“What’s your opinion?” he said suddenly in the voice that might have had an accent.
“Were you speaking to me?” she said.
“You were watching me in the mirror, weren’t you? What’s your opinion?”
“Was I watching you? Excuse me. I really wasn’t paying the slightest attention to what I was doing. I was thinking of something else.”
“I’m disappointed.”
“Are you? I don’t see why you should be.”
“It’s always pleasant to be looked over by a good-looking woman, provided the impression is favorable. My mistake, however. And my apologies. Are you waiting for someone?”
“No.”
“In that case, may I buy you a drink?”
“I already have a drink.”
“It won’t last forever.”
That was true, she thought. Even with the most careful nursing, the double manhattan wouldn’t last forever, and it would be nice, when it was finished, to have another. Surely there was nothing wrong in allowing a man to buy her a drink, or even several drinks, in a bar that was a sanctuary that she did not want to leave. It was, in fact, kind and considerate of him to offer, and would be a rudeness on her part to refuse.
“Perhaps I’ll be ready for another by the time it comes,” she said.
“If you aren’t,” he said, “it won’t spoil.”
No longer under the necessity of nursing, she drank her manhattan quickly, and he kept her company in rye. Ii the meanwhile, he had given the signal for duplicates, which were supplied by the attractive bartender with the twisted nose and thick ear.
“My name is Neal,” he said. “Charles Neal. My friends call me Chick.”
“How do you do, Mr. Neal,” she said formally. “My name is Ivy Galvin.”
“Oh, come on. Be my friend.”
“I don’t know. It was nice of you to buy me a drink, and I’m prepared to be friendly for it, but I don’t believe I could call you Chick.”
“Why not?”
“As a name, I don’t like it. Does that offend you? I don’t want to be offensive.”
He stared at her with his pale, shallow eyes and thought that she was certainly tight, probably a nut, and altogether something nice and easy to be had for the night.
“I’m not offended.”
“I’m willing to call you Charles, however. Is that satisfactory?”
“Sure. Call me Charles. I haven’t been called Charles since my old man ran me away from home.”
“Were you run away from home? I was too, in a way. Not exactly, but in a way. It gives us something in common.”
“Maybe we can find other things in common. Let’s work at it.”
She lost track of the number of manhattans she drank and the length of time she was in the bar, but there were quite a few over a period of quite a while, and in this period, while the manhattans were being drunk, she was aware of the pressure of a knee and the sly and tentative explorations of a hand, the knee and the hand being the property of Charles Neal, whom she could not bring herself to call Chick. She tolerated his trespasses, which were minor, for the sake of the manhattans, which were sustaining, and in fact she was proud of herself for the really competent way in which she was getting along in a strange situation that would once have terrified her, and it just showed again that she could get along quite well in any situation whatever if she only had the confidence.
Someone kept feeding coins to a jukebox, and it seemed to Ivy that the same music was played over and over again, a full-voiced woman singing “Oh, How I Miss You Tonight,” and it was that song in that voice that became the night’s accompaniment, with power to restore it later, not in the fuzzy details of what happened, which were always vague, but in its emotional quality. After the consumption of a good many manhattans, Ivy felt the need to relieve herself, and she slipped carefully off her stool and said, “Excuse me, please,” and started toward the door of the ladies’ room that was clearly marked by a little electric sign above it. But the door was animated by a capricious spirit and insisted upon playing jokes on her. Although she had located it exactly before starting and had walked directly toward it, it kept shifting a little to the right or to the left, so that she had to stop and start again each time in a new direction. Moreover, it kept withdrawing slowly, so that she gained on it only about half as much distance as she should have, and therefore required twice as long to reach it.
There was a clock in the restroom, which she was able to bring into focus after a few moments of intent concentration, and she was surprised and delighted to see that it was eleven o’clock and that she had managed to pass several hours of the night with practically no trouble. It was evident to her now, however, that she had drunk quite enough manhattans for one night and had better return to the hotel to which she’d gone after leaving Henry’s, and The name of the hotel was, she believed, the Hawkins. Yes, that was it. It was named the Hawkins, and it was just down the street a short way, in the next block or the block after.
Leaving the restroom, she returned to the bar to say good night to Charles Neal. She owed him this courtesy, she thought, for being generous and buying her so many manhattans. She did not attempt to get back onto the stool, a difficult and dangerous exercise, but stood beside him and spoke politely in his ear, forming the shape of each word with care before enunciating it.
“Than you very much for the manhattans,” she said, “but I think I had better leave now.”
“Where are we going?” he said.
“I’m staying at the Hawkins Hotel. It’s only down the street a little way, though, and it isn’t necessary for you to come with me. I can get there easily by myself.”
A comedian, he thought. A lush and a nut and a goddamn comedian.
“I wouldn’t think of letting you go alone,” he said.
“Really it isn’t necessary, and you’ve already been quite considerate and generous enough. I wouldn’t want to put you to any trouble.”
“You’ve got a real sense of humor,” he said. “You kill me.”
These words surprised her, for she had intended no humor, and they were spoken in a hard, fiat tone of voice that did not suggest that he was in the least amused. But her senses had become unreliable, and it was likely that her impressions were distorted. Anyhow, he was definitely determined to see her to the hotel, having already slipped off the stool as a beginning, and it would be ungracious of her to make an issue of it. And so she permitted him to walk out of the bar and down the street beside her.
The sidewalk was unsteady and kept tilting toward the street. This caused her to keep bumping into Charles Neal, who was between her and the curb, and once, at an intersection, the pavement moved so suddenly as she was stepping down from the sidewalk into the street that she stumbled and would have fallen if he had not held her by the arm. After that he continued holding her by the arm, even when it was no longer necessary, and when she assured him that she was perfectly all right and did not need his help, he only laughed and kept hold of the arm, and the laugh had the same hard, flat, disturbing sound that his voice had had at the last moment at the bar.
The lobby of the hotel was empty, except for the night clerk, another elderly man who was asleep in a chair behind the desk, his head fallen back and his Adam’s apple working convulsively as he sucked air through his nostrils and blew it out noisily through his mouth. Since she had carried her room key with her in the pocket of her coat, Ivy did not find it necessary to waken him. She walked across the lobby to the elevator and stopped, turning to face Charles Neal with what she hoped was an attitude of decisiveness.
“Thank you for coming with me,” she said.
“Don’t mention it.”