He said, «No need to be angry, Darius. I’d go, except that I’ve got to do something first.»
«Oh, but, Mr. Devore,» said Henrietta with a mixture of desperate cajolery and clear impatience, «we’ll be late.»
I felt myself beginning to return to the real world. I felt a thousand pairs of eyes more or less on me. The hum of conversation was beginning to rise again as the onlookers realized that the noise had not been a preparation for fisticuffs, but a lot of conversation had to be about us.
I felt ashamed and guilty and couldn’t fail to realize that though Giles had received it all, he had contributed only the final push. But every emotion I felt that afternoon, whether petty or decent, pushed in the same direction. If I believed in a vengeful God and thought we were worth this notice, I’d have said he was pulling strings. As it is, I have no explanation but the endless cussedness of everything.
I said testily, «What is it? I’ll do it for you.» I fell into the role I had filled nearly nine years before, of doing for Giles what he could not do for himself, and that pushed everything a notch further.
Giles fumbled in his left pants pocket and brought out a small transparent change purse. He studied it for a second, then brought out a red check ticket. He said, «I checked a little package in the second-floor cloakroom, the one near the—»
«I’ll find it, I’ll find it,» I said, and took the ticket from him.
«The cloakroom is liable to be closed after I get back and I’ll need the thing for tomorrow morning. Please get it up to my room tonight, Darius. It’s room 1511. Here’s the key.»
«How will you get in?» I demanded.
«You can take it back down to the desk. Or you can leave it right there by the package. I have another. I always ask for two keys.» (Cautious! Cautious! That’s our Giles!) He said, «Just leave the package on the bureau, in the center, and put the key on top of it.» He was following the pressing urgency of Henrietta’s arm upon his elbow and shouted back over his shoulder, «Don’t forget.»
I heard Henrietta say, «Now I won’t leave you out of my sight, Mr. Devore, and I’ll see to it that you get safely back to your room quite early. I’ll see you to your room myself.»
She was using a tone she would have used to a child, and I think she was doing the right thing. Then they were gone.
13 SHIRLEY JENNIFER 7:50 P.M.
«Don’t forget!» Those had been Giles’s last words to me.
It was unnecessary advice. I had no intention of forgetting. It didn’t occur to me I could possibly forget.
Mind you, I knew Giles. In my heart, I was convinced that it didn’t matter if I did forget, and that could have played a part in what followed, too. There wasn’t a chance in hell, I was certain, that there was anything important about the package. It was all his own compulsive need for super-security—like this business of always having two keys to his room; two keys which he kept, I’m sure, in two different pockets of two different items of clothing.
And even if, at that moment, I had known just what was in the package he wanted me to get, there would still be no way in which I could have considered the mission to be in the least vital. Except, of course, that it was, and it had been a bitter chain of circumstances that had ended by putting the responsibility for it in my hands.
The question was: What do I do now?
On the one hand, there was no necessity of rushing for the package at once, even if I could conceive it to be a matter of great urgency. The cloakroom would remain open till eleven at least and at this time of year there were not likely to be long lines, and it was just about ten to eight.
For that matter, Giles would be back in plenty of time to get it himself, even if I didn’t budge, but, of course, he would worry and wouldn’t be able to relax for peeking unobtrusively at his watch. For that matter, he would probably remain unrelaxed wondering if I would forget. The super-secure are never secure.
But on the other hand, quite apart from Giles’s package, what I really wanted to do, as I had wanted to do on two or three earlier occasions that day, was to cut my losses, call it quits, go home, and forget the convention. I had Giles’s ticket and key in my right jacket pocket, so I could get the package, take it to 1511, leave it and the key there, and be home by eight-thirty and maybe watch television or do a little hard thinking about my next novel.
Earlier something had always happened to keep me from going home and breaking the chain of circumstances, and it happened now again. To be exact, nothing happened this time; something was. That something was a matter of stupid pride.
I could feel the wall of silence about me. I could feel eyes around me, staring at me. I could feel myself the subject of remark. And it all roused the worst in me.
I suppose that I, too, have my share of stubbornness. The kids, when I was young, were not going to beat me into abandoning my name. And this bunch of sniggering whisperers were not going to drive me out of the ballroom because they had been titillated by my outburst of temper—not until I was ready to go.
God, I was ready to go right then, but they could never possibly believe that. There had to be some wait. So I walked to the coffee urn as calmly and indifferently as I could, poured myself another cup of coffee, added cream very deliberately, and walked back to the table. Everyone made way for me. No one said a word to me.
I sat down. I’d drink the coffee, slowly, and then I’d go. I half expected some friend or acquaintance, Asimov perhaps, to join me. (Hi, Darius. What happened back there? Heard you yelling at Giles.) No one came. I was truly Pariah for a Day.
I looked about as I drank, trying to make the glance stony and calm.
I didn’t know anyone near me. They were worthy booksellers and their ladies, I imagine, but I found none attractive. For some reason or other the women repelled me in particular, at least those I saw. As far as I was concerned, Sarah Vostavosta, or whatever her name was, had given the entire sex a bad name. I tried to imagine the bulging pipsqueak in bed and failed completely. She probably arranged every movement in advance and didn’t begin until you had recited every projected movement in the correct order. Then, if you slipped, it was the knee in the groin and out you went into the hall, with your clothes following you in a heap.
When I was through with the coffee, when I had drained the last drop and had looked about me just to show everyone I was perfectly at ease, I stood up. With an inner thankfulness so intense I could almost feel my knees buckle under the pressure of it, I began the procedure that would take me home within the half hour.
It wasn’t to be. The cup of coffee had delayed me a crucial five minutes and just before I reached the head of the escalator I saw Shirley Jennifer. Five minutes earlier, two minutes earlier, and I would have missed her.
I hadn’t seen her for at least half a year, but that was perfectly normal. We could see each other every day for two weeks and then not again for a year. That was the arrangement between us. It wasn’t an «affair.» We just saw each other now and then, never as a result of planning, and we enjoyed each other’s company, and sex was usually part of the enjoyment, though not always, and neither one of us had a hang-up about it.
I said, «Shirley!» with honest enjoyment, and she said, «Darius!» and there we were, hugging happily.
She said, «I knew I was coming here for some reason, but I didn’t think I would walk right into the arms of the handsomest competitor I have.»
Some competitor I was! Her books do far better than mine. She writes family epics—traces the generations. I’ve tried reading them, since I felt that when you know the body of an author really intimately the least you can do is try to probe her soul, too. Unfortunately—true’s true—her books left me cold. They’re for women—pre-liberation women, and I’m a man who is rather partial to feminism, actually.