‘You’re serious? You really want to leave here? But I thought you loved England!’
‘And so I do. Yet I don’t fit in here, Vicky. Maybe I’m just too young to sink into a quiet retirement in a civilized intellectual
retreat. Or maybe I’m just too American. It’s no bed of roses being a foreigner, even if you wind up in a country where the
natives are reasonably friendly.’
I smiled at him. ‘You’ll be like a character out of an Orwell novel. Your epitaph will be: “He came to love the plastic society!”’
‘Maybe.’ Sebastian looked gloomy. Then he sighed and added wryly: ‘Henry James and T. S. Eliot came to Europe and were upset
because it seemed so decadent. I come to Europe and I’m upset because it seems so goddamned dull. I have this craving to be
back where the action is. The vicarious thrills I got from the latest Shine take-over could almost be classed as obscene …
Okay, let’s go to lunch. There’s this nice place right by the river …’
We drank white wine and ate herb omelettes by the window of an upstairs restaurant which seemed to lean out over the water.
Below us on the river young tourists drifted by in punts, and in the distance above the roofs and gables the college spires
soared into the summer sky.
‘Sebastian,’ I said on an impulse, ‘I’m doing this course on Existentialism in Literature, and although I only understand
about one word in ten I’m finding it very fascinating. Have you ever read the Sartre trilogy
Les Chemins de la Liberté
?’
‘Loved the first, hated the second, never faced the third …’
We wrangled happily about Sartre for some time, but when our omelettes were finished and the waitress had arrived with our
coffee Sebastian brought the conversation back to earth by asking after the children. I told him I was worried about Eric
because he didn’t seem interested in girls and I was worried about Paul because I was afraid he
was smoking pot on the sly and I was worried about Samantha because she was boy-crazy and I was worried about Kristin because
she was so overshadowed by her pretty sister and I was worried about Benjamin because he was Benjamin. And Sebastian laughed
and said how much more interesting it was to have children who were individuals instead of children who were well-regulated
robots, like the offspring produced by Andrew and Lori, and somehow it was such a relief to talk to Sebastian about my family
because he always made me feel I wasn’t doing so badly as a parent and in fact might even be doing rather well.
After finishing our meal we strolled outside.
‘I’ll take you down to the backs,’ said Sebastian, and drove us in his little red car down to the meadows at the back of the
major colleges. We walked down an avenue of trees to the river. It was quiet and the fields were full of flowers. On Clare
Bridge we both paused to lean on the parapet, watch the weeping willows and admire the glow of the sun on the colleges’ mellow
walls.
‘Imagine going to college in a town as beautiful as this!’ I said enviously.
‘The little devils probably take it all for granted. Come on, I’ll show you King’s College Chapel. It’s a real tourist-trap
but you can’t possibly leave Cambridge without seeing it.’
The chapel turned out to be not a chapel at all but a full-sized church, and as we drew nearer I saw the miracles of architecture
which had made it so justly famous. I was still admiring the soaring walls and the long windows when I stopped dead. ‘My God!’
I said in awe.
‘What’s the matter?’
‘The roses! Sebastian, just look at those voluptuous stone roses – oh, and there’s more of them over here! How did the stonemasons
manage to carve them like that? They’re magnificent!’
‘The English today think they’re vulgar,’ said Sebastian. ‘Elfrida Sullivan referred to them as “typical Tudor
nouveau-riche
excess.”’
‘I’d have slapped her. What did you say?’
‘Said I’d rather have
nouveau-riche
excess than
ancien-régime
decadence. Elfrida said why settle for either and began talking about the temples of classical Greece.’
‘Elfrida was always such a know-it-all.’ I was gazing at the great vaulted ceiling, and it seemed to me that the slim columns
supporting it were straining upwards for some mystical attainment which could never be expressed in words. ‘It’s lovely,’
I heard myself whisper inadequately. ‘Lovely.’
‘Yes, it’s okay. Christ, here comes another coachload of Americans! August in Cambridge is like an extra-territorial meeting
of the United Nations. Let’s go and sit on the lawn overlooking the backs and pretend we’ve lived here all our lives.’
Finding a bench facing the huge expanse of lawn which stretched from the river to the walls of King’s College, we sat for
a while in the sun. It was very quiet, very peaceful.
‘I don’t see how you could ever leave such a wonderful place, Sebastian.’
‘Crazy, isn’t it? Why did I have to be a born banker with a built-in homing instinct for New York? It makes no sense.’
‘Well, I’m sure you’ll have no trouble getting another good job on Wall Street.’
‘There’s only one job I’d ever consider taking.’
We went on sitting on the bench. The sun went on shining on the tranquil scene but I shivered as I scrabbled in my purse for
a cigarette.
‘But that’s okay,’ said Sebastian. ‘That’s no problem, because of course in the end Cornelius will invite me back – and on
my terms. Egged on by Mother he’ll swallow his pride and make another effort to come crawling back to me, and
that’ll
be the justice Scott was always trying to find; Cornelius will have to hand over his life’s work not to Scott, the guy he’s
always secretly liked, but to me, the guy he’s always secretly loathed. Christ, what an irony! I’ll be literally laughing
all the way to the bank.’
‘And Scott?’ said my voice.
Sebastian looked surprised. ‘What about him? Cornelius has obviously ruled out the possibility of making Scott his successor
– why else would he have railroaded Scott to Europe for so long? If he’s lucky Scott may manage to hold on to his partnership,
but he won’t get any further. He’s shot his bolt. Cornelius finally wised up. My guess is that Cornelius is just waiting for
your affair with Scott to end and then he’ll fire him.’
‘But I’m going to marry Scott, Sebastian. We don’t plan on being engaged indefinitely. We’re going to marry at Christmas.’
There was a pause. A bell began to toll somewhere and far away we could hear the sound of laughter from the people punting
on the river.
‘Uh-huh,’ said Sebastian at last. ‘Well, if that’s what you want, good luck to you. I always told you to go after what you
wanted, Vicky. I always told you to stop other people trying to run your life for you. And I always said that whatever happened
I’d be with you all the way.’
I couldn’t speak. I felt as if someone were revolving a knife round and round in my body, and in that single moment I felt
more confused than at any time since we had agreed in the Oak Bar of the Plaza to end our marriage.
A group of tourists were wandering past us as we sat on the bench and one of them, a little boy with fair hair and blue eyes,
was skipping along ahead of his elders with a daisy-chain in his hand.
‘Same age as Edward John,’ said Sebastian, idly voicing what we were both thinking. ‘Funny to think of Edward John. I guess
that by this time he’d be running around being a menace and giving us both hell, but I never think of him that way. I think
of him saying “please” and “thank you” and giving you flowers on Mother’s Day and running off to read
Treasure Island
in his spare time. How one sentimentalizes the dead! “They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old …” By the way,
I always thought Rupert Brooke wrote that line but the other day I discovered the author was some guy called Binyon. I wish
I had the time to take you to Rupert Brooke’s Grantchester – it’s only a couple of miles away, but I guess we’d better be
getting back to the station. You don’t want to miss your train.’
We returned to the car in silence and the silence persisted all the way to the station.
‘I won’t park the car and see you off,’ said Sebastian. ‘That sort of genteel masochism only belongs in dated British movies.
So long. Thanks for coming. Good luck.’
‘Sebastian—’
‘We do what we have to do. I know that. You don’t have to explain.’
‘I wish so much—’
‘No, don’t. No point. Call me if ever you need me. Now get the hell out, please, before you miss your train and everyone in
London starts to think I’ve abducted you.’
I struggled out of the car and blundered into the station. Amidst all my confusion I was acutely conscious that Scott had
been justified in trying to stop me seeing Sebastian. He had prophesied the meeting would upset me and now here I was, very
upset indeed. I told myself I shouldn’t have seen Sebastian, shouldn’t have gone to Cambridge, shouldn’t have put myself in
such an unbearable position, but when I asked myself just what that position was I found I was incapable of defining it.
I thought of Edward John and cried all the way to the end of the platform as I waited for the train.
[1]
‘I’m calling to offer you my best wishes, Vicky,’ said Jake Reischman. ‘I hear your engagement’s now official.’
It was September. The children were back in school and I was back in New York after crossing the Atlantic with my mother on
the
Queen Elizabeth
. Scott was due to return to New York on business in October so our separation was to be short, but I had still hated to leave
him on his own. However after a summer away from home I knew my children should now be my first priority, so with a great
effort I had resisted the temptation to stay on in London.
‘Why Jake, how nice of you to phone …’ I was in my bedroom changing into a dress before I paid my weekly visit to my father
for an evening’s chess and gossip. By the telephone on the nightstand was my best framed photograph of Scott, and as I spoke
to Jake I was remembering how the sea breeze had ruffled Scott’s hair as he had smiled for my camera. We had been sailing
off the Sussex coast at the time, and he had just given up liquor again. Out of sympathy I had joined him on the wagon and
was delighted when I immediately lost weight and felt healthier. In fact I had just decided that there was no reason why I
should ever drink alcohol again when I had boarded the
Queen Elizabeth
with my mother and within half an hour had been gasping for a martini. My mother had driven me to distraction during the
voyage by flirting with a seventy-eight-year-old widower, drinking champagne from dawn till dusk and reminiscing interminably
(as old people will do) about the so-called ‘good old days’.
‘It’s really nice of you to call, Jake,’ I repeated trying to concentrate on the conversation as I watched Scott smiling at
me from the photograph frame.
But Jake never mentioned Scott’s name. Nor did he ask any questions about my impending marriage. All he said was: ‘I have
a favour to ask you. When will you next be seeing your father?’
‘I’m on my way to him right now.’
‘Then will you tell him, please, that’s it’s most urgent that we talk? I’ve tried calling him but I only get the young men
he hires to pick up after him, and although I leave messages he doesn’t return my calls. I’d greatly appreciate it if you
could help me.’
‘All right.’ I was annoyed that my engagement had merely provided
him with an excuse to enlist me as a go-between, but since Jake had been good to me, forgiving me for my role in Elsa’s failed
marriage and remaining fond of me despite his long estrangement from my father, I made an effort to keep my annoyance hidden.
‘How are you, Jake?’ I said politely. ‘I haven’t seen you in a while.’
‘Unfortunately I’m not well, which is one of the reasons why I must speak to your father as soon as possible about this business
matter which concerns us both. My ulcer’s been making my life difficult again. I go into Mount Sinai tomorrow for an operation.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry to hear that.’ I was startled, my annoyance forgotten. ‘Well, I wish you lots of luck – and I’ll make sure
Daddy calls you this evening, I promise.’
‘Let me give you the number of my new apartment. He won’t have it.’ He dictated the phone number rapidly and then added with
that colourless air which autocratic men often assume when they try not to appear as if they’re dictating orders: ‘Don’t listen
if he says he’ll call me later, Vicky. Have him call me while you’re there, and if he stalls tell him …’ He stopped for a
moment as if to choose his words with care. Then: ‘Tell him I’ve got sentimental in my old age. Tell him the Bar Harbor Brotherhood
means more to me than the new generation controlling this decadent disastrous decade.’
It suddenly occurred to me that he might be very ill indeed and anxious to heal past quarrels before he entrusted himself
to his doctors.
‘Don’t worry, Jake,’ I said. ‘I give you my word that he’ll call.’
(2]
Let me show you my new toy!’ said my father with enthusiasm. ‘A tape-recorder which is activated by the sound of the human
voice – how Sam would have enjoyed it! I’m going to have it installed in my office so that I can record every interview without
fuss. Why, the clients won’t even know they’re being recorded! Isn’t that clever? When I think of the old days when Sam had
to mess around with the Vox Diktiermaschine and the Dailygraph—’
‘Lovely, Daddy. Listen—’
‘—but now all I have to do is instruct my secretary to make sure there’s always a tape in the machine. Then even
I
can forget the interview’s being recorded! There’ll be no knobs to switch on, no buttons to press, no – sorry, were you trying
to say something?’
I told him what Jake had said.
We were in the library of my father’s apartment, and beyond the
windows the sun was setting behind the trees of Central Park. My father’s new tape-recorder lay on the coffee-table alongside
a copy of
The Economist
. The astronaut chessmen faced one another expectantly on the table by the steel bookstands, and beyond them above the television
was the latest painting my father had acquired, a ketchup bottle by Andy Warhol.
My father had been stooping over his tape recorder but as I spoke he straightened his back and looked out at the long sunset.
His face was almost hidden from me, and the light, streaming through the windows behind him, made it still harder to see his
expression.
‘You’ll call him, won’t you, Daddy?’ I said, putting Jake’s number by the phone. ‘Please!’
He picked up the slip of paper but I knew he was looking not at the numbers but at the tennis court at Bar Harbor and the
four boys who had played and laughed together there long ago beneath cloudless summer skies.
Without a word he picked up the receiver and started to dial.
‘Mr Reischman, please. This is Cornelius Van Zale.’
He had seated himself behind his desk and as he waited he picked up one of his silver ballpoint pens and drew a pattern on
the blotter. I had just realized that the series of rectangles formed a tennis court when he began to speak.
‘Jake? Vicky gave me the message.’
There was a long silence while Jake talked. My hand fidgeted with one of the pawns but all the while I was watching my father,
and as I watched he slowly laid down his pen and turned his swivel-chair away from me to face the window.
At last he said: ‘I see. Yes. Thank you.’ And after another silence: ‘I’m sorry to hear that. You must tell me if there’s
anything I can do.’ And finally: ‘Yes, I’ll take care of it. Thank you again.’
Swivelling the chair slowly back to face the desk, he replaced the receiver. His features were grave and somehow pure as if
they belonged to a statue whose sculpted features were incapable of expression. His fine eyes were a clear empty grey.
‘Is he dying?’ I heard myself ask.
‘Yes. There’s a fifty per cent chance he may die on the operating table tomorrow. If he survives he’ll have a year. Cancer.
Someone said only the other day how thin he’d become.’
I thought of the Uncle Jake I had known long ago, and felt the lump form in my throat.
We said nothing for a time. My father went on sitting at his desk and looking at the tennis court he had drawn on the blotter.
I went on
sitting in my chair and watching him. Finally I said: ‘Daddy, what went wrong between you and Jake?’
‘It doesn’t matter any more.’
The minutes slipped away and still he didn’t move. Eventually as I began to recover I realized he was still in shock.
‘What was the business matter he wanted to discuss with you?’
My father was bone-white. As he slowly swivelled his chair to face the window again I noticed that the long sunset was over
and darkness was falling at last on the city.
‘Nothing,’ said my father. ‘Vicky, you’ll excuse me but I’m going to have to take a raincheck on our game of chess.’
‘Of course.’ I was moved that he should have been so affected by the news of Jake’s illness, and crossing the room I stooped
to kiss the top of his head as he sat in his chair. ‘Shall I stay longer so that we can just talk? Or would you rather be
alone?’
‘I have to be alone,’ he said. ‘I’ve got to think.’
‘Sure. Good night then, Daddy,’ I said, giving him another kiss, and left him alone with his thoughts in the steadily darkening
room.
[3]
Jake survived his operation but for the first three days was allowed no visitors except the members of his immediate family.
I heard that his elder daughter Ruth, twice divorced and now living in Europe, flew to New York and visited him with Elsa
but Jake’s son David, a California drop-out, couldn’t be traced and his ex-wife Amy remained in Florida. When the ban on visitors
was lifted I felt reluctant to go to the hospital in case I met Elsa, but after a week of dithering I bought a small spray
of flowers and ventured into the reception hall of Mount Sinai.
‘I was wondering if I could see Mr Jacob Reischman for a few minutes,’ I said after I’d been referred to the nurse in charge
of the appropriate floor.
In the brief silence that followed I noticed that she had blue eyes, finely lined at the corners, and soft dark hair beneath
her cap. Then she said in a kind voice: ‘I’m sorry, but I must give you some bad news. Mr Reischman had a relapse this morning
and died half an hour ago. Would you be a member of the family?’
I said: ‘No.’ And then: ‘Yes. In a way. Excuse me.’ And turning away I walked quickly down the corridor, avoided the elevators
and ran down the stairs to the lobby.
[4]
Alicia greeted me in the hall of my father’s apartment. As usual she was dressed not dowdily, for her clothes were exquisitely
cut, but dully in a plain dark blue skirt and jacket with a white blouse and no jewellery. A small dark blue hat partially
covered the dyed brown sweep of her hair.
‘Hullo dear,’ she said. ‘I was just going out to lunch. Why, how very pale you look! Is anything the matter?’
‘Oh Alicia!’ I said, the words tumbling out of my mouth ‘I feel so sad – I’ve just been to the hospital and they told me Jake
died this morning. I don’t know why I should feel so sad when I’ve seen little of him recently, but somehow he seemed to stand
for the past – for something that’s now gone for ever—’
I stopped. It was the expression in her eyes. Her face remained still, her features composed in the passionless mask which
had always alienated me, but her eyes were brilliant with memory and I knew then, even before she spoke, that she had loved
him.
[5]
‘Of course I never considered leaving your father,’ she said. ‘I’ve always loved him more than anyone else. But we’ve had
our difficult times.’
We were sitting by the window of her bedroom on the uncomfortable chaise-longue which Alicia had for some reason cherished
for years. Alicia was smoking a cigarette. The pitcher of martinis before us on the table was empty but our glasses were still
full.
‘… so you see what a mess it was,’ said this extraordinary woman I had never known. ‘It irritates me so much nowadays when
adultery is depicted as if it were no more than an innocent date between teenagers. It’s the fashion now, I know, to condemn
hypocrisy but all I can say is we’re living in very dishonest times. We’re not mechanical dolls programmed to copulate without
emotion at the drop of a hat, and to pretend that we are – as most young people seem to today – strikes me as being not only
dangerous but pitifully naïve. How ironic that the chic word today is “cool”! To dabble in other people’s emotions isn’t cool.
It’s lighting a fire and stepping into the flames.’
There was a pause while she stubbed out her cigarette and I offered her another.
‘Well, we all got burnt,’ she said when the cigarette was alight, ‘but after Sam died things got better. Cornelius gave up
Teresa and I’d
already given up Jake. I suspect Teresa was glad to go, but Jake … He wasn’t the sort of man who quits easily. He approached
me again after Sebastian was fired and matters were at a low ebb once more between myself and Cornelius, but of course there
was no question of me resuming the affair because by then I knew that Cornelius and I were capable of recapturing our past
happiness no matter how deeply we might be estranged. We’d proved that after Sam died, and I thought that if only I waited
long enough we would prove it again.’
‘And did you?’
‘No. I doubt if we ever will now. I’ve been waiting in vain … But don’t misunderstand! We may not be close but we don’t quarrel
and we’re fond of each other, and that’s more than most couples can say after thirty-six years of marriage. I’m content. I
have my sons and my grandchildren, my health and my looks. On the whole life’s been very kind to me. It’s only on days like
today, when life seems so greatly diminished, that I want to cry for the past and the way life might have been.’
‘Alicia, I do wish we could have talked before.’
‘There was never anything to say. Our lives were like two parallel lines which never met. But I’m glad I’ve talked to you
about Jake. I’ve wanted to talk to someone about him for years but there was never anyone to tell.’ She looked over her shoulder
at the silent phone. ‘I wonder if I should call your father. No, let him hear the news from someone else. It’s better that
way.’
After a pause I said: ‘I’ll call him,’ and began dialling the number of the bank at Willow and Wall.
[6]
On the twenty-second of November, just a month after fifty thousand anti-war demonstrators had marched on Washington, the
United States army captured Hill 875 near Dak To after one of the bloodiest battles of the war in Vietnam, and the blood seemed
to stream through my own living-room as I watched the television news. That evening I wrote to Sebastian: ‘There’s got to
be an end to such pointless waste of life. Someone’s just got to draw the line,’ but no one drew the line so life went on
with the daily body counts of the dead and the shattered, the daily promises of President Johnson to deliver his Great Society,
the daily reminders of divisiveness and death. And as the drumbeat of violence rose in a steady crescendo I was acutely aware
of the accompanying music of the times shifting key as the songwriters moved
away from innocent love songs and began instead to glamorize the increasingly fashionable drug scene.