Theophilus North (37 page)

They emptied their glasses. Almost without raising my eyes I spoke to them in a low voice: “May I offer the ladies a glass of beer?”

Each stared into the other's face, frozen—as though they had heard something that
cannot be repeated
. Neither looked at me. Having established the audacity of my overture, Delia assumed the responsibility of answering me. Without smiling, she lowered her head and murmured, “That's very kind of you.”

I arose and gave a barely audible order to the waiter and returned to my book.

Convention! Convention! That rigorous governor of every human assembly, from the Vatican to the orphanage sandpile, is particularly severe on “shore widows,” for a sailor's advancement is also conditioned by his wife's behavior. We were being observed. We were under fire. Convention demanded that no smiles be exchanged. The important thing was to give no impression that we were enjoying ourselves—for envy plays a large part in censorious morality. When the glasses were placed before them the girls nodded slightly and resumed their conversation. But before I returned to my reading Alice's eyes met mine—those superb dark eyes in the body of that early-aging hedge-sparrow. Quicksilver began coursing through my veins.

After a few minutes I ostentatiously spilled some of my beer on the table—“I
beg
your pardon, ladies,” I said, mopping up the beer with my handkerchief. “Excuse me. I'd better have my eyes examined. Have I spilled any on you?”

“No. No.”

“I'd never forgive myself, if I'd spilled anything on your dresses.” I pretended to dry the hem of my jacket.

“I have a scarf here,” said Delia. “It's an old thing. Use it. It'll wash out easily.”

“Thank you, thank you, ma'am,” I said earnestly. “I shouldn't read in a place like this. It's bad for the eyes.”

“Oh, yes,” said Alice. “My father used to read all the time—at night, too. It was terrible.”

“I'd better put my book away. I sure need my eyes every minute of the day.”

We were solemn enough to satisfy the severest critics.

Alice asked, “Do you live in Newport?”

“Yes, ma'am. Seven years ago in the War I was stationed at Fort Adams. I liked the place and I came back here to find work. I work on the grounds of one of the places.”

“On the grounds?”

“I'm a kind of handyman—furnaces, leaves, cleaning up the place—like that.”

In the services “cleaning up the place” denotes a form of punishment that resembles chain-gang labor; but they had decided that I was a civilian and were merely confused. Delia asked, “Do you live at the place you work at?”

“No, I live alone in a little apartment just off Thames Street—not really alone because I have a big dog. My name is Teddie.”

“A dog? Oh, I love dogs.”

“We're not allowed to keep dogs on the Base.”

I invented the dog. There's an American myth, diffused by the movies, that a man who keeps a
big
dog and smokes a pipe is all right. Things were going very fast. What had not yet been conveyed was which girl I liked best. Alice and I knew, but Delia was not markedly bright.

“Would you ladies like to be my guests at the nine o'clock show at the Opera House? After the show I could bring you back here in a taxi.”

“Oh, no . . . Thank you.”

“It's far too late.”

“Oh, no!”

I could swear on a pile of Bibles that Delia pushed her shoe against Alice's and Alice pushed Delia's shoe according to some prearranged code. Delia said, “You go, Alice. We could leave here together and the gentleman could meet you later up the street a ways.”

Alice was horrified. “How could you think of such a thing, Delia!”

“Well,” said Delia, rather grandly, rising. “Thoughts are free. I'm going to the little girls' room. Excuse me. I'll be back in a minute.”

Alice and I were left alone.

“I think you're from the South,” I said with the first smile of the evening. She did not smile; in fact, she glared at me. She put her head forward and began speaking in a low voice, but very distinctly. “Don't smile! In a few minutes I have to introduce you to some of the girls. I'm going to pretend that you're a doctor,
so be ready
—I'd better say that you're an old friend of my husband's. Were you ever in Panama?”

“No.”

“In Norfolk, Virginia?”

“No.”

“Well, where have you been all your life? I'll say Norfolk. . . . Delia can't go downtown because her husband's coming back next week and she don't dare go anywhere.
Stop smiling!
This is a serious conversation.
When Delia and I leave here you say goodbye to us. Then five minutes later you go out through the kitchen and then out the back door. Then go up the road—not down toward Newport—and I'll meet you where the streetcar stops opposite Ollie's Bakery.”

These instructions were given me in a manner of being very angry at me. I began to get the idea. Whatever followed would be dangerous.

“When I say goodbye to you what do I call you?”

“Alice.”

“What's your husband's first name?”

“George, of course.”

“I see. My name's Dr. Cole.”

Alice's face had become flushed through the exertion of her generalship and through exasperation at my stupidity.

Delia rejoined us. From time to time the girls had exchanged greetings with members of the audience. Alice now raised her voice. “Hello, Barbara, hello, Phoebe. I want you to meet Dr. Cole, an old friend of George's.”

“Pleased to meet you.”

“Pleased to meet you, Barbara—and you, Phoebe.”

“Imagine, George told him, if he was in Newport to call me up. He did and Dr. Cole said he'd meet me here. Hello, Marion, I want you to meet Dr. Cole an old friend of George's. So Delia and I sat here trying to decide who looked like a doctor. Isn't that a sit-you-ation! Hello, Annabel, I want you to know Dr. Cole, an old friend of George's, just passing through town. He asked Delia and I to go to the movies with him, but of course we can't, it being so late and everything. He knew George at Norfolk before I did. George told me about this doctor he knew. Were you a doctor then, Teddie?”

“I was in my last year at Baltimore. I have cousins in Norfolk.”

“Imagine that!” said Barbara and Marion.

“What a coincident!” said Phoebe.

“The world's a very small place,” said Delia.

“Well, you'll want to talk over old times,” said Barbara. “Happy to have know'd you, Doctor.”

I had risen. The girls withdrew to talk it over.

“That'll go like a grass-fire,” said Delia.

Alice rose. “Finish your beer, Delia. I'm going to put my hat straight.”

Now Delia and I were alone.

“Alice tells me your husband will be in next week, Delia. Congratulations.” Delia looked at me hard and waggled her hands. “How long has he been gone?”

“Seven months.”

“Gee, it must be very exciting.”

“You said it!”

“What ship is it?”

“Four destroyers . . . More'n two hundred men on 'em have homes right in this town.”

“Have you children, Delia?”

“Three.”

“Wonderful for them too.”

“They've faced it before. I'm taking them to my mother's. She lives in Fall River. I'm lucky.”

“I don't understand.”

“Doctor, when the men get off the ship, we're down there waving. See? They kiss us and all that. And then we go home to wait for them. They go straight off to the Long Wharf.”

“Oh.”

“You can say that again.”

I was learning things. Ulysses returned to his home in disguise. None of those tear-stained embraces. They get rip-roaring drunk on the Long Wharf. No sight for children. Reunions require more courage than partings. The institution of marriage was not designed by Heaven to accommodate long separations.

“Has Alice some children?”

“Alice—Alice and George?”

“Yes?”

(It is characteristic of communities like a naval base that their residents believe their customs and affairs are what the earth revolves about; anyone who does not know them is stupid.)

“Married for five years and no children. It's driving Alice wild.”

“And George?”

“Says he thanks God it's that way and gets drunk.”

“When does she expect George's return?”

“He's here now.” I stared. “He got here a week ago. Stayed here three days. Then went up to Maine to help his father on the farm. He has three weeks' shore leave coming to him. He'll be back soon.”

“Does everybody like George?”

Everything I said exasperated her. In certain walks of life the question of liking or not liking—short of downright villainy—does not arise. One's neighbors, including one's husband, are simply there—like the weather. They're what mathematicians call “given.”

“George is all right. He drinks, but who doesn't?” She meant males. Men are expected to drink; it's manly. “If Alice goes to the movies with you, see that she gets back to the gate by one.”

“What'd happen if she got back after one?” She gave me a look of exhausted patience. “Wives must often get back later when they've been visiting their parents—trains late and all that?”

“They don't kill you, if that's what you mean. But they remember it.” That mighty word “they.” “I don't think Alice has ever been out after eleven so they might overlook it. You ask a lot of questions.”

“All I know about is the Coast Artillery. I don't know anything about the Navy.”

“Well, the Navy's the best and don't you forget it.”

“I'm sorry I've made you angry, Delia. I didn't mean to.”

“I'm not angry,” she said shortly. Then she looked me in the eye and said something between her lips that I couldn't understand.

“I didn't hear what you said.”

“There's something that Alice wants more than anything in the world. Give it to her.”

“What? . . . What?”

“A baby, of course.”

I was thunderstruck. Then I was very agitated. “Did she tell you to say that to me?”

“Of course not. You don't know Alice.”

“Has Alice led other men downtown for this?” I was so urgent that I struck her knee with my knee under the table.—I had pictures of troops and parades.

“Take your knee away!—She only made up her mind that she had to last week. The evening after George went to Maine Alice and I went to the Opera House to see a movie. She got talking to a man that sat next to her. They didn't like the movie and went out to get something to eat. She whispered to me not to wait for her. She told me later that the man had a boat tied up by the Yacht Club. She went along, but she wouldn't go aboard. She said that while she was walking Jesus told her the man was a bootlegger, a rum-runner, and that he'd tie her up and start the boat and she'd be in Cuba for weeks. She wouldn't walk up the gangway and when he began pulling her she screamed for the Shore Patrol. He let hold of her and she ran most of the way home.”

“You swear you're telling the truth?”

“You're hurting my knee! Everybody's looking at us!”

“Swear!”

“Swear what?”

“That you're telling the truth.”

“As God is my judge!”

“And Alice would have no idea that I knew any of this?”

“As God is my judge!”

I leaned back exhausted, then I leaned forward again. “Would George think it was his baby?”

“He'd be the proudest man on the Base.”

Alice rejoined us. She had touched up her appearance considerably; there were sparks in the air.

“Well, Delia, it's
late
. We'd better be going. It's very nice to have met you, Dr. Cole. I'll tell George.”

“Goodbye, girls. I'll write him.”

“He'll be sorry to have missed you.”

Each of these remarks was repeated several times. I gathered that shaking hands would have been excessive. Left alone, I ordered another beer, relit my pipe, and resumed reading. Others sat down at my table. When the moment came I obeyed Alice's instructions, though I had to steal around to the side of the restaurant to pick up my bicycle. Alice was waiting at the streetcar stop. She said, moving away from me and scarcely turning her head, “I'll sit in the front of the car. Don't you want to bicycle down to Washington Square?”

“No. At night they let you put the bike on the back platform.”

“I don't want to go to the movies. I know a kind of quiet bar where we can talk. It's by the telegraph office. If I see anybody I know on the car, I'll tell them I'm going to the telegraph office to get a money order from my mother. You follow me down Thames Street about a block behind me.”

“My apartment's not many blocks beyond the telegraph office. Couldn't we go there?”

“I didn't say we were going to your apartment! Where did you get that idea?”

“You said you liked dogs.”

“The name of the bar is ‘The Anchor.' While I'm in talking to the telegraph man you stand just inside the door of ‘The Anchor.' Ladies can't go in there unless they're with a gentleman-friend.” She looked at me fiercely. “This is all very dangerous, but I don't care.”

“Aw, Alice, can't we go straight to my apartment? I have a little rye there.”

“I
told you!
I haven't made up my mind yet.”

The streetcar came rattling and squealing down the road. A very dignified Alice boarded it and advanced to the front seat. At the One Mile Corner stop she was joined by some friends, a chief petty officer and his wife.

“Alice darling, what are you doing?”

Alice launched into a long narrative filled with disasters and miracles. She held them spellbound. All passengers descended at Washington Square. She was overwhelmed with good fellowship. “I hope everything comes out all right. Good night, dear. Tell us all about it next time we see you.”