So Little Time (1943) by John P. Marquand

Author:John P. Marquand [Marquand, John P.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Literary, Family Life, General, Historical
ISBN: 9781504015714
Google: IXqrCQAAQBAJ
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 2015-01-01T22:00:00+00:00

26

We Were Young Ourselves Once

It was seven o’clock in the morning—the most uncomfortable hour of the day to Jeffrey—when he walked up the ramp from the somnolent row of Pullmans into the lights of the Grand Central Station. The station seemed to be rising out of a sullen sort of slumber. New York was always closer to being asleep at seven in the morning than at any other time. The faces of the Pullman porters and of the gate guards and of the few travelers crossing the deserted expanse by the information booth all bore a look of resentment. They all seemed to be saying that it was too early for them or for anyone else to be up. It was too early for the clothing shops and the bookstores and for most of the magazine and paper booths to be open. Nearly all the ticket windows were closed and so was the newsreel theater and so was the refreshment stand near the entrance to the subway. Outside the station on Lexington Avenue the sun was out, but the street looked bleak because it was too early. The taxicabs had a living, drooping air of cab horses standing in a rank.

Jeffrey knew that he would have felt better if he had stopped for a cup of coffee, but he wanted to get back to familiar surroundings. He was tired after a number of nights in a hotel and he wanted to get home. The taxi traveled quickly across town along the nearly empty streets. He smoothed the newspaper he had purchased across his knee. In Greece the Italians had reached the Kalamis River, wherever that might be. It was announced that German planes during the blitz had damaged, among other buildings, the Bank of England, the Tate Gallery, and Westminster Abbey. Election Day was just around the corner, and the Democrats were saying that the Republicans had nothing to offer, that Willkie agreed with the Roosevelt foreign policy and with the New Deal’s social gains, but was there any reason that he could do it better? All the front page of the paper confirmed the frustration which always surrounded Jeffrey at seven o’clock in the morning. At his apartment house the elevator boys and the doorman were not on duty. The rugs had been rolled up from the floor of the entrance hall, and competent, muscular men in overalls who did not fit with the chandeliers and mirrors were working sullenly with mops.

The air in the living room was heavy; he put down his bag carefully and took off his coat and listened to the ticking of the clock. The place was still asleep, as it had been hundreds of times before when he arrived in New York from a night train. Effie and Albert would be down soon, and so he sat down on the living room sofa and lighted a cigarette. He had never liked that living room or any of that apartment. It was too bare and too pretentious, and their furniture had never fitted in it properly.

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