"Enough of that smart talk. A lot of girls appreciate his prospects, I'm sure Mr. Smith understands. What about your condition. Dr. Vartberg doesn't live on charity. You weren't raised on charity."
"But you've got Mr. Smith trapped here, what do you expect him to say."
"You don't feel trapped Mr. Smith do you. You're completely free. To go right now. I'm only explaining Ann's position as I see it as her mother. We have to be adults about this. Ann until she was eighteen was not allowed out past eleven o'clock. I always sat up until she came home. Right in this chair. And made it my business to meet any of Ann's boyfriends. They were all clean cut young boys. From good homes. This neighborhood wasn't all like it is now. Some of those houses on the shore were owned by prominent people. I organized some bridge games, and met them personally."
"God Mom, stop. Here's your beer Mr. Smith. Shut up, Mom."
"Don't you speak to me like that."
"Mom Mr. Smith came out here of his own free will."
"And your free will is responsible for your predicament, my dear girl. I knew when you were staying away those nights there was going to be trouble. I knew it. Don't think I didn't know what was going on, because I did. I suppose Mr. Smith you must have a lot of girl friends, don't you."
"As a matter of fact Mrs. Martin I have very few friends of either sex. I'm very fond of Ann. She's been an extremely faithful and dedicated secretary. I don't know what I would have done without her on several occasions."
"You got her pregnant on one of them."
"Mom if you don't stop I'm leaving this room."
"Leave then. Go ahead Mr. Smith I want to hear you talk. If there are two sides of this."
Door slamming shut, Miss Martin retreating. Chill night, cold snowy wind beating against the window. Steam radiator hissing and throbbing. The world stands just outside one's ears. Waiting. Puffing in passion. Cabin in the woods. One grotesque spider. Weak moment. Throw the ashes up in the wind. I'm coming, Miss Martin. Yes yes do. George. Wake up wearing a suit of paternity.
"I see your point Mrs. Martin."
"Of course you do. Easy to see it, isn't it. That poor girl, out like a balloon who's going to marry her now. She could have had Bobby Richards downstairs who's doing well and able to set her up. Now what do you want her to do. You think Bobby's mother doesn't know about this. That the whole building doesn't know that since she began to show she's had to leave an hour early so she wouldn't meet anyone in the elevator. I'll tell you Mr. Smith. Ann won't, but I will. You could have prostitutes with your money. And left our Ann alone."
"I'm sorry Mrs. Martin. I understand that you should feel this way but I don't think remarks of that kind help matters."
"O you don't, well let me tell you a thing or two."
In tears at the open door, Miss Martin with hands down at her sides, veins standing out on her wrist. Pale pity of her long fingernails. Her arms suddenly so thin and long and gangling from her brown dress. A large curl falling across the light sweat of her forehead. When my eyes were nearly next to her brown ones. Freckles on her smooth face. She tried a bath at Dynamo. When I stood over her big bosoms and peach rotundity.
"Mrs. Martin I don't want to be responsible for Ann getting upset."
"O you don't. You've upset her enough already for the rest of her whole life, she might just as well go out there on the bridge where her father lost his life and jump. You did it to her. You could have found some cheap tramp. Thousands of them. And you have to pick on a respectable girl to do it to. A married man with children. Aren't they enough for you, haven't you got a wife already. And this building you put up to put your dead body in. I'll tell you a thing or two, sure get up, stand up, sure, Ann sure, get him his coat, exactly what I expected from your kind, all educated with fine manners and accents. As if we weren't good enough for you. My daughter comes along and you use her body for your pleasure and throw her in the gutter. Go ahead get your coat and get out but you won't hear the last of this I promise you. And take that bag with you. If you want to know, residents of this apartment wouldn't be seen dead with a broken paper bag and an outfit like that, if you want to know. Goodbye good riddance. But you'll hear more don't you worry. Decent people know how to deal with your kind, let ham go Ann, he's not doing any fast talking. Not now with me he isn't. Next time he won't be so fast with an innocent girl from a good background and respectable people."
Little creaks and groans as the elevator went down. Miss Martin stood at the door. Reached out her hand and put it on my arm. Slight pressure on her fingers. Face streaked with tears. Strange for the first time. With breathing so loud. Look in her eyes. And see friendship. And her strange distant dignity.
Snow deeper. Night darker. On this icy strip of land of ramshackle wastes and marshland stretches of Far Bollock. Throat dry. Ears red and burning. They get cold again. Ghostly waves. Big ocean has a tongue. To lick so many shores. And again this year no one will send me a heartfelt Christmas card.
Or remember
I was
A prepster
Once.
27
FINGERS spread on the window sill Staring at the afternoon Saturday sky. Up the airshaf t, through a mirror installed two days ago in the forlorn room, 604 Dynamo House. White fluffy clouds on blue and tinged in pink from a setting sun.
Saturday when there are no footsteps out in the hall. Mail no longer arriving. Save for one letter from Miss Martin. Postmarked Far Bollock.
Dear Mr. Smith.
I am very sorry for what happened on Monday night.
So long.
Ann Martin.
All week, each morning, wait for her to come to work. And lay in my tub looking up in the steam. Suicides high after the snow. When the city was hushed and still.
Standing here. Three o'clock. Wearing shoes again. Five days till the reception at Renown. Purple bordered menu. Providing a feast of baby beets and onions. Succotash. Triumph of shelled prawns. Choice of three wines and two pickles. And tureens of smoked eel. Like I gave Her Majesty. She sat stiffly when I handed over the box. She thought it was some stunt instead of the eel it was. Raised her eyebrows and said I suppose George you've heard. What. About poor Bonniface. Who was reading a book, something about bodies were the external essence of the mind. While standing on a platform at three A.M. in the rapid transit system. And he walked off die platform and was picked up unconscious from the center of the tracks.
And Thursday near the botanical gardens and zoo I visited the hospital. Sat by the Bonniface bed. His hands seemed white and strange. And all round his face a look of lighthearted resign. I heard a rustle under the sheets. He put his finger up to his lips. Then he leaned over, whispered, woof woof, Mr. Mystery. Is here.
I waved goodbye to Bonniface. And his white bandaged head. Nurses smiled. Herbert left the oranges and liquorice by the bed and I said we would come and fetch him to the reception at Renown. Bonniface rubbing his hands together said it was in earnest anticipation he waited. And would brush his teeth specially in view of the menu. Her Majesty had brought him pussy willow out of season. And he was finishing the book about the body essence, interrupted by his plunge into the tracks. Things at the airport, without him, he said, were reptilian.
Sky all the darkest blue now. Whole day long and hungry in this forlorn room. Slowly tearing up letters, sheets and sheets of paper and documents. Legal loops, summons and twists and twirls from Shirl. Rip them up. One's hands so glad to tear them all to little pieces. Because yesterday. I walked away alone from Dynamo House. Nothing to protect me from the outside world. No appointments. No plans. I took a taxi to the Grand Central Station to make believe I was catching a train. Stood there in the emptiness looking up at the balcony where once I saw that head moving, tall, blond and collected above the rail. Christ, Miss T, why don't you come running for a train right now. And miss it. And meet me.