While Owen and Bobby were unloading the rumble seat – four cardboard suitcases containing everything they owned that hadn’t been consigned to storage in New York – she followed Eva inside to explore the rooms, which were plainly furnished and papered in dark tones of brown and green. “Oh, this is
very
nice,” she said.
“May be a little crowded,” Owen said, “but I guess we’ll manage. Here, fella; take your mother’s bags into her room, and then we’ll get your stuff stowed away in here.”
“Why don’t you two get washed up,” Eva said, “and unpack if you like, and then we’ll all go out to the front porch and have something cool to drink.”
Alone in her room, Alice did her best to feel a sense of safety, of rescue and hope. She had fled thousands of miles from her adversity to find this resting place; now she was here, sheltered and protected by her own sister’s love, and she knew she ought
to be grateful. But she couldn’t escape the knowledge that she was here only because she had absolutely nowhere else to go, and for a minute, as she stared at herself in the streaked mirror above the dresser, she was touched with panic. How could she possibly live here, in this cramped bungalow under the alien Texas sun, half a continent away from her own life, from her work, from anything she could consider home?
But she forced herself to be calm. Her plan, after all, was to stay here only for a few months – three or four, six at the very most. With her regular monthly checks coming in and no money at all going out, it would be no longer than that before she had saved enough to return to New York, to find a place to live and get her things out of storage. In the meantime, the only thing to do was take this new life as it came, a day at a time, an hour at a time; and now it was time to go out to the front porch for something cool to drink.
“Oh, isn’t this pleasant,” she said when she’d settled herself on the porch. Eva, Owen, and Bobby were already there, in wicker chairs. There was a pitcher of iced tea, and also, she saw with a rush of relief, there was a bottle of whiskey.
“This is the time of day when Owen and I just relax,” Eva said. “We just sit out here and watch the sun go down, and we’re grateful for all our blessings. Would you like iced tea, dear, or will you join Owen in a drink?”
“I think I’d like a drink, thanks.” The first swallow of whiskey and water warmed her at once, and soon she was able to recapture the feeling of adventure that had sustained her on the long Pullman journey. There was no telling what the future might hold. Alice Prentice the sculptor might be temporarily out of commission, but Alice Prentice the free spirit, the exceptional person, was still functioning. Anything was possible.
The view from the house
was
beautiful, or at least it was
remarkably spacious: miles of flat, gently rolling land led away to a shimmering horizon beneath a sky emblazoned with red and gold. Vague sculptural yearnings were awakened in her as she gazed into the distance and sipped her whiskey, and she almost said,
“Oh
, what wonderful work I’ll be able to do here,” before she remembered that she wouldn’t be able to work here at all. Instead she said, “Oh, I wish I had some water colors; that’s such a lovely sunset.”
“I could get you some paints in town, if you’d like,” Eva said.
“No; I’m not really much of a painter. What I’d really like is some clay, but of course I’d need a studio for sculpture. I don’t really mind, though; I’m looking forward to taking a real vacation.” She wasn’t at all sure what she meant by this – what
was
she going to do with her time here? – but it sounded like the right thing to say.
“And what’ve
you
been up to since I saw you last?” Owen demanded of Bobby. “Playing much ball?”
“Not too much, no,” he answered. “I’m not very good at it.”
“You’re not? How come? You don’t enjoy it?”
“I don’t know. I’m not very well coordinated, I guess.”
Owen stared at him briefly in evident disappointment, and Bobby shifted bashfully in his chair, rattling the cubes in his glass of iced tea.
Owen had aged a good deal in the past five years: she had scarcely recognized him at the railroad station. His hair was white, he had developed a heavy paunch, and there was something haggard about his eyes. Now she tried to draw him out by asking about his book – she dimly remembered Eva’s telling her it was something about the World War – and he said it was going slowly. It was a big job; might not be done for years.
“It does sound very interesting,” she said.
“Interesting for anybody who likes to read about wholesale slaughter,” he said. “Way the world’s going now it won’t be long before we’re in the middle of another one.”
“Another war? Oh, don’t say that.”
“Not saying it won’t keep it away. Probably happen in time for this young fella to see a little action.”
“Oh,
dear
, no. You don’t really think so, do you?”
“Owen’s very disturbed about the situation in Europe,” Eva said.
“So’s everybody else who’s in his right mind,” Owen said, and poured himself another drink. He made it a stiff one, and Alice began to suspect he’d been drinking all afternoon, since before meeting the train. This was odd, because she was almost sure she remembered that he’d made a point of turning down drinks that time in Scarsdale.
“There’ll be no stopping it and no staying out of it,” he was saying, “and it’s going to be worse than the last one.” Then he turned on Bobby again. “How do you think you’d like that?” he asked. “Think you’d enjoy being a soldier? You know, they’ll take you in the Army whether you’re well coordinated or not. Stand up. Let’s have a look at you.”
And Bobby got shyly to his feet, smiling, holding his iced tea.
“Put the glass down. Heels together; toes at an angle of forty-five degrees; knees as close together as the nature of the man will permit. Thumbs along the trouser seams. Shoulders back. No, throw ’em
back
. That’s better. Suck that gut in. Wipe that smile off your face.”
“Oh, Owen, please,” Alice said, trying to laugh. “He’s only twelve.”
“I’m almost thirteen,” Bobby said.
“They’re training ’em at that age in Germany right now. Maybe we ought be doing it too. All right, at ease, soldier. I said
‘At ease.’ That means you can relax.” And when Bobby slumped he reached out one heavy hand and cuffed him on the upper arm. “God bless you, boy,” he said. “I hope it never happens to you. Probably will, though.”
“Oh, please,” Alice said. “Can’t we talk about something more pleasant?”
Owen drained his glass and stood up. “Tell you what. You girls stay out here and find pleasant things to talk about. I’ll go read the paper till suppertime.”
“Owen’s very tired,” Eva explained when he’d gone inside.
He remained very tired through dinner – he hardly said a word while Alice and Eva talked of their sisters – and he went to bed soon afterwards.
“We live very quietly, as you see,” Eva said when they were washing the dishes together. “I imagine it’ll be quite a change for you.”
And it was quite a change indeed. All the next day, with Eva gone and Owen secluded in his study, she and Bobby were left with nothing to do. They went outside to inspect the chickens; then they took a long aimless walk across the fields; then they came back and sat around the house reading magazines. Owen emerged at lunchtime and Alice fixed sandwiches for the three of them, which they ate in near silence; then there was nothing to do but wait for Eva to come home. And that, more or less, was the way things went for nearly a week.
The high point of the day – every day – was the hour when they congregated on the front porch to relax and be grateful for all their blessings. Alice tried again and again to lead the conversation along light, uncontroversial channels, but Owen repeatedly made that impossible. Once she remarked on how “different” Texas was from the East, meaning the landscape, and Owen said, “It’s different, all right. You’re in the United States
of America now. This part of the country hasn’t been taken over yet, thank God.”
“Taken over?”
“By the Jews.”
“Oh.”
“New York’s not fit for a white man any more,” he said, and he held forth in that vein for what seemed an hour, until Eva managed to change the subject.
The menacing rise of the American Negro was another of his favorite topics, as was the cancerous growth of communism in labor unions, and still another was the reckless irresponsibility of President Roosevelt in both domestic and foreign affairs. They heard him out on all of these matters in the course of several evenings, following days of almost unbearable idleness during which they could hear the frequent clink of bottle on glass through the closed door of his study.
Then it was Saturday, with a welcome change in the day’s routine: Eva stayed home. It was as if Alice had never before had anyone to talk to. She talked and talked, following Eva around as she went about her housework, accepting small tasks of dusting and polishing, grateful to be given anything to do with her hands as long as it meant the talk could continue.
Late in the afternoon Owen went out alone, taking the car, and stayed away. Eva prepared and served supper as if nothing were amiss; later she sat talking pleasantly with Alice and Bobby until bedtime, and it was well past midnight when Owen woke them all up by coming home – slamming the kitchen door, bumping into the table and cursing, stumbling and staggering through the house until he fell asleep.
On Sunday morning, mostly because she wanted to get out of the house, Alice asked if Eva could drive Bobby and herself to the nearest Episcopal church.
“Certainly,” Eva said, glancing uneasily at Owen. “That sounds like a very nice idea.”
The church was disappointing – it was small and hot – and the sermon was a dull fund-raising appeal (“Be ye doers of the Word and not hearers only”). But Eva sat politely with them throughout the service, and afterwards said she had found it “very instructive.” Like Alice she had been raised a Methodist, but she hadn’t been to a church of any kind for years.
“It
is
a more interesting ceremony, isn’t it?” she said when they were home again. “I really enjoyed all the singing.” This caused Owen to look up sourly from the Sunday paper. “I mean,” she said, “assuming one does have a religious bent, I can see how the Episcopalian service would be more appealing.”
“I thought it was a little dull,” Alice said, “but of course I’ve been spoiled by the wonderful service we had at Trinity, in Riverside. We had such a fine minister there, Dr. Hammond, and the church itself is so beautiful. Oh, and I
wish
you could have seen Bobby as the crucifer.”
“As the what?” Owen inquired, squinting his eyes.
“The crucifer. He carried the cross and led the whole procession, at the beginning and the end of each service. And he did it with such
feeling
. When he’d come to a stop in front of the altar, to let the choir file past him into the choir loft, he’d raise the cross way, way up high and just stand there—” she pantomimed the raising of a shaft high over her head – “
Oh
, it was so impressive; and then he’d lower the cross and turn around, and there’d be the most wonderfully dedicated, ethereal expression on his face – I wish you could have seen it.”
Owen looked at her for a moment, and then at Bobby, who ducked his head in discomfort. Then he made a little snorting sound in his nose, gathered up his newspaper, and went into his study and shut the door.
Owen stayed away from them for the rest of the day. He went out again that night, after dinner, and again they were awakened by his homecoming. He lurched against the kitchen table and knocked over one of the chairs, and then they heard his voice.
“Jabber, jabber, jabber,” he was saying as he moved toward bed. “Jabber, jabber, jabber, jabber, jabber …”
By the end of the third week Alice had decided that the situation was impossible. She and Bobby couldn’t stay here: the whole idea of coming here had been a mistake. Her next check from George would give them enough to get back to New York, which now rose in her mind’s eye as a city of magical promise, and once there they would find a way to survive. She would make a desperate appeal to George for enough money to tide them over until they were settled, and if that didn’t work she guessed she could get some kind of a job. In any case, they would find a way.
“I think we’d better go home,” she told Eva as they washed the dishes together one evening. She tried to keep the tone of her voice neutral. “We can leave as soon as I get my next check from George; that ought to be in about a week.”
“Well, but where will you go, dear? What will you do?”
“We’ll manage somehow. Perhaps I’ll take a job or something; anyway, we’ll get by.”
“But I thought you were planning to stay here for some time, until your savings built up.” Eva sounded a little hurt.
“I was, but it really isn’t at all practical for us to live here. I think it would be better for all of us.”
And whether Eva’s feelings had been slightly hurt or not, she was clearly relieved by the news.
So was Bobby; and so, apparently, was Owen: he stayed relatively sober and polite for several evenings in a row.
Now that she was soon to be gone from here, Alice was filled with impatience. The days seemed even longer, and being deprived of sculpture was worse than ever. She knew she might soon be able to work again, but in the meantime she would have given anything for some clay and tools and a studio.
Then one afternoon as she and Bobby sat reading in the living room, she had a wonderful idea.
“Dear,” she said. “Could you turn your head a little this way? No, wait; the light isn’t quite right. Could you move over to that chair? Near the window? There. That’s fine. Now, look up a little – there. Oh, that’s wonderful. Do you know the first thing I’m going to do when we get back to New York? I’m going to do a portrait of you. I know just exactly how I’m going to do it. I can
see
it.”
And she could. It would be the best thing she had ever done. She would call it “Young Boy,” or “My Son” – or, better still, “A Portrait of the Artist’s Son.” She could picture it exhibited in next year’s Whitney Annual, and perhaps even photographed in
The New York Times
.