Conrad Aiken - Conversation; or, Pilgrims' Progress

“Hello, kid. I’m glad you came.”

“Sure, you are. Ain’t we all? Mr. Kane’s come slumming, he wants to see how the other half lives. He wants to see our kitchen.”

Kitty turned fiercely to Karl, shaking her hair, and said:

“Shut up, will you? Until you’ve got something to say.”

“Shut up yourself! It’s about time you cut the yammer. And telling me won’t make me, either.”

“Would you like a drink, Tip? There’s plenty of gin, and plenty of glasses there — all dirty. Take your pick.”

The combination living room and dining room was cold, and incredibly disordered — a fire of miscellaneous fragments burned sadly in the fireplace. a heap of wood from a broken box lay on the green-tiled hearth at Jim’s feet — newspapers and cigarette ends littered the floor, dead matches, a hairpin — and the dinner table, with the oil lamp standing in the middle, was covered, simply covered, with dirty dishes, stacked or single, except for a small space before Kitty, which she had apparently cleared. There, between her arms, she had placed — for no apparent reason — a sheet of paper and a pencil. She stared down at these, her sallow cheeks on her fists, her eyes almost closed. The piano in the next room stopped; for a moment they were all silent.

“Where’s your new friend?”

“Who? Louis?”

“Yes.”

“Aw, he’s gone for a walk. He said he wanted to see the sea!”

“He’s welcome to it! If I never see the sea again—”

“He’s probably hungry by this time.”

“Was that a crack?”

“Sure, it was a crack. Christ, if two females between them can’t start a fire without burning the house down, or think of anything to eat but canned corned beef — you’re a couple of dumb clucks.”

“Shut up! It was your idea, wasn’t it? You’re the one that wants to stay here, aren’t you?”

Karl, the raincoat still wrapped round his shoulders, stretched himself out on the wicker sofa at the other side of the fireplace, opposite Jim, and crossed his knees. The pale unshaven face, the lashless eyes, chicken-lidded, were turned long sufferingly toward the ceiling. He looked sick.

“Yes, kid, you certainly came at the psychological moment.”

“In the nicotine, as they say!”

“You’d think, Tip, with a nice house like this, and all these comforts, and the river, and this nice peaceful countryside, and even a canoe—”

“Yeah, tell him about the canoe!”

“—that four people could be happy, wouldn’t you? The nicest house in the town, with nice furniture, a real home—”

“How does it feel, Mister Kane, to be in a real home? Tell him about the canoe, Jim.”

Karl with his head back on a pillow, cackled obscenely.

“But I never expected anything like this. No, sir, I never expected anything like this. Look at it. Look at us. We no sooner get here than we start fighting. We come for a nice holiday and rest—”

“Who’s supposed to get the rest? Who, Jim Connor, I’d like to know? If it’s a fire in the fireplace you want, that’s all right, you can start that, but if it’s a fire in the kitchen stove—”

“That isn’t the point. We’re supposed to co-operate.”

“Co-operate! Co-operate! Oh, my gard—”

She laughed shrilly and briefly, reached for the half-filled gin bottle, poured gin rashly into a tumbler, added a little water to it, and took a drink. She set down the tumbler rather hard, and a little at random, and at the same moment the piano began again in the next room. This time it was a succession of scales, too fast, imprecise — the effect somehow viscous and slimy. A concert pianist! She certainly had a long way to go. Like Bucholtz, she probably regarded herself as an artist, not as a pianist — nothing so simple and straightforward as that. Did she and Jim occupy the same room? Perhaps that was the explanation. Poor Jim.

“Co-operation. Where do you get that stuff, Jim? You may have noticed, Mister Kane, that our friend Mister Connor is sometimes just a little naïve.”

“I mean it. Co-operation.”

“Yeah. And did you ever know women to co-operate? Since when. Women have only one idea. And that is—”

“What do you know about women, I’d like to know!”

“Plenty. I haven’t lived with you four years for nothing.”

“Lived with me! You mean on me. If I hadn’t worked my eyes out as a stenographer to support you—”

“You knew what to expect, didn’t you? You haven’t got any kick coming. You can quit any time, as far as I’m concerned. I got along all right without you, didn’t I? You give me a pain.”

“Women, women, women! You mean slaves, you and your theories about women. Somebody to work for you and go to bed with, that’s all you mean.”

“You get a position out of it, don’t you?”

“A position. Would you listen to that. Yes, the position of admiring your genius, I suppose. That’s all the position I get.”

“You thought that was good enough when you married me. You knew what the chances were. Why don’t you stick to your bargain? The trouble with you women is that you’re nothing but receptacles.”

“Receptacles! Oh, my gard—”

“Did you ever notice that, Jim? Nothing but receptacles. Yeah. You give, but you don’t get. You put things in, but you don’t get nothing back. No matter how you dig your toes in, you can’t satisfy those babies! No, sir, by god, you can’t. What’s their idea? Just security, just safety. And to get themselves all dressed up like a plush horse. Jesus Christ, they give me the pip.”

“Oh, cut it, Karl. Kitty means all right. I know how she feels about this—”

“If you do, why don’t you do something about it!”

“You see, Tip, old kid, I’m afraid the girls are a little upset by your friend’s warning. That’s what the trouble is.”

“It isn’t that at all.”

“Yes, and I’m damned sorry, Jim.”

“How is your conscience, Mister Kane? How does it feel to be carrying such a burden of responsibility. I hear that exquisite wife of yours has been blabbing where the blabbing does the most good.”

“Shut up! And you leave Enid out of this. Don’t pay any attention to him, Tip, Enid was perfectly right, he’s only looking for an excuse to start a quarrel. Maybe he’ll start something he can’t finish. Like the time the Hudson Dusters beat him up. Oh, my gard, will I ever forget it. The way they dragged him out of that bar by the feet, looking like a sick rabbit — a lot of fight you showed then, didn’t you? Like hell you did. It’s all right bullying women—”

“Take it easy, Kitty—”

“And, oh, boy, what a pair of black eyes! It did me good — and carrying on like a baby about it, afraid to go outdoors for a week. Oh, my gard, I wish I could get out of here, I’m so sick of this place. What is there to do here? I’m so tired of listening to these damned sea gulls and blackbirds—”

“Them ain’t blackbirds, you mental giant. Them’s crows.”

“And this sea gets on my nerves. I’m going to get out, I tell you — I’m going to get out, I’ve got to get out of here or I’ll go crazy. I can’t stand it!”

She pushed her chair back suddenly, jumped to her feet, the tears starting from her eyes, dashed a tear from one cheek with the back of her hand, then went quickly, hysterically, across the long room, and ran up the stairs in the far corner. A moment later a door slammed. The piano, undisturbed, continued its remorseless inaccurate scales, slurred, uneven, repetitive. There was a sort of vicious eagerness in the ascending notes, an ugly greed, as of an unappeasable appetite for sheer noise. The fire snapped and flung out a spark, all three were silent, listening, and then Jim Connor said: