A Season in Purgatory

by Dominick Dunne

  Fatty, like his sister, had never married. He continued to live in the old Malloy house on Front Street in Bog Meadow. His early dreams of being a policeman had been thwarted by his uncle, Gerald Bradley, who did not want a relation of his in a blue uniform when his sons rose to the heights that he expected them to attain. Gerald offered to pay Fatty’s tuition to Holy Cross, or Villanova, or Loyola, or St. John’s, but Fatty, who had never been much of a student, wanted to get down to work and on with life. For a while he sold shoes at Kofsky’s Shoe Store in Bog Meadow. Then he spent several years as a salesman at Ted and Joe’s Hardware, also in Bog Meadow. Then he became assistant manager of Riley’s Market near the Malloy family home, where during peak hours he often doubled up his duties packing grocery bags at the checkout counter, a task at which he was considered an expert. “Fatty’ll show you how to pack a plastic bag right,” the manager often said to new employees, and Fatty always beamed with pleasure at the compliment. He enjoyed it when the other employees pointed him out to customers as a nephew of Gerald Bradley, or a cousin of Senator Sandro Bradley, or Dr. Desmond Bradley, or Congressman Constant Bradley, or even the Countess de Trafford of Paris, whichever one of them happened to be in the news at the time. On Saturday nights, after his friend Corky got off work at The Country Club in Scarborough Hill, where he had risen from bartender in the men’s locker room to the post of maître d’ in the dining room and assistant banquet manager, the two often got together to knock back a few beers and talk over old times. Fatty and Corky had been friends since they were classmates at Our Lady of Sorrows High. There was just one subject that Fatty and Corky never discussed. Corky had his suspicions about what had happened that night years ago in Scarborough Hill, and he had told Captain Riordan what he thought at the time. He also told Fatty, and Fatty told Sis. “If you know what’s good for you, stay out of that one,” Sis had said to her brother at the time. His Saturday nights with Corky and his Thursday nights with his sister were the nights of the week that Fatty most looked forward to.

  “Poor Kitt,” said Sis, giving her brother her weekly news report. Sis kept in close touch with Bridey, at whichever of the residences the family happened to be in, through weekly Sunday afternoon telephone calls. “She has fallen in love with that writer who used to be so quiet when he stayed here in the old days. They called him Harry then, but now it’s Harrison.”

  “Kitt’s in love with him?” asked Fatty, between mouthfuls of roast beef and mashed potatoes. “What about what’shisname she married? Who skied all the time?”

  “Cheever Chadwick,” replied Sis. “They’ve separated, or at least they’re living apart. You know Bridey. She goes only just so far with a story, and then she stops. With her, the sun rises and sets with Aunt Grace.”

  “Is Kitt getting a divorce? I can’t believe it. A divorce in the Bradley family.” Fatty whistled in wonderment.

  “Certainly not until after the election,” said Sis. “They couldn’t afford that kind of publicity. I said at the time, and I still say, she should never have married a non-Catholic, and I know for a fact that Aunt Grace concurs with my feelings on the subject.”

  “I remember that guy Harrison. He wrote the speech for Constant that Christmas in Bog Meadow, when we handed out the turkeys and the oranges to the poor people. Remember?”

  “That’s him.”

  “I thought he dropped out of sight. Where’d she meet him?”

  “At the Cranston Institute in Maine. Where Agnes is. No, no, Fatty, no thirds. Save some room for dessert. I’ve got a beautiful treat for you, a peach cobbler with whipped cream.”

  “I always got room for dessert, Sis.”

  “How’s your friend Corky?”

  Father Bill, at the request of Grace Bradley, performed extreme unction, the last rites for the dying, anointing Gerald with consecrated oil in a brief ceremony at the Southampton Hospital. But death was not yet at hand. Only paralysis. And a long recovery period. Doctors expert in stroke therapy were flown in from Chicago and Los Angeles, or helicoptered in from New York.

  Grace went to the hospital to visit her husband and her son. She had managed to have them put in rooms next to each other.

  “You’ve heard about your father, Constant?” she asked.

  “Yes, Ma,” replied Constant.

  “One minute he was walking on the grass. The next he was lying on the ground. You never can tell about life. That’s why it’s so important to stay in a state of grace. How are you feeling, Constant?”

  “I’m all right, Ma. Just banged up.”

  She looked about the room. “Are those white peonies from my garden?” she asked.

  “Yes. Charlotte brought them.”

  “It’s been a wonderful year for peonies,” she said. “You should have the nurse change the water.”

  “Yes, Ma.”

  “Were you drunk when your car hit the pole?”

  “No, Ma. I’d had a few drinks, that’s all.”

  “There wasn’t enough liquor at home? You had to go out to a bar on the Montauk Highway?”

  “I was antsy, Ma.”

  “Were you with a woman?”

  “No, Ma. Why would you ask that?”

  “I remember that night with Jerry, when his car crashed.”

  Jerry and Sims Lord came into the room. They prepared a statement for the press announcing that Gerald Bradley, the multimillionaire financier, had suffered a minor stroke at his home in Southampton, New York, and was resting comfortably at the Southampton Hospital. His son, Constant Bradley, the gubernatorial candidate for Connecticut, was in the same hospital recovering from a minor automobile accident a day earlier on the Montauk Highway.

  “A stroke, Mrs. Bradley, is a blood clot in an artery of the brain,” said Dr. Sidney Dickey, from New York. “We call it an intracranial thrombosis. What we have done is perform an arteriogram, which means that we have injected radiopaque dye into the main artery of the neck and photographed its flow through the vessels of the brain by high-speed X ray. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, Doctor,” said Grace, nodding.

  “We have found to our regret that it is inoperable.”

  “Yes, Doctor.”

  “But you must not be discouraged. A partial recovery is not only possible, it is almost certain.”

  “Yes, Doctor.”

  “Recovery, however, is a long, slow process,” said Dr. Ernest Bogner from Chicago. “I feel, though, in time, your husband will be able to dress himself, at least partially, and brush his teeth. In time, perhaps, he might even be able to talk a little, at least to be able to make himself understood, so that he can ask for what he wants. You must understand his brain is working perfectly. There is no damage there. He is alert. He understands everything. But he is unable to express himself. He makes sounds, not words. He will be angry that you do not understand him. He will be irritable much of the time. All around him must learn to be patient.”

  “Thank you, Doctor,” said Grace.

  “I have given your son the names of some physical therapists who are expert in the field. I would suggest that after a few weeks he begin a daily program of physical therapy.”

  “Yes, Doctor,” said Grace.

  “I am, of course, always at your service. I will fly here on a moment’s notice.”

  “You are very kind, Doctor.”

  “My colleague, Dr. Foreman, is located in Manhattan, at Columbia-Presbyterian, and happens to have a summer place nearby in Quogue. He has twice been to the hospital this week with me. He is aware of the case.”

  “Thank you, Doctor. Would you care to stay for lunch? My cook has made a marvelous cheese soufflé.”

  “We will need to install an elevator, Ma,” said Jerry, several days later.

  “Fine,” said Grace. “Have it installed.”

  “So that the wheelchair can move from the second floor to the first,” said Jerry.

  “Install it, I said,” said Grace.

  “We will have to have a whir
lpool bath put in,” said Jerry.

  “You handle that, Jerry,” said Grace.

  “There will be other therapeutic devices necessary also,” said Jerry.

  “Jerry, I know nothing about those things. You must take care of it. There’s no need to check with me on every detail. Simply do what has to be done,” said Grace.

  “Yes, Ma.”

  “When your father comes home from the hospital, he should be put in the guestroom at the top of the stairs,” said Grace later in the day to Jerry.

  “Not in your room, Ma? Do you think that’s wise?” asked Jerry. “That’s where he’s used to being.”

  “No, not in my room. Make whatever arrangements need to be made about hospital beds and whatever else he needs being put in there. It’s a lovely, bright airy room, and so pretty, with those nice colors that Sally Steers suggested.”

  “Yes, Ma. Now, about the nurses.”

  “No, no,” said Grace. “There’s nothing more depressing than nurses in a house. Those white uniforms cast a pall, and nurses gossip so. Oh, do they gossip. It was Fitzy Montague’s nurse who told everyone he had a boil on his buttocks after he jumped out the window of Seven Forty Park and his pajama bottoms flew off. Imagine her telling that. And they don’t want to eat with the maids, and we certainly don’t want them to eat with us, or we’d have to censor every word coming out of our mouths, and I can’t, I simply can’t, ask Bridey to do a third sitting. Bridey’s almost seventy.”

  “So what do we do, Ma?” asked Jerry.

  “Get the Malloys out here. Fatty can carry your father to the bathroom and put him in the wheelchair or put him in the car or the therapeutic bath or whatever it is. He can watch the physical therapist and in time do some of the therapy himself. It’s just moving legs back and forth, after all. They did that with my father. And Sis can tend to him, push the wheelchair, read to him, all that sort of thing. I always used to think Sis wanted to be a nurse.”

  “Fatty’s got a job, Ma.”

  “Where?”

  “Riley’s Market in Bog Meadow.”

  “Doing what?”

  “Checkout.”

  “Checkout? You mean putting the groceries in the plastic bags?”

  “And toting it up.”

  “I always knew Fatty was never going to amount to much. We offered to send him to Holy Cross, Gerald and I, or Villanova, or Loyola, or St. John’s, along with Bridey’s nephews—pay his way, the whole thing—but no, he wanted to go right to work. Certainly his aspirations were conventional, weren’t they? Toting up at the checkout counter. Imagine. There’s a career for you, all right.” She held back her head and laughed. “Sis was always the one with possibilities.”

  “Ma, Pa needs nurses. Real nurses,” said Jerry.

  “Later, if he gets worse. We’ll talk about it when I get back from Paris. But we don’t want pretty young ones, remember that. Not with Constant in and out of the house, we don’t.”

  “Yes, Ma. You’re going to Paris? Now?”

  “Yes, for my clothes. I always go at this time.”

  “Yes, Ma.”

  “Oh, Jerry. Perhaps Father Bill should come and hear your father’s confession. Just in case, you know. Constant, too. I notice he didn’t receive Communion at Mass last Sunday. Cardinal’s coming for the weekend to see your father and to see Constant. Everyone should be in a state of grace. Where’s Kitt? I’d like to see Kitt.”

  “In her room. She hasn’t come out of her room for two days.”

  “Get her, will you?”

  “She’s a bit tipsy,” said Jerry.

  “Kitt tipsy? No, not my Kitt,” said Grace.

  “Actually, she’s not a bit tipsy at all. She’s drunk. She’s shitfaced,” said Jerry.

  “Oh, I hate that word, Jerry,” said Grace.

  * * *

  Kitt rose from her chaise and replied through the closed door, “Go away.” Since Harrison had left, she could not eat or sleep. She had grown visibly thinner. She missed her lover. Although she did not understand exactly what had happened, she knew there was no possibility of the resurrection of their romance. There was a bitter feeling toward Harrison in their household.

  “Ma wants to see you, now,” called Jerry through the door.

  “I can’t.”

  “You better get down there.”

  Ten minutes later, Kitt appeared. “You wanted to see me, Ma?” asked Kitt.

  “You’re not looking well, Kitt,” said Grace. “You should do something about your hair. Call Kenneth. Get an appointment. Do your nails. Get a massage. Make a day of it. All this staying in the house all the time is not good for you.”

  “Yes, Ma.”

  “Would you like to come to Paris with me? Stay at the Ritz? See Mary Pat? Get some new clothes? It might be just the thing.”

  “No, thanks, Ma.”

  “Jerry said you were drinking. You’re not drinking, are you, Kitt?”

  “Yes, Ma.”

  “Well, stop it right now. Cardinal’s coming for the weekend, to see your father and to see Constant. Perhaps you should go to confession,” said Grace. “How long has it been since your last confession?”

  “Bless me, Cardinal, for I have sinned. It’s been two weeks since my last confession,” said Kitt, in a singsong voice.

  “Stop being sacrilegious, Kitt. Stop.”

  “Since my last confession, I have committed adultery nine times—no, ten.”

  “Stop being so vulgar, Kitt,” snapped Grace.

  “I repeat, ten times. Including once, downstairs in the living room after you went up to bed. That was the one I forgot.”

  “You should have your mouth washed out with soap. I am sorry that Harrison ever came into our lives again. After all we did for him in this family.”

  “Don’t blame Harrison, Ma. I was the aggressor. I was the one who started it. I begged for it.”

  “I will not listen to this filthy talk,” said Grace, covering her ears with her hands.

  “Then help me. Help me.”

  “There’s always Mass. The rosary. Our Lady. Prayer.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake, Ma.”

  “The old lady don’t seem to be taking it too hard,” said Debbie, the new parlor maid, who was now called Colleen, in the kitchen.

  “And just what do you mean by that, miss?” asked Bridey, bristling indignantly.

  “She’s got a husband who’s going to be a cripple for life, drooling all over himself, not able to talk, and she’s going off to Paris to buy new clothes, like she don’t have enough in those closets already?” said Colleen.

  “Don’t you ever let me hear you call her ‘the old lady’ again. Her name is Mrs. Bradley, and don’t you ever forget it. The woman is a saint on this earth, and one more word like that out of you and you’re back on Aer Lingus to Roscommon, where you come from.”

  * * *

  “And Kitt? Where’s Kitt?” asked Grace. “It’s time to leave for Mass.”

  “She’s drunk, madam,” replied Bridey.

  “Well, sober her up. Slap her face several times, very hard. Make her drink several cups of black coffee. Make her use Listerine. I don’t want Cardinal to smell liquor on her breath when she receives Communion.”

  “I can’t slap Miss Kitt, madam,” said Bridey.

  “Yes, you can, if I ask you to. The girl can’t miss Mass. It will be a mortal sin on her soul, and you want no part of that, Bridey.”

  “Yes, madam.”

  “Where’s my lace mantilla, Bridey?”

  “Right there in your top drawer with all your mantillas.”

  “No, no. Those are the black ones. I want the white one the Duchess of Alba gave me last year in Madrid.”

  “How did you find the two patients, Cardinal?” asked the reporter, when Cardinal Sullivan left the Southampton Hospital accompanied by Grace, Maureen, and Kitt Bradley.

  “They are both, father and son, making remarkable recoveries,” said Cardinal Sullivan, smiling. “Cons
tant, I believe, is due to go home tomorrow or the next day, and Gerald in about a week or ten days’ time. What a joy it will be when the whole family is reunited again. You know, people think of Gerald Bradley as a man completely interested in the accumulation of money. But that is not so. I have known Gerald for almost forty years. Isn’t it close to forty years, Grace?”

  “Almost, Cardinal. Thirty-nine, actually,” said Grace, smiling.

  “Thirty-nine then. And I can tell you his greatest pleasure lies in the success of his children. He is the most family-oriented man I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing.”

  “Can my photographer take a couple of pictures, Cardinal, of you and Mrs. Bradley and her daughters?”

  That night Harrison went to see Claire and the boys in New York.

  “Aren’t you going to take them out?” asked Claire. “They’ve been looking forward to it all week. You told them on the telephone you’d take them to Serendipity.”

  “No. I thought I’d order in. I thought all of us could have dinner together,” said Harrison.

  “I have a book to edit,” said Claire, dismissing his idea.

  “Please, Claire. It’s important.”

  “Are you all right? You’re not ill or anything, are you?”

  “No.”

  “What then?”

  “There’s something I have to tell you. After the boys go to bed.”

  “About you and Kitt Chadwick, you mean?” Claire was matter-of-fact in her question.

  Harrison looked at her, wondering how she knew. “No,” he replied.

  “Tell me now, Harrison. I’m not one for waiting. I don’t believe in setting dates for important conversations.” She looked over at the boys. “They’re perfectly happy watching television.”

  “It has nothing to do with Kitt,” he said.

  “What then?”

  They talked for thirty minutes in low voices, heads together, leaning across a kitchen table to each other. He told her about Winifred Utley, about the night, about Constant, about himself. Claire, stunned, listened intently, but she was not one to show alarm. There were no tears from her. There were no cries of “What will this do to me and the children?”