Roald Dahl - The Collected Short Stories of Roald Dahl, Volume 1

"Why do they love acting so tough?" she used to ask.

"Because they're children," Ed would answer. "They're dangerous children who go about trying to imitate their grandfathers. Their grandfathers were pioneers. These people aren't."

It seemed that they lived, these present-day Texans, by a sort of egotistic will, push and be pushed. Everybody was pushing. Everybody was being pushed. And it was all very fine for a stranger in their midst to step aside and announce firmly, "I will not push, and I will not be pushed." That was impossible. It was especially impossible in Dallas. Of all the cities in the state, Dallas was the one that had always disturbed Anna the most. It was such a godless city, she thought, such a rapacious, gripped, iron, godless city. It was a place that had run amok with its money, and no amount of gloss and phony culture and syrupy talk could hide the fact that the great golden fruit was rotten inside.

Anna lay on the bed with her bath towel around her. She was alone in Dallas this time. There was no Ed with her now to envelop her in his incredible strength and love; and perhaps it was because of this that she began, all of a sudden, to feel slightly uneasy. She lit a second cigarette and waited for the uneasiness to pass. It didn't pass; it got worse. A hard little knot of fear was gathering itself in the top of her stomach, and there it stayed, growing bigger every minute. It was an unpleasant feeling, the kind one might experience if one were alone in the house at night and heard, or thought one heard, a footstep in the next room.

In this place there were a million footsteps, and she could hear them all.

She got off the bed and went over to the window, still wrapped in her towel. Her room was on the twenty-second floor, and the window was open. The great city lay pale and milkyyellow in the evening sunshine. The street below was solid with automobiles. The sidewalk was filled with people. Everybody was hustling home from work, pushing and being pushed. She felt the need of a friend. She wanted very badly to have someone to talk to at this moment. She would have liked a house to go to, a house with a family-a wife and husband and children and rooms full of toys, and the husband and wife would fling their arms around her at the front door and cry out, "Anna! How marvellous to see you! How long can you stay? A week, a month, a year?"

All of a sudden, as so often happens in situations like this, her memory went click, and she said aloud, "Conrad Kreuger! Good heavens above! He lives in Dallas…at least he used to… She hadn't seen Conrad since they were classmates in high school, in New York. They were both about seventeen then, and Conrad had been her beau, her love, her everything. For over a year they had gone around together, and each of them had sworn eternal loyalty to the other, with marriage in the near future. Then suddenly Ed Cooper had flashed into her life, and that, of course, had been the end of the romance with Conrad. But Conrad did not seem to have taken the break too badly. It certainly couldn't have shattered him, because not more than a month or two later he had started going strong with another girl in the class.

Now what was her name?

A big handsome bosomy girl she was, with flaming red hair and a peculiar name, a very oldfashioned name. What was it? Arabella? No, not Arabella. Ara-something, though. Araminty? Yes! Araminty it was! And what is more, within a year or so, Conrad Kreuger had married Araminty and had carried her back with him to Dallas, the place of his birth.

Anna went over to the bedside table and picked up the telephone directory.

Kreuger, Conrad P., M. D.

That was Conrad all right. He had always said he was going to be a doctor. The book gave an office number and a residence number.

Should she phone him?

Why not?

She glanced at her watch. It was five twenty. She lifted the receiver and gave the number of his office.

"Doctor Kreuger's surgery," a girl's voice answered.

"Hello," Anna said. "Is Doctor Kreuger there?"

"The doctor is busy right now. May I ask who's calling?"

"Will you please tell him that Anna Greenwood telephoned him."

"Who?"

"Anna Greenwood."

"Yes, Miss Greenwood. Did you wish for an appointment?"

"No, thank you."

"Is there something I can do for you?"

Anna gave the name of her hotel, and asked her to pass it on to Dr Kreuger.

"I'll be very glad to," the secretary said. "Goodbye, Miss Greenwood."

"Goodbye," Anna said. She wondered whether Dr Conrad P. Kreuger would remember her name after all these years. She believed he would. She lay back again on the bed and began trying to recall what Conrad himself used to look like. Extraordinarily handsome, that he was. Tall…lean…big-shouldered…with almost pure-black hair…and a marvellous face a strong carved face like one of those Greek heroes, Perseus or Ulysses. Above all, though, he had been a very gentle boy, a serious, decent, quiet, gentle boy. He had never kissed her much -only when he said goodbye in the evenings. And he'd never gone in for necking, as all the others had. When he took her home from the movies on Saturday nights, he used to park his old Buick outside her house and sit there in the car beside her, just talking and talking about the future, his future and hers, and how he was going to go back to Dallas to become a famous doctor. His refusal to indulge in necking and all the nonsense that went with it had impressed her no end. He respects me, she used to say. He loves me. And she was probably right. In any event, he had been a nice man, a nice good man. And had it not been for the fact that Ed Cooper was a super-nice, super-good man, she was sure she would have married Conrad Kreuger.

The telephone rang. Anna lifted the receiver. "Yes," she said. "Hello."

"Anna Greenwood?"

"Conrad Kreuger!"

"My dear Anna! "What a fantastic surprise. Good gracious me. After all these years."

"It's a long time, isn't it."

"It's a lifetime. Your voice sounds just the same."

"So does yours."

"What brings you to our fair city? Are you staying long?"

"No, I have to go back tomorrow. I hope you didn't mind my calling you."

"Hell, no, Anna. I'm delighted. Are you all right?"

"Yes, I'm fine. I'm fine now. I had a bad time of it for a bit after Ed died "What!"

"He was killed in an automobile two and a half years ago."

"Oh gee, Anna, I am sorry. How terrible. I I don't know what to say "Don't say anything."

"You're okay now?"

"I'm fine. Working like a slave."

"That's the girl.

"How's…how's Araminty?"

"Oh, she's fine."

"Any children?"

"One," he said. "A boy. How about you?"

"I have three, two girls and a boy."

"Well, well, what d'you know! Now listen, Anna.

"I'm listening."

"Why don't I run over to the hotel and buy you a drink? I'd like to do that. I'll bet you haven't changed one iota."

"I look old, Conrad."

"You're lying."

"I feel old, too."

"You want a good doctor?"

"Yes. I mean no. Of course I don't. I don't want any more doctors. All I need is well… "Yes?"

"This place worries me, Conrad. I guess I need a friend. That's all I need."

"You've got one. I have just one more patient to see, and then I'm free. I'll meet you down in the bar, the something room, I've forgotten what it's called, at six, in about half an hour. Will that suit you?"

"Yes," she said. "Of course. And…thank you, Conrad." She replaced the receiver, then got up from the bed, and began to dress.

She felt mildly flustered. Not since Ed's death had she been out and had a drink alone with a man. Dr Jacobs would be pleased when she told him about it on her return. He wouldn't congratulate her madly, but he would certainly be pleased. He'd say it was a step in the right direction, a beginning. She still went to him regularly, and now that she had gotten so much better, his oblique references had become far less oblique and he had more than once told her that her depressions and suicidal tendencies would never completely disappear until she had actually and physically "replaced' Ed with another man.