A Special Providence

“Well; thank you.”

  “Do you suppose I could get a copy of that photograph? I’d like to have it framed.”

  “Certainly, I’ll send you one. I’m glad you like it.”

  After that, the only serious argument they ever had was over the question of sending Bobby to prep school, and she managed to settle that one more or less amicably by agreeing to move to a smaller apartment.

  Then one afternoon a year or so later, he called her from a telephone booth around the corner. “I happened to be in your neighborhood,” he said, “and I wondered if you’d mind my dropping in.”

  “No; not at all. Please do.”

  There wasn’t time to straighten up the studio; there was barely time to wash her hands and face and fix her hair. It occurred to her, as she busied herself at the mirror, that he must have made the trip downtown especially to see her: surely there was no kind of Amalgamated Tool and Die business that would bring him to the Village.

  He surprised her by being so short – for some reason she always thought of him as taller than he really was – and by looking so old.

  “I’m afraid the place is a terrible mess,” she said. “I wasn’t expecting company.”

  “That’s all right.”

  He was dressed as always in a very conservative business suit and small, narrow black shoes. He looked uncomfortable and wholly out of place as he made his way among the shrouded sculpture, crunching stone chips on the floor.

  “Well,” he said. “It looks like you’ve been doing a great deal of work.”

  “Can I get you a drink?” She led him back through the studio to the alcove she used as a sitting room.

  “This is very nice,” he said, glancing around as he accepted his whiskey and water.

  “I’m sorry about the dust,” she said. “It gets into everything when I’m working on stone.”

  “That must be very difficult, carving in stone.”

  “Well, it is, but I love it. Would you like to see some of my newer things?”

  And he followed her respectfully, carrying his drink, as she took him back through the studio. He seemed to approve of everything. “The whole idea of stone is very different from modeling,” she explained as he stood nodding at one of her half-finished carvings. “It’s purer, I think. It’s more truly sculptural.”

  “My Lord.” He had picked up one of her three-pound hammers and was hefting it in his hand. “Is this what you use? Isn’t it too heavy for you?”

  “I guess I’m used to it,” she said. “I’ve probably developed a lot of strength in my arm. Still, I don’t think I’ll ever give up modeling. There are some pieces that have to be modeled, like the head of Bobby you liked so much.”

  “Is that here? Can I see it?” And she led him to a pedestal against the wall and removed the muslin cover from the head. “Yes,” he said. “That really is fine. It looks even better than in the photograph.”

  They had another drink or two before he inquired, shyly, if he might take her out for dinner. As they walked together through the Village she was aware of how they must look to passing strangers: a mild, pleasant, middle-aged couple out for an evening stroll. And the restaurant turned out to be a place they had visited long ago, before they were married.

  George did most of the talking. Amalgamated Tool and Die, after nearly going under in the Depression, had burgeoned into a new prosperity with wartime, and there was no visible limit to its potential growth. So far, the expansion hadn’t had much effect on George’s department – not, at least, on its salary structure – but there was every reason to hope for better times ahead. “For one thing,” he said, “I think we can stop worrying about putting the boy through college. We certainly ought to have enough for that.”

  “Wonderful.” But she didn’t want to hear any more talk about money or business; she was afraid he might begin to bore her, and that would spoil her pleasant mood.

  “Have you kept up with your singing, George?” she asked him.

  “Oh, good Lord, no; I haven’t sung in years. I’m all out of practice.”

  “That’s too bad. You did have a fine voice. I imagine you still would, if you’d keep up with it.”

  “Well, maybe; I don’t know. Would you like a brandy with your coffee?”

  “That might be nice.”

  And it was over the brandy that he took her wholly by surprise: he reached across the table to take both her hands in his and asked her, not quite meeting her eyes, to marry him again.

  “Alice,” he said, “I’m fifty-six years old. I’ve already had one heart attack, and I—”

  “I didn’t know you’d had a heart attack.”

  “Last spring; just a very mild one. I’ll probably live to be ninety. But Alice, the point is I don’t want to grow old alone. Do you?”

  And it was acutely embarrassing: she hadn’t the faintest idea of how to feel or what to say. All she could think was that this was incredible; this couldn’t really be happening. But she had to say something.

  “I don’t think about growing old,” she said.

  “I know you don’t. That’s one of the things I admire about you, Alice. You have some kind of boundless faith in the future. You never give up.”

  “I suppose I’m an optimist.”

  “You certainly are. Alice, I don’t suppose we can settle anything tonight. Anyway, it’s getting late. But I want you to think about this. Will you do that? And can we talk again soon?”

  “All right.”

  He walked her back to her doorstep and hesitated there, bashful about whether or not to kiss her goodnight. At last he leaned forward and lightly kissed her cheek, squeezing her arm with his hand.

  Then he was gone, and less than a week later he was dead. He had collapsed at his desk in the middle of a business day and died before the ambulance arrived. A tactful personnel executive at Amalgamated Tool and Die broke the news to her; in view of the circumstances, he said, the company would take care of the funeral arrangements.

  For three days she couldn’t stop crying. Bobby’s coming home from school for the funeral, pale and severe and embarrassed by her tears, only made it worse. She wanted to make him understand: she wanted to say, But I did love your father; only last week we were planning to … But she couldn’t find the words. She knew he would never believe it.

  And even now, years later, she was helpless with grief whenever she thought about it, or whenever this particular tenor sang a solo in church.

  She managed to compose herself for the sermon, but after the minister’s first few words she allowed her mind to drift away. She thought of how fine it would be to come to this church with Bobby: they would sing the hymns together and kneel together for the prayers; they would go together to the Communion rail, and afterwards they would walk home and discuss their impressions of the sermon.

  “The Lord be with you.”

  “And with thy spirit.”

  “Let us pray.”

  Then it was time for Communion, and she made herself the picture of reverence and humility at the rail.

  “Take and eat this in remembrance that Christ died for thee, and feed on Him in thy heart by faith, with thanksgiving.… Drink this in remembrance that Christ’s blood was shed for thee, and be thankful.”

  And with the wafer slowly dissolving against her palate she allowed her most urgent prayer to form itself again: Oh God, let him come home soon.

  The recessional hymn was one of her favorites: “Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken.” She loved the line that went, “Who can faint when such a river Ever will their thirst assuage?” And it sent thrilling tremors down her spine as the choir came to that line with the young tenor sounding high and clear.

  Back in the apartment, she poured a good-sized drink of whiskey, fixed herself a modest lunch, and spent the afternoon drowsing over the Sunday papers. Only very occasionally, as the hours wore on, did she go to the kitchenette for another nip from the whiskey bottle.

  And shortly before five o’cloc
k she roused herself and straightened up the apartment with a pleasant sense of expectancy: Natalie Crawford was coming over to go out to dinner with her.

  Sometimes she had to remind herself that she didn’t really like Natalie Crawford and never really had; it was just that somehow, over the years, they had managed to become each other’s closest friend. Except for Maude Larkin, back in Riverside, Natalie was the only person in whom Alice had ever confided the whole story of Sterling Nelson’s desertion; and Natalie alone had been told about the last, bittersweet few days before George’s death. Since then Natalie had been a dependable, readily available source of comfort, and she was especially welcome on anxious, melancholy Sunday evenings like this one.

  “God!” she said, coming weakly into the apartment with one hand clutched to her heart. “Those stairs. How do you stand those stairs every day?”

  “I guess I’m used to it. Let me get you a drink.”

  “Wonderful.”

  Alice knew, as she made the drinks in the kitchenette, that she would now have to listen to an exhaustive account of Natalie’s week, and that she would have to make appropriately sympathetic comments after each piece of news. Natalie was the private secretary of a robust, hard-drinking advertising executive, and Alice had long ago come to understand that this was the most important fact of her life. The man was married to a socially ambitious woman whom Natalie called Madame Queen; his three children, whom Natalie called the Snots, were enrolled in expensive colleges; and Natalie had been achingly and hopelessly in love with him for fifteen years.

  “… and she said, ‘Follow the Girls? But I told you explicitly I wanted tickets for On the Town. I made that perfectly clear.’ ”

  “Well, by this time I’d really had about all I could take. I felt like saying, ‘Look, Mrs. Thayer, as far as I’m concerned you can take your tickets and stick them you know where.’ So I said—” And batting her eyelids, Natalie made her voice a model of patience and conciliation. “I said, I’m afraid there’s been a misunderstanding, Mrs. Thayer.’ I said, ‘Mr. Thayer told me that if I couldn’t get tickets for On the Town I was to go ahead and get tickets for any other musical. I simply carried out his instructions.’ And even then she wouldn’t let it go. She said, ‘But surely you could’ve done better than that.’ She said, ‘Follow the Girls is a cheap, vulgar revue. Couldn’t you at least have gotten tickets for Up in Central Park?’ I said, ‘I’m sorry, Mrs. Thayer; I did the best I could under the circumstances.’ But can you imagine the gall of the woman? Honestly, Alice, I don’t know how he puts up with it. I don’t know how I put up with it.”

  “It must be very – difficult,” Alice said, and she hoped this wouldn’t lead to other anecdotes about the Thayers because she knew she would soon stop being able to listen. That often happened: Natalie would go on talking, elaborating on the injustice of her position, and after a while Alice would lose all sense of what she was saying. She would sit watching Natalie’s talking mouth and shrugging shoulders and gesturing hands with her mind far away on other things, waiting only for the silence that would mean it was her turn to talk.

  “… and menopause is no excuse for that kind of behavior,” Natalie was saying. “God knows we’ve all been through it – you have, I have – but we haven’t indulged ourselves in it. Isn’t that right?”

  “Let me get you another drink.”

  Natalie was still talking when they left the apartment, but she fell into a weary silence as they made their way slowly to Columbus Circle.

  “Isn’t it funny?” Alice said. “I always used to think Childs restaurants were dreadful, but this really is the only decent place around here – all the others are so horribly expensive – and I think it’s kind of nice, don’t you?”

  And as they settled down over their first round of Manhattans, having ordered chicken croquettes, Natalie ventured to open a new topic. “Have you heard from Bobby?”

  “Well, not since he was in Paris; that was several weeks ago. I know it’s just because he’s busy.”

  “Wasn’t this the month you said he’d be coming home? May?”

  “Well, I said I thought he might be coming home in May. Maybe it won’t be till June or July. It’s all based on something called the Point System; I don’t really understand it. Anyway, it’s bound to be soon, and I can hardly wait. That’s all I think about, every day. Every time I feel I can’t stand this horrible job of mine a day longer, I just close my eyes and think Soon.”

  “You’re planning to quit the job then, when he comes home?”

  “Well, I know he’ll want me to. He hates my having to work there. And he’ll have a whole year before he can get into college, you see. And can you imagine what I’ll be able to accomplish in a whole year of freedom? I already have enough good work for a one-man show, or at least almost enough. And have I told you about my wonderful new idea?”

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  “Oh, it’s going to be marvelous. First of all, do you remember my head of Bobby? The one you always liked so much? The one that was photographed in the Times?” And taking a deep, satisfying sip of her drink she allowed her mind to dwell for a moment on that lost, happy year – the time she had created and perfected the one piece of sculpture on which she felt her reputation might rest. Nothing had ever been quite as gratifying as the publication of that photograph. People she hadn’t heard from in years had called up to praise her and to renew their acquaintance, and there had been that memorable call from George. For just a second she was tempted to tell Natalie about that: And have I ever told you what George did? How he called me up and asked for the picture? I really think that was the first time he ever – we ever—

  But she checked her impulse, If she got started on that story now it would lead the talk away in another direction.

  “Anyway,” she said, “I’ve always thought it was the best thing I’ve ever done. And what I want to do now is the same thing all over again. I want to make a new Portrait of the Artist’s Son – a head of Bobby the way he looks now; the way he’ll be when he comes home. A man. A beautiful, sensitive, resolute young man. Won’t that be wonderful? Can’t you picture it? And then you see that will become the best thing I’ve ever done. I’ll exhibit them side by side – the boy and the man – and together they’ll be my sort of crowning achievement, the justification for my whole career. Oh, I can’t wait to get started on it.” And she severed one of her chicken croquettes with the side of her fork, content to let her voice subside for a while.

  “Mm,” Natalie said, picking up her own fork. “That sounds fine, Alice. Really fine. It must be wonderful to have a talent like that.”

  But Alice could tell that Natalie wanted her own turn to talk now, and she gracefully yielded the floor. She concentrated on her food, grateful that there was still a deep two thirds of her second Manhattan in the stemmed glass at her elbow. If she was careful with it, taking tiny, well-spaced sips throughout the rest of the meal, it would tide her over until she got back to the apartment – where, luckily, there was still something more than half a bottle of whiskey for protection against the night.

  There was, she reflected, a lot of good nourishment in chicken croquettes if you chewed your bites thoroughly before swallowing; there was nourishment too in hot mashed potatoes, even if these were a little watery, and in hot, sweet green peas. Life was good; God was in his Heaven; Bobby would be coming home soon, and there was still nearly two thirds of a Manhattan beside her plate.

  Natalie’s mouth was working constantly, her lips and teeth and tongue taking the shapes of gossip, confession, ribaldry, and nostalgia. Alice watched the movement and made her own face a register of smiles, sad looks, and other suitable responses, and she was reasonably sure that Natalie couldn’t tell she had stopped listening.

  The Manhattan was gone by the time they’d finished their main course, and Alice felt she couldn’t face a dish of ice cream. “Let’s just skip the dessert, Natalie. I’m really too full, aren’t you? I don?
??t think I even want coffee.” And all she could think of, as they walked home, was the bottle that stood waiting on the kitchenette shelf.

  “You’ll come up for a drink, won’t you, Natalie?” she said as they reached the doorstep. “Please do. It’s much too early to go home.”

  “Well—” and Natalie hesitated. “I’d love to, dear, but I really think I’d better get back. Thanks anyway.”

  “Oh, please.” It came out sounding more desperate than she’d intended, but even so she had to say it again. “Please, Natalie. Just for a minute.” And looking anxiously into Natalie’s face she felt a terrible dread of being left alone. She couldn’t possibly climb the stairs alone and go into that ugly apartment alone; she couldn’t possibly sit alone there – or walk alone, pace the floor alone – waiting until it was time to go to bed.

  “No, really,” Natalie was saying, taking several backward steps on the sidewalk. “Really, Alice, I’d better get back. I’ll call you during the week, all right?”

  Natalie’s face, withdrawing now in the harsh light of the streetlamp, was suddenly a mask of insincerity. How ugly and old she is, Alice thought, and it seemed odd that this had never occurred to her before. She wanted to say, Natalie, I don’t really like you at all, and I never have. Instead she said, “All right. Goodnight.”

  And she was alone. But the whiskey bottle was in the apartment, as faithful as any friend. Still breathing hard from the stairs, she locked the door firmly behind her and poured herself a stiff drink even before she had taken off her hat. Then, taking her time, she went about the business of getting out of her clothes and into an old, torn bathrobe that was almost as comforting as the drink. She was ready for the night.

  Early in the next month, June, she received a letter from Bobby enclosing a postal money order for three hundred dollars, which he said he had earned by selling cigarettes on the black market in Paris. He wrote that he had decided to take his discharge overseas and go to live in England, where he would either find a job or enroll in an English university – he hadn’t yet decided which.

  In July, she received another letter with a London postmark and no return address, enclosing a money order for one hundred dollars, which he explained was half of his mustering-out pay. He said he was out of the Army now, and feeling well, and that he would write again soon. He wished her luck.