Memories of a Marriage (20 page)

She sounded like the old Lucy: gay, chatty, and faintly rambunctious. I told her that of course I’d be delighted to have her, but she should realize that I had no social life to speak of, and while my TV set had worked when last turned on I could provide no other entertainments.

I’ll be there in time for drinks, she replied, and asked for directions.

It was a welcome surprise to observe after she arrived how different she seemed from the woman whose wrenching reminiscences and commentary I had been listening to in the course of all those conversations in May and June. The hectoring, accusatory tone was gone; she cracked jokes about the summer’s goings-on at the club in Little Compton; the harrowing Fourth of July visit to her brother John’s at the Ausable Club; being cut dead by Priscilla van Buren at the little Vanderbilt’s engagement party in Newport. Her appearance was improved as well. Was it the combination of the suntan and a new pink lipstick? I couldn’t tell, but she looked younger and less hard, validating the memory I had preserved of her from the fifties in Paris. I took a leaf out of her book that evening and for dinner gave her cold fried chicken I’d bought at the market in the afternoon, tomato salad, cheese that I happened to have in the fridge, and melon. She ate cheerfully, drank almost a whole bottle of wine, declined my offer of coffee, and traipsed off to bed. I had warned her that during the day I would be working, that lunch would consist of
sardines or canned tuna, and that until it was time for drinks she would be on her own. That’s just fine, she had told me.

I’ve never been able to concentrate exclusively on a text. During the many minutes I wasted goofing off I couldn’t help being pleasantly aware that she spent a good couple of hours at the swimming pool—doing laps, she told me later, and afterward soaking up the sun—and, after she had knocked on my door and asked whether I would mind if she weeded and deadheaded the flower beds, that she gave over most of the afternoon to doing just that. Bella’s task, I thought. How jarring that this woman should have undertaken it. Jarring and normal: it was, I realized, what any woman accustomed to having a garden and working in it would do if she were left to her own devices and saw the orphaned condition of the flower beds.

Uncertain about just how rocky the visit might turn out to be, and believing strongly in the moderating influence that strangers Lucy might like to impress would have on her, I had called, as soon as she announced her arrival, my former tenant, Bard professor Peter Drummond, and invited him and his partner to dinner. They were free. Miraculously, Mrs. James was as well, and to make her life and mine as easy as possible, I asked her to bring an entire cold dinner that she would prepare at home. Experience had taught me that she much preferred that to cooking in my kitchen and having me interfere. She proposed roast pork, pasta salad, a green salad, and one of her daughter’s fruit tarts. That is what we had.

Lucy’s social skills, which she had displayed to such good
effect when she gave her little dinners in Paris, had not deserted her. She drew out Peter about his work. He told us he had written his doctoral dissertation on nineteenth-century American nativist tradition and was doing research on today’s Fundamentalist Christians and their morphing into a far-right movement.

That discussion, accompanied by the obligatory jeremiads about George W. and his mismanaged wars, carried us through the peach tart. As we were having coffee in the living room, Lucy turned her attention to Peter’s partner, Ezra. She opened my piano, played a scale, made a face, and asked Ezra whether he could bear to play one of his pieces on an instrument that was so out of tune. It’s all dissonance anyway, he replied. I’ll give it a whirl.

I didn’t expect to see her at breakfast the next morning. It was late when we said good night, and once more too much wine had been drunk, followed in Lucy’s case by a nightcap or perhaps even two. In fact, she stuck her head into my study not long before lunch and said she would work off the excesses of the previous evening in the pool. I told her to swim or sun herself as long as she liked and to let me know when she had finished. We had lunch correspondingly late. I had done more than enough work during the long morning session, and when she asked whether I would mind having coffee after lunch out in the garden I gladly agreed. We sat down in the wooden armchairs on the back lawn, where the shade was already deep. She was smoking. When she offered me a cigarette I accepted, mindful of the advice I had given myself to loosen up.

You’ve got a nice house, she told me, and a pleasant life. I like the way you organize things. This is a new, very domesticated Philip.

I replied that in reality I was simply following precedent, doing things in Sharon as much as possible the way Bella had done them.

Evidently, she was a good teacher. I wish I had known her better.

I nodded. There was no use reminding her that at the time they had been like oil and water.

I was startled when she next asked me whether my books sold well. I mean, she added, that I don’t see them on bestseller lists. Of course I know about the prizes and the honors.

It depends on your point of view, I told her. My early books sold better. I had an audience that was larger, I appealed more to young people. The sales figures are still respectable in the U.S. Sometimes they’re better abroad. Let’s say that I’m not dissatisfied or embarrassed, but on the other hand my publishers wouldn’t think the roof had fallen in if it became obvious that I would never submit another novel. They don’t make enough money on me to care.

That’s pretty much what I imagined, said Lucy, although I have really enjoyed some of your books. I’ve even read a couple more than once. You know,
The Happy Monsters
. That was really close to the bone. Close to the De Bourgh family!

She was referring to my coming-of-age novel, in which I had worked over my own family, placing it in Salem, where my ancestors have lived since before the witch trials.

As I’ve looked around here, she continued, I got the
impression—I hope you won’t mind my saying so—that it would be good to spend some more money on the house. You know, the kitchen could be modernized; you could have quieter and more efficient machines. The same goes for your pool filter and heater. If I were you, I’d replace them. The propane heater I’ve had installed in Little Compton is absolutely silent. It’s such a relief! But I suppose you’re being careful.

There is some of that, I said. There is also the question of my age. How much longer will I be around? Is there any point in making myself a present of one of those German dishwashers that can also do windows and detail my car?

Philip, she said, may I move closer to you?

I got up and instead moved my chair.

The truth is, she continued, that even though I complain about how first Father, then John, butchered our family accounts, I’m still quite rich. Richer than you think. And I’m not really a bitch. I’ve told you so much about myself that you must think I am, but that’s not the truth. I’m in good shape now—in my head and in the rest of the body. I could give you a nice life—sex included. So what do you say, old friend?

I looked at her. As she had said, she was in good shape, and one could imagine having a good time with her. It was too bad. I smiled at her as nicely as I knew how and shook my head.

FICTION

Schmidt Steps Back

Matters of Honor

Shipwreck

Schmidt Delivered

Mistler’s Exit

About Schmidt

As Max Saw It

The Man Who Was Late

Wartime Lies

NONFICTION

Why the Dreyfus Affair Matters

Franz Kafka: The Tremendous World I Have Inside My Head

Louis Begley is the author of ten novels, including
About Schmidt
and
Wartime Lies
, which won the PEN/ Hemingway Award and the Irish Times-Aer Lingus International Fiction Prize. His work has been translated into eighteen languages.

Visit:
www.louisbegley.com

Also available from Louis Begley in eBook format

About Schmidt
• 978-0-307-76007-4

As Max Saw It
• 978-0-307-77594-8

The Man Who Was Late
• 978-0-307-76125-5

Matters of Honor
• 978-0-307-26731-3

Mistler’s Exit
• 978-0-307-76131-6

Schmidt Delivered
• 978-0-307-75773-9

Schmidt Steps Back
• 978-0-307-95735-1

Shipwreck
• 978-0-307-41663-6

Wartime Lies
• 978-0-307-76193-4

For more information on Nan A. Talese Books:
Visit:
www.nanatalese.com
Like:
www.​facebook.​com/​nanatalese
Follow:
@Nan_A_Talese