The Carousel (20 page)

“Or maybe those flashy red ones would be better?”

“That depends on the woman. There’s the red type, the flashy red, and we all know her. The apricot is for the sweet woman, the one that lasts.”

“Since you’re a philosopher,” Ian said, “tell me. What about some of each?”

The man laughed. He was a very, very old
man. “It never works that way. We all know that, too.”

At home Happy would be at her desk, preparing for the opening of school in September. Her eyes would light when he brought the roses.

“Ian, how beautiful!” she would cry, and then, “Is it some special day that I’ve forgotten?”

Yes. Special in its own way.

“I’ll take the apricot,” Ian said. “The sweet one that lasts.”

September 1990

I
n the first weeks of September, through the woods that climbed the hills behind the house, a splash of emerald still lingered here and there among the dusty reddish browns and golden maples. The mild air was filled with the smoky, subtle aroma of fall.

Sally, letting the book drop shut, gazed out of the window toward the yard, where Nanny was entertaining the children. She was leaning down to hold Susannah’s hand; now merely a few days past her ninth month, this tiny person was taking her first steps. When she looked up at Nanny, there was astonishment on her face:
Look what I can do!

Sally had to smile, for most babies begin to walk at twelve months or even later. Then, as quickly as it had come, the smile shrank on her lips. Tina also had started at nine months. Now
whenever there was cause for some new pleasure in this second baby, her chortling laugh, or the growing thickness of her dark hair, it was only to be reminded that Tina had done, or been, the same.

At that moment, Tina, no doubt to Nanny’s great relief, was occupied in the sandbox. Thank heaven for Nanny, Sally thought. Tina herself was almost a full-time job these days, leaving not nearly enough time for enjoyment of Susannah. But Tina needed her so badly.

Now that the school year had begun, every morning was a battle that the mother sometimes won and the daughter sometimes won. The kindergarten teacher was a young man, one of the new breed of teachers. He was by all reports a talented young man, with a genuine feel for little children’s needs. And yet, Tina feared him. There was no reasoning with her.

Dr. Vanderwater, having been informed of this, had been working on the problem. Abruptly then, a week ago, Tina announced that she would not go again to “play” with Dr. Vanderwater. So where does that leave us? Sally asked herself. You can’t very well pick up a child and carry her, kicking and screaming, to where she doesn’t want to go.

The only thing Tina really wanted to do was to ride her pony, Rosalie. However, she would go only if Sally would rent a horse and ride with her. Uncle Clive was no longer an acceptable companion.

“I won’t. I won’t go with him. I don’t like him,” she said with, as usual, a stamping of her feet.

There was no need to argue the point even if anyone had wanted to argue it, for Clive had been taken to the hospital three days before with a severe case of pneumonia.

“Don’t coax or try to reason,” advised Dr. Vanderwater. “Stay loose. Let things take their course. If she doesn’t want to see me now, let her be. She’ll decide to come back. She’ll see me as her friend as long as you don’t press the point.”

It was plausible advice from an expert. Then why was she so doubtful? The morning’s ride, followed by the usual household errands and the unfortunately usual lunchtime tensions, had tired her out, and she wasn’t one to tire easily, she who thought nothing of a ten-mile hike. But Saturdays and Sundays were the very devil lately. And retrieving the book, which had slid to the floor, Sally tried once more to read. The book only slid to the floor again while she sat gazing at, although not seeing, the glaze of foliage on the hills.

“You look as if you’d lost your last friend,” Dan said as he came in.

She thought she detected a touch of scorn in his voice. When she turned to him, she saw that it had indeed been there.

“Not my last friend, but I have lost something.”

He gave a long, purposely exasperated sigh. “Not again, Sally. Or should I say, still? You’d
think somebody had died in the house. Buck up, will you?”

Resentful of this rough intrusion, she mocked, “ ‘Buck up.’ If there’s any more stupid expression! What do you think I’m doing? You at least can get away from this trouble for a few hours every day, while I’m here trying to, trying to—” She groped for words. How to express what she was trying to do?

“I suppose there’s no trouble at the office. I suppose all I do is sit there, answer telephone calls, write charming letters and sign them, then wait for the checks to roll in. Nothing to it at all.”

“You know I didn’t mean that. All the same, anything you may have to cope with is nothing”—and with thumb and forefinger she made an “O”—“nothing compared with this heartache. Tina’s getting worse, don’t you see that?”

“No, I don’t. As a matter of fact, she seems a little better.”

“You don’t believe that, Dan. It’s only your congenital optimism that’s talking.”

“Oh, you object to optimism?”

“Yes, when it’s just a way of shielding yourself from facts you can plainly see and don’t want to see. It’s the one trait in you that I frankly can’t stand.”

“The trouble with you is you want what you want right now. You want it yesterday. With all your education, you ought to know better. You surprise me, Sally.”

“With all that education, my friend, I do know
better. What I know is that your nice Dr. Vanderwater is too casual about what’s happening to Tina.”

“Too casual? Are you a judge? What medical school did you graduate from?”

“You don’t have to be sarcastic, Dan.” She stood up. “Listen. I want to go back to Dr. Lisle. I’ve this minute made up my mind.”

“Then you’re out of your mind. What did we accomplish with her? Nothing. Worse than nothing.”

“We didn’t give her a chance.”

“Listen to me. The only thing that woman was able to come up with was some sensational horror based on an airy theory. Good God, we’ve been all over this a hundred times, and I’m sick of it. I don’t want to hear any more of it.”

“You’re pretty dictatorial this morning, aren’t your?”

“No, I’m commonsensical, and I’m the child’s father.”

“I’m her mother. Doesn’t that count for anything?”

“Really? I thought Mrs. Monks down the road was her mother.”

“Don’t be funny. We’ve got to do something with this child, don’t you care?”

“No, I don’t care,” Dan drawled. “My children don’t interest me at all.”

“Don’t mock me, Dan Grey. I won’t stand for it. I have as much right to make decisions in this family as you have.”

“Seems to me you make plenty of decisions. I never stop you.”

“So I want to take Tina back to Dr. Lisle, or somebody else. I want to change, and you’re trying to stop me. So don’t say you never do.”

“Then this will be the exception.”

“Who says?”

“I say.”

Tears of anger brimmed over onto Sally’s cheeks.

“Damn you!” she cried as Dan left the room.

Frustrated and furious, she did not know what to do with herself. She moved away from the window so that Tina would not see her and come in to demand attention that she was in no mood to give. Perhaps a walk, a long, demanding climb up into the hills, would relieve the worry and the anger. She went upstairs to change from heels into sneakers, comb her hair—she did look woebegone, uncared-for—and come very gently down to avoid Dan’s notice. Damn him!

She had just reached the front door when he came out into the hall, looking more like his usual self.

“Sit down,” he said, and as she followed him into the living room, continued, “This is all wrong. We’re both worried and unsure, so we’re taking it out on each other. We both know,” he said ruefully, “that this is quite normal. It’s what people do, unfortunately, when they’re half out of their minds with worry. I’m sorry it happened. Forgive me, Sally.”

Instantly softened, she admitted, “I’m sorry, too. I’ve not always been the sweetest lately either.”

“I’ve thought of something. This is September. Let’s be both fair and practical. Let’s give this man until the first of the year to work with Tina, and then if we don’t find any change for the better, we’ll go elsewhere. Either to Dr. Lisle if you wish, or look for somebody. How does that sound?”

“It sounds fine if Tina will go back,” Sally said with some doubt.

“Well, if she refuses, then we’ll know for sure that he’s not the right person. Maybe it’s even possible that between you and me and Nanny, in time she’ll straighten out. Shall we try?”

Still doubtful, she nevertheless assented. The suggestion was reasonable enough.

“There’s something else that’s got me disturbed. Ian and I each had a piece of overnight mail, and that’s what took us both to the office on a Saturday morning.”

“I wondered why you went out this morning. What happened?”

“It’s Amanda again. Here, I’ll read. ‘I have waited too long already. I made you a proposition last March, and I’ve heard nothing from you, Dan, but a rejection, a very final-sounding one, and from you, Ian, yet another request for patience. Well, I think I have been very patient. From Clive I never get any answers except that he doesn’t take sides, which is ridiculous. I’m tired of waiting for your foreign investors, who may, after all, change
their minds. And even if they do not change their minds, who is to say, with you people unable to agree, how much longer I will have to wait for you to straighten out your affairs? No, you’ll have to buy me out at the market price or I’ll sell my shares to strangers. I’ve told you that before, but you haven’t believed me. My new law firm in New York advises me now—’ and so on and so on,” Dan concluded, wiping his forehead. “So that’s another reason why I was in a bad humor, Sally. Things are coming to a head, and I’m so worried, I can’t see straight.”

“So you saw Ian. What then?”

“It was bad,” he said gloomily. “We had a knock-down fight. Oh, a verbal one, but it was bad. Bad. He attacked me as if he had caught me robbing him. Well, the bottom line is that Ian can’t resist that offer. He says so himself. ‘They’ve made an offer we can’t resist.’ Simply put, it’s greed. Never in his life has he complained about overwork! He always loved the challenges. Now he says he’s sick of a strike in South America holding up deliveries, and our chocolate business slumping because there’s a new European brand in competition and rising costs, and on and on. So if we sell the forest, we can afford to get rid of the business with all the headaches—well, you know,” Dan said, breaking off.

The sight of his distress brought forth Sally’s deepest loyalty. “I think he’s disgusting,” she cried. “To take an inheritance like this and throw it away in the trash!”

“To say nothing of any allegiance to the workers and the community.”

“When is Oliver coming back from France?”

“Not until close to Christmas. He’s been invited to stay with friends at their house in the Alps. But it wouldn’t make any difference if he were here. He wants no part of this decision, so that’s that.”

“Oh dear, are you and Ian really on the outs now? Not speaking to each other? I hate to see discord like this, especially since Happy and I are such friends.”

“It needn’t have anything to do with you two. As for me, I don’t see Ian and me having much to say to each other from now on.”

The falling cadence of Dan’s voice saddened the room, that room so filled with life, in which chrysanthemums and the last of the roses stood among books and photographs, where a rag doll lay on the floor and an enormous jigsaw puzzle lay on a table. A stranger, walking in, would never imagine that any family who possessed so much could have such troubles.

“I think,” Dan suddenly said, “I’ll run down to the hospital and visit Clive. He’s going home tomorrow, so I don’t see any harm can come by just filling him in on our fight this morning and maybe getting his opinion. It’s time he declared himself, anyhow, one way or the other.”

Clive, sitting up in bed, was glad to see Dan come in.

“I thought you’d be walking up and down the hall, getting ready to go home tomorrow.”

“No, I’m resting.”

“Sure. Pneumonia takes a lot out of you.”

“That it does. You never had it?”

“Not yet.”

“You’ll live to a hundred. You’re what they call the picture of health, Dan.”

It was true. Fair, pink-cheeked, tall and muscular, Dan was “the very model of a man,” thought Clive. And yet he had never resented that superiority. There was a decency in Dan that made it impossible to feel anything but goodwill toward him. Still, at this moment he saw something in the other’s expression that caused him to ask, “Is anything wrong?”

“No. Why? I only came to see you.”

Clive narrowed his eyes. “Something’s upset you. I see it in your face.”

Dan smiled. “Pretty shrewd, you are. Yes, Ian and I had a blowup this morning. The same business about the consortium and my difficult sister. Amanda wrote a letter. Or should I say, an ultimatum? I wouldn’t be bringing this trouble to you today if I hadn’t known you were okay again and going home tomorrow.”