Sins of the Fathers

by Susan Howatch

  I drew back sharply. “No,” I said, “Sebastian’s name is never to be mentioned between us again. I’ll write and say I can’t visit him.”

  “But that would be the greatest possible mistake!” Scott sounded on the verge of despair. “Of course we must inevitably refer to Sebastian from time to time, and of course you must go to see him while you’re over here … yes, you must! I insist! There’s no question about it! I’ll never forgive myself for what happened last night, but at least it’ll be easier to live with the memory if I know I didn’t after all keep you from seeing someone who has such an important place in your life. Please call him right now and fix a day.”

  Tears filled my eyes again, because I sensed how hard he was straining to reach me. I felt his mind brushing clumsily against mine, reminding me of the two circles which met without intersecting, and I wanted to hold it in place and soothe it and stop it slipping away again into isolation.

  I couldn’t look at him, but I took him in my arms and at last I was able to say gently, “Okay. Thanks. I’ll call him right away.”

  XII

  “Here’s my car,” said Sebastian. “Don’t laugh.”

  I laughed. It was a mini, bright red with tiny wheels and a body like a lunchbox.

  “How do you fit into it?”

  “Jack’s beanstalk’s giant could fit into it. Hey, you’re on the wrong side—unless you want to drive.”

  We scrambled in, Sebastian folding himself improbably behind the wheel, and as the car roared off at a fierce pace through the narrow streets of Cambridge, I saw rows of tiny houses and glimpses of green trees and distant spires.

  “Oxford’s okay,” said Sebastian, “but this is better. We’re not going through the main sightseeing areas at the moment, but later I’ll take you around and you can clap your hands and say ‘gee whiz’ and make all the noises an American tourist is supposed to make.”

  Sebastian was dressed like an Englishman, in baggy gray flannels, which were clearly the relic of some bygone era, a shabby tweed jacket patched with leather at the elbows, and a sports shirt which might once have been white but had faded to a mild gray. He was going bald at the crown and made no effort to conceal it. He drove with great skill and cursed a lot under his breath whenever a bigger car forgot to give him a wide berth.

  “How’s New York?” he said. “I hear that kid Donald Shine’s still busy terrorizing Wall Street. What’s his next target going to be? Does anyone have any ideas?”

  “The rumor is he’ll go gunning for another insurance company, but nobody’s sure.” I was too busy admiring the scenery to talk of Donald Shine. Ahead of us a wide stretch of grass was reminding me of an English village green, and a second later Sebastian said as he navigated a traffic circle, “That’s Midsummer Common and there’s my house on the edge—the black one with the white front door.”

  The house, one of a row, was small and square, with a satisfyingly symmetrical facade. Since the tiny front garden bordered the common, we had to leave the car in the alley at the rear and approach the house through the backyard.

  “What does Alfred think of it?” I couldn’t help asking. Elsa had a fondness for large luxurious modern homes, and her new husband’s taste obviously reflected her own. They had a mansion in Westchester and a fifteen-room penthouse in Manhattan.

  “Alfred wants me to ship it all back to the States brick by brick. He wants it for a playhouse in his garden.”

  He took me into a snug little living room, and while he fixed the drinks I wandered around looking at his pictures, his prints, and his books. We were silent, but the silence was comfortable. I had long since become accustomed to Sebastian’s silences.

  “How’s the book?” I asked as he handed me my martini.

  “No good. I’ve decided that my style of writing isn’t suited to a work about investment banking.”

  “You mean you’re going to give it up?”

  “Probably.”

  “What are you going to do with yourself instead?”

  “Don’t know. I think I’m going crazy. I find myself yearning not only for banking but also for the plastic society. Still …” He glanced out of the window at the pastoral tranquillity of Midsummer Common. “… it’s been a great rebellion. Everyone ought to have at least one chance in life to quit and ride off into the blue like the hero of one of those old-time cowboy movies who’s just lost the girl he loves to the guy who used to be his best friend … I’ve often wondered since what happened to all those old-time cowboys. Did they die of a broken heart under some far-off cactus? No, probably not. I’ll bet they ended up back on the range again, earning their living in the only way that appealed to them, and seeking out the only environment, repulsive though it might appear, which offered them the chance to be themselves.”

  “You’re serious? You really want to leave here? But I thought you loved England!”

  “And so I do. Yet I don’t fit in here, Vicky. Maybe I’m just too young to sink into a quiet retirement in a civilized intellectual retreat. Or maybe I’m just too American. It’s no bed of roses being a foreigner, even if you wind up in a country where the natives are reasonably friendly.”

  I smiled at him. “You’ll be like a character out of an Orwell novel. Your epitaph will be: ‘He came to love the plastic society!’ ”

  “Maybe.” Sebastian looked gloomy. Then he sighed and added wryly, “Henry James and T. S. Eliot came to Europe and were upset because it seemed so decadent. I come to Europe and I’m upset because it seems so goddamned dull. I have this craving to be back where the action is. The vicarious thrills I got from the latest Shine takeover could almost be classed as obscene. … Okay, let’s go to lunch. There’s this nice place right by the river …”

  We drank white wine and ate herb omelets by the window of an upstairs restaurant which seemed to lean out over the water. Below us on the river young tourists drifted by in punts, and in the distance above the roofs and gables the college spires spared into the summer sky.

  “Sebastian,” I said on an impulse, “I’m doing this course on existentialism in literature, and although I only understand about one word in ten, I’m finding it very fascinating. Have you ever read the Sartre trilogy Les Chemins de la Liberté?”

  “Loved the first, hated the second, never faced the third.” We wrangled happily about Sartre for some time, but when our omelets were finished and the waitress had arrived with our coffee, Sebastian brought the conversation back to earth by asking after the children. I told him I was worried about Eric because he didn’t seem interested in girls and I was worried about Paul because I was afraid he was smoking pot on the sly and I was worried about Samantha because she was boy-crazy and I was worried about Kristin because she was so overshadowed by her pretty sister and I was worried about Benjamin because he was Benjamin. And Sebastian laughed and said how much more interesting it was to have children who were individuals instead of children who were well-regulated robots, like the offspring produced by Andrew and Lori, and somehow it was such a relief to talk to Sebastian about my family because he always made me feel I wasn’t doing so badly as a parent and in fact might even be doing rather well.

  After finishing our meal, we strolled outside. “I’ll take you down to the backs,” said Sebastian, and drove us in his little red car down to the meadows at the back of the major colleges. We walked down an avenue of trees to the river. It was quiet and the fields were full of flowers. On Clare Bridge we both paused to lean on the parapet, watch the weeping willows, and admire the glow of the sun on the colleges’ mellow walls.

  “Imagine going to college in a town as beautiful as this!” I said enviously.

  “The little devils probably take it all for granted. Come on, I’ll show you King’s College Chapel. It’s a real tourist trap, but you can’t possible leave Cambridge without seeing it.”

  The chapel turned out to be not a chapel at all but a full-sized church, and as we drew nearer I saw the miracles of architecture which ha
d made it so justly famous. I was still admiring the soaring walls and the long windows when I stopped dead. “My God!” I said in awe.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “The roses! Sebastian, just look at those voluptuous stone roses—oh, and there’s more of them over here! How did the stonemasons manage to carve them like that? They’re magnificent!”

  “The English today think they’re vulgar,” said Sebastian. “Elfrida Sullivan referred to them as ‘typical Tudor nouveau riche excess.’ ”

  “I’d have slapped her. What did you say?”

  “Said I’d rather have nouveau riche excess than ancien régime decadence. Elfrida said why settle for either and began talking about the temples of classical Greece.”

  “Elfrida was always such a know-it-all.” I was gazing at the great vaulted ceiling, and it seemed to me that the slim columns supporting it were straining upward for some mystical attainment which could never be expressed in words. “It’s lovely,” I heard myself whisper inadequately. “Lovely.”

  “Yes, it’s okay. Christ, here comes another coachload of Americans! August in Cambridge is like an extraterritorial meeting of the United Nations. Let’s go and sit on the lawn overlooking the backs and pretend we’ve lived here all our lives.”

  Finding a bench facing the huge expanse of lawn which stretched from the river to the walls of King’s College, we sat for a while in the sun. It was very quiet, very peaceful.

  “I don’t see how you could ever leave such a wonderful place, Sebastian.”

  “Crazy, isn’t it? Why did I have to be a born banker with a built-in homing instinct for New York? It makes no sense.”

  “Well, I’m sure you’ll have no trouble getting another good job on Wall Street.”

  “There’s only one job I’d ever consider taking.”

  We went on sitting on the bench. The sun went on shining on the tranquil scene, but I shivered as I scrabbled in my purse for a cigarette.

  “But that’s okay,” said Sebastian. “That’s no problem, because of course in the end Cornelius will invite me back—and on my terms. Egged on by Mother, he’ll swallow his pride and make another effort to come crawling back to me, and that’ll be the justice Scott was always trying to find; Cornelius will have to hand his life’s work not to Scott, the guy he’s always secretly liked, but to me, the guy he’s always secretly loathed. Christ, what an irony! I’ll be literally laughing all the way to the bank.”

  “And Scott?” said my voice.

  Sebastian looked surprised. “What about him? Cornelius has obviously ruled out the possibility of making Scott his successor—why else would he have railroaded Scott to Europe for so long? If he’s lucky, Scott may manage to hold on to his partnership, but he won’t get any further. He’s shot his bolt. Cornelius finally wised up. My guess is that Cornelius is just waiting for your affair with Scott to end and then he’ll fire him.”

  “But I’m going to marry Scott, Sebastian. We don’t plan on being engaged indefinitely. We’re going to marry at Christmas.”

  There was a pause. A bell began to toll somewhere, and far away we could hear the sound of laughter from the people punting on the river.

  “Uh-huh,” said Sebastian at last. “Well, if that’s what you want, good luck to you. I always told you to go after what you wanted, Vicky. I always told you to stop other people trying to run your life for you. And I always said that whatever happened, I’d be with you all the way.”

  I couldn’t speak. I felt as if someone were revolving a knife round and round in my body, and in that single moment I felt more confused than at any time since we had agreed in the Oak Bar of the Plaza to end our marriage.

  A group of tourists were wandering past us as we sat on the bench, and one of them, a little boy with fair hair and blue eyes, was skipping along ahead of his elders with a daisy chain in his hand.

  “Same age as Edward John,” said Sebastian, idly voicing what we were both thinking. “Funny to think of Edward John. I guess by this time he’d be running around being a menace and giving us both hell, but I never think of him that way. I think of him saying ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ and giving you flowers on Mother’s Day and running off to read Treasure Island in his spare time. How one sentimentalizes the dead! ‘They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old. …’ By the way, I always thought Rupert Brooke wrote that line, but the other day I discovered the author was some guy called Binyon. I wish I had the time to take you to Rupert Brooke’s Grantchester—it’s only a couple of miles away, but I guess we’d better be getting back to the station. You don’t want to miss your train.”

  We returned to the car in silence, and the silence persisted all the way to the station.

  “I won’t park the car and see you off,” said Sebastian. “That sort of genteel masochism only belongs in dated British movies. So long. Thanks for coming. Good luck.”

  “Sebastian …”

  “We do what we have to do. I know that. You don’t have to explain.”

  “I wish so much—”

  “No, don’t. No point. Call me if ever you need me. Now, get the hell out, please, before you miss your train and everyone in London starts to think I’ve abducted you.”

  I struggled out of the car and blundered into the station. Amidst all my confusion I was acutely conscious that Scott had been justified in trying to stop me seeing Sebastian. He had prophesied the meeting would upset me, and now here I was, very upset indeed. I told myself I shouldn’t have seen Sebastian, shouldn’t have gone to Cambridge, shouldn’t have put myself in such an unbearable position, but when I asked myself just what that position was, I found I was incapable of defining it.

  I thought of Edward John and cried all the way to the end of the platform as I waited for the train.

  Chapter Six

  I

  “I’M CALLING TO OFFER you my best wishes, Vicky,” said Jake Reischman. “I hear your engagement’s now official.”

  It was September. The children were back in school and I was back in New York after crossing the Atlantic with my mother on the Queen Elizabeth. Scott was due to return to New York on business in October, so our separation was to be short, but I still hated to leave him on his own. However, after a summer away from home I knew my children should now be my first priority, so with a great effort I had resisted the temptation to stay on in London.

  “Why, Jake, how nice of you to phone.” I was in my bedroom changing into a dress before I paid my weekly visit to my father for an evening’s chess and gossip. By the telephone on the nightstand was my best framed photograph of Scott, and as I spoke to Jake I was remembering how the sea breeze had ruffled Scott’s hair as he had smiled for my camera. We had been sailing off the Sussex coast at the time, and he had just given up liquor again. Out of sympathy I had joined him on the wagon and was delighted when I immediately lost weight and felt healthier. In fact, I had just decided that there was no reason why I should ever drink alcohol again when I had boarded the Queen Elizabeth with my mother, and within half an hour had been gasping for a martini. My mother had driven me to distraction during the voyage by flirting with a seventy-eight-year-old widower, drinking champagne from dawn till dusk, and reminiscing interminably (as old people will do) about the so-called “good old days.”

  “It’s real nice of you to call, Jake,” I repeated, trying to concentrate on the conversation as I watched Scott smiling at me from the photograph frame.

  But Jake never mentioned Scott’s name. Nor did he ask any questions about my impending marriage. All he said was, “I have a favor to ask you. When will you next be seeing your father?”

  “I’m on my way to him right now.”

  “Then will you tell him, please, that it’s most urgent that we talk? I’ve tried calling him, but I only get the young men he hires to pick up after him, and although I leave messages, he doesn’t return my calls. I’d greatly appreciate it if you could help me.”

  “All right.” I was annoyed t
hat my engagement had merely provided him with an excuse to enlist me as a go-between, but since Jake had been good to me, forgiving me for my role in Elsa’s failed marriage and remaining fond of me despite his long estrangement from my father, I made an effort to keep my annoyance hidden. “How are you, Jake?” I said politely. “I haven’t seen you in a while.”

  “Unfortunately, I’m not well, which is one of the reasons why I must speak to your father as soon as possible about this business matter which concerns us both. My ulcer’s been making my life difficult again. I go into Mount Sinai tomorrow for an operation.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry to hear that.” I was startled, my annoyance forgotten. “Well, I wish you lots of luck—and I’ll make sure Daddy calls you this evening, I promise.”

  “Let me give you the number of my new apartment. He won’t have it.” He dictated the phone number rapidly and then added with that colorless air which autocratic men often assume when they try not to appear as if they’re dictating orders: “Don’t listen if he says he’ll call me later, Vicky. Have him call me while you’re there, and if he stalls, tell him …” He stopped for a moment, as if to choose his words with care. Then: “Tell him I’ve got sentimental in my old age. Tell him the Bar Harbor Brotherhood means more to me than the new generation controlling this decadent disastrous decade.”

  It suddenly occurred to me that he might be very ill indeed and anxious to heal past quarrels before he entrusted himself to his doctors.

  “Don’t worry, Jake,” I said. “I give you my word that he’ll call.”

  II

  “Let me show you my new toy!” said my father with enthusiasm. “A tape recorder which is activated by the sound of the human voice—how Sam would have enjoyed it! I’m going to have it installed in my office so that I can record every interview without fuss. Why, the clients won’t even know they’re being recorded! Isn’t that clever? When I think of the old days when Sam had to mess around with the Vox Diktiermaschine and the Dailygraph—”