‘Well, what’s he going to do, for God’s sake?’ Vivienne shouted at me in a frenzy of frustration. ‘What’s he going to do?’
By this time I knew I had had as much of Vivienne as I could take. Ringing the bell briefly twice, my signal which indicated
that I wanted my chauffeur to have the car waiting at the kerb, I said shortly: ‘Neil has an army of people working for him
and the police commissioner’s a personal friend. He’ll find her. And now if you’ll excuse me, Vivienne—’
‘But I can’t go now! I must wait for him to call you back with further news!’
‘I’ll call you as soon as I hear anything.’
‘“Anything to get rid of the old bag,” he thinks! Why the great rush to get rid of me, darling? Are you expecting someone?’
‘No.’
‘Sure? Incidentally, are you still dating those fluffy little blondes who live in outrageous places like Brooklyn, or do you
feel less socially inferior nowadays and set your sights a little higher?’
‘My chauffeur will drive you back to your hotel, Vivienne. I’ll see you to the door.’
‘I guess that’s why you’ve never married,’ she said idly. ‘You only feel at home with that kind of girl but that kind of girl
wouldn’t feel at home here. Or would she?’ Her glance flicked cynically over the living-room. ‘Rich men can make a girl so
adaptable.’
‘You married for money,’ I said before I could stop myself. ‘You should know.’
She laughed. ‘Yes, darling,’ she said without a second’s hesitation, ‘but I’m not the only one in this room who knows how
it feels
to be owned lock, stock and barrel by one of the richest men in town.’
There was a silence. Then without a word I walked into the hall and held open the front door for her.
‘You’ll call me, won’t you, as soon as there’s any news?’ she said after telling me the name of her hotel, and the question
reminded her that it was in her best interests to part from me on a friendly note. When I remained silent she somehow managed
to produce a smile and a seductive tone of voice. ‘Come on, Sam! What happened to that nice all-American boy I used to know
with the innocent smile and the Down-East accent and the cute old-fashioned manners? I’m sorry I was so bitchy – I was just
so disappointed not to talk to Vicky. I’m sure you make out just fine in your private life. All that success – all that money
– so sexy!’ She sighed, took my hand in hers and eyed me mistily. ‘We
are
friends, darling, aren’t we?’ she murmured, applying a light pressure to my palm with her fingers.
‘Why, of course, Vivienne!’ I said, matching her insincerity ounce for ounce, and finally managed to get rid of her.
I went back to my den and sat down. Presently my housekeeper knocked on the door to say that my dinner was waiting for me
on the serving-cart in the living-room, but I went on sitting on my couch in the den. Vivienne’s jibe was still drifting deeper
and deeper into my consciousness like a feather falling from a great height and for the first time in my life I was wishing
I had never met Cornelius, wishing Paul Van Zale had passed me by when I had been clipping that hedge in his garden long ago.
I could so clearly visualize the life that might have been. By this time I would be living in a new split-level house on the
outskirts of Bar Harbor, or maybe Ellsworth, but no, the sea at Bar Harbor would be nicer for the kids – for of course I would
have kids, probably four or five, and a pretty wife who was a wonderful cook, and we’d have barbecues on weekends and be friends
with all our neighbours and go to church on Sunday. There would have been no visits to Germany because naturally with my growing
family I couldn’t have afforded the trip to Europe, so I would have remained the all-American patriot, someone who had volunteered
for the army in 1941 without waiting to be drafted, someone who would have despised the German-Americans who secretly angled
for exemptions, someone who could not have conceived of a situation in which a millionaire had arranged an exemption for his
best friend by making a single phone call to someone in Washington who owed him a favour …
The doorbell rang.
Looking out of the den in surprise I found my housekeeper hovering uncertainly in the passage. ‘That’ll be Miss Vicky, Mr
Keller,’ she whispered troubled. ‘The doorman just buzzed from the lobby to say she was on her way up. He said she ran straight
past him into the elevator before he could stop her.’
‘
Miss Vicky
?’
‘Yes, sir, Miss Van Zale.’
The doorbell rang again and this time did not stop. Abandoning the den I moved swiftly past my housekeeper, crossed the hall
and pulled open the front door.
‘Vicky – Jesus Christ!’
‘Uncle Sam!’ cried Vicky as if I were the last man left on earth, and hurtled across the threshold into my arms.
[1]
‘Uncle Sam, I’ve come to you because you’re the only sane person I know,’ said Vicky, clasping my hand as if it were a piton
riveted to the face of a cliff. ‘In fact you’re the only person who can save me, so please don’t just pat my head and send
me back to Daddy as if I were a stray poodle. If you do I think I’ll jump off the Brooklyn Bridge.’
‘Gee whiz,’ I said, ‘excuse me while I get out my suit of armour and my shining white horse. Have a drink of mead or something
– or better still, how about something to eat? I haven’t had dinner yet and if I’m going to save you I’ve got to be well-fed.’
I took Vicky into the den, rescued the serving-cart from the living-room and asked my housekeeper to bring an additional place-setting.
Back in the den I found a tape I had made of several Glen Miller records and threaded it into my recorder. The music, dreamy
and soothing, filtered into the room as I offered the wine decanter to my guest. ‘Do you want to try some of this?’
‘Is it like that California Kool-Aid Daddy serves at home?’
‘No, this is French wine from Bordeaux.’
‘Oh Uncle Sam, you’re so wonderfully European and civilized!’ She smiled at me radiantly, a schoolgirl on a disagreeable but
not unexciting spree, and it occurred to me that although her troubles
were genuine she was unable to resist the adolescent urge to dramatize them. I smiled back, trying to see beyond the schoolgirl
to the woman she might one day become, but all I saw was the teenage uniform of wide-legged denims with the huge turn-ups,
the bobby-socks and the sloppy pink sweater. Her long thick wavy golden hair was brushed back from her face and secured at
the nape of her neck with a pink bow. She had her mother’s pert nose and Cornelius’ brilliant black-lashed grey eyes, her
mother’s neat oval chin and Cornelius’ stubborn mouth which looked so deceptively tranquil in repose, and as I wondered how
I would have dealt with her if she had been my daughter I came to the uneasy conclusion that I would probably have coped with
the responsibility no better than Cornelius.
‘Do you want some sauerbraten, Vicky?’ I said after my housekeeper had brought the extra place-setting.
‘Gee, I don’t think I could possibly … well yes, it does smell kind of good. I haven’t eaten for ages.’
With the food and drink liberally distributed we settled ourselves on the leather couch.
‘Well now,’ I said, ‘what do I have to do to save you?’
‘You can help me get away from home.’
‘Again? So soon?’
‘I’ve just got to get away. Oh Uncle Sam—’
‘Vicky, if you’re old enough to elope to Maryland, you’re old enough to stop calling me Uncle. Just “Sam” will do fine from
now on.’
‘But I like to think of you as an uncle! I’ll always think of you as an uncle!’
I resisted the urge to say: ‘Thank God,’ and instead asked: ‘What’s the problem at home? I know there was a fuss when you
dropped out of that art appreciation course at Christmas, but—’
‘Oh God, yes, that was awful! The trouble is Daddy just won’t
listen
to me. I’m never allowed to do what
I
want. It’s always what
he
wants. As soon as I graduated from Miss Porter’s last summer I wanted to go to Junior College in Europe, but Daddy wouldn’t
have it, said Europe was decadent and I could learn all I had to learn right here in America. Then I wanted to go to college
right away, and he says no, I’m too young to leave home and I must “fill in” a year first. So then I wanted to go to Europe
on vacation and he wouldn’t let me go on my own and insisted I went with Aunt Emily, who drives me crazy, and those two cousins
of mine who drive me crazier still. After that came the art appreciation mess. I never wanted to do it in the first place!
As
I’ve said to him over and over again, all I really want to do is go to college and major in philosophy, but—’
‘
Philosophy
?’
‘Sure, it’s the only subject I can ever imagine being seriously interested in. I mean, you grow up taking everything for granted
and then suddenly you think: why am I rich when most of the world is poor? And then you think: and what kind of a world is
it anyway? And you read people like Marx and that gets you thinking, and then you discover that political philosophy is just
one aspect of a vast subject … Of course Daddy thinks I’m nuts. He thinks philosophy is just a hobby for social failures.
He wants me to major in something useful, like Spanish, or feminine, like English literature.’
I thought it was about time someone gave Cornelius credit where credit was due. ‘But he does agree that you should go to college.
He’s not being entirely an ogre.’
‘He says he wants me to go to college, yes. But …’ She put down her fork and stared at her glass of wine. Finally she said:
‘Recently I’ve come to believe he’s changed his mind. I think he’s just stringing me along. That’s one of the reasons why
I got so desperate. I think … Uncle Sam, please don’t laugh at me, I know it sounds crazy, but I think he’s going to try to
pressure me into getting married.’
I was acutely aware of my own fork poised in mid-air over my bowl of salad. Pulling myself together I speared a slice of cucumber.
‘Of course I want to get married,’ said Vicky hastily. ‘I want to be a wife and mother just like any other girl who’s not
abnormal. But I want to go to college first before I settle down.’
‘Sure, I understand. What I don’t understand is why you should think your father wants to marry you off.’
‘I’ve suspected it for some time, but it was the big row over Jack which convinced me.’
‘Jack? The beach-boy?’
‘Don’t call him that. It makes him sound like a gigolo and he wasn’t. He was nice.’
‘Sorry. Tell me just what happened so I can be sure I’ve got my facts straight. You met him down in the Caribbean a couple
of months ago, your father told me.’
‘Yes, I’d never gone along with Daddy and Alicia before on their annual Caribbean vacation – I’d always been in school, but
when I dropped out of the art appreciation course Daddy said I must come with them because he couldn’t leave me on my own
in New York with nothing to do. Well, that was okay. I hate New York in February. So there we were in Barbados and I met Jack
on the beach. He was a life-guard
employed by one of the hotels but it was just a temporary job. He was going back home to California to college this fall.
Of course I was staying on Daddy’s yacht but I used to go ashore every day, meet Jack for a swim and have an ice-cream while
we talked about movies. He was just crazy about Betty Grable. He showed me his Betty Grable pin-ups once. He said my legs
reminded him of her. He was so sweet.’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘Well, we had a lovely time, nothing serious, just a kiss now and then – gee, it was romantic! – and then Daddy said it was
time to go to Antigua so that was that. But I gave Jack my address and he promised to write and suddenly last week – wham!
There he was on the doorstep. I was so thrilled. He said he’d hitched a ride on a banana-boat to Miami where he’d snuck on
a freight train heading north. He said he’d been thinking of me non-stop since I left Barbados. Well, gee, it was so sweet
of him to come – what else could I do but invite him to stay for a few days? But then Daddy goes berserk and says no, never
under any circumstances, and Jack can get the hell out. My God, how rude can you get! I was so embarrassed I could have died.
After Jack had gone to the YMCA Daddy and I had this huge row and that was when—’ She stopped.
‘When he said something like: “I wish to God you were safely married and out of my hair”? You shouldn’t have taken him so
seriously, Vicky! People often say silly things in the heat of the moment, and your father’s no exception.’
‘It wasn’t like that at all. You see for some time now he’s been pushing the doctrine that a woman’s only true fulfilment
in life lies in being a wife and mother. Well, okay. I’m sure he’s right. But he kept saying it when he didn’t have to say
it, like someone dropping a huge hint, and I was already so tired of him dictating to me that this sort of
sotto voce
marriage commercial was just the last straw. I felt I wanted to make some big gesture to shut him up – to remind him that
it was my life and that it was about time he stopped all this massive interference. So I decided to—’
‘—demonstrate your independence by eloping with Jack.’
‘Poor Jack! It was mean of me – I wasn’t in love with him and I never really had any intention of marrying him or even going
with him … sleeping … you know.’ She blushed. Tears sprang to her eyes unexpectedly but she blinked them back. ‘I know I behaved
badly but I was so desperate … I thought it would solve something … but it just made things worse. There was another ghastly
scene when we got back to Fifth Avenue, and that was when I realized I couldn’t –
couldn’t
stay there any longer—’
‘Did Neil start pushing his wife-and-mother line at you again?’
‘Oh, it was much worse than that! He said that if I was so keen to get married he could easily find me a suitable husband.
And then Alicia said … Alicia said … Alicia said …’ She went dead white. I was no longer eating. At last she managed to say:
‘Alicia said why didn’t I marry Sebastian.’
I laughed: ‘Good God, now I’ve heard everything! Poor Alicia, I wonder how long she’s been cherishing that little pipe-dream!’
‘Uncle Sam,’ said Vicky in a shaking voice which made me want to kick myself for my insensitive response. ‘This is no laughing
matter. This is very serious. This is life and death.’
‘I’m sorry, honey, I didn’t mean to—’
‘You see what Alicia wants Alicia gets. Daddy’s so crazy about her that he always bends over backwards to accommodate her,
and that’s why when she came right out and admitted she wanted me to marry Sebastian I was absolutely terrified. It’s obvious,
of course, why she wants me to marry him. She feels guilty because after she married Daddy she found out she couldn’t have
any more children, but she’s figured out that if Daddy’s daughter by his first marriage marries her son by her first marriage,
she and Daddy will at least have mutual grandchildren.’ She shuddered but it was no affectation. Her pallor now had a greenish
tinge. I even wondered if she was about to vomit. ‘I loathe Sebastian,’ she whispered. ‘I just loathe him.’
I decided that the best way of handling the conversation was to be as sensible and down-to-earth as possible. Melodrama can
seldom thrive in an atmosphere of candid common sense. ‘What’s so terrible about Sebastian?’ I said. ‘I know he’s shy but
he’s not a bad-looking guy and he’s smart enough to be doing well at Harvard.’
She was unable to reply. I began to be seriously perturbed. ‘Vicky, does your father know exactly how you feel about Sebastian?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘There was a scene four years ago but we were all supposed to have got over it. We’ve all promised never,
never to refer to it again.’
I felt more perturbed than ever. ‘That’s all very well, Vicky, but I think Neil would be horrified if he knew this incident,
whatever it was, is still very much alive for you. But at least on one point I can put your mind at rest. Your father has
no intention of encouraging you to marry Sebastian. In fact I can promise you Sebastian just doesn’t figure in his plans for
your future at all.’
Her relief was painful to see. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Very sure. In fact I couldn’t be more sure. I can’t reveal confidential
conversations, but I give you my word of honour that you’ve been jumping to the wrong conclusions.’
‘But Alicia—’ she broke off with a start as the buzzer sounded in the hall. ‘Who’s that?’
‘I don’t know. My housekeeper’ll get it. Vicky, Alicia’s little pipe-dream is her problem. But it’s not yours.’
A faint tinge of colour was returning slowly to her cheeks. ‘I’d still like to get away from home for a while … Uncle Sam,
would you take me to Europe?’
‘Europe!
Me
? What a great idea! However I doubt if your father would approve of me taking more time out from the office when I’ve been
away so recently. Look, why don’t you go down to Florida for a while and stay with your mother? Your mother’s in town right
now, as a matter of fact – I was talking to her earlier this evening and I was impressed by how concerned she is for your
happiness—’
‘That old hag? Concerned about me? You’ve got to be kidding! She’s concerned about nothing except how to hold on to her latest
lover! Why, I’d rather take a vacation on the Bowery than in Fort Lauderdale with my mother!’
My housekeeper tapped on the door and looked in. ‘Excuse me, Mr Keller, but Mr and Mrs Van Zale are on their way up.’
‘No!’ shrieked Vicky.
‘God help us all,’ I said in German.
The doorbell rang in the hall.
[2]
‘I can’t face them!’ sobbed Vicky. ‘I can’t!’
I gripped her shoulders and gave her a short sharp shake. ‘Calm down at once, please. That’s better. Okay, I’ll talk to your
father in the living-room but I want you to stay right here in the den. Can I trust you to stay here and not run away? I’d
hate to have to lock you in.’
She said in a small voice: ‘I’ll stay.’
‘Good. Now just remember this: fantastic though it may seem to you, all your father wants is your happiness. And remember
this too: no one can force you into marriage. All you’ve got to do is say no – or at the very worst keep your mouth shut when
you’re expected to say “I do.”’
‘Yes, Uncle Sam,’ she whispered. Her great grey eyes, shining with unshed tears, regarded me as devoutly as a true believer
might gaze on a minister declaiming the word of God from the pulpit, and for a brief
moment I thought again of all the children I had never had in the split-level home which had never existed on the outskirts
of Bar Harbor.
‘Right,’ I said abruptly, giving her hand a quick squeeze. ‘Now just you keep your promise and stay here. No eavesdropping.’
Turning up the volume of the music, I escaped into the hall and opened the front door just as Cornelius rang the bell a second
time.