Neither Five Nor Three Page 3

  But to see better—although, of course, she mustn’t spend more than a minute tonight—and to be out of the way of workmen clearing debris on to a truck, she moved farther along the temporary wooden gangway and put her eye to one of the square holes cut for “sidewalk-superintendents” in the fence. Beside her, a small boy was watching through another square hole cut obligingly at a three-foot height, while he resisted all attempts by his mother to drag him away. She was saying, “But Billy, we’ve seen it! And the men are leaving now. They’ve nearly all gone.” It was true, although the very junior sidewalk-superintendent didn’t want to believe it. Or perhaps the huge ground floor, still unbroken into rooms, fascinated him by its size. It seemed all the bigger because only a few men, busy on overtime, were left to emphasise its loneliness. “I’ll build a house just like that,” the little boy announced, and decided to leave and get home and start right away. His mother ran after him.

  Time for me to leave too, Rona thought, and she turned away. A tall man in uniform stepped aside to let her pass over the narrowed sidewalk. Then, even as she had passed, his arm suddenly went out and he gripped her by the elbow and pulled her back. Startled, she looked up at him and saw a dark-haired man with strong eyebrows, a face that was now more handsome than good-looking, a pleasant mouth beginning to smile, serious grey eyes now losing their surprise. “Rona!” he said. “Rona...”

  She stood staring at him. She half-opened her mouth. When she did speak, her voice was incredulous. “Paul Haydn!”

  They stood there, blocking the sidewalk. Then he dropped her arm. “Look,” he said, smiling, “we’d better get off this catwalk before we are arrested for obstruction.” That took a minute, a minute that gave them time to regain themselves a little, a minute that took away all the naturalness of their voices and made them suddenly self-conscious.

  “I wondered who the girl was,” he began, and she looked at him. She was thinking, he hasn’t changed at all, the same old Paul, he looks different except when he smiles, but he’s the same old Paul wondering who the girl was. He noticed the look, and he went on, “The girl who had enough sense to admire a good job of work.” He said it simply, and she felt ashamed of herself. She had often imagined this meeting, and she had dreaded it. Now it was here, and there was no reason for those fears at all. At the first moment—well, that had been surprise. But now—we said we’d be friends, she told herself, it’s all over and we are only friends.

  She gave him a warm smile and said, “I’m glad to see you, Paul. You’re looking well. And very impressive.”

  “Oh, this!” He glanced down at his uniform. “None of my old clothes would fit, and the new suits needed alterations. I’ll look less conspicuous in a few days.”

  “Are you coming out of the army?” She was surprised.

  “You didn’t expect me to stay in it forever, did you?”

  “It seemed that way,” she said.

  He looked across the street at one of the small smart bars. “Come and have a drink and give me the news. I’m all out of touch with everybody.”

  “I can’t. I’m sorry. I’m late. I’ve got to rush.”

  “Still living with—what was her name?”

  “Molly Anders? Oh, no, she married.” There was a moment of embarrassment for Rona. But Paul Haydn didn’t seem to notice it. She was thankful for that. Yes, he thought of her as an old friend. He had probably had so many girls since she had last seen him that she was only a faded piece of the past. Then she smiled at herself, for she didn’t quite like that description; but it was at least, a pleasantly safe position. She held out her hand. “Goodbye, Paul. I must go.”

  He kept her hand, saying, “Have a heart, Rona! I’ve been walking around New York all day. I’ve only talked to my tailor and a couple of clerks, and the waiters and taxi drivers. Couldn’t you let yourself be a little late tonight? ...No?” He let her hand go. “All right,” he said, with a grin, “I’ll walk along with you. Is that okay?”

  “Of course. It isn’t far. I live just a few blocks across town.” She began walking quickly, and he went with her. “I’ve some people coming in to see me,” she explained, “and I’ve got to get things ready.” For a moment, she had the impulse to ask him to come; he’d know nearly everyone there. Then she decided against that. “Have you seen many of the old crowd?” she asked instead.

  “I just got in this morning.”

  “You mean, this is your first day in New York? Since when?”

  “Since 1945,” he admitted. “I was on leave here then, but I spent most of it in Colorado. I haven’t been in New York, properly, since 1942. It’s a queer feeling. I went down to Washington Square, today, just to have a look at my old apartment. It’s gone—nothing but a gaping hole and a lot of bulldozers moving in. And that building you were watching, what used to be there? I was trying to remember when you almost passed me by.”

  “It was a gallery. Art collections and things. Remember?”

  “And where is it now?”

  “Moved uptown. The city’s moving uptown.”

  “So I saw. No more trolley cars on Fifty-ninth, business offices on Park Avenue, the UN building towering over the East River, and Radio City settling into a respectable middle age.”

  “It must have been a frightening welcome for you.”

  “It’s what I get,” he agreed, “for thinking everything stood still while I was away. But actually it’s more exciting than frightening. It’s good to see people building. It’s good to see them confident.”

  “That’s what I keep thinking,” she said eagerly. “But some people go around talking about the country being in the grip of hysteria—the bomb, and spies, and all that. And I just can’t quite see how they can believe it, if they’d use their eyes and look around them. We may all be worried underneath, but you don’t get this kind of confidence with hysteria, do you?”

  He steered her safely across the double width of Park Avenue, circumnavigated a small flotilla of baby carriages and tricycles returning, with balloons flying, from a visit to the Central Park Zoo, and led her along a quieter stretch of side street to the neon signs of Lexington. “You’re very serious, nowadays,” he said, watching her face with a smile.

  “Not altogether, I hope.” She smiled back. “After all,” she reminded him, “I was only eighteen when you last saw me. That isn’t exactly a serious age.”

  “You still look very much the same, if you want to know. I’d have recognised you at once if it hadn’t been for the hat. Don’t you wear it on the back of your head any more? And what’s all this veiling for? Camouflage?” But there was a compliment in his voice, and she felt unexpectedly pleased. She looked at him, still smiling, but she said nothing. He seemed much older, much older than he ought to be. But she couldn’t tell him that. He had a quick glance for everything, everyone on the street, and not just for the prettiest girls either. He seemed—she wasn’t quite sure of the word: capable, perhaps. Capable and reliable. She almost laughed. Perhaps it was the uniform, she thought. Paul Haydn had been famous for his charm, in the old days, but reliable? Clever and erratic, they had said about him: life came too easily for him. It probably did, even now.

  His grey eyes were watching her. They were amused.

  “What’s the verdict?” he asked.

  She flushed a little. “You’re—you’re different,” she said lamely.

  “Is that bad or good?”

  Her colour deepened. She laughed openly. “I wouldn’t know.”

  “No,” he said, and he was serious again. There was a pause. Then he said, suddenly, “I heard in 1945 that you were married. To a man in the navy.”

  “Just gossip, Paul. But I am getting married, now.” She drew off the glove on her left hand, and said, “There it is.”

  “Very handsome,” he said, glancing at the ring, and then concentrating on leading her through the maze of traffic on overcrowded Lexington. “And is he?”

  “Of course!”

  “He must be a
nice guy.”

  “Why?”

  “To make your face light up like that when you talk about him.”

  “He’s a wonderful guy,” she said softly.

  Paul Haydn studied a cleaner’s shop with interest. Then he said, “I’m glad, Rona.”

  She said, as simply as she had spoken when she had shown him Scott’s ring, “I’m glad you’re glad, Paul.” And with that, she buried their past completely.

  “What about your job at Trend?” he asked suddenly. “I heard you were practically running the Architecture Department. Good for you.”

  “Just more gossip. I’m only an assistant to Mr. Burnett. I imagine what should go inside a room once he has decided its shape. I’m not fully qualified yet, you see.”

  “You mean as an architect?” He was surprised. “Still following that idea? Then you got a college degree?”

  “Yes, I made it. Part-time work and night classes. That sort of thing.”

  “Not as much fun as Vassar, I’d imagine.”

  “No.” She smiled. “Still, it was either that way or nothing.” She halted, looking up at the quiet brownstone house in front of them. She pointed out the green window boxes on the top floor. “My apartment. Now, I’ll have to dash in and start spreading canapés like mad.”

  “Sorry I kept you late. But it was good to see you again.” He held out his hand and gripped hers.

  “That’s the strange thing about this city—the way you meet people so unexpectedly.”

  “Yes. Now I really know I’m back in New York.”

  She looked along the familiar street, and she saw it as it must seem to him: a tight wall of houses, busy at this hour, yet lonely, with strangers hurrying to their homes. She said impulsively, “Paul, why don’t you come to the party? Jon Tyson will be there.”

  “Jon?” He was delighted to hear the name again. “And how’s Jon?”

  “He married Peggy—my sister, remember? He teaches history up at Columbia University. Yes, and they’ve two children. Didn’t you know?”

  “I’m a bad letter writer,” he reminded her. Especially, he thought, when I wanted to cut myself off from everything I remembered.

  “You’ll know quite a lot of the other guests, too. They’d love to welcome you home. Why not come? It would save you a lot of telephoning in the next few days.”

  Paul Haydn hesitated. He looked at the lonely street. “Swell,” he said. “I’d like to see them all.”

  “I said six o’clock.” She glanced at her watch. “Heavens!” She waved and ran up the steep flight of steps, with the same light graceful movements he now remembered so well. He saluted and turned away. Behind him, an elevated train rattled over Third Avenue. He avoided two children shakily trying out their new roller skates, a dog straining on a long leash across the sidewalk toward a hydrant.

  On Lexington Avenue, he went into the first bar he could find, a small place blazing with neon signs outside, stretching its capacity to the last inch inside with booths for eating, welcoming its customers with a blast of music and cold air-conditioning. The early clients were gathered round the bar near the entrance. Uninhibited tweed jackets, Paul noted, and ties strong enough to knock you over. There were some women too. A blonde with pointed breasts and good legs looked at him haughtily. Soldiers are out of favour, he thought, for he hadn’t had time yet to catch up on the new poses in the fashionable magazines. He decided that it was a pity though that a pretty girl’s hair should be so ragged—as if mice had been gnawing at it overnight—and he chose a seat at the far end of the bar where his uniform wouldn’t annoy her.

  He looked at the men; they seemed prosperous and well-fed, a peaceful crowd. Even the arguments were good-natured, and the loud voices had no harsh sneering edge. It would be easy for someone coming in here as a foreigner to start generalising: easy to forget that most of the men here must have been just the right age for the war. When we demobilise, we demobilise, he thought. In one way—remembering Berlin as he had seen it only twenty-four hours ago, remembering the new refugees with their small bundles of belongings and the new fears—that idea worried him. In another way, he was cheered: it was good to see people who had been first-rate fighting men throw off regimentation so quickly. The gloomy predictions of some columnists five years ago didn’t make much sense now. The adjustment problems were drinking a beer or a rye after a day’s work and making vague plans for definite relaxation this evening.

  “Just back?” the barman asked, filling Paul’s empty glass, glancing at his service ribbons and then at his face. “You’ll get used to it,” he said reassuringly. “Once had a couple of them things.” He nodded to the ribbons on Paul’s chest. “Guess the old woman stowed them away in the attic along with her wedding dress.” Then his dark, heavy and thickening face concentrated on polishing the glasses until they shone like crystal. His strong broad hands arranged them delicately in their neat pyramid in front of a gleaming mirror. Over his shoulder, he’d throw in a remark to each conversation: the drought, the Dodgers’ chances this year, the plane missing over the Baltic, the Rangers in the play-offs at last, this new play called The Cocktail Party and what right had any of those psychiatrists to send a good-looking girl to be pegged down for the ants to eat?

  The blonde girl had met a friend almost as pretty as she was, with the same hauteur and mice-gnawed hair. (Can this be a fashion? Paul wondered in dismay.) They were both losing something of their grand manner in a heated discussion about ranch-type houses. Paul Haydn, keeping his eye on his glass, hoped that whatever type of house it was, it wasn’t as ugly as its name. Or should he have said “new-type name”? He repressed a grimace, for the barman might think aspersions were being cast on his excellent Martini. Yes, Paul thought, one slipped quickly back into the old routine after all: he was half-way to becoming an editor again with an aversion for nouns being used as adjectives. He paid and left the cosy comfort of the bar, avoiding the blonde’s carefully ignoring eye. He came out on to the busy sidewalk, hesitated. He was still undecided whether he ought to accept Rona’s invitation or not. It was scarcely six o’clock yet.

  He argued with himself around the block. Rona had made one thing very clear by the invitation: they were friends, nothing more. She would never have asked him to join the party if she had felt any other emotion when she met him. Not Rona. It was just as well to get that straight, especially if he were going to take his job with Trend again. (He wished the magazine would change that damned name, though: what once had seemed on the smart side, now seemed comic. Like a cute inscription on a book’s fly-leaf, seen years later when the clever touch made you shudder.) But perhaps he wouldn’t become an assistant editor again in Trend’s Feature Department. Perhaps he’d find something else for a change. Then he wondered, as he had wondered vaguely for the last month, why he should have been given this late chance to return to his job with Trend. What was wrong with the man who had taken his place at the end of the war? In 1945, Trend had been a little stilted when he hadn’t rushed back to his job with them, especially (they reminded him coldly) especially since they had kept it open for him as they had agreed in 1941. Yet, a few weeks ago, when he had written them hesitantly about a recommendation to help him get started once more in New York, their reply had been effusive. (Come right home, the sooner the better, we love you. Salary advanced to cover war-service years, Feature editorship when Crowell retires next year. Come home, come home, start at the old stand in May.) Flattering, to say the least. Reassuring. Useful, too. But what about the poor devil who had been assistant-editing meanwhile? Ditched? And why? No doubt with a wife and kids: that kind of unfortunate always had hostages to fortune.

  I don’t like it, Paul thought. Sure, the magazine game was a hard one. Here today, failed tomorrow. Yet Trend for all its fancy title was a fair-minded place. Its reputation was solid. But I don’t like it, Paul thought: I’m not going to be the cause of ditching some guy with a couple of kids to keep in shoe leather.

  He looked up at the
green shutters on the top floor of the brownstone house. Perhaps Rona knew what was happening at Trend, perhaps she could tell him the score.

  Is that the only reason why you are walking up these steps? he asked himself suddenly. But it was too late to answer that question: he was already inside the glass doorway of Rona’s house, his finger was already pressing the button beside the little white card with “Metford” in its neat script.

  3

  Paul Haydn pressed the bell again. Behind him, the roller skates were still grating shakily over the sidewalk. Some more dogs were straining towards the interesting hydrant. People, homeward bound, glanced at no one. An elevated train roared up Third Avenue.

  Then the front door gave a hoarse warning rattle, as Rona released its catch from upstairs. He grabbed the handle too late, and found the door had locked itself again. He shook his head and grinned. You’ve a lot to relearn, he told himself. Again he pressed the bell. And this time he was ready, and got in. He was still smiling at himself as he went up the narrow flights of stairs past the doors to the other apartments. He heard Rona’s voice calling, “Stop for breath on the second landing!”

  She was waiting at the door of her apartment. “Oh!” she said when he came into sight. She was obviously dismayed.