Soldier's Pay

  Madden rose. “Come on,” Gilligan said, “she’ll be glad to see you. She ain’t a bad sort, as Madden can tell you.”

  “No, I’ll wait here, thanks. But come back, will you?”

  Madden read his unexpressed thought. “She’s dancing now. I’ll be back before then.”

  They left him lighting a cigarette. The negro cornetist had restrained his men and removed them temporarily and the porch was deserted save for the group sitting on the balustrade. These, the hostess, with a renascence of optimism, had run to earth and captured.

  Gilligan and Madden crossed grass, leaving lights behind. “Mrs. Powers, you remember Mr. Madden,” Gilligan informed her formally. He was not big, yet there was something big and calm about him, a sense of competent inertia after activity. Madden saw her colourless face against the canopied darkness of the car, her black eyes and her mouth like a scar. Beside her Mahon sat motionless and remote, waiting for music which you could not tell whether or not he heard.

  “Good evening, ma’am,” Madden said, enveloping her firm, slow hand, remembering a figure sharp against the sky screaming. You got us killed and firing point-blank into another man’s face red and bitter in a relief of transient flame against a sorrowful dawn.

  XI

  Jones, challenging the competition, danced with her twice, once for six feet and then for nine feet. She could not dance with the muscular facility of some of the other girls. Perhaps this was the reason she was in such demand. Dancing with the more skilled ones was too much like dancing with agile boys. Anyway, men all seemed to want to dance with her, to touch her.

  Jones, foiled for the second time, became yellowly speculative: tactical; then, watching his chance, he cut in upon glued hair and a dinner coat. The man raised his empty ironed face fretfully, but Jones skilfully cut her out of the prancing herd and into the angle made by the corner of the balustrade. Here only his back could be assailed.

  He knew his advantage was but temporary, so he spoke quickly.

  “Friend of yours here tonight.”

  Her feather fan drew softly across his neck. He sought her knee with his and she eluded him with efficiency, trying vainly to manoeuvre from the corner. One desiring to cut in importuned him from behind and she said with exasperation: “Do you dance, Mr. Jones? They have a good floor here. Suppose we try it?”

  “Your friend Donald dances. Ask him for one,” he told her, feeling her shallow breast and her nervous efforts to evade him. One importuned him from behind and she raised her pretty unpretty face. Her hair was soft and fine, carelessly caught about her head and her painted mouth was purple in this light.

  “Here? Dancing?”

  “With his two Niobes. I saw the female one and I imagine the male one is here also.”

  “Niobes?”

  “That Mrs. Powers, or whatever her name is.”

  She held her head back so as to see his face. “You are lying.”

  “No, I’m not. They are here.”

  She stared at him. He could feel her fan drooping from her arched wrist on his cheek softly and one importuned him from behind. “Sitting out now, in a car,” he added.

  “With Mrs. Powers?”

  “Watch your step, sister, or she’ll have him.”

  She slipped from him suddenly. “If you aren’t going to dance——”

  One importuning him from behind repeated tirelessly. “May I cut in,” and she evaded Jones’s arm.

  “Oh, Lee. Mr. Jones doesn’t dance.”

  “M’I’ve this dance,” mumbled the conventional one conventionally, already encircling her. Jones stood baggy and yellow, yellowly watching her fan upon her partner’s coat, like a hushed splash of water, her arching neck and her arm crossing a black shoulder with luminous warmth, the indicated silver evasion of her limbs anticipating her partner’s like a broken dream.

  “Got a match?” Jones, pausing, asked abruptly of a man sitting alone in a swing. He lit his pipe and lounged in slow and fat belligerence among a group sitting upon the balustrade near the steps, like birds. The negro cornetist spurred his men to fiercer endeavour, the brass died and a plaintive minor of hushed voices carried the rhythm until the brass, suspiring again, took it. Jones sucked his pipe, thrusting his hands in his jacket and a slim arm slid suddenly beneath his tweed sleeve.

  “Wait for me, Lee.” Jones, looking around, remarked her fan and glass-like fragility of her dress. “I must see some people in a car.”

  The boy’s ironed face was a fretted fatuity above his immaculate linen. “Let me go with you.”

  “No, no. You wait for me. Mr. Jones will take me: you don’t even know them. You dance until I come back. Promise?”

  “But say——”

  Her hand flashed slimly staying him. “No, no. Please. Promise?”

  He promised and stood to stare at them as they descended the steps passing beneath the two magnolias and so on into darkness, where her dress became a substanceless articulation beside the man’s shapeless tweed. . . . After a while he turned and walked down the emptying veranda. Where’d that slob come from? he wondered, seeing two girls watching him in poised invitation. Do they let anybody in here?

  As he hesitated, the hostess appeared talking interminably, but he circumvented her with skill of long practice. Beyond a shadowed corner in the half-darkness of a swing a man sat alone. He approached and before he could make his request the man extended a box of matches.

  “Thanks,” he murmured, without surprise, lighting a cigarette. He strolled away, and the owner of the matches fingered the small, crisp wood box, wondering mildly who the third one would be.

  XII

  “No, no, let’s go to them first.”

  She arrested their progress and after a time succeeded in releasing her arm. As they stood, a couple passed them, and the girl, leaning to her, whispered: “See right through you. Stay out of the light.”

  They passed on and she looked after them, watching the other girl. Cat! What a queer dress she is wearing. Funny ankles. Funny. Poor girl.

  But she had little time for impersonal speculation, being attached temporarily to Jones. “No, no,” she repeated, twisting the hand he held, drawing him in the direction of the car. Mrs. Powers, looking over Madden’s head, saw them.

  Jones released the fragile writhing of her fingers, and she sped delicately over the damp grass. He followed flatly and she put her hands on the door of the car, her narrow nervous hands, between which the green fan splashed graciously.

  “Oh, how do you do? I didn’t have any idea you were coming! If I had I would have arranged partners for you. I’m sure you dance awfully well. But then, as soon as the men see you here you won’t lack for partners, I know.”

  (What does she want with him now? Watching me: doesn’t trust me with him.)

  “Awfully nice dance. And Mr. Gilligan!” (What’s she wanta come worrying him for now for? She bothers damn little while he’s sitting at home there.) “Of course, one simply does not see Donald without Mr. Gilligan. It must be nice to have Mr. Gilligan fond of you like that. Don’t you think so, Mrs. Powers?” Her braced straightening arms supported a pliant slow backward curve from her hips. “And Rufus. (Yes, she is pretty. And silly. But—but pretty.) You deserted me for another woman! Don’t say you didn’t. I tried to make him dance with me, Mrs. Powers, but he wouldn’t do it. Perhaps you had better luck?” A dropped knee moulded the glass-like fragility of her silver dress. “Ah, you needn’t say anything: we know how attractive Mrs. Powers is, don’t we, Mr. Jones?” (See your behind, the shape of it. And your whole leg, when you stand like that. Knows it, too.)

  Her eyes became hard, black. “You told me they were dancing,” she accused.

  “He can’t dance, you know,” Mrs. Powers said. “We brought him so he could hear the music.”

  “Mr. Jones to
ld me you and he were dancing. And I believed him: I seem to know so much less than other people about him. But, of course, he is sick, he does not—remember his old friends, now that he has made new ones.”

  (Is she going to cry? It would be just like her. The fool, the little fool.) “I think you are not fair to him. But won’t you get in and sit down? Mr. Madden, will you—?”

  Madden had already opened the door.

  “No, no: if he likes the music I’d only disturb him. He had much rather sit with Mrs. Powers, I know.”

  (Yes, she’s going to make a scene.) “Please. Just a moment. He hasn’t seen you today, you know.”

  She hesitated, then Jones regarded the dividing soft curves of her thighs and the fleeting exposure of a stocking, and borrowed a match from Gilligan. The music had ceased and through the two identical magnolias the porch was like an empty stage. The negro driver’s head was round as a capped cannonball: perhaps he slept. She mounted and sank into the dark seat beside Mahon, sitting still and resigned. Mrs. Powers suddenly spoke:

  “Do you dance, Mr. Madden?”

  “Yes, a little,” he admitted. She descended from the car and turning, met Cecily’s startled shallow face.

  “I’ll leave you to visit with Donald while I have a dance or two with Mr. Madden, shall I?” She took Madden’s arm. “Don’t you want to come in, too, Joe?”

  “I guess not,” Gilligan answered. “Competition’ll be too strong for me. I’ll get you to learn me private, some time, so I can be a credit to you.”

  Cecily, in exasperation, saw the other woman stealing part of her audience. But here were still Jones and Gilligan. Jones climbed heavily into the vacated seat, uninvited. Cecily gave him a fierce glance and turned her back upon him, feeling his arm against her side.

  “Donald, sweetheart,” she said, putting her arm about Mahon. From here she could not see the scar so she drew his face to hers with her hand, laying her cheek against his. Feeling her touch, hearing voices, he stirred. “It’s Cecily, Donald,” she said sweetly.

  “Cecily,” he parroted.

  “Yes. Put your arm around me like you used to, Donald, dear heart,” She moved nervously, but the length of Jones’s arm remained against her closely as though it were attached by suction, like an octopus’s tentacle. Trying to avoid him, her clasp about Mahon tightened convulsively, and he raised his hand, touching her face, fumbling at his glasses. “Easy there, Loot,” Gilligan warned quickly, and he lowered his hand.

  Cecily kissed his cheek swiftly and sat up, releasing him. “Oh, there goes the music again, and I have this dance.” She stood up in the car, looking about. One lounging immaculately, smoking, strolled past. “Oh, Lee,” she called, in happy relief, “here I am.”

  She opened the door and sprang out as the conventional one approached. Jones descended fatly, baggily, and stood dragging his jacket across his thick, heavy hips, staring yellowly at Mr. Rivers. Her body poised again, turning, and she said to Gilligan: “You aren’t dancing tonight?”

  “Not like that,” he replied, “no, ma’am. Where I come from you’d have to have a licence to dance that way.”

  Her laugh was in three notes and she was like a swept tree. Her eyes, beneath lowered lids, her teeth, between her purple lips, glittered briefly.

  “I think that’s awfully clever. And Mr. Jones doesn’t dance either, so all I have left is Lee.”

  Lee—Mr. Rivers—stood waiting, and Jones said heavily: “This is my dance.”

  “I’m sorry. I promised Lee,” she answered swiftly . “But you cut in, won’t you?” Her hand was briefly on his sleeve and Jones, contemplating Mr. Rivers, yellowly repeated:

  “This is my dance.”

  Mr. Rivers looked at him and then looked quickly away.

  “Oh, beg pardon. Your dance?”

  “Lee!” she said sharply, reaching her hand again. Mr. Rivers met Jones’s stare once more.

  “Beg pardon,” he muttered, “I’ll cut in.” He lounged onward. Cecily let her glance follow him, then she shrugged and turned to Jones. Her neck, her arm, took faint light warmly, smoothly. She took Jones’s tweed sleeve.

  “Say,” Gilligan murmured, watching their retreat, “you can see right through her.”

  “Dat’s de war,” explained the negro driver, sleeping again immediately.

  XIII

  Jones dragged her resisting among shadows. A crepe-myrtle bush obscured them.

  “Let me go!” she said, struggling.

  “What’s the matter with you? You kissed me once, didn’t you?”

  “Let me go,” she repeated.

  “What for? For that goddam dead man? What does he care about you?” He held her until her nervous energy, deserting her, left her fragile as a captured bird. He stared at the white blur which was her face and she was aware of the shapeless looming bulk of his body in the darkness, smelling wool and tobacco.

  “Let me go,” she repeated piteously, and finding herself suddenly free, she fled across grass, knowing dew on her shoes, seeing gratefully a row of men sitting like birds on the balustrade. Mr. Rivers’s ironed face, above his immaculate linen, met her and she grasped his arm.

  “Let’s dance, Lee,” she said thinly, striking her body sharply against him, taking the broken suggestion of saxophones.

  XIV

  Mrs. Powers had a small triumph: the rail birds had given her a “rush.”

  “Say,” they had nudged each other, “look who Rufe’s got.”

  And while the hostess stood in effusive volubility beside her straight, dark dress, two of them, whispering together, beckoned Madden aside.

  “Powers?” they asked, when he joined them. But he hushed them.

  “Yes, that was him. But that’s not for talk, you know. Don’t tell them, see.” His glance swept the group along the rail. “Won’t do any good, you know.”

  “Hell, no,” they assured him. Powers!

  And so they danced with her, one or two at first, then having watched her firm, capable performance, all of them that danced at all were soon involved in a jolly competition, following her while she danced with another of their number, importuning her between dances: some of them even went so far as to seek out other partners whom they knew.

  Madden after a time merely looked on, but his two friends were assiduous, tireless; seeing that she did not dance too long with the poor dancers, fetching her cups of insipid punch; kind and a little tactless.

  Her popularity brought the expected harvest of feminine speculation. Her clothes were criticized, her “nerve” in coming to a dance in a street dress, in coming at all. Living in a house with two young men, one of them a stranger. No other woman there . . . except a servant. And there had been something funny about that girl, years ago. Mrs. Wardle spoke to her, however. But she speaks to everyone who can’t avoid her. And Cecily Saunders stopped between dances, holding her arm, chatting in her coarse, nervous, rushing speech, rolling her eyes about at all the inevitable men, talking all the time. . . . The negro cornetist unleashed his indefatigable pack anew and the veranda broke again into clasped couples.

  Mrs. Powers, catching Madden’s eye, signalled him. “I must go,” she said. “If I have to drink another cup of that punch——”

  They threaded their way among dancers, followed by her protesting train. But she was firm and they told her good night with regret and gratitude, shaking her hand.

  “It was like old times,” one of them diffidently phrased it, and her slow, friendly, unsmiling glance took them all.

  “Wasn’t it? Again soon, I hope. Good-bye, good-bye.” They watched her until her dark dress merged with shadow beyond the zone of light. The music swept on, the brass swooned away and the rhythm was carried by a hushed plaintive minor of voices until the brass recovered.

  “Say, you could see right throug
h her,” Gilligan remarked with interest as they came up. Madden opened the door and helped her in, needlessly.

  “I’m tired, Joe. Let’s go.”

  The negro driver’s head was round as a capped cannonball and he was not asleep. Madden stood aside, hearing the spitting engine merge into a meshed whine of gears, watching them roll smoothly down the drive.

  Powers . . . a man jumping along a trench of demoralised troops caught in a pointless hysteria. Powers. A face briefly spitted on the flame of a rifle: a white moth beneath a reluctant and sorrowful dawn.

  XV

  George Farr and his friend the soda clerk walked beneath trees that in reverse motion seemed to swim backward above them, and houses were huge and dark or else faintly luminous shapes of flattened lesser dark where no trees were. People were asleep in them, people lapped in slumber, temporarily freed of the flesh. Other people elsewhere dancing under the spring sky: girls dancing with boys while other boys whose bodies had known all intimacies with the bodies of girls, walked dark streets alone, alone. . . .

  “Well,” his friend remarked, “we got two more good drinks left.”

  He drank fiercely, feeling the fire in his throat become an inner grateful fire, pleasuring in it like a passionate muscular ecstasy. (Her body prone and naked as a narrow pool, flowing away like two silver streams from a single source.) Dr. Gary would dance with her, would put his arm around her, anyone could touch her. (Except you: she doesn’t even speak of you who have seen her prone and silver . . . moonlight on her like sweetly dividing water, marbled and slender and un-blemished by any shadow, the sweet passion of her constricting arms that constricting hid her body beyond the obscuring prehensileness of her mouth—) Oh God, oh God!

  “Say, whatcher say we go back to the store and mix another bottle?”

  He did not answer and his friend repeated the suggestion.

  “Let me alone,” he said suddenly, savagely.

  “Goddam you, I’m not hurting you!” the other answered with justifiable heat.

  They stopped at a corner, where another street stretched away beneath trees into obscurity, in uncomfortable intimacy. (I’m sorry: I’m a fool. I’m sorry I flew out at you, who are not at all to blame.) He turned heavily.