by Irwin Shaw
Twice when she was out of the house, he had tried calling Giuseppe but Giuseppe had hung up on him each time. Strand didn’t tell Eleanor about his attempts.
She had asked for all the news of Caroline and Jimmy. Leslie had written her a letter, which she had received just before she left Georgia, and she knew of Leslie’s triumph with her two paintings and of her extending her stay in Paris. She said Leslie had sounded like an excited young girl in her letter and that it had been amusing and had touched her. She said she always knew her mother had a real talent and was happy it had finally been recognized, even if it was only for two paintings so far. “You watch,” she told Strand, “she’s going to work like a demon now, you’ll be lucky if she takes enough time off to make you a cup of coffee in the morning.”
Strand had carefully edited the news about Caroline and Jimmy. The burden of waiting and dreading to hear from Giuseppe, or, even worse, from someone else on the paper, was enough for her to bear, Strand thought, without her having to worry about her sister and brother. So he showed her Caroline’s letter in which she wrote about being voted the Homecoming Queen. She laughed as she gave the letter back to Strand. “She’s come out of the cocoon with a bang, my little sister, hasn’t she?”
“You might say that,” Strand said. If he had shown her the letter from the biology teacher’s wife and the letter from Romero, and she discovered just how great the bang was, he doubted that her reaction would have been quite so pleased.
As for Jimmy, Strand merely said that he’d gone to Hollywood on a new job and was making a lot more money than he had been getting on the old one. He also told her that Jimmy had become a fancy dresser and was becoming accustomed to three-martini lunches.
Eleanor made a wry face when she heard this. “Onward and upward, I guess. Winning all hearts and minds on the way. At least he isn’t turning into a complete bum, as he gave every sign of doing when I was in New York. Does he send you any money?”
“We don’t need it,” Strand said shortly.
Eleanor looked at him gravely. “You could stand a couple of good suits, too, you know.” But she left it at that.
The drive into Kennedy from the school in the old station wagon was an agreeable one. The weather was fine, there was very little traffic, Eleanor was a good, careful driver, and they had time enough so that they could stop off and have a leisurely lunch outside Greenwich at a very nice inn whose advertisements Eleanor had seen in The New Yorker. Both she and Strand were amused by the glances they drew from the other diners as they came in—admiring for her and either envious or disapproving for him.
She squeezed his hand and whispered, “They think you’re an irresistible old man sneaking off for a dirty weekend with your secretary.”
“Maybe I’ll try that one day,” Strand said, laughing. “Being irresistible. Only I’ll have to hire a secretary first.” But when she went into the ladies’ room to comb her hair he thought of Judith Quinlan and the girl on the train with the young man in the fur coat and wondered just what a dirty weekend was like and if ever in his life he would have one.
When they went down to the exit from Customs to wait for Leslie and Linda to come out, they saw that Caroline was already there. Caroline squealed as she ran toward them and hugged first her father, then her sister. “Daddy,” she said reproachfully, “you never told me. I thought she was still languishing in Georgia. What a great surprise! Where’s your beautiful husband, Eleanor?”
“Languishing,” Eleanor said. She took a step back. “Let me take a look at you.”
Caroline struck an exaggerated model’s pose, legs apart, one hand on her hip, the other in a dancer’s gesture over her head. “How do you like the new me?”
“Pretty classy,” Eleanor said. “Now I’m glad my husband’s in Georgia.” As she said it, she glanced warningly at Strand and he knew that she wasn’t going to tell Caroline why Giuseppe was in Georgia and what she feared would happen to him there. “You’ve lost some weight, haven’t you?”
“They run me to death every day,” Caroline said.
“It becomes you.”
Actually, Strand thought Eleanor’s “classy” was a sisterly understatement. He was sure it wasn’t merely fatherly indulgence that made him think that Caroline, her face fined down, her eyes bright with health and happiness, her skin a clear, athletic glow, her long legs shapely and firm, was one of the prettiest girls he had ever seen in his life. With her new nose and her recently acquired assurance, she no longer bore any resemblance to him, but now looked breathtakingly like Leslie when Leslie was her age. He couldn’t think of a more flattering comparison. Remembering the letters that he would eventually have to talk to her about, he searched for signs of depravity. He found none. She looked untouched, youthfully innocent.
As the travelers came trickling out of Customs, Hazen hurried up. “Hi, everybody,” he said, shaking Strand’s hand and hesitating a second as Caroline came up to him and hugged him and waited to be kissed. Then he kissed her cheek. He hesitated more than a second when Eleanor greeted him, but then kissed her, too. “I was afraid I was late. The traffic out of the city is fierce. Friday night before the big holiday. It’s a good thing Linda’s always the last one off any plane. Between forgetting things and having to go back to look for them and getting her face prepared, the plane’s just about ready to take off again by the time she gets out.”
When Leslie and Linda came out and Leslie saw Eleanor with the others, tears sprang to her eyes and she stopped walking for a moment. Strand was surprised. Leslie usually kept a tight control on her emotions and it wasn’t like her to cry on happy occasions. Then she rushed toward them and kissed them all. Linda kissed everybody, too, amid smiles and laughter and chatter about baggage and who was going to ride in which car and congratulations all around on how well everybody looked.
Once out of the terminal building they decided that Caroline would drive with Linda and Hazen while Strand and Leslie would go with Eleanor in her Volkswagen. The driver, a strongly built youngish man in a chauffeur’s uniform, helped load all the baggage into the back of the Mercedes and on the roof rack.
“Where’s Conroy?” Strand asked.
“I’ll tell you later.” Hazen made a face as though he had tasted something sour and got into the car. Leslie and Strand were left alone on the curb as the Mercedes drove off and Eleanor went to the parking lot to get her car. Strand stared approvingly at his wife. She seemed to have shed ten years and he thought she could easily pass as Eleanor’s prettier older sister. And not much older. Impulsively, he kissed her.
She smiled up at him, still in his arms. “I didn’t know you’ve gone public.”
“I couldn’t resist. Paris has put a new bloom on you.”
“It certainly hasn’t done any harm.” Then her face became grave. “Allen,” she said, “I shouldn’t spring this on you so suddenly, but I’m so full of it I can’t really think of anything else. I was going to write you about it, but I thought I had to see the expression on your face when I told you about it—”
“What are you going to tell me, that you took a lover in Paris?” He hoped he had managed to keep his tone light enough.
“Allen,” she said reproachfully, “you know me better than that.”
“It’s been a long time. A lady might be excused.” But he sighed with relief.
“Not this lady. No, it’s more serious than a lover. What I want to ask is this—do you think there’s any chance that you could get a job in Paris, at least for a year? There’s an American school there and I’m sure Russell knows somebody on the board.”
“There’s the small question of money,” Strand said. “Airplane fares, a place to live. Little things like that.”
“We could swing it,” Leslie said. “I’d be chipping in. The gallery owner promised to finance me, on a very small scale, of course, for a year if I come back and work with the artist who bought my paintings. Working beside him and listening to him has given me a whole new vis
ion of what art can be. I have the feeling that at last I’m finally on the verge of being somebody.”
“You always were somebody, Leslie.” Now he felt bruised and shaken.
“You know what I mean. Do you want us to spend the rest of our lives in a backwater like Dunberry?” She spoke softly, without emphasis, but he could sense the desperation behind the question.
“I haven’t thought much about the rest of our lives. Up to now, I’ve been content to live from week to week.”
“Oh, dear,” Leslie said, “I’ve bothered you. Forget what I said. I won’t say anything more about it. Tell me about Eleanor.” She spoke briskly, as though the idea of Paris was a frivolous one and easily forgotten. “Where’s Giuseppe?”
“I’ll let her tell you about it.”
“There’s trouble.” It was not a question.
He nodded.
“Bad?”
“It might be very bad. I don’t know yet. Get her off to one side. She doesn’t want Caroline or Russell to hear about it. Here she is,” he said, as the Volkswagen drew up to the curb.
He sat in the back to give Eleanor a chance to talk to her mother. Eleanor spoke softly and he couldn’t hear what she was saying over the noise of the old car. From time to time, though, he heard Giuseppe’s name. Although Leslie was not presenting him with an ultimatum as Eleanor had done with Giuseppe, Strand felt that like Giuseppe he was facing a similar choice—go with his wife or stay behind—alone. He had not interfered with his children’s choice of careers and he could hardly be less generous with his wife. He was not facing a bomb as Giuseppe was, but looking at things through Leslie’s eyes he could understand that Dunberry was not much more attractive to her than the Georgia town from which Eleanor had fled was to their daughter. He would see what could be done about Paris.
Once he had reached this decision, the idea of exchanging Dunberry for Paris, if it were possible, began to intrigue him. He closed his eyes, lulled by the motion of the car, and imagined himself sitting at a café table on an open terrace reading a French newspaper in the sunshine and smiled. After all, fifty was not that old. Generals who led armies at that age were considered young men. It would be a challenge, he knew, but there hadn’t been enough real challenges in the last few years, if you could forget the heart attack. And he had emerged from that with a deep feeling of triumph. He knew that both Eleanor and Caroline would approve if they made the move, if only because it would give them an excuse to visit France.
Eleanor’s low murmur stopped. Then he heard Leslie say, loudly, “You did exactly the right thing. It’s monstrous. And if I see him I’m going to tell him so. If he’s foolish and stubborn enough to want to risk his life, that’s his business. Asking you to risk yours is ghoulish.” She turned in the front seat and said, “Allen, I hope you’ve told Eleanor the same thing.”
“In the strongest possible terms,” Strand said.
“Have you tried talking to Giuseppe?”
“I telephoned twice. He hung up as soon as he recognized my voice.”
“Have you told Russell about it?”
“I think this had better just stay in the family.”
“I guess you’re right,” Leslie said, but she sounded dubious.
He wondered if in the low conversation in the front seat Eleanor had told her mother what she had told him—that she was going to try to forget her husband and if she couldn’t she was going back to him. He hoped Eleanor had not gone that far. If she had, Leslie’s anxiety about Eleanor’s possible return to Georgia would destroy all the pleasure she was getting out of her newborn success in France and her plans for the future, pleasure that would be multiplied many times over when he had the chance to tell her that he would see about getting a place on the faculty of the American School in Paris.
It was dark when they reached the house on the beach. The sea could be heard in a low steady rumble and the stars were sparkling in the frozen black crystal of the sky. Strand took a deep breath of the cold salt air and felt his throat and lungs tingle as he inhaled.
Hazen was sitting in one of the twin high-backed leather wing chairs that flanked the fireplace. A driftwood fire sent out sparks of electric blue and green. In a corner was a Christmas tree, its branches adorned with tinsel and colored glass globes that reflected the changing light from the fire. The tree filled the room with a piny forest aroma. Hazen had a drink in his hand and poured a whiskey and soda for Strand while the women went upstairs to unpack.
“I forget how wonderful this place is,” Strand said. “Then, when I come back, it hits me with a rush.” He sat in the chair opposite Hazen, feeling the welcome warmth of the fire on his legs. “I’m going to thank you now—for the whole family—for this holiday and then shut up about it once and for all.”
“Thanks,” Hazen said. “Especially for shutting up about it. It’s too bad Jimmy couldn’t come along.”
“He’s in California.”
“I know,” Hazen said. “Solomon told me.”
“Did he tell you anything else?”
Hazen nodded. “Solomon’s making too much of it. An ambitious young man grabs his chance when he sees it. I’m sure Solomon did worse things when he was Jimmy’s age. And so did I. Don’t be moral about it, Allen.”
“Camelot’s kaput, Jimmy said, when I voiced some objections.”
Hazen laughed. “That’s one way of putting it. It’s been kaput for a long time.”
“How’re things with you?”
“The usual little annoyances.” Hazen shrugged. “I fired Conroy.”
“I wondered why he wasn’t at the airport.”
“I found out my miserable wife was paying him to keep tabs on me. That’s how she knew so much about you and your family in Tours that night. Talk about morality…”
Poor gray-faced, all-purpose Conroy, Strand thought, remembering the embrace of the thin arm in the pounding surf, the embarrassment between them when Strand had tried to thank him for saving his life, the disdainful check for a thousand dollars for services rendered from Hazen, Hazen’s words. “Money means everything to him. He saves like a pack rat.” There had been no thought of reward when the man had plunged into the waves as Strand was being swept out to sea. Morality on varying levels. He knew there would be no use in asking Hazen to change his mind and give Conroy another chance. Betrayal outweighed past gallantry.
“If I may ask,” Strand said, “how are the divorce proceedings going?”
“Badly. She calls my lawyer twice a day from France. She’s driving a hard bargain. And she keeps threatening that if I don’t give in very soon, she’s going to blow the whole thing open in the papers.” He looked bleakly at Strand and seemed as if he was about to say more, then rattled the ice in his glass and said, “Conroy’s told her I’ve made out a new will. Like an idiot I had him witness it. Of course he doesn’t know what’s in it—it’s in the private safe in my partner’s office and my partner’s the only one besides me who’s read it. I typed it myself. But she knows it’s a new one and she says she won’t sign anything unless I show it to her.” He smiled bleakly. “Merry Christmas, one and all.” He took a big swallow of his drink. “You’d think a man my age wouldn’t be surprised anymore by one more piece of evidence of the world’s evil. But Conroy, after all these years…” Hazen shook his head. “When I fired him he said he was glad he was going, he’d hated me from the first day he saw me, only he didn’t have the guts to quit. You have no idea of the amount of venom stored up in that quiet little drab man. He told me he’d had a homosexual affair with my son and my son told him that eventually he was going to commit suicide if I lived long enough because that was the only way he could be free of me. I picked Conroy up and threw him bodily out of the office. If I could have opened the window, I’d have thrown him out of it. From now on I’ll hire a chauffeur for business and drive myself when I have private matters to look after. I’ve hired a pretty twenty-two-year-old girl to be my confidential secretary. At least, being a woman,
if she hates me it will show early and I’ll be able to get rid of her. Ah, enough of my troubles. We’re here to relax and enjoy the holiday. I need another drink. How about you?”
“I’m fine, thanks.” Strand watched, with pity in his heart, as the robust, unbowed man went over to the bar and poured himself another whiskey with a steady hand. As Hazen filled his glass he said, “Caroline has turned into a real beauty, hasn’t she?”
“I can only give you a father’s opinion. Yes, she has.”
“Being away at school has done her worlds of good.” Hazen came back and seated himself in the chair by the fireplace. “It’s given her confidence in herself. The way she talked, in the car you had to look and see with your own eyes that it was the little shy girl that went away to Arizona. I must say, she doesn’t hesitate to speak her mind. She says the track coach is a slave driver and she detests him.” Hazen smiled. “The cry heard from all athletes. She also said she hates running. She knows it does her good, but it bores her. The way she put it is she runs fifty miles a week and goes nowhere. And she says she doesn’t like beating the other girls and getting special treatment for it. I don’t think we have an Olympic champion here, Allen.”
“So much the better,” Strand said.
“Well, at least she’s getting a free education and she’s the most popular girl on campus.”
“So much the worse.”
Hazen laughed. “As Leslie would say, ‘You’re being old-fashioned again, dear.’”
Strand didn’t join in the laughter. If Hazen had read the letter of the biology teacher’s wife, Strand thought, he wouldn’t congratulate Caroline’s father on her newfound popularity.
“Well,” Hazen said, “at least Leslie seems to be in terrific form. You ought to give a big vote of thanks to Linda for taking her on the trip to Paris.”