The Studs Lonigan Trilogy - James T. Farrell [355]
He jumped from his chair, determining that, goddamn it,\ he had to break through somewhere. He looked at himself in the mirror and frowned in an ugly, menacing manner. He walked back and forth across the parlor, clenching and unclenching his fists.
So let’s tell the world about it now.
He swung viciously through the air, as if he were ripping into some bastard in a fight, slugging.
He paused, sat down, his tension relaxing, and he felt ridiculous.
Let us sing a song of cheer again,
Happy days are here again.
Couldn’t even make up his mind on any kind of a resolution. On the stocks, he’d frittered around hoping, while they sank to seven bucks on each of his eighty shares, and now it wasn’t even much use to dump them and get back only five hundred and sixty out of his original two thousand.
He wanted to be with Catherine and to forget, and to talk to her, maybe tell her some of these things.
Hello, housewives of Radioland, this is Sally Saucer speaking.
He turned the radio off. Catherine would maybe still have confidence in him. It was just pride, false pride, that was keeping them apart, and it would cost them a lot to stick to it. Perhaps all she was waiting for was for him to telephone her. And that’s just what he was going to do.
“Mom, I’m going down to the corner a minute.”
“Son, not in all this rain.”
“I got my slicker and it won’t hurt me.”
“But, son, if you want anything like cigarettes, you can telephone for it, can’t you? It’s raining cats and dogs.”
“It won’t hurt me.”
“You’ll get your feet wet, William.”
“I won’t be gone long or out in it enough for that.”
“Well, at least wait and let me make you a cup of tea to warm you up before you go.”
“All right,” he said, walking into the kitchen and sitting down while she turned the gas on under a kettle.
“You haven’t seen Catherine for the last two or three days?”
“I saw her three or four nights ago,” he said, his voice so unconvincing that she turned to stare at him.
“Son, have you and Catherine quarrelled?”
“Why, no, of course not.”
“Well, I know that something is on your mind, because you seem to be carrying on very strange. And you haven’t gone to see her these last nights, or called her up, nor she you. Now, son, tell me the truth. Have you two been quarrelling?”
He showed his embarrassment. Hell, he wished he was a better actor.
“Well, it wasn’t anything serious.”
“Just a spat, or what?”
“Nothing much. We just had a disagreement and lost our temper,” he said, wondering what made her so curious, regretting having given it away.
“Son, I didn’t want to say this,” the mother said, wagging her head regretfully, “but I have always believed that Catherine wasn’t the girl for you. God forbid me from saying anything against the girl, because she’s a decent Catholic girl who has good, hard-working parents. But I can’t make myself believe she’s good enough for a boy with the bringing-up and the family and the educated, refined sisters that you’ve got. God forbid that I would run her down, but it’s the truth that she’s a little bit common.”
Studs looked bored and wanted to get out. And now she’d tell the old man and tonight at supper he’d have to do some explaining. The kettle steamed and Mrs. Lonigan put tea leaves and poured water into a crockery tea pot. She set a cup, milk, sugar, bread and butter before him on the table.
“Son, I’m talking to you because I’m your mother, and a boy can never do the wrong thing if he is guided by his mother. Now, tell me what was the trouble. Did she go out with another fellow?”
“It was nothing like that, I tell you.”
“You know, William, it takes a long time to know a girl, and to learn what she has in her, and whether or not she is the right kind for you,” the mother said, pouring him a steaming cup of tea.
“Catherine’s all right,” he said, controlling his gripe caused by her insinuations.
“Of course she is, son. God forbid that I say she isn’t. I just said that it takes