by Susan Isaacs
Nicholas extended his hand. “I wish I could think of something original to say. Thank you.”
“That’s good enough. Oh, listen, Nicky, wear a hat or something up to Westchester. They don’t have to see that hair cut first thing. And give Toni your phone number and your address. I’ll be in touch. You want to call me, call me.”
“Thank you.”
“Thank you. Listen, I hope you make both of us very rich.”
16
…although the actor’s sister Olivia Cobleigh-Gold, of Chevy Chase, said she had spoken long-distance with her brother and “he assured me the doctors had in no way given up hope.” Ms. Cobleigh-Gold, a weaver, is the wife of Mitchell Gold, Assistant Secretary of State for Latin America…
—Washington Post
Whenever she came to visit, and she came at least once a week, Winifred Cobleigh wore a different suit. This time it was camel with chocolate-brown braided trim and small gold chains looping between the double buttons of the jacket. The wool was thick and richly nubby, as if it had been lifted directly from a flawless, camel-colored sheep. She always wore the same shoes—alligator pumps in fall and winter, spectators in spring and summer—although Jane suspected she had as many pairs of them as she had suits, since the shoes always looked too pristine to have had any significant contact with Manhattan pavement.
“I don’t dare move,” Winifred whispered. Her granddaughter had spent a frantic half hour racing around the living room pulling a squawking wooden duck until, lured into Winifred’s lap for a minute, she had promptly fallen asleep. Breathing through a badly stuffed nose, Victoria made nearly as much noise as the duck. “Could you get my handbag, Jane? Thanks. Just rifle through it. I made a list on either blue or lilac paper. That’s it. Oh, pink. I can’t seem to remember a thing. They may have to lock me up again. Throw away the key this time.”
“I don’t think so, Winifred.”
“The last time I was there I told someone in the dayroom I was scheduled for shock treatments and she said, ‘My, my, that should curl your hair.’ And then of course she looked at my hair and started crying. Not that my hair was quite that dreadful. Everything made her cry, poor thing.”
“You’re fine, Winifred.”
“Do I seem fine to you? Really?”
“Yes, and you look wonderful.” Of course, wonderful was a relative word. From photographs, Jane knew Winifred had always been poised on the brink of homeliness. Her wedding picture was sad: a skinny, buck-toothed girl whose neck bones gawked out from the exquisite lace bodice of her gown. Jane marveled that with all the money the Tuttles spent on clothes and jewelry, travel, houses—even on dogs and horses—no one had thought to get braces for Winifred’s teeth. Still, she was in much better shape than when Jane had first seen her. Finally she seemed able to smile and mean it. And for a woman who had depended on other women to raise her six children, Winifred was uncommonly patient and affectionate with her grandchild. Victoria, curled in her lap, was breathing mucus bubbles onto the sleeve of her expensive suit, and Winifred was peering down at the child as if she were depositing emeralds.
In the two years since she’d been separated from James, Winifred had had only one bout of depression, and that not a disabling one. When Jane had first met her, in June 1961, at graduation, Winifred had been so white her freckles looked like a brown rash and she’d had deep circles under her eyes. Now, her color was better, the circles had vanished, and though her eyes often had the lusterless look of someone heavily medicated, a casual observer would have guessed her to be a normal Manhattan matron in her late forties or early fifties.
Of course, normal was a relative adjective too. Normal matrons, thought Jane, do not take long walks on seventeen-degree January days without wearing gloves and stockings. Winifred’s big hands were raw, as if her life had been spent picking potatoes, and her legs, as usual, were covered with the white scales of badly chapped skin. For Christmas, Jane and Nicholas had presented her with perfume, spray cologne, dusting powder, and a huge jar of scented dry-skin lotion. She’d obviously never used the last, and Jane suspected that she’d passed the entire collection on to Olivia or Abby.
“Would you read the list to me?” Winifred asked. “I can’t get to my glasses.” Her fingers toyed with a lock of Victoria’s brown hair.
“‘Pem,’” Jane read.
“Oh, yes. Cully Daniels called and asked if you’d written to Pembroke. That letter of recommendation for her daughter.”
“About a month ago. I sent a copy to the girl up at school.”
“Good. Thank you. You know how—well, vague these girls can be. I suppose she didn’t say anything to her mother. Sorry to bother you with that again.”
“That’s okay.”
“You don’t even know the girl. She’s very sweet actually. A Botticelli face with a Rubens figure. Big, gorgeous girl. I’m sure she’ll be a sensation with the boys. I think Edward has a crush on her, but of course she won’t give him the time of day.”
“‘Tickets.’ To Key to the City?”
“Yes. Some of James’s clients are coming in from Paris. He wants six. Do you think that’s odd?”
“Do they understand English?”
“No, I mean don’t you think it’s odd that he can’t lift the phone and call you or Nicholas or ask you when he sees you? He has his secretary call and she says ‘James Cobleigh calling’ in this tinny voice. ‘Is Mrs. Cobleigh at home?’ Of course, she knows perfectly well it’s I she’s speaking with, and then I get all flustered. I suppose I shouldn’t be saying this, but I think, Oh, dear, he’s going to ask for a divorce so he can marry that glamour girl he’s taken up with, that model, and I stand there holding the receiver and saying to myself, ‘If he wants a divorce, he can have a divorce,’ but all the time I’m…I shouldn’t be talking like this at all. And then he gets on the line and says, ‘Win, the frogs are coming to town. I need six tickets to Nick’s play.’ And then he gives me the dates and says, ‘I want them sent to the office. Make sure it’s the office.’ And then he says goodbye. Isn’t that odd?”
“Well, maybe he’s just trying…I don’t know. But I’m sure he’d feel awkward saying ‘Can’t we be friends?’ or even ‘Can’t we talk things over!’, if that’s what’s on his mind.”
“Oh, no. James is never awkward about anything.”
“He’s lonely—”
“Jane, really, he’s got a twenty-one-year-old Swedish model for company. He’s been seen with her publicly.”
“Winifred, I can’t imagine he’s got an awful lot to say to a twenty-one-year-old Swedish model. I think he misses being part of the family.”
“But he was so seldom there. And when he was—oh, dear, just look at me.” Winifred’s face was flushed and she seemed agitated. “Every time he calls I’m eighteen again. If he were to ask me to take him back, I’m not sure…. I understand things, you know. Really I do. About self-destructive relationships. That’s all the doctor ever wants me to talk about.”
Winifred yanked at the bow at the neck of her silk blouse. It opened and she retied it, then pulled at it so it opened again. She did it over and over, each time drawing the bow tighter around her neck. She seemed unaware of what she was doing and gave no indication she knew Jane was in the room. She seemed unaware that her granddaughter was in her lap; when she tied the bow, she rested an elbow on Victoria’s shoulder as if the child were a ledge.
Jane tried to stay calm. She wanted to feel sorry for Winifred. Instead, she felt afraid. What would happen if Winifred were having another breakdown and, instead of weeping or sleeping as Nicholas had described, she started shrieking. Smashing Victoria onto the floor. Hurling herself across the room and putting her big hands around Jane’s neck, throttling her until her tongue hung out and her head rocked back and forth.
Winifred was trying to make the bow fan out, as if it were made of stiff taffeta instead of silk; each time it drooped, she grew more frustrated. Jane wanted to go and scoop Victoria from h
er lap, but she was afraid to startle Winifred.
“Destructive relationships. Every time I try to talk about something else the doctor won’t let me,” Winifred said suddenly, as though she hadn’t stopped talking. “And my mother. He calls her Maisie. He doesn’t seem to care about my father.” She put her hands in her lap and suddenly noticed Victoria; she put her arms around the child. “Oh, well, it’s not important. Forgive me. I forgot what I was talking about.”
“The tickets for the play.”
“Oh, yes. Could you get six?”
“Do you have the date?” Jane asked quietly.
“It’s not on the list? I must have it at home. Would you call me tonight? I’m so forgetful.”
“Yes. Sure. Uh, ‘Moth’ is next.”
“Moth? Oh, Mother.” Winifred raised her hand so it covered the bow on her blouse, but she did not attempt to adjust it again. She sat straighter and crossed her legs at the ankles, the proper lady posture Jane had observed her assuming whenever she was entertaining guests. The posture evoked her training; Winifred’s mouth curved upward into pleasantness and her voice dropped into a gracious social register. “Would you mind terribly going to my mother’s house and reading aloud to her again? It’s such a treat for her. She says no one reads the way you do.”
“I’d love to.” Jane feared she sounded falsely enthusiastic. “Really I would,” she added in a more restrained voice.
“We impose on you. All of us.”
“It’s not an imposition.”
“It is. Michael and Abby having you practically write the essays on their college applications and me with my endless lists and talking on and on, forgetting you’re still a girl.”
“It’s fine. Really.”
“And my mother calling you nearly every morning to read the editorials and the social news.”
“I enjoy it. It’s nice to be part of a big family.”
“I suppose we must…you must forgive me.” Winifred’s head swiveled toward the hallway, as though someone had snatched her thought and was absconding with it. When she turned back toward Jane, she tried to smile. “I hope Nicholas doesn’t impose on you. I mean, make too much work for you.”
“He’s fine,” Jane said, trying to sound properly sincere, appropriately enthusiastic, and not nervous. “You did a wonderful job. He’s a wonderful husband.”
“I hope so.”
“He is, Winifred.”
“I worried at the beginning, you know.” Winifred began to pull hairpins from her hair, as she spoke, and tried to retwist it into a neater chignon. Crazy wisps of hair corkscrewed around her face, making her look like a clown in a fright wig. “He wasn’t even twenty-one when you were married. I worried if he’d be a good—he looks so much like his father, and all the girls were always calling the house even when he was fourteen, and running after him, and I was afraid he’d—”
“He’s fine.” Jane’s heart began to pound.
“I know. I’m sure he is. It’s just that he’s so handsome. His eyes are like James’s. Girls wait for him at the stage door.”
“I know. He’s fine, Winifred. He’s an actor. It happens a lot. Believe me, he takes it in stride.”
“James was fine at first,” she said.
“Winifred—”
“Attentive. So attentive. He would call and say he really ought to work late but he’d be damned if he was going to because he wanted…Until the war.”
“Oh.”
“When he came back from France—you mustn’t let Nicholas go on that tour with the show. You’re too young to understand these things. It’s not only the girls at the stage door. You know what he does with that actress. Face it, Jane. It’s true. Every single night.”
“Winifred, it’s a role he’s playing. It’s his job.”
“What sort of a job is that! She sits on his lap and puts her hands all over him.”
“It’s okay!”
“Please, think of the baby. Please.”
“Jessica’s a friend of ours. It’s her job. I know it sounds funny, but she’s paid to touch Nick like that. It doesn’t mean a thing to either of them. And she happens to be happily married.”
“She’s so young and beautiful.”
“She’s thirty, Winifred.” Jane forced herself to speak in a placid voice. Her heart beat so hard the left side of her chest hurt. “And I know Nicholas, and I know he would never—”
“Jane, please listen to me!” Winifred suddenly moved forward. The jerking motion wakened Victoria, who began to cry.
“Excuse me,” Jane said. “I’ll just change her.” She jumped up and grabbed the child from Winifred’s lap. “I’ll only be a minute.” Victoria’s diaper was soaked through; the ammoniac stench of urine surrounded her like an aura. Winifred’s skirt had a dark wet spot where Victoria had been sitting. Jane rushed into the child’s room. The clunk of Winifred’s heels on the bare wood floor followed her.
Winifred stood at the dressing table uncomfortably close to Jane, pressing against her side as if they were passengers on a rush-hour subway. Neither the child’s wails nor the odor from her soiled diaper seemed to penetrate Winifred’s consciousness. “The two of them were always so tight. James and Nicholas. Thick as thieves. They look so much alike and Nicholas sits the exact same way and holds his cup the same way, with two hands, and—”
“Winifred!” Jane’s hands were wet from the dripping rubber pants. Her fingers seemed to have no strength. She could not open the diaper pin. Victoria’s crying was interrupted by her deep, liquid cough. Jane turned to her mother-in-law. “Please, could you try this pin?”
Winifred’s big, raw, red hands covered her face, muffling the noise she was making, so it took Jane a minute to comprehend that she was sobbing.
Nicholas hated to go to bars during the day. The stale, smoky darkness was tolerable at night, but since he never drank enough to relax in them, the gloom reminded him he was squandering his time. This bar was worse than most. It was out of the theater district, so there was no one to say hello to while he waited. The room was dotted with silent, lonely, out-of-town men in cheap suits. They reminded Nicholas of Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman, or of his father-in-law.
The waiter brought Nicholas’s Bloody Mary. A tiny paper umbrella was stuck into the glass. The place was called Terry’s Tiki Bar, and every mixed drink seemed to be served with an umbrella. Coconuts, or objects made to look like coconuts, were suspended from the ceiling on different lengths of wire.
Murray King threaded his way toward the table, giving the bartender and one of the patrons his customary greeting: an almost military salute with his index finger. Nicholas knew Murray had a bar or restaurant in nearly every neighborhood in Manhattan where he could always be assured of a table and good service; thus, he was never more than five minutes away from a potential deal. Why Murray had asked him to come to Terry’s Tiki was another matter; it was located on an obscure block near Penn Station.
Murray approached the table carrying a bowl of pretzels he’d picked up at the bar. “You got a drink, Nicky?” he asked, looking directly at the Bloody Mary. “You want something else?”
“This is fine.” Nicholas stood, took the pretzels, put them on the table, and shook Murray’s hand.
They sat and Murray immediately put both elbows on the small, round pedestal table and leaned toward Nicholas. “I wanted someplace where I don’t see fifteen familiar ears pointed at me when I talk. So that’s why this place. Now, the truth, Nicky. Okay? Tell me straight out. Are you happy in Key to the City?”
“Yes.”
“Oh.”
“Is that the end of the conversation, Murray?”
“Of course it’s not the end of the conversation. You think I had you schlep all the way down here so I could hear you were happy? I know you’re happy. I just want to know how happy.”
Key to the City had opened ten months before on Broadway to excellent reviews. The play was about two young reporters competing with each
other for a story, the chance at a column, and the same girl. The reporter who triumphed in two of the three categories was a rough-spoken, tough, amoral New York City slum kid. He and the girl were the leading roles. Nicholas played his adversary, a boy straight out of the cornfields and Iowa State, a relaxed, good-humored young man, something of an idealist. His character won the girl at the end of the play, but even that was a Pyrrhic victory, since in the preceding scene the New Yorker had boasted to him, in the coarsest detail, of his successful seduction of the girl.
“It’s a good part for me,” Nicholas said. “I like playing a nice guy. For a while I thought it would be just one bastard after another. And the character has a lot of depth. He’s no pushover. It’s that he can’t believe that someone would be that cutthroat, that evil, really.”
“Interesting,” Murray murmured.
Nicholas smiled at him. “What’s the alternative?”
“A lot less money.”
“How much less? Would it make my landlord worry?”
“Worry? Landlords don’t worry. They evict. Don’t give it a second thought. I’ll take in Jane and Vicky. You I’m not so sure about.”
“Murray, before you get started, you know what my responsibilities are. I can’t afford art for art’s sake. That’s what you’re offering, isn’t it?”
“‘Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo?’ Sound familiar?”
“Romeo and Juliet? What do they want me for?”
“What do you think, Bugs Bunny? Romeo, of course, and guess which certain director who did Measure for Measure last season called—and I’ll bet you a hundred bucks he didn’t call anyone else first—and asked for you?”