Five Smooth Stones (65 page)

"Jesus have moicy! I'd rather marry a Teddy bear."

"Anyhow, I repeat, she's nice and I like her and she does fit in. Sometimes I wish Hunter wouldn't give her such a bad time—"

"Don't worry. She doesn't even know he's doing it."

"Kitty—kitty—" said Sara.

***

Dora Moore, the receptionist in the Abernathy, Willis and Shea offices, was not at her desk when David entered. Just beyond Willis's office a door stood open, and from behind it Dora's voice called, "Who is it?"

"David Champlin."

She came into the hallway, lipstick in hand, a pertly competent young woman with Irish blue eyes, freckles, and a small, impudent nose. He had already been around the office enough to know that she had all three partners and the juniors nicely wrapped around her finger.

"Didn't you meet Mr. Willis on your way up? You must have crossed each other in the elevators. He just left and I'm leaving. Everybody's gone—"

"So soon? No business? Nobody suing anybody or anything?"

"Just a lucky break, I guess. Can you wait two minutes while I finish my face? I'll be right out—"

She disappeared into the dressing room, and the telephone in Willis's office began to ring stridently.

"David! I've put the night lines up. Will you catch it? Tell them he's gone home, and get a message—"

He lifted the receiver in mid-ring. "Mr. Willis's office."

There was a pause before a husky voice answered him, one that could be male. "May I talk to Mr. Willis?"

"He's gone for the day, sir. Will you leave a message?"

The abrupt laugh was a woman's; the caller obviously was not male. "Oh, dear. And it's not 'sir.' This is Mrs. Willis."

A lot of people sounded different on the telephone; there

was no reason to be uneasy at the difference in Mrs. Willis's voice. She continued, "Who is this?"

"David Champlin, Mrs. Willis."

"David! How nice to hear you. My husband and I talk about you so much. He's so proud of you, David. You're to come to dinner soon. Let me talk to him for just a minute, David—"

"He's gone, Mrs. Willis. There's no one here. He should be home soon."

"David, tell him to stop at Miller's Garage—"

"I can't, Mrs. Willis. He's left—"

"My car's there. A stupid" (had she said "shtupid"?) "man shmashed" (there was no doubt about that one) "in a fender. Silly old man, he was. It's so nice to talk to you, David. My husband's so proud of you...." There was no stopping her. In the space of the next two minutes David figured she must have repeated herself at least six times.
What prominent Boston attorney is due for gray hairs before his time....
This woman wasn't just a little high; she was close to being boxed out. Way out. And David was sure she hadn't been what Tom Evans use to call "taken suddenly drunk." There was a quality of saturation in her speech: the repetition, the inability to take in—or drunken refusal to accept—the simple statement that her husband had left, the obvious belief that no one could possibly suspect she had been drinking. She was saying again, "Let me talk to him, David. I'd better tell him about the car myself—"

"He should be home soon—"

There was a quick step behind him, the low words, "Give me the phone, David—" and Dora's hand took the receiver from his.

"Mrs. Willis? This is Dora. Your husband has gone home." She spoke slowly, distinctly, as though she were speaking to a foreigner with a limited knowledge of English, in a tone of kindly finality. "... No, Mrs. Willis. He should be there soon.... I have a call on the other line, Mrs. Willis. You just be patient and he'll be there. Goodbye."

She cradled the receiver quickly, drawing her hand away from it as though it burned her, then looked up at David's troubled face.

"You didn't know?"

He shook his head, feeling as though he had witnessed a scene of shame and humiliation he should not have seen, feeling sick at the thought that within a short time Brad Willis would walk into his home to face the woman who had just been on the telephone. "Is it—does it happen often?" he asked.

Before Dora could answer, the telephone rang again and he instinctively moved toward it. Dora's hand caught his arm. "Let it ring. That will keep up till he gets home." She took a large Manila envelope marked "David Champlin" from the desk and drew him out of the room, closing the door behind them. The unanswered summons of the ringing telephone was a lonely sound, and followed them, stayed with them as they stood at Dora's desk. She added another typescript to the nearly full envelope, then said, "Damnation!" David thought he detected something close to tears in her voice. "It's not fair. It's not fair. And she's so swell. She's such a swell person. When she's—all right."

"Then this isn't all the time?" He remembered the handsome, warm, friendly woman sitting on the edge of the big divan twisting a bright-hued handkerchief into a shapeless wad, tearing at it, drawing it back and forth through long, restless fingers, then getting up a dozen or more times during the evening on trivial errands, remembered his own puzzlement at her tense nervousness.

"Not all the time. Sometimes she's all right, and then Mr. Willis is like a different person. You can tell the minute he comes in. He's so wonderful to her, David, and so patient. It just isn't fair." She slammed the center drawer of her desk shut with a bang. The ringing of the telephone had stopped a moment before; now it started again. "Let it alone," she said. "You'd have found out about it anyhow, David, after you'd been around a while. But it's sort of a jolt, getting it that way —one of those phone calls. She calls everywhere—even courthouses and clients' offices sometimes. Everyone knows about it and everyone's so fond of them both. Only, no one will talk about it. I guess I'm just letting off steam." She handed him the envelope. "Walk me to the subway?"

"Of course."

After they left the elevator and could not be overheard she said, almost fiercely, "Peg Willis is one of the grandest people I know. Do you know what she did after my mother got a fractured pelvis in a fall? After Mom got out of the hospital Mrs. Willis sent a practical nurse—wouldn't let me say a word—to take care of Mom while I was working. For a whole month. Mom's the one who had to insist she didn't need one anymore because she was better off taking care of

herself. Mom and I have prayed to just about every saint we know about, and I've made Novenas. Perhaps they'll work in time. Perhaps it has to be this way for a while—"

They reached the subway entrance, and as they went down the stairs Dora said, "I've talked your arm off."

"It's been good for you."

"Anyhow, now you'll understand. Once in a while Mr. Willis is nervous and fractious—"

"My God, who wouldn't be!"

"It's easier for him if people understand. You'll say a prayer for him? And her?"

"Sure will. You can count on it, Dora."

She smiled up at him. "Funny, isn't it, how we know the people we can say things like that to and not be laughed at? See you next week—"

***

The following Sunday Hunter Travis arrived at David's apartment just after Sara, in paint-smeared smock, had appeared for breakfast. He had just arrived at the airport an hour or so earlier, he said, checked in at a hotel and come directly up there.

"Phones, man, phones!" said David. "It's the twentieth century—we've got all kinds of gadgets."

"I never make local calls. Only long distance. Coffee?"

"Sausage and eggs—"

"Just toast and coffee."

"Your book, Hunter," said Sara, pouring coffee. "I just got around to reading it last week. It's well, it's not very cheerful, is it?"

"Cheerful!" Hunter set the coffee mug that was halfway to his mouth back on the table with an audible thud. "Cheerful! Sara, for God's sweet sake when are you going to grow up? Acquire even a surface layer of sophistication? No! It wasn't cheerful. What a word! 'Cheerful.'"

"Stop being superior and putting everyone on the defensive, Hunter. Maybe it is a lousy word. Maybe I meant something a little different. Perhaps I meant 'hopeful' or something like that. I'm not a writer. I just paint."

"Pretty little flower baskets?"

"Stop it, you two!" said David. "You're headed for another one of your knock-down and drag-outs. If Hunter wants to be desolated and gloomy, let him. And if Sara wants to be nonconformist and square, let her. Brethren, love one another—"

"We do manage to have at one another," said Hunter. "But always remember, Sara, I love you dearly. God knows why."

"I know why." She flashed a quick grin across the table at him. "I'm the voice of your better nature—"

"Sara, there'll be violence in a minute," said David. "Hunter admits to no better nature. What's wrong with the one he has?"

"I like it." said Hunter. "Easy on the eggs, chum. I'm having a sort of midafternoon dinner. At your boss's house, incidentally."

"Bradford Willis?"

"Yes. Known to me in my extreme youth as Uncle Brad." He looked at David, and frowned. "What's the matter? You look dubious—"

"You're seeing things—" Before David could continue, the telephone ringing from its place on the mantel stopped him. When he answered it he did not at first recognize the voice that said, "David?"

"Yes—"

"This is Brad Willis."

"Oh—good morning!"

"David, I need help in locating the only hard-working dilettante I know of. He was due in town this morning—"

"Hunter Travis. He's right here drinking coffee."

"Good! May I talk to him?"

David handed the telephone down to Hunter. It was impossible not to hear Hunter's end of the conversation.

"... Just got here, Brad.... Two or three days, I hope. Have to check up on David and Sara among other things.... A very charming young lady, if naive... I'll tell him.... That will be perfectly all right, Brad... Not a bit. Forget it.... We'll make it anytime you say. Actually, it probably would be better if I came to the office. Mother wants me to ask you about drawing up a deed of gift for her property in Chestnut Hill. Some kind of nursery-school project... Two

o'clock tomorrow's fine…I can have a yak with my publishers

in the morning...Making a start on one, yes…Father? He's fine. He's in Istanbul at the moment.... I'll do that.... See you tomorrow. Cheers."

Hunter replaced the receiver and put the telephone back on the mantel with exaggerated care. Sara broke the silence. "What's the matter, Hunter? No dinner?"

"No dinner." He came to the table, took a cigarette from the pack in front of David, and looked at the other over the flame of a lighter. "You're not surprised."

"No," said David.

"You've found out?"

"Yes."

"Brad tell you?"

"No, he's never mentioned it. I was in the office late Friday after they'd all left. There was a phone call—"

"Oh, God, one of those—"

"From what the receptionist tells me, they're almost routine—"

Sara leaned forward. "What is it, you two? What's wrong, Hunter?"

"Just the cheerful circumstance of Brad Willis's wife on another bender."

"'Another' bender?"

"She's an alcoholic. A periodic."

Sara turned to David. "I didn't know—"

"I know you didn't, Sara. I'd have told you eventually. I was just so damned upset I didn't want to talk about it. Brad's the kind of guy you grow fond of—"

"And Peg's that kind of a woman," said Hunter.

"The poor man! I've never even seen him, but I feel sorry. Can't they do anything about it, Hunter? Doctors, psychiatrists—"

"It's not all that simple, Sara. I suppose they've tried. A psychiatrist would have a field day with Peg. And probably be useless. For every one good reason the average alcoholic has for drinking, she has three or four. You know the background, David?"

David shook his head. "No."

Hunter sat down, picked up his refilled coffee mug, and said, "In fairness to Peg I'm going to give it to you."

"Perhaps Brad wouldn't appreciate our talking about it."

"I think in one sense he'd be grateful. Sooner or later he'd have to tell you himself. He very desperately wants people to understand. There aren't many who can. You can—and God knows, I can."

"All right—"

"Remember, David, our friendship—that is the family's— with Brad goes back to the time when Brad was a student in law school. My father met Brad by chance, liked him, did what Brad's doing with you—took him under his wing. When Brad got his degree my father was the one who arranged for him to go with Abernathy. Right after that the State Department tapped my father on the shoulder. And Brad, of course, more or less skyrocketed; a few, damned few lawyers, go ahead as fast as Brad did without stepping on toes. Abernathy—he's my mother's maternal uncle, by the way—wasn't too well, and he loaded a lot on Brad's shoulders. I'm telling you all this, even if you happen to know some of it already, so you'll see how close to the situation my father and mother were, and why I happen to know so much about it...."

CHAPTER 43

After his talk with Hunter, Brad Willis walked slowly from his study to the chill, gray loneliness of a Sunday-morning living room before shades have been raised, ashtrays emptied, the untidy residue of a previous day's life cleared away. It had been stupid to ask Hunter to dinner when he had called yesterday. He had extended the invitation on a flimsy hope born of the circumstance that Peg, that morning, had "seemed" to be snapping out of it.

He stood staring into the dead ashes in the fireplace. You're too old to be hopeful, he told himself grimly. He passed a hand over his face, trying to wipe the tiredness from his eyes. "And too young to give up," he added aloud.

He wondered idly who the "Sara" was that Hunter had mentioned, obviously under the impression that David had told him about her. He hoped she was a vegetable, brought up on a farm, illiterate, and with no psychological complexities. It might be dull for the boy, but it wouldn't mean long wakeful hours at night and a prodding, subconscious worry all day like the throb of an aching tooth.

Two ashtrays on the coffee table overflowed and he threw the butts into the fireplace, then picked up and folded the soft woolen blanket that trailed crazily from divan to floor, and plumped the pillows into shape. Oblivion had hit Peg suddenly last night, before she could make it into the bedroom. He could only take her shoes off gently, loosen her dress, and cover her warmly with a blanket. Later, he knew, she would wake up, go to the kitchen for another drink, and then manage to undress and get into the bed beside his before it knocked her out.