Irwin Shaw - Short Stories - Five Decades

“It may be funny to you, but with your history—”

“I will match my history with any husband’s,” Roy said.

“I hate your sense of humor on this subject.” Alice’s voice began to tremble a little, and Roy relented.

“Listen, baby,” he said softly. “Get out here quick. Quick as you can. Then we can stop this nonsense.”

“I’m sorry.” Alice’s voice was soft and repentant. “It’s just that we’ve been away from each other for so long in these last few years. I’m foolish and jittery. Who’s paying for this call?”

“The company.”

“That’s good.” Alice chuckled. “I’d hate to fight on our own money. Do you love me?”

“Get out here quick.”

“Do you consider that an answer to my question?”

“Yes.”

“O.K.,” Alice said. “So do I. Good-bye, darling. See you soon.”

“Kiss Sally for me,” said Roy.

“I will. Good-bye.”

Roy hung up. First he shook his head a little wearily, remembering the argument; then he smiled, remembering the end of the conversation. He got up from his chair and went over to the calendar on the desk, to try to figure what day he could expect his wife and child.

The telegram came three days later: “RESERVATIONS ON 2 O’CLOCK FLIGHT MAY 14. WILL ARRIVE BURBANK AT 10 P.M. YOUR TIME. PLEASE SHAVE. LOVE, ALICE.”

Roy grinned as he reread the telegram, then became conscious of a sensation of uneasiness that refused to be crystallized or pinned down. He walked around all that day with that undefined sense of trouble, and it wasn’t until he was dozing off to sleep that night that it suddenly became clear to him. He woke and got out of bed and read the telegram again. May 14th. He kept the lamp on and lit a cigarette and sat up in the narrow bed in the impersonal hotel room and slowly allowed the thing to take control.

He had never been a superstitious man, or even a religious man, and he had always laughed at his mother, who had a fund of dreams and predictions and omens of good and evil at her command. Alice had one or two superstitious habits—like not talking about anything that she wanted to have happen, because she was sure it wouldn’t happen if it were mentioned or hoped for too much—but he had always scorned them, too. During the war, when every magazine assured the world that there were no atheists in foxholes, he had never prayed, even in the most gloomy and dangerous times. He had never, in all his adult life, done anything as a result of superstition or premonition. He looked around him at his efficiently furnished, bright, twentieth-century room and felt foolish to be awake now in the heel of the night, chasing phantoms and echoing warnings and scraps of old dreams through the sensible channels of his engineer’s mind.

The dream, of course, had been explicit. His sister was to die on May 14th. But dreams never were what they seemed to be, and Elizabeth and Alice looked so much alike, and they were always together and such good friends.… He knew enough about dreams to understand that it would be a simple transference in that shadowy, whimsical world—a wife for a sister, a sister for a wife. And now, of all the days in the year, his wife and child had picked May 14th to fly the three thousand miles over the rivers and mountains of the continent from New York to California.

He put out the light much later, with nothing decided, and tried to sleep. He stared up at the dark ceiling, listening to the occasional swift swhoosh of a car on the street outside, hurrying home through the waning night. For a man who didn’t believe in Fate, he thought, who saw the world in terms of simple cause and effect; who felt that no act was inevitable, that what was going to happen tomorrow or the next second was in no place determined and was everlastingly variable; who felt that no man’s death or burial place was fixed, that no event was recorded in any future book, that the human race got hints or warnings from no supernatural source—this was a ludicrous and profitless way to spend a night. For a man who walked under ladders, cheerfully broke mirrors, never had his palm read or his fortune told from cards, he felt that he was behaving idiotically, and yet he couldn’t sleep.

In the morning he called New York.

“Alice,” he said, “I want you to come by train.”

“What’s the matter?” she said.

“I’m afraid of the plane.” He heard her laugh incredulously over the phone. “I’m afraid of the plane,” he repeated stubbornly.

“Don’t be silly,” Alice said. “They haven’t had an accident with that plane yet, and they won’t start now.”

“Even so—”

“And I’m not going to try to keep Sally amused for three days in a roomette,” Alice said. “It would take me the whole summer to recover.”

“Please,” Roy said.

“And I couldn’t get train reservations for weeks,” Alice said, “and the apartment’s rented and everything. What’s come over you?” Her voice sounded suspicious and wary.

“Nothing,” Roy said. “It’s just that I’m worried about flying.”

“Good God!” Alice said. “You’ve flown two hundred thousand miles in all sorts of contraptions.”

“I know,” Roy said. “That’s why I’m worried.”

“Are you drunk?” Alice asked.

“Alice, darling,” Roy sighed. “It’s eight o’clock in the morning out here.”

“Well, you sound queer.”

“I’ve been up all night, worrying.”

“Well, stop worrying. I’ll see you on the fourteenth. Are you sure you’re all right?”

“Yes.”

“This is a very strange telephone call, I must say.”

“I’m sorry.”

They talked for a moment more, but quite coldly, and Roy hung up feeling dissatisfied and defeated.

He called again two days later and tried once more.

“Don’t ask any questions,” he said. “Just do this for me, and I’ll explain when you get out here. If you want to come on the plane, that’s all right, but don’t come on the fourteenth. Come on the fifteenth or sixteenth or seventeenth. Any other day. But not on the fourteenth.”

“Roy,” Alice said, “you’ve got me terribly worried. What’s come over you? I’ve asked Elizabeth and she says that this doesn’t sound like you at all.”

“How is she?” Roy asked.

“Elizabeth is fine. She tells me to ignore you and come out as scheduled.”

“Tell her to mind her own damned business.” Roy had been working hard and sleeping badly and his voice was raw and nervous, and Alice reacted to it.

“I think I know what’s going on,” she said coldly. “Monica told me there’s a big party at the Condons’ on the fourteenth, and you’ve probably promised to take someone else, and a wife would be a big handicap—”

“Oh, God, will you stop that!” Roy shouted into the phone.

“I haven’t been married to you for seven years for nothing,” Alice said. “I’m not blind.”

“Come out today!” Roy shouted. “Come out tomorrow! Come out the thirteenth! Only not the fourteenth!”

“You know as well as I do that if I give up my reservations, I won’t get another until June. If you don’t want to see me any more, tell me. You don’t have to go through all this rigmarole.”

“Alice, darling,” Roy pleaded, “I assure you I want to see you.”

“Well, then, stop this nonsense or tell me what it’s all about.”

“Alice, it’s this way,” he began, resolved to tell her, no matter how much of an idiot it made him feel, but there was a click on the wire and then three thousand miles of whispering silence. By the time he got Alice back on the phone, ten minutes later, he felt too ridiculous, felt that he could not live with himself or his wife if he at this late date exposed himself as a silly, undependable man with a brain gone soft and nervous and irresponsible after all the sane, dependable years.