He stood up. “This is ridiculous,” he said out loud. He must be cracking up. He forced himself to think of something else. Irene. There must be some way of getting Irene south. Perhaps a quick, contrite visit tomorrow. Work out some sort of compromise? He paused. Contrition, apologies, compromise, backslide. He watched his tea cool, its taste metallic in his mouth. He felt an old familiar anger at his indecisiveness. What did he really want from his life? Melissa or Irene? Always assuming they’d have him…He was tired of his own company, he realized; he wanted to inflict it on somebody else, before he got too old and it all got too late.
Chapter Five
Henderson walked into the diner round the corner from his apartment. It was long and thin and tastelessly decorated in colours of maroon and brown. In a corner near the door two or three hat-stands crowded in on a blonde Latin-American woman who kept the till. Along one wall ranked booths filed back into the gloom. Opposite them was a high formica bar, with fixed bar stools. Behind the bar in the middle was the stainless steel kitchen.
The diner was staffed with the friendliest middle-aged ladies Henderson had ever met. By his third breakfast there he was thinking of them as favourite aunts, so overwhelming was their celebration of his arrival each morning. The women all had the same hard-curled perm in varying shades of grey. Their voices were harsh — cigarette harsh — but kind. When they weren’t telling Henderson how wonderful it was to see him again, they joked and grumbled loudly to each other, shouting unconcernedly the length of the diner or joshing with Ike. Ike was the short-order cook and enjoyed teasing the waitresses and laughing at them. He did this constantly (“Martha, is that new shoes? What you old man do to you this weekend?”) regardless of the fact that the ‘girls’ never ceased bellowing their orders at him.
While he talked and traded insults he shimmied and swerved above the grills and toasters. He could crack three eggs in one hand, butter five muffins, scramble, poach, fry and slice without breaking into a sweat. At busy times the orders were coming in every three seconds. Henderson never saw him write anything down. And all the while he kept up the banter. “Hey, Joy, what you settin’ yo hair in now? Ceement?” He found his own jokes intensely diverting; his face would screw up as if in pain, his knee would bang the door of a fridge, he’d buckle slightly to one side.
This morning, being a Saturday, the diner was less busy. Henderson still felt irritated and let down by his wasted night. His eyes were hot, his nasal passages dry and prickly. He nodded to the olive-skinned blonde at the till and allowed Martha to hang up his coat.
“How are you today, Mr Dores? Feeling fine today?”
“Not so good, I’m afraid, Martha.”
“MR DORES AIN’T FEELIN’ SO GOOD, JOY!”
“Did you sleep last night, Mr Dores?”
Henderson had confessed his insomnia in week one.
“No, not very well.”
“MR DORES DIN’T SLEEP LAST NIGHT, JOY!”
“THAT’S TOO BAD. SORRY TO HEAR THAT, MR DORES!”
“Looks like Joy din’t get too much sleepin’ done neither.” Ike’s left leg gave way and he dug his elbow into his hip.
“TWO EGGS OVER, BACON, TOASTED BAGEL,” Joy bellowed from the recesses.
Two eggs hit the skillet as she spoke, a bagel slammed into a toaster, rashers fizzed under a grill.
“Martha wisht she could be kep awake nights. Right, Martha?”
“Not by you, that’s for sure.”
High-pitched wheezing from Ike.
“What’s it gonna be this morning, Mr Dores?”
Henderson thought. “Poach one, scramble one on lightly toasted rye. Three rashers of bacon — burned — um, cottage fries. Orange juice and a toasted English, one side only.”
“POACH ONE, SCRAMBLE ONE ON PALE RYE. CREMATE THE BACON, THREE. FRIES. TOASTED ENGLISH, ONE SIDE ONLY.”
“Actually, could you make that poach two, no toast, hold the fries, some bacon and a bagel and lox?”
“IKE, MAKE THAT LAST ONE POACH TWO, NO TOAST, HOLD THE FRIES, BAGEL AND LOX.”
Henderson smiled with guilty satisfaction. He had been trying for days to concoct an order that would thwart Ike’s astonishing memory and co-ordination. This was anew and unfair ploy, changing the order after it had been delivered.
“You comin’ out wit me tonight, Martha?” Ike asked over his shoulder.
“Not if you was the last man in the world!”
Ike ran on the spot for five seconds.
“SCRAMBLE ONE ON A MUFFIN, TO GO. TWO EGGS UP, CREMATE THE BACON!” Joy boomed.
Henderson tensed. Three orders at once, Ike and Martha were still shouting at each other. The juice came. About — it seemed — thirty seconds later his eggs were in front of him. Two poached, three perfect crisp rashers, a bagel and lox. He sighed and looked up. Ike was drinking ice-water.
“Don’t get a breakfast like that in England, do you, Mr Dores?” Martha asked.
Henderson had to concede the rightness of this remark. The last time he’d ordered a cooked breakfast in England, the egg yolk nestled in a halo of transparent albumen, the grease in the fried bread furred up his palate for several hours and he had been unable to remove the bark-like rind from the floppy bacon.
The thought of England subdued him. He ate his breakfast quickly, silently resolving to make his peace with Irene before he picked up his hired car. Perhaps she could fly down and meet him later? He’d suggest it to her, make up some story about a colleague coming in the car at the last moment.
Outside, he stood for a while on the pavement. The sun shone, but it was cooler today after the rain. He breathed deeply, flexed his shoulders and summoned a cab from the slow moving stream of traffic. He got in and sat back on the wide seat. He was beginning to feel slightly better. The city in the morning always had that effect on him. The cab took him smoothly across town to Irene’s apartment on the upper west side.
Once there, he paced up and down for a moment or two rehearsing his apology before attempting to step into the lobby. Irene’s apartment was in an old brownstone that had been extensively renovated inside. There were heavy plate-glass doors at the entrance, through which he could see an expanse of tiled flooring leading to a stainless steel lift. A small man sat at a kind of lectern to one side.
The heavy glass doors would not open. Henderson pressed the buzzer beneath a loudspeaker on a slim pedestal.
“Yeah?” The little man spoke into a microphone at the side of a lectern.
“I’ve come to see Ms Irene Stien.”
“She expecting you?”
“Well not exactly…”
“Name?”
“Dores.”
The man pressed some buttons on the console in front of him and spoke — inaudibly to Henderson — into the microphone.
“She’s not in.”
Henderson pressed the entryphone button again. He detested these machines.
“Could I speak to her, please?”
The little man ignored him. Henderson rapped loudly on the thick glass, hurting his knuckles. Wearily, the man got off his stool and approached the doors. Henderson recognized him. A small Slavonic-looking fellow with a waxy, heavily-pored skin. He had one of the most negligible foreheads Henderson had ever seen: his hairline began an inch above his eyebrows. On his nylon blazer was pinned a badge. “A. BRA.” This was Adolf Bra, Irene’s doorman.
By leaning his weight against one door a half-inch gap could be created. Bra approached.