A Season in Purgatory

by Dominick Dunne

  “I hear you’re fucking my sister,” said Constant.

  “What a Bradley way to put it.”

  “My father says you seem to have an affinity for his children.”

  “Tell your father Eloise Brazen said he was a pretty good fuck for an old guy.”

  “Who’s Eloise Brazen?”

  “You have no memory for names, Constant. A bad trait for a politician. Eloise Brazen was the one you called looking for your father on the night you killed Winifred Utley.”

  “Lower your fucking voice, Harry. We’re in my mother’s home. Not everyone understands your kind of humor.”

  “Humor, huh? Is that what it is?”

  “You see, I don’t remember anything about that night. Not one single thing.”

  “Don’t remember?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Oh, I see. The old blackout cop-out. Is that it? You were drunk. And don’t remember. So therefore not responsible.”

  “If it ever came to that, yes.”

  “I could blow a hole in that story a mile wide,” said Harrison.

  “But you won’t,” said Constant.

  “How do you know?”

  “I just know.”

  “You’re right, Constant. I won’t,” said Harrison.

  “Is this true?” asked Constant.

  “Is what true?” asked Kitt.

  “You and Harrison? Are you sleeping together?”

  “You’re not getting moral with me, are you, Constant?”

  The two youngest, Kitt and Constant had once been each other’s favorite in the family. Young, they shared secrets. They discussed their older siblings endlessly. Kitt, of all the others, had understood Constant’s moods. She knew that somewhere he felt inadequate to the great expectations his father had for him. “It should have been Jerry,” he once confessed to her. “Not me.”

  “What about Cheever?” Constant asked.

  “What about him?”

  “You’re still married to him.”

  “Your marriage doesn’t seem to have curbed your wayward habits. Surely, you of all people are not going to discuss the sanctity of marriage with me?”

  “It’s different.”

  “It’s not, Constant. That’s Pa’s thinking. It’s all right for the men, but not the ladies. You’re never going to win an election with that line of thinking. I might not even vote for you.”

  They were walking on the beach. Far off, they could see Harrison swimming. Both watched.

  “Are you curious about him? Is that it? Are you curious what it’s like, Constant? It’s marvelous. Does that answer your question?”

  “That is not what I meant.”

  “I think it is.”

  “He has disrupted our house by coming here,” said Constant.

  “He didn’t want to come here. Pa insisted. I insisted. You wanted him to come. He didn’t want to,” said Kitt.

  “I think he could be a little nuts, Kitt. Be careful of him.”

  “What is there I don’t understand about the two of you?” asked Kitt.

  Grace Bradley sat alone in the rose-shaded drawing room of her house, saying her rosary. The scent of wilting peonies filled the room.

  “Not seeing the movie, Mrs. Bradley?” asked Harrison from the hallway, as he passed by.

  “Certainly not, not after what Father Bill told me about that movie. That Madonna woman is a disgrace. The Vatican asked Catholics to boycott her concerts in Italy. Did you know that? I don’t like having films like hers shown in my house,” said Grace.

  “Your friends in the projection room seem to be enjoying it,” said Harrison. “Sonny and Baba and Thelma.”

  “She pronounces it Telma. Is Constant there?”

  “I didn’t see him. Charlotte’s there.”

  “Come in and talk to me, Harrison. You haven’t said a word to me all weekend. I remember the nice talks we used to have in Scarborough Hill.”

  “Yes, I remember, Mrs. Bradley.”

  “You could call me Grace, you know, after all these years. Sit there. That bergère chair is awfully comfortable, I find. Just move the pillow if it’s in your way. Pretty, isn’t it? Kitt did the needlepoint, and Sally Steers got the fringe in Paris.”

  Harrison moved the pillow and sat down by Grace.

  “Isn’t it nice that Kitt ran into you in Maine like that? And here you are back in the family. Don’t you think that some things are meant to be? Oh, I do. I believe that. You saw Agnes?”

  “Yes.”

  “How did you find her?”

  “As I had never seen her before, I had no basis for comparison.”

  “Poor Agnes. She always wanted to be a nun, from the time she was a little girl. Always had a vocation. I was just saying my rosary for her. I say one for her every night before bed. I sit in here, after the guests leave. No one ever comes in,” she said, smiling at him and holding up her silver beads.

  “Do you miss the house in Scarborough Hill?” he asked.

  “I do, yes. I loved that house. We built it, you know. We tore down old Governor Scarborough’s house that had been standing on that site for years and years and built our house. Oh, what a to-do there was about that. All the old guard of Scarborough Hill were up in arms over it. Louise Somerset, our neighbor, didn’t speak to me for years. She was born a Scarborough. They were happy years there. All the children growing up. These other houses we’ve lived in, like this house, and the house in California, and the apartment in New York, they’re beautiful houses, but they were other people’s dreams, not mine.”

  “Sis Malloy lives there, I hear,” said Harrison.

  “Yes, Sis. She’s such a dear. Someday we’ll go back, I’m sure. You didn’t bring your wife with you.”

  “No.”

  “Does she work?”

  “She is an editor in a publishing house.”

  “I don’t suppose you need a nanny for your children, do you? Maureen just fired an awfully good one. A cousin of Bridey’s.”

  “We have an au pair. A Swiss girl.”

  “Odd about Maureen. She can’t keep help. Do you know how many years Bridey has been with me? And Charlie? I’ve lost count actually, but since the children were small. It’s very important to know how to treat help. Don’t you think?”

  “I guess. It’s not a thing I’ve ever had to deal with,” said Harrison.

  Inevitably, Grace brought the conversation around to Catholicism. “Did you marry a Catholic?”

  “Yes.”

  “Your children were baptized?”

  “Yes.”

  “I notice you didn’t go to Mass today.”

  “Yes.”

  “I disapprove of that under my roof.”

  “I’m thirty-five years old, Mrs. Bradley. With all due respect for your opinion, I feel that is my own business.”

  Grace, taken aback by Harrison’s answer, retreated. She was used to having people say “Yes, Ma” or “Yes, Mrs. Bradley” when she made her dictates about their religious practices. Harrison was no longer the compliant boy she remembered, as agreeable to all the Bradley suggestions as Sis and Fatty Malloy. “Yes, of course,” she said finally. “Perhaps you’ll go back to it one day. Wait until you have the first big tragedy in your life. It often happens that way. Does your wife go to Mass?”

  “My wife and I are separated, but I don’t think she does.”

  There was a silence. At that moment Kitt walked into the room. “Harrison married Claire Rafferty, Ma,” she said. “Do you remember? She was a bridesmaid in Maureen’s wedding.”

  “Oh?” said Grace. “Really?” A look of displeasure crossed her face. “Well, it’s late. Past my bedtime, at least. Good night, everyone.”

  “Good night, Ma,” said Kitt.

  “Good night, Mrs. Bradley,” said Harrison.

  “Ask that new parlor maid to take out the peonies, will you, Kitt? I think her name is Colleen. The peonies are wilting, tell her.”

  “Yes, Ma.”


  “I can still see that beautiful, beautiful bridesmaid’s dress jammed into the wastebasket,” said Grace to no one in particular as she walked up the stairs. “It cost seven hundred dollars, which was still quite a lot of money back in 1973.”

  Kitt watched her mother until she had reached the top of the stairs and walked down the hallway to her room. “You should probably have gone to Mass, you know, Harrison. Since it means so much to her. What difference does it make, really? It’s just an hour out of your life.”

  Harrison said nothing.

  Kitt continued. “If for no other reason than the family show we put on. People wait outside the church to look at Constant and Charlotte and their kids. They look like the American dream family as they march up that aisle to take their seats. Whatever happens between them in private, you would never know a thing was wrong when you see them together in public. They both know how to play it. She’s as good at it as he is. Pa just beams with pride when everyone stares at Constant. No wonder he wants Constant to be president.”

  Still Harrison said nothing.

  “I can’t call the new maid at this hour,” she said. She took the vase of white peonies from the top of the piano and carried it into the front hall where she placed it on the console table beneath the photograph of the Pope. When she returned to the drawing room, it was in darkness. “Harrison?” she said.

  “Over here. I turned off the lights.” He spoke in a low voice.

  “Oh, my darling,” she whispered, walking toward his voice. They kissed in the darkness. Their arms wrapped around each other’s bodies. He reached inside her dress. “Yes, yes,” she whispered.

  “No bra?” he whispered back.

  “Just in case an opportunity arose.”

  “It has arisen.”

  “Two whole days without touching you. I thought I would go mad,” she said. They kissed again, their passion growing, their hearts pounding. He reached to the bottom of her dress and pulled it up, placing his hand between her legs, gently grasping her, and massaging it back and forth as they continued to kiss, their tongues pressing together.

  “Oh, my God,” she whispered. She reached down and unzipped the fly of his trousers. She put her hand inside his trousers until she got a firm hold on his erect penis and pulled it out.

  “Oh, baby,” whispered Harrison. “Oh, Kitt.”

  Kitt dropped to her knees and took Harrison’s penis in her mouth. They became lost in their pleasure.

  From the main hallway came the sound of strident high heels on the marble floor. “Ma? Ma? Why are all the lights out?” It was Maureen. “Ma? Nanny stole two of my best cashmere sweaters when she went back to New York today after I fired her. Ma?” She pushed the wall switch, and the room was flooded with rosy light from all the lamps. There, at the far end of the room, in front of the fireplace, stood and knelt Harrison and Kitt. Maureen gasped. Both of her hands flew to her mouth in horror. The very idea of what she was witnessing appalled her, made her shudder and turn crimson. Then she made the sign of the cross. “Dear God! Holy Mother of God! In all my life, I have never, never, never seen anything so disgusting. In my mother’s house. How could you? Cover your breasts, Kitt. How could you sink so low?”

  Kitt rose and readjusted her dress, pulling her skirt down and straightening the top around her breasts. Harrison leaned down and pulled up his boxer shorts, which had fallen to his ankles, and then leaned down again and pulled up his trousers. He buttoned them at the waist and then zipped up his fly.

  Maureen, breathing heavily, watched them with disgust.

  “You’d better go upstairs, Harrison,” said Kitt, quietly. “I’ll handle this.”

  “Are you sure?” asked Harrison.

  “Oh, yes.”

  “Will you be all right?” asked Harrison.

  “Oh, yes. Good night.”

  “Good night.”

  “I love you, Harrison.”

  When Harrison left the room, he did not look in Maureen’s direction. She followed him out with her eyes, hatred showing in her face. Both sisters watched him ascend the stairs.

  “Does it interest you at all that earlier today the new parlor maid, Debbie or Colleen or whatever her name is, saw him kissing your brother?” asked Maureen.

  “Don’t talk nonsense,” said Kitt.

  “I think your behavior is deplorable,” said Maureen, turning toward her sister. “Animals behave better than that. Animals. Do you want to kill your mother? Because that’s what would happen. She would die if she knew this. Involved with that user, Harrison Burns. He got everything he could out of this family, dumped us, and then he came back, grubbing for more out of us.”

  “As usual, Maureen, you have everything wrong,” replied Kitt. “I hope you are not under the impression that he is a big fan of yours.”

  “I am completely indifferent as to what his feelings are for me. He’s a married man, as you are a married woman, in the eyes of God. And married to that horrible Claire Rafferty to boot. That’s the only part of this vile episode that’s giving me any pleasure. Do you know what she did at my wedding?”

  “Oh, please, Maureen. Don’t start in again on her seven-hundred-dollar bridesmaid’s dress. Just don’t. We’ve all heard the story. Over and over again.”

  “It was one of the rudest things I have ever heard of in my life,” said Maureen.

  “I happen to be in an awkward position with Claire and the last person in the world who should be coming to her defense, as I am currently fucking her husband, as well as sucking her husband, as you just clearly saw, but she had every right to trash her bridesmaid’s dress. If what happened to her happened to me, I would have shoved the dress down the toilet, not just jammed it in a wastebasket.”

  “What do you mean what happened to her?” asked Maureen.

  “Guess. Guess, Maureen. The same thing that happened to Mary Elizabeth Moylan when she came to visit Mary Pat at the embassy in Paris. And the same thing that happened to Puff Rooney when she came home with me from Sacred Heart. The reason none of our friends wanted to spend the night in our house. Or why their parents wouldn’t let them.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Maureen.

  “Oh, yes, you do, Maureen. Yes, you do. It’s one of the dozen or so things we pretend we don’t know anything about in our family. Like that Johnny Fuselli is a gangster. Like the existence of the girl with the paralyzed back who was in the car with Jerry. Like what happened to Winifred Utley.”

  “Shut up,” screamed Maureen. With all her strength, she slapped Kitt across her face.

  Kitt, reeling from the blow, was thrown backward into the room. She fell against the chair in which Grace had been sitting. Tears filled her eyes. Slowly she got to her feet. “Oh, go have another baby, Maureen,” she said wearily, and walked out of the room. She started up the stairs. Then she turned back and walked out onto the loggia. There, at the far end of the room, the bar table was still set up from the luncheon party that day. She picked up a bottle of vodka, removed the cap, and drank from it, gulp after gulp.

  “Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea,” said Gerald.

  “What, Pa?” asked Jerry.

  “Having Harrison out here.”

  “I told you to stay away from that guy, Pa.”

  “He said some odd things to me. He said some odd things to Constant, too. He kept bringing up that old matter. Constant’s very upset,” said Gerald.

  It had been the belief of Gerald and Jerry and Des and Sandro that time would diminish the memories of that long-ago Easter occurrence in Scarborough Hill. “People forget,” Gerald often said. They even believed that time would diminish the grief of Luanne Utley, the mother. Surely, she had dealt with it by now and gone on with her own life, Gerald reasoned.

  “Constant thinks he’s a little crazy,” said Gerald.

  “This guy’s a walking time bomb, Pa.”

  12

  Several hours after midnight the telephone rang in the Bradley house i
n Southampton. The telephone in Gerald and Grace’s room had been turned off before they retired. Grace, who went to early Mass in the village every morning, did not like her rest to be disturbed once she closed the door of her bedroom. Kitt, who swallowed nearly half a bottle of vodka after her fight with Maureen, had passed out on her bed and did not hear the telephone. Maureen had returned to her cottage on the property. The telephone in Jerry’s room, which was at the farthest end of the house, was a private line of his own, disconnected from the main telephone of the residence. Harrison, whose room was at the top of the stairs, was awakened by the constant ringing but felt that it was not his place to answer a telephone in a house where he was an increasingly unwelcome guest. Finally, after twelve rings, there was silence.

  But the silence did not last. In a few minutes, Harrison was disturbed again by the sound of crying in the downstairs hallway. He rose from his bed, grabbed a terry cloth robe from the bathroom door, and opened the door of his room. There, coming up the stairs, was Bridey. She was dressed in a full-length robe and slippers. Her hair was covered by a nightcap. She was weeping.

  “Bridey, what in the world is the matter?” asked Harrison.

  “It’s the police on the phone, Harrison. There’s been an accident.”

  “Who?”

  “It’s Constant. He hit a telephone pole on the Montauk Highway. They’ve taken him to the Southampton Hospital.”

  “I’ll get dressed. You’d better wake up Mr. and Mrs. Bradley, Bridey.”

  “Oh, I hate havin’ to be the one to tell them. She’s had nothin’ but a lifetime of sorrow, the poor woman.”

  “Is it serious?”

  She looked in both directions to see if anyone was listening, and then whispered in Harrison’s ear, “He was drinkin’. At a bar in Sag Harbor.”

  Within minutes, every light in the huge house seemed to have been turned on. Maureen had been telephoned in her cottage, and ran up to the main house to be with her mother. Kitt had been awakened. Jerry was on the telephone with Johnny Fuselli, with Gerald barking orders into his ear. Des and Sandro took off for the hospital before the others. Bridey made coffee in the kitchen. Harrison, watching, noticed that Charlotte was not present. He walked outside and over to her cottage. He rang the bell and knocked on the door at the same time.