But it’s no good. I’m going too fast and too far and she can’t handle that kind of panorama, not yet. She has to believe in
this mythical figure, St Sam, because she feels so guilty about her failure to be the model wife and she wants to punish herself.
As soon as I mention the word ‘pregnancies’ she starts to say: ‘I love my children, Sebastian.’ At least she can still console
herself by pretending she’s the model mother.
‘Yes, I know you love them, Vicky,’ I answer, and think: you love them as I love my mother: genuine devotion encased in a
constant nagging exasperation, like toothache. I want to ask her how many of those children she really wanted and how far
they make her feel either happy or fulfilled, but I can’t. I’ve gone too far already and it would be dangerous to tear down
all these illusions at once. The illusions are necessary to her at the moment; they’re her crutch as she hobbles down the
road to recovery, and you don’t take an injured man’s crutch away from him. You just help him along until he’s ready to throw
the crutch away himself.
I’ve no illusions about motherhood. Maybe that’s because I’m a man and can view the subject without getting emotional, but
no, men often get more emotional on the subject than women (back to
poor Oedipus). Maybe it’s because my mother wasn’t around much when I was young so that I grew up not taking her for granted
and walking all over her but seeing her with enough detachment to realize how damned lucky I was to be the son of a woman
who really wanted to be a mother. There are plenty of those women around and they should be encouraged to have as many children
as they like. What shouldn’t be encouraged is motherhood for motherhood’s sake.
You don’t have to be a social worker with personal experience of deprived children to realize there will always be women who
should never be mothers – and I’m not just talking about the impoverished alcoholic child-beaters at the bottom of the social
ladder. When I was growing up I saw all too clearly that some of my mother’s richest friends treated their offspring as something
to be exhibited, like a new mink coat, and then sent back to the nursery for storage. I appreciated my own mother then. I
wasn’t a fool and I knew when I was well off.
I hated it when Mother tried to explain to Andrew and me once why she left us for Cornelius. She got so upset and it was so
unnecessary. Just because she was temporarily deranged it didn’t mean that she stopped loving us. Anyone could see she always
loved her children. It was so obvious. Poor Mother. I guess one day I ought to say to her how much I appreciate the way she’s
always been such a loving, caring mother, but I never will because (a) Mother would cry and I couldn’t stand it, (b) I’d be
sure to sound repulsively mawkish, and (c) as the result of (b) I’d feel like throwing up. How goddamned difficult the mother-son
relationship is – but then the truth is any parent-child relationship is fraught with difficulty and that’s why no one, NO
ONE, should take on parenthood until they know exactly what’s involved and honestly feel they can handle the responsibilities.
‘I don’t know what I’d do without the children,’ says Vicky, leaning heavily on those psychological crutches of hers, but
the next moment she unexpectedly has a timid try at standing upright without them. ‘But the awful thing is that I don’t know
what I’m to do
with
them either. I just don’t know how I’m going to manage on my own – that’s why I keep putting off making any big decision
about the future.’
‘Very sensible. You need lots of time.’
‘I certainly need something. I feel so inadequate. Daddy keeps saying cheerfully: “Never mind, sweetheart, at least you don’t
have to worry about money,” but that doesn’t make things easier. It just makes things different.’
‘Money solves a lot of problems and creates a whole lot of new ones to take their place.’
‘Yes. Of course I know I’m terribly lucky not to have to worry
about money. I know I’m terribly lucky to be able to afford help with the children. But the more employees I have the more
complicated life seems to become, and also – God, I hate to admit this because it sounds so feeble, but it does happen to
be the truth – also I just don’t know how to run a household. Sam always organized everything, you see. He and his secretary
and his aides were always around to pay the bills, hire and fire the staff, make all the big decisions. Daddy says I can have
secretaries too, as many as I want, but he’s missing the whole point. I hate all those people milling around under my nose,
I hate them all thinking I’m so feeble and stupid, I hate not even being able to sneeze without someone looking on—’
‘It must be hell. I’ve often wondered how on earth Louis XIV survived at Versailles.’
‘I feel I want to simplify my life, not complicate it, but how can I simplify it with five children? At first I thought the
easiest thing was to live with Daddy because it cut out all the awfulness of setting up an independent household, but now
I’m not so sure that was the right thing to do. I just can’t take life in that house on Fifth Avenue any more. I don’t know
why. It’s not your mother. Alicia and I get along surprisingly well nowadays. I think the problem must be Daddy although don’t
ask me to define it because I can’t. He makes me feel claustrophobic – as if I’m all laced up in a straitjacket. Can you understand
what I mean?’
‘Christ, Vicky, it’s the story of my life! Look, let me tell you what I think. Stay based at Fifth Avenue for a while longer
– you mustn’t take on too much too soon or you’ll crack up. But don’t stay at Fifth Avenue all the time. Get yourself a little
apartment – maybe around Sutton Place – somewhere with a view of the river. You need a place where you can be
you
– not just Sam’s widow or Cornelius’ daughter or the kids’ mother. You need to think. Thinking’s very important. Anyone with
brains needs to be alone to think occasionally. Then when you feel stronger you can tackle this mammoth task of setting up
an independent household for yourself and the kids.’
‘Oh, how clearly you see everything, Sebastian! What a good idea! But I don’t think I’ll tell Daddy. He’d be hurt. He wants
me to stay at Fifth Avenue until I remarry. Sometimes I think he talks about all those secretaries and staff I’ll need in
an independent home just to scare me into staying with him.’
‘Vicky, you must definitely – and I mean DEFINITELY – have an apartment where you can lead some kind of a life of your own.
I’ll find one for you, if you like. Then when I’ve signed the lease you can help me pick out the furnishings.’
Her eyes brighten. ‘I’d like that!’ she says wistfully. ‘I wanted to furnish the house in London by myself but Sam said we
had to have the top interior decorator to make sure it was done right …’ Her voice trails away. Then suddenly she says: ‘I
was very unhappy in Europe at the end. You were right just now when you said I was exiled. London was fun at first but I was
terrified of going to Germany. I’m no good at languages … I was afraid of letting Sam down … disappointing him—’
‘Did Sam never ask you,’ says my voice, ‘whether you wanted to go home? When you said dutifully: “Gee, Sam, I want whatever
you want,” did he never once sit down beside you and say: “Look, what do
you
want? And where do
you
want to live?”’
‘Yes, he did,’ she says, ‘at the end. After Kristin was born I took an overdose of sleeping pills. I didn’t mean to kill myself.
I just wanted to … well, to communicate with him, I guess, but it was a wicked thing to do. Poor Sam – he was frantic. I felt
so guilty and so ashamed.’
I feel guilty and ashamed too – for selfish sonofabitch Sam Keller driving his wife to the brink of suicide and loading her
with a guilt which has nearly crushed her to pulp.
‘The hell with him!’ I mutter, very unwisely. It’s always asking for trouble to criticize one’s rival to a woman who feels
morally obliged to defend him.
‘But he loved me,’ she says earnestly. ‘He really did. He loved me very much, and he was so sweet, so kind, so—’
It’s teeth-gritting time again, and God knows how I control myself but I do. ‘Yeah. Well … but that’s all over now, isn’t
it, Vicky?’ I manage to say calmly. ‘That’s all over, and you’ve got a whole new life just waiting to begin …’
‘What a heavenly apartment!’ cries Vicky. ‘And how wonderful to have a place where I can be on my own with no one breathing
down my neck! Look at the dear little kitchen! Sebastian, I’m going to learn to cook. Will you come to my first dinner-party?’
‘What do I get? Soft-boiled egg?’
I’ve taken some time to find the apartment because I wanted to make sure I found the right one. It’s north of Sutton Place
and both the living-room and the one bedroom face the river. The building is post-war, well-run, spotless. I open all the
closets but there’s not a roach in sight. The appliances are new. The floors are parquet. The heat works. There’s air conditioning.
‘Sebastian, I dread to think what would happen if Daddy ever
found out about this place. After he’d got over feeling hurt he’d be hiring decorators for me and giving me pictures from
his art collection, and I think I’d go mad. I’m just so excited at the idea of us fixing it up by ourselves … when can we
go shopping for furniture? Next weekend?’
‘Okay. You pick it out, I’ll charge it and you can pay me back.’
‘Will it be expensive?’
‘Yes. You’ve got to learn about money, Vicky.’
‘I want to learn, Sebastian,’ she says. ‘I’ve always wanted to learn.’
Vicky’s a case of arrested development. She may be almost twenty-eight but after nine years of Sam protecting her from everything
under the sun except childbirth, the one thing she should have been protected from, she often seems no more than eighteen.
‘Don’t worry about it,’ I say comfortingly. ‘I’ll teach you.’
‘Oh Sebastian, this is such fun! How great the living-room looks – like a real home, not a museum! And how sweet of you to
have bought all those lovely books in order to make the room look lived in!’
‘Don’t be dumb, I bought them in order to read! Say, I know it’s your apartment but could I come here sometimes and read them?’
‘Of course! Any time. Now Sebastian, how are we going to fix up the bedroom?’
‘Tell you what: you leave it all to me and I’ll give you a big surprise.’
‘Gee, how exciting! I’ll keep the door closed and the room’ll be like Pandora’s box!’
‘Do me a favour, Vicky, and don’t come here for three days till I get everything fixed. Okay?’ I have everything waiting to
be delivered but she doesn’t know.
‘Okay, Sebastian. Thanks a million …’
Elsa goes to a hen-party at the apartment of one of her friends. I take Vicky to dinner at the Colony. We have oysters Rockefeller,
lobster and champagne.
‘To celebrate the new apartment!’ I say, raising my glass.
‘Can’t wait to see the bedroom, Sebastian!’
We laugh sociably. For dessert we order strawberry mousse, black coffee and Courvoisier.
‘Gee, Sebastian, I feel kind of loaded. I’m not used to drinking so much.’
‘Does that mean Postumus gets drunk tomorrow morning?’
‘I’m not nursing Postumus. Oh, stop calling Postumus Postumus!’
We laugh again. I wonder why she’s not nursing Postumus. Breast-feeding’s
interesting. Considering how far we are from the natural order in this plastic society it’s a wonder any function like breast-feeding
survives. It gives one hope for the future. Maybe natural man will survive the plastic society after all instead of degenerating
into a computerized robot.
We return to our apartment and the living-room’s beautiful, the best of W. & J. Sloan offset with thick dark blue rugs and
plenty of glass and a watercolour which Vicky picked up for five dollars in Greenwich Village for no other reason than that
she liked it. It’s a view of snow-capped mountains across water, a scene which reminds me of Tahoe in Nevada, but on the back
the artist has written: ‘The South Island seen from the coast near Wellington’ and we figure the location is New Zealand,
a beautiful country a long way away, somewhere to aim for some day, like heaven.
I have more champagne in the refrigerator so I whip into the kitchen to pull the cork.
‘Sebastian, no! I can’t drink another drop!’
‘Just one glass!’
We take our glasses to the bedroom door.
‘Okay,’ I announce. ‘Sound the trumpets! Hey presto!’
Opening the bedroom door I switch on the light. A black and white pattern dances before my eyes. Chiaroscuro. Erotic. My guts
feel as if they might melt. I drink my champagne very quickly.
‘My God!’ says Vicky in awe. She tiptoes unsteadily towards the Picasso drawing on the wall. ‘Sebastian, is this an original?’
‘Of course not. I think it’s obscene to spend thousands of dollars on overpriced originals. That’s a first-class print and
it cost twenty dollars which in my opinion is exactly what the drawing’s worth. But it’s nice, isn’t it? I like the long line
of her neck and back.’
‘It’s beautiful. The whole room’s gorgeous.’ Vicky subsides weakly on to the bed but she’s not watching her glass and the
champagne spills on the floor. ‘Oh no! The white carpet! Quick, where’s a cloth?’
I get two cloths, one for each of us, and sinking on to all fours we sponge furiously at the pile.
‘I think it’s going to be all right,’ says Vicky seriously at last.
‘I know it is,’ I say, looking straight at her.
She hears the note in my voice and shrinks against the bed at her back.
We’re silent. At last she says: ‘What a fool I’ve been.’
‘No, Vicky. You’re not that much of a fool. You wanted it all the time but you’ve been pretending to yourself that you haven’t
because the thought of it makes you angry – not frightened but angry – and
you don’t want to be angry with me. But Vicky, I’m not going to treat you as you were treated in the past. I love you and
I respect you and it’s all going to be very different.’
She says without hesitation: ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m not angry. Nobody’s made me angry. Nobody’s treated
me badly.’