by Belva Plain
In part the crucial contact had been brought about through efforts of Bob Moser’s, but the decision to make the grant had come because of Martin.
“I’ve gone as far as I can go,” Moser had told him. “The ball’s in your court, now. You’ll have to put the idea across.”
And he had done so. In one fateful evening on the Moser’s terrace after dinner, Martin had been able to convince Bruce Rhinehart, then the acting president of the foundation. Rhinehart had been a careful listener. There had been something southern about him, with his long, narrow face and pince-nez, his way of inclining the head in courteous deference. Bob Moser was obviously in awe of him. The control of millions, even though they are not your own, commands respect, Martin thought. The power of money. Human nature.
First he had produced an estimate of the cost. Then, restraining the tremble of his hand, he’d shown the rough sketch, dog-eared by now, which he always carried in his pocket.
“You’re familiar with our old two-story wing on the side street, Mr. Rhinehart? Our thought is we’d tear that down and build ten floors up, with entrance into the main building, of course. We’d have laboratories and auditoriums for teaching on the first two floors, with patient floors above.” He’d kept his voice even, not too boldly confident, but not pleading, either. “I’ve got a lot of thoughts about the operating rooms. There’s been so many improvements since ours were built. We’ll need facilities for photography of the brain, somewhere near the Department of Encephalography. See? Over here on this end.”
Rhinehart had inquired when and how Martin had first got his idea. He recalled now that he had answered, “It’s been a dream of my whole life, my life as a doctor, that is,” and hoped that hadn’t sounded grandiose, because it was the simple truth. “We’re an old, honored hospital,” he’d explained. “I’ve felt deep loyalty to it ever since I first came to work here under Dr. Eastman. I believe we need and deserve this institute.”
They had talked until midnight, Rhinehart listening all the time with that attentive courtesy.
“It’s gratifying to see how much we’ve been able to raise from private contributions, Mr. Rhinehart. Three hundred thousand dollars.”
At that moment Bob Moser had injected humor.
“That includes fifty from a friend of mine, a plastics manufacturer looking for a tax deduction,” he’d said with a grin. More soberly he had added, “We’ve a long, long way to go, Mr. Rhinehart, and I hope you’ll see the road ahead as clearly as we do. We—I—that is, Martin here, Dr. Farrell, is in my opinion, for what it’s worth, one of the outstanding—”
And Rhinehart, perhaps observing Martin’s embarrassment, had put in quietly, “Indeed I know of Dr. Farrell. His text on neuropathology is the current standard. We do so much medical philanthropy, we have to keep abreast of these things.” And he had turned to Martin. “ I assume, of course, you will expect to head the institute.”
Martin had made a small gesture of assent.
“It would be a question, then, of our gambling on you.”
“To an extent, yes. Although I would hope the project would encompass a broader span than any one personality, and last a good deal longer.”
He had asked Martin in what ways this institute would differ from existing ones.
“Naturally, every man has his individual methods,” Martin had told him. “This has been part of me for so long, this conviction that I have about encompassing mind and brain in one study—Yes, it’s done elsewhere, of course. But I have worked out my own ideas about modes of research and patient care.”
“Well,” Rhinehart had said, and there had been something so decisive in the syllable that Martin had stopped with a tug of fear that he had perhaps overreached himself. “Well, Dr. Farrell, I’d like you to come before my committee next week and tell them everything you have been telling me.”
And so they’d be laying the cornerstone, if all went well, sometime next spring!
Hazel wanted the date to coincide with his birthday. She loved grand celebration. Half drowsing now, he lay back in the chair, reflecting on birthdays. What a great fuss Hazel always made! They, like holidays, were an excuse for having a crowd, from Mends like Perry and Tom to distant cousins whom one never saw during all the rest of the year. She would cook Martin’s favorites: roast beef, corn pudding and apple pie. The bought and fancy decorated birthday cake was for the children’s benefit so each one could have an icing-flower. He could see them now: Enoch, so cautious and agreeable, that you wondered what he might truly be thinking; the little ones, Peter and Marjorie, who had more of Hazel than of himself, although Marjorie looked like him. And Claire. She seemed to bring air into the house with her. She’d fling her coat to a hall chair, and Hazel would hang the coat up in the closet, for Hazel was neat like Martin. Where did Claire get her careless ways? Why, from Pa, of course!
And he thought, with smiling rueful remembrance, of Pa’s desk and his mother’s sighs over things forever mislaid or lost. Yes, of course, from Pa. Genes were a funny business.
A liner was coming in at the Golden Gate; coming from Japan, perhaps? He’d like to see Japan sometime.
What had he been thinking? Oh, yes, that genes were a funny business. Families were a funny business. You’d never think Hazel belonged in hers! When they got talking, the whole lot of them, it sounded like the rattle of machine guns. It made you aware that English is a guttural language. Tess, her sister, had the drone and sibilance of a nonstop talker.
But he had been, and would go on being, good to them. One of them was always in some need or other, either because of illness, or simply because of having more children than he could afford. He never minded helping them, even rather liked it, in an odd way. Because their need made him feel superior to them? Yes, because after all these years, he still smarted over having needed the help of Donald Meig. He could still feel half-naked shame at the memory of standing in that room.
“If it weren’t for me, you’d be peddling aspirin tablets.” That was what Meig had said, and the worst part of it was that it was true.
So it was good for the ego, it was salve and balm, to be a kindly, tactful giver when one could just as easily say to one’s brother-in-law, “You’re a fool and you’re lazy; you shouldn’t have had seven children when you can’t even support two.”
No Meig, he! And Martin wondered what Meig would think if he were still alive and could know about the institute.
Hazel came out onto the terrace. “Oh, did I wake you? We’ve a letter, or rather you have. You won’t believe it—it says Jessie Meig on the envelope.”
He sat up instantly and opened the letter which had been forwarded from his office.
“Dear Martin,” he read, “No doubt you will be astonished to receive this. I thought it better to write because, frankly, it’s less of an embarrassment for both of us than the telephone would be.
“I’ll be brief. Claire has returned from Europe with shocking news. While in England she took it upon herself to visit Lamb House. There she met young Ned Lamb. They spent three weeks touring together and have now decided to be married. He is to come to New York in the fall—has a job in the offing. The wedding will take place next summer after Claire’s graduation.
“You have influence over Claire, maybe more than you realize. You need not answer this. I shall simply assume you will do what you can to prevent this folly. Sincerely, Jessie Meig.”
“Whatever’s the matter?” Hazel cried.
Martin crumpled the letter. Did anything ever go smoothly? Was there ever a time when you could sit back and say to yourself: “Come now, rest a little. You’ve earned it”? Only a moment ago he had been feeling fairly satisfied; perhaps he had been self-satisfied and this was to be his rude punishment?
“Talk to me, Martin!”
He came to. “It’s all right. I mean, it’s Claire. She wants to get married.”
“I thought someone had died, you looked so stricken!”
“She met him in E
ngland. Went to visit Lamb House. Goddamned crazy thing to do! It’s Ned, her aunt’s son.”
“Oh? But then, he’s a cousin, isn’t he? How can they marry?”
He realized he had never given her any more than a few barest facts at their first meeting, so long ago.
“They’re not. His mother died when he was born. She—Mary—brought him up.”
“I see. Well?” Hazel touched his arm. “Martin, you look dreadful. Does it really matter so?”
He turned on her. “Of all the stupid questions! It’s an insane folly, and you can ask me—”
His vehemence appalled her.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “You didn’t mean anything. But oh, damn it, one’s children can wreck things!”
“You’re thinking of Jessie, aren’t you? Yes, I can see why. It would be awful for her, wouldn’t it?”
He pressed his lips together and leaned against the wall. He felt like a traveler in a depot in a strange city, uncertain where to go.
What the hell had she been doing, going to that house? She shouldn’t have gone abroad this summer! But how in blazes could he have guessed, when he made her a present of the trip, that she’d do a crazy thing like that? And then he remembered how the child Claire had come to him. Independent as hell, she did what she wanted and the devil take the hindmost! Well, the devil had taken it now, that was sure.
How in God’s name to bear with this, when he already had so much to crowd his brain: the institute, the daily round, the family? For so long he had stifled memory, by sheer force he had crowded it down. Would “anguish” be too strong a word for what he was feeling at this minute? He thought not. There would be grandchildren. They would belong to him and to Mary. Also to Jessie. It was—It was unthinkable! He groaned.
“Oh,” Hazel cried, “I’ve never seen you like this!” She mourned over him. “But surely if there’s nothing wrong with the young man, it can be worked out somehow. I mean, you don’t even know him, do you?”
“He’s her son. That’s awkward enough.”
“Yes, of course, but much more so for Jessie than for you. After all, you only had a few days’—affair—and never saw her again. My goodness, it’s ancient history! Anyway, there’s nothing you can do to stop it, is there? I mean, Claire’s a woman. You can’t very well order her around, can you?” She gave a small, nervous laugh. “Especially not Claire.”
He knew what she wanted to say: “Claire’s headstrong and obstinate. She always has been and you ought to be used to it by now.”
Jessie must be in a fury! Or would she have swallowed her wrath and grown silent instead? As though it were yesterday, he remembered that Jessie could do just that.
He tried to recall the boy: sensitive, decent, thoughtful and pitifully young in the RAF uniform. Yes, but that was ten years past! And anyway, what difference did all that make? What difference could anything make beside the fact that he was her son?
Suddenly Hazel’s hovering presence annoyed him. He wished she would go inside and leave him alone.
“What are you staring at, Martin?”
Controlling himself, he answered evenly, “There’s a gull on that balcony. It’s been there all afternoon.”
“Perhaps it’s got a nest.” She kept standing there, troubled and hesitant “I hope you’re not going to grieve too much over this business with Claire.”
“Let’s fly home in the morning,” he said abruptly.
“But we were going down to Carmel and Big Sur!”
“I don’t feel like taking another week. I’ve got a hundred things to do at home, anyway.”
“You mean you’ve got to see Claire.”
“Well, what if I do?”
Her lips trembled. Then he thought: She asks for so little … And he felt torn, pulled this way and that.
“Let’s compromise,” he offered. “Four days at Carmel. We’ll go to Big Sur another time. I really want to get back sooner, Hazel.”
Her eyes softened. “Fair enough. I understand.” She put her arms around him. “Let’s dress for dinner, shall we? And try to take your mind off things a little? I’ve heard so much about Trader Vic’s.”
They were eating chicken in coconut sauce when a couple came to sit at an adjoining table. The man hailed Martin.
“Colonel! Colonel Farrell! It is you, isn’t it?”
“Why yes,” Martin said, hesitating.
“Dickson. Floyd Dickson, Don’t tell me you don’t remember?”
“Of course I do. For the moment I couldn’t think.”
“Yeah, I’ve put on thirty pounds since then. Meet my wife, Dot.”
“And my wife, Hazel. Dr. Dickson and I were stationed together in England.”
“I was a crummy lieutenant. Used to hang around and watch the colonel stitch the boys together.”
Martin sighed inwardly. He was especially in need of a quiet dinner on this night! And of all people now, he’d had to encounter this loud, restless individual whom the years seemed to have made louder than ever.
But he inquired politely, “Living in San Francisco?”
“No. L.A. We come from Minneapolis, you know, but I got sick and tired of shoveling snow, I’ve got a pediatrics practice in L.A. Dot likes ’Frisco, so we run up now and then. You been to Carmel?”
“We’re going in the morning for a few days.”
“Where you going after that?”
“Home. I’m due back in New York.”
“What you should do is, you should hop on a ship or a plane and go off to Hawaii, as long as you’re this far. After that, the Orient. Say, waiter, how about pushing these two tables together so we don’t have to shout? That is, if you don’t mind?”
“Well, no,” Martin said.
Scraping and shoving, the Dicksons settled down.
“I hear you’re making a name for yourself,” Dickson remarked. “I always thought you would.”
“Thank you.”
“I met a fellow in the hotel lobby this noon who’d just come from your speech. He was telling me something about you heading a new institute in New York. Neurological research, he said.”
“Yes,” Martin said quietly, “it’s underway.”
“Well, they all say you’re the man back east! But seriously now,” Dickson addressed Hazel, “you ought to make him have a little fun, too.”
She smiled. “I try.”
“Sure. Take a couple of months off. You’re a long time dead.”
Dot Dickson asked whether they had children.
“Three,” Hazel answered. “Two of them are only seven and eight. We can’t leave them yet for any length of time.”
“We went to Greece last year. Left the kids with my mother-in-law. Took the cruise around the islands. Beautiful, beautiful,” Dickson said.
“I’d like to do that sometime,” Martin admitted. “Greece is the place I’ve most wanted to see. All my life.”
Mrs. Dickson assured him he would love it. “And the shopping’s incredible,” she told Hazel. “You can get gold jewelry for practically nothing. Oh, I adore traveling! Two years ago we took a fjord cruise out of Copenhagen. I almost bought a silver service. They’re handmade, you know. But then I thought it probably wouldn’t go with our dining room—it’s French provincial. What do you think?”
“I really don’t know,” Hazel said. “I’m afraid I’m not very good at things like that.” She fell silent.
And Martin thought how much he appreciated a quiet woman. Even a woman like Flo Horvath, who was otherwise dear to him, he couldn’t have tolerated for a week. All that chatter and twitter!
Then Hazel, apparently feeling a need to be more sociable, remarked, “I’ve always wanted to see England, but Martin doesn’t want to.”
“Oh, really? I just love England,” Mrs. Dickson said enthusiastically.
“I guess the men saw enough of it during the war,” Hazel responded.
“I feel that way,” Martin agreed.
Two years ago, flying to a co
nference in Geneva, they had come down through clouds; England had lain on the left, with the sun just setting over it, and he hadn’t wanted to look. He had turned away and got a magazine.
“I wouldn’t mind going back,” Dickson declared. “In fact, that may be our next trip. Dot here is wild about antiques, old houses and all that. Of course, we don’t have much of that here in California. Say, Martin, speaking of old houses, you remember that place you used to visit out past Oxford?”
“No,” Martin said, startled. “I saw a lot of places and it’s a long time since.
“Sure you must! I drove you there a couple of times and picked you up in the ambulance on the way back. Talk of Old! That house must have been three hundred years old if it was a day.”
Martin asked Hazel, “Would you like a salad? I forgot to order one. Waiter, may we have two green salads, please?”
Dickson turned to his wife. “You would have flipped over that place, Dot. Martin said somebody said Oliver Cromwell slept there once. I never got to go inside, though”
There was no malice in the man. Martin himself had covered so skillfully, had made his visits appear so innocent, that Dickson could have had no idea what he was doing.
“What did they call it again? lion House? Cockeyed names, all their places have names. No, what am I saying? Lamb House. That was it. Lamb. Wasn’t it Lamb, Martin, where you used to go?”
Martin raised his eyes. The anguish in them must have communicated itself to Dickson, bringing a sudden, terrible comprehension.
“Maybe I’m thinking of somebody else,” he said quickly. “I rode around with so many guys, you get mixed up, your memory goes back on you.”
A flush like a scald rose in an even horizontal line from the man’s throat to the hairline. It looked like water rising in a glass. And strangely enough, Martin felt sorry for him.
A queer silence fell over the table. Martin looked back at his plate, moving the rice around with his fork.
Presently, in a flat voice, Hazel spoke.
“Ask for the check now, Martin, please.”
