People Who Knock on the Door (21 page)

“Ah-hah-hah! Naughty fellows you all are!” Irene yelled with a merry laugh to someone far on Arthur’s right.

The truckers were grinning, Arthur noticed, focusing on Irene.

“What time y’off tonight?” one asked.

“Seven o’clock in the
morning
!” Irene bent with her giggle and spilled coffee from mugs she held in a cluster.

“Make it earlier if you want to, I bet!”

Irene leaned toward Gus, Veronica and Arthur, with eyes swimmy from fatigue or the glare. “Good evening, and what’ll you folks have?”

“Coffee,” said Gus.

“Same,” said Arthur.

Veronica didn’t want anything.

“
Mac
didn’t say that!” shouted one of the truck drivers at Irene, as she drew coffee from the machine farther to Arthur’s right.

“She goes to your church?” Gus asked Arthur.

“My church? My dad’s church,” said Arthur.

Gus shook his head. “Looks like a hooker if I ever saw one.”

Irene returned with the coffees. “Oh—it’s
Arthur
! Oh, goodness! I heard about—Richard turned you out, didn’t he?” Her eyes looked a little more awake.

“News travels fast,” said Arthur.

“That’s true.” She pronounced it
tree-you
in her genteel manner. “I said to Richard—
I
could take you in and would. To be Christian. But
he
said that you had to learn the hard way—and repent.” She had put on a frown.

“
Irene
! Two beers for number three!” another waitress called out. “And four burgers with for the rail, tell Cookie!”

Irene moved.

“Get a load of that,” Arthur said to Gus with a smile, and got up from his stool. “Back in a sec.” He went to the men’s toilet, which had a lot of graffiti on the walls, drawings, phone numbers and C.B. code numbers, some circled in red and blue crayon.
Head jobs
, Arthur read.
Hot patootie massage
. Arthur washed his face in water so icy, it sent a chill all over him.

On the ride home, Veronica’s house being the first stop, the three of them talked about several things, but not Irene. She was too depressing, Arthur supposed, to be even funny.

22

W
hen Arthur went downstairs in the Brewster house the next day, he saw an unstamped letter on the hall table addressed to him in his mother’s handwriting. Betty, who had gone out an hour ago, hadn’t wanted to disturb him, Arthur supposed, because he had said he had some work to do before afternoon classes.

Dearest Arthur,

Phoned Gus and he said he thought you were still at the Brewsters’. Can you come for lunch today, Thursday? Am home alone. Didn’t want to bother Betty B. by phoning.

Love from your

Mom

It was ten to twelve. Arthur telephoned. “Sure, I can come, Mom. See you in about fifteen minutes.”

Earlier that morning, Arthur had helped Betty shift a bookcase to another wall of a room, which had involved taking all the books out and putting them back in the same order. Arthur had been happy to be of use, especially since Betty had been so grateful. Warren got bored at the mention of such jobs, Betty said.

Arthur left his car at the grass edge in front of his house.

“Hello, Arthur, how
are
you?” She kissed his cheek.

“Fine. Why not?—And Betty said I could stay at her house till I found something.”

“
Isn’t
that nice of her?—I didn’t see her this morning, just dropped the letter in the box. Must call her and thank her. Is Warren there now?”

“No, but Betty talked with him on the phone. It’s even his idea that I’m—
could
stay a few days till I found somewhere.” Arthur enjoyed saying that, because Warren Brewster’s attitude was so different from his father’s. “However—I’m inquiring about a dorm room this afternoon.”

They were in the kitchen, and Arthur smelled corned beef and cabbage, one of his favorite dishes. He took a beer from the fridge at his mother’s suggestion.

“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about, the dorm idea,” his mother said cheerfully. “I spoke with Mama Tuesday night. Told her—you know. So we agreed, Mama and I, that we could see about your dorm fees and the tuition, too. The important thing is not to worry,” his mother finished in a rush, as if she was embarrassed.

Arthur felt a little embarrassed. “Thanks, Mom.”

“So if your father wants to make such a fuss”—she slid cabbage onto a big white platter, around a rosy mountain of corned beef—“he’ll just have to make it all by himself.”

“Does Dad know?”

“Yes, because I told him straight off Tuesday night after I’d spoken to Mama. He thinks we’re spoiling you,
but
—I just want you to know we’re not all such stiff-necks in this family. I’m glad my side of the family can come through.—Now let’s talk about something else.” She smiled at him.

They sat down and began their lunch.

“Oh, Mom, last night I went by the Silver Arrow with Gus and his girlfriend. You know, where Irene works? Truck-stop? You bet! Really a pretty tough place. All the truckers kidding with Irene. Trying to make a date with her.” Arthur laughed.

“Really, Arthur? That bad?” asked his mother, looking amused.

“And Dad’s trying to save her soul. Question, has she got a soul to save?—Hello, Rovy!”

The cat had jumped onto his bench seat.

“I went to Eva MacNeil’s funeral this morning.”

“This
morning
, Mom?”

“Yes. Not many people, because her family’s in Chicago. Five of us from the Home, I’m glad to say. Very touching somehow—a girl of twenty-two. And Richard just can’t understand my feelings. The world’s full of such girls, he said, as if she were a delinquent—which she wasn’t. And what about the young man involved, I said to him. Seldom a mention of them, good or bad. Well—” Here his mother took a few seconds. “I must say her boyfriend wasn’t at the funeral. I understand this was one of those accidents, a short affair. I know she didn’t try to reach the boy. I think he was from out of town. Eva even went to work the same day she took the pills. She didn’t tell anyone she was so depressed.”

Arthur could imagine it: one night in bed, or afternoon, or any time, then pregnancy, then death. It suddenly struck Arthur that his father would consider suicide a sin, also.

“Sacredness of life, Richard talks about. Here’s a good place to—show it or uphold it, one would think. Young girl ‘in trouble,’ as they used to say.—Sometimes Richard’s attitude seems so like the Catholics’, I get worried. I shouldn’t say Catholic, I’m sure, but I don’t know how else to describe it.”

“Fundamentalist,” Arthur replied promptly.

After lunch, his mother found a spare suitcase and a couple of sturdy plastic bags, and into these they put more of Arthur’s belongings. He took the “Jupiter” Symphony from the living room, a present from his grandmother at Christmas, because Betty had a record player, and at any rate he wanted it with him. He took also Mozart’s string quartet in D Minor, belonging to him. His mother said he should feel free to come to the house whenever he wanted to, and she gave him back his keys, one to the front door, one to the garage door, which were on the same ring.

Then his mother had to leave, because she was late already for the Home.

Arthur stayed and washed the dishes, so that his mother would have a pleasant surprise, a clean kitchen, when she returned around 6 this evening. The telephone rang. Arthur didn’t answer it. It was a half-friendly house, a half-hostile house. Very odd. Arthur whistled “Sunday, Sweet Sunday.” Sweet Sunday, with nothing to do. When would he ever have that, with Maggie?

That afternoon, Arthur learned that he could move into a C.U. dorm, sharing a bedroom-study with one other freshman, for a hundred and fifty dollars a month with breakfast and dinner. Toilets and bathrooms were “down the hall,” the woman informed Arthur, and there was a swivel telephone which served two bedroom-studies. Arthur had seen one of the cramped rooms once, when he had visited a student. It was the cheapest lodging; he knew he would have to take it, but he hesitated. “Can I confirm this tomorrow? There’s more than one room like that free now?”

“Oh, yes, and this semester a lot of students drop out or they’ve been asked to leave and haven’t told us as yet.”

At dinner that evening with Betty, Arthur told her that there was a place for him in a dorm and that his family—specifically his mother and grandmother—had offered to pay his bills. While Betty was out, Arthur had prepared dinner.

“I don’t know why,” Betty said, “you particularly want to live in a dorm, when you could stay here. I know the dorm’s more convenient because it’s on the campus. But since you’ve got a car—Well, it’s up to you, Arthur.”

Of course Betty’s house was preferable! It had space; it was civilized. To live in the house was a little like being with Maggie. “Of course I’d prefer to be here,” he said finally. “I’d also want to pay you something.—That’s normal.”

“We’ll figure something out. Warren’s coming home tomorrow morning.
He
said—I didn’t even tell Warren you can cook! He thinks it’s a good idea if someone’s in the house with me, since he’s away so much. He suggested thirty dollars a week, all included.”

“Thank you.—Very reasonable,” Arthur said, trying to look as calm about it as Betty appeared to be, but he was thrilled.

“Reasonable, I suppose, but you’re a help around the house, and that’s something.” She smiled quickly at Arthur, the corners of her mouth went up, like Maggie’s. “Try it for a week. You may want to change your mind. But Warren says with housebreakers and so on—when
I’m
out so much—”

Arthur had a brief fantasy of tackling three armed robbers with his bare knuckles, knocking them senseless to the floor. He would relish that, protecting the house.

Arthur phoned his mother that evening from the living room telephone. Betty was upstairs. He told her about the arrangement with the Brewsters.

“I spoke with Betty around three this afternoon on the phone. She didn’t mention your staying.”

Arthur laughed. “She didn’t tell me you’d phoned. I suppose
you
phoned?”

His mother had. “Behave yourself, Arthur. And I’m very glad about this. Give Betty my—greetings and thanks, would you? I feel that you’re all right, there at her house.”

Maggie wrote to Arthur twice in January, but not to her mother. Arthur was to pass on her news, if any, she wrote, though every Sunday noon Maggie rang up, keeping a promise she had made to her mother. Maggie wrote that she was not sure she would come home for Easter. This surprised Arthur, since Maggie would have a week off at least, and economy couldn’t be a factor, because the family traveled free on Sigma Airlines.

In February, even with a heavy schedule of work at C.U. and a house project at the Brewsters’, preparing the cellar walls for whitewashing, Arthur found himself counting the weeks before Easter. Surely Maggie would come home. At any rate, it made Arthur happier to believe she would. When he asked Betty what she thought Maggie’s ideas were, Betty said she never knew what was up with Maggie until the last minute. Arthur worried, about her possibly having met someone else she liked, invariably an older fellow in Arthur’s imagination. On the other hand, her letters reassured him.

. . . You ask if I think of you in bed. Sure I do. And by the way what are you doing, free as the wind there? Here we have to check in by midnight, and no fellows allowed in the dorms after 10 p.m. But I’m not exactly complaining about that.

Glad your father’s keeping quiet, and that your mother is so understanding and helping with the checks! Mom says you’re being useful around the house and says Dad’s glad you are there.

The color of my bed? Well, it is beige, sort of like darkish oatmeal. How romantic!

Now I have to memorize a couple of stanzas of Byron, whom I quite like. He is really romantic, sometimes witty.

Yes, I think of you a lot, since you ask. Love always,

Maggie

Arthur kept all her letters in chronological order in a folder. Sometimes Maggie neglected to date them, so he did it.

Betty Brewster was out for dinner at least once a week, and perhaps once a week she had someone or several people to the house for dinner. Arthur helped on the latter occasions by setting the table and doing some cooking, helped serve drinks, then tactfully disappeared, unless Betty expressly asked him to eat with them. He found the Brewsters’ friends more interesting than those of his parents, and Arthur realized that his parents, even his mother, were not inclined to entertain. Arthur thought this was true of most of the town.

One evening in early March, when Betty and Arthur were having their after-dinner coffee at the table, they heard a car door slam in the silence, then a second door.

“Wonder who that is?” said Betty.

Arthur got up. Now he heard steps, and somebody knocked. “Who is it?”

“Robbie.”

“What’s the matter, Robbie?”

“Nothing! Can’t you open the door?”

Behind him, Betty said, “Your brother? He can come in, Arthur.”

Arthur opened the door but not widely, and Robbie marched in, followed by another person, Eddie Howell.

“Evening,” said Eddie Howell, removing a deerstalker cap. His fixed smile was on. “Excuse me, Mrs. Brewster. My name is Eddie Howell. We just wanted to ask how you are, Arthur.”

“Good evening,” said Betty.

“My brother Robbie,” Arthur said, frowning, annoyed by their oozing toward the living room. “You might’ve phoned first, Robbie.”

“Then you would’ve said no about us coming over,” Robbie replied. He was at last removing his coonskin cap. He wore his long hunting jacket and unfastened galoshes.

“You’ve got a lovely house, Mrs. Brewster,” said Eddie.

“And what can I do for you—both?” Arthur noticed that Eddie Howell had his briefcase.

“There’s nothing that you have to
do
for us, Arthur. Your father’s interested in how you’re doing—what you’re doing.”

Was he? Arthur saw pink dots in front of his eyes.

“Won’t you sit down?” asked Betty. “I’m glad to meet you, Robbie.”

Robbie nodded awkwardly. “Me, too.”

“We don’t want to keep you,” said Eddie Howell, at the same time glancing around as if trying to decide between the other sofa and an armchair as a place to sit.

“Take your coats off?” asked Betty.

“Oh, no, thank you.” Eddie Howell seemed definite about this at least. “No, I can say what I have to say very quickly. It’s that Richard, Arthur’s father, is concerned about how his boy is doing. Whether he’s happy—making progress.”

“Doing all right, thanks.” Arthur stood with folded arms.

Betty sat on the edge of a sofa.

Eddie Howell sat carefully at the end of the other sofa, and Robbie took an armchair, dangling his coonskin cap between his knees.

“Arthur has been through so much—last year,” Eddie Howell said, addressing Betty. “It isn’t easy for a young man to endure such experiences. Or a young woman,” he added. “Sets a soul in turmoil.”

But Howell’s phony smile could settle that turmoil, Arthur supposed. Robbie’s face looked blank and neutral, as if he weren’t even listening. He was looking at the big watercolor landscape over the fireplace.

“. . . wants to know if you’ve come to terms with what happened, if you’ve examined your own conscience and—if you can feel—or begin to feel at peace with God and yourself.
If
, your father asks.”

Arthur glanced at Betty, blinked and said with deliberate calm, “I’m doing all right at C.U. now. And I don’t know—what’s worrying him.”

Eddie Howell was silent.

“That you’re living
here
,” Robbie put in. “In this very house.”

Arthur took a breath. “I have to do some work tonight. Mrs. Brewster, too.” He addressed Eddie Howell.

“I won’t take long,” said Eddie with his pink-lipped smile. “Your father’s a little upset—understandably, I think—because you’re staying in this house. He says it’s wrong. With all due respect to Mrs. Brewster,” he conceded with a nod to her, “for her kindness and charity.”

“Charity?” Betty asked, smiling. “Arthur’s quite a help in this house, Mr.—”

“Howell.”

“Mr. Howell. I invited Arthur. He didn’t come begging.”