Barbara Greer

by Stephen Birmingham

  ‘Oh, Mrs. Woodcock!’ she said. She put her arms around Edith’s shoulders and pressed her hair against Edith’s cheek. ‘Oh, Mrs. Woodcock,’ she said, ‘I must go. I can get the eight-thirty train out of Penn Station. I thought for a while that if I stayed I might be some help—but I’m only in the way. It’s the best thing for me to do, Mrs. Woodcock. Will you forgive me for running off like this? It’s just that I’m no help, no help at all …’

  ‘There, there, Nancy,’ Edith said comfortingly. ‘You’ve been an enormous help, my dear, an enormous help. And I’m terribly grateful.’

  ‘But I’ve got to go. I’d love to be able to stay—for the services and everything. But I’m simply not up to it!’

  ‘Of course, of course,’ Edith said. ‘I understand perfectly. It’s as you think best, Nancy, as you think best.’

  ‘You’re always so kind and wonderful!’

  ‘You’re like our own daughter.’

  They kissed.

  Then Nancy stepped back, opened her purse, and dabbed at her moist eyes with her handkerchief. She blew her nose. ‘I’ve got you all lipsticky,’ she said.

  ‘And I you!’ Edith smiled. They dabbed at each other. ‘Did you say goodbye to Barbara?’

  ‘Yes. Just now. Not to Peggy, though. I didn’t want to disturb her.’

  ‘Of course. Will Barbara be coming down for some supper do you think?’

  ‘Oh, I think she’d prefer to have it on a tray,’ Nancy said. ‘Though I don’t think she’ll feel like eating.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘And do say goodbye to Peggy and to Mr. Woodcock for me—will you? And tell them how terribly sorry I am. And explain.’

  ‘Of course I will.’

  ‘And thank you—thank you for everything, Mrs. Woodcock.’

  ‘It’s just a shame—just a shame that your visit couldn’t have been a happier one,’ Edith said. ‘But you’ll come again.’

  ‘Perhaps.’

  ‘I shall insist you do!’

  ‘You’re so wonderful … And I—I feel so helpless. So useless.’

  ‘There, there! Now, tell me, Nancy, what are you going to do?’

  ‘You mean after I get back to Philadelphia?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well,’ Nancy said, more brightly, ‘actually I’ve been thinking about it, just today. I’m no nurse—I’ve learned that. In fact, I don’t know what I am! But I thought, I’ve got a little money saved up. I thought I might go to Europe—for six months, or maybe a year. I’ve never been, you know, and I thought for six months or a year I might just travel around, see the things I’ve always wanted to see, and learn things—new languages, new people, and sort of get things straight in my life again. Do you think that’s a good idea?’

  ‘Oh, I do, Nancy. I approve, most definitely!’

  ‘Well, I may do it or I may not. Who knows? I may get married. There’s a doctor, in Philadelphia—but who knows? The nice thing about life is it’s unpredictable, isn’t it? And you never can tell …’ She started toward the door.

  ‘Do you want John to drive you?’

  ‘I’ve called a taxi. It’ll be here any minute. Thank you, anyway. Oh, one thing before I forget. Barbara says she doesn’t want to call Carson—doesn’t want to talk to him. Right now, that is. But I think she should—or someone should. Someone should tell him what’s happened before he hears about it from somewhere else. Don’t you think Barbara ought to let him know—in a letter, perhaps?’ She hesitated. ‘A letter can be calmer—you can plan what you say.’

  ‘Yes,’ Edith said. ‘Yes, yes.’

  ‘Telling him—just about the accident. Not about the circumstances, you know—’

  ‘Yes,’ Edith said quickly. ‘I agree.’

  ‘I think we understand each other,’ Nancy said easily.

  ‘I suppose we do,’ Edith said. ‘It’s funny. My problem has always been—forgetting that my children are grown up.’

  ‘We both love Barbara,’ Nancy said. ‘We both want her to be happy.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, once again—’ she opened the door. ‘Oh, here comes my taxi,’ she said. ‘Well, goodbye, Mrs. Woodcock and thank you for ever!’

  ‘Goodbye, Nancy, dear.’

  They brushed lips again, very quickly.

  ‘Have a wonderful trip to Europe,’ Edith said.

  ‘Oh, I will,’ Nancy said, ‘if I go! Don’t ever worry about me. I always seem to survive. Goodbye!’

  ‘Goodbye.’

  Nancy waved airily, blew a last kiss, turned and ran down the steps toward the taxi.

  Edith felt relieved, somehow, as she walked back into the house and began turning on lamps. It was beginning to get dark. It had been a terrible day, the worst in her life, though perhaps the worst of it was over. She thought: Death always inflicts its severest blows upon the living. How unfair! And then she almost smiled, realising that it was not yet her turn to know what blows death inflicted upon the dead. In the midst of life, she thought, we are in the midst of death. Each death around us brings us inexorably closer to our own. Thank goodness there was work to do. There were two days ahead to get through. If she could get through Wednesday, she would be all right. Just tomorrow and Wednesday, and after that she would see to it somehow that all of them got off to a fresh start. All of them would begin again, they would have family picnics again, the best part of the summer still lay ahead of them, and the best part of their lives. Oh, yes.

  No day could ever be as bad as today. There was comfort in that. She turned on more lamps in the library and stripped off, with her fingers, a few dying heads of roses in the vase. Then she went upstairs to see how many of her family she could gather for supper.

  But on Tuesday, Liz Gage had the last word. Her story never appeared in the Eagle, but, with journalistic ingenuity, she had managed to peddle it elsewhere. One of the New York morning tabloids picked it up. It was not on the front page, nor on the second, nor on the third. But it was there, and prominent enough, with the headline:

  WHICH HEIRESS WAS HE AFTER?

  Was Ex-Milkman Paddling for Midnight Martini

  with Millionaire’s Married Daughter?

  Tom Daniels saw it and fired her.

  Woody saw it very early in the morning when, weary and a day late, he got back to his apartment from Lime Rock. He immediately went downstairs, got in his car, and drove to the farm.

  His idea had been to break it to them gently—as gently as possible. But when he got there, the news had already reached them.

  21

  Peggy said, ‘The Callahans are here. Can you come down?’

  ‘Do they want to see me?’ Barbara asked.

  Peggy stepped into the room and pulled the door gently closed behind her. ‘They haven’t asked to see you, no,’ she said. ‘But I thought it would be a good idea. And it would be a tremendous help to me, Barb.’

  ‘All right,’ she said. She sat up. ‘Just give me a few minutes.’

  She went to her dressing table and sat down at the little bench. Before her stood bottles, jars and tubes, extravagantly designed and coloured, sensuously named, creating—even though they were capped and stoppered—a faint, persistent fragrance in the air. She reached for her brush.

  Peggy came and stood beside her. On the glass top of the dressing table there was a little pile of bobby pins, and slowly, with her fingertips, Peggy began arranging these. First she placed the pins in the little marching row, like soldiers, then she destroyed this pattern and began arranging the pins in a series of little box shapes, small square O’s. She concentrated on this. Then she said, ‘I was premature. I was an idiot to think that I could do anything to shape up the company at this point. It’s just too early. I still think we can do it some day, though—we’re going go have to. You and I will have to do it. We’ll have to wait until the trust comes to us and then see what we can do. My mistake was being impatient. And I think I was wrong to hang my hopes on Barney. He was the wrong kind of
person. His heart wasn’t in it. I should have known.’

  Barbara said nothing. She continued brushing her hair.

  ‘We’ll form a sort of partnership,’ Peggy said. ‘You and I—some day. That’s the best thing. You and I understand each other, after all.’ She finished the final square with the pins. Then she put her hand on Barbara’s shoulder. ‘Barb,’ she said, ‘May I tell you one thing?’

  ‘Yes,’ Barbara said. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Barbara—I want you to know—whatever is said, whatever this stupid gossip is, I don’t believe it.’

  Barbara sat motionless, her brush in her hand, staring at her reflection in the mirror.

  ‘I couldn’t believe it,’ Peggy said. ‘I could never believe it. Do you understand? If there’s an explanation—even if there is an explanation—I really don’t care what it is, because I know that it’s a perfectly good, perfectly sensible explanation. I’d never, not for a single moment, think that there could have been anything between you and Barney. Because there couldn’t have been. I knew him too well, and I know you too well, to think that any such thing could be possible. And—well, that’s the only thing. That’s all I want you to know.’ Then Peggy paused and placed one polished fingertip in the exact centre of one of her O’s. ‘Of course,’ she said, ‘there must have been someone there, in the guesthouse. But who that person was,’ she added, ‘is something we’ll never know, isn’t it?’

  After a moment, Barbara said, ‘Peggy—I—’

  No,’ Peggy said. ‘No, I don’t want to hear anything. The subject is closed. We’ll never discuss it again.’ She reached for a tube of lipstick and handed it to Barbara. ‘Here—put some of this on.’ She smiled. ‘Now, I want us both to go down and talk to the Callahans together. We’ll show them a united front, the good old Woodcock united front! Put on lipstick and we’ll go down.’ She dropped the tube in Barbara’s outstretched hand.

  Barbara put the lipstick on, then closed the tube and stood up. She followed Peggy to the door. In the hall, Peggy squeezed her arm. ‘You’re a damn good sport!’ Peggy said.

  Barbara said, ‘Peggy—what are you going to do?’

  Peggy stopped and turned to her with a puzzled look. ‘What do you mean?’ she asked. Her face cleared. ‘Oh, you mean now that he’s dead, what will I do? Well, for one thing, I’m not going to be a widowy widow. And then—well, I suppose I’ll marry again. Yes, I’m pretty sure that’s what I’ll do—marry again and then perhaps I’ll astonish the world with the number of children I’ll have!’ She linked her arm in Barbara’s and they went down the stairs.

  Mr. and Mrs. Callahan sat side by side on the brown velvet sofa in the library. They both wore black and Barbara was startled to see how old they both looked. They sat somewhat stiffly, in almost identical poses, their hands folded in their laps, and they looked fragile and ill. Their faces were pale and blank.

  ‘I’d like to present my sister, Mrs. Greer,’ Peggy said. ‘Barbara, these are Barney’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. Callahan.’

  Mr. Callahan quickly stood up and held out his hand, then withdrew it nervously. He extended his hand again, then, as Barbara held out her own. ‘How do you do, Mrs. Greer?’ he said, and their hands met. His voice was soft and tremulous.

  ‘How do you do?’ Barbara said. ‘I’m so—’

  ‘Yes … yes …’ he said.

  ‘Do sit down,’ Peggy said.

  They all sat, and, for a moment, there was a painful silence. Then Mr. Callahan said softly, ‘We stopped by, on the way, to see him. He looks—they’ve done a beautiful job—he looks—just as though he’s fast asleep.’

  ‘Yes,’ Peggy said.

  Mrs. Callahan reached for her handkerchief and touched her eyelids quickly and perfunctorily, though no tears showed there.

  Outside, on the drive, a car drove up and stopped. Distantly, the front-door bell rang and distantly John’s slippered feet moved across the house to answer it. In the library, they listened, waited, heard the front door open. They heard a few softly murmured words and they waited as though the caller might be bringing some portentous and long-awaited news. Then the door closed and John tiptoed past the library door bearing a long, slender, green cardboard box.

  ‘Flowers,’ Mr. Callahan said, and his soft voice was full of awe. ‘More flowers! This is three bunches, now, that have come just since we’ve been sitting here. He must have had a lot of friends in this town, a lot of friends.’

  Then there was another long silence. Barbara felt the afternoon passing slowly and sleepily somewhere beyond them all as they sat, with grave faces, in the sunny library where rainbow refractions of light streamed from the teardrop prisms of the sconces on the mantel and fell in gay little shifting patterns on the rug; they sat, bewildered, hunting for some single significance or symbol that would lift from absurdity the whole business of life. Sounds of toil, as they searched, seemed to fill the room. Words and sentences tumbled in her head and vapourised and she continued to sit absolutely still, inarticulate, numb and anchored to her chair. Peggy lighted a cigarette and waved out the match. Barney’s mother slowly twisted the rings on her left hand.

  John arrived with things on a tray. There was tea and there was sherry. No one wanted sherry. Peggy poured perfectly. Barbara held her cup and stirred it.

  Barney’s father was talking in a low, soft voice that was filled with a kind of spellbound wonder. He was talking to no one in particular and as he spoke his eyes travelled all around the room, stopping to rest on no one thing. ‘Yes …’ he said. ‘Yes, he was a fine boy. He was in the Army. He never told me too much about the Army or who his buddies were. He didn’t like to talk about it. He was in Korea thirteen months …’ Then he turned to Peggy, eagerly. ‘He got a—they call it a Letter of Commendation! Did he ever tell you that? From his commanding officer—from a colonel! Did he ever tell you that?’

  Peggy sipped her tea. ‘No, I don’t believe so …’ she said.

  ‘It was for helping establish a Supply Depot. And it said he—’ He fumbled in his jacket pocket and withdrew a folded piece of paper. ‘I found it when I was looking through his things. It was there—right there with his discharge papers all along. But he never told us about it. It says—well, perhaps you’d like to read it yourself.’ He unfolded the letter carefully, rose and handed it to Peggy.

  Peggy read it. ‘Very—very wonderful,’ she said at last. And then, ‘May I keep it, please?’

  Barney’s mother spoke for the first time. Her voice was expressionless. ‘That’s what he brought it for,’ she said.

  ‘Thank you so much.’

  ‘Reflects credit on the armed services as a whole!’ Mr. Callahan said. ‘That’s what it says. And from a colonel.’

  ‘So nice …’

  ‘Yes. Even then he was headed for success. They knew it then—even in the Army.’

  Peggy cleared her throat. To Mrs. Callahan she said, ‘Will any of your other children be able to come down?’

  Mr. Callahan answered for her. ‘No, just Mrs. Callahan and myself. That’s all. The others live too far away.’

  ‘His brother—Jerry. Barney used to mention him so often. He was so fond—’

  ‘Yes, but Jerry’s in the Army now, you know. He’s in Germany. Yes, they were very close, he and Jerry. We had the Red Cross send Jerry the telegram yesterday. But Jerry won’t be able to get home.’

  ‘That’s too bad.’

  ‘Jerry’s doing all right in the Army, too,’ he said. ‘A corporal already—and only in six months. But he’ll never be the soldier his brother was … no, no. No, he was the best soldier and—and a fine boy.’ He stared at his untouched teacup. Mrs. Callahan gazed at Peggy, then at Barbara, her pale face composed and quiet.

  ‘Yes,’ he went on. ‘He was headed for great things, for success. He could have been—anything he wanted to be. We always knew that, didn’t we, Annie?’ He turned anxiously to his wife for confirmation. She nodded. ‘I mean,’ he said, ‘I mean even in s
chool. Remember, Annie? Remember when he was—oh, when he was first starting school, in the first grade. He got the best marks! Gold stars the sisters put on his work—gold stars on everything! Spelling … arithmetic. He was the first one to learn to read, remember? He was the smartest one in his class. Oh, we knew even then that he was headed for success. He won that spelling bee, remember? And popular, too. Not snooty about being so smart. President of his class in the eighth grade, and a good little athlete. A good little football player, a good little tackle, but always too light for the team …’

  ‘He was too thin,’ Mrs. Callahan said quietly.

  ‘Yes, but he ate like a horse, remember? When he was fourteen, fifteen—but he was all skin and bones, you’re right. It all went to height. He was taller than me. Healthy, though—always healthy, like my own father, never sick. Oh, he had the usual things—measles, mumps, whooping cough—things like that. Things all kids get. But he was never really sick. And he was a good kid, too—obedient, willing to work. Always had some odd job or other—selling Saturday Evening Posts, peddling papers. He worked in my store two summers, running errands. He was always willing. Everybody always loved him because he was so willing and helpful and cooperative. I remember—when I was working in the store—before I got sick—people would call up for something, and they’d say, “Send little Bernard over with it, will you, Mr. Callahan? He’s always so cheerful!” He picked up more darned tips than anybody!’ He shook his head slowly back and forth, admiringly. ‘And he was smart about money. Never wasted it. He saved it, started his own savings account—all by himself. Came home one night with the little pass book and said, “I’ve put my money in the bank.” Just announced it, just like that. He was—oh, maybe eleven then.’

  ‘Nine,’ Mrs. Callahan said. ‘Only nine.’

  ‘Yes, only nine. Yes, he was starred for success, bound to succeed.’

  ‘Yes …’ Peggy said. ‘Yes.’

  Remember, Annie?’ he said. ‘Remember how he started that savings account, what he said?’ He chuckled softly. ‘He went into the bank, big as life—nine years old—and said, “I want to see the manager.” Well, the manager came out, and Barney said—oh, very politely, he was always a polite kid—he said, “How much are your assets, sir?” And when the bank manager said so-and-so many million dollars, he said, “Well, that sounds pretty good. I’ll start an account here,” and he made a deposit of seven dollars! Seven dollars!’ He removed his glasses, breathed on the lenses and slowly polished them with a corner of his dark jacket. Then he replaced them. ‘Seven dollars!’ he repeated. ‘But do you know how much money he had saved up in that bank by the time he started high school? Two hundred and fifty dollars! That shows you how he was.’