MR. CORINTH HAD fallen into the habit of “barging over to the club” occasionally in the evenings, when he and Jimmie were not staying late at the laboratory.
He liked to sit in a wicker chair on the glassed—in sun porch—surrounded by Jimmie, and anybody else who cared to listen—and expound topics of the day, or the ages. He said that his resumption of “social life” was inevitable and a sign of senescence. Jimmie knew the real cause. Mr. Corinth came because he was worried about his colleague—about Jimmie.
And Jimmie was worried about himself. All the locks in all the doors of his life had been turned—if the one door of hard work could be excepted.
He did riot see his father and mother at all. They had sent word that his presence at the club prevented them from coming there, and they had made sure that the bearer of the news also conveyed their resentment. But Jimmie felt too numb to budge. He had not seen Audrey, nor talked to Mr. Corinth about her. In spite of their intimacy Audrey’s name had become mysteriously taboo. His criticism of Biff’s behavior with the pretty nurse had led to a rapid deterioration of their burgeoning relationship. He did not see his sister either, because he now regarded her with contempt. She had abandoned her beloved Harry when she had learned that he was a quarter “non-Aryan,” and yet she had gone on mourning him in a revolting indulgence of self-pity. Mr. Wilson’s friendship, if it had ever been proffered, had been withdrawn. He nodded to Jimmie when they encountered each other, or waved a finger, in a way that looked amiable enough but did not invite further intimacy.
He had at first taken a considerable lift from their talk. Mr. Wilson was, no doubt, all that Audrey had said-bigoted, cruel, a tyrant at home, a fanatic about the behavior of his son and daughter. But Mr. Wilson was more. He was very subtle in his dealings with human beings. He had brought Jimmie around to satisfying a hunger for knowledge about the RAF by flattery, and by a still better trick: by granting to Jimmie the recognition due a valorous antagonist. Jimmie had talked—it must have been brutal to some part of the old man; he’d fumbled his cigar once, but, as soon as Mr. Wilson’s curiosity had been satisfied, he had cast Jimmie aside. Because he was Audrey’s father, Jimmie thought that by understanding Mr. Wilson he might learn about Audrey. So, in spite of a disillusionment, Jimmie had hoped to see more of the father of the night fighter and of the audacious woman.
Since Mr. Wilson had immediately dissolved the connection, Jimmie could only conclude that he was parasitical, that he deftly extracted from other human beings the nutriment for his own concealed emotions and discarded the people as soon as they had no further usefulness. That opinion of the father blindly transferred itself to the daughter.
Because she was bored, Jimmie decided, because she was fed up with Muskogewan, and no doubt justly annoyed at her family, she had invented an emotional stage—set, with all the props of a wicked father and a little white cottage for night rendezvous; and she had stepped out in front of that scenery to sing her siren song—her torch song—or whatever it was.
An act.
So Jimmie had nobody for company.
He could have had the pick of many people.