A Week as Andrea Benstock
- Автор: Блок Лоуренс
- Год: 1975
- Язык: английский
- Год: Arbor House
- ISBN: 978-0-87795-100-1
- Жанр: Романы для взрослых
Электронная книга - «A Week as Andrea Benstock». Краткое содержание книги:
“I don’t think so.”
“Wait a minute, I’m a goddamned liar. The old man never called it an alderman. Why should he? They don’t have aldermen in New York, for Jesus’ sake. I got that out of a book. Studs Lonigan, James Farrell. Old Studs was getting himself a pot belly and called it an alderman.” He drained his glass in a swallow and tapped it on the bar top. “Hell of a note when you steal things from old books and slip ’em into your own life. Another of the same, Frank, and bring the lady what she’s drinking. I knew you’d be back, Andrea. It’s always a question of time. This jacket is back in style again. I knew it would be sooner or later. Just keep things long enough and they’re all the rage again.”
“I’m just here on a visit.”
“You’re not moving back?”
She shook her head. “I’m an old married lady now.”
“That time you phoned me—”
“I got married that afternoon. It’ll be three years next month.”
“Kids?”
“A little girl. She was a year old in January.”
“God in heaven. You’re making me feel older than time. What else have you got? House in the suburbs? White picket fence?”
“Yes to the house, but there’s no fence around it.”
“And a car, of course.”
“Two cars.”
“Of course, God forgive me, two cars, his and hers. And any number of labor-saving devices, and a great deal of heavy furniture, and a recreation room in the basement paneled in knotty pine.”
“Knotty cedar. Pine is tacky.”
“God save us all.” He had been smiling throughout, his blue eyes glinting, so that she knew to take his words in good humor. “A suburban matron. The word sticks in my throat. It conjures up visions of a stout woman with bulldog jaw being summoned to search female prisoners. Scarcely an image that fits you.”
“Scarcely one I aspire to.”
“Let me look at you. You do look well, dammit. The life evidently agrees with you.”
“It does.” Their eyes met, and she gave a quick nod. “It really does,” she said.
“And your husband’s good to you.”
“He is.”
“Never takes a whip to you.”
“Not unless I deserve it.”
“Oh, I suspect you deserve it now and again, but he keeps you on a loose leash. I don’t believe I know your married name. You may have told me but I was in a bit of a fog that morning.”
“It’s Benstock.”
“And your husband is—”
“Mark.”
“Mark Benstock. A professional man?”
“A lawyer.”
“A lawyer.” He was not mocking, and he was not exactly judging, and there was really nothing in his words or tone to which she could object.
“You like it there, Andrea? Up in Buffalo?”
“It’s my home, Jack.”
“That’s a damned good answer. It says more than yes or no, doesn’t it? A damned good answer. I’ll tell you a secret. I fucking well envy you.”
“You envy me?”
“That surprises you?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact, it does.”
He started to say something, then changed his mind. He took a pack of Camels from the breast pocket of the tweed jacket and offered her one. She reached for her own, then left her pack on the bar and accepted one of his Camels. The taste was much stronger than what she was used to, but not in an unpleasant way. He waved to the bartender for another round. She still had most of her beer left, and covered her glass with her hand, and the bartender replenished Riordan’s drink.
She said, “Straight whiskey and unfiltered cigarettes. You haven’t changed.”
“At this hour I’ll take soda in the whiskey, I’m afraid. I don’t know if I’ve changed or not. I’m fatter, we established that much. I used to wear these—” he touched his glasses — “just for reading. Now I only need them for seeing.”
“Shure an’ it’s ould age creepin’ up on you.”
“Didn’t I ever tell you not to do a brogue if you can’t do it convincingly? And as a matter of fact it’s middle age creeping up on me, and it’s doing just that, and it scares the crap out of me.”
“Does it really?”
“Sometimes.” He picked up his glass and looked into it as if reading tea leaves. “I said I envied you. I’m surprised that you’re surprised, Andrea. Seems to me you’re fairly enviable.”
“Well, I’m happy, Jack.”
“You’ve found yourself. You’ve got a stable life, you’ve got a good situation.”
“I know it.”
“Ever miss it?”
“What?”
He made a circle with his hand. “This.”
“I think of it sometimes.”
“And?”
“It’s hard believing it was me here. It wasn’t so long ago but it seems forever. Did you know a friend of mine? Winifred Welles, we called her Winkie?”
“Doesn’t ring a bell.”
“No, I guess she didn’t come downtown much. I don’t think you ever met her.”
“What about her.”
“Oh, nothing.” She took a small careful sip of beer. “How’ve you been, Jack? I don’t suppose you got married or did anything silly like that.”
“No, not yet.”
“Do you have anybody special?”
He didn’t answer immediately. Then he said, “I did for a while. It fell in the shit a month or so ago. No, it was longer than that. Around Christmas. That’s the best time to pack it in, you don’t have to buy presents. Otherwise I’d have been stuck with presents for her and her whole goddamned family, so I got off cheap. Luck of the Irish and all that.”
She looked at him and didn’t say anything.
“She was too young or I was too old, something like that. We got a couple of good months out of it. You can’t ask for a hell of a lot more than that.”
“I suppose not.”
“Unless you sign on for the whole trip. The kid and the two cars and the house in the country. I mean the suburbs. Does your suburb have a name?”
“Tonawanda.”
“Jesus, that’s beautiful. Tonawanda.”
“It was the name of an Indian tribe.”
“I’m sure it was. You wouldn’t make up something like that. Jesus God, I know someone who lives in something called Tonawanda.” He put his hand on her wrist. “I’m not making fun of you, Andrea. I swear to God I’m not.”
“Damn you, anyway.”
“Hey, easy, easy.”
“What I want to know is why can you do this to me? Tell me that.”
“Easy,” he said. His hand was on her shoulder, squeezing hard but not too hard. She felt tears welling up and couldn’t understand what had prompted them.
“Easy,” he said, gentling her as a man in a Marlboro commercial might gentle a skittish mare.
“I’m all right now.”
“Certainly you are. Finish that beer and let me buy you another. Or something else with more authority to it.”
“No, I don’t want another drink.”
“Whatever you say.”
She took one of his cigarettes without waiting for an invitation. He gave her a light and she gripped his wrist as she accepted the flame. Perhaps her fingers pressed his skin more than was necessary. Their eyes met for an instant and then she drew hers away.
“I’ve got a new book out,” he said.
“The bartender told me. The cover’s on the wall, he said.”
“Yeah. I don’t suppose you read the last one.”
“I saw ads for it. I tried to get it at the library but they didn’t have it.” She hadn’t, really. “It was a collection of essays?”
“Well, pieces for the Voice, mostly. And a few odds and ends.”