“Well, that’s fine. I hope you don’t mind my mentioning it.”
“Not at all.”
“If she makes a nuisance of herself, don’t tell Mrs. Pearson. Just tell me and I’ll handle it.” He added without any change of tone, “We eat in about half an hour. You’re welcome to eat with us. You haven’t any groceries.”
“Thanks, I’d like to.”
“If you’re sure you wouldn’t mind eating in the kitchen...”
“I wouldn’t.”
At dinner Brown remained unnaturally silent. They all served themselves and ate in the breakfast nook off the kitchen. Besides Brown and Steve himself, there was Mrs. Putnam and a maid called Lily. She was about Beatrice’s age. She had a very bad skin and she was on a diet. Mrs. Putnam was plainly outraged that anyone could be such a fool as to believe that the skin, which was outside, could be affected by food, which went inside. Lily remained cheerful but obstinate. Having paid a doctor five dollars for the diet, she intended to stick to it until death itself intervened, which, Mrs. Putnam asserted, it shortly would.
But the wrangling was not unpleasant. It was carried on in the family style — everything that was said had been said before and would be said again. It gave Steve a comfortable feeling of continuity, as if he were a child who’d been away visiting for a time and had come back to the family to find everything the same.
When the two women got up to wash the dishes Steve said, “A friendly town, this, don’t you think?”
“So-so.”
“Take this invitation for dinner tonight. I consider it a very friendly gesture.”
Brown grunted in reply.
“It makes me wonder whose idea it was,” Steve said.
“Mine.”
“Hands across the lawn, eh?”
“More or less.”
“You’re quite sure that it wasn’t Mrs. Pearson’s idea before it was your idea?”
“She only suggested that it would be nice for us to be neighborly. Food’s a good way of doing it, so here you are.”
“Here I am,” Steve said. The plan was very neat, very typical of Martha. In order to show him that she had no intention of acknowledging their friendship, she had persuaded her servants to “be neighborly” with him.
He went quietly back to the apartment to think it over. He could go directly to Martha and ask her what her game was, but he didn’t trust his own temper and nothing would be gained anyway. Martha would be pure, innocent and on the side of the angels. A subtler approach was necessary. He could never bludgeon Martha into admitting anything, but she could be tricked.
He phoned and told her that since he didn’t intend to start his book right away, he’d be glad to drive her any place she wanted to go.
She sounded pleased. “That’s nice of you. I don’t like to trust Brown with the Cadillac, he’s too careless.” She paused. “As a matter of fact, I wanted to take some flowers to the hospital tomorrow morning.”
“What time?”
“Nine.”
“I’ll have the car ready.”
“I hate to impose on you. I can easily get a cab.”
“You’re not imposing,” he said quickly. “I’ll be delighted.”
The next morning he had the car at the front door fifteen minutes early, but he didn’t have to wait for her. She came out almost before he had a chance to put on the brakes. She wore her glasses and the same kind of black suit she’d worn last time he saw her. She was carrying an armful of tulips, holding them rather cautiously as if she were a little afraid there might be insects on them.
He climbed out of the car awkwardly.
“Do you want to sit in the back seat, or do you want to slum?”
She hesitated, flushing slightly. “I’ll slum.”
She opened the front door for herself and got in.
“Where to?” Steve said.
“St. James Hospital. I thought I’d take some flowers over to the wards. We have so many.”
He started the car without answering her. He drove a couple of blocks in the direction of the hospital, then pulled over to the curb and cut off the ignition.
“Why are you stopping?” Martha said.
“I want to talk to you.”
“Well. I... hope you find the apartment comfortable?”
“It’s fine. Everything is fine, but I still wonder what’s going on behind those glasses.”
“Stop talking about my glasses. If I have to wear them you shouldn’t...”
“I had a nice dinner last night in the kitchen. I wanted to thank you.”
“You’re welcome. Can we go on now?”
“I’m not in a hurry. Are you?”
“I knew there was something fishy about your offering to drive me,” she said angrily. “If you have anything to say to me, say it and get it over with. I’m busy.”
“Would you like a cigarette?”
“No!”
“A bit shrewish this morning, aren’t you, Mrs. Pearson?”
An old man with a cane walked by very slowly, as if he were using the cane merely as an excuse to give himself time to stare at them.
“You might at least pick a more private place,” Martha said, “if you want to talk to me.”
“It’s pretty hard to get you in a private place, Mrs. Pearson.”
“Start this car.”
“I will when you tell me what you have in mind about me.”
“I have nothing in mind about you.”
“You always were a great little planner and I just wondered whether you’d been having any plans lately.”
“Why should I have? I suppose you’re just conceited enough to think that I’ve spent the past five years thinking about you.”
“I don’t give a damn what you’ve been thinking the past five years. The point is, what are you thinking now?”
“I can see it was a mistake, my trying to help you,” she said. “It seems to have given you the impression that I have some obscure motive. Well, I haven’t. I was only trying to be kind and to show you I didn’t bear any grudge against you.” She sounded very sincere.
“Okay,” he said wearily. “I’m sorry I went off the deep end.”
He drove her to the hospital and sat in the car smoking while she was gone. She came out again in half an hour and he took her straight home. She didn’t speak a word, not even when he apologized again. He let her off at the front door.
“Couldn’t we talk decently together sometime?” he said.
“What about?” She went into the house without looking at him.
He spent the rest of the morning wandering restlessly around his apartment. He tidied up a little and made some coffee and started to read a novel Forbes had left behind. It was a very bad novel. He decided he could do better, so he got out his typewriter and put a blank sheet of paper in it. By noon the paper was still blank. Hungry and embittered, he walked six blocks to the nearest drugstore and had a sandwich and a malted milk.
When he returned, Brown was clipping the hedge along the driveway. Brown waved to him cheerfully and put the clipper down, as if the appearance of Steve was an unexpected but satisfactory excuse to stop work.
“Hi,” Brown said. “What have you been doing all morning?”
“Nothing.”
“Bored, eh?”
“You said it.”
“It’s bad to sit around and be bored. Take me. When I’m bored I get outside and do something.”
“Such as?”
“Well, maybe I clip the hedges or mow the lawn. Why don’t you wash the car or something?”
“It isn’t dirty,” Steve said.
“It’ll pass the time.”
Pass the time. That’s what he’d been doing for five years, passing the time, waiting, the way the others were waiting, to go home again. And now that he was home, he was waiting still, but this time he wasn’t waiting for anything.
What a waste, he thought violently, what a stinking waste.