The Lady and Her Doctor (36 page)

THURSDAY. THE EIGHTEENTH

The dining-room steward was very much annoyed at having to go down to supplies at the last moment like this. The waiter said that he most certainly had checked his tables earlier, but for missing ashtrays, lifted silver. “Now, I ask you, wot will they steal next? Wot,” he said, “would any sane person want with a
salt
from the First Class Dining Room, sir?”

And the steward couldn't rightly blame him. “Wot, indeed! a
salt!
”

Chapter XII

Milton tore off the flap of the calendar and looked at the circle he had marked around the date, tore the calendar across and dropped it into the fireplace, then took another look at his watch. Twelve-twenty. The minute hand hadn't moved since the last time. It seemed to him that the twenty-four hour interval between tearing yesterday's leaf off the calendar and today's leaf was shorter than the interval between minutes today. Because today was the day.
Der Tag
. He had lived twenty-four hours since he woke this morning. You didn't have to be any Albert Einstein to know what relativity was, just live through one day like today.

But now he was set. He couldn't make any mistakes now and she wasn't going to make any move now.
Bon voyage
was all it was going to be. She was just coming to see him off, to let him go, to let loose.

She'd better, he thought, and his hand went to his pocket; she'd better. He heard the pugnacity in his inner voice and knew how false it was. He had nothing against her if she didn't start anything. Live and let live—start something and—He took his hand out of his pocket.

She was just coming to see him off. She wasn't going to make a move now. Any move, she'd have made it before now.

He hit the side of his head with his open palm as if he could jar the revolving thoughts loose, stop the wheel turning in there.

He looked at his watch again. He had planned not to leave the house until one-thirty, plenty of time to get to the boat and say
bon voyage
to Lady Constant. (And that's all it would be.) Milton looked around the big bedroom and ran out into the hall and down the stairs. He would burst a blood vessel waiting around here another minute.

Milton walked out into the hall where his new pigskin luggage stood near the door with his new gray overcoat from Tripler's folded neatly across it and the cap the salesman had said was the latest thing for boats on top of the coat, then walked back to the foot of the stairs and, as he called Mrs. Austen, felt in his pockets. First the breast pocket for his wallet with the passport and the letter of credit, then for the envelope with the confirmation of reservations. He did not need to touch what was in his trousers pocket again, that he had felt for twenty-four hundred times since the morning. It was insurance, that's all. He wet his lips and called Mrs. Austen again, hearing, as he did so, her steps on the third floor. “Mrs. Austen, you all packed?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Swell. Look, Mrs. Austen, I've got a couple of things I have to do before the boat sails. “He started up the stairs. So I'll come on up and get your valise and we'll get out of here now.”

“But, sir—the gentleman from the Museum hasn't come yet.”

“I forgot to tell you. I got a letter this morning; they put it off again until tomorrow. Boy, I knew they were looking this gift horse in the mouth, but now you'd think even looking was too much trouble.”

“But, sir—”

But, sir.
Take it easy, he told himself, moving steadily upward.

“Sir, someone must show them.”

“That's okay. My sister-in-law, Mrs. Krop, is going to do that little thing. It's going to be just the way my wife wanted, don't worry.” What he wanted to do was to run upstairs, grab the damned valise in one hand and the old mule in the other. “I'm on my way over to give my sister-in-law the keys to the house now and tell her just what's what. And say good-by,” he added, his heart lurching at that thought. “So it's O.K., Mrs. Austen.”

“Mrs. Krop. Yes, sir, I see.” She stepped to the side of the landing and waited for him to come up; when he reached the third floor she walked to the door of her room and threw it open for him.

Milton pointed. “I thought you were all packed?” The battered suitcase lay open on the bed.

“Yes, sir, I am.” She followed Milton into the room. “I am all packed, sir. I would just like you to go over my things before I close the case, sir.”

“What the hell for?” Why did her “sirs” always sound like dirty cracks?

“Sir, I would just like you to go over my things, so that—so that you will know I haven't taken anything that isn't mine.” She spoke very quietly, so softly and hesitantly that he could barely hear her.

“Nuts.” The way she turned on him then, the look she gave him!
Sir!
He could hear Jenny advising him to go look at the damned bag so the damned old mule would love him like a son. Nuts to Jenny's advice. Milton bent over and pulled the lid of the suitcase down and it groaned as if he had hurt it.

Mrs. Austen tried to stop him. “Please, sir, it's customary.”

“Not with me it isn't. It isn't my custom, Mrs. Austen. No, look, I don't think much of the custom, no kidding—if I had more time I'd explain you why—” The old biddy looked at him as if a whole lifetime couldn't explain her to him or him to her. “Sorry,” he said, trying to smile agreeably, “no can do today, Mrs. Austen.” He lifted her hand off the old valise and, leaning on the lid, snapped the lock shut and then fastened the sides. Service. “I've got a boat to catch and about a million things to do. Put on your hat and coat and let's go.”
But, sir.
“Let's go, let's go!” He picked up the valise and heard her reluctantly following him.

As he walked down the stairs, he talked to her. “Now, Mrs. Austen, if I didn't think you were one hundred per cent honest—and faithful—would I give you the pension? For the love of Mike, what would you want to take from here, anyhow? You just forget what's customary and I'll drive you to Roosevelt and you go down to Pennsylvania Station the way we planned and get on that train for back home and take it easy. On Easy Street.” But that was enough to start her again and she began playing the same record, her good name, customary, just look through—Enough of that. Enough of her, Milton thought. He had said he'd put her on the subway himself but suddenly felt he couldn't. He hadn't let her out of his sight since they came home from the police station together. Old Lady Picklepuss. He hadn't let her out of his sight day or night and now he couldn't take one more minute of it.

He carried her bag and then his own out on the front steps and standing there, rubbing his arms, heard a car on the street and thought why not a cab? Why not turn her over to a cabby and pay him in advance, plus a fat tip to take old sourpuss straight to Pennsylvania. He could do it. It would look better than dropping her at the station himself. He could afford it. Today, now, soon—he could afford to do anything he wanted to and nothing he didn't want. Soon.

Milton carried his bags and Mrs. Austen's down to the gate, set hers on the sidewalk and put his into the car, then, nodding soberly to the baby carriage brigade who seemed to be picketing the gate the way they walked up and down in front of it, he went back to the house for Mrs. Austen.

She was standing in the hall waiting for him. He left the door open behind him and waved for her to go out, then went into the drawing room and tested the windows, then the taipan room, then the sitting-room windows. The dining room, however, was too much for his stomach. The dining room would have thrown him. He didn't see Sloane sitting there as he had last seen her, nothing like that, it just threw him. He went out quickly and locked the front door behind him.

“Did you do the back door, sir?”

Milton shook his head and moved off to the side, then stopped. “Hell with the back door,” he said. “Hell with it.” The dining room threw him. As he put the key into his pocket to give to Jenny, he could feel the saltcellar from the
Queen Elizabeth
, the souvenir. (That was all it would be, a souvenir. She wasn't going to make a move. He was just carrying insurance, that was all.) “Let's get going,” he said, and Mrs. Austen started down the front path for the last time, and he followed her slow footsteps for the last time.

Milton whistled at a cab and pointed left to the cabby, who nodded and started a U turn. He had to wait for that and for the cabby to figure how much the ride to Pennsylvania Station would come to and that gave the baby brigade time to ask questions. He was sailing for Europe on the
Queen Elizabeth
that afternoon, he told them. The old lady (she stood there like a statue; wisps of her hair blowing in the wind were all that moved) was going back home. The house was going to be wrecked starting next week and until then the house would be empty, he said. He gave the cabbie a ten-dollar bill and told him to keep the change and then, because he wasn't sure whether he should or shouldn't shake hands with old sourpuss, he sort of waved at her and at the baby brigade, said a kind of general good-by, got into the Studie and drove off.

Mrs. Levinson took her hands off the rail of the baby carriage and rubbed them together. “Empty!” she said, tossing her head at the Haunted House. “Little does he know! I'll bet you anything the minute word gets around that the doctor is out of the way that house will be full of teenagers wrecking the place for the heck of it!”

“Like they did to that old house where your apartment now stands. Oh, you wouldn't know. You weren't here, Mrs. Olson. That was something!”

“Teenage gangs,” Mrs. Olson said, “I can imagine!”

The cabbie reached back and opened his rear door. “Which one is going?”

Mrs. Austen picked up her valise and started toward the taxi. Mrs. Levinson went to help her and shoved the valise in. Mrs. Austen thanked Mrs. Levinson, turned back to look at the Haunted House and then got into the taxi and it moved off.

“Did you see her face?” Mrs. Levinson asked. “She didn't want to go! If it was me,” Mrs. Levinson said, “I'd run so fast—!”

“Yes, Milt,” Jenny said. “I got it. I got it. The guy from this museum in Boston will come around noon tomorrow. I have the key to the front door.” She held up the key but did not take her eyes from Milton. “I should be there and show him what you told me and he will make arrangements to get it to the museum
if
he wants it. A big if! And what he doesn't take, I can take. Any old thing my heart desires. Thanks.”

“Now, listen, Jenny, I'm not offering you my secondhand clothes, you understand. This is old furniture and it could be valuable and the car isn't three years old, yet. You got the car keys there?” She held them up. “You don't have to be so sarcastic.”

“I'm not being sarcastic, Milt, it's not that. Can't you sit at least? You've been walking up and down this room since you got here. You'll wear out the rug.” She patted the Hide-a-Bed next to her.

“You can take all the rugs you want from the house if I wear this out.”

“Oh, Milt, what do you think I care about rugs?” She jumped up. “What's the matter with you, Milt?”

“What's the matter? In a couple of hours I'll be waving good-by to the skyline of New York. I'll be—off to the races! What's the matter with me!”

Jenny put both hands over her face. “Do you think I forgot that, Milt? For a minute? For a minute since you told me?”

Milton saw her body shaking. “That makes two of us.”

“I worry so about you, Milt. I yell at the kids. I lose my temper over every little thing. In bed at night I stuff the pillow in my mouth so they won't hear me.” She took her hands away from her face. “I worry so! Don't stay away too long, will you, Milt? In Europe. What's Europe?” She bit her lip. “You're an American, Milt, come back home to America.”

“Come home to die like an animal crawls into a hole? I'm going to have something, and then I'll die big, Jenny. I didn't live big but I'll die big.”

“Have something! Nothing! Who's going to look after you, Milt? Who's going to watch over you? Milt, if you want, I'll park the kids with Uncle Frank. I'll get like a housekeeper, or both the kids could go to boarding schools. You're a bigger kid than my two, Milt!”

“Why sure, if you only had a passport, you could come with me,” he said, pulling out the envelope, tapping it. “If you look, you'll see. A suite. Two bedrooms. A regular apartment.”

“Two? For who, Milt?”

“One for you and one for me, of course.”

“For who, Milt? For Cissie? Is it for Cissie?”

“Ask her. Go upstairs and ask her, Jenny. I took her out one night to make up for being a stinker to her—on account of you, Jenny—so go on up and ask her if we're eloping on the
Queen Elizabeth!
”

She searched his face, shook her head. “I believe you, Milt.”

He laid his hand on her shoulder gently. “One room was for my wife, Jenny. We were going in style. She ordered the suite and I'm stuck with it. One bedroom is going to be empty, but ishkabibble, I always liked space.” He looked at the small room scornfully. “Don't fence me in!”

“I believe you,” Jenny said. She was still thinking about Cissie.

Milton wondered, looking at Jenny, whether if it hadn't been for Jenny he would have given Cissie a second thought. (A look, yes. A pretty little kid like that, a pretty little bird, but if not for Jenny, Cissie might not have been more than a ship that passed in the night. Yessie-Cissie with her “yeses” and Jenny with her “no's.” “Boy, Jenny, it's too bad you haven't got a passport—You'd look swell in a bikini!” It was a nasty crack and Jenny's hands went to her generous hips and her head came up. “Boy,” Milton said, and then he couldn't look at her any longer. “Well, I better get going.”