by Irwin Shaw
“And we don’t even know where she is,” Leslie said, her eyes, already red from her cold, filling with tears, “so that at least we could call them to congratulate them. And no word about Caroline or Jimmy. It’s as though she’d completely forgotten she had any family at all.”
“Well, there’s nothing we can do about it now,” Strand said. “And they’ll undoubtedly explain what it was all about when we get home. Let’s go upstairs. You look as though you’ve got something more than a cold. I’ll call for a doctor.”
“It must have been a premonition,” Leslie said, as she stood up and they started toward the elevators. “Every time something upsetting is going to happen I come down with something.” Usually, Strand smiled when she talked about her premonitions. He didn’t smile today. “We should never have come on this trip,” Leslie said. “Things would’ve been different if we’d been there.”
Upstairs, he helped her out of her clothes and into a robe, and shivering now, she got into bed.
Just as the doctor was leaving, after telling them he thought Leslie was suffering from a severe bronchial infection and advising that she stay in bed for a few days and take the medicine he was going to prescribe, the telephone rang. It was Linda. “Allen,” she said, “I’m flying down to Mougins this afternoon. Do you think Leslie is well enough for the two of you to come with me? The sun would do her good.”
“I’m sorry,” Strand said. “The doctor’s ordered her to stay put.”
“Oh, isn’t that too bad.” But from the tone of her voice, Strand guessed that she was relieved. He felt that way, too. It was almost as though what they had been through had left ugly scars on them that would remind them too vividly of a scene that all of them were trying to forget. “I’ll stay,” Linda said, “if you think it will do any good.” But from the way she spoke he was sure that she wanted to get away—alone.
“Thanks, Linda. That won’t be necessary. Have a nice peaceful time down south.”
“I’ll keep in touch,” she said. “If you see Russell before he leaves for Saudi Arabia, tell him where I am and that he’s not to worry, I’ll be in Paris in plenty of time to fly back to the States with all of you.”
As Strand hung up, he was sorry that the airplane had ever been invented. As a fitting end to the holiday he would not be surprised if they wound up in the middle of the Atlantic.
The medicine the doctor had ordered seemed to be working and the fits of coughing became fewer and fewer and after twenty-four hours Leslie’s fever had abated and her temperature had returned to normal. Hazen did not call to say good-bye. Strand tried to call Jimmy in New York and Caroline on Long Island, but there was no answer at their apartment even though, with the time difference, he had called Jimmy at seven in the morning, New York time. Mr. Ketley answered the phone at the beach house and said that Caroline had been gone all day and had told him that she was invited out to dinner. If Mr. Ketley knew about Eleanor’s marriage, he said nothing about it.
Strand stayed in the room with Leslie most of the time, content to read quietly and listen to the little portable radio Hazen had bought for them during the stopover at Shannon Airport. The chain that carried France Musique played fine music hour after hour—Beethoven and Bach and Schubert, remedies from other centuries, made the days pleasant for both of them. Leslie asked him if he thought they ought to try to get in touch with Mrs. Harcourt, but Strand said it would be wiser to give her time to let the wounds heal and wrote her a short note that he hoped was warm and friendly but feared was stilted. It was not an easy letter to write. Somehow, just from being at the table when the woman was attacked by Mrs. Hazen, he felt guilty. He sent the letter to Hazen’s Paris office, although it was possible that Mrs. Harcourt had already left it and would never put foot in it again.
By the third day, Leslie was well enough to go out and they splurged and had lunch at Maxim’s, around the corner from the hotel, and after that went into the Jeu de Paume Museum and were cheered by the sunshine of the Impressionists. Leslie said that it would be nice if they could bring the couple a wedding present from France. They looked in some of the shops but everything they saw was wildly expensive and they had to settle on going to Bloomingdale’s as soon as they reached New York.
When they got back to the hotel they found a message from Russell Hazen. He had phoned while they were out and wanted them to call him at his office. He had left the number.
Strand called from their room. Hazen sounded brusque and hurried. His business voice, Strand thought. “I got back a little earlier than I expected, Allen,” Hazen said. “I’d like to leave for New York no later than noon tomorrow. I’ll have to stay late tonight at the office but if you and Leslie and Linda don’t mind waiting, I’d like us all to have dinner together at the hotel.”
“That’s fine with us,” Strand said. “But Linda is down in Mougins.”
“That flighty woman.” Hazen was annoyed. “There’s no keeping her in one place. I’ll get her on the phone and tell her to get her ass back up here by noon if she wants a free ride home.” Hazen’s vocabulary, Strand noticed, had been affected, Strand hoped not permanently, by the flood of profanity, both his own and that of his wife, the night in Tours. “And I’ll call Conroy and tell him to tell your kids our estimated time of arrival, so they can be there to greet you.”
“That’s very kind of you,” Strand said. “But tell Conroy not to bother trying to reach Eleanor. She got married a few days ago in Las Vegas and she’s on her honeymoon and she didn’t give us any address.”
“Las Vegas, for Jesus’ sake,” Hazen said. “Kids will do anything for a kick these days. How do you feel about it?”
“Dazed.”
Hazen laughed. “I can understand why. I hope she’s happy.”
“Ecstatic, she said in her cable. So far.”
Hazen laughed again. “Well, anyway, give my felicitations to the mother of the bride. I’ll try to get to the hotel about nine tonight. That okay with you?”
“Nine,” Strand said.
“How is he?” Leslie asked, when Strand hung up.
“The Master’s back,” he said. “Taking charge.”
When Hazen came into the hotel dining room fifteen minutes late, he looked haggard, with hollows under his eyes. His clothes were badly creased, as if he had flown back from Asia Minor in them and had not had time to change. He hadn’t shaved, either, and there was a gray stubble on his cheeks and chin, which gave him an oddly disreputable appearance, as though a family portrait of a distinguished ancestor had been defaced by childish vandals. I wonder, Strand thought as he stood up to greet him, how many years an ordinary man could bear up under a timetable like his. But Hazen smiled warmly, baring his even strong teeth. He shook Strand’s hand vigorously and bent over to kiss Leslie’s cheek before falling back heavily into a chair facing them. “What I need is a drink.”
“Did you get hold of Linda?”
“She’ll meet us at the airport tomorrow. She dithered, but she’ll be there. A martini, please,” he said to the waiter.
“How was Saudi Arabia?” Strand asked.
“A waste of time,” Hazen scowled. “They’re even worse to do business with than the French. They may have clocks, but they don’t seem to be able to tell the time. And there’re dozens of relatives of various desert princes you have to go through, handing out money left and right, if you want to get anything settled. I’d’ve done just as well going down to the south with Linda. And how about you? How’re you taking the news about Eleanor?”
“Shakily.”
Hazen laughed. “He’s a nice young fellow.”
“That’s what I thought,” Leslie said. “Up to Las Vegas.”
“It’s not how a marriage starts that counts,” Hazen said sententiously. “It’s how it ends up.” He scowled again, as though remembering the end of his own marriage. He sipped gratefully at the martini the waiter had put before him. “I needed that. In Saudi Arabia they put you in jail or scourge you or cu
t off your hand, whatever little pleasantry occurs to them at the moment, for a single cocktail. Try and do business with people like that. And everybody from the so-called civilized world—Americans, English, French, Japanese—are falling all over themselves to get in on the act. When the thing finally happens there it’ll make what happened in Iran look like a church bazaar. Mark my words.” He drank again, morosely. “I’ve already warned my clients to lay off and invest their money in something safe, like a patent for a perpetual motion machine.” He laughed at his own conceit. “Enough about my affairs. Have you any idea what the newlyweds plan to do, where they’re going to live, etcetera?”
“All we know is that in her cable Eleanor said she’d given up her job.”
Hazen nodded soberly. “I thought that might happen when I sent the boy down to Georgia.”
“Georgia?” Strand asked. “What has Georgia got to do with it?”
“You knew he kept talking about how he wanted to quit his father’s business and set himself up publishing a small-town newspaper and that his brothers were funding him up to a point to get rid of him.”
“I remember something like that,” Strand said.
“Well, there’s a town called Graham in Georgia, used to be a small place, but two big businesses, one an electronics company, the other a packing plant, have moved there from the north and the town’s growing in leaps and bounds and my firm represented the editor and publisher of the little daily newspaper there in a libel suit. I went down and pleaded the case myself because it was a freedom of the press issue and important and we won. I got friendly with the fellow, he was a native Georgian, went to college at Athens and all that, but he was a good tough old bird and I grew to like him. He feels he’s getting a little age on him and the daily grind was beginning to get to him and he called me out of the blue and asked me if I knew some smart young ambitious fellow with a little cash, not too much, who could take on the daily responsibility and share in the profits. And it just happened that a couple of days before I’d had drinks with Gianelli and Eleanor and he’d told me again how he’d like to take over a small-town newspaper if he could. Eleanor had said she’d take in washing in New York first, but love conquers all, as the Romans put it, and I guess that’s why she’s quit her job. My friends in Graham must have been pretty impressed with your new son-in-law.”
“Georgia!” Leslie said in the same tone in which she had said “Las Vegas” when she read the cablegram.
“It’s a nice neat little town,” Hazen said. “You’d like it.” Then he smiled. “For a week.”
“I doubt that Eleanor will last that long,” Leslie said, her face gloomy. “I can’t see her in the piny woods of the South after New York.”
“We northerners have to get used to the idea that civilization doesn’t stop at the town line of Washington, D.C.,” Hazen said. “Don’t look so glum, Leslie. It isn’t the end of the world. If it doesn’t work out, they’re both young and strong and they’ll try something else. At least they won’t go through life thinking, We had our chance and we were too cowardly to risk it. Speaking of chances, a month or so ago Mrs. Harcourt was offered a job teaching international law at George Washington University and she has now decided to take it.” Hazen spoke matter-of-factly, as if he were passing on a piece of news about a casual acquaintance.
“I’m sure she’ll be very popular at all those government parties,” Leslie said.
Hazen squinted at her suspiciously, guessing cattiness. Leslie merely smiled sweetly.
The waiter, who had been standing next to the table hoping for a break in the conversation, handed them the menus. Hazen glanced at his, then threw it down and stood up. “Forgive me,” he said, “I’m too tired to eat. And if I have a second drink they’ll have to carry me out. I’m going up to bed. It’s been a long day. I think you’d better be ready by about ten thirty tomorrow morning. There’s a weather front moving in, they tell me, and the field may be closed in the afternoon. I’m glad to see you looking so well, Leslie. You were a little peaked the other day. Good night and sleep well.” He walked, his shoulders bent and looking old, toward the door.
They ordered dinner and ate it in silence.
They met Linda at the airport. She looked well, with a new tan, but flustered. “I’m just no good at changing schedules,” she complained. “I’m sure I packed all the wrong things. It’s not like Russell at all. He’s usually as dependable as the Swiss railway system.” After kissing her briskly in greeting and saying “I’m glad to see you made it,” Hazen had gone off to make a last call to his office.
It was a raw day, with a little drizzle of rain and irregular gusts of wind sweeping the field. As they walked across toward the airplane Strand looked doubtfully up at the overcast sky. The weather fit his mood. A front moving in, Hazen had warned them. It would probably be a rough voyage. Sunshine would have been inappropriate for the end of this particular holiday. As they got into the gleaming small plane, Strand was afraid that Leslie would pick that moment to say that she was having one of her premonitions. But she was chatting cheerfully with Linda and there was no sign that the thousands of miles of wild sky ahead of them held any fears for her at all.
The trip was bumpy, but no more. Leslie and Linda dozed, Strand read and Hazen drank. When they stopped to refuel at Shannon, Hazen didn’t offer to buy them any presents, but Leslie bought a pink wool shawl for Caroline, although Strand didn’t think Caroline would have much occasion to wear it in the balmy climate of Arizona.
They arrived in New York on time and Hazen got them through customs quickly, the inspector deferentially waving them through without asking any of them to open their bags. Conroy and Jimmy and Caroline were waiting for them. Leslie gasped when she saw Caroline. She had a bandage on her nose and her face was swollen and one eye closed and black and blue.
“My God, Caroline,” Leslie said as they embraced, “what happened to you?”
“It’s nothing, Mummy,” Caroline said. “It looks gruesome, but it’s just a few scratches. George was driving me home the other night and some idiot bumped into us from behind when we were stopped at a light and I hit my head on the dashboard.”
“I knew we never should have let you out with that boy,” Leslie said. “He drives like a fool.”
“It wasn’t his fault, Mummy,” Caroline protested. “We weren’t even moving.”
“Even so,” Leslie said.
“Don’t take it so big, Mom,” Jimmy said. “What’s a little black eye between friends?”
“Don’t be so debonair, young man,” Leslie said. “She could have been disfigured for life.”
“Well, she isn’t,” Jimmy said. “How was your trip?”
“Marvelous,” Strand said hastily, anxious to avoid a family quarrel in front of the others.
“Have you seen a doctor?” Hazen asked Caroline.
“There’s no need for a doctor,” Caroline said querulously, as though she felt she was being unjustly scolded.
“Conroy,” Hazen said, “we won’t be going out to the Island. We’re going to New York and we’re taking this young lady to see a doctor. The man’s name is Laird and he’s the best one in the business for this type of thing.”
“Why don’t we just get an ambulance with a siren and life support equipment,” Caroline said sardonically, “and get the horribly mangled poor beautiful young victim to a hospital where a team of experts at bone setting and open-heart surgery are waiting to save her life?”
“Don’t be smart, Caroline,” Leslie said. “Mr. Hazen’s right.”
“Everybody’s making such a fuss,” Caroline said, sounding like a little girl. “Over nothing. It happened almost twenty-four hours ago and I’m still alive.”
“That’s all out of you,” Leslie said to her. “Just keep quiet from now on and do what you’re told.”
Caroline grunted. “I hate doctors,” she said. But Leslie took her arm firmly and marched her toward the exit, with Hazen at her other side. Strand wa
lked behind them with Jimmy and Linda. “What do you know about all this?” Strand asked Jimmy.
“Nothing. The first I knew about it was just fifteen minutes ago when I saw her. I came from New York and Conroy drove her in from the Island. Mom’s just blowing it up into something enormous. And Hazen’s just showing what a big shot he is and running everything, as usual.”
“Well,” said Linda, “at least she didn’t lose any teeth. That’s something to be thankful for. She’s got such pretty teeth.”
“I’ll ask Conroy to drop me off at the office,” Jimmy said. “I told them I’d only be a couple of hours.”
“Don’t you think you ought to stay with your sister at a time like this?”
“Oh, Pops,” Jimmy said impatiently. “For a little black eye?”
“How’re you doing at the office?” Strand said, switching the subject, not wishing to argue with his son. He hadn’t won an argument with him since Jimmy was twelve.
“Still feeling my way,” Jimmy said. “Ask Solomon. He knows better than I do. Anyway, whatever he thinks, I like the job.”
Strand was about to tell him that he didn’t like the way he dropped the Mister when he spoke about Solomon and Hazen, but suddenly remembered Eleanor’s cable. In the excitement over Caroline’s injury, it had completely slipped his mind. “Have you seen Eleanor?” he asked.
“No,” Jimmy said. “We talked over the phone last week.”
“What did she have to say?”
“Nothing much,” Jimmy said carelessly. “The usual. That I sounded as though I wasn’t getting enough sleep. Sometimes I think she believes she’s my mother, not my sister.”
“Did she say anything about getting married?”
“Why would she say anything like that?” Jimmy sounded genuinely surprised.
“Because she got married four days ago. In Las Vegas.”
Jimmy stopped walking. “Holy cow! She must have been drunk. Did she say why?”
“That’s not the sort of thing people put in cablegrams,” Strand said. “The family’s had a full week.”
