Story: Alison’s Father

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1

David’s letter left him rather bewildered. He didn’t know precisely what he’d been expecting, but it certainly wasn’t anything like what he’d gotten. For one thing he had written to the address in Paris that David had sent him on a postcard the preceding fall, and David’s letter had come from England. Of course, he hadn’t said anything about Alice and wouldn’t have wanted David to. He winced now, thinking that. But the crowd of emotions jumbling and dancing around the edges of the page as he had written his weak little note two weeks before seemed to Jon to call for something more than David had written back. It seemed so impersonal in a way, or at least not about the two of them as persons.

Jon didn’t even know who this Alison was, let alone her father. Maybe David thought he had written about her before. It was something to get a letter, though. And it was interesting in a curious way.

Jon looked the letter over again. It was remarkable that David could write so small and evidently so quickly, on both sides of that thin airmail paper too, and yet you could read every word. David even seemed to reveal something of a flair for writing now and then, even if most of it was simple description.

That was what was most curious to Jon. Here David seemed to be describing that scene in the London restaurant or pub or whatever it was - totally unrelated to Jon and only distantly touching David himself as it seemed at first. And yet, he really seemed to be writing about himself after all. That’s not impersonal, is it? It seemed important to David to understand the scene and the man who starred in it. That was it, Jon thought; David wasn’t writing about himself, but he was writing for himself.

That was what disappointed Jon. He wanted David to write something for him.

“Jon--” the letter began simply. “So glad to get your note. Congratulations! a B. A. in three years is a pretty good score. What are your plans now? I wish I even knew what my major was going to be when I get back in school next fall. My senior year too!”

See there? Jon thought to himself. He starts out thinking about me all right (as a letter-writer should think about the one he was writing to, isn’t that so?), but then he goes right on about himself. Jon couldn’t help getting interested, though, and that puzzled him. He enjoyed reading the letter somehow anyway. In fact, he was almost sure now about his own plans for study in Paris next fall, even if his friend Paul didn’t want to go too. Yes.

But David didn’t bother to mention why he was in London, or who Susan was. “Susan and I are booked on the same boat for New York in August. We plan to spend a good deal of the intervening time together. I don’t know if we’ll get to Scotland, but we’re going off to Wales and Ireland already this afternoon.” That was the way he ended the letter, after mentioning this person Susan only once before to say that she had been there at the pub that night in London too. But Jon didn’t really care about that after all, since he was beginning to think kind of angrily and weakly that it wasn’t unusual for everyone else to have a girl even if he didn’t himself and never would. What he did find himself wondering about was this Alison person herself.

That was odd, because David didn’t describe her at all in his letter. They must have, though, to her father since he evidently had only a small passport photo from some time ago. And yet Jon was more interested in her than all of them were. David, for example, seemed more concerned about her father.

“None of us knew why we’d been invited,” the letter read in one place. “We didn’t recognize the name on the invitations left for us all at American Express, because Alison had always used her mother’s maiden name. Her father had gone away so completely and finally after Alison had been born that he didn’t know until this year that her mother had died while Alison was still a small child. He was a fairly plain man, especially suited as he said to deal with simple, practical matters. He couldn’t explain how he felt about things, or even how he had felt about Alison’s mother those many years before. Maybe her family’s wealth had helped to complicate everything. Maybe it made her more fascinating and distant, and then less possible after their marriage. He never said how he had made his own fortune by now. We didn’t want to ask.

“But he did say it wasn’t that he felt guilty. And I don’t think it was. He had just suddenly realized one day that he had been thinking for a long time about his daughter, his little Alison. He didn’t know why. He had left her almost twenty years before feeling frustrated and weak and angry. But he didn’t feel that way anymore, and he was curious about Alison. Even more than he had been about his wife. He explained it all very simply and without many details. But something in his manner convinced all of us, I think, that he was sincere.

“At first, he would have been satisfied merely to hear the bare outlines of her history. Her schooling and so on. But the more he had learned, the more he had become enchanted with Alison. And now that her family had momentarily lost track of her and her boyfriend Tom, he had decided to look for her himself. No one was worried for her. But he didn’t want her to disappear suddenly like that, even for a while. He had lived for so long depending somewhere in his mind on the thought that his wife and child were going along normally in their own lives and in their own world that learning about the early death of Alison’s mother left him a little, oddly, shaken. And he didn’t want the same to happen with Alison herself.

“None of us could help much, I’m afraid," David wrote.

“Let me say some of this in detail, Jon.” (There, he had managed at least to mention Jon’s name. But the details of the restaurant surely couldn’t matter. Not to Alison. The balcony around the edges was perhaps important since the other people there had evidently become interested in the scene below them, on centerstage as it were, the middle-aging man and his table of American traveling students… But not the rest of it that David told. It was only vaguely interesting to Jon how they all had seemed to draw together as the evening went on, and how they had grown cheerful and talkative with the beer and wine the rich gentleman served them.)

“He listened intently and patiently,” David had written to Jon, “to each of our stories about Alison. Maybe Susan’s was the best. But none of them could really help.” (Why didn’t he say more than that? Jon thought. What were the stories like? What was she like?)

“The whole thing did seem very strange,” David said in another place. “No one thought Alison was lost or anything. She has often forgotten to write to anyone for longer than it has been now. He wasn’t really looking for her, then. Or at least not yet. He was looking for a kind of understanding of her instead. Something about it all did bother him. Fascinated him, he said.”

Oh get on with it, Jon wanted to say.

“He was never able to describe the way he feels. But once, after he had already had more than enough to drink, he tried to make a comparison. He said that sometimes now when he didn’t sleep or when he had been drinking, he had a sudden vision of a picture. It was Alison, a little like she looks in the passport photo, except that this picture was made of tiny, odd-shaped pieces of colored glass. It was beautiful. The light seemed to dance off the blue and green glass. But he just couldn’t make out Alison’s real face in it. Or behind it, as he said himself."

Jon paused at this passage. He hadn’t thought Alison’s appearance itself mattered very much to the others, but now he wasn't sure. David didn’t seem sufficiently interested, in any case.

“By then, I think,” he had written in another place, “we all cared. It was no longer just a free and liberal meal with good friends and plenty to drink. That was why we tried to say some things about Alison herself, even though we knew we couldn’t really describe her anymore than he could see her face in his wierd dream. It was all very strange. Like the round of drinks someone at the table upstairs bought for us, and saluted us after we raised our glasses to them in thanks. They were total strangers too. But the oddest thing of all was the mixture of our own feelings.

“The more I think of it now, the sadder the old man seems.” Jon didn’t think he cared about that but found himself angry that David hadn’t seemed to think it true before. Of course, it was sad. That was why it was interesting at all. If it weren’t, it would be awful. It would be laughable, in fact.

“But it wasn’t that way last night.” Jon wasn’t skipping now. “At the other end of the table, some of our people were often laughing and joking as they always had in Paris. And it wasn’t at all embarrassing, if you can imagine that. It did have the feeling of a festive outing after all.” Jon didn’t understand anything about that. “Only one of our group did not seem to feel that way. One of Alison’s roommates when she had still been in Paris, named Lucy. But even she stayed with us all the evening long… which was not really like her.”

Now he was off again on something else. Jon admitted that the reactions to the man’s story were strange. But the story itself was more interesting than that. David didn’t manage a conclusion either, leaving it all as quickly as he had begun it. Jon didn’t understand the whole business in the slighest.

Pooh, he thought. It’s no good anyway, no matter how often I look at the letter again. He tossed it aside on his desk and moved across the room to his bed. Maybe David would get back home before he and Paul would leave and they could talk about it all some more. But then again, what did it matter? Especially to him. Maybe he could nap again, until his mother came up to call him to supper.

2

“It was just a day, you know?" Susan had said during that odd dinner with Alison's father. "And just two things that happened quite by accident so close to each other that I remember them as a pair. I’m sorry I don’t tell things better because I may not be able to make it clear how or why I’ve remembered them and why I think they’re important to Alison. I know I won’t be able to explain that. It may even make her look foolish or weak, or even callous. She’s not that way at all, as I’m sure you know by now. She wouldn’t interest all of you so much if she were, you know.

“Anyway.

“Lucy wasn’t in Paris at this time because she was traveling in Germany. Alison had gone with her, in fact, part of the time but had grown homesick for Paris. A good many of us who were at school together saw each other a lot even during vacations, so Alison never had to feel lonely here. On this day I’m thinking of, I hadn’t gone out at all. Reading or just being lazy. Alison went late in the morning to be with some of our friends for lunch at the student restaurant. I didn’t know she had come back, in fact, even pretty late that afternoon when I somehow became aware that she had already been in her room across the hall for a long time. Maybe her door was usually open, but I realized that it had been closed for a while.

“That just wouldn’t be like her, you know, to sit in a closed room alone. It would be so unlike her that I felt vaguely there might be something wrong. Unless she wasn’t there after all.

“She doesn't make noise, you see. And she doesn’t come to you either, or not often. And doesn’t call at least to her girlfriends to come to her. But you always seem to know Alison’s there. She attracts your attention. I think that’s why some of the girls don’t like her. Not because they’re jealous either. They don’t see that she offers that much. Not really.

“There. I’m off the track already.

“So, she was in her room that day. And not sleeping or reading or doing anything as far as you could tell. When I opened the door a little and peeked through, she was sitting very still but not stiff on the edge of the hard chair that went with her desk. But she was facing the center of the room. She hadn’t turned on any of the lamps, and the outside light that reached the tiny window at the opposite end from the door was just strong enough to put the whole scene in twilight. It was even a little chilly. Alison usually was the first to get cold. She liked wearing soft, thick winter clothes or pulling a puffy blanket around her.

“Maybe that’s why I remember all of this. That little picture through the doorway. She didn’t seem frightened, and she didn’t even seem sad. But there was something almost alien there. I have it! She seemed alone. That’s what it was and it’s not like Alison. And, even though her room Lord knows was small enough, that day in that kind of light it seemed to spread out around her like a vast amphitheater or something, she looked so small inside it.

“My thought then was that perhaps I should leave her undisturbed. She seemed quite unapproachable. But it made me too curious, I guess. I called to her from the doorway to see if anything was wrong. She wasn’t startled, but I don’t think she really expected anyone to come be with her that time. She was sad then, as I found out, but I don’t think she was frightened. That was the difference.

“But anyway. She was willing to talk about it after all, and I went in leaving the door open because it wasn’t so cold in the rest of the house. There’s no reason to tell it all here even if I could remember it. It was just a beggar that she had seen in the park. You know, there are a good many of them all over town, and even Alison was repelled by most of them after a time. So it was a little strange that it was only a beggar that had bothered her.

“He hadn’t even approached her, I don’t think. She just saw him by himself a while and then talking to a few others. What made her so sad evidently was that he was quite a young man. She said that several times.

“She tried very hard to convey to me the poignancy of the scene itself. But really it was inside her that the whole scene had happened, and since she was describing only things that she had seen outside herself, it didn’t really come across. He must have done something a little unusual at any rate, or looked like someone, or something else, or she wouldn’t have noticed. But I never knew what it was. I did make sure, though, that he was not hurt or crippled or anything. Not even sick necessarily. That all made it worse for Alison, that he was young and physically sound. That made it all the more sad.

“All right. That’s one thing that happened. And it’s trivial enough by itself. But there was another sad event that same day too. One of the members of our school was called back to the States that day. Nobody knew anything about it even at the school or among the group of us here who always saw so much of each other, until pretty late in the afternoon. Longer after Alison had started back home after lunch and had seen her beggar in the park. So the first thing we heard about it was at the dinner table that night. She and I had got to talking about one thing or another in Alison’s room after I interrupted her that way, trying to cheer her up a little, and so didn’t see any of the other girls until we sat down to eat.

“To an outsider there wouldn’t have been anything that seemed unusual in what happened there. The girl who had to go back was a lot of fun and was even very intelligent and so got along with everyone, male and female, wonderfully well when we were together for meals at the student restaurant or in class. But she lived all the way on the other side of Paris and so far had been more interested in getting to know French people than in pursuing our friendship. So she was not an especially close friend. She had been notified to come back to the U. S. because her father was dying of cancer. Mouth or throat, I think. There had been no warning before the telegram came.

“That’s right, you wince now yourself not even knowing this girl. Sure, it’s that much of a thing that you can’t just not notice. And since we all knew this girl, it was a little more than that. When they told us about it, then, we must have said a few things about it. Must have asked for more details, for example, about when she was leaving and if we could help. Her roommate was going to send most of her things over later, but she herself had probably already gone, seeing no one but the roommate across town since the telegram had come. And so on. Even the French boarders around the dinner table expressed their sympathy, and perhaps someone told of a similar happening to one of their own friends.

“But after a while, naturally, the meal went on pretty much as usual, and we talked about other things. About a play that was supposed to be pretty good, for example, or a party someone had been invited to. Alison hadn’t said anything at all really while we had been talking about the friend who was going to have to go home. Or she might have said that it was too bad she would have to miss the rest of her year in Europe on top of everything else. But she didn’t avoid speaking. She was often quiet like that in larger groups.

"But when the conversation changed, Alison just about took it over. As the meal went on, she became more and more eager to chatter about one thing or another. She’s quite pleasant when she does that, you know, because she certainly never forcibly dominates anyone. It’s just that after a while most of the comments anyone would make seemed to get directed toward her. And she would laugh lightly and reply with something that didn’t matter at all but that was pleasant enough just from the way she said it. The two younger Frencg bachelors at our boarding house always found Alison charming and that night were pleased to talk primarily with her. They would ask her something, and when she answered, they would smile and look around at the rest of us as if they were showing her off.

“Then after a while, before we were served our cheese or fruit for desert, Alison excused herself and went to make a telephone call. Some of us sat around the table after dinner talking, and when I did go back down the hall to my room later to get a coat for a walk some of us were going to take, I saw that Alison had gotten all dressed up and was excited and still ready to chatter gaily about things, as she was going off to the theater with our David here.

“It was only after she had left that it struck me that there was something a little out of shape in that. At first, it was just pleasant for her to be happy. But then she seemed - looking back - a little nervous rather than just content. For a while I thought I must have imagined it. The next morning and from then on, she didn’t say anything at all again about the beggar she had seen or about the girl who was going home. She seemed to have forgotten, and when Lucy got back it was me who told her about our friend’s leaving, even though she was Alison’s roommate at that time, not mine, and she had been back for several days.”

3

When he awoke the next morning, he felt awful. Not only was his head in sad shape and his stomach very queasy, but even before he was fully conscious why he was that way, where he was, and how he’d gotten back to the hotel the night before, he knew also that he was wretchedly embarrassed. He must have been too far gone as they helped him to bed - he did not like to think of that - even to take the pills he usually took to prevent the next-day headache.

He tried to move very slowly and smoothly out from under the sheet, off the bed, and across the room to the bathroom. It is more difficult to do that in an unfamiliar room than at home, but he managed it pretty well. He was trying to concentrate intently and solely on the facts of the present moment. How did his head feel? Could he sleep some more? If he didn’t, if he dressed and tried to read or even eat something with his coffee, would he be sick? He decided by the time he was noticing in the mirror above the sink that, to his surprise, he didn’t look a bit different from the way he looked every morning, though it felt as if his head was larger than normal and that the skin was pulled too tight and too thin around it.

The water didn’t look very inviting even though the warmth of it felt good on his face. His mouth was parched, but he would wait until he could have coffee. (Why had it happened anyway?) So that he left the water running and went across the room, feeling a little steadier in the head at least, to call for some coffee to be brought up. He told them he would be in the shower, and they said there was a note for him.

It was still pretty early, he thought.

But when he first stuck his head under the hot shower faucet, it was as if not only the steamy water was rushing over him and making his eyes looking down feel puffy and full. His consciousness of the night before, and the strength of his humiliation, washed over him too. He had been their host, and they were only kids besides. He was not an emotional man, he thought, and besides he had not been saddened or even excited by what they had told him. Perhaps, he thought, he had simply relaxed himself with them, had become something of a child himself who needed someone else, someone outside, to suggest he should drink less or more slowly. That was his deepest humiliation. He was not like that. All his life had indeed been contrary to that kind of childish weakness.

He found himself staring stupidly at his feet as the hot water flooded over his ears and down his back. He shook himself.

But those kids, friends of his daughter too, would never know that. They had enjoyed themselves certainly, and were sympathetic enough to be grateful for that. But they must have been embarrassed for him too. He did not know why it was important to him for them to care about what he was doing, but - as he dried himself and felt still better - he felt certain now that they wouldn’t, even if they were able to understand what he was doing. He hadn’t quite realized before, that that was why he had looked up all of the ones he could find in London at that time… Not really to learn from them, but to enlist their support. Yes, he had wanted them behind him. No one he knew at home understood at all.

The coffee they had left him helped even more, and he thought he might go downstairs soon for soft-boiled eggs.

And even though everything had gone so well at first he had lost them anyway. What a ridiculous old buffoon he must have seemed! He felt frustrated by it. But there was nothing to be done anymore. That part was over, forfeited. He accepted his humiliation, knowing that he would never have to face any of them again. At least there was that. But he hated it. And most of all, he hated the loss it meant for him from now on.

He went back to the bathroom and felt that even his stomach was beginning to return to normal. If he waited a while to see if it really was all right, he could have lunch downstairs instead. He wanted some lean, rare beef to put himself right again. He sat on the bed. He still felt very tired.

In what seemed only a few seconds, he awoke once more. He felt a little strained lying backwards on the bed with his feet still dangling off toward the floor, but as a whole, he felt better. His stomach was all right now, he thought, only hungry. As he stood up to toss his robe away and dress, he realized that he must have slept for more than it seemed, and crossed the room again to the bathroom.

But they had said, hadn’t they? he remembered there, that someone had left a message for him. From his office, he thought, and that would be all right. He wanted to leave the other thing behind him for a while. That was too bad - he was slipping on some clean shorts and tearing the laundry band off a shirt - too bad that he couldn’t go on and think of it now. Just because he had been so stupid and childish... No. It was unfortunate since they had said a lot about his daughter and some of it might help him to know what to do when he finally saw her for himself. Was that what it was after all? Was that what he was trying to do?

The note was in a hotel envelope and was not sealed. He had thought it might even be a letter. He would have liked that. But it was written on a small piece of lined paper as if from a pocket notebook or an address-book.

“Thank you,” it said in pencil, “for a wonderful evening. All of us appreciated it so much, and we were happy to get to know you too.” It looked very strange somehow, and he found it hard to associate it with the young man who had sat next to him the night before. “All of our plans are different, of course, but Susan and I are off tomorrow morning” (which would mean today, he thought) “to Wales and Ireland. And then all of us will be going home soon. Perhaps some of us might see you again there sometime.” That, he thought reading it, must be a mere convention. He liked it, but didn’t think - even so, even though he might have been wrong before about how they felt - that he’d really want to see them again.

“Again,” the other side of the tiny page went on, “Again, let me thank you for our dinner and conversation. When you see Alison, please” and he had marked out the word give, “please tell her we often think of her. Goodbye now, David and Susan.”

Well, they were polite… But did they care?


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