The Lonely (9 page)

Jerry moved slightly, half into the doorway of the stationery shop, and was startled to find that his limbs still retained the power of locomotion. Then why was he not running forward down the street to Catharine? A crying of her name, a shout of greeting, a wave of his arm, and she would look up and see him coming towards her. Old habits, old memories, days and nights of longing to see her, of thinking about her, were strongly impelling him, and yet he remained where he was.

Then through the confusion and turmoil in his mind a stronger power penetrated the chaos within him like a sombre undertone—the remembrance of the reason for his presence there, the purpose of his mission—and he felt suddenly like a traitor. He thought at once of Patches, and she came so alive in his mind that for a moment he felt like a traitor to both.

Time seemed to hang suspended while he waited, and he had the feeling that at any instant Catharine would feel his presence, would look up and come to him. But she did not. She chatted for a moment and then moved on to her car, her books under her arm. For her, Jerry was three thousand miles away, no closer than his latest letter, which she carried in her handbag. Even had she glanced down the block in his direction, she might not have recognized him shielded in the doorway, because in her thoughts he was so firmly placed in England.

Still motionless, Jerry watched her climb into her roadster and drive away towards home, her hair blowing out behind her, and his thoughts went back to the daydreams he used to have during the long, dreary hours on their way to and from missions when there was no enemy attack and he would soothe his nerves and pass the time with fantasies of how it would be to come back to Catharine again, what their meeting would be like, and where, and how.

In his mind he had gone over them all, placing it in New York, perhaps at the airport, or at the little railway station of Westbury, or even at the door of her home, beneath the tall elms and the lilac bushes, and his yearnings would always culminate in the moment when she would run into his outstretched arms and he would feel her hair against his cheek, and the tender touch of her mouth, confirming for all time the promise they had made to each other before he left.

And as he stood there he realized that the moment had come and gone, and that he was no longer the same Jerry Wright who had left Westbury two years ago with his new wings on his breast and Catharine in his heart, and never would be again. And he had a sudden longing for his home, his father and mother, his room and his things. He left the doorway and began to walk rapidly.

He took a back way to Severn Avenue so as to avoid the necessity of passing Catharine’s house across the street from his. Coming around from behind, he walked the short gravel driveway, and, standing inside the white-columned Georgian portico, he pressed the button of the bell.

Deep inside the house he heard the well-remembered sound of the vibration and a sharp bark, and for the first time he had the feeling that the dream shroud was breaking up, that he was indeed a living person.

The touch of his finger upon the bell, the sounds, the entrance with the polished brass letter box, the nick in the woodwork he had made with his hockey stick when he had slipped there one winter’s day, the familiar feel of the worn, thick mat beneath his feet—seemed to bring him back and give promise of the dear objects that lay just behind those walls . . .

Reston the butler opened the door, stared, and fell out of all calm and order. His eyes started, his stout face flushed red as he cried:

“Mister
Jerry! Bless me!”

There was a wild scrabbling of toenails on polished hardwood floor, and Skipper, Jerry’s golden cocker, precipitated himself upon him and into his arms, yelping and screaming, licking his face hysterically. A door opened above and a woman’s voice called; “Reston! What is it? Is there something the matter?”

Jerry went to the foot of the stairs and called up: “Mother . . .”

“Jerry! Jerry! Oh no, I can’t believe it! Harman, do you hear! It’s Jerry. Jerry’s back . . .”

Helen Wright came running down the stairs, and Jerry took her in his arms and hugged her and let her cry and kiss him. His father came down, wiping shaving-soap from his face, shouting: “Jerry! Why didn’t you let us know? By God, let’s look at you, son!”

He was home now. It was what he had thought it would be like seeing his father and mother—their excitement, surprise, and joy, Reston’s pop eyes, and the hysterical Skipper. He grinned at them. “I just landed forty-five minutes ago, and thought I’d come right out. Gee, Mother, you look great! Dad, you’re a sight for sore eyes, even with only half your whiskers off.”

Helen Wright was saying over and over: “Jerry, Jerry, darling! . . . I just cannot believe it.” She was a small, nervous, somewhat breathless woman, with a still handsome face and figure, expressive eyes, and a way of making herself the centre of things. For all that hers had been a perfect marriage, blessed with an adoring and indulging husband and a fine son, she was always girding herself for the effort of coming to grips with little things.

Her husband was feasting his eyes on Jerry’s ribbons, his features flushed with excitement and pride. He was an older and more firmly settled edition of Jerry, with the same dark, glossy hair and blue eyes, and the pink-and-white complexion of a man for whom everything has gone right. His figure in his silk dressing-gown was heavier but as trim and well-muscled as Jerry’s. There was no doubt that they were father and son, though they might have been taken for brothers.

He said: “By God, son, D.F.C., Air Medal, Silver Star, you’ve got ’em all, and thank goodness, no Purple Heart! . . .”

Helen stood off to contemplate him better. “Jerry, you’re taller—and better-looking. Is it really true you’re here? I simply cannot wait to hear about you. We had a letter from you only yesterday. And look at Skipper, he’s turning himself inside out . . .”

They went into the library, where Jerry smelled the old familiar scent of leather and books and said: “Oh gee, it’s good to be home!”

His father said: “You’ll find everything in your room exactly as you left it. Son, I’m so pleased and excited at having you back I don’t know where to begin, and I guess Mother feels the same way. Let’s get our breath and hear all about it . . .”

“Tell us everything, Jerry, how long you . . .” Helen Wright paused in the middle of the sentence and then exclaimed: “Catharine! Jerry, does Catharine know you’re home? Of course not, if you came right here. Don’t you want to call her right away? I’m sure she’s at home . . .”

Jerry looked at his mother. In the pleasure of being there, the genuine joy he felt at seeing his parents, he momentarily had forgotten everything else. Now he thought: “Oh, Lord . . . it’s got to come! . . .”

Helen was making plans, sharing in the romance of the moment when Jerry and Catharine would be together again. She said: “Of course you’ll want to go over there first. Oh, Jerry, you ought to prepare her—it’s only fair. Let me call Millicent and just hint . . .” In her excitement she had moved half-way to the telephone when Jerry said: “Mother—don’t . . . please . . . I mean . . .”

His father said: “Jerry probably has his mind made up just how he’s going to spring it on Cat, Mother . . . It’s just that we’re so damned excited at your walking in this way, son . . .”

Jerry faced them both, and his tone was serious and troubled. He said: “Look, I guess you’ll think I’m pretty screwy for doing it, but I’m not really back at all. I’m flying out again at two o’clock tomorrow morning. I was on leave in Scotland and ran into a guy—remember Eagles Wilson? He was flying a V.I.P. on a seventy-two-hour turn-around. I went along for the ride.”

Harman Wright threw back his head and laughed lustily. “By God, what a war! A.W.O.L., eh?”

“Well, not exactly, except I’m not supposed to be in this country. My leave isn’t up until Wednesday. I’ll be back in Scotland Sunday night.”

Helen slumped into a chair and said: “Oh dear, I’m sure I just can’t bear any more. Jerry, you’ll be the death of us.” She stiffened suddenly. “But, Jerry, that’s all the more reason for your seeing Catharine at once. She’ll be so happy—and so disappointed. Oh, I want to be with you every minute you’re here, but we can understand, can’t we, Harman?”

Harman Wright was looking at his son, looking beyond the clean young figure to the shadows on his face and the eyes that did not seem either young or happy. He said, tentatively: “Why, sure, Jerry. You run along over if you want to. Maybe you can bring Cat back for dinner . . .”

Jerry was standing in the centre of the room thinking: “Oh Lord! . . . How am I going to tell them?” Aloud he said: “I’ll go over later, after a while, but I wanted to have a chance to talk to you first. It’s on account of Catharine I came home . . .”

“Jerry!” The note of alarm in his mother’s voice filled him with foreboding. “Is there anything wrong between you and Catharine?”

The emphasis his mother placed upon the question made it pregnant with apprehension of disaster, as though the turning of the wheels of the world depended upon things being right between Catharine and himself, and Jerry for the first time began to have an inkling of the enormity of the trouble he was in and its possible effect upon others. He suddenly felt a thousand years old and a thousand years tired, and his heart swelled with gratefulness when his father said quietly: “I think a drink might be in order, son. You’ve had one hell of a long trip!”

He went to the side table, where whisky and soda stood, and poured out a double for his son, noting the gratitude in his eyes and how the boy’s hand shook when he took it.

Jerry sat across a chair and leaned forward on the backrest, as he always had, trying to think what to say. His father suggested quiedy: “Tell us about it if you feel like it, Jerry . . .”

It was his mother who was worrying Jerry, the fidgeting of her fingers and the frightened look on her face. He said: “There isn’t anything wrong . . . I mean I haven’t seen her yet to talk to her. It’s . . . well, I met a girl over in England, and . . .”

“Oh, Jerry, no!”

Helen Wright had spoken the words as though it were the end of the world, and for a moment it made Jerry angry. The hurt, shocked look on her face, the expression of her voice, her emphasis of the words, made him feel the way he had when he was a small boy confessing to something. But his anger faded when he realized that she was deeply distressed.

Harman Wright said nothing, but nursed his drink and studied his son.

A new alarm seized Helen and she cried: “Jerry, you aren’t . . . you haven’t . . . ?”

“Married her? No. But I want to. That’s why I had to come home and talk to Catharine.”

“Jerry! . . . It isn’t true. I can’t believe it. You couldn’t . . .” There was a hint of hysteria in her voice that frightened Jerry. His father caught it too and asked quietly: “Who is she, Jerry?”

Who was Patches? What was she, a being, one of the countless millions who occupied a tiny pinpoint of earth somewhere, to be identified with a name and coloring and ancestry, a catalogue of features, a place in society? Or was she the beating of his heart, his hunger and his thirst, his hope on earth?

Ever since they had parted and he knew what she meant to him, he had been groping in his mind for words to express the music of Patches that permeated him, to find release for the things that had come alive within him. And now that his father had asked: “Who is she?” he could only reply: “Her name is Patch . . . Patrice Graeme. She’s in the RAF. She’s a radar expert.” Then he added: “I’m in love with her.”

His mother drew in a deep breath. “Jerry! How can you say such a thing? It can’t be anything but an infatuation . . .”

Jerry winced. He hated the word. He always had ever since he first had heard it. He hated it all the more now because his mother had brought it up in connection with Patches. It was a word that somehow cheapened things and made him feel less like a man.

His father flicked his cigarette stub into the fireplace with concise accuracy, and said, surprisingly: “Jerry isn’t a child any more, Helen,” and drew a look of gratitude from his son. “Go on, Jerry . . .”

Jerry said: “That’s all, sir. I didn’t want to write. When I met Eagles and had a chance to come home and see you all and try to get straightened out, I took it.”

The disappointment, frustration, and helpless anger that were mounting in Helen Wright were more the result of her perpetual defences reared against any possible threat to the security she had built, and the suddenness with which the crisis had been presented, than due to any lack of sympathy or love for Jerry.

He was still a child to her. She had only the most meagre conception of the war, of the part men were called upon to play, of the kind of life he had been living, or of what he had been called upon to face. The war had taken Jerry from their home. She had not realized how quickly she had substituted Catharine. Beyond the minor annoyances of rationing and the whole-hearted performance of patriotic duties, the holocaust had simply not managed to penetrate her home.

But she loved Catharine Quentin genuinely, and the forthcoming marriage of her son and the daughter of her dearest and oldest friend had been even closer to her heart than she might have realized. And as a woman, she foresaw at once and could even pre-experience vicariously something of the dreadful shock and pain that was to be brought to someone who was young, innocent, loving, and loyal, and who in the years that Jerry had been away had become very much a part of her own life.

She said in a voice that was beginning to shake: “Jerry, do you realize what this will do to Catharine? I won’t even speak of how your father and I will feel . . .”

Harman Wright said: “Helen, don’t you think—”

“Wait, Harman! That girl loves you, Jerry. To her, the sun rises and sets in you. She is prepared to devote her life to you. Catharine has already become our daughter. Is that nothing to you, because of some strange girl who . . .”

Some strange girl! . . . The words echoed in his ears. In the night he had held her to his heart. Some strange girl! . . . Patches, who had read his soul the time the flyer’s horrors had come upon him, and who, without hint or word from him had unerringly divined his need and, like a soldier and dear comrade, had reached across the gulf to help him . . . All the books and people and causes, the colors and the shapes of earth, the fragrances of living, all the great, and also all the little, things she loved, he knew and loved too. They had laughed and played and made nonsense rhymes together, and had lain awake at night side by side and talked of life and death and where God was to be found in beauty . . .