Collected Fiction

by Irwin Shaw

  “You did.” Now what? Strand thought, regretting that he had not gone up with Leslie before Hazen arrived.

  “He knows the whole thing is a cosmic joke. Our plans fail, our achievements are der-derisory, we are balked at every turn, we are doomed to slip on every banana peel, and he accepts it all stoically, with silent dignity, to the sound of divine laughter. A lesson for us all.” Hazen laughed harshly, the sound like a cry of pain. “Reflect,” he said. “I’m sure you would rather join your charming wife upstairs, the holy bonds of matrimony, as it were, than stay down here and be embarrassed by my re—reflec—flections on religion. I am perfectly well sir.” For the first time, he turned his head and looked at Strand. His face was desolate. “Despite some evidence to the contrary, I am not a drinking man. Thou shalt make no graven images. I am surrounded by graven images. Weep for the times, Strand, and sleep well. Good night, sir.”

  Strand hesitated. He was troubled. Under the drunken but magisterial calm of his host, in the alcoholic hours of the night what turmoil lay, what appeal for help? He shook his head. Better not to get involved. Sea air or no sea air. “Good night,” he said and went out of the room, feeling profoundly inadequate. As he climbed the stairs he knew he wasn’t going to tell Leslie about Hazen. If he were to describe the scene she’d rush downstairs and try to reason with Hazen and put him to bed and he knew that wouldn’t do, it wouldn’t do at all.

  When he got into bed she reached for him, sleepy and warm. “I’m bushed,” he said. It was the first time he hadn’t responded to her. There always has to be a first time, he thought, as he tried to sleep.

  When Strand came down the next morning, he saw Hazen sitting at the breakfast table, reading the Times. He was dressed for tennis and wearing an old sweater against the early chill. The scar on his bald head was still an ugly red, but Strand could see that the wound was closed and well on its way toward healing. Hazen’s cheek was still slightly discolored, but his skin otherwise was a healthy pink. As Hazen rose and shook his hand, Strand saw that his eyes were clear and his hand steady. After that night, Strand thought.

  “I hope you slept well,” Hazen said, his voice calm and courteous. “Ketley brought another copy of the paper for you…” He pointed to the sideboard, where a fresh copy lay. “I dislike having my paper all fussed up and I imagine most fathers of a family are a bit like me in that respect, too.”

  “I must confess I am,” Strand said as he seated himself opposite Hazen. If Hazen chose to ignore the events of the night before, to pretend that nothing had happened, no grief revealed, Strand certainly was not going to bring them up. “I’ll read it later. But please don’t let me interrupt you.”

  “I’ve read enough for the moment,” Hazen said, folding the paper and putting it to one side. “The usual disasters. Was the dinner all right?”

  “Perfect.”

  Hazen nodded. “They’re an excellent couple, the Ketleys. What would you like for breakfast?” he said, as Mr. Ketley came in from the kitchen. “Juice, bacon and eggs?”

  “That would be fine.” At home he refused to allow Leslie to get up to make him breakfast and made do with a cup of coffee and a roll. He was always starving by noon.

  “You heard what Mr. Strand wants?” Hazen said to Ketley.

  “Yes, sir,” Ketley said.

  “Oh, by the way,” Hazen said, “will you tell Ronny that if he wants to have a catch this morning, I’ll be ready for him after my tennis match.”

  “I’m sure he’ll be waiting for you,” Ketley said and went back to the kitchen.

  “Ronny’s his grandson,” Hazen said. “He’s eleven. He pitches for his Little League team. I give him a target to throw at.” He poured himself a cup of coffee. “I’m terribly sorry I had to let you shift for yourselves last night,” he said, “but there was no getting away. Conroy is sleeping the sleep of the just. I had a refreshing nap in the car while he drove. I heard your children come in about two in the morning…”

  “They didn’t disturb you, I hope.”

  “Not at all. I just happened to hear the station wagon drive up. They were as quiet as could be.”

  “They went to a bar in Bridgehampton that Eleanor knows about.”

  “Amazing how young people can hang out in dingy bars for hours on end. Especially since, according to Ketley, they hardly drink at all.”

  As Ketley came in with a glass of orange juice and a fresh pot of coffee, Strand wondered what else the man had included in his report about the family.

  “I trust Caroline wasn’t with them on their nocturnal revels,” Hazen said.

  “No. She looked at television for a while and went to bed early.”

  “Good,” Hazen said. “I’ve arranged for some young people to come over this morning for tennis. They’re pretty sharp and she’ll have to be at her best to keep up with them.”

  “I see you plan to play, too.”

  Hazen shrugged. “I may join in for a set or two. They’re polite young people and they’ll respect my age. They’ll try to keep the ball within strolling distance when they hit it at me.” He sipped at his coffee. “The arrangements are all right?” he asked.

  “The arrangements?” Strand asked, puzzled.

  “I mean, you’re all comfortably installed and all that? No lumps in the bed or leaking plumbing or noisy pipes?”

  “A lot better than comfortably,” Strand said. Maybe, he thought, Hazen had actually forgotten the night. If so, so much the better. “Magnificently. It’s a delightful house.”

  Hazen nodded absently. “It’s a nice house. Made for hordes, of course. The families of our fathers. I often am tempted to sell it. Except on a shining morning like this.” He waved toward the windows, flooded with sunlight, the ocean glinting. “If you want to swim later, the pool’s heated.”

  “No, thank you,” Strand said. His legs were skinny and he didn’t like to be seen in bathing trunks. “I’ll just laze around.”

  “Whatever you like,” Hazen said. “There are no rules here.”

  What he means, Strand thought, is that the rules are so set that nobody notices them anymore.

  Ketley came in with the eggs and bacon and toast and put them in front of Strand. “Sir,” he said to Hazen, “there’s a telephone call for you.”

  “I was afraid there would be,” Hazen said. “Put it into the library for me, please.” He stood up. “Excuse me,” he said to Strand. “I’m afraid this is going to be a long one. Make yourself at home.” He strode out of the dining room. Strand noticed that his legs were long and muscular and could have been those of a young man. All that bicycle riding.

  He shook his head, marveling at the constitution, both physical and mental, of the man. He was glad Conroy wasn’t at the table. There would be a touchy moment when they next met. Well, he decided, I’m not going to let it spoil my day. He ate his breakfast contentedly, spreading marmalade over his toast and drinking three cups of coffee while he read the Times. Hazen didn’t come back to the table, and when he was finished, Strand went out on the terrace and lay back in a reclining chair, his eyes closed, his face turned to the morning sun.

  The tennis court was off in the garden behind the house, protected from the wind by tall, neatly clipped hedges. Caroline and Hazen and two young men were starting to play when Strand reached the court. He had gone upstairs to see if Leslie wanted to watch the game with him, but Leslie was still in bed, eating her breakfast off a tray that Mrs. Ketley had brought her. She told Strand that this was one Saturday morning in her life that she was just going to do nothing. “If the bliss becomes boring after a while,” she said, “I may put on some clothes and come down to the court. But don’t expect me. My feeling is I’m just going to luxuriate here until lunch.” She said nothing about his unaccustomed refusal of the night before.

  Strand settled himself in a canvas chair in the little shaded pavilion beside the court. It was a hot day and he could see that Hazen was already sweating, his white cotton sun hat wet just abo
ve the brim. The alcohol is coming to the surface, Strand thought. At least it shows he’s human. Hazen and Caroline were partners and they seemed, to Strand’s inexperienced eye, just about as good as the two young men, who had obviously been playing expertly coached tennis since childhood. Hazen had a cool, accurate game and hit the ball as hard as the others. He didn’t run much, but always managed to be in the right place and made as many winning shots, it seemed to Strand, as Caroline, who did a great deal of bouncing about and dove in showy acrobatic leaps at the net. She was obviously enjoying herself and smiled smugly, Strand thought, when she scored an ace on a service or put away an overhead smash. The young men had started rather condescendingly by hitting balls at half speed and not going for the corners, but after Caroline and Hazen won the first two games, they began to slam the ball and flick it along the lines, showing no indulgence either for the age or sex of their opponents.

  The set went seven-five and was won by the young men. By that time some other players, two more young men and a heavyset girl, had arrived and introduced themselves to Strand in a spate of names he could not remember. They were not the kind of names Strand read off the roster of his classes at school. They seated themselves alongside Strand in the shade of the pavilion to watch the end of the match, impartially calling out “Good shot” or saying “Wowee!” after an especially hard-fought point.

  “That’s it for me, ladies and gentlemen,” Hazen said, when he hit the set point into the net. “Thank you very much. Caroline, excuse me for failing the team.”

  “I missed a couple of key ones,” Caroline said politely. She took losing with the same lightness as winning, Strand noticed, approvingly. No competitor himself, he disliked people who were sullen when they were on the short end of the score. Hazen, of course, despite his apology, was as unruffled as ever. His wins and losses, Strand could see, were in other fields.

  “I ought to be making the excuses,” Caroline said to Hazen, as she came toward the pavilion. “Don’t you want to play another set? I’d love to sit out and tell my father my secret troubles.”

  “No,” Hazen said. “My old bones have had it for the day. Time for the younger generation.” He came over to the pavilion, taking off his hat and mopping his forehead with a towel. He was a little redder than usual, but he wasn’t breathing hard and if his bones felt old, it didn’t show in the way he strode off the court.

  There was a big pitcher of iced tea in the refrigerator at the back of the pavilion and Hazen poured some for Caroline and the two young men who had played with them, while the newcomers warmed up on the court.

  “Hey,” one of Caroline’s opponents, the taller and better player of the two, whose name was Brad or Chad, said to her, “you’ve got quite a game there, lady. We could clean up in mixed doubles. You going to be out here all summer?”

  “No,” Caroline said.

  “Pity. You’d be an ornament to the season.” He was good-looking, in what Strand would describe as the standard American blond way, with an easy, self-assured manner. Maybe, Strand thought, I should have been more serious about my tennis when I was young.

  “Caroline,” Hazen said, putting down his glass of iced tea, “you can come out here, you know, whenever you want. You might enjoy playing in some of the local tournaments.”

  Caroline looked quickly at her father. “I’d love to,” she said. “If I have the time.”

  Strand said nothing. After the scene with Hazen the night before, he wasn’t sure he liked the idea of Caroline becoming a constant visitor to the house.

  “Come on, Caroline,” the tall young man whose name was Brad or Chad said, “let’s us be partners and whomp them.”

  As they went out onto the court together to play one of the new boys and the heavyset girl, Hazen said, “I’m going to take my shower now. Watching the kids play depresses me.”

  “I’ll walk back with you,” Strand said. “See what the rest of the family is up to.” He waved to Caroline, who was running her fingers through her hair, brushing it back, preparing to receive service. He waited for Hazen to put on his sweater and the white hat and then started toward the house at his side.

  “I enjoyed that game more than any I’ve played in months,” Hazen said. “Thanks to your delightful daughter.”

  “You played very well, I thought,” Strand said.

  “I kept my end up, that’s about all. The day I know I can’t I’ll donate my racquet to the Smithsonian Institution. Four, five years…” His voice trailed off, the onset of age in its tone. He was still sweating and he mopped at his face with the towel. “Those young men,” he said, “are a little old for your daughter. At this season the boys her age are away in school or college and can’t make it for the weekends. That fellow she’s playing with now is twenty-four. He’s in his father’s firm in Wall Street, seems to take all the time off he wants. Very sure of himself with the ladies.” Hazen glanced significantly at Strand. “Single and otherwise.”

  “He seemed gentlemanly enough to me.”

  Hazen laughed. “I wasn’t suggesting that he goes around raping children. I just thought it might be a good idea to inform Caroline that he’s much older than she. If you don’t mind my saying so, she seems to have led a most sheltered life until now. Not like the run of young girls I see at the parties around here in the summertime, at all. You know, rich children of split homes, parents given to drink and promiscuity…well…”

  “Her mother is very protective,” Strand said, annoyed at the implicit warning. “The baby of the family and all that.” Then he felt that he sounded as though he was blaming Leslie and added, hastily, “I’m sure Caroline knows how to take care of herself.”

  “It would be a pity if she didn’t,” Hazen said gravely. “She has the quality of innocence. It’s too rare to be jeopardized. As for her tennis…” Hazen shrugged. “She has a surprisingly accurate notion about how good she really is.”

  “Not good enough,” Strand said. “She told me she’d told you.”

  Hazen smiled. “For one so young to say something like that is rare, too. Has she ever said anything to you about what she wants to do after she finishes her schooling?”

  “Not really,” Strand said. “I guess she’s like most young people her age these days who have no special talents—waiting to see what turns up.”

  “Didn’t she tell you that she wants to go to an agricultural college out west?”

  “Agricultural…?” Strand repeated incredulously. Why in the name of God would she want to hide something like that from him? “This is the first I’ve heard of it. Why? Did she tell you?”

  Hazen shook his head. “She just said she wanted to go someplace where life was simpler and she wasn’t surrounded by concrete.”

  “It’s true City College isn’t surrounded by prairie,” Strand said. “But it’s a good enough school and it’s cheap and she’d be living at home.” He resolved to question his daughter when they were alone together.

  “The money mightn’t be all that much of a problem,” Hazen said. “There’s always the possibility of a scholarship.”

  “Not with her marks. Eleanor got one, but Caroline’s no scholar, even if it’s a father who says so.”

  “She told me something else that might be useful,” Hazen said. “They’re giving more and more athletic scholarships to women these days, and…”

  “Her tennis may be all right for Central Park, but she knows herself she’d never get anywhere with it…”

  “Not her tennis,” Hazen said. “I agree with you. But I noticed how quick she is. She runs extraordinarily fast. I asked her if she’d ever raced and she said she’d won the hundred yard dash in her school field day last month.”

  “Yes,” Strand said. “I remember. Still—field day at a small private school…”

  “I asked her if she’d been timed and it turns out she did the hundred in ten-four. For a girl who’s had no training and hasn’t been coached that’s most impressive. With good coaching she might
get close to Olympic time. It’s a pity that her school doesn’t have any interscholastic program or a lot of good schools would be after her. I know the public relations man for an institution called Truscott College—that’s in Arizona, which is west enough for anybody—and I believe if he mentioned that I’d seen a good prospect for their teams my friend could get their physical training department interested. And the school has a strong agricultural section.”

  “Did you mention any of this to Caroline?” Strand asked worriedly, sensing vast new family complications looming before him.

  “No,” Hazen said. “I thought it would be wiser to talk to you and her mother before I raised any hopes.”

  “Thank you,” Strand said dryly, annoyed, despite himself, that his daughter had vouchsafed information about herself to an almost complete stranger, information that she had kept hidden from her parents. At home when they had people in, she answered questions in monosyllables and took the first opportunity to go to her room. “I’ll have a little talk with that girl.”

  “Anyway,” Hazen said, “I thought you and your wife should at least know what the possibilities are.”

  “We live in funny times,” Strand said, smiling. “When a girl can run herself into an education. Maybe I’ll buy a stopwatch and time my pupils instead of annoying them with examinations.”

  “If you decide you and Caroline want to explore the situation, I’d be glad to call my friend at the college.”

  “It’s very kind of you to offer to help, but I imagine you have enough other things to think about, without worrying about how my daughter can learn to be a farmer three thousand miles away from home.”

  “I gathered she doesn’t intend to go in for farming. She said she’d like to study to be a veterinary after and that would be a proper start.”

  “Veterinary…” Strand couldn’t keep the dismay out of his voice. And he remembered his conversation with Judith Quinlan in which she had said, jokingly, that if she gave up teaching she would be a veterinarian. Was it some new female aberration taking hold suddenly in the heart of the city? “Veterinary,” he repeated. “Why, we’ve never even had a cat or a dog in the house. Did she tell you what gave her that idea?”