AN Outrageous Affair

by Penny Vincenzi

‘Fleur, you’re to go and sit down again this instant and finish your dinner.’

  ‘Yes, Aunt Kate.’ Fleur returned to her chair, her small shoulders drooping.

  ‘Oh, Kate, leave the child be.’ Kathleen FitzPatrick spoke from the head of the table where she was picking extra bits of chicken out of the pot and ladling them on to Brendan’s plate. ‘She sees little enough of her father, it’s nice for them to have a bit of a cuddle when they can. Eat that up now, Brendan, you’re too thin, by a long way.’

  ‘She sees plenty of her father,’ said Kate coolly. She was jealous of her mother’s devotion to Fleur, and of Brendan’s intense love for her. ‘He hasn’t had a job for months.’

  ‘He has too!’ said Fleur indignantly. ‘He did all those radio commercials the other week, and he had that understudy in the Village, and he’s . . . well, I just can’t count them all,’ she said, her voice trailing away.

  ‘Be quiet all of you,’ said Brendan easily. ‘Kate’s right, and Fleur should not be climbing on my knee at mealtimes, much as I would like it. Now, Fleur, you can tell me just as well from over there why you have decided not to be Mary.’

  ‘It’s the clothes,’ said Fleur plaintively. ‘You know how I hate wearing dresses when I don’t have to. And that is one drippy dress.’

  ‘Oh, Fleur, my darling, you can’t choose not to be Our Lady just because you don’t like the dress,’ said Kathleen. ‘That is nonsense. Besides, it’s a lovely dress, and a lovely colour, and it would go with your eyes. Now of course you must play the part. You will be doing both me and your father out of a great treat if you don’t.’

  ‘Well, I’m sorry,’ said Fleur, ‘but I just can’t. That Sally Thompson can do it, she’s been praying for the chance. I told Sister Frances I’d be Joseph, but she didn’t seem to like that idea too much. Can I go and play now, please?’

  ‘You stay and help me clear away,’ said Kate, ‘and let Mother and Brendan go and sit down.’

  ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake,’ said Kathleen, ‘let the child go. What should I be wanting to sit down for? Run off, Fleur darling, and play. Tracy was looking for you earlier. Will I walk you down to her house now, or will you stay at home?’

  ‘I’ll stay at home,’ said Fleur. ‘I have things to do. Thank you for my dinner.’

  ‘You’re welcome,’ said Kathleen automatically. She looked at Brendan and winked. ‘That child will rule the world one day,’ she said, ‘you see if she doesn’t. Turning down Our Lady indeed. What willpower.’

  ‘I think it’s ridiculous,’ said Kate, ‘quite ridiculous. She should be made to do it.’

  ‘Why, for heaven’s sake?’ said Brendan. ‘If she doesn’t want to.’

  ‘But, Brendan, it’s such a stupid reason. And she’s such a little girl.’

  ‘It’s not such a stupid reason. You know how Fleur is about wearing clothes and trying to make-believe she’s a boy. I think we should respect that. And she’s not such a little girl either, she’s seven. She knows her own mind.’

  ‘Ridiculous,’ said Kate again. ‘Well, since neither of you mind letting Fleur off helping with the dishes, perhaps you could let me off as well. I have things to do also. Thank you, Mother.’

  ‘You’re welcome,’ said Kathleen again, but this time she did not smile and she did not wink. ‘Your sister is turning into a regular old maid,’ she said to Brendan. ‘The other three all married, and two of them mothers, and here she is still living at home and not a beau in sight. It’s a pity.’

  ‘Well, she never got over Danny Mitchell, did she?’ said Brendan. ‘That was a tragedy. To think I survived being shot down and prison camp, and Danny had to die of pneumonia before he ever went up in the sky. It doesn’t make sense.’

  ‘Not a lot in this life makes sense,’ said Kathleen.

  She was much given to such philosophies.

  Brendan walked Fleur to school next morning; she loved that, walking the whole length almost of Avenue Z, down to PS209, her hand in his, and all the mothers staring at him because he was so handsome; there weren’t many handsome men in Sheepshead Bay, well, certainly not as handsome as her father. Most of them were either swarthy and Italian, or Jewish. Brendan didn’t really like Sheepshead Bay, and kept promising Kathleen and Fleur that when he was famous and rich, he would move them up to the Heights, into one of the narrow rowhouses; quite often on Sunday afternoons he would take Fleur up there and pick out a house for them, mostly from Willow or Poplar Street, with their iron railings and stained-glass windows. Fleur could see they were very grand and very nice, but she loved Sheepshead Bay, she thought it was more fun. It was near the beach, and all the houses were so pretty, with their clapboard fronts and peaked roofs; their house was painted blue, and it had quite a big yard where she could play, and she could ride her little red bike along the street, and there was a nice feel about the neighbourhood. Grandma didn’t really like it too much either; not enough Irish, she said, only about ten per cent, and she would have preferred the Flatbush area. Kate wanted to get out of Brooklyn altogether and go and live in New Jersey, but meanwhile they were all stuck in Sheepshead Bay and Fleur didn’t mind one bit.

  Walking out with her father was even worth having to wear the awful clothes Grandma dressed her in for school: little pinafore dresses with full skirts and sashes, blouses with puff sleeves, black patent Mary Jane shoes with ankle straps, and socks with little lace cuffs. She and Grandma had worked out a kind of trade-off and when she was not in school or in polite company, she was allowed to wear blue jeans and sneakers, and take the ribbons out of her curls; when she was ten, Grandma had promised, she should have her hair cut short, but until then it hung almost to her waist, and drove her half mad, with all the time and attention it needed.

  ‘Now, darling, don’t you take any notice of Sister Frances. If you don’t want to play Mary, don’t you play her, whatever she says. And I want you to hold your thumbs for me this afternoon, because there is a part I want to play and I’m going for it.’

  ‘Will it make you rich and famous?’

  ‘A little bit famous, and not so very rich. But it would get people noticing me. At last,’ added Brendan and sighed. The seven years since the war had been most notable for him by a lack of success. He had done a bit of repertory, a lot of radio commercials, a few radio dramas, but most of the time he had been resting.

  ‘So what is the play called? So I can think very very hard about you.’

  ‘It’s called Dial M for Murder. It’s a new play about a man who manages to get his wife declared guilty of a murder.’

  ‘That she didn’t do?’

  ‘Yes, that’s right.’

  ‘That sounds really exciting.’

  ‘It is.’

  They had reached the school, a big ugly building on the corner of Coney Island and Avenue Z, which Brendan had always thought looked more like a prison than a school, but Fleur loved it. She loved work and learning and doing better than everybody else; she was already flying high, miles ahead of everyone else in her class in both reading and maths, and she was popular too, she wasn’t rearded as a swot or a bore. She was successful in the playground where she could run as fast as any of the boys, no one ever caught her in games of tag, she could beat any of the girls at hopscotch, she could do double turns on the skipping rope and catch anything, however high or awkward the throw. One of her many ambitions was to play baseball, and she had already tried to get into the Little League, but so far Mr Hammond had said no, girls just didn’t play baseball, and he couldn’t consider it, but Fleur was working on him. She spent quite a lot of time working on people.

  What she really really wanted of course was to be a boy; Fleur had looked around her at what women got out of life and what men got out of it, and there was no doubt in her mind which of them had the better deal. She had no intention of getting married and having babies
and spending her time washing and baking and changing diapers; she was going out there into the world to make her fortune. She wasn’t absolutely certain how just yet, but that did not alter her basic intention. And when the other little girls talked about marrying rich men and having fur coats and big houses and massive cars, Fleur would always say she was going to have the fur coat and the big house and the massive car, but she wasn’t going to marry a rich man, she was going to be a rich woman.

  Brendan had not told her a great deal about her mother yet. He thought she was too young. Later on, when she might be able to understand, he planned to take her through the whole story, but for now he had simply explained that she had been a girl he had met in the war, and they had fallen terribly in love, and got married, but that before Fleur had been born Brendan had been taken prisoner and when he got back, Caroline had assumed him dead and had remarried. Her new husband didn’t want Fleur nearly as much as Brendan did and it had been difficult for Caroline to handle that, so he had been able to bring her home with him. Fleur had been too small to spot any anomalies in this story, either legal or emotional, when he first told her; she had simply said that it was a good thing they had each other and left it at that. The story only served to reinforce her passion for her father, and her deep conviction that they were more important to one another than anyone else in the world.

  Occasionally these days she would ask what her mother looked like, and Brendan had told her, and once she had said she wondered if they would ever meet; she had also remarked recently that she didn’t think she would like her very much, but that it didn’t really matter one way or the other. Brendan had assured her that she would like Caroline, and that it was hard for her to understand what a difficult time she had had. Fleur had been silent for a bit and then nodded and said ‘Maybe.’ Kathleen had thought the whole thing terribly wrong and had wanted Brendan to say he had adopted Fleur, but he said he had too much respect for the truth generally to bring up his daughter on a pack of lies. ‘One day she’ll want to find her mother and it will be far better for her not to have to find out the real truth all of a sudden. She’s a happy child, she can cope with what I’ve told her.’

  This was true; Fleur was happy and well adjusted, and oddly mature for her age. She saw herself as not quite her father’s contemporary, but certainly not far behind him; he was to her entirely perfect in every way, above and beyond criticism, her best friend, her confidant, her chosen companion at all possible times. To be Brendan’s friend was to be Fleur’s also, and without question, and to be anything less than that was to meet with disdain and mistrust. Brendan tried not to think about Caroline too much; it was pointless and painful. She had refused to let him tell her where they lived, saying she would not be able to stand it, that sooner or later she would just turn up on the doorstep. Mostly now he was able to think of her fondly and dispassionately, but when he was very low, or alternatively very happy, he longed to see her and hold her and talk to her with a yearning so strong it made him feel physically sick. He had had many girlfriends since, mild flirtatious affairs, and a few more serious; pretty, fun girls in the theatre, or the stores and restaurants he worked in from time to time to make some money. A girl always knew when Brendan FitzPatrick was getting serious about her in two ways: first she was told about Caroline Miller, and then she was taken home to meet Fleur. Most of them could handle the first, but the second was a different matter. That was a relationship that required real courage to take on. As a consequence, no one had ever come near forming an association with him that was anything approaching permanent. One day, Brendan supposed, he might really fall in love again, and want to get married; in the meantime, he was perfectly content with the way things were.

  The audition went well; Brendan felt it in his bones. When he was called back later in the afternoon to read again, he knew he had the part; and when the director said, ‘Could you let me have your agent’s number right away, Mr FitzPatrick,’ he knew it was only a formality. He stood waiting on the subway for his train, smiling foolishly into space like a young boy in love.

  When he got to Sheepshead Bay he bought some beer at the market just by the station and a big bag of candy for Fleur; by some happy chance, Edna and Maureen had come to spend the day with their mother, and had waited to see him, and to hear how he had done, and they had only to look at his face as he stood there in the doorway to know. Edna fished in her bag for some money and told Brendan to go and buy some more beer; Fleur said she would come with him, and could they maybe go to Wiesens and buy some pastries for dessert, which they did. They were all sitting laughing and drinking and stealing from Fleur’s candy when the phone rang and it was Brendan’s agent saying yes, he had definitely got the part, and rehearsals started straight after Christmas and he was to be paid one hundred dollars a week.

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ said Brendan, putting down the phone. He was white and shaking.

  ‘For the love of God, Brendan, whatever is it?’ said Kathleen. ‘Have you not got the part after all?’

  ‘I’ve got it,’ said Brendan, ‘I certainly have got it. And they’re going to pay me one hundred bucks a week. I’m on my way.’

  The family fell into an awestruck silence.

  The play was successful; it ran for three months. They tried to transfer to Broadway, but that didn’t quite come off. Brendan got good reviews: not brilliant, not raves, but good. Good enough to get another part, in a revival of The Man Who Came to Dinner at the Circle on the Square; this time, the reviews of Brendan’s acting were less good, but his ‘film-star looks’ were remarked upon with varying degrees of patronage and unkindness in almost all the papers. Brendan squirmed, and contemplated spending some of his precious salary (otherwise almost entirely dedicated to paying Kathleen back for all the years she had supported him) on acting lessons at Lee Strasberg’s studio, and told his agent that in future he only wanted to go for character roles where his looks were irrelevant. His agent told him not to be a dickhead and to be grateful for what little he did have to offer the theatre and made him accept a spread in Mademoiselle magazine featuring the new heart-throbs of the fifties. Brendan squirmed further, but did it, and when The Man Who Came to Dinner closed, auditioned for seven parts in a row and didn’t get one of them.

  ‘I guess I wasn’t on my way after all,’ he said to Kathleen one afternoon in October. ‘I haven’t worked for months. So much for our house on the Heights.’

  ‘Oh, well, my darling, I suppose that’s what you would call show business,’ said Kathleen, ‘and we can do without the house. We have a house. But Fleur needs some new clothes. Can you give me any money for those?’

  ‘I can’t,’ said Brendan, speaking with great difficulty. ‘I don’t have a dime. My own shoes are worn through. Look. I’ll take a job in one of the stores, it’s nearly Christmas. That will help.’

  He got a job selling jewellery in Macy’s and then got offered double overtime if he would play Santa two nights a week in the Christmas Grotto. Biting his lip, and thinking of Fleur and her clothes, and the new bike she had set her heart on for Christmas, he did it.

  After Christmas things got worse. He got turned down relentlessly for everything: large parts, small parts, TV commercials, even some modelling jobs. The only work he got was another modelling job in Mademoiselle, and that was as replacement for someone else, which the fashion editor made abundantly clear. Fleur’s feet grew again; he went back to Macy’s and sold some more jewellery.

  Then Kathleen fell ill. It was her chest, really, always her Achilles’ heel, she told the doctor. He said, smiling at her tenderly, that only the Irish could call their chests their heels, and told her she must go into hospital, that she had double pneumonia, and if she didn’t she would be joining the angels faster than she’d planned.

  Brendan, summoned home from work to see the doctor, said she was not to go into the state hospital, he wanted her in the nice private Catholic one nea
r the Heights. Yes, they had medical insurance, of course they did; but when he was asked to produce the policy, it was out of date. Kathleen had been economizing on the premium payments, among other things.

  Brendan saw her into the state hospital, settled her in the huge, stark ward, told her he’d be back later and went home. Fleur found him at the kitchen table in tears.

  And then, just like in the movies, as Fleur excitedly told Kate later that night, the phone rang. It was a theatrical agent in uptown Manhattan; his name was Kevin Clint, and he would like to see Brendan right away.

  Brendan left Fleur with a neighbour, made Kate promise to visit Kathleen that evening, put on his best, least shiny suit, cut out fresh cardboard soles to line his shoes, and got on the D train uptown.

  Kevin Clint’s office was on 57th Street, between 6th and 7th. He had a small but very lush suite on the fourth floor actually over Carnegie Hall; as the elevator stopped in between each floor, Brendan could hear musicians playing. A girl with extremely long red nails and a spectacular bosom looked at him coolly as he walked in.

  ‘Yes?’ she said.

  ‘I’m Brendan FitzPatrick. Mr Clint asked to see me.’

  ‘He did?’ she said, implying that this was excessively unlikely, her eyes skimming with only mild interest over Brendan’s face and body, lingering briefly but pointedly on his crotch.

  ‘He did,’ said Brendan firmly, resisting with difficulty a strong urge to fold his hands over his fly.

  ‘OK. I’ll see if he’s in.’

  She disappeared. Brendan sat down on the black leather couch, and waited. After about ten minutes she came back looking mildly flustered.

  ‘He says he won’t be too long.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Brendan.

  She went and fetched herself a coffee from another room; she didn’t offer him one. Brendan sat and watched her drink it; there was nothing else to do. There were a few certificates on the red fake silk walls telling anyone who cared to know it that Kevin Clint was an accredited member of the Association of Stage and Screen Agents (Brendan greatly doubted if such an association existed) and several photographs of a man he could only assume was Kevin with people such as Tony Curtis, Frank Sinatra, Debbie Reynolds and Stewart Granger. Brendan wondered how easy it might be to fake such pictures and then asked the girl if he could go to the men’s room.