(1961) The Chapman Report (48 page)

Teresa, followed by Geoffrey, was upon her. “Kathleen, you are divine. Whatever are you-a Vestal Virgin?”

“Lady Emma Hamilton, I hope,” said Kathleen. “This was the way she dressed.”

“Of course!” said Teresa, standing back, framing Kathleen with her hands. She turned to Geoffrey. “Romney’s Lady Hamilton.”

Geoffrey nodded sagely. “National Gallery. London.”

“I suppose that was the picture I saw in the book,” said Kathleen.

“The most innocent, fawnlike, beautiful portrait of a woman ever put to canvas,” said Geoffrey. “Romney surpassed himself.”

“God was the artist,” Teresa said to Geoffrey.

“Old,” said Geoffrey, pleased.

Kathleen had Paul’s hand. “This is Mr. Paul Radford; our host and hostess, Teresa and Geoffrey Harnish.” As the introduction was acknowledged, Kathleen remembered that she and Paul had agreed not to mention his connection with Dr. Chapman. “Paul’s a writer,” Kathleen added vaguely.

Kathleen and Paul, fortified by a second serving of Scotch and soda, were conversing with Mary and Norman McManus. Originally, Mary had intended to appear as Florence Nightingale, doer of good works, her father’s suggestion. But this morning, after breakfast, she had decided that the lady with the lamp was too saccharine. She had felt as reckless and independent as any pioneer woman who had ever trod the uncouth West. After careful consideration, she had rejected Jessie Fremont for Belle Stan, and now wore cowboy hat, black shirt, holster and pearl six-shooter, and a leather skirt, all rented from a costume house on Melrose.

“I’m truly sorry Naomi couldn’t make it,” she was saying to Kathleen. “But she is better?”

“Much better,” said Kathleen. “You know how these colds hang on. I believe she’s planning a trip East, the moment she’s strong enough.”

“How wonderful. She was raised there, wasn’t she?”

“Yes, I believe so.”

“Well,” said Mary, taking Norman’s hand and beaming up at him, “Norman and I are taking a trip, too-in a way.”

“Really?” said Kathleen conversationally.

“Not really,” said Norman. “But we’re looking for a house of our own.”

“That’s the smart thing to do,” said Kathleen. “If you run into any trouble, you should speak to Grace Waterton. She knows every realtor in The Briars.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Ballard,” said Norman, “but I’m afraid it won’t be The Briars. You see, I’m going on my own-that is, I’m forming a partnership with a friend of mine who has offices downtown.”

“What profession are you in?” asked Paul.

“Law,” said Norman. “It’ll take time to get a foothold.” He turned to Kathleen. “Anyway, if you hear of anything reasonable in the valley, let us know.” He examined his highball glass. “Excuse me. I think I want a refill.”

He went off toward the bar. Mary lingered a moment. She moved her face close to Kathleen’s ear. “We’re going to have a baby,” she whispered.

“Oh, Mary-when?”

Mary winked. “Soon. It’s in the works.” She hurried off after Norman.

Mary and Norman McManus had accepted their refills from Mr. Jefferson in the dining room, and now they were chatting with Ursula and Harold Palmer. Ursula, after considerable soul-searching, had attired herself as a modernized version of Lucrezia Borgia. She wore a jeweled cap on her freshly coiffured hair, which was circled by a dramatic braid, a gauzy veil about her throat, a full-length gown of emerald-green satin, a silver girdle, and sandals studded with costumed stones.

“I couldn’t stand that damn magazine another day,” Ursula was telling Mary and Norman. “That nauseating motto, “The magazine of companionship-serving your heart and hearth.’ Enough to make you upchuck.”

Mary did not know what to say in reply. She had subscribed to Homeday since her marriage and had assigned it a place of authority beside Harry Ewing, Hannah and Abraham Stone, the New Testament, and Dr. Norman Vincent Peale. Now she would not admit to being Constant Reader, and secretly decided to relegate the publication to a lesser position, like the recently demoted Harry Ewing.

“I don’t blame you, Ursula,” she said lamely. And then she added with more reassurance, “People grow.”

“Exactly,” said Ursula, who was beginning to feel the liquor. “The publisher had grand plans for me, an executive position in New York, the works, but I couldn’t see Harold and me becoming ensnared by the Madison Avenue bit, the commuter bit-” this had been the expurgated official version released to Harold after the shameful session with Foster-“especially since Harold is doing so marvelously in his new business.”

“I got the Berrey account,” Harold explained to Norman. “He’s drugstores.”

“Oh, yes,” said Norman. “I’m very interested in knowing what it’s like to be on your own. You see, a friend of mine, Chris Shearer -we were in law school together-we’re opening offices-“

“It’s not all caviar,” said Harold expansively. “You’ve got to expect to struggle a little.”

“Oh, I do,” said Norman.

“But before long you’ll be right up there,” continued Harold.

“ ‘Specially if you have the little woman behind you.” Ursula turned the full glow of her drunken smile on heT husband. “Might as well tell you,” said Harold, “Ursula’s moved into the office to lend a hand. I had a girl, but Ursula’s ten girls in one, and that’s what a man needs.” He wagged his finger at Mary. “You just stay behind him, Mary. Look behind every great man, and you find a greater woman. Richelieu.” He understood that this made no sense, and that he should have allowed the bartender to put some vermouth in the martinis. “Mrs. Roosevelt,” he amended. “After a while it’s peaches and cream.”

Mary’s hand moved inside Norman’s hand. Her forefinger tickled his palm. Harold was still speaking. “A little nerve is all you need. Take the time I went after Berrey-“

Mrs. Symonds, in her white kitchen uniform, offered the tray of crab meat in canape shells and hot curried meat balls to Ursula and Harold Palmer, who were in the patio holding a discussion with Sarah and Sam Goldsmith.

Harold absently accepted the canape his wife had passed him and continued to stare woozily at the exposed expanse of Sarah’s belly. Sarah had defied Sam’s conventionality, to convert halter and tights, once used in a class of the modern dance, into the costume of Mata Hari. Four beaded scarves now modified the tights, and a larger scarf was wound around the halter, but her belly was still bare, to Sam’s acute discomfort.

Earlier, to gain Sam’s affection and perhaps acquire his clothing-store account, Harold had questioned Sam about his business. Sam, his worried eyes shifting constantly from his wife’s indecent costume (what gets into these women-a mother of two, yet?) to the glances of other males in the patio, and back to Harold, discoursed in a steady, complaining drone on the rising cost of merchandise, the perfidy of hired help, the sales tax, the property tax, the income tax, and the trickery of monopolistic chain establishments.

Ursula, tranquilized by alcohol and half listening, murmured agreement and assent from time to time, instinctively understanding that the speaker’s business could enrich their business.

Sarah, not listening at all, fiddled with the bun of her hair and then rearranged her scarves, finding little enjoyment in the brevity of her costume, yet not regretting any gesture that might distress Sam. Observing Sam’s profile, the heavy jowls shimmying like a mastiff’s jaw, she thought of those Semitic caricatures once fostered by

Streicher in Der Sturmer. But the comparison was not fair, she acknowledged, and the jowls weren’t what actually aggravated her. It was the oppressiveness of his private, and now social, banality that embarrassed the most. The frustration of being among people like these, who mattered, with a mate who was a dolt, who in no way represented her mature taste in men, instead of with the mate whom she truly loved, who would have reflected her fine judgment and her own desirability, was what she could not bear.

She saw Grace Waterton enter the patio, and she signaled to capture Grace’s attention. Anything, she felt, to interrupt Sam’s boring monologue on small business. Grace responded with her handkerchief and hastened forward, rustling loudly in her unbecoming Tudor dress that was meant to be a representation of Anne Boleyn.

“Sarah, I’ve been looking everywhere for you,” Grace said rapidly. “Actually, I was just looking for Mr. Waterton-” she always referred to him thus, and she scanned the patio quickly-“but I did want to have a talk with you.”

Sarah saw that neither sleet nor storm nor Waterton would halt the forensic Sam, and so she turned her back on Sam and the Palmers and confronted Grace.

“Aren’t you divine?” said Grace, surveying the tights and scarves. “How do you manage that schoolgirl figure?” Sarah was pleased. “No lunches and no desserts,” she said simply. “Sarah, we’ve been talking seriously about doing another fund-raising play this summer. The other was such a success.” Sarah’s heart stood still. She said nothing. Grace was going on. “You were such a hit in it. We’re trying to get the same cast back. Perhaps do Lady Windermere’s Fan. You’d be the perfect Lady Windermere-you have just the bearing-though, of course, you could do Mrs. Erlynne, if you preferred. We’ve just begun to make inquiries.”

“I … I’m afraid I couldn’t manage it, Grace. It’s been so hectic. The children-“

“But we wouldn’t do it before August. You’d have the kids in camp.”

“I don’t think so, Grace. Anyway, Sam and I might be away.” Grace sighed. “Oh dear, everyone traveling. That makes my second turn-down in a row, and for the same reason.”

Some intuition restrained the question on the tip of Sarah’s tongue, but she forced it out anyway. “Who was the other to turn you down?”

Grace’s gaze had wandered in search of her husband. She returned it now to Sarah. “Fred Tauber,” she said. “Remember him?”

“Yes, I do.”

“I figured, let’s start with the director. After all, the big job is his. I phoned him this morning.”

Sarah’s cheeks were warm. It was odd listening to someone else bandying Fred’s name, invading the secret preserve of her life, where she was hidden with Fred. She remembered-at no time this evening had she forgotten-that she had telephoned Fred from a booth in The Village Green late yesterday afternoon. She had found him in, at last, but disturbingly remote. She had telephoned him innumerable times, with no answer, she had said. He had been out on a series of business meetings, he had said. She had come to see him in desperation, because of the man in the Dodge, she had said. He had been to his attorney, he had said. Then, hopefully, she had wondered about the attorney-was anything wrong? No, he had replied impatiently, it was a contract matter-in fact, he was in the midst of a conference that moment-and she had been relieved to have this explain his remoteness and impatience. She had wanted to know when they could meet, reminding him they had not seen each other for four days, and he had explained that he would be out tomorrow morning but that he might be in Saturday morning. He had advised her to contact him then.

“… and we had a brief talk,” Grace was saying.

“You phoned him this morning?”

“Why, of course. Why not?”

“I … I should suppose he’s working.”

“Oh. Well. I’ll tell you all about that, my dear. But the point is, I told him how everyone adored his work on the last show, how charitable and gracious it had been of him, and how we needed him again. Of course, I thought I had him in the bag, because of what I’d heard.”

“What did you hear, Grace?”

“He’s a has-been. No one would touch him with a ten-foot pole. He makes a big show of disdaining television, of turning down everything but the best-hell, he hasn’t been offered even a puppet show in two years.”

Sarah felt her nails in the palms of her hands. She wanted to scratch Grace’s eyes out. With difficulty, she restrained her voice. “I don’t believe that cheap gossip. He’s a genius. All of us thought so who worked with him.”

“Don’t take it to heart. What did you do, transfer to your director or something? So he’s a genius-a genius who can’t buy a job. Anyway, I’m only repeating. At any rate, back to that phone call. I thought we had him, but, by God, our luck, he just did get a job a couple of days ago.”

“Really? What?”

“A television series they’re going to shoot down in Mexico and Central America. “The Filibusters,’ I think he said it was called-you know, William Walker, soldiers of fortune, adventurers. Not a bad idea. Maybe some banana company will sponsor it. Anyway, he’s leaving for Mexico City tomorrow to shoot the pilot film. Isn’t that the damnedest luck?”

“Tomorrow?” said Sarah dully. Every organ inside her body had given way.

Grace seemed not to have heard her. “But that’s not the juicy part. Even that job’s a fluke. I had to call Helen Fleming this morning-she’s on the play committee-with the bad news. Well, her husband’s in the studios, and a friend of his, someone named Reggie Hooper, created the series. Well, it seems that Fred Tauber’s wife-did you know he had a wife?”

Sarah shook her head.

“His wife is the daughter of one of those Hollywood big shots. She’s society and loaded with gilt-edged and quite a bit older. I suppose Tauber married her because he expected it would help. Well, it helped a little, I’m sure, but not enough, and he got bored and began pinching starlets, and she found out. There was some kind of noisy showdown in Romanoff’s, and he left her. So she went to big-shot Daddy, arid Daddy got Tauber blacklisted until he came around. But Tauber wouldn’t come around, jobs or no jobs-he didn’t have enough talent to get anyone to defy his father-in-law-so he just sat in limbo, reading Hedda Hopper and pinching starlets. But here’s the pay-off. Apparently, his wife really loved him-either that or she didn’t want her name dragged into the divorce courts-there’s a kid somewhere around-so at last she was the one to come around. I think she helped him a little with money for a couple of independent projects that fell through. Anyway, lately, she got wind that he was going hot and heavy for someone, an actress, I think, and she decided to put a stop to that. She bought this television property and offered Tauber a partnership if he would take it down to Mexico and produce and direct it. I don’t think she gives a damn about anything, except getting him away from here. So who suffers in the end? We suffer. If anyone knew what the Association goes through …”