East Into Upper East (28 page)

Although warm and nestled between her sheets, Sylvie roused herself to face a serious and perhaps not unfamiliar situation: “I know, I know—and I swear we'll go the moment we find a place, I promise.”

“It's not that,” Pauline said. “It's not that at all.” She was silent—not that there were no questions to ask but that there were too many. For instance: where had Sylvie gone yesterday with Theo? What had they fought about, she and Amy? Instead, when Pauline spoke, it was to say: “What I asked you the other day? In the museum?” When Sylvie looked puzzled—“Because I really do need someone, and if you can't do it or would rather not . . .” And still receiving no answer, Pauline worked herself up a bit: “When someone offers you a job, the least you can do is say yes or no. I mean, it would just be common courtesy.”

“Oh Pauline. I never thought for a minute you were serious.”

“Why wouldn't I be?”

“It's such a terrific compliment—to think anyone would think
me
capable of a
job.
When I told Theo, he laughed and laughed.”

“Who's he to laugh? What's he ever done for you except come around here to my place in the afternoons or whatever—where did you go yesterday? Where were you when poor Amy was sent home from school and no one here to meet her? I think that's shocking. Absolutely shocking.”

Sylvie hung her head and plucked at the satin hem of the bed-sheet. It was not possible to tell whether she was ashamed or offended.

For fear it might be the latter, Pauline went on: “I know it's none of my business but I'm so fond of you both, you and Amy.”

“You've been an angel to us, dearest Pauline. You
are
an angel.”

“Well, you see, I love you.”

“Of course you do,” Sylvie said. “And we love you. Very, very much,” she added, but this, for Pauline, only made her reply less satisfactory.

Although Pauline felt herself so overwhelmed with work that she was ready to hire an assistant, a few days later she again shut her office early and went home. This time she found what she expected—Sylvie was there, and Theo was with her. Pauline could hear them splashing in the bathroom, but when she opened the door, she quickly shut it again. Theo was washing Sylvie's hair; she had her head bent over the basin while he massaged soap-suds into it; both were naked. But when they came out, Theo had wrapped a towel around his waist and Sylvie was in a white bathrobe. They looked like twins.

“What a surprise,” Theo said, referring to Pauline's unexpected arrival; he made it sound like a joyous surprise.

“Yes, well, you see, I have to talk to Sylvie on a very important matter.”

Theo was rueful: “I'm afraid I can guess what it is, and I promise you that the minute we've found a halfway nice place we're going to move out and meanwhile I cannot tell you how terrifically grateful we all are to you, aren't we, Sylvie? Do stop that and listen to Pauline,” for Sylvie was vigorously rubbing her hair with a towel.

“But it's all
wet
,” Sylvie protested. “I'll drip on her rug and ruin it.”

Theo said, “Oh you mustn't. It's such a pretty rug.” He looked down at it and Pauline could tell from the politely sweet expression on his face that he didn't think so at all. She had had the same impression before when she had encountered Theo in her apartment. Although she had taken a lot of trouble with her furniture and fittings—matching colors and so on—in his presence everything appeared drab, lower-class.

Ignoring him, she addressed herself only to Sylvie: “You still haven't given me an answer—I don't think you realize how important it is, important for the business, that is, for me to have a proper assistant.”

“You're talking about the job you offered her, and that again I must say shows your incredible kindness.”

Pauline said, “I hear it made you laugh no end.”

“Made
me
laugh—?” Unable to believe that he might be the person referred to, he put both his hands on his chest. His chest was naked, giving him an almost mythological appearance. He looked as if he might be living in a forest and carrying a bow and arrow, not to shoot down birds or other living creatures but apples from a tree for Sylvie to eat.

Theo had turned to Sylvie: “Did you tell Pauline that I laughed?” Sylvie began to defend herself, they argued with each other, softly, sweetly, while Pauline stood by. She realized that it was hopeless to try to intervene—they would only have listened to her politely and then turned back to each other. She could not come between them, no one could; perhaps not even Amy.

Amy turned out to be receptive to the idea of Sylvie taking a job. She at once asked Pauline, “What'll you pay her?”

Sylvie said, “Amy, that's vulgar.”

“No it's not,” Pauline said. “It's realistic.”

She was relieved to have been able to return to the topic in Amy's presence and away from what she could not help feeling was Theo's negative influence. But Sylvie still seemed to be under the latter: “We don't need money,” she told Amy.

“Yes we do. We need heaps.”

“What for?”

“You know very well what for,” Amy said.

She and Sylvie exchanged a conspiratorial look that excluded Pauline. Yet Pauline too wanted to ask, what could they possibly need money for? It was not in her present interest to point out that they lived rent-free, or that she paid their grocery bills—though it was true that these had hardly increased since they had moved in with her. Their vegetarian diet of cereals and pulses was as frugal as if they had been living on bird seed.

Sylvie said, “Theo gives us whatever we need.”

“Theo doesn't have anything to give,” Amy said.

“He will though,” Sylvie said with quiet confidence.

“Not till Grandma dies. Which she won't.” Amy raised her voice to defend her facts: “She's terribly healthy and she has all these doctors giving her vitamin injections and all these people coming in doing massage and things on her and you know she goes swimming every afternoon because that's the only time Theo ever gets to come visit you.”

“That's not true,” Sylvie said.

“It is so!
And
she plays tennis but Theo can't get away then in case she needs him for a partner.”

“You'll have to forgive Amy,” Sylvie turned to Pauline. “Sometimes she just doesn't know what she's talking about. No you don't! You're a silly brat, that's all.”

“I'm a silly brat, look who's talking. I'm the only one who earns any money. And I give you all my pocket money from Grandma to put in our savings and you haven't put in one single dime.”

“I haven't got one single dime.”

“Then why don't you take Pauline's job! She'll pay you—”

Pauline gladly said, “Of course I will.” But when Amy at once came back with “How much?” she became more cautious. She said to Sylvie, “You'd be on a starting salary at first, but later of course when you really know the business—”

“How long would that take?” Amy asked. “Because we haven't got very long.
You
think we have,” she turned again on Sylvie, “but I'm not going to that shitty school forever or stick around here when you
promised—
you
promised
—”

“Amy, shush, darling, it's our secret.”

“Don't
pinch
me.” But Amy bit in her lips so that no further words should escape her, not even in answer to Sylvie's “I did
not
.”

Next day Pauline lost another client. Unfortunately it was one whom she had been nurturing for several months, for a bigger sale than usually came her way—a converted brownstone in the East Fifties, and Pauline had made an appointment to meet her client there for what she hoped was a final and decisive viewing. But just as she was about to leave on this mission, Theo came into the office. “Can we talk?” he said to Pauline after a pleasant greeting. When
she hesitated, “You're busy. A pity, but never mind. That's just our bad luck. Sylvie's and mine.”

Pauline hesitated again, but not for long. She dialed her client's number and left a message on the machine to postpone the meeting by an hour. Then she allowed Theo to lead her away. Although this was her neighborhood and not his, he knew exactly where to take her. It was not a place she would have chosen herself—a stone garden created between mammoth buildings with an artificial waterfall trained to run down a brick wall.

“Isn't this fun,” said Theo, bringing two styrofoam cups of coffee from the refreshment window, and also, in case one of them felt hungry, a Danish in plastic wrap. There were only a few elderly people sitting around, some reading the newspaper, some dozing, one or two staring straight into the waterfall but probably seeing other things. The chairs were white metal, small and uncomfortable with criss-cross seats like egg-slicers.

Theo said, “I shall have to take them away.” For a moment Pauline didn't know what he was talking about, and when she realized, she cried out much too loudly, “You're crazy!”

He smiled sadly: “It is a shame.” Then he assured her: “You're not to blame. You meant well, but things don't always turn out the way we intend.”

“And may I ask,” she said, “what is it that hasn't worked out?”

He gestured into the air, indicating that the matter was too delicate to be put into words. But she wanted words and didn't care if she appeared crude and indelicate. She felt that way anyhow, in his presence. She was dressed in a very good business suit, with a blouse that had cost her a good deal of money, but beside him—though all he wore was jeans and a shirt—she felt badly dressed. It couldn't be helped; she was what she was; so she repeated her question.

He was courteous and tried to give her a fair answer. He said, “You see, we have to be careful. Amy's very high-strung.”

“Amy? What have I done to Amy?”

“Please. I said it wasn't your fault. But once Amy gets something in her head, it's one hell of a thing to get it out again. It was a mistake, you know,” he said. “Asking Sylvie to work for you. You know Sylvie better than that. She can't. She wouldn't be able to.”

Pauline swallowed—controlling her rising anger for the sake of a higher good. “I thought she might like to; to give her something
to do; pass the time while Amy's at school and you're with your mother.” When he made no response, she went on—quickly, before the subject could be considered closed: “But of course it was only an idea. She doesn't have to at all, and we'll just go on as before.”

“Yes, but now there's Amy.”

“What does Amy
want
?”

“Amy wants money. Ridiculous child.” He smiled.

Drops of water fell on them from the artificial waterfall. It reminded her of sitting with Sylvie by the museum fountain. Why should they have this association with water, with cool crystal drops, as though their place were by the side of a mountain spring? In spite of his clear eyes, his graceful figure as of a young hunter, he did not at this moment give her the impression of purity; on the contrary.

“That's why I have to take them away,” he said. “But don't you have to meet someone? Your client?”

She gave a start. She had truly forgotten. But now she said, “It doesn't matter.”

“Oh but it does. You mustn't neglect your business—certainly not on our account. You want all the money you can get. Everyone does.”

“Including Amy?”

“Amy wants it so badly that she's willing to send poor Sylvie to do a job she's absolutely not fit for. Not physically, not temperamentally, not in any way. I know you acted from the noblest motives—out of love and affection for us—but I wish you hadn't started this whole thing. Now Amy can think of nothing but money, a salary, all that.”

Pauline pleaded: “It wouldn't be very hard work.”

“I'm sure not, but unfortunately Sylvie's not capable of any work.”

“She could stay home. It wouldn't be any different from what it is now.”

“You mean you'd pay her a salary for staying home? Only for staying with you? . . . You really are a saint. An angel.” In gratitude, he undid the Danish for her from its plastic wrap, but then advised her not to eat it as it was stale.