Eleven

Once, towards the end, he and Anne had got drunk together. They had not meant to, really, but it had happened and it had not helped anything. Getting drunk had only managed to remove, somehow, the thin layers of dignity and calm that they had contrived to apply over things and, underneath, it exposed the frayed edges of feelings and stirred, like bees in a hive, the old unexpressed recriminations and forgotten hurts. He had not liked that one getting-drunk time at all.

Also, when she had had a little to drink, Anne was apt to display a taste for low life that he neither liked nor understood. It was a trait that was quite out of keeping with her background—this fondness for sights and places and experiences that would perhaps, or perhaps not, have startled her classmates at Miss Spence’s School. They had taken a trip to Europe last summer and, in Paris, with a couple they had met only very casually on the boat, she had had many cocktails at the bar of the Plaza-Athenée, and someone—just someone who had joined them, whom Anne had more or less picked up—had told them about a little show that could be arranged for five hundred francs in the room of another hotel. He had not wanted to go, but Anne had, and when they were all there, crowded into the steamy and smoky little room to watch the show, in which there were two performers, that show had been so sickening that a number of them had walked out of the room in disgust. But Anne had wanted to stay, and he had waited for her a long time in the corridor, until the show was over. And when she finally came out she announced that she had liked the show so much that she had paid another five hundred francs to have it performed again.

Then, in a place in the Rue de Vaugirard, she sat and drank wine with great abandon, and they watched the whores come in and go out with sailors, and watched the sailors come in and go out with whores. Finally, on the rooftop of some other place, there was a man who said, “I’d like you to see my phonograph. It plays all speeds.” He pointed to the courtyard below the window. “Somebody just threw it out,” he said. “It cost a hundred and ninety-five dollars when it was new,” and he turned to Anne. “You have pretty tits,” he said. “Pull down your dress.” And then, suddenly, they were all in the stairway, going down, and when they reached the street, somebody said, “Let’s find a fairy and beat him up.” It had seemed like a good idea to everybody and, eventually, they found one, a furtive, delicate boy who was standing at a bar somewhere, and who clawed at them with long fingernails and screamed a few dirty words. Then they were on the street again, and Anne had said, “Look, I know a place,” and so they had all followed her, up a street, down another, and into a dark place full of men, and Anne began screaming, “Rape!” and they were thrown out of there too. Someone had three bottles of champagne by then, and it was anyone’s guess who would get to drink it. So they drew straws and sat in a corner and tried to pull the corks out, and a fat man who was with them said he had a better idea, and smashed one of the bottles on the sidewalk. The group had grown immensely, and suddenly one of them was sick, and had to go home, and finally Hugh was sitting with Anne in an archway and listening to jazz music that was playing from somewhere above.

He had put his arm around her waist and said, “Let’s go home.”

But she had pushed his arm away and said, “Cut it out. Just cut it out! That’s all you ever think about, isn’t it? Isn’t it?”

And he had felt himself running, and Anne had called, “Wait! Wait for me!” But he was too fast for her and finally, panting, he found himself on an open street where a taxi was waiting, and he flung himself in. “Take me anywhere!” he had sobbed.

She had come back to the hotel alone and, in the morning, she was in a terrible mood, and she looked awful. Her eyes were red and swollen and her bouffant hair, which had been done for her by Michel the day before, had exploded during the night. She sat up in bed, propped on pillows, her thin shoulders hunched together in her nightgown, poking at the hair with trembling fingers. “That was a lovely thing you did to me last night,” she said. “That was a lovely, gentlemanly thing you did! Leaving me all alone in a back street of Paris at four in the morning! Just abandoning me like that. What were you trying to do to me? Where are my cigarettes? God, I feel awful. I’ve never had such a hangover in my life. I wish I could be sick.”

He had said nothing, but stood at the window in his robe, looking out at the garden below.

“I had a thousand dollars’ worth of travellers’ cheques in my purse,” she said. “I suppose you knew that, didn’t you? I could have been murdered and robbed. You wouldn’t care. Oh, if my daddy only knew how you treated me! He’d kill you, I really think he would. He’d kill you.”

He continued to look out the window, still saying nothing.

“You don’t care, do you? You wouldn’t care if I’d been murdered and robbed, would you? No. You probably hoped I would be! And that was a lovely neighbourhood you chose to abandon me in. And you were certainly a lovely wet blanket on the party last night—refusing to let anybody have any fun. You just don’t want anybody to have any fun, do you? That’s it, isn’t it? You just don’t want anybody to have a good time!”

“Please,” he said. “I’m trying to forget last night.”

“Oh, I’m sure you are! Well,” she said, “I had fun anyway. Do you hear that? I had fun anyway, in spite of your trying to spoil everything. You just didn’t want me to see the sights of Paris, did you? Well, I haven’t been to Paris since before we were married, and I intend to see the sights whether you like it or not! You can do whatever you please. I’m going to see the sights. You didn’t want to see that show last night, did you? Despite the fact that that happens to be part of the sights of Paris! Was oo offended? Was oo itty-bitty sensibilities offended? Well, I liked it, so there! After all, I don’t seem to get any sex life from you, do I? Do I?”

Again he said nothing, but stood at the window, looking out at the pretty people who crossed the garden on their way to lunches, and the blue and pink hydrangeas in the window-boxes, at the sparrows that settled in the leafy branches of the chestnut trees.

Coming back to New York, he had decided to have it out with Joe Wallace once and for all. The argument, which had been coming up again and again over the last year or so, was getting them nowhere. And so, his first week back from Europe, he had gone into Joe’s office and they had discussed it.

“We live in an age that worships size,” Joe had said. “It’s simply the trend of things, Hugh. It’s an age of bigness—big cars, big chains of supermarkets. Where’s the little independent grocer these days? Nobody wants to shop from him any more. Look at banks—they’re merging, consolidating, getting bigger all the time. Little business is on its way out. A business is nothing unless it’s big. Big companies with big advertising budgets don’t want to piddle around with small agencies. The day of the small agency is gone, Hugh. It’s just the times. You can’t buck the times.”

“But look at it from another standpoint, Joe,” Hugh had said. “Look at it from the standpoint of personnel. Take this fellow Bob Symes we just hired. Bob’s main reason for coming with us was that he wanted to work for a smaller agency. He was sick of working in a big place, where he was just a digit. He’d had an offer from McCann-Erickson, but he didn’t want McCann-Erickson. He wanted us, because of our size, and you couldn’t ask for a better boy than Bob Symes.”

“I agree,” Jo Wallace had said. “I agree that we couldn’t ask for a better boy than Bob Symes. But the opposite side of the argument is just as true. There are plenty of people who just won’t work for small agencies—who feel they’re cut out for the big ones.”

“Men as good as Bob Symes, do you think?”

“Look. New York is full of people as good as Bob Symes. I’m not trying to run down Bob, mind you, but it just isn’t realistic to think that there aren’t thousands of other fellows in New York with just as much ability, or more. And who don’t share Bob’s personal feelings about working for small companies.”

“Well, Joe,” he had said, “just as there are people like Bob who don’t want the McCann-Erickson sort of thing, so are there lots of businesses in town that don’t, either. Businesses like most of our present clients, for instance. Our present clients have chosen us because of our size.”

“Not entirely,” Joe had said. “They’ve chosen us for plenty of solider reasons than just because of our size.”

“But size has been a factor. I’ll bet if you took a poll, Joe, you’d find that most of our present clients would prefer to have us stay just about the size we are now.”

“You talk about polls, Hugh. But what you’re saying is pure speculation. You don’t really know how they feel about it.”

“But I’m pretty sure,” Hugh said. “Pretty damn’ sure. I’m also pretty sure we’ll lose some of our present clients once we start expanding.”

“Oh, to hell with our present clients,” Joe had said. “I’m not talking about them.”

“Boy, I wish I could share that sentiment,” Hugh had said. “I can’t say to hell with our present clients. After all, they’re the ones who got us where we are.”

“Sure,” Joe said. “Sure, I know all that. I don’t really mean to hell with them. What I mean is, let the ones who want to stay stay—as we expand. And the ones who don’t—well, we really can’t be bothered too much with them. After all, we’ll be expanding—there’ll be other clients coming in to fill the gaps the old ones leave.”

“Well, what about ourselves, Joe—you and me? Why do we want to get any bigger? We’ve got a good business here. We make a good income from it—as much as we could possibly need. You said a while ago that you didn’t see any point in our giving ourselves any more salary—it would all go to Uncle Sam anyway.”

“I’m not talking about salaries, Hugh. Sure, I said that. Uncle’s getting enough from me already. I don’t believe in giving Uncle any more than he gets now.”

“And the stock that we own in the company has gone steadily up—ten per cent a year.”

Joe had sat back in his chair and made a steeple of his fingers. “Slow and steady wins the race, eh? Is that your philosophy, buddy?” Joe said.

Hugh hesitated a moment. He could always tell when Joe was impatient with him for something, whenever Joe started calling him “buddy.”

“I’m talking about you and me,” he said. “And what it is that we expect to get out of this company in our lifetime.”

“So am I,” Joe said. “So am I talking about exactly that, buddy.”

“Well, what about it, joe?”

“Look,” Joe said, “I’m not for a minute—not for a second—trying to underrate your contributions to this company. Your contributions have been great, terrific. I know what the clients say. ‘Get me Hugh.’ ‘Let me talk it over with Hugh.’ ‘I want to feel Hugh out about this.’ ‘Let me see what Hugh thinks, and then I’ll decide.’ I know all this. It’s terrific. You’re a tremendous asset, and do you know why? It’s because you’re sympathetic. You’re a good listener. You don’t try to hard-sell people. You’ve got this tremendous quality of—well, warmth, and understanding. And when a client’s got a problem, he likes to chew it over with a guy like you, because you’ve got this kind of—call it a bedside manner. And that’s important because it’s a quality I admit that I don’t have. I’m too impatient, Hugh. I don’t listen well, but you do. We sort of balance each other out, Hugh, and that’s why we’ve made a good team.”

“Well, I like to think I’ve contributed something, Joe,” he said.

“You have. And don’t think for a minute that I don’t appreciate it. You’re our clients’ original wailing wall! And clients need someone like that, someone to hold their hand when they think they’ve got a problem. But on the other hand—I’m talking to you as an old friend now, Hugh.”

“Go ahead,” Hugh said.

“On the other hand—well, I’m not even sure you’ll understand this, Hugh, about me. I don’t quite know how to put this so you’ll understand.”

“Understand what, Joe?”

“The difference in our backgrounds. That’s what I’m talking about. The difference in our backgrounds. You’re a rich guy, Hugh. You always were. Even back at school, remember? You were a rich kid, with rich parents. And I was just a scholarship kid, remember?”

“Ah, Joe,” he said, “what does that have to do with anything?”

“A lot. Just listen to me, Hugh, for half a sec. I was a scholarship kid at school, and I had to wait on table. Remember that? God, how it used to burn my ass to have to wait on table for all the rich kids. Remember Mrs. Saunders—the wife of old Saunders, who taught Fourth Form French? That fat old bag wouldn’t talk to the guys who waited on her table, just because they were scholarship kids. She was sweet as pie to everybody else, but not to the waiters. And do you remember one day a waiter dropped a serving spoon all covered with prune whip down the back of that fat old bag’s dress? And there was a big fuss in the dining-hall about it? Well, that waiter was me, Hugh. And do you remember how she stood up and started yelling, and everybody was trying to fish that spoon out of the back of her dress? And finally old Saunders had to unbutton the back of her dress, all the way down, right in the dining-hall? Well,” he said, and he tilted his leather chair way back and laughed loudly. “Well, that spoon wasn’t dropped by any accident, Hugh, though of course I said it was. No, I took careful aim—I aimed that spoon right down that fat old bag’s back.”

Hugh chuckled softly. “I remember that,” he said. “But what’s that got to do with you and me?”

Joe snapped forward in his chair again and put his hands on the top of his desk. “Just this, buddy,” he said. “Just this. I’ve always had to work for everything I got. You, and a lot of other guys I know, didn’t. You had it handed to you, you were born with it. Not that I blame you for being born with it, mind you. More power to you, I say. But that’s what I mean when I say I wonder if you’d even understand what I want to get out of this business. Stay small, stay small—that’s your philosophy. Well, why should you want to grow? Why shouldn’t you have modest aims? You’ve got your fortune already. You’re a rich guy, and you’re married to a rich girl. Well, Hugh, I want to get married some day when I’m ready, and some day I want to have children. And I want to leave my children a fortune of their own, just as big as your fortune, or even bigger. Can you understand that kind of ambition, Hugh? Because that happens to be what I want to get out of this business.”

Hugh studied Joe’s wide, good-looking face—heavier now, but still the same face that he had known at school and college. He had never realised before that, in a funny way, Joe had always resented his family’s money. “Just another rich brat, eh?” he said. “Is that what you think of me? Well, Joe, the family may have some money, but don’t forget that you had to lend me money to buy into this business. So I’m not as rich as that.”

“Look,” Joe said, “don’t get me wrong. Please don’t get me wrong. All I mean is that you’ve been lucky, in ways that I haven’t. I’ve worked, and you’ve had things handed to you on a silver tray. That’s why maybe you have less ambition than me—and maybe that’s a lucky thing. Ambition’s a hard taskmaster, Hugh. And you’ve been lucky in other ways.”

“In what other ways, Joe?”

“Well, you’re lucky to be lame,” Joe said. “Being lame, everybody has always done things for you. Sometimes I wish I was lame!”

Hugh stood up.

“Now don’t get me wrong,” Joe said quickly. “Please don’t get me wrong, Hugh. I didn’t mean it quite that way.”

“I think your meaning was clear,” he said.

“No, look, don’t get mad. My God, Hugh, you’re my best friend, my oldest friend. I value your friendship very highly. It’s the most important thing in the world to me, Hugh, one of the most important. I guess I was just trying to be frank with you, Hugh, when you asked me what it was I wanted—”

“You’ve always got what you wanted, too, haven’t you, Joe? You’ve got your apartment on Park Avenue, you’ve got your fancy car, you’ve got—”

“I want more than that! That’s all.”

“Well, good luck to you.”

“Sit down, Hugh. Please. Let’s not fight, old man. Let’s—”

“Don’t you think the discussion’s over?” Hugh asked him.

“Look, I apologise,” Joe said. “I’m sorry for what I said. I didn’t mean it, honestly. I was upset. Don’t you see, Hugh? I need you. I really do. This agency needs you, and so do I. We couldn’t have come the distance that we have without you, don’t you see? So it’s the thought that we’re disagreeing on something that upsets me. Hugh, I want to expand this business, and I want you to be a part of that expansion. I want you to help me expand. I need you to help me. What do I have to do to show you that this business needs you and I need you? Get down on my knees?”

“No, you don’t have to do that, Joe.”

“And so, when you asked me what I wanted—”

All at once Hugh felt very tired. “I guess I just wasn’t talking about things like that,” he said.

“Then what were you talking about?”

“I wasn’t talking about material things so much as about the kind of service this agency gives, the intimacy we’ve established with the people we work for—”

“We can keep all that stuff, as we expand. That’s why I need you—for just that sort of thing.”

“I can’t be a part of a programme that I don’t believe in,” he said. “I can’t, and I won’t be.”

“Why don’t you believe in it, for Christ’s sweet sake?”

“Because I feel we’d be sacrificing our integrity,” he said, “just for money.”

“You talk about integrity—” Joe began.

“I mean that our size, our very workable and manageable size, is part of our reputation. It’s our whole reason for being. It’s what gives us our identity, our uniqueness, our personality—” But he knew that he was defeated already.

“You talk about personality—” Joe had begun, when the phone on his desk rang. “Just a sec,” he said, and picked up the phone. “Yes?” he said in his crisp, executive voice. And then, in a suddenly softer tone, “Oh, hallo. How are you? Yes. Yes, he’s right here in fact. Yes, we were just now discussing—yes. Yes, I will. O.K. Sure I will. Good-bye.” He hung up the phone.

“That was your wife,” Joe said. “That was Anne.”

“Oh? What’s she calling you about?”

“She’s very upset, too, Hugh,” Joe said. “She’s very upset about this attitude of yours—very upset. She’s called me a couple of times, trying to get me to persuade you to change your mind. She feels you’re dead wrong, Hugh. She feels you’re about to make a major mistake.”

“Well,” Hugh said. “I’m really getting the pressure from all directions, aren’t I?”

Joe had laughed softly, sympathetically. “But don’t forget she’s got a stake in this too,” he said. “She’s got a stake in your future. She wants you to do the right thing.”

“Well, let me think about it, Joe,” he said.

“Good. You think about it. But don’t think too long, Hugh. We’ve got to get moving—got to get started. And remember that I’m going to need your help.”

“I won’t take too long deciding, Joe.”

“Good. Just remember it’s the pattern of the times, Hugh. We’re in an era that worships bigness. Bigness is God.”

“I’ll let you know,” he said.

And, of course, he had let him know.

And on the evening of the day he had let Joe know, he had come home to the apartment to tell Anne about it.

They had gone into the little study that she always called “Hugh’s study,” and which she had decorated for him in a hunting motif. The wallpaper, which she had picked out, depicted a series of hunting scenes—brown Irish setters flushing partridge from clumps of brush, hunters in tall stands of cat-tails, with guns raised towards dots of geese that flew in V’s across the sky, rabbits peering from autumn brambles, mallards settling about decoys on a lake. Hunting prints also hung on the walls, against the paper, creating hunting scenes on top of other hunting scenes, and king pheasant flew across the shades of plump copper-bottomed lamps. She fixed him a drink in one of the assortment of glasses on the leatherette bar—glasses that went with the room, all painted with more miniature mallards, geese, cat-tails, setters, and partridge—and sat down in one of the chintz-covered chairs opposite him.

“Anne,” he said, “I told Joe to-day that I couldn’t go along with his project. I’m selling him my share of the business.”

“Oh,” she said quietly. She picked up her drink and started walking slowly back and forth across the room on the flowered rug, carrying the drink.

“Anne,” he said, “I know what you think. You think I’ve simply been stubborn about this—about something that really isn’t very important, stubborn about some rather silly principle. But—and I don’t expect you to understand this, Anne—it isn’t silly to me. It’s important. And Anne, do you know something? Now that it’s over, I’m terribly glad. I’m terribly happy, Anne, because I know I’ve done the right thing. And I’m terribly excited. My God, I’m so excited my heart’s pounding. I came home—my God, so excited that I was walking seven feet off the pavement! I can’t remember when I’ve ever felt so excited about a thing, so sure about a thing. I feel—well, as if a whole new world were opening up for me! That’s an original expression, isn’t it? But no kidding, that’s exactly how I feel, Anne. Anne, this is the most thrilling moment of my life—a whole new beginning, Anne—for us, Anne.” He stood up and crossed the room, stood behind her and put his arms around her. “Anne,” he said, “listen. I know things haven’t gone too well for you and me lately—I know it. But do you know what the trouble has been? It’s this damn’ New York City life, Anne, that’s been getting us—pressing in on us all around. Anne, this is going to be a whole new beginning for us. A whole new beginning. I just know it. We’re just going to start fresh, Anne. Like—like just taking a big deep breath, and starting over again. Are you excited, Anne? Because I am. I’ve got so many plans for us. Do you know what we’re going to do? We’re going to go to San Francisco. You know how you’ve always loved San Francisco. And I’m going to get a job on one of the papers there. I’ve got a few contacts lined up already, Anne, and I’m going to start right in to-night, writing letters. With my advertising experience, I shouldn’t have any trouble. It’s something I’ve wanted to do all my life, Anne, and now I’m going to do it—we’re going to do it. We’re going to get a house—oh, maybe way up on top of Russian Hill or some place like that—with a view of that beautiful, big, god-damned bay, and the bridges—and we’re going to sniff that beautiful, clean, San Francisco air, and—” He laughed suddenly. “My God, just listen to me!” he almost shouted. “But it’s true—we’re going to do it, Anne. And everything’s going to change for us, because we’re going to begin again.”

She stood, with his arms around her, unmoving.

He went to the leatherette bar and put down his drink. He spread his arms wide. “Listen,” he laughed, “it’s daybreak! The sun is climbing up over the Berkeley Hills. You—you appear,” and he gestured towards her. “You appear—all in white—among the geraniums, and—”

She turned to him. “Are you out of your mind?” she asked him in a flat voice. “Have you gone totally out of your mind? I’m not going to California or anywhere else. I’d rather die first.”

“What do you mean?”

“Go pick geraniums if you want to,” she said. “I made up my mind months ago that if you were going to do this thing, I was going to leave. And now you tell me you’ve done it?”

“Yes.”

“Then I’m leaving. If you want to contact me, I’ll be at Mother and Daddy’s.”

And she had walked out of the room, leaving him alone in the wilderness of the wallpaper, surrounded by its furred and feathered population. For a moment he had the insane sensation that he had begun to dissolve into it, that he was disappearing, being swallowed within the wallpaper’s patterned and endlessly repeated depths.

Though he no longer had much spirit for farewells, he had promised Ellen Brier that he would have a farewell lunch with her. They had had many lunches together in the past, usually at the Algonquin because it was right around the corner from the office. Of the hundred-odd people who worked at Wallace and Carey, Ellen had always been one of his favourites. She was a slim girl with short, dark hair and large, dark, grave eyes, and she was a commercial-writer in the Television Department. He liked her for her dry, quiet humour, and her easy and direct manner. In her spare time, she had told him long ago, she was writing a musical comedy. Everyone in New York, she had confessed, was writing musical comedies, and of course she had no idea whether hers would be better than anyone else’s, or whether it would ever be produced, or even finished. But it was something to do in the evenings, and she liked the idea. It was about a fashion model and her agent said—well, one day if he liked she would show the script to him. And, one day, she had. One evening, when Anne was away for a regional meeting of the Junior League, Ellen had invited him up to her apartment for supper. Then, in her little apartment on Central Park West, in front of her fireplace, they had eaten spaghetti, and he had read her script. Though he knew nothing about musical comedies, he had liked the few scenes that she had finished, and he told her so. She had smiled wryly. “Well, you see what it is,” she had said. “It’s just a crazy little dream of mine. And it’s fun to think about.” He had told her then about the dream he had had, of working on a newspaper, and she had said, “You see? It’s important that we each have our little dreams, isn’t it? It doesn’t matter at all whether they ever come true or not. The important thing is that we have them. I’m glad you have a little dream, too.”

And so, to-day, they had gone to the Algonquin again for lunch, and she had raised her cocktail to him and said, “Here’s to you, Hugh, and to your future.”

“Thanks, Ellen,” he said.

“How does it feel to be one of the great unemployed?” she asked him, smiling.

“Well, it feels a little strange,” he said. “I admit it does feel a little strange. But I don’t intend to have it last for very long.”

“Of course,” she said. “Of course it won’t last long. Barely a minute. I just wish I were doing what you’re doing.”

“Do you, Ellen. Why?”

“Because I think you’re doing exactly the right thing—exactly.”

“Well, I hope I am,” he said.

“I know you are. And, in case you care, there are quite a few others at the office who think you are, too.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really.” She lit a cigarette. “And I’ll tell you something else,” she said. “Joe isn’t going to make it.”

“What makes you think that?” he asked her.

“I see it,” she said. “I see it in little Miss Brier’s crystal ball. Joe Wallace won’t ever quite make it to the place he wants. He’ll try, but he’ll never make it.”

“Well,” he said, “I don’t wish any ill of Joe.”

“I don’t either,” she said, “not really. After all, I’m going to go on working for him. For selfish reasons, I don’t want him to flop. But he will, Hugh, he will. I sense it.”

“I’m not so sure,” he said. “I’ve known Joe a long time. He’s one of the most determined men I know. I’ve never known him yet not to get the thing he’s set out to get. It’s almost a habit with Joe—to win.”

The olive in her cocktail was pierced with a small red plastic toothpick, and she swirled this thoughtfully in her glass. “Well, perhaps,” she said. And then, “But it’s certainly going to be different without you there,” she said. “It is already.”

“Is it?”

“It’s everywhere in the air—a difference. It’s certainly going to be different for me.”

“Well—”

“And I’m not the only one,” she said. “A number of people have mentioned it, how very different everything suddenly seems. We’ll all miss you, Hugh.”

“Well, that’s very nice to know,” he said.

“And do you know something? Joe Wallace misses you the most of all. This morning, there was a meeting about some new commercials, and Joe was looking them over, and all at once he started to say, ‘Let’s see what Hugh thinks’—the way he always does. And he suddenly stopped, and then he said, ‘Well, let me think about these—let me mull them over.’”

“Well, that only means—”

“Do you know what I think? I think that Joe doesn’t quite believe that you’ve really, physically gone. I think he still thinks you’ll change your mind and come back.”

“I’m afraid my mind’s made up,” he said.

“I know it is. And you know how I feel. But I guess there are a lot of people who still hope perhaps you’ll change your mind. I guess no matter how much you admire someone’s stand on a thing, you still—”

“Still what?”

She smiled. “Well, if you like them, you still wish they’d stay. I guess that’s it. But you should have seen Joe this morning. He was a different person.”

“Joe will get used to it, too, in time,” he said.

She took a sip of her cocktail. “Maybe,” she said. “But that’s why I’m convinced that Joe will never make it.”

“I wish you wouldn’t keep saying that,” he said.

“Do you? I’m sorry. But that’s one of the problems with me. I’m always frank. I always say what I think. To me, Joe Wallace is just a small-town boy with big ideas. It’s got to be big business—big, big, big. Or else it’s nothing. He thinks the only way to succeed is to be the biggest of them all. To me, Joe has a warped idea of what success is.”

“Ah, Ellen,” he said, “please. I don’t think that’s true.”

“Hugh,” she said, “you’re so nice. You’re one of the nicest people I know. But haven’t you ever realised how disliked—how thoroughly hated—Joe Wallace is in this business?”

“I’ve never been aware of that.”

“See? See how frank I am? And see how nice you are? Well, it happens to be true. Do you know something? I think maybe niceness is your problem. You’re compulsively nice.” She laughed. “I’m not completely serious, but a little bit serious. Maybe niceness can be a problem, sometimes. When I first met you, I thought: How very nice he is. But it can’t be real. It must be an act, a bit. But now that I know you, I see that it’s all very real, a part of you. I like that part of course—but still, niceness can be a problem.”

He said nothing.

“You know, my father used to have a little saying,” she said. “He used to say ‘All bars are alike,’ and if you’d known my father you’d have known that he spoke from experience. ‘All bars are alike,’ he’d say, ‘and it’s just the personality of the bartender that makes you go to one and not a dozen others.’ It’s the same way with this agency. The personality of one of the bartenders—you—has made a lot of people come to us. And now that personality isn’t going to be there any more. That’s why I think Joe Wallace will fail.”

He still said nothing, but looked at the cocktail in his hand, holding the stem of the glass between his fingers.

“And don’t think I’m trying to flatter you,” she said. “Because I’m not. You don’t need flattery.”

“Well, thanks anyway,” he said.

“Well, it’s been fun, hasn’t it?” she said. “Working together? You’ve taught me a great deal. And the way you’ve listened to all my crazy schemes. Do you know that you’re the only person—the only person in the world I’ve ever shown that script to? And you’re probably the only one who’ll ever see it. But I’m not going to turn this into a sloppy farewell speech, because this isn’t a farewell, is it? You’ll be back in New York from time to time, and we’ll get together again. We’ll keep in touch.”

“Yes, we’ll keep in touch.”

“I just wish I had the guts to walk out, too. But I need the job. I’ve got to keep the wolf from the door and pay the analyst’s bills.”

“What are you talking about? Are you going to an analyst?”

“Oh, yes.”

“What are you going to an analyst for?”

“Sometimes I ask myself the same question,” she said. “But I am.”

“My God, you’re one of the best-adjusted people I know, Ellen.”

“Ha!” she laughed. “Me? Well-adjusted? Oh, no. I’m terribly adjusted. All sorts of little adjustments need to be made on me. I’m sorely in need of repair, but nobody seems to quite know what’s wrong, so we lift up the hood and we tinker with this, and tinker with that, and—well, I don’t want to talk about that.”

“I can’t believe that you’d need any repairs at all,” he said.

“You see? Your niceness is popping out again. That is your problem, and I’ll bet my Dr. Berger would agree. But let’s not talk about problems. Tell me—what’s it going to be? Are you off to California to your newspaper at last?”

“Well,” he said, “a few days ago I thought I was. But now I’m suddenly not so sure.”

“Oh?” she said. “What are you going to do then?”

“Well, to-morrow I’m going up to my family’s place in Connecticut for a few days. My mother called up and she wants me to come home for a little visit with the family—just a short visit, sort of a vacation, while I line things up for what I’m going to do next.”

“Tell me about home,” she said. “Tell me about Connecticut.”

“Well,” he had said, smiling, “we live in a castle.”

“A castle?”

“Yes.” And he had started telling her about the castle, describing its empty towers, telling her about his grandfather and how he had moved the house from Baldwin. And, because she seemed interested and kept urging him, saying, “Yes, yes. Go on,” he told her about his father, and his sister Pansy, and about Reba, and his mother, the Chinless Charmers. It was always hard to describe his mother to someone who had never met her, but he did his best—telling her about her fantastic dresses, her collection of hats, the way she insisted, in some ways, on always being a clown. And he tried to describe her serious side, too—the side that seldom showed, the side that was so resolute and strong. And when he had finished, he said, “Sandy’s the kind of person, when I was in school, who used to be known as ‘quite a character.’ That’s what she is, I guess. A character. She’s not easy to describe. You’ll just have to meet her. You’ll have to come up to Connecticut some time and meet her. I think you’ll like her.”

She had sat very quietly for a moment, thoughtfully stirring her cocktail with the olive on its toothpick stem. Then she said, “Do you know something? And here I go again, being dreadfully frank. But I think she sounds awful. I don’t think I’d like her at all. And furthermore I’m certain that she wouldn’t like me.”

He looked at her for a second or two, puzzled, and then he smiled faintly and looked down at the tablecloth. Because it was true, of course, and he knew perfectly well what his mother would think of Ellen Brier.

“And tell me about your wife,” she said. “You haven’t mentioned her. How has she reacted to all this?”

“My wife?”

“Yes, your wife.”

“Well,” he said, “I’ll be frank with you. My wife has left me.”

“Oh,” she said.

“Yes.”

She stirred the olive slowly around the bowl of the glass, around and around. “I was married once,” she said.

“I never knew that, Ellen.”

“Yes, I was married once,” she said. And then, “Well, shall we look at a menu?”