Savages

by Shirley Conran

  Brett had looked up into Suzy’s pale green eyes, which glistened like peeled grapes. Suzy saw straight sandy eyebrows above big brown eyes, a firm square jaw and a wide mouth. A Brooks Brothers type, kinda British-looking, kinda cute. Suzy had found out on their first date that Brett also came from Pittsburgh, but it wasn’t until a lot later that she’d realized he was the anxious type and the square jaw was deceptive.

  Suzy carefully rubbed moisturizer into her legs, then climbed back into the satin sheets to drink her coffee. Nora had put out her clothes for this evening. The dress was a really hot number from Saint Laurent; she’d spotted it when she went shopping with Annie. Suzy never wore anything without a designer label. It was insurance; that way she could choose sexy numbers and still be sure of being a class act. Brett’s mother had looked sort of pained last week when Suzy arrived at her dinner party in a new Christian Dior gown of black organza, close-fitted right to the ankle, with swirls of silver sequins and short, white-mink sleeves. But it had said formal on the invitation.

  Brett breezed through the door. “Still in bed, baby? Shouldn’t be late tonight.”

  Suzy yawned. “I intend to be late, Brett. I’m not gonna get dressed for another half hour.”

  “In that case …” Brett moved hopefully toward the bed.

  “No. You’ll muss my hair.”

  * * *

  A string quartet was playing in the rear of the hall, which Silvana had turned into a bower of white flowers for the evening. Passing through the library on her way to her ballroom, Silvana heard snatches of conversation from the small groups of men. “Measured ore reserves … Concentrator expansion program … Peripheral drainage … Heavy equipment reconditioning … Long-term effects of tailings disposal … Cleaner circuit modification costs …” Silvana had heard it all before, without interest then or now.

  In the ballroom, Silvana gave a final check to the sixteen tables for eight that had been set up; Silvana believed that conversation flagged around tables for six, and that twelve people around a table were too many for general conversation. Silver and glass gleamed among the flowers on the pale blue damask cloths, and laurel leaves wound around the marble columns at the far end of the candlelit room. On the buffet table were huge silver platters containing salmon mousse, potted rabbit with plums, sturgeon, roast duck, Westphalian ham, an assortment of pâtés and terrines, clams in a cream sauce tinted with curry, cold pasta salads with basil, artichokes, asparagus, leeks vinaigrette and bowl upon bowl of green salads and dips. That was the first course; once everyone was seated, the dinner would be served by waiters.

  Beyond the ballroom Silvana could see the curved tops of the row of French windows in the tree-filled orangery, which was where they would dance after dinner; outside, at the end of the floodlit terrace, was the Olympic-sized, heated swimming pool; it was faced in dark-green glass mosaic, because everybody had aquamarine pools.

  The evening was colder than Silvana had expected, so she decided that the orangery doors should be closed. After all, this wasn’t a big party where you had to watch the temperature the whole time in case the rooms became too hot.

  She swooped back to the entrance hall, moving swiftly past her beautifully dressed guests, bestowing a smile here, a word there. She had been receiving for over an hour when Carey arrived.

  “Hi, Silvana. This all looks wonderful. How’s Arthur?”

  “Arthur’s looking forward to being a grandfather, but he isn’t too thrilled about being married to a grandmother.” It was the seventh time Silvana had laughingly said that this evening. She nervously stroked her subtle silver dress, which hung heavy and straight from the shoulders. Turning to Lorenza, she said, “Look who’s here, darling—Carey!”

  As they started talking, both women flicked a look at the other’s dress. Lorenza was wearing a Zandra Rhodes, pale blue chiffon printed with a swirling green pattern. Unnoticed, she could have given birth to twins beneath it. In contrast, Carey looked as tall and lithe as an Amazon ballet dancer in her simple, tight-waisted black dress and low-heeled bronze sandals.

  Carey said, “That’s the sort of dress Mrs. Ricketts always wore. Did you have her for art history?” Carey and Lorenza had both been at the same Eastern college, though several years apart.

  “Sure.” Lorenza imitated a high, squeaky voice. “‘Only the boring are bored. You live in a most fascinating world, girls.’” Both women laughed.

  “I wonder if they still have those mixers?” Carey asked curiously. You wore a fancy formal to the party and carried a little purse for your lipstick and drugs. Freddie-the-lookout drove you there in a Volvo station wagon and, at dawn, Freddie would come looking for you, gently pry you from your date and help you stagger back to the station wagon.

  Lorenza said, “Sure, they still have the mixers and Pruneface still has that sour expression when she lets you back in.” They both laughed again.

  A man who had just arrived said to Carey, “I hear you’re married to Ed Hope. He’s quite a globe-trotter, isn’t he? What do you do with yourself when he’s away?”

  One of those. Bored if you talked about your home and children, indulgent if you talked about your job, and embarrassed if you talked about your business; the sort who were accustomed to talking to women at parties with a handful of well-worn clichés. He would be speechless if you didn’t give the ritual response. So they both said the obvious things about Reagan’s chances of getting reelected next month, and Carey escaped as soon as she could, to talk to Arthur’s mother, whom she really liked.

  Mrs. Graham was a steel heiress. Everyone, even Silvana, called her “Mrs. Graham.” She was tall, elegant and vague, and she always said exactly what she thought and did exactly what she wanted, so she had a local reputation for eccentricity. When the rich do unconventional things, they are labeled eccentric; when the rest of us do, we are called mad, thought Carey.

  Mrs. Graham had made her glass house in the hills a veritable museum; ancient, carved masterpieces from all over the world coexisted comfortably with ultramodern pale-gray suede sofas. Mrs. Graham was on the advisory board of the Frick, but her heart was really with the Museum of Art at the Carnegie Institute in Oakland, which was going to get all the masterpieces after her death, on condition that they saw to it that she had a sea burial. Mrs. Graham didn’t want to end up moldering in the earth or displayed in an urn.

  Mrs. Graham said, “Chitter chatter, chitter chatter, what are they all talking about?” Her straight silver hair was cut like a helmet, and she wore as plain a dress as a black dress could be. On one shoulder a large real ivy leaf was casually pinned with a diamond stud the size of a jellybean.

  Carey said, “The hot rumor is that next year’s Rand McNally will rate Pittsburgh the best place to live in America.”

  “Well, of course it is, or the Grahams wouldn’t have settled here.”

  * * *

  The first Arthur Nimrod Graham had been a major in the King’s Fourteenth Dragoon Guards. In 1758 the Guards had been stationed at Fort Pitt, at that time the largest and most elaborate frontier outpost in North America. Major Graham had been much intrigued by the operation of the trading post in the fort. Indians brought fur and venison to trade for blankets, kettles, knives and gunpowder. The rate of exchange was one male deerskin, or buck; one buck was worth two does, four foxes or six raccoons; a blanket cost four bucks, a tin kettle cost three bucks, one buck got you four sharp knives.

  Invalided out of the army by the loss of his leg, which had to be amputated after an Indian arrow wound, Major Graham decided to stay in the charming pioneer village, rendered even more charming by a young redheaded widow whose late husband had left her a parcel of land between the future Cherry Street and Smithfield Street and four hundred acres of farmland on the south bank of the Monongahela River. The week after his marriage, the Major sent back East for a thousand blankets, kettles and knives.

  Those who settled in the village of Pittsburgh were fortunate, for the rich land provided mor
e food than they could eat. By 1802 they were exporting ham, dried pork, corn and butter downriver to New Orleans. The villagers grew their own flax and cotton for bed linen and clothes; the huge surrounding forests supplied logs to build homes and charcoal with which to forge iron; local limestone and sand meant that they were able to make their own glass—it was ruinously expensive to haul it from the East. There was iron ore with which to make nails and farming implements, and abundant coal in the surrounding hills for Pittsburgh’s infant industries. A century later, the logical result of this rural cornucopia was to be U.S. Steel, Westinghouse and H. J. Heinz.

  However, there was one grave disadvantage in the prosperous town of Pittsburgh: the smoke. In 1804, Arthur Nimrod Graham II, one of the city councilmen, had tried unsuccessfully to promote smoke-control regulations, but most of his fellow councilmen were against it, on the grounds of cost.

  After the dreadful winter of 1940, Arthur Nimrod Graham VII had been among a small group of city fathers who put forth antipollution, flood control and slum clearance programs to save the city. But to little avail. By 1945, at the end of World War II, Pittsburgh was so filthy with soot and smog that streetlights had to burn at midday and the rivers that surrounded the town were polluted by the waste of over a hundred industries.

  Forty years later, Pittsburgh was still an industrial town, but Smoke City had been transformed into a clean city surrounded by green hills. The triangle of land upon which Fort Pitt once stood, hedged on two sides by rivers and on the third by a steep hill, is now known as the Golden Triangle. One of the highest of the silver-gray skyscrapers that stands in the Triangle is Nexus Tower, from the penthouse of which the present Arthur Nimrod Graham ruled over Nexus.

  * * *

  It was hard to believe that Arthur had ever needed a mother, Carey thought. What she said was, “I love the picture you gave Arthur for his birthday present.”

  “The little Breughel-school battlefield? I’ve given up trying to think of what he wants, and now I just give him things I would like myself. If he doesn’t like them, he gives them back to me for my birthday. It’s a very satisfactory arrangement. Of course, it would be more logical if, on a child’s birthday, the mother were given the gifts.”

  The decibel level rose as guests discussed the abrupt departure of André Previn as musical director of the Pittsburgh Symphony, construction progress on the new medical institute, whether Steeler Mark Malone was playing well enough and whether Stall worth should stay. However, the evening’s hot topic was an unusual local homicide case. The previous August, a male Turkish student had been shot to death and another one knifed, supposedly by two girls who had picked the men up at the Three Rivers Regatta. The girls had supposedly attacked the men the next day in a secluded part of the airport. Two days later they had surrendered in Virginia Beach, and were still awaiting trial. What was different from the average humdrum homicide case was that the women seemed to have been the aggressors. Or were they defending themselves? Everyone had a different opinion, but they all agreed that it was viciously unnatural, that there must be something very wrong with these women. They were probably lesbians.

  Suddenly the twitter faltered. Carey glanced over her shoulder toward the entrance. Suzy stood in the doorway; she wore a long-sleeved, high-necked dress of iridescent blue lace that was so tight she must have been sewn into it. An enormous blue taffeta bow perched on her hip, and from the crotch to the knee she was swathed in electric-blue taffeta; below her knees, iridescent lace frothed above peacock satin pumps.

  “She looks like a mermaid on a Saturday night,” murmured Mrs. Graham.

  * * *

  Suzy, holding her head high, looked slowly around the room. She spotted the greyhound silhouette of Patty, who was wearing her black and white taffeta again! No wonder Charley was playing around with that redhead in Research. Silvana was dressed in a silver number that looked like chain mail; plump women should stick to dark colors. Standing by the windows at the back of the room, Isabel couldn’t avoid looking like a company executive, even though she was wearing a sexy, clinging dress with one bare shoulder. Suzy would, of course, tell Isabel that she looked great. She was always careful not to irritate Isabel.

  As Suzy’s eyes swept around the room, she noticed that spoiled little brat Lorenza, who looked like a lampshade in that maternity dress. Although you had to admire anyone of her age who could call up a Lear jet just by lifting a phone. She was talking to Carey—and no wonder Suzy hadn’t spotted Carey before! That black dress was really dull, Carey should have given it a lift with lots of jewelry—and she might have tried to do something with her hair. Tall girls should always pay attention to their hair, because that was what stuck out above the crowd. She really should tell Carey about Stan, the visagiste. On the other hand, what had Carey ever done for her? Ah, there was Annie … Why, Annie had chickened out! She was wearing that dreary blue thing she’d gotten for Lorenza’s wedding, so she looked as dull as she usually did. Really, why bother to help people?

  Looking around, Suzy didn’t move until she’d counted to ten, then she swayed forward. You can’t help moving voluptuously if your knees are almost bound together, and you move slowly.

  “No wonder we’re all jealous of her,” Carey sighed.

  “Envious,” corrected Mrs. Graham. “Jealousy is wanting what someone has; envy is not wanting her to have it.”

  Silvana stepped toward the doorway. “Suzy, I’m so glad you could make it. Brett, I’ve been longing to know what’s been arranged for the wives on this trip. Arthur doesn’t seem to have the vaguest idea, but I suppose you’ve organized a packed program as usual?”

  “Sure,” said Brett, who was VP Public Relations. “The Sydney visit will concentrate on the sophistication of the city —fashion shows, nightclubs, concerts. When we get to Paui, everything will be much more informal; we’ve arranged sailing, scuba diving, tennis and golf. Or you can just lie by the pool and tan.”

  In the library a group of Nexus executives clustered around their host, who stood with his back to the spluttering log fire. Arthur said, “I suppose Paui is safe?”

  Ed, who was Vice President of Exploration and Planning, said, “Of course. Harry Scott flew up from Sydney only last week, and I’ve been there twice myself since the coup. It’s a damn sight safer than most of Manhattan. If we didn’t think Paui was safe, we wouldn’t be negotiating with the government.”

  Thin-lipped, skinny Jerry Pearce, who was VP Corporate Finance, said, “We aren’t negotiating with them.”

  “That’s only because they won’t negotiate with Harry,” Ed said impatiently. “They didn’t go to Harvard Business School, and they don’t understand corporate structure. As far as they’re concerned, Harry’s not the top man—he’s only the president of Nexus, Australia. The President of Paui will talk only to Arthur, otherwise he loses face. That doesn’t matter to us.”

  Jerry Pearce said, “What’s important to us is that they understand that the deal has virtually been completed. They must understand that Arthur’s final offer will be our final offer, and that our deadline is Arthur’s departure time.”

  “In my opinion,” Ed said, “we’ll clinch it at the last minute, maybe even at the airport.”

  “This last-minute drama shouldn’t be necessary,” Arthur said irritably. “The review of our agreement was scheduled to start four months ago, in June ’84. They’ve been more than happy with results since start-up in 1970.”

  “With good reason,” Jerry agreed. “Our Paui turnover last year was $474 million. We produced 43 percent of their exports, contributed 73 percent of internally generated government revenue and 80 percent of our work force are Paui citizens.”

  Ed sipped his Chivas Regal. “They’re aware of that, but the 1970 agreement only covers the North Queenstown mine, and it only covers copper rights. If we want to tie up all mining rights to the whole island, it isn’t just a question of sticking a new date on the old agreement.”

  Brett, who had
just joined the group, said tentatively, “Isn’t an all-rights deal unusual?”

  “Sure,” said Ed, “but there always has to be a first tine. We were heading smoothly toward an all-rights deal with the previous government.”

  Jerry Pearce explained, “If the price is high enough, then an all-rights deal might be tempting for a President who figures that his period of power will be short—who wants to get as much as he can, as fast as he can, into a Swiss bank, then quit while he’s still ahead.”

  Ed sighed. “The last bunch were a damn sight easier to deal with than this new bunch of woolly-minded liberals.”

  “Are they worried about environmental problems?” Brett asked. “Is that it?”

  Everyone looked oddly at Brett, who wished he hadn’t spoken.

  Jerry said, “People only bring in environmental problems to jack the price up. And they always hit us for it after the contract has been agreed on, otherwise we would have made a lower offer.”

  Ed said, “Anyway, we always keep environmental disturbances to the minimum, and they have to be weighed against the benefits. What we mine is essential to modern industry. And, they benefit from the infrastructure.”

  Arthur nodded. “We provide them with employment and factories, as well as a number of fringe benefits. They didn’t even have a road or a landing strip, let alone a hospital, on Paui before we moved in.”

  Jerry said, “I still don’t like the idea of Arthur going there. It’s a weak move.”

  “That’s why it’s important to have this trip look like a vacation,” Ed argued. “Then, in their eyes, we can’t lose face.”

  When Jerry shrugged, Ed said, “Look, I have to put up with all sorts of shit in every so-called ‘developing’ country that we’re involved with. If we want what they’ve got, then we’ve got to know their rules, and play by their rules.”