by Belva Plain
“I know all that. But there are always the foundations. Maybe even government funds. Matching funds, if only we could get started and have something to show.”
“Why do you want this, Martin? Have you any idea what you’re letting yourself in for?”
“The answer to the second question is yes, I think I know. As to why I want it, that goes way back. Let’s just say I’m convinced we need it. The profession needs it. The patients need it.”
“There’s no lack of neurological centers, as far as I can see.”
“True. Although they’re not exactly what I have in mind. But aside from that, don’t you think our hospital, one of the finest in the city, or the whole country for that matter, deserves this honor, this crown on its head?”
Moser smiled. Martin could hear the smile in his voice. “You put it well. You’d like to run the whole shebang, naturally.”
“I’d like, Bob, to teach and do the research I’ve been missing. That’s what I’d like.”
“You’d have to give up a lot of time from your practice, wouldn’t you?”
You’re doing very well, you can make a pile for yourself. Why don’t you let well enough alone? That’s what Moser was saying in effect, exactly as Eastman used to say it.
“Bob, I want this,” Martin said. “You want the moon, too?”
“Call it impossible, call it what you will, I want it because it’s right.”
“I’d never get the trustees to go along. The world’s full of nay-sayers.”
“Once the building’s up, ten, twenty years from now, no matter how long, and the patients start coming and the work is being done, they’ll be the first to applaud, I promise you.”
“Maybe so.”
“Bob, I’m going to do it, even if you won’t help me.”
“Talk sense, Martin. You don’t know the first thing about finance. How in hell are you going to do it?”
“I don’t know. I’m going to begin. You built up Phoenix Tool and Die. You didn’t sit around, afraid to take a chance, did you? You began with nothing, didn’t you?”
“Well, you might say I did, yes.”
“Okay. Enthusiasm I’ve got. And I’ll get others behind me. I know I will. I’ll go to meetings, I’ll talk. We’ll get contributions from the public, too, you know.”
“I doubt that.”
“I already got my first check this afternoon. And I know we can get more.”
“How much?”
“Five hundred dollars.” There was a silence.
“Five hundred dollars from a grateful patient who had no reason to be grateful.”
“You’re not serious, Martin?”
“About what? The patient? Of course I am.”
“I meant the money. Just what the hell do you think you can do with five hundred dollars?”
“The Chinese have a saying, ‘Every journey begins with the first step.’ ”
“Well, all right, but—”
“We need a campaign. We need to organize. You have contacts in industry. I’ll tackle the foundations; maybe you can, too.”
“You’ve absolutely no idea how hard it will be. The foundations are inundated with appeals.”
“Bob, I know it can be done.” And suddenly inspired, Martin cried, “If there hadn’t been this kind of drive and confidence all through the history of medicine, if they hadn’t found the means to build hospitals and fund research and train people, your daughter wouldn’t be playing tennis now.”
Again there was a silence, much longer this time. Martin, holding the phone, heard traffic noises, noises from the kitchen and Moseys silence. At last there came a tired sigh.
“Okay, Martin, you’ve got me. We’ll need to do a lot of talking, though. You’ll need to get some tentative figures together, very rough, so at least I’ll have some idea of what we’re talking about.”
“I’ll do that.”
“Better get advice on those figures before you bring them to me. I have no confidence in you at all as a businessman, I must tell you that.”
“I couldn’t agree with you more. But I can get the facts you want. Give me three weeks. I’ll call you.”
“Fine, Martin. You do that” And Moser hung up.
A sense of unreality was left in the room. Martin’s head went light, as if he were going to be sick. He looked at his hands as if they belonged to someone else. What had he done? And he sat there thinking: Perhaps it will be too big for me after all.
Then, after a long while, reality flowed back. A bag full of apples or potatoes rolled over the kitchen floor and a child shouted. Trucks stopped on the street below, the workmen cursing cheerfully at each other. Life was proceeding in all its noisy, brave confusion.
Can do, he resolved. Anyway, I need to be overworked. It’s the way I am. Otherwise I think too much. It’s always better to be doing and trying, even if I fail.
He got up from the chair. Every journey begins with the first step.
Chapter 25
Arrivals and departures made a modest bustle in the lobby of the Connaught. Fern, waiting for Simon, could identify by clothing and accent the varied travelers: Americans, West Germans and British country people spending a few days in town. He hadn’t wanted her to go upstairs with him to meet the customer, who assuredly would have been flattered to meet her. The man was a haggler, he said, and he’d be able to get a better price for her work if she wasn’t present.
The money would be very welcome, she reflected with an unconscious sigh. Alex had told her often enough that there wasn’t sufficient inherited wealth to live on, and there certainly wasn’t.
Yet she would be sorry to part with the picture, a quiet, cloudy seascape which she had done while on a visit to Isabel and her husband in Scotland. It had been one of those rare, remembered days when everything had seemed to fit, and she had thought, observing the happiness of her newlywed daughter, that life would probably go well with Isabel, that unlike her mother, she would see it through into hearty middle-age with little conflict.
They had been very close that afternoon, and the memory was all there on canvas: the gauzy, cloud-striped sky, the enormous loneliness of the dun beach and the kindness of three who were friends.
Paintings, she thought, and not only her own, were like children being shunted between foster homes. To sell them was to demean them. One felt such tenderness for them, as one peered close to marvel, especially at a Turner or other masterwork, to study the way in which the brush had been applied, the way in which color could be used to hold the life of light! It pained you when all that love—yes, it was love that went into it—fell into the hands of people who didn’t understand it, who perhaps didn’t even like it very much but knew it would be talked about because it was expensive. Or worse still, knew it would rise in value so that in a few years it could be got rid of, traded up!
She opened the newspaper to the critic’s column which had so delighted Simon that he had telephoned her an hour before breakfast that morning to read it aloud.
“Not to be missed,” she read again, “is the retrospective exhibit by M. F. Lamb at the Simon Durant Gallery. Once past the collection of her earlier works, sensitive foreground figures, all seemingly in mourning in a gray-black world, and influenced, it is rumored, by depression after the loss of her husband in the war, one can allow oneself to be enchanted by a lyricism which recalls the young Matisse. Her landscapes and interiors alike display a balanced organization and taut harmony. Empty space has indispensable meaning for this painter. It must be said that, unlike Matisse, the somewhat tender colors produce a dreaming, feminine effect which is fortunately never sentimental.
“Of particular charm is the Girl with Flute, the muted reds giving a fragile—” And so on.
Well, it was all very fine, very wonderful. It would never have happened if she hadn’t met Simon at a quite casual supper in the country a few summers before. He’d given her a tremendous push, had brought her forth at a time when she had relinquished the pos
sibility of being anything more than a Sunday painter. And in bringing her forth, she saw clearly, he had forced her to grow. Recognition was tonic. She was doing better work. And for the first time in years, she could feel the stirring of new possibilities.
The elevator opened and a young couple came out Their glossy leather bags were already waiting for them at the front entrance. These must be the people. Bolivians, Simon had said, honeymooning on a mining fortune. Yes, they were speaking in Spanish. The girl was very young and shy. He was handsome and tough. An arranged match, perhaps? They still did that among important upper-class families in South America.
So that is where my Scottish afternoon is going, Fern thought I don’t think it will bring him any joy!
The elevator opened again, and here was Simon. By his smile she knew that negotiations had gone well. It had probably been trying, since the richest people could drive the hardest bargains.
“Sorry to keep you so long,” he said.
“I haven’t minded. I’ve been watching the crowd. So it went all right?”
“Splendidly. We got our price. It’s a good thing you didn’t come up, though. He even sent his bride out of the room. Apparently money is a dirty subject to discuss in front of women. Shall we have lunch?”
“But I’ve got the car in town, and I wanted to drive home this afternoon.”
“Can’t we at least have a quick salad or a sandwich someplace?”
It touched her whenever his cheerful animation subsided into disappointment. His generosity merited generosity in return.
“All right,” she said, “a quick salad.”
“I never get to see you.”
“You do. We had dinner only last Sunday.”
“Well, but this is Friday, isn’t it?”
She took his arm and they went out onto the street.
“Goodness, there must be a million foreigners in the city this summer, don’t you think?” she said gaily. She was fending him off, leading away from the personal. And a little chill of guilt went through her, as it does when one has ignored a child or been sharp to someone who doesn’t deserve it.
They sat down at a table in a bay window. Fern busied herself mixing oil and vinegar for the salad. Simon gazed out to the street, his lively face gone still, the heavy eyelids dropped like hoods so that he could only have been seeing the bottom half of the passersby.
Ordinarily, he had so much to say. He talked better than anyone she knew, with a great deal of sophistication and yet very little skepticism—an unusual combination of traits. It was not easy to be an optimist without being also something of a simpleton.
He was an attentive listener, too. But sometimes he would look at her with such close attention, as if he were seeing far inside, as if she could hide nothing from him, that she would feel her thoughts coming to a fumbling halt.
She stole a troubled look across the table. A few gray strands had come into his sandy hair; she had never noticed them. He would stay young for a long time, being of the thin, supple type that at eighty or thereabouts has thick white hair and wears good tweeds and remembers how to dance.
So they sat for a little while until presently Simon found something to say.
“Everyone all right at home?”
“Oh yes, thank goodness.” Fern grasped at conversation. “I heard from Emmy yesterday. She still adores Paris. I don’t suppose she’ll ever come back.”
“You never know.”
“No, you don’t, do you?” she agreed.
“She may marry some sturdy British businessman, and you’ll have her back here again.”
“Maybe so.”
Silence. Why was it especially awkward today?
“Strange how different my daughters are from one another. And they look so alike,” she remarked, feeling instantly embarrassed at her own banality. As if Simon could care about the personalities of her daughters, whom he had seen perhaps half a dozen times! But she went on, “Emmy knows four languages, so she’s perfect in the European business world. I can’t see her satisfied living Isabel’s life, having one baby after the other.”
“I didn’t know Isabel was—”
“No, not yet, but I’m sure she will be. They both want lots of children.”
“The way it looks,” Simon said, “you’ll be rattling around alone in Lamb House, won’t you?”
“Well, I don’t know about rattling around. It was left to Ned, naturally, although I have the right to live there as long as I want. Maybe sometime Ned will marry and come back. Then, of course, I’ll move out Although, I don’t know really.” Now her thoughts ran seriously, for the subject was of genuine concern. “He doesn’t show any signs of settling down. He’s due back from Egypt soon, does well in every job he’s had, but right now someone’s put a bee in his bonnet about America. So many of the young men want to go where the ‘action’ is. That’s their expression.”
“Where the money is,” Simon said. “I daresay you can’t blame them.”
“I wouldn’t say that was true of Ned. He’s creative and imaginative. I really think it’s just change that he wants, something new. He ought to do splendidly in advertising.”
“Of course, New York’s the base for that.”
“So very likely he’ll be flying off again. I miss him,” she said simply.
“From what I see, children are ungrateful wretches. You put everything you’ve got into them, and all they do is forget you.”
“They have to live their own lives, Simon.”
“I suppose so. Still, I’ve never regretted having none. Margaret did. It must be a much deeper need in a woman, after all. Almost the last thing she said to me before she died was that she was sorry she wasn’t leaving me with a daughter or a son to remember her by.”
“But you remember her anyway,” Fern said softly.
“Shall I tell you something? It’s been ten years, and by now I really don’t remember very much. Yes, I recall how loving and good she was, and that we lived well together. But I don’t really remember her. I can’t quite see her face anymore. Do you understand?”
Fern didn’t answer. Alex’s face? It came back to her only in some swift movement of Emmy’s mouth or when Isabel threw her head back to laugh too loudly. She had never seen Alex in Ned. He might have been of different stock, so different was he, with those musing eyes and that odd half-smile, reminding her, improbably as it was, of Martin.
And suddenly she was aware that her fork was half-raised to her lips. She laid it down.
“I’ve upset you,” Simon said kindly. “I didn’t mean to, Mary. I’m sorry.”
“You just called me Mary,” she said. “No one ever does.”
“You told me once you liked it better. I try to remember that. I try to remember everything you like.”
“You’re so good,” she said. “Just good. There’s no other word.”
“Am I?” He shrugged. He took a cigarette from the pack, choosing it carefully, tapping it, lighting it, pursing his lips and blowing the curled smoke toward the ceiling. Then he ground it roughly out, twisting it in the ashtray, and reached across the table for her free hand. His own was trembling.
“Marry me,” he said. “I’ve been on the verge of asking you so often and you know it, don’t you, Mary? I’ve all but said it a dozen times.”
“I know.” And lowering her eyes away from his gaze which was so intense, so strong that it frightened her, she thought: I am not ready for this.
“With a little push, even a glance, a bit of something in your voice to encourage me, I would have said it long ago. Well, now I’m saying it. Marry me.”
It was too bad, too bad, that tears should spring into her eyes.
“I know I’d always take second place.”
“You shouldn’t be satisfied with second place.”
“But if I’m content, Mary, isn’t it for me to choose? Besides, it’s not like a recipe, is it? Loving, I mean? You can’t measure it: a cup of this, a spoonful of that Loving
is different every time.”
She murmured pointlessly, “I don’t know.”
“So even though I understand how you loved Alex, this would be different.”
She didn’t answer.
“Besides, Alex is dead.”
The waitress came to take the plates away. Simon released her hand and she put it in her lap, not wanting to be held, not wanting to be fastened.
“I’m not ready yet,” she said, looking down at her hands.
“You’re not a girl anymore. There’s not all that much time.”
“That’s true.”
“When will you be ready, then?”
“I don’t know,” she said again.
“I would be good for you. I’ve been good for your work already, you’ve told me so.”
“Yes. Yes, you have. You would be.” She looked up. He was so grave, so fine and grave. “Oh, I wish I could,” she cried, and now it was she who stretched both hands across the table and took his. “Oh, Simon, whatever you say about not caring, not minding, you deserve so much better!” Her tears rolled over and slid.
“Don’t cry here,” he said gently. “Well go now. I’ll take you to the car.”
The top was down and the rushing wind, the sound and touch of it, calmed her grieving spirit. That Simon’s proposal should have been so painful! Dear, trusted friend! Considerate, tender, and demanding, too, as one wanted a man to be! What was wrong?
In the late afternoon when she kissed him good-bye on leaving the gallery, his cheeks were rough, for his beard grew quickly. He was clean, so very clean. She knew so much about him. She knew what he liked to eat and to read, the kind of friends he chose. What was wrong?
That ache. That other. Still she saw him as on that last morning when, through the rearview mirror of the car, she had watched him walking down the street in his American uniform, walking out of her life again, going away. She had not been on that street since, had taken care to avoid it. The flat where they had said good-bye had been given up, the excuse being, and it was the truth, that it was too expensive to keep.
Her thoughts ran in tangents. Even Lamb House could only be maintained by opening it to the public two days a week. American tourists came crowding to see how an English county family lived, or had lived. But she had an obligation to keep the place for Alex’s children. The girls wouldn’t want it, but perhaps Ned might one day. He had understood his father’s feeling for it. My feeling, too, Fern thought. The house speaks to me. Martin saw that. “You love each tree,” he told her once. He had understood. It always came back to Martin. Everything always came back to him. Everything joined in a circle: Alex’s house and Martin and Alex’s son. Her son. Where did it all end?
