Part 8 (1/2)

TUESDAY.

You sit back in your seat and try to look relaxed. The pressure in your ears grows heavier and heavier and you get a tight knotty feeling in the pit of your stomach. The lights in the cabin are low and you strain your eyes to see how the other people in the plane are acting when suddenly the wheels touch the ground. Without realizing it you have been chewing the gum faster and faster and now suddenly it tastes bad in your mouth.

I took a Kleenex from the container and wrapped the gum in it and put it away. The wheels b.u.mped along the ground and slowly the plane came to a stop. The hostess came down the aisle and unfastened the safety belt.

I stood up and stretched. My muscles were tight from the tension. I couldn't help it. I was afraid of flying. No matter how many times I did it, I was always afraid.

The motors cut and died away, leaving a hollow, empty ringing in my ears. Unconsciously I listened for it to stop, for when it stopped I knew I was back to normal.

There were a man and a woman in the seat in front of me and they had been talking as the plane came down. While the engines were roaring I could hardly hear them, and now they seemed to be shouting.

”I still think we should have let them know we were coming,” the woman was saying, when she realized she was talking loudly. She stopped in the middle of her sentence and looked back at me as if I had been eavesdropping.

I looked away and she resumed her conversation in a lower voice. The hostess came down the aisle again.

”What time is it?” I asked.

”Nine thirty-five, Mr. Edge,” she answered.

I took off my wrist.w.a.tch and set it and walked toward the rear of the plane. The door had been opened and I walked out of it and down the ramp. The floodlights hurt my eyes and I stopped for a minute.

I began to feel chilly and was glad I had worn my topcoat. I pulled the collar up around my neck and walked toward the gate. Other people were rus.h.i.+ng past me, hurrying toward the exit, but I walked slowly. I lit a cigarette as I walked and dragged deeply on it, my eyes wandering over the crowd.

And there she was. I stopped for a second and looked at her. She didn't see me. She was puffing nervously at a cigarette; her face was pale and luminous in the glaring light. Her eyes were deep blue and weary, with circles under them; her mouth was tense. Under the loose camel-hair short coat flung over her shoulders her body was taut, and her free hand clenched and unclenched.

She saw me. Her hand lifted as if to wave and then hung there still in the air in front of her as if caught on an invisible rung. She watched me as I walked through the gate to her.

I stopped a foot in front of her. She was all wound up like a tight spring. ”Hullo, sweetheart,” I said.

Then she was in my arms, her head on my chest, crying: ”Johnny, Johnny!”

I could feel her body shaking against me. I dropped my cigarette and stroked her hair. I didn't talk. There was no use talking, it wouldn't help. I just kept thinking the same thing over and over.

”I'll marry you when I grow up, Uncle Johnny.”

She was almost twelve when she said that. I was just going back to New York with the first picture Magnum had completed in Hollywood and we were having dinner at Peter's house the night before I got on the train. We were all very happy and nervous. We didn't know just what was coming. The picture that was in the can would either make us or break us and so we all tried to joke and act lighthearted and not let the others see how apprehensive we were.

Esther had laughed and said: ”Don't let some pretty girl on the train talk you into marrying her and go away and forget the picture.”

I had reddened a little. ”You don't have to worry. There isn't a girl that would marry me.”

It was then that Doris spoke. Her face was serious and the blue of her eyes was deep and her voice was much older than her years. She came toward me and took my hand and looked up into my face.

”I'll marry you when I grow up, Uncle Johnny.”

I don't remember what I had said, but everybody laughed. Doris still held on to my hand and looked up at me with a let-them-laugh look in her eyes.

Now I held her head tight against my shoulder and the words kept going over and over in my mind. I should have believed her. I should have remembered. There would have been less pain in our lives if I had.

Slowly her body stopped its trembling. For a few seconds she stood still against me, then she stepped back.

I took out my handkerchief and wiped the tears from her cheeks and the corners of her eyes. ”Better now, sweetheart?” I asked.

She nodded her head.

I fished cigarettes out of my pocket and gave her one. As I lit her cigarette the glow from the match illuminated the cigarettes we had dropped on the ground. They lay there close together, the lipsticked end of her cigarette not quite touching mine. I put a fresh one in my mouth and lit it.

”We were held up in Chicago,” I said. ”Bad weather.”

”I know,” she answered, ”I got your wire.”

She took my arm and we started walking.

”How is he doing?” I asked.

”He's asleep. The doctor gave him a sedative and he'll be sleeping till morning.”

”Any better?”

She made a small gesture of helplessness with her hands. ”The doctor doesn't know, he says it's too soon to tell.” She stopped and turned to me; the tears came welling to her eyes again. ”Johnny, it's terrible. He doesn't want to live. He doesn't care any more.”

I pressed her hand. ”Hold it, sugar, he'll make out.”

She looked at me for a moment; then she smiled, her first smile since I saw her. It looked good even if it took effort to make it. ”I'm glad you're here, Johnny.”

She drove me to my apartment and waited while I bathed, shaved, and changed my clothes. I had given the servants a few weeks off because I hadn't expected to be back for a while, and the place had an empty look about it.

When I came back into the living room she was listening to some Sibelius records on the phonograph-radio. I looked at her. Only the light from the table lamp near her chair was on. It threw a soft glow over her face and she looked relaxed. Her eyes were half-closed and her breathing came soft and even. She opened her eyes when she felt me standing there.

”Hungry?”

”A little,” she answered. ”I haven't really eaten since this happened.”

”Okay, then,” I said, ”let's go to Murphy's and wrap ourselves around a steak.” I started back to the bedroom to get my coat when the phone began to ring. ”Get it, will ya sweetheart?” I called back through the open door.

I heard her move and pick up the phone. A second later she called me. ”It's Gordon. He wants to speak to you.”

Gordon was production manager at the studio.

”Ask him if it'll keep till morning; I'll drop in at the studio,” I told her.

I heard the murmur of her voice, then she called to me: ”He says it can't keep, he's got to talk to you.”

I picked up the phone in the bedroom. ”I'm on,” I said. I heard the click as she put down her phone.

”Johnny?”

”Yeanh, what's up?”