Sins of the Fathers (77 page)

‘Certainly not! I lost the rook and I’m not taking it back!’

My father sighed and moved a remote, apparently insignificant pawn on the edge of the board. ‘Don’t say I haven’t tried to
help.’

‘I don’t need your help. God, with you for a friend who needs enemies?’

‘But sweetheart—’

‘Oh shutup, Daddy, and let me think. You’re deliberately putting me off my game.’

[8]

I woke up to the knowledge that Scott was in New York. Scrambling out of bed I ran to the window, and when I pulled the drapes
the spring sunshine blazed into the room from a cloudless sky. The Carlyle was five minutes’ walk from my apartment.

I dressed with great care in case he decided to stop by without phoning, just as he had after Kennedy’s funeral, and when
the children had departed for school I hurried downstairs to my private apartment to wait by the phone.

I had already decided not to go to bed with him that night. He had to realize that he couldn’t sail back effortlessly into
my life, but of course we’d have dinner together, and of course he’d be
there
, only inches away from me, and nothing, least of all the past six months, would matter any more. I thought of the secret
weeping in my room, the exhausting effort of pretending to be happy whenever I was with the children, my cousins’ pitying
criticisms, Alicia’s ill-concealed resentment, my stupid friends calling up about nothing and not realizing, not even beginning
to comprehend the hell I was going through, but then I pushed those memories aside. I was going to see Scott again. The future
would be very different.

I had long since decided that I had been too inflexible when I had resolved to sever all communication with him while he was
in Europe It was only common sense to see him occasionally to remind him I existed. Women were hardly about to leave him alone
so that he could keep my memory evergreen, and since he’d found one woman who satisfied him completely there was no reason
why he shouldn’t find another, particularly if he believed I no longer cared for him. It was very clear to me now that if
I was ever to marry Scott, I had to keep the affair going on a limited basis. I would still refuse to dash over to London
at regular intervals, but I was fully prepared to take up residence at the Carlyle whenever he returned to New York on business.

I waited by the phone.

The day seemed endless. Finally it occurred to me that he was probably too busy at the office to make personal calls, and
I decided I would be unlikely to hear from him before the evening.

After returning upstairs to the duplex to check on the children, I began my vigil by the phone in my bedroom. Dinner-time
came but I was unable to eat. I was even unable to face a martini. I told everyone I had a migraine. Hour after hour I waited
in my room but an uninterrupted night followed an uninterrupted day and I remained alone.

The next morning I called the Carlyle but he had already left for the office.

‘Is there a message?’ said the clerk.

‘No. No message.’

I called the bank at Willow and Wall.

‘Van Zale and Company,’ droned the operator. ‘Good morning, can I help you?’

After a long pause I said: ‘Sorry, wrong number,’ and hung up. I was trembling. I told myself I had to give him more time
before I started running after him; once I started running the reconciliation would be far easier than he deserved. I had
to display a dignified self-restraint, not a breathless self-abasement which he would eventually come to despise.

I began another vigil by the phone. I wondered if he was delaying calling for fear of being rebuffed but no, men like Scott
Sullivan found it hard to imagine being rebuffed because the women they wanted always yielded with gratitude to even the most
careless of their advances. I thought of poor Judy, whose place I had taken in Scott’s bed aboard the cruise ship. How pathetically
grateful she had been when he had noticed her, and how pathetically upset she must have been when she found she had been stood
up! I glanced at myself in the mirror. Perhaps in the end I was going to be no luckier than Judy. And perhaps in the end Scott
was going to care no more for me than he had cared for her.

Hours later I could no longer avoid the truth that was staring me in the face. Scott wasn’t going to call. The truth was that
nothing had changed since we had parted the previous November – except that he had probably become even more determined to
eliminate me from his life. My father had been right in telling me I’d backed a losing horse, and now that the race was indisputably
over I could see my mistake all too clearly.

Covering my face with my hands I wondered in dumb misery how I was ever going to cut my losses and move on.

[9]

‘So how was the bastard?’ I said to my father as we sat down at the chessboard for the first time in two weeks. ‘He didn’t
call.’

‘Yes, he made it clear he considered his affair with you was finished. I’m sorry but I couldn’t help feeling relieved.’

‘What a fool I’ve made of myself, haven’t I? But at least I managed to stop myself hitting rock-bottom by calling him up and
begging for a meeting! Well? Aren’t you going to tell me how the two of you got along? Are you bosom friends again with everything
forgiven and forgotten?’

‘That’s the way he wanted to play it and I saw no reason to discourage him.’

‘How nauseating! Thank God he’s washed his hands of me! And how was he? It sounds as if he’s quite his old self again after
his temporary lapse last November!’

My father gave a small neutral smile. ‘Maybe. But one thing’s changed. He’s drinking.’

‘Drinking! I don’t believe it! But is he all right? Can he handle it?’

‘Apparently. I never saw him have more than two scotches on any one occasion, and I certainly never saw him drunk. As a matter
of fact I thought liquor suited him – he was much more relaxed and entertaining.’

‘I see. Well, obviously he’s now in perfect control of his life again after his temporary madness. How wonderful. I envy him.
Can I have a martini, please?’

‘Vicky,’ said my father, ‘I think the time has come when you have to do more than drink martinis and play chess with me. Why
don’t you—’

‘Don’t you start dictating to me because I won’t stand for it, not any more!’

‘—get off your ass, get a new interest, get a job, get laid—’

‘
Daddy
!’ I was deeply shocked.

‘—get out of this rut, for Christ’s sake – you’ve had six months of hell, don’t think I don’t realize that, but now you’ve
just got to pull yourself together – no, I’m not trying to dictate to you! Nor am I trying to make you over into someone else
altogether. I’m just trying to help you live a happier life as you are. Now listen. I’ve been making some inquiries, and I’ve
found out there’s a good summer course on economics at the New School—’

‘Forget it.’

‘Okay, how about a course in philosophy?’

‘If it’s just a summer course I probably know most of it already.’

‘Then why not take a full college course?’

‘Daddy, it’s a beautiful dream but you just don’t even begin to realize how impossible it is. It’s a question of mental energy.
I doubt if I could even complete a summer course. Probably I couldn’t even complete a weekend seminar. I’m too old, too harassed,
too bogged down. I’ve had it. I accept now that my chance for an academic life is absolutely gone, so why should I make myself
miserable by taking courses which would only remind me of the kind of life I’ve failed to achieve?’

‘Aren’t you being a bit negative?’

‘No. Just realistic. I’d be better off taking a job than trying to live an academic life, but what kind of job could I possibly
get? I’m unemployable, and even if I wasn’t I suspect I couldn’t stick the pace. No one who’s not a mother of five children
could ever realize—’

‘But you have help with the children! You’re so fortunate! What would you do if you were one of those mothers who had no choice
but to go out to work to support her family?’

‘I couldn’t have done it. I often think how different my life would have been if I’d been poor.’

‘You’d have managed somehow?’

‘Who can say? All I know is that I’m not like Lori who can run a home, husband, children and God knows what else with one
hand tied behind her back. Whenever I try to be superwoman I go to pieces.’

‘Perhaps I could find you a little job in the Fine Arts Foundation, nothing very demanding, but just something which would
take you out of yourself and help you not to get so depressed.’

‘Yes, I guess a tame little sinecure might be better than nothing, but not right now, Daddy. Later. I can’t just switch Scott
off and immediately zip into a rewarding new life. You’ve got to give me another chance to get over this mess I’m in. You’ve
got to give me more time …’

[10]

A letter came from my accountant with some information about a new stock which my broker had bought for me. I chucked the
letter in the trash-basket. Then, having nothing better to do, I retrieved the letter and read it more carefully. My accountant
had known me since I was a little girl and his tone was faintly patronizing. I didn’t like it. I thought: damned men, messing
me around, thinking they’re God, taking me for a fool, I’ll show them.

I read the letter again. Then I went out, bought the
Wall Street Journal
and decided to take a course on the stock market.

[11]

I thought immediately of Scott, obsessed by time and bending the past to encircle the future.

The phone rang.

‘Hi sweetheart, did you enjoy your first class? What was it like? How many people were there?’

‘I didn’t go. Nurse is sick, Nora insisted on taking her day off and the doctor says Kristin’s got chickenpox. Daddy, can
I call you back?’

The door opened.

‘Mommy, Samantha hit me and I think my arm’s broken in three places and I’ve got a huge bruise on my leg and my knee’s streaming
blood.’

‘Hm. Just a minute.’

‘MOMMEEEE!’

‘Oh, do be quiet, Ben! Are you referring to that scratch which I can’t see properly without the aid of a magnifying glass?
Run off and apologize to Samantha. You must have done something awful if she tried to beat you up.’

‘Well, I kind of accidentally sat on her best picture of the Beatles …’

I stopped, then read that passage again. I read it a third time and a fourth. I thought of my years at college studying philosophy,
and
suddenly I could hear the footfalls echoing in
my
memory down the passage I had not taken towards the door I had never opened into my own personal rose-garden.

I read on. The simple pellucid words expressing their complex thoughts slipped silently into my mind to tantalize me. I understood
yet did not understand. Then I wondered if in fact I understood anything. Or was the truth simply that I did understand but
had no words to express the understanding which crept across my consciousness? Finally I no longer cared whether I understood
or not. I merely continued reading, pausing only to savour random phrases. ‘The roses had the look of flowers that are looked
at … Only in time can the moment in the rose-garden be remembered … Only through time time is conquered.’

I stopped again. I had read the first of T. S. Eliot’s
Four Quartets
. Closing the book I sat down at my desk and began to write to Sebastian.

[12]

‘Dear Vicky: Don’t worry about dropping out of that course on the stock market. They’d probably have told you nothing you
can’t pick up for yourself. I like your idea of lighting a fire under your financial advisers. Stick with it and give ’em
hell.

‘Is Eliot saying that no opportunity is ever really lost, you ask? Is it possible to go back, to walk down the passage you
never took, through the door you never opened into the rose-garden? Maybe. According to one of the commentaries, what Eliot
is saying in
Burnt Norton
is that there are moments when what has been and what might have been actually
are
. Work
that
one out in between your martinis! Incidentally I’m sending you airmail a copy of Eliot’s play
The Family Reunion
which has more references to rose-gardens, including the possibility of actually making it through the door that was never
opened into the … etc. etc. Glad you like Eliot. I consider it my moral duty (ha ha) to raise your mind far above your father’s
level (no big deal since his level is rock-bottom).

‘I’m okay, thanks. I’ve got this house which would fit into one wing of your father’s triplex and no servants except for a
housekeeper (a toothless hag) who comes in daily. I’ve started doing some research. I finally decided to write – wait for
it – a history of investment banking. It seems I’m more hooked on the subject than I ever realized, but I remain, your happy
exile from the plastic society, S. FOXWORTH ESQUIRE. PS Tell Postumus hullo, and don’t let him walk all over you.’

[13]

The phone rang, and putting aside my well-thumbed copy of
The Family Reunion
I picked up the receiver.

‘Vicky?’ said my father. ‘Listen, I’ve just been talking to Kingsley Donahue and he tells me you’ve fired not only your accountants
but your brokers as well! Sweetheart, was that wise? Are you sure you know what you’re doing? Kingsley’s real hurt!’