“Fascinating,” said Kate.
“Five thousand dollars!” yelled Sport.
Mr. Rocque looked at him and laughed. “Look at the accountant,” he said fondly.
“Seymour’s father’s cost three thousand,” said Sport.
“They will arrive at their intended destinations no matter what it costs,” said Mr. Rocque.
“No matter what you’re driving,” said Kate and they laughed. “What a day you’ve had,” she continued.
“Interesting. Very interesting,” said Mr. Rocque. “Now, we go back to the house. We all go into the library and have tea. Charlotte is dying to see the will, but doesn’t want to ask, so she thinks of ways to use the word will in a sentence. If she can’t do that, she manages to work in the word inheritance. Wilton just sips his tea. Carrie can’t stand it and finally says, ‘When can we hear the will?’ Wilton, cool as a cucumber, says, ‘I have the will with me. I intend to read it to you. I wondered, however,’ and then he looks at me, ‘whether you wanted the primary beneficiary to be here.’ I look back at him because I don’t know what he is talking about, and Charlotte screams. ‘What are you talking about?’ she yells like a fishwife. ‘Perhaps he is too young,’ says Wilton and opens his briefcase. At this point Carrie faints.”
“Does all this mean what I think it does?” asked Kate.
“Yes,” said Mr. Rocque and they both looked at Sport.
“What does it mean?” asked Sport nervously.
“Tell it the way it happened,” said Kate. She poured herself and Mr. Rocque a drink and then sat down at the table.
“Well, some smelling salts are brought to Carrie, then Wilton starts reading the will. I don’t want to go into the whole thing because, you know, it’s endless, but just the principal thing, which is this: Carrie is left out altogether. Charlotte gets one fourth of the estate, and the residual estate is left entirely to Sport.”
“What?” Sport yelled.
“Wow!” said Kate.
“Rather gives you a turn, doesn’t it?” said Mr. Rocque quietly.
“You mean me?” shouted Sport. “Me? I get the money?”
“Yes,” said Mr. Rocque.
Sport’s eyes got enormous. “But I’m only a little kid,” he said finally. Money, I have money. Where is it? he thought crazily.
“As far as he was concerned, you were the only son he ever had. He hated women, old man Vane, just hated them.”
“I don’t believe it,” said Sport. “Where is it? Where’s the money?”
“It is kind of hard to believe,” said Kate.
“It’s more complicated, son, than just being handed some money. It’s in trust for you until you’re thirty-five. He picked that age, I’m sure, because he always said a man didn’t know anything until he was thirty-five, and a woman never knew anything.”
“Oh,” said Sport and felt mysteriously relieved.
“Now this is the peculiar part,” said Mr. Rocque. “It’s in trust, which means only the income comes to you, and the two trustees are me and Charlotte.”
“Whoops,” said Kate.
“Exactly,” said Mr. Rocque. “Do you understand what that means, Sport?”
“I understand the income from the capital comes to me,” said Sport, “but the capital doesn’t until I’m thirty-five. But I don’t understand what a trustee is.”
“Boy, are you smart,” said Kate, impressed. “I didn’t know what all those words meant until I was thirty.” She laughed at herself. “And a lot of it I still don’t understand.”
“He’s got a head for this that won’t quit,” said Mr. Rocque. “I think you got it from old man Vane, because you never got it from me.” Mr. Rocque took a swallow of his drink and continued. “The thing is this. I said that Charlotte got one fourth. Well, that’s true, but if she stays here, keeps you for half the year, acts as a trustee, and generally behaves like a responsible woman, she gets one half.”
“Oh, dear,” said Kate.
“You mean I have to live with her?” asked Sport in horror.
“For half the year,” said Mr. Rocque. “But I’m betting she won’t do it. I think she’ll try, but I think she’ll ultimately decide that the one fourth is enough for her, especially when she doesn’t have to have any responsibility.”
“I don’t want to live with her,” said Sport. “Tell them I don’t want the money. I’d rather not have the money and live with you.”
Mr. Rocque looked at his son. Sport’s face was set in a mask of horror. “You can’t give it back, son. There’s no one to give it back to.”
“Why not?” yelled Sport. “Why would you make me live with her?”
“Wait a minute. Whoa,” said Mr. Rocque. “Take it easy now. I’m not making you. When the court decided the custody case, that’s the way it was decided, that you should live with me half the year and with your mother the other half. Up until now she has lived out of the country precisely because she didn’t want to have anything to do with bringing up a child. She still isn’t going to want to.”
“Why did he write the will this way?” asked Kate.
“Because …” Mr. Rocque thought a minute. “… I think that he wanted Charlotte to be a good mother. You know, old man Vane never had a mother. His mother died when he was very young and he always said that it was the hardest thing in the world, growing up without a mother. I think he saw Sport growing up the same way and decided to do something about it. He knows his daughter. He knew very well that greed would be the only thing in the world that could make her take on the responsibility. And so he’s set it up where she has to, to get half of the money. If she ultimately wants to give that up and take only the one fourth with no child attached, then she can do that, too. I am sure she will do the latter.” He looked at Sport as he said this. “I can almost promise you, son,” he said gently.
“But suppose she doesn’t?” said Sport. He felt like crying. Here everything was, nice and happy, with Kate in the house, and he would have to move out for half the year.
“What was Charlotte’s reaction to the will?” asked Kate.
“Terrible, as you can imagine,” said Mr. Rocque. “She’s furious. After Carrie was roused from her second faint, she and Charlotte both began to mutter about undue influence’ and ‘breaking the will.’ Wilton put a stop to it immediately. He told them they wouldn’t have a chance in the world.”
“What did she do then?” asked Sport.
“It wasn’t pretty,” said Mr. Rocque. “She turned sort of purple with rage and started to scream all sorts of things.”
“Like what?” asked Kate.
“Oh, that she doesn’t want to take care of any child…”
“Good,” said Sport. “She doesn’t have to.”
“Precisely,” said Mr. Rocque. “Now you’re beginning to see what I mean. Her character is absolutely unfit for having you around and she is going to do everything in her power not to. She knows she has to take you shopping for clothes tomorrow, and she acted absolutely martyred about it.”
“Why can’t I just buy my clothes around here?” asked Sport.
“Oh, but then you wouldn’t look like her son,” said Mr. Rocque, laughing. “And besides, she has to buy you a suit to wear to the funeral, which is day after tomorrow. And there everyone will know you’re her son, so you’ve got to look good.”
“Oh, geez,” said Sport.
“How about some dinner?” said Kate, getting up and going to the stove.
“Great,” said Mr. Rocque. “I’m starved.”
Sport looked at his father. You don’t have to move somewhere else, he thought bitterly. I’m not even hungry. He felt his eyes begin to fill with tears.
He went into his own room and sat on the bed. In a minute his father knocked on the door.
“What?” said Sport.
“I’d like to talk to you,” said his father through the door.
“All right,” said Sport.
His father came in and closed t
he door behind him. He didn’t look at Sport, but went over and sat at Sport’s desk. Looking out of the window, he began to talk.
“This is all a great shock to everyone, son. It isn’t a pleasant situation, to say the least. The only pleasant thing about it is that you will have enough to live on the rest of your life, and when you’re thirty-five, you’ll be a multimillionaire.”
Sport turned the words over in his mouth. Multimillionaire. Multimillionaire. They brought to mind pictures in advertisements of a chauffeur getting a case of whiskey out of a Rolls-Royce.
“But, Dad …” he began.
“Just a minute, son. Let me finish.” Mr. Rocque spoke quietly and continued to look out the window. “I don’t know much, and God knows I don’t make any money, but a writer at least knows one thing, and that is character. I know your mother’s character like the back of my hand. I know that she will not go through with this.
“She will give it a try, because she’s greedy, but she will hate it, and she’ll never be able to keep it up. She will quit and she will go back to Europe and everything will be exactly the way it was before, except that you will have more money.”
“We will have more money,” said Sport rather nervously.
“I am a trustee of your money, Sport. I’m not getting the money, you are,” Mr. Rocque said patiently.
“Well, what does that mean?” said Sport, trying to keep from yelling. “You mean I’m gonna be living on steak while you eat beans?”
“No,” said Mr. Rocque, laughing. “I imagine we can get a better apartment, live better. After thirty-five, maybe you’ll support me….” He laughed, his eyes shining.
Sport laughed.
His father cleared his throat, stood up. “How about some steak?”
“Yeah,” said Sport and laughed. “What do we need money for anyway? We got steak already.”
CHAPTER
Ten
The next morning, after Kate had left for work, Sport and his father were sitting at the breakfast table. Mr. Rocque was having a last cup of coffee before going to work in his study.
“You look sleepy,” he said. “Didn’t you sleep well?”
“Oh, yeah,” said Sport.
“Too much excitement in one day,” said Mr. Rocque. “When you get back this afternoon, maybe you should grab a nap before dinner.”
“A nap,” said Sport. “I’m eleven years old. I haven’t had a nap since I was six.”
“I’m forty-five,” said Mr. Rocque. “And I plan to have one this afternoon. When this much happens all at once, you find you get tired.”
“Hmmmph,” said Sport. “What time am I going?”
“The car is picking you up at eleven. You’re going to Brooks Brothers and then to lunch.”
“What for? I can have lunch here.”
“Because after lunch you’re going someplace else for shoes.”
“Oh, geez,” said Sport.
“Go on, now. Put a clean shirt on and your suit.”
“The arms are too short.”
“That’s what you’re going for, to get one where the arms aren’t too short. Now, hop. She’ll be mad as a snake if you’re late, and I don’t want her up here yelling at me.”
I don’t want her up here either, thought Sport and went to his room. The only clean shirt he had was red-and-white checked. He took a shower and put on the shirt and his gray suit, feeling sad and heavy the whole time.
At eleven, he yelled good-bye to his father and went down the steps. The long black car was just pulling up to the curb. As he came down the front steps of his house, he caught a glimpse of his mother in the backseat. She seemed to have furs pulled up to her chin.
Egbert, the chauffeur, jumped out of the front seat and ran around the car. He opened the back door and Sport stepped in. He was assaulted by his mother’s perfume.
“Good morning,” she said coldly, looking him up and down. “I see you do need a suit. Or did your father have you put on the oldest one?” She gave a bitter laugh.
“I only have one suit,” said Sport. He punched the button to roll down the window to get away from the perfume.
“What are you doing? It’s cold.” Charlotte pushed the button on her side with one quick, furious finger.
“It doesn’t seem cold.” Sport watched the window close.
His mother didn’t seem to hear him. It wasn’t cold. The perfume was sickening. Oh, swell, he thought to himself, I’ll throw up all over Brooks Brothers.
“One suit.” She snorted. “Does your father teach you to make these pitiful little cries or do you think they’re amusing?”
“What?” said Sport.
“Never mind. With your money you can keep the neighborhood in suits.”
Sport thought of Harry, who must have twenty suits since he worked after school and spent every cent on clothes. Seymour had the same blue suit he’d had for years because he hadn’t gotten much taller.
His mother lapsed into silence. He stared out the window. They were going down the East River Drive. The tugboats were all up and down the river. The sun was so bright, it hurt his eyes.
At Forty-ninth they turned off the drive past the apartment building that had just gone up next to the United Nations.
“Now there’s a nice place,” said Charlotte. “I think I may move in there. Billie Cleever got two floors there and the view is sensational.”
“Two floors?” said Sport.
She ignored him again. “I don’t know. The old house is a pretty place. Perhaps I won’t sell it.”
“Are you going to stay in America?” asked Sport.
“Turn here,” she said into the speaking tube which connected with the glassed-in driver’s seat. “Drop us here on the corner. And come back at one o’clock sharp.”
The car stopped in front of the door to Brooks Brothers. Charlotte took her sweet time getting out. Horns were blowing wildly. Drivers were screaming and a policeman was walking lazily toward them when she finally turned toward the building. “One o’clock sharp,” she said to Egbert, and they went in the door.
“Ah, Miss Vane,” said a terribly thin man with sparse hair.
“Yes,” said Charlotte and swept past him to the elevators. Sport looked back to see the man standing with his mouth open.
Charlotte got into a waiting elevator. “Boys,” she said, as though the word turned her stomach.
The elevator zoomed up and the doors opened. Charlotte stepped off and was immediately affronted by the number of people in the boys’ department. “What in the world is this?” she said loudly.
“Ah, Miss Vane,” said a short, slim, tiny-footed man in exactly the same voice as the man downstairs.
“What is all this?” said Charlotte, watching the mothers hustling sons into jackets, fathers picking up overcoats and putting them on boys.
“Ah! Back to school,” said the man. “You usually pay your visit somewhat later.” He tiptoed down the aisle in front of Charlotte.
“Here, I know exactly what I want for him.” She pointed to Sport, who felt like a fish in a tank as the man turned a squinted eye on him and looked him up and down. Too small, throw it back, flashed through Sport’s mind.
“Umm, yes. Do we want school clothes?” he chirruped, squinting harder than ever.
“The first thing I need is something for a funeral,” said Charlotte crisply, her eyes flicking with distaste over the other women in the department.
“Aaagh.” The man seemed caught between an expression of sympathy and a cough. He stopped squinting and stared at Charlotte.
“Quickly now,” she said sharply, her eyes suddenly focusing on him. “I have a luncheon engagement.”
He jumped. “Yes, aagh. Black. A black suit. Perhaps dark gray.” He hesitated.
How about red? thought Sport.
“Gray,” said Charlotte. “Much more sensible. Although black might be chic.”
And a nice homburg to go with it, Sport said to himself.
The sal
esman’s eyes squinted again as he watched Charlotte. He looked at Sport. “Is he growing very fast?” he asked.
“Who knows?” said Charlotte, making the salesman’s eyebrows hop. “Why quibble? Two suits, then, a black and a nice gray, light gray. I don’t like dark gray, it looks Jewish.”
“Whatever that means,” said Sport in spite of himself. Seymour was Jewish and he’d never had a gray suit in his life.
“Certainly, madam,” said the salesman and disappeared.
Sport was seething. “What do you mean, Jewish?” he said loudly. Several women turned around.
“Shut up!” said Charlotte. She pushed a child aside and went to the shirt counter. A man with very blond hair said, “Yes?”
“I want four white, two blue, one pink, one yellow, one blue-striped, one gray-striped. No, two blue-striped. Very nice.”
“Size?” said the blond man, who looked as though he hated her. Sport smiled to himself.
“They’re for her,” he said happily to the man, who smiled at him, a white-toothed, genuine grin.
Charlotte had not even heard him. “Here he is,” she said, grabbing Sport somewhere around the middle of the back and shoving him into the counter.
“Let’s try a thirteen,” said the man. He took out a shirt and unbuttoned it. Sport took off his jacket.
“Good Lord! Where did you get that awful shirt?” said Charlotte.
“My father and I got it at Melnikoff’s on York Avenue,” said Sport. He was laughing now because the blond man had come around the counter and was winking at him behind his mother’s back.
He put the shirt on and it fit.
“Good,” said Charlotte. “I suppose you don’t have pajamas,” she said shortly.
“I don’t wear pajamas,” said Sport.
“Four pairs of pajamas,” said Charlotte.
“Socks,” she said to no one in particular. She picked out socks.
The man with the suits came back. Charlotte looked at the material. “Fine,” she said briefly.
“If you’ll step in here,” said the Squinter, nudging Sport with a hanger. “We’ll have them fitted right away.” Sport turned and followed the man.
Sport Page 6
