Jane Bowles - My Sister's Hand in Mine - The Collected Works of Jane Bowles

“Look, Christina,” he said, “you run along while I try my hand at this; I’ll come and get Pop and you later.”

She pointed the bar out to him, but she had the feeling that Arnold was not paying much attention to what she was saying. She stood for a moment with Arnold’s father and they watched him rush up to the ticket office and hurriedly push his change through the wicket. He was on the court in no time, running around in his overcoat and jumping up in the air with his arms apart. One of the uniformed men had stepped quickly out of the game in order to cede his place to Arnold. But he was now trying desperately to attract his attention because Arnold had been in such a hurry at the ticket office that the agent had not had time to give him the colored arm-band by which the players were able to distinguish the members of their own team.

“I suppose,” said Miss Goering, “that we had better go along. Arnold, I imagine, will follow us shortly.”

They walked down the street. Arnold’s father hesitated a moment before the saloon door.

“What kind of men come in here?” he asked her.

“Oh,” said Goering, “all sorts of men, I guess. Rich and poor, workers and bankers, criminals and dwarfs.”

“Dwarfs,” Arnold’s father repeated uneasily.

The minute they were inside, Miss Goering spotted Andy. He was drinking at the farther end of the bar with his hat pulled down over one eye. Miss Goering hastily installed Arnold’s father in a booth.

“Take your coat off,” she said, “and order yourself a drink from that man over there behind the bar.”

She went over to Andy and stretched her hand out to him. He was looking very mean and haughty.

“Hello,” he said. “Did you decide to come over to the mainland again?”

“Why, certainly,” said Miss Goering. “I told you I would.”

“Well,” said Andy, “I’ve learned in the course of years that it doesn’t mean a thing.”

Miss Goering felt a little embarrassed. They stood side by side for a little while without saying a word.

“I’m sorry,” said Andy, “but I have no suggestions to make to you for the evening. There is only one picture show in town and they are showing a very bad movie tonight.” He ordered himself another drink and gulped it down straight. Then he turned the dial of the radio very slowly until he found a tango.

“Well, may I have this dance?” he asked, appearing to brighten up a bit.

Miss Goering nodded her head.

He held her very straight and so tightly that she was in an extremely awkward and uncomfortable position. He danced with her into a far corner of the room.

“Well,” he said, “are you going to try and make me happy? Because I have no time to waste.” He pushed her away from him and stood up very straight facing her, with his arms hanging down along his sides.

“Step back a little farther, please,” he said. “Look carefully at your man and then say whether or not you want him.”

Miss Goering did not see how she could possibly answer anything but yes. He was standing now with his head cocked to one side, looking very much as though he were trying to refrain from blinking his eyes, the way people do when they are having snapshots taken.

“Very well,” said Miss Goering, “I do want you to be my man.” She smiled at him sweetly, but she was not thinking very hard of what she was saying.

He held his arms out to her and they continued to dance. He was looking over her head very proudly and smiling just a little. When they had finished their dance, Miss Goering remembered with a pang that Arnold’s father had been sitting in his booth alone all this time. She felt doubly sorry because he seemed to have saddened and aged so much since they had boarded the train that he scarcely resembled at all the chipper, eccentric man he had been for a few days at the island house, or even the fanatical gentleman he had appeared to Miss Goering on the first night that they had met.

“Dear me, I must introduce you to Arnold’s father,” she said to Andy. “Come over this way with me.”

She felt even more remorse when she arrived at the booth because Arnold’s father had been sitting there all the while without having ordered himself a drink.

“What’s the matter?” asked Miss Goering, her voice rising way up in the air like the voice of an excited mother. “Why on earth didn’t you order yourself something to drink?”

Arnold’s father looked around him furtively. “I don’t know,” he said, “I didn’t feel any desire to.”

She introduced the two men to each other and they all sat down together. Arnold’s father asked Andy very politely whether or not he lived in this town and what his business was. During the course of their conversation they both discovered that not only had they been born in the same town, but they had, in spite of difference in age, also lived there once at the same time without ever having met. Andy, unlike most people, did not seem to become more lively when they both happened upon this fact.

“Yes,” he answered wearily to the questions of Arnold’s father, “I did live there in 1920.”

“Then certainly,” said Arnold’s father sitting up straighter, “then certainly you were well acquainted with the McLean family. They lived up on the hill. They had seven children, five girls and two boys. All of them, as you must remember, were the possessors of a terrific shock of bright red hair.”

“I did not know them,” said Andy quietly, beginning to get red in the face.

“That’s very strange,” said Arnold’s father. “Then you must have known Vincent Connelly, Peter Jacketson, and Robert Bull.”

“No,” said Andy, “no, I didn’t.” His good spirits seemed to have vanished entirely.

“They,” said Arnold’s father, “controlled the main business interests of the town.” He studied Andy’s face carefully.

Andy shook his head once more and looked off into space.

“Riddleton?” Arnold’s father asked him abruptly.

“What?” said Andy.

“Riddleton, president of the bank.”

“Well, not exactly,” said Andy.

Arnold’s father leaned back against the bench and sighed. “Where did you live?” he asked finally of Andy.

“I lived,” said Andy, “at the end of Parliament Street and Byrd Avenue.”

“It was terrible around there before they started tearing it up, wasn’t it?” Arnold’s father said, his eyes filled with memories.

Andy pushed the table roughly aside and walked quickly over to the bar.

“He didn’t know anyone decent in the whole blooming town,” said Arnold’s father. “Parliament and Byrd was the section—”

“Please,” said Miss Goering. “Look, you’ve insulted him. What a shame; because neither one of you cares about this sort of thing at all! What nasty little devil got into you both?”

“I don’t think he has very good manners, and he is clearly not the type of man I would expect to find you associating with.”

Miss Goering was a little peeved with Arnold’s father, but instead of saying anything to him she went over to Andy and consoled him.

“Please don’t mind him,” she said. “He’s really a delightful old thing and quite poetic. It’s just that he’s been through some radical changes in his life, all in the last few days, and I guess he’s feeling the strain now.”

“Poetic is he?” Andy snapped at her. “He’s a pompous old monkey. That’s what he is.” Andy was really very angry.

“No,” said Miss Goering, “he is not a pompous old monkey.”

Andy finished his drink and swaggered over to Arnold’s father with his hands in his pockets.

“You’re a pompous old monkey!” he said to him. “A pompous old good-for-nothing monkey!”