Families and Survivors

by Alice Adams

  Maude argues (who should stay with Allison) on the basis of numbers. “You see? Between you and Stephen, you have three parties. You’d be disappointing three groups. For me there’s just Dad and Persephone. They’ll talk about it a lot but I don’t think they’ll really care.”

  Jennifer knows that all her people will care, and that she will worry about their caring. She says, “Okay, you’re really nice to take care of her. Poor old Allison.” Worriedly she smiles down at her sister.

  Stephen says, “Oh, Jennifer, come on. We’ll never get to all those places that you say we have to get to.”

  She smooths her hand over his high hard buttocks. “Oh, Steve, calm down.”

  They leave.

  “Listen, Dad, Allison’s had too much wine, so I said I’d stay and take care of her.”

  “But can you?” (Persephone is also on the line; they have answered the phone simultaneously, as they often do.) “Let’s see, Ian McMillan is coming soon, and I could easily—” Persephone always knows a lot of doctors; next to food, medicine is what she most likes to talk about.

  From the other phone Michael addresses himself to Persephone. “Now, honey, don’t you worry about Allison. Maude is perfectly capable—”

  “But Allison’s been so sick. It might be some sort of catatonia. I mean I don’t see how Maude—”

  “If anything goes wrong, Maude will call us, won’t—”

  “But I made all those little anise cookies, I thought Maude—”

  They are both enjoying this exchange, but Maude breaks into it. She says, “I’m really okay. I’ll just watch her. Have a good party.”

  “Darling, yes! Happy New Year!”

  “Happy—”

  “Good night—”

  As Maude hangs up, Jonathan comes into the room.

  “Oh, hi. I forgot you were here.”

  “Thanks a lot.”

  But they grin at each other. Good friends. In fact they do look alike. Tall thin fair people, somewhat delicate. Long noses, large eyes. Jonathan is wearing Levis, a clean unironed blue work shirt.

  “She looks uncomfortable.” Jonathan goes over to where Allison is (indeed) uncomfortably sprawled on the too small sofa. Gently he lifts her legs up and stretches them out, over the arm of the sofa.

  Allison sighs in her sleep, then wakes and looks at him. She is frightened. “Douglas?”

  “No, Jonathan. And Maude.”

  “Oh.” She smiles, and goes back to sleep.

  Stephen and Jennifer go first to her mother’s house. Grace and Martin. (“Let’s get them over with first.”) Jennifer does not dislike her mother; she is genuinely glad that Grace is happy with Martin, but she has less and less to say to them.

  It is actually a reception, rather than a party, that Grace and Martin are having. A reception honoring the new year, and themselves. Their sparkling house still looks brand-new. Possessions have been added, and they have a lot of shining new friends: rich successful glossy people—somewhat like themselves, somewhat unreal. Women in long opulent dresses, graying men in black ties. Waiters in white gloves.

  Barbara and Eliot Spaulding, who still think of themselves as Bostonians. (By now, when Barbara makes her remark about the first Jews she ever met being horrible, she forgets that Martin was one of them—and so does he.)

  People are saying things like:

  “You don’t see much of this sort of thing any more.”

  “No, people just don’t.”

  “Well, Grace and Martin really know.”

  “All the stops.”

  What Stephen says to Jennifer is “Jesus Christ. Don’t these people know there’s a war on?”

  Although he is of course serious, she (of course) laughs, and they head toward her mother—majestic Grace, in cream-colored satin and diamonds. (Martin chooses her clothes and buys her jewelry.)

  At the sight of her daughter, Grace frowns a little, as though she were not entirely sure who Jennifer is. And in a sense she is not; often weeks pass in which she does not think of her youngest child, and she has successfully put Allison out of her mind. And Douglas—she never thinks of Douglas. What she does feel about Jennifer is that she can take care of herself, and in that she is fortunately correct.

  (But that taking care requires more of an effort from Jennifer than almost anyone is aware of; even Stephen tends to take her steady pleasant competence for granted.)

  With an effort Jennifer tells her mother that she looks marvelous, that it is a marvelous party; she is sorry they have to leave so soon.

  Stephen makes no conciliatory effort at all. Visibly out of place, with his beard and long red hair (World War II Army surplus clothes), his stance and expression make it clear that he is there by accident; it is not his scene at all.

  “Do let me get you some champagne,” says elegant Martin, who believes his outrage to be well concealed. (“God, Grace, darling, why do they have to come?”)

  “No, thanks, we’re on our way out.”

  “You don’t find all that hair a nuisance to take care of?” (This is envious; Martin’s own hair has begun to thin.)

  “No.” Stephen gives him a level, long-eyed look.

  Unreasonably frightened (Stephen is a kindly boy), Martin retreats (as he has before) into girlishness, a girl that no one could possibly hurt. He simpers, “Well, I didn’t mean—” and he walks away, mincing more than he has for years.

  Grace and Martin are happiest alone; dangers lurk in any social life for them. Later in the evening they will wonder why on earth they had to give a party. Next year they won’t.

  In contrast to Grace, her former husband, Alex Magowan, talks of Allison obsessively, and especially to Jennifer. (Which is another burden that she bears well.)

  And, further contrast, the party that Alex and Sally give is informal, unpretentious almost to the point of being a pretense in itself. They live in a huge (expensive) house—rustic, raftered—in Belvedere, on the water. A house that Alex designed. All the rooms are open to each other, and open to the Bay—no secrets in that house. (No privacy.) They live there with Sally’s three boys, and three very large Irish setters, all beautiful and hysterical and not very bright, and a mean destructive collection of Siamese cats, who have shredded most of the furniture and smelled up several rooms.

  Sally has made an interesting (so far only half-admitted) discovery about herself, which is that she very much dislikes most people. (Could that explain her soft voice? If she spoke out, she might say something angry?) She is not really fond of animals, either. (Hence the behavior of the cats, who are very intelligent.) She especially dislikes guests; always an indifferent hostess, she has got worse.

  “Oh, but you’re so dressed up” is her greeting to Jennifer, spoken as softly as ever. “Stephen, dear, how nice to see you.” She looks about her, and gives a little laugh. “I just can’t imagine why we’re giving a New Year’s Eve party.”

  The blond down on Sally’s chin has become bristly; sometimes it occurs to her to “have something done about it”; at other times she thinks: Oh, why? And she takes a tiny pleasure in what she (to herself) refers to as “my beard.” She suspects (correctly) that Alex likes it. Andrew always did.

  Alex frowns at Jennifer. “You didn’t bring Allison?”

  Jennifer sighs. There is really no point in telling him anything. They have talked so much about Allison, and he will never believe that she is crazy. She says, “No, she was really tired. She went to sleep.”

  “To sleep? This early? Where?” Alex is eager to externalize blame for Allison; it is obvious to him that evil outside forces put Allison to sleep.

  “At Maude’s. You know, the house out on Broadway where Maude Wasserman and some other kids live.”

  “Oh, yes.” (Poor Alex still finds the cluster of second marriages awkward, as well as in poor taste.)

  There are a lot of guests that night at the Magowans’. Suburban couples in imported turtleneck sweaters and stained Levis. (“Sally said not to dres
s.”) They sit about on the floor with their drinks as the dogs gambol among them like ponies. “Oh, Rusty,” chides Sally, smiling, as one of the dogs knocks over a drink. She knows that she should introduce Stephen around, but she has already forgotten his name. (And he doesn’t help, standing there so defiantly, with his rough red hair.) Involuntarily Sally wonders why Jennifer and Stephen came. Her own three boys are in Jamaica for the holidays with Andrew and Isabel (and their new babies), and she feels a twitch of envy at that thought: the one-upmanship of second marriages. Why didn’t she and Alex think of a winter trip?

  Alex is still talking about Allison. “The last time I saw her, I was sure she seemed a little better,” he says to Jennifer. “Don’t you think?”

  “I don’t know. It’s hard to tell.” Over the years, she has been as comforting as she can.

  Meanwhile, back on Broadway, Allison has waked up. She looks at Maude and then at Jonathan, and then surprisingly she smiles. “Hi, Maude, Jonathan.”

  “Hi.” Softly they ask, “How do you feel?”

  “Sleepy. But okay. I think I had too much wine. So many people. I really get confused.”

  “There were a lot,” Maude says.

  “But no parents—they’re the most confusing—all their names. My father has no idea who he is,” says Allison; then asks, “Or were some parents here?” She frowns, in a worried small way. But her eyes have come into focus; they are warm and alert.

  Maude tells her, “My mother was here. Louisa. With John. She’s married to John Jeffreys now.”

  “You see?” Allison says. “I get along much better with doctors. At least they’re interchangeable. And my sister—I like Jennifer, and Stephen has the most beautiful hair I ever saw. You have nice hair, too,” she says tactfully to Jonathan.

  He laughs at her, says, “Thanks.”

  Allison yawns and stretches, extending arms so thin that all the tiny blue veins show in her wrists. She says, “Maybe I should go to bed.”

  Maude asks, “You need anything?”

  “No, I’m fine. Jennifer showed me where everything was.” She faces them both as she stands up, and she says, a little shyly, “You know, I really like it here.”

  “You can stay,” they tell her. “Whenever you want—”

  “Okay—” but she is less sure of that. Of staying. She goes over to the staircase, turns and gives them a small wave, and then she goes on up to bed.

  She is gone.

  Maude tells Jonathan, “That’s funny. Just then she looked so well. It’s like she slips in and out of being crazy.”

  “Well, that sort of makes sense, doesn’t it? Did she drop a lot of acid, ever?”

  “I don’t know. I think so.” Curiously Maude asks, “Did you?”

  “Well, enough. Maybe more than enough. I got scared.”

  Looking at each other, remembering bad trips, it is suddenly as though their experiences had been simultaneous. Shared. And although they are good friends, having lived for months in the same house, such a large leap toward greater intimacy frightens them both (delicate children), and so they shy back from the edge.

  Jonathan says, “How about some music?”

  “Great.”

  He gets up and puts on a record, and the huge room is then suddenly filled with woodwind notes. Flutes and oboes, clarinets.

  “Haydn,” Jonathan says.

  “It’s beautiful.” Smilingly Maude turns to him. “Jonathan, do you want to do something funny? My mother, Louisa, and John brought a couple of bottles of champagne, and I put them on ice—”

  “Terrific.”

  To anyone who knew them both, it might seem curious that Louisa and Kate, childhood friends from Virginia, now live (both of them) in the Berkeley hills. To them it seems not strange at all but very logical—logical that neither of them has remained in Virginia (who could live in the South?) and that they now live at the farthest edge of the continent, as though pushed there. Southern California would be impossible; why not Berkeley? Lovely views of San Francisco, without that city’s danger (yet)—or so the two women see it. And they both find life in Berkeley interesting: between themselves they argue voting for the Radical Slate or the April Coalition (they see themselves as closet radicals); they watch meetings on KQED: they patronize the CO-OP. Peace Marches, later on Impeachment Marches. (“Remember the fifties, when we thought poor old Ike was such a terrible President?”)

  Both women are more politically involved than their husbands are: David says he is too busy, John that he has lost hope.

  Their houses, however, are quite dissimilar. Kate’s and David’s is emphatically modern, with a glassed-in balcony that is cantilevered out from the steep hillside, out into the view. A view of the Bay, of San Francisco and Marin County. Of, tonight, the strangely warm, vividly blue midnight sky.

  At the moment Kate is there on the balcony, alone with Jennifer. Kate in a wonderful red silk dress. (“I haven’t worn red for years,” finding an echoing picture somewhere in her mind.) Kate slimmed down, still a strong and striking woman, intelligent, forthright. And now feeling very confident: she has just got a job, a very good one, as intake social worker in a psychiatric clinic, in Kensington.

  This party is to celebrate Kate’s job, as well as the onset of the seventies. And Jennifer has brought her remarkable present. It is a blouse, of unbleached muslin—but Jennifer has first pleated the fabric, hundreds of tiny tucks, all beautifully, evenly stitched.

  Kate tells her, “Jennifer, it’s the most beautiful blouse I ever saw. Really.” She is very moved. (So much work!)

  “Well, it was fun to make. It must mean I’m crazy or something, but I really dug making all those tucks.”

  “It’s lovely.”

  “And muslin—it should last all your life.”

  Kate laughs. They have a special understanding of each other, these two women who both appear stronger, less vulnerable than they are; and this is something that each of them knows about the other. Knows and protects.

  “Tell me about your job,” says Jennifer.

  “It’s great, but of course I’m sort of ambivalent. It’s an institution for rich kids, really. They used to get alcoholics, now they get drugged kids.”

  “Next year health-food poisoning.” Jennifer laughs. Kate, too.

  “Well, I know,” Kate goes on. “But why aren’t I working with black people, in East Oakland? That’s more what I had in mind.”

  “You could work up to Oakland.”

  Kate would like to tell Jennifer about something that has recently happened to her—something important to her that she has not told anyone else. A man she has known for a long time, now divorced—like David, a successful doctor—that man called her, simply saying that he was in love with her. He was not, he told her, asking her to break up her marriage. (“Not yet,” he said; laughed.) But couldn’t they—wouldn’t she meet him for lunch? Etcetera? (The etcetera unsaid.) Kate had many reactions: she was flattered, pleased, somewhat aroused at the idea of that rangy blond attractive man. And she thought: What restaurant? What motel? San Francisco? Maybe the Palace, lunch first in the Garden Court—she went that far, enjoying plans. And she also thought: What a harmless way to get back at David for that nurse (for possibly quite a few nurses). She ran everything through her mind, and then she listened to her instincts. And she found out that that was not what she wanted to do. For whatever half-understood reasons, she would not. (Instead, that night she and David made love—or, rather, she made love to him—more violently than for years.)

  And now she decides not to tell Jennifer. (She is partly thinking of her own mother, Jane Flickinger, who always said too much.)

  Kate has gently folded the blouse across her arm; against the red silk sleeve it looks like a delicate pale stole. And delicately Kate touches it. “Jennifer, it’s so beautiful,” she says again.

  Then David comes out to where they are—gray David with a neat gray beard. “Well, I have to keep up with my bearded son,” he has sai
d.

  “Kate,” he now says, “why on earth are we giving a New Year’s Eve party? It isn’t like us.”

  “Darling, you know perfectly well why. We decided to, that’s all.” She hears her own voice speaking to David, hears her amused affection and the show of strength, and she thinks how little anything changes between people.

  “Well, as always, you did a great job, old dear,” he says. “Salmon en croute—fantastic. And the pâte—like, wow.”

  “You know I like to show off,” she says, observing to herself that he is more careful to praise her than once he might have been. She is not quite sure why: perhaps he sees the emergence (if partial) of a new self of which she herself is not quite aware? (The Kate that their old friend saw?)

  She smiles at David; she puts her arm through his. “Christ, almost 1971,” she says.

  “I know. Whatever will we do with it?”

  On the stiff and elaborately carved Victorian sofa where earlier Allison lay uncomfortably asleep, Maude and Jonathan now sit. In front of them is a small table with a pink marble top, which holds their glasses, one empty bottle, and another, almost full.

  Maude says, “We look like people posing for something.”

  They laugh; they have been laughing a lot, off and on, and now they are a little tired.

  Jonathan reaches to pour more wine. Then he looks at Maude. With a slightly blurred tone of discovery, he says, “You know, you’re really beautiful?”

  She looks at him. “Really? I am?”

  “Really.”

  Smiling, he takes her hand; they both have long strong (similar) hands. And then they both face forward again. Fortunately Jonathan is left-handed, and so it is possible to hold hands and sip at drinks at the same time.

  “This is a nice high,” Maude says.

  “Really. And the taste is neat.”

  “But it’s doing something to my nose.” Maude laughs, and looks at Jonathan. “Have you ever noticed how much alike we look?” she asks.

  “Pale people with long noses,” he says, turning to examine her face. “I guess, sort of. But you look much better than I do.”