Too Much Too Soon (36 page)

“So what else is new?” he interjected, grinning.

“—but they were very nice, your friends.” And as she looked up at her son’s beautiful, conspiratorial young face, it did seem to Crystal that the evening had not been a debacle but a
bewitched return to the happy harbor of youth.

“Wouldn’t it blow their minds if they knew?”

Crystal shivered.

Beyond the rain-slashed, breakfast room bay window, deer were taking advantage of the rotten weather to browse on the deserted, sodden golf course, while on the far side of the fairway she could see choppy gray waves breaking and spuming. The barren island rock appeared deserted until a huge bull seal rose up to slither into the morose Pacific.

“I’m sorry about this rain, Daddy,” she said. “The worst part is they say it’ll keep up through tomorrow.”

“Crystal, you grew up an English girl.” Langley gave his rueful, charming chuckle. “Have you forgotten our happy breed doesn’t melt?”

“Don’t let Mom kid you, Grandpa,” Gid said. “She ordered the storm to make you feel at home.”

They were at the Carmel place for Easter. In honor of the first morning of Langley’s visit, Crystal had made an appearance at breakfast. Gideon’s place at the head of the maple table was already vacant, its tureen of oatmeal empty, an inch of thin, bluish milk remaining in the cut-glass pitcher—no more tasty over-easy eggs, thick pink rashers of Canadian bacon and
hash browns for Gideon Talbott. He couldn’t be convinced, however, to alter his practice of working regardless of holidays, and was already immured with Mitchell in the upstairs study.

“Looks like we’re stuck inside,” Alexander said. “Grandpa, I challenge you to another round of Scrabble.”

“Excellent idea.” Langley raised his Bloody Mary. “As soon as I finish breakfast.”

Before Langley’s arrival yesterday afternoon at the small Monterey airport, he had passed two tactfully unmentioned weeks in the Ivorys’ Los Angeles house with “my three ladies,” as he called Honora, Joscelyn and his baby granddaughter. Curt had been in Singapore, then Washington, D.C. Malcolm was still in Lalarhein.

Gid drained his milk. “This time count me in.”

“Good, why not?” Alexander said. “We need a calming influence, don’t we, Grandpa? Last night some of those words got pretty imperspicuous, and caliginous, too.”

“Hey, what?” Gid said.

“Those’re synonyms for esoteric,” Alexander retorted.

Gid didn’t join the Scrabble game. While Crystal made her calls—she was inviting wives of junketing Congressmen to a bridge luncheon the following day—she heard him clicking balls around the Brunswick pool table. When she finished on the telephone the rain was pelting more fiercely. Reflecting how dear it was of Alexander to entertain his grandfather,
she peeked into the den.

“The Rain Fairburn Show” blasted away on the Magnavox while Alexander and Langley leaned across the game table, conversing intently. Seeing her, they stopped talking.

“Don’t mind me,” Crystal said, turning the set down. “Go on with your game.”

“Can’t you see my wounds?” asked Langley a shade too heartily. “Trounced by this mere youth. The honor of British publishing destroyed with a kuvasz.”

“Kuvasz?” she asked.

“A Hungarian hunting dog,” Alexander explained.

“That vocabulary.” Crystal smiled indulgently before asking, “What were the pair of you talking about just now? You looked like you were planning World War Three.”

“A matter considerably more significant,” Alexander said, glancing across the Scrabble board at his grandfather. “We thought after lunch we’d brave the storm and go into Carmel for a movie.”

“That sounds perfect,” Crystal said. “I’ve nothing on.”

“Grandpa wants
Dr. Zhivago
, Mom. You’ve seen it.”

“So have you.”

“It happens I have this big thing for Julie Christie.”

“I know when I’m not wanted,” she said, a smile covering her sliver of hurt at Alexander’s transparent rejection.

*   *   *

The storm lasted that day and the next, when she lunched with the Congressional wives. Thursday, however, the sun was out, drawing ripples of steam from the drying shake rooftops. The ice plant that covered the darkly wet dunes shimmered with wetness; the Pacific was vibrant blues and the fairways a gaudy emerald.

Alexander challenged Gideon to a round of golf.

Alexander had won three gold-plated cups in state teenage tournaments; Gideon swung his clubs with graceless, chopping vigor and seldom broke a hundred. Both played for money—and blood.

When Gideon came in at two, he lay down on his bed, his cheeks an unhealthy purple.

“Didn’t you take a cart?” Crystal asked.

“After that storm? You know it’ll be at least three days before they allow carts on the course.”

“In that case, dear, nine holes is enough.”

“I need to brush up on my game, play more, not less. That Alexander’s good.”

“How much did he win?”

“Seven dollars and thirty-five cents.” Gideon scratched his fleshy ear. “Crystal, on the fifth hole his drive landed in the rough, and I’m positive he kicked his ball for a better lie.”

Crystal laughed. “You’re a bad loser, Gideon.”

“Well, if anyone has to beat me, I’m glad it’s one of my boys. Gid ought to take it up.”

“As far as I can see, Alexander’s enough for you.”

“Gid wouldn’t cheat.”

“Stop being idiotic!” she shrilled. Drawing a breath, she said, “Alexander’s like you. Competitive.”

Later she said to Alexander, “Your father’s not well. On the course, go a little easier.”

Alexander assumed that unnervingly sullen adolescent expression. “How?”

“Maybe miss a putt now and then.”

“Why don’t you play with him, then? He can beat you.”

*   *   *

Friday the temperature rose to the mid-seventies, and the sky was the clear Saxon blue of Crystal’s eyes. Humming, she trotted down the stairs. Gid was watching a pre-season baseball game.

“TV on a day like this?”

“I’m waiting for Grandpa, Mom. We’re driving into Carmel.”

“With Alexander?”

“Nope. He and Dad had a nine o’clock tee-off time.”

Deciding to meet them at the tenth hole and lure Gideon from the course, she drove to the club, hurrying to the tenth tee. From this height she could see beyond the dogleg and formidable sand traps. On the green a thickset figure knelt to line up a putt while a bag-laden caddie and a slender form waited. Raising her hand against the brightness, she ascertained that the twosome was indeed Gideon and Alexander before telling the starter that she wanted to catch up with her husband and son.
“Sure thing, Mrs. Talbott, go right ahead. I’ll see nobody hits into you.”

By now they were striding toward the next tee. She waved violently to attract their attention, but they were too far away to notice. Seabirds passed overhead in an uneven V. Her cleats dug into the spongy grass and the moisture seeped into her shoes as she descended the dip. Hurrying uphill past the wind-shaped Monterey pines where her third shot often unfortunately landed, she saw them again.

They were walking close together, Alexander’s pale, bright hair near the bill of Gideon’s cap. A fear without focus washed through Crystal. She began to trot. A foursome of women on the next fairway turned their colorful hats to watch as she charged along, clubless, caddieless.

Alexander was gripping Gideon’s arm.

Gideon pulled away, brandishing his iron. Suddenly he dropped the club, swiveling in a half circle, taking two uncertain steps in her direction. His face was white, dazed. He was less than a hundred feet away, but she was positive he did not see her.

Throwing both hands forward as if instinctively to break his fall, he toppled to the emerald-wet grass.

“Gideon!” Crystal screamed. “Gideon!” She raced toward him, her bare knees rising and falling like pistons.

The caddie had dropped the bags, rushing to squat over Gideon. Alexander appeared a frozen onlooker. He did not see her until she almost
stumbled over the bags.

“Mom?” he said, his adolescent voice cracking. “Mom, what are you doing here?”

His voice was no more significant than the gulls cawing above them. She dropped to her knees.

Gideon’s face was hideously askew. Both eyes were closed.

“What happened?” she panted, bending close to him. “Gideon, your heart?”

The left eye opened and stared up at her. There was a ravaged horror in the brief Cyclops look before the lid came down.

Alexander was also kneeling beside Gideon. “Get a doctor!” she shouted.

But the caddie was already far up the fairway, racing toward the big, white colonial clubhouse.

*   *   *

The Carmel living room, fifty feet long, forty-two feet wide, was further enlarged by the panorama of golf course and Pacific. The upholstery was a stiff cream-colored brocade, the marble tabletops bore burdens of enormous ashtrays precisely where the decorator, Baynie McHugh, had first set them. It was a room intended only for large galas and possibly because of this onerous formality the patient’s family had gathered here.

Crystal clasped a sodden handkerchief. With her swollen eyes, lipstick worn away, short, powder blue golf skirt and grass-stained, dimpled knees, she looked a frightened, exquisite little girl dragged from her games to be dealt some as yet unknown but vicious punishment.
Near her Gid slumped, his big, boyishly grubby hands dangling between his knees. Pulling a fresh Kleenex from the pack, he blew his nose. Alexander stood by the wall of glass, the sun casting a shimmering path across his hair and highlighting the pale down on his upper lip. There was an alertness about his immobility, something reminiscent of a watchful, half-grown leopard—or Curt. Langley was pouring himself a drink from a Waterford decanter hung with a silver label embossed
Scotch:
his rather petulant lips were set in an expression of righteous satisfaction. (But how could he resist a minor gloat at being in excellent health while that common brother-in-law/son-in-law who thought only of money, money, money, was beset by one medical disaster after another?)

Four doctors—three had been flown in by the Talbott corporate plane from San Francisco—were upstairs in Gideon’s room. Mitchell had also contacted London, Houston, New York, and additional specialists, one a renowned vascular surgeon, would arrive tomorrow.

The most recent report from the medical team was that Gideon’s condition was “extremely grave.” Beyond that they knew he had suffered, in layman’s terms, a stroke.

Gid went to the lucite wastebasket. His new handful of wet tissue thumped onto the heap he had deposited earlier. His expression baffled and unhappy, he said, “I just don’t understand what caused the stroke.”

“We came to his ball. He keeled over,” Alexander said. “Shall I go over it again? I
mean, maybe some of those present can’t understand English.”

Gid went back to his chair, his forehead crunched as if he were fighting tears.

“Alexander, that’s enough,” Crystal said sharply, for once siding with her older son against the younger. “There’s plenty to upset us without you being clever.”

“Haven’t I explained often enough? Everybody knows what happened. Do you all have to keep hacking at me? What do you think, that
I
caused the damn stroke?”

“We don’t mean it that way, my lad,” Langley soothed. “We’re concerned.”

“Nobody cares whether
I
’m shook.”

“Oh, Alexander,” Crystal sighed. “Of course we care.”

“Yeah, sure.”

“I’d give anything if you hadn’t been there when it happened,” she said.

Alexander stalked across the room and into the hall. They heard him open a door—probably to the den—and slam it shut.

Langley splashed more scotch into his iceless tumbler. “A thing like this is hard on a lad his age. You can’t imagine how keen he is on helping his father. Plans on going into Talbott’s.”

“Yes, both of us do,” Gid said. “We talk about it a lot.”

“Alexander’s already boning up.” Langley gulped at his drink. “Crystal, he begged me not to mention this, but he’s been asking about everything from petroleum finds to business rivals.”

Crystal felt abruptly cut off from oxygen, as if the warm, ruddy air had been drained from the inhospitable room.
So that’s what they’ve been huddling about, the two of them, Curt Ivory.

Slow footsteps descended the staircase. Crystal turned pale, and they all stood, watching the hall. Mitchell came down the stairs like an old man, narrow shoulders hunched, one hand clenched hard on the banister, feet coming together on each step. Alexander had emerged into the hall. Nobody spoke as Mitchell crossed the white carpet to where Crystal stood.

“Mrs. Talbott,” he said, and then fell silent, his protrudent tooth glinting.

“Is he . . . . Is . . . is he . . .?” Crystal faltered, discovering she could not utter any of the dread words of finality that had been haunting her thoughts these past hours.

He shook his head. “No. But the doctors think you ought to come up.”

“And the boys?” she quavered.

Mitchell shook his head. “Just you.”

“We belong, too,” Alexander repudiated.

“Alexander,” Gid said, tears streaming down his cheeks, his mouth even in grief showing that surprising sweetness, “Mom’s the one he really wants.”

Crystal had gone limp, and she felt incapable of movement. Mitchell gently took the crook of her arm. Her mind jumped grotesquely: she saw her father in his rented finery leading her down the rose-swagged aisle of Grace Cathedral toward marriage. Now Mitchell was leading her up this Carmel staircase toward widowhood.

She had anticipated a funereal darkness in Gideon’s room: instead afternoon sun striped through the open slats of the shutters. A cloth-paneled screen sheltered the high electric hospital bed—Gideon had slept in one since his coronary. Mitchell released her. Ignoring the somber whispers of physicians, feeling disembodied, she slipped toward the screen.

Gideon’s thick, veined hands rested lax on the monogrammed silk blanket cover. The colorless flesh of his face sagged back from the broad nose, which was pinched at the nostrils; his deeply shadowed eyes were closed.
He’s dead
, Crystal thought.
He died after they sent for me, and not one of them’s noticed.