Sins of the Fathers (52 page)

‘Extinct! What about the Irish-Americans and the WASPs! Say, have you ever met Jack Kennedy during any of your trips to Washington?’

We talk about the Kennedys, as tribal and hierarchical as all the best Celtic families, dedicated to having their revenge
on all the White Anglo-Saxon Protestant aristocrats who once treated them like dirt, but all the time I’m thinking of Scott
crowning his inborn folk-memory of the blood-feud with the intellectual trappings of medieval legend.

For Scott’s Holy Grail is revenge. I’m sure of that now, just as I’m sure Scott’s forgiven his father for the wrongs committed
long ago. But that’s all I’m sure of; although I’ve made enormous progress I’m still up against a brick wall because I can’t
for the life of me figure out what Scott’s planning to do. What
can
he do? Can he be mad enough to believe he could ever grab the bank when we all know Cornelius can smell a whiff of treachery
at fifty paces and cut down his opponent without even pausing for breath? It doesn’t make sense. But if Scott’s not planning
some spectacular double-cross, just what the hell’s he up to?

It beats me. But one thing’s certain. I’ve got to find out. If we’re all playing cards for high stakes and Scott’s got the
ace of spades stashed up his sleeve the least I can do to protect myself is to find out the other cards in his hand. Scott
could be dangerous not just to Cornelius but to me too.

For the first time in my life I see Scott not as a friend but as a rival.

4 July, 1958. Another godawful family reunion but not such a large one. Andrew and Lori whoop it up on their air force base
while Rose, who teaches English at an all-female boarding school near Velletria, has gone to Europe to pick over educational
theories with Elfrida. Aunt Emily almost goes to Andrew and Lori but comes to Fifth Avenue
instead. I think Mother’s signalled that she’s worried about Vicky and Aunt Emily loves to help people in distress.

Vicky’s all right, just bored with being pregnant and being treated like some priceless vase from the T’ang Dynasty. Naturally
she gets scratchy with nothing to occupy her. God knows I’d be climbing the walls if I had to live in that place with the
four children wrecking everything in sight and Cornelius and Mother still carrying on their torrid love affair whenever they
think no one’s looking. I bring Vicky a new translation of Cicero’s letters. They make Cicero so real that you fully expect
to see him alive and well and fussing around the Knickerbocker Club. It seems impossible to believe he’s not holding a press
conference somewhere and thundering about some morally offensive new batch of Wall Street shenanigans. I like the passage
where he says he fears Caesar as he fears the shining surface of the sea. Yes, Caesar was deep. Caesar played his cards close
to his chest.

Like Scott.

My favourite occupation at the moment is trying to put myself in Scott’s shoes and figure out what I would do if I wanted
to avenge my father. The obvious goal would be to gain control of the bank – and perhaps change the bank’s name from Van Zale’s
to Sullivan’s in order to draw a veil over Cornelius’ reign and create a memorial to Steve. That would avenge Steve neatly
and rewrite a disastrous past; or, as T. S. Eliot might have said, it ensures that what might have been has assumed a reality equal to that which actually exists.
Bearing this in mind I don’t see how I can be wrong in assuming Scott aims to take over from Cornelius; the theory’s irresistible.
The only trouble is that it just won’t stand up.

Scott can’t get that bank. He might be able to grab it somehow if it were a corporation run by an oligarchy, but it’s not.
It’s a dictatorship run by Cornelius, and Scott can’t possibly wrest the controlling interest in the partnership from him.

So we’re back at first base again with the knowledge that if Cornelius can’t be forced to give up the bank he would have to
surrender it voluntarily, and if there’s one thing that’s certain on this earth it’s that he’s never going to donate his life’s
work to Steve Sullivan’s son.

I sit back with a sigh of relief, but the funny thing is that I don’t feel genuinely relieved at all and after a while I feel
more nervous than ever.
Is
Cornelius psychologically capable of handing the bank to Steve’s son on a silver platter? Surely not! What about the grandsons?
But they’re still very young and may not add up to much later. Even so, Cornelius would surely try to stay around until Eric
was eighteen … But will he
be able to stay around? Maybe his health will finally fail him. And while on the subject of staying around, what about that
incredibly sentimental speech he made recently on his fiftieth birthday when he said there were more important things in life
than wielding power and making money? He even said he was thinking of retiring early and going off to live with Mother in
Arizona! The whole speech was such a laugh I didn’t take it seriously but maybe I should have done. Maybe it was a mistake
to sit back stifling my mirth at the thought of Cornelius wandering off into the desert like some kind of holy man to contemplate
the evils of materialism.

I consider it seriously. If Cornelius takes an early retirement – or drops dead – while the grandsons are still minors, the
bank should go either to me, his saintly, dutiful, long-suffering, goddamned efficient stepson with the true financial brain
(the obvious choice) or to Scott, the only other guy in the bank who’s as smart as I am. But it won’t go to Scott because
he’s his father’s son. And do I really believe that Cornelius meant all those moist-eyed remarks about turning over a new
leaf? No, I don’t. He was probably still unhinged by Sam’s death and he’d just succeeded in falling in love with Mother all
over again and he was temporarily not responsible for his actions when he made that speech. People may evolve as the years
go by, but they don’t fundamentally change so any overnight conversion to a so-called ‘new life’ should be viewed with extreme
scepticism. Cornelius may believe he would be happy abdicating his powerful position and sinking into idleness Arizona-style,
but he’s fooling himself. This particular leopard’s never going to change his spots.

Yet Scott must be banking on Cornelius retiring soon. He must know he’d never get the chance of grabbing the bank once the
grandsons are grown up.

Maybe Scott’s been working on Cornelius, persuading him to retire early. It’s hard to believe Cornelius could ever be the
victim of undue influence, but if he’s suffering from some middle-aged softening of the brain anything could happen. God alone
knows what goes on at those late-night chess sessions. Scott says they talk about eternity. Christ, any man who can get Cornelius
interested in eternity almost deserves to win the bank. Still, the thought of Scott assuming the role of Rasputin in addition
to the role of cat’s whiskers bothers me very much. I’ll have to find out more about what’s going on. I’ll have to keep talking
to Scott in the hope that he’ll slip up again and drop another intellectual clue at an unguarded moment.

‘Are you still talking about eternity in those late-night chess sessions?’ I say to Scott at the end of July. We’ve just finished
a game of
tennis on the court of Cornelius’ summer home in Maine, and we’re drinking Coke together in the shade of the patio. As soon
as I’ve asked the question I know it’s a mistake, much too direct, much too obvious. Scott will sidestep the implications
with the panache of an experienced matador.

‘Oh, we’ve moved on from theological speculation,’ says Scott, uncapping another Coke. ‘We’re pondering on philosophy now.’

‘Philosophy?
Cornelius
? Christ, Scott, what a miracle – I don’t know how you do it!’

‘It’s no miracle. Why shouldn’t Cornelius start to do some serious thinking now that he’s approaching old age? And wouldn’t
it be so much less irritating if instead of beginning a sentence by saying: “I consider it my moral duty to do such-and-such,”
he said: “I consider it would be more in accord with Plato’s theory of absolute good if I did this, that and the other!”’

‘Oh, my God! Uh … Peddling Plato to him, are you, Scott? And what does Cornelius think of Plato?’

‘He thought he was just fine at first. But then he found out Plato was a homosexual so he lost interest.’

We laugh heartily together. As anticipated the matador has swirled his cape with a nonchalant flourish and easily sidestepped
the rash charge of the bull. I wait, biding my time before making charge number two.

‘As a matter of fact,’ says Scott, ‘I think Cornelius is more in tune with Descartes. I get the feeling he’s questioning everything,
experimenting with new theories, testing all his old values. His fiftieth birthday obviously had a profound effect on him.’

‘Sam’s death, more likely.’

‘Perhaps. Anyway the two together have certainly shaken him up.’

‘How long’s it going to last?’

Scott looks dreamily up at the sky. ‘Who knows? His horizons may have expanded permanently. I’ve always thought you underestimate
Cornelius, Sebastian – no, not at the bank. In his private life. If you strip away his despotic mannerisms and his tough-guy
poses he can be surprisingly sensitive. And he’s very lonely.’

‘Scott, you have to be kidding! He’s a power-crazed egomaniac!’

‘At the bank, yes. But he’s a very different man in front of a chessboard at one o’clock in the morning.’

‘I’ll take your word for it. If I had to face Cornelius regularly over a chessboard at one in the morning, I’d be round the
bend in no time flat. So what’s going to happen, Scott?’ (I seem to be unable to stop asking direct questions, but this one
seems natural enough in the
context of the conversation so maybe it doesn’t matter.) ‘Is Cornelius really going to retire within the next five years and
wander off to Arizona for keeps?’

‘I think he’d be bored to tears after one week in Arizona, but don’t tell him I said so. As for his retirement … again, who
knows? I don’t. I just sit and listen to him speculating.’

I’m puzzled by this apparent lack of interest in Cornelius’ early retirement plans. If Scott’s ever going to get anywhere
Cornelius has to retire young.

‘I thought you sat and lectured him on Plato!’

‘Only when I’m asked!’ He smiles lazily, so cool, so serene, so confident. It’s as if he knew beyond any shadow of doubt that
he was going to get the bank in the end. It’s as if he feels he’s safe whatever happens; I’m irrelevant, the grandsons are
irrelevant, the rest of the partners are irrelevant, because Scott and Cornelius are playing chess for the bank and Scott’s
figured out exactly how he can call checkmate.

This time the matador’s not only swirled his cape but flung dust in my eyes. I can’t see a thing. I’m baffled and bamboozled.

‘Oh well,’ I said, giving up and preparing to retire from the ring, ‘in fifty years’ time we’ll all be dead anyway, so what
the hell. It reminds me of that line from
East Coker
in the
Four Quartets
– gee, I wish I could convert you to T. S. Eliot, Scott—’

‘I converted myself recently. I can’t think now why I always found him so unreadable. Which line in
East Coker
?’

‘The one about death. “O dark dark dark. They all go into the dark, the vacant interstellar spaces, the vacant into the vacant,
the captains—”’

‘“—merchant bankers!”’ he says with me and we both break off to laugh. That’s what they call investment bankers in England.
Eliot was a banker once.

‘Well, that’s life!’ I comment phlegmatically. ‘Even Cornelius has to go into the dark one day.’

‘Yes, and I think he’s finally figured out the best way he can handle that tough midwestern God of his when he reaches the
end of the lighted hall.’

That’s it. I know that’s it. I don’t know exactly what ‘it’ is but I’ll figure that out later. Meanwhile keep talking, act
naturally and don’t let him see I know.

‘Oh, he’ll fix God all right, no problem,’ I say glibly, ‘and then he’ll go right the way up that primrose path to the big
bank waiting in the sky—’

Scott shouts with laughter and spills Coke all down his tennis shirt. ‘Now look what you’ve done, Sebastian!’

‘Me?’

‘Yes, you! No one else can make me laugh the way you can!’

Nice conversation between two old friends. Complicated conversation between two new rivals who could wind up very serious
enemies. I wait till he goes off to change his shirt and then I go on sitting in the patio and think and think and think.

I think that Cornelius, starting to consider his own death, has finally begun to feel guilty about his past. Is someone as
amoral as Cornelius capable of feeling guilty? Yes. Never mind whether he’s amoral or immoral. The plain fact is that with
his strict religious upbringing he’s probably riddled with guilt by this time. Anyway those people who act as if they don’t
know the meaning of the word guilt are so often the ones that suffer most acutely. Their guilt is so enormous that they can’t
even bear to acknowledge its existence.

I’ll bet that Cornelius is tempted to give the bank to Scott in order to assuage his guilt about Steve. He’d see it as the
only way he could fix that tough midwestern God of his, the only way he could face the dark at the end of the lighted hall.

Scott’s been working for years to achieve this frame of mind, of course. He’s been dedicated, disciplined, fanatical. He’s
out for justice – ‘natural justice’, he would call it, implying an inexorable force which may or may not be controlled by
God. But will he succeed in getting this justice of his? I wonder. Several things could happen to upset his plans. For instance,
Cornelius could get his guilt under control and lose interest in Scott. Or Cornelius could merely resist the idea of retirement
and live a very long time, longer than Scott who’s only eleven years his junior.

What will Scott do if natural justice doesn’t pan out quite the way he thinks it should? And for that matter, what
is
natural justice in this situation? Will I think it’s just if Scott snatches the bank from under my nose? I most certainly
will not.