Haywire

by Brooke Hayward

  Mother, however, had chosen to disregard Bridget’s plea. Against the advice of both Kenneth and me, she had insisted that Bridget return for her senior year. Her reasons were abstruse. Bridget, she claimed, ran the risk of becoming a rootless expatriate. One year had been enough, two extravagant. Since it had been Mother’s wish to send us both in the first place, I found this logic specious, and said so. I also pointed out that she should seize the opportunity to encourage Bridget’s new-found independence. Mother, I think, found that the most subversive argument of all. In any case, she had recalled Bridget. Secretly, I was relieved to be as far away as possible from that homecoming.

  Bridget and Bill were, under protest, both attending summer school at Brunswick. This, in their opinion, was a last-ditch recreation gratuitously contrived by Mother when she couldn’t find something more productive for them to do. Mother did not like idle hands. It was a good opportunity for Bridget to catch up on certain credits, and for Bill to improve his poor grades at Eaglebrook. Mother was furious with him. He had a recent history of lackadaisical study habits. His motivation had been sluggish ever since the time, when he was nine, he had gone briefly to boarding school in England. That was the fall Mother and Kenneth had got married. Mother had felt that Bill would benefit from the same educational experience his four stepbrothers were having. He’d had a marvelous time in England but, after several months of the penetrating winter damp, had come down with severe bronchitis. In addition, Father had returned from London with horror tales about the lack of food and central heating. (Father’s idea of minimum sustenance was a New York steak for lunch every day.) Mother had had visions of another mastoid operation like the one that had almost killed Bill in infancy, and had him sent home at once. After the rigorous curriculum at Sunningdale (algebra and Latin in the fourth grade), Brunswick must have seemed pallid. Bill had loved Sunningdale; now he lost all interest in school, and never regained it.

  Mother wrote Father frostily in the spring of 1955. For her to have written him at all indicated an emergency.

  Dear Leland,

  Here are Bill’s reports from Eaglebrook. He’s also behaving very badly about money. I suggest that you don’t give him, for a while anyway, vast sums. The $20 last time lasted for five minutes.

  I’ve given up policing the homework. He won out—I couldn’t take the unpleasantness each day—and I saw no evidence that he was developing any self-reliance or responsibility. I’m licked.

  Bill’s freshman year at Eaglebrook had followed a familiar pattern: he was off to a good start and then slowly lost ground. The one thing all his masters agreed on was that he was an interesting conversationalist. The reports to which Mother referred were summed up by the headmaster:

  Bill is quiet but genial. His mediocre effort and indifference to achievement, however, detract considerably from his having a full school life. The results of his spring testing program rank him in the upper quarter of the independent school population, and in English, arithmetic, and spelling his work is on the public school eleventh grade level. It is odd that with these very good figures his actual school grades remain low, and in his class ranking he is in the lower quarter of all his classes. However we see that the high quality is there.…

  It was hard for me to ascertain what Bill was up to, since his letters home, though affectionate, were few and spare. He was then fourteen. I thought he was adorable. When we’d seen each other during vacations, we had been mutually protective: I defended him to Mother and he, in a misguided effort to defend my honor, ambushed my beaus. One night he sicced our German shepherd on an admirer I’d spent three years trying to seduce; the poor fellow’s pants were shredded to bits. Just before my graduation, Bill had sent me a note. I kept it in my jewelry box as the single piece of correspondence that I ever received from him:

  I can’t wait to see you!

  Mother and I were having a talk about your car (to be), and Mother says that she isn’t going to pay for gas, etc., because of your smoking. She said she had found butts in your blue jeans, in your desk, and folded into your scarf. Happy Graduation and all that sort of rot. I don’t know what to do for a graduate, but I’ll think of something, just because you’re my long lost sister.

  Lots of love,

  Bill

  One afternoon in August, I was sitting alone at the grand piano in the ballroom at Yester. The ballroom, though long unused for the purpose for which it had been built, was still the most compelling room in the house. It was on the second story with floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out over the estate, the village of Tweeddale, and, finally, the moors. I came there every afternoon to contemplate what it must have been like just before a dance; the now deserted parquet floor waxed and reflecting the room’s lovely proportions in the candlelight that shimmered from wall sconces and the great chandeliers; I could hear the ghostly sound of bagpipes as a breeze ruffled the pages of my sheet music. The only sheet music around was Noel Coward. I had already memorized “Mad Dogs and Englishmen” and “Bittersweet,” which I bellowed into the echoing space while accompanying myself molto espressivo on the piano.

  Kenneth came into the room and sat down beside me on the piano bench.

  “Be quiet for a minute, darling,” he said. He was very agitated. The letter in his hands was as thick as a pad of paper, and at a glance I could tell by the broad-nibbed scrawl that it was from Mother. “Something terrible has happened in Greenwich,” he said. His voice was thick with emotion. “Your brother and sister have broken your mother’s heart.”

  “How?” I asked. What had they done now? Flunked summer school? Set fire to the house? I couldn’t help smiling to myself as I recalled the time Bill had arranged a box of .22-caliber bullets in a circle in the grass, so that when the sun’s rays—

  “They couldn’t have picked a better way,” said Kenneth bitterly. “They have gone to live with your father.”

  I stared at him aghast. He turned the pages of the letter.

  “Shall I read it to you?” he asked. “Your mother—I’m worried about her.”

  I nodded. Bridget and Bill, deserters. Didn’t they realize they’d left me, too? Sitting here innocently on a piano bench in Scotland? Or care? By God, they’d really done it, the selfish little bastards. Couldn’t they have waited two more weeks until I got home to smooth things over? Idiots. Cowards. I despised them. My mouth filled with acrid fluid, my eyes burned. Craven, cruel, dumb. Didn’t they stop long enough to consider the consequences, the destruction to their lives? To Mother’s? Clearly that was intended. To Father’s, then, and Kenneth’s and, most of all, mine?

  The letter had been written in the form of a diary over a week’s time. Mother had added to it every night. Events were recounted in chronological order. Her tone was frank, anguished, but without self-pity. Both sides were represented. It was a bravura piece of reportage. Even in the confusion of my anger, I couldn’t help admiring its style. The cumulative effect of the details was shocking. By the time it ended, I was drenched in perspiration.

  Mother did not blame Bridget and Bill at all. She blamed herself. This, more than anything else, made me want to cry.

  The break, it seemed, had been precipitated by a note left on the hall table. The note was open and conspicuously intended, claimed Mother, to be read by anyone who passed. She did so. Bridget had written it to a school friend but it was clearly meant for Mother. (In Bridget’s later version, this so-called note was, in reality, a locked diary, which Mother had pried open.)

  The note outlined Bridget’s disaffection from Greenwich. She found it provincial after the grandeur of Europe. She disliked the tedium of classes at summer school, but most of all she disliked being alone in the house with Mother. Everyone was on vacation, even Elizabeth. Bill was sweet but no help. The truth was she didn’t love Mother; she hated her. The contrast between Mother and Nan, underlined for her on trips to Sicily and Rome and Paris with Father and Nan at Christmas and Easter, was more dramatically apparent now that she
was actually back in Greenwich. She felt she didn’t belong. She wanted to return to Europe immediately.

  On reading this, Mother was outraged. When she picked Bridget up at Brunswick at lunchtime, she said, “You have made yourself very clear, my darling. I’m not so stupid I could fail to understand. You hate me and want to leave. Perhaps you would be happier living with your father?”

  This was a test I’d encountered many times and ignored. To Mother’s horror, Bridget’s answer was, coldly, “Yes.”

  Then, a few minutes later, Bill came bicycling in from Brunswick. He was informed of this turn of events and asked if he, too, would like to leave.

  “What about Brooke? Is she going?” he inquired cagily, apprehensive at the idea of holding down the fort alone.

  “I assume so; why not?” responded Mother, implying she expected us all to desert her. (I could hear her martyred tone of voice as if I’d been there. Mother tended to cover her injured feelings with a first coat of icy aplomb and then, just to remind us of the courageous struggle that took, a second one that hinted at her unmentionable suffering.)

  Bill and Bridget called Father. He was preparing to make The Spirit of St. Louis. Father was flattered at the notion that the two of them would like to live with him, but this was a bit sudden. Also it couldn’t have come at a worse time. The Spirit of St. Louis was about to start shooting; there were locations all over the world. He would be traveling for the next six months: Boston, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, Ireland, Paris. After that, he would be working on the editing of the film in California for a year. Nan was in Biarritz with Kitty. What was he going to do? Very inconvenient.

  Discussions recommenced between Mother and Father. By now, Mother’s initial fury had abated. She regretted her hasty and ill-considered suggestion. The game had gone far enough. But Bridget and Bill were adamant. No, they couldn’t wait till Kenneth and I got home. The die was cast: they certainly didn’t want to linger in that explosive atmosphere for two weeks while the situation deteriorated day by day. It would be agony.

  There were two disastrous confrontations, one between Mother and Bridget, the other between Mother and Bill. She implored them to change their minds and stay. They refused; it was too late. Whatever accusations were then made on all sides were so vitriolic and damaging that Mother could not bring herself to report them. Suffice it to say that the children made the final preparations for their departure in secrecy. That night, Bill cracked open the safe and stole their passports. The next morning they were on their way to Boston.

  Mother’s letter went on to say that, circumstances being what they were, she expected me to join Bridget and Bill. Maybe it would be for the best, since events had proved her inadequacy as a parent. She hoped, however, that I would still go on to Vassar; she could arrange, if I liked, to send my trunks there. I shook my head; had she learned nothing from all this?

  As Kenneth read me this, my anger did not subside. It grew. By the time he came to the last few words, in which Mother blamed herself for the whole mess, I was angry not only at Bridget and Bill, but at Mother and Father as well. It seemed to me they were all to blame; Mother for not having the sense to overlook Bridget’s sophomoric note, Bridget for not having the generosity to overlook Mother’s behavior, Bill for not having enough gumption to overlook them both, Father for playing devil’s advocate.

  I went to my room and thought. Kenneth had suggested that Mother join us in Scotland. He’d gone off to send her a wire. I felt as if I were at a crossroads in my life. Certainly I realized that the rush of pure joy with which I’d entered that summer was over. Nor did I allow myself to believe it would return in the same measure again. I had to make a choice in which, no matter what, someone was going to be badly hurt. If I chose to cast my lot with Bridget and Bill—and it was tempting—it could be ruinous for Mother. I knew she took being a mother so seriously that if I failed her, she would see it as her failure, and that would be the last straw. Perhaps she would have a nervous breakdown, although I wasn’t too sure what constituted a nervous breakdown. Still, if I caused this, I could never live with myself again. But if I chose to stay with her, something equally terrible might happen to Bridget and Bill. They were young and susceptible, and, whatever they thought, unlikely to snap back as if nothing had happened. For all his money, Father would never be able to lavish on them the time and care that Mother had. And their guilt would only snowball with time. Which of them was most vulnerable? Bridget? Bill? Mother?

  In the end, instinct told me Mother was. Bridget and Bill were younger; they were more resilient. Other children had left home before and survived. Besides, maybe I was overestimating their guilt and underestimating Father’s fatherliness. But Mother: I was afraid something truly calamitous might happen to her. Perhaps I could help stave it off for a while. Perhaps if I were around, her pride would keep her from shattering. She was a fighter, as long as she had someone to fight for.

  I wrote her that I had no intention of leaving home and that I was insulted by her suggestion. Then (trying to sound as adult to her—and for her—as I could) I went on to say:

  Kenneth and I have just been discussing Bridget and Bill. Not being there, I can only surmise that a vast amount of this business was concocted more out of a desire to play with fire than as a result of mature thought. They are both children still—and children can be the cruelest of all. Bridget, apparently, is snarling at life in general; this is not so very abnormal. And Bill is easily influenced; Bridget learned long ago to profit by his weakness. The sad part is that you are the nearest target. The family situation, chiefly the divorce, would create friction in any case. Father’s position makes yours precarious. These conflicts have been encountered before. And surmounted. Other unpleasant factors enter in. Ken says I’m one of them, that Brie feels I’m superior, etc. etc. But I think some of that attitude is affectation on her part. I wish I were there. Somehow I think none of this would have happened. You say it’s been brewing for a long time and had to come to a head. We’ve all been idiots at one time or another, so try to forgive their stupidity. I hope it’s as unintentional as I think it is. And let me begin to atone for mine. I know you must feel alone and low. Don’t suffer at home; we need you. Forget the expense and, for once, I beg you, don’t plan, don’t staple yourself to a thousand petty details; throw some junk in a suitcase and catch the next plane. For God’s sake, don’t think any more, just come along. I love you.…

  But Mother was inconsolable. She thanked me for trying to distract her, but claimed she was in no shape to travel. So Kenneth and I flew home.

  She met us at the airport. I expected the worst, but I wasn’t prepared for how bad the worst would be. Her face was ravaged. Her clothes drooped on her. Her voice shook. As we stood in the warm sunlight outside the parking lot, the air pleasantly whirring with the sounds of planes taking off and landing like giant overhead fans, she held on to us as if she were a child. The look in her eyes was one I had never seen and I thought I’d seen them all. It was a look of defeat. I knew then that the worst was yet to come.

  Jane Fonda:

  “Here were two women, your mother and your sister, who had infinite spirit—a certain kind of brilliance, a crazy brilliance, erratic, difficult, neurotic, but still unique. I don’t think society offers solutions to people like that, especially women. They were never provided with a constructive way of harnessing that kind of energy and brilliance. It turned inward and destroyed them.”

  Bridget:

  “I sometimes think there is only one way for me to resolve my struggle with Mother and that is to go down to Greenwich, push her in the river and then jump in after her to drown”

  I didn’t see Bridget again for another year. She came out to the house about a month later, but I was away that weekend. She stayed for a few hours, long enough to pack all her clothes and, to my fury, some of mine. Mother and Kenneth reported that she was civil but remote. Father’s limousine brought her and waited in the driveway while she collected he
r books and trinkets for shipment to California.

  I saw Bill once. He, too, came to gather his possessions. The fall term at Eaglebrook was about to begin. Apparently, while he was packing, Mother came into his room. Without any warning, she asked him to reconsider his decision to live with Father. She said it was a decision made in haste and anger and that it was all her fault. She had not intended to “drive him out.” She asked him to forgive her. He said he had. She asked him to go away with her somewhere quiet for a week, Cape Cod, just the two of them, to straighten things out. She promised him that she would give in to him on whatever routine points distressed him; he could do this and wouldn’t have to do that—anything if he would stay. Gently, Bill said no. He said he loved her but that for a little while at least he was committed to another kind of life; that for him to come back now would be difficult and strange. Mother began to cry. I had never known her to cry except for the time, before Mother and Father were divorced, when the ambulance had come for Father.

  This time she couldn’t stop. Even from my room the sound was so painful I went into my bathroom and put my hands over my ears. That evening I was supposed to go into New York to the theatre; it had been prearranged that Father’s car would give me a lift in with Bill. Kenneth, white-faced, told Bill and me that we should go right away; he would calm Mother down.