The Road Through the Wall (19 page)

Mr. and Mrs. Ransom-Jones discussed the advisability of a high and firm hedge around their garden, and Mr. Byrne found serious fault with the planning of the unknown man whom he might criticize although he would never influence or meet him. The most outrageous estimates in the neighborhood would have the road finished by the end of summer.

It may be a matter of some importance to note that on the other side, the corresponding street, a Mr. Honeywell was driven by seeing his side of the wall come down into committing himself on paper to the purchase of a modest estate beyond the gates; he had been debating for so long that his wife and children had begun to despair. His children subsequently met Johnny Desmond at a country-club dance and discovered that for years they had been near neighbors. Also on that other street a new family, recently moved in, complained to the family which had sold them the house that they had not been warned of the new road coming; the son of this new family later on walked to high school every morning with Mary Byrne. Mrs. Mack's old dog was generally supposed to be the father of eventual puppies on the other street. The workmen, who made all this possible, were family men and earned their money by their work just as Mr. Desmond did.

CHAPTER FIVE

The sounds of the wall coming down stayed on Pepper Street for almost a week, and it seemed that dust from the old bricks filled every living-room on the block, even as far as the Ransom-Joneses. Mrs. Desmond and Mrs. Merriam were the principal sufferers, since Pepper Street ended between their two houses; after two days of changing Caroline into clean clothes three or four times a day and brushing visible dust off the toys, Mrs. Desmond admitted defeat and went with her daughter to a nearby summer resort to stay a week. The Merriams endured the dust but not the noise; Mrs. Merriam twice called the construction company whose name was on the “Men Working” sign, and was twice politely told to mind her own business. Mrs. Merriam's temper was tarter than usual until the bricks were down and neatly stacked at the curb, and Mr. Merriam was kept posted by a nightly bulletin on the state of Mrs. Merriam's headache. Farther down the block, toward the Donald and Byrne and Roberts houses, the complaints were less physical and more aesthetic; the idea that placid Pepper Street was being deformed by workmen and dirt and great foul machines was almost as bad as the prospect of being shortly on a direct road with the rest of the world.

The children, of course, knew little of the discomfort of strange men and big machines; every morning while the bricks were coming down, they crowded together on the corner by the Merriam house—none of them allowed to cross Cortez Road for fear of falling bricks—and watched and commented eagerly on the process of the work; at one point it seemed that the wall itself was tottering all up and down Cortez Road, and Tod Donald called out across the street approximately at a man in tight corduroy pants, “Hey, looka that, the whole wall's going to fall on you,” and the man turned and looked at the children and laughed.

In the Martin house there was dismal foreboding. It seemed likely that tearing down the wall might mean disaster for old Mr. Martin. First of all, perhaps the dust would reach as far as his flowers, penetrate the sealed greenhouses, dirty the roses. Secondly, once the wall was broken into, the fields of the estate, the sacred enclosed place which harbored the main house, the garages, the tennis court and the terraced gardens as well as Mr. Martin's greenhouses, would be exposed to intrusions from the outside world, perhaps small boys with stones, perhaps curious trespassers gathering flowers, perhaps all those people with large feet who trample down tiny growing things. More than that, even, came into Mr. Martin's old mind. Now, with this madness of destruction—the disregarding abandoned battering tearing-apart of things permanent because they had been standing so long—what with tearing down walls and selling land, who could tell what would follow? The tennis court might go to make room for an apartment house, perhaps the terraced gardens might be cut into front yards, perhaps even the greenhouses might vanish. Mr. Martin sat apprehensively, in the evenings, thinking on flowers, the blossoms of which were not his preoccupation, seeing in his dreams the broken glass, the crushed roots. Mrs. Martin shook her head and kept the children away; her daughter-in-law, mother of George and Hallie, was more silent than usual, and avoided the room where the old man sat. George and Hallie went quietly around the old house, washing when they had to, coming to table when they were called; and the old people knew brick by brick as the wall was going.

The wall began to bore the children after a few days. There was not much fun in standing across the street by the hour, daring an occasional comment, guessing which way the bricks were going to fall, knowing the watchful eyes from windows above to prevent their putting one foot off the legal curb. By about the third day they were back at their games, always ready for news of the wall but tired of bricks.

Late one afternoon when all the children were playing in front of their usual place, the Donald house, Hallie Martin came softly out of her house and stood in front of it for a minute looking across the street. She had on her best dress—it was velveteen plaid, and too small for her—and she had put on her mother's lipstick. She looked at the men working across the street and then back at her house. Her mother and grandfather were out, working at their respective jobs, and her grandmother was taking a nap; her brother George was with the other children. Daintily, Hallie put one foot into the street, and ran across. There were four or five men working on the wall; they were hot and irritable and covered with dust, and Hallie approached cautiously.

One of the men grunted; none of them looked up.

“Hello,” Hallie said. “It's hot, isn't it?”

One of the men, brushing past Hallie, said with annoyance, “Get away from there, kid. Dangerous.”

“I'm all right,” Hallie said. She smoothed her hair with her hand and said, looking with great nonchalance off into the distance, “Bet you sure wish you were having a nice cold soda right now.”

One of the men, the one with the tight corduroy pants, looked at another and laughed. “Glass of beer,” he said.

“Or a glass of beer,” Hallie said. “Bet you sure wish you had a nice cold glass of beer right now.”

“You drink beer, kid?” the man in the tight corduroy pants asked Hallie.

“Sometimes,” Hallie said carelessly. “I never touch much of it, though.”

“Run along now,” another of the men commanded. “You're going to be in the way.”

Hallie tossed her head as Helen Williams used to. “You can't tell
me
what to do,” she said.

“
Run
along,” the man said.

Hallie moved a step or so and said defiantly, “I'm going to the city, and I'm going to go in a store and get a nice big cold glass of beer.”

“Go on,” the man said, “get along.” The man in the tight corduroy pants called to Hallie, “You better get over there across the street, kid.” Hallie came nearer to him instead and said, “You come from the city?”

“Nope,” the man said.

“I got lots of nice boy friends in the city,” Hallie said.

The man said, “Out of the way there,” and pushed past her to go with the heavy tool he had been using down to the place where the bricks were being stacked. “
He
doesn't know much,” Hallie said to the man who had been working next to him.

“He knows you're gonna get killed if you don't get out of the way,” was all the satisfaction she got.

Defeated, Hallie retired to the curb, where she stood for a few minutes, and then she said loudly, “Any one who wants a nice cold glass of beer can come along,” and started down the street. When she had gone a little way she stopped and looked back at the men still working, yelled “Dirty bums!” and ran off toward the highway.

•   •   •

That evening Harriet was just putting away the last of the dinner dishes, and her mother was scouring the sink, when the doorbell rang. Mr. Merriam got up tiredly from his chair in the living-room and went to the door, opened it, and then called, “Harriet?”

When Harriet ran to the door she was first afraid and then embarrassed. “What are you doing
here
?” she said roughly, and then she saw Mrs. Perlman behind Marilyn, and at the same moment heard her mother's voice behind her. “Good evening,” Mrs. Merriam said.

Marilyn was standing on the outside of the door as helplessly as Harriet on the inside. Mrs. Perlman said, over her daughter's head, “Mrs. Merriam? I'm Mrs. Perlman, Marilyn's mother. Marilyn wanted to see Harriet for a minute, and so we just stopped by.”

Mrs. Merriam said, “Won't you come in?” and held the door open wider for Mrs. Perlman and Marilyn. Marilyn grabbed Harriet's arm and said, “Listen, wait'll I
tell
you,” and Harriet said, “What'd you
come
for?” and Mrs. Merriam called from the living-room, “No secrets, girls. Come in.”

“I've been anxious to meet you and Mr. Merriam,” Mrs. Perlman was saying when Harriet and Marilyn came in. “Marilyn has told me so much about Harriet.”

“I don't think I've met Marilyn before,” Mrs. Merriam said, looking Marilyn up and down. “Tell me, are you in Harriet's class at school?”

“She's a grade ahead of me, Mother,” Harriet said, running her words together in her haste, “and we've been reading
Vanity Fair
together and I see her all the time in school.”

“Harriet has been down to see us several times,” Mrs. Perlman said.

“Indeed,” Mrs. Merriam said. She waited, and there was a long silence.

“The girls do have such a good time together,” Mrs. Perlman went on at last. She touched her lips with her tongue, and said, “I suppose you must know how much Marilyn has enjoyed being with Harriet. Such a charming girl. Although,” she added with a false little laugh, “I shouldn't say it in front of her.”

“Harriet tries to behave herself as well as possible,” Mrs. Merriam said. There was another silence. Mrs. Merriam seemed to be content with it; she sat with her hands folded quietly, looking at the ashtray on the table next to the chair where Mrs. Perlman was sitting. There was a polite small smile on her face.

Mrs. Perlman was sitting on the edge of her chair, and she smiled widely whenever she met Mrs. Merriam's eye, or Harriet's, smiled blindly even at Marilyn, who sat next to Harriet on the couch and watched her mother eagerly.

“We were just passing by,” Mrs. Perlman said. She seemed to have got back on the track of her planned remarks; her voice eased a little, and she said, “We took the little Martin girl home; she ran away, you know.”

Mrs. Merriam lifted her eyes. She looked at Harriet and Marilyn, and hesitated. Finally she said, “What happened?”

Mrs. Perlman shook her head sadly. “I have no idea, really. My husband found her about a mile out of town, on the road to San Francisco. She was—” Mrs. Perlman looked at Harriet and Marilyn “—trying to beg a ride.”

“Really?” Mrs. Merriam leaned forward a little. “All alone?”

“All alone,” Mrs. Perlman said, and nodded. “All alone. She was just standing there with her—with her thumb, you know, and she was all dressed up, and she was wearing lipstick.”

“Imagine,” Mrs. Merriam said.

“Imagine,” Mrs. Perlman agreed. “My husband stopped right away, of
course
. He was coming the other way, back home, you know, but he recognized her and made her get in the car and come home with him. A child like that.”

“It's dreadful,” Mrs. Merriam said. “Where was she going, did she say?”

“Just to San Francisco. She had begged rides from strangers that far, and she intended to go right into the city. Heaven only
knows
what she wanted to do there,” Mrs. Perlman said.

“Did she have any money?” Mrs. Merriam asked. “I imagine her mother was frightened.”

“Her mother isn't home yet,” Mrs. Perlman said gently.

“Of course,” Mrs. Merriam said. “She works until late at night.” She gave the words an inexplicable emphasis, smiling a little.

Marilyn broke in eagerly: “Her grandmother said she was going to give Hallie the beating of her life, and I don't blame Hallie for not wanting to go home because they were sure mad at
her
.”

Mrs. Merriam turned her head slightly to look at Harriet and Marilyn on the couch. “It was very lucky that Mr. Perlman came by at that moment.”

“She might've been there all night,” Marilyn said.

Mrs. Merriam was silent, and after a minute Mrs. Perlman said “Marilyn?” and started to get up. Mrs. Merriam stood up immediately, and when Harriet came over to her she moved a step away.

“I
am
happy to have met you at last,” Mrs. Perlman said on her way to the door. “Marilyn, you can see Harriet tomorrow. It's late. I hope I'll see you again,” she said to Mrs. Merriam.

“Thank you,” Mrs. Merriam said. She stood with Harriet by the door while Marilyn and her mother went down the walk. “Good night, Harriet,” Marilyn called back, and Harriet heard her own voice answer strangely, “Good night.”

When Mrs. Merriam shut the door she would not look at Harriet. She said quietly, “It's bedtime, Harriet. Go upstairs.”

Harriet started upstairs without a word. Halfway up, she heard her mother's level voice saying, “I'll speak to you in the morning,” and when she reached her own room she shut the door and thought, I could kill her for coming here tonight, why did she think she had any right to come?

Downstairs, after a minute, she heard her mother's steps going toward the phone.

•   •   •

Mrs. Roberts was restless; dinner was long over and yet it was too early to go to bed; Mrs. Roberts was quietly reading a mystery story in her chair by the fireplace, and the open windows on either side of the fireplace brought in the scent of flowers and the heavy hot night air. Mr. Roberts paced the living-room, went into the kitchen for a drink of water, debated having a highball but refrained when he thought about Mrs. Roberts, and came back into the living-room to wander aimlessly about.

“What on earth is the matter with you?” Mrs. Roberts asked amiably, looking up from her book; the Robertses were on good terms tonight, and she smiled when she spoke. “You got the jitters or something?”

“Just don't know what to do with myself,” Mr. Roberts said. He struck an aimless note on the piano; he would have liked to sit down and play soft soothing music, long rippling chords that would blend with the night air and his mood, but the only tune that he could play was “Yankee Doodle,” and he turned irritably away from the piano.

“Turn on the radio,” Mrs. Roberts said. “Or go to bed or something.” She went back to her book.

Mr. Roberts went to the window and stood looking out. The street outside was partially visible between the bushes on the lawn, but there was nothing there except the sidewalk and the trees sleeping quietly in the moonlight.