Evening In Byzantium Part 30

"Including Bertie Folsom."

She flushed. "Including Bertie Folsom. I suppose that s.l.u.t daughter of yours told you about Geneva."

"She did."

"At least he paid attention to me."

"Bully for him," he said. "Bully for you."

"There's another victim you can add to your score," she said, all holds barred now, the hospital room, the plastic bag dripping ineffectual remedies into his vein from its chromium stand, all ignored. "Driving her into that drunkard's arms."

"He's stopped drinking." Too late, he realized how idiotic it sounded.

"He hasn't stopped doing anything else," she said. "Married three times and looking around for more. I'll never talk to that girl again. And your other daughter. Poor Marcia. Flying here all the way from Arizona to comfort her father. And what did you have to say to her? The one sentence that crossed your lips. 'Marcia, you're a good size.' She cried for days. You know what she said? She said, 'Even when he's bleeding to death, he makes fun of me. He hates me.' I tried to get her to come up here with me, and she wouldn't do it."

"I'll make it up to her," he said wearily. "Sometime. I don't hate her."

"You hate me."

"I don't hate anybody."

"Even now you have to humiliate me." Coldly, he noticed the old false melodramatic tone that came into her voice when she recounted her trials. "Right now that woman is shamelessly parading herself downstairs, waiting to come up here as soon as you've thrown me out."

"I don't know any 'that woman,'" he said.

"That wh.o.r.e from Paris. You know her all right. And so do I." Penelope paced around the room, obviously trying to regain control of herself. He lay with his eyes closed, his head back on the pillow. "I didn't come up here to argue, Jesse," Penelope said, switching to her reasonable voice. "I came up here to tell you you are welcome to come home. More than welcome."

"I told you I'd think about it," he said.

"Just for my own satisfaction," she said, "I'd like to know once and for all why you thought you had to have a divorce."

Well, he thought, she's asking for it. He opened his eyes so that he could see her reactions. "I met Alice Paine in New York one day," he said.

"What's Alice Paine got to do with it?"

"She told me a peculiar story. Every October fifth she gets a dozen roses. Without a card. Anonymously." He could tell by the sudden rigidity of her face, her shoulders, that she knew what he was talking about. "Any woman," he said, "who has anything to do with a dozen roses on October fifth, year in, year out, is not ever going to get me-alive or dead." He lay back and closed his eyes once more. She had asked for it, and he had given it to her, and he felt a great relief that he had finally gotten it out.

"Good-by, Jesse," she whispered.

"Good-by," he said.

He heard the door closing softly behind her. Then, for the first time, he wept. Not from anger or loss but because he had lived more than twenty years with a woman and had had two children with her and he didn't feel anything when he said good-by, not even rage.

After a while he remembered that Penelope had said that Constance was in the building. "There's a lady downstairs waiting to see me," he said to Miss Balissano. "Will you ask her to come up, please? And let me have the comb and brush and a mirror."

He brushed back his hair. It had grown very long in the three weeks. Vigorous, his hair had rejected his illness. There was no more gray in it than before. His eyes looked enormous and overbright in his thin face. Losing weight had made his face look much younger. He doubted that Constance would appreciate this new simulation of youth.

But when the door opened, it was Belinda who came in. He hid his disappointment. "Belinda," he said heartily, "I am glad to see you."

She kissed his cheek. She looked as though she had been crying, the small sharp face made more womanly by her sorrow. She was still in electric blue. It was her costume for deathbeds.

"They're monsters in this hospital," she said. Her voice was softer, too. My illness has improved her, he thought. "I've been here every day this week," she said, "and they wouldn't let me see you."

"I'm sorry about that," he lied.

"I've kept track, though," she said. "I've talked to Mr. Murphy, too. You're not going to work on the picture."

"I'm afraid not."

She pulled on her hands. They were small and harsh. Twenty-three years at the typewriter. Her nails were painted blood-red. She had an unerring eye for the wrong colors. She went to the window, pulled the shade down a little. "Jesse," she said, "I want to quit."

"I don't believe you."

"Believe me," she said.

"Have you got another job?"

"Of course not." She turned away from the window, her face hurt.

"Then why quit?"

"You're not going to be able to work when you get out of here," she said.

"For a while."

"For a long while. Jesse, let's not kid ourselves. You don't need me or that office. You should have closed the office five years ago. You kept it open just for me."

"That's nonsense," he said, trying to sound sharp. She knew he was lying, but the lie was necessary.

"I've just been going through the motions," she said quietly. "Thank you and enough. Anyway, I have to get out of New York. I can't stand it anymore. It's a madhouse. Two of my friends have been mugged just this month. In broad daylight. My nephew was stabbed in the chest for a pack of cigarettes, and he nearly died. I don't dare leave my apartment at night. I haven't seen a movie or even a play in a year. I have four different locks on my door. Every time I hear the elevator doors open on my floor, I tremble. Jesse, if they want this city so much, let them have it."

"Where are you going to go?" he asked gently.

"My mother still has our house in Newtown," she said. "She's ailing, and I can help her. And it's a beautiful quiet little town, and you can walk in the streets there."

"Maybe I'll move there, too," he said, only half-joking.

"You could do worse," she said.

"What are you going to do for money?" Finally, you always had to come down to this question.

"I don't need much," she said. "And I've managed to save quite a bit. Thanks to you, Jesse. You're a marvelously generous man, and I want to let you know that I know it."

"You worked."

"I loved working for you. I was lucky. It was better than any marriage I've seen around."

Craig laughed. "That doesn't say very much, does it?"

"It says a lot to me," she said. "The lease for the office is up for renewal this month. Shall I tell them we're not signing?" She waited for his response, pulling at the blood-red fingernails.

"We've had a nice long run, Belinda," he said softly, "haven't we?"

"Yes, we have," she said. "A nice long run."

"Tell them we're not renewing," he said.

"They won't be surprised," she said.

"Belinda," he said, "come here and give me a kiss."

She kissed him, decorously, on the cheek. He couldn't embrace her because of the tube in his arm. "Belinda," he said as she stood up straight again, "who's going to write out the checks for me to sign now?"

"You can write them out yourself," she said. "You're a big, grown man. Just don't write out too many."

"I'll try not to," he said.

"If I stay here one more minute," she said, "I'm going to bawl." She fled from the room.

He lay back in the bed staring at the ceiling. There goes twenty-three years, he thought. Add to that the twenty-one years of his wife. The sentences having been served concurrently.

Not a bad day's work.

He was asleep when Constance came into the room. He dreamt that a woman whom he couldn't quite identify was kissing him. When he opened his eyes, he saw Constance standing near him staring gravely down at him.

"h.e.l.lo," he said.

"If you want to sleep," she said, "I'll just sit here and watch you."

"I don't want to sleep." She was on his good side, the one without the tube, so he could stretch out his hand and take hers. Her hand was cool and firm. She smiled down at him. "You really ought to leave your hair long," she said. "It's very becoming."

"Another week," he said, "and I'll be able to play at the next Woodstock Festival." He would have to try to maintain the light tone. Constance wasn't his wife or Belinda Ewen. They had to avoid hurting each other or reminding each other of different moments they had spent together.

She drew up a chair and sat next to the bed. She was wearing a black dress. It didn't look funereal on her. She looked serene and beautiful, the hair brushed back from her broad, fine forehead.

"Spell Meyrague," he said. Then he was sorry he had said it. It had just come out automatically.

But she laughed, and it was all right. "Obviously you're getting better."

"Rapidly," he said.

"Rapidly. I was afraid I wasn't going to get the chance to see you. I have to go back to Paris tomorrow," she said.

"Oh."

There was silence for a moment. "What are you going to do when you get out of here?" she asked.

"I have to take it easy for a while," he said.

"I know. It's too bad about the picture."

"Not so bad. It's served its purpose. Or most of its purpose."

"Are you coming back to Paris?"

"When are you leaving Paris?" he asked.

"I'm supposed to leave in two weeks."

"I guess I'm not coming back to Paris."

She was silent for a little bit. "They've rented a house for me in San Francisco," she said. "You can see the bay, they tell me. There's a big room at the top of the house where a man could work. You wouldn't hear the kids yelling. Or hardly."

He smiled.

"Does that sound like a bribe?" She answered herself. "I suppose it does." She laughed, then became serious. "Have you thought about what you're going to do after you get out of here, where you're going to go?"

"Not really."

"Not San Francisco?"

"I think I'm a little old for San Francisco," he said gently. He knew it really wasn't the city he was thinking of, and she knew it, too. "But I'll visit."

"I'll be there," she said. "For a while, anyway." The warning was clear, but there was nothing to do about it. "Sweep the town by storm," he said.

"I'll try to take your advice." She was grave again. "It's too bad," she said. "Our times didn't really coincide. Anyway, when you run out of hotel rooms, think of Constance." She reached out and stroked his forehead. Her touch was pleasant, but there were no s.e.xual stirrings in him. The ailing body devoted all its time to its ailment. Illness was the supreme egotism.

"I've been doing something that I abhor these last few days," she said, taking her hand away. "I've been adding up love. Who loves whom the most. My accounts came out c.o.c.k-eyed. I love you more than you love me. That's the first time it ever happened to me. Well, I suppose it had to happen once."

"I don't know" he began.

"I know," she said harshly. "I know."

"I haven't added up any accounts," he said.

"You don't have to," she said. "Oh, that reminds me-I met your pretty young friend from Cannes. Dr. Gibson introduced us one night. We became very chummy. We had lunch together several times. She's very bright. And very tough. Enviably tough."

"I don't know her that well," he said. Surprisingly, it was the truth. He didn't know whether Gail was tough or not.

"She knew all about me, of course."

"Not from me," he said.

"No, I'm sure not," Constance said, smiling. "She's going back to London, did you know?"

"No. I haven't seen her."

"Poor Jesse," Constance said ironically, "all the working ladies are running out on him. In the future I suggest you stick to one town and pick on women of leisure."