Greenwich (16 page)

“Up and out and get to it!” David usually awakened in high spirits. “They breakfast at eight-thirty.”

Nellie moaned, “I have two lousy days off, and usually something happens on Sunday, and you're dragging me out of bed at seven-thirty.”

“Doesn't anything happen in the line of disaster on Saturday?”

“Yes, it does.”

“Then let's get out of here before you're called. Anyway, they're both teachers, very set in their habits. They'll get grumpy if they have to wait for us, and when we tell them, we don't want them grumpy.”

“Wasn't your father a close friend of Dr. Ferguson?”

“He was our family doctor, yes. But I don't think they were close friends.”

Nellie was sitting on the bed now, staring at David. He had a strong, tight body, a good athlete with a ruddy, freckled skin and reddish hair. “I asked you to marry me last night. How do you feel about that?” she asked.

“The same way I felt last night. The same way I felt since I met you. I begged you to marry me for two years. You didn't ask me. You finally said yes.”

“And in three months, you go back to school in Cambridge, and I stay here.”

“Four hours away.”

“David, chronologically, I'm three years older than you. Actually, it's at least ten years.”

David thought about that for a while, and then he nodded. “OK, if you're backing out, I'll wait.”

“I don't want to wait, David. Let's go beard the lion and the lioness in their den.”

He laughed. “Lion and lioness—no, it. doesn't fit.”

At eight-thirty, they were at the Greenes'. When they entered the house, David's sister, Claire, embraced Nellie and kissed her. “Morning beautiful lady. As for you,” she said to David, “I never see you.”

“I work.”

“Ha!”

“That's expressive.”

Claire, two years younger than David, dark-haired as her mother was and losing childhood fat to the strong bones of her face, led them into the kitchen. The Greene house had been built eighty years ago, at the tail end of Victorian construction, when kitchens were large enough for a big coal stove and a hot-water boiler as well. It had been modernized, but none of its size had been lost. It no longer contained the coal stove and boiler, but it had a worktable and enough room for a round table of heavy birch, where eight people could sit comfortably. It replaced the dining room, which had been turned into a library and study for Herb Greene and his wife.

Herb was at the table, reading the local daily newspaper, the
Greenwich Time
, which Mary slipped out of his hands as David and the two young women entered.

“Sorry,” Herb said. “They're late.”

“They're not late,” Mary said.

Breakfast was an important meal at the Greenes'. They had eggs and bacon and waffles and hot rolls, yogurt and dry cereal and milk and coffee, everything put out and eaten in no particular order. Mary was not much of a cook, and being sensible, she stuck to what she knew and took the easy way out. They talked about Seth Ferguson, who had brought both David and Claire into this world, and there was some wiping of eyes.

“It's odd,” Herb said, “that I should have met Harold Sellig last night for the first time. He was at the dinner party the Castles gave, and it set me to thinking about how things connect. His wife wasn't with him; she was at the hospital. I suppose you were there, Nellie?”

“Yes. I work with Dr. Loring.”

“What exactly happened, if I may ask? I thought the heart bypass was a reasonably safe operation by now.”

“I suppose it is,” Nellie said uncertainly. “I don't like to talk about operations, if you will forgive me. I'm just a nurse, and I've only been an operating room nurse for a year, and I do take some courses and hope to be a physician one day. Dr. Ferguson's heart gave out. That was no fault of the surgeon. I'm just not equipped to say any more than that.”

David watched her. He was going to speak, and then he decided not to say anything.

“I'm so sorry for Harold and his wife,” Mary said. “They were very close to Dr. Ferguson.”

“They both were devastated,” Nellie agreed.

“Things connect,” Herb Greene continued, taking up what he had said before. “Sellig sent me a copy of the manuscript of his new book about a month ago. I put it aside, meaning to read it and never finding time. When we got home last night, I picked it up again.”

“When did you turn your light off?” Mary asked.

“About two. It's a short book. He calls it his Greenwich novel, ‘The Assassin.' A very strange book about Greenwich. He holds that when someone is killed, we all bear responsibility, that in a sense every human being is an assassin. I squirmed a bit, but his net is too large.”

“I should hope so,” David said.

“I'd like to read it,” Nellie said.

“I can live without that,” from Claire. “I haven't killed anyone yet, but I have a physiology professor—well—”

“I've read it,” Mary told Nellie. “You can have my copy.”

Nellie wondered when her prospective mother-in-law had read it—perhaps with manuscript in hand while she was preparing breakfast. Then she rejected the thought. It was probably lying on the bed when she awakened. Nellie was intimidated by Mary, though Mary Greene, suspecting what was coming, was trying to be absolutely neutral—yet unable not to think of the old saw “A son is a son till he gets him a wife, a daughter's a daughter all of her life.” Rising to refill the coffee cups, Mary picked up the manuscript, which lay on the kitchen counter.

“Here it is, and of course you can read it, Nellie.”

Before Nellie could reply, David said, “Hold on,” the last thing he wanted being a cross fire of politeness between his mother and Nellie. “We're here with breaking news. Nellie and I have decided to get married.”

Silence around the board. Then Claire clapped her hands, lifted her orange-juice glass, still with half an inch in it, and cried, “Cheers.”

No response. Nellie was thinking, Why, why did I let it happen this way?

“When did you decide this?” Herb asked.

“Last night. I know you're all surprised, but we've known each other for over two years and have been practically living together much of that time.” David was serious, firm and unyielding. “We know each other, and we love each other.”

Unexpectedly, Mary smiled. Nellie was sitting next to her. Mary leaned over and kissed Nellie. “Welcome, my dear,” she said.

Herb said, “At this moment, I need my morning cigar. David, come out on the porch with me, and I'll treat you to one of my best Davidoffs.”

“Now that's something to write home about,” David said cheerfully.

Times do change, Mary thought. He tells his mother that he's been sleeping with a woman for two years. Well, what did I think when he didn't come home at night?

David followed his father into the study for the cigars and then out onto the porch, the only place where smoking was allowed. “This I enjoy,” his father said. “There are only two times of the day when I really enjoy a cigar, after breakfast and after dinner. Your mother still shrinks at the thought. Now this one”—picking up the cigar he had left on the porch the night before—“I started because it never occurred to me that Castle would offer his guests real, valid Cohibas.”

“No kidding? Why didn't you sneak me one? I never smoked a Cohiba.”

“Bad manners, my boy. You don't steal cigars. And by the way, how much do you make down at the boatyard?”

“Six dollars an hour, nine when I work overtime.” “Your last year in college—you're majoring in biology. You still intend to follow research biology?”

“Of course. I know where you're going, Dad. Merck and Pfizer have already offered me jobs around the fifty-thousand-dollar level. I intend to take my masters at Yale and I'll get my doctorate during the years to come—both at night. It's rough, but Nellie is also taking night courses in medicine. So we'll manage. I've met a lot of women—I know what I want.”

“I'm not arguing, just touching base. Does her family know about this?”

“Not yet, but she's her own woman.”

“She's two years older than you.”

“You're nine years older than Mom.”

“She's Catholic, isn't she?” Herb asked.

“Non-churchgoing and I'm a non-synagogue-going Jew. As you know, that's a good combination.”

Herb looked at his son thoughtfully, wondering why they had never had a talk like this before. He considered himself a reasonably good and intelligent father, reflecting that it was an odd kettle of fish that he had bred Claire, a firm Catholic, mass every Sunday with her mother—he went with them on Christmas and Easter—and David a firm nonpracticing Jew.

“When did you decide that you were Jewish?” he asked David.

“I stopped going to mass when I was eleven, I think. Mom never mentioned it or pushed me.”

“She's a remarkable woman, Dave. Never sell her short.”

“What do you suppose they're talking about in there?”

“Marriage. She's being charming to Nellie, starting out on the right foot.”

“How do you know?” David asked.

“I know her. That's what makes a good marriage.”

“Oh? Well, what do you think?”

Herb shrugged. “You could do worse.”

“That's comforting. Nellie's a wonderful woman.”

“Most women are. They have to be just to survive.”

“I'll keep that in mind,” David said. “Do you want to go inside?”

“Not until I've finished this cigar.”

Twenty-seven

A
t eight o'clock that Saturday morning, with the whole Hunt family still asleep, the telephone rang. Abel stumbled out of bed to answer it, said, “Yes, hold on, I'll wake him.”

The voice at the other end begged him not to wake his son and apologized for calling so early.

“Doesn't matter. He should be up, anyway.” Abel put down the phone, walked to his son's room, shook him awake and commanded, “Get your ass up. Telephone for you.”

“Who?”

“That priest from the church—Father Donovan.”

Joe stumbled barefoot into the kitchen and picked up the telephone. Abel followed him, listening.

“Sure,” Joe said. “I'll be happy to … no, no trouble at all. Be a pleasure.” He put down the telephone.

“Now, you tell me,” Abel said sternly, “what in hell a priest is doing calling you up at this hour in the morning?”

“He's not just a priest, he's a monsignor. Monsignor Donovan.”

“And just what does this Monsignor Donovan have to do with you? Is he trying to convert you?

“No, no, absolutely not.”

“Did you tell him you're a Baptist, born and bred out of generations of God-fearing Baptists, wholly immersed in your baptism and not just sprinkled with some holy water? Did you tell him that? Because if you didn't, I'll tell him myself.”

Abel's wife, Delia, came into the kitchen at that point, and said, “What's all this shouting?”

“I'm not shouting.” Joe grinned. “Dad's shouting.”

“He's been baptized,” Delia assured her husband. “You know that. You were there. That crazy preacher, your friend Ishmael, nearly drowned the boy.”

“Look, both of you, Father Donovan does not want to baptize me. I give him computer lessons.”

“You give him what?”

“Computer lessons. I teach him how to operate the church's computer.”

“They got one of those devilish machines in the church?”

“They have one in the Castles' kitchen. Why not in a church? And it's not in the church, it's in the rectory.”

“Why you?” Abel asked aggrievedly.

“Because I'm a hacker, a nerd, a computer wizard.”

“How does he know that?” Abel asked suspiciously.

“Word gets around.”

“Does he pay you?” Abel was still suspicious.

“Three dollars an hour. I won't take any more.”

“You mean with all the money that church has, they don't pay you minimum wage?”

“They don't have any money. Anyway, I'm trying to teach you how to use our computer. I don't charge you.”

“Room and board and college?”

“Exactly. So I don't charge your.”

“Oh, leave the boy alone,” Delia said. “They're good people, and it's nice that he helps them.”

Twenty-eight

R
uth Sellig was up and making coffee when Harold awoke. Their house in Riverside—another part of Greenwich—was on a bluff overlooking Long Island Sound. It was an old, sprawling house with brown weathered shingles, and the tall glass doors that lined three sides of it were more California than New England coast. The kitchen looked out on the water, small, dancing waves in the morning sunlight. Here and there were the white triangles of small boats, either tied up to their buoys or running with the morning breeze. Harold's own little catboat was tied at the bottom of the bluff, and he looked at it regretfully thinking that Ruth would be in no mood for sailing this summer.

“I couldn't sleep,” Ruth said. Her dark eyes were bloodshot, her face drawn and tired. “I got Oscar on the phone.” Oscar was their son, just turned eighteen. “I tried him first in Paris, but the clerk at the hotel where he was staying said he had gone on to Lyons.”

“Did you tell him?”

“I was going to, and then when I reached him, I couldn't. You know, Dad talked me into letting him go abroad for the summer. Do you know why he went to Lyons?” Her eyes filled with tears again.

“No. He wasn't supposed to.”

“Well, you know how Dad never bought a dish or a pot after Mom died, and you know you break dishes and cups. Oscar decided to go to Lyons, where they're famous for their porcelain, and have a set made for Dad with a caduceus and Dad's initials—oh, damn it.” Her throat choked up.