by Mary Astor
Her deepest resentment was fixed on Mitch Cooper. Normally she could have told Charlie that she wouldn’t have him in the house and made it stick. But when Charlie would spread his hands in a gesture of helpless appeal and say, “Haven’t I a right to choose whom I want to be with?” it indicated to her that since she was like a zombie most of the time he could do nothing but choose a discreet person to have around, even though he admitted Mitch was inferior company. And after a while, though she loathed him as she loathed herself, she didn’t mind getting drunk in front of him. He made no “fuss” about it. When prescriptions ran low, he had a “source” where he could obtain sleeping pills; and often, when she woke after fitful, ragged sleep, she would start crying, getting up to sit and stare with streaming eyes at the sleeping city, the panorama of buildings beyond the terrace. Charlie, tousled, heavy with sleep, would ask her, “Shall I call Mitch?” and she would say, “Why not—you don’t want to talk to me . . . have to talk to somebody.” And Mitch would arrive cheerfully, almost eagerly.
With a long glass in his hand he would sit quietly while she exhausted herself with talk. Paying less attention to her words than if a fly were buzzing around his bullethead.
“How’s my dear, dear blackmailing friend tonight?” she would sneer. “What’s the latest from Clarke Falls? Any new suits threatened? Or has the mewling Mavis decided to keep her little trap shut for a while!”
Charlie and Mitch would exchange understanding looks and each would attempt to pacify her, to “quiet her down.”
“Now, honey,” Charlie would say. “Don’t be rough on Mitch—he’s our friend.”
“Why don’t you face it, Zoë? Without me, you and Chas, here, would be dead ducks. You know I’m simply protecting your interests.”
It had been a good investment for Mitch. He was tickled with himself that he had a bump of curiosity. He was a smart guy all right to stay on for a little fishing after Charlie and Mavis had run away. At the time he had just wanted to “see how things worked out.” He was not very surprised to see Mavis one morning, going about her work as usual, with eyes reddened, and Mme. Durand looking as though her face had been hacked from granite. He saw the cheap gold ring on Mavis’ finger. He said nothing.
He kept close track of Charlie. Calling him at the office, just to say “hello.” Occasionally going together to the race track. Having a few beers at a joint on Sixth Avenue. He watched and waited. He never mentioned Mavis, with the tact of the worldly for not bringing up an “episode.” He sensed that Charlie would resent it. He gained ground during the first months of Charlie’s marriage to Zoë; he thought he noticed a certain nervousness in Charlie’s demeanor.
Finally he was able to put his cards on the table. By hinting that he knew much more, Charlie filled in the gaps for him. Mitch would feign boredom, waving away new information. “I know about that—I know you didn’t get a divorce—do you think I’m a dope? But, Charlie, you’re going to need help, you know.”
Over their beers in a booth, they would discuss the matter philosophically.
“The law, Charlie m’ boy—is for the birds. It’s not for smart people. Look, I’ve made a study of the law. I know what’s a felony and what’s a misdemeanor, I know how many days you get for what ‘the law’ says you oughtn’t t’ve done. You’ve got everything, Charlie. Everything. I’m proud to call you my friend. Let’s not let the bastards screw things up.”
Mitch claimed immunity for his “sources” of information. “A little here—a little there—they only give me the pieces—I add ’em up.” There was a supposed trip, a supposed pay-off. And then they had their first disagreement, which Mitch was sure he could handle, and in which he almost made a fatal mistake. But Zoë had saved him—good old Zoë, the lush.
He had to provide for his future of course, and he suggested that Zoë might not approve of their dealings together. To which Charlie laughed, and with an astuteness that shocked Mitch had said, “You’re real corny, Mitch. You are a blackmailer. Some people think that’s a pretty horrible thing to be. I think you’re smart, but not very smart. My wife is a great gal. She knows all about Mavis and doesn’t give a damn—really.”
“You’re bluffing.”
“Try me.”
When he told Zoë about his association with Mitch, he gloated over the fact that Mitch had tried to blackmail him and failed.
“It pays to be honest, my love. The way I’ve been honest with you.”
But Zoë was frantic. She needed several drinks to calm down.
“Get him up here, Charlie. Right now. If you had any sense you’d know he wouldn’t stop with me. What about my father? What about your parents? To say nothing of the firm. Oh, dear God, you are stupid. It’s weird how your thinking comes to a full stop, as soon as it no longer concerns you! Let’s talk to Mr. Mitch Cooper, and be prepared to be bled white!”
Alma Bea’s blonde, wind-blown mop of hair was sun-bleached to the color of flax. She lay with her back against the rocky crust of Berry Pie; her face held the rapt look of the sun-worshiper as, without opening her eyes, she called, “Moth-er, is that you?”
“I brought you a Coke,” Virginia said. “You look baked to a turn; how’s about some more oil?”
“Mmmm . . .” She stretched herself like a cat. “Mother, I wish I never had to go back home. The summers are so short, and so delicious. I think you and Father are just the greatest.”
Virginia wrapped her beach robe more closely around herself, sitting down beside her gangly daughter.
“Now, what brought that up all of a sudden? Usually you think we’re pretty ‘dopey.’ ”
“I don’t either—I think you’re just super: it’s just that I don’t envy those creepy kids and their dumb summer camps. Mother,” she said, “you know what?”
“No, what? Oh, Alma!” Virginia laughed. “I wish you wouldn’t trap me with that conversational gambit all the time—’You know what? No, what?’ . . . Now what were you going to say?”
“I think I’m going to marry Gregg Nicholson—if he’ll wait for me.”
Virginia pursed her lips seriously. “Well, let’s see now; you’re fourteen. Right?”
“Right.”
“I’m not sure, but Gregg must be in his early forties. The poor man would have to wait at least four years. Don’t you think that’s asking a lot?”
Alma’s brown eyes twinkled. “Not if he really loves me!” She clasped her hands over her chest, declaiming dramatically, “He would wait forever and a day.”
“Amen,” said Virginia. “In the meantime, a little devoted attention to your French would make him simply adore you—right this minute—now scat, skadoodle, he’s waiting for you.”
“Oh, Mother-er!”
“And then after lunch, if you’ve finished, we’ll go for a sail.”
“Wow-ee!” She scrambled to her feet, picking up her scattered belongings, and started off on a run.
“And, Alma,” her mother called, “ask your father if he feels up to it. No, wait a minute—Alma——” Poised like a stork on one foot, she paused in flight. “Better not ask him. Just tell him we’ll expect him—and no excuses. He always feels that he slows up our fun, but he does love to go——”
“Sure, Mother, I’ll tell him. About two-thirty, huh?”
Gregg called himself a “hanger on,” but actually his status had only increased with the years. Walter, especially, needed him, needed his quiet reassurance when Charlie’s erratic fame as a philanthropist and Wall Street tycoon and his notoriety as a man about town aggravated him. Unaccountably, he blamed himself and he depended more than he realized on Gregg’s objective viewpoint. Gregg had come back from the war broke and jobless. Walter insisted that he come to Nelson and live with them, take it easy until he felt like getting back into some teaching work, which was the only thing he felt he was capable and trained to do. It was a soft life, and Gregg reproached himself as the weeks drifted by. More to still his conscience than anything else, he wrote
a few penetrating articles on the European political conditions, and struck gold. Happily, he became a “paying guest” and would have it no other way. He realized that one of his responsibilities was to keep Walter and Beatrice informed as to the activities of their children. With Virginia and Elsie, there had always been a mild conspiracy of “Don’t tell the family——” cushioning the seriousness of their troubles. When Elsie’s twins were born, she had some complications that had brought a few new white hairs around Herb’s temples, but their telegram read, “Everything fine. . . .” Walter and Beatrice had been proud at the news of Charlie’s handsome donation to Dr. Payne’s clinic, but when the sports page carried the news that he had also bought a string of race horses, Walter had growled, “Don’t tell Bea, Gregg; it would seem frivolous to her—as it does to me. Oh, I don’t say that breeding horses isn’t a fine business, but such a thing as an investment is absurd. Money like that could be put to better uses. He always seems to cancel out a commendable action by a foolish one.”
Gregg said, “Well, maybe the papers exaggerated, or were in error. Next time I go to New York, I’ll find out for you.”
On his trips to see his publishers, Gregg would gather an abundant harvest of news from which he would cull the choicest, sweetest fruits. It was more satisfying than letters for them, of which there were never enough. And, lately, they had rarely been together for Christmas. The war, then Herb’s work and increased responsibilities, the distance, had made it hard for the Jenners. Zoë and Charlie were too restless for the slow pace of home-town holidays and made excuses. Virginia and Jeff and Alma had been regular visitors, except for the two years when Jeff could not travel. For them, of course, were also the elder Shelleys, but it was simpler for them to stay at Virginia’s home because a stair elevator had been installed for Beatrice and it simplified Jeff’s ambulation.
From the beach, Virginia could see that visitors had arrived. She straightened up, shading her eyes. Mum and Dad never had people over for luncheon any more; and no one ever “dropped in.” It was a pity, she had often thought, but Mum was chronically ailing, and Dad was not very outgoing to say the least. He preferred quiet games of chess in the evening with Gregg, to someone’s “damn chatter”; but now there was some excitement going on on the veranda. It couldn’t be! It was—Alma was waving madly to her, and the man’s tall figure suddenly became familiar—it was Charlie and Zoë. She worried that Zoë would be drinking, and while Mum and Dad were aware that Zoë had a “weakness” along those lines, nevertheless they had never seen her drunk, and probably, in their minds, only had “too much sometimes.” She felt resentful that the lovely quiet of their vacation should be disturbed and found herself hoping that Charlie and Zoë would be too bored to stay more than just over the weekend. Jogging up the beach, she chided herself for her selfishness—it would mean so much to Mum to see Charlie, her darling Charlie.
Luncheon was harmonious on the surface but it had overtones of tension. It was too full of talk, too much laughter, too many compliments on the food. Every sentence seemed to carry an exclamation point at the end.
There were bright spots on Beatrice’s cheeks as she listened to Charlie’s anecdotes. Zoë had a look about her of chronic anxiety. She listened eagerly, turning her head quickly like a bird toward each person who spoke, laughing a little too much, a little too appreciatively. Alma Bea caught fire from what seemed to her just a “party spirit” and had to be cautioned quietly from Jeff about her twentieth “Golly!”
New York was very hot, it seemed. The cooling system in their apartment had broken down, Zoë said, and nothing in the world sounded so attractive as “this heavenly place, right on the sea.” The truth of the matter was that Zoë was making a desperate try to overcome her drinking. Her most recent scare had been the experience of mild hallucinating. She had gone to a now familiar private hospital for a “rest cure” and during the ten-day withdrawal time had seen some unusually large, non-existent spiders spinning an enormous glistening non-existent web from the foot of the bed to the ceiling. The doctor who attended her had had a very serious talk with her; he said that she would have to quit drinking completely, that her tolerance for alcohol had become non-existent. Zoë had said that she needed no advice, she knew that she would have to be extremely careful. She had decided that she and Charlie should change their habits—skip the trip to Nassau this year—be around people who didn’t drink so casually. Avoid the temptation. However, so that she wouldn’t be “conspicuous,” Zoë reasoned with the time-honored rationalization of the alcoholic; she had “just sherry”—or a “little wine with meals.” It had been her idea to come to Nelson to be around a wholesome family atmosphere.
There were deeper needs for Zoë, that had made her urge the trip to Nelson over Charlie’s objection that they would be bored to tears. And then it had taken an argument to keep Charlie from asking Mitch to go along with them.
“Take Mitch!” she had almost screamed when he suggested it. “Take Mitch! Are you out of your mind! What would your dad think? Do you want them to know about our life and times with a blackmailer?”
“Zoë, be reasonable,” Charlie had pleaded. “I like the guy. He amuses me. You really make too much of things; you know, darling, your thinking is none too stable these days!” It had taken a tremendous effort not to prove there and then that he was right—the first desperate reaction was the straight shot of whisky that would relieve the unbearable pressure of exasperation. But she had fought it down.
“Charlie—the man is a goon. He ‘amuses’ you because he’s an oily opportunist; it’s to his advantage to listen to you about the cut of an evening jacket or the pitch of his voice. He gets into ‘fancy’ places that way.”
“Why are you so bitter, Zoë—what are you raving about? If the guy wants to improve himself, why shouldn’t I help him?”
“Have you forgotten that you yourself named him by his right name? A blackmailer?”
“Oh, that’s a long time ago, darling. I was angry at the time, I’ll admit. He wouldn’t do anything now, I know—he’s too fond of us both.”
“Just try stopping his checks. You’d see how ‘fond’ he is of us.”
Charlie flared. “All right, Zoë—now stop your damned nagging. There’s a lot that you just don’t know about this thing. He’s got a lot of deals up his sleeve—things that he is sure will pay off someday. He is always saying how he hates to take money from me, that one day he’ll get off my back and pay me every cent that I ever loaned him.”
“Loaned! Do you honestly think you’ll ever see the color of the money you have ‘loaned’ him?”
“You seem to forget, Zoë—he’s kept us out of a very embarrassing situation. You seem to forget that it’s those clods in Clarke Falls that are the blackmailers; if it hadn’t been for Mitch they would have been down our throats——”
“So says Mitch Cooper. Did you ever check up?”
“Why should I? He’s a friend—a man of his word. . . .”
“Oh, dear God!” Zoë massaged her throbbing head with stiffened fingers.
“Really, Zoë, you’re very snobbish, you know. Just because poor Mitch is a diamond in the rough; that he hasn’t a cultured background is no reason for you to be so hard on him.”
“Charlie.” Zoë’s voice was quiet, devoid of emotion, although her eyes glittered a little. “Tell me—why do you kid yourself so elaborately?”
Charlie looked at her—a smile of great sweetness on his face, a childlike smile, candid, ingenious. “It’s easier,” he said.
Mitch did not accompany them. Charlie told Zoë a day or so later, “You really put me in kind of a spot, darling. He was nice enough about it, said he understood; he didn’t want to interfere. He’s really very fond of you, you know. He said, ‘I know Zoë’s really off the sauce—she’s a sensible woman.’ He was afraid you might get drunk, and, well, you know how you do, darling—you might get to talking too much about Mavis, and he wanted to be along to help out. To help m
e out, if the truth were known.” Charlie turned his back on her, his shoulders drooped like one who endures deep suffering. “I’m just not capable of handling you, Zoë, my sweet, when you get a few drinks in you.”
“Handle me!” Zoë scoffed. “Did he also let you in on his secret, ‘just in case’?”
Charlie turned quickly, wide-eyed, innocent. “What are you talking about?”
“The little bottle of knockout drops. The little ‘remedy’ he pours into my drink when your back is turned and he thinks I’m too drunk to notice?”
“Oh, you’re crazy,” Charlie laughed. “You imagine things, honey—honestly, sometimes you get to sounding like a soap opera. ‘Knockout drops,’ for Pete’s sake!”
The effect of relief that Zoë got from liquor, she realized, was a delusion; temporary, self-deceptive—and painful. It became urgent for her to talk to someone. Virginia was the only logical person; she had thought of her own father, but it was not possible; he was aging, rigid in his thinking, and would be without compassion for Charlie. Virginia had understood Charlie always. Zoë wished now she had swallowed her silly pride and gone to her with the whole business immediately; and now that she had made up her mind, she could hardly contain herself.
The luncheon seemed interminable to her. She had had a brief word with Virginia just before they were called into the dining room. “It just can’t wait any longer, Virginia—can we lock ourselves up in your room after lunch and let me talk? I’m about to burst!”
Virginia frowned for a moment. “I promised Alma I’d take her and Jeff for a sail—don’t worry, though, I’ll beg off——”
“Wouldn’t it be a good idea if Charlie took them—then we’d know he wouldn’t come barging in——”