The Luck Of Ginger Coffey (20 page)

"Hello, Pet. About last night. I mean, I'm sorry. Now, listen to me — "

The phone rang, postponing his armistice plans. He answered. It was Veronica. "Ginger? I want to know if I can come and see Paulie this afternoon."

"Of course you can," he said.

"But if I come I don't want any repetition of the last time. I want you to be out."

"Look," he said. "I have to have a chat with you."

"Why?"

"Well —Well, last night —I mean, last night I didn't go through with that business."

"You didn't? Why?"

"Well, I'll explain it to you when I see you. And I want to talk to you about Paulie."

"What about Paulie?"

"Little pitchers."

"Oh, don't be ridiculous," she said. "Have you had a row with her? Let me speak to her."

"No, wait, dear, I want to explain — "

"Let me speak to Paulie!"

He sighed, put the phone down and beckoned to Paulie who was listening at the kitchen door. He went into the kitchen and listened himself, trying to make sense of what was being said.

"No, Mother. ... No. ... We had a row last night.

... He hit me. . . . Yes, he did. Because, well, 111 tell you when I see you. . . . Yes, I'll come now."

Paulie came back into the kitchen. "Isn't your mother coming here?" Coffey said.

"No. I'm meeting her downtown for coffee. Now, if you'll excuse me, Daddy, I've got to get dressed/'

She went out. He looked at the stove. For the first time since they'd been together, she hadn't made his Sunday breakfast. He got up, spooned a dollop of instant coffee into a cup and sat down again, waiting for the water to boil. A few minutes later he heard Paulie go out. He sat alone, thinking of her meeting Vera in some restaurant, knowing that, in their womany way, he would be blamed for all that happened last night.

Somewhere in the bowels of the apartment the furnace coughed and whirred into life. He drank his instant coffee. Upstairs, someone knocked on a radiator and the noise echoed down through the pipes to the basement. The whirring ceased. The furnace went off. Yes, it was hard to hope.

At ten minutes to two, the telephone rang. He expected it would be Grosvenor, asking why last night's plans had gone agley. But it was Veronica.

"Ginger," she said. "Paulie's just left and she's on her way home. I want to see you at once, it's very important. After what she's told me, you and I have to come to some decision."

"All right," he said.

"Can you come up to my room?" she asked.

"When?"

"Now. Paulie has a key, hasn't she? You don't have to wait for her?"

"No."

"All right then, hurry. Here's the address."

In his dreams which were not dreams, he had sometimes seen her room. She did not spend much time in it but it was large and elegant, furnished with spindly Swedish things and a large, un-slept-in bed. It was close to Grosvenor's flat.

The reality was an Edwardian gingerbread house on the dividing line between the English and French sections of the city, a slum whose sagging porches and balconies were weighted with a winter's accumulation of crusted, filth-spattered snow. The hallway was bare and uncarpeted; the staircase supports were loose. Communal cooking devices were placed on the landings and large garbage pails stood sentinel at each turning of the stairs.

She lived on the third floor. She was waiting for him on the landing as he came up, his face slapped red by the cold, his car coat unbuttoned, his unhusbandly status plain by the polite way he took off his little green hat as he went to greet her. And she, still the stranger, wearing a navy-blue dress and a white bead necklace, her stocking seams straight. He thought how a certain kind of drunkard hides signs of his failing in a meticulous attention to dress. A certain type of lady hides her nights of orgy . . .

"Come on in," said the lady, without preamble. "I just got back myself a minute ago. Mind that step."

Large? Modern? The room alarmed him. It was smaller than the cell he had briefly occupied at the Y.M.C.A. There was no closet, so her clothes were hung on hooks all around the walls. The bed was an unwieldy double, occupying two thirds of the floor space. There was a small washbasin, its enamel browned with age. There was a small window, its panes covered with diamonded paper.

Of course she was never here; of course she just used it as a place to keep her things. Why, then, were there tins of food under the basin? Why was there milk on the window sill, why those dishes stacked in a corner? He sat on the only chair; watched as she went to the mirror over the sink and unfastened her necklace. "Filthy place, isn't it?" she said. "They never clean it. I'm going to take my good dress off, if you don't mind. Oh, I'm in such a state about Paulie. I knew she was running around with boys. I just felt it."

Desirable stranger pulled the dress over her head. Her white slip rose also, revealing her stocking tops and garter straps. It was the beginning of one of his nightly scenarios. He put his little green hat between his feet. The floor was not clean. How could she stay so clean here?

"I gather his name is Bruno," she said, "and that he's a mechanic."

"He's a little thug," Coffey said. "And she's only a child."

"Well, that's got to stop," she said. "No two ways about it: that's stopping right now."

She went past him in her slip and reached behind the door for her dressing gown. It, at least, was familiar. He had bought it for her as a Christmas present one hundred years ago in a shop in Grafton Street. She sat on the bed, reaching across the bed for her cigarettes while he stood, enormous and clumsy, in the tiny, ill-lit room, his hand trembling as he held out a match flame.

"Thank you." She sucked in her cheeks, expelled smoke and leaned back on the pillows. She drew one knee up, lacing it with her joined hands. He looked at, then looked away from her bare white thigh, her tan stocking top. Whorish beauty, cover yourself! But oh! Wasn't that gesture of drawing one knee up, holding it in her hands, wasn't that familiar from the years he had known her? Of

course it was. Then, why had he never really looked at her in all those years? Why was it so distracting now? He did not hear a word she was saying. He shifted in his chair, shamed and troubled by his desire.

". . . And supervision," she said. "No more leaving her alone every evening. So, what are we going to do about it?"

We. We is you and me. He looked again at the cans of food under the sink. Maybe his imaginings about her and Grosvenor had been only that? Maybe —

"Listen," he said. "If only you'd come back. I mean, even as a temporary arrangement until I get this new job. Listen, Vera —"

Listen? As he said the word, he saw her face. Of course she would not listen. As of old, she merely waited her turn to speak.

"For instance," he said. "Paulie's wearing lipstick and powder and her nails are orange. Now, I don't know about these things. She says the other girls in her class use them. How do I know?"

Veronica stubbed out her cigarette and turned her face against the pillows. "Oh God! It never changes, does it? Am I never to have any life of my own? The pair of you," she said, "you'd think you planned it. You can't look after Paulie, and of course she refuses to come and live with me. And of course, you won't go through with the divorce — oh, that would be too easy, that would be helping me, wouldn't it? And of course, Gerry can't wait forever."

She stubbed out her cigarette and sighed, a woman beyond all hope. "All right," she said. "I'll go back until you get this other job. All right. Oh, it would have been too much to expect that I'd have some life of my own after all these years wet-nursing the pair of you."

He avoided her angry eyes. He looked away and was

caught in another stare, that of his own image in the mirror above the sink. The mirror man was flushed and guilty. Well now, fellow, and do you hear that? She's coming back for a while. Not because she wants to come, mind you, but because she has to stop you messing up Paulie's life. Do you follow me there, my alter ego? Do you want her?

He looked at her. Yes, he wanted her, no matter what the terms.

"And if I do come back/' she said, "it's temporary. I'm keeping my job on. And I'm to be in charge of Paulie. Do you understand?"

He nodded, all right.

"And another thing," she said. "I'd like to have my own room."

The mirror man watched his embarrassment. "There's ah — there's only two bedrooms," he said. "There are twin beds in my room."

She sighed in swift exasperation. "Oh well, I suppose we may as well get started. Get my suitcases, will you? They're under the bed."

The mirror man watched as he went down on his knees.

So, she came home. That night when he returned from his proofreading duties, he found her asleep in the twin bed next to his. Quickly he began to undress, remembering all the waking dreams of her absence, and in a few minutes, large, naked and vulnerable, he shyly approached her bed. He hesitated, then bent over and placed a bristly mustache kiss on the nape of her neck. Immediately — she could not have been asleep — she sat up and switched on the light. She stared at him. Naked, it was plain what ailed him.

"Go back to your own bed," she said.

"Ah now, Vera —"

"Either you go back to your own bed or I'll dress and leave tonight."

"Suffering J!" he said. But he went back to his own bed. He slept. He dreamed about her. And next morning awoke to a new torture. Covertly he watched as she got out of bed. She was wearing flannel pajamas which were not exactly Gay Paree but which nevertheless brought him to sudden desire. He turned towards her, the ends of his mustache lifting in a hopeful smile . . .

She stared him down. Without a word, she picked her clothes off the chair and went into the bathroom, leaving him alone, his desire drooping to a sadness. Unshaven and unfed (for she stayed in the bathroom) he fled to another day of diapers.

Still, wasn't it better to have her in the house, no matter how cold she was, than to torture himself with imaginings? Soon she'd thaw; the KEEP OFF THE GRASS signs would come down; Grosvenor would be forgotten. Soon they'd be friends again. Paulie would be friends with him too. Soon MacGregor would promote him. Soon everything would be all right. Soon . . .

Yes, he put all his hopes in one basket, an ancient basket by the name of MacGregor. That night, when he went to work at the Tribune, he attacked his galleys like a driven man. That night when MacGregor passed through on his usual sortie, Coffey looked up from the dirty steel desk, not in fear but in hope, proud of the great mass of corrected proofs on his spike, hoping MacGregor would see in him a man worthy of advancement.

But MacGregor did not single him out. MacGregor passed him by.

Ah well. Maybe tomorrow night?

Tomorrow was Tuesday. When he came back for his supper on Tuesday night, Veronica was not there. Nei-

ther was Paulie. Not that that made much difference, as Paulie hadn't spoken two words to him since her mother's return. Still, it couldn't last much longer, could it?

He went to work. Again he drove himself to produce the greatest number of corrected galleys. Again he lived in hopes. And Hooray! At a quarter to ten, just before the supper break, a copy boy came into the composing room and said Coffey was wanted at the city desk.

"Did you hear that?" Coffey said to Old Billy Davis. "The city desk. Ah, now, MacGregor isn't such a bad old basket after all. He's given the order and the city editor's going to find a spot for me/'

Old Billy fingered his feathery goatee. "J ust so l° n g as it isn't trouble," he said. "Best you can hope for is keep out of trouble. Watch your step."

Poor old sausage, what would he know? In joyful disparagement, J. F. Coffey, Journalist, donned his jacket and hurried out into the great cavern of the city room, sure that now, his ship rounding the harbor bar . . .

False alarm. Leaning against a pillar a few steps from the city desk a visitor awaited Coffey. Waited, slightly disarranged as though the window dresser had gone to lunch and left him unfinished.

"Hi," he said. He turned towards the City Editor and said in a slurred, half-drunken voice: "Okay if I borrow this guy?"

"Go ahead, Gerry boy," the City Editor said.

Gerald Grosvenor waved his thanks, then, detaching himself from the pillar, came towards Coffey. "Come on in the cafeteria," he said. "I want to have a talk with you, Buster."

He was drunk, that was plain. Uneasily, Coffey accompanied him along the corridor to the cafeteria, praying that MacGregor would not spot them. Uneasily he waited as Grosvenor, after a noisy exchange of greetings with two

reporters and the counterman, brought steaming mugs of coffee to the table. MacGregor had not yet paid his nightly visit; Coffey was supposed to be at his desk, not here. "Look," he said to Grosvenor. "I'm busy and it's not my supper time yet. Now, what is it?"

"Want to talk to you," Grosvenor said. "Just left Veronica half an hour ago. You bastard. You're crucifying that girl."

Uneasily Coffey looked around the cafeteria. The counterman was listening.

"Left her in tears," Grosvenor said in a loud voice. "At the end of her rope, see? Goddammit, I love that girl. And she loves me too. Yes, she does."

To Coffey's intense embarrassment, Grosvenor began to weep. Worse, Grosvenor did not seem to care who saw him. "What are you?" Grosvenor said tearfully. "A dog in the manger, or something? You're ruining Vera's life."

"Will you shut up?" Coffey whispered urgently. "Lower your voice and stop sniffling."

"Forcing her to come back," Grosvenor said. "Using your daughter as bait. Don't you see what you're doing to both of them? It's criminal."

"Shut up! Shut up, or I'll shut you up."

"No, I won't shut up. You're a menace, Ging'r, that's what you are. You're one of those guys, you don't care about anybody except yourself. Veronica hates your guts, you know."

"She does nothing of the sort," Coffey said, unwisely.

"No? Only went back because you were messing up Paulie's life, didn't she? That's what she said tonight. I mean—" and Grosvenor reached across the table, his hairy black hand gripping Coffey's wrist. "I mean, I'm not going to let you get away with this. I'm going to kill you, you sonofabitch."