Man Sinister

“No, nothing like that. McGinty cares nothing for the painting. The painting in itself is worth little. Two hundred dollars, I should say. Harold calls the painting The Wharf Girl. It’s supposed to express a mood of... well, a very dark, morbid mood. We saw the girl in a waterfront spaghetti joint one night. She had tried to jump off a dock. A big Irishman had seen her and had stopped her. He had brought her into the café and bought her coffee. She was still sobbing.”

“The man was McGinty?”

“You catch on quickly.”

“He’s Irish — at least he looks Irish. I was just guessing.”

“I wish we had never seen the girl,” Vera said, a note almost of desperation in her voice. “She was a tiny thing who looked as if she’d always been underfed. She had lovely white skin and her eyes were the largest and darkest I’ve ever seen. When they turned on you, their gaze seemed to jump at you. They were eyes so morbid and pathetic it was hard to look at them and not shudder. Harold wanted to paint her.”

She stopped speaking. I let the silence hang. She didn’t break it.

I said, after a moment, “You haven’t told me anything really.”

“I haven’t intended to. Why should I mix you up in our troubles?”

She was listening. For Harold’s footfall returning up the stairs. Then the footfall sounded and her shoulders sagged faintly in relief. She practically forgot I was there. I picked up the cue and crossed the hallway toward my own room. Harold brushed past me. His face was cotton-white; his eyes blazing.

He entered his room, and I heard his sharp, angry voice speaking to Vera, without being able to distinguish individual words.

Chapter III

A few moments after I closed my own door behind me I heard Papa Joe’s door slam, heard his footsteps resound in the hall. Then the slam of another door. Papa Joe had joined his son and daughter-in-law.

McGinty, I thought, whatever it is pushing you, you’d better have your game well-planned. You’re dealing with a high-strung man. Like TNT Harold might go off in your face if you shake him a little the wrong way.

The pint of Old Seaman was still on my bureau. I picked it up. The amber fluid brought back a quick memory. A party. Year 1945. Just the two of us having a party because war had ceased to be my mistress and I was home with my wife.

It was almost a solemn party. She had been unutterably dear and desirable sitting across the-table from me. The long agony of waiting was mirrored in her eyes, eyes that were dark pools of feeling that night. As we danced, her arm across my back clutched me. We didn’t talk as we danced. I think we were both afraid because of the dammed up feelings inside of us. Not afraid of the feelings themselves, understand, only afraid that an untoward gesture might spoil the mood.

We went back to our table and drank highballs. She looked at her drink and said, “You’ll never be sorry, Steve?”

“I? I could never be! I should be asking you that question myself.”

“Sorry that I’m not a Quavely any longer?” Her laugh was shaky, causing me to look at her quickly.

She must have had a pretty rugged time of it at home. They’d had months and months to take her away from me. They had failed. But I suspected how hard they must have tried. I had met her mother and sister on one furlough, not long before that last furlough before I shipped out. They’d known they were losing her. Lucy, the sister, in particular was infused with the importance of family prestige. One thing could be said for Lucy. She hadn’t kept her cards up her sleeve. She had drawn the line; she had spoken her on guard; then she had done battle.

But all of them had failed. I never could blame them too much. I had lost Bryanne finally through failure of my own.

I set the Old Seaman back on the bureau. If Lucy were on my team, if she were here now, what would she say? Something like, “Ever since Papa Joe’s flare-up late this afternoon you’ve been thinking, haven’t you? He bashed your eyes open, didn’t he? Just as soon as you can do so without any unpleasantness, making a scene, you’re leaving here. Then why not keep right on fighting? You won once. Then at the first failure you felt that Bryanna was lost to you forever. Forever is a long time, my friend. In this life you’re not privileged to back up and start over, to erase past mistakes, but you’re never denied a new beginning from the moment you decide to begin again.”

I knew then that I’d been toying with the idea for weeks. I hadn’t liked the taste of defeat from the beginning. Stuff like the Old Seaman hadn’t been able to wash it out-of my mouth.

I walked over to the window. I forgot Harold’s troubles, Papa Joe’s raw bitterness because he was forced to grub for a living in the construction business of grandeur — this in a land where his forbears had ruled.

I felt exhilarated. There would have to be a job, of course, a good one. A little egg in the bank. But it could be done.