Barbara Greer

by Stephen Birmingham

  ‘No! I don’t want money! Don’t you see, you idiot! All I’ve ever wanted is justice—justice, for what’s been done to you by Grandfather and Billy! I want to get even! I’ve got a right to get even! I want revenge—that’s what I want. I want to report this to the police. I want to have Billy put in prison!’

  Preston shook his head slowly back and forth. ‘No, no, no,’ he said. ‘No, no—’

  She seized his shoulders. ‘Don’t sit there! Don’t keep saying, “No, no, no” to me—’

  ‘No, Peggy, you don’t understand,’ he said. ‘I know all about this. I’ve known all along. Billy told me what he was doing. He had my permission. He had to do it to keep things going.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘To keep things going. The company, everything. My money is all in trust—so when the company needed funds, I couldn’t help. Other things take a lot of money. He’s paid for them. Somebody had to. It was either that or sell the company. He’s loaned me money, too, Peggy, when the trust income wasn’t enough. You musn’t talk about getting even with Billy, Peggy, because if it hadn’t been for him and what he’s done, we might not be here in this room …’

  She stepped back. ‘That isn’t true,’ she whispered.

  ‘It is.’

  Then she advanced upon him. She struck him once, then again, then a third time with the flat of her palm and he rocked in his chair from side to side. His neatly combed and neatly parted grey hair fell awry and waved across his eyes and she screamed, ‘Oh! You drunken fool! Oh, you drunken bastard! Oh, you drunken dirty fool!’ Then she fell to her knees. It was an awkward motion, graceless and unpleasant. Sobbing, screaming—as everyone ran toward her—she pounded her balled fists upon the floor. A cocktail glass overturned and shattered; its pieces, in the suddenly harshly lit living room, lay all around them in hard blue splinters as John and Emily, hearing the commotion, came running from the kitchen, crying, ‘Oh, sir! Oh, madam! Oh, sir!’

  Dinners in New England are ceremonious occasions, conducted without ceremony; that is, there is ritual but little formality. Even when there are servants in attendance, it is not surprising to have the plates served family-style. Edith Woodcock’s dinners were always served this way. The roast, the turkey, the leg of lamb—Emily was a substantial cook but not an inspired one and was happiest working with large cuts of meat—was placed in front of Preston on the silver carving platter with a tree design and a well to catch the juices, and Preston carved, standing. Each plate was passed along the table by the intervening guests to Edith, who waited, with a serving dish on each side of her, to serve the buttered peas and mashed potato. Sometimes the plates were returned to Preston to have him shape a crater in the mashed potatoes with a spoon and fill it with pan gravy. Edith, a New England woman, disliked showy menus. She preferred simple dishes, she detested sauces; her most ambitious dessert, one which she used often, was vanilla ice cream with green crème de menthe poured over it. The dining room was large, done in pale blue, with pale blue satin drapes at the tall windows, pale blue walls, chairs upholstered in a pale blue and white brocade; over the buffet, lighted, in identical frames, were pastel portraits of her daughters, and the artist had obligingly created a pale blue dress for each girl to match the colour of the surrounding room. At the far end of the room was a portrait of Edith, painted when she was a girl in 1918; it was a sentimentalised version of her, her auburn hair caught in a crimson ribbon and a matching crimson rose resting on her lap. At the centre of the table, suspended from the ceiling, was an antique chandelier of French crystal that was almost never lighted; its teardrop prisms caught the candlelight. Though the room would certainly have been called ‘formal,’ though Edith owned several sets of fine bone china and a quantity of excellent silver, it was commonest, on evenings when there was no one but the family at the table, for meals to be served on the inexpensive ‘rosebud’ dishes—a set she had bought at Penrose’s in Burketown—with the plated silver, with paper napkins. This Edith considered merely sensible. Tonight, of course, since there were guests, the good china was used, and the good silver, and the linen. The good crystal water goblets were on the table, along with wine glasses because, since there were guests, John had brought up a bottle of St. Emilion. Edith was very good at making dinner table conversation, at creating a little subject for discussion and drawing, one by one, all her guests into it. It was an art she had been taught by her mother in Providence.

  Only the lightest subjects were considered fit for conversation at the dinner table: the weather; people they knew; a book Edith had read, or was thinking of reading; an amusing anecdote, perhaps, involving the whole family. Tonight, Edith talked about the strange and, she thought, quite ugly designs of the new automobiles, vulgar and fat and chromey, with their enormous protruding fish-tails and their gaudy colours; she was grateful for their station wagon, which, though it was six years old, still looked the way an automobile ought to look. Did everyone agree with her, or was she being hopelessly old-fashioned? She was reminded of this because just this afternoon Tom Moriarty, who owned the Chrysler agency in Burketown, had telephoned asking if he could bring one of his new cars around to show her. Only once, that Barbara could remember, had there been a quarrel at the dinner table. She had been a little girl and she could not remember now what the quarrel had been about, but she remembered her mother suddenly bursting into tears and dabbing at her eyes with the corner of her napkin. She had never seen her parents quarrel before; if they quarrelled, they managed to keep it from the children. It frightened her, seeing her mother cry, looking at her father’s face which was flushed and angry; frightened, she had looked at first one, then the other of her parents, wondering what to do. Desperate, thinking that she must do something, that something was required of her, that somehow only she could stop the quarrel and reunite them, she had stood up from the table, stepped a few paces away, and begun performing for them a little song she had learned in school.

  Oats, peas, beans and barley grow!

  Oats, peas, beans and barley grow!

  Do you or I or anyone know

  How oats, peas, beans and barley grow!

  It had become, in fact, one of the amusing family anecdotes that her mother sometimes told at dinner.

  17

  After dinner she went to her room and closed the door. A corner of her bed had been turned down in a neat triangle and she sat on one corner of it, impressed suddenly by the silence. From where she sat she caught by accident her reflection in the long mirror on her closet door. Her face, she thought, looked already old. She reached for the telephone and dialled ‘0.’

  ‘This is Buccaneer 3-7090,’ she said. ‘I want to make a long distance call, please, to London, England. I want to speak to Mr. Carson Greer, at the Dorchester Hotel.’

  She waited. Then she said, ‘Yes, I’m cognisant of the time change.’

  Darling? Darling, it’s me, it’s Barbara, she would say to him. Did I wake you up? It must be two or three o’clock there, I know. The operator just asked me if I was cognisant of the time change! I’m sorry, but I had to talk to you, Carson, I had to hear your voice. I suddenly miss you so much I don’t know what to do. I suddenly don’t know if I can stand the next few weeks. I’m at the farm. I came up yesterday, after you left, drove up. Flora’s with the boys. Darling, I’m so unhappy. Today has been the strangest, most awful day! No, I don’t want to tell you everything that’s happened. It isn’t important, really, except that coming up here was probably the worst mistake I’ve ever made in my life. I don’t know what’s happening to them, the family. Everybody seems to be disintegrating. I just want to get out of here as fast as I can. Darling, I’m sorry for so many things. I’m sorry I let Nancy ruin our last evening together. It was an idiotic thing for me to do. Darling, I want to get out of this place, but I don’t want to go home to Locustville. You don’t know how lonely that place is when you’re away. Carson, will you let me do something? Will you let me get on a plane tomorrow and meet y
ou in England? I have my passport, everything I need. It will be our little secret rendezvous! The company won’t ever find out. I’ll keep out of your way during the day when you’re busy. I won’t interfere with your schedule. Will you let me do it, darling? Will you, please? Because, honestly, if I don’t—if you don’t let me do this—then I just don’t know what will happen …

  Then she heard the operator’s voice telling her that there was no Mr. Carson Greer registered at the Dorchester Hotel.

  There was some mistake, of course, because she had his itinerary. His address was the Dorchester Hotel, through the third. He had checked in sometime late last night or early this morning, Mr. Carson Greer of the Locustville Chemical Company. The company had made the reservation and it had been confirmed. Would they please check again?

  There was another very long delay. At last the operator told her that she had checked again. There was no Mr. Carson Greer registered. There was no Mr. Greer of any sort; she was sorry. Someone, one of the night clerks, thought he remembered a reservation, but it had evidently been cancelled. Might he possibly be at a different hotel? She was very sorry.

  ‘Thank you very much,’ Barbara said. She hung up the phone.

  She sat quietly on the bed. Presently there was a light knock on her door and Nancy Rafferty opened it. ‘Oh, here you are!’ Nancy said. She carried a gin-and-tonic in her hand. ‘Why don’t you come down?’ she asked. ‘Your father and I are having a little after-dinner drinkie.’

  ‘I’ll be down in a minute,’ she said.

  ‘I suppose it’s too late to try to get Woody now, isn’t it. It’s after nine o’clock. Besides, look at my dress.’ She lifted the yellow skirt. ‘I caught it on the corner of the table. There was a little splinter sticking out. I didn’t even notice it—during that little scene before dinner!’ She laughed. ‘I suppose the less said about that, the better. But, goodness! I’ve never seen Peggy behave like that, have you? I really wonder whether she oughtn’t to see somebody. For several minutes there, I really couldn’t believe that I was here, at the farm, at all. What’s the matter?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Barbara said.

  Nancy sat down beside her on the bed and put her arm around Barbara’s shoulder. ‘Something is,’ she said. ‘Tell me. Tell old Aunt Nancy …’

  ‘I just tried to call Carson,’ she said. ‘He was supposed to be at the Dorchester in London, but they say he’s not there. They think he had a reservation there, but cancelled it.’

  ‘Oh,’ Nancy said. ‘Well—’

  ‘I’m worried. Where could he be?’

  ‘Well,’ Nancy said, ‘I wouldn’t worry, sweetie. He’s just somewhere else, that’s all!’ She laughed again. ‘Carson deserves a good time, too, doesn’t he? After all, he’s only human. Now come on downstairs. Help me cheer up your father. Your mother’s gone to bed with a headache and he’s down there all alone. Come on. The poor guy deserves a little cheering-up tonight.’

  ‘I’ll be down in a minute,’ she said.

  ‘And cheer up yourself,’ Nancy said. ‘Here. Have a slug of my drink.’

  She accepted the glass that Nancy offered her and took a few swallows. It tasted strong and bitter and burning; gin-and-tonic was a drink she had never quite understood. She made a little face. ‘A cup of gall,’ she said, smiling.

  ‘But oh so morale-boosting!’ Nancy said. ‘Now come on!’

  ‘You go down,’ she said. ‘Let me fix my face a little first.’

  ‘All right.’

  She rose and went to her dressing table as Nancy tiptoed out the door.

  At the mirror she began, with lipstick, to perform a few perfunctory duties to her face, giving it, she thought dryly, no more attention than it deserved. Then she stopped, stood up, and went to the closet where Emily had placed her empty suitcase. In one of the side pockets, in packing yesterday, she had tucked the typewritten sheet of paper. She snapped open the suitcase, found the paper, and unfolded it. She read the top line again.

  Jun 26–Jul 3 Dorchester Hotel, Park La., London W. 1, MAYfair 8888. She put the sheet of paper back in the suitcase. She had just wanted to make sure.

  She went out of her room and started down the stairs feeling oddly buoyant. She felt suspended, going down the stairs, like a ball on a slender rubber string. From the library she heard music playing—the record from My Fair Lady—and, above it, the sound of her father’s voice and Nancy’s bright, rather shrill laugh. She could hear ice cubes tinkling in glasses and it all sounded very gay, very partyish. She hesitated for a moment, then turned and walked toward the glass doors that led out on to the terrace.

  The terrace was dark and still and wet from the rain. The storm had brought a few leaves down; she felt them underfoot as she walked. She guided herself slowly between the damp metal chairs and tables. Above the trees there was a moon, but below, where she was, was a dark cave of heavy, dripping leaves. The air was fragrant and clean, and from across the lake, the breeze carried a smell of moist pine needles; the breeze stirred the branches above and sent fresh drops of water down on her bare shoulders. She felt detached, walking under the overhanging branches, feeling the shapes of torn leaves through the thin soles of her shoes; she felt detached and also, for some reason, able to view everything all at once with detachment. Perhaps it was the clear, heady, night-smelling air, or perhaps it was the short, stiff, bitter-tasting snort of gin-and-tonic that Nancy had given her, but whatever it was she now seemed to feel her mind working on all levels, taking everything in, absorbing it all and relating it all. It was as though for years, literally, her mind had been blunted, her thoughts dulled and blurred and made sloppy by her own self-sorrow—the sorrow of living in Locustville, of having a husband who went away all the time. Of wanting unattainable things. All that dispersed now, like fog, and she saw everything with almost breathless clarity, saw years of her life that had moved in a slow march in that mournful cloud of self-pity, saw herself emerged from it in some bright and shining place. She sat down quickly in one of the metal chairs, never minding the wet that drenched her skirt, enjoying this new sensation, this new, heightened sense of the way things were.

  Absorbed, consumed by her own self-pity (self-pity, yes; self-pity was what it was), she had thought of him only as a passenger who arrived and departed again, who, ticketed and checked, moved from place to place on his itinerary; she had never, on any of his trips, supplied him with any sort of existence in her mind; she had thought of him as shuttling from one place to another, like a letter. But he was a human being, and he had an existence. A complete life of waking, eating, sleeping, dreaming, planning—everything—completely apart from her. How strange, she thought, never to have realised this before! Perhaps he was now in the arms of some pale, lovely English girl! It could be! He deserved, as Nancy had said, a good time, but that wasn’t really the point. The point was simply that, whatever he was doing, it was something private and apart and special that concerned only him, that involved no sharing with her now or ever. She decided that she did not feel jealous. No. Instead, she felt rather relieved. She felt relieved because, like a signal, this realisation pointed out something to her. She thought about this, thinking that she had passed some great frontier of knowledge.

  Behind her, the faint music from the house stopped. My Fair Lady was over. She debated for a moment whether she wanted to go in, to join her father and Nancy in the library. She could hear their voices now, floating from the open window. She started to get up, then sat still. She heard her father say, ‘I must be boring you, Nancy. You’ve never had any children. You don’t know what it’s like.’

  ‘Oh, no! Go on. I’m fascinated, Mr. Woodcock,’ Nancy said.

  ‘Well, you see,’ he said, and his voice sounded sonorous and sleepy, ‘the thing is, Mrs. Woodcock and I brought the girls up with the theory that everything in childhood should be fun. We wanted our daughters to be happy, at all costs. I suppose this was because my own childhood was unhappy. I was an only child, you see. There was
another baby, but it died—only lived a few hours. For years, when I was a kid, I used to think about that other baby—I’d heard about it, you see. And I had it all figured out that the other baby was a little brother, named Bill.’ He laughed. ‘I don’t know why I figured his name was Bill, except every boy in this family seemed to be named Bill or Preston. Anyway, I decided that the other baby’s name was Bill, and because everybody was so mysterious about what had happened to it—saying the baby had “gone away,” or “gone to Heaven” and so on, instead of saying it had died—I got the idea in my head that this brother Bill would come back some day, or that I’d find him some day—I had it all figured out what he looked like—and he’d be my friend. I planned all these things that we’d do together …’

  His voice dropped suddenly and she could barely hear the words. ‘Loved—’ she heard him say. ‘… So deeply …’ Then, louder, he said, ‘When I was twelve years old my father took me out to the cemetery and showed me the little grave. Where the baby was buried. Its name was Cecilia.’ He laughed harshly.

  ‘Oh, what a shame!’ Nancy said.

  ‘My father was a very strict man, very strict,’ he said. ‘I guess I got a little hysterical there, in the cemetery. I remember my father dragged me away. But that wasn’t what I wanted to tell you. What was it I was starting to say? It was—Bill, then about—’

  ‘About Barbara and Peggy, how you brought them up,’ Nancy said.

  ‘Oh yes. Yes, we brought them up—Edith and I—wanting them to have nothing but happiness, absolutely nothing but happiness. We didn’t want to have either of them ever know a single moment of disappointment, not a single moment. But maybe that was wrong, maybe that was a mistake. At the time we thought—life has troubles enough. Troubles enough, when you’re older. Childhood should be full of happiness … yes …’

  There was a long silence. Then he went on. ‘Nancy, we really did everything we could think of for the girls,’ he said. ‘When they were little, they were never—never—left alone! I mean—literally—Edith and I never left the house, for overnight, without the girls. Always with them. Had a German woman, of course, to help out with them. But there was never any time when we were not right in the house, too. It was so if one of them had a bad dream and wanted Edith, Edith was right there. If we went on trips, we took the girls and Fraulein with us. Europe. Bermuda … Florida. Up to the Cape. We wanted them to feel protected and loved every minute of the night and day …’ The voice sounded low and rattling and distant.