A Season in Purgatory (33 page)

“It was the delivery,” said Harrison.

“What did you say?”

“Nothing. I was just remembering something Kitt once said in Watch Hill. You’re really going to go through with this, are you? The run for governor?”

“Yes, of course. Pa thinks you get more exposure as governor than as a congressman.”

“What is this necessity you have to live center stage? Explain that to me. There are less public ways of getting through life.”

“Pa says I’m a born politician.”

“Do you really want it, Constant? Or are you living out your father’s fantasy of having a son in the White House?”

“Yes, I want it.”

“You know what it will be like, don’t you? That whole business will come up again. What happened back there in Scarborough Hill. There’s people back there—”

“You know, I never had a friend again like you. At Yale, I was a big deal. My nickname was Magnifico, did you know that? I was popular as hell. Of course, there were a few people who disliked me too, although I never much minded what people thought about me. But I never had a real friend to say everything to. Do you remember how we used to talk for hours on end?”

“Yes.”

“Hey, how’s Aunt Gert? I forgot to ask you about Aunt Gert.”

“Poor Aunt Gert. She’s in a home. St. Mary’s Home. Gaga.”

“No more Maryknoll Fathers?”

“No. The amazing thing is that she’s afraid to die. She’s lived a life of utter goodness, and she’s afraid to let go. She used to say to me, ‘Bradleys, Bradleys, Bradleys. That’s all I ever hear. You are bewitched by those people, Harrison.’ ”

“Were you? Bewitched, I mean?”

“You are different, all of you. I’ve never known anyone like you.”

“I don’t see what’s so different about us,” said Constant. He sounded irritated, as if he had heard this before.

“None of you will ever have to earn a living. None of your children ever will, either. Nor, very probably, their children. Your father has made enough to guarantee that for all of you. Each child or grandchild gets a million bucks at birth that he can’t touch until he is twenty-one, by which time, in a good economy and wisely invested, as it surely will be, it will be worth a minimum of six million for the kid to start out life with. What do you mean, you don’t see what’s so different about you?”

“You sound jealous,” said Constant.

“Oh, what a misreading of me you have made,” said Harrison. “I’m not a believer in trust funds, especially for young men. I think you will never really realize your potential because of it. You take too many shortcuts. Too much is done for you.”

Constant was stung. “My father believes in us serving our country by entering public life, especially the boys, and he has provided for us so we can do exactly that,” he said hotly.

Sitting among the fashionable set at one of Grace Bradley’s beautifully arranged luncheon tables in the loggia,
Harrison felt detached from much of the conversation, which was mostly society gossip about parties he hadn’t been at and people he didn’t know.

“I’m off to India, guru hopping, with my new beau, who’s much too young for me, but divine, so good-looking,” said someone named Baba, who was seated next to him. She meditated daily, she said. She claimed to have levitated at an ashram in India. Grace had whispered to him before lunch that she was from the pharmaceutical family of the same last name.

“This lamb is divine, isn’t it? So pink. It’s very important to have a butcher who cuts beautifully, don’t you think?” asked someone named Lulu on his other side. Kitt and Constant, who never mentioned to anyone that their grandfather had been a butcher, looked at each other across the table and tried not to laugh.

“I arrange all my own flowers,” said Grace. “I wouldn’t dream of letting anyone else do them.”

“Everything looks so pretty, Grace,” said a man called Count Stamirsky, who ate a great deal and spoke very little, saying only, on five separate occasions, that Grace Bradley was a great lady, thereby earning his meal that day and others to come.

The guests talked of plays and films and fashion and auctions. A man named Sonny, who wasn’t English but spoke with an English accent, said he had left a bid at Sotheby’s on a collection of Chinese porcelain that once belonged to Fitzy Montague, who jumped out the window of 740 Park Avenue.

“Poor Fitzy. His pajamas flew off on the way down. I bet you didn’t know that,” said Sonny.

“I did, too. He had a boil on his ass, I heard,” said an English peeress named Honour, who held a dog in her lap.

“Bingo told me kind of a cute AIDS joke last night at the Fraziers’,” said Lulu.

“We already heard it,” said Baba.

They talked of servants and summer houses and parties and dances and a wedding in Pisa that everyone was flying over for. Grace said she had known seven First Ladies, five of them on a first-name basis. They talked of a couple everyone knew and no one liked.

“His wife is screwing the carpenter who built their new redwood deck,” said Lulu.

“Serves him right,” said a woman named Thelma, which she pronounced Telma. “He’s awful.”

“
Shhh
. Don’t let Grace hear you. She’s very opposed to adultery,” whispered Sonny.

Bridey was called in and everyone applauded her for her fig mousse. “Yummy,” cried Thelma, who tried to lead a standing ovation. There was a great deal of laughter and a great deal of wine. “That’s enough, Kitt. No more wine for you,” said Grace.

“You were bored with those people, weren’t you?” asked Kitt.

“The smart set,” said Harrison.

“You hated it, I know. But you didn’t even try to enter in.”

“What’s the point, really? I’ll never see any of them again.”

“Yes, you will. They’ll be at the movie tonight. Ma always invites them. I’ve decided Ma’s a secret social climber,” said Kitt. “Last year she said she didn’t want us to call her Ma anymore. She wanted us to say Mummy, but none of us could break the habit. All we could do was laugh when we tried to say it.”

Harrison laughed.

“Then she wanted us to say
Mère
, the French way, from our years at the embassy, and that really sent us all into hysterics every time we said it, even Mary Pat, who speaks French all the time, so it was back to Ma.”

Harrison laughed again. “I’m going swimming,” he said.

“Too cold.”

“I borrowed a wet suit from Johnny Fuselli.”

“
Brrr
,” said Kitt, pretending to shiver.

Gerald encouraged his wife’s efforts to move in society, although he had no interest in the sort of people she met. He rarely attended her lunch parties or her charity benefits, and he often chuckled with Jerry about the sort of men who came to lunch. “A bunch of losers,” he said.

“Nice obituary in the
Times
for Rupert du Pithon,” said Grace. “I always thought he was rather a fool myself, but I didn’t know he’d done those brave things in World War II. Won a medal. Imagine.
Rupert
. Of all people. Of course, Sally Steers
hated
him. Do you remember the rude remark he made about little Sally’s wedding dress when she was coming down the aisle at St. James’s? Actually, in his own way, Rupert was right, I suppose. All that white satin billowing around little Sally when everyone in the church knew she was three months pregnant. I’d die, I’d simply die, if any of my girls did anything like that. Where are you going, Kitt?”

“How far did you swim?” asked Constant.

“Not so far. Maybe three miles. I’ll go farther tomorrow,” said Harrison. “Maybe four or five. In France once, I swam up to ten.”

“I’m impressed. How long did it take you today?”

“A couple of hours.”

“How far out do you go?”

“About two hundred yards. Past the waves. You want to avoid the kelp. Then I always turn in a northerly direction. You only breathe out of one side of your mouth so you can judge the distance from the shore and make sure you’re going in a straight line. You keep a standard pace. Your speed doesn’t change.”

“I repeat, I’m impressed. Even though I was brought up on the water every summer, I have this fear of deep water,” said Constant. “It’s so big, the thing you’re in, and you’re so small.”

“That’s what I like,” said Harrison. “This vast watery space under me, floating in an unknown zone.”

“Is that when you stop being haunted? That’s what you said to me: it’s the only time of day you’re not haunted.”

Harrison continued as if he had not heard.

“It depends on the water temperature, of course. It’s all in the breathing. The breathing will change your whole life. After about half an hour a sense of euphoria comes.”

“Tell me about it.”

“What?”

“The feeling.”

“Oh, hell, I can’t describe it to you, Constant. You feel like you can walk into heavy traffic and cars won’t hit you. Listen, enough of that, where’s the famous Charlotte? I want to meet her.”

“Famous Charlotte and I are not speaking.”

“That’s quite a morsel for an about-to-be gubernatorial candidate.”

“We’ll work it out. We always do. I wish you could see the way she returned my clothes to me. One hundred and fifty Turnbull and Asser ties just jammed into a grocery bag, like snakes. My suits hung backwards on hangers. Morty Sills suits, can you believe it? Two thousand per. I couldn’t believe it.”

“You thought she should have packed everything in tissue paper?” asked Harrison.

“I’m not sure how I should react to what you just said,” said Constant.

“You left her for another woman. Right?”

“Only temporarily.”

“You temporarily left her for another woman. You asked her to return your clothes. Don’t you think she might have a right to be a little angry and shove them in a bag?”

“Are you so happily married?”

“No, I’m not. But I went back to get my own clothes.”

“What’s the new maid’s name, Bridey?” asked Grace.

“Debbie, madam,” said Bridey.

“That’s what I thought she said. No, Bridey, I don’t want a maid named Debbie. It just doesn’t sound right to me. Debbie. It’s too, well, I don’t know what it is, but it’s not right for a maid’s name. Ask her to change it, will you? Mary’s fine, or Catherine, or Margaret—that sort of name.”

“I already spoke to her about it. She says she don’t want to change it, madam,” said Bridey.

“Well, if she ‘don’t’ want to change it, tell her she ‘don’t’ have to work here in my house, thank you very much,” said Grace.

“Yes, madam.”

“Didn’t we used to have a Colleen with us? Years ago? Back in Scarborough Hill?”

“Yes, madam.”

“She couldn’t tell left from right, do you remember? I’d say, ‘Serve from the left, remove from the right,’ over and over and over again, and she never got it straight, do you remember? She said she had to write in the air first in order to tell. I wonder whatever happened to her. Let’s call Debbie
Colleen, Bridey. Now, Bridey’s such a nice name. Why aren’t girls called Bridey anymore?”

“I don’t know, madam.”

Charlotte arrived. She drove straight to her cottage on the other side of the twelve-car garage without stopping in the main house first to say hello to Grace and Gerald, which was the habit of the house. Everyone stopped talking for a minute when they saw her green Jaguar drive by the windows, much too fast.

“My children are outside playing on the grounds, Constant,” said Maureen indignantly. “You might try telling your wife there is a speed limit of fifteen miles per hour when driving on the estate.”

“Oh, shove it, Maureen,” said Constant.

“Ma, did you hear what he said?” asked Maureen.

“The children are over by the fountain, Maureen,” said Grace. “I can see them from where I’m sitting. They’re nowhere near the driveway.”

“It’s the principle of the thing, Ma.” Maureen got up and went to the window and looked out. “Winthrop! Choate! Where’s Nanny? I don’t want you playing in the fountain unless Nanny’s there. How many times do I have to tell you that?” She turned to Freddy Tierney and said, “I’m going to fire that nanny. Right now. Leaving those children alone like that.”

“She had terrible morning sickness this morning,” explained Freddy after Maureen left the room.

Kitt said, “Maybe she’ll have triplets this time, and then she’ll have more kids than you and Pa, Ma, and she’ll be champion at last.”

“Don’t talk nonsense, Kitt,” said Grace. “I want all this bickering to stop before Father Bill arrives. Let me see your needlepoint, Kitt. Oh, lovely, darling. Lovely colors.”

“The green’s pretty, don’t you think?”

“It’s not green. It’s celadon.”

“Don’t you think you ought to go over to the cottage and see Charlotte, Constant?” asked Gerald.

“Sure, Pa. I just wanted to show Harrison my polo trophies in the library first.”

“
Now
, Constant,” said Gerald.

“Yes, Pa.”

“Who’s Father Bill?” Harrison asked Kitt.

“Ma’s latest favorite priest.”

“I can’t help but notice that you haven’t been near me for quite some time. Don’t misunderstand me, Constant, I’m not yearning for your touch. But I like to have things laid out on the table. Are you involved with someone else? Or are we entering into a new phase of our marriage?”

“Oh, come on, Charlotte.”

“When I say someone else, I mean someone other than the someone elses you see daily—the quickies. Someone on a serious basis is what I’m trying to say,” said Charlotte.

“No, no, of course not,” said Constant.

“No, no, of course not,’ ” she repeated, imitating him. “You’d lie when the truth would sound better, Constant. It was just a show, this marriage, wasn’t it? Just one long ten-year show. I had the class, and your father had the brass. I can see just what it’s going to be like, as clear as if I were a psychic. Me in an Adolfo suit, looking lovingly up at you through speech after speech, and only you will know that I won’t be listening to a single word you’re saying.”

“No, you’re wrong, Charlotte. It wasn’t a show.”

“A show,” she repeated. “That’s all it ever was.”

“No. I loved you.”

“Oh, puhleeze.”

“Come on, Charlotte,” he said. “Pa’s going to run out
of money if you keep leaving me like this. Come on, honey. I find you very attractive when you’re angry. Your cheeks all pink like that. Your pits a little sweaty. A little musky odor coming from you. Oh, my, lookit here. Look what’s almost, but not quite, hard. Look what needs your helping hand.”