The Young Lions

Michael felt the wetness in his own eyes and fought it savagely. Sentimental, he thought, cheap, easy and sentimental. I was never there. It's just another city.

"Michael…" It was Laura's voice. "Michael!" Her voice was insistent and irritating. "Michael!"

Michael finished his drink. He looked at Tony, nearly said something to him, then thought better of it, and left him sitting there. Michael walked slowly out into the garden. Johnson and Moran and Moran's girl and Miss Freemantle were sitting around stiffly, and you could tell the conversation was all uphill. Michael wished they would go home.

"Michael, darling," Laura came over to him and held his arms lightly, "are we going to play badminton this summer or wait till 1950?" Then, under her breath, privately and harshly for him, "Come on. Act civilized. You have guests. Don't leave the whole thing up to me."

Before Michael could say anything she had turned and was smiling at Johnson.

Michael walked slowly over to the second pole that was lying on the ground. "I don't know if any of you are interested," he said, "but Paris has fallen."

"No!" Moran said. "Incredible!"

Miss Freemantle didn't say anything. Michael saw her clasp her hands and look down on them.

"Inevitable," Johnson said gravely. "Anybody could see it coming."

Michael picked up the second pole and started pushing the sharp end into the ground.

"You're putting it in the wrong place!" Laura's voice was high and irritated. "How many times must I tell you it won't do any good there?" She rushed over to where Michael was standing with the pole and grabbed it from his hands. She had a racket in her hand and it slapped sharply against his arm. He looked at her stupidly, his hands still out, curved as they were when he was holding the pole. She's crying, he thought, surprised; what the hell is she crying about?

"Here! It belongs here!" She was shouting now, and banging the sharp end of the pole hysterically into the ground.

Michael strode over to where she was standing and grabbed the pole. He didn't know why he was doing it. He just knew he couldn't bear the sight of his wife crazily yelling and slamming the pole into the grass.

"I'm doing this," he said idiotically. "You keep quiet!"

Laura looked at him, her pretty, soft face churned with hatred. She drew back her arm and threw the badminton racket at Michael's head. Michael stared heavily at it as it sailed through the air at him. It seemed to take a long time, arching and flashing against the background of trees and hedge at the end of the garden. He heard a dull, whipping crack, and he saw it drop to his feet before he realized it had hit him over his right eye. The eye began to ache and he could feel blood coming out on his forehead, sticking in his eyebrows. After a moment, some of it dripped down over the eye, warm and opaque. Laura was still standing in the same place, weeping, staring at him, her face still violent and full of hate.

Michael carefully laid the pole down on the grass and turned and walked away. Tony passed him, coming out of the house, but they didn't say anything to each other.

Michael walked into the living-room. The radio was still sending forth the doughy music of the organ. Michael stood against the mantelpiece, staring at his face in the little convex mirror in a gold, heavily worked frame. It distorted his face, making his nose look very long and his forehead and chin receding and pointed. The red splash over his eye seemed small and far away in the mirror. He heard the door open and Laura's footsteps behind him as she came into the room. She went over to the radio and turned it off.

"You know I can't stand organ music!" she said. Her voice was trembling and bitter.

He turned to face her. She stood there in her gay cotton print, pale orange and white, with her midriff showing brown and smooth in the space between the skirt and the halter. She looked very pretty, slender and soft in her fashionable summer dress, like an advertisement for misses' frocks in Vogue magazine. The bitter, hard-set face, streaked with tears, was incongruous and shocking.

"That's all," Michael said. "We're finished. You know that."

"Good. Delightful! I couldn't be more pleased."

"While we're at it," Michael said, "let me tell you that I'm pretty sure about you and Moran, too. I was watching you."

"Good," said Laura. "I'm glad you know. Let me put your mind at rest. You're absolutely right. Anything else?"

"No," said Michael. "I'll get the five o'clock train."

"And don't be so goddamn holy!" Laura said. "I know a couple of things about you, too! All those letters telling me how lonely you were in New York without me! You weren't so damned lonely. I was getting pretty tired of coming back and having all those women look at me, pityingly. And when did you arrange to meet Miss Freemantle? Lunch Tuesday? Shall I go out and tell her your plans are changed? You can meet her tomorrow…" Her voice was sharp and rushed and the thin childish face was contorted with misery and anger.

"That's enough," Michael said, feeling guilty and hopeless.

"I don't want to hear any more."

"Any more questions?" Laura shouted. "No other men you want to ask me about? No other suspects? Shall I write out a list for you?"

Suddenly she broke. She fell on the couch. A little too gracefully, Michael noted coldly, like an ingenue. She dug her head into the pillow and wept. She looked spent and racked, sobbing on the couch, with her pretty hair spread in a soft fan around her head, like a frail child in a party dress. Michael had a powerful impulse to go over and take her in his arms and say, "Baby, Baby," softly, and comfort her.

He turned and went into the garden. The guests had moved discreetly to the other end of the garden, away from the house. They were standing in a stiff, uncomfortable group, their bright clothes shining against the deep green background. Michael walked over to them, brushing the back of his hand against the cut over his eye.

"No badminton today," he said. "I think you'd better leave. The garden party has not been the success of the Pe

"We were just going," Johnson said, stiffly.

Michael didn't shake hands with any of them. He stood there, staring past the blurred succession of heads. Miss Freemantle looked at him once, then kept her eyes on the ground as she went past. Michael did not say anything to her. He heard the gate close behind them.

He stood there, on the fresh grass, feeling the sun make the cut over his eye sticky. Overhead the crows were making a metallic racket in the branches. He hated the crows. He walked over to the wall, bent down and carefully selected some smooth, heavy stones. Then he stood up and squinted at the tree, spotting the crows among the foliage. He drew back and threw a stone at three of the birds sitting in a black, loud row. His arm felt limber and powerful, and the stone sang through the branches. He threw another stone, and another, hard and swift, and the birds scrambled off the branches and flapped away, cawing in alarm. Michael threw a stone in a savage arc at the flying birds. They disappeared into the woods. For a while there was silence in the garden, drowsy and su