Chapter 11
When Gus Blake got downstairs his breakfast was on the side of the gas stove keeping warm for him, the percolator in front of his place set on the red-and-white-checked tablecloth on the counter in front of the window. Janey and little Jane were through, their dishes washed and on the drainboard to dry. He could see them through the window in the backyard, Janey in a red sweater, the sleeves pushed up above her elbows, settling the little Dane in her white picket playpen with her sandbox, building blocks, and doll's house and the narrow street Janey had constructed among them so she could wheel her dolls around. She was bundled up in a blue snowsuit and white hood and mittens, rosy-cheeked and laughing in the crisp November morning. Gus watched her tumble and right herself, and set off to her busywork at the sandbox. He smiled and poured himself a cup of coffee.
I'm a hell of a father, he thought. It was supposed to be his job to get up in the morning while Janey got breakfast and put little Jane out in her yard so Janey could get on with her own busywork, but it had been over a month since he'd done it. He'd been sweating over the centennial edition half the nights, and now with the Wernitz business on top of all of it he'd been pressed even harder. And it wasn't only the Wernitz business. He poured another cup of coffee, got his plate from the stove, and sat down at the counter table, his eye still on the yard.
He was worried about Janey. She wasn't acting like herself at all, except when she was with the little Dane. She was all right when she was with her, but not with anybody else. Not with him, certainly. It had been slowly dawning on him for a week or so. He watched her catch the rubber ball little Jane threw from the sandbox and toss it back. She was shaking her head then, shivering, pretending she was cold, and running back toward the steps, laughing and waving back at the little Dane. Almost at the brick walk by the side of the house she stopped abruptly, looking down at the ground. Gus craned his neck to see what it was. He thought. Oh, hell. It was a bare damp place where the water from the downspout at the corner of the house collected, that he'd promised to fix and never got around to. It hadn't rained for three days. The little Dane wasn't likely to get her feet muddy or slip on it-not when she was in her pen, at least.
Janey was still looking at it. He saw her go over and pull four thin bamboo stakes out of a clump of chrysanthemums in the side border, and start back to the bare patch in the grass. She turned then and looked up at the house, at the upper window, before she looked at the kitchen window and saw him. He grinned and waved, but she didn't smile back. She just stood there a moment, tossed the stakes over on the border again, brushed her hands lightly together, and came on toward the back door, looking around casually as she came. Gus swore a little. He'd get somebody to come and fix the blasted drainpipe and patch up the triple-blasted lawn if that was what she was sore about. Or he'd go do it himself. There was probably grass seed in the garden box in the basement. This was the one place he'd ever lived in or worked in where what you needed any given moment was right there, where it was supposed to be.
Now if Janey could only read and write, she'd be a hell of a lot more use around the Gazette than Lois Maynard or anybody else he could think of just offhand. He watched her run back and pick up the little Dane, who'd pitched over with her doll buggy and was yelling bloody murder one second and laughing her head off the next. He sat down again and looked at his watch. It was time to be shoving, but he had to talk to Janey. She'd left the playpen and gone down toward the end of the yard, just sort of mooning around, he thought irritably; it wasn't quite the weather to be out looking for crocuses or whatever, with only a light sweater on. Then suddenly it struck Gus Blake that she wasn't coming in. Something else struck him at the same time, a non sequitur in one sense, sequitur as hell in another. It was something Lois Maynard had said as they'd got to her house when he drove home with her at two-thirty that morning. He could still hear her saying it.
"Gus-I don't want to louse up any of your illusions, precious, but hasn't it ever occurred to you that maybe your Janey just a little tiny bit regrets not marrying Orvie Rogers instead of you? She'd have a cook and maids and clothes and she wouldn't have to get up and cook your breakfast and wash your clothes. You're wonderful, of course, dear, and amusing and terribly intelligent-but it's all on a special level that Janey must find pretty rotten dull at times-if you don't mind my saying so. After all, she's young and she could easily like to have a little fun once in a while. But I'm sorry, angel. I shouldn't have said it. But you are a little self-centered, aren't you? I mean-"
He could hear himself, too. "Janey and I get on all right, Lois-thanks just the same." Stiff like, putting Miss Maynard right back in her own place. He could hear her laugh as she'd bent over to kiss him lightly on the cheek.
"Okay, darling, You'll find out. Everybody else knows it. And sometime you're going to want to kiss me good night-and will I let you?
I sure will. We're both stinkers at heart, dear. Well, good night, Gus. Thanks for bringing me home."
He got up, took his dishes over to the sink, and turned on the hot water. He stood there for a moment, looking down at them. There was a lot in it. Somehow, he'd realized it all a long time ago, in fact, when he married Janey. The idea of permanence had not really been part of it, not that he'd thought about it rationally in any such terms but because impermanence was something he just naturally took for granted. You had a job in New York in February and in San Francisco in March, and in May you were in London helping cover a war that was knocking everything people had thought was permanent to very small bits and to hell with it. Lois Maynard had come as near to the idea of permanence as he'd ever particularly thought of, during the war and just after it, when permanence in your personal nonmaterial life had taken on a peculiar importance. But Lois had cured him of that quaint idea.
He put his dishes on the drain board with Janey's and little Jane's. It wasn't until Lois sounded off the night before that he'd thought much about any of it again. Or after he'd left her, rather, and started to walk home and decided to go down to the paper and write up the" Wernitz deal instead. It was one of the nice things about a newspaper. Everything was so damned current. You didn't have time to worry about the past, or the future-or even your own personal present. He went into the pantry and stood there, listening, to see if, now he was out of the window and out of the kitchen, Janey would come on in. And after a few minutes she did. He heard her shut the door and stop at the sink, surprised, probably, that he'd cleared and washed his dishes. Then she came on toward the pantry.
"Oh," she said. She stopped, her eyes wide as they always were, but different, as if she had pulled an opaque blue curtain down behind them. "Oh. I thought you'd probably gone. You must have a lot to do, don't you? I'm going down to Mother's as soon as I get the beds made."
"Janey." As he stepped toward her he trod on the loose board in front of the pantry door. It creaked loudly. Her body tensed and he saw her fists clench tightly. She was nervous as a cat. As he stepped off the board it creaked again. "I'm sorry," he said. "I really will get a carpenter to come fix that." He'd said it dozens of times, but she'd always laughed. She didn't even smile now.
"You've said that before. But it's all right. It doesn't matter."
It made it harder for him to go on, but he did.
"Janey, if I've done anything peculiarly and especially obnoxious to you, I'm sorry," he said seriously. "I'm sorry I was so late last night, and I'm sorry I wasn't up in time to drive your mother home this morning."
He could hear the courthouse clock strike nine. Half an hour late now. He was always at his desk by eight-thirty. He saw Janey's eyes move off, listening to it, too, and it seemed to him listening for something else. The light flush that stained her cheeks when he mentioned her mother faded. He looked at her intently. "Your mother did stay all night, didn't she?"
She flushed again, and hesitated, moistening her lips. Then she turned her blue eyes up to his. "No, I told a lie," she said warmly. "She went back home as soon as I came in."
He stared at her. "What the-" He stopped himself abruptly. What was the matter with him? He was always getting sore at somebody lately. And Janey was getting sore, too. Sore at him. That was something that had never happened before. "I'm sorry," he said.
"It doesn't matter. But I want you to quit saying, 'What the hell,' to me. Just quit it! I won't stand for it anymore. And quit saying you'll have the floorboard fixed or the drainpipe fixed, or any of the other things you're always going to do and never think of anymore. Because it doesn't matter. I don't want you to do anything around here. All I want you to do is go away and go on about your own business, and let me go on about mine!" , She could hear herself saying things she didn't mean and didn't care about, because she was angry and wounded still from last night, and bitterly resentful. But she did mean part of it. She did want him to get out of the house before the police came. She had to get him out before they came. This was her business. She'd started it without him, and waited desperately for him to come and take it out of her hands, and he came and brought Lois Maynard and was cross and rude to her. Lois was rude and offensive. "It's her dining room, isn't it?"-raising her eyebrows, belittling Janey's taste and Janey's pride-and then he'd gone off with Lois, and stayed until five o'clock in the morning. And he could go again. He could go back to Lois and leave her to go on taking care of herself and little Jane. She could do it very well. She didn't need anyone to stand around and act as if she were a stupid little fool, and get sore at her because she was trying to do her job the best she could.
She tried to listen out the back way when the police came. She didn't want him ever to know what had happened the night before. He could go away and stay until five o'clock with Lois. Let him go to her now. She didn't want him there anymore. The police would be there soon, to fingerprint the fuse box in the basement. And there was the thing she'd just discovered out in the damp bare patch near the brick walk.
It was a large clear footprint made by someone who was running. The sole of the shoe was quite deep and the heel barely showed at all. It was headed toward the end of the garden. Even if there weren't fingerprints in the basement, a footprint would help. But somehow, during the night, either asleep or awake, she had become convinced of the importance of finding out who had come into the house. It was someone who wanted something. It wasn't the few bits of silver on the sideboard, and she had no jewelry anybody would want. It had to be something else-and there was only one thing she had that was of any value. She'd thought it over and over again in the night. That was little Jane.
She caught her breath now and held it for an instant before she turned and ran out into the kitchen. It hadn't occurred to her until that moment that if they'd come into the house to take little Jane they could just as easily come into the yard-but little Jane was there, playing in the sandbox.
"Janey! What is the matter with you?"
As Gus followed her into the kitchen she flashed around at him, her eyes hot, her lips trembling. "Just go, will you? Just go and leave me alone!"
He stood there a moment, a little dazed and unbelieving. This was incredible. This wasn't Janey at all. It was someone he'd never known or heard of. It was as if the little Dane's white lop-eared rabbit had suddenly turned into a snarling wildcat at the foot of the crib. And as he took a step backward to retire with whatever dignity he could manage, she turned around and flew out into the yard. He saw her at the playpen, turned, and went back through the pantry. As he stepped on the creaking board again, a wave of anger flashed up in him. Drainpipes, bare spots in the grass, loose boards, By God, he'd fix one of them anyway. He opened the basement door, banged it shut behind him, and went downstairs. The garden box was in the corner by the area door. He yanked it open. Lime, fertilizer, grass seed. He picked up the seed and took the rake off the hook behind the box. He could hear Janey upstairs in the kitchen, and he waited until he heard her go through the pantry and dining room and start upstairs with little Jane. He opened the area door and went up to the ground level. A black boy with a bamboo leaf rake was coming around the side of the house.
"You want the leaves raked up?"
"Yeah," Gus said. "Here. Take this." He handed him the box of grass seed. "See that patch there? Rake it up and seed it. If you know anybody that can fix a drainspout, tell 'em to come and fix it and send me the bill."
He went back down the area steps into the basement, hung up his rake, closed the garden box, and went upstairs. The hinge on the door whined as he closed and latched it. The loose board creaked as he went into the dining room. He took his overcoat and hat off the chair and started out. At the front door he turned. Maybe there was still something he could say to Janey. He looked up the stairwell. She was standing up there, holding to the rail, looking down, her face frozen into the most extraordinary mask.
"Janey-for God's sake, what-"
She drew her body erect and taut, "Oh," she said. "It's you. I-I thought you'd gone. Please-please go." She turned away slowly and disappeared toward little Jane's room.
For a moment Gus stood there, not knowing what to do. He took off his coat and put it and his hat on the chair. He couldn't leave her like this. As he turned to go up the stairs, he heard someone come onto the porch and heard the doorbell ring through the dining room from the pantry. And heard Janey's footsteps on the top floor, running out into the hall. He went to the door and opened it. He said, "Oh. Oh, hello, Orvie."
Orvie Rogers's mouth dropped open a little. "Oh," he said. "I-I thought you'd gone to the office. I-I just stopped by to speak to Janey."
For a moment Gus stood there motionless. It was only a moment, but it seemed to him a very long time indeed before he could unloosen his hand from the doorknob and get his vocal cords in a fit order to function sensibly and audibly. It evidently seemed a long time to Orvie Rogers. He swallowed before he said, "It-it wasn't important anyway, Gus. I-I'll come back later. It was just something-"
"Not at all," Gus said. He could hear the false cheery cordiality in his voice and knew he was sounding like a third-rate aristocrat in a bad movie. "Not at all," he said again. "Come in. I was just leaving." He got the doorknob out of his hand, got back into the hall, and picked up his hat and coat again. "I was just shoving off."
He managed to move toward the stairs. She was up there, looking expectantly over the banister rail, one hand up, breathlessly holding on to the neck of her red sweater. He caught the briefest glimpse of her, not having meant to look up, not wanting to see her caught out. Oh, God! he thought; not Janey! The saliva that flushed into his mouth was bitter as wormwood and gall. He swallowed it down with an effort that wrenched and churned the food in his stomach, tasting it sour and bilious again. No wonder she was so damned anxious to get him out of the house. He controlled himself deliberately, sick at himself for being able to make his voice sound as if everything was swell. Everything perfectly fine. "It's Orvie, Janey."
"Orvie?" He could see her swallow and moisten her lips. "What-what does he want, Gus?"
He was rather proud of himself then. In a way. He sounded fine as he said, "I don't know. Why don't you come on down and ask him? I've got to shove off. So long." He started to the door. "Or why don't you go on up to the living room, Orvie? I'll see you later."
"Okay," Orvie Rogers said.
Gus closed the front door and went down the walk. Or he assumed he did. He found himself at his desk a little while later. At least he guessed it was his desk. Swede Carlson was sitting beside it waiting for him, talking to Lois Maynard.