Hugh Garner's Best Stories by Hugh Garner

Author:Hugh Garner
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of Ottawa Press

SOME ARE SO LUCKY (1949)

I met Ethel Walton last week. It was strange, because it happened as I had always pictured it would. I left the office rather late, and was standing on the curb waiting to flag a taxi when my eyes strayed across the busy street. There she was, coming out of the doorway of a department store. I hurried through the rain to intercept her.

“Hello, Ethel,” I said, when I caught up.

“Why—hello,” she answered, searching my face for a clue to my identity.

“You don’t remember me, do you?”

“Your face looks familiar—” she began.

“Rod. Rod Murphy.”

“Oh, of course,” she answered, smiling. She brushed some raindrops from the collar of her coat. It was apparent that she was waiting for me to speak; she was not quite sure who Rod Murphy was.

“Fifteen years is a long time between meetings,” I said. “It’s strange that two people can live in the same city that length of time and never meet.”

She smiled an uncertain smile. Her looks hadn’t changed a bit; except for a few small lines at the corners of her eyes she was still the same. A little thinner, maybe, but her beauty was preserved, as it so often is in some slim dark women.

“Do you remember the night I took you to see Cab Calloway?78”

Her face lighted up with recognition. “Of course,” she answered, her voice animated now that she recognized me. “Sure! Rod Murphy!” She took a step back and looked me over. “You’ve certainly changed,” she said. “Why, when I knew you, you were—well, you seemed like a little kid. You’ve grown a lot heavier since then.”

Laughing, I said, “Some of us do.”

“What are you doing these days?” she asked, pulling me by the sleeve until we stood in the shelter of a doorway.

“Oh, nothing much. I’ve been in the insurance business for years.”

“Married?”

“I’m too old to get married,” I said. Suddenly I wanted to tell her that marriage had never occurred to me since the last time we had seen each other. I wanted her to know what she had meant to me in those days. And behind my confession I wanted her to see that some of the things planned for myself—for us—had come true….

“Here comes my car,” she said, holding her hat as she leaned out from the doorway to peer down the street.

“Let me take you somewhere for a drink.”

She set her face into a thoughtful expression, pursing her lips like a Frenchwoman does. “Not tonight, Mr. Murphy,” she answered. “I’ve got to get home.”

“How about another night then?” I asked, hating myself for insisting, but unwilling to let her disappear again.

“All right,” she answered, overcoming her reluctance. “Tomorrow night… same time. Right here.” She began running towards the car stop.

“Here?” I shouted.

She turned her head slightly and nodded. The street car drew to a halt at the corner.

It was during the winter of 1934 that I first met Ethel Walton. There was a dance at the Odd Fellows’ Hall79; one of those twenty-five cent affairs run by an out-of-work impressario.

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