A Summer Place

by Sloan Wilson

  There were a week’s copies of the Wall Street Journal and three appeals from charities for Bart, as well as a dozen bills, which he put aside for Sylvia to handle. There was an envelope addressed to Todd Hasper in the almost illegible, spidery scrawl of his ninety-year-old mother, who lived in Harvesport, and who wrote him once a week, winter and summer, despite the fact she never got an answer. There was an advertisement from a shop called “My Lady’s Hat” for Sylvia, and in the midst of all this were two light-blue envelopes from Palm River, Florida, one addressed to John in a large, still-childish scrawl, and the other expertly typed to Bart.

  Bart handed John his letter without comment, and the boy took it to his room. Bart was glad to be alone—for many months now, he had been developing a sense of annoyance when anyone was in the room with him. He opened his letter from Ken with curiosity.

  DEAR BART,

  While down here in Palm River, Florida, for a vacation, I ran into a good investment opportunity: a small motel on the beach. These establishments are apparently very profitable and offer certain tax advantages to the investor, but the problem is to find responsible couples to operate them. The thought occurred to me that you and Sylvia might be interested in entering into the venture with me as partners. I’ll put up the money if you’ll supply the administrative ability and professional skills necessary for running such a place. The usual arrangement is for the manager and his wife to be supplied an apartment and a suitable salary or percentage of profits. Helen and I have acquired a house nearby which I hope to get down to for vacations, but for the most part, the entire responsibility would be yours. I enclose a photograph of the establishment, and I can’t tell you how grateful I would be if this appealed to you. I’m sure that we could reach agreement on details if you cared to come down and talk it over. While in New York a few weeks ago, I ordered a car which is supposed to arrive from Italy soon, and I would count it as another great favor if you drove it down with your family. Otherwise I shall have to have it shipped, and that takes ages.

  Perhaps this is presumptuous of me, but I thought it worth a try.

  Sincerely,

  KEN

  Bart read this with a thin smile on his lips. Holding the letter in his hand, he went to the bedroom, where Sylvia was making a dress on an old-fashioned foot-treadle sewing machine. She looked up sharply when he came in, and brushed her hair back from her forehead. “What have you got there?” she asked.

  “He put it on the pink cotton material before her and said nothing.

  She read it slowly, her face grave. Then she handed it back to him. “What do you think of it?” she asked.

  Bart smiled. “Sylvia, there is an old joke with the tag line, ‘I may be crazy, but I’m not stupid.’ I think that applies to me.”

  Her face showed no sign of emotion, except that her eyes seemed to widen a little. “No one said you were crazy, Bart.”

  “I know about you and Ken,” he said quietly. She bowed her head.

  “You’ve had another admirer for a long time,” Bart continued, his voice dry and ironic. “He knows more about you than you think.”

  “Who?”

  “Our old friend.”

  “What old friend? Don’t play cat and mouse with me, Bart!”

  “Todd Hasper. Apparently you and Ken had difficulty sleeping last summer, and Hasper walks at night too.”

  There was a brief silence. “What a rotten way for you to find out,” she said finally.

  “Oh, I don’t know. It kind of brought Todd and me together.”

  “Stop it, Bart! Don’t try to make this funny!”

  His face was pale, and the mocking smile went. “I wouldn’t for anything,” he said. “It seems that Todd has been a sort of distant admirer of yours, ever since you were a girl.”

  She jerked her head up. “What do you mean?”

  “Todd isn’t the most coherent man, but he said something about undressing in front of windows, and all sorts of rot. Evidently he’s made a lifetime study of you. He wasn’t a Peeping Tom, really, to hear him tell it. Just a scientist, a bird watcher, perhaps. And he used to have a certain admiration for you.”

  Sylvia closed her eyes. “I have no defense,” she said.

  “That surprises me.”

  “Except one.”

  “Ah.”

  “I’ve grown up, Bart. I’ve changed.”

  “You’re suggesting that we forget the past?”

  “No. That we face the present.”

  “How?”

  “I’m in love with Ken.”

  “Very touching,” he said.

  “I can’t live here on the island with you and the children.”

  “You want a divorce?”

  “Yes. And I don’t want to hurt you.”

  He was standing very erect, an officer at attention, almost. “I appreciate your concern,” he said.

  “You know the truth about me, and I don’t deny it. Don’t deny the truth about yourself.”

  “And that is?”

  “You ought to get off this island, Bart! It’s no good here in the winter, for you or for any of us.”

  “But you are leaving and you want to take the children?”

  “Yes.”

  “I could make it dirty in the courts. I’m the aggrieved party, the innocent one.” Bart twisted his lips into a parody of a smile.

  “I know.”

  “I think Todd would like to appear as a witness. He’s been brooding about this for a long time, and it seems to do him good to talk about it.”

  Sylvia put her hand over her eyes. “That would be fine for the children,” she said.

  “You’re the guilty one.”

  “If it comes to that, I could prove you’re an alcoholic,” she said in the low tones of despair. “Anyway, you don’t really want to keep the children here on the island yourself.”

  “It would prove a point.”

  “Yes. It would prove a point, but you’re not that bad.”

  “No,” he said. “Thank you for recognizing that.”

  “Why don’t you come to Florida with us?” she said miserably. “I don’t want to leave you here alone.”

  “Really,” he said, assuming an air of detached amusement. “I’ve lost money, dear, but I’m not ready to be kept by Ken Jorgenson’s mistress. Or will it be his wife?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I imagine you’ll have a fight with that woman, Helen. She’s not as reasonable as I.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “I may be crazy, but I’m still perceptive, dear. She’s got a weapon. Your old Beast won’t like losing his daughter.”

  “No.”

  “I don’t think he’ll ever marry you.”

  “Perhaps not.”

  “What I’m trying to say is,” Bart said, slumping suddenly—as though someone had barked ‘At ease!’—“I’m willing to let bygones be bygones if you care not to reply to this letter.”

  “No.”

  “I was afraid of that,” Bart said, his face looking tortured. “Most women don’t want to be forgiven.”

  “It has nothing to do with that.”

  “I’ll give you Carla,” he said, his voice flat. “I can’t take care of her.”

  “And Johnny?”

  “I would like to keep my son.” The tone was final, and not without dignity.

  “There’s not even a school for him!”

  “He’s old enough for boarding school. I’ll let your friend pay for that.”

  “How about his summers? You’re not a fit father, Bart! Any court would recognize that!”

  “And what kind of a mother are you? Would they want him brought up by Jorgenson’s mistress?”

  Sylvia closed her eyes again.

  “I’ll make you a deal,” Bart said. “Take Carla, leave me Johnny, and I’ll spread no dirty linen in court.”

  Sylvia shook her head silently. “I can�
��t leave you Johnny.”

  “Why not?”

  “You’d kill him. Remember…”

  “Yes. I was drunk. But I’ll tell you this. I’ll send him to boarding school and summer camp. He’ll be here hardly ever.”

  “Then why do you want him?”

  “He’ll still be my son.”

  “Pride,” she said.

  “If you wish to call it that. But in all truth, Sylvia, he’s better away from both of us. Boarding school is best.”

  “That’s true,” Sylvia said hopelessly. “Oh, God, I guess that’s true.”

  “For Carla there’s no choice—she’s too young,” Bart continued soberly. “So you can take her. But John is mine, and I want him to stay mine.”

  “Can he visit me?”

  “What is gone is best forgotten.”

  “I don’t believe that.”

  “I do. You’re going to do this my way.”

  “Let me see him sometimes! It’s ridiculous to forbid that!”

  “No,” he said. “You’d try to get him back. I don’t want you even to speak to him about this without my being there. We’ll break the news to him together.”

  Putting her head on her arms, she began to sob. He stood looking down at her, and once he started to touch her gently on the back, but instead he did an abrupt about-face, his face drawn hard, and strode from the room.

  Chapter Twelve

  “DEAR JOHN,” Molly wrote. “I am in Florida. We have a funny house colored green. The swimming is great, but the surf is much bigger than on the island. They have hurricanes sometimes, but none yet. Mother has been in Buffalo, but she’s coming tomorrow. I can’t wait to see her face when I show her the Toad Fish I caught in the river. Daddy pickled it for me in a bottle of alcohol and it’s so ugly!”

  There were four pages of observations of this kind, and the letter was signed, “Sincerely, Molly.”

  “Johnny’s getting love letters!” Carla said.

  John blushed. “It’s nothing like that,” he replied indignantly. That night he wrote Molly the latest news about a seal that had been seen off the island.

  It was on a cold day that Barton Hunter, wearing a uniform Sylvia had pressed for him, came into John’s room over the garage on Pine Island at four-thirty in the afternoon. He found his son lying on the bed reading Tarzan and the Moon Maiden.

  “John, could you come into our room, please?” Bart said in his perfectly enunciated tenor voice. “Your mother and I have something important to discuss with you.”

  “Sure, Dad,” John said. He put the Tarzan book under his pillow, where Carla would not be apt to find it, and followed his father down the hall. In the corner of his parents’ room he found Sylvia sitting in a small armchair. She was wearing a pale-blue dress she had recently made. As John entered, she took a cigarette from a case in her purse and put it in her mouth. When she struck a match it made a surprisingly sharp rasping sound. “We have something important to talk over with you, Son,” she said, and her eyes seemed to be pleading.

  “What?” he asked.

  Bart sat down on the nearest of the twin beds, both of which were covered with white lace spreads he had inherited from his mother. “It’s not very good news, Son,” he said.

  “What is it?” John asked. His mother’s perfume pervaded the room, lilac, and the scent of talcum powder. On Sylvia’s mirrored dressing table was a glass vase containing three red maple leaves.

  “Your mother and I are going to get a divorce,” Barton said.

  Sylvia struck another match and relit her cigarette. Except for the scraping sound, there was complete silence.

  “A divorce,” Barton repeated, thinking from John’s reticence that the boy did not understand.

  “Why?” John asked. He stood erect near the door and his voice was steady.

  For a moment a stricken look flickered on Barton’s face, but then his voice acquired a curious tone of falseness. “People marry because they fall in love,” he said. “Sometimes they stop loving each other, and then it is better for them to get unmarried. That is called a divorce.”

  “You’ll understand when you are older,” Sylvia said, her voice sounding strained.

  “Yes,” Barton said. Outside the window Hasper’s dog started to bark.

  “When?” John asked.

  “When you get older,” Barton repeated.

  “No. When are you going to get the divorce?”

  “Your mother is leaving this afternoon.”

  “This won’t affect you much, John dear,” Sylvia said. “You’ll be going to boarding school soon. We’ve made arrangements with a very good one.”

  John said nothing.

  “Your mother is going to take Carla with her,” Barton said. “I am hoping that you will stay with me when you’re not at school or camp.”

  John made a sound then, a sudden exhalation of breath, and turned toward his mother. She gave a forced smile. “Someone has to stay and keep your father company,” she said.

  “You’re taking Carla?”

  “Yes.”

  The sudden dizzying thought that his mother had simply chosen the child she liked best swept over John, leaving him speechless.

  “You mustn’t take it hard,” Bart said nervously. “You and I will get on just fine together.”

  “And you can visit me someday,” Sylvia added “No,” John said, the word barely audible.

  “What, dear?”

  “Never!” John said, his throat so tight he could barely get the word out.

  “Johnny!” Sylvia said, getting up from her chair. “Don’t be like that, please!” She put her arm around him, her bosom soft against his cheek. The scent of her perfume was overwhelming. Against his will he clung to her a moment, but then he pulled away. “There’s no reason to be sad,” she said. “When you’re older, we’ll see a lot of each other.”

  John made no sound, but he was crying, and he made a convulsive effort to stop, inhaling sharply, almost as though to suck the tears back.

  “We’ll have a good time together, you and I,” Barton ventured timidly.

  John stood mutely looking from one of his parents to the other. Then he whirled and ran down the hall to his room. He heard his mother scream, but kept running and locked his door.

  In time his tears stopped. There was no moisture in his eyes, and even his mouth and throat were dry. The sweet smell of his mother’s perfume seemed to follow him into his room and to permeate everything there, like the smell of funeral flowers.

  Suddenly he heard his mother’s footsteps and there was a knock on his door. He said nothing. “Johnny,” she said, “let me in.”

  Clenching his fists, he lay in silence. “Please!” Sylvia said.

  A door slammed violently and there was the sound of Bart’s footsteps. “God damn it, leave him alone!”

  Outside the window the sound of the surf pounding the cliffs was low and ominous. John turned on his back and lay staring at the ceiling. He was careful to make no sound. Let her think I’m dead, he thought. Let her think I’m dead. In the white plaster there was a long crack with many branches, like the map of a river, a river that would be fun to explore. Tarzan and the moon maiden might explore a river like that in a dugout canoe, and John might go with them, shooting the rapids with the black heads of the crocodiles bobbing in the white water, and wildcats screeching ashore.

  “Hold on, John!” Tarzan would say.

  “Let’s go!” the moon maiden would shout, sounding and looking like Molly. “We’re off to the mountains of the moon!”

  Later John was awakened by the sound of an automobile door slamming, and there was the grinding of gears as the old Ford started. John was aware that his mother was leaving for the wharf, and the boat. There was the thought that this might not be true, that there would be another knock on his door, and she would be there in her blue dress, with the smell of perfume, but that did not happen. He thought of pur
suing her, of running wildly after the car, but his pride stopped him. He lay rigid in bed and finally slept.

  Later he awakened with a start. The room was pitch black, and someone was pounding on his door. There was a moment of ringing silence, and then his father said, “John! Let me in!”

  John lay motionless, breathing hard, but did not answer.

  “Please!” his father said.

  Still John did not answer.

  “John!” Barton said with pleading in his voice. “Are you all right?”

  “Yes,” John said.

  “I want to talk to you, Son. Let me in!”

  “No.”

  “Why not?” There was desperation, not comfort, in Barton’s voice.

  “Because I want to be by myself,” John said in a monotone.

  “All right!” his father said with anger, and there was the sound of his footsteps going down the stairs.

  John remained motionless in his bed in the darkness. The wind was rising outside, sighing through the naked branches of the trees, and the surf pounded.

  At three in the morning there was another knock on John’s door, followed by a guttural noise, almost an animal sound, the nature of which made John sit bolt upright in bed, trembling. Silence, and then the noise came again, half sob, half whisper, a wounded sound. John jumped to open the door, and his father, still in uniform, half fell into the room, catching himself on the bed, turning and smiling slowly in the dim light from the hall. Barton was crying. The smell of his whisky and sickness filled the room. John’s breath stopped. He said nothing.