Our Father (27 page)

She went to the window and looked down—a kitchen garden, protected by palings, invisible from the public outdoor spaces.

Don’t remember that. I would have loved it, seeing vegetables grow, I would have helped plant, or at least harvest. … Pick tomatoes, green beans. Fun. Was it here then? I bet Noradia put it in. Ronnie and her plants. Yes.

She turned, retracing her steps through the playroom and entering the hallway to the left. She stopped in the doorway of a large white functional room. The nursery. A workroom: no lace-skirted pink-bowed bassinets here. Two narrow beds, a large crib and a small one, a changing table, shelves piled with receiving blankets, baby-sized flannel pajamas, tiny undershirts, and hundreds of diapers, yellowed and dusty now. She peered inside an old Bathinette: its rubber basin was cracked and filthy. Her body began to shudder. She glanced at the cribs, asking herself which was hers, glanced at the beds, glanced away. Her body jerked. She could not breathe, breath wouldn’t go in or out, the room shivered. She put out a hand to steady herself, touched cobweb climbing up a shelf, cried out, jerked away carrying a sticky trail. …

She woke up on the floor in a crumpled heap. She reached out to pull herself up, touched the same sticky goo, whimpered. She staggered out of the room and across the playroom to the bathroom, turned the tap on full force and put her hands under the water. She stood there as the water hit her hands with such force it sprayed out onto her pants, onto the floor. Her pants were soaked, the floor puddled, before she removed her hands and looked for a towel. The towels hanging on the rod were grimy with dust. She rubbed her hands on the sides of her pants, then put them under the water again and cupped them, tossing water onto her face. She turned off the tap and with the edges of her fingers picked up one of the dusty towels and dropped it on the puddle on the floor. Without wiping up the water, she walked as steadily as she could to the door of the nursery wing. When she left it, she locked it again.

Elizabeth swung around in the desk chair. What the fuck am I doing, what am I getting myself into, I could lose my job, this is insane. I’ll become a nonserious person in their eyes, lose what edge I have: men don’t take leaves to tend their sick fathers. Not even their sick wives or kids. You are truly mad if you do this. You have to be like them if you want to get ahead. Even the doctor thinks it’s crazy. Stick him in a nursing home and get it over with. The others will go along with whatever you decide. Your silence has created a power vacuum in which Alex is able to force her will on them. After all, what do you owe him? An education, that’s all he ever gave you. And with his money, he didn’t feel that at all.

Not doing it for him.

What then. Keep your eye on your priorities, what
you
want, what
you
need. Don’t get caught in emotional struggles that don’t advance you, the underbrush that booby-traps people, holds them in the past when they think their eyes are on the future.

Everything I’ve ever done was for him.

Nonsense. You’ve derived considerable pleasure from your work and certainly from your status.

Didn’t help. Couldn’t make up for all the rest.

Nothing can. … So do what’s best for you now.

She threw her glasses down on the desk and stood up, stared out at the darkening sky. Not even four o’clock and starting to get dark. What day was it, November 26, a month yet till the solstice, December 22, shortest day of the year, when all hope seems dead.

Clare died in May, a beautiful spring day, life returning. Weather means nothing.

Nothing means anything.

She kept pressing her lips together. Her heart was heaving like a stomach just before it erupts.

She and Clare drinking in his favorite Oxford pub, the Spread Eagle, sitting outdoors at a rustic table on a May evening, talking, talking. No end to their conversations, they could have gone on forever. She wanted them never to end but of course he always had to go home. They’d dawdle toward his car, then drive back to London, he’d drop her in Hampstead, head home to Ellen. Sometimes he’d take her home with him—lumbering old house in Ladbroke Grove, surrounded by huge shabby old Victorian houses. It always looked uninhabited from the front because it was always dark, but he’d walk straight to the back where Ellen had set up a studio in an old greenhouse, electric heater going full blast in the drafty damp room. She’d look up at him from her easel or sketch pad—oh hello, you came home for tea? Hello, Elizabeth, you here for tea? Leave the room, disappear for twenty minutes, show up in the sitting room with sandwiches with almost no filling, tea, packaged cake on a tray. For Clare the gourmet. Ate little herself, rail-thin, silent, paying no attention to Clare, who went on talking a mile a minute as if Ellen didn’t matter, as if he didn’t notice her anger or distance or whatever it was, as if he didn’t notice how bad the food was, how
dismissive
. Uncomfortable. Didn’t like going there. Better when we were off somewhere, in his study at LSE, driving down to Oxford to visit someone. He never came to my room. Did I invite him? Probably not—ashamed of the shabby furniture, gas ring, electric kettle, nosy landlady. Afraid of his reaction to being in my bedroom. …

Time he was invited to Paris and took me along: his assistant! God how my heart leapt, was this it, was he going to make love to me now, was I going to find out what love was like? Twenty-two I was, skinny, practically no breasts or hips, a boy’s body. People said I looked like Katharine Hepburn. My hair was long and straight, brilliant red then, it drew attention. Before we left I went to a little boutique near Claridge’s and spent a month’s allowance on satin pajamas and a matching satin robe, deep gray, forgot to buy slippers, would have looked really stupid, all dressed up in satin with bare feet.

Didn’t matter.

My complexion must have matched my hair, I was so excited as we checked into the hotel, charming place on the Left Bank, looked like an old farmhouse. The room was furnished with real furniture, old pieces, lovely, big old windows with lace curtains. Gone now. At least I couldn’t find it last time I walked the Left Bank. A huge bathtub in the corner of my room, screened by lace-covered panels. Two rooms, of course. Of course. My hands trembled as I unpacked, hung my things in the armoire, I had trouble with the hangers, dresses kept sliding off. Went off to the conference to register, everyone knew him, he introduced me to all of them, all men, the way they looked at me I was sure they knew, they didn’t take me seriously. I was embarrassed, I was still innocent, didn’t know nooky was standard at conferences, but oh I was proud too—of being his, of loving him, being loved by him. He loved me. I know he did. But he never said he did, did he, Elizabeth. Never even hinted it. Not then. Not until it was too late. Nothing personal in our talk. Oh, he’d asked a little about Father, my life in the States. I made it sound as if I lived full-time in a mansion in Lincoln. Concord Academy, Smith College: it all sounded good.

Dinner with a bunch of them in some brasserie, strange food to me then,
choucroute garnie
, pork hocks, headcheese, escargots, much wine and talk, late. Peck on the cheek, good night Elizabeth dear, see you at eight tomorrow morning, be sure to be ready on time.

I walked down the hall to my room just as out of control as I’d been that morning, not-seeing, not-hearing, heart pounding not leaping anymore: he didn’t love me. He wasn’t going to. Why? Am I ugly? Lack charm? Don’t play up to a man’s great god-self the way Mary does?

I put on the satin pajamas and robe, I sat at the little table facing the French windows overlooking the street and I poured myself a drink from the bottle of single-malt whiskey Clare had insisted I buy at the duty-free shop. I toasted myself: Here’s to Elizabeth, so ugly, charmless, ungainly, awkward, egotistical, superior, arrogant, and nonsexy that even a man who loves her doesn’t want to go to bed with her!

Drank myself silly, had a big head all day next day, went through the motions at the conference. Of course he didn’t really need me there and I wondered why he’d brought me, and by dinner, when I’d recovered, I asked him. A little bitterly, maybe.

“Liz, I want you to get exposure. Getting to know a professional world, getting familiar with faces and names
and
the language, the manners—these things are everything, believe me. I want you to learn them. Talk to people, establish a connection with them. In the academic world, that can make all the difference.”

My heart felt like a desert suddenly rained on, I was overcome with gratitude. How could I have questioned him? So good he was, intent on educating me, introducing me to the world he hoped I’d be able to enter. Of course he wouldn’t go to bed with me, he was a married man, he was honorable, respectful of women, even of his bitter indifferent wife, respectful of me.

So we went on and in that understanding my mind blossomed, I could trust him, trust his mind, his character, his honesty. He loved me as a protégée, the way men love boys, advance them, further their careers, and if there was any other element in his love, well, that had to be sacrificed to honor. Went on together for years, even after I came back to Washington; we wrote every week, spoke on the phone. I went to England every summer, spent time with him there. We went together to Italy one summer, to the Loire Valley, to Normandy and Brittany—to Mont-Saint-Michel, the fortifications at Saint-Lô, the Bayeux Tapestry, the
chemins cru
, food cooked with apples and cream and calvados. Made me sick one night.

It was 1958 when he left Ellen. Or she left him. Heard she was living with a woman. Who knows? When he called to tell me, all the feelings I’d buried over all those years welled up, I thought, this is it! It
is
happening! Because I hadn’t dated much—who could compare to Clare? A few guys I’d met at the institute, intellectuals, they were the only ones attracted to me. But their intellects didn’t make them different from other boys I’d dated over the years, they were just like the jocks, needed to have their egos built up every minute, no room for another ego in their universes. All other men a threat, all women nurses offering ear and bandage.

Not me.

So what makes you think you can nurse Father?

She shrugged. Fuck it.

I went to Father and bargained. Blackmailed him really. And he got Clare a job as an economist at State and a chair at the Brookings Institute. And banished me. Finished with me. Because I referred to it: forbidden. Not only that, I used it as a bargaining chip. I’ve never really regretted it.

Her mouth twisted.

And Clare came. I met him at the airport, he looked terrible, dark rings under his eyes, his face strained. What had she done to him? Poor baby, I wanted to take him home and take care of him, but someone had lent him a place, he wanted to be alone and think and deal with what had happened. And of course I understood, how could I not understand.

We fell back into the old pattern—a midweek movie or play or concert, drinks and dinner Friday nights. He got an apartment in Georgetown, he never invited me there, said it was a shithouse but he liked it, we’d meet at some café or restaurant there, talk talk talk all night, drive home half-cocked at two A.M. Sometimes he’d come up to my apartment and we’d talk talk talk until five. But he always went home. When he started to jog Sunday mornings, he’d stop in after his run, cook brunch for us. Beautifully—unlike Ellen. Omelets, huevos rancheros, pancakes with lingonberries. Or he’d bring something—those wonderful blueberry muffins he got in a little shop down the street.

It was amazing how he knew about my personal life. I never told him. He seemed to have radar, an antenna that followed my body, saw all my actions. He always knew when I was seeing someone. Andy Bocatelli—sharp, good-looking, nice sense of humor, a little on the macho side but careful with me, didn’t push. I had status. Upton name. Couldn’t figure what he saw in me. Why he liked me. He really seemed to. Clare came to Treasury one day, saw me walking with Andy, laughing in the hall. Asked me about him. Raised an eyebrow. “Little shoe salesman,” he said, voice oozing disdain. Could have been Father. “Not your style, Liz. Not in your class. Beneath you.”

I broke it off with Andy.

For a long time I didn’t see anyone but him. Then I started to go out with some other men, few enough god knows but I was still young, late twenties, still wanted to find out what love was like. But I didn’t love anybody but Clare. And he always found out and he always found them beneath me.

And I always accepted his judgment.

It was Jack Johnson I was seeing when I found out. Clean-cut, from the Middle West, ambitious, even then rising fast at Interior, assistant secretary now. Looking for a wife who could help him along, who’d make a difference. Because he worked at Interior, Clare never saw us together. Jack and I were dating pretty steadily, it was getting near summer, I could tell Jack was hoping that I’d invite him to Father’s Fourth of July party, which of course was famous in government circles, everyone knew who was invited and who wasn’t. It would be a coup for him, advance his career. I was considering it.

How did it happen, what was the sequence?

Clare had asked me for a Treasury report he couldn’t get through the usual channels. He was cleared, but they were sitting on this one for some reason. But he said he absolutely had to have it, and I said I’d get a copy for him. Supposed to give it to him Friday night but they called an emergency meeting and I had to work late, didn’t get home until past midnight. So next morning early I drove over to his place to drop it off. I knew he got up early. I’d wondered for a long time why he never invited me to his apartment—he said it was grungy my place was so much nicer—but it seemed fine to me, a nice old building, a pretty Georgetown street, even an elevator, what did he mean, grungy? Didn’t dawn on me even when the boy answered the door, gorgeous boy in his early twenties wearing only a towel around his middle. He apparently didn’t know about me either because he smiled, he invited me in, saw the big brown envelope in my hands, probably thought I was a secretary. He called out quite innocently, “Clare, someone’s here to deliver something,” padded back to the bedroom, pushed open the door. “Clare, are you decent?”