by Irwin Shaw
“No,” said Tony.
“When you asked me questions, have I ever given you an untruthful answer?”
“No.”
“When you began to get into that habit last summer of telling fancy stories,” Oliver said, “like saying you swam across the lake one afternoon when you couldn’t swim at all and saying that old Mr. Norton invited you out to his ranch in Wyoming for a month and was going to give you your own horse …”
“That was just kid stuff,” Tony said.
“I know.” Oliver nodded reasonably. “Didn’t I tell you I knew and understood? It was all right to tell me those stories and not anyone else because I knew you were just having fun and using your imagination. But other people who didn’t know you the way I did might have begun to think you couldn’t be trusted and that you told lies.”
“I don’t tell stories any more,” Tony said. “Not to anyone.”
“Of course,” said Oliver. “And even about your eyes—there were a couple of times in the beginning when it was awfully hard to tell you what was wrong and what the chances were. When you get to be a father, Tony, you’ll understand what it meant to me.” He stopped. “But I did it,” he said. “Didn’t I?”
“Yes,” said Tony.
“Do you know why I did it?”
“I think so.” Tony’s voice was down to a whisper now.
“Because I wanted everything to be clear and straight between us,” said Oliver. “Because a long time from now, when you’re a man as old as I am now, I want you to be able to say, no matter what else happens in your life, ‘There was honor between my father and me.’” Oliver leaned over and patted Tony’s knee. Then he stood up, walked over to the front door and looked out into the wet night.
Tony raised his head and stared at his father’s back, his lips trembling. He waited for Oliver to say something more, but Oliver remained quiet and Tony got up and crossed and stood next to him. “I don’t know how to say it,” he whispered. “Mother and Jeff … They’re doing something wrong. They’re doing what grownups do when they’re married. I want to go home.”
Oliver closed his eyes momentarily. He hadn’t known what to expect after Tony’s call, but he hadn’t expected this. He’d told himself, as he sat at the wheel peering through the rain all day, that it was just some child’s crisis that would probably be over by the time he arrived. He wouldn’t even have come up, really, if things hadn’t been slow at the plant this week. Now—he thought, this is something different. This is like hearing cries from the nursery and going in thinking you are going to separate two children who’d hit each other with pillows or toys and finding, upon opening the door, one child lying in a pool of blood and the other standing over him with a knife in his hand. “Who told you that, Tony?” he asked.
“Susan,” Tony said.
“Who’s Susan?”
“She’s here with her mother at the hotel. Susan Nickerson. She’s fourteen years old. She has three fathers. Her mother was divorced twice. She knows a lot of things.”
“Is that why you asked me to come up here, Tony?” Oliver asked. “Is that the only reason?”
Tony paused. “Yes,” he said.
“Tony,” Oliver said, choosing his words meticulously, “in a place like this in the summertime there are often idle women, women of bad character, women who have nothing else to do but sit and play bridge and make up stories about their neighbors, stories that a decent person mustn’t even listen to. And often little girls of fourteen who are just beginning to become interested in boys hear bits and scraps that are not meant for them and build them up into … uh … colorful fairy tales. Especially a little girl whose mother has gone from husband to husband.”
“I hit her,” Tony said. “I hit Susan when she told me.”
Oliver smiled. “I don’t think you should have hit her. But I don’t think you should have listened to her either. Tony, will you do me a favor?”
“What?” His voice was suspicious.
“Don’t say anything about this to your mother,” said Oliver. “Or to Jeff. We’ll just pretend that I suddenly found out I could have some time off and I jumped into the car and came up here. Don’t you think that’s a good idea?”
Tony moved away as though he were in pain. “No.”
“Why not?” Oliver asked.
“Because Susan wasn’t the only one.”
Oliver put his arm around the boy’s shoulders. “Just because two or three or a hundred people gossip,” he said, “doesn’t mean they’re saying the truth. Do you know what gossip is?”
“Yes,” said Tony.
“It’s one of the worst things in the world,” said Oliver. “It’s a grownup disease. And one way a good man remains a child all his life is that he doesn’t gossip and he doesn’t listen to gossip.”
Suddenly Tony pulled away from his father’s grasp. “It’s me! … It’s me! I went down to his sister’s house yesterday and I looked through the window and I saw with my own eyes.” He turned and, almost running, went across the room and flung himself into the easy chair, burying his face away from Oliver, into the wing. He was crying, racked by the effort of pretending he was not crying.
Oliver ran his hand wearily across his eyes and walked over to the easy chair and sat on the arm. “All right, all right now.” He stroked the boy’s head. “Tony, I hate to have to do this. But I don’t know what else I can do. You’re very young. I don’t know what you know and what you don’t know. You might see something you think is very wrong and it could be completely innocent. Tony,” he said, “you must tell me exactly what you saw.”
Tony spoke without turning his head, into the crease of the chair. “She said she was going to the movies. But Susan was right. She wasn’t in the movies. I went down to his sister’s house. She’s not here this week and there’s nobody in the house. There’re Venetian blinds on the windows. They don’t come all the way down. There’s a little space at the bottom and you can look in. They were in bed together and they … they didn’t have any clothes on. And Mummy was kissing …” Tony swung around and faced his father. “I want to go home … I want to go home.” Now he wept, inconsolably and openly.
Oliver sat on the arm of the chair, rocklike, taut, watching his son weep. “Stop crying, Tony,” he said in a hoarse whisper. “You haven’t cried since you were a little boy.” He stood up and pulled Tony out of the chair. “Go in now and wash your face,” he said in a colorless voice.
“What are you going to do?” Tony asked.
Oliver shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said.
“You’re not going away, are you?”
“No,” said Oliver. “I’ll just sit out here for a while. Go ahead, Tony. Your eyes are all red.”
Slowly, his feet shuffling along the floor, Tony went into the bathroom. Oliver watched him go and shook his head vaguely. He walked heavily and pointlessly around the chilly room. There was a straw handbag with a bright orange scarf tossed over it that Lucy had left on a chair. He stopped in front of the chair and picked up the scarf. He put the scarf to his face and sniffed the perfume that Lucy had put on it. He bent again and opened the bag and rummaged in it. There was a small compact there and he opened it. The powder was spilled all over the mirror. He put the compact on the table and neatly took out all the other things from the bag and with absent precision arranged them on the table. There was a tiny bottle of perfume, a bunch of keys, a comb. A clipping from a newspaper of a recipe. The recipe was for angel-food cake. He took out a small coin purse. He opened the purse and took the coins out of it and made a neat little pile of the coins. They came to seventy-eight cents. Then he methodically put all the things back into the bag, one by one. He heard voices, Lucy’s and Jeff’s, outside the cottage, and their footsteps on the porch and he composed his face and turned toward the door as it swung open. Lucy came in, followed by Jeff. She was laughing. When she saw Oliver standing in the middle of the room, the shadow of a frown crossed her face. Then she said, “O
liver,” sounding pleased and surprised, and ran across the room to throw her arms around him and kiss him. Tactfully, Jeff waited at the door until the embrace was over.
Oliver kissed her on the cheek. “Hello, Lucy,” he said pleasantly.
“What are you doing here?” Lucy bubbled on. “Why didn’t you telephone? How long are you going to stay? Have you had your dinner? What a lovely surprise! Have you seen Tony?”
Oliver chuckled. “Easy now,” he said. “One thing at a time. Hello, Bunner.”
“Welcome, Mr. Crown,” Jeff said with boyish politeness, standing very straight.
Lucy took Oliver’s hand and led him to the couch. “Come over here and sit down,” she said. “You look tired. Can I get you something? A drink? A sandwich?”
“Nothing,” said Oliver. “I ate on the road.”
Jeff looked at his watch. “It’s getting late,” he said. “I guess I might as well be moving on.”
“Oh, no. Please stay,” Oliver said. He wasn’t sure whether Lucy glanced at him uneasily or not. “There are a few things I’d like to talk to you about. Unless you’re busy.”
“No,” said Jeff. “I’m not busy.”
“Have you seen Tony?” Lucy asked.
“Yes,” said Oliver. “He’s inside. In the bathroom.”
“Doesn’t he look marvelous?” Lucy asked.
Oliver nodded. “Marvelous.”
“Did I tell you he swam a hundred yards this week?” Lucy asked. She seemed to Oliver to be speaking more quickly than he remembered, like a pianist who is suffering from an attack of nerves before an audience and to make up for it finds himself going faster and faster through the difficult passages. “Way, way out on the lake,” Lucy said. “With Jeff following him in a boat. My heart was in my mouth and …”
“I just talked to him for a minute,” Oliver said. He turned pleasantly toward Jeff. “Are you taking all your meals at the hotel now?”
“This week,” Lucy broke in hastily before Jeff could reply. “His sister’s away this week and the poor boy was faced with two cans of salmon and we took pity on him.”
“Oh, I see.” Oliver smiled. “You both look as though the summer has agreed with you.”
“It hasn’t been too bad,” Lucy said. “It’s rained a lot, though. Now what about you? How’d you manage to break away? Did all those charming people in the plant go on strike all of a sudden?”
“Nothing as lively as that,” Oliver said. “I just managed to sneak some time off.”
“It’s been awful in the city, hasn’t it?” Lucy asked.
“Oh, not so bad.”
Lucy patted his hand. “We missed you so. Tony asked when you could come. You’re going to stay now, aren’t you?”
“I don’t know,” Oliver said. “That depends.”
“Oh,” said Lucy. “Depends.” She wandered back toward the little hall that led to the bedrooms and called, “Tony! Tony!”
“Leave him alone, please,” Oliver said. “I’d like to talk to you, Lucy.”
Jeff, still standing near the door, coughed, a little awkwardly. “In that case,” he said, “I’d better …”
“And to you too, Jeff, if you don’t mind,” Oliver said pleasantly. “Would you think I was rude if I asked you to wait down by the lake for a few minutes? I see it’s stopped raining. I’d like to speak to my wife alone and then—if it’s all right with you—I’ll call you.”
“Of course,” said Jeff easily. “Take as long as you want.”
“Thanks,” Oliver said, as Jeff went out the door.
Lucy felt her mouth get dry and she wanted to call to Jeff, “Stay! Stay! Give me time!”
But she watched him go out, and then, trying to swallow, to restore the moisture in her mouth and throat, she made herself go over to Oliver. She was almost sure she was smiling, as she put her arms around him. The important thing, at this moment, she thought, is to be normal. What would be normal, though? She had a flicker of panic, at the impossibility of knowing what normal was.
“It’s so good to see you again,” she said. “It’s been such a long time.”
Normal.
To give herself something to do, to prolong time, she made herself examine Oliver’s face closely. The long, hard, familiar face, the pale, clever, knowing eyes, the set, pale mouth, so surprisingly soft when he kissed her, the hard, smooth texture of the skin. She touched, with the tips of her fingers, the marks of fatigue under his eyes. “You look so tired.”
“Stop saying I look tired,” Oliver said with a first little flash of anger.
Lucy moved away from him. Everything I am going to do, she thought, is going to be wrong. “I’m sorry,” she said in a small voice. “You said your staying here depends—On what?”
“On you.”
“Oh.” Lucy clenched her hands, unconsciously, squeezing her fingers. “On me?”
Suddenly the light was too bright in the room and everything stood out too clearly, the sharp, ugly lines of the table, the hideous yellow of the drapes, the worn drab spots on the arms of the easy chair. Everything was angular and hurtful and time was moving too fast, like a train going downhill into a tunnel. How wonderful it would be if she could faint, if she could make time for herself in darkness, prepare in a warm, protective haze for the hard thing that was ahead of her. It’s unfair, she thought confusedly, the most important act of my life, and nobody gives me time to get ready for it.
“You know what I would like,” she said lightly, still almost sure she was smiling, “I would like a drink and …”
Oliver reached over and took her wrist. “Come here, Lucy.” He led her to the couch. “Sit down.”
They sat down next to each other. This is the millionth time, she thought, we have sat next to each other.
Lucy laughed, letting things happen, not trying to guide them. “My, you’re serious,” she said.
“Very serious,” Oliver said.
“Oh.” Lucy’s voice was small, domestic, apologetic. “Have I spent too much money? Did I overdraw at the bank again?”
There, that wasn’t a bad thing to say, she thought. Just let it happen.
“Lucy,” Oliver said, “have you been having an affair?”
Let it happen. Say the normal thing. He was sitting there like a teacher in school, asking her questions, grading her. Suddenly she realized that she had been afraid of him for fifteen years, every minute for fifteen years.
“What?” she asked, proud of the tone of amusement and incredulity in her voice. This is only temporary, she thought. Later on, when we have more time, we will talk seriously. Later on, we will lead up to the permanent truth.
“An affair,” Oliver was saying.
Lucy wrinkled her forehead, looking puzzled, as if Oliver had presented her with a riddle, but a riddle she was prepared to enjoy, once she understood its intent. “With whom?” she asked.
“Bunner,” Oliver said.
For a moment Lucy seemed stupefied. Then she began to laugh. Somewhere inside me, she thought, there is the perfect model of an innocent wife, who makes the correct noise and gives the correct answer to all questions. All I have to do is mimic her automatically. “Oh, my,” Lucy said. “With that child?”
Oliver watched her closely, already almost convinced because he was so ready to be convinced. “You must get over your habit of thinking men are children until they reach the age of fifty,” he said mildly.
“Poor Jeff.” Lucy was still laughing. “He’d be so proud if he could hear you. Why,” she said, feeling her face frozen in the difficult lines of laughter and inventing spontaneously and without plan, “why, all last winter he was going to dances with a girl who’s still in high school in Boston. She’s a cheer leader. She wears those short skirts and does somersaults at the high-school football games every Saturday afternoon and they can’t go to bars when they have dates because none of the bartenders will serve them.” Listening carefully to herself with her inner ear she sought and found the proper tone
of incredulous amusement. It’s like a dive, she thought. Once you start, there’s no turning back, no matter how high it suddenly seems, or how deep the water below, or how frightened you are or how much you regret having started. “Is that why you came up here like this?” she asked.
“Yes,” said Oliver.
“That long, long ride all alone,” said Lucy pityingly. The middle of the dive, going through the air, balancing. “Poor Oliver. Still, if that’s the only way I can get you up here, I’m satisfied.” Then she spoke more seriously. “Now how did you happen to get an idea like that? What happened? Did you get an anonymous poison-pen letter from one of those old hens up in the hotel? I have nothing to do with them and I suppose that annoys them. They see me and Tony and Jeff together all the time and they love to have a scandal to munch on and …”
“I didn’t get any anonymous letters,” Oliver said.
“No?” Lucy challenged him. “Then what?”
“It’s Tony,” said Oliver. “He called me last night. He asked me to come up here.”
“Oh,” said Lucy. “And you didn’t call me back?”
“He asked me not to,” said Oliver.
“So that’s why he rushed away from dinner. So that’s why you came at this odd hour,” she said sardonically. “For the secret rendezvous of the males of the family.”
“Well, the truth is,” Oliver said, on the defensive, “I did try to call from Waterbury, but the line was out this afternoon. He didn’t tell me anything on the phone. He was almost hysterical. He kept saying he had to see me alone.”
“I … I’m ashamed,” Lucy said, quoting the impeccable model within her. “Of you. Of Tony. Myself. Our marriage.”
“What would you have done?” Oliver said miserably. “If Tony had called you and said that I …”
“What have I always done?” Lucy said quickly.
“There’s never been anything with me,” Oliver said. “You know that.”
“No? Maybe not,” Lucy said. “Who’s to know? I haven’t asked. Still—is that the only thing in the world? Is that the only problem that people who’ve been married for fifteen years have to face? Have I ever lied to you? Have I ever hidden anything from you?”
