, “As soon as I left, she must have figured me for a dead pigeon, and dead pigeons don’t do anybody any good. There never was one yet who had anything to do with a trust company.”

“I only met her a few times, but she didn’t strike me as being like that.”

“Well, I’m not trying to be fair to her. Why in hell should I?”

“She struck me,” Beatrice said, staring into her glass, “as being crazy about you. Why didn’t you get married?”

“We were engaged. I gave her a ring but she gave it back to me. She wanted to get married right away. I didn’t. I thought we were too young, and it was too risky.”

“She didn’t think so.”

“With Martha, it was a question of now or never. When I went away I told her I’d be back. She didn’t answer any of my letters.”

“Perhaps she understood you better than you understand yourself. You’re one of these men with a congenital fear of being — hooked.” She made the word sound obscene. “And now, of course, you can’t bear it to come back and find her happily married.”

“I’m bearing it fine,” he said flatly.

He finished off his drink and Beatrice, without asking, made him another.

“We don’t really have to stand around the kitchen,” she said. “Let’s go in and be comfortable.”

In the parlor she sat down again on the chesterfield and this time he sat beside her. She seemed embarrassed and kept pulling at the hem of her skirt as if she were half-afraid he would see her knees and half-afraid he wouldn’t. It was partly this gesture and partly the Scotch and his gratitude to her that made him intensely aware of her beside him, not as his cousin Beatrice, but as an anonymous female, warm, soft, comforting, smelling of flowers.

Without any intention other than to preserve this pleasant anonymity, he reached across her and turned off the lamp. Beatrice drew in her breath as if she were going to object, but she didn’t say anything. He wasn’t sure that she had moved, but he thought for an instant her body had come up to meet his as he reached across her. The idea excited him and he had to sit up straight and cross his legs because he was afraid his aunt might pop in suddenly. His aunt probably wouldn’t understand that he had no designs on Beatrice at all. It was just pleasant to be sitting so close to a woman and not have to be afraid of catching something if he kissed her.

“Nice here in the dark, isn’t it?” he said.

She stirred and sighed, “Yes.”

Quite naturally he put his arm around her and drew her head down to his shoulder. “I feel very, very good,” he said. “I feel like singing or quoting poetry or doing all the talking I couldn’t do in front of those people.”

“Go ahead.”

“Whenever I feel good, I want to make noises. I’m a very noisy guy.”

“Are you?” she said in a faraway, contented voice.

He turned his head and talked with his mouth against her hair. “You’re a very quiet girl.”

He must have been crazy to think Beatrice’s hair wasn’t soft. It was like cornsilk, or like the down on a baby duck. He had been given a real stuffed baby duck when he was a child, and for months he couldn’t bear to look at it. It disturbed him and he used to dream of it. In the dreams he himself was the one who’d killed the duck, and sometimes he woke up crying bitterly because he’d hurt the helpless thing; but other times he would feel triumphant and strong, contemptuous of the duck’s weakness and quite glad that he’d killed it. After a while he got used to the duck and didn’t feel anything about it, one way or the other.

He didn’t know why he had to remember the thing now, or why remembering it made him feel suddenly savage and enraged at Beatrice.

“For Christ’s sake,” he said, and pushed her head back as if he wanted to break her neck. He kissed her hard on the mouth. She put her hands on his shoulders and tried to thrust him away but the gesture only excited him more. In a moment she stopped struggling and fell sidewise. She lay in his arms completely motionless. Slowly he drew his mouth away. His eyes strained through the darkness trying to see her face, trying to make out whether this soft, limp, helpless thing was still breathing or whether he’d killed it.

“Get up,” he said brutally. “I didn’t hurt you. I didn’t do anything to you.” She didn’t answer, and he said, “For Christ’s sake, all I did was kiss you. You’ve been kissed before.”

She seemed to begin to breathe again, quite suddenly. It was just plain breathing, in and out, but the sound was sharp and sweet to him, and a little sad.

“Bea? I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

“No,” she whispered. “No, no, of course not.”

“I’m awfully glad.”

“You didn’t hurt me.”

He couldn’t tell anything from her voice. She might have been smiling or weeping or inviting him to kiss her again, or all three, but he no longer cared. He wanted only to get out of the house and never come back.

He got off the chesterfield and began awkwardly to straighten his clothes. His mouth felt wet and sticky and he wiped it off with his handkerchief.

“Steve...” Beatrice said. “Steve...”

“Mind if I turn on the light?”

“Why... why, no, of course not.”

He clicked the lamp on and looked at his watch first. “Gosh, it’s after ten.”

Beatrice was sitting up very straight, smiling again, and tugging at her skirt. Her hair was mussed and there was a rakish red mustache of lipstick on her upper lip.

“After ten,” she said. “Is it really?”

“Yeah. Doesn’t seem that late, does it?”

“No, it certainly doesn’t.” She put one hand nervously up to her face as if she wanted to hide it from him. “It seems — more like eight.”

“Yeah. Bea, I... I wanted to say I’m sorry. You know how it is.”

“Certainly I do.” Her smile was getting brighter and brighter. He couldn’t bear to look at her.

He said, “Thanks a lot for everything. And say goodbye to Aunt Vi for me.”

“Certainly I will.”

He was so anxious to get out of the house that he was slightly sick in the stomach, but he forced down his impatience and held out his hand to her. “Well, Bea, it’s been swell seeing you again.”

They shook hands, very heartily.

Beatrice rose and turned on the veranda light for him and told him to be sure and come again. She shut the door behind him, gently.

He didn’t know why a sense of guilt impelled him to stop at the bottom of the veranda steps and look in at her through the parlor window to see if she was all right. She was standing in the center of the room, just the way he’d seen her stand at the kitchen sink, still and relaxed, as if she had some immediate, but trivial, problem to resolve.

He walked away from the house. Though he moved fast his feet made hardly any noise against the sidewalk. He passed a couple of girls who stared at him curiously, and he realized that he was walking furtively, not on his tiptoes exactly, but with the heels of his shoes barely touching the sidewalk, like a man making a quiet getaway.