The Blunderer (3 page)

“You really think he's spoiled?” Clara asked fondling the dog's floppy black ear. “I thought he followed rather well this morning when we were on the beach.”

“I only meant you chose a fox terrier because they're more intelligent than most dogs, and you don't take the trouble to teach him the most rudimentary manners.”

“I suppose you're referring to what he was doing across the room just now?”

“That's part of it. I realize he's almost two years old, but as long as he keeps on doing that I don't think we should let him roam around dining-rooms. It's not particularly pleasant to look at.”

Clara arched her eyebrows. “He was having a little harmless fun. You talk as if you begrudge him it. That astounds me—coming from you,” she said with cool amusement.

Walter did not smile.

They got home the following afternoon. Clara learned that the Oyster Bay sale could easily hang fire for a month, and in her state of suspense a party was out of the question until she either sold it or didn't.

During the following fortnight Chad was rebuffed when he called and asked to come by, refused and perhaps hung up on before Walter could get to the telephone. Jon Carr, Walter's closest friend, was put off right in front of Walter on Saturday morning when he telephoned. Clara told Walter that Jon had invited them to a little dinner party he was giving the following week, but Clara hadn't thought it worth driving in to Manhattan for.

Walter had dreams sometimes that one, or several, or all of his friends had deserted him. They were desolate, heartbreaking dreams, and he would awaken with a breathless feeling in his chest.

He had already lost five friends—for all practical purposes lost them because Clara wouldn't have them in the house, though Walter still wrote to them, and, when he could, he saw them. Two were in Pennsylvania, Walter's home state. One was in Chicago, and the other two in New York. And Walter, to be honest with himself, had to admit that Howard Graz in Chicago and Donald Miller in New York were so down on him that he no longer cared to write them letters. Or perhaps they owed him letters.

Walter remembered Clara's smile, really a smile of triumph, when he had heard about a party at Don's in New York to which he had not been invited. It had been a stag party, too. Clara had been sure then that she had alienated him from Don, and she had been delighted.

It was really then, about two years ago, that Walter had realized for the first time that he was married to a neurotic, a woman who was actually insane in some directions, and moreover a neurotic that he was in love with. He kept remembering the wonderful first year with her, how proud he had been of her because she was more intelligent than most women (now he loathed the very word intelligence because Clara made a fetish of it), how much they had laughed together, how much fun they had had furnishing the Benedict house, and he hoped that the Clara of those days would miraculously return. She was, after all, the same person, the same flesh. He still loved the flesh.

Walter had hoped that when she took the Knightsbridge job eight months ago it would be an outlet for her competitiveness, for the jealousy he saw in her, even of him, because he was making a career that was considered successful. But the job had only intensified the competitiveness and her curious dissatisfaction with herself, as if the activity of working again had unplugged the neck of a volcano that until now had only been smouldering. Walter had even suggested that she quit. Clara wouldn't hear of it. The logical thing to occupy her would have been children, and Walter wanted them, but Clara didn't, and he had never tried very hard to persuade her. Clara had no patience with small children, and Walter doubted that she would be any different with her own. And even at twenty-six, when she married, Clara had facetiously protested that she was too old. Clara was very conscious of the fact that she was two months older than Walter, and Walter had to reassure her often that she looked much younger than he did. Now she was thirty, and Walter knew the question of children would never come up again.

There were times, standing with a second highball in his hand on somebody's lawn in Benedict, when Walter asked himself what he was doing there among those pleasant, smugly well-to-do and essentially boring people, what he was doing with his whole life. He thought constantly of getting out of Cross, Martinson and Buchman, and he was planning a move with Dick Jensen, his closest colleague at the office. Dick, like himself, wanted his own law office. He and Dick had talked one night, all night, about starting a small claims office in Manhattan to handle cases that most law firms wouldn't look at. The fees would be small, but there would be many more of them. They had dragged out Blackstone and Wigmore in Dick's book-lined den, and had talked about Blackstone's almost mystical faith in the power of law to create an ideal society. For Walter, it had been a return to the enthusiasm of his law-school days, when law had been a clean instrument that he was learning to use, when he had felt himself, in his secret heart, a young knight about to set forth to succor the helpless and to uphold the righteous. He and Dick had decided that night to get out of Cross, Martinson and Buchman the first of the year. They were going to rent an office somewhere in the West Forties. Walter had talked to Clara about it, and though she was not enthusiastic, she at least hadn't tried to discourage him. Money was not a problem, because Clara was evidently going to earn at least $5,000 a year. The house was paid for: it had been a wedding present from Clara's mother.

The only thing that could give Walter a positive answer to the question of what he was doing with his life was the law office he meant to open with Dick. He imagined the office flourishing, sending away streams of satisfied clients. But he wondered if the office would fall far short of what he expected; if Dick would lose his enthusiasm? Walter felt that perfect achievements were few. Men made laws, set goals, and then fell short of them. His marriage had fallen short of what he had hoped; Clara had fallen short, and perhaps he had not been what she expected, either. But he had tried and he was still trying. One of the few things he knew absolutely was that he loved Clara, and that pleasing her made him happy. And he had Clara, and he had pleased her by taking the job he had, and by living here among all the pleasant, dull people. And if Clara didn't seem to enjoy her life as much as she should, she still did not want to move anywhere else to do anything else but what she was doing. Walter had asked her. At thirty, Walter had concluded that dissatisfaction was normal. He supposed life for most people was a falling slightly short of one ideal after another, salved if one was lucky by the presence of somebody one loved. But he could not put out of his mind the fact that Clara, if she kept on, could kill what was left of his hope for her.

Six months ago in the spring, he and Clara had had their first talk about a divorce, and had later, inadequately, patched it up.

3

O
n the evening of September 18, about fifteen cars were lined along one side of Marlborough Road, and a few more had pulled up on the Stackhouse lawn. Clara didn't like people to put their cars on the lawn: it had just undergone an invigorating treatment of superphosphate, agricultural lime and some fifty pounds of peat moss which had cost nearly two hundred dollars, including the labor. Clara told Walter to ask the people to move their cars.

“I'd do it, but I think it's a man's place to ask them,” Clara said.

“If we move these, there'll only be more cars later,” Walter told her. “They move up because the women don't want to walk so far in high heels on that road. You can understand that.”

“I can understand that you're afraid to ask them!” Clara retorted.

Walter hoped she wouldn't ask anybody to move. Everybody put cars on lawns in Benedict.

All the guests, even the Philpotts, who were the oldest and more conservative, seemed to be in high spirits. Mr. Philpott wore a white dinner jacket and evening trousers and pumps, out of habit, Walter supposed, because Clara had made it clear that the men didn't have to dress formally and the women could if they chose. The women always wanted to dress and the men never did. Mrs. Philpott had brought a large box of candy for Clara. Walter watched her present it with a few words of praise that made Clara's face glow. Clara had sold the Oyster Bay estate to one of the Philpott clients about ten days ago.

Walter went over to Jon Carr, who was standing by himself in front of the dogwood-filled fireplace. Jon's face was taking on that look of imperturbable good humor that came after his fourth or fifth drink. Jon had told him he had just come from a cocktail party in Manhattan, and hadn't had dinner. “How about a sandwich?” Walter asked him. “There's stacks of them in the kitchen.”

“No sandwiches,” Jon said firmly. “Got to watch my waistline and I'd rather add the inches with your Scotch.”

“What's new at the office?” Walter asked.

Jon told Walter about the new issue of his magazine that was to be exclusively on glass and glass building materials. Jon Carr was the editor
of Skylines
, a six-year-old architectural magazine that he had founded himself, and that was now as strong as any group-published architectural magazine on the market. To Walter, Jon represented a rare type of American, well bred and well educated, and not above working like a navvy to get what he wanted. Jon's parents had not been wealthy enough to help him in his career, and Jon had even worked the last part of his way through architectural school. Walter frankly admired Jon, and frankly was flattered that Jon liked him. Walter even put their friendship, from Jon's standpoint, in the “unworthy friendship” category.

Jon asked Walter if he could get away the following Sunday to go fishing with him and Chad in a sail-boat off Montauk Point. “If Clara wants to come along, that's fine,” Jon said. “Chad has a new girl friend and I thought Clara could stay with her on the beach while the rest of us go fishing. Her name is Millie. She's bright and Clara might like her. Clara likes beaches, doesn't she?”

“By the way, where is Chad?”

Walter smiled a little. “Chad, I'm afraid, is
persona non grata
at the moment.”

Jon made a little gesture with his hand that said, “All right, let it go.”

Walter took a fresh highball from the tray Claudia was passing round, and carried it over to Mrs. Philpott. She protested she didn't need a new one, but Walter insisted. Unobtrusively, as he chatted with her by the fireplace, he interrupted, with a gentle foot, Jeff's assault on a woman's leg. Jeff ran off to the door to greet some new arrivals. Jeff had the time of his life at parties. He circulated through living-room, terrace, and garden, petted and fed canapés by everybody.

“Your wife is the most wonderful worker we've ever had, Mr. Stackhouse,” Mrs. Philpott said. “I think there's nothing she couldn't buy or sell if she put her mind to it.”

“I'll tell her you said so.”

“Oh, I think she knows it!” Mrs. Philpott said with a twinkle.

Walter smiled back, feeling that he exchanged with her little blue, wrinkle-shrouded eyes a profound confidence. “Just don't let her work too hard,” he said.

“But that's her nature. I don't think we can do anything about it.”

Walter nodded, smiling. Mrs. Philpott had said it gaily, and of course from her point of view it was fine. Walter saw Clara standing in the hall door of the living-room, and he went to her.

“It's going well, isn't it?” he asked her.

“Yes. Where's Joan?”

“Joan called and said she couldn't come. Her mother's sick and she's staying home with her.” Joan was Walter's secretary, a bright, attractive girl of twenty-four, whom Walter thought highly of. Walter was glad Clara had never shown any jealousy of Joan.

“Her mother must be awfully sick,” Clara remarked.

“Clara didn't like her own mother. Walter had noticed she never approved of other people liking theirs. “You look terrific tonight, Clara, absolutely terrific!”

Clara gave him a glance and a trace of a smile. She was still looking over her guests. “And that other one—what's his name? Peter. He isn't here.”

“Pete Slotnikoff! You're right.” Walter smiled. “Very clever of you to notice, since you've never met him.”

“But I know all the people who
are
here—obviously.”

Walter had seventeen minutes past ten by his watch. “Maybe he'll turn up. He might have got lost.”

“Was he coming in a car?”

“No, he hasn't got a car. I suppose he'll take a train.” Walter wanted to offer Pete the couch in his study for the night, in case there wasn't anybody who could take him back to New York, but decided to put off mentioning it to Clara until it became necessary. “By the way, honey, Jon asked me to go fishing with him next Sunday. Out around Montauk. You're invited to come and stay on the beach, if you want to, because a girl friend of—of Jon's will be along, too.”

“A girlfriend of Jon's?”

“Well—a friend,” Walter corrected, because Jon was notoriously shy of women since his divorce.

Clara's small face had that rather stunned look, as if she were off balance for a moment until she had surveyed the idea from all possible angles, seen its advantages and disadvantages to herself. “Who is the girl?”

“I don't even know her name. Jon says she's nice, though.”

“I'm not so sure I want to spend a whole day with someone who might be a terrible bore,” Clara said.

“Matter of fact, Jon said she—”

“I think your friend is arriving.”

Peter Slotnikoff was coming in the front door. Walter started towards him, trying to assume the pleasant, relaxed expression of a good host.

Peter looked shy and bewildered and glad to see Walter. He was twenty-six, serious-looking and a little plump. His parents had been White-Russian refugees, and Peter had not known any English until he came to America at the age of fifteen, but he had finished brilliantly at the University of Michigan Law School, and Walter's firm considered itself lucky to have him as a junior.