George came in around two o’clock. He stood just inside the little room with the door open behind him.
Alfy sat on the one chair in the room, close to the empty hearth. He sat very limply, with his hands thrust deep into his trouser pockets. He didn’t look up when George came in. More than anything, he wanted to be alone. He didn’t have to pretend when he was alone. George made it difficult for him. It wouldn’t do to let George see that he couldn’t take it. Anyway, it was getting a little too much for him to pretend any more, even with George in the room.
George came in and shut the door. It wasn’t that George wanted to stay, he didn’t; but his conscience wouldn’t let him go. He sat on the edge of the table and fumbled for a cigarette. The scrape of the match on the box made Alfy turn his head a little.
He said, “You needn’t bother.”
“I guess I’ll hang around. It don’t seem right to go,” George said ponderously, dragging down a lungful of smoke. “It’s long, ain’t it?”
Alfy moved his feet restlessly. He wanted to avoid talking about it. “Listen,” he said, “you don’t have to tell me. You don’t have to say anything about it. If you think for a moment, you’d know that nothing you say could be new to me.”
George looked at him and then shifted his eyes. There was a long pause, then Alfy said, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that.”
“Sure, that’s all right,” George said hurriedly. “I guess I wasn’t thinking.”
“That’s right. You weren’t thinkin’.”
“Maybe I’d better go,” George said. He sounded so miserable that Alfy couldn’t send him away.
“No, you stay. It’s all right that you stay.”
“Well, I’d like to. I wouldn’t care to be far away in case—”
Alfy winced. This was going to be worse than he thought. He said: “No, I can see that. Yeah, I can see that all right.”
George looked at him again uneasily. He stubbed out his cigarette and took another. He hesitated, then he offered the packet to Alfy. “You’d better smoke,” he said.
Alfy took a cigarette out of the carton. He didn’t do it easily because his hand was shaking, but George pretended he hadn’t noticed. When he lit their cigarettes he was annoyed that his own hand was very unsteady.
Alfy looked at him across the tiny flame of the match. There was a look in George’s eyes that startled him. George looked away immediately, but it gave Alfy quite a shock. He realized, not without a stab of jealousy, that George was suffering just as much as he was. This discovery rather pulled him together and he slumped back in his chair to consider it.
Well, it was understandable. George had always got on well with Margie. He’d been in and out most days since they were married. Wasn’t George his best friend? It was swell of George to feel bad about it, or was it? He frowned down at his feet. This won’t do, he told himself. He’d got quite enough on his mind right now. It wasn’t the time to think up new worries. Maybe he was being a little too hard on George. Maybe, if he got his mind to thinking about George, it’d help him forget what was going on.
He said with a little burst of confidence: “I don’t like that croaker, George. There’s something about that guy.”
George ran his thick fingers through his hair. “Yeah?” he said. “What’s the matter with him? Ain’t he any good?” There was an anxious note in his voice.
“Sure he’s good. The best croaker in the town, but he ain’t got any feelin’. A while back I heard him laughing.”
“Laughin’?”
“Yeah, and the nurse laughed too.”
There was a long pause. Then George said, “That’s a hell of a thing to do.”
Alfy went on: “He’s a cold guy. I bet nothing would move that guy.”
George said, “He’s been here an awful long time, ain’t he?”
Alfy looked at the clock on the mantelshelf. “Four hours,” he said, then, as if to give himself courage, he added: “He said it would take a while.”
“He said that, did he?” George wiped his face with a handkerchief. “Ain’t nothin’ gone wrong, do you think?”
Unconsciously he put into words what Alfy had been thinking for the past half-hour. It didn’t do Alfy much good. He said, “For God’s sake, must you take that line?”
George got off the table and wandered across to the window. He leant against the wall, holding back the curtain to look into the street. “The moon’s still up,” he said unevenly; “high as hell that moon is.”
Alfy said: “We’d planned not to have kids, George. Somethin’ must’ve gone wrong. Margie wanted a kid, but I said no. You can’t have a kid an’ a boat. Not these days, you can’t. Margie was nobody’s dope. She’d got her mind fixed for a kid, George. You know how women are, but I watched it. How the hell it went wrong I don’t know.”
George stood very still and silent by the window. He didn’t say anything.
Very faintly, from somewhere upstairs, someone screamed.
George beat Alfy to the door. They stood in the passage listening. The only sound they could hear was the faint roar of the overhead trains.
George said, “Ain’t you goin’ up?”
“Best not. I can’t do anythin’.”
They stood there listening for several minutes, and then, as they turned to go back to the room, the scream came again. Both men stiffened.
Overhead a door opened and light streamed on to the stairs. Heavy deliberate footsteps came down the passage and the doctor appeared at the head of the stairs. He stood looking down at the two men in the hallway. He was wiping his hands on a towel. He came down slowly, still using the towel.
Silently the two men backed into the sitting-room as he approached, and the doctor came in and half shut the door behind him. A nerve in his face kept twitching, and his cold eyes were dreadfully bored.
He said to Alfy, “Your wife’s havin’ a bad time.” Carefully he began to fold the towel. “She ought never to have had a child. Too narrow. I don’t think I can save the child. I could try, but it would be very dangerous.”
A low sigh from George caused the doctor to look at him sharply. He said impatiently: “Hold up, man, hold up. I’ve got enough on my hands without looking after you.”
George sat down and put his hands over his face. Alfy looked at him very strangely.
The doctor said impatiently again, “What do you want me to do?”
Still Alfy looked at George, a little white ring round his mouth.
The doctor put out a long thin hand and shook Alfy’s arm. “Can’t you hear what I’m saying?” he said sharply.
Alfy turned his head. His eyes were very blank. “I guess you’d better do what you think,” he said slowly. “Yeah, do what you think.”
“You haven’t understood,” the doctor said. “I can try and save the child—”
Alfy nodded. “Yes, sure, I understood,” he broke in, “save Margie. It doesn’t matter about the kid. She can have another some other time. Yeah, save Margie.”
The doctor gave them both a hard, puzzled look, and then went upstairs again. They heard him walk along the passage and go into Margie’s bedroom.
Alfy said, “So it didn’t go wrong, after all.”
George said, without looking up: “No, it didn’t go wrong. We were crazy to have done it, Alfy. We didn’t think you’d know. Margie wanted the kid. I wanted Margie. There was nothing else in it. Honest to God, Alfy, you’ve got to believe that. We were just crazy. It was when we all went up river. When we fished the swamp. You didn’t make camp until late. It was a hell of a thing to have done. Honest, Alfy, I’ve felt bad about it. You were crazy not to have given her a kid; that was all she wanted. Look, I’ll get out of here. There was nothing else to it, Alfy. She’s yours; she’d never be anyone else’s. It was just the river, the moon, and her wantin’ a kid. You believe that, don’t you?”
Alfy sat down on the edge of the table. He felt slightly sick. He wanted Margie more than he wanted anything else in the world. He didn’t want her to die. He was surprised that he felt nothing about George and Margie. He could understand that. She did want a kid. She’d fixed her mind on a kid. Hadn’t George said that there was nothing else behind it? He hadn’t lost Margie’s love. It was just that those two had been crazy. He could understand that. If he hadn’t been such a dumb bastard and put his boat before giving her a kid, this would never have happened. When Margie was all right, he’d fix things for her. He wasn’t going to be a dope any more.
George got slowly to his feet.
“It’s all right,” Alfy said. “You wait, we’ll see this thing through.”
He was suddenly terribly, terribly glad that the kid was going to die. He hated himself for feeling that way, but it would mean that he could start again from scratch.
George sat back in the chair with a little sigh. He said, “You’re a swell guy taking it like that.”
They sat there for a long time in silence. The more Alfy thought about it, the more eager he was for Margie to get well so that they could start things properly. Maybe it would be fun having a kid. Maybe, if he worked hard enough, he could keep the boat and the three of them could go up the river together. Even George could come along. No, not George. It was a pity about George, but he couldn’t be around any more. Not that he’d mind, but Margie would. No, George would have to go, but the little ’un would take his place.
The door opened and the doctor came in. The two men looked at him. His face was expressionless. He said: “I’m afraid things have gone wrong. She didn’t try.” The nerve in his face continued to twitch. “She was very disappointed, you see.”
Alfy got slowly to his feet. “Won’t she—?”
The doctor shrugged a little. “Not long now. She’s asking—”
Alfy made for the door, but the doctor stopped him. “Not you,” he said, almost kindly, “she’s asking for George.” He looked at George with faint curiosity. “You had better hurry.”
The two of them went out of the room quickly, leaving Alfy alone.