Memories of a Marriage

by Louis Begley

  Feeling calmer, I had a cup of tea, called the handyman and asked him to stop by the next morning to talk about painting and minor repairs, made a list of staples to pick up at the supermarket, and puttered around trying to make the house look and feel less unlived in. Then I sat down at my work-table and during a few hours actually managed to write. It grew dark, and for once it was hunger and the desire for a drink, rather than the flow of words turning into a trickle, that made me stop. I saved and backed up the new text and put my laptop to sleep. There were a couple of bottles of gin in the liquor closet. I made myself a gin and tonic, ate a handful of Ritz crackers out of a box left behind by Drummond & Co., and tried my cousin Josiah’s Kent, Connecticut, number. I was in luck. He and his wife were in residence and were free the next evening. I deflected the invitation to have dinner at their house and asked them to come instead to Sharon and help me start a new chapter of my tattered existence. As an afterthought I added the injunction to bring any child or grandchild who showed up in the meantime. Buoyed momentarily by a vague sense of accomplishment, I set out for a pizza at a roadhouse outside Sharon.

  · · ·

  Josiah and Molly did bring their granddaughters Natasha and Nina, the two squatters who had occupied my apartment, and Natasha’s boyfriend, a baby-faced fellow with a wispy blond beard and a stud in his right earlobe. I was convinced that the choice of a stud over an earring, as well as its placement, had coded meanings, but didn’t dare to inquire. Instead I asked Zeke whether he was, like the girls, a recent college graduate and was both surprised and amused to hear that he had a graduate degree in computer science from MIT and was working on valuation models for, of all places, Snow Carroll. I told him that I had first met Thomas Snow just before he went to business school and had kept in touch with him until the end. Zeke replied that I had been really lucky. Obviously, in his mind my friend Thomas was a great man. My amusement deepened when Nina told me that she too worked at Snow Carroll, but on mergers and acquisitions, and that it had been she who introduced Zeke to Natasha.

  Mrs. James announced that dinner was served. Not knowing how many we would be, I had bought a large leg of lamb at the supermarket, with the idea that it would either be eaten by an indeterminate number of Welds or see me through several lunches and dinners to come, and was relieved that it had come out of the oven just the way Bella would have cooked it. Mrs. James had taken care of the potatoes, green beans, and salad, and I had picked up, also at the supermarket, an apple tart. My memory had turned out to be correct: there were cases of wine in the cellar left over from the time when I’d buy wine young and let it mature undisturbed. Some of it was ready. I sat across from Josiah, having put Molly at the head of the table, and after I had uncorked the third bottle and given it to Zeke to pour, I told Josiah that I had run into Lucy at the ballet and had subsequently had dinner at her house and had also lunched with Thomas’s widow.

  Quite a coincidence, he replied, Thomas and his firm seem to be all around us!

  It turned out that he had done a number of deals with Thomas, both while Thomas was still at Kidder and afterward. Molly and he had also seen Thomas and Jane as a couple socially with some frequency. That had not been the case when Lucy was still around. Molly didn’t take to her; she’d disliked the way Lucy talked on and on, determined to dominate every conversation, and the disagreeable tension between her and Thomas.

  And what was your opinion of him? I asked.

  As a financier—that’s simple, I admired him. At Kidder he was one of the best they had. Some people said he was the best of our age group in the city—which really means the country—and I believe that. His and Tim Carroll’s timing when they left their nice secure partnerships and started their firm—a very gutsy decision, let me tell you—was perfect, and I happen to know it was Thomas who really called the shots. I don’t need to tell you that the firm has been a brilliant success in a rough business and in rough markets. Retiring when he did was gutsy too. He was plenty rich, but he must have realized that the really big money was still to come. But he wasn’t greedy; there was more than enough for Jane and Jamie and his foundation, and he wanted to write and teach at least part-time and do all the other things he could suddenly do without a conflict with the firm or having people attack the sincerity of his views by pointing to the firm’s business. I’ll give you an example. Under his leadership the firm took some huge and very successful speculative positions, selling currencies or commodities short or building up long positions. And he’d been up to his ears in solving sovereign-debt problems. People who disagreed with this or that article or op-ed piece he wrote for the FT could and did say that what the firm had done was inconsistent with what he was preaching. So he was one hundred percent right to cash out. As a person? In some ways he came across as standoffish, perhaps cold. No small talk. Fundamentally a square. That’s what was said about him. It wasn’t my experience. He was always very nice in his dealings with me both in business and socially. I had the impression, anyway in the beginning, that my being your cousin counted in the equation. As a friend? Very reliable. He wrote letters of recommendation to every school the kids have ever applied to, and let me tell you they were good letters. All the same, I think he had very few friends aside from those he made at business school or perhaps before. The rap about being a square? It was deserved. He read nonfiction—biography, history. Probably he hadn’t read a novel since A Tale of Two Cities in high school. Ballet? He didn’t go, and he didn’t much like the opera either. He told me about his background. I always thought that deep down he remained a boy from a small town who’d made good. Of course—Josiah laughed—Newport’s a very special small town!

  He paused and held out his glass, which I filled, Zeke having put the bottle in my proximity, and, seemingly changing the subject, asked: Are you a member of the Paddock?

  I shook my head and said, No, no one has ever suggested it.

  How did you escape it? Somebody must have screwed up. I am, Josiah continued, and so is Alex van Buren. You surely remember him? Probably he qualifies as Thomas’s oldest friend. Come to think of it, I am almost sure it was he who put up Thomas for the club. Anyway, he has lunch there practically every day. If you’re trying to reconstruct an image of Thomas, Alex is the man to talk to. The stuff he remembers is amazing. Give me a call when you get back to the city. I’ll take you to lunch and you can have a go at Alex.

  Alex! I said. Holy cow! This is turning into paleontology, but you’ve got a deal. I’ll be in touch next week.

  Josiah was my favorite cousin. I was his best man when he married Molly. He and she were one of the few married couples of my generation who had never split, never divorced, and were, insofar as one could tell, still in love with each other, still genuinely happy. As happy, I hoped, as I had been with Bella. I followed them out to their car and, as we said goodbye, told them how grateful I was for their visit.

  Next time in Kent, said Molly. Then it was the girls’ turn. We embraced, and Natasha said, Uncle Philip, we want you to know that we still really miss Aunt Bella.

  I covered my face with my hands. Tears were running down my cheek.

  VI

  WHEN I GOT BACK to the city I found a message from Lucy on my answering machine. She complained at length that Little Compton had been dreary, she’d seen no one except her awful cousin Harry Goddard and his second wife who disliked her, the cocktail party she’d gone to had been a disaster, and the road was approved the evening before she arrived, meaning that her visit was a total waste. She concluded by inviting me to dinner at her apartment anytime during the week. We’ll have cold chicken, like the last time, she said, or if you’re tired of cold chicken—I never tire of it myself—I’ll get a steak and you can cook it.

  I didn’t want to let myself in for a talk therapy session as long as the last one. The obvious trap being those after-dinner drinks, I called her back and invited her instead to the restaurant where I had lunched with Jane. She had told me I could use her name
when I made a reservation and that if I did I would get a quiet table and be treated with the respect due a great novelist. That is how she had introduced me to the owner or manager, a trim and suave man called Gérard. I had hesitated for a moment before naming the restaurant, reflecting that it would be amusing, but also potentially embarrassing, to find that Jane and her husband were at the next table. Then I remembered her saying that this bistro was her favorite at lunch, but she never used it in the evening. Far from objecting to my choice, Lucy said, My my, you stay away from the city for years, and in no time at all you get to rejoin the smart set.

  My date with her was for Thursday. I had no other engagements during the week and decided that since my book seemed to be moving forward I could afford the time it would take to have lunch with Josiah and, if he turned up, Alex van Buren. Josiah was free. We agreed to meet at the Paddock on Wednesday at one.

  The custom of the club was for members, even if accompanied by guests, to have lunch in the members’ dining room, at a long glistening mahogany table. It was possible for the member and his guest to have lunch at a small individual table in the adjoining dining room, but if we did, Josiah pointed out, we’d miss Alex, who never set foot there. After we’d had our glass of champagne at the bar—Josiah’s lunchtime drink, which he took in a large brandy snifter over one ice cube—and made our way to the dining room, we found that there were several men clustered at the near end of the table. Josiah greeted them with a nod and a wave of the hand and led me firmly by the elbow to the far end. Let’s sit on this side, he said, where we can talk without getting involved in the general chitchat. I’ll watch out for Alex. In the meantime, let’s order. I’m starved.

  I knew him instantly. Josiah having half risen from his chair, he headed in our direction without it being clear whether he had recognized me. Alex had always been a big man, but now he had become huge, as large as his father, whom I remembered as a sort of giant. The light gray pinstriped suit he wore was of such exquisitely old-fashioned cut that I was ready to bet it had been his father’s. Probably it hadn’t even been necessary to cut it down. He had aged, but he was still a beautiful man, his face a healthy pink, the blue eyes clear and unencumbered by glasses, the cheeks firm, and the brow smooth. He was someone, it would have been easy to think, who had never known a moment of worry.

  Philip, he said weightily after he’d sat down and told the waiter over his shoulder he’d have the usual, Philip, we don’t see you here much. That is really too bad. Members prominent in the arts should lunch and dine at the club often and bring in talented youngsters of the right sort. Not too many, of course, not too many. That was my motto at the Lampoon too. We needed you super gifted fellows but not in numbers that might make the rest of us uncomfortable. Remember your competition? I remember it as though it were yesterday!

  Of course I do, I replied. If you hadn’t helped I wouldn’t have gotten in.

  That was the truth. Candidates for membership in the humor magazine, known as Phools, were required to perform a prank in Harvard Square that was evaluated for the requisite “Phoolishness” by upperclassman members. It was the last trial before the members’ vote. I was a freshman, and I could think of nothing better than to appear on Massachusetts Avenue on April 1, in blazing sunshine, with the temperature in the sixties, dressed up as Santa Claus, ringing my bell and trying to collect change from anyone entering Hayes-Bickford’s, the hangout we all went to for English muffins and tea. My stunt was judged “derivative and jejune” by all except Alex, who argued for my election, proclaiming that my stunt proved I was going to be the magazine’s Tristan Tzara. His voice carried the day, and I suppose I had been insufficiently grateful ever since.

  You’ve proved me right. You’re one of our brightest ornaments. But I must say that while you were on the magazine you were singularly unfunny!

  Alex laughed so hard at his own display of wit that he began to cough and choke, turning so red in the face that an alarmed waiter took it upon himself to hit him between the shoulder blades.

  Harder, he gasped, harder.

  The choking fit at last under control, he returned to the subject of my not making sufficient use of the club.

  I believe you spend a good deal of the time in Paris, he told me, but that’s not a reason for not doing your duty as a good citizen and lunching here when you’re in town. Unless men are willing to do their bit—

  Hold on, Alex, interrupted Josiah, for some reason Philip isn’t a member!

  A ridiculous oversight, replied Alex, one that can and will be corrected. By the way, do you remember poor Thomas Snow? I put him up for membership here even before he made partner at Kidder. It wasn’t a joyride, I can tell you. Just as you’d expect, some fellows on the admissions committee raised questions about his background, not having been in any club at college, and so forth. I managed to beat them back. It helped that my old man had been crazy about Thomas from the time he tutored the kiddies in Newport and that I could report how Al Gordon had told the old man he thought the world of young Snow. Father and Al were thick as thieves. Our firm cleared through Kidder. You want to hear something that really made me laugh? You both know Lucy—Lucy De Bourgh, who was married to Thomas? Believe it or not, after Thomas told her he’d been asked to join the Paddock and that it was my doing, she called me at the office to give me a piece of her mind. Fit to be tied! The idea was that Thomas had already gotten too big for his britches, and I had no business aiding and abetting his self-aggrandizement! I swear to God that’s what she said. I laughed and laughed. Well, getting you in will be a breeze. No problems with your background. Unless someone objects there’s too much sex in your books.

  Alex began to laugh again, irrepressibly. Fortunately, the waiter had been hovering behind his chair and administered three preventive whacks that made Alex able to finish his black bean soup.

  That is hardly believable, I said. By the way, it so happens I’ve run into Lucy; in fact I had dinner with her two weeks ago. Seeing her made me think about the old times, and I remembered Thomas Snow telling me back then that he met her through you, of all people!

  Yes, I’ll take the credit for that, Alex replied. In fact I deserve more credit for various good deeds than you probably realize. If you and she talked about the old times, you must have gotten a blast about me.

  Actually, I didn’t. Most of the grousing was about Thomas. But she’s asked to see me again, and I wouldn’t be surprised if I heard more.

  Alex raised his eyebrows and said, You may be playing with fire. Am I right, didn’t your very beautiful French wife die some time ago?

  I nodded.

  Well, you must forgive me. My memory is still pretty good about the past, especially if at the time I focused on the events, but sometimes it plays games. For instance right now I can’t remember whether Priscilla or I wrote to you when it happened. The fact is—I don’t need to tell you—that everybody’s been dying left and right. I’ve given up reading the Times obits, though Priscilla still does. One could spend all one’s time writing letters of condolence. So you’re a widower! Quite a catch for the likes of Lucy. And she hasn’t talked to you yet about how she and Thomas split?

  I shook my head.

  You’re having dinner with her? That’s probably somewhere on the menu. Check with me before you swallow what she serves up! And write down your address for me. I’m going to send you the club’s yearbook so you can look through the membership roster and pick out names of people in the club you know whom I can ask for letters of support. You remember my one-and-only wife, Priscilla, don’t you? You used to dance with her in the days of our ill-spent youth. How silly! Of course, you do! She’ll be delighted to hear you’ve resurfaced. Speaking of Lucy, there’s no love lost between those two. The feelings go all the way back to when they were at Miss Porter’s. You and Priscilla will have a great talk, comparing notes. These days we let the ladies into the guests’ dining room on Thursday evenings. We’ll have dinner here. And turning to Josi
ah, he added, You and Molly had better join us. Priscilla always takes charge. She’ll work it out.

  Feeling certain that I would hear more about Lucy without waiting for the dinner with Priscilla, I was all agog, but at that precise moment three wondrously thin clubman types, highball glasses of what looked like bullshots in hand, wandered into the room and scanned the table looking for a place to perch. Having spotted Alex, they made a beeline for him. Two sat down flanking him, the third next to Josiah. Introductions followed. Perfect timing, perfect timing, intoned Alex and, addressing the clubman on his right, said, Can you imagine anything so scandalous, Junius? Young Philip here, a distinguished novelist and my Lampoon protégé, isn’t a member! I intend to set that right. Turning to me, he explained: Junius is our president.

  Josiah and I had been served our coffee, and shortly afterward we rose from the table.

  Remember, don’t let her brainwash you, Alex called out. And mum’s the word. He put his finger to his lips.

  · · ·

  Not long after I married Bella, needing income during a dry spell between two books, I did a series of articles on cultural subjects for LIFE, which then paid remarkably well, including profiles based on extensive interviews with Vladimir Horowitz, Pablo Casals, Yehudi Menuhin, Eugene Ionesco, and Kingsley Amis. Ultimately, these pieces became a book that paid for rewiring of the Sharon house, putting on a new roof that didn’t leak, and installing modern amenities such as central heating, a hot water boiler, and an efficient pump. Bella joked that we lived in a house that Rhinoceros built. I might have continued to do journalism if LIFE hadn’t changed or the plot of a new novel that went on to win important prizes hadn’t taken shape in my mind. My dormant interviewer’s instincts, developed and honed during that period, had become aroused. As I was walking across the park the next day to meet Lucy, I pretty much decided to try the shock-question technique and ask straight out whether, in spite of her long-standing dissatisfaction, it was true that, as she had hinted, it was actually Thomas who chose to leave. In that case, what had precipitated the crisis? As I waited in the restaurant, however, I began to have doubts. Certainly she was lonely and had a seemingly overpowering desire or need to justify herself and perhaps also to take revenge on the dead man. But unlike a celebrity who might play hard to get but has her eye on the end product, the big spread with flattering photos in a glossy magazine, Lucy couldn’t look forward to any reward for putting up with me. It would be stupid to spook her. There was also something to be said for letting her talk at her pace and in her own way. She might say more than she had intended if I didn’t interfere with her stream of consciousness.