Savages

by Shirley Conran

  “Take the pants off?” Defensively, Annie clutched at the waistband.

  “Yeah, the outfit isn’t sexy enough. It’s snappy all right, but the high neck with those gypsy violinist sleeves … I mean, you’ve got to show something.” Suzy urged, “Go on, try it. That tunic top comes down way past your knees.”

  “But there’s a gap on both sides, from my armpits to the hem,” Annie protested.

  “Yeah, but with those little pink silk straps they can’t open. You’ll be okay.”

  Reluctantly, Annie removed the pajama bottoms.

  “Now your pantyhose and underpants, because they show at the waistline.” Suzy was inexorable.

  “Suzy, I can’t go to Arthur’s party naked.”

  “Aw, you’re showing less at the sides than the rest of them will be showing at the front, and you’ll be able to keep your sandals on better without pantyhose.” Suzy glanced down at the thin silver straps that crisscrossed Annie’s ankles.

  “Suzy, I can’t.”

  “Annie, stand up, forget you’re an old married lady and look in the mirror!” Suzy pushed Annie in front of her antique cheval glass.

  Annie looked at herself, blinked, looked again and slowly smiled. Then she looked dubious. “I don’t know what Duke will think.”

  “Don’t tell him—show him! You’ll take his breath away!”

  Now, serving food to the boys, Annie felt safe with her wrapper around her.

  * * *

  There’s the handoff and it looks like a sweep around the right end, but no, they didn’t make it …

  The communal groan of the crowd at the Three Rivers Stadium was echoed in Annie’s TV room. Her sons groped like sleepwalkers for their hamburgers, without taking their eyes off the screen.

  “Are you guys okay now? Is there anything else I can get you?”

  Bill said, mildly, “Mom, how can we hear what’s going on if you keep talking?”

  Dave inspected his hamburger. “Hey, you know I don’t like mustard.”

  The other two merely grunted, as if in a trance, so Annie scuttled upstairs to fix the camelias on her ears.

  Annie heard the front door bang, then the bar door bang, but not too loud. Sounded as if he’d had a good day, thank God for that. She’d left a pitcher of martinis ready on top of the bar. She felt a sudden, unusual flash of resentment that her happiness this evening was going to depend upon whether anyone had irritated Duke at the office that afternoon, but she pushed this disloyal thought to the back of her mind. She’d wait until he’d probably poured his second martini, then she’d walk downstairs, stand in the TV room doorway, smile and say, “I’m ready when you are.”

  So that’s what Annie did.

  Duke was watching the screen and didn’t hear her. Annie said it louder, sounding a bit squeaky, and Duke turned around. He stared incredulously.

  “My God, Annie, what have you done to your hair?”

  “I went to the beauty parlor. For the party.”

  “You can’t go to my boss’s home looking like you fell into a wind tunnel.” Duke had to shout to be heard above the TV commentary. “Go comb it out and fix it like you always do, with the headband.”

  Annie hesitated, then moved toward Duke’s chair so that she wouldn’t have to shout. Duke’s eyes slowly moved from Annie’s hem upward. He leaped forward and turned the TV off, amid protesting yells.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing, Annie? Go and put some decent clothes on.”

  “But this is from Yves Saint Laurent.”

  “I don’t care if it’s from St. Peter. Take it off.”

  “Take it off! Take it off!” Dave guffawed, but shut up when his father glared at him.

  The boys all melted out of the room as Annie started to cry. She was ruining her eye makeup—and Stan had spent an hour of his life sticking those individual eyelashes on. Wordlessly, she ran out of the room.

  At the top of the stairs she noticed a pile of dirty, smelly football clothes. Why couldn’t they drop them down the laundry chute, it was only at the end of the hall? With her pretty silver sandals she kicked the grubby heap.

  As she stooped to pick up the dirty shirts and socks, she heard fourteen-year-old Rob behind her. “I think you look great, Mom. It’s just that you don’t look like …”

  “A mom,” Annie added bitterly.

  “Dad’s kind of old-fashioned, I guess.”

  Annie thought, Suzy wouldn’t have done it on purpose … Or would she?

  * * *

  At seven o’clock that evening, Patty called her mother in Florida.

  “How’s the pacemaker, Mom?” Patty always asked, although it had been two years since her mother’s operation.

  “Fine, fine.” The voice was frail but full of vim; all the residents of Silver City sounded that way. “I was just getting into my new western outfit—red with white fringe, Stetson and cowboy boots. You’d love it. I bet you never thought I’d be a cheerleader, Patty. Silver City’s playing the Sarasota Over-Sixties Club tomorrow.”

  Patty burst into tears.

  The frail voice turned grim. “What’s he done now?”

  Patty brushed the cornflakes out of her hair with one hand as she sobbed, “I’m at the end of my rope.”

  “I knew it! I dreamed last night that you were being sucked into a black hole. Dr. Manheim says …”

  Patty yelled, “I don’t want to hear that Jungian mumbo-jumbo.”

  “That’s no way to speak to your mother. And it’s not Jungian, it’s Freudian. I do wish you’d try an analyst, dear.”

  “I do not need psychiatric help. Stephen is a practical problem.”

  “No need to be defensive, dear, this is your mother you’re speaking to. You may be taking responsibility to the level of obsession. It could become compulsive and lead to clinical depression.”

  “How dare you discuss me with Dr. Manheim!”

  “I was afraid you were getting like your father’s Aunt Ella.”

  “Mom, she’s senile. I’m only thirty-three.” Patty shook the milk from her green wool sleeve. “My problem is simply that my child is handicapped, so now and again it naturally depresses me, and I need a little verbal chicken soup.”

  The frail voice sounded weary. “Sympathy is easy to give, dear, but you know it isn’t constructive. Stephen is normal enough to lead you by the nose.”

  “How can you say these things about a child who’s going to spend his life in a wheelchair?”

  “Wherever he spends it, Stephen is not an idiot. Remember that high IQ under those golden curls. He knows exactly what he’s doing when he throws these tantrums. And the rest of the time he sits in that wheelchair watching television all day and using what strength he’s got to throw everything he can get his hands on. He takes his anger out on you because nobody else would put up with his kicking and screaming. Stephen knows exactly how to manipulate you, honey, and because you feel guilty, you let him get away with it. If he was with other handicapped children, he wouldn’t be able to indulge his selfpity and rage.”

  “Stephen doesn’t like being with other children. You know what happened when we tried group physiotherapy.”

  “Patty, you’re making him an emotional cripple too. He must learn to rely on himself where he can, otherwise he’ll always be a bad boy.”

  “No, he won’t.”

  “Yes, he will. He’ll grow up dependent, resentful and vindictive. I’m sorry to say this, but that child has no aim or purpose in his life. He’s merely sorry for himself, so he’s either spiteful or plays for sympathy.”

  Patty started sobbing again.

  “Do you want me to pay you a visit, Patty?”

  “No!”

  “Honey, I’m only saying this because I’m your mother. I don’t like to see you with no time for a life of your own. You hardly ever go out. You’re making a pointless sacrifice and you’re not being fair to yourself, or to Charley, or to Stephen.”

  “It’s what I choose to do.�
�

  “What would Stephen do if anything happened to you and Charley? I mean, nobody ever imagines that they’re going to have an auto accident … I know you’ve got the insurance, dear, but I’m thinking about his emotional needs. He must learn to come to terms with himself.”

  “I am not putting Stephen in a home.”

  Her mother sighed again. “You always were stubborn. I mean fixated. That’s extra stubborn.”

  Patty heard the crash of china behind her and said, hastily, “Momma, I’ve got to go. I’ll call you tomorrow, same time, to hear how Silver City made out.”

  Patty could hear high-pitched screaming as she rushed back to Stephen’s room, which had once been their living room but now was decked out like a hospital playroom and contained Stephen’s special bed.

  Judy, the housekeeper, stood in a pool of water in the middle of the cheerful yellow linoleum; she was surrounded by purple and white chrysanthemums.

  From the wheelchair Stephen yelled, “She hit me! Judy hit me!”

  Patty knew it wasn’t true, it never was. Judy was the one person who had been able to handle Stephen since he was born. She’d been born in the Hill district, in a black slum (these days it was called a depressed neighborhood), so Judy understood what it was like to feel anger against the world. However, she wouldn’t allow Stephen to manipulate her. She was as firm with him when his parents were around as when they weren’t. She ignored all his cries of “I’ll die, then you’ll be sorry.”

  “Don’t you worry, Mrs. Silver.” Judy wiped the blood from her forehead. “He’s in a bad mood tonight, that’s all.”

  Patty rushed for the first-aid box to background yells of “I didn’t ask to be born.”

  After treating Judy’s forehead, Patty telephoned for a cab to take her to the hospital. It wasn’t a bad cut, but Patty didn’t want to take chances. Next, she dialed the nursing bureau for a babysitter that evening, before the night nurse. The bureau had a list of nurses who knew Stephen, who got double rates for daytime work, treble for evenings. Neither Patty nor the agency liked to send anyone along cold.

  From the moment Patty said goodbye to her mother on the phone until the moment Charley’s Mercedes could be heard drawing up outside the front door, Stephen never stopped screaming.

  Wet-fringed, big blue eyes looked up as Charley entered and his son softly said, “Momma’s sad.”

  Charley looked at Patty, who had collapsed white-faced in an armchair; he noticed that her suit had dark stains.

  “It’s been that bad today?” Charley put his suitcase down, sat on the arm of the chair and kissed the top of her head. Patty snuffled into his sleeve. Charley kissed her hair again and whispered, “Three little words.”

  Patty snuffled harder. “We’ll be late.”

  Charley shook his head, and his eyes said, “I love you.”

  Stephen noticed and looked surly.

  Apologetically Patty said, “But we are going to be late. The nurse can’t get here for another hour.”

  “It doesn’t matter. We needn’t go at all, if you don’t feel up to it. I’ll put Stephen to bed. You fix yourself a drink, take it up to the bathroom and get into a warm tub.”

  Stephen said, “Daddy, Daddy, she hasn’t given me my supper.”

  No sooner was Patty in the tub than Judy returned with a bandage across her forehead. “I wouldn’t have gone to the hospital if Mrs. Silver hadn’t insisted.”

  Charley looked at her and said, “Thank you.” Both he and Judy knew that he was thanking her not only for tonight but for the past eight years.

  Judy said, “Maybe I’ll ask Ben again if we can move in here.”

  Charley went up to Patty’s bathroom. She was lying in the beige fiberglass Jacuzzi and staring at the leaded, diamond-paned windows. She hadn’t touched her glass of white wine.

  “Charley, I don’t think I should go on this trip. Judy can’t handle him by herself for two weeks.”

  Charley sat on the edge of the tub. “It’ll do you good to get away for two weeks. You can’t go on like this. It’s bad for him and it’s bad for you.”

  “That’s what Mom just told me.”

  “I don’t know why you talk to her about Stephen, you know it upsets you.” He picked up Patty’s glass and sipped the wine. “You both have firmly opposing views, but you will discuss it. It’s like sticking your tongue against a sore tooth.”

  “She said I needed a shrink!”

  “She’s only recommending therapy because it helped her. My point is that you could have some life of your own too, Patty.” He put the glass down on the dressing table. “I’ve wondered if you’d like to go back to work? Maybe part-time? We could afford a daytime nurse for Stephen.”

  Patty looked up sharply, panic on her face. “No! I’m totally out of touch!”

  Before they married, Patty had been a sportswear coordinator at I. Magnin. She knew it could be very tough and very lonely in the competitive world outside her home. Now, Patty had no intention of competing with women ten years younger than herself. She didn’t want to stand alone, she didn’t want the criticism and she didn’t want to risk being fired.

  “No,” she said firmly. “That’s a helpful, caring suggestion, Charley, but no.”

  “Whatever you want.”

  “Hand me a towel, Charley. I feel fine now. Let’s get ready for the party. I’m looking forward to it.”

  * * *

  Suzy yawned the way a cat yawns—in a long, luxuriant stretch. She’d had a nap after going around to check that Annie-the-doormat wasn’t going to back out.

  Slowly Suzy sat up, naked between beige satin sheets in the circular, king-sized bed in her huge beige bedroom. Annie had really looked fabulous, Suzy thought—she’d have all the other wives green with envy this evening! Annie’s nearly-auburn hair had been pulled back at one side and rippled forward on the other. Stan had really paid attention to her eyebrows, which most women ignored. But you only had to look at before-and-after photos of Marilyn Monroe to see how important eyebrows were. Annie had still looked pale, but not pasty, more like a magnolia blossom (Stan never altered anything, he just emphasized it), and her eyes looked enormous in their thick fringe of lashes. When she’d taken the pajama bottoms off, she looked slim instead of scrawny. Yeah, she’d really cause trouble tonight.

  Suzy glanced at the gold and claret enamel traveling clock that stood on the bedside table; on the dial were the words Cartier-Paris. She’d put one in every bedroom—in different colors, of course.

  Suzy yawned again. They’d all be climbing into their formals about now. Slowly she stretched, picked up the intercom and asked the maid to bring her another cup of coffee. They didn’t really need a full-time maid, but what the hell? They didn’t need a house this size, either.

  Suzy looked at herself in the mirrored wall opposite the bed, with some satisfaction. She hadn’t done badly for a high school dropout who had been raised (if you could call it that) in a falling-down house shared by three families on the North Side, off Sherman Avenue. It was now a yuppie redevelopment area; the sagging gingerbread houses had been propped up and painted in sugar-almond colors and the trees had been carefully clipped. Suzy refused to go near the North Side, no matter how much they gussied it up. She guessed her pa had been moved out, but she hadn’t seen him since the day they buried her mom, thank God.

  Suzy slipped out of bed and stretched seductively again in front of her reflection. After they’d bought the house in Shadyside she’d told the decorator that she liked a lot of mirrors, creamy marble, gilt and those cute little French antique chairs with the curved legs. She couldn’t see why Brett’s mother didn’t care for the results. The old girl tried hard to act as if she liked her daughter-in-law, but Suzy knew that she didn’t. Not many women liked Suzy. She knew that the Nexus bunch called her the Venus flytrap. Brett sometimes called her his pocket Venus, but mostly Brett called her his mermaid, when nobody was around. When he did, Suzy knew that she could get anything out o
f him, she had only to ask. And she always did.

  Suzy stretched again, enjoying the sight of her perfect small body. Her breasts were a bit too big, but that never did a girl any harm. She turned around and looked over her shoulder to check her rear view; she had a wonderful ass, which sort of shivered when she ran as she had taught herself to, in a helpless way with her knees tight together. Suzy turned to front view again and wondered if she should have her bush bleached to match her hair.

  She’d ask Stan.

  Suzy ran her hands through her carefully tousled, white blond hair and looked critically at her face. Her eyelids covered the top of her pale green irises, giving her a sleepy look. As a result, since she was twelve years old Suzy hadn’t been able to ask a man to pass the salt without his reading a sexual invitation into the words. Suzy had looked seventeen since she was twelve, she still did at twenty-seven, and she intended to continue doing so. She sauntered into the bathroom and started to shave her legs, which she did every evening without fail.

  Above the whirr of the electric razor she heard a soft knock at the door.

  “Okay, Nora, put the coffee by the bed. And get Alfie to put the hardtop of my Mercedes on, willya!” Suzy yelled from the bathroom in her cheery, rough, natural voice, which she rarely used unless she was mad. When she was still trying to make it as an actress in New York, she’d had voice training, from a coach in the Village, who’d softened it to a sort of slow, Persian-kitten purr. It had been worth every hard-earned penny it had cost from Suzy’s earnings as a cocktail waitress. She hadn’t made it as an actress, but she lied about her age and got a job as a stewardess with Eastern Airlines, which was how she met Brett.

  She had snapped him up on sight, ten miles south of Boston and thirty thousand feet up. Suzy remembered the very moment. She’d seen a sandy head bent over an expensive maroon calf briefcase, a freckled hand with a gold signet ring on the pinkie and a wafer-thin gold watch with a black crocodile strap. As she bent over him to ask if he’d like a drink, Suzy could swear that she really smelled old money; it was a mix of laundry starch, eau de cologne, big shaggy dogs, barn straw, speckled brown eggs, worn leather, thick tweed, canvas straining in the wind and foam on the sea. Afterward, it turned out that Brett had borrowed some other guy’s talc at the squash club. Suzy had never been able to discover which brand it was.