Sins of the Fathers (45 page)

She arrived in New York a week before Christmas with Sam, the four children and the two nurses, and naturally I was in the
front row of the crowd waiting at the pier as the passengers disembarked from the
Queen Elizabeth
and progressed through the customs hall. Sam’s personal assistant was dealing with the mountain of luggage so there were
no delays. Vicky was almost the first person I saw, and as soon as she saw me she started running towards the barrier.

She looked lovelier than ever. She was wearing a Persian lamb coat with a matching hat, and from a distance I was unexpectedly
reminded of Vivienne whose figure she had inherited. After she had left her Westchester apartment two years before, Vivienne
had rented
a house on the English south coast and Sam had generously allowed her to visit her grandchildren in London once a month. Whether
she would now return to New York I had no idea, but I hoped her financial circumstances would convince her that life in Europe
had more to offer than an impoverished existence in New York. I certainly intended to tell Sam that in my opinion he had done
enough for her and that there was no longer any need for him to underwrite her maternal instincts.

‘Daddy!’ cried my girl joyously, rushing past the barrier into my arms.

I thought of Scott asking: ‘Has it all been worth it?’ and a voice in my head answered yes, yes and again yes. I was no longer
alone. Nothing mattered except that.

When I finally relinquished Vicky to Alicia, the first person I saw was Sam.

‘Hi,’ he said.

‘Hi,’ I whispered, still recovering from my emotion.

The little boys clustered shyly behind him and beyond them the two nurses were holding the little girls. All the children
had grown very much in the year since I had last seen them, and Kristin, now seven months old, was already a large baby. I
noticed that like the others she had inherited Sam’s brown eyes.

‘Come on, kids!’ said Sam, giving Eric a slight push. ‘Wake up!’

Eric was six, still blond like Vicky but somehow not so like her as he had once been. In response to his father’s cue he stepped
forward and politely offered me his hand to shake. ‘Hullo Grandad,’ he said with his stiff little British accent.

‘That’s better,’ said Sam who had obviously rehearsed the scene several times. ‘Now come on, Paul! Speak up!’

Paul, who had resembled Sam since infancy, was now a plain stout three-year-old apparently incapable of speech.

A bright little thing danced up to me. ‘Hullo!’ it said, and jumped up and down like a puppy waiting to be patted.

I picked up Samantha and gave her a hug. She wore a little pink dress and a pink bow in her wavy fair hair and I was immediately
reminded of Vicky. ‘Hi – who are you?’ I said pretending I didn’t know, and thought how odd it was that all four children
had inherited Sam’s eyes.

‘Samantha’s cute,’ I said to Vicky as we travelled crosstown in my new maroon Cadillac, and tried to stop myself thinking:
but Samantha can’t take over the bank.

I attempted to talk to my grandsons but soon gave up. If they were
an example of a British upbringing it was no wonder Britain was heading for the rocks.

‘Please don’t mind the boys being shy, Daddy,’ said Vicky awkwardly later when we were all relaxing in the Rembrandt Room
after lunch. ‘It’s just that everything’s so new and strange to them.’

I at once hated myself for failing to conceal my feelings. ‘Honey, of course I don’t mind them being shy! Why, I was shy myself
when I was small!’

‘They’re really very sweet,’ said Vicky, and suddenly for no reason she began to cry.

I was shocked. ‘Sweetheart, they’re wonderful! How could you ever think—’

‘I’ve tried so hard to give you what you wanted,’ she interrupted, the tears streaming down her face. ‘I’ve tried so hard
to be the sort of daughter you wanted me to be – I’ve tried so hard to make up for not being a boy—’

‘Vicky!’ I was paralysed. At the far end of the room Sam left Alicia and moved towards us. ‘Vicky, I love you the way you
are – I’ve never wanted you to be any different! Vicky, I’d rather have you than all the sons in the world!’

‘Okay, Neil,’ said Sam quietly. ‘I’ll handle this. Come along, honey. You’re very tired. I’ll take you upstairs to rest.’

Still weeping she allowed him to lead her away. The nurses took the children off to the nursery but I barely noticed. I went
on sitting in my chair until at last Alicia came over to me.

‘What happened, Cornelius?’ she asked puzzled.

‘I don’t understand,’ my voice said. ‘She can’t truly believe—’ I broke off again, then repeated: ‘I don’t understand.’

‘I shouldn’t worry. She’s probably just overwrought. The last six months must have been very exhausting for her.’

‘But what did she mean? She said … Alicia, during all the years we’ve been married have I ever once said to you that I wished
Vicky was a boy?’

‘No. But I expect you thought it occasionally.’

‘Never!’ I felt very upset. ‘I loved her exactly as she was!’

‘But who was she, Cornelius? We all know you’ve always loved her, but who have you really been loving? Was it Vicky? Or was
it some ideal image that exists only in your mind? And if it really is Vicky you love, then who
is
Vicky, Cornelius? I’m not at all sure I know the answer. After all these years I guess I can finally admit to you that Vicky’s
an enigma to me. I’ve never understood her and I doubt now if I ever shall.’

We were silent but at last she said not unkindly but with sympathetic concern: ‘Well, Cornelius? Be honest! How well do you
really know your own daughter?’

‘You’re talking nonsense,’ I said roughly, and turned away.

[3]

‘Daddy,’ said Vicky the next morning when we went for a stroll together in the garden after breakfast, ‘I do apologize for
that ghastly scene yesterday. I think all the upheaval of moving must have finally unhinged me! Please can we treat the scene
as if it had never happened?’

I thought of Alicia saying eighteen months before: ‘We’ll pretend this had never happened … How many people really have the
courage to live wholly in the truth? Not me, that’s for sure. And not you either.’

Automatically I heard my voice say: ‘Vicky, you’ve got to be truthful with me. You’re the most important person in my life
and if something’s wrong I want to know about it so that I can help put things right. Aren’t you happy with Sam?’

‘But of course I am! Darling Sam – he’s been an absolute angel – truly, Daddy, I couldn’t have a more patient, kind, understanding
husband. I’m so lucky, you see – always so lucky.’

‘Are you upset by Sam’s decision to buy a house in Westchester? Is that the problem? Are you worried about settling down in
the suburbs?’

‘No, no, I’m sure it’ll be best for the children – I’m sure Sam’s right. Sam’s always right. He’s so wonderful, making all
the big decisions and saving me from so much worry and anxiety. I just don’t know what I’d do without him.’

‘You really mean that?’

She looked at me with her clear candid grey eyes. ‘Of course I mean it!’ she insisted impatiently, and then she kissed me,
slipped her hand into mine and exclaimed laughing: ‘Oh Daddy,
please
stop asking such silly questions …’

[4]

We had another fourteen months to go before the catastrophe but the fourteen months passed with increasing speed. At first
Vicky was
occupied with house-hunting and later when Sam had approved her choice she had the task of arranging the alterations which
were necessary before the furniture could be moved in. I saw less of her than I saw of the grandchildren who remained at my
house on Fifth Avenue during this period of domestic upheaval. Meanwhile Sam had asked Alicia if she could help Vicky, and
whenever Alicia wasn’t occupied with my family she was busy with her own. Sebastian, who had married Elsa the previous spring,
had quickly become a father while Andrew and Lori were reproducing themselves with monotonous regularity. Alicia might no
longer have a lover but she could hardly complain that time hung heavily on her hands.

Sam and I were occupied too: with each other. After he had demanded to be joint senior partner I had hardly expected him to
slip back into his old subservient role of right-hand man but I was jolted when he revealed not only a taste for autocracy
but a determination to persecute me until the title ‘joint senior partner’ was accurately reflected in the articles of partnership.
Before he returned from Europe I was indisputably the boss of my own firm, but after Sam started throwing his weight around
I found I had to make concession after concession until I felt I was carving up my kingdom in order to keep the enemy at bay.

Chilled I watched him hire as many aides as I had and demand equal office space; he even had the nerve to suggest I should
split my office in two and give him the better half with access to the patio. There were, it was true, pre-war precedents
for this demand from a joint senior partner, but never when the reigning senior partner had been omnipotent for twenty years.
Rejecting his proposal I bit the bullet and allowed him equal office space elsewhere. Biting the bullet yet again I authorized
the lavish expenditure he ordered on the latest office equipment and electronic gadgets.

The bullet began to seem harder and harder. I had taken a huge cut in my share of the partnership profits in order to meet
Sam’s extortionate financial demands without upsetting the other partners, but like all extortionists Sam was never satisfied;
soon he was agitating again for an increase in money which would have put his share on a par with mine.

Meanwhile he had started demanding a portion of the prestige trips I made to Washington to see the Treasury Secretary and
(occasionally) the President. He dealt with Morgan’s on a major issue without consulting me. He insisted on two business trips
a year to Europe to check up on the London office. He tried to tell Scott how to negotiate with Hammaco. It was rumoured he
even tried to
dictate to Jake and only backed off when Jake started dealing with him through a Reischman partner who had survived Dachau.
I couldn’t help admiring Jake. He was obviously the only man left in all New York who could keep my monster of a partner under
control.

By this time I was in a constant state of rage, anxiety and nervous exhaustion, but the bitter truth, as I had known all along,
was that if I wanted to keep Vicky in New York I had to keep Sam happy. He had let me beat him back from Europe once for reasons
which still puzzled me; I supposed he had been unable to resist the opportunity to become joint senior partner of Van Zale’s
– but Sam wasn’t a martyr by nature and I knew that if I failed to treat him royally he would resign and take Vicky back to
Europe. And Vicky, naturally, would go with him. She loved her husband and children, she was the perfect wife and mother,
and no other option would be open to her.

1957 was a terrible year.

1958 looked like being even worse, and when in February Sam asked if he could meet me after work at the St Regis, I immediately
suspected some new mayhem was about to explode before my eyes.

I kept my face expressionless but maybe I turned pale for Sam said dryly: ‘There’s no need to get excited – I’m not planning
another
coup d’état
. God knows I’m much too sick of the bank to want to talk about it.’

Nothing he said could have alarmed me more. Sam losing interest in the bank was like God getting bored halfway through the
Creation; it just didn’t happen.

I had a meeting midtown that afternoon with the president of our commercial bank, the Van Zale Manhattan Trust, but by five-thirty
I was at the St Regis. Sam was already waiting for me in a quiet corner of the King Cole Bar with a half-finished martini
in front of him.

‘Have a martini with me,’ he said.

‘Will I need it?’

‘Yes.’

The waiter delivered my martini.

‘What’s the problem?’ I said, hardly daring to ask.

‘I just don’t know how to tell you.’

Taking a sip of my martini I tried to breathe as if nothing were wrong. ‘Is it the office?’ I said.

‘No.’

For a sickening moment I remembered a former Van Zale partner who had fallen so deeply into trouble that he had conspired
to commit a murder. ‘Christ, Sam, is it money?’

‘No, Neil, it’s not money.’

‘Your health?’ I hazarded wildly. Thoughts of lung cancer flashed through my mind. He smoked far too much.

‘Not my health,’ he said. ‘Vicky’s. She’s having another baby, Neil, and I just don’t know what to do. I feel as if I’m going
out of my mind.’

I was transfixed. ‘She’s in danger?’

‘No, it’s our marriage that’s in danger. Neil, can I really talk to you about this or is it better not? Can we ever get back
to the days when we were friends who confided in each other – the days before I found you with Teresa? I know I’ve given you
hell this past year but I was so goddamned mad when I saw how ready you were to abuse your power at my expense that I just
couldn’t resist giving you some of your own medicine in return—’

‘I know. I understand. Yes, of course we can talk again. Sure we can.’ I was so shattered I hardly knew what I was saying.
I had just realized he was on the brink of going to pieces and that he had picked me for the job of holding him together.
I tried to take control of the conversation. ‘Now calm down, Sam, and start at the beginning. Why is this new pregnancy a
disaster?’

‘Every pregnancy’s a disaster. Scenes, tears, locked bedroom doors, you name it. Then after the baby’s born we just manage
to get back to normal when – wham! Another pregnancy. Now don’t get me wrong. This isn’t one long gripe about getting no sex.
I can deal with that problem – I
have
dealt with it. I may not always have dealt with it in the smartest possible way but at least I’ve always dealt with it without
upsetting Vicky. Unfortunately Vicky’s all shot to hell anyway.’

‘Obviously she must see a psychiatrist.’

‘Christ, we’ve been knee-deep in psychiatrists for years! She saw every top psychiatrist in London!’