“Yes. Right. Oh, God, how could I have been such a—”
“Your second mistake,” said Jake, lighting a new cigarette from the butt that was dying between his fingers, “was your failure to grasp Kevin’s own attitude to his dilemma. Just because you can’t understand it doesn’t mean it’s some kind of grand intellectual delusion, yet you behaved as if he’d proved himself certifiable. No wonder Kevin got so angry. What you were really doing was insulting his view of life—or reality, if you prefer—by imposing your will on his.”
“Hell, yes, I guess I was. But I didn’t mean to! All I wanted—”
“Yes, we know what you wanted. Your third mistake—”
“Christ, is there another?” I felt close to complete despair.
“—was to rant on like a fundamentalist preacher from the Bible Belt about your so-called moral duty. Try to be a little more sophisticated, Neil! My God, twenty-five years in New York and you’re still capable of acting like a farmboy from Ohio!”
“But I was sincere when I talked about moral duty!”
“Sincerity is nearly always undiplomatic and very often disastrous. Anyway, I question your sincerity. Maybe you should too. Your talk of moral duty was just an excuse for interfering, and you’ve already admitted that your motives for helping Kevin weren’t as pristine as you’d like to believe.”
“Yes, but …” I sighed. I felt tired and muddled and dispirited, and Jake, seeing this, stood up, patted me on the shoulder, and refilled my glass of brandy.
“Relax, Neil. No one ever acts for the purest possible motives. You tried to do what you genuinely believed to be right, and an impure motive or two doesn’t alter that basic fact. You were misguided, the result was a disaster, but I accept that you were fundamentally well-intentioned.”
“And you sympathize?”
“Of course. I know how fond you are of Kevin. I know how much it means to have a friend who’s known you from the beginning.”
I experienced an enormous surge of relief and gratitude. When all was said and done, there was no friend as close to me as Jake. He alone understood the problems of wealth and isolation because his position was so similar to my own.
“How can I make it up with Kevin?” I said at last, worrying over the problem. “Shall I write him a letter? If I call he’ll just hang up.” I had an inspiration. “I could write him a letter by hand. That would show him I was sincere. He knows my correspondence is always typed by secretaries.”
“I should leave him alone. Any move you make toward a reconciliation will probably encourage him to think you’re exercising your power again, and he’ll stay hostile. The first move’s got to come from him.”
“But it may never come!”
“Possibly, but if you make big mistakes, you must expect to pay for them.”
“ ‘For every wrong someday you’ll pay’?” I said, quoting a Hank Williams song. “You don’t truly believe that, do you, Jake?”
Jake thought for a moment. “No.”
We laughed together, two cynical New Yorkers with an unusual amount in common.
“How’s Vicky?” said Jake as I stood up to go.
“Just fine, judging from her letters. How are your kids?”
“Okay.” Jake never seemed interested in his children, and as the conversation veered at last toward our domestic lives, I felt that strange slender barrier rise between us to sever our lines of communication.
“How’s Amy?” I said, mechanically completing the ritual of family inquiries.
“Fine. … How’s Alicia?”
“Oh, she’s just great! She’s taking much more of an interest in life these days with her charities and that flower-arranging course she gives to the Junior League. I’m very pleased. I was worried about her around the time Vicky got married. It’s hard for women when all the kids have left home.”
“Sure.”
He came out with me to see me off. Leaving the library, we traversed a huge gloomy atrium and our footsteps echoed eerily on the marble surrounding the ornamental pool. The gilded pipes of the organ were lost in the shadows of the domed ceiling.
“What do you think of the latest shenanigans of the antitrust case?” he said. “Judge Medina must be on his knees by this time.”
I responded automatically to his move to restore the communication lines. “It’s my one regret Van Zale’s wasn’t named as a defendant in the case along with the other seventeen investment-banking houses,” I said. “I’d have told prosecuting counsel a thing or two!”
“Think of the legal bills you’d have to pay. And the time you’d have to waste.”
“True.” We paused by the mock-medieval front door and shook hands.
“Thanks a lot, Jake, you’re a true friend. I appreciate it.”
“Good night, Neil. And remember: soft-pedal the power in front of your friends, reserve the phrase ‘moral duty’ for discussion with your local minister, and try not to act all the time as if you strongly suspect God is a white Anglo-Saxon Protestant.”
“I don’t suspect it, I know it!” I retorted, feeling very much better, and heard his laughter ring out behind me as he gently closed the door.
III
I was still estranged from Kevin six months later when Vicky gave birth in London to a second son, who was promptly named Paul Cornelius. Sam and Vicky both phoned to invite me to England for the christening, and although I did not want to appear as if I were seizing the excuse to visit them, I promised that Alicia and I would cross the Atlantic in August. I was careful to stress that we would stay in a hotel. Sam had bought a house overlooking Hyde Park, and I had no doubt it was spacious enough to accommodate us, but I was anxious not to put too great a strain on his hospitality. I didn’t want to upset Vicky by aggravating the tension which was certain to be present in any reunion between myself and her husband.
Vicky seemed to have settled down well in London. She had registered for a course in German but had abandoned it when she became pregnant, and anyway, she was too busy organizing her new home to pay serious attention to studying. Her letters described her struggles with the English interior decorators, Eric’s first day at his English nursery school, the difficulties of living up to the expectations of British servants (I thought of Carraway and sympathized), the miraculous quality of English radio and television, and the ever-present fascination of the queen, the coronation, and the weather. Occasionally she mentioned a new movie or imported American musical which she and Sam had seen in the West End, but they were too busy entertaining Sam’s new clients to go out much on the town.
Several times every week I spoke to Sam on the phone to make sure everything was progressing satisfactorily in London, and although I knew he resented my breathing down his neck, I was determined to keep him on his toes by regularly reminding him who was boss. Under the circumstances it seemed the least I could do to restore the correct balance of power between us and a small price for him to pay for his new life in Europe. However, I was careful to keep our conversations friendly, and no one eavesdropping on us would have guessed that our good-humored exchanges masked bitterness on my part and probably exasperation—to say the least—on his.
“So how are the British, Sam?” I said on the first working day after the coronation in June. “I hope you enjoyed yourself drinking the queen’s health and listening to everyone declare that the spirit which conquered Mount Everest was the spirit which won the war!”
“Well, I’m all for giving credit where credit is due,” said Sam placidly, “and why shouldn’t I drink the queen’s health? I like the royal family. They’re all German anyway.”
That was one of our milder exchanges, I reminding him that living in Europe wasn’t all moonlight and roses and he rebuffing me by bragging about how well he was handling a potentially hostile environment. But our most acrimonious conversations arose over the kind of image I wanted the new Van Zale’s to present in London.
Van Zale’s had had a London office for some sixty yea
rs, but I had closed its doors and withdrawn our capital from Europe before the outbreak of war there in 1939. Banking had changed greatly over those sixty years. Originally we had specialized in letters of credit and loans to foreign governments, but after World War I that business had died and by the time Steve Sullivan went to London to be the resident partner in 1929 we had become interested in putting American money into English business—not an easy task, as British businesses often raised the money for their needs without the help of issuing houses. However, Steve had done well in adverse circumstances and our London house had shown a profit until the impending war had cast a shadow over European finance. Now times had changed yet again; the shadow was gone, American corporations were spearheading an economic invasion of Europe, and it was natural for them to turn for help to an investment-banking house with the best transatlantic connections.
“We must make it clear we’re an outpost of America,” I said firmly. “After all, this is economic war. I know the British feel sentimental about Americans because we beat Hitler for them, but the economic reality is very different from that political fantasy which the politicians are pushing to convince the Russians that the West is totally united. The economic reality is that we’re fighting for control of Britain, the empire, Europe, and the world. Forget the politicians talking about friendship. The future lies in the presence of the American bottle of ketchup on the English breakfast table. I want the most modern office you can get, the most modern equipment, and whenever possible, American staff. I want a portrait of the president in the lobby and the Stars and Stripes flying right alongside the Union Jack—”
“Neil, you’re dreaming. Wake up. The British don’t feel that sentimental about us. They don’t even admit we won the war for them. In fact, they haven’t forgotten how we left them to fight the Battle of Britain alone, and if there’s one thing they resent nowadays, it’s Americans like you who think America can muscle in and convert England overnight into a U.S. satellite. We must soft-pedal the American image. We’ve got to be quiet and discreet and gentlemanly.”
“Is there a law which says we can’t be quiet and discreet and gentlemanly—Jesus, how godawful that sounds!—in modern offices with modern equipment?”
Our old office in Milk Street, a dark dismal relic of the Victorian era, had fortunately been bombed to pieces, so there was no question of going back there. I was glad. We needed a new image, and anyway, I’m not sentimental about old buildings. One can get very, very tired of sordid plumbing.”
However, Sam told me that the right location was more important than modern conveniences, and presently I was informed that he had taken a floor of a building off Lombard Street.
“How old’s the building?” I said suspiciously on learning that it had survived the blitz.
“New by English standards. It was built in 1910.”
“Nineteen-ten! Christ, are you sure there’s not a demolition order on it?”
Sam tried to tell me that since much of the City of London was still in ruins, we were lucky to find decent office space at all, but I cut him off.
“God, I sometimes wonder why we’re bothering with this European office,” I said. “Can it be worth it? I reckon Europe’s washed up anyway. This economic boom will never last.”
“Your trouble, Neil, is that you’ve never lived in Europe, you’re God knows how many generations removed from any ancestor who grew up there, and you just don’t understand it. Forget your simplistic American vision of Europe as a washed-up continent. Europe’s always being washed up—it means nothing. The Romans washed it up, Attila washed it up, Napoleon and Hitler washed it up, but the point is that Europe doesn’t wear out, no matter how often it’s sent to the cleaners. Europe survives. Invest in it. And for God’s sake give me carte blanche to do what I know is best for Van Zale’s—I realize it’s hard for you, but just try not to be such a backseat driver!”
We laughed coolly at the joke. I gave him the carte blanche. We hung up seething.
“I wish you’d make the effort to come over here,” Sam said after his new son was born. “I think you’d stop worrying so much about the London office if you could see for yourself how well we’re doing.”
“It’s not a question of making an effort,” I said, although it was. It’s always an effort to go to a place where you know you’ve no hope of feeling at home. “Of course I’ll make the trip! Do you think I’d want to postpone meeting the latest member of the family?”
Sam laughed, but I wondered if he had been secretly hoping I’d never summon the will to leave America. I wondered too, despite the fact that he seemed pleased to be a father again, how he really felt now that he had two little kids screaming at the top of their lungs, giving their nurse hell, and calling him Daddy. I supposed he was enjoying the novelty, although like Jake he had never seemed interested in children. It all seemed kind of a waste to me.
Meanwhile I had decided I was ready for a vacation, even a vacation which had to be spent in Europe. Since Sam and Vicky’s departure I had kept myself very busy, following the activities of the oil lobby in Congress, launching several large flotations to improve the nation’s highway system, and attending numerous meetings of the Van Zale Fine Arts Foundation. I had welcomed Eisenhower’s arrival at the White House, cheered the collapse of the marathon antitrust case involving investment banks, and invested in a painting by Kokoschka which no one, not even Teresa, liked. The end of the Korean mess was imminent, and I foresaw record peacetime demands for funds; it certainly seemed the right time to take a break before the economic pace stepped up and we all reaped the benefits accruing from the new administration, but when I finally faced the prospect of an overseas vacation, I nearly flunked it. Europe was such a long way away. I couldn’t decide how to get there. Should reservations be made on one of the Stratocruiser Speedbirds which flew daily to London? I decided I didn’t care for flying unless I knew the pilot personally. Alicia suggested that a sea trip might be pleasant, so I told my aides to fix passages on a transatlantic liner, and when they had done that I told them to buy me all the latest guidebooks on England. I knew I had to be well prepared for this trip. No European was going to think me an ignorant American barbarian who was incapable of approaching a foreign country with respect. I studied hard, and often read far into the night.
“I’m not looking forward to this trip one bit,” I confessed at last to Alicia. “Wish we were going to Bar Harbor as usual.”
“But, Cornelius, think how exciting it’ll be for you to see Vicky again!”
“Yes,” I said, “but nothing good ever happened to me in England.” I thought of my one previous visit to Europe in 1940 when I had been outwitted by my old enemy Dinah Slade. “I’ve got this feeling,” I said, “that as soon as I set foot on English soil, something disastrous will happen.”
“Nonsense!” said Alicia firmly, and began to talk about the suite which had been booked for us on board ship. She seemed to be looking forward to the vacation, although I knew she liked Europe no better than I did, and she was clearly excited about the voyage.
“So you’re sharing a cabin with your wife!” said Teresa when I finally disclosed some details of my departure to her. “Great! And I’m supposed to step aside gracefully and cheer, I guess, while you sail away on a second honeymoon!”
“Nothing like that’s going to happen!” I protested, much gratified by this display of possessiveness. “Of course we’ve got to share a suite to keep up appearances, but there’ll be separate beds.”
“Oh, yeah?” said Teresa. “Well, have a good time, and if you don’t come back here panting to jump into bed with me, I’ll smell the biggest possible rat!”
“I’ll remember that!” I promised, feeling more gratified than ever, and thought how lucky I was that we still got along so well after more than four years together. Occasionally I did wonder if she were unfaithful to me, but I was reassured by her chronic untidiness, which would have made it impossible for her to conceal her infide
lity for long. Certainly she always behaved as if she liked me. I had become increasingly fond of her as the years passed.
“So long, Teresa,” I said on the evening before my vacation began. “Be good.”
“You too, angel face. No screwing around.”
We kissed with commendable passion and parted.”
I sighed. Europe loomed ahead, as cold and uninviting as an iceberg, and trying not to feel as if I were as doomed as that notable iceberg victim the Titanic, I trudged home to Fifth Avenue and went to bed with the latest copy of the London Times.
Chapter Four
I
ALICIA TRAVELED ONLY WITH her maid, but I brought with me two aides as well as my valet and my bodyguard. I like to be protected from all the more unpleasant aspects of travel, and with my aides dealing with the tiresome details, my valet ensuring that my clothes were always immaculate, and my bodyguard preventing any unwelcome intrusion from the press, the needy, or the just plain curious, my journey to Europe was uneventful.
It was also unembarrassing. I had been worried in case Alicia privately regretted having to sleep in the same room as me in order to keep up appearances, but the suite was so large and the twin beds so far apart that we both quickly relaxed. Soon I even felt happy; after years of separate bedrooms it was painfully exciting to sleep so close to her again. Of course I knew I must never upset her by any thoughtless proposition, but I would surreptitiously watch her brush her hair or apply her makeup, and think how lovely she was. It was as if I were seeing her again after a long absence, and the farther we traveled from New York, the more fantastic it seemed that I should find it easy to go to bed with another woman. Fortunately the liner docked at Southampton before my fantasies of a miraculous reconciliation could overwhelm my common sense, but I think Alicia sensed my happiness in being near her again, because her habitual cool politeness eased into a warmer, gentler manner which was far less formal.
Sins of the Fathers Page 32