Young Mr. Keefe Read online

  Jimmy laughed again.

  “Am I keeping you awake? Do you ever have trouble sleeping?”

  “Sometimes,” Jimmy said.

  “I’m sorry.” She paused. “You’re the strangest person, Jimmy,” she said. “You really are. I never quite believe you’re happy. But it’s all right—you do your best not to let on, if you’re not.”

  “Thanks,” he said.

  “You love Helen terribly, don’t you?” she asked suddenly.

  “Yes.”

  “But that doesn’t make you happy, does it?”

  He didn’t answer her.

  “Does it? Does it?”

  2

  In the morning, when Jimmy woke, they were having one of their arguments. He listened to them.

  “What do you mean, so many martinis?”

  “I mean about eight martinis. That’s what you had.”

  “Eight! It was more like three!”

  “You were loaded.”

  “Well, I may have had a couple of cocktails, but I wasn’t loaded.”

  “How do you know you weren’t loaded? No one ever knows when they’re loaded.”

  “Well, I wasn’t. And you’re being mean.”

  “Mean?”

  “Yes. All the way up in the car yesterday.”

  “In the car?”

  “Yes, in the car. In the car was when you were being so mean to me.”

  “I merely said you were driving like hell, and you were.”

  Claire’s voice was small. “I wasn’t.”

  “Yes, you were.”

  “No, I wasn’t.”

  “You’ve reached sort of an impasse there,” Jimmy said.

  “Well, I wasn’t,” Claire said. “I didn’t smash into anybody, did I? I got us up here in one piece, didn’t I?”

  “She’s got a point there,” Jimmy interjected.

  The two of them paused for a moment, then continued.

  “You’re getting to be a compulsive alcoholic as well as a compulsive weeper,” Blazer said.

  “Is an alcoholic having three cocktails? Which is what I had?”

  “She’s right,” Jimmy said.

  “Well, if you only had three, you certainly let them get you stinko.”

  “I certainly wasn’t stinko!”

  “You said you couldn’t find your watch, and you had it on all the time.”

  “She did have it on, that’s a point,” Jimmy said.

  Claire began to laugh softly. “Wouldn’t it be awful, darling,” she said, “if whenever we were having an argument, a little voice kept chiming in from somewhere—making comments and taking sides?”

  There was some discussion about their dressing, deciding what to wear. What did the best-dressed young people wear to climb a mountain? Blazer was pulling his belt from the loops of his khaki trousers, and strapping a knife case to it. “I think we’ve thought of everything,” he said. “Except—oh, Christ, we need an axe!”

  “We don’t need an axe. Why do we need an axe?” Claire asked.

  “To cut pine boughs with,” Blazer said.

  “Pine boughs?”

  “For our beds. We have to make our beds with pine boughs.”

  “But we have the sleeping-bags.”

  “We’ll need pine boughs underneath them.”

  “Suddenly,” Claire said, “this trip sounds very exhausting. Do you mean to say we’ll have to work when we get up there?”

  “We can stop somewhere along the road and buy an axe,” Jimmy suggested.

  “I’ve brought a revolver,” Blazer said.

  “Do you think we’ll need a revolver?”

  “You never can tell.”

  “In case we meet the Abominable Snowman,” Claire said. She went into the kitchen. “Jimmy?” she called. “Have you got any eggs? Milk? Bread? Things for breakfast?”

  He hesitated. “I’m not sure,” he said. “Helen and I aren’t big milk drinkers.”

  Claire opened the refrigerator door. “Well,” she said, “you don’t have a very well-stocked larder. There’s practically nothing here but some mouldy lettuce and a can of apple juice.”

  “I usually eat breakfast out,” Jimmy said.

  “And much as I hate to say it, dear,” Claire said, “this refrigerator needs a bath. It needs to be defrosted. It smells of something.”

  Jimmy forced a laugh. “Helen and I hardly ever use it,” he said. “It’s really just for decoration.”

  Claire opened the closed cupboard doors. “We’ll have to have spaghetti,” she said finally.

  “For breakfast?”

  “I think it might be good for breakfast.”

  While the spaghetti was heating, Claire asked, “Is this Helen’s silver pattern, Jimmy?”

  “No,” he said, “it’s some I bought—”

  “Where’s hers? Doesn’t she have any silver?”

  “It’s all packed away somewhere.”

  “Goodness,” she said, “I don’t see how you two survive at all.”

  “We eat out quite a bit.”

  “How long have you been married?”

  He was beginning to be annoyed with her. “You ought to know,” he said sharply, “you were invited to the wedding. In January.”

  “Don’t get huffy,” she said. “Blazer and I couldn’t come to the wedding. We were back East.”

  “Well, what do you mean, asking me how long we’ve been married?”

  “I was just—I was just wondering. Where’s the silver water pitcher we sent you?”

  “Packed away. Everything’s packed away.”

  Claire set the kitchen table with plates, knives, forks, and paper napkins folded to look like little hats. “Does it look like a party?” she asked gaily.

  She filled three water goblets from the sink. “What’s this?” she asked suddenly.

  “What?”

  She picked up the blue plate on the counter. “A pearl neck-face,” she said. “Did Helen break her pearls?”

  “Yes,” Jimmy said.

  “What a shame.”

  They sat down. “When we get up there, the first thing we have to do is find a camp site,” Blazer said. “Then we have to build a fire.”

  “Do you have your Boy Scout Handbook?” Claire asked between mouthfuls. “I hope you know how to do all these things. Jimmy and I have never been on a camping trip, have we, Jimmy?” She turned to him.

  She was chattering too brightly, too enthusiastically, Jimmy thought. It was as though she had sensed something, and was now trying to erase the things she had said about Helen. The silver pattern, the wedding, the pearls. The pearls had been his fault. He wished he had not left them there. He felt the deep, swelling loneliness rising in him. He put down his fork.

  “I camped out once when I was little,” he said. “In Colorado. It wasn’t much fun. It rained, and we had to soak the wood with fly spray to make it burn.”

  He excused himself and went into the bathroom. He felt a little sick. He rested the palms of his hands on the edge of the sink and looked into the mirror. Oh, God, he thought, why don’t I tell them the truth?

  Claire called to him. “Don’t you want anything more to eat?”

  “No, thanks.”

  When he came out, they were ready to go. Claire had washed the dishes. The knapsacks and sleeping-bags were rolled and stacked by the door.

  “I’ve left some intimate apparel in your closet,” Claire said. “I hate to think what Helen would say if she came back unexpectedly and found it.”

  “I’ve got to water my avocado,” Jimmy said.

  “What?”

  “I’m trying to grow an avocado.”

  “Now, really—”

  “I am. What’s funny about that?” He went into the kitchen. On a corner of the window-sill, behind a fold of the curtain where it would get plenty of sun, was the brown avocado pit, suspended above a glass of water with projecting toothpicks. Carefully, he lifted the stone from the glass. Already, a white root, perhaps a
n inch long, was sprouting from the base of it. He ran fresh water into the glass and replaced the stone. Claire had followed him to the kitchen door, and stood there, watching him. “The miraculous leaf of life,” she said.

  “What?”

  “The miraculous leaf of life. Before I was married, when I lived alone, I bought a miraculous leaf of life. It grows on air. It’s just a leaf, but it begins to sprout new leaves all around. Horticulture. It’s a sign of bachelorhood, I guess.”

  “This is the remains of a salad,” Jimmy smiled.

  “The miraculous leaf of life cost twenty-five cents. But”—she shrugged—“it died.”

  “Let’s go!” Blazer called.

  Carrying their packs—they were awkward and heavy—they staggered down the flight of steps to the courtyard, and through the arch on to the sidewalk. The street was still cool; the heat would come by midafternoon, but by then they would be in the mountains. A trace of wind rustled the leaves of the live oaks. At the corner, they waited for the light to change. Then they crossed the street to where Blazer had parked his crimson Jaguar.

  When they had arranged everything in the trunk, Claire went across the street again to the drugstore. After a few minutes, she came out with a box of Saltines, a quart of cold root beer, and three pairs of sun-glasses. “I thought these might come in handy,” she said, distributing the glasses. “And this is stuff to munch on in the car.”

  “Great,” Blazer said. And he gave the command. “Ten-shun! Don glasses!” They donned the glasses and started off. When they stopped, a little later, at a hardware store for the axe, Jimmy disappeared for a moment and made a couple of purchases. He bought a plastic toothbrush holder and a long-handled bath brush with bright red bristles. “We can nail this on a tree for our toothbrushes,” he said, “and I don’t know what this is for. I bought it because it matches Blazer’s car.”

  “Just think!” Claire said. “A lonely hunter—years from now—may come wandering through the mountains and come to a place where he’s sure no white man has ever been before him. And then, lo and behold, he’ll spot our toothbrush holder nailed to a tree.”

  “When our civilization is dust, this plastic will remain,” Blazer said solemnly.

  “A thousand centuries from now”—Claire intoned—“or maybe next week—when the world is blown to atoms, some cruising man from Mars may find this bit of floating plastic coasting by his spaceship—radioactive, of course.

  “Oh, let’s flame!” Claire said suddenly. “Let’s be flaming youth! Our parents had so much fun at it. Let’s make this the Roaring Fifties!

  “Only let’s call it something else. I know—let’s call it the Blazing Fifties. After Blazer! That sounds wonderful, don’t you think? The Blazing Fifties! Our candle does more than burn at both ends—we toss the whole thing into the fire! The Blazing Fifties—after Blazer and his car!” She began to laugh. She laughed so hard that she turned to Jimmy and put her hands on his shoulders, clung to him, and buried her head against his arm, laughing.

  Driving across the warm Sacramento Valley on Route 40, heading east, they passed from the lush and irrigated farmlands outside the city into the parched tall grass of the foothills. The names of the towns began to have a Western, gold-rush ring—Red Dog … Last Chance … They passed the root beer bottle back and forth between them, and munched Saltines. Jimmy had never seen Claire quite like this before.

  “Look at these lousy California drivers,” Blazer was saying. “Nobody in this state knows how to drive. Have you noticed that?”

  “I’ve noticed something,” Claire said. “Which is, the way all of a sudden it’s next year. Have you noticed the way it does that? I can’t believe that Blazer and I have been married nearly a year—that a year ago we were all secure, back in New England.”

  “I don’t really like California,” Jimmy said. “I’ve tried to like it—because of my job and all—but I can’t get too whipped up about it. Look at this valley—flat, flat …”

  “But we’re getting into the mountains.”

  “I prefer the Berkshires.”

  “Ah!” They all thought fondly of the Berkshires.

  “Blazer and I spent our honeymoon at Stowe, did we tell you? It was Blazer’s idea, of course. December—we spent nearly every day ski-ing. I used to sit around the lodge worrying, thinking I’d be a widow at the tender age of twenty-two. You and Helen must come ski-ing with us next winter.”

  “I’d love to.”

  “Does Helen ski?”

  “A little.”

  “Good.”

  “Helen and I—” he began.

  “What?”

  “Well, we’re not very athletic,” he said lamely.

  They stopped, after a while, at a little tearoom on the road and had ice-cream and pie, and were badly served. Claire began talking in a Bronx accent, pretending that she was their pick-up. Their waitress eyed the three of them with disapproval. When they walked back to the car, they pretended to be drunk, and Claire stole a large thermometer that was hanging on a tree that said GOLDEN STATE ICE-CREAM on it. “So we can tell how cold it gets up there,” she said.

  Blazer made her return the thermometer, but they started off again in fabulous spirits, anyway. Soon they were really in the Sierras, and the red car climbed and twisted between the low peaks, into the higher ones, up and up, and the trees became shorter, spikier, and, when they stopped for gas, they asked the attendant, “How far up are we?”

  “Five thousand feet,” he told them.

  Jimmy offered to drive for a while, and Claire, who had been sitting on the outside, slid across the seat so that she could sit between them. “Helen doesn’t think much of my driving,” Jimmy said. “I hope you won’t mind it.”

  After a few minutes of his driving, Claire said, “I don’t see why Helen should object to it. I think you drive beautifully.”

  “Yes,” Blazer said. “Maybe even better than me.”

  “Helen probably drives like a Westerner,” Claire said. “She just doesn’t understand the way an Easterner drives. Californians don’t appreciate cautiousness. Why in the world did you have to marry a California girl?”

  They watched the signs now, carefully. The changes in elevation were marked. Soon it was six thousand, then nearly seven thousand feet above the level of the sea. They were beyond the timber line, and ledges and shelves of rock jutted out sharply all around them. In the distance, the tallest mountains were capped with clouds and fringed, below, with patches of summer snow. They reached Donner Summit, and stopped and got out of the car for a moment. Their ears were ringing with the altitude, and the cold wind whipped around them. Donner Lake glittered a thousand feet below them, and, far beyond, the deep blue shadow of Lake Tahoe hung below the sky.

  “If I leaned over, I could spit into it,” Claire shouted against the wind. “But I won’t. It’s too beautiful!”

  In the car again, in that rarefied air, a strange thing happened. For as they talked, they suddenly found that each of them knew all the dirty words that the others knew—all the graphic, beautiful four-letter words of the Anglo-Saxon. They began using them freely and without inhibition. They became incredibly vulgar, and if anyone was shocked, no one would have dared to show it then. They laughed and told stories, and sang, over and over again, a very dirty song called “I Don’t Want to Go to War.” The fences were down, and the effect they created upon each other was drunken and supreme. In the middle of all this entered Squaw Valley.

  “I’ve been thinking,” Claire said, as they drove up the drive towards the low, handsome redwood and glass lodge, “why don’t we see if the ski lift is running? If it is, we can go up the mountain on that, climb over the ridge, and go down the other side.”

  “It seems like a lazy way to climb a mountain,” Blazer said.

  “Yes, but so much easier!”

  “All right.”

  They parked the car, got out, and walked around behind the lodge, and saw, ahead of them, that the lift was
working. Although there was no snow here, the lodge was making money towing sight-seers up and down the mountainside. “When we come back down to-morrow,” Claire said, “let’s stop at the pool for a swim. After all, we don’t want this week-end to be too Field & Stream, do we?” They went back to the car, took out their knapsacks and the roll of sleeping-bags, and strapped them on.

  When they reached the foot of the lift, and the double chairs were swinging by them, starting their ascent, there was some indecision as to how the three of them would split up for their trip. Blazer settled it by hopping into one of the chairs as it went by and waving good-bye to Claire and Jimmy as he started up. Jimmy and Claire stood side by side and were scooped into the next chair together. It tugged them into the air; their feet brushed through the tree-tops.

  Blazer, ahead of them, was now out of earshot. “Isn’t this wonderful?” Claire said excitedly. And she added confidentially, “I’m glad you could come with us, Jimmy, I really am.”

  “I’m always afraid three is a crowd,” he said.

  “It’s not. It’s not a crowd with you. I don’t know why, but it just never is.”

  “Well, I’m glad I came, too.”

  “My, aren’t we polite!” After a moment, she said, “You’ve lost weight, haven’t you?”

  “I’ve been on a diet.”

  “Enforced?”

  “Self-enforced, yes, if that’s what you mean.” He removed a cigarette from his pocket, and, with a little trouble, lighted it and handed it to Claire. Then he lighted another for himself. The smoke, in the high air, tasted strange and sharp in his throat.

  “How strange,” Claire said. “Most people—most men, anyway—seem to put on weight after they’re married. Have you noticed that? Blazer’s put on nearly ten pounds already.”

  “That’s why I went on a diet.”

  There was a pause, and Claire said, “I’m not sure I like it. I think I liked you better when you were chubbier.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t know. It just seems to me that when you were at college, you were always so cheerful and light-hearted and gay. And now—oh, you know how you were in college.”

  “How was I in college?”

  “You know. You were—you could have had any girl you wanted for the asking, for one thing. Even at Smith I heard tales of the great Jimmy Keefe. You were a legend!”