She was in the bar now, and it was cool and shadowy, and there were at hand the ingredients of the lift that had become more essential to existence and more difficult to gauge and sustain than ever before. She came here for a part of almost every afternoon, and this was something that she had promised herself to stop. Once she did stop for nearly a week, but then she resumed her visits and later her promises, and this running, losing fight between resolution and weakness only added to her burden of guilt and the magnitude of her despair. The real reason she came, and continued to come in spite of her promises, was not, of course, merely to gel a few drinks, which could have been had at home or elsewhere, nor to sit out of the heat in a cool and pleasant place, for there were other available places both cool and pleasant. She came to see Emerson Page, who had been blessed by contact and had become a symbol. Through him there was vicarious release, a transient abatement of hunger and pain. He was, in effect, a secondary stimulus to which she responded partially, though not fully, as to the primary.
At this time, however, he was not present, and she wanted him to be, and she was very annoyed that he was not. It seemed to her that his absence might very well be calculated to deny her deliberately her vicarious contact, and this was certainly sufficient to justify annoyance, or even anger. It was quite likely, moreover, that he had been counseled in his perversity by a shrewder and more vindictive head, and it was her conviction, after considering it, that this head was surely the bald one moving around behind the bar at this very moment. She was well aware that Roscoe did not like her and wished that she would not come here any more. Though it was antipathy unstated, it was perfectly apparent in the shades of gesture and expression, and it was all right with her, as far as that went, because she did not like him any better than he liked her, which was not at all, and as a matter of fact she considered him a repulsive oil man absolutely. She had already drunk too much and passed the stage of compatibility, and she watched him with cold distrust as he filled her glass from a shaker.
“Where’s Emerson?” she said.
She had started using the Christian name quite a long time ago, right after she had begun coming in alone, and this was a mild excitement in her secret intimacy with the substance through the shadow. There was also a secondary pleasure in the use of the name in that it disturbed Roscoe, who unperceptively thought that Emerson himself was the object of her interest, and this was such a screamingly funny joke as the old fool would never understand.
“He isn’t here,” the old fool said.
“I can see that, of course. I can see perfectly well where he isn’t. What I want to know is where he is.”
“He’s upstairs.”
“In the apartment?”
“That’s right.”
“Isn’t that unusual?”
“What’s unusual about a man’s being upstairs in his own apartment?”
“Why do you persist in asking questions of your own instead of answering mine? If you want to know what I think, I think it is no way to treat a customer.”
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Lawes.”
“To me it seems very strange that he should be upstairs in his apartment at this particular time. It seems very strange indeed.”
“All right, Mrs. Lawes. It’s strange.”
“Yes, it is. It’s certainly strange. What I would like to know is, what is he doing up there?”
“Well, I wouldn’t know about that.”
“Are you sure? Are you quite sure that you wouldn’t know about that?”
“Look, Mrs. Lawes. A man goes upstairs to his apartment. Why he goes or what he does there is something I don’t know anything about, and it’s something I don’t want to know anything about. If you want to know the truth of it, it’s something I don’t figure is any of my business.”
“Are you being impertinent, Roscoe?”
“I hope not, Mrs. Lawes.”
“Why do you continually call me Mrs. Lawes? I wish you would not continually call me Mrs. Lawes.”
“What would you like me to call you?”
“Oh, never mind. I can see that it is quite futile to talk about it. Perhaps you can at least tell me when he will come downstairs.”
“I’d tell you if I knew, Mrs. Lawes, but I don’t.”
“Doesn’t he usually come down about the same time?”
“You never can tell. Sometimes he comes down one time, sometimes another. There’s no way to tell.”
“Do you know what it seems like to me? It seems like he may be deliberately avoiding me.”
“That isn’t true, Mrs. Lawes. You know better than that. Why should he avoid you?”
“That’s the question, isn’t it? Perhaps you could answer that one yourself.”
“I told you he isn’t trying to avoid you at all.”
“It seems very strange, that’s all.” She lifted her glass and looked at him over the edge of it. “Shall I tell you something, Roscoe?”
“If you like.”
“You don’t like me, Roscoe.”
“I wouldn’t say that, Mrs. Lawes.”
“I know you wouldn’t say it. You wouldn’t say it because you are a gentleman, and a gentleman doesn’t tell a lady he doesn’t like her, and besides, it would be bad for business. I would judge that I give this bar about as much business as any other person in town. Isn’t that so?”
“You’re a good customer, Mrs. Lawes.”
She thought this was very funny, one of these classic, understatement kinds of joke, and she lowered her glass, and looked down into it and laughed for a while silently with a slight shaking of her shoulders.
“Yes. A good customer. I am quite a good customer indeed. Shall I tell you something else, Roscoe? Would you be shocked if I were quite honest with you?”
“I don’t think so.”
“The truth is, I don’t like you, either, Roscoe. I don’t like you a damn bit more than you like me. Does that disturb you?”
“It’s always better if people like you, but sometimes it can’t be helped if they don’t.”
“You’re a philosopher, Roscoe. You are a philosophical bartender. Emerson told me once that you used to read poetry to him. Is that true?”
“Em talks too much.”
“It’s true, then. It’s true, and it embarrasses you. Why are people who read poetry so often embarrassed by the fact that they read poetry?”
“I’m not embarrassed, Mrs. Lawes.”
“Oh, well, deny it if it is any comfort to you. It’s beside the point, anyhow. The point is, you and I don’t like each other. There may be more in this than lies on the surface, Roscoe, but whatever lies below the surface, we will leave there. Is that agreed? If so, I will tell you the obvious reasons why we don’t like each other. To begin, you don’t like me because you are a kind of self-appointed guardian of Emerson Page and Ed Page, who are your own precious pair, and it is your opinion that I am a predatory female on the prowl, and that Emerson is the one I am currently on the prowl for, and that he is the kind of guy who, in favorable circumstances, could definitely be had. This is the reason you don’t like me, Roscoe, and the reason I don’t like you is that you are a fool, and just why you are a fool, and just how big a fool you are, I will not say, because this is my secret and amuses me very much. What do you say to all this? Am I right?”