The Towers of Love (24 page)

“I don't either,” she said, “not really. After all, I'm going to go on working for him. For selfish reasons, I don't want him to flop. But he will, Hugh, he will. I sense it.”

“I'm not so sure,” he said. “I've known Joe a long time. He's one of the most determined men I know. I've never known him yet not to get the thing he's set out to get. It's almost a habit with Joe—to win.”

The olive in her cocktail was pierced with a small red plastic toothpick, and she swirled this thoughtfully in her glass. “Well, perhaps,” she said. And then, “But it's certainly going to be different without you there,” she said. “It is already.”

“Is it?”

“It's everywhere in the air—a difference. It's certainly going to be different for me.”

“Well—”

“And I'm not the only one,” she said. “A number of people have mentioned it, how very different everything suddenly seems. We'll all miss you, Hugh.”

“Well, that's very nice to know,” he said.

“And do you know something? Joe Wallace misses you the most of all. This morning, there was a meeting about some new commercials, and Joe was looking them over, and all at once he started to say, ‘Let's see what Hugh thinks'—the way he always does. And he suddenly stopped, and then he said, ‘Well, let me think about these—let me mull them over.'”

“Well, that only means—”

“Do you know what I think? I think that Joe doesn't quite believe that you've really, physically gone. I think he still thinks you'll change your mind and come back.”

“I'm afraid my mind's made up,” he said.

“I know it is. And you know how I feel. But I guess there are a lot of people who still hope perhaps you'll change your mind. I guess no matter how much you admire someone's stand on a thing, you still—”

“Still what?”

She smiled. “Well, if you like them, you still wish they'd stay. I guess that's it. But you should have seen Joe this morning. He was a different person.”

“Joe will get used to it, too, in time,” he said.

She took a sip of her cocktail. “Maybe,” she said. “But that's why I'm convinced that Joe will never make it.”

“I wish you wouldn't keep saying that,” he said.

“Do you? I'm sorry. But that's one of the problems with me. I'm always frank. I always say what I think. To me, Joe Wallace is just a small-town boy with big ideas. It's got to be
big
business—big, big, big. Or else it's nothing. He thinks the only way to succeed is to be the biggest of them all. To me, Joe has a warped idea of what success is.”

“Ah, Ellen,” he said, “please. I don't think that's true.”

“Hugh,” she said, “you're so nice. You're one of the nicest people I know. But haven't you ever realised how disliked—how thoroughly hated—Joe Wallace is in this business?”

“I've never been aware of that.”

“See? See how frank I am? And see how nice you are? Well, it happens to be true. Do you know something? I think maybe niceness is
your
problem. You're compulsively nice.” She laughed. “I'm not completely serious, but a little bit serious. Maybe niceness
can
be a problem, sometimes. When I first met you, I thought: How very nice he is. But it can't be real. It must be an act, a bit. But now that I know you, I see that it's all very real, a part of you. I like that part of course—but still, niceness can be a problem.”

He said nothing.

“You know, my father used to have a little saying,” she said. “He used to say ‘All bars are alike,' and if you'd known my father you'd have known that he spoke from experience. ‘All bars are alike,' he'd say, ‘and it's just the personality of the bartender that makes you go to one and not a dozen others.' It's the same way with this agency. The personality of one of the bartenders—you—has made a lot of people come to us. And now that personality isn't going to be there any more. That's why I think Joe Wallace will fail.”

He still said nothing, but looked at the cocktail in his hand, holding the stem of the glass between his fingers.

“And don't think I'm trying to flatter you,” she said. “Because I'm not. You don't need flattery.”

“Well, thanks anyway,” he said.

“Well, it's been fun, hasn't it?” she said. “Working together? You've taught me a great deal. And the way you've listened to all my crazy schemes. Do you know that you're the only person—the only person in the world I've ever shown that script to? And you're probably the only one who'll ever see it. But I'm not going to turn this into a sloppy farewell speech, because this isn't a farewell, is it? You'll be back in New York from time to time, and we'll get together again. We'll keep in touch.”

“Yes, we'll keep in touch.”

“I just wish I had the guts to walk out, too. But I need the job. I've got to keep the wolf from the door and pay the analyst's bills.”

“What are you talking about? Are you going to an analyst?”

“Oh, yes.”

“What are you going to an analyst for?”

“Sometimes I ask myself the same question,” she said. “But I am.”

“My God, you're one of the best-adjusted people I know, Ellen.”

“Ha!” she laughed. “Me? Well-adjusted? Oh, no. I'm terribly adjusted. All sorts of little adjustments need to be made on me. I'm sorely in need of repair, but nobody seems to quite know what's wrong, so we lift up the hood and we tinker with this, and tinker with that, and—well, I don't want to talk about that.”

“I can't believe that you'd need any repairs at all,” he said.

“You see? Your niceness is popping out again. That
is
your problem, and I'll bet my Dr. Berger would agree. But let's not talk about problems. Tell me—what's it going to be? Are you off to California to your newspaper at last?”

“Well,” he said, “a few days ago I thought I was. But now I'm suddenly not so sure.”

“Oh?” she said. “What are you going to do then?”

“Well, to-morrow I'm going up to my family's place in Connecticut for a few days. My mother called up and she wants me to come home for a little visit with the family—just a short visit, sort of a vacation, while I line things up for what I'm going to do next.”

“Tell me about home,” she said. “Tell me about Connecticut.”

“Well,” he had said, smiling, “we live in a castle.”

“A castle?”

“Yes.” And he had started telling her about the castle, describing its empty towers, telling her about his grandfather and how he had moved the house from Baldwin. And, because she seemed interested and kept urging him, saying, “Yes, yes. Go on,” he told her about his father, and his sister Pansy, and about Reba, and his mother, the Chinless Charmers. It was always hard to describe his mother to someone who had never met her, but he did his best—telling her about her fantastic dresses, her collection of hats, the way she insisted, in some ways, on always being a clown. And he tried to describe her serious side, too—the side that seldom showed, the side that was so resolute and strong. And when he had finished, he said, “Sandy's the kind of person, when I was in school, who used to be known as ‘quite a character.' That's what she is, I guess. A character. She's not easy to describe. You'll just have to meet her. You'll have to come up to Connecticut some time and meet her. I think you'll like her.”

She had sat very quietly for a moment, thoughtfully stirring her cocktail with the olive on its toothpick stem. Then she said, “Do you know something? And here I go again, being dreadfully frank. But I think she sounds awful. I don't think I'd like her at all. And furthermore I'm certain that she wouldn't like me.”

He looked at her for a second or two, puzzled, and then he smiled faintly and looked down at the tablecloth. Because it was true, of course, and he knew perfectly well what his mother would think of Ellen Brier.

“And tell me about your wife,” she said. “You haven't mentioned her. How has she reacted to all this?”

“My wife?”

“Yes, your wife.”

“Well,” he said, “I'll be frank with you. My wife has left me.”

“Oh,” she said.

“Yes.”

She stirred the olive slowly around the bowl of the glass, around and around. “I was married once,” she said.

“I never knew that, Ellen.”

“Yes, I was married once,” she said. And then, “Well, shall we look at a menu?”

Twelve

He had been having the hospital dream. In the dream, the room in the hospital was always totally dark. He was to go into surgery in a few minutes and, as always, the reason for the operation was not clear. They had refused to explain to him what part of his body they were going to cut open, or what disorder they expected to correct. There was a possibility that it was an operation without a purpose, a random surgery that was merely intended to satisfy some doctor's obscure curiosity. There was also a possibility, since they would not look at him, since they would not talk to him, since they kept him in this utter darkness, that he was not the one they wanted; that it was all a mistake; that instructions had been confused somewhere in the hospital; and that the operation they were about to perform had been intended for some other person. They seized him now and held him down with gloved hands. They were all around his bed, on every side, holding him down with their powerful hands on his arms and legs and head. Then a light began—an almost invisible candle-flame at first. Then the light fattened, increased, spread, and he tried to struggle up to raise himself against the pressing hands, to turn his head away from the blinding light …

He opened his eyes, trying to shake himself from the hands of the dream, knowing that he was safe, at home in Connecticut, but still not able to separate himself entirely from the dream's hold. He sat up, put his feet over the side of the bed, and rubbed his eyes. It was morning, and it had rained during the night. Rain had washed the bare branches of the trees and the grass on the lawn and had created little uneven pools of water on the terrace that looked black and oily against the white stones. As usual, after a rain, the waterfall had stepped up its noise and, beyond the trees, he could see its white froth being scooped up by the river below it.

He got out of bed, dressed in a pair of slacks and a sweater, and went downstairs for breakfast. The door to his father's room, as he passed it, was open; the bed had not been slept in; he had not come home. Hugh walked into the dining-room alone.

At ten o'clock, Pappy came to tell him that there was a telephone call for him. When he picked up the receiver, a woman's voice said, “Mr. Hugh Carey?”

“Yes.”

“One moment, please. Mr. Burton Cromwell calling.”

Then he heard his father-in-law's voice. “Is he on the phone?” the voice asked. “Have you got him on the phone?”

“Ready with Mr. Carey, sir,” the woman's voice said.

“Hallo. Hallo, Hugh?”

“Hallo, Father C.,” he said. “How are you?”

“Fine,” his father-in-law said. “Just fine. How are you?”

“I'm fine, Father C.,” Hugh said. “How's the weather in New York?”

“What? Oh, the weather's fine. Nice day. How's the weather up your way?”

“Well, we've had some rain,” Hugh said.

“Rain, huh? Well, see here, Hugh,” Cromwell said. “I didn't call you up to talk about the weather.”

“Oh,” Hugh said. “Well, what can I do for you, Father C?”

“Well, look here,” Burton Cromwell said. “I've just been talking to Annie, see?”

“Oh,” he said. “How is Anne?”

“Annie's fine. Her health is fine. Not that I gather you care much about Annie's health.”

“Oh, but I do care,” Hugh said.

“Well, look here. Anyway, I've had a long talk with Annie, and Annie's told me the whole story. In all its—well, I'll come right out and say it—in all its very sordid and unpleasant details.”

“I see,” he said.

“And Annie's said that she's communicated with you, Hugh. But she says that so far you haven't taken the trouble to communicate back to her.”

“Yes, I did get a letter from her, now that I think of it. I've been meaning to answer it—but well, I haven't got around to it. I've been pretty busy.”

“Yeah. I can imagine. Well, anyway, Annie wants me to make it very clear to you that she intends to seek a divorce. I mean that this is her very firm and unequivocal intention, to seek a divorce, and nothing that you say at this point will persuade her to change her mind.”

“Well,” Hugh said, “I'm glad you've told me.”

“And there is no point now in any further communication with her because nothing that you say will make her change her mind.”

“I wouldn't dream of saying anything that would make Anne change her mind,” he said.

“Right. Check and double-check. I just wanted to make that very clear, Hugh.”

“Thanks. Thanks very much.”

“I mean this whole thing is just as distasteful to Mrs. Cromwell and me as it is to you, but at this point, after Annie told me all she has had to put up with for all these years, Hugh, it seems to me that a divorce is the only possible salvation. I mean solution.”

“I agree,” Hugh said.

“I mean, after all Annie's had to put up with.”

“I know she's had to put up with a great deal,” Hugh said.

“Yes, and if you could have seen that poor child's face this morning, sitting here—”

“Yes,” Hugh said.

“Well,” Burton Cromwell said. “There's only one other thing, Hugh. Annie's retained counsel—she did that this morning. Lowell Sherman, here in town. And incidentally, I should think that it would be to your advantage to retain counsel, too—of course that's up to you.”