(1961) The Chapman Report (21 page)

Bessie Ewing had been peeling through the mail again, and now she unfolded a colored circular. “There’s a sale at Brandon’s-cotton dresses,” she said.

Mary stared miserably at the card and wished that Norman would change his mind about children or that her father would change his. She suddenly hoped that Dr. Chapman would not question her about having children. If he did, what would she say?

Teresa Harnish turned the key, let herself into the cool, shaded living room, and removed her wrap-around sun glasses with an audible sigh of relief. It had been suffocating and blinding outside. Her arms, beneath her sleeveless white blouse, and her knees and legs, beneath her gray Bermuda shorts, were baked.

She had left Constable’s Cove a half hour earlier than usual, she told herself, because even the beach offered no comfort from the relentless sun. Actually, the Cove had been lonely, and she had not been able to shed an inexplicable nervousness and irritability. It was the first time in memory that the refuge had not served her therapeutically. Certainly, the Cove itself had not disappointed. It

was, this morning, as isolated and lovely as she had always known it, before the invasion of the barbarians. When she had descended the precarious decline to the sand, she had fully expected to observe the four crude behemoths nearby, exercising and throwing the football. She had girded herself against them, armed with righteous anger. She was prepared to ignore them, very pointedly, and if the huge, cocksure one, with his vulgar tights and bulging thighs, approached her, as she felt he would, she would devastate him with several sharp retorts that she had polished and prepared-and that would give her peace, if he understood them. But, when she reached the sand, neither he nor his companions were anywhere to be seen. This had surprised her, and she told herself, Good riddance. But later, stretched on the blanket, she had turned five pages of Swinburne and two of Coventry Patmore before realizing that she had not read a word. Her mind went to the invaders, and she carried on a heated imaginary conversation with the four, with the one, and came off with banners flying.

She thought about Geoffrey’s Marinetti, and the art shop, and her mornings, and wondered what it was like to be unintellectual like Grace Waterton, who could sublimate herself in service activity, and Sarah Goldsmith, who could make a busy and satisfying day of her children and home. Perhaps, she told herself; she had been bom utterly out of her time. It happened, she was sure: one of Creation’s anachronisms and inefficiencies. She could more easily envision herself as Louise Colet of Paris or Mary Wollstonecraft of London (although there was some grubbiness here that displeased) or Kitty O’Shea of Dublin, rather than Teresa Harnish of The Briars in California.

Reconsidering, she saw herself best as Marie Duplessis-offering elegance and tragedy and inspiration for the young Dumas’ lady of the camellias. But somehow the last role seemed more suited to Kathleen Ballard-what did she do with her mornings?-and then Teresa felt an insect move on the back of her hand. Hastily, she brushed it off and found herself in Constable’s Cove. Ahead, the turgid water lapped exhaustedly at the wet ribbon of dark brown sand. Above, the circle of sun was a scorching lamp. Encircling her, the Cove was suddenly a geological imperfection-the rock and dirt as unappealing as any dump on an empty lot, the tangled and knotted branches and weeds parched and deformed.

If she were going to be uncomfortable and bored, she decided, the might as well be so in the cool, clean water of her sunken

marble bath at home. Who was it who made a practice of letting her towering Negro manservant carry her to the bath and lower her into it? And who then received and chatted with her male circle of French and Italians while she bathed? The sculptured nude in the Villa Borghese-Canova’s work-yes, Pauline Bonaparte. Extraordinary. Teresa Harnish sat up, then stood, slowly gathered her beach equipment, and started for home.

Now, in the tasteful, sparsely furnished living room, a symphony of beige and burlap and framed abstract oils, she dropped her book on the end table and became aware of Geoffrey’s jacket-the navy one with the brass buttons that he had worn to the shop this morning-neatly draped on a pull-up chair.

“Geoffrey?” she called off.

“In the study!”

Puzzled, she lay her blanket and effects on the wall bench and hastened through the corridor into the study. Geoffrey was kneeling on the floor, unrolling the poster imprinted Divan Japonais.

“Geoffrey, are you all right?”

He glanced up. “Perfectly, my dear.” He examined the poster briefly, and then rolled it up tightly.

“What are you doing home at this hour?”

He reached for another poster. “A customer from San Francisco -she just discovered Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec-“

“That’s like reaching puberty at forty.”

“… and she’s coming in at two. Wants everything I can show her.” He unrolled another poster in his hand. It was La Troupe de Mademoiselle Eglantine. He pointed to the four kicking dancers. “Jane Avril, Cleopatre, Eglantine, Gazelle. Remember when we found this?” It had been on the wall of a disheveled, cramped shop in the Rue de Seine ten years ago. It had cost them fifty-seven thousand francs when the franc was three hundred and eighty to one in the black market. They had always said that they had discovered Lautrec, or so it seemed in those days. Hanging his posters was an attention-getter and a snobbery. But then, there was the flood of books, and the gaudy motion picture, and soon Lautrecs were on napkins, match covers, coasters.

Geoffrey rolled up the dancers. “I’m tired of him. I’m going to unload the whole bunch. I think I should get three times what we paid.” He lifted himself to his feet. “Every artist sooner or later becomes a guest who’s stayed too long,” he said with regret.

“I don’t think people will ever tire of Da Vinci or Shakespeare. Minor artists come and go. Lautrec was a curiosity. The classicists remain.”

“Don’t be too sure,” said Geoffrey. “Shakespeare fell into disrepute and neglect for a long period after his death. His revival is modern. He may tumble again. Even disappear.”

For once, Teresa did not feel like pursuing this sort of thing further. “Maybe you’re right,” she said wearily. “I need a bath.”

“One second.” He was at the desk. “This came in the mail.” He handed her the post card. “The brink of adventure,” he added.

She read it. “Wednesday-ten-thirty to eleven-forty-five.”

“I want a full report, play-by-play.”

“Silly, what could I report that you didn’t already know? You collaborated in everything I’m going to say.”

“Well, now, I didn’t think of that.” He seemed self-satisfied, and momentarily she resented it. “The next few weeks should be exciting,” he went on. “A community catharsis.”

“It’s healthy,” she said to say something, and was at once perplexed at her indifference to the Chapman interview. But then another thought came, and grew, and she began to feel better. “You know what might be fun?” She considered it.

“What?”

“A party-a big party. We haven’t had one in a month. A celebration of the new freedom. A costume affair. Something like-I have it-a come-as-the-person-you-would-like-to-have-been-when-Dr. Chapman-interviewed-you. Wouldn’t it be mad fun?”

“Marvelous, Teresa. We have a load of pay-backs to tick off, anyway.”

For Teresa, the day was coming alive again. She moved through the room. “I can just see it. Naomi Shields as Ulysses’ perfect Penelope, Sarah Goldsmith as-quick, Geoffrey, name some dreadful courtesan-“

“Hester Prynne. Harriette Wilson. Cora Pearl.”

“Yes,” she said excitedly, “any one of them; and the McManuses -Mary as Ninon-“

“I see. You think each woman will want to be her opposite.”

“Don’t you? The chaste would secretly long to be unchaste and the unchaste would prefer to appear before the good doctor as pure and maidenly.”

“And you, my dear-how would you want to appear?”

Teresa saw the trap. Marie Duplessis? Intuitively, she sidestepped it. “As myself, darling! Isn’t that cunning? But I mean it. Why would I ever want to be anything but what I am?”

Naomi Shields, wearing only her slip, lay curled on the unmade bed, and fitfully dozed. Gradually, the part of her that was still conscious was penetrated by the singsong bar of melody. It persisted, the same hideous music, and she opened her eyes, rolled flat on her back, and listened. At last, she realized that it was the doorbell.

She sat up. Her head felt dizzy and apart and extremely high above her body, like a toy balloon attached to a string. She knew that she had been perspiring. The cleft between her breasts felt sticky, and, except where she wore her pants, the slip clung to her. She brought the electric clock into focus. It was ten minutes before noon. She had meant to lie down a few minutes after breakfast, and it had been over two hours.

She tried to remember: yes, she had awakened at nine, fully aware of the resolve she had made after her last drink the night before. Monday, she had determined, would be a new day, a new week, a new life. Even the program had been clear in mind. Before her marriage she had gone to secretarial school for eight months. Touch typing was like dancing and a foreign language. Once learned, it was never forgotten, she hoped. Monday, she had determined, she would telephone Ursula Palmer, much as she disliked her-or, maybe better, Kathleen, who knew all those important aircraft people. She would phone one of them, both maybe, and they would help her. Why hadn’t she done this long ago? It would give her life regularity and purpose, and there were always single men in an office, and maybe she would find someone wonderful. It was so sensible. She had carried the resolve to breakfast and seen it dissolve in the first bitter sip of coffee. Why had she taken all that vodka? She pressed her fingers to her temples, trying to remember how she got back on the bed.

The doorbell again. She swung off the bed, searched for her mules, and then forgot about them. She started for the living room, remembered that she was in her slip, and hurried back to the dressing room. Once in her white peignoir, she groped, barefooted, through the hall to the living-room door. Working the chain free, she pulled the door open, then shut her eyes and averted her face from the explosion of sunlight and the blast of hot air.

A tall, slender man, in t-shirt, faded blue denims, and leather sandals, was leaving across the lawn.

“Hi,” she called out.

He halted and turned. “Hello, there.”

“Were you the one ringing?”

“That’s right.”

He was returning, and she waited. As he drew nearer she saw that his face was ugly and striking. His chestnut-colored hair was shaggy and in need of a trim, his eyes were narrow, and deep in the sockets, his thin lips curved in a mocking smile, and there was too much jaw. He was chicken-breasted.

“Are you selling something or what?” she asked.

He reached the screen door and looked her over, top to bottom, unhurriedly and insolently. She saw now that his pale cheeks were pocked and he seemed debilitated. It was oddly attractive.

When he spoke, his lips hardly moved. She watched them, fascinated. “… just down the block,” he was saying.

“I’m sorry. I’m still not awake. What did you say?”

“I said I live just down the block. About five doors down. My name’s Wash Dillon.”

She wrinkled her forehead. The name was familiar.

“Maybe you’ve heard my band. We’ve cut some records.”

“Oh, yes,” she said.

“You’re Mrs. Naomi Shields.”

“Miss Shields,” she said quickly.

“How could that he?” His eyes were on her bosom. “Well, anyway-” he dug back into his hip pocket and pulled out a post card -“it says here Mrs.”

“What is that?”

“Your mail. The mailman must have hung one on. He put it in my box by mistake. It looked like some kind of interview for a job. Afraid you might not get it in time, so I came over, good neighborly like.”

“Thank you.” She opened the screen slightly and took the card.

“I figured nobody was home, and I was hunting for the mailbox. Where is it?”

“Next to that bush in front. It’s grown over. I’ll have to tell the gardener.” She peered at the card and realized what it was. Her interview was on Wednesday from five-thirty to six-forty-five.

“Something important?” he asked.

She looked up. “In a way.” He was very tall and curious, and she

through the dining room to the front door. She didn’t care about her hair, or the tear, or anything, only that she wanted the door wide open. She yanked it open.

A skinny, sallow boy of about twelve stood against the screen. “My father came here-“

Wash appeared behind Naomi.

“Pop,” the boy said, “Ma says to come home-“

Wash’s smile was gone. “I’ll be along. Beat it now-“

“She says I ain’t to come home without you, or she’ll come and get you.”

Trembling, Naomi looked up at Wash. His smile was back, less mocking than brazen. “That’s the way the cookie crumbles,” he said. He nodded to the boy. “Okay, Johnny.” He stared at Naomi again, then shrugged and started out.

“You son-of-a-bitch,” she said.

He paused, turned his head, and considered her. “You look awful hungry, honey,” he said. “Come over to Jorrocks’ some night-if you want to be fed.”

She slammed the door after him and hit the wood with her fists, and after a while, after she had ceased her sobbing, she composed herself and started back into the kitchen toward the liquor cabinet. Well, there was always Tuesday.

WELL,” said Dr. Victor Jonas, emerging from the hall into the living room, “they’re in bed, at last. Now we can have a little time to ourselves.”

Paul Radford, who had been sitting on the sofa beside Peggy Jonas watching the opening scenes of an old movie on television, quickly pushed himself to his feet. “You’ve got two attractive boys there,” he said to Dr. Jonas. “How old are they?”

“Thomas will be twelve in September,” said Dr. Jonas, “and Matthew was just nine.”

Peggy Jonas’ eye left the movie a moment. “Perhaps Mr. Radford would like some coffee or tea,” she said to her husband. She was a small, friendly young woman, with a frank and freckled Irish face.