The Pursuit of Happiness (2001) (26 page)

‘He was a fool to lose you,’ George said.

‘And she you,’ I replied immediately.

‘I doubt she thinks that.’

‘Well,
I
do. And that’s what counts.’

He actually blushed, then reached over across the table and took my hand. ‘At least I got lucky this time around,’ he said.

‘Timing is everything, I guess.’

Without question, the timing was definitely on our side. We shared similar family backgrounds, educational levels, social perspectives. Most importantly, we were both ready to get married (despite all my private protestations, I knew this to be true). George was sound. He was balanced, responsible. He loved me without reservation. Though I didn’t feel any grand passion for him, I convinced myself that the absence of ardor wasn’t truly important. After all, I had lost my heart to Jack and ended up feeling like a sap. Passion - as I had come to conclude - was for fools. It fogged the brain. It muddled rational thought. It led you down all the wrong paths. It was a mistake - and one which I would never make again.

And so, catching his eye across his parents’ dining room table - seeing him gaze at me with such unconditional fondness - I made a decision. If he proposed marriage, I’d accept.

The rest of the dinner was a reasonable success. We made polite chit-chat. I told a few anodyne anecdotes about my work at
Saturday/Sunday.
I said nothing when Daddy Grey went into a tirade about how Harry S. Truman was nothing but a socialist haberdasher (if only my father had been alive to meet Daddy Grey - it would have been love at first sight). I feigned interest as Daddy Grey engaged George in a discussion about a pressing issue of the day: a new set of rules for Princeton’s eating clubs which compelled them to accept members of all religious persuasions (‘It’s the Jewish lobby that’s forced this issue,’ Daddy Grey thundered; a comment which George shrugged off with a non-committal nod of the head). I smiled a lot and didn’t speak unless spoken to.

After dinner, we retired to the library. Though I really felt in need of a brandy, I didn’t ask for one. Then again, I wasn’t offered one - as Daddy Grey poured out a measure for George and himself. A fire was blazing in the hearth. I sipped a demi-tasse of coffee. An entire wall of the library was devoted to framed photographs of Edwin at assorted junctures in his life. The end table next to the sofa was also filled with additional portraits of Edwin - all in Army uniform. He did look exceptionally dashing. The room was a shrine - and my eyes scanned all additional walls and table-tops for any photos of George. There were none.

As if reading my mind, Mrs Grey said, ‘We have plenty of pictures of George elsewhere in the house. The library is for Edwin.’

‘Of course,’ I said quietly, then added: ‘I don’t how anyone could cope with such a loss.’

‘We’re not the only family who lost a son,’ Daddy Grey said, his voice betraying a slight tremor.

‘I didn’t mean to imply …’

‘Grief is a private matter, don’t you think?’ he said, turning away from me to refill his brandy glass.

‘I apologize if I said something wrong,’ I said.

Silence. A silence that must have lasted a full minute. It was finally broken by Mrs Grey. Her voice was hushed.

‘You are right. The sense of loss will never end. Because Edwin was exceptional. A man of astonishing gifts.’

She glanced briefly at George, then stared down at her hands, threaded tightly together in her lap.

‘He was utterly irreplaceable.’

Another long silence. George stared into the fire, saying nothing, his eyes full.

I excused myself shortly thereafter, and went up to the guest room in which I was being billeted. I undressed, put on my nightgown, and got into bed, pulling the blankets over my head. Sleep did not arrive - which was not a surprise, considering that I was still trying to make sense of the dinner, the scene in the library, and the way in which George’s parents were subtly making him pay for Edwin’s death.

The sense of loss will never end. Because Edwin was exceptional. A man of astonishing gifts …

Had she not turned towards George at that moment, I would have thought that she was simply attempting to express a mother’s inexpressible grief. But by narrowing George in her sights, and saying that his brother was irreplaceable, she was letting him (and me) know:
if I had to lose one child, it should have been you.

I couldn’t believe her cruelty. It made me felt intensely protective towards George. It also gave me a project: to emancipate this man from his family by loving him.

And I was certain that, in time, I would love him.

I stared at the ceiling of the bedroom for nearly an hour. Then I heard footsteps on the stairs, followed by the door of George’s room (located directly opposite mine) opening and closing. I waited five minutes. Then I got up, left my room, and tiptoed quickly across the corridor. Without knocking, I quietly opened George’s door. He was already in bed, reading. He looked up at me, startled. I put my finger to my lips, shut the door behind me, and walked over to the bed, sitting down next to him. I noticed that he was wearing striped pajamas. I stroked his hair. He was wide-eyed with bemusement. I leaned down and kissed him deeply. He returned the kiss - nervously at first, but then with considerable ardor. After a moment, I gently broke away. Standing up, I pulled my nightgown over my head. The chill of the room made me shiver. I crawled under the covers next to him. I took his head in my hands and began to kiss him gently on the face. He was tense.

‘This is crazy,’ he whispered. ‘My parents …’

‘Shh,’ I said, putting a finger to my lips. Then I climbed on top of him.

It was the first time we’d made love. Unlike Jack, George played according to the carnal rules of the day - when sex before marriage was still considered foreign, perilous territory, to be traversed only after a sizeable amount of time had been spent with the other person. Though we’d kissed, George’s natural tendency towards circumspection meant that he’d yet to make a proper move. By the way he’d asked me about my involvement with Jack (and whether ‘Shore Leave’ was autobiographical), I sensed that he knew I was no virgin. But now, sharing a bed with him for the first time, I realized that he was.

He was anxious. He was awkward. He was fast. So fast that, afterwards, he lay slumped against me and whispered, ‘I’m so sorry.’

‘Don’t be,’ I said, my voice as hushed as his. ‘There’ll be other times.’

‘Will there?’

‘Yes. There will. If you want.’

‘I want.’

‘Good. Because I was starting to wonder …’

‘Wonder what?’

‘Wonder when on earth this was going to finally occur.’

‘Seduction has never been one of my great skills.’

‘Never?’

He turned away from me. ‘Never.’

‘Not even with Virginia?’

‘She wasn’t interested.’

‘That happens, I suppose.’

‘Yes - but usually not with someone you’re engaged to.’

‘Then you had a lucky escape. Think of what an arid marriage that might have been.’

‘The best bit of luck I’ve ever had is meeting you.’

‘I’m flattered.’

‘Don’t be. You’re wonderful. My parents thought so too.’

‘Really?’

‘They were impressed with you. I could tell.’

‘Well, personally, I found it very hard to guess what they were thinking.’

‘It’s just their manner. They have two religions: Presbyterianism and diffidence.’

‘That still doesn’t give them the right to be diffident towards you.’

‘It’s all to do with Edwin’s death.’

‘His death should make them value you even more.’

‘They do value me. They just have difficulty expressing such things.’

‘They undervalue you. They shouldn’t.’

He looked at me with amazement. ‘Do you really think that, Sara?’

I ran my index finger down along his face. ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I really do think that.’

I sneaked out of his room just before daybreak. I fell into bed for around an hour, but couldn’t sleep. So I had a bath. Then I dressed and went downstairs, deciding to head out for a walk. En route to the front door, I passed by the dining room, and heard a voice: ‘You must have slept badly, Miss Smythe.’

I stopped and saw Mrs Grey seated at the end of the dining table. She was already dressed and coiffed for the day, a cup of coffee in front of her.

‘Not that badly.’

She gave me a look of ironic disdain. ‘If you say so. Is George still asleep?’

I tried to fight off a blush. I don’t think I succeeded as she arched her eyebrows.

‘I wouldn’t really know,’ I said.

‘Of course you wouldn’t. Coffee?’

‘I don’t want to disturb you …’

‘If you were disturbing me, I wouldn’t ask you to join me in a cup of coffee, now would I?’

‘Coffee would be lovely,’ I said, sitting down. She got up and went over to a banquette, on which sat a sterling silver coffee pot and the appropriate china. She poured me a cup, returned to the table and set it in front of me.

‘I’m certain the coffee will be most welcome after your restive night,’ she said.

Oh God … I lifted the coffee cup up to my lips and took a quick sip. Then I set it down again. In the space of that simple movement, I’d decided to ignore her last comment. Instead I asked: ‘Did you yourself sleep badly?’

‘I always sleep badly. And you’re dodging my question.’

I met her gaze. ‘Had you asked me a question, Mrs Grey, I would have promptly answered it. Because it would have been impolite otherwise. But you
didn’t
ask me a question. You simply made an observation.’

Another of her tight smiles. ‘I can see now why you are a writer. Your powers of observation are formidable.’

‘I’m not a writer.’

‘You’re not?’ she said. ‘Then what about that story in
Saturday Night/Sunday Morning?’

‘One published story doesn’t make someone a writer.’

‘Such modesty … especially given the immodesty of the story. Were you in love with that Navy boy?’

‘It was a story, Mrs Grey, not a personal remembrance.’

‘Of course it was, dear. Twenty-four-year-old women writers always invent stories about the love of their life.’

‘There is something called imagination …’

‘Not when it comes to a story like yours. It’s a common enough genre:
romantic confessional box;
the sort of thing one usually finds in the
Ladies’ Home Companion
…’

‘If you are trying to insult me, Mrs Grey …’

‘Hardly, dear. But do answer me this … and note that I am phrasing this
as
a question: did you actually spend the night with your sailor in a cheap hotel?’

I narrowed her in my sights. ‘No, he actually spent the night at my apartment. And he wasn’t a sailor. He was in the Army.’

There was a pause, during which she raised her coffee cup and took a sip. ‘Thank you for clarifying matters.’

‘You’re welcome.’

‘And if you think I am going to tell George about this, you are mistaken.’

‘I sense George already knows.’

‘Don’t be so certain of that. When it comes to women, men only hear what they want to hear. It’s one of the many failures of their sex.’

‘You think your son George is a failure, don’t you?’

‘George is a well-meaning boy. Not one of life’s natural leaders, but modest and humane. For the life of me, I don’t know what a smart girl like you sees in him. Your marriage will fail. Because, eventually, he will bore you.’

‘Who says we will marry?’

‘Trust me: you will.
C’est le moment juste.
It’s how it happens. But it will be a ghastly mistake.’

‘May I ask
you
a question, Mrs Grey?’

‘Of course, dear.’

‘Did your son’s death transform you into a misanthrope, or were you always so bitter and joyless?’

She pursed her lips, and considered her reflection in the black sheen surface of her coffee. After a moment, she looked back up at me. ‘I’ve enjoyed our conversation enormously, dear. It has been most enlightening.’

‘For me as well.’

‘I’m so glad. And I must say I’ll come away from our little talk with a splendid realization … what I think you writers call
an epiphany.’

‘Which is what, Mrs Grey?’

‘We are never going to like each other.’

Later that morning, I boarded a train back to Manhattan with George. We sat in the Club Car. He insisted on buying us a bottle of champagne (which turned out to be New York State sparkling wine). He insisted on holding my hand all the way to Grand Central Station. He could not take his adoring eyes off me. He looked love-sick - that same
morning-after
glow which I must have radiated on that Thanksgiving morning eighteen months ago.