The Rich Are Different

by Susan Howatch

  I decided to tell Steve about the conversation because I saw it as a chance to bring up the subject of his drinking without fear of triggering an unpleasant scene. I knew what happened when one attempted to criticize a heavy drinker for his habits, but I thought that if I merely repeated the story Steve’s anger would be directed not at me but at Cornelius.

  I succeeded almost too well. He immediately wanted to sue Cornelius for slander, but he calmed down, became more rational and promised me solemnly that he would cut down on his drinking.

  I had heard that story before, but I nevertheless encouraged him to try while I carefully pruned our social calendar so that we led a quieter, more relaxed life. I also shelved my ideas of carving out a career as a fund raiser for various educational schemes. I had no idea whether I would have been a success in this field, but it seemed obvious that the last thing Steve needed at that time was a wife who was pursuing her own career with success while his was foundering. Instead I thought it might be wise to discover how much talent I did have for fund raising, so I selected a charity connected with bettering the lot of the poor in the East End and put myself to work. It was good experience for me, it passed the time and Steve could hardly regard it as a threat, particularly since I was exhibiting conventional behavior for a woman of my class by dabbling with charity work. I was also able to help the poor, a fact which I often forgot but which was undeniably true. The women in the East End certainly gave me food for thought. They had countless children, lived in one room without running water, shared a lavatory with thirty other families and died of malnutrition and exhaustion when they were about my age.

  I often thought how lucky I was, even as my problems with Steve increased, and to divert myself from both the dreaded shadow of alcoholism and the sordid facts of the East End I turned back once more to the newspapers and magazines.

  In the new magazine Picture Post there was a photograph of the well-known millionaire Mr. Cornelius Van Zale at a New York ball given to launch his new art museum and celebrate his thirtieth birthday. Mr. Van Zale expressed a genuine admiration for certain types of modern painting; he thought Picasso was probably a good investment, and he was hoping to acquire some pictures by Modigliani. When interviewed later by Time magazine about his first thirty years, Mr. Van Zale said he was quite pleased with them and hoped the next thirty years would be as interesting. When asked about his philosophy of life Mr. Van Zale said he believed in the old-fashioned American virtues of thrift, hard work and loyalty to one’s family and the flag.

  Meanwhile in Europe the swastika was rampant. We used to see the newsreels whenever we went to the pictures, and as we heard the hysteria of the Nazi gatherings I would close my eyes and see not modern Germany on the screen but the tortured art of Durer and Bosch. The old metaphysical concept of evil took root in my mind; for the first time I felt truly close to the medieval intellects who could so clearly visualize the fires of hell and the screams of the souls in purgatory, and the fires seemed to roar again before me in a nightmare which not even Bosch could have foreseen.

  Emily was going to bring the children to England that summer, but hesitated at the last minute because the international situation was so grave. Tony came on his own but left well before the end of August.

  In September the British Navy was mobilized, Hitler shouted that Czechoslovakia was the last territorial demand he would make and Chamberlain flew to Munich to make peace.

  When he came back with his piece of paper I said wonderingly to Steve, “Doesn’t he know? Can’t he see? There is no compromise with these people. Duff Cooper sees that, Eden sees it, Churchill sees it …”

  But the country, swooning with relief, didn’t want to see it, couldn’t bear to look at the fires which were raging ahead of us in our doomed corridor of time. Even I had to look away, and when Steve’s final collapse came it was a relief to exclude the outside world and turn instead to our severe and all-consuming personal problems.

  At the end of the year he lost two more important clients. Business was bad anyway for bankers, and for Steve it was disastrous. While he was in bed for a week after a bout of suicidal drinking I went to our house, used my power as a partner and demanded to know the exact financial position.

  It was bad, worse than I had anticipated, and I knew the house was doomed. The correct decision was obviously to cut our losses, salvage the remains of our capital and retreat to Mallingham for a while, and as soon as I considered the prospect I realized how tired I had become of my London life. London would be unsuitable for the children anyway when war came, and Steve would need a quiet place to recuperate. We would still have enough money to live a comfortable country life; Steve could take his time to decide what to do next, and if he could only give up the drinking I was sure he would have no trouble finding a first-class job. It would probably be better if he made no attempt to reenter banking, but he could perhaps act as a financial consultant for one of the big American companies in England. I wondered what I would do if he wanted to return permanently to America, but in fact, as I soon realized, Steve had no desire to return a failure to New York and give Cornelius the satisfaction of watching him find a job. He also had no desire to concede defeat at Milk Street—and no desire whatsoever to give up drinking.

  I tried to reason with him, but as anyone who has ever lived with an alcoholic knows, they can be very unreasonable people. Finally he flew into a rage, said it was all my fault he was in such a mess and told me to get the hell out of his business affairs. This also was fairly typical behavior for an alcoholic. I didn’t argue with him, but I didn’t stay with him either. I could still hear the doctor telling my father’s third wife that once the alcoholic picks a victim that victim has to escape in order to preserve his own sanity. Accordingly I packed two suitcases, collected Elfrida from her day school and caught the train to Norwich. Nanny was already at Mallingham with George, Edred was now away at prep school and Alan as usual was at Winchester, I left a note for Steve which read:

  I’m very sorry, but I’ve already lived with someone who drank himself to death and it’s an experience I can’t go through again. I love you and I want you to get well more than anything else in the world, but I can no longer help you. Only you yourself can do that now.

  DINAH.

  He arrived at Mallingham at dawn the next day. After leaving the train at North Walsham he had walked the eight miles east to Mallingham. He was worn out, disheveled but sober.

  “Dinah.”

  I awoke with a start and in the dawn light saw his face. Leaping out of bed, I ran to him.

  “Steve—darling—”

  “I’ll give it up,” he said. “I’d give up anything for you.” He kept asking me if I loved him and I kept telling him that it was because I loved him that I had left.

  “I had to take some positive action—it was terribly important—I had to make you realize—”

  “I was afraid you didn’t love me,” he said. “I was afraid that if I was a failure you wouldn’t love me anymore.” And he said the words Paul had always denied me, told me he could never look at another woman and wouldn’t want to live in a world where I didn’t exist.

  I kissed him, slid my arms around his neck and stroked his untidy hair. Then I said, “There’s a place in Hampstead. It’s very exclusive and very, very private. Harriet told me about it. Several of her clients from the salon have been there to have a nervous breakdown or stop drinking or both. There’s a resident doctor. It isn’t run by quacks.”

  “But if everyone in the City knows I’m at some place for crazy people—”

  “It won’t be difficult to keep it quiet. We’ll simply say you’ve gone back to America to attend to some private family matters. Luke and Matt have just returned to the States—you can say you went out to California to help them settle down.” I did not argue with him about his future in the City. I was bending all my will towards getting him to the nursing home.

  After a long silence he said, “How do I get into t
his place?”

  “I’ll ring them up and find out.”

  “God,” he said, “I’ve got to have a drink. I’m sorry, but I can’t think clearly anymore unless I have something. Forgive me—I can’t help it. I love you, but …” He opened a drawer of the tallboy, rummaged among his pullovers and produced a bottle of vodka.

  “Steve,” I said, “we won’t bother about phoning Hampstead. Let’s just drive there straightaway.”

  “Whatever you say,” he said. “Whatever you want.”

  I drove him all the way to Hampstead. It took four hours and he was unconscious when we arrived. The doctor was very understanding and even lent me his handkerchief when I broke down. I cried for some time, but afterwards I felt calmer and more optimistic. The critical first step towards recovery had been taken and I could at least allow myself to believe he might recover.

  Two weeks later in early February when Hitler was already eying Poland and Chamberlain was finally realizing that no further compromise was possible, I had a telephone call from Cornelius’ right-hand man, Sam Keller.

  Five

  I

  I WAS IN LONDON when he telephoned. I had to be there during the week with Elfrida, who attended a day school in Hammersmith, and although Steve was allowed no visitors I wanted to be near the nursing home in case the worst happened and he walked out. After a light supper I had just escaped into the romantic fantasy of Tennyson’s poetry when the telephone rang. The head parlormaid answered it. When she entered the room I told her to say I was not at home, but curiosity overcame me and I asked who the caller was.

  “A Mr. Keller, madam. He sounded like an American gentleman.”

  My volume of Tennyson thudded to the floor as I rushed out into the hall.

  By the telephone I paused until I was calmer and then said casually into the receiver, “Mr. Keller?”

  “Yes, good evening, Mrs. Sullivan—how are you?” he said, and suddenly I was back at Milk Street five years ago in 1934 when that same voice had told Steve that Cornelius had outwitted him. Yet this was not an overseas call. From the quality of the sound I knew that Sam Keller was in London. “Excuse me for calling when we’ve never met,” he was saying with the leisurely charm I remembered so well, “but I was wondering if by any chance you’d be free to have lunch with me tomorrow. I arrived in London yesterday and I’m staying at the Savoy.”

  I was terrified he had discovered what had happened.

  “How nice of you!” I said graciously, knowing I had to find out how much he knew. “Thank you.”

  “Shall we say one o’clock at the Savoy? I’ll be waiting in the lobby.”

  “Lovely!” I said with a meticulous display of warmth, and after ringing off I stared for a long time at the silent phone.

  II

  I dressed with great care in a pale-beige long-sleeved dress which looked well with my fox furs, and wore a dark-brown broad-brimmed hat with matching handbag, gloves and shoes. I took a full hour over my makeup and when I looked in the glass I was satisfied. My skin, my strongest point even though I was thirty-eight, was clear and glowing; with makeup I could still hide the tiresome minor wrinkles. I had chosen a muted shade of lipstick to tone down my wide mouth, my nose was subdued by careful shadowing and my eyes looked softly knowing. Deciding I looked exactly as Sam Keller would want me to look, I gave my reflection one last smile and swept outside to my chauffeur.

  The pigeons in Trafalgar Square were pinched with cold but the sun was shining on Nelson, and as we passed the National Gallery I glanced down Whitehall to Big Ben shining against the pale winter sky.

  I thought of Hitler gobbling up Bohemia and Moravia to complete Chamberlain’s humiliation, and was just picturing a blond handsome Sam Keller, the perfect specimen of the master race, when the car drew up at the Savoy.

  I was on time, which meant five minutes late. As the commissionaire opened the door for me I strolled into the foyer and glanced nonchalantly around for my smart, sleek, heel-clicking Nazi.

  A tall dark man with a square honest face and broad workmanlike shoulders whipped off his horn-rimmed spectacles and ambled towards me with a warm friendly hopeful grin.

  “Mrs. Sullivan? Sam Keller. How are you?” He offered me a large firm hand to shake while his admiring eyes made me feel as if I were the only woman in London who could possibly interest him.

  “How do you do, Mr. Keller.” Shaking hands weakly, I found myself being spirited into the Savoy Grill. Naturally he had the best table booked for us, and naturally the waiters fell over themselves to pay us attention.

  He asked me if I wanted a cocktail before we ordered, but when I merely suggested a glass of wine with the meal he held out a hand for the wine list, which immediately appeared between his fingers. Meanwhile I was scrabbling for a cigarette, but he had discarded the list and struck a match even before the cigarette touched my lips. Under cover of this mundane social ritual I took a closer look at him. He had the trick of making his immaculately cut suit look as comfortable as a pair of dungarees, and so strong was his aura of casual charm that I had the absurd longing to unhook my corsets, sag in my chair and pour out to him the story of my life.

  “Is your wife here with you?” I asked politely, finding it impossible to believe he had reached the age of thirty-one without some woman steering him to the altar.

  “Oh, I’m not married yet,” he said, lighting his own cigarette. “I leave marriages to my friend Cornelius.” And through the smoke of our cigarettes I looked into the soft dark friendly eyes of Cornelius Van Zale’s hatchet man.

  The nervousness sank like a dead weight to the pit of my stomach.

  When our menus arrived we spent some time discussing the food and comparing the Savoy with New York’s Plaza Hotel, but eventually the food was ordered and the headwaiter was hovering over the wine list.

  “We’ll take a bottle of the Piesporter Goldtröpfchen ’24,” said Sam Keller.

  He had an American accent with the usual slack consonants and an unusual way of mauling the English long a so that it was neither long nor short but a strangled mixture of the two. He also, unlike most Americans, did not roll the r’s which the English leave silent, and this made his speech seem even more casually articulated. So when he pronounced the words “Piesporter Goldtröpfchen” with every consonant vibrating and every un-English vowel sound ringing faultlessly true I was so startled that I nearly knocked over my glass of water.

  He looked alarmed. “I’m sorry. Aren’t people drinking German wines anymore in London? If you’d care for something else …”

  “Good heavens, no! I like German wine very much.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t want to give offense,” he said, “and I know Americans are sometimes insensitive in Europe. Having been born on this side of the Atlantic, I sometimes like to pretend I’m a European, but that’s just wishful thinking, I’m afraid, because the truth is I’m one hundred percent American and my ties are exclusively with the United States. And talking of America …”

  He was very smooth. It was impossible not to be impressed. “… is it really true Steve’s gone back there on a private visit? That’s the story they handed me at Milk Street, but I thought I’d check it with you before I passed the word to Emily and the children to expect a visit from him.”

  I referred with just the right amount of worried reticence to Steve’s brothers and hinted nebulously at some new family crisis. I had already cabled Luke and Matt to ask them to confirm this story to anyone who inquired, and I thought the lie could certainly be sustained for the length of Sam Keller’s visit to London.

  “Gee, that’s too bad,” said my host, gazing at me with great sympathy. “That must be worrying for Steve.”

  The waiter arrived with the wine, displayed it and uncorked the bottle while we watched. I was twisting my napkin under the table as I tried to guess how far Sam believed me.

  “What brings you to London, Mr. Keller?” I asked, changing the subject as soon as it was decently p
ossible.

  He told me to call him Sam. “Well, it’s real sad,” he said with a sigh, “but I’ve come to wind up the Milk Street office and close our doors.”

  I had heard of Americans pulling their capital out of London, but I was still shocked. Biting back the obvious remark about rats and sinking ships, I said dryly, “So Cornelius is hauling up the drawbridge over the Atlantic moat!”

  “Now, don’t get us wrong!” he said easily. “If America later wants to float a war loan we’ll be at the front of the syndicate. This is purely a routine precaution to avoid any risk of capital confiscation.”

  “By a German government at Westminster!”

  He laughed as if complimenting me on my sense of humor. “Sounds crazy, doesn’t it!” he agreed good-humoredly. “But of course Neil has to think of every eventuality. Hell, we don’t want to talk about politics, do we? It’s enough to read about it in the press every darned day!” He raised his glass with a smile. “To England!” he said willingly as he drank his German wine.

  “To all those Americans,” I said, “who understand that no man is an island and no moat is ever unbridgeable.”

  I might not have spoken. Not a muscle of his face betrayed any emotion. Instead he said as he put down his glass, “You must tell me about your children. Do you by any chance have a photograph of Alan? Is he like Paul?” And later when he had marveled at the likeness he said with a sincerity I could never have questioned, “Paul was a great man. I owe him everything. Someday I’d like to meet your son to tell him what a great man his father was.”

  I was touched. A second afterwards I realized that he had intended me to be. He had diagnosed my hostility and had played his trump card to neutralize it. As the fear closed in on me again I noted his skill with the detached respect of one grandmaster for another and tried to read the pattern his moves were forming on the complex chessboard of our lives.