The Good Life

by Gordon Merrick

  “What makes you think I don’t? Do you have any idea how much we live on?”

  “Not exactly,” she shrugged. “But why should I?”

  “Perhaps if you knew, you wouldn’t spend so much.”

  “I’m not extravagant. I don’t spend as much on clothes as lots of my friends do, and I’m having to get a lot of new clothes now just so we can go out. It’s not my fault that babies cost a lot.”

  “It’s not the baby that costs a lot,” he pointed out quietly. “It’s the going out that costs.”

  “If I get any more ridiculous-looking, I’ll stop going out entirely.” She was whining again. “I should think you’d want to make it as easy as possible for me.”

  “I want to, sweetheart. What am I doing wrong?”

  “You make me feel guilty if I buy anything at all for myself.” Petulance took over.

  “How do I do that? I just suggested you take it easy if you want something that costs a fortune. As it is, honey, we’re spending more than $20,000 a year. That’s a lot of money.”

  “If we have it, why shouldn’t we spend it? Daddy lived on more than twice that.”

  “Your grandmother wanted him to live like a rich man. She probably isn’t crazy for me to, particularly on her money. When you’re rich in your own right, May be you’ll take pity on me.”

  “Huh,” Bet grunted, tossing her head impatiently and getting painfully to her feet. Her swollen body was looking awkward. “Pity you?” She was standing in front of the nude portrait of him hanging on the wall. “Anybody who looks like that will always get along.”

  He listened for sarcasm in her voice and found none.

  “It really is marvelous,” she continued. “I’m mad about it. I had no idea Daddy was so good. All the other things that Granny has are sort of amateurish. This isn’t.” She looked from him to the picture. “He must have had an enormous letch for you when he did it.” Her voice was still noncommittal.

  “It was when we first knew each other.”

  She turned back to him and waddled toward him. “I’m glad he kept you around long enough for me to meet you.”

  “And trap me.” He held his arms out to her.

  She took his hands, and he pulled her down into his lap. “How can you bear to look at me like this?” she whined. “I’m so ugly. And you get more beautiful.”

  That particular discussion about money ended more or less happily, but the subject was always there, just under the surface, ready to pop up at any moment. Perry tried to skirt the issue as much as possible, but he was often forced to bring it up. When he did, Bet was short-tempered and querulous. Sharpness and sarcasm replaced whining and petulance as the summer wore on, and she became heavier and more uncomfortable.

  Perry wanted to tell her the truth about his inheritance but stuck to the story that there’d been some sort of legal mix-up that delayed any payment for the time being.

  “What sort of mix-up?” she demanded. “You are always talking about money, but I don’t see much coming in from your side.”

  “I’ve explained all that, honey. It will just take time.” Her suspicions were wearing down his ability to lie about it.

  “Time? How much time?” Her voice had more than impatience in it. She sensed that she had him cornered and was relentless in her questioning. “I get letters from lawyers all the time. Look at all this. Mostly crap, but at least they are in touch with me.”

  “What do you mean by that?” he demanded with a sharpness that matched her own.

  “I mean that you don’t get any letters from lawyers. That’s what I mean. Where are they, anyway? Who are they?”

  “I’ve told you all that. Let’s drop it.”

  “Who pays your income tax, for instance? Look here.” She shuffled papers on the desk and waved one in the air. “This is something that even I can understand. It says income so-and-so and tax so-and-so. So. So where is yours?”

  “For heaven’s sake, baby,” he pleaded. “Why worry about such petty details? I have my account. You have yours. We have the joint account. There’s nothing special about any of it. I get mail at the studio as far as that’s concerned. I don’t pay attention to all that.”

  “Then why do you question every cent I spend?”

  She was beginning to win every round, and he began to regret trying to keep her spending within bounds. Let them go broke, and then perhaps she’d understand.

  Actually, she was beginning to understand more than he wanted her to. She came home one evening with the report of having met a Mrs. Myerson at lunch at the St. Regis.

  “She stopped at our table primarily to gossip with Ann — you know, Ann Svenson. I don’t know her very well, as you know,” Bet explained.

  “You had lunch with Ann? How is she?” Perry asked as he headed toward the bar. “Martini?”

  “God yes. She’s getting fat. She really eats like a pig. She looks more pregnant than I do. I guess that’s why I like being with her. She had everything on the menu, simply because I’d invited her.”

  Perry wondered how much that lunch cost but didn’t dare ask.

  “Anyway, Mrs. Myerson thanked me for loaning you to her for her bridge games.”

  Perry smiled. “She’s a nice lady but not a good loser.”

  “So I gather. She said you’d won almost $300 the other day.”

  “So I did.” Perry beamed as he handed her the frosty glass.

  “Thanks. ‘Your husband is ruining me,’ she said.” They both laughed. “She didn’t look very ruined. I’ve never seen such a mink.”

  “She’s filthy rich. She can afford to lose now and then.”

  “But she swears she’s going to win it all back some day.”

  Perry sipped his drink and sat on the couch next to Bet. “She’ll win it all back when she learns how to play bridge.”

  Bet polished off her drink with a toss of her head. “Everybody says you’re a brilliant player. May be you should give those poor ladies lessons.”

  “I try to help them when we play, but they are so scatterbrained. Well, most of them. Not Elsa. She plays for blood.”

  “Do you win from her too?”

  “Sometimes. Getting her to pay is like pulling teeth or trying to collect a pound of flesh, though.”

  “That she can afford.” They both laughed, and Bet waved her empty glass in the air in front of him. “While you’re up…”

  That was a quick one, he thought as he took the glass and headed back to the bar.

  “If you win all the time,” she continued, “what do you do with the money?”

  With his back to her, he couldn’t tell how she meant the question. Her voice was more musing than accusing.

  “I don’t see what you do with it all. We should have much more money than we do.”

  “I quite agree with you, honey, but unfortunately, nobody wins at bridge all the time.” He handed her her drink and stood above her, sipping his first drink. “I don’t always put my winnings in the bank. I use it as pocket money. Spend it as it comes along. It’s really not all that much.”

  “Three hundred dollars is not chicken feed,” she said pointedly.

  “You’re beginning to make me feel that I should carry a little notebook and put down everything — postage, two cents; bus fare, five cents; and so forth.”

  Bet looked up at him and burst out laughing. “I can see you with one of those ghastly snap purses that old misers use.” She took a large gulp of her drink. “No, darling, little notebooks are not your style.”

  Money squabbles were relegated to the background as all the attention was centered on Bet’s belly. It was huge, and so was she. She refused to go out and moaned that she’d lost her looks forever.

  It took all of Perry’s tact and understanding to get her through the last few weeks of pregnancy. There were three false alarms with disappointing trips to the hospital before the pains began for real.

  When the real pains started, they were quickly over, and she had an
easy delivery.

  They were both enchanted with Little Billy, and within weeks Bet was back in her smart clothes, looking lovelier than ever. Her high good spirits returned, and they were quickly caught up again in the social whirl. Billy was left in the capable hands of a young Swiss nurse.

  Once the new regime was established and running smoothly, money jumped back into the foreground. Bet zeroed in on Perry’s inheritance, scratching at it like it was an irritating mosquito bite. Perry couldn’t figure out why she had taken this particular line of attack, but he suspected it was to draw fire away from her own extravagances.

  With her only son dead, Mrs. Hahn started giving Bet generous checks from time to time for no particular reason. At first Bet turned them over to Perry but would then ask for as much if not more the next day. He couldn’t question her about that. Just being able to hand out money liberally retained its magic for him, but, unlike her, he kept watch on what they actually had in the bank and was compelled to protest when the account was particularly abused.

  “For God’s sake,” he burst out one day when he got home to find her with the booty from a particularly extravagant shopping spree. “Did you have to have three new hats?”

  She handed him a chilled martini. “You know what happens to me when I get into Lily Daché. Everything’s so perfect. I just couldn’t choose between them.”

  She glided across the floor, swaying to some inner music, her empty cocktail glass a conductor’s baton. She seemed in a very good mood. Perry wondered how many martinis she’d had. Perhaps she’d been drinking a lot at lunch, which could account for her wild hat-buying spree.

  “There’s not much choice about paying the rent either,” Perry reminded her. “It’s due next week.”

  “You can pay it from your income,” she crooned and did a little pirouette in front of him, smiling up into his eyes. “You haven’t used any of it for months.” She cocked her head and conducted an imaginary orchestra as she sang, “I’ve been w-a-a-atch-i-i-ing.”

  “I don’t see how you can tell one dollar bill from another.”

  “The office knows.” She kept up her singsong delivery. “I think you’re being swindled by whoever handles your inheritance.”

  “Oh, do stop that silly singing, darling. What are you trying to say? What office?”

  “The office. Daddy’s office. Daddy and Granny’s lawyers’ office. They can’t find any trace of it.”

  He snatched the empty glass from her hand and put it on the bar table. “Are you having me investigated? What in hell is the idea?”

  “It’s just for your protection,” she said loftily, refilling her glass from Laszlo’s silver cocktail shaker. “You said you had the same as I have. The office can’t figure out what you’ve done with it. They say they probably can eventually, but it’d be a lot simpler if you tell us who you correspond with.”

  “Now, listen,” he said, trying to keep his voice down. He was shaking with anger. “I don’t want the goddamned office snooping around my business. I’ll call them and tell them so myself.”

  “I don’t know why you want to make such a mystery of it. Somebody may have figured out a clever way of stealing it from you.” She was still being arch, spinning the glass between thumb and forefinger.

  “God, all I suggested was that you buy a few less hats, and this is what I get.”

  “A quarter of a million dollars would show on a credit rating,” she said levelly, no longer playing games. “Yours doesn’t.”

  Perry opened his mouth to speak but subsided into silence and shrugged. Let it go. It was time for the truth, no matter how painful. The fabrication had outlived its usefulness. Surely she had some idea where the “inheritance” was coming from. She was finally understanding something about money. He wished it wasn’t his she was taking such an interest in.

  “All right. Sit down. I’ll try to explain.”

  He mixed another shaker full of drinks. He was going to need them. He also needed a moment to figure out how he could explain. “Drink all right?” he said over his shoulder.

  “For the moment.”

  “Well, there was a misunderstanding about all that. That’s all, just a misunderstanding.” He took a long sip of his drink. “You see, there wasn’t actually an inheritance at all.” He took a glance at her and found her smiling smugly. “You don’t have to look like that. I’m trying to explain. We just called it that. We thought—”

  “We? We who?”

  “Billy and I.”

  “Daddy? What did he have to do with it?”

  “I’m trying to tell you. It was really Billy who thought it was easier to call it that. You see, he intended to make a settlement on me to equal your trust as soon as he inherited.”

  “You mean when Granny died?”

  “Yes. He had a paper drawn up. You can see it if you want.”

  “Okay. Go on.”

  “As you know, with his predeceasing your grandmother, he didn’t have anything to give me.”

  “Give you for what?”

  “Nothing in particular. As a friend. You know, he just wanted to do something for me.”

  “But why should he want to do something for you? Something like that? That’s a lot—”

  Perry’s heart stopped as she stared at him with growing understanding. Hadn’t she had any idea of what her father was really like?

  “It was just something he wanted to do.”

  “That means you must’ve been… I mean, men don’t turn over sums of money like that to young male friends except for obvious reasons.”

  Perry tried to keep his face impassive. She was finally working it all out. What had taken her so long? “Obvious reasons?” he asked.

  “You were his lover,” she said in a stricken voice and jumped up and turned from him, lifting her fingertips to her forehead in an instinctive gesture of revulsion. Her hands were trembling.

  “For God’s sake, don’t get in a state,” he said brusquely. He couldn’t lose control over her. “You must’ve guessed something. I’ve given you plenty of hints.”

  She was clutching her stomach and leaning over as though she were being sick.

  “Your father got crushes on pretty boys. He told me that he felt more for me than he had for anybody in years.” He tried to look at her, but her hair covered her face, and she took another step away from him. He softened his voice. “He did a lot for me. I loved him. You know that.”

  Bet’s shoulders heaved, but she made no sound.

  “I loved him more than anybody but you,” Perry said, his voice breaking. “I miss him enormously.” How could he possibly make her understand if she was so shocked that she wouldn’t listen or look at him? He went to her and turned her gently around to face him. “I suppose you can say we were lovers, but it wasn’t the way most people would think. There’s no need to go into all that. The point is, he wanted to provide for me, and he picked the same amount you have. He didn’t think it would be proper for it to be more.”

  “Proper!” She shrugged his hands off her shoulders and backed away. “No matter how you put it, you can’t make it sound very pretty. Mummy was right to warn me about you. You were just a kept boy.” She spat the words out with distaste.

  “Be careful, Bet,” he said in a voice of command. He had to get back in charge. “I’ll let it pass once, but don’t say anything like that again. Ever. You’ll regret it.”

  “Why not say the truth? You married me under false pretenses. I thought you had at least enough income to get by on. You have nothing.” With eyes blazing she moved toward him. “You expect me to live on your bridge winnings? You were Daddy’s kept boy, and now you expect to be mine.”

  It took just one short step to get him close enough to be able to grab her by the wrist with one hand, and then with the other he struck her hard across the face. Her eyes widened with surprise, and she let out a sharp, astonished cry and crumpled. Before she fell, Perry caught her and guided her by the wrist into a chair.

/>   “You always said you liked the rough stuff. You’ll get more of it if you say things like that again. You’re not a schoolgirl anymore. You’re my wife. Act like it.” He sat down opposite her and smiled. He knew how to keep her in line.

  “It’s just a shock to discover that you have nothing.” Her head was turned from him, and she was crying softly.

  “I bring in a reasonable amount. If you’d just be reasonable about spending—”

  “Ooh,” she cried out impatiently and jumped to her feet, tossing her hair back defiantly. “I’m not going to change any more than you are. You are who you are, and I’m me.” She stomped toward the bar as she wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. Her hands were trembling as she filled her glass. “If you’re going to live by playing cards, why don’t you go about it seriously? Why waste time on that silly fifty-dollar-a-week job?”

  “Bet, you know that that’s more than a job. I’m trying to make some sort of career out of it.”

  She dismissed that with a wave of her hand. “You should play more. You could make twice as much. Money seems to be our big problem, so why don’t you make more where you can? You should go in for high-stake games like poker.”

  “Become a real cardsharp? Poker’s for gamblers. I’m no good at it. I like to have some control of what I’m doing. Anyway, I have no time for more cards.”

  “You’re just wasting your time at the studio. You not only have me to think about, you have Billy now too.”

  “Billy is the last person in the world I have to worry about. Billy can start worrying about me.”

  Now that the awful truth was out, Perry felt he could breathe easily. There were no more secrets.

  After the initial shock, Bet didn’t mention it again. They went on about their lives as before with the exception that he did start playing a bit more bridge. Bet had been right about that. His luck held, and he had more invitations than he wanted.

  He began to be a bit uneasy about why Bet wanted him to play more. When he played, she had empty evenings in which she could play. Was that why she’d encouraged him? Whatever the reason, there was no doubt that having more money was useful. It seemed the more they had, the more ways Bet found of spending it.