Return to Peyton Place

by Grace Metalious

  David watched Allison as she entered and looked for him and walked toward his table. He thought she moved with a new assurance. He smiled to himself. Our little Allison is growing up, he thought. Allison dropped wearily into the chair across from David, and the waiter brought coffee and Allison recounted her day. She told David about Paul Morris, Brody and Jane Dodge.

  David listened quietly, not interrupting once. Allison was too full of herself to notice how angry David had become and was startled when she finished speaking and heard David's voice tremble with anger as he said, “You're not in this business to sell books! You're supposed to be a writer, not some clown on a radio or television program. Not some idiot running off at the mouth to some fifth-rate lush of a reporter.”

  “You just shut up, David!” cried Allison, doubly angry because his words echoed her own thoughts. “Maybe you don't care what happens to your books, but I care what happens to mine. What's the good of writing anything if nobody reads what you write?”

  “People discover good books for themselves,” replied David. “And Samuel's Castle is a good book. People would have realized that in time without every paper in the country touting it as a work of pornography.”

  “It isn't pornography,” cried Allison.

  “I know it isn't,” said David. “You know it. But what about people who read Jim Brody's column? They're not going to see any of the beautiful things in your work. They're going to buy and read it for your graphic sex descriptions.”

  “Mind your own damned business,” said Allison.

  David stood up. He took a newspaper clipping from his pocket and threw it on the table. “Get the news while it's still hot, Allison. Your interview with Brody is in the late afternoon edition. He lost no time. And neither have you. You've got what you wanted, Allison—success with a capital S. It will be interesting to see what you do with it, or what it does to you.” He smiled bitterly. “We don't seem to have much to say to each other any more, do we?” Then he walked out. Allison sat for a moment without moving; then, she read Brody's column.

  “If you want your young girl to learn the facts of life the hard way,” Brody had written, “make sure that she's brought up in a town like Peyton Place. That's what happened to the young authoress of a sensational new best seller called Samuel's Castle. Here is a book that pulls no punches.” The column ended with, “And what of Allison MacKenzie, the youngster who kicked over the rock of New England respectability to expose the rot underneath? She says, quite cheerfully, that business at her mother's dress shop has fallen off by 50 percent and that her father, the principal of the Peyton Place High School, will probably lose his job. But we don't think that Miss MacKenzie has much to worry about. Samuel's Castle should make her rich and famous.”

  For a moment she felt sick and angry, infuriated by Brody's betrayal. Then she slowly crumbled the newspaper clipping and pressed it into a small hard ball. If that's the way the game is played, she thought, then that's the way I'll play it.

  4

  IN THE FIRST FIVE DAYS of Allison's stay in New York she gave nine interviews to members of the press and to people in radio. She was interviewed twice on television. Before it was over she had become a polished performer, had learned to parry and thrust with the best of them, to think twice before she spoke and to phrase her answers with such care that even the most unethical reporter had a hard time misinterpreting her statements.

  On what turned out to be her last night in New York, she dined with Lewis Jackman at a fabulous new restaurant that was then all the rage. It was one of the postwar “expense account” restaurants; real money was never spent there, only company money. The menu was so long that only people of leisure had the time to read it all, and only professional gourmets understood what they read. Waiters stood by to translate as well as to serve.

  The headwaiter led Allison and Lewis to one of the “good” tables reserved for celebrities. These tables surrounded a white marble fountain where sprays of water bloomed like an exotic tree.

  The headwaiter bowed to Allison as he drew out her chair. “We are very happy to have you here, Miss MacKenzie,” he said, and Allison gave him the gracious, noncommittal smile that success had taught her to use.

  “I'm very proud of you, Allison,” Lewis said. “Only a few weeks ago you were a writer, and today you're an author.” His loving smile took the sting out of the words, but Allison understood what he meant and smiled ruefully.

  Was it only five days ago? she thought, with wonder. She remembered her outraged innocence at discovering that Jane Dodge had not read her novel. Of all those who had interviewed her since, only one reporter claimed to have read it; and there was one who said he had “perused” it. But they all, each and every one, wrote knowledgeably about it.

  Her thoughts were interrupted by the presence at the table of a burly businessman who stood beside Allison's chair and asked for her autograph on the menu. He offered her his small gold pencil. “It's for my wife,” he said. Men who asked for her autograph always smiled apologetically and said it was for their wives. Allison wrote her name across the wide margin of the menu and returned it to the man with a smile.

  How meaningless, she thought, how goddamned silly this all is. And yet, it had a strong appeal. Only a saint or a psychopath, she thought, would willingly withdraw from the world of the celebrated to an ivory tower. It was something Allison had wanted for a long time, had dreamed of since she was a girl and had traded Hollywood fan magazines with Selena. She had made up her mind: if there was a price to be paid for all this then she would pay it. But she would not take David's way, would not sneak out the back door. She was young, but not so young that she still believed that art could be found only in a cold-water flat.

  “Shall I order for you, Allison?” Lewis asked.

  “Please,” she said.

  And while the waiter hovered with pencil poised above the order pad, and the steward came and consulted with Lewis over the wine list, Allison recalled that day when she walked crosstown and met David at the coffeehouse. She had thought about it often. Success, the knowledge that almost everywhere she was stared at, made her suspicious of herself and her every action. Am I doing this because I want to? she often asked herself these days, or am I doing it because Success demands it?

  She wondered if she had not provoked the argument with David, whether she had not entered the coffeehouse unconsciously wishing to end their relationship. David was a reminder of her old life, of the days before she became an author and was merely a writer, struggling to achieve something. She had outgrown him.

  Allison sometimes found herself thinking—in those rare moments when her new life left her any time for thinking—that Success brought with it a fantastically hastened maturation. It reminded her of those flowers whose bloom had been forced to meet the demand of the market. The maturity may have been artificially induced, but it seemed to her, nevertheless, real. It brought with it a heightened sensitivity, a deeper and sharper perception.

  This new insight sometimes revealed to her things she would rather not have seen. About David, for example. His anger in the coffeehouse, she realized now, was motivated in part by envy. He was envious of her success, what must have seemed to him an easy success. He had been working for years, had published four novels, and it had brought him none of the material rewards that he now saw pouring into Allison's lap. It had made him bitter and nasty at the moment she most needed his understanding.

  To Allison, it was another lesson in the complexity of life. David's sudden realization of his lack of success, a realization forced on him by knowing Allison, had changed him, just as surely as winning success had changed Allison.

  There ought to be some way of ordering success, Allison thought as the waiter served her hot cherry consommé from a silver bowl. In just the right amount. In the perfect quantity for each of us, not too much and not too little. But she knew it could not be ordered that way. Life would not be controlled, it could not be molded into the shap
es we wanted it to be.

  After the third autograph hunter had interrupted her dinner, Allison said to Lewis, “I feel like such a fraud. I know it's only me, little Allison MacKenzie. Why doesn't everyone else see that?”

  “They are blinded to that simple fact, darling, by another simple fact: they do not know you. When they look at you they see the public woman, the figure created by Paul Morris and columnists and interviewers.”

  He took her hand. He did not do it often; in public he was usually circumspect, he kept up the pretense of the publisher-author relationship. “Nothing very bad can happen to you, Allison, as long as you don't forget who you really are.”

  “I'll never forget,” Allison answered.

  “No, I don't think you will. I think your practical New England common sense will protect you. I'm not worried about you, Allison. And you mustn't be either. Please try to enjoy this while it lasts. You know, one of the facts you haven't faced up to is that it may not last forever.”

  “While it lasts.” She repeated the phrase. It had the sound of tumbrils in it. It chastened her. “I love you for many reasons, Lewis,” she said, “and not least of all for your wonderful talent for throwing a bucket of cold water on me at just the right moment.”

  “And I love you. And this wine and”—pointing at Allison—“that face makes me want to leave this place. I want to be alone with you.”

  Allison picked up her purse. “Tell the driver to hurry,” she said, smiling at Lewis and not taking her eyes off him.

  In a few minutes they were in a taxi and Lewis was saying to the driver, “Hurry, man. We're on our way to visit a sick friend.”

  “There's a lot of it around, Mac,” the driver said. “Spring is the most dangerous time of year. You gotta watch yourself.”

  Allison had a hard time suppressing her laughter. She buried her face in Lewis’ shoulder. He kissed the top of her head and gently stroked her face and throat.

  And when they got to Allison's room, though they had been together every night, they faced each other with passionate longing, with a hungry intensity, and only half undressed they began to seek each other.

  Afterward, they smoked in the darkness and talked until dawn. Allison told him that she was going to take an apartment in New York. “I want to be near you, Lewis. I want to be there when you need me. Marriage isn't important to me.”

  Not now it isn't, Lewis thought, but it will be, it will be. He knew the terrible odds against them, but loving her, desiring her, he fell in with her plans and said nothing of his misgivings. It's just that I've lived so long and seen so much more than she has, he told himself.

  And Allison lay in the curve of his protecting arm and asked herself, Have I chosen this because marriage now would interfere with my plans? Is it possible that I don't want to share what I've achieved with anyone? And when finally she fell asleep she groaned in anguish, tormented by her dreams.

  When she woke at noon Lewis was gone. He had left a note on the desk. Darling. Only you beside me when I woke this morning could have convinced me that all this was not the most beautiful dream of my life.

  Allison smiled and folded the note. She ordered breakfast sent up to her room and had the operator put in a call to Peyton Place. She wanted to tell Mike and Constance that she was going to stay in New York.

  She was sipping her orange juice when the phone rang. It was Constance. Allison's voice was jubilant when she said, “Isn't it wonderful, Mother? Samuel's Castle has been out just twelve days and it's already on the best-seller list in the Times and Tribune!”

  “I'm so glad for you, darling,” Constance said.

  “Mother? What is it? There's something wrong, Mother, I can tell by your voice.”

  “Oh, darling,” Constance's voice broke down. “Oh, darling. Mike's contract hasn't been renewed.”

  “What?”

  “That's right. Everybody else at the school got a contract for the coming year except Mike. He's through here.”

  “But why?” demanded Allison. “Did they give him a reason?”

  “They just said they thought it would be better all the way around if he got a job some place else.”

  “Well, of all the filthy, rotten tricks!” said Allison.

  “Never mind, dear,” said Constance. “Just come home as soon as you can. We've got to think about moving.”

  Allison packed her things hurriedly and before she left the hotel she called Paul Morris.

  “Do you know what's happened with all your rotten publicity?” she demanded. “My father's lost his job!”

  “What?” shouted Paul.

  “He's been fired. Canned. Let go. Is that clear enough?”

  “Allison, stay right where you are. I'll be right there.”

  “Don't bother. I'm leaving here this minute to go home.”

  “Allison, for God's sake, tell me what happened?”

  “There's nothing to tell,” said Allison and began to cry. “He's just through in Peyton Place, that's all. We'll have to move and my mother will have to sell her house.”

  “Allison, I'm truly sorry,” said Paul. “I guess you'd better go home. I'll call you in a few days.”

  Then she phoned Lewis at his office, but he was out and she could only leave an impersonal message for him with his secretary.

  As Paul Morris said later, Rossi being fired couldn't have happened at a better time. The papers were hard up for news that night and welcomed his story. Before Allison reached home the front pages of the Boston papers were covered with black headlines about her and her family.

  PEYTON PLACE HEAD OUSTED the papers shouted, and under the headlines was the story. According to the press, Michael Rossi had been fired because his stepdaughter, Allison MacKenzie, had written a shocking book about a small New England town. Paul Morris had seen to it that the title of the book was prominently displayed. Allison held the newspapers crushed in her lap as the train swayed toward Peyton Place.

  Dear God, what have I done, she wept silently.

  5

  NOW IT WAS MAY, and the process of turning northern New England into a vast summer boardinghouse had begun. Along the “Rocky Coast” of Maine, in the “Heart of the Lakes Region” and “High in the White Mountains” of New Hampshire and “Among the Rolling Hills” of Vermont, summer cottages were given thin coats of paint that would begin to peel and blister by the end of July. Hotel owners unnailed boards from windows and wondered if the front-porch chairs could stand one more season of almost uninterrupted rocking.

  Every town that boasted an attraction of any sort was flooded with signs that read, “Rooms. Day. Week. Season,” while the more exclusive hotels placed discreet advertisements in the New York Times that said “Reservations Suggested.” Golf courses were rolled and mowed, tennis courts repaved, swimming pools cleaned and filled and cretonne slip covers returned to the seats of wicker furniture.

  Highway departments hired extra men to pick up the discarded waxed paper and beer bottles of summer picnickers, and merchandise in native-owned stores was marked up 20 per cent. Northern New England was preparing itself to work at the only big industry it had left—the tourist.

  In Peyton Place, Ephraim Tuttle made sure that the circular ceiling fans in his store were in working order and he put up the awning that shielded his front window. To the accompaniment of derisive remarks from Clayton Frazier and the other old men who had occupied the packing-crate seats around his stove all winter long, Ephraim removed his bolts of gingham and calico from their plastic coverings and lined them up in a row on the front counter.

  “Gives the place a tone,” he said defensively as he did every spring. “Summer folks like tone.”

  “Goddamned foolishness,” said Clayton Frazier.

  “Ayeh,” said Ephraim in agreement.

  But, nevertheless, he began to dismantle his wood and coal burning stove that same afternoon, and the old men moved to the benches in front of the courthouse across the street. The “Season” had officiall
y begun in Peyton Place.

  Peyton Place was not a tourist town in the true sense of the word, for it had no lake, ocean front or mountain of its own. But summer people driving west to Vermont, east to the White Mountains or north to Canada usually detoured to Peyton Place in what they called a “side trip.” The more morbid of the visitors nudged one another and remembered that “this is the town where that girl murdered her father.” They drove with maddening slowness past the Cross house and said, “Her stepfather, and she buried him in a sheep pen right there behind that house.” But this year they came to stand and stare at Samuel Peyton's castle.

  “That's the place that girl wrote the book about,” they all said.

  “Have you read it?”

  “Of course. I loved it. So true to life.”

  “I hear that the natives in Peyton Place are in an uproar over the book.”

  “I know it. The poor girl's father lost his job over it. Well, it just goes to prove what I've always said. New England is a fine place to visit but I wouldn't want to live here.”

  “The narrowness is something fantastic, isn't it?”

  “If I were Allison MacKenzie, I'd be worried for my life. No kidding. Some of the faces on the natives have an absolute look of stone.”

  “And she seems to be such a darling. I saw her on television and she's so sweet looking.”

  “I put a copy of Samuel's Castle in the glove compartment when I knew we were coming up this way. I'll bet if we found her house and went there that she'd autograph it for us.”

  “Let's ask somebody.”

  “One of those old men sitting over there.”

  The pale blue convertible drew to a stop at the curb in front of the courthouse and, without seeming to do so, the old men on the benches stared intently at the two women who got out of the car and approached them. The women wore identical white shorts and striped jersey shirts and their toenails were painted with red, chipping polish. Their shoes were sandals made entirely of thin straps with heels that clacked against the pavement and their noses were red with yesterday's sunburn. They wore harlequin-shaped sunglasses in red frames and carried oversized handbags. They stopped in front of Clarence Mitchell, who occupied the end seat on the bench nearest to them.