‘But I don’t like the look of the new order. It seems to render my order not only obsolete but meaningless. Yet what can I
do? Do what I’ve always done, I guess: act debonair and pretend I don’t give a damn. But I do. I care very much. I live in
my family home knowing its days are numbered; I work in my family firm knowing that too will probably come to an end as a
private banking house; I live with a woman I don’t love for the sake of children I can’t talk to and rarely see; I have mistress
after mistress but any idea of love seems increasingly remote. And what does it all mean? What’s the point? I guess the point
must be that there’s no point. I tried to talk about this to Neil not long ago but he refused to discuss it seriously. Perhaps
I scared him by raising issues he himself isn’t yet able to face, but he’ll have to face them one day – one day he’ll have
to say to himself: “Just what the hell am I doing and what’s the goddamned point?” and then I’d like to know what kind of
answer he’s going to dig up to soothe himself.
‘Yet Neil’s very different from me. He’s got this wonderful trick of seeing everything in black and white and believing firmly
that God’s always on his side – a masterpiece of Anglo-Saxon self-deception! Or does he really think that? Can anyone with
Neil’s brain – and he’s certainly no fool – possibly be that simple? Sometimes I think he puts up that Anglo-Saxon front to
protect himself. Sometimes I think he’s too frightened to contemplate a world where God doesn’t exist or a world where God,
if He exists, is hostile … But now I’m getting too metaphysical. I must stop. Have you understood what I’ve been trying to
say, Alicia my dear, or have I merely been talking gibberish?’
I poured us both some more scotch, took his hand in mine and said gently: ‘Tell me more about your beautiful hotel.’
[5]
It was on the morning after this conversation that Vicky came to see me. I had finished glancing through the day’s mail and
had handed it to my secretary to be answered; I had approved two menus which my
housekeeper had submitted for coming dinner-parties, and I had written my weekly letter to Sebastian. After ordering coffee
to be brought to the upstairs sitting-room where we kept the radio and television, I finished my flower arrangement in the
Gold Room and prepared to relax for half an hour with a day-time serial.
The footman admitted Vicky as I was crossing the hall.
‘Alicia!’ she exclaimed. ‘Are you busy? I just thought I’d stop by.’
She looked lovelier than ever. Her hair had been freshly set and she was wearing a new blue coat which I had not seen before.
There was a faint flush to her cheeks. Her grey eyes sparkled with happiness. I suddenly felt old and drab.
‘Why, how nice to see you, dear!’ I said. ‘You’ll have coffee, won’t you?’ I turned to the footman. ‘I’ve just ordered coffee
– see that there’s enough for two and bring it to the Gold Room, please.’
‘I was going to save the news till this evening when Daddy came home,’ Vicky was saying buoyantly, ‘but I just couldn’t wait!
So I called Daddy at the bank and told him and he was just thrilled to pieces, but one of the first things he said was: “Sweetheart,
do tell Alicia – she’ll be so pleased!” So I was going to call you and then I thought no, I’ll go over to Fifth Avenue and
surprise you—’
I wondered what was happening in my day-time serial. Would the heroine’s sister’s pregnancy finally be established today and
would the paternity of the heroine’s own baby be confirmed beyond all possible doubt? It occurred to me dimly that real life
was so much less interesting. Girls always seemed to know exactly when they got pregnant and the proud father was usually
all too easy to spot at fifty paces.
‘—so anyway I just rushed out of the house and zoomed into a cab—’
As we entered the Gold Room I noticed that the Sèvres clock had stopped again. I felt annoyed. I had particularly instructed
Carraway to remind the new footman to wind it daily.
‘This all sounds very exciting, darling,’ I said. ‘Am I to understand—’
‘Yes! I’m having a baby! Oh Alicia, isn’t it just the most wonderful news you could ever imagine!’ said my radiant stepdaughter,
and flung herself into my arms.
‘That’s lovely, darling!’ I looked at the silent clock. Time was rushing forward for Vicky in a heady pulsating whirl but
for others time had stopped long ago and the world was quiet beneath the glass case which protected them from dust. ‘I’m so
pleased,’ I said. ‘Congratulations! When—’
‘Next April!’
‘Perfect! Spring christenings are always so nice. I must look out the family christening robe.’ I thought I was saying all
the right things but it was hard for me to be sure because I could no longer think clearly. ‘And how’s Sam?’ I said, just
remembering him in time.
‘
Thrilled
! In the seventh heaven!’
‘Yes, of course. Yes, he would be.’ Out of the corner of my eye I saw Carraway himself entering with the coffee. ‘Carraway’,
I said. ‘The Sèvres clock has stopped again. I’m very displeased.’
‘Stopped, madam? I shall attend to it personally at once. Perhaps a slight overhaul or cleaning—’
‘Winding’s all it needs, Carraway, as you well know. No, don’t do it now. I’m busy with Mrs Keller. Come back later.’
‘As madam wishes.’ Carraway withdrew with an air of worldly resignation as if he were missing the British aristocracy he had
served in England before the war. I despised myself for such a petty display of anger, but fortunately Vicky hardly noticed;
as usual she was totally absorbed in herself.
I drank my coffee, listened to her chatter with a smile and tried not to think of those magic times long ago when I had been
someone special, Alicia Blaise Foxworth, talented, successful, unique. But of course I thought of them. The pain was suddenly
as sharp as a butcher’s knife. I hated myself for not being able to keep the knife sheathed, and the more I hated myself the
more unbearable the pain became.
‘Darling, I hate to rush off,’ I said, ‘I’d just love to talk to you for ages, but I have a lunch date.’
Vicky jumped up readily. ‘Oh, of course! I only intended to stop by for a few minutes anyway, but please – come over to us
this evening with Daddy and let’s all have a very special family dinner together!’
‘Thank you, dear, that would be lovely. About seven?’ I had no idea what Cornelius and I were supposed to be doing that evening
but I could sort that out later. My most important task now was to get rid of Vicky before she could think I was cold or uncaring,
and after walking with her to the front door I gave her the warmest embrace I could manage.
‘Goodbye, dear … Thanks so much for stopping by … I’m so happy for you – thrilled—’ My voice broke. I turned away.
‘Why, Alicia …’ Vicky sounded both awed and amazed. With relief I realized she had diagnosed my emotion as sheer feminine
sentimentality and was touched.
‘Till this evening.’ I was already running up the stairs and although she called something after me I did not look back. Somehow
I
managed to shut myself in my room before I burst into tears, but the more I cried the more I despised myself and the more
I despised myself the faster the tears flowed. My only thought as I struggled for self-control was that if anyone were ever
to guess how disgracefully jealous I was I would surely die of the shame.
But no one would find out. No one came near me any more. I was a relic from a dead world, like the Sèvres clock, a relic which
people admired occasionally but never touched, a relic separated from the world beneath a glass case which nowadays no one
ever bothered to remove.
I looked around for a hammer to smash the glass and saw the telephone by the bed.
My tears stopped. Dragging the phone directory from the drawer of the nightstand I hunted through the pages for the letter
R.
Reischman & Co. 15 Willow.
I dialled the number. I was calm now. My cheeks were dry but stiff, a sign that the tears had mingled disastrously with my
make-up.
‘Reischman and Company. Good morning, may I help you?’
‘I want to speak to Mr Reischman.’ I was peering into the mirror to see the extent of the damage. All my mascara had run.
‘Mr Reischman’s office – good morning.’
‘Is he there, please?’
‘I’ll just check to see if he’s in conference. Who shall I say is calling?’
I started to tremble. ‘Mrs Strauss.’
‘One moment, Mrs Strauss.’ There was a click as she pressed the hold button, and I went on trembling, wondering how I had
had the nerve to disturb him at work. I must have been insane. What a terrible error. Maybe if I were to hang up—
‘Mrs Strauss!’ said Jake in his most casually sophisticated voice. ‘What a pleasure! How may I help you?’
I gripped the receiver. My voice, sounding impossibly cool and remote, said: ‘Good morning, Mr Reischman. I was hoping I could
arrange an appointment to see you.’
‘But of course! When are you free?’
‘I …’ My nerve deserted me. I closed my eyes tightly as if I could blot out the nightmare of my desperation.
‘I have a lunch date I can cancel,’ said Jake carelessly.
‘Oh. Well …’
‘Twelve-thirty midtown?’
‘Yes. Thank you. I’ll be there.’ I hung up. For one long moment I sat transfixed on the edge of the bed, and then I moved
swiftly to the vanity to repair my appearance.
[6]
I reached the apartment early because I wanted a quick scotch to calm me down before he arrived. I was terrified of losing
my nerve and making some messy scene which would make him regret his invitation. I supposed he would arrive with food for
lunch. I would have to pretend to eat, but perhaps I would feel like eating later; perhaps when I saw him I would feel better.
I left the elevator at the sixth floor, ran all the way down the corridor to apartment 6D and scrabbled frantically in my
purse for the key.
‘Oh God’,’ I said when I couldn’t find it. ‘Oh
hell
—’
The door swung wide.
‘In a hurry?’ said Jake, smiling from the threshold.
‘But you’re early!’ I said idiotically after my gasp of surprise.
‘I was in a hurry too.’
‘You mean you haven’t got much time?’
‘I mean I’ve got all the time in the world,’ he said, taking me in his arms, ‘and I didn’t intend to waste any of it.’
The door closed behind us. The light seemed different in the apartment but that was because I had never before been there
at noon. The luxurious living-room was shadowed but the rich sumptuous furnishings no longer seemed alien. I felt as if I
were moving into a country which I had never previously visited but which was familiar to me through hours of painstaking
research.
His arms held me firmly. I was now used to him being so much taller than I was, and as I raised my face to his I closed my
eyes not because I was reluctant to look at a stranger but because I did not want a close friend to see that something was
wrong.
‘It’s so lovely to see you!’ I whispered, telling myself over and over again that I wasn’t going to make a scene. ‘I wanted
so much to see you—’
‘But you’re not looking!’
I opened my eyes with a smile and felt the tears spill down my cheeks.
‘Alicia—’
‘Oh, it’s all right,’ I said in a rush. ‘I’m fine. Everything’s wonderful. Nothing’s the matter at all.’
‘Ah, you mysterious Anglo-Saxons!’ he said laughing. ‘The self-control! The discipline! The ruthless stiff upper lip!’
I laughed too. I was still crying as I laughed but now I no longer cared because my unhappiness wasn’t important any more.
We sat down on the couch and gradually my tears stopped. There was no
longer time to cry because I was kissing him, and when he kissed me I no longer wanted to grieve. For I was someone special
again at last, not just a discarded woman of no use to anyone, but Alicia Blaise Van Zale, very talented, very successful,
utterly unique, and one of the most dynamic men in all New York had fallen in love with me and wanted me for his own.
[1]
He was very small and had minute features set in a pale oval face. His eyes were closed. He was wrapped in a white hospital
blanket and looked like one of the wax dolls my sister Emily used to play with long ago in Velletria. It seemed impossible
to believe that he was a living, breathing being, someone who would grow up to discuss the stockmarket with me, but for a
second I pictured him as an adult, tall like Sam but otherwise looking exactly like me, sitting in my chair at the office,
laying down the law at every partners’ meeting, running my Fine Arts Foundation, dictating junk to the press, ordering his
new Cadillac and making some pretty woman miserable; Paul Cornelius Van Zale III (for of course he would take my surname later),
investment banker, philanthropist, patron of the arts, my pride and consolation in some remote era when I was just a shrivelled-up
old man with no hair, no teeth and less life in some grisly retirement palace I had concocted for myself in Arizona.
‘We’re going to call him Erich Dieter,’ Vicky was saying, adjusting the unreal bundle in her arms. ‘Eric for short. Oh nurse,
do take him away, would you? Thanks. Oh, and bring another vase for these new flowers, please, when you get the chance.’ Subsiding
on to the pillows she absent-mindedly toyed with one of the carnations crowding the bedside table. ‘Well, as I was saying—’
‘Erich Dieter?’ I said.
‘Wait, nurse,’ said Alicia sharply. ‘Vicky, perhaps your father would like to hold the baby for a moment.’
‘Heavens, Alicia, men aren’t interested in that sort of thing! As far as they’re concerned newborn babies are only damp little
bundles which leak at the wrong moment!’
‘
Erich Dieter
?’ I said.
‘Vicky, there’s no need to affect such a repulsive modern cynicism towards what is, after all, one of the miracles of this
world—’
‘Oh God, when do we get a break for the soap commercial?’
‘ERICH DIETER?’ I shouted.
They all jumped. The nurse nearly dropped the baby.
‘Give him to me, nurse,’ said Alicia, scooping the bundle out of the nurse’s arms and adjusting it with great competence.
‘Leave us now, please. There’s nothing else Mrs Keller requires at present.’
‘Stop!’ shouted Vicky in a voice almost as loud as mine. ‘I never said you could hold him! I refuse to let the two of you
commandeer him – he’s mine, not yours to dispose of as you think fit!’
Sam chose that moment to walk into the room with an armful of yellow roses.
‘Oh God!’ cried Vicky, bursting into tears. ‘I can’t stand more flowers – I’m beginning to feel I don’t exist except as some
sort of machine which has to be fuelled with bouquets! Take them away, for goodness’ sake, and leave me alone – all of you!
GO AWAY!’ And while we gaped at her she slid further down on the pillows and pulled the covers over her head.
‘Please leave,’ said Alicia politely to the crimson-faced nurse.
I was helplessly patting the heap under the bedclothes. ‘Vicky honey – forgive us – please – we didn’t mean to upset you—’
A shadow fell across the bed. ‘I think you’d better go,’ said Sam.
‘But—’
‘Come along, Cornelius,’ said Alicia in the schoolmarm voice I detested.
Muffled sobs made the bedclothes shudder.
‘Vicky – sweetheart—’ I was struggling ineffectually to pull down the sheet. ‘It’s okay – of course you can call him Erich
Dieter—’
Sam’s hand closed on my wrist. ‘Out, Neil.’
‘But—’
‘She’s my wife, not yours. Out.’
‘What a fucking stupid thing to say!’ I was so upset that I lost control over my vocabulary, and Alicia’s expression reminded
me that in all the nineteen years we had been married I had never before uttered such an obscenity in her presence.
The bedclothes were thrust back. ‘If you don’t stop fighting and using disgusting language,’ cried Vicky, ‘I’m going to get
out of this bed and walk out of this hospital and have a haemorrhage and die!’
The door swung open as two doctors and the head-nurse blazed into the room. ‘What’s going on in here? What’s all this noise?
Who’s upsetting the patient?’
‘I want to be alone!’ wept Vicky. ‘I can’t stand them fighting over him any longer!’
The senior doctor looked at us with a cold bleak jaundiced eye. ‘You will all leave, please. I must be alone with my patient.’
We slunk away into the corridor, Sam still holding the yellow roses, Alicia still holding the baby.
‘I hope you’re proud of yourself,’ said Sam, white with fury.
‘That was a disgraceful scene, Cornelius,’ said Alicia in a voice of ice.
I turned my back on them and walked away.
[2]
Telling the chauffeur to wait for Alicia I dismissed my bodyguard and walked crosstown from the hospital which was on the
East side. I could see the cool dark trees of the Park, but they were further away than I had anticipated and finally, losing
patience, I jumped aboard a bus. For a moment that took my mind off my troubles. I had not been on a bus since I was eighteen
and at first I enjoyed the novelty of clinging to the strap alongside my tired shabby fellow-travellers, but then I realized
I was as lonely on the bus as I would have been with Alicia in the back seat of my Cadillac, and on the other side of the
Park it was a relief to elbow my way out on to the sidewalk.
Central Park West was a roaring mass of rush-hour traffic. I walked downtown slowly, my hands thrust deep into my pockets,
and tried to identify the different models of automobile which crawled past me. I liked cars although I seldom drove; a man
in my position just doesn’t go bucketing around behind the wheel of his own automobile if he wants to cut the right image
with those who work for him, but sometimes I used to drive out to one of the new highways with only my bodyguard for company,
and give my favourite Cadillac some exercise. I liked the power of the accelerator and the thrust of the engine and the submission
of the steering wheel to the slightest pressure of my fingers, although of course I never said so, even to my bodyguard. It
might have seemed childish, and a man in my position has to be very careful to do nothing which might lay him open to ridicule.
Nothing deflates a powerful façade quicker than mockery; that was a fact of life I had learnt long ago when I had been stripping
power from other people in order to survive in a hostile world.
Reaching the Dakota I took the elevator to Teresa’s sixth-floor apartment which faced east across the Park.
‘Hi!’ she said startled, emerging from her studio just as I removed my key from the front door. ‘What a surprise! I thought
you’d be all tied up holding the baby and drinking champagne!’
‘Forget it.’ I stepped past her without a kiss and trudged into the
kitchen. As usual it was in chaos. Plates were stacked high, dirty pots littered the stove, the table was a mess of unidentifiable
food which smelt ripe for the garbage. The huge furry brown cat which Teresa somehow managed to love was chewing something
in a corner. The floor was dirty.
‘Honey, don’t go in there – it’s a pigsty. Come and sit in the living-room.’
‘I was looking for a drink.’
‘Why didn’t you say so? I’ll fix you something right away!’ She was wearing a stained beige smock over skin-tight black pants,
and her feet were encased in an old pair of slippers punctured at the toes to display the chipped red paint of her toenails.
Her hair looked as if it had had an accident at the beauty parlour. As her dark eyes regarded me shrewdly I noticed that her
full lush mouth was unmarked by lipstick, an indication that her work had been going too well to allow her to pause to put
on make-up before rushing to the studio at the start of the day.
‘Sorry I look like a Polish joke,’ she said later, giving me a glass of scotch and water. ‘I’ll go and shower while you relax.’
As soon as I heard the bathroom door close I moved noiselessly into the studio for a look at the new work. It seemed to be
a picture of some kind of funeral, though it was hard to be sure. Whatever it was it still needed a lot of work. I decided
I did not like this drift of Teresa’s towards post-impressionism. It was too derivative and there was no money in it; if people
are going to spend money acquiring that kind of junk they want the real thing, not a third-rate imitation, and anyway Teresa’s
talent was wasted in this inexplicable pursuit of a post-impressionist ambience. Her natural pristine style which she had
temporarily abandoned (And why? Guilt? Did she unconsciously associate it with selling out? God only knew, I certainly didn’t)
was directly at odds with this new blurry groping for artistic effect, and as I moved from the studio to the bedroom I wondered
depressed if she were on the brink of peppering her canvases with little dots, like Seurat. I’d have to say something if she
did; I wouldn’t be able to keep my mouth shut, but I was always very careful what I said to Teresa about her work, and although
I was honest I was never destructive. Paintings are like an artist’s children, and you don’t go telling a mother to her face
what a godawful job she’s made of bringing up her child.
Shying away from all thought of children I quickened my pace to the bedroom.
The bed was unmade, the vanity awash with trash from a dozen
dimestores, stockings scattered over the floor, clothes flung haphazardly over a chair. Another cat snoozed on a pile of dirty
washing. Below a poster of Lenin, looking fierce, the works of left-wing writers were stacked in piles on the mantel, and
I thought again, as I had thought once or twice before, that Teresa was going to have to shed her casual interest in communism.
There was no future in the arts nowadays for anyone with un-American leanings, and if she wanted to remain alive and well
and exhibited regularly in New York, the poster of Lenin would have to go, to be replaced perhaps by a poster of Clark Gable
dressed as Rhett Butler.
Gone With The Wind
was as American as apple pie.
Without moving his position the cat opened his yellow eyes to stare at me from his pile of dirty washing. I sipped my scotch
and stared back. I outfaced him. He had just closed his eyes again when Teresa, clad in a hideous striped towel, emerged from
the bathroom, slumped down on the tumbled sheets beside me and stretched her arms luxuriously above her head as she tossed
the towel aside.
I set down my glass, shed my clothes and took her.
The cat watched us occasionally with his blank yellow eyes.
‘Like another drink?’ said Teresa when it was over.
‘No thanks.’
We lay side by side. I was feeling as I had felt on the crosstown bus, surrounded by shabbiness, in close proximity with other
human life, but totally separate, utterly alone.
‘Want to talk?’ she said.
‘Not much.’ I suddenly remembered my first wife Vivienne complaining how offensive it was when a man lacked even the most
rudimentary post-coital good manners, and with an immense effort I pulled myself together. If I was fool enough to treat Teresa
as if she could be rented I might wake up one morning to find she had torn up our rental agreement and hired herself out to
someone else.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said, kissing her on the mouth and letting my hand rest for a moment on her breast. ‘I know I’m behaving badly
but it’s been a rough day.’
She kissed me back, gave my hand a squeeze and slid out of bed. ‘Let’s eat something – I haven’t eaten all day and I’m starved.
I’ll fix you something nice. What would you like?’
‘A hamburger.’
What I liked best about Teresa was that she never pestered me with stupid questions. She just asked what I wanted and got
on with the job of providing it. At her best she never even asked; she diagnosed my state of mind and wrote her own prescription.
I was sure she liked me
but underneath that sluttish exterior the mind that produced those well-ordered paintings was essentially detached. Of course
I was never fool enough, despite all the things she said when I was inside her, to believe that she loved me.
‘Ketchup,’ she muttered, hunting around the kitchen closets.
‘Over there on top of the cat food.’
Artists are strange people. Kevin often regaled me with that fatuous remark attributed to Scott Fitzgerald: ‘The very rich
are different from you and me.’ But I’m on Hemingway’s side. The very rich are no different; they just have more money. The
real difference in this world is not between the rich and the poor but between those who create and those incapable of creation.
I’m Cornelius Van Zale, forty-two years old, and in common with numerous blue-collar workers making some pittance a week,
I’m proud of my family, I work goddamned hard Monday through Friday, and I like drinking an occasional glass of beer and playing
a game of checkers and watching baseball whenever I get the chance. But although Teresa Kowalewski, twenty-six years old,
may enjoy cooking, going shopping and all the other typical feminine pursuits as much as any Westchester housewife, when that
canvas calls all these occupations become a blinding irrelevance and if they persist in cluttering the landscape some emotional
disaster is sure to follow. Sometimes I think artistic talent must resemble a malign mutation of the human brain. It’s scarcely
conceivable that a person can inhabit both the outer world of normal people and the inner world of the creative and still
stay sane. No wonder Van Gogh went to pieces and Munch painted screams and Bosch was fixated with hell. Imagine living with
such scenes in your mind and then going out to buy bread from some fool who chatted about the weather.
Sam thought I owned Teresa, but he was wrong. No man owned Teresa because no man, not even the richest man on earth, could
ever buy her away from her art. I know about artists. I’ve studied them with the same interest as an anthropologist who studies
some culture utterly different from his own. I’m fascinated primarily by how artists can make something out of nothing. It’s
power, of course – not my kind of power, but still power, something which in certain circumstances can far outdistance my
kind of power, a mysterious force, an enigmatic miracle, a wrestler’s lock on eternity.