Clemmie (32 page)

“Upson is very competent.”

“I’m glad to hear you say that. He’s working with John Terrill on a consolidation of section records, a simplification procedure, and a closer control of the work flow. He’s
also going to get quality control methods closer to the actual machine operations so we should eventually have a healthier reject picture.”

“I believe I made that same recommendation over three years ago, Paul. It should be in the files. The expense of installation was thought to be too high.”

“Did you? That was back in the days when Quality Metals was treated as a stepchild. Now I’m beginning to make them see that we’re going to have to spend some money here to get healthy.”

“I’m glad to hear it.”

Ober nibbled at the edge of his mustache. He put the pipe in an ash tray, took out a handkerchief and cleaned his glasses, huffing on the lenses, holding them up and looking through them toward the windows.

“I haven’t been happy with your performance lately, Craig. I imagine you’ve been aware of the fact of poor performance.”

“For the last month, yes.”

“Longer than that. Since I’ve been here. Maybe even longer.”

“Possibly. I wasn’t particularly aware of it, Paul, until this past month.”

He put his glasses back on. “In a sense, it’s the fault of management. You’ve been eleven years in substantially the same job. To me that would be a very dismaying thing’.” He waited, but Craig said nothing. “Last month I was seriously considering arranging a transfer for you. I felt your future value to U. S. Automotive would be enhanced by a—a change of scene. But now I realize that for it to have been effective, such a transfer would have had to have taken place earlier. Perhaps two years ago.”

“Why, Paul?”

“I’ve been going over a file of your memos. It seems to me you’ve lost respect for the judgment of top management. Your view has been too narrow. You seem to have forgotten, or to have been unwilling to admit that the top management of this corporation is among the most dynamic and progressive in the country. The policy of horizontal expansion has been extremely successful. Now we have a much broader base for growth, for controlled growth. Yet in your memos I detect the fact that you feel
you have been persecuted and misunderstood and that the decisions affecting your narrow area of responsibility have been asinine.”

“Paul, if those decisions were so sound, would there have been any necessity for you to be sent here?”

“You make a good point. And I admitted this
was
the stepchild. But top management attention had to be directed elsewhere. You should have understood that.”

“Perhaps.”

“Lately you have been of no value to this organization. It’s no secret that you’ve come back drunk after lunch. You failed to co-operate with Upson. You stuck Terrill with work you should be doing. You and I are both too intelligent for me to try to lecture you about responsibility and reliability.”

“If you say so, Paul.”

He saw annoyance, quickly concealed. “I’ve given this a lot of thought. I’ve been over your record. I deeply feel the responsibility of U. S. Automotive in this matter. We have a reputation for ruthlessness, but we don’t let a man go without thinking of every possibility of salvage.”

“And I’m beyond salvaging, Paul?”

“Not as far as your future in business is concerned. But as far as your future with U. S. Automotive, I’m afraid so. Your attitude is obviously antagonistic. But we do owe you something for over thirteen years of work, most of it good work. I talked it over with Gibbs in New York, and we feel the cleanest way to do this thing is to accept your letter of resignation, and give you, in turn, a letter of recommendation.”

“What reason for resigning shall I give?”

“That’s hardly pertinent. Health, better opportunity. Anything you like. You can dictate it to Miss Commerford. And I have this letter for you. It came this morning.”

He handed it over. Craig took it out of the envelope. It was from the New York offices, and bore the signature of the president of the company.

Craig put it back in the envelope. “I use this as a letter of recommendation?”

“I should think so. After you sign the letter you dictate to Miss Commerford, you should see Mr. Gidney about cleaning up the financial details. We are paying you through October, by the way.”

“That’s very kind, Paul.”

“I took the liberty of having Mr. Rowdy tell your secretary to take the personal things out of your desk. She packed them in a carton. Is your car in the lot?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know his car, Mr. Rowdy?”

Rowdy nodded and got up and left the office. Ober said, “He’ll see that your things are put in your car.” He stood up and held out his hand. “Sorry things had to work out this way. I’m sure you’ll find something very quickly, Craig. And you’ll be happier than you would be if you stayed with us, I’m sure.”

Craig shook his hand, released it quickly. “Can I ask a question?”

Ober glanced quickly at his watch. “Yes, of course.”

“It’s a personal qestion.”

“That’s perfectly all right.”

“It might even be a clue. You know, something you can use for self-analysis, or self-betterment. What I want to know is, did you enjoy doing this?”

Ober stared at him, off guard for only a fraction of a second. “No! And the fact you could ask that question indicates to me how neurotic your attitude is.”

“Then why not have somebody else do it? Rowdy could do it.”

“It isn’t my habit to leave the awkward things up to others.”

Craig smiled. “I guess you ought to think about it, though. You ought to check yourself and see if you liked it.”

“Do you, by any chance, happen to have another job lined up?” Ober asked.

“No.”

“I’ve never seen you act more confident.”

“Do I?”

“If you’d acted this way in the beginning, this might have had a different ending for you.”

“Good-by, Paul. And thanks.”

Ober walked out and instructed Miss Commerford to take a letter. He nodded and went back into his office. Miss Commerford used a scratchy pen. He dictated a short letter of resignation which contained no reason for resigning. She typed it quickly and without error on her electric typewriter, making two carbon copies. He had her predate it a week, to co-ordinate with the letter of acceptance. He signed the original. She gave him one copy. He put it in the envelope with the letter from the president and said, “Thank you, Miss Commerford.”

“You’re quite welcome, Mr. Fitz.”

Gidney was ready for him. The checks had been made out and so had the withholding tax forms, and an itemized statement of contributions to the retirement fund. Gidney speeded him on his way with a quick, damp, limp handshake. The carton was in the car, on the floor behind the seat. He stood by the car and looked around and listened to the familiar sounds of the place. By now they would know it. All of them. He had a feeling they were watching him out of the windows. But when he looked he could see no one looking down into the lot. No ceremonial dinner. No matched luggage. No toasts. This was the other way out, on greased skids.

When he got home the phone was ringing. He let it ring. It could be Clemmie, or it could be Al. He did not want to talk to either of them, or to anyone else who might call. He put the carton on the desk in the living room.

When luck went, your timing went with it. He did not want to drink. He did not want to yell and kick the walls. He wanted to go to sleep and sleep a very long time. A very long time. He took off his coat and tie and sat down in the living room. When he leaned back he realized he still had his hat on. He sailed it across the room. The phone began again. He got up slowly and answered it on the seventh ring.

“Mr. Fitz?”

“Yes.” It was a man’s voice, deep, cultivated.

“George Bennett, Craig. I’ve been trying to get hold of you. Like to have a little chat with you. Can you come out to the house tomorrow afternoon at about three-thirty?”

“I … don’t know.”

“Clemmie won’t be here, Craig. I’d very much like a chat with you. Of course, if it interferes with your working hours …”

“I won’t be working tomorrow.”

“Then you’ll come? Splendid. I’m on Robinson Woods Road, on the right, about two miles beyond the village. And bring your swim-suit.”

Though he had taken no sedative Thursday night, Craig slept from nine in the evening to after eleven the next day. He awoke with the feeling that he had not moved, that he was in the same position in which he had fallen asleep. There had been no dreams. It had been a very deep sleep, and yet when he awakened he did not go through a gradual process of recalling the events of Thursday. They were with him the moment he awakened, as though they had rested motionless in his mind throughout the long sleep. He was beyond feeling dismay, or fright, or self-contempt. He felt numbed and chill, like an automaton—felt so unreal that he might have been someone he had read about, without particular interest.

It was twelve miles to the village of Robinson Woods. A mile beyond the village he was in rolling country, in an area of large estates. No houses were visible. The hedges were high. He was traveling slowly when he came to the entrance to the Bennet place. There were two pillars flanking the driveway. They were of rough gray stone with an ornate iron light atop each one. A corroded metal plaque on one column said “Bennet” and the plaque on the other said, “Christmas Ridge.”

The drive was a winding gravel road lined with poplars. It climbed, not steeply, for three hundred yards and then he could see the house. It was on top of a crest, a long structure of stone and redwood, with big windows that caught the sun, with steep pitches of shed roof. He parked near the separate three-car garage, near a battered old green M.G. and a new Ford station wagon. It was very quiet out here, and much cooler than town. He had put on lightweight slacks and a short-sleeved sport shirt. The
gravel crunched under his steps. He could hear bird songs, and he thought he heard a woman laugh somewhere behind the house.

An old man wearing a white apron came to the door and when he asked for Mr. Bennet, he said, “Are you Mr. Fitz, sir? Mr. Bennet is expecting you. They’re out at the pool. If you’d walk around the east wing, sir, that way, you will find them.”

He walked on the thick green turf. When he rounded the corner of the house he could see the big pool in the ell made by the east wing and a continuation of the central part of the house. The water was brilliantly blue, and it danced in the sun as a woman swam the length of the pool. She paused and looked up at George Bennet standing on the curbing of the pool and he heard her laugh again. Another man lay on a wheeled chaise longue in the sun, a folded cloth across his eyes, his belly tanned and mountainous. Near the house ivy grew on a horizontal arbor, shading a small portable service bar where a young man in a white jacket sat in a straight chair, apparently dozing.

Evidently the woman saw him and spoke to Bennet. He turned and came barefoot across the grass toward Craig, smiling. “Hello!” he called. “Glad you could make it.” Slabs of muscle moved on his bare chest and on his arm as he extended his hand. Bennet wore an ankle-length sarong in a faded blue and white pattern. It was knotted across his bronze belly, enhancing his beachcomber look, his island look.

“Come and meet my neighbor, Craig.”

The woman had hoisted herself out of the pool. She had a brown and weathered fifty-year-old face, very alert eyes, a smooth brown body that looked twenty years younger than her face.

“Mimi, this is the young man I was telling you about. Craig Fitz. Mimi McGowan.” Her wet handshake was as strong as a man’s and her smile was charming. “You can meet my brother, Dick, after his stingers wear off, Craig. So nice to meet you.”

“How about a drink, Craig? Rum collins taste good today.” Craig said that would be fine and Bennet called the order over to the bar man, then turned to Mimi and said, “Dear, would you sit in on our little talk? I’m not very good at this sort of thing.”

They moved over to a metal table with a center hole for a large beach unbrella. Craig and George Bennet sat on the shady side and Mimi McGowan sat out in the sun.

“Before George bumbles into his act, Craig,” Mimi said, “You should know I’m practically a member of the family. And we’re both disturbed about Clemmie.”

The bar man brought the drinks. George said, “I went into some of this with Craig a few weeks ago. He knows I accept the blame for Clemmie’s erratic behavior. I was selfish and I rejected her.”

Mimi said, “You were just too pig selfish to be bothered with a child, so you packed her off to school, and your taste in wives wasn’t calculated to make the child respect your judgment.”

George winced. “Mimi is an outspoken woman, Craig. I suppose you could say Clemmie and I are estranged. She’s a very strong human being, Craig. I can’t control her.”

“From her grandmother,” Mimi said. “Clementina Bennet was a rare type. Clemmie inherited all her strength and none of her purpose. Her strength is misdirected. George and I do not approve of her friends or her habits. She’s living fast and foolishly and immorally, Craig. For too long. And I hope you are as concerned as we are.”

“I—I guess I am.”

“Good!” George said heartily. “This makes it a lot easier all the way around. Clemmie came out here Tuesday and asked my help. It’s the first time that’s happened in years. She was pretty wrought up. More than I’ve ever seen her before. She says she’s in love with you, and she wants to marry you, and she seems to have the feeling that this is her last chance to … live sanely and decently.”

“But, Mr. Bennet, I …”

“We’re not children,” Mimi said. “We know you have a wife and two daughters. We know that you and Clemmie have been living together. We also know that the arrangement was pretty much Clemmie’s idea. She said she’s raised utter hell with you, and she’s handled it all wrong, and she wants our help.”