Young Mr. Keefe

By Stephen Birmingham

Bestselling author Stephen Birmingham’s debut novel Young Mr. Keefe is the deftly plotted story of a young New England man who decides to find his fortunes out west, in 1950s California.
 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Sep 6, 2016
• ISBN: 9781504040518

Stephen Birmingham

Stephen Birmingham (1929–2015) was an American author of more than thirty books. Born in Hartford, Connecticut, he graduated from Williams College in 1953 and taught writing at the University of Cincinnati. Birmingham’s work focuses on the upper class in America. He’s written about the African American elite in Certain People and prominent Jewish society in Our Crowd: The Great Jewish Families of New York, The Grandees: The Story of America’s Sephardic Elite, and The Rest of Us: The Rise of America’s Eastern European Jews. His work also encompasses several novels including The Auerbach Will, The LeBaron Secret, Shades of Fortune, and The Rothman Scandal, and other non-fiction titles such as California Rich, The Grandes Dames, and Life at the Dakota: New York’s Most Unusual Address.

Book preview

1

The apartment was ready. Now there was nothing to do but wait for them, and they were always late. He knew they would be late to-night. Their habitual lateness was by no means innocent. It was as though, secretly, they hoped that being late would make their presence all the more exciting when they came. They were like that. They enjoyed planning the effect they would have on other people.

He looked at his watch. It said six thirty-five. He decided to check it, and went to the telephone and dialled. Presently, a voice said, At the tone, the time will be six thirty-seven, Pacific Daylight Time. Cradling the telephone between his shoulder and his ear, he adjusted his watch. Then he replaced the receiver. They were over half an hour late already.

Jimmy Keefe was tall. He was twenty-four, with a long, rather thin face and black hair. He was slender, but looked as though he had once been heavier. He had been drinking coffee, cup after cup, ever since coming home from work that afternoon, while he cleaned the apartment. As a result, his hands felt a little tense and jumpy. He began to fidget with little things—arranging the silver ash-trays on the coffee table, the stack of freshly purchased magazines. He had bought Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, Mademoiselle. He had bought these magazines for a reason. He plumped up the pillows on the sofa. He moved back and forth across the room, and made periodic stops, looking around with indecision at the appearance of everything. He lighted a cigarette with one of the silver table lighters and took several deep puffs. He rested his cigarette on the edge of an ash-tray, and then, because it was freshly polished, removed the cigarette quickly, took it into the kitchen, and rested it on the edge of the sink. In a blue dish, on the counter, he had placed the broken pearls.

The kitchen faced Capitol Avenue. The street was quiet now. From the open window, he could hear the pounding sound of the springboards at the public plunge in the park three blocks away and the gentle splashing sound of the lawn sprinklers next door. Then he heard the sound of the newsboy’s bicycle tyres as they spattered through the puddles that the sprinklers made along the sidewalk. It had been a hot June day; it was still hot, but the trees—sycamores, live oaks, and magnolias—along Capitol Avenue created a long, shaded tunnel with their branches. The street was broad and flat and cool. The slanting California sunlight was almost completely excluded.

At number 3360, across the street, Jimmy watched the newsboy’s bicycle stop with a squeal of brakes. The afternoon paper was tossed on the front steps of the big grey-shingled house. A woman, in shorts and halter, appeared from around the side of the house, and picked up the paper. She was carrying a round fat pitcher decorated with red cherries and green leaves, in which ice cubes and chunks of lemon swirled. Iced tea, probably, Jimmy thought. She glanced at the headlines, put the paper under her arm, and disappeared around the house. In California, Jimmy thought, all life exists in the back yard. The newsboy parked his bicycle in front of the apartment house and walked up the walk to the front door with a stack of papers under his arm. He disappeared within, and Jimmy could hear him, downstairs, stuffing papers into the seven letter boxes.

The apartment house consisted of two floors, built around a central courtyard, Spanish style. The first-floor apartments opened on to the courtyard. The second floor opened on to a balcony that ran around above the courtyard and that was approachable by a flight of rough-hewn redwood steps. Although Jimmy’s apartment was smaller than most of the others, it rented for more because it was on a corner. It was called a studio apartment—with a large all-purpose living-room, a kitchen, and a bath. The sofa opened into a double bed at night. The furniture, which came with the apartment, was California modern—blond wood, formica, glass. The arm-chairs in the living-room were upholstered in a rough, tweedy, brick-coloured fabric that was shot through with gold threads. The walls were painted slate grey, and the two huge picture windows in the living-room were draped with a heavy rust-coloured fabric imprinted with green tropical leaves. Jimmy considered going downstairs to get his paper, then decided against it.

There was a Thermos of martinis in the refrigerator—a large Thermos, freshly made. He took this out and poured himself a drink in a jelly glass. Then, with his drink in one hand and his cigarette in the other, he went back into the living-room, picked up a magazine and tried to read it. He found little that interested him in Mademoiselle; he put it down again. He got up and turned on the radio. Welcome to the Burgemeister Ballroom, a woman’s voice said. Brought to you through the courtesy of Burgemeister Beer … He turned it off again and looked at his watch. He found himself suddenly wishing that they wouldn’t come, or that he had arranged to meet them somewhere else. He wished he had told them the truth, that he would rather be left alone. Then he wondered if perhaps they had come while he was out buying the gin for the martinis. What if they had come, rung the bell, waited, and finally decided to go on without him? Then he thought no, they would have left a note. Or broken in. Or scrawled a message in lipstick on his window. He thought it was quite possible that they weren’t coming at all, that something else had come up, or that they had forgotten entirely. He realized that the parties and plans lately had all had a quality of indefiniteness, of indecision. Whichever way the wind happened to blow, whichever way the day happened to dawn decided which thing would be done that day. And it didn’t matter if you decided not to do it after all—if you invited people to your house for the evening and decided to go to a movie instead. Everyone understood. No one expected you to be where you said you would be, at the time you said you would be there.

This plan, for example, had been made coming down in an elevator of the Mark Hopkins Hotel in San Francisco, a week ago. They had all had cocktails, and someone had invited them all somewhere, but they were not going to go. They were going, instead, to a new place in the International Settlement, where a girl did a strip tease to the hula, and Claire Gates had suddenly turned to him and said, "I have it—the idea!"

What is it? he had asked.

Next week-end—let’s go camping. Let’s pack knapsacks, take sleeping-bags, citronella, and go up to the mountains. Around Tahoe or Squaw Valley, and find a little lake. There are lots of little lakes up there. We’ll swim in the nude and sleep under the stars, and do all sorts of things. She turned to her huband. What do you think, Blazer? Won’t that be fun?

Blazer had agreed. We’ll drive up to Sacramento Friday night, Claire had said. We’ll pick you up at your apartment and go out to dinner. Blazer and I will stay at a motel somewhere, and then we can all get an early start Saturday morning. When we get to the mountains, we may never come down!

I have a sleeping-bag, Jimmy had said.

So do we, Claire said. Blazer and I will bring the food.

Will Helen be back then? Blazer had asked. Will we finally meet the mysterious Helen?

I don’t know, Jimmy had said vaguely. I doubt it. But we three can go anyway.

Honestly, that wife of yours! Claire had said. We’ve been seeing you for weeks and we’ve never once laid eyes on her. When I meet her, I’m certainly going to scold her for leaving you alone and uncared for so long. Where is she now?

Still at her mother’s.

Oh.

Remembering all this now, he wondered why he had let himself be carried along into their plan, when it had involved such an elaborate scheme of pretence, pretending that Helen was still here. Buying the magazines, cleaning and polishing, arranging flowers in a vase, trying to make the apartment look the way it had before. While all the time, in his dresser drawer, there was a growing file of letters, from her lawyer and his lawyer …

He suddenly felt tired. He stood up and went into the kitchen and filled his glass once more, carefully. He drank a little, and the warmth of the liquor relieved him somewhat. He sat down at the kitchen table and picked up the telephone. Perhaps telephoning would cheer him up. Some of the numbers he called were numbers that he was fairly sure wouldn’t answer, but, after two martinis like that, it was pleasant to have someone to talk to, even if that someone was only Long Distance. In the end, he didn’t reach anybody. It was Friday night, and three hours later in the East. His friends were at dances or parties, or at the club for dinner, or in Europe for the summer. He talked, indirectly, with several maids, mothers, butlers, in many cities—heard the clipped, cultured voices of Park Avenue women, the slow drawls of negro servants. There was some difficulty with a Tampa number—a boy from his class at college—and the operator would call him back. He put the phone down and poured himself another drink from the Thermos. If Claire and Blazer didn’t come soon, he thought, they would find him drunk. He decided to give them another half-hour. If they didn’t come by seven-thirty, he would go out to a drugstore for a sandwich and then to a movie. They could go to hell. He lighted another cigarette with the enamelled kitchen lighter. Be careful, Helen used to say, that lighter throws out sparks.

A great, heavy loneliness dizzied him then, just for a moment. He looked into his glass and wondered if the loneliness would end at the bottom of it. He tried talking to Helen. My God, he said softly to the empty room. My God, you didn’t have to do this. We could have tried again. It didn’t have to end in a mess like this. He tried to hide himself in thought of other things. He took another walk around the apartment. His knapsack and sleeping-bag were rolled in a corner of the living-room, ready to go. Oh, hell, he thought, hell, we’ll have fun. We’ll have fun, if they ever come. He would have one more drink.

It was nearly two hours later when they finally came. He had fallen asleep on the sofa, his head resting on his forearms, his glass beside him on the floor. They came and interrupted a dream he was having in which Helen figured only slightly, as the audience, more or less, to something he was doing. He tried, half asleep, to continue the dream, to see what was happening. It was dark, and there were Chinese lanterns blowing wildly around a white house, his mother’s house in Connecticut. The lanterns were set up for a wedding. He was playing with a calendar, tearing the pages from it, one by one, and as he tore off each page the wind took it, whipped it away. April, March, February. Then he realized that he was going through the calendar backward, back six months to his own wedding day. Helen laughed. He turned the calendar over and began again. Claire and Blazer pounded on the window. Through veils of sleep, he heard them try the front door. It was locked, and so they walked back along the balcony to the window, raised the screen, and climbed in.

He’s asleep, Claire said.

No, he’s not, Blazer said, he’s just faking. Wake up! Wake up, Keefe-o! We’re here!

Jimmy rolled over and looked at them. Blazer wore a faded pair of suntans and a baggy Shetland sweater. Claire had pulled her blonde hair back and tied it in an orange scarf. She was wearing a white blouse and Bermuda shorts.

Well, Jimmy said, where the hell have you been?

Are we late? Claire asked innocently. We drove like the wind. They both flopped down on the couch beside him and stretched their legs in front of them. We drove like the wind, didn’t we, Blazer?

I went out a while ago. I came back and thought maybe you’d come and gone without me.

Poor little boy! Claire said in mock baby talk. Poor little lonely, neglected boy! Thought he’d been left out of the party—so he had a little party of his own. She picked up the glass and sniffed it.

What took you so long?

Well, first of all, we had trouble getting over the Golden Gate, Claire said. They’re tearing up the highway for miles and miles, and then we ran into an accident on Route 40—

Hey, wait a minute, Jimmy said. What highway are they tearing up?

Don’t try to pin me down! Claire said. Of course it’s a fib, but why make me admit it? She looked around the room. So this is the apartment, she said. It’s very nice—bigger than ours, don’t you think? And your furniture is in sensational taste. I love that lowboy with stirrups for handles.

Jimmy laughed. I bought it for a song in a very, very old motel in Salinas. The driftwood lamp came across the continent on a prairie schooner.

"There was an accident, Blazer put in. That part is true three people killed. It was awful."

Nobody knows how to drive in California.

And then we stopped somewhere to eat, Claire said.

Oh, that’s nice, Jimmy said. I’ve been waiting to have dinner with you. It’s now nine o’clock, and you’ve already eaten.

Well, you wouldn’t have wanted to eat where we ate. The carhops were all dressed to look like jockeys with little short skirts. Their buttocks were absolutely flapping in the breeze. We decided there must have been a house rule banning girdles.

And requiring chewing gum.

We had two lovely, leathery hamburgers.

Mine had a hair in it—

And mine had a few bristles from a suède brush—

And the waitress went off duty while we were waiting for our check.

And of course, Claire said sadly, Blazer’s been horrible to me all the way up. We’ve been parked in front of your building for the last hour—squabbling.

Oh, so that’s it.

He’s been just awful, she said. He had me in tears.

She’s a psychotic crier, Blazer said. She’s a compulsive weeper. A manic depressive.

Blazer says I’m a manic depressive. Well, she said, turning to him, "did it ever occur to you to be just a little bit nice—"

Just because I pointed out that she was driving like a madwoman, Blazer said.

But would he offer to drive instead? Oh, no—he was too tired! All he could do was criticize, and—

She always starts talking about me in the third person, Blazer said. As though I weren’t here.

Isn’t he horrible?

"Isn’t he horrible!" Blazer mimicked.

If my mother ever heard how he talks to me!

Now, speaking of your mother—

Listen to him talk about my mother!

You haven’t even given me a chance!

Jimmy stood up. Drinks, quick, he said. Drinks for both of you!

Their quarrels weren’t real quarrels. It was a familiar pattern to Jimmy. He had heard them, bickering like that, in hotels, bars, restaurants—anywhere—and the purpose of it all was really only to entertain the people they were with, or, possibly, to amuse each other. They pretended that this was the consistency of their marriage, and yet, Jimmy noticed that when the quarrelling grew dull, or the accusations grew flat, they seemed to sense it together, and stopped. Jimmy now rose and patted Claire on the shoulder affectionately. I think Blazer’s a complete bastard, he said. I’m totally on your side—because you said you admired my furniture. Now, I want to show you the largest jug of martinis in the world. You’ll have to drink them because they’re all I have. He went into the kitchen and brought out the Thermos and three cocktail glasses.

What in the world is that? Claire said.

A gallon Thermos. For our trip.

But it will be so heavy!

Let’s lighten it right now. Jimmy filled the glasses. I must admit I tapped it while I was waiting for you.

Blazer lifted his glass. Here’s to the trip, he said.

Claire sat back deep in the sofa cushions and sighed. "I’m so tired, she said. I feel as though I’d spent the whole day on the Pennsylvania Railroad—on a flatcar—with thousands of little tramps. I feel so dirty. I feel as though I should put some Mum on. Do you have any?"

In the bathroom, yes.

Well, never mind. You’ll have to bear me as I am. I hate bugs.

Bugs?

Yes. California bugs. Our windshield is smeared with them. I don’t remember Connecticut having so many bugs in summer.

It’s the valley, Jimmy said. They breed in the tules—in the marshes, out in the delta.

Ah—

And it’s hot, Blazer said. Christ, it’s hot. It’s much hotter here than in San Francisco. He pulled off his sweater.

Valley again.

How do you stand it? Claire asked. Why don’t you come to San Francisco with us?

Jimmy shrugged. I’ve got a job here. Remember?

Oh, yes. A job. How dull. Why don’t you quit work and just play? Live on the Keefe millions.

What Keefe millions?

Don’t tease me, Claire said. I know all about the Keefe millions.

Jimmy looked at her. I don’t think that’s very funny, he said.

Sorry. Why are you ashamed? After all, we’re all from the same, shall we say, background? The flowering of New England and all that.

Jimmy laughed dryly. I notice Blazer works, he said.

Oh, I know, I know. Claire let her blonde hair in the orange scarf fall back lazily across the back of the sofa. She looked up at the ceiling. She was in her bored Katherine Hepburn mood, sucking in her cheeks and blowing a long thin stream of smoke from her lips. I’m so glad you came to California, Jimmy, she said. We were wretched here among all these primitives, until you came. It’s a shame we didn’t get together until a month ago.

When are we going to meet that wife of yours? Blazer asked suddenly.

Well, Jimmy said quickly, her mother’s sick—as I told you—and—

I hope we’ll like her, Claire said. Even if she is a Californian.

Jimmy extracted a cigarette from a pack and lighted it with the enamelled lighter. Be careful, he remembered, that lighter throws out sparks.

There was a pause, and then Jimmy said, You’ve seen this picture of her, haven’t you? I took it in Nassau. He handed them a photograph in a small leather frame.

Claire took it and studied it. I think you’re making her up, she said. You don’t really have a wife. This is just a picture of a pretty girl.

Jimmy laughed. She is pretty, isn’t she? He accepted it as Claire handed it back and looked at it. There she was, in a loose yellow sweater, her camera slung over the handlebars of her bicycle, her short light-brown hair blowing in the wind. She looked distant, fragmentary. She was looking away from him, towards something. What had it been? A sailboat on the horizon, a cloud? The expression on her face was not exactly a smile. It was tense, preoccupied. She eluded him now, as she had eluded him then. That was on our honeymoon, he said.

Yes, I’ve heard about your honeymoon, Claire said. You went everywhere under the sun for months and months.

Six weeks, he said. That was all.

Is it all right if Claire and I sleep here to-night? Blazer asked, pouring himself another drink from the Thermos. It’s a little late to find a hotel room.

Jimmy hesitated. Well, the accommodations will be a little on the Youth Hostel side, he said. The sofa opens out into a double bed—you and Claire can have that. I can take my sleeping-bag into the kitchen and sleep on the floor.

You can put our two sleeping-bags underneath you for a mattress, Claire said.

You don’t need to sleep in the kitchen, Blazer said. Just spread out here on the rug. We don’t mind.

Doesn’t give you much privacy, old man.

Privacy, schmivacy.

If you get chilly, you can crawl right in with us, Claire said. I’ve always wondered what it would be like to sleep with two men.

Don’t worry—I don’t mind the floor.

Do you talk in your sleep? Claire asked. "If you talk in your sleep or snore or do anything uncouth like that, you will have to sleep in the kitchen. Blazer does both. With two of you doing it, I couldn’t bear it."

It all seems rather modern and casual, doesn’t it? Jimmy said.

The telephone rang. Oh, God, he said. Do you know what that is? It’s Jeep Tanner. I called him in Florida this afternoon. Do we want to talk to Jeep Tanner?

"Jeep Tanner! Claire said. Do you mean that dreadful football player with the Buick? Let it ring."

All right.

Jeep Tanner would break the spell.

Why in the world were you calling Jeep Tanner? Blazer asked.

This afternoon—I didn’t have anything else to do. It was beginning to look as though you two weren’t coming. I wanted to hear a friendly voice.

"You are in a bad way, Claire said. Fill my glass with that golden elixir! She extended her glass to him. He filled it and she put it down carefully on the coffee table. The phone stopped ringing. Claire stretched her arms high over her head and yawned. Blazer says I’m ugly and fat. Am I? I think I’m rather gorgeous, what do you think?"

I think you’re splendid, Jimmy said.

In a way, she was, though she was not gorgeous. Her legs were a little too heavy, and her nose was too small. But she had, Jimmy thought, a wonderfully elfin face, and her blonde hair, long and twisted into that strange bright scarf, fell across her back and made her look like a polished urchin, or a little girl who had been left alone for the first time with her mother’s cosmetic tray. She used too much make-up, but somehow got away with it. Her lips were rouged a dark creamy red, and her pale blue eyes were accented with dark mascara and eye shadow. Claire wanted to look worldly. She dreaded looking Smithish, as she put it. But under her movie-star patina, her face was round and smooth and snub as a cherub’s.

I’m glad that one person agrees with me, she said.

Tell me what you brought for food, Jimmy said, before he realized that now he, not Jeep Tanner, was breaking a spell.

Claire let her arms droop. Everything, she said sadly. I brought everything except eggs. I decided eggs would break. I brought bread and butter and jam and corned beef hash and tomato soup. I brought chicken gumbo soup. That’s Blazer’s favourite kind. I brought everything. You’ll see. I even brought my silver knives and forks. Much nicer for a picnic, don’t you think?

Our packs weigh fifty pounds apiece, Blazer said. You’ll have to carry all three sleeping-bags to make up for it.

Why don’t you let me carry Claire’s pack? Jimmy said.

He’d never let me live it down, Claire said. He doesn’t think girls are worth anything if they can’t do everything a man can.

Do her good, Blazer said. Carrying that pack may help her whack off a few pounds.

Hear him? she said. He talks to me that way all the time. Do you know what he did the other day? I called him from work the other night to tell him what was in the refrigerator—

Did you say from work? Jimmy asked.

"Oh, yes! Didn’t I tell you? As of three days ago, I’m a working wife. It’s terribly exciting. True to Smith tradition, I’m doing case work. I had to do something. I couldn’t spend my entire day admiring the view from Russian Hill! But Blazer called me—or rather I called Blazer—and I said there were some tomatoes and some tuna and so forth. And then, all of a sudden, I heard this peculiar, this unidentifiable—this sound—from the other end of the wire. Well!"

Well—what was it? Jimmy asked.

Well, it was—well, I can’t bring myself to say it. It was too terrible a thing.

Jimmy laughed. I’m only slightly confused, he said.

Not an uncommon occurrence when Claire tells a story, Blazer said. Not only does the story have no point, in the first place—but when she gets to it, she won’t tell you what the point is.

Isn’t he dreadful? Isn’t he awful?

Jimmy laughed again. He certainly is.

They laughed and joked aimlessly, pointlessly, through another cocktail. Claire had learned to do the hula. They had finally gone to the place in the International Settlement. The strip tease had been a disappointment. But the hula! Claire performed it for them: Lovely hula hands, hands that seem to say, ‘I love you,’ lovely hula hands— They applauded her. Claire said suddenly, Jimmy, are we really clever and amusing? Or are we only silly?

Both, he said. Clever and silly. It’s a pretty combination.

She sat down. I have a terror of being silly, she said. Blazer says I sometimes am. Don’t let us be silly people, Jimmy. Really—the only thing I want to be is young!

You are young.

Jimmy—old sobersides Jimmy. Even when you laugh and smile, I think you’re being very serious, thoughtful, deep inside. You’re the audience to everything; you have that quality. Even when someone says something very silly—as I did, just now, when I said I wanted to be young—you turn to me and nod, very seriously, and say, ‘You are young.’ You’re a funny boy.

They decided that it was time for bed. Claire went to the linen closet and took out sheets and pillow-cases. I hate to say it, Jimmy, she said, but you’re a terrible housekeeper. Look at this linen closet. Everything’s stirred in the middle.

Well, as soon as Helen gets back—

The three of them, pulling together, separated the sofa bed into its component parts. Jimmy stretched two sleeping-bags on the floor and tested them for softness. Better than the Statler, he said. I don’t usually wear pyjamas, but since you’re company, I’ll put some on.

He went into the bathroom, changed into his pyjamas, and when he came out, Blazer was already in bed and Claire was sitting on the edge in neat white boyish pyjamas that looked starched, and stood out all around her. She had pinned her hair on top of her head, and she looked roughly twelve. She stood up and opened the window. They stood there, Jimmy and Claire, in their bare feet, surveying themselves and the disorder they had made of the room, and laughed. They were still laughing when Claire got into bed and Jimmy crawled into the sleeping-bag on the floor. And when they had turned out the lights, and the room was dark, and Claire and Blazer pretended to fight for the covers, they were still laughing softly.

If we had a picture of this— they said.

If Mother could see us now—

If Helen should walk in now—

If there were a fire and we all had to jump out the window into a net—

If the police should come—

They lived in their laughter, Jimmy thought. They had found a world in which everything, even tragedy, had its humorous side. The Korean War was over. They laughed, because they had missed it; they had been too young. An earthquake in Tehachapi had sent timbers of houses shuddering to the ground. They laughed, because who would want to live in Tehachapi? Claire told of a flood that had threatened Mars Hill, her mother’s house in Connecticut; Mrs. Denison had been without water and electricity for two days. They had had to carry water from the swimming-pool. Wasn’t that funny? Claire had sold some Wrigley stock from her grandfather’s estate to buy their new car. Why Wrigley? Because it had the funniest name …

Laughing with them, Jimmy tried to live in their laughter too, tried to move into its warm and wonderful comfort. What if I should crawl in? he said. What if I made advances on you, Claire? What would Blazer do? What would you do, Blaze?

Blazer would say, ‘Make a little less noise, please,’ and go back to sleep. Ah, the pleasures of married life! Where have they sped, on what wings—

I can tell you, Blazer said.

"Think of to-morrow. Think of Sunday morning on the mountain—when the dawn, in russet mantle clad—"

Make a little less noise, please, Blazer said.

Ah, we’re deep, Claire said. Aren’t we deep? About as deep as three frying-pans. They laughed again.

Jimmy thought: If Helen should walk in now. For several minutes, he thought of what she would say, of what he would say to her. He pictured the little scene, the elaborate explanations, the pyjama-clad introductions. It was a funny thought. But of course she would not walk in now. Or ever. Never no more, he thought, but he clung to that moment.

They sang, I’m tying the leaves so they won’t fall down … But they had forgotten most of the words. Then the room was quiet. A full moon appeared and cast the shadow of the eucalyptus tree in the courtyard across the floor.

Sleep was tricky for him. It had been so lately, and it was getting no better. He had brief, vivid dreams that were unpleasant only for their vividness and realness. He woke and tried to sleep again, but it was difficult. He knew it would be difficult; he had tried it before. It was as though, shoeless, in pyjamas, you were asked to climb a tree or a mountain, and every false step meant disaster. Indeed, he thought, he was on a mountain now, with nothing to do but look downward, or even upward to where nothing at all lay. Helen was asking too much of him to expect him to survive on these slopes. There were several things he wanted to ask her. Where are you? was the first of them. He had written her letters; she had not answered. The second—what was the second thing? He couldn’t think of the second thing; he was going to sleep again.

He dreamt of Claire and Blazer, and they suddenly were all on their trip, the