The Magician's Wife

  “I? Never heard of Tom Lea?”

  She seemed dumbfounded, and pointing to a drawing of a horse surrounded by cactus, said: “That is a Tom Lea—or I’m crazy. Peering close, she added: “Yes—it’s signed.”

  “Oh. He’s an artist too—as you are.”

  “Not in his class—but I’m working.”

  He said he admired the ads she did for Fisher’s, and she seemed pleased, but got back insistently to him. “Why meat?” she wanted to know.

  “Well, once again, why not?”

  “It doesn’t match up, or doesn’t seem to anyhow. With these things, this place, or even—you.”

  “I wanted something big.”

  “Oh. Now I begin to see.”

  “Railroads, coal, copper, things like that, which may have been big once, are all washed up now. Power, steel, oil, automation, things like that would have meant more years in college—MIT, some place like that. So I happened to think of meat. It’s big and has to get bigger—so long as the population keeps increasing and people have to eat.”

  “It begins to make sense now, and is sort of poetic at that. In a rugged, masculine way. This was before, during, or after Lafayette College?”

  “During. But where did you hear about that?”

  “You were graduated from there, weren’t you?”

  “Yes, but I didn’t tell Sally.”

  “Oh, I haven’t discussed you with her.”

  “Then how do you know so much?”

  “There’s no mystery. Sally, when she goes somewhere at night, has to be reachable, in case something comes up about Elly. And as I’m sure to be called if she doesn’t answer her phone, she always leaves me a number—usually Bunny Granlund’s or one I’m familiar with. But the other night it was one I didn’t know, and when it happened night after night, I got curious about it and called Information. So once I had your name the rest was ridiculously easy—Fisher’s credit department did me your bio sketch, of course thinking it routine, and not knowing my personal interest. I know your New Jersey origin, which accounts for that drag on your speech, your very elegant drawl, also your swimming career and your great success at Grant’s.”

  “Nothing scandalous, I hope?”

  “No, it’s all most impressive.”

  “Let’s talk about you, Mrs. Simone.”

  He waved her to one of the sofas, then took a seat on the other, facing her. “Meaning,” she said, “get to it? What I came about?”

  “Well? What did you come about?”

  “I’m not sure I’m going to say, Mr. Lockwood. You’re—not at all what I expected, and I’ve been getting the shakes. Talking and talking—postponing as long as I can. I may have been losing my nerve.”

  “I’ll make it easy for you. I think I’ve guessed why you came, so why don’t we—be civilized about it? Go somewhere, have soft crabs on toast or something, maybe wine with bubbles in it—and have our discussion friendly.”

  “I don’t understand you at all.”

  “You came to bust it up, so O.K., start busting.”

  “To—bust what up?”

  “What’s between me and Sally.”

  “Then I’m right in suspecting that something is?”

  “No—that something has been, that’s all.”

  She sat staring, trying to guess what he meant without trying to straighten it out by questions that made her seem stupid. He smiled, said: “You’re very good-looking. I’d enjoy champagne with you. So, if you’re busting it up, then bust.”

  At last getting the point, she asked: “And you think I’d do that? Try to bust it up by cutting in on my little girl? Myself?”

  “If you’re busting, that’s how it’s done.”

  “And you, Mr. Lockwood, after seeing her every night, would now start up with me? I’m her mother—I thought I made that clear.”

  “Invitation withdrawn. What did you come about?”

  “I can say, if permitted.”

  “I’ve just been trying to help.”

  “I’m not busting it up! I came to egg it on!”

  She closed her eyes as she said it, as though horribly embarrassed, but pronounced every word distinctly, as though she desperately meant it. He was speechless he was so startled, and sat staring. Then he got up, and after marching around, asked: “Why?”

  “Well, Sally’s my daughter, isn’t she?”

  “Yeah, as you’ve said quite a few times.”

  “And—I want her happy. Isn’t that enough?”

  “Wait a minute. Did Sally ask you to come here?”

  “No! No, Mr. Lockwood—she hasn’t said one word about you to me! And you mustn’t divulge to her that I came here tonight. You’ll protect me, won’t you?”

  “Then, I will. Now, what’s the rest?”

  “The—rest?”

  “What the hell did you come about?”

  He snapped it impatiently, then plowed on fast, to say what a queer thing it was for a mother to pay such a call, “out of the blue—with no more to go on than a name from Information, a gumshoe job by her store and—that’s all. Talk about not matching up, this is just plain queer—unless there’s more to it. So there is more to it. So why don’t you say, Mrs. Simone?”

  “Mr. Lockwood, there’s nothing more to it!”

  “Then O.K., let’s have the soft crabs.”

  “I tell you, I’m Sally’s mother.”

  “And I tell you, Sally and I are through. Maybe you’re her mother, but you’re good-looking, I like you and—so let’s get at the crabs.”

  “No! No!”

  “Why no in that tone of voice?”

  “Well, Mr. Lockwood, perhaps I should have said more. I haven’t quite made myself clear. I not only came to egg it on, but to egg it on now, Mr. Lockwood. Sally’s been—marking time, as she calls it, but why should she, after all? It only puts things off. If she breaks up her marriage now, it’s something that had to come. And if it helps, that you’ve appeared on the scene then, then that could be a way out. The thing would be done and—at last would be over. Now, does that help, Mr. Lockwood?”

  He didn’t answer at once, but sat looking at her, and then at last said quite slowly: “So what you’re afraid of, what you’re terrified of, wouldn’t happen, would it?”

  “I—don’t know what you mean.”

  “Yes, you do.”

  “I don’t! I swear I don’t! I—”

  “Won’t admit it, and I don’t expect you to. You’ve made things clear just the same, and I get it at last, why you came. And all I can say is, I like you better and better.”

  “And—I like you, Mr. Lockwood.”

  “What’s your name, Mrs. Simone? Your first name.”

  “Grace.”

  “Mine’s Clay.”

  “Yes, I know, and—”

  “Grace, when Sally left last night, we didn’t say good-by, and she may not know that that’s what it was. Just the same, I won’t see her again. But to let you get things straight, I didn’t bring her here just for a few evenings’ fun. The very first night, and last night too once again, I put it on the line—asked her to do what you want: make the break now, leave that guy, go to Reno and have it done. I even begged her to stay here with me. Her answer was I was nutty—that to do what I wanted she’d have to give up that dough, what she thinks she’ll get of the fortune that Mr. El will leave, what she’ll get and what her boy will get. But that wasn’t all, Grace. It showed through, like the blue on a corpse’s fingernails, what she’s hoping for. What she means to do, perhaps. If she gets help—of the kind she thinks I can give. I won’t! Get that straight, Grace. I won’t be her patsy.”

  “I haven’t the faintest notion—”

  “What I’m talking about. That’s O.K.”

  “But if you took her now—?”

  “I told you: I tried it. We’re past that.”

  “But, Clay, you can’t give up that easy!”

  “Why can’t I?”

  “You’re
in love with her, that’s why.”

  “What makes you think I am?”

  “Clay, a woman knows. You give yourself away with every word you utter. When you draw your breath in you tremble. Did you know that?”

  “So, I could be in love with her maybe.”

  “The one who could be is.”

  6

  THEY TALKED A BIT longer, repeating what had been said, but in a more matter-of-fact way, he helping her regain her aplomb, the crisp elegance she had had when she came, and then he took her down, as he thought, to her car. But on finding that she had come on foot, that she had walked from Rosemary Park, where she lived, he insisted on taking her home. So she hooked a hand on his arm and they strolled through the balmy spring night and, in snatches, talked. It was mostly about flowers, and she stopped occasionally to point out the splashes of color the azaleas made on the lawns or to stare at the leaves overhead, now half open, “so feathery, so delicate, so unreal—so like the Midsummer Night’s Dream overture, those butterflies in the strings.” She went on: “That play is not about summer—it’s about spring, when everything’s moist and fresh instead of all dried up, when the flowers are still singing and the locusts haven’t started. But, of course, Midspring Night’s Dream is not a title—even Shakespeare, no doubt, had to think of that.” He agreed, glad he knew his Mendelssohn, and drew her attention to the splotches of white the dogwood blossoms made, “as though calcimined on.” She said: “Yes, the original Chinese white.” His hand was on hers as they reached her apartment house, another place like his own, if smaller. She stood peering in at the door, then whispered: “It is a beautiful night, and not the end of the story. I won’t have it that way! You’re not through with Sally—we have more talking to do! Would you like to come up for a while?”

  “I’d love it.”

  She took him inside the automatic elevator, then brought him into her apartment, excusing herself after turning on the lights. He wandered about, eying the modernist furniture, the oyster-shell rug, the crimson drapes, the French things on the walls, prints, posters, sketches, and paintings. He scanned the signatures closely, but didn’t see one that he knew. She came back with a highball tray, looking slenderer without her hat, gloves, and stole, and younger with her hair fluffed out on her neck. He spoke for Scotch on the rocks, and she filled a glass with ice, then let the whisky cover it. Making a light one for herself, she took a seat on the rectangular sofa, motioned him beside her. They sipped, recalling the dogwood again; then, recalling the overture, he hummed the violin part. She led him back once more to the “proposal” he’d made to Sally, and he told it in more detail, especially her answer to it, with due emphasis on the Wild Man from Borneo and nuttiness. He admitted he had been “rocked,” and solemnly proclaimed how simple it all would have been if “she’d just done nothing at all—stayed there, tucked away with me, and let me handle the rest.”

  “If ‘she’ had?”

  “Well, who are we talking about?”

  “Do you realize you almost never say her name?”

  “O.K., I was hard hit.”

  “And still are?”

  “Grace, I’ve told you I’m through.”

  She thought some moments, then said: “Clay, I’d like to work on you, try to sell you on Sally, that you make another attempt, to get her to do what you want—what we both want. So why don’t I paint your portrait? After all, you are a thing of beauty, and you could come here at night, pose in my atelier, the little sun porch that I have, and while I work I’ll talk. You’ll be my captive audience—and who knows? I might make a sale.”

  “You could—one that you don’t expect.”

  “... What do you mean, Clay?”

  “You’re a thing of beauty too, don’t forget.”

  “Clay, she has dibs on you.”

  “Dibs is dibs, of course. But—!”

  “Stop talking like that, Clay.”

  “Where is this atelier, Grace?”

  So they began doing his portrait while he half reclined on the window seat in the sun porch off her living room, and she worked with pencils first, doing endless sketches of him, “to get what’s in your face—your eyes can be so fishy, except at certain times, and those times are what I want”; then she began working in color, with shiny tubes on a table and brushes laid beside them. At that stage she pushed out an easel, an upright post to which she clamped her board, already framed in raw oak, “so I can see what I’m doing.” She had him wear a blue shirt, “to go with your eyes and bring them up,” and a garnet jacket she had him buy, with brass buttons “to go with your hair.” As she worked she talked, often about the child: “Don’t forget, Elly’s my grandson, Clay—something I can’t get used to, but it’s true just the same. And if I tell the truth, he concerns me most of all, and he’s what it’s really about, this campaign I’m pushing with you. Because he could really be blighted in case of some mess—or whatever it might be—that Sally got herself into.”

  But mostly she talked about Sally, her birth, her childhood, her venture into magic, her marriage, and what had come of it. She was helped by little promptings, queries of various kinds, from him, and before very long had told perhaps more than she meant to. So at the end of two or three weeks, with the portrait nearly done, he got up one night, for a stretch, from the window seat where she posed him and suddenly started to talk. “So,” he said briskly, “as I get it, this sweet innocent child, barely turned seventeen, got herself sawed in half, but took no interest at all till she found out who he was, this guy in the sorcerer clothes—the son of the Gorsuch millions. Then she went into action, took a job in the act, married him, and at once gave him a son, who was also, we note, an heir. Then she started in making his life a hell on earth in the hope of getting a settlement. But what she got was a summons, an order from the court, sued out by her father-in-law, to show cause why she shouldn’t be declared an unfit mother to her child. She won, by a hair, but then cooked up a real plan, which has you scared to death.”

  “I still don’t know what you mean.”

  “That we understand. But your campaign hasn’t worked, so why don’t we get on—talk about you and me?”

  “My campaign has worked, Clay.”

  “No—you talked just a little too much.”

  “You’re in love with her, Clay.”

  “No, no more. Sorry.”

  “I can prove it—or think I can.”

  “Interesting if true... How?”

  “By watching your face when I tell you...”

  “Tell me? What, for instance?”

  She came over, took him by the forelock, and peered into his eyes as she said: “She’s going to be free this weekend.” Then she laughed at his sudden intake of breath, which came with his startled blink, and went on: “Mr. El is taking Elly for the Memorial Day weekend—she’ll have evenings for you and means to call you up. I know, as she asked me, when I dropped in for lunch at Portico, if I still had the number she’d given me, or need she give it to me again? I assured her I’d kept it. Now, have I proved it or not?”

  “All you’ve proved is she’s calling me up.”

  But his voice sounded thick, and she laughed once more as she dropped a cloth on the picture. “Why kid yourself?” she asked. “If you could see your face, you’d accept what it means.”

  “I tell you, I’m through.”

  “And I tell you, you’re not.”

  The call came, at his office, she opening with the charge: “You louse, you’ve been ducking me—not answering your phone even once.” He protested he hadn’t been home; “we have all kinds of grief here at the goddam shop, refrigeration went on the fritz. I’ve been here every night.” He was oddly breathless about it, but she didn’t argue much, and quickly they arranged it, the dinner Friday night, she to arrive around seven, he to “do it big, with flowers and everything.” So, for the next day or so he lived on expectation, ordering bunches of roses and bringing home extra-fine steak, caviar, mushrooms, and cha
mpagne. But on Friday something happened that stood his world on its head. He was just back at his desk, from his afternoon tour of inspection, when Miss Helm appeared at his side, leaned close, and whispered: “There’s a Mr. Alexis to see you, with a girl. ... Mr. Lockwood, it’s the Great Alexis, I’m sure—you know, that guy at the Lilac Flamingo, the magician? And the girl, I think, is the one that works in his act. ... Is something wrong, Mr. Lockwood?”

  “Did he say what he wants, Miss Helm?”

  “Well, I didn’t ask him. Shall I?”

  “No. And nothing’s wrong. Send him in.”

  Mr. Alexis came in importantly, a tall, slender young man in smart summer suit, with a little eyebrow mustache and sharp, squinting expression. With him came a girl, a small, plump creature with light hair and twinkling eyes, whose outfit was certainly startling, consisting as it did of pink crepe dress with no sleeves, red socklets on bare legs, white kid shoes with high heels, and red band around her head. She smiled at Clay while her companion held out his hand, announcing with bland assurance: “Alexis, Mr. Lockwood—professionally known as the Great Alexis. You may have heard of me.”

  “Why—yes, I have,” said Clay, gulping and after a moment taking the hand, then letting go after one pump.

  “This is Miss Conlon—she works with me.”