Neither Five Nor Three (Helen Macinnes) (7 page)

“The
Clarion
is a paper to be proud of,” Paul said. He was studying young Ettley’s face, in turn. What’s burning into him? he wondered.

Ettley ignored that. “I hear you’re going back to
Trend
.

Paul Haydn lit his cigarette carefully.

“...taking over Blackworth’s job.”

“Is that how it sounds?” Paul Haydn watched the intense blue eyes. They might be improved by being blackened. Easy, he told himself, easy now: this is Rona’s party.

“Yes.” Then Scott noticed the grape-laden hat was coming close, and Thelma’s quick eyes were interested. He forced himself to relax and smile. “I don’t know a thing about Blackworth,” he said, “but I don’t like what is happening to him. It sounds like persecution to me, frankly. Why don’t you ask Murray? He’s been at
Trend
for the last four years.” He nodded toward the corner of the room, toward the round-faced, heavily built man who was still making speeches.

“You mean that guy who doesn’t like America?”

Scott looked puzzled, angry. “You don’t have to wear a uniform to be the only one who likes America.”

“And you don’t have to go around kicking America in the teeth, either.”

Scott smiled. “Murray’s been up to his little tricks, I see. He likes to shock people.” He looked at Haydn and his grin broadened. “He seems to have run up a high score tonight.”

Paul Haydn said grimly, “Sure, I’ve lost my sense of humour. That’s it.”

Scott, still smiling said, “But what I really came over to tell you was this: when you take over Blackworth’s job on
Trend
, just keep away from Rona, will you?” There was a savage bite to the last phrase, all the more bitter because of the quiet voice.

Paul Haydn stared. “Your first name isn’t Scott, by any chance?” He broke into a broad grin and relaxed. “You might have said that in the first place. It would have explained everything.”

Scott Ettley said nothing. He was standing with a smile on his lips, his eyes cold and hard.

“Don’t worry,” Paul said, his voice changing once more, “I’ve never stolen another man’s property yet. Goodbye.” He put down his glass and turned away abruptly. He said good night to a magazine writer and a reviewer who had made a date to lunch with him this week, nodded to a couple of friends and promised to see them tomorrow, ignored Murray’s humorous circle, found his cap, and searched for Rona. She was saying goodbye to Jon and Peggy in the hall.

“You too?” She was polite, a little anxious about something.

“Yes, I must go. It was a grand party,” he said. “Thanks, Rona.”

“Come home with us, and we’ll find some dinner,” Peggy said impulsively. “And we’ll waken Bobby and let him see a real live major.”

“Come along,” Jon said. “We didn’t get much time to talk at the party.” Privately he wondered when he’d get those papers graded tonight. But he smiled at Peggy, thinking she had a heart as big as the Empire State.

“Not tonight,” Paul said, “but thanks all the same. I’ve been travelling. I think it’s early bed for me.”

“On your first night home?” asked Mary Fyne in her low voice, as she came into the hall. She took his arm, smiling. “Oh, Paul!” She emphasised his first name.

I’ve been promoted, he thought. Rona was watching him with a strange little smile.

“I’m pretty tired,” he said with embarrassment.

“What you need is a good steak and a bottle of wine.” Mary’s red hair caught the dim light in the hall, her large pencilled eyes glanced at him sideways. “And I cook a very good steak,” she said. “You promised you’d come, you know... Good night, Rona. We’ve had a lovely time.”

Paul stared, and then remembered to be polite. Jon was watching him with a sympathetic grin.

Rona said, “Good night, Paul.” Her amused smile deepened.

All right, he thought savagely, all right. He took Mary’s arm in a firm grip. “Good night,” he called back as they started downstairs.

Mary Fyne’s pretty face twisted with pain. “Oh!” she said softly, “that hurts.”

He slackened his grip.

“You don’t know your own strength, Paul.” She looked at him with that sideways tilt of her head, and she smiled. She leaned on his arm.

Outside, he dropped her arm and stood irresolute. His anger was leaving him. For a moment, she rested her soft hair against his shoulder. Then she looked up at him, saying, in wide-eyed innocence, “I really do have a steak in the icebox. And I’ve a bottle of wine—at room temperature...” A taxi halted at the corner of Third Avenue. She raised her arm and signalled. It nosed around slowly to where they stood.

“Look—” he began.

“Yes, look!” she said laughingly, her hair gleaming bright under the street lamp, her coat falling open to show her neck white against the low-cut black dress. She caught his hand playfully, carried it to her lips, and bit deeply.

“What the—” he began in fury. She laughed again, drawing him into the cab after her. He glanced up for a moment at the lighted windows above the green window boxes. His mouth tightened and he followed her.

“Because,” she was saying as she lifted his hand gently and looked at it, “because I like you angry.” She gave her sideways glance, her smile deepened into a laugh. “I like men who get very angry.”

At the first corner, he leaned over to the driver and said, “Stop here, Joe.” He handed the man a dollar as he opened the door and jumped out.

“What—” she began, her voice rising.

“Because I like you angry,” he said. “I like you very angry.” He left them, walking quickly. She called him, but he didn’t look round.

He went up Lexington and entered the little bar with the neon lights above the door. “Benny’s,” he noticed now.

The bartender was still polishing glasses. The blonde with the model look was still sitting there with her friend. They glanced at him, but this time they smiled.

“Getting to be an old habitchewee,” the barman said with a gloomy shake of his head. “What will it be?”

4

The party was over. Goodbyes filled the little hall, echoed up the staircase. We had a lovely time. Lovely, lovely time. Rona came slowly back into the living-room, now almost large again in its emptiness. She picked up a battered shrimp from the beige rug, removed an ashtray that had overflowed on to the green and white striped couch, collected half-empty glasses from the top of the little white mantelpiece. The fireplace was filled with stubs and cigarette ash and burnt matches. Only the dark green walls looked clean, she thought, only the walls and the white picture frames and the white and beige curtains now billowing gently as Scott opened both windows wide. She sat down on the red chair right-angled to the hearth. She was holding a couple of dirty glasses in her hand; she hadn’t even the energy left to decide where to put them. Scott didn’t make any move to come to her, to hold her and kiss her. He was still standing at the opened windows.

From the street, there floated up cheerful goodbyes. Murray’s voice was calling “Taxi! Taxi!” A woman’s voice broke into laughter.

“Why
did
he have to bring Thelma?” Rona said wearily. “That over-aged bacchante...” She sighed and then put the wet glasses down on the hearth.

“Thelma asks him to a lot of her parties,” Scott said.

“But why repay her at our expense? She gave Jon and several other men a miserable time. Why didn’t Murray look after her when he brought her here? Why did we ever invite him anyway? Oh, sorry, Scott—I’m just thinking out loud.”

Scott said slowly, still not looking round, “I’m beginning to think Murray’s a big mistake.”

“His line is so
old
! Two years ago, or three, he could manage to get away with it. But not now.”

“What do you mean?” Scott looked across the room.

“Just that he wasn’t the least little bit the original talker he likes to imagine he is. He only succeeded in annoying most of our guests.”

“Because he thinks differently from them? So we must all talk the same way, think the same things?”

“No, darling!” She rose and came over to him. “I don’t believe two of us in the room echoed any point of view, except in a general way of—well, of believing that right is right and wrong is wrong.”

“That’s all relative,” Scott said. “Depends on each man’s frame of reference.”

“I don’t believe that,” she said, “except for the small things in life. You can find them as relative as you like. But in the big things, you’ve got to decide what is right, what is wrong. Or else you’ve no moral judgment, at all. Like Murray. He’s just a parrot, that’s all he is.” She looked at Scott worriedly, unhappily. He seemed to have forgotten that she was there.

At last he said stiffly, “Sorry if Murray offended you so much. I won’t ask him again.”

“He made your father flaming mad.”

“Dad?” Scott’s voice tightened.

That’s the trouble, Rona thought. Her worry left her, but standing beside Scott, looking across at the lighted windows opposite and the uneven rows of black chimneys sprouting from the flat roofs, she was still more unhappy. She was waiting for Scott to forget all the things that had irritated him tonight, to take her in his arms and kiss her. She said, appeasingly, “Your father was disappointed he couldn’t stay in town. He wants us to have dinner with him next week, instead.”

“Yes.”

“Scott, he
had
to be back in Staunton tonight. Your father would have stayed if he could.”

“I suppose so.” Scott picked up a withered canapé from a plate on the writing-desk, examined it critically, threw it back. All day, he had been preparing himself for this family dinner tonight, for the hidden tensions, for the seemingly harmless remarks that disguised petty criticisms. Instead, his father had gone back to Staunton. He shoved the desk chair angrily into place.

“Scott!” Rona’s voice was near breaking point.

He turned to face her, suddenly noticing her exhaustion. “Darling!” His face softened. “I’m sorry. I had a bad evening, that’s all.” He took her in his arms.

“Didn’t you enjoy the party at all?” She was almost in tears.

He kissed her eyes and mouth. “Yes, it was a good party.”

“I’m so sorry, Scott, that I ever asked Paul Haydn.”

“He seemed to be enjoying himself.”

She smiled, shaking her head. “The same old Paul! He left with the prettiest girl—as usual.” Then she glanced round the room. “What a mess all this is!”

Scott kissed her again. His smile had returned, the frown had cleared from his brow. “Forget it. We’ll go out and have a quiet dinner together. Then I’ll bring you home fairly early tonight.”

“Do I look so tired?”

“No, you look wonderful. You were wrong about Haydn. I’m the man who’s leaving this party with the prettiest girl. Now what about putting on your hat? The one that’s only a couple of roses?”

“All right!” Her eyes were smiling now. “But I’m a bit scared of original hats after seeing Thelma’s tonight.”

“You aren’t Thelma.”

Rona said pityingly, “She’s so unhappy. What’s wrong with people like Thelma?”

He didn’t answer that. He looked around the room. “Get Mrs. Kasprowicz to come up here, tomorrow. Just leave everything tonight, Rona. Promise?”

She was tired enough to agree, to try to forget that her budget was already overstrained this week. Parties cost a lot these days. She said, “I don’t know how Peggy and Jon manage. Yet they do. And look at them tonight—as smartly dressed as anyone! You know, I always feel so guilty when I remember Jon makes less money than I do. Can you imagine it? He’s got brilliant degrees, he’s had years of training and study when he earned nothing, and what does he make? Four thousand dollars a year as an assistant professor.”

Scott let her go. “Yes,” he said, beginning to walk restlessly around the room. “It’s bitterly unfair. But what do you expect in a country where a movie star makes more than the President?”

“Scott, I didn’t mean it that way. All I was doing was to admire Peggy and Jon. It doesn’t make them bitter. Worried, yes. But not bitter. They couldn’t be so happy if they let themselves go bitter.”

“They don’t even know where their interests lie,” he said. Why admire fools, even if they were good-natured fools? He halted suddenly, and he turned to look at Rona. “Why did you mention them, anyway?” Marriage...was it so important to a woman as all that? Rona and he—they had each other, they were faithfully in love. Wasn’t that enough? Provided they could wait together, did waiting matter? Yet, thinking of Jon and Peggy Tyson, remembering the way he envied them even if he pitied them, he could give no true answer to his own questions. Rationally, he could find an argument. But with Rona, he couldn’t argue rationally. That was what Orpen said, and what he kept denying to Orpen. I’m going to see Orpen, tonight, he decided. Once I bring Rona back here. I’ll see him. Then he remembered Orpen was at a meeting tonight. But he would see Orpen on Friday definitely. He’d tell Orpen then.

Rona was saying, “Why did I mention them?” She gestured helplessly. “I don’t really know,” she answered slowly. “Or perhaps it was just because Peggy and Jon seem to be living a fuller life than most of us in this room tonight. Fuller and richer. And isn’t that better, too? Yet, from the point of view of earning power, most of us could have bought and sold them. That was all.”

Scott said, “I’ve been deciding one thing, tonight. We are getting married. We’ll set a definite date for this summer. We’ve waited long enough.” He smiled, and the strain and worry left his face. “Will you take a chance on my earning power?”

“Oh, Scott!” She threw her arms around him. She was no longer tired and unhappy. Her smile was no longer uncertain. He caught her, holding her close to him, kissing her soft dark hair.

“We’ll manage,” he said. “Well be all right, Rona. Just trust me.” His grip tightened round her, almost desperately.

* * *

It was another evening to remember happily—a long, deliberate dinner with gay talk and good humour. Scott’s depression had vanished completely. Now, sitting over their coffee cups in the almost deserted restaurant (it was a small French place where the proprietor was glad to see Americans being leisurely over his excellent food), Scott was reminding her of their visit last summer to Mexico. This summer, he was saying, they’d try Canada in August for some fishing. Or they might go in September and make it a honeymoon trip.