(1961) The Chapman Report (19 page)

At last, she went to the tea table and placed cups and saucers on the tray. Her eyes found the mail, and she took up the post card.

She turned it over in her fingers without rereading it. In some curious way, it had become invested with an importance that it had not had an hour before. She had meant to rip it in half and throw it away, and possibly telephone Miss Selby and cancel out or just default by nonappearance. But by that act, she saw, she would remain imprisoned to the past. Metzgar, Scoville, the vast blur of public opinion, would remain her guardians. The three-penny post card-4 to 5:15, Thursday, May 28-was a call to escape, to live unfettered, possessed by none but herself, to acknowledge the possibility of a future without Boynton. The card was a passport to a place of defiance and rebellion.

Firmly, she slid the card into her skirt pocket, then picked up the tray and started for the kitchen.

Ursula Palmer unfastened her large leather handbag, extracted the post card, and handed it to Bertram Foster.

“There’s the evidence,” she said cheerfully. “I’m now a bona-fide member in low standing of Dr. Chapman’s sex club.”

Foster had the card in both pudgy hands, and he was reading it, moving his lips as he read. Ursula watched him closely, wondering why it took him so long when there was so little to read. His tiny, slit eyes glittered as he read. Were he any other man, Ursula thought, she would have written him off as utterly repulsive. But she quickly banished the heresy, and determined to regard him as a brilliant and wealthy cherub. His perfectly round face seemed rounder because he was almost bald. His nose was spread wide and flat, and this, with the puffed lips, made him appear gross. He was short, and hypothyroid, and the most expensive tailor in New York could make him appear neither taller nor leaner.

Now, seated-squatted really, she decided-in the pull-up chair directly across from her, in the French Provincial living room of his hotel suite, he pursed his baggy lips-a sensuous Cupid or, better, a depraved Roman senator, she decided-and looked up from the card. “Tuesday, one o’clock to two-fifteen,” he said. “That’s tomorrow.”

“Yes.”

He studied the card again; then, with seeming reluctance, as if it had been a sex offer he hated to forgo, he returned it to her. “An hour and fifteen minutes,” he said. “Now, my dear, what can you tell them for an hour and fifteen minutes?”

“I’m a grown woman,” said Ursula, with deliberate provocation,

hating this but knowing that he wanted to hear it, and that it was part of the expected game.

“You mean you’ve been around,” said Foster with heavy pleasure.

“Don’t get any wrong ideas about my past, Mr. Foster. I’m a normal married woman-“

“I’ve met plenty of normal women who give ideas.”

“I’ll bet you have.”

“How long you been married?”

“Ten years, almost.”

“So you had a whole lifetime before?”

“Well, yes.”

It made her uncomfortable, being sunk deep in the sofa, so that she had to keep pulling her dress to her knees and pressing her legs together, and he on the chair facing her, and Alma Foster off at the beauty parlor. But this was morning, she reassured herself, and men didn’t make passes in the morning, and besides, the beauty parlor was probably in the hotel, and Alma would be back any minute.

“Umm, I suppose you’re like most women,” he was saying. “If they ask questions, there’s enough to say for an hour and fifteen minutes.”

He stared at her knees, and she pressed them together. “It’ll make a marvelous article, Mr. Foster,” she said, desperately trying to distract his gaze from her knees. “It’ll make Houseday a sell-out for that issue.”

“There are always newsstand returns,” he said moodily, lifting his gaze from her knees. “I was thinking about it since you told me. Maybe it could be a three-parter-“

“Oh, Mr. Foster!” She clapped her hands with delight, and in her excitement her knees parted, and his gaze dropped. She left them apart, feeling suddenly that it was unimportant, and if it made him happy, what the hell. There was so much at stake.

“Ursula, maybe I better let you in on my mind. Only the day before I left New York, I was talking to Irving Pinkert-you know who he is?”

Ursula nodded excitedly. Irving Pinkert was Foster’s publishing partner. He was a silent power behind the scenes. He allowed Foster to put his name on the mastheads, and dominate the editorial content, and take the trips, but he remained overseer of the business end, which probably meant printing, advertising, distribution.

“I told Irving I had my eye on you. I was thinking of you for maybe associate editor-later, maybe something better-of Houseday.”

“Mr. Foster, I don’t know what to say.”

His fat lips folded upward, pleased. To Ursula, at once, the whole concept of him was changing. He was taking on the appearance of a benevolent and wise Kris Kringle.

“Now,” he was continuing, “you are far away from this, but in big companies, we have politics. The editor I want to get rid of for you-she was put in two years ago by Irving. She is no good, a lesbian. He doesn’t want her no more than I do. But still, there is his pride. He put her in. He will not let her go so easy, admit he can be wrong, unless there is a special reason. My argument for you is that you have a good head, clever, a fresh injection. He doesn’t disagree, but to him, you are still not proved. So it needs only something, a little thing, to push him on my side-to prove you are better. I think this sex article is exactly the medicine. It shows you are a step ahead. And it deals with something every woman and man is interested in-even Irving.”

“Mr. Foster, I could kiss you!”

“Who’s stopping you?”

She pushed herself to her feet and bent over him, meaning to kiss his forehead, but suddenly his lips were where his forehead had been. She felt them cushioned on her mouth, smelling of cigar and bacon, and felt his hands grip her under the armpits, one hand pressing downward and clutching at the side of her left breast. Her instinct was to pull angrily away, but he wanted this little, just as she wanted so much, and the bargain seemed eminently fair. She lingered a moment longer than she had intended, then withdrew her lips slowly, and his hand fell from her breast. She straightened and smiled down at him. “There,” she said.

“That’s the kind of thank-you I like,” he said. “Sit down. We still have a few minutes’ business before Alma drags me away.”

She sat down recklessly on the sofa, her knees apart and her skirt drawn taut several inches above them. She didn’t care. She saw Foster’s eyes drop, and she hoped he was happy, happy as she.

“Now, my dear,” he said, “my plans for you are very concrete. You do what I say, and leave Irving to me. You will be in New York by July-big office, your own, with inter-com and secretary and agents taking you to lunch-if I let them.” She laughed giddily.

“Tomorrow,” he said, “you go tell your whole sex life to those men-“

“Dr. Chapman.”

“Yes, him. Tell him everything, hold nothing back-you understand? You tell him-well, what do they ask?”

‘You mean the questions, Mr. Foster? I’m not sure, though I suppose the same as they asked the men in the last book.”

“An example.”

“I suppose they’ll want to know about my pre-adolescent sex history, petting, premarital and marital and extramarital experiences.”

He wet his lips. “Good, good; it’ll make a fine article. You’ll change some words-after all, we live with advertisers and churches-but for me, don’t change the words. I want the facts so I can … can evaluate, guide you.”

“What do you mean, Mr. Foster?”

“Look, my dear, you go tomorrow, and when they take notes, you take notes. Then you type up the notes, their questions, your answers-exactly-nothing left out. We will have a meeting. Tomorrow, I take Alma to Palm Springs. It’s supposed to be a week, but she can stay a week. This is too important. I’ll come back myself before. We’ll meet right here Friday-maybe have dinner together while we work. How does that suit the future editor?”

“I think it’s a marvelous idea.”

“When I come back Friday I’ll phone you. … I think that’s Alma at the door.” He jumped to his feet. “Write down everything. Remember-three parts.”

“I won’t forget, Mr. Foster.”

It was only later, when Ursula had reached The Briars and was turning into her street, that she remembered the appointment with Harold. She had promised to meet him-she held up her arm and squinted at the wrist watch-ten minutes ago, to go over his new office with him and help him decorate and furnish it. Well, she’d call and explain that she’d been tied up. Then suddenly she remembered that now he wouldn’t be needing the office anyway. They would be moving East. She could help him then, even hire a decorator for him. That would certainly show that she was thinking of him, wouldn’t it?

Sarah Goldsmith lay on her back, eyes closed, arm limp over her forehead. Her breath still came in short gasps, and her heart hammered, and from inside her ample thighs to her feet, she was drained and spent. She felt the bed move beside her, and then she felt Fred’s sturdy, hairy leg against her own, rubbing her own playfully, his toes touching her toes and curling against them. Eyes still closed, she smiled at the recollection of the minutes recently past, at the continuing, unfailing miracle of them. “I love you,” she whispered. “You’re mine,” he said. “All yours.”

She opened her eyes lazily, aware of the sea-green ceiling, then looked ahead, seeing first the wide white rise of her breasts, and then the thin white cotton sheet that concealed the remainder of her empty, naked body. Against the opposite wall, the tilted mirror above the dresser revealed the cherrywood footboard and nothing more. She turned her head on the pillow and feasted her eyes on her beloved.

He, too, lay on his back, arms on the pillow. She enjoyed again the strength of his profile. It was primitive, a throwback to the Cro-Magnon Man. The tangled dark hair, low brow, broken nose, jutting jaw, the powerful sloping shoulders, thick neck, matted chest, made a promise that was always kept. At first sight, she remembered, the caveman appearance had intrigued but deceived her. Although she had heard he was important, she could not imagine such a frame containing sensitivity and high intelligence. Later, the incongruity of his soft, melodious voice, the deeply penetrating perceptiveness of his brain, the incredible breadth of learning that embraced both Shakespeare and Tennessee Williams, had overwhelmed her.

Just past him, on the green upholstered chair, she saw a measurement of her desire and passion. The remnants of her garments had been hurriedly, unceremoniously flung in a heap-her blouse, her skirt, her brassiere, her nylon panties-with only the leather jacket, the first item she had taken off, carefully hung on the back of the chair. From a pocket of the jacket she saw, protruding, a card and several envelopes. She remembered: hurrying out to the car port, she had been intercepted by the mailman for some postage due. Getting into the station wagon, she had glanced at the mail, and there was the cryptic card-9 to 10:15, Thursday, May 28-and then, in her haste, for she was a half hour late, she had forgotten it. Now she wondered whatever had made her bring the mail up to Fred’s apartment. Nothing, she supposed. She simply had forgotten.

She saw him stir slightly. “What are you thinking?” he asked.

She looked at him. “How much I love you. I don’t know how I ever lived without you.” She considered this. “Of course, I didn’t live without you. I wasn’t alive one cell, one breath, until I met you.”

He nodded. ” ‘And when love speaks, the voice of all the gods/ Makes heaven drowsy with the harmony.’ ”

‘What’s that?” she asked.

“Love’s Labor’s Lost,” he said, pleased.

“Sometimes I think it’s been a million years. Do you know how long, Fred?”

“A million years.”

“No. Three months and two days.”

He rolled over on his side, so that his chest was against her arm and his head on her shoulder. His hand found her neck and the curve of her shoulders. Slowly, gently, he massaged her.

She closed her eyes and gave herself to the sweet sensation, but gave only her body. Her mind was journeying backward-one month, two, three, three months and two days.

It had begun with an amateur production of She Stoops to Conquer, performed and sponsored by The Briars’ Women’s Association for charity. Grace Waterton, whose records showed that Sarah had appeared in college plays fifteen years before, had begged her to volunteer for the tryouts. Sarah had flatly refused. Then, Ursula Palmer, who had agreed to handle publicity for the one-night show, had prevailed upon Sarah. And she had agreed to accompany Ursula because that day had been a bad day with the children and because she was bored. But on the eve of the tryout, she had once again changed her mind. Sam, who had borne the burden of her increasing unrest, had argued with her all through dinner-it was just for fun, it might be fun, it would be good to get out of the house a few evenings a week. But she had remained adamant, until that moment after dinner when she was clearing the table and saw Sam settle his bulk before the television set. She had known then that she could not endure one more evening of this narcotic monotony. At once, she had telephoned Ursula, and an hour later, she had joined two dozen other women and several husbands and fiancés with acting experience in the cold auditorium of the Women’s Association.

She recalled now that they had all been huddled in the first two rows waiting for him. Grace Waterton’s husband knew a motion-picture producer who knew a famous director who was between pictures. The director was Fred Tauber, and since this was for a worthy charity, he was agreeable. He appeared, striding down the center aisle, trench coat thrown over his shoulders like a cape, introduced himself to Grace and then to all assembled. He apologized for being late and for being free to undertake this. It was not, he explained quickly, that he was between pictures-motion pictures didn’t exist any more, no one cared about them or went to see them, and television was the current corruption, and he had plenty of television offers, but he did not wish to become the mentor of any effort dominated by a cereal or toothpaste-but what had attracted him to this was that he enjoyed the creativity of the legitimate stage, and he liked Oliver Goldsmith, and he thought that this might be enjoyable.