A Long Island Story Page 17

  ‘Why don’t you come round tonight after work? I’ll make something simple, open a bottle of something nice and let’s see where all this leaves us . . .’

  Us? Surely the point of his sad letter – pathetic, really, how do people write such things? – was that there is no Us, no longer can be an Us. And as soon as he thought this, he knew it was wrong, and mean-spirited, and anyway unrealistic. Of course there was and is an Us, there always is with former lovers and ex-friends, we do not erase intimacy, and when it morphs into something less intimate, it is nonetheless ineradicable. Something like that?

  He was thinking like a writer, how to say things, find the right words, and had frozen as if some potency in her touch had rendered him speechless. What was he to say, save ‘Give me a moment to think, I don’t quite know what to say.’

  He said it.

  She was curiously calm, didn’t press his arm, kept a carefully calibrated distance, did not presume upon their intimacy. Former intimacy perhaps? It was hard to tell what she might have been thinking.

  ‘Come tonight at seven, you’ll have collected yourself by then. You know my address, don’t you?’

  He did, though he had never been there, and he got a bit confused about Washington neighbourhoods, with all those indistinguishably named streets. He’d written her address in code in a pocket diary, if he could only find the diary and remember the code. Somewhere in Georgetown, but you couldn’t tell if it was fancy. Not like Park Avenue, grand-sounding.

  She’d been curiously reticent about inviting him – it was obvious they should go to her place for their occasional trysts, she lived alone – but she never suggested it. Not clear why not, nor did he ask her, hadn’t the right. It was up to her to shovel the dirt over the details of her private life, so they had shared the occasional hours at modest hotels a discreet distance from their offices. She always insisted on paying, and after a while he gave up objecting, skimmed some of Morrie’s cash, bought the lunches and dinners, kept his end up, just.

  What was there to say, after all? A clean break was impossible, not with them working together as they did, might as well face a sloppy one. It broke every lawyerly bone in his body to acknowledge the sheer messiness of what he had gotten into, what he had created, but there you are. Not an open and shut case, there aren’t many of them.

  ‘OK,’ he said. ‘I’ll see you later.’

  After she turned and closed the door, he took a moment to regain not so much equilibrium as the power of locomotion itself. Rooted to the spot was the phrase that came to mind, though he rejected it fastidiously, and just stood there until his legs and brain reconnected, which they eventually did sufficiently for him to return to his desk and slump into a chair that was hardly designed for slumping. It was no wonder he had backache by the end of every day, had to take three aspirins to deal with the pain, resolved to buy a leather desk chair and bring it to the office, but it would have been frowned on as an indulgence. By himself as much as anyone. He was a wooden chair worker, he wasn’t there to lounge about.

  He knew very little about Georgetown, though it was only a couple of miles away, twenty-five minutes by streetcar, with one change, but itself as foreign as if another country, England perhaps, antique, genteel.

  He smiled to himself, as the car swayed, at the vapid metaphor of classiness – England was a post-war dump, he knew that. But his knowledge of the most desirable borough of DC was equally vague and probably equally cliché-ridden. Rich people lived in Georgetown, old money in old houses, diplomats, senior members of the government, businessmen who looked like aristocrats and who frequented DC’s gentlemen’s clubs. He paused to think, but couldn’t name any of them. Places where you were discreetly greeted at the door, deferred to in hushed tones, ushered upstairs to dining rooms, libraries, lounges with leather chairs . . .

  God, it was pathetic, this inward reel of received ideas and clichés, but anything was better than thinking about the visit with Rhoda, now only ten minutes in the future. Five minutes. A juddering clanking stop and they were there. It would take him a few minutes to walk to her address, but he’d spin it out, he was early, as usual. Have a little walk, compose himself, gawp at the beautiful restraint of the federal architecture, stately, imposing, unenterable. And Rhoda lived in one of them! He’d known it, just – she once mentioned not Georgetown but the street on which she lived, and he had hurried to look it up on a map when they parted. Georgetown! Apartments were in short supply there, rents were astronomical in the best streets, and hers was on one of them. Her salary would hardly have covered the monthly outgoings.

  The house was set off the street, with a tiny well-tended front garden full of shrubs, no flowers, and a set of steps up to the door. There was only one doorbell, which was odd, and he pressed it gingerly. A faint bell sounded inside, and he waited impatiently, certain that she was dragging it out, standing on the other side of the door counting to twenty.

  She smiled as she opened the door, said nothing, stepped side, let him in, almost reprehensibly at ease, dressed casually in navy slacks and a rust-coloured angora sweater, no make-up, no scene setting, almost as if she hadn’t been expecting him. She was that artful. Her raven hair, usually strand-for-strand perfect at work, had been swept back with her fingers after her shower, the effect loose, slightly louche. Crimson toenails proclaimed that her feet were bare, and perhaps something else. What? That she was casual and relaxed? Couldn’t be bothered with shoes? Went with bare feet at home? Was offering herself with this partial disclosure, partial nakedness? She had lovely feet, he caressed them sometimes. Toes, nail polish, nudity. He made a resolution to transfer these observations to his pocket notebook, might be something there to use.

  She was studiedly at ease. When she was tense, which was most of the time at the office, her jaw tightened and gave a tiny recurrent twitch that made him want to rub her shoulders and whisper reassuring words. No sign of that, no. Surely it was some sort of an act, it was inappropriate not to be anxious. Inhuman almost. He was.

  Had there been music playing in the living room and candles glittering suggestively, a set table with dim lights and smells of food and perfume, he would have bolted. As it was, the room offered sanctuary, and he took it, removing his overcoat and hat, which she took and hung in the closet next to the entrance, in a manner both formal and incipiently friendly.

  The living room was large and rectangular, the inner hallway leading to a set of steps along the right-hand side. The room surprised him, though he tried not to show it. He had expected something showy, rich, ornamental. Antique furniture, rosewood and walnut, Georgian, English. Things that proclaim things. Instead there were white leather chairs and a sofa, with steel legs, a coffee table and side table in glass and chrome, a shaggy white rug. And paintings. Paintings of a sort that he had seen in magazines, and sometimes in museums. He had no idea if their abstract exuberance was expensive or not, nor who the artists might be. Delighted to have a chance not to talk, he walked across the room, towards a large kitchen with an open double doorway revealing a dining table and chairs, stopped and looked intently at the picture above the white sofa, its swirling reds, oranges and greens, the half-revealed unexpected figuration of several nude figures, angular and contorted. It looked like a description of a state of mind, or at least as if it was supposed to look like a description of a state of mind. He was unsure if it worked, though the more he looked at it the more he felt some subtle kinship, almost as if she had placed it there to provoke him into such identification. He smirked to himself. What a narcissist I am, he thought, with a hint of pride and a touch of shame.

  Rhoda had gone into the kitchen, opened a bottle of white wine and poured it into two glasses. Italian probably, she knew about such things, had tried to teach him, just a little. Soave Classico, something like that? He couldn’t remember the names or, hardly, distinguish the tastes. But he sure enough needed a drink and took an ungentlemanly slurp, half-emptying the glass as if it were a shot of gin, shook
his head with satisfaction, finished the rest and handed it back to her.

  ‘More, please.’

  She hadn’t touched hers yet, avoided the obvious opportunity to make a wisecrack, simply turned and came back with his refilled glass.

  ‘Do you want me to show you around?’

  The wine had acted quickly, or perhaps he had merely anticipated his reaction, but he could feel a quickening relaxation, a desire to touch her arm, or put his round her shoulder. Friendly, not intimate, intended as a sign that they would get through this just fine, as long as they were careful and respectful.

  ‘I’d like that, it’s a lovely place.’

  ‘Well,’ she said, stepping aside, ‘you can see most of the kitchen. Just a kitchen, not much to say.’ There was, a lot, but men didn’t give a damn about cupboards and finishes, floor surfaces and tiles, lighting fixtures, appliances and the latest gadgets. She saw him glance into the space, that his eyes did not attach themselves to anything but the table and chairs. He went in, passed his finger across the grain of the wood.

  ‘Teak,’ she said, ‘from Denmark.’

  He didn’t comment, or understand, quite, turned his back and went into the living room. On the right-hand side was a door, which she opened.

  ‘My bedroom.’

  It was a high-ceilinged space, painted in white, with more pictures – still abstract but these confined to palettes of white, silver and grey, with touches of black – and a bed with a glistening silvery bedspread. Pillows, cushions. He felt himself drawing away, not from any suggestion of intimacy, but from the studied formality of the setting. It was no wonder she’d never suggested they make love in her place, he could hardly imagine getting in the mood in such a venue. Too cool to get hot.

  ‘How nice. It’s very beautiful and comfortable here, you have wonderful taste.’

  She didn’t respond. Ben had no idea what wonderful taste consisted of, she rather liked that about him, and was touched that he would pretend, in order to admire her.

  ‘But can I ask one question?’

  She nodded.

  ‘Well, where’s all the books? I expected shelf after shelf, knowing you.’

  She stifled a little burst of laughter at the realisation that he thought that the revealed rooms were all that there were, that the staircase led to another apartment, or two.

  ‘Oh, them,’ she said, as if casually. ‘They’re upstairs, in the library. Do you want a look?’

  The staircase was carpeted in fine green and purple stripes, as if itself a painting. If you looked at it your eyes began to wobble. He gripped the handrail. Metal, that was odd, in such an old house.

  Off the revealed hallway, a gleaming white door led into a large chamber, shelved from floor to ceiling on opposite sides, filled with books to be sure, but also various statuettes, pieces of antique pottery, and a large number of framed photographs, none of them of people. Some landscapes, village scenes, from Italy presumably, nothing obviously personal, but obviously personal.

  In the centre of the room was a large wooden table with an inset leather top in dark green, with gilt tooling at the edges – was it called a library table? – with two reclining leather desk chairs tucked in until their arms touched the protruding edge. At the far end of the table was a large Remington typewriter, alone, as if introducing itself, making some sort of statement, with another chair behind it. It presented itself as an object of contemplation, like that Dada urinal perhaps? Or some votive offering? It made him uncomfortable.

  Rhoda had walked over to the window, her hips canted to the side, letting him make his way round the room, sniffing this or that, making it in some infinitesimal way his own.

  He scanned the shelves, walked along them slowly, pulled an occasional title and examined it. The books were in three languages – French, Italian, English – at least three. Novels, poetry, travel books and guides, politics, psychology and philosophy, not organised or alphabetised, each simply placed when its time came, as if she of course would know where it was. A lot of them had that indefinable quality of having been read, had lost the first flush, though perhaps she bought them second-hand, or treated them negligently.

  ‘Pretty impressive,’ he said. ‘Having this all to yourself . . . I can hardly take it in.’

  He looked out the door into the hallway.

  ‘What are those rooms?’

  ‘Oh, a den, for watching TV, and another bedroom. There’s two more upstairs and a couple of bathrooms.’

  She might have sounded apologetic, perhaps should have been, but her tone was studiedly neutral, as if she were an indifferent realtor showing the property to a prospective client. A rich one.

  ‘Shall we go downstairs and have something to eat?’

  Something to eat? Perfect. Not have dinner, nothing so formal. A bite. Agenbite of inwit, he thought. Wonder if she’d get that one? Joyce.

  Warm bread from the oven, several soft cheeses he could not name but could certainly smell, a tomato and red onion salad drizzled with olive oil, the bottle of white wine. They ate quietly, exchanging observations about the food – Hey, these tomatoes actually have taste! Where’d you buy the wine? – honouring the tone of the evening, until they had polished off the cheese, and she began to make coffee in some sort of fancy coffee maker. Espresso.

  ‘Can I ask a question?’ Ben had been curious about this for some time, never quite comfortable, hadn’t brought it up. But Rhoda was so obviously intending to . . . what? Make a pitch, her pitch, marshal the arguments, make a case? ‘I don’t get it. You are younger than me, more attractive, you come from a world that leaves me breathless, as if I were an alien from another and lesser planet . . .’

  She had no desire to deny it.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘So, why me? I’m out of your league, below it, I’ve never even aspired to someone of your class, or caste, or wherever you come from or fit into. But girls like you don’t settle for guys like me.’

  She put a shhh finger to her lips, reached across and took his hand.

  ‘God, you’re dumb!’

  ‘Dumb, what . . .’

  ‘You don’t even know, do you?’

  ‘Know what?’

  ‘That you’re a legend, a goddamn legend. And I am a girl who is enormously seduced by intelligence.’

  He made some modest modesty noises.

  ‘Let me finish! I heard you in front of the Supreme Court, watched Justice Frankfurter nodding in admiration, felt proud merely to know that you were my colleague, that was before, you know . . .’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘In the office they hardly talked about anything else for the next week. Ben this, Ben that . . . and you know what I think?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You may be a legend, but you’re the wrong sort of legend. Any highly-witted Jewish boy can argue a case, though maybe not as well as you. But who cares? You’re not cut out to be a lawyer, you’re too smart to be a lawyer.’

  Even he could see what was coming, and he started to object.

  ‘And don’t you Clarence Darrow me. You’re a writer! So, write! Make a decent commitment to your own gifts. And speaking of gifts, you know what that was, don’t you?’

  He didn’t.

  ‘Upstairs. The room, the typewriter. Those are my gifts to you. A place to write, and time to do it.’

  ‘I don’t think—’

  ‘Do be quiet, at least let me finish! There’s more, something complete, where everything goes together. Did you think I was giving you a typewriter for your birthday? For Christ’s sake, it all goes together. The place to write: your room, this house, a bed we will share, a life, together.’

  He laughed at the sheer audacity of it, its cunning, its attractiveness.

  ‘Have you even thought what this would mean? I leave Addie, I abandon my children, I have no means to support them or myself . . .’

  ‘You know what?’ she said sharply. ‘You know what? Addie is a survivor, I will bet you five bucks s
he already has an eye on a suitable replacement for you. Your short story says so, and you cannot have made that up. And the children? You’ll get to see them regularly, spoil them with presents. Track shoes. They’ll survive, children go through wars, can adapt to most anything . . .’

  Responding to his look of chagrin (which was good) and outrage (which was less promising), she put up a finger.

  ‘Let me finish. All this would be accompanied by a loan – we can discuss how much – over three years, to let you meet your obligations. At the end of that time, however long, could be longer, depends how you are getting on, you can repay me with the advances and sales from your novels.’

  He tried to rise from the chair, but was too exhausted, too drunk, too incredulous to respond. He slumped back into the enveloping leather.

  ‘You’re mad,’ he said. ‘Off your rocker. It’s unthinkable.’

  ‘Wanna bet?’ she murmured. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow. Your place this time!’

  He wanted to cool things down? Well, she could hot them up. A few nights together and he’d forget who Addie was!

  ‘Something’s going on.’

  Addie adjusted her blanket and cradled her head on a folded beach towel, paused for a moment, blew a hovering fly away.

  ‘I don’t know what to do, but I have to do something. He almost never answers the phone, and when he does he sounds shifty. He hasn’t written, even to the kids. It’s not like him, he’s usually slavishly punctilious.’

  Sally grunted. ‘I guess so. But you don’t even know if something is going on, or if there is some innocent explanation . . .’

  ‘Innocent? Innocent? He’s a man. Sort of. But I’ll find out. And in the meantime I will sharpen the knife.’

  ‘Very funny! But look, Harold goes away on business all the time, stays in the city when I am here, sometimes forgets to call or is too busy. And he isn’t fooling around . . .’

  Addie hardly needed to observe that Harold was hardly a catch on the pick-’em-up and stick-’em-up scene, with his bashful ways and harelip, an unlikely partner for even the drunkest horny gal.