The Pursuit of Happiness (2001)

by Douglas Kennedy

  As soon as I stepped out into the street, Jack was there - huddled in my doorway, looking ashen, manic, and sodden from the rain.

  ‘Go away,’ I shouted.

  He eyed the luggage with alarm. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Leaving.’

  ‘For where?’

  ‘None of your business,’ I said, heading down the steps.

  ‘Please don’t go …’

  I said nothing. I turned right towards West End Avenue. He followed behind.

  ‘You can’t leave. You are everything to me.’

  I kept walking.

  ‘I will be lost if you go.’

  I kept walking. He suddenly dashed in front of me and fell to his knees.

  ‘You are the love of my life.’

  I looked down at him. Not with anger or pity. Rather, with total dispassion.

  ‘No,’ I said quietly. ‘ You are the love of your life.’

  He reached for the hem of my raincoat. ‘Sara, darling …’ he said, tears rolling down his cheeks.

  ‘Please get out of my way, Jack.’

  He grabbed the hem and held on. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Not until you hear me out.’

  ‘I’m going, Jack.’

  I tried to move. He held on tightly.

  ‘Jack - it’s over.’

  ‘Don’t say that.’

  ‘It’s over.’

  ‘You have to hear me out.’

  ‘It is over. Now let go …’

  I was interrupted by a voice.

  ‘You got a problem here, lady?’

  I turned around. A cop approached us.

  ‘Ask him,’ I said, nodding toward Jack, still on his knees. The cop looked down at him with disdained amusement.

  ‘So what’s the problem, fella?’ the cop asked him.

  Jack let go of my hem. ‘No problem,’ he said. ‘I was just …’

  ‘Beggin’ forgiveness is what it looks like to me,’ the cop said.

  Jack stared down at the pavement. The cop turned to me. ‘Was he botherin’ you?’

  ‘I just wanted to get into a cab. He thought otherwise.’

  ‘You gonna let her get into a cab, fella?’

  Jack hesitated for a moment, then nodded slowly.

  ‘Good call. Now what I want you to do is stand up and sit on the stoop there while I help your lady friend into a taxi. You gonna do that like a smart guy?’

  Jack got to his feet, walked over to a nearby stoop, and sat down - looking totally defeated. The cop picked up my bags and walked me to the corner of 77th Street and West End Avenue. He put out his hand. A cab stopped within seconds. The driver came out and put my bags in the trunk.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said to the cop.

  ‘No problem. That guy didn’t do anything stupid to you, did he?’

  ‘Nothing criminal, if that’s what you mean.’

  ‘Okay then. Have a good trip - wherever you’re going. I’ll keep an eye on lover boy for a couple of minutes, so he doesn’t go chasing after you.’

  I got into the cab. I said ‘Penn Station’ to the driver. We pulled out into the traffic. I looked back and saw Jack still sitting on the stoop, crying uncontrollably.

  At Penn Station, I collected a ticket I had reserved that afternoon, and had a porter bring my bags to the sleeping compartment I had booked on the night train to Boston. I’d paid a supplement to ensure that I had a single compartment. I needed to be alone tonight. After I settled in, a steward knocked on my door. I told him I wouldn’t be eating, but a double whiskey and soda would be most welcome. I changed into a nightgown and a robe. I lowered the bed. The steward returned with my whiskey. I drank it slowly. Once or twice the glass began to shake in my hand. I finished the whiskey. I climbed in between the stiff sheets. I turned off the light. The train shunted out of the station. I fell asleep.

  I awoke again to a knock on the door. The steward entered, bearing toast and coffee. We were half-an-hour outside Boston. First light was bleaching the night sky. I sat up in bed, sipping the coffee, watching the emergence of a New England dawn. I had slept deeply, without dreams. My stomach felt taut with sadness. But no tears stung my eyes. My decision had been made; my heart hardened. It was morning. I was on the move. And the steward’s coffee was actually drinkable.

  At South Station in Boston, I switched trains. By noon that day, I had arrived in Brunswick, Maine. As arranged, Ruth Reynolds was at the station to collect me. It had been over five years since I’d fled to Maine in the spring of 1946 after everything went wrong in the wake of Jack’s disappearance. Yesterday afternoon, when I felt myself hitting bottom again, I decided that the only thing to do was to leave town; to disappear without trace for a while. Had I stayed in Manhattan, Jack would have constantly bombarded me with phone calls, flowers, telegrams, and late-night appearances on my doorstep. More tellingly, I needed to go somewhere away from everything to do with the blacklist, NBC, Saturday Night/Sunday Morning, Walter Winchell, and all the painful resonances which I now associated with Manhattan. So that’s when I reached for my address book and found the phone number of Ruth Reynolds in Bath, Maine. She remembered me immediately (‘Hell, I am one of the biggest fans of your column. Why aren’t you writing it anymore?’). And yes, she had a couple of summer cottages for rent right now. There would be no problem accommodating me as of tomorrow, if need be.

  So I reserved a seat on the first train out of town, packed a suitcase, and fled … leaving Jack crying on a doorstep. Now, here I was, back in Maine. Being enveloped in one of Ruth Reynolds’ bear hugs.

  ‘Well, don’t you look great,’ she lied.

  ‘You too,’ I said, even though I blanched when I first saw her on the station platform - and noted that she had put on at least thirty pounds in the intervening years.

  ‘No need to fib, honey,’ she said. ‘I’m fat.’

  ‘No, you’re not.’

  ‘You’re a nice girl, Sara - but a terrible liar.’

  We drove north out of Brunswick towards Bath. ‘So … how’s it feel being a journalistic star?’ she asked me.

  ‘I’m hardly a star. Anyway, I’m on leave of absence from Saturday/Sunday!

  ‘Is that why you decided to come back to Maine?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I lied. ‘There’s some stuff I want to get down on paper.’

  ‘Well, you picked the perfect place for peace and quiet. I’m afraid I couldn’t get you your old cottage, because Mr and Mrs Daniels sold their place years ago. You still in touch with them?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘Anyway, I found you something very cute. And it’s got an extra bedroom if you want a guest … or if your brother pays you a visit.’

  I stiffened. Ruth noticed this. ‘Something wrong?’ she asked.

  ‘No,’ I said - as I vowed to myself I would remain tight-lipped about events of the past few months.

  ‘How is that brother of yours?’

  ‘Fine, fine.’

  ‘Nice to hear it.’

  We made small talk for the rest of the drive. When we reached Bath, we turned right down Rt. 209, stopping in the general store at a village called Winnegance to pick up supplies. Then we continued along the lonely two-lane blacktop that snaked its way down the spindly peninsula which ended at Popham Beach. The beach was as empty as ever.

  ‘Nothing ever changes around here, does it?’ I said.

  ‘That’s Maine.’

  Ruth told me I was welcome at her house that night for dinner. But I begged off, saying I was tired.

  ‘How about tomorrow then?’ she asked.

  ‘Let’s talk in a couple of days,’ I said, ‘after I’ve settled in.’

  ‘You sure everything’s all right?’

  ‘Of course. The house suits me just fine.’

  ‘I was talking about you, Sara. Is everything okay with you?’

  ‘You said how good I looked, didn’t you?’

  She was taken aback by the sharp tone. ‘And I was telling the truth. But …’
r />   Before she could pose another question, I cut her off.

  ‘It’s been a difficult few months, all right?’

  ‘Sara, I do apologize. I didn’t mean to pry.’

  ‘You’re not prying. And excuse my tone. It’s just … I need time by myself.’

  ‘Well, up here in Maine, we never crowd anyone. So when you want company, you know where to find it.’

  I didn’t want company. Or conversation. Or any form of human contact. I wanted to shut down; to close myself off from everyone. I did just that. I wrote a letter to the accounts department of Saturday/Sunday, informing them that I wanted all pay checks to be dispatched directly to my bank. I wrote Joel Eberts, authorizing him (when Eric’s insurance check came through) to pay off the IRS and then deposit the remainder of the payment in my stock market fund. I also sent him a set of keys to my apartment and asked if (for a fee) he would hire someone to collect my mail; to hold all correspondence and pay all bills … on the condition that he kept my whereabouts private from anyone who was trying to contact me. A few days later, he wrote back, agreeing to get his part-time secretary to drop by once a week and gather up all correspondence. He also enclosed power-of-attorney forms, allowing him to write checks from my account to cover all bills.

  ‘But are you sure,’ he said in his covering letter to me, ‘that you don’t want me to forward on any personal letters?’

  ‘Absolutely sure,’ I wrote back. ‘And you must keep my forwarding address a secret - especially from Jack Malone, should he contact you. More specifically, I do not want to know if he does contact you. So you must also keep this information from me.’

  I was determined to kill all potential contact between myself and Jack. Not just because I refused to budge from my irreconcilable position, but also because I was terrified that, were I to read one of his pleading letters (or, worse yet, allow myself to encounter him face to face), I would crumble on the spot … as I had done all those years ago when he had accidentally barged back into my life. We were finished together. Nothing he said or did would change that. He was gone from my life. I was alone now. I wanted it that way.

  I didn’t make contact with Ruth for the first three weeks I was at the cottage. Of course, she did come down twice a week to clean the place and change the sheets. But I made certain I was out walking on the beach when she arrived. She accepted my aloofness - and left me notes asking if she could run any errands for me. I drew up lists for her - for groceries and for books I asked her to borrow from the local library. Besides leaving her cash for these essentials, I always ended my list with an apology for my aloofness: ‘Sorry for being so distant. One day, when I am back on Planet Earth, I will come over with a bottle of something strong and Scottish, and explain all. But for the moment, let me wallow in my solipsism … a big dumb word meaning “self-pity”.’

  A few days later, I came back from my morning stroll to find all the groceries I requested, and three thick novels I’d always dodged reading (Mann’s The Magic Mountain, James’s The Wings of a Dove, and - as my popcorn antidote to all that serious literature - Thomas Heggen’s wonderful Second World War yarn, Mister Roberts). There was also a bottle of J&B. A note was enclosed:

  Sara:

  No need for apologies. Just know we’re here when you need us. As it’s still kind of nippy at night, I thought the bottle of Scotch might be effective heating … especially if you get bored lighting fires every evening.

  A week slipped by. Then another. Then another. I read. I walked. I slept. I received one letter - from Joel Eberts, informing me that the seventy-five-thousand-dollar insurance check had cleared. Through his ‘tax guy’, he had also cut a deal with the IRS on the matter of Eric’s back payments.

  They settled for $32,500. I wanted to push them lower, but as my tax guy pointed out, we still managed to haul them down quite a bit. So we have to be grateful for that. I had a chat with Lawrence Braun - your stockbroker. He plans to invest the balance in solid blue-chip companies - unless (as he put it) ‘Miss Smythe has suddenly become adventurous’. I told him that, unless I heard otherwise from you, blue chips were the way to go.

  That’s all my news from this end, except to say that you do have a stack of private correspondence here. I’m happy to keep it in storage. When you want it, just say the word.

  In closing, Sara - let me add this one personal hope: that you are somehow coming to terms with all that has happened. No one deserves what you had to face in the past couple of months. By its very nature, life is unfair. But it has been, of late, mercilessly unfair to you. This will change. You may never get over the loss of your brother. Just as you may never get over Mr Malone’s act of betrayal. But I know you will eventually come to terms with both events. Because to move forward, we all must somehow come to terms with every damn thing that life throws in our path.

  For now, however, take your time. Put the world on hold. Find your way through this difficult juncture. And do know that I am here, whenever you need me.

  But I needed no one. Until the beginning of my fourth week at the cottage. It was a Tuesday morning. I woke up feeling odd. Two minutes later, I was violently ill. I spent a ghastly quarter-of-an-hour in the toilet. The next morning I was sick again. On Thursday, the dawn chorus of nausea passed me by. But it returned again on Friday, and hit me throughout the weekend.

  I needed to see a doctor. Especially as my period was also two weeks late. So I made contact with Ruth again. I didn’t go into the nature of my complaint. I simply told her it was a medical problem. She dispatched me to her family doctor - a severe-looking man in his fifties named Grayson. He wore a crisp white shirt, a crisp white medical jacket, rimless glasses, and a permanent scowl. He looked like a mean-minded druggist. His offices were on Center Street in Bath. His patients were the men employed at Bath Iron Works and their families. He had no bedside manner whatsoever. I told him the nature of my problem, and the fact that my period was so late.

  ‘Sounds like you could be pregnant,’ he said tonelessly.

  ‘That’s impossible,’ I said.

  ‘You mean, you and your husband haven’t been having …’

  He paused, then uttered the word ‘relations’ with considerable distaste.

  ‘I’m not married,’ I said.

  His eyes flickered down to my left hand. He noticed the absence of a wedding ring. He hesitated, then said, ‘But you have been having relations with …’

  ‘With someone, yes. But there is no medical way I could be pregnant.’

  Then I explained about my earlier failed pregnancy and how the obstetrician at Greenwich Hospital told me I could never have children.

  ‘Maybe he was wrong,’ Dr Grayson said, then asked me to roll up my sleeve. He drew some blood. He handed me a glass vial and directed me towards the toilet. When I returned with the urine sample, he told me to come back two days later for the results.