A Certain Age

by Beatriz Williams

  To which I shrug. “Just wanted to pay my respects before I left.”

  “I’m happy to convey them to her.” He lifts his glass, but it turns up empty, and his expression of abject, blue-eyed disappointment would soften the hardest heart.

  “Do that, love. Tell her I had a smashing time and all that. The food was divine, the company sensational.”

  He rubs one temple with his thumb. “Did young what’s-his-name find you?”

  “My brother, you mean? Yes, he did.”

  “Not your brother. The other fellow. Ned’s protégé, the pilot.”

  One of my shoulders has escaped my coat. I turn my attention to the errant mink sleeve and say, “Why, no. Was Mr. Rofrano here?”

  Philip snaps his fingers. “Rofrano! That’s it. Yes, he was. And not in a social frame of mind, I’m sorry to say. Peppered me with all kinds of indecent business questions, and then charged off in your direction. You’ve got to teach him some manners, Theresa, or he’ll never fit in.”

  “I don’t need him to fit in.” Rather coldly. And then: “What sort of questions?”

  “Oh, I don’t remember. Something to do with an old client of mine, which of course I couldn’t discuss. Confidentiality.” He taps his temple, this time with a well-tended index finger. “Very bad form, as the English say.”

  “How strange.”

  Philip shakes his head and stares down into his empty glass, and for an instant I imagine he’s actually pondering something. “Funny, though. I hadn’t thought about that old case in years.”

  “What old case?”

  He looks back up, and a bit of shrewd lawyerly suspicion shapes the squint of his eyes. He picks up my hand and kisses the gloved knuckles, like a man who does that kind of thing often. “Now, why don’t you just ask him yourself? Two good friends like the pair of you.”

  I extract my hand and gather up my pocketbook. “Trust me, love. Friendship has nothing to do with it.”

  I have begun the evening alone, and alone I remain as I travel down the elevator directed by one red-coated attendant and allow another red-coated attendant to hail me a taxi from the frozen street outside. The coldest day of the year, the cabbie informs me, setting off down Park Avenue toward the beckoning lights, and I tell him I’m not surprised to hear that.

  I’ve never felt colder.

  “THERE YOU ARE,” I TELL the Boy, when at last I slide atop a neighboring stool at the Christopher Club, the place next door to his apartment. Our usual haunt. I set my pocketbook on the bar and signal the proprietor, all of which serves to disguise my relief at the sight of the Boy’s heavy black hair, gleaming under the lights.

  “Here I am.”

  “I thought we agreed to meet at your place.”

  “I got a little restless. I figured you’d know where I was.”

  I accept the martini between my fingers and nod my gratitude to Christopher. The musicians are taking a break, it seems, and the Boy’s dear voice is rather eerily audible, in the absence of trumpet and saxophone. “You might have left a note, just to be sure.”

  “I guess I might.”

  The martini is pure corrosive and peels my throat. One of these days I’m going to die of gin like this. I set down the glass and cover the Boy’s hand with mine. “Let’s not fight, hmm? It’s much nicer for both of us when we don’t fight. Give me a kiss.”

  He turns his head and kisses me, but his lips are hard and his heart’s not in it. I ask him what’s the matter. Have I done something awful?

  “No.” He fingers his glass. There’s an ashtray at his elbow, filled with the sordid remains of perhaps five or six cigarettes. Another one decorates his hand, half-finished. He lifts it to his lips.

  “Has someone else done something awful?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Come on, now. Talk to me, Boyo, or nobody gets to have any fun tonight.”

  The Boy drinks the rest of his whatever-it-is—whisky, I guess—and signals for another. “It’s nothing, okay? How was your evening?”

  “My evening was delightful. You’ll never guess who turned up. Ox’s little bonbon, just as sweet as could be.”

  “Sophie was there?”

  “Is that her name? I’d forgotten. Anyway, she was just darling. She was wearing the prettiest little dress, all in pink. It brought out her round sweet cheeks. Like a doll, really. I can see why Ox is so smitten, aside from the money, of course. I think they’re perfect for each other.”

  “He’s far too old for her.”

  “I don’t think he minds.”

  “I meant her. She should mind. A used-up old bachelor like him.”

  “Boyo, darling, are you casting aspersions on my brother?”

  “He’s got the brains of an orang-utang and the morals of an alley cat, and you know it.”

  The gin doesn’t burn so much now. Indeed, it’s rather refreshing. I drain the chalice and ask the Boy if he’s got another cigarette. “I never heard you object to poor Ox before,” I say, as he lights me up.

  “He’s never tried to marry an innocent young girl before.”

  “Not tried to marry.” I blow out the smoke in long gusts. “Is marrying. She’s agreed to marry him, very much of her own accord. That was your doing, remember? She looked awfully jolly at the party, by the way. Smiling the whole while, just as pleased as could be. She’s wearing her manacle. I made her take off her glove to show me. Made such a fuss over her. It’s a shame you weren’t there.”

  “Yeah, a real shame.”

  “Of course, I still have my reservations about that curious father of hers, and how he got his money, and how much he’s really got. But if you haven’t found out anything awful . . . Have you, Boyo?”

  “Have I what?”

  “Found out anything awful about the Fortescues.”

  Christopher—not his real name, by the by, but then I expect you already guessed that—Christopher slides by and presents the Boy with another drink. The Boy takes the glass between his fingers and sort of rotates it on the surface of the bar, clockwise, making wet little interconnected circles in the wood. (The Boy usually drinks his whisky neat, but tonight there’s ice for some reason, ice on the coldest day of the year.) The hum of voices around us is more subdued than usual, the mood less reckless and more maudlin, as if everybody’s stayed home because of the frozen streets, the smell of impending snow in the air. The instruments sit abandoned on their chairs in the corner of the room, and I’m beginning to wonder if their owners are planning to return.

  “Boyo?”

  “Yes?”

  “The Fortescues.”

  He picks up the whisky at last and takes a drink, maybe half a glass in one gulp. The ice clinks and falls. “Still asking around.”

  “Well, let me know what you find out, won’t you? Before too much longer. Not that I’m not coming around to wonder whether it matters. These are modern times, aren’t they? Love conquers all. Who really cares if the old man’s hiding a skeleton or two? My God, haven’t we all got skeletons!”

  The Boy winces slightly, and I’m not sure whether it’s my words, or the brittle quality of the laugh that goes with them.

  I continue. “It’s a lovely ring, isn’t it? The Ochsner family ring, I mean. Did you know that my—”

  “You know what, Theresa?”

  “What’s that, darling?”

  “I think I’m going to call it a night.” He slings back his whisky and rises from the stool.

  I stub out the cigarette in the ashtray, attend to my drink, and follow him up. “I was just going to suggest the same thing.”

  “I mean alone, Theresa. I’m sorry. It’s been a long week.”

  A few notes wobble softly from the trumpet behind me. The musicians have returned after all, it seems.

  I say lightly, “The coldest night of the year, and you want to sleep alone?”

  “I’m sorry. Maybe I’ve got a flu coming on, or something. I’m tired as sin.”

  “Ah, but not so
tired that you couldn’t make an appearance at a certain party uptown, isn’t that right?”

  The Boy’s eyes widen a little. His mouth tenses at the corners, and admits defeat. “I looked around for you. You must have been hiding.”

  “Who, me? I was in plain sight, I thought. Unless I just fade into the background for you now.”

  “You know that’s not true.”

  The saxophone’s joined the trumpet, and a bass player thrums a question. I lift my hands into the Boy’s hair and pull him down for a kiss—kissing’s so much easier than talking—and for a second or two he obeys me, opening his mouth, allowing me a taste of himself. Relief! Triumph! I still have my Boy; he’s still mine, God knows why, warm and green and relentless, the source of all life. His lips are charged with whisky, and it tastes better than gin. Better than anything. I test his tongue, and he pulls away.

  “Not here, Theresa.”

  “Then let’s go.”

  “I said not tonight. I’m not up to it.”

  I step backward. The band has begun to play in earnest, filling the air with noise, noise. My throat hurts. Not up to it.

  “All right. Find me my coat and a taxi.”

  “I’ll drive you back.”

  “That’s not necessary. After all, you’re a tired Boyo tonight. Tired as—what was it? Tired as sin.”

  He brings the coat, and a moment later we stand silently on Seventh Avenue, examining the approaching cars while the wind whistles along the brims of our hats. One of the vehicles swerves toward us. The Boy opens the door for me.

  “Good night, then,” I say.

  He bends down to kiss me. “Good night.”

  “And Boyo?” I reach up and touch his icy cheek with my thumb. “You’re going to have to learn how to lie a little better, or you’ll never get on in this world.”

  I climb swiftly into the taxi and slam the door all by myself, so he won’t have a chance to answer me. Not that he seems to have anything plausible at the ready, though, judging by the stricken young expression on his face as it slides past my frosted window.

  I HOPE I HAVEN’T GIVEN the impression that I don’t get on with my husband. Quite the contrary! We’ve been good friends for over two decades, ever since I walked into his dressing room, asked his valet to leave, and demanded to know whether the author of a certain spiteful anonymous note (spiteful and anonymous do tend to go together, I’ve always found) had her facts absolutely straight.

  He remained calm. He asked to see the note, and I obliged him. He said that it was true, that he had, in fact, conceived a child with another woman shortly after conceiving Tommy with me; moreover, he still kept this woman and her baby under—as we quaintly called it in those days—his protection. He didn’t say whether he was actually still fucking her, but then it hardly needed saying, did it? A lovely word, protection. Means ownership. And if you own something, by rights, you are allowed to fuck it.

  I then asked, rather tremulously, whether he was in love with this woman. For some time, he considered his answer. He poured me a glass of sherry and made me sit on the little settee he kept there. He was very kind. He sat next to me and took my hand and explained that he did love this woman, but not in the same way he cared for me; that in fact I was not to feel threatened at all by these little adventures of his. Perhaps, one day, I would like to have adventures of my own, and he was a fair man, a very fair man, and he fully understood that he had no grounds to object to my adventures, provided I conducted them prudently.

  I told him I wanted a divorce.

  Very well, he said. If I wanted a divorce, he would give me a divorce, but he asked me to consider the consequences. After all, we had a very pleasant life together, didn’t we? Nothing had materially changed between us. We got along well. We made each other laugh; we enjoyed many of the same interests; we had the same ideas of how life should be lived. We were of the same kind. We had a son together, a handsome and brilliant boy who was the light of Sylvo’s life; he looked very much forward to the forthcoming birth of our second child, and it was his dearest hope that we should have even more together. Our partnership was the central fact around which our pleasant life revolved. Did that mean nothing to me?

  He said all this in such a sincere voice, and I found—well, maybe it was the sherry, too—that he did make a great deal of sense. I did care for him. I didn’t want to live without him. I didn’t want to deprive our children of their father. I simply wanted him all to myself, and wasn’t that, in a sense, ungenerous of me? Did I really require his devoted presence every moment of the day? Did this mistress of his make him any less attentive to his family, did it subtract in any way from the thousand personal qualities I knew and liked about him? If he had slept with other women before our marriage—and of course he had—did it matter, logically, that he slept with other women now? Would I not perhaps like to have the promised excitement of my own lover one day, while maintaining the perfect security of a tranquil marriage?

  And—let’s be honest—were not most of our own friends married under similar understandings? Did I think I was somehow immune to this particular disorder?

  At Sylvo’s urging, I went away to think about these things. It was nearly summer, and I took Tommy and went out to the house on Long Island, though nobody else had yet arrived in town. We played on the beach and splashed in the cold May currents, until one afternoon, when the sun was hot and a few other families had begun to appear on the shore, Tommy stood up on his fat little legs and began to cry. Papa, he said. I want Papa.

  Now, you must understand what an adorable infant Tommy was, and how I worshipped him. Sylvo and I both did. In my childish enthusiasm, I’d insisted on nursing the baby myself, and even now—especially now—I spent every spare moment in his company, to the nanny’s bemusement. He was so handsome, such a dear little lad. He had the funniest ways, the most heart-melting expressions. He stood there in the sand with his little red pail in one hand, and his little red shovel in the other, and the tears streamed down his little red cheeks. And I thought, I must find a way through this. I must give Tommy what he needs.

  I scooped him up and called for the nanny and told her to pack his things, because we were going back to the city. We took the train and arrived by dinnertime. Sylvo was there, preparing to dine alone; he had promised me not to visit this woman while I was considering the matter of our marriage, and he was a man of his word. He stood at once when I entered the room, and I realized then that he had kept his promise. A small thing, maybe, but it decided me.

  Very well, I said. I won’t ask for a divorce. I won’t ask you not to have lovers, so long as you are discreet, and so long as you present no further bastards on my doorstep, and so long—here my voice broke, and the tears gathered in my eyes—so long as we remain first in your life.

  For a moment, he stood quite still, saying nothing. I remember that, how his lips pressed together, and I remember thinking that I had made a terrible mistake with my demands. That I was only twenty years old, after all, and he was nearly forty. I had no power over him at all. First in his life? What a hoot.

  Then he began to move. He pushed back his chair and walked around the end of the table in my direction, and when he reached me—I was trembling now—he took both my hands and thanked me for my generosity. And I don’t know how it was, but I took my seat at the table as if nothing had happened. I ate my dinner and conversed with my husband. Our lives simply resumed, carrying this new understanding between us. Oliver came along, and then a stillborn girl, and then darling Billy, and I received no more anonymous notes in the morning post. No whispers from well-meaning friends. Sylvo could not have been more courteously discreet.

  Indeed, it wasn’t until I was nursing Billy that I noticed Sylvo paying particular attention to a pretty young widow of our acquaintance, and by then—rather to my surprise—instead of tasting jealousy, I knew a kind of dry compassion. After all, I now possessed such a supreme confidence in our importance in Sylvo’s life—in my own be
auty and power, aged twenty-six—that his sexual interest in a pretty widow didn’t bother me at all. Let him enjoy himself while I devote myself to my baby son, I thought, and I’m positive that he did exactly that, although he kept his promise and enjoyed himself just as a gentleman should.

  So it went for many years, and though our marriage ebbed and flowed in a natural human rhythm—we had, to be perfectly honest, more ebbed than flowed in the past few years—we continued to honor the agreement we had made that evening, and our home was always a refuge of professional friendship into which, by unspoken consent, no transient loves could penetrate.

  Tonight, as the taxi at last approaches the familiar stretch of Fifth Avenue, and our apartment building that grows like a limestone monument from the pavement, I find myself inhaling a deep measure of ice-cold relief. These are natural human rhythms, I think, like the ebbing and flowing of a marriage, like the joys and heartbreaks of life itself. So the Boy was cross tonight. So his attention’s been temporarily diverted to an unspoiled girl of nineteen; so he hasn’t been quite honest with me about something. He’s young and virile—exceptionally virile—and he certainly can’t go to bed with this innocent and affianced Sophie. Within days, he’ll crave me as before. Maybe more, because he will have gone without sex all that time, and his hopeless desire for the bright little Sophie will sublimate into desire for me. (I am up-to-date on all the latest psychology, even if I don’t go in for it myself.)

  In the meantime, I have this apartment, and this comfortable life, and this husband and these sons, and while the apartment’s probably empty at the moment—husband in Sutton Place, sons grown and gone—it’s still mine. It’s my emptiness. And old Sylvo will be back by morning, and the boys will visit eventually, and the Boy will return to me. Thanks to the Boy, nothing’s so bleak and lonely as it seemed a few years ago, when Billy left to prep and the place was empty—thoroughly, echoingly empty—for the first time since we moved in.