nostalgia, but last night I was too tired. Nora’s little bed, by the way, is a novelty. It’s called a Murphy bed and folds up into the wall of a closet. It is quite the contraption. At breakfast Nora told me that we are going to Evelyn Dowling’s for dinner tonight. Apparently we will then learn what arrangements have
been made by her friend.
Monday, July 22 (1:30 p.m.)
Nora left for the studio around ten, and I again have the apartment to myself. I have been feeling a little off in the mornings, and so I enjoy sitting by the window and watching the people pass on the street below. So many different lives with all their attendant joys and woes! Nora’s street is mostly small apartment houses (brownstones, she calls them) with cement steps leading up the front doors. They are only three stories high. Her street is busy enough but much quieter than the next one (Thirty-fourth Street) which is a shopping area.
Last evening we went to Evelyn Dowling’s for dinner. She lives in what Nora would call “a swanky part of town.” Her place overlooksthe big park in the centre of the city. It’s a spacious apartment with paintings on the walls and hundreds of books. Physically Evelyn is oddly put together: she is short and heavy-set but not fat. She looks solid enough to batter down a door. She has a large handsome head and intelligent lively dark eyes. Her hair is short as a man’s and she appraises you instantly with a shrewd look. She was wearing an expensive-looking linen suit.
“So you are the sister I’ve heard so much about! You’re taller than I imagined and dark-haired. Not at all like our little blonde friend here. Nora tells me you write poetry and you like to read. What are you reading these days?”
I told her that on the train I was reading a story by Chekhov, but also Startling Detective . Nora looked askance, but Evelyn Dowling just laughed.
“ Startling Detective! Good for you. Something sordid once in a while can be bracing. I can’t get your sister to read anything but Photoplay magazine. But a rattling good account of a farmhouse murder in Kansas is better for you than some syrup about how Myrna Loy can’t get through a day without her little dogs.”
So direct and unbuttoned. Of course, she had been drinking cocktails before we arrived and I wondered if this aggressive familiarity was really her or just the drink. Nora looked nervous at first. Perhaps she was afraid that Evelyn Dowling and I would not get along; in fact, I found myself liking her very much. She drinks cocktails like water and is always smoking her Camel cigarettes. What a name for a cigarette, I thought as I examined the package! Why Camels? Why not Elephants or Buffalo?
Evelyn has a maid, but she was given the night off because, as Evelyn said later, “One has to be careful about who hears what when one is talking about these arrangements.” Nora also enjoys a drink now and so the two of them swigged their gin while they talked about the radio show. In another few weeks Effie is going to be accused of passing a bad cheque. It will all be a misunderstanding, but the policewill become involved and Uncle Jim will suffer a heart attack from all the worry and confusion. Overhearing all this, a stranger might have supposed that they were talking about real people.
During dinner (cold cuts prepared beforehand by the maid) the conversation came around finally to what is in store for me next week.
“You will be in good hands,” said Evelyn. “From what I hear, he is one of the best in New York.”
He, it turns out, is a doctor, or was. He lost his licence because of an addiction to a drug called cocaine. I had never heard of it. “What does such a drug do?” I asked. I had a picture in my mind of an old man smoking opium in a long pipe. I have no idea where such an image came from. Evelyn’s reply to my question: “It makes you happier than you have any right to be on this earth.”
Sitting there last night in Evelyn
been made by her friend.
Monday, July 22 (1:30 p.m.)
Nora left for the studio around ten, and I again have the apartment to myself. I have been feeling a little off in the mornings, and so I enjoy sitting by the window and watching the people pass on the street below. So many different lives with all their attendant joys and woes! Nora’s street is mostly small apartment houses (brownstones, she calls them) with cement steps leading up the front doors. They are only three stories high. Her street is busy enough but much quieter than the next one (Thirty-fourth Street) which is a shopping area.
Last evening we went to Evelyn Dowling’s for dinner. She lives in what Nora would call “a swanky part of town.” Her place overlooksthe big park in the centre of the city. It’s a spacious apartment with paintings on the walls and hundreds of books. Physically Evelyn is oddly put together: she is short and heavy-set but not fat. She looks solid enough to batter down a door. She has a large handsome head and intelligent lively dark eyes. Her hair is short as a man’s and she appraises you instantly with a shrewd look. She was wearing an expensive-looking linen suit.
“So you are the sister I’ve heard so much about! You’re taller than I imagined and dark-haired. Not at all like our little blonde friend here. Nora tells me you write poetry and you like to read. What are you reading these days?”
I told her that on the train I was reading a story by Chekhov, but also Startling Detective . Nora looked askance, but Evelyn Dowling just laughed.
“ Startling Detective! Good for you. Something sordid once in a while can be bracing. I can’t get your sister to read anything but Photoplay magazine. But a rattling good account of a farmhouse murder in Kansas is better for you than some syrup about how Myrna Loy can’t get through a day without her little dogs.”
So direct and unbuttoned. Of course, she had been drinking cocktails before we arrived and I wondered if this aggressive familiarity was really her or just the drink. Nora looked nervous at first. Perhaps she was afraid that Evelyn Dowling and I would not get along; in fact, I found myself liking her very much. She drinks cocktails like water and is always smoking her Camel cigarettes. What a name for a cigarette, I thought as I examined the package! Why Camels? Why not Elephants or Buffalo?
Evelyn has a maid, but she was given the night off because, as Evelyn said later, “One has to be careful about who hears what when one is talking about these arrangements.” Nora also enjoys a drink now and so the two of them swigged their gin while they talked about the radio show. In another few weeks Effie is going to be accused of passing a bad cheque. It will all be a misunderstanding, but the policewill become involved and Uncle Jim will suffer a heart attack from all the worry and confusion. Overhearing all this, a stranger might have supposed that they were talking about real people.
During dinner (cold cuts prepared beforehand by the maid) the conversation came around finally to what is in store for me next week.
“You will be in good hands,” said Evelyn. “From what I hear, he is one of the best in New York.”
He, it turns out, is a doctor, or was. He lost his licence because of an addiction to a drug called cocaine. I had never heard of it. “What does such a drug do?” I asked. I had a picture in my mind of an old man smoking opium in a long pipe. I have no idea where such an image came from. Evelyn’s reply to my question: “It makes you happier than you have any right to be on this earth.”
Sitting there last night in Evelyn
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