The solution to my other eternal problem, what to do with Steve Sullivan, emerged in the spring when he married Emily at his local church on Long Island. A church wedding was awkward since his first wife, whom he had divorced years ago, was still alive, but ministers were becoming more flexible as they realized that the prophesied religious revival was never going to arrive, and so the problem was glossed over without too much trouble. Nevertheless Emily thought it would be better if the wedding were quiet, and so the guest list was limited to the family and close friends.
Since my stepfather was unable to attend the ceremony due to illness, I was obliged to give the bride away. Afterward I got so drunk that Sam had to help Vivienne take me home. Vivienne was livid, Sam disapproving and I felt utterly miserable. On arriving home I shut myself up in my room, burrowed under the thickest darkest blanket I could find and passed out, but when I emerged chalkily sometime later I received no sympathy from my wife.
“I just hated to think of Emily marrying that man!” I blurted out.
“You should have thought of that before you flung them together with your blessing!” said Vivienne tartly.
“It wasn’t real then. It was just a game—like checkers or something. But when I walked up the aisle with Emily I suddenly realized I was sacrificing her—oh, God, poor Emily! When I think of that great coarse oaf crawling into bed with my pure beautiful sister—a virgin …”
“My God, Cornelius, if Emily’s as titillated by the prospect as you obviously are I’d say she had nothing to worry about!”
“What a filthy thing to say!” I cried in rage. “You don’t understand anything!”
“All I understand is that you’re being quite ridiculous and very tiresome and I’m going to bed to rest. I have to think of the baby.”
“All you ever think about nowadays is that baby!” I yelled at her. “What about me? When do I ever get any attention? I’ve had an unspeakable day, I’m horribly upset and what I’d like right now is—”
“Oh, all you ever want’s the same thing! God, how boring men are sometimes!” exclaimed Vivienne exasperated, and flounced out of the room.
“—is a little sympathy!” I roared after her, but she had already slammed the door.
Later we apologized, and after she had graciously permitted me to make love to her—an increasingly rare event nowadays, since she had to “think of the baby”—we were friends again, but there was no doubt in my mind that this pregnancy was uphill work. I did try hard to be sensible. I thought how proud I would be when the newest Paul Cornelius Van Zale entered the world; I thought how beautiful Vivienne was even now that she was pear-shaped and how lucky I was to be her husband; I thought of my intact millions, my influential position at the office, my brilliant neutralization of both Steve and Greg, and my rosy future as a philanthropist. But the harder I reminded myself how lucky I was, the more depressed I became. I felt lonely and also cheated, as if a loved one had short-changed me behind my back. Worst and most humiliating of all, I felt sexually frustrated.
“For God’s sake, Neil!” said Sam good-naturedly when I summoned the nerve to mutter to him about my most private problems. “Of course you must show Vivienne every consideration, but so what? Call up Margie and offer to bring her a bottle of hooch!”
“I couldn’t possibly do such a thing!” I said frenziedly. “It would be immoral! It would be adultery! I just can’t see girls like Margie now that I’m married—it’s quite contrary to all my principles!”
“Then take a lot of cold showers and work harder. Jesus, Neil, what do you expect me to say?”
Everybody seemed to be peculiarly unsympathetic. My depression deepened. Certainly when Greg asked if he could stay with us for the Fourth of July holiday I had no desire to see him and was cross with Vivienne for sanctioning his request without first seeking my permission. However, not wanting to quarrel with her I resigned myself to the visit as best I could.
He arrived at the end of June, but fortunately I was busy at the office and saw little of him. I was also having trouble with a wisdom tooth and had to leave the house before he was up in order to keep a series of dental appointments. It was on the morning of the third appointment that I remembered I had left behind some important papers, and when I left my dentist’s office I told my chauffeur to drive not downtown to Wall Street but crosstown to Fifth Avenue.
In the library I retrieved the papers, returned to the hall and paused. I had not slept with Vivienne the previous night and had not interrupted her sleep to say goodbye. Deciding to surprise her, I set down my papers on the hall table, removed a red rose from a nearby vase and bore it gallantly upstairs to her room.
She was talking to someone. I heard her muffled voice as I approached the door, but it was not until my hand was reaching for the knob that I heard Greg murmur a reply. I froze. Then, backing away, I tiptoed down the hallway to my room and moved noiselessly across the carpet to the communicating door. It was still ajar. If we slept apart I always left the door open so that I wouldn’t feel so lonely. It had been her decision, not mine, to sleep alone in our bed when she wanted to ensure a good night’s rest for the sake of the baby.
“… so be nice to Cornelius,” Vivienne was saying sternly.
I could see them through the crack between the door and the frame. Vivienne, in a frothy lace bedjacket, was sitting up in bed with her breakfast tray in front of her; she was casually opening her mail and glancing without interest at each charitable appeal. Greg, fully dressed in one of his cheap white suits, was sprawled in a nearby chair. So relieved was I to see that in private they were no more intimate than they were in my presence that it took me several seconds to concentrate on the conversation.
“… but I hate the thought of that little bastard going to bed with you, I hate the whole idea of you being married to him—”
“Oh God, you sound just like Cornelius talking about Emily and Steve! Now listen, Greg darling, and do try not to be so stupid. Everything’s fine. You have exactly the sort of life you like down there in Florida and I have exactly the sort of life I want here in New York. Believe me, I’d rather be Mrs. Cornelius Van Zale, pregnant wife of the well-known banker and resident of Millionaires’ Row, than Mrs. Vivienne Coleman, the former society hostess fallen on hard times and living in obscurity in Queens! I know I didn’t intend to marry Cornelius when we started on this scheme to win a little security for you by cultivating him, and maybe I wouldn’t have married him if the Crash hadn’t played havoc with my capital, but I did marry him and what’s more I don’t regret it.”
“But if I’d only had a tenth of that little bastard’s money I’d have married you, Viv! I know you never cared for me in that way—I know it was always Stewart you loved, but—”
“Greg … darling … please! I thought we’d buried all that!”
“I know, but when I see you living here with that little bastard—”
“Will you kindly stop referring to my husband as ‘that little bastard’? Damn it, I like Cornelius! I know I married him for his money, but I’m fond of him and I’ll be fonder still when our beautiful baby comes. He’s a nice little boy and really quite easy to manage …”
I tried to back away but my legs were too stiff to move.
“… and anyway I find him erotic in bed. A lot of women would. Oh yes, I’m sure it’s impossible for a man like you to understand! But women like powerful men, and when that power is hidden behind an angel-faced façade the erotic attraction is even stronger. You still don’t believe he’s tough? You should see him in bed! It’s obvious then what kind of a man he is.”
“Shut your goddamned mouth!” bawled Greg in agony.
“I’m sorry, darling, but I get just a little tired of your being so nasty about dear little Cornelius. …”
I suddenly found I was in the hallway with the door closed. It was very quiet. I felt ill.
As I went to the bathroom for my medication there was a tightness in my chest and it was becoming ha
rder to breathe.
A long time later I was in the library, but I had no memory of getting there. My eyes ached but my breathing was steadier. I wanted desperately to talk to Paul, and when I faced the fact that he was gone and that there was no one who could help me I opened the liquor cabinet and took out a bottle of scotch.
I poured myself a drink and stood looking at it. Then I picked up the glass and poured every drop of liquor back into the bottle. Vivienne had called me tough. Now she was going to find out exactly how tough I was.
Glancing in the mirror above the fireplace, I saw my white face and stricken expression, and paused just long enough to set my mouth in its straightest line. Then I went out into the hall. I mounted the stairs. I reached the main hallway. And I walked into Vivienne’s room without pausing to knock.
They were still there, still talking, Vivienne still lounging in bed, Greg still sprawled in his chair.
“Darling, what a lovely surprise!” exclaimed Vivienne. Then she saw my face.
Greg saw it too. Standing up, he said uneasily, “Something wrong?”
In a clear firm voice I said four words. To Greg I said, “Get out!” and to Vivienne I said, “We’re through.” I allowed myself one second to savor their shattered expressions, but before either of them could speak I walked out of the room and headed downtown to my work at Willow and Wall.
II
Nobody could accept that my decision was final. Everybody without exception thought I would crawl back to my wife for a reconciliation. No one could understand what had happened to my marriage, and the mystery was heightened when I refused to discuss it. After moving into Sam’s apartment I spent sixteen hours a day at the office and the other eight in solitude in his guest room. Vivienne frantically tried to see me at the bank but was refused admittance. She then tried to call me, but since I never answered the phone myself that attempt to communicate with me was also doomed to failure. Finally she stormed Sam’s apartment but was ejected by my bodyguard.
Meanwhile my chief aide had produced the report which I should have ordered before my marriage.
Vivienne’s South American real estate, which she had told me reverted to her first husband’s family on her remarriage, had consisted only of a small hacienda in Argentina which produced an income of less than a thousand a year. She had been wiped out by the Crash. She had been sleeping with Stewart Da Costa after her husband died, and it was common knowledge in a certain stratum of society that Greg had always wanted to step into his brother’s shoes. Vivienne had had a compulsive desire to go out of her way to help Greg, not merely because he was the brother of the man she had loved but because she felt guilty that she couldn’t reciprocate his feelings for her. The conspiracy which linked them together was simple, straightforward and painfully easy to uncover. One professional inquiry soon confirmed all the facts I’d never wanted to know.
Emily arrived to see me, and because I was too ashamed to tell her how completely I had been fooled and humiliated, I was at first unable to defend myself when she talked about my obligations to my child. I was still longing for her to show some trace of understanding when she concluded, “And what about your marriage vows, Cornelius? What about your moral obligations?”
“They’re canceled. Any contract made under false pretenses is voidable.”
I thought she would at least understand that, but to my misery she simply bent her head, pulled on her gloves and said coldly, “I’m just glad Mama isn’t alive to hear you.”
That put my back right against the wall, and suddenly my misery was shot with anger and I recovered my talent for slicing my way out of a tight corner. I aimed for the Achilles’ heel.
“Emily,” I said, “do I really have to go into explicit sexual detail in order to make you understand why I can’t live with Vivienne again?”
She promptly went scarlet and burst into tears. “It’s just that I’m so upset about that baby,” she wept. “I don’t know how you could do this to your own child, Cornelius.”
“You mean you think it would be better for him to be brought up in the company of two parents who never spoke to one another and made no secret of the fact that they hated each other’s guts? I’m sorry, Emily, but I can’t agree with that. If you can accept that Vivienne and I are finished—and we are—then for the baby’s sake you should also accept that it’s in his best interests that we should live under different roofs.”
I gave her a handkerchief and put my arm around her while she dried her tears. Eventually she said yes, she supposed I was right, but she still felt sad.
“There’s only one other thing I want to say, Cornelius,” she said as she stood up to leave, “and that’s this: see Vivienne—please! It’s cowardly not to face her, and she deserves at least one honest conversation with you.”
“All right,” I said. “I’ll see her, but after that I never want to discuss this subject with anyone again. It’ll be closed, finished and dead.”
“You’re very hard, Cornelius,” was Emily’s parting reproach, but she was wrong. Beneath my protective shell my emotions were no more well-ordered than pulp in a paper mill, and when Vivienne arrived to see me it was a full five minutes before I could steel myself to face her.
III
She was haggard, with dark circles beneath her eyes. She looked well past forty.
“I guess you heard that conversation I was having with Greg,” she said. “I managed to figure out that much.”
“Uh-huh.”
“I shouldn’t have discussed you sexually with him, but I only did it to show you in a good light, and Cornelius, I didn’t just marry you for your money! I could never have married someone who didn’t attract me, and when the baby started I realized just how much I did love you! Cornelius, please—I know we can start again. I’ll be the best wife in the world to you, I swear it, and you’ll never regret coming back.” She broke off. She was twisting her rings round and round on her wedding finger. There was a coffee stain on the bottom of her maternity smock. “Please!” she said desperately. “Please!”
I was silent. She tried again. “I know we had a problem recently in bed, but it was only because I found it a little uncomfortable. I still wanted you just as much. After the baby comes everything’ll be just as wonderful as before, I know it will.”
“I can never sleep with you again,” I said politely. “I’m sorry.”
“But—”
“It would be impossible. I’d never even get an erection. No man could want a woman who speaks of him with such patronizing contempt behind his back.”
“But I was singing your praises!”
“You called me a little boy,” I said. “You said I was easy to manage. You referred to me as a dog-lover might refer to a pet poodle. You made it very, very clear what you really thought of me.”
“But I—I—” She started to weep. Tears streamed down her face.
“It’s finished,” I said. “It’s over. I have nothing else to say.”
“But the baby—”
“Of course he must stay with you while he’s an infant. I won’t be unreasonable about custody, and I’m sure our lawyers will be able to work out a civilized divorce because I’m even willing to be generous about alimony. Since you married me for my money I’d just hate you to go away empty-handed.”
I had gone too far. Her mouth hardened. She dashed away her tears.
“My God!” she said. “You cold-blooded little bastard, I’m going to sue you for every penny I can get!”
And she did. It was the messiest divorce New York had seen in years. The scandal ricocheted up and down Manhattan from the Battery to Spuyten Duyvil, and photographers made my life such a misery that I became more of a recluse than ever. I did manage to commit the adultery required by the state of New York before divorce proceedings could start, but before I began I looked under the bed to see how closely I was being observed by the press. There was no one there, but I would hardly have been surprised if I had discovered Maury Paul,
known as Cholly Knickerbocker to the millions who read his society columns. Mr. Paul did not treat me kindly in his articles, and referred to me constantly as “the farm-boy from Ohio.”
My partners maintained a strained silence, although once Lewis said it was a pity there was so much talk. Fortunately it was the height of summer, and since I could retreat to Bar Harbor without losing face I rented a thirty-room cottage and walled myself up with my secretary, my aides, two bodyguards and a synopsis of War and Peace. Sam came up later to see me, but he stayed with his parents, just as he always did when he returned to his home town. Other people tried to see me too but Sam was the only one I could face.
“There are a couple of girls I know …”he began helpfully, but I shook my head. I had lost interest in sex, food, drink and exercise. I was grieving as if for someone who had died, and presently I managed to confide to him that I had burned all my wedding photographs. Then I cried. Sam was appalled, and, thinking I would be ashamed of myself afterward, he tried to leave in order to spare me embarrassment, but I wouldn’t let him go. Clutching his sleeve, I forced him to listen to a long dreary rambling monologue about how much I had loved Vivienne and how money never brought anyone any happiness and how my life had ended at twenty-two.
“God, I need a drink,” said Sam when I paused for breath. “You’d better have one, too.”
“No, it’ll destroy me!”
“Well, you’re so destroyed already I can’t imagine one drink will make much difference. What would you like? Martini, Bronx, Alexander, Sidecar, Three-Mile-Limit, Whisky Sour or a Whoopee? You look as if you could do with a Last Resort.”
We had a couple of Whoopees apiece. The lemon juice and honey were soothing on the throat, and the applejack and gin were soothing on the soul. I began to feel better, and when the drinks were finished we went for a swim and lay in the sun. I started to maunder on about Vivienne again, but Sam interrupted to describe a merger he was working on between General Baby Foods and the Canadian-Atlantic Grocery Stores, and presently I was suggesting an interesting flotation which avoided any hint of common stock. Later we played tennis and I won. By this time I felt hungry, so we ate broiled Maine lobster, very fresh and succulent, followed by blueberries with ice cream.
The Rich Are Different Page 66