The Last of Philip Banter

by John Franklin Bardin

  ‘Another time he was to meet me on a street corner. I saw him across the street. I saw him look at me and then go into a bar. I waited a few minutes and then crossed the street. But when I went into the bar he wasn’t there. He must have gone out a back entrance. He didn’t come home for days that time. And, as usual, he said he could not remember what he had done or where he had gone.’

  Dorothy had been speaking furiously. Now she stopped, to catch her breath, and glanced at her father. The old man’s posture and mien had not changed. His hand still clutched his gloves. His cane still shot upright from between his knees. His unyielding gaze seemed to Matthews outrageously malevolent. But Dorothy was relieved – she sighed and some of the stiffness left her face – when Steven Foster nodded his head curtly.

  ‘What do you think, doctor?’ Dorothy asked.

  Matthews spoke slowly, emphatically. ‘I’ve known Philip for a long time. He was always sensitive. When I first met him his adjustment was dependent and precarious he leaned heavily on his friend, Jeremy Foulkes, used him as a model and mentor. But then Jeremy did the same with him. It is not unusual in college to see two friends who mutually idolize and patronize each other in this way.

  ‘But after Phil met you, it seemed to me that he matured quickly. If he was something of a Lothario in college, I thought he was now a devoted husband. I am surprised, and a little shocked, to hear your testimony to the contrary. And I am put in an uncomfortable position. Your husband is still my friend, Dorothy – even as you are my friend. A doctor, especially a doctor of the mind, must put aside all emotional allegiance when he accepts a patient. If Philip had come to me, and told me that he was ill, I might be able to work with him. But when you and your father come to me, and tell me these things without Philip’s knowledge, there is little I can do. It is not that I doubt your word, but just that I do not see how I can act honourably, as a friend, or effectively, as a physician.’

  ‘You could talk to the man!’ exploded Steven Foster, projecting his resonant voice across the room. ‘You could call him down, tell him he is ruining his life!’ The old man’s rugged face was infused with colour.

  ‘A psychiatrist never calls anyone down, Mr Foster,’ Matthews said abruptly. ‘Nor would I, as an individual, think of dealing that way with Philip. Neither is it sound medicine, nor sound friendship.’ He looked at Dorothy, who had also arisen. ‘I would like to talk with Philip though, Dorothy. Perhaps, the next time we have lunch together, he will ask my advice. You must understand that it is psychologically necessary for the patient to come to the doctor. All you can do is inform me that Philip is ill. Of all that you have told me, only the “voice” that he hears seems symptomatic to me. That doesn’t mean that you aren’t right in your suspicions that Philip is facing a break. But you should realize that while drinking – even heavy drinking – and promiscuity are often neurotic, they are not by themselves signs of a psychosis.’

  George Matthews had walked to where Dorothy was standing: now he took her hand. Her dark eyes were quiet and brooding. Her mouth trembled. ‘I’m afraid he doesn’t love me,’ she said simply. ‘He has changed so. I don’t know what I’ve done.’

  Matthews did not know what to say. He was concerned, too, but he was not sure whether it was Philip who was ill. He tried to be matter-of-fact. ‘Talk to him. Encourage him to talk to you. Try to get him to tell you why he leaves you. Don’t be jealous. Don’t attempt to watch him every moment. Give him his freedom. Suggest that he come and speak to me.’

  They were at the door. Matthews glanced at his watch and saw that it was time for his next appointment. Then Steven Foster, who had at last gotten to his feet and walked over to them, broke in irately.

  ‘You doctors are all alike!’ he cried. ‘You never have any time for common-sense, direct methods. I thought you might be different from what I read in the newspapers, and what my daughter told me, of how you solved the Raye case.* But no, all you can do is to mumble scientific terms and beat about the bush. Why don’t you come right out and tell the girl that the only thing she can do with a man like Philip Banter is to divorce him or have him horsewhipped? ‘

  Dr George Matthews, for the first time in his life, held the door of his office open for a patient. He was exceedingly angry, although he did not show it, and he wanted Steven Foster to leave immediately. But he answered his outburst with courtesy. ‘I never prescribe horsewhipping as therapy. Corporal punishment is at once mediaeval, cruel and ineffective. As to divorce, that is not for me to decide – certainly not on such skimpy evidence. Since you have been rude enough to allude to my experiences with the police, and my abilities as an amateur detective, all I can say is that both have been exaggerated – and that I hope I shall never have the opportunity to add to them.’

  Dr Matthews smiled again at Dorothy, turned and went to his desk. His mind was already on his next patient. Dorothy took her father’s arm – the obstinate old man was still enraged – and led him from the room.

  When they had reached the street, Steven Foster hailed a taxi and told the driver to take them to the Algonquin. He sat in a corner of the cab, his lean fingers caressing the polished knob of his stick, his eyes intent upon the taximeter. Dorothy smoked a cigarette nervously and tried not to keep glancing at her father. She knew now that she should never have come to him that morning and told him about Philip. She had found him at breakfast, alone at the long table in the formal dining-room of the town house in which she had spent her girlhood – and the sight of her father at the head of the table had, as always, vanquished her. He had looked at her and asked, ‘What have you done?’ The question had stripped her maturity from her, made her a guilty daughter again, forced the conversation into a well-known pattern that allowed the full expression of parental authority.

  Within a few minutes she had told her father all the most secret of her fears and suspicions about Philip – the accusing words had come tumbling out in response to his probing, skilful questions. And, as she confessed, she felt the full shame of her self-betrayal. She realized that she was damning both Philip and herself by giving in to her father, yet this knowledge did not deter her. She had only wanted to come to her father’s house for a few days, to stay away long enough for her absence to worry Philip. Her father would not have known, indeed, she had not wanted him to know, what was wrong. If she had not forgotten that she had never been able to withhold the truth about any of her misdeeds from her father, she also had not recognized that she felt guilty about her relationship with Philip. And yet she must have felt guilty, why else had she confessed? It was this unpremeditated action of hers that bewildered her.

  Once she had told Steven Foster about her husband’s loose habits and queer ways, the old man had become coldly angry. He had wanted her to see his lawyer at once. This she had refused to do since she felt a need to defend Philip against her father’s authority. Not that she had not thought of divorce before; she had on many occasions when Philip had deserted her or by some chance she had uncovered fresh evidence of his chronic infidelity. But to have her father suggest that she see a lawyer was, in some way she did not understand, treachery. Instead, she had said that she wanted to consult George Matthews – whom she knew to be Philip’s friend – and her father had gone to arrange the appointment, grumbling about ‘that modern fad, psychoanalysis’.

  Dorothy had never expected to get an appointment that day, in fact, she had hoped that the time set would be weeks in advance and that by then she would have solved her difficulties with Philip. When her father had come back from the telephone and announced grimly that ‘Dr Matthews will see us at eleven o’clock,’ she had been horrified. Her mouth had gone dry and her pulse had pounded. She had wanted at that moment to call Philip, to ask his help. But this she could not do, nor was there any way she could escape the appointment.

  The taxi jolted to a stop at a traffic light and the sudden jar interrupted her thoughts. She looked out the window and saw that they were nearing the hote
l. Her father still sat rigidly in his corner, and the sight of him made her want to shudder. In the past such fits of taciturnity meant that he was arriving at a decision which he would ultimately force upon her. Now he was probably planning how to deal with Philip. Dorothy leaned forward and deposited her cigarette in the bent and battered ashtray that clung to the side of the door. This time, no matter what Steven Foster decides, I will not do it, she said to herself. And the part of her that always quarrelled with her highest ideals and most fervent resolutions, her materialistic conscience, reminded her – ‘If you don’t, it will be the first time since you married Philip that you have gone against your father’s wishes.’

  The light changed to green, the taxi lurched forward and turned down the side street to the hotel. Steven Foster did not change his position until the cab had come to a full stop in front of the Algonquin, then he flicked a bill at the driver, clambered out and stood stiffly while his daughter stepped down. Taking her arm he said, ‘We shall have luncheon here and while we eat we can decide what to do about Philip.’

  Dorothy shook her arm free of his firm grasp and walked ahead of him into the lobby. She walked rapidly, as if she wanted to escape him. He stepped forward slowly and resolutely, as if he knew that for her escape was impossible.

  While Dorothy and her father lunched at the Algonquin, Philip and Mr Peabody had luncheon at Angelo’s in the financial district. The Peabody account had not been a fortunate one for Brown and Foster. Sales had fallen off during the first year’s campaign, despite an enlarged budget and additional space in the latter half of the year. A few weeks before Philip had submitted the suggested programme for the next twelve months, a campaign which Philip had worked out himself, supervising it down to the last detail with the copywriter and the art director. But Philip had not given it much thought since it had been submitted. The fact was that recently he had found it impossible to think about advertising matters at all. He sat at his desk, when he was at the office, and tried to remember the intervals that he had forgotten. Sometimes, his vision would fog, the dingy, dirty light would soil everything he looked at, and the voice would begin to pester him about yesterday or the day before.

  ‘Philip, why can’t you remember. Think hard, Philip…’

  So Philip was not prepared to defend the merits of the campaign, and this was exactly what he was called upon to do. He had left the taxi at One Wall Street, still shaken by his narrow escape from death a few minutes before, and had taken an express elevator to one of the topmost floors of the tall building. As he stepped out of the car at his floor, a large man pushed past him hurriedly, knocking him off his balance. He fell backwards into the elevator just as the automatic doors were closing. He knew that these doors did not bounce back from an obstruction like subway doors, but kept closing inexorably. He struggled desperately, off-balance, to lunge forward – spurred on by the helpless cry of the elevator operator who was reaching to reverse the controls. Suddenly, he was struck in the back, slammed forward onto his knees. And at almost the same moment, the heavy doors whispered together and he heard the car drop down the well. He knelt on the floor, breathing heavily, cold sweat on his forehead. Had there been two attempts on his life inside of a half-hour? Or had the burly man, who had entered the elevator successfully and without Philip’s seeing him full on, only accidentally knocked him off-balance? Both his near collision with the truck and his almost being crushed to death might have been accidents – but they also might have been attempts on his life. He was going to have to be very careful.

  Philip stood up, brushed at his knees and walked down the corridor to Peabody and Company. He gave his name to the receptionist and she showed him into the board room where Evergood Peabody, the president of the company, was surrounded by his vassals. The campaign was spread out on the long table and the men were hunched over it, exhaling cigar smoke at it, peering at it malevolently. As he entered the room. Philip heard one of them saying, ‘I agree with you, Mr Peabody. Even the theme, the basic gimmick, hasn’t the “Peabody push”.’

  Philip saw at a glance that the campaign was being torn apart. All the men, every one of whom depended on Evergood Peabody for his opinion but – once the line of argument to follow was established – were quite capable of destroying good copy and art in any number of ingenious ways, jumped on Philip at once. ‘The headlines have no zing,’ said one, another said; ‘The copy’s too long, it takes too much time getting in the sales punch.’ ‘I miss the “Peabody push”,’ said a third voice. ‘This thing hasn’t enough class, no real distinction,’ complained another.

  Fighting off these generalities as effectively as he could, Philip tried to concentrate his sales talk on the essential – tried at all times, even when he was addressing a subordinate, to aim his argument at Evergood Peabody. For, as everyone knew, the president made all decisions at Peabody and Company.

  At one o’clock, Evergood called off the discussion. ‘I just wanted you to get my department heads’ reactions,’ he told Philip, chummily putting his arm around him. ‘Let’s you and me go to Angelo’s for lunch where we can talk this over quietly. Then we can decide what to do.’

  Philip followed the client out of the board room and down the hall. He knew that the dogfight he had just been in might mean nothing at all, or it might be highly significant. The real decision would come from Evergood Peabody himself in the next half-hour or so. Even now he was making up his mind.

  And Philip did not really care. He was preoccupied with his own problems: the two ‘accidents’, the voice he heard, the ‘Confession’. He was especially concerned with the voice, because – as they walked down Wall to Pearl Street and Angelo’s – the voice kept sounding in his ear. ‘You have to be more careful, Philip,’ it was saying. ‘You’re so forgetful – you even forget to look when you cross a street. Please remember what I say, Philip.’ He was glad when they reached the restaurant and found a table quickly. Now, for a few minutes, Peabody would be busy eating and drinking and telling his interminable stories, now he could relax and perhaps the voice would go away. But he did not relax and the voice did not go away.

  While Peabody talked at length about a hunting trip he had taken in Canada, Philip listened to the voice. There had been moments when he had not been able to hear it since he left the office. But the sound of bells had persisted, as had the queer, dirty light. He picked up a knife from the table and held it in front of his eyes. If he could only see the silver gleam, he would feel better. But, no, the same greasy film seemed to cling to it, too, just as it covered his hand, the tablecloth, yes, even Peabody’s face!

  Only then, as he looked hard at his face for quite another reason, did Philip realize that Peabody had asked him an important question, a very important question.

  ‘I beg your pardon,’ Philip said, ‘I didn’t understand.’

  Peabody coughed pompously and patted his chin with his napkin. ‘I would have thought you’d hear that! I asked you if you can think of any good reason why my company should retain your agency’s services.’

  The ringing ceased. The fogginess faded and in its place were the hard outlines of Peabody’s heavy-jowled face, brightly, sharply defined. Philip’s mind baulked at the meaning of the words it heard. Why, the man was firing the agency, they were losing the account! And only a moment before he had been talking about the seven point buck he had shot!

  By now Peabody was glowering at him. ‘Maybe you don’t hear so well today, Mr Banter,’ he said. ‘If so, I’ll repeat my charges. Our sales are off twenty per cent – thirteen per cent in the last five months with December yet to come in. They’re falling in the face of the biggest Christmas season this country’s ever known. All the time our advertising costs are going up. Every time you have recommended more papers, a bigger budget, fancier artwork. The copy remains the same. Oh, you change a few words here and there and tack on a new headline – but that’s all. Now, you submit a new campaign. And what do I see?’ He stopped and flopped hi
s fat hand down on the presentation. The diamond on his middle finger glared at Philip. ‘I see the same old crap!’ he snarled. ‘The very same pretty girls, the same old reason why copy, the same boilerplate layout. There’s not a new idea in that whole campaign. Peabody and Company couldn’t use an inch of it – let alone hike the budget by five hundred grand the way you have the gall to suggest!’

  He peeled the band from a panatella and stuck it in his mouth. He did not offer Philip a cigar, although there were two in his pocket. ‘In view of that,’ he went on, ‘I ask you if you can tell me any reason why we should continue your contract?’

  Philip said nothing. All he could think was: if Peabody walks out on us that will be the third client in two months. What will the old man say?

  The silence grew. Peabody puffed away at his cigar until the booth they were sitting in was clothed with smoke. Philip tried several times to speak, to say something like ‘If you could be a little less destructive in your comment, Mr Peabody’ or ‘Now, suppose we look at just one ad. and you tell me what is wrong,’ but each time he failed to get the words out of his mouth. Finally, Peabody reached for his hat.

  ‘If you haven’t got anything to say for yourself, young man, we’re just wasting our time.’ He pushed the cloth-bound presentation across the table. ‘Here, maybe you can use this some place else. It isn’t a bad programme. It’s just not the thing we need right now with sales falling off.’ The heavy jowls relaxed into a grin. He was being proud of himself for being sympathetic.

  ‘We can have another programme on your desk next week, Mr Peabody,’ Philip managed to say. ‘If you will just show me what’s wrong, where we took the wrong turning –’

  But Peabody was shaking his head. ‘You heard what the department heads had to say, son. They’re the ones that know – they’re the ones that have their hands on the public’s pulse. I’m not saying it’s your fault, son. I know you try your best to sell our stuff, but you just don’t seem to have what it takes.’ His eyes glinted. ‘Get your hat and I’ll walk you to the Battery. The sea air will do you good. Looks to me like you haven’t been getting enough exercise, son.’