The Carousel (24 page)

Clive had courage. He didn’t want to be pitied. Yet Sally pitied. When people were brave, your heart went out to them even more.

“I thought you’d bring Tina,” he said now. “I never see her anymore.”

They had asked Tina to come along today, but she had been going through one of her silent spells, and they had not pressed the matter. Dear God, how much longer, Sally wondered, and lied cheerfully, “We’ll bring her next time. She had a friend over to play, and they were having fun, so we didn’t disturb them.”

“Of course not,” Clive said.

They sat for a while watching the horses. The very sick or even those who are recovering are in another world for a while, Sally reflected, imagining
that the healthy animals and the clean, healthy air must be a gift of renewal for Clive, that he was sitting there quietly being grateful.

“Father’s coming home next week. He telephones every day to find out how I am.”

“Big phone bill,” Dan said, being jocular.

“He wants a few days before Christmas up at Red Hill, did you know?”

“I heard. It’ll be fun for a change.”

“I’m glad. I’ve been wanting to stay at the new cottage. Roxanne and I will sleep there and walk over to the main house to eat. Our first Christmas for Roxanne and me.” He went on ruminating, “I wish I looked better, though. When I pass a mirror, I get sick all over again. Not that I ever was anything to look at, but now—”

Sally said quickly, “The hair, you mean? Why, that’ll grow back in no time. Don’t worry about it.”

Clive turned to her. “You’re very good to me, Sally. I don’t believe I’ve ever told you or thanked you for welcoming Roxanne. You and Happy, too. Ian I don’t understand. He came to the hospital, couldn’t do enough and still does plenty for me, but he never comes to our house, never asks about my wife. I know he was shocked by the marriage, I’m sure you all were, but that’s no reason to be like this. I don’t understand.”

“He’s been terribly upset,” Dan said. “I don’t know whether you know.”

“I know. I read the paper just this morning.” Clive smiled. “I know about the letters, too. I
found my secretary trying to hide my copies, and I made her give them to me.”

“We didn’t want you to have anything to worry about,” Dan said.

“I understand.” Clive paused. “I know I can speak frankly to you both, so I’ll say it. Amanda’s another one I don’t understand. Of course, I scarcely know her. But greed, hers and Ian’s, is beyond me. They already have so much.”

“It’s beyond me, too,” said Dan.

“Ian, I’m afraid, is immovable. But maybe Father will be able to convince Amanda when she comes.”

“Maybe,” Dan said.

He knows better, Sally thought. She was so sad for him, and as she looked now into the silent depths of the ancient forest, sad for it, too.

Dan cleared his throat and said abruptly, “Clive, I’ve decided. I’ve thrown in the towel. The Swedes and their crowd, Ian, Amanda—it’s a losing battle no matter how you turn. There’s no way out.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying that I’ve told Ian to do what he thinks best. I’m finished with the struggle. And I release you from your promise. Let’s make it unanimous with Ian and see what happens.”

“Dan, you can’t do that.”

“Can I keep banging my head on a stone wall? Not one wall, but two?”

“I vote for Grey’s Woods. I vote against the
consortium. It would break Father’s heart, and yours, too.”

“Oliver hasn’t taken sides, Clive.”

“Only because he doesn’t want to hurt anybody. That’s how he is. But I know what’s in his heart. I know.” Clive raised his head defiantly. “I may not look it, but I’m a fighter.” Then he laughed. “Funny, Roxanne has for some reason been broaching the subject lately. I never thought she was interested, but I guess Happy must have told her something. She thinks I should vote with Ian for the consortium.”

That’s odd, thought Sally. Happy never discusses the business with me. It’s our unspoken agreement.

“It must be the tempting money,” Clive said, still laughing a little. “Twenty-eight million. It’s a staggering sum by anybody’s standards, and I guess when you never had anything—How she appreciates things! It’s a pleasure to watch her in the house, bustling around, cooking. She’s a marvelous cook, a homemaker.”

Sally was glad that the subject had veered from the business. It had been grinding Dan down, that and the frantic worry over their child.

“She loves being home. Sometimes when she disappears on an afternoon, I miss her so. The house is too quiet until she comes back.”

He seemed so happy, with that tranquil look on his face. Sally had never before heard him speak so openly about himself. It was completely uncharacteristic.
And Roxanne, of all people, had done it.

“You know,” Clive went on, “I never realized how splendid life can be. Just six months ago it all began. Can you picture those fireworks on the Fourth of July, that fierce burst that seems to spread flowers all over the sky? Well, that’s what has happened to my life.”

Such poetic imagery coming from this man was astounding. You never knew what you might discover in the most unlikely people! And with shame, she recalled the evil thoughts she had once had about Clive Grey.

He said shyly, “I have to trust you both with a secret. Roxanne is pregnant. It’s very early, and she doesn’t want it told yet, but I have to tell someone.”

Dan said promptly, “Congratulations! That’s great. That’s just great.”

“I’m thrilled,” Sally said, wondering about the consequences, a father who might die before the child was even born, although they said he wouldn’t. But he looked so dreadful.

“I hope it doesn’t look like me,” Clive said, not joking.

“There’s nothing wrong with the way you look. And it doesn’t matter what a child looks like, anyway, as long as it’s healthy,” Sally assured him, and meant that from the bottom of her worried heart.

The short winter afternoon was ending. It was time to take Clive home. For a minute they sat in
the car watching him as he moved slowly, almost at a shuffle, up the hill, fumbled with the key and let himself in at the door of his gracious house.

“My God, Dan, how sad.”

“Yes. But how he’s changed. As dry and sharp-tongued as he used to be, now he’s absolutely soft. I don’t recognize him. Is it the illness or the woman?”

“Some of each, I suppose.”

At the highest point in the road, where through the bare trees the city’s lights were beginning to show, Dan slowed the car.

“My father worked down there, too,” he murmured, “and his father before him.”

Sally touched his arm without speaking, for she understood that he was already mourning the death of Grey’s Foods.

“I’m flying to Scotland the week after next for five days,” he said. “I have to see about a new product, some sort of mincemeat. Pie stuffing. I’ll be back long before Christmas, of course.”

“So you haven’t quite given up?”

“We’re not buried yet, although I daresay we will be soon, but as long as we’re above ground, I’ll keep on feeding the business.”

“You have what they call guts, Dan Grey.”

“The first of the year. By then, things will come to a head.”

She could have reminded him of his promise that if by then Tina had not improved, they would make some kind of drastic new effort by the first of the year. She could have told him that only
yesterday morning when Happy had come by on an errand and found Tina having a frightful tantrum about going to school, she had gently suggested that perhaps they should see a doctor. “Have you taken her anywhere?” Happy had asked, and when Sally had answered, “Not yet,” she had repeated the name of Dr. Lisle. “She’s supposed to be excellent,” she had said, and Sally had not replied.

She could have told him all this, but she did not. The day was growing cold and dying. The year was dying. Let it go quietly. After this new year, as Dan had predicted, things would come to a head.

December 1990

I
an raised the grimy shade and looked out at the parking lot. A wind was coming up so hard that he could almost hear the creak of the Happy Hours Motel sign as it swung. It was only a quarter to four, but the day had ended and the tinselly Christmas festoons around the property were already lit.

He hated an afternoon assignation. It lacked the festive excitement of the night that could give charm to even such a tawdry and depressing place as this.

Roxanne was sitting up in the bed shivering. “It’s as damp as the inside of a goddamn icebox. You’d think they could at least give you some heat for your money.”

Her clothes, as always, had been tossed on a chair. He picked up her new mink coat and read the label of a fashionable New York furrier. This
coat was a decided improvement over the one he had given her.

“Here, wrap it around yourself,” he said brusquely. “By the way, didn’t you tell me you had stopped swearing every second word?”

She laughed. “I only swear when I’m with you. With you I can be myself.”

He knew he was supposed to acknowledge the intimacy in some endearing way. But because a somber mood had come upon him, he did not do it.
After coitus, man is sad.
He remembered having read that in the original Latin when he was in school and snickering over it with his best friends. In all the years since then, he himself had rarely experienced any such sadness, and certainly not after Roxanne. Nevertheless, here it was, a cloud before his eyes and a weight on his shoulders.

Like a robed queen, she now sat wrapped in fawn-colored fur with a narrow gold collar gleaming at the V-neck. After the satisfaction of desire—and make no mistake, Ian, he told himself, you were just as eager as she was—she had settled in for a long, cozy talk.

“Get up,” he said. “I don’t know about you, but I have to go home in time for dinner. We’re having guests.”

“I thought you were staying with your father at Red Hill for this week. We went up there last night. I took this afternoon off to see the dentist, ha, ha.”

Roxanne had not yet brought herself to say “Father,” as Happy did. Perhaps it was because she
had her own father. Yet Happy had one, too, whom she called “Dad.” More likely it was that Roxanne was too much in awe of Oliver to say the word. Most people were in awe of Oliver, even when he was at his most kindly.

“We’re driving up there tonight after the guests leave.”

This whole business had been Clive’s idea, and it was a nuisance. Still, the poor guy had never asked for anything, and actually wasn’t asking for much now. Maybe he was thinking that this Christmas season was to be his last. And he imagined Clive sitting there in front of a fire, reading.

“This Christmas will be my first of those family get-togethers that you dread so much. But don’t worry, I shall be perfect,” Roxanne said with a little gesture, fingertips to her lips as if kissing, that she often made.

This, too, annoyed Ian. “Come on, will you get moving? I have to go pay the bill, and I can’t while you’re still in the room.”

“Okay, okay.” She yawned, stretched, and slid naked out of the bed. As she bent over to pick up her clothes, as she fastened the brassiere in the back with arms akimbo and breasts outthrust, as she raised her arms to put on her sweater, every slow, graceful motion was as studied as those of a striptease performer.

“You don’t show yet,” he said.

“Of course not. It’s only two months.”

Three weeks ago she had informed him that
she was pregnant, and he was still having moments when he was sure he had dreamed it.

“Are you certain it’s no mistake? For God’s sake, are you certain?” he pleaded.

“I told you I went to the doctor. It’s no mistake.”

“I meant, whose it is,” he said, swallowing his disgust at the words.

“You’ve got some nerve asking me that again, Ian.”

“I have a right to ask. We’ve only been together three times, once that night at your house, and twice here.”

“One is enough, my friend. And what is this third degree, anyway? Look at the man! I haven’t been with him for the last three months. How could I? Use your head. Yes,” she said, clasping a velvet band on her hair, “it’s been a short, short honeymoon.”

“Don’t,” he said.

It was revolting. And he stared back out the window where Roxanne’s BMW was parked in full sight. “He treats you pretty well, doesn’t he?”

“What are you looking at, the car? Yes, he does. He treats me better than you did when you had the chance.”

“Don’t,” he said again. And he saw Clive lying in the hospital, fastened down by all those tubes, saw Clive lying in a coffin, and whirled around crying out, “I am so ashamed, Roxanne!”

She was repairing her lipstick. When she was finished blotting it carefully, she answered him.

“It’s a little bit late for that now, isn’t it? I’ll tell you what, Ian. Your trouble is too much conscience. If you had married me when you could have, we wouldn’t be in this pickle now.”

Fear drained him. He could feel it pouring through him like ice water, descending into his vitals. “Doesn’t he—won’t he question the dates?” he asked.