Point of No Return

by John P. Marquand

  Charles could not help wondering that night, as he drove between the stone gateposts of the Oak Knoll Club, whether Tony Burton had said the same thing to Roger Blakesley. Cliff Dunbarton certainly had not done so because it was clear from certain bitter remarks of Roger’s about not having time to suck up to the Dunbartons that the Dunbartons had so far not bothered to know the Blakesleys. Charles had enjoyed assuring Roger that the Dunbartons weren’t bad at all when you got to know them—not bad at all, only stand-offish.

  It was true that in some sections of the town Oak Knoll was referred to as the “Monkey Cage,” and now that Charles was a member of the House Committee he could see what was meant, but at the same time they all enjoyed themselves at Oak Knoll, and even some of the Hawthorn Hill crowd still kept their memberships. You did not have to worry so much about the furniture at Oak Knoll. If you wanted, you could drink a little more. You could be more relaxed, within reason—but not if you were a member of the House Committee. When Charles was hanging up his hat and coat in the men’s coatroom, the first person he saw was Cliff Dunbarton, who looked more relaxed than usual.

  “Why, hello,” he said. “If it isn’t Mr. Gray.”

  “That’s right,” Charles said. “The name’s Gray,” and he was tempted to add, “Fancy seeing you here,” but he did not know Cliff Dunbarton well enough to be familiar and besides it was not up to him to belittle a party at Oak Knoll. Still they smiled at each other and he wished very much that he could be more like Cliff Dunbarton, happy wherever he was and not caring a damn about anything—but then, Cliff Dunbarton could afford it.

  “Margie’s away,” Cliff Dunbarton said, and Charles realized that he must be referring to Mrs. Dunbarton. “She never can stand this place. Margie isn’t what you’d call democratic, but this is quite a party.”

  “I wouldn’t know,” Charles said. “I just got here—but it must be if you say so.”

  “I’ve always kept my membership here,” Cliff Dunbarton said, “out of community spirit. Frankly, Charley, there are some very amusing types and hurry-come-ups in this place. I’ve got to get around more. I’m having a wonderful time. How about having a drink, Charley?”

  “I’d like to a little later, but not right now,” Charles said. Obviously Cliff Dunbarton was quite tight or he would not have called him Charley.

  “Have you got a pencil and a piece of paper?” Cliff Dunbarton went on. “There’s a little number I was dancing with out there and I want to write her name down before I forget it.”

  Charles took a fountain pen from his inside pocket and tore a leaf from the back of his small black notebook.

  “Where does she live?” he asked.

  “She’s a very nice little number,” Cliff Dunbarton said. “Her name is Sherrill or Merrill or something, and I never would have met her if I hadn’t come here. She lives in that new development. What is it? Something about a tree.”

  “Every new development is something about a tree,” Charles said.

  “Don’t interrupt me. Let me concentrate.” Cliff Dunbarton placed the notebook page against the wall and began writing slowly. “Bea Merrill. She asked me to call her Bea. I wish I knew what her husband’s name was. She lives in that new, young-executive development. I remember the name now—Sycamore Park.”

  That’s right,” Charles said. “She’s Mrs. Tom Merrill.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because I live there,” Charles said. “I live in Sycamore Park.”

  “By God,” Cliff Dunbarton said, “that’s right. Of course you do. You’re the only person I’ve ever heard of who lives there.”

  “Except Bea,” Charles said.

  “Except Bea.” Cliff Dunbarton began to laugh. “Well, thanks for the pen, Charley, and don’t let the sycamores fall on you.”

  Perhaps Roger Blakesley was right, perhaps it was a waste of time to have anything to do with people like the Dunbartons, but it was pleasant to realize that he was the only person living in Sycamore Park whom Cliff Dunbarton had ever noticed. Yet though it was pleasant, he had a feeling of disloyalty. They were a great crowd in Sycamore Park, and he was on the House Committee of the Oak Knoll Club.

  The Oak Knoll Club had been making one of its frequent drives for new members at just about the time the houses were being finished in Sycamore Park. A committee of good mixers had been formed for the purpose of the drive, known as the “Stir Up Committee,” and its members had taken Saturday afternoon off and Sunday to go calling in a body on new Sycamore Park residents. Bill Forbush, the president of the club, who could play around any course in the eighties, and J. P. Swiss, who had once been an All-America tackle, and Walter Crumm, who had one of those one-man bands, which he played in his rumpus room, using his hands, feet, mouth, nose, and even his cranium, had dropped everything in order to get that committee going. Charles had only seen them in the distance, getting out of their station wagons at the eight-thirty, until they called on him.

  He and Nancy were still hanging pictures in the new house and at first Charles had not been sure what they wanted, because a great many people he had never known before had been calling recently to see whether he needed insurance or to ask for contributions for Bundles for Britain, but when they trooped into the new pine-paneled library, they said their only purpose was to welcome Charles and Nancy into the community. Mr. Forbush said that his own son Rex was in the same class at the Country Day as Charles’s boy Bill, and Mr. Swiss picked up a small plated-silver cup off the mantel, a trophy awarded to Charles for winning the quarter mile at Dartmouth; and they all talked about football and skiing, while Nancy was in the pantry getting something for them to drink. When Nancy had suggested this, Charles remembered that they all three had exchanged wordless glances and then Mr. Forbush had said that it would be a very good idea just to have a touch of something as long as it was the end of a long, hard Saturday afternoon. When Charles had gone out to help Nancy with the tray, he observed on his return that the three callers were pacing about the room, unobtrusively examining the furniture and exchanging low monosyllables, but when each had his glass everything was very cordial and there was an atmosphere of friendly confidence.

  Charles had told them that he had given up track in his freshman year, that he had never been good enough for the varsity, and that he had never done much with golf. Mr. Forbush told Nancy that she ought to make that man of hers take it up. It would keep him from fussing around the house, and there was a fine professional at the Oak Knoll Club. Then Mr. Crumm asked why they didn’t join the Oak Knoll Club. Nancy had looked a little startled, and Charles had said that they had never done much about clubs and right now the house and moving and getting settled had cost a good deal more than they had expected. Mr. Swiss had said that everything always did, but it was not the cost, it was the solid satisfaction that you got out of things that mattered. Regular exercise and fresh air and friends were what mattered. Now why didn’t the Grays come around to Oak Knoll next Tuesday night and look the crowd over?

  Then Mr. Forbush drew a deep breath. Seriously he didn’t want to be a salesman, he said, and urge anything on the Grays, who looked as though they had minds of their own, particularly Mrs. Gray. They had really just come around to get to know the Grays and to welcome them into the community, but now they were all there, just friends together, he did want to say a few things about the Oak Knoll Club, because it was his special hobby, his baby. He remembered that when he and Mrs. Forbush first came to this town they came here cold, years ago, not knowing many people, and at first he didn’t know whether he and Mrs. Forbush would fit in, particularly Mrs. Forbush. There were too many snooty people with too much money, all wrapped up in their own affairs, but then he found that there were a lot of regular human beings around, people who were busy, without too much money and without any side, and they were all in the Oak Knoll Club. Now they had heard of the Hawthorn Hill Club, hadn’t they, where you had to wait for someone to die before you got in and where you had to mort
gage your house to buy stock and pay initiation fees? Well, there were real human beings at Oak Knoll. It was just a simple building, made for people just like the Grays, one big old room with a few comfortable chairs, locker rooms with a few plain showers, a little bar and a kitchen where they tossed up simple meals, but a mighty nice eighteen-hole course and some good tennis courts, and they were raising money for a swimming pool. There was something for every member of the family there, and nobody complained about children having a good time. Everybody had a good time. Oak Knoll was a democratic club, for self-respecting people. The best friends he ever made, he made right there at Oak Knoll, boys like Swiss and Crumm and girls like Mrs. Swiss and Mrs. Crumm. They got up their own entertainments and made their own good times at Oak Knoll, and were they good times! You ought to hear Crumm and his one-man band and you ought to see Ma Epping do conjuring tricks. Did the Grays know any parlor tricks? Well, it didn’t matter if they didn’t. He didn’t either, but the main thing was that the members made Oak Knoll and Oak Knoll didn’t make the members.

  Somehow once you started, you kept going to Oak Knoll, to the Tuesday dinner dances and the Saturday pick-up suppers, nothing elaborate, no lace parasols, not many chauffeurs in the parking lot, but somehow, he didn’t know why, you got to think of it as a second home. What was it Daniel Webster said about Dartmouth? It’s a small place, but we love it. Yet at the same time, he did not want the Grays to think for a minute that Oak Knoll welcomed all the rag, tag, and bobtail you always found in the suburbs. Actually, there was a pretty strict committee, who gave prospective members a good going over, but the Grays needn’t worry their heads about formality, now that he and Swiss and Crumm had seen them and had sat with them in their gracious home. Well, he hadn’t meant to run on so long about Oak Knoll. Someone should have stopped him. Yet seriously, why didn’t they come and just look the crowd over at Oak Knoll? He would love personally to give them a card for two weeks. Come to think of it, he had a card right in his pocket and if anybody had a pen he would sign it now—and now they’d better all be going, but before they left how about making a date for the Tuesday night dinner dance at Oak Knoll? They would all personally guarantee that the Grays had a good time, and the Grays would meet all the crowd.

  This had all happened before the war but war’s aftermath had not changed the spirit of Oak Knoll. When Charles stepped out of the coatroom, though he felt tired, he knew he ought to dance, being a member of the House Committee. His ear for music was bad and, in spite of having gone once furtively for a course of lessons at the Arthur Murray studio, he had never developed an interesting technique, nor had he ever entirely mastered that basic Arthur Murray step, and he always had a feeling that he was back at his senior high school dance at Clyde or at a Dartmouth prom, both unwelcome memories. Nevertheless, he could see it was a good Tuesday night party, with a big enough crowd to make it more than break even financially. The tables had been cleared away from the big room and Sol Blatz and His Orchestra from Stamford were playing in one corner. The sight of Mr. Blatz, with his dark, waving hair and his languidly moving arm, reminded him that he must write Mr. Blatz a check.

  The first girl he noticed was Bea Merrill, in the arms of Mr. Swiss. Mr. Swiss had put on weight in the last few years. His face was red and he was talking rapidly. Then he saw Cliff Dunbarton cut in on them. Then he saw Mr. Forbush dancing with Dotty Jack, the Jacks who had bought the stucco house, the one that had been hard to sell, near the entrance to Sycamore Park. Then he saw Nancy. She was dancing with Cyril Renard, who sold life insurance downtown. Cyril had been talking to him lately about a new endowment policy, and he hoped that Cyril would not bring the subject up again that night. He edged his way carefully across the floor and Nancy saw him and smiled. They looked as though they had been dancing for quite a while, and Cyril always wanted to change his partners quickly for business reasons.

  “Hello, Cyril,” Charles said. “I’m going to take Nancy off your hands.”

  “Don’t put it that way,” Cyril said. “Nancy and I were talking about you and education. Where’s Bill going to college?”

  Charles knew that Cyril was thinking of one of those educational policies which would both send the children to a proper school and you to a hospital if you needed it, and pay damages, too, if the dog bit the milkman.

  “Charley, you and I ought to have a long talk sometime,” Cyril said.

  “All right,” Charles answered. “Sometime, Cyril.” He put his arm hastily around Nancy and began to dance.

  “Thank God you’ve come. I’ve been dancing with him for ages,” Nancy said, and then she gave him a little squeeze. “Is there any news?”

  “Nothing much,” Charles said. “I can’t talk about it here, Nancy.”

  “There’s that Dunbarton dancing with Bea Merrill.”

  “Yes, I see,” Charles said. “Did he dance with you?”

  “Yes, he danced with me. It was very gracious of him. He acts like someone in a settlement house.”

  “Oh, don’t say that,” Charles said. “Cliff’s all right.”

  “Oh, you call him Cliff, do you?”

  “Occasionally,” Charles said. There’s no use being sensitive about people like Cliff.”

  “Well, as long as he doesn’t feel he has to exercise seigniorial rights.”

  “What?” Charles asked.

  “Oh, nothing. All those horsy people are highly sexed. What have you been doing all day?”

  “I was stuck in the Whitakers’ apartment.”

  “Oh,” Nancy said, “the Whitakers. Did anything else happen?”

  He knew he would have to tell her about Clyde and that he was going away tomorrow but he did not want to tell her then, to the sound of Mr. Blatz and the saxophone.

  “Did you say anything to Tony Burton?”

  “No,” Charles said, “not exactly.”

  “How do you mean, not exactly?”

  “What I say. Not exactly.”

  “Roger Blakesley’s here tonight. Have you seen him?”

  “No, but I’ve seen him all day.”

  “He looks exuberant.”

  “Oh,” Charles said, “does he?”

  “You look a little tired, darling.”

  “Well,” Charles said, “I am tired.”

  “Did the children get you your supper?”

  “Yes,” Charles said. “Thanks for leaving the car. Whose table did you sit at?”

  “Oh, the usual crowd,” Nancy said. “They all missed you.”

  “Well, what’s all this about Cliff Dunbarton?”

  There was no time to answer. Someone had clapped him on the shoulder and they separated. It was Christopher DeMille, who lived two doors away from them and who wrote advertising copy.

  “Hello, beautiful,” Christopher said. “Are you two quarreling?”

  “No,” Nancy said. “We’re having a second honeymoon.”

  “You ought to see Bess and me,” Christopher said. “Bess and I always get fighting here on Tuesday nights. There’s something in the atmosphere.”

  Charles moved away carefully over the dance floor. He could not imagine why anyone would think that he and Nancy had been quarreling.

  8

  We’re All in the Same Boat—Eventually

  Then Charles danced with Bea Merrill. Even though he did not enjoy dancing this was always something of an adventure—not that it was not expected of him and of other husbands, because of poor Tom Merrill. Charles had observed that everyone was beginning to refer to Bea’s husband as “poor Tom,” and this had no reference to his financial status because he was doing very well. Instead it must have arisen from the rumor that the Merrills were not getting on, and of course this was Bea’s fault and not poor Tom’s. Other wives were beginning to say that Bea was beginning to be talked about instead of simply over. You talked over couples, they said, like the Sellers and the Kendricks, wondering how they ever could get along together, or afford new cars on their incomes, but you talk
ed about Bea, not that Bea was not a sweet, generous girl, but discontented, restless, and full of high spirits, even when Tom was always giving her everything she wanted, like a diamond clip at Christmas time.

  It was even intimated by some of the men that Bea had what was known as hot pants, a vague condition that made wives check over afterwards whose husbands had danced with Bea on Tuesday nights—not that anyone was told not to dance with her as Bea was part of the crowd and no one wanted to hurt poor Tom. Besides, most of those stories about Bea, other wives said when they got together, were spiteful stories invented by jealous people, and certainly they were not jealous of poor Bea. Why should anyone be jealous of a kindhearted, restless little thing with a high voice who did not know what she wanted? It was true there was a story about Bea and a man, a house guest of the Kendricks’, from New York, in poor Tom’s coupé at the Labor Day dance, but no one was quite sure whether it had been Bea or that girl who had come from Old Lyme who looked like Bea. There was also the story about Bea diving into the swimming pool without a stitch on, not a stitch, but Bea herself had said that it had just been a hot summer night and she had just taken off her dress and nothing else—she was more covered than if she had worn a two-piece bathing suit. She hadn’t even taken off her nylons. Still it was always an adventure, a slight step into the unknown, to dance with Bea. She was wearing a new black, sheathlike dress and the diamond clip that poor Tom had given her.