Clemmie (33 page)

“But …”

“Give us a chance to go over the whole thing, Craig, and then we can discuss it. Clemmie says you are a decent
man, a man of kindness and a sense of obligation, and she says this conflict between her and your sense of duty toward your wife and children is tearing you apart. I don’t condone your relationship with her. But she’s trapped by a paradox. She has finally decided she wants a good man. But because you are a good man, she can’t have you. Believe me when I say she desperately needs the kind of stability and authority you could bring into her life. She needs maturity, not some crazy erratic kid.”

Craig felt he had gotten into some strange game with highly clever opponents. Their skill was effortless.

“Give me a chance to say something right here,” he said. “I’m a wonderful catch. I’d be dandy for her. I’ve been drinking so heavily I’ve lost my job, and I don’t know when or how I’ll get another. My nerves are shot. I’m not entirely certain what I’m going to do or say next.”

“Let’s be calm about this, Craig,” George said. “Reasonable. We have a problem and let’s face it. Are you in love with Clemmie?”

“I don’t know. Maybe that isn’t the right word. There’s something that keeps dragging me back to her no matter how hard I’ve tried to fight it. Maybe it’s just sex. But now I think I’ve got it licked. I don’t think I have to see her again.”

George looked disturbed. “She is definitely in love with you. There’s no mistake about it. And you can’t bring yourself to hurt your wife.”

“I guess that’s right.”

Mimi said, “Don’t you see, Craig, how terribly you are hurting Clemmie? She can’t adjust to that kind of hurt as readily as a mature woman could. This is the second major rejection in her life. I don’t want to be dramatic, but this is the rejection that might destroy her.”

“There’s nothing I can do,” Craig said uneasily.

“Look at this rationally, Craig,” George said. “Clemmie told me about the quarrel over the letter to your wife. That was a foolish test of strength. She shouldn’t have tried to insist. But you turned out to be the stronger one, and she lost the gamble. I think I can speak with the authority of experience. It’s never as hard as you think it will be to ask a woman for a divorce. You dread it in advance. Then there is a nasty scene, but all scenes come to an end. I think the way to do it is face to face. I think
you ought to fly over and talk to your wife about this. And you may find her a great deal more understanding than you anticipate.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Don’t leave George out of your equations,” Mimi said. “Clemmie asked him for help. He’s delighted she came to him. He’ll help her any way he can. It should occur to you, Craig, that, through George, you might be able to provide for the future of your wife and children far better than you could otherwise.”

“I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

George said, “Now I know you’re a proud man, Craig, and I’m certain you wouldn’t accept charity, so I’m not going to offer you any charity. I’m going to …”

“Let me do this,” Mimi said. “You fumble so. Craig, I know that one of the things that could put you off is Clemmie’s money. You’re not the sort of man to enjoy being kept. George has a great many investments, a financial interest in a great many companies.”

“No controlling interest, actually,” George said. “A lot of diversification. I could really use a personal representative, a man who knows management methods and production methods.”

“To do what?” Craig asked.

“My brokers give me advice, of course. But I feel a large shareholder has other responsibilities too. If I had a man who could go to the factories and spend time there and advise me, in words I can understand, about the strong places and weak places in the production picture, I’d be in a position to give advice to management, or change my holdings, as the case might be.”

“I don’t know if I’d be qualified.”

“I had my lawyers look you up, Craig. So I know you’d be qualified to do this. I could pay forty thousand and traveling expenses of course. That wouldn’t match Clemmie’s income, but it would certainly make you … ah … independent of her income.”

Craig stared at the two of them, the amiable brown man and smiling brown woman. The pool behind them was like blue glass. There were twin rows of poplars on a neighboring ridge. He moistened his lips. They can buy the happy endings, he thought. When it doesn’t come out right, they buy a new ending.

“Through the looking glass,” he said.

George looked puzzled, but Mimi laughed abruptly, a short harsh sound like the single bark of a dog. “There’s no butter in the works, Craig. It seems to me I’ve spent half my life explaining George to other people. His mother was monstrously efficient. George wants so badly to be of use, but the poor dear can’t even read a balance sheet. He wants a man Friday.”

“But forty thousand,” Craig said faintly.

“It isn’t all it seems,” Mimi said. “George, just what was your income from dividends last year? Don’t put in any capital gains or interest. Just dividends.”

George frowned and waved a muscular brown hand. “Harvey could tell you exactly. Before taxes it must have been somewhere between two and three hundred thousand. There wasn’t much left after taxes.”

“I have a head for figures,” Mimi said. “Your salary and expenses would be a direct charge against that dividend income, Craig, and so it couldn’t possibly cost George more than five thousand a year to pay you fifty thousand.”

“But, by God,” George said, “I would expect diligence.”

“This is all pretty fantastic,” Craig said.

Mimi reached over and patted the back of his hand. “It’s certainly worth giving serious consideration. And, since you’re not working at the moment, it makes it easier, doesn’t it? Your wife is English, isn’t she? You know, she might very well want to stay there with her own people. And her alimony would have more buying power over there. Then your girls could go to really good schools on the continent. It would certainly be better for them than the ghastly public school system in Stoddard. It could be arranged so they’d spend their vacations here with you. Clemmie is really awfully good with children.”

They seemed so very confident. “You people have it all arranged, don’t you?”

“My dear Craig, sometimes perfect strangers have to step in and straighten things out. Don’t go all rigid and stuffy about this. George and I are really very simple and uncomplicated people. We want Clemmie to have a happy life, with stability and love. We think you could give that to her. And she should have children of her own. George would make such a reekingly fatuous grandfather.”

“I probably will. Craig, why don’t I have Harvey draw up a tentative contract. That’s Harvey Tolle of Tolle, Rufus, Kell and Burney.”

“I’ll have to think it over.”

“We
know
that, my boy. We are aware of that.”

“But,” Mimi said, “the very least you can do is make your peace with Clemmie while you’re thinking it over. The child is miserable. She thinks you don’t want her because of her past misadventures. And if you do have that idea in your mind, please be tolerant. Try not to think of the things she’s done to herself. With Clemmie it has always been like a sickness. She was hitting back at the world. Just think of what she
is
. A healthy and lovely girl with a quick mind and lots of talent. And think of the life you will lead together. I don’t want to sound smug, but nothing can go frightfully wrong when there’s enough money. It’s so easy then to escape the sordid. You can live with a certain flair, and style and—precision. It makes a wall you can live behind, safe from the more unpleasant kinds of intrusion. I’ll confess something, Craig. I was going to help George and help Clemmie just for their sakes. But you really are quite awfully nice in your own right, and I’m—I’m just terribly, terribly pleased.”

“But …”

“I know. I have a dreadful talent for rushing things. But you will go talk to Clemmie, at least?”

“I—yes. I’ll see her.”

George called to the bar man and ordered fresh drinks and then said, “And, Jeff, go in and ask Mary if she has any of that cheese left, the cheese Mr. Cleef sent me from Denmark. We’d like that with some crackers.”

They sat and talked easily about other people. They drank the drinks and ate the cheese and crackers. Some neighbors named Knight came over. Mimi’s brother woke up, was introduced, and began to drink Martinis with remote efficiency. Another couple joined them, an asthmatic old man and a woman who looked like a chow dog, jangled with jewelry, talked in a little voice and used words that would jolt a sand hog.

When Craig left, George walked him to his car.

“Shall I let Harvey know you’re going to stop in?”

The casual question brought the whole offer to the first point of decision. Forty thousand. And expenses.
After one bad scene with Maura. And then maybe it wouldn’t be too hard to get into the habit of not thinking about her. Not remembering. No painful job interviews, like the one with Maleska. No look of contempt in the eyes of an Ober.

A life of pleasant sunshine and blue pools and a man to make the drinks.

“You can tell him I’ll be in to see him.”

George shook his hand hard. “And you’ll see Clemmie?”

“Yes.”

George looked off toward the hills, a damp glistening in his eyes. “I want to see Clemmie happy. I want to see her happy at last.”

Craig drove slowly back to Stoddard. The gates to Christmas Ridge were gates to another world. Candyland. Reach out and pluck from the money bush. It was too simple to merely envy them. The emotion was more complex. Envy, incredulity and an inverted respect.

He knew that George would be pleased if Craig worked no more than sixty days a year.

Forty thousand. Three times as much as he had ever made. Security for Maura and the girls.

Maybe they were right, the people like Mimi and George. Divorce was not truly an earth-shaking event. It happened a hundred times a day. One bad scene and it would be over. All over except for the legal part. Maura wouldn’t beg. She wasn’t that sort of person. She would go cold, hiding the hurt. The honest thing to do would be fly over and get it over with. She might want to stay there. He could ship the things she wanted. A jobless man with children didn’t have much choice. And even if she came back, it would never be the same. Not after having Clemmie in the house, in their bed. Marriage couldn’t be the same. And he had alienated all their friends. He could make the vacations for Penny and Puss very special affairs. Buy them wonderful things. Maura could live very well in England on a thousand a month, probably as well as with two thousand here. She was a handsome woman. She could easily make a new marriage. And marry one of her own people. Clemmie loves me and needs me. Money is a lovely cushion against pain. Any
man in the world would give an eye for this kind of a chance. And he could carefully spit in the eye of Ober, and Upson, and Rowdy and Commerford.

And he knew what the first step had to be. The very first step. He drove to the Jardines. Irene let him in. She was very cool. She and Al, who had just come home, were having a drink on the back terrace. Al made him a drink while he apologized to Irene for the way he had acted. Irene unbent slightly.

Al brought him his drink. He said, “I talked to Johnny Maleska. He thinks you need a rest.”

“I’m going to get one, Al. Paul Ober let me resign. They had my personal things all packed and ready.”

“That’s not a surprise. But it’s a damn shame.”

Craig glanced at Irene. “Did Al tell you my sordid story?”

“Yes. And I don’t think you ought to be flip about it. You ought to be terribly ashamed. Can you get another job before she gets back?”

“I have an offer.”

“Any good?” Al asked, interested.

“It pays three times what I’ve been getting.”

Al stared at him. “You serious?”

“Very serious.”

“That’s great!” Al said too heartily.

“There’s a string attached to it. I’m going to fly over and ask Maura for a divorce. She may want to stay over there.”

Irene gasped and said, “You
can’t
do that!”

He looked at her. “I’m going to do that. And I’m going to marry the Bennet girl. And I’m going to work for her father.”

Irene quite suddenly looked much older. “You complete fool!”

“I don’t think so.”

“What’s the matter with you?” she demanded. “You act as if you were talking about going down the block for cigarettes. My God, Craig! You’re in trouble. All right. But this isn’t any way out of it. Maura will help. She’d want to help. You have to let her help.”

“Shut up, Irene. Please,” Al said in a tired voice.

Craig stood up. “Thanks for the drink. This is what I
want to do. It’s going to be very pleasant. Somebody left a gate open and I got into the clover. I thought you should be the first to know.”

Irene got up abruptly and left without a word.

He looked down at Al. “Do you wish me luck?”

“You’re a shallow, selfish, opportunistic son of a bitch.”

“Do you wish me luck?”

“You’re having a change of life and you can’t handle it.”

“Do you wish me luck, Al?”

“I won’t wish you luck. I’ll give you advice. Don’t install any mirrors in that clover patch. Your digestion will be better.”

“Good-by, Al.”

“I’ll send you a bill.”

“Make it big enough. I can afford it.”

“You’ve said good-by.”

He went out and got in the car. He felt curiously like a man made of wood. A good tough wood, like maple, or apple. The joints were cleverly carved and they worked smoothly. Two glass eyes were set neatly in the wooden face. Wood was durable. It would last very well. The wooden man could go and tell the flesh and blood wife that the marriage was over, and he wouldn’t have to feel a thing, because from chest to shoulder blades, all the way through, the wood was firm, without knot or worm-hole.

Monday, the nineteenth of August, was a day of violent thunderstorms. They came down the shallow valley, one after another. The sky was so dark that from the big window of Clemmie’s apartment he could see lights on in the office buildings in the heart of town.