Park Avenue Tramp

Chapter 14

Tuesday was a day that was somehow spent.

In the afternoon, the gown and other things were delivered, and she tried on the gown in her room to be sure that it was actually as exciting as she had thought it was in the salon, and it seemed to her that it was. Often she would get enthusiastic about something that she saw and bought, and then later, when she saw it again in different circumstances, she couldn’t understand how she had been so mistaken as to have wanted it, but this time, to her relief, the gown was still right and exciting and just the thing to wear when she went to see Joe Doyle.

After trying it on and looking at herself for a long time in a mirror, she took it off again and laid it across the bed in readiness for later, and then there wasn’t a thing left to do that was tolerable, but it was essential to do something, for doing nothing was most intolerable of all. In this kind of situation, she usually ended up doing things to herself, brushing her hair and trying new effects with her face and fixing her fingernails and toenails, things like that, and she started now doing all these things. Fortunately, this was all meticulous work that required careful attention and had the incidental result of making time pass quickly, and she had just finished with the nail of the little toe on her left foot, the last thing to be done, when Oliver came home and knocked on her door, and she was genuinely astonished to realize that it had become so late so soon.

But there was something terribly wrong. She felt it the moment Oliver came into the room. He closed the door behind him and stood leaning against it, watching her, and the wrongness was immediately present and felt and growing to such enormous dimensions that it seemed to fill the room and press in upon her from the walls. Not that he said anything or did anything or appeared to be in the least angry. He appeared, in fact, to be unusually congenial, as he had been yesterday, and he smiled and nodded his head, watching her, as if he approved of what he saw.

It was strange and irrational how the feeling came over her. One moment she was doing things to herself to pass the time until she could do what she really wanted to do, and everything was all right and getting better, and the next moment everything was all wrong and getting worse, and there didn’t seem to be any reason for it or anything she could do to stop it. She had experienced the same feeling before, however, the sudden terrible conviction of imminent disaster that had no apparent relationship to circumstances as they were at the time, and a doctor at one of the parties where she got most of her spiritual and psychiatric guidance had told her, after an intimate consultation in a corner over several cocktails, that it was a kind of free-floating anxiety that occasionally attached itself to a specific incident or person. This was nice to know, of course, but it wasn’t very effective as therapy and did little or nothing to alleviate matters whenever the free-floating anxiety attached itself afterward to something or someone specific, as it was now attached to Oliver at the door.

“What’s wrong?” she said.

“Wrong?” He straightened and walked three steps into the room. “Nothing’s wrong, my dear. What makes you think there is?”

“I don’t know. I just had a feeling when you came in that something was.”

“You’re mistaken. Everything is fine. Are you planning to go somewhere tonight?”

“I was thinking that I might. I went to bed early last night, you know, and now I’d like to go somewhere and do something.”

“Do you have something definite arranged?”

“Oh, no. Nothing special at all. There’s always somewhere to go that doesn’t require special arrangements.”

“That’s good. It’s good, I mean, that you haven’t committed yourself to anything definite, for I’ve planned a little surprise for you.”

“Surprise? What kind of surprise?”

He smiled, tracing with the tip of an index finger the thin scar along his mandible, and she watched him with a conviction of personal peril growing stronger and stronger in her morbid certainty of all things going wrong, It was surely a kind of minor revolution when Oliver disrupted his schedule for anything whatever, and it raised the question of whether the disruption was a sign of a change in their relationship which he intended to be good or was, on the other hand, a development of the danger she had sensed and believed, and in either case it threatened to spoil the night she had planned and was therefore bad.

“Dinner and dancing to begin with,” he said. “Afterward I have something rather unusual in mind. I think it will amuse you.”

“What is it?”

“If I told you now it would spoil the surprise. I want you to anticipate it, my dear.”

“Well, I know you don’t really like to do things like this and are only doing it now for my sake. It’s very kind of you, I’m sure, but it isn’t necessary.”

“On the contrary, I’m quite enthusiastic about it. Do you think I’m incapable of enjoying anything out of the routine?”

“You’ll have to admit that you always plan things ahead very carefully and hardly ever deviate from them.”

“That’s true. I like an ordered life, as you say, but I’ve been thinking that perhaps you should be included more often in the order. I’m afraid I’ve been neglecting you shamefully, my dear, and you’ve been exceedingly generous and understanding about it.”

This remark seemed to indicate that he was only trying to alter their relationship with good intentions, which was a relief from fear but would certainly become a great nuisance if she permitted it to continue, for it would prevent her from going places and doing things as she pleased, or at least as frequently as she pleased. It was extremely unlikely, however, that Oliver would deviate from his established order for any length of time, and the acute problem now was tonight, how she could possibly go to Joe Doyle while Oliver was imposing himself upon her in this extraordinary way, and her going, which had up to now been no more than desirable, became imperative as it became imperiled.

“Thank you very much,” she said, “but I don’t think I’d care to become part of an order. I prefer to do things more spontaneously.”

“I know. We are quite different in that respect. An adjustment will demand concessions from us both. Is that a new gown on the bed?”

“Yes, it is. I bought it yesterday, and it was delivered this afternoon.”

“It’s nice. I’m sure you’ll look charming in it. Were you planning to wear it tonight?”

“Yes. I was trying it on before you came.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t come earlier. No matter, though. I’ll see it on you later when we go out together.”

“Are you certain you want to go? If you prefer, we could go another night when you have more time to prepare for it.”

“No, no. It’s all arranged. We’ll go to the Empire Room for dinner and dancing, and later we’ll have our little surprise.”

He moved toward her suddenly and took her by the shoulders and kissed her on the mouth with a lightness and tenderness that were rare and would have been deeply moving in the kiss of anyone else. In his, they were somehow frightening, the qualities of mockery. She was ravished by the kiss as she had never been by his occasional brutality, and at the same time, paradoxically, she felt far more rejected than all his customary coldness had ever made her feel. Worst of all, she was compelled to recognize with an exorbitant sense of loss and despair that he was determined to take her with him to the Empire Room and wherever else afterward he had planned, and there was nothing, nothing at all, that she could do to prevent it.

“We’ll leave at a quarter to eight,” he said.

He released her and went out, and she sat on the edge of the bed in her despair and tried and tried to think of something she could do to save the night, to make it possible still to go to Joe Doyle, but she could think of nothing, and she knew that there was nothing to be done by her or anyone else in the world. It would be necessary, then, to call Joe and tell him that she couldn’t be there, and why she couldn’t, and how terribly sorry she was, and that she would surely come as soon as she could, which would be tomorrow if she could possibly manage it.

Having decided to call, she tried to remember if there was a telephone in his room, and she couldn’t remember any. If there had been one she would certainly have remembered it, and so she concluded that there wasn’t, which meant that there was a house phone in the hall that would probably be listed under the name of whoever owned the house, and the trouble was that she didn’t know who owned it. Then it occurred to her that he might be at Duo’s already, where he worked, and that she could at least leave word for him there if he wasn’t actually there himself to be talked to.

She turned in the classified directory to the nightclubs and found Duo’s number and dialed it, and while she was doing this she kept hoping very hard that Joe would be there to be talked to, for she wanted to tell him personally how much she wanted to come and how sorry she was that she couldn’t. It was imperative that he understand this and believe it, for he was inclined to lack faith in her anyhow, and he might decide that she had simply had enough of him, which wasn’t, surprisingly enough, yet true. After she had finished dialing, she waited and waited while the phone rang in long bursts at the other end of the line, and she had about concluded in despair that Duo’s was one of those places that absolutely ignored telephone calls whenever it suited them, but then, just as she was preparing to cut the connection, someone answered. It was Yancy.

“Duo’s,” he said. “Yancy speaking.”

“Hello, Yancy,” she said. “This is Charity Farnese. You know. The dry Martini.”

“I know.”

“Where in the world have you been? The phone rang and rang, and I was about to hang up.”

“I was here all the time. I was busy.”

“Well, I’m glad I waited. It just shows you that it doesn’t pay to give up too soon, doesn’t it?”

“Not always. Sometimes it pays to give up as soon as possible.”

“I’m not sure I know what you mean, and I don’t think I want to know. What I do want to know is, is Joe there?”

“Joe Doyle?”

“Of course Joe Doyle. You know perfectly well I mean Joe Doyle. Please don’t be so evasive, Yancy.”

“Sorry. He isn’t here.”

“Do you suppose he will be there soon?”

“I don’t think so. Not soon.”

“Do you know his telephone number?”

“It’s a house phone. I don’t know the number.”

“Perhaps you could tell me the name the number is listed under.”

“I can’t. I don’t know it.”

“Are you merely being contrary, Yancy?”

“No. If I knew I’d tell you.”

“Thank you. That’s very kind of you. Will you please give him a message from me when he comes in?”

“I might.”

“What do you mean, you might? Will you or won’t your?”

“It depends on the message.”

“Please tell him that I won’t be able to come tonight. Something has developed that makes it impossible.”

“I’ll tell him.”

“Tell him also that I’m truly sorry and will see him as soon as I can. Will you tell him that?”

“Reluctantly.”

“What’s the matter with you, Yancy? Do you still think it’s wrong for me to see him and that no good will come of it?”

“You know what I think. I told you.”

“Well, in the beginning there may have been an excuse for your scepticism, but now there is none whatever, and you are only being stubborn and unpleasant. I can tell you that some good has already come of it, and Joe will tell you the same if you will only ask him.”

“Not me. What’s good or what’s bad is for you and Joe to figure, and you don’t owe any accounting to anyone but each other and maybe your husband. I just decided. Good-by, now. I’ve got customers.”

He hung up without giving her a chance to say good-by in return, and she listened for a few moments to the humming of the wire and hung up too. It was still earlier than she needed to start dressing for the evening, but she started anyhow, because there was nothing else to do and doing something was a necessary defensive mechanism, taking a long bath and brushing her hair for a long while deliberately. Finally, after everything else was done, she took the new gown off the bed and hung it in a closet and selected another, which she hardly looked at, and put it on. She was compelled under the circumstances to go out with Oliver if he demanded it, but she was not compelled to wear the gown she had bought particularly to wear for Joe Doyle, and she was not going to do it. She would think of something to say in explanation if Oliver noticed it was not the new gown and said something about it, and that, of course, as it happened, was the first thing Oliver did when he knocked on the door at a quarter to eight and entered.

“I thought you were going to wear the new gown,” he said. “Or did you buy it for a special occasion?”

“No,” she said. “I decided it isn’t suitable for the Empire Room, that’s all.”

“Really? I thought it looked quite suitable.”

“No. It’s not suitable at all.”

“Whatever you think, of course. The gown you’re wearing is nice. You look lovely in it.”

“Thank you.”

“It’s time to leave now. Are you ready?”

“Yes, I’m ready.”

Edith let them out of the apartment and closed the door silently after them, and they went down to the Avenue and found Oliver’s Imperial, which had been ordered around, waiting for them at the curb. They drove on the Avenue to the Waldorf-Astoria and went immediately to the Empire Room and were shown to the table that Oliver had reserved. She should have known, of course, that he had made a reservation, but she had not considered the details of the situation that carefully, and now that they were exposed and she was compelled to consider them in spite of herself, she was possessed by a most terrible feeling of absolute impotence. Without consulting her or conceding anything whatever to her rights or wishes, he had reserved the table and the night and her, and all the time that she had been planning to make certain things happen, quite different things had actually been happening already and were still happening, and there had been nothing she could have done to change the order of events then, before she even knew about it, and there was nothing she could do to stop it or change it now. Nothing at all. What she had hoped and almost believed yesterday and earlier today, that Oliver’s unusual geniality was only a sign that he might become a nuisance and not a menace, she no longer hoped or believed in the least. She was resigned to disaster, and as her resignation increased, her fear diminished. She hardly cared what the form of disaster might be precisely, or when, exactly, it might come.

A waiter placed a menu before her, but she had no interest in it. She pushed it away with the tips of her fingers as if it were something contagious. Oliver watched her, smiling. He traced and retraced lightly the line of his scar.

“Will you order now, my dear?” he said.

“I don’t believe I care to order,” she said. “I’m only interested in having a very dry Martini immediately.”

“Would you like me to order for both of us?”

“If you wish.”

It was apparent that dinner was part of the established order in which she was involved and impotent, and it would be quite futile to say that she did not want it or to resist it in any way. While Oliver ordered from the menu, she thought of her Martini, which she wanted desperately, and looked around the room, which she did not like. She never came here voluntarily and would have been depressed, even if everything else were all right, at being brought here under compulsion. It was not that there was anything wrong with the place itself. It was only that she and the place were not compatible. It was always filled with people who were supposed to be important or interesting or both, and they always seemed to be working very hard at being whatever they were supposed to be, and she always had, watching them, a very strong feeling that there was actually no such thing as importance and that anyone who assumed it or pretended to it was a kind of imposter. It was her experience, moreover, that the most interesting people were usually found in places where no one expected to find them, and that these interesting people, when they were found, hadn’t the faintest idea that they were interesting. This experience had been supported by her study of bartenders in odd places, as well as by other contacts in other places she had gone to accidentally or on purpose, and it was her impression now that by far the most interesting person in this incompatible room was the attractive Negress who was singing sultry songs in a tigerish manner. Charity was sure that the singer was someone she ought to know, for anyone who sang songs in the Empire Room was bound to be someone that everyone ought to know, but she couldn’t think of the singer’s name, although she was positive it was a name she would recognize if someone mentioned it.

Her Martini was served and she nursed it with a kind of greediness because she knew that it would be difficult, if not impossible, to get another before dinner. Oliver did not have a cocktail. She had never seen him have a cocktail or a drink of any kind in all the time she had known him and been married to him, which was about the same amount of time in either case.

“Are you enjoying yourself?” he said.

“Yes,” she lied. “It’s very pleasant.”

“You don’t seem to be. You look bored.”

“I’m sorry. I don’t particularly care for this place. It depresses me.”

“Really? You just said it was pleasant.”

“I was only being agreeable. I would never come here if I had my choice.”

“I should have consulted you I suppose, but I wanted it to be a surprise. We’ve gone out together so seldom that I don’t know the places you like to go.”

“Well, you probably wouldn’t like the places I like, so it would make no difference anyhow.”

“Perhaps you could convert me.” He reached out and touched her right hand, which was lying palm down on the table, and his eyes glistened for the first time with overt malice. “As I said before, I’m feeling quite guilty for having neglected you. It might be amusing for both of us to become more familiar with each other’s habits.”

“I don’t wish to interfere with your life. It isn’t necessary for you to make concessions that you don’t really want to make.”

“You’re too generous. It only makes me more determined to emulate you.” He touched her hand again and laughed, and the malice in his eyes was in the laugh also. “However, here is our dinner, and I hope you are pleased with what I ordered. Afterward, we’ll dance. It has been a long time since I’ve danced with you, hasn’t it? I’m sure I’ll be awkward in the beginning, but you must be patient until I improve. The music is by Nat Brandywynne, I believe. Are you familiar with his orchestra? Do you like it?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think I’ve beard it.”

“Well, no matter. To tell the truth, we are only killing time as pleasantly as possible until we can go to the special event I’ve arranged for you. However bored you may be by all this, I promise that you’ll not be bored by that. I promise that you’ll find it most interesting.”

He looked across the table at her, waiting for her to ask again what the special event was to be, but she did not ask because she was afraid to know, because she knew by feeling already that it was going to be, whatever developed specifically, the bad end of this bad night in which waiting and waiting and waiting was to be one of the worst of all bad things. Dinner was served, and the remains of dinner were taken away. Afterward they danced, and their dancing was a kind of cold and acceptable social sodomy. She refused after the first time to dance again, and so they sat and sat and did not even talk, and eventually it became eleven-thirty and time to leave.

In the Imperial, she shrank against the door and closed her eyes as a frightened child closes his eyes in the night, trading one darkness for another, the living and breathing outer darkness of a thousand threats for the sealed and solacing inner darkness secured by the thin membranes of the lids. She was conscious of moving, of riding for a long time on different streets, but she had no sense of direction, and when the car stopped and she opened her eyes at last, she had no idea of where she was, except that it was an incredibly dark and narrow and filthy street that turned out not to be a street at all, but an alley.

“Where have you brought me?” she said. “What are you going to do to me?”

“Do to you?” He took her face between thumb and fingers and turned it up and around and looked down into it smiling. “What a fantastic idea. I only brought you here to see something amusing. I told you that.”

Releasing her, he got out of the car and came around to her side and opened the door, and she got out beside him. A bulky shadow separated itself from the deeper shadow of a recession in a crumbling brick wall. The shadow moved toward them and became an obese man, and she had the most peculiar feeling that it was a man she had seen somewhere before, but this was probably only a contingent of terror and not so.

“You didn’t say you were bringing anyone,” the obese man said.

“Was I obligated to inform you?” Oliver’s voice was a soft expression of utter animosity, and Charity was aware that between these two men, in whatever strange relationship they had established, there was deep and abiding hatred. “Are you suggesting that I have no right to bring my wife as a guest if I please?”

“It’s not smart,” the man said. “It may be dangerous.”

“I think not. And if you’re worried about its compromising your usefulness in the future, you needn’t worry any more. I had already decided that your usefulness has been exhausted.” Oliver turned his head slightly toward Charity. “My dear, this is Mr. Sweeney. You’ll hardly believe it, I know, but you and he are old friends after a fashion. Isn’t that so, Sweeney?”

The man called Sweeney didn’t answer. Turning, he moved back to the dark recession and disappeared. Guided by Oliver’s hand on her arm, Charity followed and saw that there was in the recession a metal door which was now standing open, and she went through the doorway onto the concrete floor of a long dark building, a single enormous room, that was or had been almost certainly a garage. High, small windows at the far end were like blind eyes reflecting the feeble light from a lamp on the street outside. A single dim bulb burned in a conical tin shade at the end of a cord descending from shadows at the ceiling and cast upon the stained concrete a dirty yellow perimeter of defense against the darkness.

Sweeney brushed by, opened a door to a small enclosure that was mostly glass above a low wall of rough boards fixed vertically. The enclosure projected from one side of the room and was or had been the improvised office of what was or had been the garage.

“In here, please,” Sweeney said. “It will probably be a while yet, so you had better sit down and take it easy.”

“Yes, my dear,” Oliver said. “Here is a chair with a cushion beside the desk. I’m sure you will be quite comfortable in it.”

She sat down and folded her hands in her lap. It was hot in the small and dark enclosure, but she felt icy cold. Quietly she waited for the bad end of the bad night. Regret she felt, and fear and despair, and the greatest of these was despair.