The Lonely (17 page)

For you were a man only when you could be the things you were and face up to the truth without flinching or denying it. And the truth was that in life on earth there was no such thing as happiness without pain, victory without defeat. There were joy and enchantment and beauty to be garnered on the path, but at all times, too, there were burdens to be borne.

As to his own burdens, they were clear. They lay ahead of him. He would never wholly escape from them, never in the deepest sense be quite free of the guilt that would he upon him from having brought hurt and pain to people who were dear to him.

But he had come to know the deepest implications of his relationship with Patches and what was meant by them. It was that, without her, life for him would be something but half lived, that to give her up would destroy not one, but two humans who together had found beauties and satisfactions of physical and spiritual relationship not dreamed of by most, and that to do so, to bring about that destruction, would be something evil and a sin.

And yet to take her, to yield to this need and love they had for each other, was no victory either, no certainty of happiness; and that, he knew also in this moment, was a part of being a man, that you could face up to your defeats and losses and reckon the price not too high to be borne for the sake of love.

Ahead of him yet lay the breaking of a human heart, with its inescapable burden of guilt and all of the distress he would bring to his family.

For when Patches had asked him the question about Catharine, Jerry had known that but for his knowledge that he loved Patches beyond all else, nothing had altered or come closer to solution. Everything was as it had been before when he had driven down to Prestwick, and must still be faced, but with one difference. He was a man and now had the strength to face it. He knew not only his mind, but his heart.

He could look ahead and see the trials and difficulties to come when he transplanted Patches from her background to his, the burdens that would be placed upon her, and the need there would be for love, understanding, and the insight and courage on his part to help her; he could catch glimpses of the obstacles that would be put in their way, and the scents of dangers and boredoms that would try them both when the adventure was over and romance turned into everyday living. She would always be an alien in an alien land with no one to turn to but him.

Nor could she help him with the guilt burden of the jilting of the girl to whom he had promised himself and whose life might be irretrievably wrecked by his decision. And this, too, Jerry was able to face as a man, for the war had taught him that life is pitiless and that there is forgiveness for many things, but not for weakness.

He had thought of his father and mother, of the kind of people they were, and it seemed as though for the first time he saw them clearly or understood them. For all of their years, they had never grown up as he had in a single night. Their life together—the life they had planned so carefully and lovingly for him—was adolescent and immature; and these things that had happened would wreck their plans; things over which they had no control would pain and confuse them immeasurably, particularly since it was he who had taken the ordering of his life out of their hands and into his.

But he knew too that they must bear this pain, even as he must be prepared to face what hurt or disappointment might lie before him because of what he was about to do, and he felt that in the end they would come to accept and even adjust themselves to it though things would never again be the same between them.

All in that final, infinitesimal splinter of time Jerry had felt upon his shoulders the weight of the burdens he would carry and the full extent of the price that would be exacted, and against the dear, fulfilling presence of this woman who had grown to be his, he knew that it was not too heavy for any man to bear.

“. . . there’s no one but you, Patches. There never will be . . .”

His answer, the touch of his fingers on her face, holding it up to his, the deep tenderness of his kiss, satisfied Patches, reawakened her heart, dispelling all clouds and hurts and fears, almost. She belonged to Jerry now, forever, and the singing within her was so loud and joyous that it all but quelled the little unease that was left.

They went away from the sheltered archway where they had been standing, hand in hand, holding hard to each other, not knowing quite where they were going, not caring. Another line was queueing up for another bus. And as they entered the little yellow circle of light from the blackout lamp above, the rays this time fell upon Jerry’s face, and Patches, looking up as they passed, saw him for the first time.

And there was now no unease of any kind left within her, for it was another Jerry who walked beside her. Somewhere, somehow, he had left his boyhood behind him and had grown into a man. In his expression there were still the youth and gaiety and gentleness she loved, but behind it lay a strength and understanding that had not been there before. And seeing it, she knew that now, and for all time too, he belonged to her.

P
AUL
G
ALLICO
, a New Yorker born (1897) and bred (P. S. 6, DeWitt Clinton High School. Columbia University), has made a career out of having successful careers.

He captained the varsity crew during the senior year of a university career that was interrupted for a hitch in the Navy during World War I, during which he served as gunner’s mate and learned deep-sea diving. Out of college, he joined the staff of the
Daily News
(New York), becoming its sports editor two years later. He organized such amateur sports extravaganzas as the Golden Gloves. Water Circus, and Roller Derby. For two years he was assistant managing editor of the News.

In 1956 Gallico wrote
Farewell to Sport
, and meant it. He bought a beamed house on England’s Devon coast and turned to fiction. His stories began to appear in such magazines as the
Saturday Evening Post, Cosmopolitan, Esquire,
and
Vogue
. In 1944 he went to France as a war correspondent and European editor of
Cosmopolitan
.

In 1947 Gallico suspended his output of short stories and returned to writing a satirical, humorous column. But two years sufficed to exhaust for him the appeal in the life of a general newspaper columnist. In the spring of 1949 Gallico dropped another career and returned to Devon and to new fields in fiction.