Conrad Aiken - The Collected Short Stories of Conrad Aiken

“Oo! How strong you are, Charlie. Regular caveman stunt. But don’t try it again, let me tell you! or I’ll smash your windows for you.” She drew away into the corner of the seat again, panting a little, and smiling apprehensively. Then she added, “Oh, gee! look at my petticoat!” She giggled, and gave a flounce to her skirt in an unsuccessful attempt to cover her legs. “You don’t mind looking at my legs, do you, Charlie! They’re easy to look at.… Say, my skirt’s awful wet—I think I’ll take it off and hang it up to dry.…”

“What are you trying to do, get me pinched?” O’Brien pulled the door shut and sat down. “You’re a tough baby, all right!…” He leaned back and for a second closed his eyes. With eyes shut, he saw a long road swarming at him with sparkling puddles, rivers running, and a spotlight full of rain.

“Sure, I’m tough. I’m so tough, I spit brass! Ha, ha!” She was immensely amused by this, and rocked back and forth, laughing, and looking at him with cunning blue eyes, sidelong.

“Well, you oughter be ashamed to say it, a young kid like you!… And all boozed up like an old war horse.… Judas!… Where’d you get it? Who gave it to you?”

“None of your damned business who gave it to me. I’ve been given worse things, let me tell you!… It was a friend of mine gave it to me.” She was coarsely defiant.

“Well, he must be a crumby kind of friend, getting you all tanked up like this on rotten whisky and then leaving you out in the rain like an old cat! Some friend.”

“When I ask for your opinion of my friends, you can give it!…”

“Oh! Is that so!”

“Yes—that’s so!… And my friend’s a cop—you can put that in your pipe and smoke it. You make me tired.”

“A cop!… Tell it to the marines.”

“A cop, I said! Do you understand English?”

“Now and then.”

“Well, I guess this is one of the thens.… Say, Charlie, you haven’t got a cigarette, have you?” Wheedling, she slid her arm under his and put her cheek against his shoulder. He looked sleepily at her, unmoving. They remained thus for a moment, hearing the rain on the sides and roof of the taxi—a delicate irregular pricking of needlepoints. Now and then a snowflake, large and heavy, veered past one of the windows.… Recollecting himself, pulling himself back again from the verge of a dream, he fished out a cigarette for her and struck a match. Puff—puff. The match, flaring once, twice, showed clear blue eyes, pupils narrowed, under pale golden eyebrows delicately arched like the feelers of a moth. The white nose slightly cruel, rather fine.

“Thanks, Charlie.… Nice boy!… Snuggle up, let’s be comfortable!” She gave a little wriggle, sliding her arm further under his. Her left hand, with its ring, fell upon his, which lay on his canvas coat, and bending her fingers she thrust them delicately, exploringly, up his sleeve. He did not move, merely swayed slightly.

“Sure, my friend’s a cop.” She went on, equably.… “Don’t you believe me?”

“Oh, I’ll swallow anything!” He smiled.

“But I didn’t see him tonight.… I couldn’t find him.”

“You went looking for him?”

“All around—everywhere. Damned cold and wet, too! I’m soaked.”

“What did you want him for?” He suddenly realized that his eyes had shut and that his chin had dropped onto his sheepskin collar. The rough touch startled him.

“I wanted some money. I’m strapped—absolutely not a thin dime tonight.… And the landlady took my key away this morning.”

“Oh! she did, did she! You didn’t pay the rent?”

“No, you poor simp! It was because the other lodgers complained.” She tittered. “The old man in the next room to mine watched me like a hawk. I guess he thought—ha, ha!”… She blew a cloud of smoke. “I gave him the cold shoulder, you see, and last night when he found my friend was there with me—he went down to the kitchen with the glad news.”

“Say, kid—you ought not to do it! You’ll get into trouble.”

“Mind your own business, Charlie!”… Her tone was friendly, but sharp.… “I’m no chicken.”

“You said a mouthful, Queenie!… How old are you?”

“Seventeen.”

“Seventeen—and an alley-cat!… Judas.”

She slapped his face. He smiled stupidly, and she slapped it again.

“You shut up! You can’t say things like that to me!… Not much.”

She smoked, staring at him. She seemed to be examining him appraisingly, resting her blue eyes in turn on his mouth, his nose, his chin, eyes, canvas coat. Her eyes were close to his, dark-pupiled, her cheek still rested against his shoulder. He returned her gaze, somber and expressionless. He blinked repeatedly, the lids falling slowly, involuntarily, and his head at the same time nodding forward in jerks. With each nod and blink the road rushed at him, a soft interminable torrent, sparkling and seething. Each time, opening his eyes again to exclude the vision, he smiled at the girl’s face, so startlingly near, smiled apologetically.

“What’s your name, kid?”

“Flora, Flora des Neiges.”

“Oh! You’re a Canuck.”

“Do I look it?”

“No—you don’t.”

“My mother was Scotch. That’s where I get my yellow hair.”

“I guess you got it out of a bottle.”

“Like hell I did! That’s fourteen carat. All gold to the roots.” She shook it against his cheek, smiling, showing a sharp golden eye-tooth.

“Well—when did you come down here?”

“In October. I ran away. My pa’s got a farm in Vermont.…”

He appeared not to be listening. He was looking out of the window, under the street lamp, watching the swirling of snow and rain—there was more snow, now. All of a sudden, turning, he said:

“Well, Flora, what’s the idea? Where are you going to sleep tonight?…”

“Me? What’s the matter with this?”

“Oh! And supposing some cop happens to come down here? That’d look pretty, wouldn’t it! It’d sound nice to the judge, wouldn’t it!… Yes, it would not!”

He was derisive, but at the same time profoundly inert, relaxed. The warmth of the girl’s body was pleasant, and the clasp of her thumb and finger round his right wrist had a curious effect on him. He did not stir, did not feel like stirring. His money was safe enough. She couldn’t get it without waking him. Supposing—supposing—he might give her a couple of dollars to go—but where would she go? Not to his own room. No … nor a hotel. She was too young-looking.… Supposing—supposing—what was it he was thinking of? Out into the country? Concord or Framingham? Brown rivers cut off his view, and he stared into a vast red-edged spotlight filled with rain.… The girl was saying:

“There won’t be any cops here till five o’clock. We could go for a little drive in the parks before that. Out to Jamaica Pond or something like that.…”

“Sure.… Wake me at five! If you’re waking, call me early!”

He would have to explain at the garage. A breakdown somewhere. Hanover Four Corners.…

“… My friend, the one I ran away with I mean, worked in a drugstore in Cambridge, shaking sodas. He gave me the slip. I didn’t care much, because he paid my fare down here, and that was the chief thing. Oh—he had a swell line of talk! Couldn’t he sling the syllables!…”

“Those funny guys make me tired.”

“Don’t be such a gloom, Charlie!… Anybody’d think this was your dear mother’s funeral.”

“Ah—you make me tired.” He gave a long shiver, shutting his eyes.

“Going to sleep, darling? Put your head down, there! That’s right.”

He rested his cheek against her head, felt her hand pass across his forehead. Hanover Four Corners was a queer procession of stilted sandwich-men. They stepped briskly, wheeled, waving their long stilts, their longer and longer stilts, their stilt scrapers, a babbling forest of stilt scrapers, very very tall, and high up among them, invisible were the small white faces which said Hanover Four Corners, Hanovorners!