by Irwin Shaw
Jeff put the glove and ball down. “Please don’t,” he said to her. “Stay here. You don’t have to change. I’m crazy about this dress.” He touched the cotton where it flounced out at the hip. “I’m cruelly attached to this dress.”
“All right,” she said. “We do anything you want because …” She paused.
“Because why?” Jeff asked.
“Because you’re twenty years old,” said Lucy.
“That’s a hell of a reason,” Jeff said.
“There are no better ones, little boy,” Lucy said lightly. She lay back on the glider against the pillows, her legs over the edge, her feet on the floor. Jeff stood looking down at her as she let her head fall back, the smoke of the cigarette making her close her eyes.
“Oh, Lord,” Jeff murmured.
“You must stop saying ‘Oh, Lord,’” Lucy said.
“Why?”
“Because it brings in an entirely new concept. You’ll end up by making me feel guilty and I don’t want to feel guilty. And sit down. You mustn’t loom over me all the time.”
Jeff sat on the floor, his back against the glider, his head near her waist. “I like to loom over you.”
“Only at carefully specified hours,” said Lucy. She touched his head with her fingertips, on the back of his neck. “Delicious,” she said. “You must never let your hair grow long.”
“Okay,” said Jeff.
Lucy ran her hand over his head. “You have a hard, persistent skull,” she said.
“Okay.”
“Your hair smells like Tony’s,” said Lucy. “Like summertime. Dry and sunshiny. When men get older their hair smells different. Cigarettes, worry, fatigue, barber shops.”
“What does fatigue smell like?” Jeff asked.
Lucy considered this. “The way aspirin tastes,” she said finally. “If I were a man I’d only make love to seventeen-year-old girls, glossy, plump, brand new.”
“If I were a man,” Jeff said, “I would only make love to you.”
Lucy chuckled. “What nice manners you have! Tell the truth. How many girls have you had?”
“One.”
“Oh,” Lucy said. “That makes two, including me.”
“That makes one, including you.”
“You really do have nice manners. Of course I don’t believe you.”
“All right,” Jeff said. “I’ll confess. I’m a dazzler. Half a dozen women have committed suicide for me since I was fifteen. I’m a bigamist. I’m wanted in ten different states by other names. I seduced by grandmother’s best friend at the age of four and I’ve been busy ever since. I’m barred from the campuses of all the leading women’s colleges in the East. My book, ‘How to Win, Hold and Get Rid of Women’ has already been printed in a dozen countries, including several where the people only speak languages that have been dead two thousand years.”
“Enough. I get the idea,” said Lucy, laughing. “You’re funny. I thought young men today were terribly—well, you know, loose.”
“I’m the opposite of loose,” said Jeff.
Lucy lifted her head and examined him curiously. He didn’t turn around. “I believe you are,” said Lucy.
“I was waiting.”
“For what?”
“For you,” Jeff said.
“Be serious.”
“I am serious,” said Jeff. “I was waiting for something”—he hesitated—“something overwhelming. I don’t believe in anything casual or unimportant or imperfect. The girls I knew.” He shrugged. “They were pretty or cute or they were amusing. Never overwhelming.”
“My,” said Lucy. “You are a romantic boy.”
“Love is either romantic,” Jeff said didactically, “or you might just as well go to a gymnasium.”
Lucy chuckled. “You are peculiar.” She sat up and spoke more seriously. “And you thought I was overwhelming?”
“Yes.”
“That’s the first time anybody ever thought anything like that about me,” Lucy said.
“How about your husband?” Jeff asked.
“I don’t know,” Lucy said carefully. “I imagine he thinks I’m comfortable.”
“It’s not enough,” said Jeff.
“No?” Lucy’s tone was guarded now. “It has been up to now.”
“And now?”
Lucy tossed her cigarette away and straightened the folds of her dress with two or three efficient movements of her hand. “And now,” she said, “I think I’d like to go down to the bar and get a drink.” She stood up.
Without turning around, Jeff threw his arm back, to push her down gently again. “What’s it like—your marriage?”
“Why do you want to know?”
“I have to know,” Jeff said. “I want to know everything about you. I want to see pictures of you when you were a little girl. I want to know what your maiden name was.”
“Hammond,” said Lucy.
“Hammond,” Jeff repeated. “Lucy Hammond. Excellent. I want to know what books you read when you were fourteen years old.”
“Wuthering Heights,” said Lucy. “Das Kapital and Little Women.”
“Excellent,” said Jeff. “I want to know what you expected to do with your life before you got married. I want to know what you talk about at dinner, at home with your husband.”
“Why?” Lucy asked.
“Because I want to own you. I want to own your past, and all the time you are away from me, and your future.”
“Be careful,” Lucy warned him.
“And I don’t want to be careful,” he said. “What about your marriage? The fundamental marriage?”
“I always thought,” Lucy said, speaking soberly, “that it was satisfactory.”
“And now?”
“From the middle of September on I’ll think it is satisfactory—again.”
Jeff stood up and walked toward the edge of the porch and leaned against the pillar, staring out at the lake.
“Lucy,” he said.
“Yes?”
“When he comes up here,” Jeff said in a low voice. “Crown. Are you going to go to bed with him?” He turned and faced her.
Lucy stood up briskly and picked up her raincoat. “I think it’s time we went and got me that drink,” she said.
“Answer me,” said Jeff.
“You mustn’t be silly.” There was a warning note in Lucy’s voice now.
“Answer me.”
“It has nothing to do with us.” Lucy put on the raincoat and started to button it.
“I want you to promise me something,” Jeff said, not moving from the front of the porch, still leaning against the pillar.
“What?”
“I want you to promise not to have anything to do with your husband while …”
“While what?” Lucy asked.
“While we’re together.”
Lucy finished buttoning the coat and put the collar up against her ears. “And just how long will that be?”
Jeff swallowed miserably. “I don’t know,” he said.
“Give me a figure,” said Lucy. “Two days? A week? A season? Five years?”
Jeff came over to her but didn’t touch her. “Don’t be angry.” He spoke brokenly. “It’s just that I can’t bear the thought … Listen, we can see each other all the time. I can come down to the city at least once a month. And the holidays—Thanksgiving, the Christmas vacation. And almost every week-end I can get into Boston.”
Lucy nodded as though she were taking this very seriously. “Uhuh. Boston. What hotels do you propose I stop at? The Ritz? The Copley? Or perhaps one of the traveling-salesmen hotels. The Touraine? The Statler? And should I wear my wedding ring?”
Jeff put up his hands as though to ward off blows. “Lucy,” he said, tortured. “Don’t.”
“And how should I introduce you in Boston?” Lucy went on. “As my son? My nephew? An old friend?”
“Don’t make it ugly,” Jeff said angrily.
“What do you propose I tell my
husband? A person who shall be nameless has raised certain objections to …”
“Stop it,” Jeff said. “There are a lot of ways of doing things like that.”
“Are there?” Lucy said, sounding agreeably surprised. “Perhaps you’ll write me a note. As a budding diplomat. It’ll be good practice for you later on, when you have to send a protest to the Prime Minister of Iran or a sharp reminder to the Hungarian Foreign Office. Dear Sir: It has come to the attention of this office that there are several conflicting claims on the body of your wife …”
“Don’t make fun of me,” said Jeff. He was sullen now. “What do you expect me to do?” he pleaded. “Lucy, darling, it’s been perfect up to now. Are you going to blame me because I want to keep it that way?”
“Perfect.” Lucy nodded in ironic agreement. “They loved each other perfectly—on school holidays, in various inexpensive hotel rooms—and the young man always managed to get to his first class on Monday on time. Is that your idea of perfect?”
“Oh, God,” Jeff said. “I feel so trapped. If I were older, settled, with some money of my own …”
“Then what?” Lucy challenged him.
“Then we could go off together,” Jeff said. “Get married. Live together.”
Lucy hesitated for a moment. Then she spoke in a low, assuaging voice. “Be glad,” she said, “that you’re not older, settled, with money of your own.”
“Why?”
“Because I wouldn’t go with you.”
“Don’t say that.”
“And then,” Lucy said, “you’d blame yourself instead of your youth or your poverty. And it would hurt a lot, more. This way you can go back in the autumn and boast in the dormitories on the cold nights about the lively summer you had at your sister’s house in the mountains. I can just hear you say it now and I forgive you in advance and half envy you the pleasure you’re going to have in saying it. ‘I don’t know what it is about me,’ you can say, ‘but married women of a certain age’—you can wink at the other boys here—‘just throw themselves at me.’”
“What are you trying to do?” Jeff asked.
“I’m trying to tell you,” Lucy said, “that summertime is summertime. That the hotels close. That the cottages are shuttered against the snow. That the lake freezes over. That the birds fly south. That the children go back to school and the grownups go back to … to shopping lists, bridge games, imperfection, security, reality …”
Now Jeff’s face looked stricken in the last cold rays of the sun. “You don’t love me,” he said.
Lucy came over to him, smiling gently. “Even that isn’t quite true,” she said. Lightly she took his chin in her hand and kissed him. Then she relinquished him and shrugged. “Don’t look so sad, little boy,” she said, turning away. “The summertime still has two weeks to go.”
Jeff took a step after her and then stopped because he saw Tony coming out of the shade of the trees, walking slowly toward the house across the lawn. Lucy saw him at the same time and stepped off the porch to greet the boy. Tony stopped and regarded his mother and Jeff without expression. He looked tired and, in the gray light, pale.
“Hello, Tony,” Lucy said. “Where have you been until now?”
“No place much,” Tony said. He carefully avoided going close to his mother as he stepped on the porch.
“How was the hayride?” Jeff asked.
“Okay,” said Tony. He leaned against the wall of the porch and examined Jeff. “How’s your tooth?”
“Okay,” said Jeff.
“Did you have a good time at the movies?” Tony asked his mother. “What was playing?”
“I … I didn’t go,” Lucy said. “I found out that they only showed them on week-ends.”
“Oh,” said Tony politely. “Where did you go?”
“I did a little shopping,” Lucy said. “For antiques.”
“Did you buy anything?” Tony asked.
“No,” said Lucy. “Everything is too expensive. I just looked around. Jeff and I are going down to the hotel for a drink. Do you want to join us? You can have a Coke.”
“I’m not thirsty,” Tony said.
“Even so,” Lucy said.
“I’m not thirsty,” Tony repeated.
Lucy went over to him and felt his forehead. “Are you all right?”
The boy twisted away. “I’m fine,” he said. “I’m just a little tired,” he explained vaguely. “The hayride. I missed my nap. I think I’ll just lie down for fifteen minutes.” Then, afraid that his mother would bustle over him, he smiled widely, disingenuously, at her. “Those hayrides are rough,” he said. “See you later.” He went in and lay down on his bed. He lay stiffly, with his eyes open, and when he heard his mother and Jeff walk past his window on the way down to the hotel bar, he counted up to five hundred slowly, one by one, and then went into the living room and called his father in Hartford.
11
THE CAR WAS MUD-SPATTERED when it drove up to the cottage and the wipers had made two smeary crescents on the windshield, which gleamed dully in the reflection of the headlights off the wet trees. Oliver stopped the car and sat for a moment at the wheel, resting after the long drive in the rain. There was a light on in the cottage but Oliver saw no one moving within. He got out of the car, carrying his raincoat and a small overnight bag that he had thrown into the back of the car. He went in the front door. The room was empty. The only sound to be heard was the small drip of rain from the maple whose branches hung over one side of the house. There were newspapers scattered on the table in the middle of the room and a book was lying open, face down, on the couch. There were some chessmen scattered over the chessboard and two or three of the pieces had fallen to the floor. Some petals had drifted down from a bunch of peonies in a vase on the mantelpiece and had dropped onto the rug.
Standing there, looking at the empty room, Oliver thought, whenever she’s any place for five minutes she creates a small, unimportant disorder. Sometimes it gave him a sense of pleasure, of intimacy, of indulgent understanding, when he saw a room like that after Lucy had been in it. But tonight, after the long trip, he was annoyed by it.
He took off his hat and rubbed his hands to warm them. There was no fire on the hearth. He looked at the clock on the mantelpiece. It was two minutes past eight. As always, Oliver had arrived exactly when he said he would arrive. He went into the kitchen to look for the bottle of whisky that was kept in the cupboard above the icebox. There were some dishes left in the sink from the afternoon’s tea. Three cups, he noticed, three saucers, some plates with crumbs of chocolate cake. He took down the whisky and poured himself a drink. He didn’t bother to put any water in it and went back into the living room and sat down wearily, sipping the drink, waiting. A moment later he heard footsteps on the porch. The door opened and Tony came in, wearing a slicker and a baseball cap. Tony stopped just inside the door. He seemed almost reluctant to come into the room.
“Hello, Tony,” Oliver said, smiling at him.
“Daddy,” Tony said. He approached Oliver as though to kiss him and stopped at a little distance from him.
Oliver took off his cap and ruffled his hair gently in a slight affectionate movement. “You’re being pretty mysterious, Tony,” Oliver said, making a little joke out of it. “Not telling me what was wrong on the phone. Insisting that I get up here exactly at eight o’clock. Telling me not to speak to your mother.”
“You’re sure you didn’t call her?” Tony asked suspiciously.
“I didn’t call her,” Oliver said. There was no sense in telling Tony that he had tried to telephone en route from Waterbury, but that there had been a break in the line because of the rain and he hadn’t been able to get through.
“She doesn’t know you’re here?” Tony asked.
“No,” Oliver said. “I came in the back way, as you said, during dinnertime. Tony,” he asked mildly, “are you sure you’re not reading too many comic books?”
“I don’t read any comic books,” Tony sa
id.
“You’ve had me worried all day,” Oliver said gently.
“I’m sorry.”
“Come over here and sit down.” Oliver indicated a chair close to his. Tony took off his slicker and came slowly over to the chair and seated himself. Oliver sipped his drink. “Now—what is it?”
“Daddy,” Tony said in a low voice, “I want to go home.”
“Oh.” Oliver looked pensively at his glass. “Why?”
Tony made a restless movement with his hands. “I’ve had enough of this place.”
“It’s done you a lot of good, Tony,” said Oliver. “You look very healthy and brown and Mother writes me that …”
“I want to go home,” Tony said flatly.
Oliver sighed. “Did you tell that to your mother?”
“No,” said Tony. “There’s no use talking to her.”
Oliver nodded indulgently. “Ah,” he said, “you two’ve had a little argument.”
“No.”
Oliver took another sip of his drink. “With Jeff?”
Tony didn’t answer for a moment. “With nobody,” he said. “Can’t a fellow want to go home with his own father once in a while without everybody jumping on him?”
“Nobody’s jumping on you, Tony,” Oliver said reassuringly. “Only you have to expect people to ask you a question or two when you make long-distance phone calls and give all sorts of mysterious instructions. Be reasonable, Tony.”
“I am reasonable,” Tony said, sounding cornered; “I want to go home because I don’t want to be in the same place with Mother and Jeff.”
Oliver put his glass down and spoke very gently. “What did you say, Tony?”
“I don’t want to stay here with Mother and Jeff.”
“Why?”
“I can’t tell you.”
Oliver glanced sharply at the boy. He was sitting with his head bent, staring at his shoes, his hands plunged in his pockets, looking resentful and embarrassed. “Tony,” Oliver said, “we’ve always been on the level with each other, haven’t we?”
“Yes.”
“I’ve always told you what was bothering me and you’ve always told me, up to now,” Oliver said. “Am I right?”
“Yes.”
“Have I ever promised you anything I didn’t do for you,” Oliver asked.