People Who Knock on the Door (10 page)

“Got time to sit down? It’s getting on to the official drinks hour, nearly seven. Tempt you to something?”

“Thanks—no.” Arthur didn’t want a drink, and didn’t want to leave. But his father might be bothering the Brewsters on the telephone this minute! What if his father got the bright idea of
going
to the hospital! Arthur spilled some of the coins he had been clutching, and had to gather them from the carpet.

“Nervous tonight?—I wish you luck, Arthur.”

“With what?”

“Anything and everything,” Norma said, looking at him.

12

H
is mother and grandmother were in the kitchen when Arthur went back to the house, and supper was imminent. And his father was on the telephone.

“I see. Thank
you
,” his father said in an annoyed tone, and hung up.

If he had been trying the hospital, Arthur hoped that he had been told the Brewsters were accepting no more calls from Mr. Alderman, Senior.

His father came in, and they all took their places at the table. Slices of smoked salmon lay on plates before them, and Arthur had to push the cat’s front paws off his thigh as he bowed his head for his father’s blessing.

“Father, we thank thee—as ever—for the blessings laid before us. In this moment of—anxiety and wrongdoing, we ask your patience and forgiveness. We ask you to show us the way. Show us all. Amen.”

Robbie hiccupped so violently, he rose a bit from his seat.

Arthur gave his brother a smile, and opened his paper napkin.

“How was Norma?” his mother asked.

“Same as ever. Sewing,” Arthur replied. “Mending a hem of a curtain. Ahem!” He glanced at Robbie, who liked stupid puns, but Robbie might not have heard.

His father chewed his smoked salmon as if it were an arduous job that had to be done, though it was a treat in the household.

“And what did you do today at Mrs. DeWitt’s?” asked his grandmother.

The women kept the conversation going, and his father continued to look as if he couldn’t wait to say something unpleasant, though he didn’t say anything. Robbie was also silent. Robbie looked taller on his bench seat. His jaw was growing heavier. Was Robbie going to take his father’s side? How could he understand the situation at his age? On the other hand, the young could be bent.

In the interval before dessert, when his mother was up from the table, his father said, “You spoke with the girl, I suppose, Arthur?”

“Yes.”

“Richard, must we? Just now?” said Lois.

“Later may be too late. However, if later it is—”

The dessert period would have been a torture, except that his mother’s hot lemon meringue pie was excellent, and Arthur had an appetite. Then came coffee in the living room. Robbie was gently asked to go to his room, and didn’t. Arthur could see his grandmother on the brink of leaving the living room after one cup of coffee, then deciding to stay, which pleased Arthur.

“Well, Arthur, did you ask the girl to change her mind?” his father asked.

“No.”

“Did you try?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“It’s still not too late,” said his father, who was trying in his own way to be calm, Arthur could see.

Arthur glanced at his grandmother, who was looking into her coffee cup, and at Robbie, who sat like part of the audience in a movie house.

“They won’t accept my calls now,” said Richard sadly. “But you could reach them, I’m pretty sure. The girl or her mother. I could even drive you to the hospital tonight.”

Arthur winced and rubbed his forehead. “I don’t think Robbie should be in on all this, Dad. Not the people at church either. I don’t know how many you’ve—”

“You went to Norma’s house,” said his father.

“I went to phone, but I didn’t say anything about
this
.”

There was a knock on the door. Lois got up with an air of annoyance and said:

“Richard, will you let him in?”

His father went to the door. “Hello, Eddie, come in! Just in time for coffee.” Mumbles. “. . . still a chance, yes.” His father ushered a slender man of about twenty-five into the living room, with his hand on the man’s shoulder. The stranger carried a black briefcase. “Eddie Howell,” said Richard. “You know my family. And this is Arthur.”

Arthur nodded, but didn’t get up. A church acquaintance of his father’s, no doubt, one of the “young people” his father often talked about. He looked sickly to Arthur, pale-faced, thin, wearing glasses and a dark suit.

“Shall we—” Eddie began, and seemed to suppose that they—he and his father and himself—were to go into his father’s study, which Eddie had cast an eye at.

“No, no, sit down, Eddie. Coffee, Lois?”

His mother was already on the way to fetch another cup and saucer.

“I’m not sure Robbie—” Eddie began.

“Oh, he’s one of the family,” said Richard.

Really awful, Arthur thought. Eddie had wanted to get him into a room alone, where he could do a job on him with the pamphlets that he probably carried in that briefcase.

“So what’s happening now?” asked Eddie with his gentle smile. He had his coffee and sat in an armless chair with knees together and feet in a pigeon-toed position.

“No progress,” said Richard. “But it’s still not too late, as I said to my son. Never too late till the moment itself.”

Eddie looked at Arthur with a bland smile, as if he were regarding some strange organism, Arthur felt, which wouldn’t come to its senses and behave right. The man’s dark eyes behind his glasses looked puzzled and troubled. That was an act, Arthur thought.

“What’re your intentions, Arthur?” Eddie asked.

“My intentions?”

“About the girl. And her situation.”

Arthur sat forward. His empty coffee cup rattled in its saucer as he set the two items aside.

“Richard,” Lois said, “I don’t think right now is the time to go into all this. With so many people—”

“If not now, then when?” asked Richard.

“Maybe Eddie should talk to Arthur alone,” said Lois.

“Yes, I’m willing,” said Eddie cheerfully, and got up.

“Why go somewhere else?” Arthur asked. “I’m not going to tell anyone what to do—if that’s what you’re here to talk about.”

“But—you have already,” said Eddie Howell gently. “The responsibility is yours now.”

Not entirely, Arthur thought. “Not now,” he said.

“Yes, now. You have created life and now you—you’re trying to disclaim responsibility. You’re willing to let it be—”

His mother writhed with discomfort in her chair.

“Go ahead, Eddie!” said his father like a cheerleader.

“You cannot just sit by, if you have any power. That would be your real sin, a truly major sin,” Eddie told Arthur.

Robbie, neutral-faced and attentive, kept his eyes on Eddie.

Arthur said, “I’ll do what the girl wants. What her family wants too. I can’t understand the meddling.”

“And you don’t see your responsibility,” Eddie said, still affably smiling.

Arthur did, of course. Wasn’t it equal, his and Maggie’s responsibility? “But not now,” Arthur replied. “Now the girl has the right to do what she wants.”

Eddie shook his head.

“I do see what Arthur means,” his grandmother put in gently. “Not that I mean to interfere in this.”

“I’d be pleased to hear what you have to say, ma’am,” said Eddie.

“Considering the girl’s age—and Arthur’s—Well, I’m sure you see my point. And as far as I know, this family isn’t Catholic. The girl’s family seems to be taking it—calmly, shall I say? As something that can happen in the best of families. Why not let things be? That’s the end of my speech.” Joan threw a quick smile at her daughter.

Eddie nodded slowly, with a frown above his apparently frozen smile.

Eddie Howell was a sick prig, Arthur thought, and so was his father to be sitting there with a solemn face, concentrating on this twit—fifteen or twenty years younger than his father—as if he were God himself or some kind of divine messenger.

“I’d like to speak with you for a minute in your own room, Arthur,” said Eddie. “Is that possible?”

Arthur shook his head slowly. “You can say anything you want to right here.”

Eddie took a breath. “I strongly recommend that you call up this girl—or her family or both—and say you don’t want this operation to take place. That you know it should
not
take place. I understand the family’s even well off and could take care of the child. That is not the point even.” He raised a forefinger. “The point is—human life. I know your father has the phone number of the hotel where the parents are. Or we could even
go
there in my car—speak to them.”

Arthur relished the idea of a fight with this jerk, plus his father, if they tried to push him into a car. Arthur pressed his right fist into the palm of his left hand. “Sorry,” he began with an effort at calmness, “but my father’s been annoying the family all afternoon, and they’re not taking any more phone calls from us.” Sweat zipped down his cheek, reminding him of the hours at Mrs. DeWitt’s that afternoon.

Eddie opened his briefcase. “I’d like you to read two things I brought with me this evening,” he said, producing two magazines of different sizes, laying them gently on the coffee table. “Can you do me that courtesy? Promise me?”

Why should he promise? Shove them, Arthur wanted to say, and if his grandmother hadn’t been present, he might have. Twits such as Eddie Howell were anti-Darwin, Arthur reminded himself; in fact they spat on Darwin. This thought gave Arthur fortitude, even a sense of advantage. “Yes, sure,” Arthur said, and stood up with an air of calling the visit over.

His mother rose also, but drifted to the kitchen. His father beckoned Eddie Howell into his study and closed the door.

“You did very well, Arthur,” said his grandmother. “Kept your temper. Good for you.”

Arthur shook his head. Robbie regarded Arthur as if he were now the center of the screen instead of Eddie Howell. “Don’t you find this pretty boring, Robbie?”

“Nope. Why should I?”

His father and Eddie oozed back into the living room and toward the front door. Eddie turned and said:

“Good night, Arthur—everybody. Don’t forget, Arthur, it is not too late until tomorrow morning. And that gives you a lot of time.” At the threshold of the room he raised an arm high, and smiled. “God bless!”

“Call you up later tonight, Eddie,” his father murmured in the hall. “Thank you very much for coming.” When the door closed on Eddie, his father came back and went to the magazines on the coffee table. “I’ll put these in your room,” he said to Arthur.

“There’s a funny program on in just five minutes,” his grandmother said when his father came back. “I think it’s just what we need.
I
need it, anyway. Do you mind, Richard?”

Richard didn’t. Arthur felt proud of his grandmother. They all watched the program—a sitcom that really was funny. Arthur slouched in an armchair and laughed loudly. His father went off to his study after a few minutes and then returned, hooked on the program himself.

Later, after another shower, Arthur did look at the two magazines or tracts which he had found on his bed. One concerned “the sanctity of life,” and quoted “be fruitful and multiply.” The second, which had a bit of blue coloring on its badly printed black-on-white cover, was called “Think Twice” and concentrated on the physical dangers of abortion, septic poisoning, hemorrhages, then the mental blight of depression which was described as “a living death.” “Think Twice” was about illegal abortions, which was the term they used, backstreet abortionists, fatal home efforts, as if legal abortions done by competent doctors didn’t exist. Doctors and nurses who performed or assisted at any of these operations were labeled murderers, as were the girls or women who had the operation. It was a more concentrated dose of what he had seen before in the magazines lying around the house. Contraceptive devices were never mentioned. The pregnancy was simply a fact, and the fetus had to be carried to full term and born, and so on. Arthur was still in a mood to laugh, and what he was glancing at was no less exaggerated, and in its way slapstick, than what he had been watching on TV. There was also a sadistic element suggestive of the Mad Scientist: Make women pay. All the articles were written by men with WASP names, and the publishing houses had names like the God’s Way Press or New World College Religious Publications, Inc., based in towns so small Arthur had never heard of them, in California, Illinois, Ohio.

Someone tapped at the door. “Arthur?”

This was his father. “Yep?”

His father came in. “Well, I can see you’re looking at that, anyway.”

Arthur tossed the two magazines back on his bed. “Yes, I said I would.”

“And what’s your attitude now?”

Arthur took a deep breath. “Do you really expect me to change my mind because of this—propaganda?”

His father snorted and took his time in replying. “Not even old enough to vote, and you hold yourself superior to that. To God’s word. Not the Bible there, I admit, but still God’s word. I don’t know how you can sleep tonight and maybe you won’t.—Now Arthur—maybe you’ll see the light—before dawn—and do something or try to. I don’t want this blot on my family.” He went on more slowly, “And if you want to go to that hospital—any time tonight—I’ll drive you there.”

His father stood facing him with his large head bent forward, his grey eyes not exactly crazy-looking, but changed, as if he had taken a drug. Then he turned and left the room. His figure looked old and tired to Arthur, or maybe his father was simply defeated. That was true.

Nearly an hour later, when Arthur went into the kitchen to get a glass of milk and another piece of lemon meringue pie unless Robbie had finished it, his father was on the telephone. The rest of the family had gone to bed, Arthur thought. His father was still dressed. Arthur did not try to listen, but he heard a couple of his father’s words anyway. His father was dictating a telegram. At once Arthur listened hard, because he didn’t want his name at the end of it.

“It is not too late. Period. We send you—our blessings. Period. Signed the Aldermans. That’s A—”

Maggie and her mother would know it wasn’t from him. It would have been more honest of his father to have signed the telegram Richard Alderman.