The Specialty of the House Read online

  ‘How do you feel now?’ he asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Miles said. He pulled his hand free of Hannah’s and gingerly tried to raise himself to a sitting position. Halfway there he was transfixed by a shocking pain that was driven like a white-hot needle between his ribs. He heard Hannah gasp, and then the stranger’s blunt fingers were probing deep into the pain, turning it to liquid, melting it away.

  ‘See?’ the man said. ‘It’s nothing. Nothing at all.’

  Miles swung his legs around so that he sat erect on the sofa. He took a deep breath, then another. ‘For a second I thought it was my heart,’ he said. ‘The way it hit me—’

  ‘No, no,’ the man said. ‘I know what you thought. You can believe me when I say it is of no concern.’ And then, as if it explained everything, he said, ‘I am Dr Maas. Dr Victor Maas.’

  ‘It was a miracle, darling,’ Hannah said breathlessly. ‘Dr Maas was the one who found you outside and brought you in. And he’s been an absolute angel. If it weren’t for him—’

  Miles looked at her, and then looked at all the others standing there and watching him with concern. ‘Well,’ he demanded, ‘what did happen? What was it? Heart? Stroke? Amnesia? I’m not a child, for God’s sake. You don’t have to play games with me.’

  Abel Roth rolled his cigar from the left-hand corner of his mouth to the right-hand corner. ‘You can’t blame him for feeling that way, can you, doc? After all, the man is out cold for fifteen minutes, he wants to know where he stands. Maybe there’s some kind of checkup you could give him, like blood pressure and stuff like that. Maybe we’d all feel better for it.’

  Miles relished that, and relished even more the thought of what he had in store for Abel Roth. ‘Maybe we would, Abel,’ he said. ‘Maybe we’ve got a theater sold out sixteen weeks in advance, and the SRO sign up every night. Maybe we’ve got a real little gold mine to dig so long as I can keep swinging the shovel eight performances a week.’

  Abel’s face turned red. ‘Ah, now, Miles,’ he said. ‘The way you talk—’

  ‘Yes?’ Miles said. ‘What about the way I talk?’

  Ben Thayer shook his head slowly and solemnly. ‘If you’d only take the chip off your shoulder for one minute, Miles,’ he drawled. ‘If you’d try to understand—’

  ‘Please!’ Dr Maas said sharply. ‘Gentlemen, please!’ He frowned at them. ‘There is one thing I must make clear. Actually, I am not a medical physician. My interests, so to speak, lie more in the field of psychiatrics, and while I am, perhaps, qualified to make the examination of Mr Owen that you suggest, I have no intention of doing so. For Mr Owen’s benefit I will also say that there is no need for me or anyone else to do so. He has my word on that.’

  ‘And Dr Maas, I am sure,’ said Miles, ‘is an honorable man.’ He stood up flexing his knees gingerly, and noting the relief on the faces around him. ‘If you want to make yourself at home, doctor, go right ahead. There seems to be some kind of buffet over there, and while I can’t vouch for the food I can promise that the liquor is very, very good.’

  The doctor’s grin gave him a surprising resemblance to a plump and mischievous boy. ‘A delightful suggestion,’ he said, and immediately made his way toward the buffet. Abel followed, and, Miles observed, before the doctor had even reached the buffet, the cigar was perilously close to his ear. Abel spent three hours a week on a psychoanalyst’s couch, and at least as much time pouring out lists of frightening and inconsequential symptoms to a sleek and well-fed Park Avenue practitioner. Dr Maas, Miles thought with a wry sympathy, was in for some heavy going, whether he knew it or not.

  The rest of the circle around the sofa broke up and eddied off, until only Hannah was left. She caught his arm in a panicky grip.

  ‘Are you sure you’re all right?’ she demanded. ‘You know you can tell me if there’s anything wrong.’

  There was something wrong. Every time she caught hold of him like that, tried to draw him close, he had the feeling of a web ensnaring him, closing over him so that he had to fight it savagely.

  It had not been like that at the start. She had been so beautiful that he thought in her case it might be different. The rising together, the eating together, the talking together, the endless routine of marriage looked as if it might somehow be bearable as long as it was shared with that loveliness. But then after a year the loveliness had become too familiar, the affection too cloying, the routine too much of a crushing burden.

  He had been unconscious for fifteen minutes. He wondered if he had babbled during that time, said something about Lily that could be seized on as a clue. It wasn’t of much concern if he had; in fact, it might have been a good way of preparing Hannah for the blow. It was going to be quite a blow, too. He could picture it falling, and it wasn’t a pleasant picture.

  He shrugged off Hannah’s hand. ‘There’s nothing wrong,’ he said, and then could not resist adding, ‘unless it’s this business of your throwing a house party the one time of the week when I might expect a little peace and quiet.’

  ‘I?’ Hannah said uncertainly. ‘What did I have to do with it?’

  ‘Everything, as long as you’ve got that damn yen to be the perfect hostess and everybody’s friend.’

  ‘They’re your friends,’ she said.

  ‘You ought to know by now that they’re not my friends either. I thought I made it clear a hundred different ways that I hate them all, individually and collectively. They’re nobody’s friends. Why is it my obligation to feed them and entertain them the one time of the week I can get rid of them?’

  ‘I don’t understand you,’ Hannah said. She looked as if she were about to break into tears. ‘I know you bought the house up here so you could get away from everybody, but you were the one—’

  The web was closing in again. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘All right!’

  The whole thing didn’t matter, anyhow. After he cleared out she could throw a house party every night of the week if she wanted to. She could burn the damn house down if that suited her. It wasn’t of any concern to him. He’d had enough of this country-squire life between every Saturday and Monday performance to last him the rest of his life, and, as Lily had once remarked, Central Park had all the trees she wanted to see. Just the realization that he would soon be packed and out of here made any arguments pointless.

  He shouldered his way to the buffet past Bob and Liz Gregory who were mooning at each other as if doing it on the radio six mornings a week wasn’t enough; past Ben Thayer who was explaining to Jake Hall the trouble he was having with the final act of his new play; past Abel who was saying something to Dr Maas about psychosomatic factors. The doctor had a tall glass in one hand, a sandwich in the other. ‘Interesting,’ he was saying. ‘Very interesting.’

  Miles tried to close his ears to all of them as he poured down two fingers of bourbon. Then he looked at his glass with distaste. The stuff was as flat as warm water, and as unpleasant to the palate. Obviously, one of the local help who took turns cleaning up the house had found the key to the liquor cabinet, and, after nearly emptying the bottle, had done a job on it at the kitchen tap. Damn fool. If you’re going to sneak a drink, do it and forget it. But to ruin the rest of the bottle this way …

  Abel poked him in the ribs. ‘I was just telling the doctor here,’ Abel said, ‘if he gets an evening off I’ll fix him up with a house seat for Ambuscade. I was telling him, if he hasn’t seen Miles Owen in Ambuscade he hasn’t seen the performance of all time. How does that sound to you, Miles?’

  Miles was lifting another bottle after making sure its seal was unbroken. He looked at Abel, and then set the bottle down with great care.

  ‘As a matter of fact,’ he said, ‘I don’t know how it sounds to me, Abel. It’s something I’ve wanted to talk to you about, and maybe this is as good a time as any.’

  ‘Talk about what?’ said Abel cheerfully, but there was a sudden worry in his eyes, a flickering of premonition on his face.

  ‘It’s private bu
siness, Abel,’ Miles said, and nodded to Dr Maas who stood by interestedly. ‘That is, if the doctor will excuse us.’

  ‘Of course, of course,’ the doctor said quickly. He waved his glass enthusiastically toward Miles. ‘And you were altogether right about the liquor, Mr Owen. It is superb.’

  ‘Fine,’ Miles said. ‘This way, Abel.’

  He pushed his way through the crowd and crossed the room to the library, Abel trailing after him. When he closed the door of the library and switched on a lamp, the chill dampness of the room seemed to soak right into him, and he shivered. Logs and kindling had been laid on the fireplace, and he held a match to it until the wood crackled and caught. Then he lit a cigarette and drew deeply on it. He looked at the cigarette in surprise. There was a flatness about it, a lack of sensation which made him run his tongue over his lips questioningly. He drew again on the cigarette, and then flung it into the fire. First the liquor, he thought, and now this. Dr Maas might be a handy man with Freudian complexes, but the first thing Monday an honest-to-God MD would be checking up on this little problem. It is discomforting to find out suddenly that you’ve lost your capacity to taste anything. Ridiculous maybe, but still discomforting.

  Abel was standing at the window. ‘Look at the fog, will you. When I brought Coxcomb over to London I thought I saw the real thing there, but this makes it look like nothing. You could cut your way through this with a shovel.’

  The fog was banked solidly outside the window, stirring in slow waves, sending threads of damp smoke against the glass. Where the threads clung, little beads of water trickled down the pane.

  ‘You get that around here a couple of times a year,’ Miles said impatiently. ‘And I didn’t come in here to talk about the weather.’

  Abel turned away from the window and sat down reluctantly in an armchair. ‘No, I guess you didn’t. All right, Miles, what’s bothering you?’

  ‘Ambuscade,’ Miles said. ‘Ambuscade is what’s bothering me.’

  Abel nodded wearily. ‘It figured. It figured. Well, what particular thing? Your billing? We’re using the biggest letters they make. Your publicity? All you have to do is name the time and you have your pick of any TV or radio guest spot in town. Remember what I told you after opening night, Miles? You name it, and if I can get it for you, I will.’

  Miles found himself suddenly enjoying the scene. Ordinarily, he had a genuine horror of such scenes. ‘Funny,’ he said. ‘I didn’t hear you say anything about money just now, did I? I mean, in all that pretty speech it couldn’t have slipped past me, could it?’

  Abel sank down in his chair and sighed like a man deeply stricken. ‘I thought it would come down to this. Even if I’m paying you twice as much as the biggest star I ever had, I could see it coming, Miles. All right, what’s the beef?’

  ‘As a matter of fact,’ Miles said, ‘there’s no beef.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘None at all.’

  ‘What are you getting at?’ Abel demanded. ‘What’s all this about?’

  Miles smiled. ‘I’m not getting at anything, Abel. I’m getting out. I’m leaving the show.’

  Miles had seen Abel meet more than one crisis before; he could have predicted every action before it took place. The face becoming an impassive mask, the hand searching for a match, the thumbnail flicking the match into a light, the elaborate drawing on the cigar stump, the neat flick of the match across the room. Abel fooled him. The match was snapped with sudden violence between the fingers, and then slowly rolled back and forth, back and forth.

  ‘You’re a cute boy, Miles,’ Abel said. ‘This wouldn’t be your idea of a joke, would it?’

  ‘I’m getting out, Abel. Tonight was positively the last appearance. That gives you all day tomorrow to line up another boy for the Monday-night curtain.’

  ‘What other boy?’

  ‘Well, you’ve got Jay Welker on tap, haven’t you? He’s been understudying me for five months, and hoping I’d break a leg every night of it.’

  ‘Jay Welker couldn’t carry Ambuscade one week, and you know it, Miles. Nobody can carry that show but you, and you know that, too.’

  Abel leaned forward in his chair and shook his head from side to side unbelievingly. ‘And knowing that, you don’t give a damn. You’d close the biggest thing on Broadway just like that, and to hell with the whole world, is that it?’

  Miles felt his heart starting to pound heavily, his throat tightening. ‘Wait a second, Abel, before you start on the dirty words. One thing has already come through pretty well. In all this, you haven’t yet asked me why I’m leaving. For all you know I might have some condition that’s going to kill me an hour from now, but that would bother you less than keeping your show running! Have you thought about that side of it?’

  ‘What side of it? I was standing right there when the doctor said you were in good shape. What am I supposed to do now? Get affidavits from the American Medical Association?’

  ‘Then it’s your idea that I’m pulling out because of a whim?’

  ‘Let’s not kid each other, Miles. You did this to Barrow five years ago, you did it to Goldschmidt after that, you did it to Howie Freeman last year, and I know, because that’s how I got my chance to grab you for Ambuscade. But all the time I figured these others didn’t know how to handle you, they didn’t see just how much you meant to a show. Now I tell you they were right all along, and I was a prize sucker. They told me you would be going along fine, and then all of a sudden you would get a bug in your ear, and that was it. Bug in your ear, Miles. That’s my low, ignorant way of saying whim, which is what it adds up to.’

  Abel paused. ‘The difference between me and them, Miles, is that I didn’t take chances, and that’s why you signed the first run-of-the-play contract you ever got since you were a nobody. You think you’re walking out on that contract? Think again, my friend.’

  Miles nodded. ‘All right,’ he said thickly, ‘I’m thinking. Do you want to know about what?’

  ‘They’re your dice, my friend.’

  ‘I’m thinking about eight performances a week, Abel. Eight times a week I say the same lines, walk the same steps, make the same faces. I’ve done it for five months, which is the biggest break you ever got in your life, but if you had your way I’d be doing it for five years! Right now it’s turned into one of those nightmares where you do the same thing over and over without being able to stop, but you wouldn’t know about that because you’re a guy in love with routine! But I’m not! After a while it’s like being in jail with the key thrown away. What do you tell a man when he can walk out of jail? To stay there and like it?’

  ‘Jail!’ Abel cried. ‘Tell me somebody in this country who wouldn’t give his right eye to be in the kind of jail you’re in!’

  ‘Listen,’ Miles said. He leaned forward urgently. ‘Do you remember before the show opened when we were rehearsing that kitchen scene? Do you remember when we ran through it that night ten times, fifteen times, twenty times? Do you know how I felt then? I felt as if I was plunked right down in hell, and all I would do for eternity was just play that scene over and over again. That’s my idea of hell, Abel: a sweet little place where you do the same thing over and over, and they won’t even let you go nuts at it, because that would spoil the fun for them. Do you get that? Because if you do, you can see just how I feel about Ambuscade!’

  ‘I get it,’ Abel said. ‘I also get a certain little run-of-the-play contract tucked away in my safe deposit box. If you think rehearsing a scene a few times is hell you’ll find out different when Equity lands on you. They look at this a little different from you.’

  ‘Don’t try to scare me, Abel.’

  ‘Scare you, hell. I’m going to sue you black and blue, and I’m going to make it stick. I’m dead serious about that, Miles.’

  ‘Maybe. But isn’t it hard to sue a man who’s too sick to work?’

  Abel nodded with grim understanding. ‘I figured you’d get around to that angle. I’m the patsy, because
to the rest of the world you’re sick.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘And that explains something else, too. That little business of your little blackout on the front doorstep, with a doctor handy, and twenty witnesses to swear to it. I have to hand it to you, Miles, you don’t miss a trick. Only it’ll take more than a smart trick and a quack doctor to work things your way.’

  Miles choked down the rage rising in him. ‘If you think that was a trick—’

  ‘What was a trick?’ Harriet Thayer’s voice said gaily behind him. Harriet and Ben were standing in the doorway, regarding him with a sort of cheerful curiosity. They made an incongruous couple, Ben’s gauntness towering high over Harriet’s little-girl fragility, and they had an eager, small-town friendliness that grated on Miles’s nerves like a fingernail drawn down a slate. ‘It sounds terribly exciting and interesting,’ Harriet said. ‘Don’t let us stop you.’

  Abel pointed at Miles with a shaking forefinger. ‘This’ll stop you all right,’ he said, ‘and I’ll give it to you in one line. Our friend here is walking out on Ambuscade. Maybe you can do something to change his mind!’

  Ben stared with slow incredulity, and Miles had to marvel, as he had done so many times before, that any man who could write even the few good lines to be found in Ambuscade could be so slow on his feet.

  ‘But you can’t,’ Ben said. ‘Your contract runs as long as the play does.’

  ‘Sure,’ Abel jeered, ‘but he’s a sick man. He falls down and has fits. You saw him, didn’t you?’

  Harriet nodded dumbly. ‘Yes, but I never thought—’

  ‘And you were right,’ Abel said. ‘He’s faking it. He’s just fed up with making all that money and having all those nice things printed about him, so he’s going to close the show. That’s all. Just fold it up tight.’

  Miles slammed his hand down hard on the arm of Abel’s chair. ‘All right,’ he said, ‘now that you’ve made everything so clear I’ll ask you something. Do you think if Ambuscade was really a good play that any one person could close it up? Did it ever strike you that no one comes to see your crummy play; they come to see me walk through it? If you gave me Jabberwocky to read up there they’d come to see me! Who’s to tell a one-man show that he has to keep playing when he doesn’t want to!’