Classic Love: 7 Vintage Romances (24 page)

“Did it really irk you? Forget it, Jack. I don’t do that anymore either.”

“How can I believe you?”

“How can I believe
you?
”

“You have my word.”

“You have mine. What’s our waiter’s name, do you know? He’s eyeing us with a benevolent gaze, he seems to approve of our togetherness.”

“He’s probably spinning fantasies about what it would be like to take you to bed.”

“Of course, why didn’t I think of that? Why don’t you go over and tell him what it’s like?”

“Words would fail me.”

“It would be the first time.”

“I’m that verbose? Wrong again, you’re the one who does the most talking.”

“That’s unfair. I’m a very good listener.”

They smiled at each other. Unremarkable conversation, lovers’ talk, silly, the two of them, fondly smirking — how wonderful it would be not to part at the end of the evening, just walk slowly back to Jack’s place, have a nightcap and a few post mortems and then fall asleep together …

In the morning having him there, his warmth beside her.

They had another drink, this time scanning the menus as they downed it: Christine decided on the soft-shelled crabs after all. It was chicken cacciatore for Jack. She had a taste of it, it was delicious. A big, oregano-scented stuffed clam in its shell was added to each plate. Glancing up at the waiter, Christine felt sure it was an extra for them because he liked them.

“How’s your crab?” Jack asked.

“Like poetry. Melt in your mouth. Here, try it.”

He forked up a bit. “Yeah,” he commented approvingly. “I told you, didn’t I? Have some chicken.”

“Great. Really great. Say, this is a find. And the clam. Fantastic. You’re a good man to know, John Allerton.”

“I have my talents.”

Halfway through dinner the overhead lights dimmed. Jack’s face, across from her, went darker and fainter. “Are you there?” she questioned.

“Yes, are you?”

“Could it be a power failure?”

“Some romantic you are. Atmosphere, my girl. Atmosphere.”

“Oh, they always do that?”

“Yes, they always do. In a little while it will be dimmed some more. That’s when everybody starts necking.”

“Oh, it’s
that
kind of place. I knew there must be some ulterior motives. Well, I like this light. Do I look mysterious and femme fatale this way?”

“You look like Ondine, under the sea.”

“You look like the young Tolstoy, with your beard.”

“Did the young Tolstoy sport a beard? I’m not sure. The beard again, huh? What is it, you want me to grow a beard?”

“Not until your
oeuvre
takes off. Stay the way you are.”

“Thank you. It can’t be the easiest thing eating Italian with a chin growth.”

“I’m sure it wouldn’t. This is lovely, Jack. I’m having the most gorgeous time.”

“Can we do it again?”

“Yes, darling. Sometime. Yes, we can and will.”

“I hoped you’d say that.”

“I suppose you knew I would.”

“No. I didn’t know that.”

“We will come here again, Jack. Let’s write off Monk’s Court. I want to come here.”

“So do I. They have a tasty rum cake, Chris. And the usual tortoni, spumone. That’s about it.”

“I guess it will be the spumone.”

He put her in a cab afterwards. It was nearly eleven. “Talk to you in the morning.”

“Yes. Jack, it was sublime.”

“It was for me. Be careful, okay?”

“Yes, it is a splendid summer,” she said to the cab driver. “Not too muggy so far, which is a blessing. Do you work nights as a rule?”

“As a rule,” he agreed. “More money in it. Naturally more chance of being mugged and robbed. Killed, let’s face it. You take your chances.”

“Yes,” she said soberly.

“City isn’t getting any better.”

“Unfortunately it isn’t.”

“I remember better. Other days, other times. What are you supposed to do, go to Arizona? Who’s got the dough to do that? Anyway, this is my piece of the U.S.A. Which entrance, ma’am?”

“The one on the left, just head for the circular driveway, that’s fine. How much do I owe you?”

“Two-ten.”

“You made good time, thanks.”

“Easy, not much traffic this time of night. Hey, thanks, you’re a real doll.”

That was because she gave him a dollar and a half tip.

And then inside. “Hello, Manuel,” she said to the night elevator operator. “Ninth floor, remember?”

“Oh, yeah. I don’t see you much, Mrs. Jennings.”

“True. We don’t go out that often at night.”

Manhattan in this year of our Lord — no one went out that much at night. There was a whole bunch of spooks out on those streets. Carl was in the study, poring over some medical journals. “Well, hello,” he greeted her. “I was beginning to get worried.”

“Nothing to worry about, plenty of cabs around.”

“Had a good time?”

“Yes, nice. You?”

“Just going over some material.” He yawned. “I guess it’s about time to turn in.”

“Anything good on television this evening?”

“The usual, a not-bad TV film about school busing. Something you would have enjoyed, very creditable acting.”

He had been waiting for her. He never went to bed until she was there, in the house, his security blanket. He didn’t even ask where she had dinner, It didn’t signify. She was home and now he could turn in, the Missus was where she belonged, it meant he could switch off the lights and get into his pajamas. “You going to read for a while?” he asked her, when they were settled in their beds.

“Not tonight.”

“Sleep well, dearest.”

“You too, darling.”

You should think what you were doing, but you didn’t think because it wouldn’t have any bearing — thinking wouldn’t change things, not one single thing. You lay a bed away from one man and your heart and mind was with another. You just learned to accept things the way they were, and you weren’t hurting anyone if they didn’t have an inkling of what was going on. She fell asleep with the sound of Carl’s light snoring in her ears, not sawing away at a great rate, he never did that, but somehow comforting, quieting, like the sound of a faraway surf, like the murmur of the sea against some distant shore.

Clover was a little late, though not by much and anyway it made no difference, you didn’t mind waiting for a friend. Ten minutes or so after the hour she walked in breezily, looking charming as always, her smart skirt swaying as she swung toward Christine’s table, her coppery tan an effective contrast to the sun-streaked hair. Clover was “petite” but beautifully proportioned: she had legs like a stripper. “Hiya,” she said as she plumped herself down. “Jeez, this is the ticket. I love having lunch out on a Tuesday.”

“Why on a Tuesday?”

“Also on a Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday.” A grin. “Let’s face it, any day in the week. Thing is I’m not pally with anyone in the agency. So generally I wolf down some soggy sandwich either in a Soup Burg or at my desk.”

“How come you’re not pally with anyone there?”

“Tell you about that in a minute. You order your drink yet?”

“No, not until you came. I’m having a martini.”

“That will be
deux
.” She gave the order when the waiter came over. “Extra dry, please. Olives, yes, Chris?”

“Um hum.”

“I’m very glad you called, Chris. You and I haven’t had lunch together alone in a dog’s age.”

“Spur of the moment. I had nothing better to do so I phoned you. As a last resort, of course.”

“I had nothing better to do so I said yes, let’s. As a last resort, ditto.”

“None of us ever grew up, did we? Same old wisecracks.”

“With each other, anyway. It’s a different idiom with other people,
we’re
like a Quad group, sorority sisters or something. I still think of you as Elliott sometimes. When we worked together the five of us called each other by last names. I’m not sure when it was we left off doing that.”

“And I quite often think of you as Martinson. ‘Hey, Martinson, gettin’ much?’ The standard Monday morning greeting.”

“Dumb kids we were. Anyway, kidding aside, glad for your spur-of-the-moment impulse. This is great.”

It had not been spur of the moment by any means. The truth was that Christine had been thinking of Clover Martinson a lot lately, for reasons that were only partly clear to her. It was probably mostly that Clover, who was unmarried and involved with a married man, was the very opposite of herself, who was married and involved with an unmarried man. Also Clover’s lover was older, while Jack Allerton was younger.

At the same time there was a similarity she didn’t need to spell out for herself: in neither case was there a
ménage a trois
but something vaguely approximating it. What she wanted was to sound Clover out, probe her true state of mind. Was she as carefree as she seemed with this long-term relationship, was it working? It had suddenly seemed imperative to talk to Clover, and so she had phoned her at the travel agency. “Well, all
right
,” Clover said enthusiastically. “One o’clock? How about Chinese?”

They had agreed to meet at Sheila Chang’s.

The drinks came and Clover said, “
L’chayim
,” and Christine said yes, to life, and they smiled at each other. “So what’s the reason you don’t have lunch with anyone in your agency, Clo?”

Prompt and concise. “They’re the pits, the scabby end. They are
absolute
shitheads. I knew that when I went into travel. It didn’t matter then and it doesn’t matter now. Travel’s my bag and the hell with the people in it, I couldn’t care less.”

She picked up her glass and took a quick swallow. “For a Chink place you do get good drinks here, this one’s no child’s piss. Good, huh? But yes, I thought I’d dropped a hint or two about my confrères in the business, God knows I’m always griping about it. Not just my agency, it’s all of them, the whole contingent, they’re really a breed apart. Backbiting, small-minded, avaricious, all of them fighting to get the best perks possible. They stay in the fray till they’re practically senile and they’re the worst vultures in any business you can name. The rag trade? Pretty grim, but travel can go it one better. At least I think so.”

“Doesn’t it rub off on you? I don’t mean make you the same way, but isn’t it festering to work with people like that?”

“I close my eyes to it. You don’t really work
with
them, you work around them. I have my own desk space, own phone; my own clients. I rub shoulders with them, that’s about it. Oh,
and
they’re all drunks, too. They must spend a fortune on booze alone. Anton and I met one of the women in my agency one evening when we were having dinner at Sea Fare of the Aegean.”

She sipped again, laughed. “We passed by her table — she was with her husband, whom I happen to know is a first-class lecher — and she jumped up, almost spilling her drink, and fell all over me. Clover
Martinson
, hello
dear
, why’nt you join us, and somehow or other I was able to wrest her away from me,
and
him, he was feasting his eyes on my cleavage. Well. Next day at the agency I said politely, ‘Good morning, Martha, nice to run into you last night at the restaurant.’ She gave me this absolutely blank look, this long, vacant look, told me I must be mistaken, she was home last night with a migraine and skipped dinner completely.”

Clover, chuckling, remarked that in Martha’s mind it was undoubtedly the truth, as she obviously didn’t remember one bit of the previous evening. She had probably blanked out after her one too many whatever-she-was-drinking. “Oh, they’re a great bunch, and every one of them dyed in the wool racists.”

Then she half emptied her glass with a big gulp. “As they say, I needed that.” There was a hoot of laughter. “Here I am sounding off about lushes and I’m well on my way to a refill. With you just starting. But you know me, kiddo. I wouldn’t give up my schnapps, I make no secret of it, but two’s my limit on a working day. Take your time, Chris. How am I doing with my tan, do I look like a bushbaby?”

“No, like St. Tropez. Where do you go?”

“Well, I start, as soon as the weather indicates, on my terrace, you know there’s no parapet over it, and I begin with half an hour, gradually lengthen the time after the first week. When I get a real good base Anton and I go to the beach. He’s not a moneybags, you know, earns high but he’s got family obligations need I tell you, and I’m no Rockefeller. So we catch the subway at Eighty-sixth the Street, express to Nevins, then change over to a local that takes us to the last stop, Flatbush Avenue.
Then
we go up the stairs, into the sunlight again, and take a bus to Riis Park. The whole trip is about an hour and a half each way, but Riis Park is beautifully unspoiled, or at least the part we head for, which is called the family section, and it’s never crowded and noisy like Jones Beach.”

“It’s a long trip, Clover. But it sounds like fun.”

“It’s marvelous. I really can’t tell you how much we enjoy it. Just a shirt and jeans over your bathing suit, your towels, a little cash for fares and lunch, a frank and a can of beer. A blanket to lie on. We both look forward to it all week.”

“How is Anton these days?”

“A joy, an absolute joy. I don’t know what I ever did without him. It’s as if there never was anything else. Sounds like the title of an Albee play.
Nothing before Anton
.”

“Clover, I’m
very
glad that man made an appearance in your life. I know things were always very pleasant for you before, but there’s nothing like that kind of, as you say, absolute joy.”

“Yes. Yes, Chris. Funny how one day there’s just ordinary, doing this and doing that, no great shakes and then a day later, tantara tantara, everything’s like a rainbow, you want to strew flowers in his path. Well. A little lavender, that, but I tend to be Miss Ebullience these days.”

“Ms. Ebullience”

“Correction noted and point taken. I mean it, though, I’m sure it’s an unmitigated bore, this kind of stars in the eyes palaver.”

“On the contrary. It’s lovely, so much more enjoyable than hearing about the deteriorating state of someone’s liver, or how you can’t get decent cleaning women anymore.”

“They don’t do windows. Yeah, you do hear a lot of that shit.” She fiddled with her glass. “How’s Carl, Chris?”

“Just fine. Busy. As usual.”

“The kids? Nancy, Bruce?”

“Nancy’s still in Mass. Brace’s summer job — I told you about that. As for me, it’s summer and that’s when I come completely alive.”

“You should go to the beach with us. When’s vacation this year, Chris?”

A pang. Vacation. Two and a half weeks parted from Jack. It was increasingly on her mind. It could very well be finis, Christine thought dejectedly. Almost three weeks for Jack to take stock of the situation, find it insupportable. It was beginning to disturb her sleep at night. “We’re leaving on the 20th of September.”

“Your birthday’s on the 27th, isn’t it?”

“Yes, must you remind me?”

If it makes you feel any better,
I
just turned forty. I never thought you were one to tear your hair out over things like that, Chris.”

“I’d just as soon stop celebrating it. Carl will make a big production, some fancy restaurant, flowers, about twelve birthday cards.”

“Good for Carl. Where are you going?”

“Italy again. A medical tour, as usual. That is for the flight, anyway. Carl likes to hobnob with other men of med’cin? I don’t mind. The rest of the time we’re on our own. I’d rather have you plan an itinerary for us.”

“Don’t give it a thought, we’ve been all through this before. We women are friends, the guys and gals haven’t ever socialized. I for one have always preferred it that way. What we have belongs to us, not to them. I like to keep my business separate. I really wouldn’t like to dicker with friends, you must realize that. I’ve got my own regular group tours, faithful clients, a nice bit of change accruing therefrom. Oh, I’m off to Israel and Egypt in the autumn. Egypt, I’ve never been there. Giza, the Pyramids, the Sphinx, camel rides on licey blankets. Damn, I’m out of cigarettes. This pack’s empty, I don’t have a fresh one in my bag. Look, I’ll be right back, I’ll get some from the front desk.”

“Don’t be silly, Clover, help yourself to mine. I have another pack with me.”

“I hate to sponge.”

“What’s mine is yours. What’s got into you? Take these and I’ll get the new pack out.”

“Bring you some next time. Thanks, Chris. So, Egypt. Yes, the camel rides, I can just imagine the mangy state of those camel blankets. Wow. Plus sanitary conditions in general. My doctor’s going to dose me up before I leave, with gamma globulin. And God knows there’ll be any number of shots, anti everything you can think of. I suppose I’ll be a mass of lumps. Then there’s that horrid Nile worm.”

“What’s
that
?”

“Some ghastly crud. A worm, I guess, they call it the Nile worm. Dr. Enfield said, looking me straight in the eye to be sure I understood he meant business, that if I so as much dipped a toe into Nile waters I’d be sorry, that it would mean slow and irrevocable deterioration, a sure threat to my mental capacities as well, that I’d end up a mindless wreck.”

“Well, happy vacation,” Christine said, laughing. “Are you going alone or with Anton?”

“This year alone. Last year it was with Anton. Remember, we went to Spain and Portugal? We take turns, Madame and I — I should say the Frau and I. So you see it’s all very fair and equitable.”

“It doesn’t seem to bother you.”

“It doesn’t bother me.”

Was that said rather curtly, Christine wondered, tapping ashes into the tray. “That’s fine,” she murmured. “I didn’t mean to sound inquisitive.”

Clover raised astonished eyes. “Inquisitive? Hell, I don’t think that! Why should I?”

“I guess I’m ready for that second drink now. Can you get his attention, honey?”

An arm up again, the waiter responding. “Two more of the same, please, and the menu, okay?”

When he padded away Christine said she didn’t really think she’d ever get to Egypt, but that she’d very much like to go to Israel. “Yes, you should,” Clover assured her. “All the Bible places, aside from anything else. And of course Israel’s — to all intents and purposes — the end of the Diaspora. Anton nitpicks about it, he’s not a Zionist, he says Herzl would turn over in his grave if he knew how the homeland turned out. Well, you don’t want to hear about that, I know I talk about Anton too much. Me, I’ve been there before, I find much of it blatantly materialistic, but I’m kinda sentimental about it.” She shrugged, “I guess I’m very sentimental about it.”

“Because Anton’s Jewish?”

“No, I was before. Rooting with my pompoms. Good for you, tiny country, you show them. Well, maybe more so because of Anton, yes, I suppose. I feel the weight of the infamy in a more personal way.”

The waiter returned with their fresh drinks, the menus. “Let’s order, shall we, Chris? It will take a while for the stuff to be ready.”

They selected an assortment of dishes, Clover saying yes, chopsticks for her, Christine declining. She should learn, Clover told her, but Christine said she wasn’t the most avid fan of Oriental cuisine, so why bother to take up an indoor sport that she would rarely use? “Oh,
I’m
sorry,” Clover said apologetically. “I should have left it up to you.”

“No, I have nothing against Chinese, don’t be silly, it’s fun once in a while and I particularly like this place.”

“It’s so pretty at Christmastime, lovely decorations, it’s like fairyland.”

“Years ago Luchow’s was the place to go during the year-end holidays. I haven’t been there for ages.”

“It went down so. I understand new people have taken it over and it’s good again.”

“Let’s all troop down there sometime for lunch.”

“Yes, let’s.”

It was when their plates were set before them and they were dividing the steaming fare that Christine decided to come to the point. She simply didn’t want to settle for discussing the merits of various eating places, or make small talk about vacations and then go on to clothes or the latest art films. After two hearty drinks she now felt up to advancing the conversation. After all, it was what she had come here for.

Mentally clearing her throat, she said, “This isn’t idle curiosity, Clover, but — well, Anton. It’s going on five years since you met, and you established a — a relationship almost right away. I was wondering if-”