Memories of a Marriage

by Louis Begley

  You know where to find the liquor, she told me.

  I got us our usual whiskeys, and we drank them in companionable silence, which I broke to ask another question, this one I thought certain to provoke her.

  Did he slap as hard as Hubert?

  She surprised me by laughing. No, Thomas was always a wimp and a sissy.

  I took a moment to absorb that and told her that in two days I would move to Sharon for the rest of the summer.

  Well, I guess you’ve gotten what you wanted, she replied, so now you don’t need to hang around. That seems to be the pattern in my life. Men help themselves to whatever I have and leave slamming the door behind them. Only you’d never do anything so unequivocal; you’ll tiptoe out and shut the door ever so gently.

  I was about to protest, but she held up her hand and added, Don’t worry, I’m not mad at you, I’m leaving for Little Compton tomorrow. Peter and Mary Chaplin are giving a housewarming. They’ve sold the big house and are moving into a very nice cottage near the club. But if I get bored, or there is too much fog over the water, I may just come to see you in Connecticut. Let’s make sure I have the right telephone number.

  IX

  AS I HAVE mentioned before, the weekend I had told Lucy I’d be spending with my aged cousin Hetty in Philadelphia I had spent in fact in Water Mill, with Jane Morgan and Ned Morris, her new husband. I took the train to Southampton on Saturday morning, Jane picked me up at the station, and we got to her house in time for a late lunch. It was my first visit to the house, although Thomas had talked about it often. All I knew about the new husband was that Thomas had brought him into his firm as a partner a few years before he retired and cashed out. The house turned out to be a rambling white clapboard affair on Flying Point Road set in an overgrown garden that ended at a salt marsh. Beyond it lay the ocean. Poor Thomas loved this place, Jane said, with all its imperfections. All the funny-shaped rooms one can’t possibly use, the four porches, the way everything new you bring into it is instantly absorbed. Armchairs and sofas that you’ve just had reupholstered, curtains that were sewn and hung last week look as though they had been here since the beginning of time. He bought it and had it renovated before we decided to get married. He used to say it was the house he’d always wanted, and it’s impossible not to feel his presence here. Knowing this you’ll probably ask yourself why Ned and I decided to live here. I guess the answer is that we like it too, a lot. Jamie didn’t want it—he doesn’t plan to spend time on the East Coast—and neither he nor I wanted to put it on the market, so Ned bought it from the estate. Jamie’s been out here since and says he feels good about it. I can tell what you’re thinking: the apartment in New York. Thomas left it to me and I saw no need to move.

  Poor Thomas indeed! I did not tell her that having been able to buy the Water Mill house and get it to be just so must have been the fulfillment of the fondest of his Walter Mitty dreams. Perhaps she realized it. Instead, I said that my house in Sharon, although smaller than this one, had many of the same characteristics.

  We found Jane’s husband in his study, doing what I suppose big-time investment bankers like to do on weekends: he was on the phone with a client in Moscow. While Jane performed a pantomime designed to put an end to the call, I examined him. He was, I guessed, a good fifteen years younger than Thomas, tall and massive, with a Li’l Abner face and big freckled hands that I could imagine gripping the putter with such force that the knuckles turned white as he prepared to birdie the hole. A look around the study confirmed my intuition. It was a storehouse of tournament mementos, golfing knickknacks, photographs of Ned with ruddy-faced men who I assumed were ranking players, golf clubs, and golf bags ancient enough to call for decommissioning. Was Ned happier multiplying his millions or on the links? Did it matter, given his great looks, the fortune he already possessed, and the air of having the world by the tail? What a change it was from Thomas, who’d never learned the game, and after he discovered the treadmill at the gym where he offered his employees and colleagues subscriptions had even given up his daily run in Central Park.

  At last Ned put down the telephone and assured me of his long-standing desire to meet the great novelist who had also been a dear friend of his late mentor and partner. Seeing that Jane had already gotten me a gin and tonic and was bringing him what looked like bourbon on the rocks, he announced that we had better take our drinks to the table. His conference call would resume in a little more than an hour. I was glad to see that the table was set on a screened porch and that waiting on it were cold lobsters. Although they were split down the middle, and the claws were cracked, they demanded our attention, and it was some minutes before we turned to the number one political subject of the moment, the simmering preparations for the reelection campaign of 2004.

  I said to Ned that Jane had told me he knew Senator Kerry. What do you think of him? I asked.

  Ned laughed. A war hero, a truly courageous antiwar activist, a great politician. And a great guy. I’m for him, and I’m doing all I can to be useful. I’m even a fan of Teresa’s. Of course, I also knew and liked the first husband. The right kind of Republican. I don’t know whether Jane has told you, but I’m from Pittsburgh, or rather a suburb. Sewickley. My family has known the Heinzes forever. We were always asked to their Christmas parties. Jane has told me you’d like to help jazz up the campaign but have had trouble getting through to the right people. I’ll see what I can do to establish contact.

  We had thrown the lobster shells and carcasses onto what Jane called the bone plate, we had finished an oak leaf lettuce salad, and I had drunk glass after glass of white wine. I had found the food and drink excellent, and it had become very clear to me that I liked Ned, that he and Jane were a good couple, the kind of couple that makes others comfortable and happy. I felt a pang of envy as I thought of a time, not so very long ago, when Bella and I served to friends on our porch in Sharon lunches that, in their Gallic way, were just as good.

  A young woman cleared the dishes and returned with dessert plates and a huge bowl of strawberries. Local farmer’s hothouse, Jane remarked. On her next trip the young woman brought sugar cookies that tasted homemade. I complimented Jane on them. She smiled, and Ned refilled my glass. My head was beginning to turn, but I made no move to stop him.

  Shall we all have coffee? Jane asked, and turning to Ned said, If you need to get back to your oligarchs before they zoom off to their dachas I’ll bring your coffee to your study.

  That would be good, he answered. I’ll take a look at my notes before making the call.

  What a nice man, I said when she returned. I’m truly grateful for this opportunity to meet him. Is there any coffee left? As you can probably tell, I’m a little tipsy.

  She refilled my cup and patted my hand.

  Yes, he’s a very nice man, she said. He’s even better than that. Here, have another sip of coffee. If you feel up to it, I’ll take you for a walk.

  The beach was just as I remembered it from a time when Bella and I used to stay with friends in East Hampton: white, seemingly endless, and, even on this gorgeous June Saturday, deserted except for a scattering of fathers playing racquet games with their children near the entrance to the parking lot. We walked briskly, Jane setting the pace, and, although the sand was hard and smooth, after a half hour of trotting at her side I began to wonder how much longer I could keep up. She may have sensed my fatigue and said, Let’s turn back. We don’t want to find we’re in Montauk. The return was easier, but when we reached Water Mill, I was grateful for her suggestion that we sit down at the edge of the dune and relax.

  Look, she said abruptly, I want to get some things off my chest. I can’t help wondering what kind of poison Lucy’s been feeding you during your visits. Probably I shouldn’t care. There will never be a biography, but the record has been made, and it’s one to be proud of. Thomas would have liked the obituary in the Times. It made the first page under the fold, there were no mistakes, and the tone was just right. The people in his fi
rm adored him. So did his clients, especially all those Mexican and Latin American finance ministers and central bankers. So did everybody who worked for him later at his foundation, and I believe the same is true of the think tanks he collaborated with and places like the Council on Foreign Relations. But you remember what Mark Antony says: “The evil men do lives after them; / The good is oft interred with their bones.” True or not, it’s cynical and ghastly. I’d like to think that the good that Thomas did will live for a while. He did quite a lot of good—quietly, because he was shy. He did no evil; I’m certain of that. I’ve never seen or heard of any act that was malicious or intended to harm. He was his own most severe critic. The instance that will interest you is his conviction that he’d acted irresponsibly—he’d been criminally negligent is what he said—when he married Lucy, because deep inside he knew that the marriage would be a wreck, and again when he told her he wanted them to have a child, because he should have realized how hard it would be to have such parents. The worst part, according to him, was the unfairness of how it all turned out. He came through unscathed. I don’t mind saying it—we had a very happy life together. As for his professional success, there is no need to talk about it. He made a great deal of money. That was not unimportant to him. We both know about Lucy. Of course, he realized that she had had serious problems before the marriage, but even so he couldn’t get out of his mind how much better off she might have been with a very different man. For instance, one who had enough authority to make her toe the line. I’d tell him he was nuts. She would have murdered anyone who tried that. The miracle, so far as he was concerned, was that Jamie had turned out so well and that their relationship was so good. Thomas adored him. I’m sorry, I realize I’ve been rambling. The point I’m trying to make, though, is in fact simple: he valued you and liked you a lot. If there are blanks in the picture you have of Thomas, I think he deserves better than to have them all filled in by Lucy.

  At least the marriage to this lady was entered into soberly and advisedly, I said to myself, and felt uneasy about returning to the subject of the failed marriage. But she had as much as urged me to ask questions. I decided to take her at her word.

  There is a blank, I said, that puzzles me. Because of Jamie, if for no other reason, leaving Lucy must have been very painful. How old was Jamie? Thirteen? Fourteen? The marriage had been rocky practically from the beginning. You volunteered, when we had lunch in the city, that you were not the reason he left and that I shouldn’t believe Lucy if she claimed otherwise. She does; she says he left her for you, and she’s rather colorful about it. But if that is wrong, why did he leave? Why then? Why not after Jamie had gone to boarding school? Or earlier, before they had him?

  You’re right, she replied. Leaving Jamie had been very hard for Thomas and very hard on Jamie. Thomas said that seeing him cry when he told him he was leaving was the most painful moment of his life. The strange fact is that I don’t know why he left at that particular time, although I knew and practically everyone around them realized the marriage was rocky. I really don’t. He refused to tell me, saying that he left because he had to and didn’t want to talk about it; the circumstances concerned no one except Lucy and him. I saw no reason to press him. Does Jamie know? I have no idea; he hasn’t said so since his father died, and I wouldn’t dream of asking. One person other than Lucy who does know is your old college friend Alex van Buren. Thomas let that slip. Don’t you think that’s odd? The only explanation that has occurred to me is that when it happened he was under great stress and really had to tell someone, and he was very attached to Alex. The summer jobs at Alex’s parents’ place in Newport and the connection to that whole family had meant a great deal to him. Perhaps Alex will be willing to tell you. If he does, I’d just as soon not hear what you find out.

  I got back to the city on Sunday evening, called Alex and found that he and Priscilla had also just returned from Long Island, in their case from the North Shore. When I asked whether there was a time when it would be convenient for him to see me, he replied, Why not tomorrow? At the Paddock. Twelve-thirty. No, you’re much too young, he told me, brushing off the suggestion that I take him to lunch. Besides, he continued, I’ve already written to the admissions committee about you, and Josiah has seconded the proposal. It’s a good thing for you to show your face to the boys. We’ll have you in the club before Christmas.

  Just as I had feared, Alex wasted half an hour or more introducing me to a collection of regulars at the bar and extolling the qualities that would make me a feather in the club’s cap. Consequently, when we had finished our drinks and finally sat down at the far end of the long table, where miraculously we were alone, I didn’t hesitate to get directly to the point.

  The chance encounter with Lucy at the ballet, I said, so soon after my return to the city, stirred a cauldron of dormant old memories, and the image of the girl she had been when I got to know her in Paris became very vivid. I’m not sure whether I’ve told you that I met Thomas Snow through her, also in Paris; in fact she brought him to my apartment in order to introduce him to me. Thomas and I became friends, from the very beginning. We’ve all changed, but she has changed in ways that astound me. I can’t attribute them only, or even principally, to aging. The old Lucy—the funny, original, devil-may-care girl I knew quite well in Paris—has quite simply disappeared. Or rather I have momentary, very brief glimpses of her once in a while, like those of an injured ghost. She isn’t unconscious of the change, and to her mind Thomas is responsible for much, perhaps most, of the ravage. She is very bitter and hostile. I’m struck by the fact that a lot of what she complains about—how she was always giving and he was only taking, how she never got anything back—is a matter of her bad timing. She didn’t remain with him until the time came to bring in the harvest. You know what I mean: success, money, position. Just as those good things were going to happen or had started happening, he stormed out. She’s made it clear that it was he who left, in a great huff. Why? Why at that time? If I am to believe what she says, the marriage had been in real trouble for a long time, practically from the start.

  Alex nodded but remained silent.

  I’m glad you agree about that, I said. Bella and I thought that, but we had no insight into what went on between them, and Thomas, whom I kept seeing right up to the end, never discussed his life with Lucy. In fact, he gave me the strong impression that questions about it would be unwelcome. He did talk about Jamie.

  Alex nodded again and said, So Lucy has been brainwashing you. Or rather stuffing you with what is for you new information.

  She’s trying to, I told him, and that’s one of the many reasons I’ve asked to see you. I believe you know Thomas’s second wife, Jane Morgan, and her current husband, Ned Morris. It so happens that I was staying with them in Water Mill over this past weekend. Jane talked to me about Thomas and her desire to protect his memory from slander. She returned with considerable emphasis to something she had told me a couple of weeks earlier—namely, that Thomas did not leave Lucy for her. By the way, that such was the reason is the gist of Lucy’s rather colorful version of the events. Jane claims that there was absolutely nothing going on between her and Thomas at the time he left Lucy, that they got together considerably later. I have no doubt that Jane is telling the truth. But the fact that Lucy should volunteer an elaborate lie about what had finally tipped the scales, and particularly her clinging to the lie, make me think that knowing the real reason for Thomas’s departure is perhaps the open sesame I need. It might give me a shot at understanding Lucy. Perhaps Thomas as well. Naturally, I asked Jane. She astonished me by saying that she didn’t know; she was completely in the dark. Thomas didn’t want to talk about it. She says that at this point only you and Lucy know what in fact happened. Will you tell me? It’s certainly what Jane would like. As she put it, Lucy shouldn’t be the only person filling in the blanks in Thomas’s history. Or “brainwashing” me, to use your expression. You may well ask why it’s any of my business to fill in
the blanks. The answer is that the whole thing has become something of an obsession.

  Let’s order lunch, Alex replied. Will today’s special be all right? Chopped steak and creamed spinach are first-rate here. You’ll find yourself looking forward to them.

  It was my turn to nod.

  A glass of red house wine?

  I nodded again.

  I’m glad that’s settled, he continued. And this obsession of yours: is it in reality the obsession with a book you want to write? Poor old Thomas is in no position to say yea or nay, but I can tell you that Miss De Bourgh will have your scalp if you stick her into a novel, and if I talk to you, and I’m still alive when your book appears, she’ll go after mine too.

  I gave Alex a variant of the answer I had given Lucy and said she’d been sufficiently reassured by it to go on speaking to me and in fact was eager to do so. Besides, I added, the book may never see the light of day. For instance, I might change my mind and want to work on something else, writing it may turn out to be too difficult, I could get sidetracked by another project.

  One thing is clear, Alex said, if Lucy hasn’t told you the real story in the first place she never will. I’m not sure how much good it will do you and your book to hear what happened, but it’s a good story. I will not keep it from you if you give me your word that you’ll never repeat it to anyone outside your book or breathe a word about having heard it from me. Especially to Miss Lucy.

  I held out my hand and solemnly shook his.

  All right, he said, there was no need to take what I say so literally. As I said, I’ll take my chances on what you’ll do in your book, but I don’t want any chatter. I’ve got nothing scheduled for this afternoon. If you’re free, we’ll finish lunch and have coffee brought up to the card room. It’s a good place to talk without being disturbed.

  It’s a story that goes way back, said Alex once our coffee had been served, and to tell it properly I have to go all the way back, not exactly to Adam and Eve but to Lucy and me. Some of this you’ve probably heard from Miss Lucy. If she has opened her kimono for you as wide as I infer, there were many opportunities to blast me, and I bet she hasn’t missed a single one.