The Towers of Love (22 page)

“I'm serious! Tell me.”

“Somewhere,” he said. “Somewhere.”

They walked on in silence. Then he stopped. “Look,” he said, and pointed. On the hill the great dark house stood ahead of them, its fat towers blocking out a section of the star-spattered sky. And in his mother's window, a dark light was flickering and changing behind the drawn curtains.

“What is it?” she asked him, puzzled, her hand on his arm. “The ghost of old Chief Rampanaug?”

“Yes.” he said finally, “the ghost of old Chief Rampanaug.”

Eleven

Once, towards the end, he and Anne had got drunk together. They had not meant to, really, but it had happened and it had not helped anything. Getting drunk had only managed to remove, somehow, the thin layers of dignity and calm that they had contrived to apply over things and, underneath, it exposed the frayed edges of feelings and stirred, like bees in a hive, the old unexpressed recriminations and forgotten hurts. He had not liked that one getting-drunk time at all.

Also, when she had had a little to drink, Anne was apt to display a taste for low life that he neither liked nor understood. It was a trait that was quite out of keeping with her background—this fondness for sights and places and experiences that would perhaps, or perhaps not, have startled her classmates at Miss Spence's School. They had taken a trip to Europe last summer and, in Paris, with a couple they had met only very casually on the boat, she had had many cocktails at the bar of the Plaza-Athenée, and someone—just someone who had joined them, whom Anne had more or less picked up—had told them about a little show that could be arranged for five hundred francs in the room of another hotel. He had not wanted to go, but Anne had, and when they were all there, crowded into the steamy and smoky little room to watch the show, in which there were two performers, that show had been so sickening that a number of them had walked out of the room in disgust. But Anne had wanted to stay, and he had waited for her a long time in the corridor, until the show was over. And when she finally came out she announced that she had liked the show so much that she had paid another five hundred francs to have it performed again.

Then, in a place in the Rue de Vaugirard, she sat and drank wine with great abandon, and they watched the whores come in and go out with sailors, and watched the sailors come in and go out with whores. Finally, on the rooftop of some other place, there was a man who said, “I'd like you to see my phonograph. It plays all speeds.” He pointed to the courtyard below the window. “Somebody just threw it out,” he said. “It cost a hundred and ninety-five dollars when it was new,” and he turned to Anne. “You have pretty tits,” he said. “Pull down your dress.” And then, suddenly, they were all in the stairway, going down, and when they reached the street, somebody said, “Let's find a fairy and beat him up.” It had seemed like a good idea to everybody and, eventually, they found one, a furtive, delicate boy who was standing at a bar somewhere, and who clawed at them with long fingernails and screamed a few dirty words. Then they were on the street again, and Anne had said, “Look, I know a place,” and so they had all followed her, up a street, down another, and into a dark place full of men, and Anne began screaming, “Rape!” and they were thrown out of there too. Someone had three bottles of champagne by then, and it was anyone's guess who would get to drink it. So they drew straws and sat in a corner and tried to pull the corks out, and a fat man who was with them said he had a better idea, and smashed one of the bottles on the sidewalk. The group had grown immensely, and suddenly one of them was sick, and had to go home, and finally Hugh was sitting with Anne in an archway and listening to jazz music that was playing from somewhere above.

He had put his arm around her waist and said, “Let's go home.”

But she had pushed his arm away and said, “Cut it out. Just cut it out! That's all you ever think about, isn't it? Isn't it?”

And he had felt himself running, and Anne had called, “Wait! Wait for me!” But he was too fast for her and finally, panting, he found himself on an open street where a taxi was waiting, and he flung himself in. “Take me anywhere!” he had sobbed.

She had come back to the hotel alone and, in the morning, she was in a terrible mood, and she looked awful. Her eyes were red and swollen and her
bouffant
hair, which had been done for her by Michel the day before, had exploded during the night. She sat up in bed, propped on pillows, her thin shoulders hunched together in her nightgown, poking at the hair with trembling fingers. “That was a lovely thing you did to me last night,” she said. “That was a lovely, gentlemanly thing you did! Leaving me all alone in a back street of Paris at four in the morning! Just abandoning me like that. What were you trying to do to me? Where are my cigarettes? God, I feel awful. I've never had such a hangover in my life. I wish I could be sick.”

He had said nothing, but stood at the window in his robe, looking out at the garden below.

“I had a thousand dollars' worth of travellers' cheques in my purse,” she said. “I suppose you knew that, didn't you? I could have been murdered and robbed. You wouldn't care. Oh, if my daddy only knew how you treated me! He'd kill you, I really think he would. He'd kill you.”

He continued to look out the window, still saying nothing.

“You don't care, do you? You wouldn't care if I'd been murdered and robbed, would you? No. You probably hoped I would be! And that was a lovely neighbourhood you chose to abandon me in. And you were certainly a lovely wet blanket on the party last night—refusing to let anybody have any fun. You just don't
want
anybody to have any fun, do you? That's it, isn't it? You just don't want anybody to have a good time!”

“Please,” he said. “I'm trying to forget last night.”

“Oh, I'm
sure
you are! Well,” she said, “I had fun anyway. Do you hear that? I had fun anyway, in spite of your trying to spoil everything. You just didn't want me to see the sights of Paris, did you? Well, I haven't been to Paris since before we were married, and I intend to see the sights whether you like it or not! You can do whatever you please.
I'm
going to see the sights. You didn't
want
to see that show last night, did you? Despite the fact that that happens to be part of the sights of Paris! Was oo
offended
? Was oo itty-bitty sensibilities offended? Well, I liked it,
so there
! After all, I don't seem to get any sex life from you, do I? Do I?”

Again he said nothing, but stood at the window, looking out at the pretty people who crossed the garden on their way to lunches, and the blue and pink hydrangeas in the window-boxes, at the sparrows that settled in the leafy branches of the chestnut trees.

Coming back to New York, he had decided to have it out with Joe Wallace once and for all. The argument, which had been coming up again and again over the last year or so, was getting them nowhere. And so, his first week back from Europe, he had gone into Joe's office and they had discussed it.

“We live in an age that worships size,” Joe had said. “It's simply the trend of things, Hugh. It's an age of bigness—big cars, big chains of supermarkets. Where's the little independent grocer these days? Nobody wants to shop from him any more. Look at banks—they're merging, consolidating, getting bigger all the time. Little business is on its way out. A business is nothing unless it's big. Big companies with big advertising budgets don't want to piddle around with small agencies. The day of the small agency is gone, Hugh. It's just the times. You can't buck the times.”

“But look at it from another standpoint, Joe,” Hugh had said. “Look at it from the standpoint of personnel. Take this fellow Bob Symes we just hired. Bob's main reason for coming with us was that he wanted to work for a smaller agency. He was sick of working in a big place, where he was just a digit. He'd had an offer from McCann-Erickson, but he didn't
want
McCann-Erickson. He wanted us, because of our size, and you couldn't ask for a better boy than Bob Symes.”

“I agree,” Jo Wallace had said. “I agree that we couldn't ask for a better boy than Bob Symes. But the opposite side of the argument is just as true. There are plenty of people who just won't work for small agencies—who feel they're cut out for the big ones.”

“Men as good as Bob Symes, do you think?”

“Look. New York is full of people as good as Bob Symes. I'm not trying to run down Bob, mind you, but it just isn't realistic to think that there aren't thousands of other fellows in New York with just as much ability, or more. And who don't share Bob's personal feelings about working for small companies.”

“Well, Joe,” he had said, “just as there are people like Bob who don't want the McCann-Erickson sort of thing, so are there lots of
businesses
in town that don't, either. Businesses like most of our present clients, for instance. Our present clients have chosen us because of our size.”

“Not entirely,” Joe had said. “They've chosen us for plenty of solider reasons than just because of our size.”

“But size has been a factor. I'll bet if you took a poll, Joe, you'd find that most of our present clients would prefer to have us stay just about the size we are now.”

“You talk about polls, Hugh. But what you're saying is pure speculation. You don't really know how they feel about it.”

“But I'm pretty sure,” Hugh said. “Pretty damn' sure. I'm also pretty sure we'll lose some of our present clients once we start expanding.”

“Oh, to hell with our present clients,” Joe had said. “I'm not talking about them.”

“Boy, I wish I could share that sentiment,” Hugh had said. “I can't say to hell with our present clients. After all, they're the ones who got us where we are.”

“Sure,” Joe said. “Sure, I know all that. I don't really mean to hell with them. What I mean is, let the ones who want to stay
stay
—as we expand. And the ones who don't—well, we really can't be bothered too much with them. After all, we'll be expanding—there'll be other clients coming in to fill the gaps the old ones leave.”

“Well, what about ourselves, Joe—you and me? Why do we want to get any bigger? We've got a good business here. We make a good income from it—as much as we could possibly need. You said a while ago that you didn't see any point in our giving ourselves any more salary—it would all go to Uncle Sam anyway.”

“I'm not talking about salaries, Hugh. Sure, I said that. Uncle's getting enough from me already. I don't believe in giving Uncle any more than he gets now.”

“And the stock that we own in the company has gone steadily up—ten per cent a year.”

Joe had sat back in his chair and made a steeple of his fingers. “Slow and steady wins the race, eh? Is that your philosophy, buddy?” Joe said.

Hugh hesitated a moment. He could always tell when Joe was impatient with him for something, whenever Joe started calling him “buddy.”

“I'm talking about you and me,” he said. “And what it is that we expect to get out of this company in our lifetime.”

“So am I,” Joe said. “So am I talking about exactly that, buddy.”

“Well, what about it, joe?”

“Look,” Joe said, “I'm not for a minute—not for a second—trying to underrate your contributions to this company. Your contributions have been great, terrific. I know what the clients say. ‘Get me Hugh.' ‘Let me talk it over with Hugh.' ‘I want to feel Hugh out about this.' ‘Let me see what Hugh thinks, and then I'll decide.' I know all this. It's terrific. You're a tremendous asset, and do you know why? It's because you're sympathetic. You're a good listener. You don't try to hard-sell people. You've got this tremendous quality of—well, warmth, and understanding. And when a client's got a problem, he likes to chew it over with a guy like you, because you've got this kind of—call it a bedside manner. And that's important because it's a quality I admit that I don't have. I'm too impatient, Hugh. I don't listen well, but you do. We sort of balance each other out, Hugh, and that's why we've made a good team.”

“Well, I like to think I've contributed something, Joe,” he said.

“You have. And don't think for a minute that I don't appreciate it. You're our clients' original wailing wall! And clients need someone like that, someone to hold their hand when they think they've got a problem. But on the other hand—I'm talking to you as an old friend now, Hugh.”

“Go ahead,” Hugh said.

“On the other hand—well, I'm not even sure you'll understand this, Hugh, about me. I don't quite know how to put this so you'll understand.”

“Understand what, Joe?”

“The difference in our backgrounds. That's what I'm talking about. The difference in our backgrounds. You're a rich guy, Hugh. You always were. Even back at school, remember? You were a rich kid, with rich parents. And I was just a scholarship kid, remember?”

“Ah, Joe,” he said, “what does that have to do with anything?”

“A lot. Just listen to me, Hugh, for half a sec. I was a scholarship kid at school, and I had to wait on table. Remember that? God, how it used to burn my ass to have to wait on table for all the rich kids. Remember Mrs. Saunders—the wife of old Saunders, who taught Fourth Form French? That fat old bag wouldn't
talk
to the guys who waited on her table, just because they were scholarship kids. She was sweet as pie to everybody else, but not to the waiters. And do you remember one day a waiter dropped a serving spoon all covered with prune whip down the back of that fat old bag's dress? And there was a big fuss in the dining-hall about it? Well, that waiter was
me
, Hugh. And do you remember how she stood up and started yelling, and everybody was trying to fish that spoon out of the back of her dress? And finally old Saunders had to unbutton the back of her dress, all the way down, right in the dining-hall? Well,” he said, and he tilted his leather chair way back and laughed loudly. “Well, that spoon wasn't dropped by any accident, Hugh, though of course I said it was. No, I took careful aim—I aimed that spoon right down that fat old bag's back.”