NIGHT AND DAY

We said that we’d be there for coffee and cake. Well, we didn’t really say this. Eleanor did. She was sure I’d agree, so she made the arrangements. We weren’t going earlier, she said, because she had a lot of work to do, and, besides, she didn’t think I would enjoy it very much, and she didn’t want me to get bored. Eleanor knew what happened when I got bored. So she said we wouldn’t stay long. We would be back by eleven-thirty.

 

On the way to the restaurant, already a little late, but it’s not my fault, we are driving along Columbus when I see Frank. “Hey, Eleanor, that’s Frank”, I say, but she keeps on driving the Ford. “We don’t have time to stop to speak to him”, she says. “We don’t have the time now.”

 

We hadn’t had the time to speak to Frank for a long time. Months maybe. Eleanor would always find some excuse for not visiting him. “Hey, El”, I would say, after dinner maybe, “How’s about going round to see Frank?” And she would say that she was tired, or had tests to mark. “You go”, she would say, but I knew what this meant, so I always stayed.

 

We arrive at Mason’s Coffee & Do-Nut and the door is closed. Eleanor taps on the window and asks the waiter, who seems to know her, if we can go in. “I’m joining someone who’s having a birthday here”, she says. We go in, and in a dimly lit corner by a piano is a group of people that she identifies to me as her friends. “There they are”, she says. We walk over, Eleanor leading.

 

“Well, I thought you were never going to arrive”, says a woman sitting at the table. “Eleanor! What brought you out of the woodwork?” says a man. “It must be about two years now, Eleanor”, says the woman, as she hugs Eleanor.

 

I stand behind Eleanor, not really knowing what I should be doing. On the table is the usual collection of bottles and glasses, a few empty plates, and a large cake with “semary” written across it. Some of it had been eaten. The piano is a Steinway.

 

“Cathy, Bill, … this is Eleanor”, the woman says to some of the people at the table. They stand up and shake her hand. A bald guy with a big black mustache and an overweight girl. “We’ve heard so much about you, Eleanor”, they tell her. “Oh, guys”, says Eleanor, finally remembering that I’m with her, “this is David, my boyfriend.” They all turn to me and say “Hello, David”, or “Hi, Dave”. Things like that. “David, this is Rosemary”, Eleanor goes on. Rosemary comes forward and hugs me. “Great to meet you, Dave. Eleanor and I go way back, you know?” Rosemary points to the people at the table. “Dave, this is Cathy, Bill, Pete, Sally, Martha, Duke and Roger.” They all smile at me. “Sit down. Come on guys, make some room.”

 

So they make some room and we sit down. Eleanor sits to my right, next to Bill, the bald guy, and I sit next to Rosemary. Eleanor at first spends some time leaning forward and talking to Rosemary, while I lean back, trying to keep out of the way. After a while Rosemary touches me on the arm and says, “Dave, you know she never phones me? You know that? All that time we were friends and she never calls me. She doesn’t have the time. What would you do with a girl like that, huh?” And I smile. “S’not true”, says Eleanor. “I’m always phoning. I just can’t reach you, Rose. You’re never at the office.”

“D’you hear that, Bill?” says Rosemary, leaning forward and knocking over a glass of white wine.

“Who’s that?” says Bill.

“She says I’m never at the office. I’m ALWAYS at the office. Night and day.”

“Night and day, you are the one…” sings Bill.

“But isn’t it true, Bill?”

“In the roaring traffic’s boom, or the silence of my lonely room, I think of you…” I hear somewhere to my left.

“Sure it’s true”, says Bill.

“See?” says Rosemary.

“No”, someone says. “It’s ‘Whether near to you or far, it’s no matter where you are’, not ‘who you are’”

“Well all I know is that I phone”, says Eleanor.

 

Eleanor doesn’t phone at all. She hasn’t phoned anyone since I met her. I began to think that she didn’t have any friends. In over two years she didn’t phone anyone except her parents. The other day her mother said to me that she was very happy to see Eleanor with me, and that she hoped it would last for a long, long time.

 

The waiter brings me a beer. The rest of the café is empty and dark. Four people, Duke, Roger, Sally and Martha, it seems, get up and say they have to go. They’d really, really like to stay, they say, but they’ve really, really got to go. So that’s what they do, after kisses and handshakes and those things that people say when they are saying goodbye to people they haven’t seen for a long time and won’t see for a long time. So now there’s just the six of us: Cathy, Rosemary, Bill, Pete, Eleanor and me. Eleanor is now talking to Bill, the bald guy.

“Great to meet you, Dave”, says Rosemary, and she puts her hand on my leg and squeezes it hard, just above the knee. “Really great, Dave”.

We settle into more comfortable positions. Now I’m next to Eleanor and on my left is Rosemary. Opposite Rosemary is Cathy, and Bill and Pete are opposite me and Eleanor.

 

*          *          *          *          *

Me and Frank grew up together. We went to the same school and we hung around the same places when we were in that phase when people hang out. We got the same summer jobs. Often I would stay over at Frank’s house, or he’d stay over at mine. We both worked together until about three years ago, at the same division in the paper mill, until I got this chance, and until Frank lost everything when his wife left, with the baby. “Just left”, he told me on the phone. “Just upped and went.” I tell all this to Eleanor, but she still doesn’t want to spend time with Frank. We had dinner once. Frank didn’t much feel like eating, so he ordered a bottle of Havana Club Rum. Eleanor didn’t exactly say “Never again”, but it’s what she felt after we had taken Frank home and I had carried him up to his apartment. I tell her that she has to be more understanding. He’s had a hard time, and I love that guy, I tell her.

 

*          *          *          *          *

 

So now we’re all sitting round this table. No one else is around. The waiter has pulled down the blinds over the door and over the large window to the street. He comes and asks if we want anything else. No, we tell him, nothing else. Nothing for now. And he disappears into the darkness and everyone carries on talking. Judging by the bottles, it’s been a good party.

 

“So whaddya think, Dave? Whaddam I supposed to think about this girl, your girl, Dave, whatcha think, huh? She doesn’t phone, she doesn’t anything …”

“Well, I …”

“There’s such a hungry yearning inside of me … “, sings Cathy.

“I mean, she’s got my number. She doesn’t phone her best friend.”

“That’s the way people are”, I tell this cunt, who’s getting on my fucking nerves. “Why don’t you phone her, sweetheart?” I say.

“Oh, she moves house and I have to phone her! Do I have your number, Dave?”

“I think of you, day and night”, sings Cathy, banging a spoon on the table to beat time.

 

“But anyway … “, says Rosemary, “lemme tell you, Dave … I mean, I like you, and lemme tell you, … this girl’s great, Dave”, she says, and she leans forward and kisses me hard on the cheek, a dry kiss. “You’re a lucky guy. Isn’t he a lucky guy?” she asks Cathy.

 

But when we turn to look at Cathy we see that she has her head firmly on the table among the glasses and the bottles and the plates. Eleanor is still busy talking to Bill and Pete.

“Wouldya look at this?” says Rosemary. “My birthday and Cathy passes out! The  fucking bitch!”

 

I haven’t touched my beer. I’m bored. And if I start drinking that beer, and it’s nearly midnight, and Eleanor’s forgotten all about her tests, and we can stay as long as we like, says Rosemary, she knows the owner, all night, she says, when the fun is, she says, then we’ll be in for some trouble, so I don’t dare touch that beer. I just play with it a little. I run my fingers up and down the glass, wiping away the condensation and watching it form again.

 

“What do you mean? I understand perfectly”, I hear Eleanor saying to Bill and Pete. “You don’t understand our situation”, she finishes.

I decide to go to the washroom. To play around with some water on my face. I drink the beer off in one. “Be right back”, I say. “Give it a shake for me”, someone shouts, as I walk into the darkness.

 

So I’m finishing up in the washroom. There’s a machine in there, must be thirty years old. “INSERT A DIME AND PRESS RED FOR ‘MUSK’, GREEN FOR ‘MOUNTAIN SPRAY’” I put in a dime and press red. Nothing happens. For some reason I remember the punch line of a joke about a millionaire. He says: “This helicopter can land on a dime, whatever that is”. Then I come out into the dark again.

 

“And this torment won’t be through till I spend my life making love to you”, I hear someone, a female voice, sing.

 

I’m walking across the dark restaurant towards the table. It’s just round the corner, by the Steinway, and then I see the guy with the cigar. For some reason he stuck in my mind. At first I just saw the cigar; then I eventually saw a man, a big old fat man with a big fat face and a sort of contented look. Just sitting there alone in the dark with a big cigar. He didn’t even look my way. Then I turn the corner to where the table is, our table. And, as I turn, I see Bill kissing Pete on the lips, and Rosemary and Eleanor …