Chapter 10
A month later Marge Daugherty, Lucy’s aunt, phoned and invited Larry to dinner, saying that she had always wanted him to come up, ever since he had been so nice about helping Lucy with her case, and that she and Ed didn’t see nearly enough of Lucy and Arthur’s friends. She made it sound casual. It was going to be just the family. They’d put on an extra plate for him, as easy as that.
Larry accepted, and joined them in a round of drinks when he arrived. Arthur complained about the old-fashioned Ed had mixed. “Still loading them with sugar.” He held his squat glass up to the light. “Damned stuff won’t even dissolve. It’s one way to kill good rye.”
“Is it too sweet again?” Marge reached for his glass. “I’ll fix you another.” She glanced at Ed accusingly on her way to the kitchen. “Just because you like them sweet doesn’t mean other people want to get diabetes.”
“I only put in half the usual,” Ed muttered.
Marge picked up a fresh glass, and spooning a tip of sugar from the bowl, sprinkled a few crystals on top of an orange slice while Lucy called to her, “Not any in Arthur’s.”
Bemrose let them wrangle. It was obviously satisfactory to him if they fussed over his cocktail. He sprawled in the armchair, and thanked Marge curtly when she handed him the glass, not bothering to mention the drink she had thrown away on his account.
They sat down to dinner at a table in a corner of the living room, and Marge apologized for the simple meal, assuring Larry that they were treating him just like home folks.
Ed took his place at the head of the table, although it bothered Bemrose to sit alongside. He made a to-do about straddling the table leg, and Larry understood for the first time why protocol was important at state dinners. A man’s place at the head of the table gave him authority, as though his opinions mattered. Ed’s seemed to need bolstering, at least when Bemrose was around.
They might not have started on the War as quickly if Marge had been there to appease them with small talk, but after the first course, she left the room to bring in the roast. Lucy wanted to help her, but Marge urged her to stay put, probably to keep Arthur and Ed from ruining each other’s digestions.
At that point Larry guessed why he had been invited. Marge probably hoped he would ease what must be the growing tension of these family dinners. She and Lucy together couldn’t manage Bemrose and were counting on Larry to give them a hand, or at least to show them how it was done. Larry noticed that Lucy stopped eating whenever Ed began to talk.
He was discussing the recent Nazi drive into Russia, commanded by von Bock. Already the Germans had closed in on Leningrad, although the Russian war was scarcely a hundred days old. The Nazis had about two million men and five thousand tanks in the field. “The paper tonight says they’re pretty close to Moscow,” Ed observed. “I wonder if the Russians can hold out.”
Bemrose shook his head gravely. “I hope to God they can. It’s going to take at least until spring for our stuff to get through.”
Ed meticulously buttered a roll. “We voted them some more Lend-Lease the other day. That should hold them. About five million dollars worth, wasn’t it?” he asked sharply.
“Right now it looks like another Dunkirk.”
“The Church would just as soon see them go down,” Ed remarked.
“I wouldn’t be dogmatic about it,” Bemrose pointed out. “Judge Murphy made a statement in Washington, backing up the President on Russia, and he’s a prominent Catholic.”
“You’ve got the whole Lindbergh crowd on the other side, too,” Ed reminded him. “Lindbergh, Wheeler, General Wood. Did you hear that broadcast from Rome? It said that Lindbergh had better do the talking over here instead of Roosevelt——”
Bemrose hacked viciously at the lamb bone on his plate.
Lucy put her hand on his sleeve, warning him.
“I’m still in favor of sitting tight and not going in until we have to,” Ed declared. “Once we do get in, we ought to be smart and pull out fast. This time we don’t want to feed a bunch of starving Europeans when the war is over.”
“Which would you rather see us do?” Bemrose asked bitterly. “Stay over there and keep order until they get on their feet, or maintain the biggest army in the world from now on? We’ll have to do one or the other.”
“Let the English take care of them. Or Russia. When we finish up, we ought to pull out,” Ed insisted.
Marge giggled nervously. “We aren’t even in the War, and they’re deciding what we should do when it’s over.”
Larry pointed to the lamb on his plate. “Like butter. And tell Bessie someday how you get the au gratin potatoes brown on top——”
“I don’t know what the hell we’re waiting for.” Bemrose’s voice was squeezed and harsh. “Waiting for the British to go under, I guess, so we’ll have to lick Hitler by ourselves.” He sipped his water, had trouble swallowing, and choked.
Lucy thumped his back, but he twisted away from her and bumped his knee against the table leg.
“Have you heard anything from the Army about your commission?” Marge asked him.
Lucy shook her head at Marge, and Arthur continued to cough into his napkin.
“Maybe the Army isn’t sure we’re going to get in it and isn’t handing out anything,” Ed remarked.
“They know what they can do with their commission,” Bemrose said. “I’m going to give them two more weeks. If nothing comes through, I’ll close the office and enlist.”
He will, too, Larry reflected. While a lot of fellows were figuring how they could stay out, Bemrose was going to give up a practice it had taken him almost twenty years to build. Without a second thought he would lock the office, close his house, and get into it. As a private, if they wouldn’t have him any other way. Sure, Larry knew plenty of men who were willing to go—his nephew, Bill, a farmer out in Iowa, Joe Clarke, a college friend who owned timber near Seattle, Eddie Goldbert, the kid who waited on Bessie at the vegetable store in the middle of the block, Larry’s own younger brother, Dave, a physician for the Central Chicle Company. A lot of kids just out of school couldn’t wait to get in, but he wondered how many older men past forty were willing to chuck their professions, men who could ask for safe jobs in Washington, who had access to the White House and held I.O.U.s from the party that was in, as Bemrose did. He might be an idealist, but he deserved credit for acting on his convictions.
How many in the country besides the President himself had the foresight to see what the defeat of Russia or of England might mean? If Bemrose and Janice hadn’t been around and kept pointing it out to him, Larry wondered whether he’d be hep yet, or like Ed, hoping for the best, counting on our luck to get by and let other countries do our fighting. Bemrose was a complex, mixed-up guy. But for all his queer kind of snobbishness and his tactics to indebt those who were powerful and entrenched, for all his drive to reach the top of his profession, to handle the biggest and toughest cases and win them, to be kingpin at home and to keep reminding Lucy of it, Bemrose had a deep-dyed honesty. He was willing to face up to the big questions and to act. He thought the country should be in there fighting this War, and was eager to fight. Personally. Larry might not agree with him, but he admired Bemrose’s guts.
He couldn’t help but respect a man who put what he believed ahead of what was easy and comfortable, and who was willing to trade in the working investment of a lifetime for a chance to stick by his convictions. Larry could forget his flare-ups of temper, and be damned glad Bemrose was his friend. This crowd here—Larry looked around the table—they could feel good about being related to him.
Lucy mixed small pieces of her lamb with her potatoes, as if by disguising them she would do away with the act of swallowing. She fingered her bread into doughy balls and scattered them on her butter plate. The scratched look came back to her eyes, as though someone had carelessly drawn a fingernail across the eyeball. “You tell him, Larry,” she urged. “Tell him there’s plenty of time after we get in—” Her voice shook quietly.
“You ought to think of Lucy,” Marge said. “It isn’t going to be easy for her. Not even if you wait. She’s still a bride——”
“She can get used to being an adult,” he said. “I’d hate to think of myself bringing the bride her breakfast in bed while England and Russia went under. How do you take your breakfast coffee? One sugar or two?”
“Oh, lay off,” Ed said.
Marge stopped to soothe Lucy’s shoulder on her way to the kitchen.
During dessert Larry complimented Marge extravagantly on her plum cake.
She puffed up with the flattery. “Do you really like it, Larry?” She giggled and touched his hand suggestively. “You don’t mind if I call you Larry? You’re like one of the family.”
“I never mind what a beautiful woman does,” Larry said, figuring there was no harm in flattering her. If Bemrose would only sweeten her with a compliment now and then— He knew how, and could make it sound convincing. The difference between them was that Arthur had to like someone to make an effort. It almost caused him physical pain to pretend with people he didn’t care for. Handing out flattery didn’t make Larry feel like a hypocrite. With Larry it rolled out, and when someone grabbed the hook, he felt nothing but pleasure.
“Have you heard the one about the two cloak-and-suiters who met on Sixth Avenue——”
Bemrose frowned, but Larry went on with the story. Marge laughed so hard that the tears came. Her giggle turned into a shrill cackle. Ed grinned behind the thick spectacles with high school shame at enjoying a dirty story. Lucy’s sad smile seemed to be fulfilling an obligation.
“You never told us he could—” Marge pointed at him and continued to laugh helplessly.
“Where did you pick up the accent?” Ed asked. “You sure have it down pat. Did you ever hear Lou Holtz tell them back in the old days at the Palace?”
But Bemrose didn’t smile.
“Sorry to put you through it again.” Larry turned toward him. “He’s heard me tell that story twenty or thirty times.”
Marge insisted on doing the dishes alone. After Arthur and Ed had pushed the dining table against the wall, they settled down in what became the living room. Larry expected Ed to produce his shoe wax and begin polishing the furniture, noticing him glance uneasily at the wooden leg of a chair to make sure it hadn’t been kicked. But Ed quietly fussed with his pipe. He reamed and refilled the bowl, cleaned the stem, replaced an empty match box with a fresh one, and settled back to a smoke.
“Pick up any liquor last week?” he asked Larry. A federal excise had been placed on liquor October first, and buyers had battled in the stores to lay in a tax-free supply. “I managed to get hold of a case of Bourbon.”
Larry shrugged. “I always let Bessie do the buying for the house. She said something about putting in a few bottles of Scotch. We don’t use much of the stuff——”
Lucy, who hadn’t spoken since Bemrose’s outburst at dinner, timidly said, “Arthur’s dealer on Madison Avenue saved us a case——”
Slouched in his chair and miles away, Bemrose suddenly sat up straight. “Why didn’t you tell me so before?”
“I didn’t think of it.”
“You might have thought of it,” he said. “It might have occurred to you that I don’t believe in beating the government out of taxes. If we have to levy taxes on liquor to pay for the War, and we consume liquor, then I want to pay the taxes on what we consume.”
Larry had heard him sound like that in court.
“Furthermore, I don’t want Mr. Valencia on Madison Avenue telling the neighborhood that Arthur H. Bemrose laid in enough Scotch to last him a year. It doesn’t sound good, not even if Mrs. Bemrose——”
Lucy raised her hand, then let her wrist drop on the arm of the chair. “It’s only a case, dear. It won’t last more than——”
His ears were stiff and red. “I suppose you told Mr. Valencia that we use a case a week.”
“Let her alone,” Ed interrupted. “Everyone was putting in stuff last week. The liquor stores were jammed. She only thought——”
“She doesn’t. That’s the trouble. I wish once in a while you’d ask me——”
“You were in Washington.”
“You mean for a whole day I was in Washington.”
Larry closed his fingers sharply against his palm. “Arthur!”
Bemrose walked to the radio and looked at his watch as he fiddled with the dial. He skimmed through a quiz program where the master of ceremonies was saying, “Two ‘p’s’ and an ‘i.’ That’s right, Mrs. Anderson, that is the way you spell Mississippi, and just for that you get four clean, crisp dollar bills, count ’em, one-two-three-four.” Some swing music faded in and out. The dial picked up the last sentence of a shoe commercial promising that now he can be taller than she is, and finally the solid, academic voice of the New York Times brought the nine o’clock news. Bemrose, visibly relieved, sat down to hear the headline summary.
Larry turned to Ed. “How about a hand of gin rummy?”
“Never played it,” Ed replied. “I’ll play you regular rummy.”
“You don’t have to be Einstein to learn. I can teach you in ten minutes.” He turned to Lucy and to Arthur. “Want to make it four-handed?”
But before they had a chance to answer, Ed cut in. “Arthur doesn’t play cards.”
Quizzically Larry looked at him. Why? Why didn’t he want to play cards with Ed instead of discussing the War? One of the reasons a man played cards was to while away hours that might seem interminable because he had to spend them with people he couldn’t talk to.
Bemrose flushed. “I haven’t seen tonight’s paper,” he said. “You two go ahead and play.” He went to the hall and brought back a copy of the New York Post. “I want to see if the Supreme Court decided anything in that anti-trust case——”
Larry motioned Lucy to watch the game, but Marge had finished the dishes and brought over a tapestry footstool cover for Lucy to work on with her. Ed clicked off the radio announcements of a sale on sunfast cotton pinafores, and except for a sudden intermittent giggle from Marge, the room settled down to an uneasy silence.
Larry saw that Bemrose was clutching the edge of the paper in his fist and sinking his teeth into the newsprint like a starved man reading a free-restaurant ad. His brow was pulled together, and his hair and mustache defied combing.
Larry expected the quiet to explode, but in a half hour nothing happened except that Ed had mastered gin rummy scoring, and Lucy and Marge had filled a corner of their tapestry cloth with even stitches of dark green wool. Larry began to draw an unrationed breath at last.
The phone rang and Marge jumped up to answer it at a table in the hall. Disappointed, she called from the doorway, “It’s for you, Larry.”
Maybe she thought nostalgically of when Lucy was single and had young men ringing her up. Larry moved toward the phone, sensing the instrument was dangerous and might explode some of the dynamite that was lying around the room. He hesitated before he lifted the receiver. Bessie’s happy, excited voice came through.
“Can you get away from there? Miss Baldwin, you know—Janice Baldwin, that friend of yours—is in town on her way to Hollywood. They’re making a picture of her book, Larry. She told me all about it. She sounds awfully nice.” Bessie chattered on. “She has to see you before she leaves town tomorrow. She wants you to call her right away.”
Larry jotted down the exchange and number as Bessie slowly repeated it. “I hope you can get away. Be sure to ask her who’s going to play the lead in the picture. I forgot.”
Icy sweat dotted Larry’s forehead. There was no use trying to fake a call to Janice with Bemrose sitting a few feet away. He walked over to him. “That was Bess,” he explained. “Jan Baldwin is back and wants to see me tonight. She’s on her way through to the Coast.”
Bemrose went on reading his paper.
“I’m going to give her a ring. Anything you’d like me to tell her?”
Bemrose shook his head. While Larry was phoning, he walked past him to Marge and Ed’s bedroom.
Five minutes later Larry found him slumped on the edge of Marge’s bed, the pink cotton bedspread wrinkled under him, his loose vest bulging.
“She sounded okay,” Larry said.
Bemrose nodded.
“I promised her I’d run over for a few minutes. Do you want me to ask her for you about Lend-Lease?”
Bemrose shook his head.
“You sure you don’t want me to give her a message?”
“What is there to say?”
“She’ll ask about you.” Larry rubbed his palm against the green metal footboard of Marge’s bed, figuring that maybe Bemrose should be seeing her instead.
“You know about me. Tell her,” Bemrose said.
“I’ll have to say goodbye to Lucy and the folks.” Larry hated to leave him in the dim bedroom, lighted only by a pink-fringed table lamp.
“Go ahead and say goodbye. I want to stay here.” Arthur’s mouth was set.
While Larry thanked Marge for the dinner, Ed brought his polishing wax and cloth into the hall, examining the fingermarks Larry had left on the telephone.
At the doorway Larry stood close to Lucy and searched her face. It was clean as a rain-emptied sky, scrubbed of emotion. He felt sorry, damned sorry, for her.