Mavis Gallant - The Cost of Living - Early and Uncollected Stories

The bar, suddenly, was full of noise. Most of it was coming from a newly installed loudspeaker. “Oh, little town of Bethlehem,” Emma heard, even before she opened the heavy glass doors. Under the music, but equally amplified, were the voices of people arguing, the people who, somewhere on the ship, were trying out the carol recordings. Eddy hadn’t yet returned. Crew members, in working clothes, were hanging Christmas decorations. There was a small silver tree over the bar and a larger one, real, being lashed to a pillar. At one of the low tables in front of the bar Mr. Cowan sat reading a travel folder.

“Have a good time?” he asked, looking up. He had to bellow because “Oh, Little Town of Bethlehem” was coming through so loudly. “I’ve just figured something out,” he said, as Emma sat down. “If I take a plane from Madrid, I can be home in sixteen hours.”

“Are you going to take it?”

“I don’t know,” he said, looking disconsolately at the folder. “Madrid isn’t a port. I’d have to get off at Gibraltar or Malaga and take a train. And then, what about all my stuff? I’d have to get my trunk shipped. On the other hand,” he said, looking earnestly at Emma, talking to her in the grown-up, if mystifying, way she liked, “why should I finish this ghastly cruise just for spite? They brought the mail on today. There was a letter from my wife. She says I’d better forget it and come home for Christmas.”

Emma accepted without question the new fact that Mr. Cowan had a wife. Eddy had Wilma and George, the Munns had each other. Everyone she knew had a life, complete, that all but excluded Emma. “Will you go?” she repeated, unsettled by the idea that someone she liked was going away.

“Yes,” he said. “I think so. We’ll be in Gibraltar tomorrow. I’ll get off there. How was Tangier? Anyone try to sell you a black-market Coke?”

“No,” Emma said. “My mother bought a bracelet. A man gave me an African tiger.”

“What kind of tiger?”

“A toy,” said Emma. “A little one.”

“Oh. Damn bar’s been closed all day,” he said, getting up. “Want to walk? Want to go down to the other bar?”

“No, thanks. I have to wait here for somebody,” Emma said, and her eyes sought the service door behind the bar through which, at any moment, Eddy might appear. After Mr. Cowan had left, she sat, patient, looking at the folder he had forgotten.

Outside, the December evening drew in. The bar began to fill; passengers drifted in, compared souvenirs, talked in high, excited voices about the journey ashore. It didn’t sound as if they’d been in Tangier at all, Emma thought. It sounded like some strange, imagined city, full of hazard and adventure.

“…so this little Arab boy comes up to me,” a man was saying, “and with my wife standing right there, right there beside me, he says—”

“Hush,” his wife said, indicating Emma. “Not so loud.”

Eddy and Mrs. Ellenger arrived almost simultaneously, coming, of course, through separate doors. Eddy had his white coat on, a fresh colored handkerchief in the pocket. He turned on the lights, took down the wire screen. Mrs. Ellenger had changed her clothes and brushed her hair. She wore a flowered dress, and looked cheerful and composed. “All alone, baby?” she said. “You haven’t even changed, or washed your face. Never mind, there’s no time now.”

Emma looked at the bar, trying in vain to catch Eddy’s eye. “Aren’t you going to have a drink before dinner?”

“No. I’m hungry. Emma, you look a mess.” Still talking, Mrs. Ellenger ushered Emma out to the dining room. Passing the bar, Emma called, “Hey, Eddy, hello,” but, except to throw her a puzzling look, he did not respond.

They ate in near silence. Mrs. Ellenger felt rested and hungry, and, in any case, had at no time anything to communicate to the Munns. Miss Munn, between courses, read a book about Spain. She had read aloud the references to Gibraltar, and now turned to the section on Malaga, where they would be in two days. “From the summit of the Gibralfaro,” she said, “one has an excellent view of the city and harbor. Two asterisks. At the state-controlled restaurant, refreshments…” She looked up and said, to Mrs. Munn, who was listening hard, eyes shut, “That’s where we’ll have lunch. We can hire a horse and calesa . It will kill the morning and part of the afternoon.”

Already, they knew all about killing time in Malaga. They had never been there, but it would hold no surprise; they would make no mistakes. It was no use, Emma thought. She and her mother would never be like the Munns. Her mother, she could see, was becoming disturbed by this talk of Gibraltar and Malaga, by the threat of other ventures ashore. Had she not been so concerned with Eddy, she would have tried, helpfully, to lead the talk to something else. However, her apology to Eddy was infinitely more urgent. As soon as she could, she pushed back her chair and hurried out to the bar. Her mother dawdled behind her, fishing in her bag for a cigarette.

Emma sat up on one of the high stools and said, “Eddy, where did you go? What did you do? I’m sorry about the lunch.”

At that, he gave her another look, but still said nothing. Mrs. Ellenger arrived and sat down next to Emma. She looked from Emma to Eddy, eyebrows raised.

Don’t let her be rude, Emma silently implored an undefined source of assistance. Don’t let her be rude to Eddy, and I’ll never bother you again. Then, suddenly, she remembered the tiger under her pillow.

There was no reason to worry. Eddy and her mother seemed to understand each other very well. “Get a good lunch, Eddy?” her mother asked.

“Yes. Thanks.”

He moved away from them, down the bar, where he was busy entertaining new people, two men and a woman, who had come aboard that day from Tangier. The woman wore harlequin glasses studded with flashing stones. She laughed in a sort of bray at Eddy’s antics and his funny remarks. “You can’t get mad at him,” Emma heard her say to one of the men. “He’s like a monkey, if a monkey could talk.”

“Eddy, our drinks,” Mrs. Ellenger said.

Blank, polite, he poured brandy for Mrs. Ellenger and placed before Emma a bottle of Coca-Cola and a glass. Around the curve of the bar, Emma stared at the noisy woman, Eddy’s new favorite, and the two fat old men with her. Mrs. Ellenger sipped her brandy, glancing obliquely in the same direction. She listened to their conversation. Two were husband and wife, the third a friend. They had picked up the cruise because they were fed up with North Africa. They had been traveling for several months. They were tired, and each of them had had a touch of colic.

Emma was sleepy. It was too much, trying to understand Eddy, and the day ashore. She drooped over her drink. Suddenly, beside her, Mrs. Ellenger spoke. “You really shouldn’t encourage Eddy like that. He’s an awful showoff. He’ll dance around like that all night if you laugh enough.” She said it with her nicest smile. The new people stared, taking her in. They looked at her dress, her hair, her rings. Something else was said. When Emma took notice once more, one of the two men had shifted stools, so he sat halfway between his friends and Emma’s mother. Emma heard the introductions: Mr. and Mrs. Frank Timmins. Mr. Boyd Oliver. Mrs. Ellenger. Little Emma Ellenger, my daughter.

“Now, don’t tell me that young lady’s your daughter,” Mr. Boyd Oliver said, turning his back on his friends. He smiled at Emma, and, just because of the smile, she suddenly remembered Uncle Harry Todd, who had given her the complete set of Sue Barton books, and another uncle, whose name she had forgotten, who had taken her to the circus when she was six.

Mr. Oliver leaned toward Mrs. Ellenger. It was difficult to talk; the bar was filling up. She picked up her bag and gloves from the stool next to her own, and Mr. Oliver moved once again. Polite and formal, they agreed that that made talking much easier.