Rich Man, Poor Man

by Irwin Shaw

  “New York City,” Calderwood said, resentfully. “Always New York City.”

  “Well, do you want me to sit here and wait until the ladies come home?” Rudolph crossed his arms menacacingly.

  “This could cost you a lot of money, Rudy,” Calderwood said.

  “Okay, it could cost me a lot of money.” Rudolph said it firmly, but he could feel the sick quiver inside his stomach.

  “And this—this lady in New York,” Calderwood said, sounding plaintive. “Has she accepted you?”

  “No.”

  “Love, by God!” The insanity of the tender emotion, the cross-purposes of desire, the sheer anarchy of sex, was too much for Calderwood’s piety. “In two months you’ll forget her and then maybe you and Virginia …”

  “She said no for yesterday,” Rudolph said. “But she’s thinking it over. Well, should I wait for Mrs. Calderwood and Virginia?” He still had his arms crossed. It kept his hands from trembling.

  Calderwood pushed the inkstand irritably back to the edge of the desk. “Obviously you’re telling the truth, Rudy,” Calderwood said. “I don’t know what possessed my foolish daughter. Ah—I know what my wife will say—I brought her up all wrong. I made her shy. I over-protected her. If I were to tell you some of the arguments I’ve had with that woman in this house. It was different when I was a boy, I’ll tell you that. Girls didn’t go around, telling their mothers they were in love with people who never even looked at them. The damned movies. They rot women’s brains. No, you don’t have to wait. I’ll handle it alone. Go ahead. I have to compose myself.”

  Rudolph stood up and Calderwood with him. “Do you want some advice?” Rudolph asked.

  “You’re always giving me advice,” Calderwood said petulantly. “When I dream it’s always about you whispering in my ear. For years. Sometimes I wish you’d never showed up that summer at the store. What advice?”

  “Let Virginia go down to New York and learn to be a secretary and leave her alone for a year or two.”

  “Great,” Calderwood said bitterly. “You can say that. You have no daughters. I’ll see you to the door.”

  At the door, he put his hand on Rudolph’s arm. “Rudy,” he said, pleading, “if the lady in New York says no, you’ll think about Virginia, won’t you? Maybe she’s an idiot, but I can’t stand to see her unhappy.”

  “Don’t worry, Mr. Calderwood,” Rudolph said ambiguously, and went down to his car.

  Mr. Calderwood was still standing in the open doorway, lit by the frugal hall light, as Rudolph drove away.

  He was hungry, but decided to wait before going to a restaurant for dinner. He wanted to return to the house and see how Billy was doing. He also wanted to tell him that he had talked to Gretchen and that he would be going out to California in two or three days. The boy would sleep better after hearing that news, the specter of the school no longer hanging over him.

  When he opened the front door with his key he heard voices in the kitchen. He went silently through the living and dining rooms and listened outside the kitchen door. “There’s one thing I like to see in a growing boy—” Rudolph recognized his mother’s voice—“and that’s a good appetite. I’m happy to see you appreciate food, Billy. Martha, give him another slice of meat and some more salad. No back talk, Billy, about not eating salad. In my house, all children eat salad.”

  Holy God! Rudolph thought.

  “There’s another thing I like to see in a boy, Billy,” his mother went on. “Old as I am, and I should be beyond such feminine weaknesses—and that’s good looks combined with good manners.” The voice was coquettish, cooing. “And you know whom you remind me of—and I never said so to his face for fear of spoiling him—there’s nothing worse than a vain child—you remind me of your Uncle Rudolph and he was by common agreement the handsomest boy in town and he grew up into the handsomest young man.”

  “Everybody says I look like my father,” Billy said, with the bluntness of his fourteen years, but not aggressively. From his tone he was obviously feeling at home.

  “I have not had the good fortune ever to meet your father,” the mother said, a slight chill in her speech. “No doubt there must be a certain resemblance here and there, but fundamentally you resemble my branch of the family, especially Rudolph. Doesn’t he, Martha?”

  “I can see some signs,” Martha said. She was not out to give the mother a perfect Sunday night supper.

  “Around the eyes,” the mother said. “And the intelligent mouth. In spite of the difference in the hair. I never think hair makes too much difference. There’s not much character in hair.”

  Rudolph pushed the door and went into the kitchen. Billy was seated at one end of the table, flanked by the two women. Hair flattened down wet after his bath, Billy looked shining clean and smiling as he packed into his food. The mother had put on a sober-brown dress and was consciously playing grandmother. Martha looked less grumpy than usual, her mouth less thin, welcoming a bit of youth into the household.

  “Everything all right?” Rudolph asked. “They giving you enough to eat?”

  “The food’s great,” Billy said. There was no trace of the agony of the afternoon in his face.

  “I do hope you like chocolate pudding for dessert, Billy,” the mother said, hardly looking up for a moment at Rudolph, standing at the door. “Martha makes the most delicious chocolate pudding.”

  “Yeah,” Billy said. “I really like it.”

  “It was Rudolph’s favorite dessert, too. Wasn’t it, Rudolph?”

  “Uhuh,” he said. He didn’t remember ever getting it more than once a year and he certainly didn’t remember ever remarking on it, but this was not the night to halt the flights of his mother’s fancy. She had even refrained from putting on rouge, the better to play the role of grandmother and she deserved some marks for that, too.

  “Billy,” Rudolph said, “I spoke to your mother.”

  Billy looked at him gravely, fearing a blow. “What did she say?”

  “She’s waiting for you. I’m going to put you on a plane Tuesday or Wednesday. As soon as I can break away from the office here and take you down to New York.”

  The boy’s lips trembled, but there was no fear that he was going to cry. “How did she sound?” he asked.

  “Delighted that you’re coming out,” Rudolph said.

  “That poor girl,” his mother said. “The life she’s led. The blows of fortune.”

  Rudolph didn’t allow himself to look at her.

  “Though it’s a shame, Billy,” she continued, “that now that we’ve found each other you can’t spend a little time with your old grandmother. Still, now that the ice has been broken, perhaps I can come out and visit you. Wouldn’t that be a nice idea, Rudolph?”

  “Very nice.”

  “California,” she said. “I’ve always wanted to see it. The climate is kind to old bones. And from what I hear, it’s a virtual paradise. Before I die … Martha, I think Billy is ready for the chocolate pudding.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Martha said, rising from the table.

  “Rudolph,” the mother said, “don’t you want a bite? Join the happy family circle?”

  “No, thanks.” The last thing he wanted was to join the happy family circle. “I’m not hungry.”

  “Well, I’m off to bed,” she said. She stood up heavily. “Must get my beauty sleep at my age, you know. But before you go upstairs to sleep you’ll come in and give your grandmother a great big good-night kiss, won’t you, Billy?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Billy said.

  “Grandma.”

  “Grandma,” Billy said obediently.

  She swept out of the room. One last triumphant glare at Rudolph. Lady Macbeth, the blood behind her, undetected, now splendidly running a nursery for precocious children in a warmer country than Scotland.

  Mothers should not be exposed, Rudolph thought, as he said, “Good night, Mom, sleep well.” They should be shot out of hand.

  He left the house, ate di
nner at a restaurant, tried to call Jean in New York to find out what night she could see him, Tuesday or Wednesday. There was no answer at her apartment.

  Chapter 4

  Draw the curtains at sunset. Do not sit in the evenings and look out at the lights of the city spread below you. Colin did so, with you at his side, because he said it was the view he liked most in the world, America at its best at night.

  Do not wear black. Mourning is a private matter.

  Do not write emotional letters in answer to letters of condolence from friends or from strangers using words like genius or unforgettable or generous or strength of character. Answer promptly and politely. No more.

  Do not weep in front of your son.

  Do not accept invitations to dinner from friends or colleagues of Colin who do not wish you to suffer alone.

  When a problem comes up do not reach for the phone to call Colin’s office. The office is closed.

  Resist the temptation to tell the people who are now in charge of finishing Colin’s last picture how Colin wanted it to be done.

  Give no interviews, write no articles. Do not be a source of anecdote. Do not be a great man’s widow. Do not speculate on what he would have done had he lived.

  Commemorate no birthdays or anniversaries.

  Discourage retrospective showings, festivals, laudatory meetings to which you have been invited.

  Attend no previews or opening nights.

  When planes fly low overhead, leaving the airport, do not remember voyages you have taken together.

  Do not drink alone or in company, whatever the temptation. Avoid sleeping pills. Bear in unassuaged silence.

  Clear the desk in the living room of its pile of books and scripts. They are now a lie.

  Refuse, politely, the folios of clippings, reviews of plays and films your husband has directed, which the studio has kindly had made up in tooled-leather covers. Do not read the eulogies of critics.

  Leave only one hasty snapshot of husband on view in house. Pack all other photographs in a box and put them away in the cellar.

  Do not, when thinking about preparing dinner, arrange a menu that would please husband. (Stone crabs, chili, piccata of veal pizzaiola.)

  When dressing, do not look at the clothes hanging in the closet and say, “He likes me in that one.”

  Be calm and ordinary with your son. Do not overreact when he gets into trouble at school, when he is robbed by a group of hoodlums or comes home with a bloody nose. Do not cling to him or allow him to cling to you. When he is invited with friends to go swimming or to a ball game or to a movie, tell him, “Of course. I have an awful lot of things to do about the house and I’ll get them done faster if I’m alone.”

  Do not be a father. The things your son must do with men let him do with men. Do not try to entertain him, because you fear it must be dull for him living alone with a grieving woman on top of a hill far away from the centers where boys amuse themselves.

  Do not think about sex. Do not be surprised that you do think about it.

  Be incredulous when ex-husband calls and emotionally suggests that he would like to remarry you. If the marriage that was founded on love could not last, the marriage based on death would be a disaster.

  Neither avoid nor seek out places where you have been happy together.

  Garden, sunbathe, wash dishes, keep a neat house, help son with homework, do not show that you expect more of him than other parents expect of other sons. Be prompt to take him to the corner where he picks up the school bus, be prompt to meet the bus when it returns. Refrain from kissing him excessively.

  Be understanding about your own mother, whom son now says he wishes to visit during the summer vacation. Say, “Summer is a long time off.”

  Be careful about being caught alone with men whom you have admired or Colin has admired and who admire you and have been known to admire many other women in this town of excess women, and whose sympathy will skillfully turn into something else in three or four sessions and who will then try to lay you and will probably succeed. Be careful about being caught alone with men who have admired Colin or Colin had admired and whose sympathy is genuinely only that but who will eventually want to lay you, too. They, too, will probably succeed.

  Do not build your life on your son. It is the most certain way to lose him.

  Keep busy. But at what?

  “Are you sure you’ve looked everywhere, Mrs. Burke?” Mr. Greenfield asked. He was the lawyer Colin’s agent had sent her to. Or rather, one of a huge battery of lawyers, all of whose names were on the door of the suite of offices in the elegant building in Beverly Hills. All of the names on the door seemed equally concerned with her problem, equally intelligent, equally well dressed, equally urbane, smiling, and sympathetic, equally costly, and equally helpless.

  “I’ve turned the house upside down, Mr. Greenfield,” Gretchen said. “I’ve found hundreds of scripts, hundreds of bills, some of them unpaid, but no will.”

  Mr. Greenfield almost sighed, but refrained. He was a youngish man in a button-down collar, to show that he had gone to law school in the East, and a bright bow tie, to show that he now lived in California. “Do you have any knowledge of any safety deposit boxes that your husband might have had?”

  “No,” she said. “And I don’t believe he had any. He was careless about things like that.”

  “I’m afraid he was careless about quite a few things,” Mr. Greenfield said. “Not leaving a will …”

  “How did he know he was going to die?” she demanded. “He never had a sick day in his life.”

  “It makes it easier if one thinks about all the possibilities,” Mr. Greenfield said. Gretchen was sure he had been drawing up wills for himself since he was twenty-one. Mr. Greenfield finally permitted himself the withheld sigh. “For our part, we’ve explored every avenue. Incredibly enough, your husband never employed any lawyer. He allowed his agent to draw up his contracts and from what his agent said, most of the time he hardly bothered to read them. And when he allowed the ex-Mrs. Burke to divorce him, he permitted her lawyer to write the divorce settlement.”

  Gretchen had never met the ex-Mrs. Burke, but now, after Colin’s death, she was beginning to get to know her very well. She had been an airline hostess and a model. She had an abiding fondness for money and believed that to work for it was unfeminine and repugnant. She had been getting twenty thousand dollars a year as alimony and at the time of Colin’s death had been starting proceedings to get it raised to forty thousand dollars a year because Colin’s income had risen steeply since he had come to Hollywood. She was living with a young man, in places like New York, Palm Beach, and Sun Valley, when she wasn’t traveling abroad, but sensibly refused to marry the young man, since one of the clauses that Colin had managed to insert in the divorce settlement would cut off the alimony on her remarriage. She or her lawyers seemed to have a wide knowledge of the law, both State and Federal, and immediately after the funeral, which she had not attended, she had had Colin’s bank deposits impounded and had secured an injunction against the estate to prevent Gretchen from selling the house.

  Since Gretchen had had no separate bank account and had merely asked Colin for money when she needed it and allowed his secretary at the office to pay the bills, she found herself without any cash and had to depend upon Rudolph to keep her going. Colin had left no insurance because he thought insurance companies were the biggest thieves in America, so there was no money there, either. As the accident had been his fault alone, with no one else involved (he had hit a tree and the County of Los Angeles was preparing to sue the estate for damage to the tree), there was nobody against whom Gretchen could press claims for compensation.

  “I have to get out of that house, Mr. Greenfield,” Gretchen said. The evenings were the worst. Whispers in shadowy corners of rooms. Half expecting the door to open at any moment and Colin to come in, cursing an actor or a cameraman.

  “I quite understand,” Mr. Greenfield said. He really was a dec
ent man. “But if you don’t remain in possession, physical possession, Mr. Burke’s ex-wife might very possibly find legal grounds for moving in. Her lawyers are very good, very good indeed—” The professional admiration was ungrudging, all the names on one door of an elegant building paying sincere tribute to all the names on the door of another elegant building just a block away. “If there’s a loophole, they’ll find it. And in law, if one looks long enough, there is almost always a loophole.”

  “Except for me,” Gretchen said despairingly.

  “It’s a question of time, my dear Mrs. Burke.” Just the gentlest of rebukes at a layman’s impatience. “There’s nothing clear-cut about this case, I regret to say. The house was in your husband’s name, there is a mortgage on it, payments to be made. The size of the estate is undetermined and may remain undetermined for many years. Mr. Burke had a percentage, quite a large percentage of the three films he directed and a continuing interest in stock and foreign royalties and possible movie sales of quite a number of the plays he was connected with.” The enumeration of these splendid difficulties that remained to be dealt with before the file of Colin Burke could be marked “Closed” obviously brought Mr. Greenfield an elegiac pleasure. If the law were not as complicated as it was he would have sought another and more exigent profession. “There will have to be expert opinions, the testimony of studio officials, a certain amount of give and take between parties. To say nothing of the possibility of other claims against the estate. Relatives of the deceased, for example, who have a habit of cropping up in cases like this.”

  “He only has one brother,” Gretchen said. “And he told me he didn’t want anything.” The brother had come to the cremation. He was a taut young colonel in the Air Force who had been a fighter pilot in Korea and who had crisply taken charge of everything, even putting Rudolph on the sidelines. It was he who had made sure there were no religious services and who had told her that when Colin and he had spoken about death, they had each promised the other unceremonious burning. The day after the cremation, Colin’s brother had hired a private plane, had flown out to sea and strewn Colin’s ashes over the Pacific Ocean. He had told Gretchen if there was anything she needed to call on him. But short of strafing the ex-Mrs. Burke or bombing her lawyer’s offices, what could a straightforward colonel in the Air Force do to help his brother’s widow, enmeshed in the law?