Family Happiness (3 page)

Everyone took part in these occasions. In the summer, Henry and Wendy spent two months at the family house in Maine, on Priory Lagoon—now that Henry, Sr., was a partner emeritus in his firm, he took the entire summer off. Pete and Dee-Dee spent the summers with their grandparents until Henry and Polly, who rented the same house down the road each year for August, arrived. Henry and Andreya liked to hike. They appeared with Kirby and a tent and camped in the woods. Paul came to stay with his parents for a week and swam each morning in the cold, cold water. It was the only time Polly ever saw her older brother wearing anything besides a business suit.

During August, assorted aunts and uncles and cousins showed up. The Philadelphia Solo-Millers, Uncle Billy and Aunt Ada, summered in Priory, too. Henry's sister, Eva, her English husband, Roger Forbes, and their two daughters, Rosie and Theodora, came to America every other summer and accompanied the Demarest seniors to Maine for a week.

Such felicity in family matters is as rare as hen's teeth, as everyone who admired, envied, or disliked the Solo-Millers knew.

Two

Nothing had deviated on the Solo-Miller Sunday breakfast table for as long as anyone could remember. They ate in the dining room, with extra leaves in the table. It was one of Henry, Sr.'s beliefs that a generous amount of elbow room was an aid to digestion and that the American stomach had been wrecked by cramped eating spaces.

At each place was a juice glass, a coffee cup, and one of Wendy's breakfast plates, which were decorated with pheasants and cornflowers. All juice was squeezed fresh: Henry, Sr., believed that harmful metals leached into juice from cans, and also that liquid must never come into contact with paraffin, as in waxed cartons. The whole family backed him on this point, and everyone was happy to take turns squeezing oranges and grapefruits in the old-fashioned squeezer. There were heavy white plates of smoked salmon, silver baskets of toast points, dishes of capers, lemon slices and scallions, and a cobalt-blue dish of niçoise olives. There were covered dishes of poached eggs and sautéed chicken livers. At Wendy's end was the silver coffee service, which fascinated the children because the sugar tongs were in the shape of eagles' claws, and the finials on the coffeepot and sugar bowl were eagles' heads.

The children were briefly settled in the library, while Henry Demarest and Henry, Sr., sat in the living room to chat. Polly followed her mother into the kitchen. Since Polly and Henry were always prompt, and everyone else was always late, this gave Polly time alone with her mother, who was always in somewhat of a fuss. Wendy particularly fussed about the coffee. She was not very good about mechanical things, and thus she had chosen what Polly considered to be the most complicated method of making coffee. Wendy had been using a Silex for years. Its two glass globes confounded her. She did not really understand how the water from the bottom globe was driven up to the coffee in the top globe, and then how it dripped back down, but she stuck by it.

“Darling,” said Wendy to Polly, “this damned Silex doesn't work.” She stood behind the huge kitchen table wearing a tweed dress with a white apron over it. The kitchen was big and old-fashioned, with glass-fronted cupboards to the ceilings, an old marble sink, and a scullery. Wendy was the shortest member of the family but she presented herself as if she were tall. She had short, thick, curly gray hair, beautifully cut, and Polly's clear gray eyes and beautiful teeth. She wished she were stately-looking but instead she was pretty.

“It never works,” Polly said. “It hasn't worked for twenty years. You need an advanced engineering degree to use it. Why don't you get a nice easy pot that uses a filter and filter paper?”

“I can't fiddle with those papers,” Wendy said. “They're too confusing.”

“They make better coffee,” said Polly, sitting down. “They're idiot-proof.”

“Well, your poor mother isn't idiot-proof,” said Wendy. “I'm very hurt that you think I make terrible coffee.”

“I didn't say terrible,” said Polly. “Filters are easier, that's all.”

“Your father loves his Silex,” Wendy said. “
I'm
not hurt that you think the coffee is so awful. If you can't bear it, bring a Thermos. Oh, dear, where did I put that little wooden cutting board? I can't find anything this morning.”

Once the cutting board was found, and everything else Wendy had misplaced, Polly and Wendy sat down at the kitchen table to talk. Polly was not allowed to help on Sundays, so she poured herself a little glass of juice and watched Wendy slice a cucumber paper-thin. At this juncture, Wendy launched into one of her favorite subjects.

“Have you been down to Henry and Andreya's loft recently?”

“I was there for dinner last week. I'm sure I told you,” Polly said. Henry and Andreya's loft was in a dicey part of town, and Polly was the only family member who ever went to visit, usually when Henry Demarest was away on business.

“I don't understand why he and Andreya want to live in such a dingy place,” Wendy said. “Darling, hand me that bunch of dill. It's in the bottom of the icebox wrapped in a napkin. When you went for dinner last time, what did they give you? I think of them as eaters, but not cooks.” She chopped the dill on a large cutting board.

“Oh, some sort of vegetable mess,” Polly said. “Their loft is really very nice. You and Daddy only went when they were still fixing it up. It's very white and clean.”

“Your father doesn't like going into that building through a row of trash cans,” Wendy said. “And, to tell you the truth, those awful dirty stairs upset me.”

“They're clean now,” Polly said. “They washed them down and painted them with mauve deck paint.”

“You know, they sold some of Grandpa's furniture,” Wendy said. She arranged the cucumber on a heavy white plate. “Those lovely American Empire pieces.”

“They got an awfully lovely price,” Polly said. The sale of the Empire furniture was a favorite topic. “They bought some gorgeous French chairs made out of metal pipes.”

“I just don't understand,” Wendy said. “Those wonderful chairs with the rams' heads. For a bunch of metal wires.”

“Mum, they hated the rams' heads. They asked us if we wanted them, but we have Grandpa's two chairs, and the desk and the sofa in the study. That's quite enough rams. I told them to sell it. They love their metal chairs, and if you and Daddy weren't so fidgety and went down there, you'd see how chic everything looks.”

“They want everything to look like an airplane,” Wendy said. “Your brother, I must say, has always been a mystery to me. Sometimes I feel I gave birth to a changeling.”

Polly made a mental note to remember this phrase.

Henry, Jr., was the identifiable rebel of the family. He had fought long and hard, with Polly's help, to go to engineering school: the Solo-Millers did not know any engineers and did not know what sort of people they were.

All he had ever wanted in life was to build model airplanes, fly kites, and play baseball. As a child, when not at school, he had worn a baseball cap, blue jeans, a sweat shirt, and a pair of black sneakers that tied up at the ankles. He carried around a slide rule and a pack of baseball cards. Although he was not silent like his older brother, Paul, whom he treated as you might treat the door of your closet if you felt some hostility toward it, no one knew much what he was talking about. His topics were sports, math, and all aspects of flying. Since he was not a little gentleman, he often came home from school with a skinned knee or a black eye. As soon as he was old enough to do without supervision, he began spending all his time in Central Park playing baseball, flying kites, and trying to get into fights.

When angry he liked to sulk, and he spent many hours in his room streamlining kites or annoying everyone by running the motors of his model airplanes.

At engineering school Henry met a girl who might have been his twin, and he married her. His wife, Andreya, looked rather like him. She had red cheeks, blue eyes, and crisp, wavy hair. They had eloped, taking Henry's dog, Kirby, with them. As a child Henry had been deprived of a dog, and Kirby, Polly felt, was his revenge.

It had been unclear to the family for some time just how comfortable with the English language Andreya was. She had come from Czechoslovakia at the age of twelve, and Polly pointed out that she had gone to high school, college, and engineering school in America, but Andreya was quiet, and her bright eyes seemed full of the strain you see in people who are struggling to understand what is said to them.

For instance, Andreya was a vegetarian, but she had never said a word about it. For a long time Wendy had thought there was something wrong with her—for example, a nervous disorder that might cause her to try to starve herself to death. A lovely plate of vegetables could easily have been provided for her, had anyone known. Once the nature of her diet was discovered, a lovely plate of vegetables
was
provided for her and no one felt the slightest alarm when she turned down the roast beef or leg of lamb.

As a couple, Henry and Andreya were of what Polly called “the psychic-twin school.” They did not talk much but seemed to understand each other perfectly. Polly felt that algebra or trigonometry was their real means of communication. She knew that Andreya had taught Henry some phrases in her native Czech. He could say, “I worship you,” “No, no, little mouse,” “Unhand me, viper,” “Don't cry, little fish,” and a great many oaths and curses, his favorite of which was “Fuck the horse, you dirty bastard.” Polly knew that he would eventually teach this phrase to his niece and nephew, although he swore to Polly that he would wait until they were teen-agers.

“I'm sure he and Andreya are perfectly well matched,” Wendy went on. “I just wish it was in a way I understood better.”

“People aren't always happy in the way that you're happy, Mum.”

“I know that,” Wendy said. “I just don't see why.”

Wendy did not approve of privitistic marriages—partnerships of temperament or ones in which idiosyncratic needs were met. Marriage was social. A family spilled into society. Wendy was dynastic and marriage was a dynastic institution. Andreya and Henry looked more to her like perfect tennis partners than a couple who might present her with a new series of Solo-Millers. She could not incorporate Andreya's family into the family at large. Polly accused Wendy of expecting Andreya's parents to turn up in their national costume, but they were in fact a team of doctors in California, extremely nice and rather formal. At Christmastime they sent a letter to Henry and Wendy, and a basket of red grapefruits. On rare occasions they came to New York and had dinner with the entire family. Wendy was not used to such arrangements. In her day, families merged when a couple got married. A family was expandable, a chain reaction. Polly and Henry Demarest were a perfect example of this, but then Wendy had always considered her reliable Polly a perfect example of a great many things.

As soon as the plates were arranged, the bread cut for toast, the coffee started, and the table set, the front door opened, and Henry and Andreya appeared with Kirby. This animal was grayish blue with liver-colored spots and short, bristly hair. Henry claimed he was a Bluetick Hound, but actually he was a mix of Springer spaniel, pointer, tickhound, and retriever. Kirby exhibited every trait Wendy found unattractive in dogs. He slurped when he ate and he ate prodigiously. He made awful noises as he drank his water and always spilled it. His attitude at Sunday breakfast was that of an aggressive beggar, doubtless because in his home setting he was denied the sight of human beings eating chicken livers or smoked salmon. He could not be shut up in the kitchen, since he made such heart-piercing whimpers. He made a high screeching noise when he yawned.

He could not be given one of the oversized dog biscuits he loved because he slavered crumbs all over Wendy's rugs, and his cowhide bone made him drool. Henry, Jr., had not trained him to behave in any particular way in a house, although out of doors he obeyed any and every command concerning streets, traffic, and heeling. After an initial period of jumping on Wendy and making himself unpleasant about the scent of the smoked salmon, he generally flopped under the table, rested his head on Andreya's foot, and waited for whatever she might feed him.

Andreya had feelings about dogs. Her vegetarianism was an outgrowth of her belief that all animals had souls. She had confided this to Polly one evening, and when Polly told Henry Demarest he said, “Why doesn't she feel that beets and celery have just as much right to a soul?” Andreya believed that she and Kirby communed in a mystical, inter-species way, and she could deprive him of nothing. It was well known that she fed him salmon on toast points under the table. This made Wendy somewhat frantic but she was forced to keep silent. Andreya could be spoken
about
, but she could not be spoken
to
. Her sweet, slightly bashful European reserve made Wendy nervous.

“Hi, guys,” said Henry, Jr., to his family. “Get down, Kirby.” Kirby was unaccountably drawn to Wendy and he liked to jump up and try to put his paws on her shoulders. He had just been taken for a run in the park, and his wet, dirty paws were full of shredded leaves. Henry and Andreya never wore coats, no matter how cold it was. They wore wool jackets, and their cheeks were blazing from their walk.

“Make Kenny behave,” Wendy said. “Good morning, darling and Andreya.” She kissed her son and daughter-in-law. Henry, Sr., clasped his son's shoulder. Their shoulders bumped for an instant. This was their embrace.

Everyone trooped into the dining room. Kirby padded in after them and collapsed under Andreya's chair. As usual, the conversation began with Henry, Sr.'s disapproving of the smoked salmon. Pete and Dee-Dee sat politely still, with evil grins on their faces. Kirby was their lunch entertainment. If they took off their shoes he could be counted on to edge toward them and tickle their feet by sniffing at their socks.