Barbara Greer

by Stephen Birmingham

  ‘Ye gods,’ he said. ‘Nursing school?’

  ‘Yes, she wants to be a nurse. Anyway, she drove down last night. I’m slightly sore at her, by the way—she kept me up half the night—but anyway, she’s a very dear, sweet person and she’s always found you terribly attractive.’

  ‘Stop,’ he said. ‘I know what’s coming next.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘So—why don’t I call her up the next time I’m in Philadelphia? Well, the answer to that’s very simple—I’m never in Philadelphia.’

  ‘But she comes to New York from time to time, and—’

  ‘Look,’ he said. Abruptly he sat up and swung his trousered legs over the side of the sofa. ‘Please, now, don’t try to pair off your poor old cousin Woody with some female. Please don’t be like Peggy.’

  ‘Why? What’s Peggy done?’

  ‘She’s tried it. She brought some creature over here the other day. ‘She’d be perfect for you, Woody,’ she said. The creature’s name was Betty Lou or Bonnie Mae, I can’t remember. Dear little Peggy had the whole thing worked out. I think she’d even picked out the organist for the wedding. My God, little Peggy’s got militant!’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I forget,’ he said. ‘You haven’t been around here lately. Marriage is certainly changing our little Peggy. She marches around like a major general. Hup, two, three, four! Now, hear this! She’s turned into a regular little organiser. She’s got plans for everybody.’

  Barbara was puzzled. ‘What sort of plans?’ she asked.

  He sat back in the sofa and gazed upward at the ceiling. ‘Elaborate plans,’ he said. ‘Plans and schemes. But I think I’ve got it figured out. She plans to take over the company.’

  ‘Now, Woody!’ Barbara said.

  He leaned forward, suddenly serious. ‘I’m not kidding,’ he said, ‘I really, actually think that’s what she wants to do. Not herself, of course, but Barney. She’s got it figured out that Barney is going to be president of the paper company some day, and she’s going to be the power behind the throne.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘I mean it. She’s taken a sudden interest in the company. Quizzing your dad—quizzing Cousin Billy—quizzing me. Wanting to know this and that about the setup of the company. Cousin Billy came into my office the other day and said, “Woody, the funniest thing just happened. Peggy dropped into my office and wanted to look at some of our balance sheets.” Balance sheets! Ye Gods, what’s she want with balance sheets—unless—’ He spread his hands in a wide, somewhat despairing gesture. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘maybe it’s not a bad idea. Maybe Peggy and Barney ought to run the company. Under the circumstances.’

  ‘What do you mean, under the circumstances.’

  ‘Well, it’s no secret, is it?’ he asked. ‘All of us know it. Sales have been falling. Not fast, but bit by bit. A little bit each year. For some time now.’

  ‘I didn’t know that,’ Barbara said quietly. It was strange. She had never thought, really, of the company, in terms of sales going either up or down. The company, in her mind, had always been there; permanent, steady, a feature of all their lives, nothing that was in any way subject to change—a family company, the place where most of the family worked. Even she, the summer of her freshman year at college, had worked at the company as a clerk in the accounting department.

  ‘You watch Peggy while you’re here,’ Woody said. ‘Listen to her. Notice the way she talks—the way when she says anything she turns to Barney, to get him to agree. Watch her. See if you don’t think I’m right.’

  ‘Why, I think that’s the strangest thing,’ she said.

  ‘Why is it so strange? She’s got a good candidate there, in Barney. Harvard Business School and everything. Remember before they were married, when they were still engaged?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said.

  ‘He didn’t plan to work for the company then. He had another job all lined up, with General Mills or something. All of a sudden he changed his mind. Or Peggy changed it for him.’

  ‘I’m sure it was Barney’s decision,’ she said.

  ‘It’s hard to say,’ he said. ‘Who knows?’ It’s hard to say too much about Barney. Hard for me, anyway he’s—well, I see him every day and have almost since the day they were married. And I still don’t know him very well. He imitates. Lord knows what I mean by that, but he does—he imitates. Of course,’ he said, ‘you probably know him better.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ she asked. ‘Why should I—?’

  ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘you know—when he first came here, when they were engaged. You and he hit it off pretty well, didn’t you?’

  ‘Well—I always liked Barney. He always seemed—well, very nice. Perfect for Peggy.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Perfect for Peggy.’ He stared absently at the backs of his hands.

  ‘And what about Daddy?’ she asked. ‘Does Daddy know anything about this?’

  ‘I don’t know that either. If he knows—if he knows he’s in some funny kind of power battle with Peggy—he’s reacting in a funny way.’ He laughed almost inaudibly.

  ‘How?’ she asked.

  ‘He’s writing a book.’

  ‘Oh, no!’

  ‘Oh, yes!’ He smiled at her. ‘He’s writing a book about your grandfather.’

  ‘I can’t believe it.’

  ‘Well, he is. And he doesn’t know I know about it, so don’t mention it to him. The other day we were in the board room and he asked me to step back into his office and get something out of his brief-case. I went back, opened the brief-case, and there was a wad of papers. A manuscript. I looked at the title page. It said, “Preston Littell Woodcock the Second, The Biography of a Connecticut Industrialist”.’

  After a moment, she said, ‘Now why in the world would he want to do that?’

  ‘Again—who knows?’ Suddenly, he clapped his hands together. ‘Hey,’ he said. ‘My God but we’ve got serious! This is supposed to be a night of levity and celebration!’ He raised himself slightly on the sofa and from the pocket of his black trousers pulled out a heavy gold watch and flipped it open. ‘It’s way after seven. Cocktails were specifically promised us at seven o’clock. So let’s you and I have ours anyway. Shall we?’ He stood up and stretched his arms high above his head, yawning widely, ‘Shall we?’

  ‘All right,’ she said.

  And don’t look so worried!’ he said. ‘Maybe your father just wants to write a book? What’s wrong with that?’ He started across the room. He had a graceful walk, forward, on the balls of his feet; he was an excellent dancer. He reached out as he passed and snapped off the phonograph completely. Just off the library, in one of the small, unexplained rooms that the house contained, Barbara’s father had built a small bar with shelves for bottles and glasses, a built-in sink and refrigerator. Woody disappeared through this door and presently she heard him cracking open ice trays. ‘What’ll it be?’ he called.

  ‘Anything,’ she said. ‘Whatever you’re having.’

  ‘Scotch and water?’

  ‘Yes, fine.’

  He came back, carrying a drink in each hand. He gave her one. ‘Now please?’ he asked. ‘Can we forget mundane things like problems of the paper business?’

  ‘All right,’ she said.

  ‘Promise? Cross your heart?’

  She smiled up at him. ‘Cross my heart.’

  ‘Good!’ He touched his glass to hers. ‘To you!’ he said. ‘Now—come with me to the piano, love, and I will play a song.’

  She rose and followed him to the piano bench, took a swallow of her drink, and put it down. He placed his fingers on the keys and began to play a series of soft, ruminative chords. ‘What shall it be?’ he asked her, his long fingers musing on the keys. ‘Something, I think, infinitely sad! Something bittersweet, in keeping with our mood. Do you remember—’ He played random chords, searching for a tune among them, his hands crossing and re-crossing. He smiled broadly up at her, showing his astonishingly
white and even teeth. ‘Remember the day we buried Fraulein Ungewitter?’

  Though he was not an expert pianist—he played entirely by ear—he had an extravagant style, tinkly and sentimental, with elaborate use of the pedals. Then he started to play a tune she knew. ‘Sing!’ he commanded.

  She took another sip of her drink, then leaned forward, resting her elbows on the closed top of the piano, and sang:

  ‘I love you as I’ve never loved before—

  Since first I met you on the village green.

  Come to me e’er my dream of love is o’er;

  I’ll love you as I love you

  When you were sweet—when you were sweet sixteen!’

  ‘And now once more—’ he said.

  She laughed and came around the piano behind him. She placed her hands on his orange-sweatered shoulders and began the song again.

  She was really very fond of Woody. She had known him all her life. As children, in their games of pretending, they had always been a pair—mother and father, husband and wife, brother and sister, twins. He was even closer than a brother, and in some ways, closer than a husband or a father, closer than a twin. In an odd way, he reflected her, captured her image in himself somehow, and returned the image to her in his swift smiles. His shoulders rolled beneath her hands as he played, lifted his wrists, spread his fingers for the chords. She finished the song and he immediately began to play something else, something she did not know, but she continued to stand behind him, reluctant to do anything that would break the mood, disturb the reflection. Once they had had a miniature circus tent; painted on its inside walls were gaudy cages of lions, tigers, zebras, giraffes and little smiling monkeys. She remembered distinctly the hot and musty canvas smell on summer afternoons. In the tent he had solemnly told her, ‘I’m going to Africa some day.’ He had never gone to Africa, but perhaps there were places more bizarre than Africa where he had observed strange curiosities, had more meaningful adventures—adventures she herself might have had if she had possessed his particular, flashy courage—the courage it took to wear an orange sweater.

  Suddenly she remembered that, a few years ago, Woody had, indeed, had come close to death; the memory suprised her because she had trained herself to forget it, and the training, the effort, had been almost successful. Out of habit now, and training, she pushed the memory back where unhappy memories belonged.

  A sound at the library door interrupted her thoughts. She turned and saw her mother standing, looking straight and slim in a pale blue cotton dress, her pure white hair piled high on her head, framed in the doorway. Her mother held out her arms. ‘My darling!’ she said.

  Barbara quickly crossed the room and took the outstretched hands her mother offered and kissed her on the cheek. She was surrounded, once more, with that familiar perfume of sachets, colognes and powders that her mother always wore about her.

  ‘Darling!’ Edith Woodcock said. ‘I’m so happy—’

  ‘It’s wonderful to be here, Mother!’

  ‘How are my two angels? Dobie and Michael?’

  ‘Just fine, both wonderful.’

  ‘But it’s good to get away from the children, isn’t it? No matter how much you love them!’

  They crossed the room, arms entwined, to the piano where Woody sat, still playing arpeggios. ‘Woody, dear,’ Edith said, ‘don’t pound so! I remember what my mother used to say. Treat the piano as though she were a beautiful lady—a beautiful lady who wants to sing! Play something pretty.’

  But Woody stopped altogether, dropped his hands in his lap. ‘Is it finally the cocktail hour?’ he asked.

  Edith Woodcock laughed a soft little laugh. ‘You seem to have begun it already, dear,’ she said. ‘But that’s all right. Preston will be down in a minute and so will Peggy and Barney.’

  Woody stood up. ‘Are you going to let me come dressed like this?’ he asked. He gestured toward his clothes.

  ‘Of course!’ Edith said. ‘It’s just going to be the six of us. Very informal. I think we’ll have our drinks in the garden and then come back into the house for our little dinner.’

  ‘Oh, I can’t stay for dinner, Aunt Edith,’ he said.

  ‘Why not, dear?’

  ‘Well—’ he began.

  ‘You must,’ she said. ‘I want you to. I’m planning on it. I want all my little family together tonight—and you’re one of them, Woody, you know that.’

  Barbara said, ‘Well, I must change. Or at least wash. I’ve been on the highway all afternoon.’

  ‘Well, hurry then, dear,’ her mother said. ‘Run upstairs. John has brought your bag up. We’ll wait for you in the garden.’

  Cocktails were an evening ritual at the farm. When she came back downstairs a few minutes later and walked through the archways of the front rooms to the wide glass doors that opened into the garden, she could see that the ritual was beginning.

  Her father was there now, with Woody and her mother. They sat on green-cushioned garden chairs. Though it was not yet dark, the garden candles had been lighted. A small, low table was placed beside her father’s chair and John, the Negro houseman, wearing his white serving coat, had placed the heavy silver tray, holding decanters, glasses and a bowl of ice, on the little table.

  Preston Woodcock measured and mixed each drink precisely, according to formulas based on individual preferences which he had long known. As he finished each drink he presented it to John who waited at his side with a smaller silver tray. John then placed a linen cocktail napkin, folded, on the tray next to the glass and bore the tray, offering it with a barely perceptible, polite bow, to the person for whom Preston had concocted the drink. John served Edith first, then Woody. Then he placed within Preston Woodcock’s easy reach the small silver pitcher that contained—prepared ahead of time and already chilled—Preston’s special mixture of Martinis. Then he withdrew to a corner of the garden, perhaps twenty feet away, and stood, waiting for his next order.

  As Barbara paused just inside the door watching this faultless ceremony, watching it momentarily end, she saw her father now fill his own glass. He lifted it and she could see his mouth forming the customary words of salute—a toast that took in memories of identical cocktail hours in the past, and hopes for a continuance of cocktail hours in the future: ‘Here’s to another pleasant evening for all of us.’ He smiled and the two others also smiled and lifted their glasses. Her father then sat back in his chair, crossing one pale trousered knee upon the other.

  She thought suddenly, watching him, that her father looked a little tired. His face seemed somewhat haggard—older, perhaps, than when she had last seen him. He was four years older than her mother: he was fifty-seven. But ordinarily he managed to create about himself an atmosphere of youthfulness. His frame, his carriage and his step were still remarkably athletic. He had been captain of the track team at Yale and was a firm believer in regular exercise. In winter he played squash three times a week without fail and in summer played golf every Thursday and Saturday afternoon, and took a morning and an evening swim every day. As a result he concealed his age somewhat with a trim waistline and a healthy tan. He had the tan tonight but still there seemed to be a certain greyness and weariness in his face as she watched him reach for the silver pitcher and fill his glass. She opened the glass door and went down the steps. Seeing her, her father rose. ‘Hello, Daddy,’ she said, and when he kissed her and squeezed her shoulders tightly, his smile was so warm and cheerful that the illusion she had had a moment before, of old age, vanished completely.

  ‘Baby!’ he said. ‘It’s great to see you. How’re those two little boys? And Carson?’

  ‘Just wonderful, Daddy.’

  ‘Off on one of his trips, I understand.’

  ‘Yes. Off on one of his trips.’

  ‘Well, if it gets you back home, I don’t mind these trips,’ he said. ‘A light Scotch and water for you?’

  ‘Yes, please, Daddy.’ She sat down in one of the chairs.

  John greeted her when
he brought her drink to her. ‘Good evening, Miss Barbara,’ he said softly.

  ‘Hello, John. How have you been?’

  He murmured a reply that she understood to be in the affirmative. John, whether by nature or as a result of eleven years of her mother’s training, spoke in a voice that rarely rose above a whisper.

  Her father smiled and raised his glass to her. ‘Welcome home, Barbara,’ he said.

  Her mother turned to her and said, ‘Barbara, one of the first things I want you to do tomorrow is go and see your grandmother. Will you promise to do that, dear? It won’t be an easy visit—I know that. The poor dear is so confused these days. I went to see her yesterday and she kept asking me where your grandfather was. He hadn’t been home for days, she said. I didn’t know what to say. I couldn’t say he’d been dead for five years, so I said he was at the mill and would be home in a little while—thinking that would get her mind off it. Then she turned to me and said, “No, he’s dead.” What could I say then? I just sat there!’

  ‘She telephoned the mill last week and asked to speak to him,’ Woody said. ‘Poor Betty at the switchboard didn’t know what to do, so she gave the call to me.’

  ‘Really?’ Preston asked. ‘You didn’t tell me that, Woody.’

  ‘Didn’t I, Uncle Pres? I guess I forgot, I meant to.’

  ‘Poor thing,’ Barbara said.

  ‘She was ninety-three in April,’ Edith said. ‘Heaven spare me from living that long.’ She turned to her husband. ‘I know she’s your mother, dear, and you love her, and I love her too! But ninety-three is too old—it’s just too long for a person to live. I hate to say it. It sounds cruel, but it’s true, don’t you think?’

  ‘Oh, I know you’re right, Edith,’ he said. ‘The only thing I hope is—well, you know she sometimes tries to get out of her chair by herself. And I hope—all I hope is that Mother dies peacefully some night in her sleep—not in a fall or an accident.’

  ‘Well, let’s not talk about that,’ Edith said quickly. And, to Barbara, she said, ‘I told her on the phone this afternoon that you were coming and she sounded delighted. She seemed perfectly clear about it. Sometimes she’s perfectly clear! But if you get there and find that she doesn’t know who you are, don’t let it upset you, dear. Just say, “I’m your granddaughter, Barbara,” very gently, and keep reminding her, filling her in on details.’