Читать книгу The Silence on the Shore - Hugh Garner - Страница 11

CHAPTER FOUR

Late in May, Grace Hill placed an ad in the evening newspapers for the room next to Walter’s. It was a bad time of year to rent a furnished room in the neighbourhood, for the university students were on vacation and many transient workers were making their annual exit from the city to jobs in the summer resorts and out-of-town construction projects.

The first day the ad ran there were no applicants for the room, and on the second day there were only two phone calls and one personal application, an old man who found the rent too expensive. On the third day a girl in her late teens and a woman about thirty came to the house together, and asked to see the room.

“You mean you want to rent the room for both of you?” Grace asked the oldest one.

“Yes.”

“But it’s only a single room.”

“If it’s big enough we don’t mind paying more for it.”

Though Grace had no intention of renting them the room, she was reluctant to let them go without trying to ferret from them a hint about their relationship. “But there’s only one bed,” she said.

The girl, who had the mean pinched face of a slum adolescent, asked, “Is it a single?”

“Yes, it’s a single.”

The girl turned to her older companion and asked, “What do you say, Jackie?”

“I don’t know, Bunny.”

Both of them wore tartan slacks and light jackets over pullover sweaters. The oldest one had high heels but the youngest wore loafers. The youngest also had her hair cut short and parted like a man’s.

Grace, with a knowledge born of experience, knew they wouldn’t rent the room. She determined however to get the answers to several questions that were gnawing her.

“Are you related?” she asked.

“You could call it that,” the oldest one said.

“Sisters?”

Neither answered her.

“Cousins maybe?”

“Naw,” said the young one. “Come on, Jackie.”

The older one turned away from the door.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t help you out this time,” Grace said.

“It’s all right,” Bunny said.

As they started down the steps Grace closed the door and spied on them through the stained-glass window. They were talking together as they went down the walk. The youngest one said something funny and both laughed and clung to each other. They turned south when they reached the sidewalk and the younger one circled the other’s waist with her arm. Grace stared after them until they were out of sight, her feelings about them a mixture of distaste and erotic curiosity.

She heard a movement in the hallway behind her, and swung around to find Lightfoot emerging from his room. He had been sober now for a week, and he was dressed for the street.

She opened the door for him. “Good morning,” she said.

“Good morning, Grace.”

“I just had two girls looking at the empty room upstairs,” she said.

“I don’t want things like that living in the same house I do,” he said.

“They looked clean enough,” she offered lamely.

“Bull-dikers or hustlers, maybe both together,” he said, crowding past her. He hurried down the steps.

He often used words she didn’t understand, but she always got their meaning.

Towards noon it began to rain, and Grace stood at the kitchen window stroking Peanuts who lay full length on the windowsill. A few days before she had heard that representatives of the building syndicate had been sounding out the householders farther up the street. It might be just another rumour or, as she was inclined to believe, it may have been some outfit wanting to buy up the properties cheap for resale to the developers. Her mind was made up in any case; she was going to hold out as long as possible.

She had only paid $10,500 for the house in 1944, but from the syndicate she would ask $25,000, maybe more. It would be exciting to have a running battle with them, and she was in no hurry to sell.

There was a knock at the hall door, and she found old man Martin from the basement standing in the hallway. Martin was a longtime English immigrant who still hadn’t lost his accent after fifty years. He was a small, neat man, no taller than she was in her slippers. He kept his basement room spotless, but his neatness was just precise and military enough to irk her. He worked out part of his rent by tending the furnace in winter, carrying out the garbage, and looking after the grass and garden in the summer. She knew he disliked her, even though he was always polite to her face, with a mechanical and ingrained subservience.

His few possessions, which she had investigated early in his tenancy, had told her nothing except that he was a First World War veteran and a widower. On occasion he received letters from a woman in Vancouver, and about a month before there had been a postcard, written by the same person, from Kamloops, B.C. It had been addressed to “Dad” and signed, “Peggy, George and the children.”

As she opened the door he said, “I was wonderin’ if I could move the garbage out to the front of the house tonight like, on account I’m workin’ all night down at a watchman’s job, an’ won’t be home first thing in the morin’.”

“Is tomorrow garbage day?”

“Yes.”

“What time will you take them out?”

“Before I go to work. Around eleven or so.”

“All right.”

“It’s just a temp’ry job, a friend’s off sick, Mrs. Hill, an’ —”

“It’ll be all right,” she said, shutting the door in his face. She despised old men.

When she heard him feeling his way down the cellar stairs she opened her door again and shouted after him, “Make sure you put the lids on tight. I don’t want them damn dogs scattering it all over the lawn!”

“Right,” he answered from the bottom of the stairs.

Grace sat down against the table, and Peanuts jumped down from the window and by an indirect route reached the side of her chair. She picked the big cat from the floor and placed it on her lap. Her hand stroked its belly, trying to feel the beginnings of gestation. There was no swelling yet but the cat’s teats were hard beneath her fingers.

“Are we going to be mama again, baby?” she asked it, speaking as if to a child. “Did nasty Gracie make you act bad with that big grey tomcat, eh? We be a mama again pretty quick, eh, lover?

She pulled the cat up to her face and kissed it on the head. When she lowered it to her lap again Peanuts stared up at her with a look that was mysterious and inscrutable.

The rain stopped later in the afternoon, and Grace opened the back door, letting in the clean washed smell of the grass and trees. There was the sound of cars swishing by on the wet streets, and from somewhere nearby the sound of jackhammers digging up the pavement. A small unseen bird challenged the clearing skies with song, and from a backyard down the street a dog gave a single lonely bark.

There was a slight commotion in the front hallway, and Grace opened the hall door and saw Monique Laramée carrying out a folded baby buggy. Her two-year-old son, Gaston, was with her, and when he heard Grace’s door open he looked around at her, his wide face and button nose wrinkling in a smile.

Grace ran forward along the hall.

“’ello, Madam,” Monique said.

“Hello,” said Grace. “I think the rain is over.”

“Yes, is finish, I t’ink.”

“Where’s Jacqueline?”

“In ’er bed.”

“You go up and get her,” Grace ordered. “I’ll take care of the carriage.” She took the buggy from Mrs. Laramée and carried it down to the front walk, where she unfolded it and set it down ready for the baby. The little boy stood on the porch and grinned at her.

“Hello, Liebling,” she said to him as she climbed the steps again. “Come to Auntie Gracie.” She picked him up and sat on the porch railing, dangling him on her knee. He pointed down the street and said something in French, while she answered him in German. Though neither understood the other, there was a well-established relationship between them. On two or three occasions she had babysat with the Laramée children, but the Laramées didn’t like to ask her very often.

Monique came out carrying the baby and some covers for the stroller. Grace placed Gaston on the floor and took the baby from its mother while Monique readied the buggy. Cradling the baby in her arm she chucked it under the chin, making funny little noises to it, watching its tiny face break into a grin. Then she smiled down at it, caught off guard by the love and longing that surged through her. It was the spontaneous smile of an aging woman, the most unaffected in a woman’s repertoire, and the most revealing smile a woman has.

After the baby was tucked in and young Gaston had attached himself to the side of the buggy, Mrs. Laramée set off down the street, as Grace waved them goodbye. Then setting her face against any of the neighbours who might have seen her give herself away, she went back into the house.

She had just placed the kettle on the stove and spooned some instant coffee into a cup when there was a sharp imperious knock at the front door. She moved the kettle to an unlit burner, wiped her hands on her hips, and went to answer it.

“Have you a room to rent, ma’am?” a tall young man asked as she opened the door.

She looked him over carefully before answering. “Yes, a single.”

“What are you asking for it?”

“Eight dollars.”

She looked him over once again. He was in his middle or late twenties, good-looking in a careless way. He wore a windbreaker and his head was bare. On his feet were a pair of heavy black institutional shoes, which might have been prison issue if his suntan hadn’t ruled out a recent prison background. She reasoned that the price of the room was of prime concern to him, and that this had prompted his asking for it so soon.

“Could I see the room?” he asked.

She hesitated. She was alone in the house except for old Martin downstairs, and something about the young man frightened her in a way. It wasn’t his appearance, or even the look of his shoes, but the challenging maleness of him, which made her feel vulnerable and female. When she spoke again she felt her chin tremble and her voice crack a little.

“Just follow me please,” she said.

On the way upstairs she turned and said. “Mr. Martin downstairs is working nights right now, so I don’t like to make any noise.” This was to let him know they were not alone, and had nothing to do with her feelings for a sleeping roomer, especially old man Martin.

The young man looked the room over carefully, staring down into the alleyway as if gauging the drop, walking into the closet, picking up the chair, and glancing briefly into the hanging mirror. His self-possession fought with his hesitancy, but he pressed his hand down on the bed, testing its strength and resiliency, and finally turned down the sheet, blanket, and faded counterpane.

Grace stood in the doorway, watching the litheness of his movements and the tightness of his windbreaker over his shoulders as he bent himself. She resolved to let him have the room for seven dollars if he hesitated about taking it.

“Well?” she asked.

“It looks all right,” he said, staring up at a cracked spot in the ceiling. “I’ll take it if it’s okay by you.”

“I expect the rent every week,” she said. “When is your payday?”

“I haven’t any regular one. I’m a salesman — gas burners,” he answered. “I get my money any day of the week.”

“Is that a good job?” she asked, her smile disappearing beneath her doubts, “It seems to me that spring isn’t a good time for selling things like that.”

He gave her an assured laugh. “That’s what everybody seems to think,” he said. “Actually spring and summer are the best times to sell heating equipment. Nobody has their furnaces on then, see? And they don’t have their fuel in either.”

“I never thought about it before,” she said.

“What do you burn here, coal or oil?”

“Coal.”

“Still burning coal, eh? I’ll bet you haven’t much of it in your cellar right now, have you?”

“Mr. Martin looks after that,” she said, both to show him that she was above tending furnace and reminding him of old man Martin’s presence.

“Maybe I’ll be able to sell you a gas furnace,” he said. “It’s the cleanest, least troublesome fuel in the world. Natural gas heating. Everybody’s putting it in.”

“I’m thinking of selling the place before long. They’re talking about tearing down every house on this block, and them on Bemiral at the back too. They’re gonna build apartment houses.”

“It’s happening everywhere these days. When do you figure this is going to happen?”

“Maybe next fall. Next winter at the latest.”

“Anything can happen before then. I figure I’ll have moved to a place of my own before that. I only decided to take a room for a little while.” He fished in his pocket and pulled out a thin wad of bills. “Eight dollars, you said it was?”

“That’s right.”

He handed her the money.

“I’ll bring you a receipt later,” she said.

“I don’t need a receipt.”

“Where are you living now, Mr. — ?”

“Cronin. Clark Cronin. I’m staying at the Parklawn Hotel.”

“Down here on Bloor Street?”

“Yeah. Just a couple of blocks away.”

“But isn’t it — I mean it’s — ?”

“Expensive?” he finished for her. “Yes, it is that’s why I’m moving. You see, I’ve been on the road — out in the field for three months, and when I hit town again last week I booked in there. Now I’m expecting to stick around so I need a cheaper place.” He plucked at the front of his windbreaker “I’ve been inspecting some installations today, that’s why I’m dressed like this.”

“Oh, I see,” she said. She didn’t believe he was staying at the Parklawn at all. Who did he think he was kidding? She’d been a landlady too long to be fooled by his kind. He was some kind of sharpy, but what kind?

He walked to the window again and tried to look down into the backyard. “You haven’t got a garage, have you?” he asked.

“No.”

“Okay. I’ll go back to the hotel and pack.” He glanced at his watch. “Checking-out time is four o’clock. I’d better make it snappy.”

“My name is Mrs. Hill,” Grace said. “The bathroom is at the end of this hall. Visitors have to be out by eleven. I don’t like my guests using too much hot water.”

He stared at her.

She smiled and added, “Not during the warm weather, I meant.”

He pushed past her and felt his way to the stairs. “You can put the key on the dresser. I’ll be back in an hour or so.”

As soon as he had gone, Grace hurried to the telephone and called the Parklawn Hotel. When she asked for Mr. Clark Cronin the operator rang his room. When she came back on the line she said, “Mr. Cronin appears to be out. Is there any message please?” “No, no message,” Grace answered, hanging up.

But she still bet he didn’t have a car.

Clark hurried down the street after noting the number of the house. Adford Road wasn’t a bad address. It was a good old residential neighbourhood that wasn’t quite given over yet to rooming-houses. The address could mean a private house, if he wanted somebody to think so. The room he’d rented was pretty small and crummy, but clean enough. Anyhow, it was all he could afford right then.

The landlady was a dandy. What was her accent, German? Maybe he should have tried to sprechen Sie Deutsch a little with her — not that he’d learned much of it during his two years in Germany. He’d met her kind before, not very appetizing but ready to put it out if given any encouragement at all. She was too old for him. Why didn’t she get some decent false teeth?

He wondered who else lived in the joint. She’d mentioned one of them, Martin or something, who lived in the basement. There wouldn’t be any young women in the house. A landlady like that would make sure all her women tenants were as old as she was and even uglier if that was possible. Mrs. Hill . . . what was German for hill? Berg. Yeah, that was it. No, her name wouldn’t be Berg; that was strictly yid, and she wasn’t Jewish.

When he picked up his room key and smiled at the girl on the desk she looked right through him. She’d smiled at him the evening before, when he was dressed up, but now he was just a nothing. As he rode up to his room on the elevator he looked ahead a few weeks when he’d have a few bucks in his pocket and a new front. If he hadn’t lost so much in the crown-and-anchor and crap games on his way home from Europe, he’d be able to operate right now. Well, it wouldn’t be too long.

There was one thing they taught you in the army, and that was patience. Hurry up and wait. Get you up at five in the morning to wait all afternoon for the visiting brass. Still, his three years in the service had done him a lot of good. He’d filled out with twenty-five more pounds on him than he’d joined up with. And a guy couldn’t serve two years in Germany without learning a few angles about people, or about women. Certainly not without learning about women.

When he approached the desk this time, carrying his gladstone bag and with his army issue raincoat over his arm, the girl at the counter noticed his good clothes.

“Yes, sir?” she asked. She was not smiling, but there was more respect in her.

He tossed his key to her. “I’m checking out.”

“Will you come to the cashier’s wicket, please?”

She picked up his rate card, totalled it, and gave him the amount of his bill. He pulled a chequebook from an inside pocket and wrote out a cheque.

“Have you a forwarding address, sir?”

“No. I’m leaving for New York on the eight-twenty plane.”

“I see. Could I have your permanent address, please?”

“I have none.”

The girl hesitated, looked behind her at the empty office, then said, “I suppose it’s all right.”

“If you mean the cheque, why don’t you phone the bank?”

“I’m sure it’s all right,” she said, smiling now.

“Could I have a receipt?”

When she made one out and handed it to him he turned without thanking her, picked up his bag and walked across the lobby to the door. When he reached the sidewalk he turned west in the direction of the rooming-house.

Clark Cronin had learned a lot during his twenty-seven years, but a lot of what he had learned was wrong. He fancied himself to be a smart guy, a guy who quickly learned the angles, who cut corners instead of having to make it the hard way. He had a superficial ease with women, and an easy contempt for them which they found attractive If he had an ambition at all at the moment it was to become the lover of a woman who could support him.

He knew that he stood little chance of becoming the husband or lover of a wealthy woman, and so he had sensibly set his sights a little lower on the economic and social scale. He had enough intelligence to know that his chances were better if he concentrated on those women who were not rich but were successful in everything except marriage or ability to attract the right kind of man. These women held down good positions in business, the minor professions, and the arts, and even if they were salaried their income was usually greater than that of most men in his economic stratum. A great number of these women had gravitated to the city from small towns, where their inability to get or hold a husband was looked upon as a personal gaffe. Clark had made up his mind to find such a woman and shack up with her. He had dreamed about this during his hitch in the army.

As he swung into Adford from Bloor, Clark was thinking not of the well-heeled woman he would eventually court and conquer, but of the weeks to come before she presented herself. He would have to support himself by working, he was afraid. When he had left Germany he had more than six hundred dollars in cash to finance his contemplated campaign, three hundred of it “borrowed” from the wife of a battalion Protestant padre. All of it had slipped through his fingers on the Empress of Scotland between Hamburg and Montreal.

A week before, a man he met in the beer parlour of the hotel told him of the job selling gas heaters. It was a lousy job, door-to-door, speculative, all commission, but he had taken it. On the Monday, he had presented himself to the company’s office, which looked as transient as its employees, had been hired, given a territory in which to sell (and which had already been gone over every season for the past three by earlier employees), handed a company brochure and some sales forms, listened to two hours of instructions and sent on his way. Without a car it had been grim slugging, but necessity had forced him to see it through.

On Tuesday evening he had sold a hot-water heater, and on Wednesday had signed up two householders for the conversion of their furnaces from oil to gas. His paper commissions were tremendous for one who had been living on the pay of an army private, and he celebrated his salesmanship and business acumen that evening by spending it with a fifty-dollar call-girl in his hotel room. On Thursday he had failed to make a sale, but on Friday he sold another furnace unit and a heater to a couple in the suburbs. On Saturday he picked up his commission from the heater he had sold Tuesday. On Monday he learned to his disgust and dismay that both Wednesday furnaces had been cancelled, along with the double sale in the suburbs, all three clients having impossible credit ratings.

That morning he had gone to the house where the heater was being installed, made sure there was no slip-up by the installation crew, and had then looked through the papers for a less expensive room.

As he turned up the walk to the rooming-house he noticed a man and a girl standing at the door. The girl was pretty in a washed-out blonde sort of way, and the man, who was carrying her bags, was thin and middle-aged, balding in front and with a thin aquiline nose.

The door was opened by the landlady, who motioned the couple inside, before noticing him coming up the walk. She stood and held the door open.

“Well, I made it, Mrs. Hill,” he said. “I left my car in the hotel garage.”

The landlady closed the door behind him without a word, and led the couple down the hall to a door at the rear. As he climbed the stairs Clark heard her say, “I wasn’t expecting you back today, Miss Garfield.”

“I’m earlier than I expected,” the girl answered. “This is Mr. Sloman, my foreman from the plant. He was kind enough to give me a lift from the station.”

From upstairs Clark heard the three of them enter the girl’s room, then their voices were cut off by the doorway and the floor of the upper hall. When he entered his own room, which looked more bare and shabby than ever as he switched on the light, he saw that the landlady had put his keys on the top of the chest of drawers. Beneath them was a piece of paper with a printed sentence in ink. It read, i forgot to tell you, put out light when leaveing room. g hill.

He threw his bag to the floor of the closet and lowered himself to the bed. Garfield was the girl’s name downstairs. Not exactly his type, but she might prove interesting on a temporary basis. He wondered why the old girl had rented the room to such unfair competition.