The Towers of Love (6 page)

“Go down in a what?”

“A bathysphere, darling. I mean it. Explore the sea floor.”

“Yes, Sandy,” he said. “You really should go down in a bathysphere.”

“I'm serious. You know how marine life has always fascinated me. All those—
eels
and things. Do you know of any bathysphere trips leaving soon? I'm
serious
. Bill Beebe was a dear friend of mine, and I was just dying to go down in his. Oh, well,” she said, sighing, “I've got to do something. Perhaps I will just marry Titi.” She picked up her teacup again and held it to her lips. “Ah, cooling at last!” she said, and sipped it. Looking at him over the edge of the cup, she said, “There is just one thing, baby.”

“What's that?”

“Oh, don't worry. I won't run off or do anything rash while you're here. This visit with you is too rare, too much fun. I can't tell you how happy I am, and how grateful, that you were willing to come. You didn't mind
too
much, did you, coming up to see poor little me?”

“Of course I didn't mind,” he said.

“Oh, there's
so
much we have to talk about still,” she said. “It will take us days. We haven't even begun, have we? But there is one thing—if I may be a little bit personal just for one minute, now that I think of it—there is one thing.”

“I'm all braced for it,” he said, smiling. “Tell me what it is.” And he could tell from her voice and the way she looked at him that she was really going to be serious now, just for a minute.

“Your weight. You haven't gained, have you?”

“I don't think so.”

“Are you sure? Positive? Oh, Hugh, you know how important that is—how careful you've got to be about that. You know what Dr. Zimmerman said. How, if you gained weight, it could affect—the walking.”

“I know,” he said quickly. “I know that.”

“Good. Please be careful. Please hop on the scales every morning. And not some old bathroom scales, but that good Fairbanks scale I sent you. A Fairbanks scale can't lie. And Hugh, your walking is—I noticed it yesterday—it's so much better. Really. I think it's—well, I think it's barely noticeable any more, when you wear the shoes.”

“I'll watch my weight, Mother,” he said. She was beginning to irritate him a little. He knew what she meant, of course. But still—still, sometimes …

Sometimes he wished nobody had to mention the walk at all. It was not that mention of the walk pained him. But it had become, through the years, such a boring subject, and it had taken on such a dreary pattern. The subject of his lameness came up again and again—with friends, with everyone he met, it seemed, sooner or later—and it was usually after a few drinks when the person, whoever it was, decided that mentioning it was somehow tactful, and was putting him at his ease. It was always the same. The person said, in a gentle and solicitous tone—patronisingly kind—“You know, Hugh, when I first met you, I noticed it—the limp. But honestly, Hugh, and no kidding, since I've got to know you—why, I hardly notice it at all.” And that remark, which was intended to be so polite, and which had been emptied upon his ears with the persistence of a steady rain throughout almost two decades of his life, meant only one thing to him: His lameness was barely noticeable; therefore it
was
noticeable. It meant that whoever said it was a liar trying to tell an affectionate lie.

His mother had sensed his mood—she was good at that—and had sensed that she had stirred up unpleasant thoughts for him, for she said now quickly in a bright voice, “Oh, I've got something to
show
you, baby. Quick. Hand me that. That hatbox there on the chair.”

He reached for the hatbox and handed it to her.

“You can't guess what I've got here,” she said.

“A hat.”

“Yes, but not just
any
hat. Wait.” She began to untie the ribbons of the box with deft fingers. “I was in Saks the other day and Miss Lucy, my hat lady, was saying to me, ‘You know, Mrs. Carey, I have one hat here that I want you to try on. But I ought to tell you that Mrs. Ernest Bratton was in here the other day, and tried it on. And she said she just couldn't wear it—it was too extreme.' Well, baby, you know Polly Bratton—what a
raving
beauty she is! And so I said to Miss Lucy, ‘Miss Lucy, if a hat is too extreme for Polly Bratton it is
not
too extreme for me.
Give me the hat
.' So I bought it practically sight unseen, without even asking the price. Look,” she said, and she lifted it from the box.

It looked Hugh thought, like a perfectly ordinary black hat, of felt, with a wide circular brim. His mother put it on her head and it looked like a small sombrero.

“That's very disappointing,” he said.

“It isn't
finished
yet,” she said. “Now watch.” And she seized the front of the brim and gave it a sharp tug downwards. The brim, he saw now, was somehow artfully not connected to the crown of the hat in the front, and his mother pulled this ingenious brim down, across her face, and tucked it under her small chin. Now she looked as though her face were encircled with a wide, black beard, and the effect was so droll that he couldn't help but laugh.

“My God,” he said. “It's fantastic, Sandy.”

“Like it?” she asked him. “It'll do, don't you think, for tea with the neighbours?” Leaving it on, she lifted her teacup, extending her little finger, and sipped her tea.

He was still laughing.

“What's so damned funny?” she asked, but her eyes were merry and now she began to laugh, too, and had to set down her teacup shaking in its saucer. She reached out quickly and covered his hand with hers. “Oh, Hugh!” she said. “It's so good to have you home. We do like each other, don't we? We do have fun. Oh, and I'm so proud of you. So damned proud! You've been so successful: My successful son! You've made all this
money
! Do you mind if I tell you that I'm proud of you? Because I am, my lamb, I am. You went off to New York and—well, you
did
it! The—the conquering hero has returned.”

He smiled at her. “Well, I'm glad you're proud,” he said.

“We've—we've always reached
upwards
, you and I, haven't we? We've always reached up for the god-damned moon and stars!” And she lifted her hand in the air, as if clutching for a star, to show him what she meant, and a little noisy rivulet of bracelets came tumbling down her arm.

Then, very quickly, she came back to her other self again. “Of course,” she said with a long sigh, “I don't really know why you felt you had to be so successful. You would always have been comfortably off.”

“I know,” he said, falling in with her game. “It's embarrassing, really. To be born rich, and then
make
money.”

“Terribly embarrassing,” she said. “But I've always said that I find rich people more amusing than poor people, and so I suppose successful people. Anyway, to-morrow night's the party.”

“What party?”

“The party to welcome you
home
, for God's sake! Didn't I promise you on the phone that if you'd come I'd do something lavish and gay? Didn't I promise you I'd hire naked houris to entertain you? Well, I haven't got any houris, but you certainly didn't think you were going to come home rich and famous and successful and not at least have a
party
given for you. I was going to have
sort
of a party to-night, with Edrita, but when she couldn't come I got busy for to-morrow night. I've got all sorts of more interesting people.”

“Who, for instance?”

“Well, let's see,” she said, spreading her long fingers and beginning to count them off. “Your father will be here, for one. I thought it might be nice to include him. And your Aunt Reba will be here, of course, and she's bringing some terribly interesting new playwright or something. And then—oh, yes—I asked Titi to come.”

“I can hardly wait to meet Titi,” he said.

“Yes. But, oh dear, I'm afraid I was rather dreadful to Titi on the phone when I asked him. I did a really awful thing. I said to Titi, ‘Titi, darling, would you mind terribly not bringing Waldo?' Was that too awful a thing to say, do you think? It's not that I don't
love
Waldo, of course, but—but well, don't you think that one fairy is enough at a party?”

“I agree,” he said, “that one fairy is enough at a party.”

“Yes, I think so. Of course, I didn't put it quite that way to Titi. But really, when they're together they're so
thick
—it's boring, actually. Of course, I'd hope Titi would have enough sense not to make a pass at you, but you can't tell. You never can tell about Titi.”

“Just don't seat us side by side,” he said.

“And would you like me to ask Edrita again—for to-morrow night?”

“I think that would be very nice,” he said.

“All right, I'll do it if you'd like. I'll do it first thing in the morning. And let's see—who else? Oh, yes. There's a
surprise
guest coming.”

“Who's the surprise?”

“Never mind. Don't ask questions.”

“Give me a hint.”

“It has something to do with your sister.”

“What's Pansy been up to?”

“I'll tell you about it at dinner to-night. There's news-news-news about Pansy.”

“Good or bad news?”

“Mixed. Mixed news. I'll tell you at dinner to-night. Dinner to-night will be
à deux
. I hope you don't mind. Do you mind having dinner alone to-night with your poor old frail grey-haired mother?”

“No,” he said, smiling at her. “I don't mind having dinner alone with my poor old frail grey-haired mother.”

“Good. I'm glad. Besides, you and I have so much to talk about. We haven't even begun to talk about all the things I want to talk with you about. We've been having so much fun that we keep getting side-tracked from the business at hand—which of course is to talk about
you
.”

“I'll give you a full report about me,” he said.

“Good. That's just what I want,” she said. He stood up.

“Here,” she said, “hand me that—and that—and that—” and she began pointing to things: her hairbrush on the dresser, her hand mirror at the foot of the bed, her satin slippers and the dressing robe that lay across the chair. He collected them for her and brought them to her.

“Now hurry and change,” she said. “I'll see you downstairs.”

On his way out of her room he stopped for a moment in front of her dresser and looked, as he often had before, at the photographs that marched, in their monogrammed silver frames, down the wide length of her dresser top: at his mother, in her riding habit, her crop resting against one polished boot, standing imperiously before the living-room fireplace; at his mother again, in a dinner gown, in the library; at his father, in his World War I cavalry uniform and puttees; at his father in golfing knickers; at himself, in cap and gown, just graduated from Yale; at himself and Anne, in their wedding clothes on their wedding day; at his sister Pansy (so nicknamed because, as a baby, she was considered to have a perfect pansy face), sitting on the stairs in the white ball gown and long sleeves she had worn for her début; at his younger brother Billy, who had died, in his first long pants; at My Fancy, who had been one of his mother's favourite horses; at stiff portraits of his Grandfather and Grandmother Pryor; at his Aunt Reba, looking silly in the tights she had worn for a Junior League Follies once long ago.

“Stop looking at the pictures,” his mother said. “Hurry and change.” He went out of her room and down the hall to his own.

His room was the same as it had always been. Neither Titi, thank God, nor anyone else had done anything to it. It was still large and dark and cool, filled with the same old furniture—the desk with his initials carved in the top, the big mahogany chiffoniers, the wardrobe with the broken lock—that he had grown up with. All his old clothes still hung in the closet. He closed the door of the room and his image was trapped, as it always was, in the huge, heavy mirror that hung against one wall. No matter where you moved in that room, you could not completely escape that mirror's gaze. It had been put there, after the polio, because he was supposed to exercise in front of it. He had exercised in front of it. He had worked out there day after day—with bar bells, lifting weights, with hand grips and chest pulls and foot stirrups and skip-ropes—chinning himself with the chin bar that had been set into the frame of the closet door, doing push-ups on a mat on the floor. In the mirror now he could almost see the boy who, sweating, in his undershorts, had exercised there through those long afternoons, month after month. He had been driven to do it, of course—driven by the fear of being crippled. And it had been his mother who had instilled the drive in him, she who had supplied him with the mirror, the mat, and the exercise equipment. “If it hadn't been for your mother,” he had often heard it said, “there was a good chance that you'd never have walked again.” It had been in those days that she had shown some of the grit—not that she was made of, perhaps, but that her anatomy certainly contained. He stripped off his shirt now and tossed it over a chair.

In the mirror's reflection—he couldn't help it, it was omnipresent—he saw himself, bare-chested, and he thought again of how everybody kept saying that he hadn't changed. Perhaps they were right; perhaps he hadn't. He walked closer to the mirror now and looked at himself—not admiringly, but dispassionately. His belly was still flat and hard. His shoulders were well muscled. His forearms looked strong, and there was hardly any sign visible to show that one arm, like one leg, had been affected. In the years of exercise he had come to know every muscle of his body by name and function, and he let his fingers run along some of these familiar muscles now—not narcissistically, but with a physician's scrutiny—testing for flab, for weakness.