‘M THE BEST GODDAM WRITER this country ever turned out, yes, or France or England too for that matter,” said Andy, lying on the chintz counterpane, English tweed dressing gown pulled across his trousers. “I know you and the Glaenzers think it was easy but let me tell you I worked hard, Effie, I earned whatever kudos I got, I never had anything just handed to me.”
It was Andy, of course it was Andy, Andy caricatured by that unkind cartoonist Time until he was Uncle Henry Callingham from Syracuse, so that Effie had to keep staring at him trying to find some familiar gesture or expression, but whatever was familiar was some trait of that uncle who used to come to New York to visit them. Even his voice had taken on a brittle nervous quality unlike the lazy drawl she remembered. She tried in vain to combine in this present figure the young Andy, the Andy of her imagination, and the great man Callingham. It was preposterous that Marian’s dying or any other mere human trifle would matter to this stranger. She looked helplessly from him to the young man with fair mustache who was unpacking duffle bag and suitcase, occasionally rushing in and out with telegrams and messages. Would he, she wondered, take a message through this Andy-facade to the Andy she knew, or where could she reach that vanished person?
“Get out those snapshots, Jim, I want to show Effie the places at Cannes,” said Andy. He poured a drink from the cognac bottle on the night table but Effie shook her head. “Effie, I’ve got a grand place, right there on the Mediterranean. And a yacht. A beauty. Pass them over here, Jim, I want Effie to see that set. And say, I wish you could see the cottage at Cornwall. I had such a good summer there I went right back and bought it so I could always have it when I wanted it. I like to own the place I stay—I’m buying here, too, did Tony tell you, maybe stay here six months a year. Ah here, here’s our party in India, that’s me, and that’s the Duke of Malvern, a hell of a nice fella. Here’s the chateau, rear view, you can see the sea right there in the corner, and here’s me receiving the International Novel Prize in Paris, that’s the prime minister—here’s me and Lloyd George—here’s my stable—”
She knew she should have exclaimed with admiration, made questions, but she was utterly overcome with shyness, wonder that she had dared burst into this perfect stranger’s life. There was an odd buzzing in her head, a sense of not being really there, of being in a confused nightmare, and it reminded her of a childhood dream in which the cruel ogre was her father even though he had another name and another face. So this big gray man had once been her husband, the pattern from which she had cut her real lover, the dream Andy. If she only looked and listened she might get accustomed to him, as one might accustom one’s eyes to darkness, but she could not speak. What link could she and Marian ever have had with this legendary hero? How presumptuous of women to think their life or death mattered to a legend? Observing with surprise the pouches and deep wrinkles about his eyes, she pushed her chair about so that the light was behind her, shadowing her own face and hiding the hollows of her throat. She looked over the photographs, records of a life she could only dimly grasp, definite proof of how far afield her own conjecturings had been. She had, it is true, pictured an adventurous life, but these pictures were not proof of adventures, they were history, and there was something chilling in that. All of the imagined dialogues fled from her mind, for they were for lovers reunited, not for embarrassed guest and a great name. Why, she thought, groping for reasons for her shattering bewilderment, there was no Andy left, he had been wiped out by Callingham the Success as men before him had been wiped out by the thing they represented. Her knees quivering, her disobedient, paralyzed tongue were evidence enough that she was in a royal presence; she might better kiss his hand and flee.
“You’ve only a few minutes to dress,” said the secretary. “Mr. MacTweed is calling in half an hour. I’ve told the reporters you can’t see anyone else today, so they’re cleared out.”
She must go at this hint, go, or make her demand for Marian at once. She was disgusted with herself for her sweating palms, her chattering teeth, as if she were about to make of this great Name an outrageous request, beg some incredible favor as if he were a mere human being instead of already an immortal, a god she had once presumed to love. She was even surprised that he remembered her at all, flattering her by sending away the other guests, and by showing her trophies of his triumphant journeys. Yet second thoughts were more cynical; his tone had the forced heartiness he might use on a poor relation, the desire to share his successes with her warring with the fear that too glowing a story would only remind her of her own poverty. Her head swam with conflicting resolutions, she would beg him to come with her to Marian, no, she would not dare be so bold. But time was short and she plunged.
“Did you get my cable, Andy?”
He frowned and glanced in the direction of the secretary rather significantly as if this was coming to a problem often discussed between them. The photograph in his hand of the gay gardens of his chateau dropped to the floor unheeded.
“I was sorry Marian was ill,” he said stiffly. “Thanks for wiring me.”
“She wanted you—”
“It was lucky I had already booked passage for America. I wrote the hospital of course that I would attend to all the expenses. I was very fond of Marian.”
“She loves you,” said Effie. Now her eyes were hot with tears and her voice sounded utterly strange to her as if in command of someone else, certainly it seemed to her of her own volition she could never have spoken a word.
“Effie, is she really sick?”
Effie started. “Why, Andy, she’s dying.”
Andy stared at the floor.
“She used to send word she was dying or about to commit suicide whenever she was upset over something I’d done,” he said. “Marian is a lovely person, but she is not the wife for a man in public life. I can’t work and soothe hysterics, you know; no man can. She made herself miserable with needless jealousies—whoever I talked to or danced with—you were never jealous, Effie.”
It was the first reference he’d made to their old relationship. He paced up and down the room nervously.
“Damn it, you can’t work with a wife always screaming for attention,” he said savagely. “You can patch up scenes for a while but finally you give up, no matter how much you love her. She ran away. I was worn out. Let her run, I said. I can’t go on with it—right in the middle of a new trilogy. I always admired you, Effie, you knew a man doing high-keyed work breaks out in a high-keyed way—a little flirtation, a binge—just a form of nerves, but you understood it, Effie.”
Effie nodded, silent.
“I know women,” he went on rapidly, “I’m the best writer on female psychology in the world today but, by God, that doesn’t help you to know how to handle a woman who wants to make jealous scenes, wants romantic love at the expense of everything else. You had common sense, Effie, there was no romantic nonsense about you. Our marriage busts up, OK, you say, that’s that. No spilled milk. You knew it was the best thing.”
Effie fumbled in her cigarettes to hide her face.
“It was a fine thing for both of us,” she said then. She thought, of course, you lose him because you don’t make a scene, and you lose him because you do make a scene; at least I know now there’s nothing you can do either way to hold a man once he’s going. He would have gone no matter what I did or said.
Andy rushed to her and took her hands impulsively.
“Effie, it’s worth coming back to the States just to hear you say that. You don’t know how I felt, running off the way I did, never knowing whether I was breaking your heart or what. But all this time you knew it was for the best. Oh, Effie, Effie, thank you for that. Sometimes I’ve almost hated you thinking of you over here, so goddam noble, still loving me, forgiving me, waiting for me—”
“Ridiculous,” said Effie. “When it was over, it was over.”
“Exactly. I knew you felt that way, too.”
“It was swell while it lasted,” she said, smiling. Swell. That was it. She was to be the swell person still, mustn’t let anyone feel ugly. That’s that. OK. Over when it’s over. Swell while it lasted. No romantic nonsense. Those were the words to remember, the vocabulary for the swell person.
“Gee you’re great, Effie,” he was beaming at her now, radiant. “It’s been the one thing that bothered me—feeling like a bastard about you. And all the time—let’s have a drink.”
This time, because her hands were shaking so, she took the glass he offered and drank with him, hoping the brandy burning into her blood would give her courage, to keep smiling while he looked at her, looked at her for the first time since she came into the room.
“Do you know, something strikes me that never did before? I’ll bet the reason you let me go off with Marian was that there was somebody around you liked? I know women and I know you don’t send a man off that easy unless there’s someone else.”
“You are clever, aren’t you?” Effie answered.
“I thought so,” he exclaimed gleefully. “I always held that nobleness against you. I see I needn’t have. Who was it? Tony? He always was around.”
“No secrets from you, are there?” said Effie.
“We should have stayed together, Effie,” he said and poured himself another drink. “We understand those little strayings. I’ll bet you’ve run through a dozen lovers since my day. Who is it now?”
“Well—”
“Come on, you might tell me that much. What does he do?”
Effie hesitated.
“He’s a writer,” she said and glanced quickly toward the door to make sure Dennis wouldn’t suddenly walk in. “Dennis Orphen.”
“Orphen?” Andy drew back, offended. “That’s the man who wrote that attack on me. I shouldn’t think you’d like him—I don’t think that’s very sporting of you, Effie. A man who’s lampooned me brutally—after all, Effie—”
Effie got up.
“I can’t help what he writes, and then I never did feel any romantic nonsense about you, you know.” She pulled on her gloves. “Now you must go to Marian’s. Dennis is waiting for me.”
“I’ve got this dinner tonight, I’ll go tomorrow—”
“There won’t be any tomorrow!” Effie cried, unable to bear more. “She’s dying—she loves you—you’ve got to go to her.”
Silently he got into his clothes. She felt ghastly and her heart seemed torn with her betrayal of it. She thought, how did people live to be old, each year betraying themselves more, crippling themselves with lies until the person herself is lost, she is only a whisper saying hear, hear, this is the real me, don’t listen to what I say and don’t look at what I do, this is the real me beneath all that changed into nothing but a little unheard voice, and if this wicked witch’s body flays you don’t be hurt for it isn’t really I, don’t heed it, only listen to my voice saying I love you.
Finally even the voice is killed and all that is left is the ugly deed, the cruel word. When it’s over, it’s over, she had said, so smilingly cut out her own heart.
She saw Andy talking to the young man but there was a din in her head, a ringing in her ears, echo of her own voice shouting, when it’s over, it’s over. When they finally left the bedroom only one person was left in the living room, Dennis, and Effie beckoned to him.
“Andy,” she said, “this is Dennis Orphen.”
Andy held out his hand stiffly.
“Congratulations, Orphen,” he said. “Effie has just told me.”
The three rode down in the elevator, Effie quite scarlet.