by Jon Cleary
‘I have to go over to France regularly on business,’ Philip said. ‘I’ll drop in on Sally if I’m down her way.’
She kissed him goodbye. Then the two writers fluttered around her, pecking at her, each giving a witticism as a farewell present, one trying to out-do the other. Finally she had a moment alone with Nina.
‘I’m fed up with them,’ said Nina, nodding towards the writers clucking like peahens above the children. ‘I heard Philip say he was going to France and would drop in on Sally. I think I’ll go with him.’
Should she warn her or not? Then again she took the line of least resistance, least interference. ‘Try and bring Sally home for Christmas with you. Without Michele, if possible.’
‘You mean because Michele is black?’
Margaret nodded, glad of any excuse. ‘You never know how Daddy will react.’
‘How would it be if I brought Michele and Tony and Freddie?’ She nodded at the two writers who, limp-wristed, were doing a soft-shoe shuffle that was entertaining the children, the porters, the airport police and the rest of the passengers about to board the aircraft.
‘Daddy would generate his own tornado. Goodbye, Nin. Take care. And keep looking.’
Nina knew what she meant. ‘I never stop. Not even when you think I’m wasting my time.’
The plane took off and Rome fell away like a cracked ceramic plaque. Goodbye Italy, Margaret thought. It had been an experience but she had had enough of it. Unexpectedly, she found she was looking forward to Kansas City, where the stones were younger by centuries, the philosophies simpler, the hopes less jaded. She had tossed coins in the fountains of Rome, but none of her wishes had been granted. There were more fountains in Kansas City than in Rome: she would try her luck with them. Though, unlike Nina, she was not exactly sure what she was wishing for.
The welcome home was so warm that Margaret wondered why she had gone away. Edith was thinner and paler, but she said nothing about not feeling well and seemed to take on vigour and colour as she fussed over her granddaughters. Martha and Emma had forgotten her, but Edith was a grandmother not to be denied and before they reached the estate the children had once more taken to her. Lucas, for his part, just sat back in the car and beamed as if he had been guaranteed personally that henceforth everything would be right in his world. The return of his children and grandchildren had begun, the Dow Jones index would do nothing but continue to rise, the Republicans would be granted a perpetual lease on the White House.
Margaret moved back into the second house in the park, felt at home at once, almost as if she had never been away. But there was a difference: the ghost of Frank had, somehow, been exorcized. She no longer felt any guilt about him.
Prue came across to stay with her that first night home. ‘What books are you reading now?’
‘Sexual Behaviour in the Human Female.’ Prue had already been divested of her braces and had a smile that enthralled Margaret. She’s going to be a knock-out, make the rest of us look plain and homely. ‘Golly, Meg, we Beauforts live a simple life, don’t we?’
Margaret smiled. ‘Not so simple. Your turn will come. How has Mother been?’
Prue made a face, shook her head. ‘Rather poorly, as Jane Austen would say. You see? I do read other books besides sex ones. I think she’s just been pining for you and Nina and Sally. Which is very crappy for my ego.’
‘You still reading Henry Miller? Watch your language in front of my kids, kiddo. Oh Prue!’ She grabbed her, held her tight. ‘I’m so glad to be home!’
Two night later she went to dinner with Magnus McKea at Henri’s. ‘We’re surviving,’ said Magnus. ‘But only just. The country’s going backwards under Ike.’
‘How can you say that, a true-blue Republican? I thought everything was just fine.’
‘There’s no spirit of adventure left. Everyone’s settling for security. He’s moved the White House to the Burning Tree Country Club. That’s the national aim now, lower your golf handicap. I’m beginning to wish I’d voted for Adlai Stevenson.’
‘Does Daddy know?’
‘Even he’s disappointed in Ike. He has hopes for Nixon.’
‘I don’t know anything about him except that he talked about his dog on television. I thought only the English voted for pets.’
‘Where have you been the past year? For a girl who was married to a professor of political history, you sound dumb.’
‘I just turned off, Magnus. I suppose it was a way of getting Frank off my conscience. It worked.’
‘He’s all past history now?’
She nodded, then reached across the table for his hand. ‘You didn’t keep in touch, you know. Just those quarterly statements and a scrawled Hope you are well on the bottom of them. Is that how you keep in touch with your ladies in St Louis and Tulsa and Omaha?’
‘I don’t even send them statements.’
‘Do you still live in that big house of your father’s?’
‘No, I sold it. To a heart surgeon whose fees guarantee him a clientele for life – all his patients keep having relapses when they see his bill. No, I’m now living in The Chestnuts, preparing for retirement with the blue-rinsed old ladies and the whisky-soaked old codgers.’
‘You’re far too young for there!’ The Chestnuts was the most exclusive block of apartments in town, populated mainly by elderly retired people who had found their own mansions too empty and lonely as their families had grown up and moved out.
‘I don’t spend all my time cooped up in my apartment. There’s still St Louis and Tulsa and Omaha.’
‘Is it a nice apartment?’
‘Do you want to see it?’
‘I thought you’d never ask.’
An hour later they were in bed, as naturally as if they had done it many times before. He was an experienced lover: St Louis, Tulsa and Omaha could have nothing to complain about. She felt no inhibition: she had gone too long without sex. Observe, Dr Kinsey: no kinkiness, just hunger. The sexual behaviour of the human female who, if she had lost love, had not lost the desire for love-making. She surprised him with her passion, as she had surprised Tim and Frank; but he was too experienced to show it. But St Louis, Tulsa and Omaha would have to raise their standards from now on.
When they had at last exhausted themselves, he got up, went into the bathroom, had a quick shower, came back, put on a robe and sat in a chair facing her.
‘Do you always have a shower right after it?’ she said.
‘You scratched hell out of me. I wanted to put some mercurochrome on the marks.’
‘I’ll wear gloves next time.’
‘There’s not going to be a next time. You know that as well as I do.’
She agreed with him. There was always a cold clear mind after making love without love: she had discovered that with Frank. But she was grateful to Magnus for the release, no matter how temporary, that he had given her. ‘I shouldn’t want it to stop us being friends. And that’s probably what would happen if we went on going to bed. Are you friends with those women in those other places?’
‘Not the way you and I have been. I think you’d better look around for another husband. Someone you really love this time.’
‘It’s not easy. Finding someone you love, I mean.’ I know whom I really love, but I can’t go looking for him.
When she was dressed and leaving she said, ‘You said once that you would tell me why you never married. Are you still going to keep it a secret?’
He smiled, kissed her. ‘I have several secrets. Tonight is another one.’
‘You’re a good lawyer. You’re also a terrific lover.’
‘Sh-h-h. I’d be thrown out of The Chestnuts if that got around.’
‘You’re kidding. The ladies here would never let you get to St Louis or Tulsa or Omaha again.’
She did not go looking for someone to fall in love with. She settled back into the routine she had left. She rejoined the Society of Fellows of the Nelson Gallery. She was co-opted as a late member of
the social committee of the American Royal, the annual saddle horse and livestock show; she had not ridden a horse in three years and all breeds of cattle were the same to her, but she was a Beaufort and that made her prime livestock. She accepted an invitation to join the board of the Kansas City Philharmonic, replacing Edith who confessed she no longer had the energy to fulfil all her engagements.
‘There’s nothing seriously wrong with me, darling. I think I’ve just been worn out by worry.’ She managed not to sound as if she were complaining.
‘I’m sorry about all that, Mother.’ She tried to joke: ‘You shouldn’t have brought us up with so much respect for perspective. That’s why we all rushed off – to get perspective.’
‘I’m beginning to think your father is right. Security is better than perspective.’
Perhaps you’re right, Margaret thought. And felt the first beginnings of change in herself.
Nina and Sally, as promised, came home for Christmas. It was a warm wonderful two weeks for all the family, only spoiled by the knowledge that Nina and Sally would be returning to Europe. But Lucas and Edith had given up trying to persuade their daughters; it seemed that they now settled for whatever the girls were prepared to give them. But Margaret, the new stay-at-home, saw the pain that sometimes marked her father’s face as he sat gazing at Nina and Sally.
Margaret waited till after Christmas itself had gone before she asked Sally about Michele. ‘How is it working out with her?’
‘Great. No, really, Meg – ’ As she saw the still-questioning look on Margaret’s face. Then, after a moment, she shrugged. ‘I don’t know, that’s the truth. Sometimes she’s marvellous. Other times …’
‘Have you seen Philip?’
‘He’s dropped in a couple of times. He’s nice.’
‘Don’t get involved with him,’ she said carefully. ‘He has a father something like ours. He runs Philip’s life.’
‘He told you that? Well, don’t worry. I’m still hoping things will work out permanently with Michele. She’s not driving with me, though, in the Monte Carlo rally. She has a part in a film they’re shooting in Paris. Do Mother and Daddy know about her? I mean, you haven’t told …?’
‘They don’t know. Does Nina?’
‘I think she suspects, but I’m not sure. She came up to Antibes once with Philip, but she didn’t stay with us. They stayed the night in Nice.’
‘You mean she stayed with Philip?’
‘I don’t know. Don’t worry so much, Meg. You’re developing into a real mother hen. If Nina wants to sleep with Philip, that’s her business. No matter what his father’s like. What does his father do?’
‘I don’t know, exactly. He’s something in investments.’
‘Then Daddy would probably know something about him.’
Margaret felt on the verge of panic, but she still sounded cool and casual. ‘I don’t think he wants to know about our European friends. He has a mental block about Europe. Sal – ’ She looked with tender love at her sister. Sally, the most resourceful of them all, the most adventurous, was really the most vulnerable of them. ‘If anything happens with Michele, call me at once. You’ll need someone to talk to.’
Sally blinked back tears. ‘You’ll be the first I’ll call on.’
She and Nina went back to Europe the first week in January. At the end of January she drove in the Monte Carlo rally with an English girl she had met, crashed her car in the mountain section above Grasse but was unhurt, though the car was a write-off. She told all this by letters to Margaret, who told none of it to her parents, just saying that Sally had been unplaced in the rally and was thinking of buying a new car.
Nina wrote from Rome that she had grown tired of that city, that Meg had been right about the hangers-on, that she was now moving to London, where she had leased an apartment in Eaton Square.
I’ll be there for Wimbledon, if you feel like coming over. Who knows, I may be sitting in the stands and catch a glimpse of Tim on the other side of the Centre Court? He always loved Wimbledon, though we never went there together. Michael will be seven, going on eight, old enough to enjoy the game with his father. Or his mother …
Time went by, like a careless, endless river, like the Missouri itself. The country settled into an era that, even only a decade later, people would remember with nostalgia and a certain disbelief, as if they were not quite sure that everything had been as it seemed. Youth had not yet discovered it was a separate species; even the market survey scientists had not yet stumbled on that fact. The kids of America still listened to the same music as their parents; mothers and daughters alike wished they could go to Rome and toss coins in the fountains and they swooned together as Eddie Fisher crooned to them about his papa. Fathers and sons went to boo Yogi Berra or Willie Mays and, if the son was old enough, maybe shared a cigarette but never a joint. If there were any demonstrations they never got any coverage in the media, a word that, like youth, had not yet been discovered; the loudest shouts still came from high school cheer-leaders, who all looked alike, as if they had been shipped out by Sears Roebuck. Sloppy joes were the nearest thing to rebellion in fashion; boys were short on hair and long on cleanliness; girls wore brassieres that turned their breasts skywards like searchlights. Ike was still sinking two-putts from the edge of the green and everything was right with the Burning Tree Country Club if not with the world at large.
True to Jack Minett’s prediction, Joe McCarthy was shoved overboard: not by his fellow politicians but by the Army and a Boston lawyer. Politicians are always reluctant to kill off one of their own, as they would once again prove in another twenty years in the future; they will wrap up the body if only someone else will first pull the trigger. The Army scored one of its greatest and most honourable successes when it took on Senator McCarthy. but its victory would never be marked by a battle star on any of its flags. In Vietnam (‘Where the hell’s that, for crissake?’) the French were defeated at Dien-Bien-Phu; and Ike, coming in from the greens, substituting one game metaphor for another, warned about the domino effect. But soon a treaty was signed in Vietnam and Washington said it was satisfied and Ike went back to the golf course. There was still the Cold War with the Russians to worry about and that was enough worry for anyone. There was no dividend in getting mixed up with a lot of Asians you couldn’t sell anything to.
In September 1955 President Eisenhower had a heart attack while vacationing in Denver. Everything plunged: Republican hopes for next year’s election, the stock market, the sale of golf clubs. ‘I hope he retires,’ said Lucas. ‘I’ve never been so disappointed in a man. He’s no better than Ulysses S. Grant, except he’s sober. It only goes to prove that running an army is no training for running a country.’
‘I thought you’d said General Franco was doing a great job in Spain?’ said Margaret. ‘The only stable country in Europe, wasn’t that what you said?’
‘How did you hear that? The only time I’ve mentioned Franco was last week over lunch at the River Club. Did you tell her, Magnus?’
‘Yes,’ said Magnus. ‘Was it supposed to be confidential?’
‘Why did you mention it to Meg?’
Margaret answered. ‘I asked him if he knew anything about Spain. Nina is leaving London and going down to a place called Torremolinos to live.’
Lucas shook his head in quiet despair. ‘Why doesn’t she come home? Always running from place to place … Does your mother know?’
‘I haven’t told her yet. I only got Nina’s letter yesterday.’
‘Well, keep it to yourself for a few days. Till we find out what’s wrong with Mother.’
Edith had had a mild collapse two days before and had been put to bed to rest. She insisted that it was only exhaustion from trying to do too much, but the doctors had insisted on her submitting to some tests. Margaret, her father and Magnus were now waiting for one of the doctors, Dr Kenning, to come out to the house with the results of the tests.
‘If it is just exhaustion, I think you sho
uld take Mother away on a long vacation. Take her on a cruise and then perhaps go across and join Nina at Torremolinos. Forget work and give yourself up to Mother for a whole year. Don’t you agree, Magnus?’
‘It would be a good idea, Lucas.’
‘I’ll think about it. You’re probably right. It’ll take some adjustment – a whole year doing nothing.’
‘Not a whole year doing nothing. A whole year looking after Mother. Something you haven’t done all the years you’ve been married to her.’
‘You know how to poison your arrows, don’t you?’ But he did not seem to mind her accusation; and once again she remarked the lessening of spirit in him. He was no longer the Lucas Beaufort who was always right. ‘I’ll try. I promise I’ll try.’
Dr Kenning arrived at six o’clock. He was a tall thin man with a booming voice not designed for imparting bad news; but he did his best to keep it down to a whispered shout. ‘It’s not good, I’m afraid. In fact it’s the worst. She has leukemia. Acute.’
Lucas remained silent and after a moment Margaret said, ‘What can be done for her?’
‘Nothing, I’m afraid. It’s too late. I don’t want to sound facetious, but she has a galloping case of it. The leucocytes, the white blood cells, are multiplying while we look at her.’
‘How long?’ Lucas said at last.
‘A month. Two at the outside.’
‘Should she be told?’
‘That’s up to you. I think she already knows it’s more than just exhaustion, as she’s been telling you.’
‘I’ll tell her.’ Lucas raised himself slowly out of his chair; he looked gaunt and suddenly aged. ‘Leave me alone with her for half an hour, Meg.’
‘I’ll phone Nina and Sally to come home at once.’