The Key to Nicholas Street Read online

  But because I never let it overbalance my sense of discretion I remained safe. On Nicholas Street I was good old Harry Ayres; in Washington Square I was another Harry Ayres, and the two had nothing to do with each other. Throughout that autumn, winter, spring, I told myself it was better that way.

  It was not hard to make arrangements for this. For some time before I had met Kate I had been considering the possibility of expanding the store, of adding the line of electrical supplies that had only been a minor part of our stock since the Depression. It would take some financing to do this, it would take a series of meetings with agents in New York, and so my comings and goings were accounted for. Lucille never questioned them; it was enough that I sat down with her now and then and showed her price lists and plans. Not that she understood half of what was being said—her mind was made to order for only small details—but the idea that Ayres’ House Supplies might again be the kind of store it was in my father’s day tickled her vanity. She discussed it with her friends, dragging it into any conversation in that ponderously casual way of hers, and I think that after awhile she actually convinced herself that we would soon be serious competitors of Hibbard’s Department Store. Lucille had the gift of self-deception such as no one I ever met or hope to meet.

  In New York I still registered at the same hotel I always had, but my real home was that studio on the north side of Washington Square overlooking the Mews. The building itself was an old brownstone, a carry-over from a secure and comfortable age, and its halls were always redolent with a strong smell of wood polish. Each step of the stairway to the studio had its own small, distinctive squeak, and after awhile I could tell from within the studio just how far a visitor had progressed up the stairs from the note he struck.

  Before she had bought the house on Nicholas Street Kate had rented the entire top floor of the building. Now she had only the studio, a large room with a great north window lighting it, and a good deal of painting and drawing apparatus giving it a business-like air. The only furnishings beside this were a studio couch, a ready-made wardrobe, a dresser, and a few chairs. One of the first things that struck me about the room was the contrast in it; Kate was scrupulously neat about her painting materials, thoroughly untidy about everything else, and, often as not when I walked in, clothes would be strewn on the floor, the bed would be unmade, and Kate, cheerfully oblivious to the disorder, would be standing at the easel, wearing the man’s sweatshirt and slacks that did nothing at all to make her look mannish, and with a peaked tennis cap on her head to add the final incongruous touch.

  I worked at my painting in that room, I talked to her there, I made love to her there. And at night I would lie in bed with her sleeping next to me, and the easels in the room standing pale and ghostly like sentinels around us, and I would look out the window and always feel a sickness of fear come crawling in me. Not at what had happened to me, because I could not wish better to happen to any man, but from a sense of time out of hand. It had come too late, there was little time left, and each tick of the watch on the chair next to me was cheating me out of that little bit.

  I think that is the surest sign of love, that frigid realization that comes over you now and then when you understand that you cannot always have the one you love close at hand. It was with me every night I spent in that room.

  And from that room we went forth on small domestic walks. In Washington Square with children always underfoot, or through Greenwich Village, or up Fifth Avenue with the banners bravely snapping for us. We talked incessantly about everything under the sun, we laughed a good deal, we quarreled a little. Sometimes I used to mark with surprise how very much there was to say. When Lucille and I were married only a short time there had been long silences between us while I sat desperately trying to think of some topic that would interest her. I rarely did, and I remember coming to the uneasy conclusion that, after all, this must be what marriage is really like, it must be going on in every home in the country, and I was simply not accepting the fact with a good grace.

  But I never had any such problem with Kate. She was catholic in her tastes, but completely intolerant of the second-rate. She had opinions on everyone and everything, and, naturally, this led to arguments between us.

  I once told her that I wanted to see the outdoor art exhibit where the Greenwich Village hopefuls hung their work on the fences around Washington Square.

  “All right,” she said, “but you’ll have to go alone.”

  “Why?”

  “Because that stuff is an insult.”

  “It’s honest work. You ought to give them credit for at least trying.”

  “It’s not honest work. It takes an honest artist to do that, and if any of those people were honest they’d take a look and know just how bad their stuff is. And then they’d be ashamed to hang it out in public.”

  “The public seems to survive it.”

  “Harry, when you read in the papers that some eight-year-old brat has gotten up and conducted a symphony orchestra what do you think?”

  “I don’t know. I suppose that it’s a pretty good trick.”

  “That’s what you’d think. But there are a lot of people who think, ‘So, that’s what conducting is! Something an eight-year-old kid can do!’ Then when they hear something wonderful about Toscanini they say, ‘Why, he might even be better than that kid. But then, of course, he’s older.’”

  I had to laugh at that, but she stuck to her guns, and I went to the exhibition alone. She was right, of course; the stuff was atrocious. However, I found one young man’s work good, and one painting of his, in particular, exciting. When I told her about it she jeered at me, and then a week later I saw it hanging on her wall.

  There was one link between the Harry Ayres of Nicholas Street and the Harry Ayres of Washington Square. Matt Chaves came to visit Kate in the studio one evening when I was there, and it was the first time we met outside Sutton.

  For a moment I didn’t recognize him. In Sutton where he was Bettina’s regular week-end visitor he always dressed so carelessly that it almost seemed an affectation; now he was wearing a well-cut suit and topcoat which made him look altogether different. But the manner was the same. My qualm of guilt must have showed clearly on my face when I opened the door to him, but he showed no surprise at all. It was only afterward that I realized there had been nothing to surprise him in the meeting.

  “Hello, Harry,” he said cheerfully, and walked past me into the studio. Kate and I had been playing cribbage, and she sat tailor-fashion on the couch impatiently waiting for me to pick up my cards.

  “Chaves, my little mold of fashion,” she said cordially, “you are an unwelcome guest. Take what you want, and leave.”

  He was frowning at the picture drying on her easel. “I wouldn’t want this,” he said. “What is it, Kate, gone all out for non-representational art?”

  “Matt,” she sighed, “I’m afraid you’re just an old-fashioned boy at heart.”

  “At art,” he said. “And I’m all of that, Ballou. To prove it, I’m inviting you to the Whitney right now. The Hopper show is on, and you’ll have a chance to see how a real painter does it. Might pick up a couple of pointers too, Kate.”

  “I like Hopper,” I said.

  Matt turned to me. “Do you, Harry? Then, by God, we’re in the same club. I’m a Hopper and Sheeler man all the way.”

  “Last year it was Soyer and Evergood,” Kate pointed out with evident malice.

  “And next year it might be Ballou,” he declared. “But no pushing, Kate, you’ll just have to wait your turn. You know,” he said to me, “all artists are alike. In their hearts they all think there isn’t a painter living whose best canvas is worth hanging in the bathroom. They might say different, but when you pin them down you’ll find the only painter they really admire is someone who’s good and dead. Isn’t that so, Kate?”

  “The hell it is,” Kate said.

  “That’s a broad statement, Matt,” I put in. “What about all those school
s of painters who flock around some master?”

  He grinned at me. “Oh, I’m sorry, Harry. I forgot you were a painter, too. Matter of fact, Bettina and I were in your attic last Sunday looking at your stuff. You never did get around to showing it to me, you know.”

  Not that I cared for his opinion, but I found myself asking, “What did you think of it?”

  “Bad, but getting better. That last one, that still-life setup, comes close to being good. It looked as if you stopped being afraid of what you could do with paint and really let yourself go in that one. I told Betty I thought it was worth framing and putting on the wall downstairs.”

  I felt a pleased embarrassment at this. “Did Bettina agree with you?”

  Kate glanced at Matt. “I’m sure she did,” she remarked dryly. “And I’ll bet she’s also a member of the Hopper and Sheeler club, too, isn’t she, Matt?”

  “Is there anything wrong with that?” he asked.

  She riffled the cards she still held in her hand with a sharp, brittle sound, and then tossed them on the couch. “No,” she said, “but if Harry’ll forgive me for saying it in front of him I’ll tell you what I think, Matt.”

  “About what?” I said in some bewilderment.

  “About Bettina. And about Matt’s going there to woo her like some young swain out of the pulp magazines.”

  I was completely lost. “I didn’t even know it had gone that far,” I said, “but now that I do I can’t see anything wrong with it. And you know, Kate, I’m speaking as the girl’s father.”

  “I’m speaking as Matt’s friend, Harry. Outside of you he’s the only person in the world I give a damn about. And Bettina isn’t the girl for him. I know enough about her and her home life to know that although she’s old enough to vote and to hold a job she’s never grown up. She’s a living part of Lucille, Harry, and this tangle Matt’s got himself into, trying to change all that, is all wrong. He’ll never do it, and if he married her it would be the worst thing he could do. You’re her father, Harry, and yet if you took a good, honest look at things you’d find yourself agreeing with me.”

  Matt applauded politely. “Three cheers,” he said. “Ballou for house mother.”

  I tried to smile. “I must admit it’s a strange feeling to sit here and be told things about my daughter’s affairs that I should have known long ago. Tell me, have you ever talked to her about getting married, Matt?”

  “Talked to her! My friend, I’ve been proposing marriage to your daughter once a week since the second week I knew her.”

  “But she never said a word about it. Never mentioned it to me.”

  “She’s mentioned it to Lucille,” Kate remarked.

  “Oh,” I said, and felt remarkably foolish, “I suppose she would. And Lucille must have objected.”

  “Not objected,” Matt commented. “I’d say she more or less tabled the matter, and there it lies.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know,” I said slowly. “I don’t understand Lucille’s attitude. Maybe if I spoke to her about this …”

  “It would be more to the point if you spoke to Bettina, Harry,” said Matt. “In fact, I’ve been thinking for some time of introducing you two to each other. I think you’d both be pleasantly surprised.”

  “You’re making a mistake, Matt,” Kate said. “I know a dozen girls in New York right now who’d jump at the chance of marrying you. You let me make the arrangements, and I’ll come dance at your wedding, Matt.”

  “You know I never make mistakes, Ballou,” he said. “And you’ll dance at my wedding on Nicholas Street.”

  She looked at me. “Not I,” she said. “Who would I have to dance with there, Matt?”

  I was a little angry at this, and she knew it. But she only turned to Matt and said, “All right, Matt, work things out your own way. But for Harry’s sake,” and again there was that flicker of an eye my way, “just remember there are certain things that shouldn’t be discussed even with Bettina.”

  “I am the soul of discretion, lady.”

  “You’re an idiot, Chaves,” she remarked, “but I’m just weak-minded enough to care for you.”

  He made a gesture toward the door. “In that case, how about coming along with me to the Whitney?”

  “Harry,” she said, and I looked at her, still angry at her abrupt thrusts, “what’ll it be? The Whitney, or cribbage?”

  “I’d like very much to see the Hopper show,” I said.

  “All right,” she announced pleasantly, “then we’ll stay and play cribbage. Pick up your cards, Harry.”

  Matt hesitated a second and then cheerfully pulled off his coat. “Well,” he said, “I guess it’s time for me to learn how to play cribbage.”

  For all he had been spending almost every week end in my home I had hardly known Matt before this. Now, with my eyes open to the state of affairs, I came to know him very well, and found myself in complete sympathy with him. He would ask Bettina to go out with him in the evening and she would hesitate, then glance toward Lucille almost involuntarily for a nod of approval before accepting. He would discuss some project he had in mind for her, perhaps the idea of her giving up teaching in Sutton and getting work in New York, and she would desperately fend the subject off. There was no question about her feelings for him—Desdemona swaying toward her Othello—but at the same time their relationship had all the amusing and maddening qualities of a ritual dance, the maiden always moving backward, the man always following her with his hand outstretched, but never quite able to touch her.

  When I told this to Kate she said, “Do you really think they’ll ever get married, Harry?”

  “Don’t you?”

  “No, I never did. I think that all the things in Matt that attract the girl, all that violence and color, that whole stallion quality in him, are just the things that would make her scared to death of marrying him. Bettina may be getting the thrill of her life right now, Harry, but when it comes to marriage she’ll settle for a nice proper mathematics teacher and a little vine-covered cottage where they can sit and discuss sabbaticals and pensions.”

  “I’ve watched her when she’s with Matt. She’s so much in love with him that she’s dizzy with it.”

  “Yes, on Saturdays, Sundays, and all legal holidays. But Matt may not want to spend his whole life on a part-time romance, Harry.” Her lips drew into a small, crooked smile. “I can tell him from my experience that it’s got a lot of disadvantages.”

  It hurt. There was no denying it hurt. But when that feeling had passed, the important thing left to me was the realization that she was right, and the time had come to settle affairs with Lucille once and for all.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  My father, who lived his life in a series of snap decisions, liked to say that those who looked before they leaped generally wound up never leaping at all, and while his life—and death—was hardly a vindication of this attitude I could see its value in the situation I faced.

  But I had inherited little of my father’s nature. Instead, I tended to indulge in long, solitary bouts of speculation which might lead to God knows where, but certainly not to any quick action. And faced with the necessity of placing my bomb in Lucille’s hands I tried to plan everything like a chess game: what I would say, what she would answer, what I would answer to that, and so on through a whole involved discussion which, somehow, I saw taking shape as one of those neat, formal debates held by college societies. I even went so far as to once take out pencil and paper and figure out financial arrangements for us after the divorce, although I knew when it came to that I would gladly concede everything she wanted in that direction.

  What happened to all those days and weeks of cautious planning was, of course, what generally happens in real life. Some small accident sets off the event when you are least prepared for it, and then all your nice planning seems so naïve and inaccurate that you can only feel like a fool when you think back on it.

  In this case, the accident was Matt’s mentioning that he had
left his magazine work in the city to get a job as laborer on the ferry in Sutton. It was a bewildering move even for someone as unpredictable as Matt to make, but when I asked him about it he passed it off with a shrug, and, in the face of my own problem, I let it go at that. And then almost a week later Lucille brought it up without any preliminaries.

  She was sitting before her dressing table stripping the hairpins from her hair with sharp little gestures, and when she first spoke I couldn’t understand her through the hairpins in her mouth.

  “What?” I said.

  She pulled the hairpins from her mouth and planked them down on the dressing table, looking at me, meanwhile, in the mirror before her.

  “I said, I want you to put your foot down, Harry.”

  “All right,” I said. “On what?”

  “Don’t try to be funny, Harry. It’s not called for where your daughter’s happiness is concerned.”

  That was an old gambit of Lucille’s, this business of referring to ‘your daughter’s happiness’ or ‘your son’s happiness’ in cases where, it turned out, the only happiness at stake was Lucille’s.

  “All right,” I said, “what’s she done to worry you now, Lucille?”

  “It’s not what she’s done, it’s what she might do. Harry,” she said in an urgent voice, but still addressing my reflection in the mirror, “I’m afraid of what this being together with Matthew Chaves is going to lead to.”

  “Marriage,” I suggested. “And I can’t see anything wrong with that. It’s a respectable state.”

  “I asked you not to be funny, Harry.”

  I found myself growing angry. “I’m not being funny. And for God’s sake, Lucille, if you want to speak to me you can look right at me and not the mirror when you do it. It’s perfectly safe, it won’t turn you into stone.”