In the room he had worked out a scheme for the subtle penetration of her imagination. At night he would leave his notes on the bureau, and these notes would be in a kind of shorthand. He left them there deliberately, as a bait for her curiosity. Each day when he returned to the room he looked at the notes, and one day he found she had scribbled in a margin, “What on earth does this mean?” In his joy he cried out, “I knew it would work!” When she came home he was there to explain it to her. In the argument that followed his eyes glowed, he spoke out of his heart, and though it was supposed to be a rational discussion it was really his argument of love.
When she came in next day she was ready to take up the argument before she took off her overalls. She relied only on her own insights. She would take nothing for granted. It was wonderful and exasperating. He would find himself thinking. If Henry Jackson really wanted to write plays, how stimulating it must have been for him, talking over his ideas with her! One was compelled to look at everything freshly.
She was always broke and therefore willing to let him walk her down to the cafeteria where he could buy her something to eat. A little way along St. Catherine was an art shop, its window bright with large Matisse prints. The window ledge coated with snow and the corners glazed with ice made it look like a big white picture frame holding the light on a warm gaily coloured print of a ripe pumpkin on a fence. The blotch of gay warm colour was fantastic on the winter street. It made them laugh. They linked arms and laughed, and wisps of snow drifted across their faces. The gay colours and the bold design delighted them. There was a painter! she said. But of course! He had always had a passion for Matisse: couldn’t he buy her some prints and hang them in the room? Certainly he could, she said; he didn’t have to coax her. Now he saw how he would open her mind again to harmonies and rhythms that were in her own tradition and foreign to St. Antoine and keep her moving further and further away in her imagination from St. Antoine, in the true direction for her nature, toward what was light and gay and bold.
It would be so easy to do, he reflected one night when they were taking a ride in a barouche along Sherbrooke Street. They were huddled under the old buffalo robe, the sleigh bells jangled, her knees pressed against his, and the severe cold made their faces burn. She teased the beery old driver. Her teasing had affection in it, and the driver knew it and chuckled. That warm affection would touch McAlpine when she grabbed his arm to attract his attention to someone passing. This affection for little moments and casual people made him jealous; he wanted it for himself. He tried to get it with extraordinary eloquence, talking about Paris and New York, and she responded so warmly he longed to be in those cities with her. Oh, the fun he could have opening up those cities to her! he said. They talked of Baudelaire and Villon, and his ears nearly froze. He couldn’t understand why she didn’t feel the cold. She only had on that light belted coat.
They drove out to the east end, and she agreed to have something to eat at Chez Pierre. She had an enormous steak which she ate with enthusiasm, and he tried to assume the role he had always found so successful in the past with young girls. He got her talking about herself, and he bought a bottle of champagne; he tried unobtrusively to make her believe he could understand the dreams of her youth far better than anyone her own age, but despite all the eating and drinking and talking he was convinced that the tenderness and affection he evoked in her meant no more than response to the fur-capped sleigh driver with little icicles from his running nose forming on his big moustache.
But the Matisse prints could be like strands in a web he would cunningly weave around her. She would be living in a room he would change a little every day. What gripped her imagination would change as the tone of the room changed.
He bought four Matisse prints for twenty-six dollars – which he couldn’t afford – and that afternoon he met Foley for a drink before dinner in the M. and A.A. Club on Peel Street. They were joined by the garrulous navy man, Commander Stevens, who was indeed very navy. The whole country had betrayed him. He got drunk and told him he had lost sixteen ships in a convoy. The politicians had betrayed him. A Jewish tailor had betrayed him. A shirtmaker had betrayed him. He showed them his shirt. And McAlpine wanted to get away and go over to Crescent Street. At last, with his prints in a big manila envelope, he left the club and started down Peel Street with a brisk military stride. He had on Mr. Carver’s black Homburg. It was dark out, the street lights were lit, and there was no wind. The temperature had risen rapidly; it was now twenty above. The weatherman had said he could foresee the end of the cold snap, but snow clouds were moving down from the Laurentians.
Coming down the hill he approached the liquor store. A group of people were waiting around the entrance. A Negress who stood there with another Negress watched him coming down the street; she stepped out and touched his arm. “Excuse me, mister,” she said.
“Me?” he asked in surprise.
“I’ve seen you down at the St. Antoine,” she said abruptly. She had on a muskrat coat and a golden toque; she was fat and heavy; she had aged too soon, and her face was no longer attractive. Though her gesture was humble and timid, her face in the street light was full of dogged resolution. “I’m the trumpet player’s wife,” she said.
“Oh! Oh, I see,” he said, becoming too elaborately polite. He was shocked to think she had stopped him on the street. He looked around, expecting people standing on the hotel entrances steps across the road to be watching him. He felt a chill. He had feared that Wolgast’s visit to the room meant that he and Peggy would be dragged into the open when they were not ready. And now it was happening in the open street. This coloured woman believed she had a right to stop him. “What is it?” he asked.
“It’s about that little girl, mister,” she said. “I know you’ll excuse me. I know you’re with her.”
“Oh, you mean Miss Sanderson,” he said vaguely.
“I speak to you, mister,” she said, “because you’re her man.”
“Oh, no!” he said.
“It’s what I hear, mister. So you’ll know how I feel. No. Listen,” she said, growing sullen, her tone bitter as McAlpine twisted away awkwardly. “Ain’t you got no pride, mister? Can’t you keep your woman away from my man? You could do it easy. I’d do it the hard way; but, hard or easy, I’d make it stick. Only you could do it easy, mister, and leave me something, leave me with something. I want to get rough, but right now I can’t do it. I want to get wild and smash things up, but I can’t do it. Only maybe I get liquored up like you or anybody else and I find I can do it,” she said grimly.
He was appalled that he and someone he loved could have become so important in the alien life of this stranger with the big soft sullen black face. “Of course, of course,” he muttered stupidly. But the sound of his own voice broke the strangeness of the encounter. She was only an aging woman who was troubled and poor; he wanted to comfort her. “You exaggerate, I’m sure,” he said, touching her arm. “Take it easy. Your husband really means nothing to Miss Sanderson. It’s just a friendship. It will only last a little while. I know it for a fact. In a little while you’ll never be seeing her again. Don’t worry, Mrs. Wilson.” Raising his hat, he bowed stiffly; he fled before the misery of her married life could tumble down on him. He wanted to look back, but he knew she was there watching him, with no faith in what he had said. On his way to Crescent Street, he began to upbraid Peggy. He accused her of seeking trouble; he called her names. He kept it up until he got to the room.
She was in front of the bureau mirror dressed in her white blouse and black skirt, her knees crossed, one foot bobbing up and down as she polished her nails. “Oh, hello, Jim,” she said. The light fell on one side of her face and touched the calf of her leg rounded out from the pressure on her knee. It might have been the light, or her sudden smile, giving her face indescribable glowing freshness, or her slow lazy greeting, but he was sure she knew how she looked; she knew a man couldn’t help wanting to reach out and feel his fingers touching her blouse and sinking into the soft flesh; she knew how provoking she was and how triumphant over all tired and aging women.
“Well, who do you think stopped me on the street?” he asked, tossing the envelope containing the prints on the bed.
“Someone I know?”
“The trumpet player’s wife.”
“Ronnie’s wife? No, you’re kidding, Jim.”
“Just fifteen minutes ago. Right on Peel Street.”
“Right on Peel Street,” she repeated, and then, incredulous, she put down her nail file. “Why did she stop you? Why you?”
“I’m your friend. The woman’s worried about her husband. Is that news?” he asked sarcastically. “Oh, Peggy, for God’s sake Peggy, how can you have such a thick skin? Do you have to have your little triumph over a poor fat middle-aged woman – have a poor woman like that hating you? To be telling it to a stranger on the street—” He broke off, white-faced, for she had stood up, her hands on her hips, the corners of her eyes wrinkling with amusement.
“I knew you could be indifferent,” he said angrily. “I didn’t think you could stand there and laugh.”
“But I’m not laughing at poor Mrs. Wilson. I’m laughing at you.”
“I’m used to it,” he said.
“If you were only being honest, Jim!”
“I’m the one who’s not being honest? That’s funny!”
“Is it, Jim? Well, I’m not being taken in by your high moral tone,” she said. “I know you’re not really angry out of concern for Mrs. Wilson. I know why you’re sore. You’ve been humiliated. A fat coloured woman stopped you on the street. What an outrage! You, the man who’s going to do the global thinking for The Sun, a friend of the Carvers, were publicly waylaid and drawn into the love life of a fat coloured woman. And who knows who was watching? How humiliating it must have been!”
“It was,” he said sharply. “Indeed it was.”
“But surely you were sympathetic.”
“I was, I hope.”
“Of course you were. I’m sure you had a friendly chat. Real chummy. Did she seem like a sensitive soul, Jim? Would you say, for example, that she would like our Matisse?”
“What are you driving at?”
“You can’t tell about these Negroes,” she said. “There’s a Negro elevator man around here, and his wife likes Matisse.” She was deliberately wounding him by implying that the little world he had created for himself and her could be invaded easily. But the pain in his eyes and his resentful glance as he sat down on the bed filled her with contrition. “Jim, listen,” she said. “I don’t want Mrs. Wilson’s husband.”
“You may say you don’t want him now—”
“Who says I ever did want him?”
“But if he thinks you want him—”
“You mean, if his wife thinks I want him.”
“She’d know if he thinks he’s not through with you.”
“What he thinks. What she thinks. What you think. Never what I think. Well, I am concerned. How unhappy that woman must be! Of course, I’m only a scapegoat. Well, Jim,” she said firmly, “I’ll try and see that there’s no more trouble about Mrs. Wilson.”
“You mean you’re really concerned about her?” he asked doubtfully.
“Of course I am, Jim.”
“But you weren’t at all concerned about what Wolgast thought of you.”
“No, I wasn’t.”
“But why? What’s the difference?”
“I don’t care for anybody’s opinion of me. But with Mrs. Wilson – well, it’s something that goes on between her and her husband, about me. And it’s not good. I ought to do something about it.”
“And I think you will,” he said. She had lightened his heart and he was amazed that he could have confused her indifference to the town’s opinion of her with indifference to what happened to other people. “I did feel humiliated,” he admitted. “I wanted to drive her away from you and me and having anything to say about you and me.”
“No, you weren’t annoyed at Mrs. Wilson,” she protested, turning his hand over and moving her finger on the palm. “You’d be sympathetic, Jim. A little embarrassed, of course, and worried about me, but good-hearted enough to be concerned about Mrs. Wilson. That’s why I like you, Jim.”
The touch of her hand was gentle, and her eyes were tender. She was confessing for the first time his importance to her; for the first time she was offering him a physical caress, and he was moved.
“I’m worried about Mrs. Wilson,” she said. “I’ve wanted to be friendly with her, but you have to understand her, Jim. She’s one of those possessive women who make a man’s life completely intolerable. She wants every moment of her husband’s life to belong to her. A woman who can’t stand a man having a sympathetic friendship with anyone, not even another man, not even a fellow musician. If he brings a man to his apartment and seems engrossed she has to destroy that friendship. If he’s out playing cards with two of the boys she’s insanely jealous, and I think she cowers in a corner trembling until he comes home. Have you known women like that, Jim?”
“I have,” he said uneasily, thinking of Catherine. He still wanted to argue with her but believed that if he did he would be still quarrelling as usual with her one fault, her malignant innocence. “A woman like that can be dangerous,” he insisted. “A couple of extra drinks of gin and a little brooding, and Mrs. Wilson could blow her top. Well,” he said with a sigh, “if you see it, that’s fine. I’ll leave it to you. I won’t worry about it. I see you’re going out—”
“Yes, I’m a little late as it is,” she said, looking at her wrist watch.
“I won’t keep you then.” He picked up his hat. “Those Matisse prints are in the envelope there. Pin them up when you get time.”
“No,” she said, stepping out to the hall with him, “I’ll wait till you come around, Jim. We’ll do it together.” She followed him along the hall, reached for a button on his coat, and started twisting it in her fingers. “You know something, Jim—”
“What?”
“I’d just as soon I didn’t have a date.” She looked up, surprised by what she had said. “Oh, well, you’ll be around, won’t you?” she said, brushing aside the impulse to have him stay with her.
“Yes.” His heart throbbed. It was the first time that she had ever admitted that she might be happier remaining with him. If he had coaxed or insisted he might have made her feel he had prevailed on her to stay with him for the evening. But he was afraid she would instinctively resist if he argued with her. “I wish you didn’t have a date,” he said, brushing his lips against her cheek. Her hand went up slowly to her cheek and she nodded. It was a secret agreement made in the dimly lit hall, and he felt happy.
“Good night, Jim.”
“Good night,” he said.
He stood in the shadow of the steps, feeling exultant. It was much milder, but the weatherman had been right, more snow was falling. It fell on him in the shadow, pulling on his gloves, and on a man coming up the street. As he moved out of the shadow the man must have seen him, for he slowed down, then stopped, lit a cigarette, and turned his head, apparently shielding the lighted match. He was waiting for McAlpine to go. But he made a mistake: he began to saunter back the way he had come.
McAlpine noticed him and strode toward him. Whoever he was, he increased his pace; he didn’t want to be recognized; it meant that he had intended to call on Peggy. It didn’t matter whether he was white or black; he was someone intruding too quickly on that moment of understanding shared with Peggy in the hall, and McAlpine felt bitter about him.
But Peggy wasn’t expecting a caller, she had said she was going out; and, gaining on the intruder, he thought, Maybe Mrs. Wilson sent him here to threaten her. Violent guys. No Uncle Toms. He kept his eyes on the man’s broad back, getting closer. He was sure it was someone bringing her the trouble he had always dreaded. Something about him was familiar. Twenty paces of thick falling snow screened the man from him, and he couldn’t tell whether it was Malone or Wagstaffe or Wolgast or a complete stranger. Then the man turned the corner on St. Catherine and was lost among other snow-covered figures.
Who was it? Maybe he’ll come back, McAlpine thought. He went up the street beyond Peggy’s place, then across to a lamp post where he stood watching her door. He had forgotten to turn up his coat collar and the wet snow melted down his neck, but he watched and waited and didn’t notice it.
In a little while Peggy came out and hurried down to St. Catherine. She vanished on the corner where the street lights shimmered behind the veil of snow. In his excited imagination all the whitened figures crossing the street down there loomed up like ghosts wandering in the world of the dead into which she had vanished, and his heart pounded, and he was sick with anxiety.