The Carousel

by Belva Plain

“You admit you’re not an engineer, so why not leave water and all the rest of it to the engineers? Listen, Dan, listen—you’d like to stop progress, but it can’t be done. Set your mind on the twenty-first century.”

  Gloom settled on Dan’s face. “My mind’s already on it.”

  “Well, if it is, you’re aware of how the population’s growing. People are going to need roofs over their heads. This group I’m talking about has a brilliant concept, a handsome planned community, no helter-skelter growth—”

  Dan interrupted. “A roof over their heads! Before you pollute the mountains, installing people miles away from their work, incidentally, why not tear down the old ramshackle factories and warehouses in the heart of town? Rebuild the town with the same kind of handsome houses, but that people can afford.”

  “Okay, do that too. I’m for it. But the one has nothing to do with the other. You don’t want to cut down trees, but they’re doing it all over the world, anyway. These few more won’t make a damn bit of difference. Why should we be so holy? I’m telling you if we don’t accept this proposal, we ought to have our heads examined. Ask any man on the street whether he’d turn this offer down, and he’d laugh at you for even asking the question. ‘Why, take the money and run,’ he’d say. And he’d be right.”

  “That’s your opinion, not mine.”

  “Listen to me. The way we work, you flying all over the globe to keep this business running … the more I think of it, the more I’m tempted to enjoy life while I’m young, get rid of this land, liquidate the business, and find something easier to do with our lives. Give me one good reason.”

  “I can give you plenty. You shock me.” Dan’s voice trembled. “Because the land has been in this family for—how many generations, Oliver?”

  Suddenly Oliver looked old. His voice was tired. “First, in the eighteenth century, there was the farm in the valley, running up into the foothills. Then later when money came into the family, they bought mountain land for a couple of pennies an acre, I suppose.” He gave a short laugh, tired too, and continued. “During the First World War my grandfather rounded out the whole, just because he loved wild places, I guess. We’ve kept it ever since.”

  “Loved it,” Dan repeated with a bitter emphasis. “Yes, yes. An inheritance, a trust. Now we sit here talking, after two centuries, two centuries, mind you, of ruining it all, throwing it away for a bellyful of thousand-dollar bills.”

  “Make that million-dollar bills,” Ian said.

  “No matter!” Dan’s voice rose, so that one of the dogs, feeling the reverberation of it, got up and laid a head on Oliver’s knee. “No, let me finish. You asked for reasons. Liquidate this business, you said. Grey’s Foods. Four generations of labor. Grapes in the west, apples in the east. Farms, salesmen, packers, canners, bakers, truckers, bottlers—why, one of every four families in three counties has or has had a member who works for Grey’s. Talk to any of them and you’ll find out how they feel. They want their jobs, and they want their familiar environment. We’re an institution, Ian, another trust. I don’t know what the hell you can be thinking of.”

  Ian laughed. “Money.”

  Dan fell silent. No one moved. Happy stared into the ebbing fire, Sally looked anxiously toward her husband, Clive examined his nicotine-stained fingers, and Oliver stroked the dog’s head.

  Presently, Dan asked, “Don’t you want to say anything, Oliver?”

  “This is very hard on me, Dan. I guess I don’t need to tell you my feelings about the business and the land. But they’re all yours now, you young people, yours to decide among yourselves. I made that very clear to you when I turned the company over to you. I resigned. I told you I would take part in no decisions from then on and I meant it.”

  There was another silence. Then Dan said thoughtfully, “Funny, I wouldn’t have any hesitation in parting with some of the land, as much as they’d take, if a conservation group would keep it forever wild. That might actually be a way of protecting it against some future generation’s fancy building project.”

  Ian raised his eyebrows, exclaiming, “Oh? I daresay you would let them have it for peanuts. Why not just give it away while you’re at it?”

  “Tell me, Ian, why the devil you want more money. Haven’t you got enough? It seems to me you live pretty well.”

  “Show me anyone who ever thinks he has enough. Nobody has. It’s against human nature.” And again, Ian laughed, showing his healthy teeth. “What do you think, Clive?”

  Clive looked up from the contemplation of his fingers. “You’re asking me? Why me? I’m not supposed to think. I’m only supposed to compute. I’m programmed.”

  At that, a wretched cough strangled him, and turning purple, he bent over, head to knees. No one came to his aid, for there was no aid, nor anything to be done except to watch him cough, speed from the room, and return still purple-faced, but calmed. At the very least, this was a daily occurrence.

  “Well,” Ian remarked, “you’re doing better and better, aren’t you? Just keep on smoking, Clive, keep it up. The emphysema special.”

  Dan said quickly, “I’m sure Clive’s tried hard to break the habit, but it’s an addiction. Like gambling.”

  Ian, having recently been in Monte Carlo, had no immediate retort, but Happy spoke up for him.

  “Ian’s a workaholic. He needs to break loose now and then.”

  “Spoken like a loyal wife,” said Oliver. “Never mind. I know my son’s a high-stepper and I forgive him. Right, Ian?”

  “ ‘High-stepper.’ Define it for me, Father, I don’t know what you mean,” said Ian, rejecting the pleasantry.

  “Just another one of my archaic expressions. In my grandfather’s time it referred to carriage horses, the lively trotters, and lively men, high livers, were called high-steppers, too.”

  “Sinners. You make me feel like a criminal.”

  “I don’t understand what’s happening here,” Oliver complained. “We were all in good spirits at table, and suddenly we’re quarreling. I don’t like that in this house.” He was still smoothing the dog’s head. “Even Napoleon’s upset. He’s not used to it. Are you, Nappy?”

  “My fault, Father. I’m the one who began it. I should have known that Dan and I would lock horns over the subject. I did know it. The fact is—might as well come out with everything, now that we’ve gone this far—I’ve had a rough couple of days. I had a call from Amanda while you were away, Dan, and let me tell you, your sister in ten minutes can rob a man of a year’s life. Two nights’ sleep at any rate.”

  “My sister? Why didn’t you tell me? I’ve been home for two days.”

  “Because I didn’t want to bring up troubles before Father’s birthday. Now I’ve gone and done it anyway. I’m sorry.”

  “What made her phone you?”

  “She asked for you, not knowing you were away. So they connected her with me.”

  “What did she want?”

  “First, the usual list of complaints. She has no seat on the board because she’s a woman. I told her, as she’s been told often enough before, that being a woman has nothing to do with it. But you can’t deal with these strident feminist types. No wonder she’s had two divorces.”

  Dan corrected him. “Only one.”

  “Well, anyhow, she doesn’t know a thing about this business and never will as long as she lives three thousand miles away. She’s getting a hefty income from her quarter share of the stock, so what more does she want? Oh, she says it’s not fair that we three men make so much more than she does. Salary, I said. For heaven’s sake, a child can see that. We work eight days out of seven, don’t we? Well, then she wants us to buy her out so she can have a lump sum for investment.”

  “Buy her out?” Dan was incredulous.

  “Yes, yes. And listen to this. If we don’t, she’ll sell her shares to the highest bidder. She’s already talked to investment bankers about doing an evaluation of her shares.” Ian spoke rapidly, with mounting excitement. “I’m sorry to
say it. I’ve said all along and to deaf ears, but it’s the truth, we should have had, our lawyers told us to have, an agreement to keep this a family-held company, to prevent a loose cannon like Amanda from doing just what she wants to do now, sell out. A takeover, with God-knows-who coming in here and holding the balance of votes. Yes, we should have had it, but Amanda didn’t want it, and we all caved in. I can’t help saying it again, Father, that woman’s nothing but trouble, good for nothing except to collect her money and put us under a third degree every time to make sure we haven’t cheated her out of a nickel. And now she wants a fortune for some damn-fool project, to boot.”

  “For homeless girls,” Dan said. “I remember her saying something about that a while ago.”

  “She wanted to talk my head off about it, but I wouldn’t let her. To tell the truth, I’m starting to think she’s crazy.”

  “No.” Dan made quiet correction. “I’ll admit she can be difficult, complicated, and confusing. But she isn’t crazy. I don’t believe in using that word lightly. And a project on behalf of desperate girls is hardly—”

  “Desperate? We’ll be the desperate ones if she carries out her threat to sue.”

  “She’s threatened?”

  “Yes, if we don’t buy her shares,” Ian said, impatient now. “What company has enough cash flow to come up with twenty-five percent of its worth, I ask you. Yet if we don’t do it, she’ll try to put her shares on the market, and when we try to block her, there’ll be a court fight with legal fees enough to choke us. To say nothing of the chance that we might lose. Probably would lose. And all because you people wouldn’t make her sign the buyout agreement years ago. She was younger and not as feisty then. If you had insisted, Father, she would have had to do it.”

  Wanting to rescue Oliver from attack, Dan said firmly, “That’s past. There’s no use looking back. It’s water over the dam.”

  Ian got up and strolled to the windows while everyone watched him. A dead stillness lay heavily upon the room, until he returned to stand with his back to the fire.

  “You can all see that Amanda is another reason why the European consortium is a good thing,” he said. “With money like that, we could afford to buy her out and get rid of her.”

  “You only want to sell that land,” Dan responded. “That’s the long and short of it, Ian. You wanted to do it more than a year ago. Amanda’s demand came two days ago.”

  “Okay, okay, I don’t deny it. I’m only saying there’s more reason now. It’s all intertwined.”

  Facing each other, the two young men were obviously uncomfortable with such overt anger. Neither was used to it. It wasn’t “civilized.” Yet now it was palpably there. And Sally, watching the blood suffuse Dan’s face, felt double dread over the far worse blow that he would have to receive tonight.

  Then Dan stood gripping the back of a chair and, controlling himself, said reasonably, “I’ll talk to Amanda. I’ll straighten this out.”

  “Good luck,” Ian said. “I’ll take a bet that it won’t do any good. There’s no reasoning with her. You don’t know her.”

  “I don’t know her? That’s a strange thing to say. She’s my sister.”

  “Dan, you don’t know her. None of us does. A girl who went off to boarding school in California at thirteen and has never come back?” And again Ian appealed to Oliver. “Why don’t you talk to her, Father? You’re always a peacemaker, a mediator.”

  “I told you, I’m not part of this anymore. You’re asking me to decide between my brother’s children and my own, and I won’t do it. You must settle among yourselves, I said. Take a vote.”

  Ian said promptly, “Fine. I’m for the sale. Dan isn’t. Amanda will be for it because it will be a sure way for her to get what she wants. So that leaves Clive to determine the outcome. Either reach a majority or deadlock. How about it, Clive?”

  There was a short delay while Clive underwent a minor bout of coughing. When it was over, he said testily, “I never answer off the top of my head. Anyway, this talk is premature. It’ll be closer to a year before those people can get their plans and their financing together. I suggest you table the whole thing for now. That’s what I suggest.”

  “Oh, fine.” Ian’s laugh was sarcastic. “By all means, let’s table Amanda for a year.”

  Abruptly, Oliver became decisive. His rising was a signal that the evening was over. “Clive makes sense. He always does,” he said with an encouraging smile at Clive. “As to threats—people often make threats that they have no intention of carrying out. My advice to you all is don’t do anything hasty. And a second advice is go to church tomorrow. I seldom miss a Sunday, no matter where I am. Pray for peace, inner peace. Yes, yes, inner peace.”

  They were all standing as he concluded, “Even with these disagreements, it’s been a wonderful birthday, and I thank you. And I love you all. Get home safely.”

  They had not far to go. The two cars filed down the long driveway and out at the iron-lace gates, Dan’s Buick after the Maserati, until the latter turned in at another graveled drive not as long as Hawthorne’s, on either side of which a double row of lighted lanterns revealed a low, elegant French manor.

  Anxiously, Dan repeated, “You were so quiet. Tell me what’s wrong.”

  Her heart subsided as if it had literally sunk into cold fear and died somewhere. But she answered simply, “It was an awful evening. I felt so sorry for Oliver. There was no reason for Ian to spoil his birthday party. He could have waited until tomorrow.”

  To the right of the car there appeared through the trees a sudden glimpse of the city below. Dan slowed down.

  “Look there. Scythia, home of Grey’s Foods. I could wring Ian’s neck. Ten to one, Happy could, too, if she dared say so. Maybe she does dare, for all we know. I can’t figure out what gets into him. He and I have scarcely had an hour’s worth of disagreement all these years. I thought I knew him inside out. I know he loves money, but even so—” Dan broke off, then continued, “If he pushes this thing through, sells the land and quits the business, how are Clive and I supposed to run it without him? Clive’s only good in the office. I can’t do my job and Ian’s, too.”

  “I’m sorry, darling. You don’t deserve this.”

  “My sister’s another story. She’s been a puzzle from the year one. What’s gotten into her? A quarter interest in the business, for Pete’s sake!”

  “You always said she was difficult.”

  “ ‘Difficult’! What does that mean? What do I know? To my sorrow, I can’t really know her. How can you know a person with whom you’ve never spent more than a few weeks at a time, an annual visit in California while I was growing up and now, during these last busy years, sometimes only a few hours? When I’m going west I make a stop in San Francisco or if she happens to come east, we’ll meet in New York. She never comes here, you know that. It’s ridiculous, it’s sad, and I don’t know what to do about it.”

  She had an acute sense of Dan’s pain. She had always, in a way, been a loner, not given to the intense relationships that people found in college and afterward, so she was still amazed at what had happened to her. Now at twenty-nine, after six years of marriage and with no loss of her own proud identity, she could feel sometimes that Dan and she were almost grafted to each other. And right now, knowing that he did not want to talk any more about Amanda, she was silent.

  Then in spite of the darkness, she became aware of his turned head and troubled scrutiny.

  “Sally, it’s Tina, isn’t it? You’ve had a bad day and you don’t want to tell me.”

  “Oh, it was simply more of the same. Thank goodness we have Nanny. Nothing fazes her.”

  That was it. Keep the tone light. Wait till we get home, see what’s happening there, then quiet down and tell him.…

  Nanny was reading the paper when Sally went in, asking at once, “Everything all right?”

  “Everything’s all right, don’t worry. We had a little set- to over her bath. She didn’t want me to undres
s her. But we got straightened out and she’s sleeping now. Susannah’s a dream, that baby. Had her bottle and there hasn’t been a peep out of her since you left.”

  Something in Sally’s expression must have touched the older woman because she added kindly, “You young mothers worry too much. I raised four, and they’re all different. Some’s easy, some’s hard, but they all come out right in the end.”

  While Dan was taking his shower, Sally looked in on her children. The baby, smelling sweetly of powder, lay sleeping in her pink crib. At Tina’s door she removed her shoes, not making even the whisper of a sound, for the child had been sleeping so lightly. The pale shine of the lamp in the hall made a stripe across the floor, and in its glow, she could just discern the small mound on the youth bed.

  She made fists. She clenched her teeth. “If anyone has harmed this child, I’ll kill him,” she muttered.

  While she was taking her turn at the shower, Dan came to the door. She had been there ten minutes at least, postponing what she knew she would have to tell him.

  “Come on,” he said, “are you going to stay there in the shower all night? Get out, I’ll rub you dry. And now are you ready to tell me what really is the matter with you?”

  “Yes,” she said, “I’m ready.”

  When she had finished the story, they were in the bedroom sitting on the little sofa at the foot of the bed. He had his arm around her, for with the reliving of that afternoon’s bad hour, she had started to tremble again.

  She had expected to shock him, had dreaded the sight of his pain, had thought that he would perhaps get up and walk about the room in agitation. She ought to have known better. He was a clear-sighted man, and his first reaction was “What can we do about this?”

  “That’s what I want to know. What can we do? What should we do?”

  “We should first and foremost get another doctor. To tell you the truth, I was not impressed with that woman. She’s very young and inexperienced.”

  “She was so certain, Dan.”

  “She’d have to be, making a statement like that. She wouldn’t inspire much confidence otherwise, would she?”