“Thanks.”
“If you don’t, Charles and I might be able to help you. There’s an apartment over the garage. It’s vacant right now. Forbes is away. If you really can’t find anything — just as a temporary arrangement, of course — you might use it.”
“That’s very generous of you,” Steve said. The offer had come so unexpectedly he didn’t know whether it was serious or not. He glanced at her with suspicion. Martha was certainly looking serious. More than that, she was looking downright noble, and it suddenly occurred to him why. As soon as she’d found out that Beatrice had offered to take him in, she had to make the same offer.
“Very generous,” he repeated, but in a different tone.
She was sharp enough to catch the change in tone. She said flatly, “We intended to rent the place anyway, since we don’t know how long Forbes will be gone. Months, perhaps. It seems a shame to waste an apartment when they’re so scarce. I asked Brown yesterday to put an ad in the paper about it.”
Check with Brown, he thought. “May I see the place?”
“Certainly.”
She rang for Brown. When he appeared she said indifferently, “Show Mr. Ferris Forbes’s apartment. Did you put the ad in the paper?”
“Not yet, Mrs. Pearson. It slipped my mind.”
“It may not be necessary.” She held out her hand to Steve. “I hope you like the apartment, Mr. Ferris. The rent is fifty dollars a month.”
There was a deliberate warning emphasis on the Mr. Ferris.
“Very kind of you, Mrs. Pearson,” Steve said. “I’m sure I will.”
There was an outside flight of stairs at the side of the garage. Brown went up and unlocked the door.
“Come on in,” he said.
“All right.”
They entered a small square hall. The floor was of composition done in ivory and black half-circles. The walls and woodwork were ivory and out of each wall sprouted four transparent plastic horns.
Brown touched one and smiled a bit grimly. “Coat hangers. Can you beat it? It took Forbes, the man who lives here, a couple of months before he had them figured out. Look.”
He twisted the horn and half the wall swung out to reveal a shallow cupboard with several rows of shelves. The shelves were filled with bottles, nearly all of them empty gin bottles.
“I wouldn’t show this to everybody,” Brown said.
“Why pick me?”
“You don’t look like a Baptist.”
“I have an aunt who’s a Baptist.”
“Oh, we all have,” Brown said easily. “You wouldn’t let it affect you.”
“How do you know?”
“I can tell a hangover a mile away. You’ve got one.”
“Well?”
“Well,” Brown said and closed the wall again carefully, “this cupboard’s important to me. I want to rent this place to the right kind of person.”
“I thought Mrs. Pearson was renting it.”
“It was Mr. Pearson’s idea in the first place. Do you know him very well?”
“No.”
“Well, he’s got a wonderful social conscience. He’s always bothering about other people. For instance, he wouldn’t let this apartment stand vacant when he knew a hundred people would be glad to have it, especially veterans like yourself.”
“Kind of him,” Steve murmured.
“He wants everyone to be comfortable and to have enough of everything. This being impossible, it makes him nervous and he gets hives. I’ve known him since he was a boy and that’s what always happens when he gets nervous. He gets hives, on the skin or in the eyes or in his throat.”
Brown appeared willing and able to continue with a clinical report on Charles. Steve changed the subject. “Could I see the other rooms?”
“Certainly.”
They went into the main room of the apartment. It had the same kind of walls and floor as the lobby, but here there were several round, fluffy yellow rugs strewn around. The windows were wide, with Venetian blinds and red and ivory chintz drapes. There were two deep armchairs with slipcovers to match the drapes, and a cherry-red love seat.
“Bed pulls out of the wall,” Brown said. “Want to see it?”
“No. I get the idea.”
“Here’s the kitchen.” He pushed open a swinging door. “Take a look at it yourself. There’s not room for both of us.”
Steve glanced inside. “It’s fine.”
“Forbes cooked all his own meals.” Brown sat down in one of the armchairs and pulled out a package of cigarettes. He didn’t seem in any hurry to get back to his job, whatever it was. “Forbes was a good cook. I used to come over and eat with him sometimes, just to get away from the women. Over in the house they’re all women. A man gets pretty damn tired of women sometimes. There’s no friendship in them. They either want to marry you or lynch you.”
He sounded, suddenly, like a lonely old man mourning the loss of a friend.
“Well, thanks for showing me around,” Steve said.
Brown rose, twisting the key to the apartment in his hand. “Like the place?”
“Very much. But as a matter of fact, I was looking for something more permanent.”
“Suit yourself. If you change your mind, give me a ring.”
They went out and Brown re-locked the door. At the bottom of the steps he nodded goodbye, then he walked over and picked up the sprinkler again and started across the lawn.
When Steve returned to the hotel he found a telephone number in his mailbox. He called from his room, but as soon as he heard Beatrice’s voice he wished he hadn’t. He had no idea what to say to her, beyond asking her how she was.
She was, of course, fine. So was he. So was her mother. It was also very warm for this time of year.
After this interchange, came a long uncomfortable pause. Then Beatrice’s voice again, sounding natural enough, though a little playfuclass="underline" “Mother’s mad at you for walking out on her the other night. She says the only way you can make it up to her is by coming out to dinner.”
“I’d like to, but the fact is...”
“Oh, not tonight especially. Any night. We eat every night in this house.”
She giggled faintly and he knew he should have responded to the joke, but he said earnestly, “I’d like to come. Whenever you say.”
“Tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow would suit me fine.” All his life he’d been accepting invitations like that, right off the bat. But a minute after he let himself in for something, he always began planning ways to get out of it. The more distant the invitation, the more time he had for planning. Usually he ended up by going anyway, and having a very good time.
Tomorrow, he thought. If I get on a plane tonight I could be in New York by tomorrow, or Florida, or Arizona.
He said, “What time do you want me to come?”
“The earlier the better,” Beatrice told him.
“I’ll be there.”
“That’s grand, Steve.”
Another silence, longer this time and more personal, somehow, the kind of pause that occurs between lovers which nothing will fill but a passionate declaration of love or hate.
“Hello?” he said. “Hello? Bea?”
“Yes.”
“I thought we’d been cut off.”
“No. I was just wondering whether you like steak.”
“Certainly I like steak.”
“We’ll have that then, if we can get it.”
“Good. See you tomorrow.”
“Good-bye, Steve.”
“Good-bye.”
He hung up but he kept his hand on the telephone as if he intended to call her right back and say he was sorry he couldn’t make it tomorrow, how about next year?
He didn’t call her back but the invitation nagged him for the rest of the day. He kept picturing Beatrice in the butcher shop, flanked by rows and rows of raw porterhouse, testing each one delicately with her long white fingers.