Джеймс Кейн - Career in C Major and Other Fiction

When I got home I let myself in, carried my grip, and called to Doris. There was no answer. I went out in the kitchen, and there was nobody there. I took my grip upstairs, called to Doris again, knocked on the door of the bedroom. Still there was no answer. I went in. The bed was all made up, the room was in order, and no Doris. The room being in order, though, that didn’t prove anything, even at that time of day. Her room was always in order. I took the bag in the nursery, set it down, went out in the hall again, let out a couple more hallo’s. Still nothing happened.

I went downstairs, began to get nervous. I wondered if she had walked out on me for good, and taken the children with her, but the house didn’t smell like it had been locked up or anything like that. About eleven o’clock Nils came home. He was the houseman. He had been out taking the children to school, he said, and buying some stuff at a market. He said he was glad to see me back, and I shook hands with him, and asked for Christine. Christine is his wife, and does the cooking, and in between acts as maid to Doris and nurse to the children. He said Christine had gone with Mrs. Borland. He acted like I must know all about it, and I hated to show I didn’t, so I said oh, of course, and he went on back to the kitchen.

About a quarter to twelve the phone rang. It was Lorentz. “Borland, you’d better come down and get your wife.”

“... What’s the matter?”

“I’ll tell you.”

“Where is she?”

“The Cathedral Theatre. Come to the stage door. I’m at the theatre now. I’ll meet you and take you to her.”

I had a glimmer, then, of what was going on. I went out, grabbed a cab, and hustled down there. He met me outside, took me in, and showed me a dressing room. I rapped on the door and went in. She was on a couch, and a theatre nurse was with her, and Christine. She was in an awful state. She had on some kind of theatrical looking dress with shiny things on it, and her face was all twisted, and her hands were clenching and unclenching, and I didn’t need anybody to tell me she was giving everything she had to fight back hysteria. When she saw me it broke. She cried, and stiffened on the couch, and then kept doubling up in convulsive jerks, where she was fighting for control, and turning away, so I couldn’t see her face. The nurse took me by the arm. “It’ll be better if you wait outside. Give me a few more minutes with her, and I’ll have her in shape to be moved.”

I went out in the corridor with Lorentz. “What’s this about?”

“She got the bird.”

“Oh.”

There it was again, this thing that Cecil had said if I ever heard I’d never forget. I still didn’t know what it was, but that wasn’t what I was thinking about. “She sang here, then?”

“It didn’t get that far. She went out there to sing. Then they let her have it. It was murder.”

“Just didn’t like her, hey?”

“She got too much of a build-up. In the papers.”

“I haven’t seen the papers. I’ve been away.”

“Yeah, I know. Socialite embraces stage career, that kind of stuff. It was all wrong, and they were ready for her. Just one of those nice morning crowds in a big four-a-day picture house. They didn’t even let her open her mouth. By the time I got to the piano the stage manager had to ring down. The curtain dropped in front of her, the orchestra played, and they started the newsreel. I never saw anything like it.”

He stood there and smoked, I stood there and smoked, and then I began to get sore. “It would seem to me you would have had more sense than to put her on here.”

“I didn’t.”

“Oh, you did your part.”

“I pleaded with her not to do it. Listen, Borland, I’m not kidded about Doris, and I don’t think you are either. She can’t sing for buttons. She can’t even get on the set before they’ve got her number. I tried my best to head her off. I told her she wasn’t ready for it, that she ought to wait, that it wasn’t her kind of a show. I even went to Leighton. I scared him, but not enough. You try to stop Doris when she gets set on something.”

“Couldn’t you tell her the truth?”

“Could you?”

That stopped me, but I was still sore. “Maybe not. But you started this, just the same. If you knew all this, what did you egg her on for? You’re the one that’s been giving her lessons, from ’way back, and telling her how good she is, and—”

“All right, Borland, granted. And I think you know all about that too. I’m in love with your wife. And if egging her on is what makes her like me, I’m human. Yeah, I trade on her weakness.”

“I’ve socked guys for less than that.”

“Go ahead, if it does you any good. I’ve about got to the point where a sock, that would be just one more thing. If you think being chief lackey to Doris is a little bit of heaven, you try it — or maybe you have tried it. This finishes me with her, if that interests you. Not because I started it. Not because I egged her on. No — but I saw it. I was there, and saw them nail her to the cross, and rip her clothes off, and throw rotten eggs at her, and ask her how the vinegar tasted, and all the rest of it. That she’ll never forgive me for. But why sock? You’re married to her, aren’t you? What more do you want?”

He walked off and left me. I found a pay phone, put in a call for a private ambulance. When it came I went in the dressing room again. Doris was up, and Christine was helping her into her fur coat. She was over the hysteria, but she looked like something broken and shrunken. I carried her to the ambulance, put her in it, made her lie down. Christine got in. We started off.

I carried her upstairs and undressed her, and put her to bed, and called a doctor. Undressing Doris is like pulling the petals off a flower, and a catch kept coming in my throat over how soft she was, and how beautiful she was, and how she wilted into the bed. When the doctor came he said she had to be absolutely quiet, and gave her some pills to make her sleep. He left, and I closed the door, and sat down beside the bed. She put her hand in mine. “Leonard.”

“Yes?”

“I’m no good.”

“How do you know? From what Lorentz said, they didn’t even give you a chance to find out.”

“I’m no good.”

“A morning show in a picture house—”

“A picture house, a vaudeville house, an opera house, Carnegie Hall — it’s all the same. They’re out there, and it’s up to you. I’m just a punk that’s been a headache to everybody she knows, and that’s got wise to herself at last. I’ve got voice, figure, looks — everything but what it takes. Isn’t that funny? Everything but what it takes.”

“For me, you’ve got everything it takes.”

“You knew, didn’t you?”

“How would I know?”

“You knew. You knew all the time. I’ve been just rotten to you, Leonard. All because you opposed my so-called career.”

“I didn’t oppose it.”

“No, but you didn’t believe in it. That was what made me so furious. You were willing to let me do whatever I wanted to do, but you wouldn’t believe I could sing. I hated you for it.”

“Only for that?”

“Only for that. Oh, you mean Hugo, and Leighton, and all my other official hand-kissers? Don’t be silly. I had to tease you a little, didn’t I? But that only showed I cared whether you cared.”

“Then you do care?”

“What do you think?”

She took my head in her hands, and kissed my eyes, and my brow, and my cheeks, like I was something too holy for her to be worthy to touch, and I was so happy I couldn’t even talk. I sat there a long time, my head against hers, while she held my hand against her cheek, and now and then kissed it. “... The pills are working.”