“Jesus,” he said softly. “You haven’t changed much after all, have you, Martha?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, except that it’s in very bad taste.”
She turned with an air of finality, but he put his hand on her arm to hold her back. One of the parcels fell on the sidewalk but neither of them noticed.
“No, wait, Martha. I’m sorry. You haven’t told me how the family is. How’s the kid sister?”
“Laura’s fine.”
“And your mother?”
“Fine.”
“And the old man?”
“He’s dead. He died a short time after you left.”
“I’m sorry to hear it. He was a good man, full of laughs.”
She began to walk and he followed her. His walk was oddly graceful.
“It’s a funny thing,” he said, “to come back like this, and you find some of your friends have died, and some are married and have kids, and some of them have moved away and some of them aren’t your friends anymore. I don’t know exactly what I expected. Five years is a long time, it was to me, anyway, but I still had the crazy notion that somebody would be keeping a place for me. You know? I expected to blow into town and phone a lot of people and have them say maybe: ‘Well, by God, it’s Steve Ferris. Come on out and we’ll have a party!’ Instead of that I had a hard time even identifying myself. There’d be a whispered conversation at the other end of the phone. ‘Darling, do we know anyone called Ferris?’ Or ‘Well, we were going to the movies, Steve, old boy. Maybe next week?’”
He smiled to show her that it didn’t hurt him. “Some of them had kids they couldn’t leave or wives who didn’t want to go out or have anyone in. A lot of them were dead, or just vanished. If I’d left a hole in anyone’s life, the gap had closed long ago. It’s a strange feeling.”
She walked faster but he didn’t appear to notice. He kept gliding along beside her, without effort.
“A damn strange feeling,” he repeated. “It’s as if they’d made up their minds that I wasn’t coming back and when I did it was a shock. It was so unexpected it was against nature, practically. That’s how you feel, isn’t it, Martha?”
“Of course not. I’ve never thought about you one way or another.”
“I don’t believe it.”
“Then you’re very vain.”
“I guess I am,” he said slowly. “I guess that’s my whole trouble.”
They turned at the next corner and their shoulders touched for an instant. She drew away sharply.
Across the street a few yards down she could see Forbes. He was standing on the curb, running a cloth over one of the car windows. Two little boys stood beside him and watched, their heads tilted in awe.
She wondered whether Forbes had already seen her.
Abruptly she swung around and faced Steve. “Well, Steve, it’s been pleasant meeting you again.” In spite of the parcels she managed to hold out her hand in a friendly way.
“Has it?” He ignored the hand. His eyes were fixed on the car. “Some tub. Paid for? Yes, of course, it would be. How fast can it go?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?” He shook his head in bewilderment. What kind of crazy world had he come back to, that you could have a car like that and not see how fast it would go?
“I really must run along, Steve.”
“Certainly. I understand.”
“I hope, I sincerely hope, that the book turns out well. And if it doesn’t, I’m sure Charles will be able to do something for you.”
“Charles can’t do a damn thing for me except crawl down a drain.”
“Well, don’t be childish. Where are you staying?”
“The Neal Hotel. We’ve got fountains there, too, only we call them showers and they’re to wash in.”
He didn’t say goodbye, just turned on his heel and walked away as fast as he could.
Once he was out of sight around the corner he slowed down. He was feeling shaky and there was a sharp pain in his chest. He didn’t know whether it was from the piece of flak they hadn’t been able to remove, or from seeing Martha again.
He stopped at the first bar he came to. He sat down at a table and ordered an ale. The place was very dark but as soon as his eyes had adjusted he began to look around for someone he knew. He knew there wouldn’t be anyone, but he sat with tense expectancy, ready to jump up and greet someone and buy him a drink and talk over old times.
“Well, if it isn’t Steve Ferris! How’s the boy, Steve?”
“Great. Just great.”
“When’d you get back?”
“A week ago.”
“Why in hell didn’t you give me a ring? Seen any of the old crowd?”
“Sure. I just ran into Martha on the street.”
“Martha? Oh, we never see Martha anymore, not since she got married. The wife bumped into her one day and hardly recognized her. She had on funny-looking clothes and a new ritzy way of talking. The wife nearly died laughing...”
He ordered another ale and thought, well, that’s all right, I’m practically dead laughing myself. Charles and I. Charles has been very ill. What the hell.
The waiter came back and put a bowl of pretzels on the table.
“Thought you’d like some pretzels,” he said.
“Chawls, my boy, how very thoughtful of you.”
“We got some potato chips, too.”
“Why, Chawls, it’s a veritable profusion of fine foods.”
The waiter hovered over the table. He smelled of stale sweat and peppermint. “If you’re feeling lonesome-like maybe I can do something about it. If you’re not, well, there’s no harm in asking.”
“I am above the coarser things of life.”
“Well, I am myself, if you come right down to it,” the waiter said somberly. “I’ve got my principles, same as the next man.”
“Sure.” Steve smiled. “You could pick up a nice piece of change by selling Grandpa to a glue factory. Bet you never thought of that, Chawls.”
“My name’s not Charles.”
“Could be,” Steve said. “I personally know a man called Charles who sold his grandpa to a glue factory and he’s never regretted it for an instant.”
“What the hell,” the waiter said, and went away looking troubled.
Steve watched him for a while, not because he liked his face, but because he knew the waiter a little now and the other people were all strangers.
A man and a girl came in from the street and sat down side by side at the bar. The man had his hand possessively on the girl’s hip. The two of them kept looking and looking at each other, as if they were trying to drown themselves in each other’s eyes.
The pain in Steve’s chest sharpened. He got up. He saw the waiter come hurrying toward him and he reached for his wallet.
The waiter said with a frown, “I don’t know what gave you the idea my name was Charles.”
“How much?”
“Fifty cents. Matter of factly, my name’s Harry, not Charles.”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” Steve said and flung the money on the table.
He passed the bar without a glance at the man and girl, and went up the steps into the street.
Chapter 4
She drove home with the packages clutched tight against her body as if in self-defense.
She was certain that Forbes had seen her talking to Steve. There was no need for secrecy, merely talking to a man was no crime, no matter who the man was. Yet she was reluctant to have Charles find out about the meeting, and find out, especially, from Forbes, who disliked her. Forbes had such a guileless method of tale-bearing. He managed to give Charles an exact account of her movements without ever seeming to: “Yes, Mr. Pearson, it’s a beautiful day. A lot of people out. The Avenue was very congested, I couldn’t get a parking place anywhere near Ryrie’s...”