The Stories of John Cheever

“Get away from that dirty bird!” Mrs. Harley shouted, and she got up and kicked the dead bird aside. “Go play in the sand,” she told Deborah. “I don’t know what’s the matter with you. They must have given twenty-five dollars for that doll carriage you have up in your room, but you’d rather play with a dead bird. Go look at the river. Go look at the boats! And don’t climb up on that railing, either, for you’ll drop in, and with that terrible current that will be the end of you.” Deborah walked obediently over to the river. “Here I am,” Mrs. Harley said to the other nurse, “here I am, a woman going on sixty who lived forty years in a house of her own, sitting on a park bench like any old bum on a Sunday morning while the baby’s parents are up there on the tenth floor sleeping off last night’s liquor.” The other nurse was a well-bred Scotch woman who was not interested in Mrs. Harley. Mrs. Harley turned her attention to the steps leading down to the park from Sutton Place, to watch for Renée Hall. The arrangement between them had been established for about a month.

Renée Hall had met Mrs. Harley and the child at the Tennysons’, where she had frequently been a guest for cocktails that winter. She had been brought there by a business friend of Katherine’s. She was pleasant and entertaining, and Katherine had been impressed with her clothes. She lived around the corner and didn’t object to late invitations and most men liked her. The Tennysons knew nothing about her other than that she was an attractive guest and did some radio acting.

On the evening when Renée first went to the Tennysons’, Deborah had been brought in to say good night, and the actress and the neglected child had sat together on a sofa. There was an odd sympathy between the two, and Renée let the child play with her jewelry and her furs. Renée was kind to Deborah, for she was at a time in her life when she appreciated kindness herself.