So Little Time (69 page)

Then there was the matter of mulching the flower garden. Mr. Gorman was frank to say that he never got around to the flower garden as much as he would like to, because the women in the house were always hollering after him to fix that lock on the bathroom door, but Mr. Gorman loved flowers and Mr. Wilson knew he loved them. It was simply that there were two ways of thinking about flowers. Mr. Gorman felt they were stronger in the spring if they weren't coddled and cuddled in the winter. The ones that died in the winter wouldn't be worth anything in the spring if they'd lived, in spite of what Mrs. Wilson said. Those ladies at the Garden Club were just being worked on by seed and fertilizer salesmen. Mr. Wilson knew that you couldn't get on with women or get on without them.

Then that summer Mr. Gorman had let the front lawn go. He was danged if he had ever seen grass grow so fast, and he didn't want Mr. Wilson to think that it had got ahead of him, even if Mrs. Wilson thought so. He had let it get ahead of him because it did lawns good to be let go for one summer. The grass got rooted and you could make a real project of it in the spring. It was the same way with weeds and the paths out back and the driveway by the garage. That was what farming was: let the weeds take hold and then do a blitzkrieg on them. There wasn't any use just pecking at them. When you got good and ready, go at it, all at once.

Madge told Jeffrey that Mr. Gorman was doing less and less, but Mr. Gorman had a different story. Mr. Gorman said that all the time there were more and more things to do and he was busy as a one-armed paperhanger. When he got going at one thing, the next would come up and when the next came up, the women would holler to him from the house. He was working like a one-armed paperhanger and if Mr. Wilson wanted to have the place like Mr. Haskell's, why he could do it with five or six men under him, like Mr. Haskell's estate superintendent, but he knew that Mr. Wilson didn't want to have the place like Mr. Haskell's. Mr. Wilson wanted to rest there and not to worry. Mr. Gorman knew that Mr. Wilson didn't want a show place but a farm, like the farm where Mr. Gorman worked when he was a boy; and the main thing about farming was to take it easy and not let it get you down. If it weren't for the women, he and Mr. Wilson would have a good time on the place with husking bees and clambakes and barbecues and—oh-oh—hard cider.

Several times that summer Jeffrey had told Madge to let him handle Mr. Gorman, that Mr. Gorman was all right, but as the summer had gone on, Jeffrey began to believe, as he looked about the place, that there might be something in what Madge said; and finally Jeffrey had told Madge that he would have a talk with Mr. Gorman.

Then for several weeks he and Madge had talked about that talk he was going to have with Mr. Gorman. It seemed to Jeffrey that sometimes he was Mr. Gorman and sometimes Madge was. Madge had told him that he must be perfectly firm with Mr. Gorman and at the same time that he must not lose his temper. The thing to do, Madge said, was to call Mr. Gorman into the house just casually and then have a list of questions on a piece of paper which he could ask Mr. Gorman in a perfectly casual way. If Jeffrey did not want to do it, Madge would write out the list herself. What had happened about spraying the apple trees? Why was the cow dry during the few months the family was there? Why were there so few eggs when the hens were laying? Why was it there were never any vegetables in the garden? Why was it they seemed to use two hundred gallons of gasoline a month? Madge would write down all those questions and Jeffrey would simply ask them, and then Mr. Gorman would know that Jeffrey was not completely simple. Jeffrey had told Madge that this was not the right way to go about it. In the first place, Mr. Gorman would know very well that she had written out those questions. He knew Gorman, and he could handle Gorman. He would simply call Gorman in and tell him to sit down.

“And then you'll give him a cigarette,” Madge said. “And then you'll go soft and you won't tell Mr. Gorman anything.”

“I won't go soft,” Jeffrey said. “It's hard to get a good man, Madge, and Gorman is a good man, and I can handle Gorman.”

Jeffrey said that he had always handled Gorman. All he needed to do was to call Mr. Gorman in and say, Look here, Mr. Gorman, the place was a little run-down this year, and what was the matter? It was perfectly true that Mr. Gorman would have a good reason and Jeffrey would simply listen to the reason and then he would say something bitter, something about not being Mr. Haskell and that Mr. Gorman was not Mr. Haskell's estate superintendent.

“He puts on side,” Madge said, “he calls himself your custodian.”

“All right,” Jeffrey said, “I'm going to talk to him. I'm going to handle this, Madge. Gorman's been pretty loyal. I don't believe he ever said he was my custodian.”

“When he comes in,” Madge said, “just be definite with him.”

“Never mind,” Jeffrey said. “Never mind. I can handle this. I can talk to Mr. Gorman.”

Jeffrey had been out looking for Mr. Gorman. He had walked out to the rose garden. He had been to the building where Mr. Gorman kept the cow. He had been to the woodshed which they had repaired when they had bought the place, and he had been to the garage with the living quarters for the couple over it. He had also been to the tennis court which needed rolling badly, and he knew that he must speak to Mr. Gorman about it because Jim always liked to have friends around for tennis. He had seen Charley in the garage doing something with the Ford truck. He had never been able to understand why a child of his should like machinery. Charley was fourteen and he kept taking the truck to pieces. Charley was always engaged in activities which Jeffrey could not understand.

“What's the matter with it?” Jeffrey asked.

Charley looked up very brightly. Charley had on white flannels, and his school tie and his hands were covered with grease.

“I was just looking at the points,” Charley said.

“Well, put on something else,” Jeffrey said. “If you're going to mess around with the car. Put on overalls.”

“It isn't messing around, looking at the points,” Charley said. “I can be all washed up in just a minute.”

Jeffrey did not want to argue with Charley because somehow all that summer Charley had always been right. Charley knew all about points and timing, and if Charley said he would not get dirty, he would not. There was no use arguing with Charley.

“Have you seen Mr. Gorman anywhere around?” Jeffrey asked him.

“No,” Charley said, “I guess he's faded out.”

“Where?” Jeffrey asked. “Where has he faded to?”

“I don't know,” Charley said. “He always fades at three in the afternoon. Say, Dad, you ought to see what he's done to this distributor.”

“What's he done to it?” Jeffrey asked.

Charley pointed to a piece of mechanism.

“You can see for yourself,” Charley said. “He's completely bitched it, Dad.”

Jeffrey felt a faint qualm of uneasiness. He had never been able to understand Charley and that summer he could understand him even less, now that Charley had begun talking to him as man to man, using Anglo-Saxon words which no boy of fourteen should have employed.

“Suppose you try to say that some nicer way,” Jeffrey said.

Charley shrugged his shoulders. The boy was only fourteen, but he shrugged his shoulders.

“Frankly,” Charley said, “there's no plainer way to say it. He's bitched it, Dad, but I can fix it. The instruction book's right here. Any moron can follow this instruction book.”

“Why aren't you out at the Haskells' or somewhere?” Jeffrey asked.

As soon as he asked it, he realized that he was always asking Charley why he was not somewhere else. Charley shrugged his shoulders.

“Frankly,” Charley said, “I've taken the afternoon off. This is going to pay me better.”

“Oh,” Jeffrey said, “you're going to be a little Tommy Edison, are you?”

“I mean,” Charley said, “they'll need mechanics in the war.”

“What war?” Jeffrey asked.

“Frankly,” Charley said, “I've been thinking it over, Dad. It'll be a twelve years' war.”

Ever since Charley was five he had been completely self-sufficient. There was nothing new about Charley, except that there was more of him every year. Charley's room was filled with leather-bound books which he brought home from school every Prize Day—the Current Events Prize, the History Prize, the Pinkham Essay Prize, the Best Personal Project Prize, the Sawyer Prize for the Year's Best Personal Adjustment, the Rogers Memorial Prize for Oral Latin Translations. Charley was not fresh; he was simply very bright and adjusted to his environment. Charley was holding that part of the Ford truck. Jeffrey was the world of yesterday; Charley was the world of tomorrow. It was Shuffle Shoon and Amber Locks, sitting together building blocks, except that Jeffrey had never wanted to build blocks with Charley, intellectual or otherwise.

“Just get this into your head,” Jeffrey said, “we're not in the war yet.”

Charley's even features, which resembled rather more closely his mother's than his father's, assumed the patient look of a well-informed adolescent conversing with a poorly trained elder, who could not help his limited background.

“We're in the war now, Dad,” Charley said, “and we don't know it. President Roosevelt has said what I mean—convoys mean shooting and shooting means war. They've already torpedoed the
Greer
.” Charley shrugged his shoulders again. “That's war.”

“And why do you think it's going to last for twelve years?” Jeffrey asked.

“I'll be glad to tell you,” Charley said, “if you're interested and not just making conversation.”

“Remember,” Jeffrey said, “what I've told you. Manners, Charley, manners.”

“Sorry,” Charley said, and he made a helpless gesture with both hands.

“Careful,” Jeffrey said, “don't get too big for your pants, Charley.”

It gave Jeffrey a cruel sort of pleasure which was not paternal, but he knew, even when he was speaking, that he was not being fair. In all their encounters he always ended up by not being fair to Charley.

“I'm sorry, sir,” Charley said. “I can't say anything more, can I? I said I was sorry.”

“All right,” Jeffrey said, “why do you think it's going to last for twelve years?”

“Well,” Charley said, “I've been working on it quite a little lately. I don't suppose you were much in touch with the war in Hollywood.”

“No,” Jeffrey said, “I imagine not.”

But his sarcasm was lost on Charley. Charley's glance was focused somewhere beyond Jeffrey and Charley was marshaling his facts, thinking on his feet, just as he had been taught to do when he had won the Judkins Prize for Extemporaneous Speaking.

“I've been making quite a study of the commentators, lately,” Charley said.

“Oh,” Jeffrey said, “you've been sampling opinion, have you?”

“I've been listening to Swing and Kaltenborn and Newcombe,” Charley said, “and then of course there's
Time
and
Life
and
Newsweek
and
Berlin Diary
. That's not a bad book of Shirer's. Have you read it, Dad?”

“Yes,” Jeffrey said, “I've read it, Charley.”

“I'd like to have a talk with you about it sometime,” Charley said. “But—I've got most of my ideas from Hanson Baldwin.”

“What about Major George Fielding Eliot,” Jeffrey asked, “and Fletcher Pratt, and the General in
PM
? Have you followed those, too, Charley?”

“Yes,” Charley answered. “We follow them all year in Current Events, but it doesn't seem to me that those men have quite the weight of Baldwin. Did you see his article in
Life
called ‘Blueprint for Victory,' Dad?”

“Yes,” Jeffrey said, “I came across it, Charley. Of course, I haven't put my mind on it as much as you have, but I thought Baldwin rather discounted the Russians.”

“Yes,” Charley said, and he nodded brightly. “Yes, a little. Perhaps his timetable may be a little off.”

Jeffrey drew a deep breath.

“You'll have a lot of fun telling this to Jim,” he said.

Then the picture changed. Charley was what he should have been, a little boy again, playing with the car, and his face had all the helplessness of a little boy when he faces grownups after studying hard and knowing all the answers. His eyes reflected all the injustices meted out to childhood.

“Jim,” Charley said, “oh, nuts.”

Then Jeffrey felt almost sorry for him. He knew again that he had not been fair to Charley.

“Listen, kid,” Jeffrey said, and he wanted to pat Charley on the shoulder, but he knew that Charley would not have liked it.

“You go out and find Mr. Gorman, will you? Tell him I want to see him in the house.”

“You mean right now?” Charley asked.

“Yes,” Jeffrey said, “I mean right now.”

“Are you going to fire him?” Charley asked, and his eyes had grown larger as he visualized the human drama.

“Who said I was going to fire him?” Jeffrey answered. And he knew he would lose what dignity he had left if he took it up with Charley. “You go and find Mr. Gorman and tell him I'm waiting in the house.”

Then he remembered something that Jim had said about Charley a year ago. Jim had said that Charley was a wise little apple, an expression which was new to Jeffrey, but that was just what Charley was, a wise little apple.

The room where Jeffrey sat to wait for Mr. Gorman had been called his “office,” largely because no one had ever thought of a proper name for it. When Madge had bought the house in Connecticut, he had told her that he had to have a room where he could be by himself, away from the children, where he could keep his desk and a few papers and books, and he had not wanted anything done with it in the way of decoration. That was why the walls were bare and why Madge had never put up any curtains. He had bought the furniture over the past few years himself—a tall green filing cabinet, a bookcase filled with plays and works on the theater, a flat desk with a swivel chair and two leather armchairs, which he had purchased at a country auction, and a tavern table, which he had bought in Maine. The broad pine floor boards had been waxed and he made a point of allowing the ashes to remain in the fireplace just as they always had in his father's fireplace on Lime Street. He knew that the room was ugly and Madge had often said she did not see why he wanted a room like it, because he had good taste, but its bareness and ugliness had always consoled him. That room was the only place which was entirely his own and it represented no effort and no compromise. He could sit in it as long as he liked and no one disturbed him. Madge had been very thoughtful about not disturbing him, particularly that summer.