Point of No Return (16 page)

“What was it like?” Bill asked.

Charles pushed his plate away. He would never be able to tell Bill what it was like, even if he wanted to. He was thinking that he had been about Bill's age after the last war and that he had always wondered what it had been like.

“It was cold …” he said. “If I'm going to the club, I've got to get dressed … It's all over anyway, Bill. All of it's all over.”

He must have spoken sharply without having intended to because they were quiet when he stood up, but Bill followed him to the stairs.

“Do you mind if I come up with you?” he asked.

“No,” Charles said, “of course not, as long as we talk about something else.”

His brother Sam had been old enough to go to the last war.

While he was putting his studs in his shirt, he kept looking at Bill, who sat on the edge of the bed, and wondering whether he could ever have looked like Bill when he was fifteen. It did not seem possible that he could have ever been a gangling sight like Bill, so awkward or so immature.

“I don't want you sitting around wishing you'd been in that war,” Charles said.

“Well, just the same, I do,” Bill answered.

“It doesn't do any good to wish,” Charles said. “I kept wishing I'd been to the first one and that's why I went to this one and it wasn't a very good idea.”

“Why wasn't it a good idea?” Bill asked.

“It didn't help anything,” Charles said.

“How do you mean,” Bill asked, “it didn't help anything?”

“Never mind,” Charles said. “It didn't. It was a luxury.”

“A luxury?” Bill repeated.

The subject was not worth discussing. Bill was too young to understand him.

“When you do something that you don't have to do, it's generally a luxury,” Charles said. “You've got a lot of other things to think about, Bill. I want you to go to college, and I want you to have more opportunities than I've had.”

“What sort of opportunities?” Bill asked.

They were on ground where they could never meet.

“I want you to be able to see more things and do more things than I ever have,” Charles said. “I'd like you to have some sort of profession, something you'll be proud and happy doing.” He was pulling on his black trousers and it occurred to him that it was an undignified position from which to deliver a pontifical speech.

“Aren't you happy,” Bill asked, “working in the bank?”

“Yes,” Charles answered, “but that hasn't anything to do with you. What do you want more than anything else?”

“I want to go to Exeter,” Bill said.

Charles did not answer. It was an anticlimax, but he could understand it. It was a disappointment, but he could understand it. It meant that Bill was like himself. When he was that age, he too had usually wanted something small and definite.

“Dad, is there any chance of sending me to Exeter?”

“Why, yes,” Charles said, and he put on his coat. “I think so, Bill. I think there's a pretty good chance, if everything turns out all right. Do you know where the keys to the car are? I ought to be going now.”

Not since he had left Clyde had Charles ever felt as identified with any community as he had since he had been asked to join the Oak Knoll Country Club. They were in a brave new world involving all sorts of things of which he had scarcely dreamed after they had moved to Sycamore Park. This cleavage between past and present, Charles realized, was a part of a chain reaction that started, of course, with one of those shake-ups in the bank. Charles had known that he had been doing well. He had known for a year or so, from the way Mr. Merry and Mr. Burton and particularly Mr. Slade had been giving him little jobs to do, that something was moving him out of the crowd of nonentities around him. He was aware also that Walter Gibbs in the trust department was growing restless. There had been a premonition of impending change, just like the present tension. One day Walter Gibbs had asked him out to lunch and had told him, confidentially, that he was going to move to the Bankers' Trust and that he was recommending Charles for his place. Charles was not surprised, because he had been a good assistant to Walter Gibbs, and he was glad to remember that he had been loyal to his chief, ever since the old days in the statistical department.

“Charley,” Walter Gibbs had said, “a lot of people around here have been out to knife me. You could have and you never did, and I appreciate it, Charley.”

He had known, of course, for some time that Walter Gibbs was not infallible, that he was fumbling more and more over his decisions and depending more and more on Charles's support, but Walter had taught him a lot.

“Slade keeps butting in,” Walter had said, and then he went on to tell the old story which Charles had often heard of conflicting personalities and suspicions. Walter had felt that frankly he was more eligible for a vice-presidency than Slade, and the truth was he had never been the same after Arthur Slade had been selected.

“If they don't like you enough to move you up,” Walter had said, “it's time to get out, Charley.”

God only knew where Walter Gibbs was now. He was gone like others with whom you worked closely once and from whom you were separated. Walter Gibbs was gone with his little jokes and his bifocal glasses and the stooping shoulders that had given him a deceptively sloppy appearance. He was gone with his personality that would never have permitted him to be a vice-president of anything.

Charles was ready, not surprised, when Tony Burton, though of course he did not call him Tony then, had called him downstairs and had asked him if he knew what was coming, that he had been with them for quite a while and that they had all had an eye on him ever since he had done that analysis on chain stores. Even if you were prepared for such a change there was still an unforgettable afterglow, and an illuminating sense of unrealized potentiality. It was a time to be more careful than ever, to measure the new balance of power, and not to antagonize the crowd that you were leaving. One day, it seemed to Charles, though of course it was not one day, he was living in a two-family house in Larchmont that smelled of cauliflower in the evenings, stumbling over the children's roller-skates and tricycles, taking the eight-three in the morning, keeping the budget on a salary of six thousand a year. Then in a day, though of course it was not a day, they were building at Sycamore Park. The children were going to the Country Day School. They were seeing their old friends, but not so often. Instead they were spending Sundays with Arthur Slade. There was a maid to do the work. He was earning eleven thousand instead of six, and he was an executive with a future. New people were coming to call; all sorts of men he had hardly known were calling him Charley. It was a great crowd in Sycamore Park and he was asked to join the Oak Knoll Country Club. They were a great crowd in Sycamore Park.

It would have made quite a story—if it could have been written down-how all those families had come to Sycamore Park. They had all risen from a ferment of unidentifiable individuals whom you might see in any office. They had all once been clerks or salesmen or assistants, digits of what was known as the white-collar class. They had come from different parts of the country and yet they all had the same intellectual reactions because they had all been through much the same sorts of adventures on their way to Sycamore Park. They all bore the same calluses from the competitive struggle, and it was still too early for most of them to look back on that struggle with complacency. They were all in the position of being insecurely poised in Sycamore Park—high enough above the average to have gained the envy of those below them, and yet not high enough so that those above them might not easily push them down. It was still necessary to balance and sometimes even to push a little in Sycamore Park, and there was always the possibility that something might go wrong—for example, in the recession that everyone was saying was due to crop up in the next six or eight months. It was consoling to think that they were no longer in the group that would catch it first, or they would not have been at Sycamore Park—but then they were not so far above it. They were not quite indispensable. Their own turn might come if the recession were too deep. Then no more Sycamore Park, and no more dreams of leaving it for something bigger—only memories of having been there once. It was something to think about as you went over your checkbook on clear, cold winter nights, but it was nothing ever to discuss. It was never wise or lucky to envisage failure. It was better to turn on the phonograph—and someday you would get one that would change the records automatically. It was better to get out the ice cubes and have some friends in and to talk broad-mindedly about the misfortunes of others. It was better to go to the club on Tuesday evenings and to talk about something else—and that was where Charles Gray was going.

Charles was frank enough to admit that the Oak Knoll Club was not as good as the older country club at Hawthorn Hill. Charles's knowledge of people in the bank and his acquaintance with Hawthorn Hill clients had taught him that the Oak Knoll Club was intended for a definite sort of person, either one who could not afford the Hawthorn Hill dues or one who had not had the edges polished off. It was all very well to say that the Hawthorn Hill Club was meant for old men and older dowagers and that the Oak Knoll was a young man's club. That was what the Sycamore Park crowd always said, but any one of them would have dropped Oak Knoll like a hot potato if he had been asked to join Hawthorn Hill and could afford a share of stock. It was reassuring to Charles to recall that several members of Hawthorn Hill had spoken to him casually about joining it someday when he got around to it. Cliff Dunbarton, who kept his polo ponies and his hunters at the stable at Hawthorn Hill and who had come to Charles several times at the bank to ask him about investments, had once invited Charles and Nancy to the house for a drink, when he had met them walking on Sunday, and had said that any time Charles wanted to get into Hawthorn to let him know. Tony Burton himself, who was a member, had said only last year that it might be a good idea for Charles to think about getting into Hawthorn Hill, as long as Charles was a confidential advisor to so many of its members. It might even be a good thing for the bank to have him in there. When Charles had pointed out that he could not possibly afford the initiation fee or the purchase of the necessary share of stock, Tony Burton had said that there might be some way to wangle it, but it had either gone out of Tony's mind or there had not been any way, for the subject had not been brought up again.

Charles could not help wondering that night, as he drove between the stone gateposts of the Oak Knoll Club, whether Tony Burton had said the same thing to Roger Blakesley. Cliff Dunbarton certainly had not done so because it was clear from certain bitter remarks of Roger's about not having time to suck up to the Dunbartons that the Dunbartons had so far not bothered to know the Blakesleys. Charles had enjoyed assuring Roger that the Dunbartons weren't bad at all when you got to know them—not bad at all, only stand-offish.

It was true that in some sections of the town Oak Knoll was referred to as the “Monkey Cage,” and now that Charles was a member of the House Committee he could see what was meant, but at the same time they all enjoyed themselves at Oak Knoll, and even some of the Hawthorn Hill crowd still kept their memberships. You did not have to worry so much about the furniture at Oak Knoll. If you wanted, you could drink a little more. You could be more relaxed, within reason—but not if you were a member of the House Committee. When Charles was hanging up his hat and coat in the men's coatroom, the first person he saw was Cliff Dunbarton, who looked more relaxed than usual.

“Why, hello,” he said. “If it isn't Mr. Gray.”

“That's right,” Charles said. “The name's Gray,” and he was tempted to add, “Fancy seeing you here,” but he did not know Cliff Dunbarton well enough to be familiar and besides it was not up to him to belittle a party at Oak Knoll. Still they smiled at each other and he wished very much that he could be more like Cliff Dunbarton, happy wherever he was and not caring a damn about anything—but then, Cliff Dunbarton could afford it.

“Margie's away,” Cliff Dunbarton said, and Charles realized that he must be referring to Mrs. Dunbarton. “She never can stand this place. Margie isn't what you'd call democratic, but this is quite a party.”

“I wouldn't know,” Charles said. “I just got here—but it must be if you say so.”

“I've always kept my membership here,” Cliff Dunbarton said, “out of community spirit. Frankly, Charley, there are some very amusing types and hurry-come-ups in this place. I've got to get around more. I'm having a wonderful time. How about having a drink, Charley?”

“I'd like to a little later, but not right now,” Charles said. Obviously Cliff Dunbarton was quite tight or he would not have called him Charley.

“Have you got a pencil and a piece of paper?” Cliff Dunbarton went on. “There's a little number I was dancing with out there and I want to write her name down before I forget it.”

Charles took a fountain pen from his inside pocket and tore a leaf from the back of his small black notebook.

“Where does she live?” he asked.

“She's a very nice little number,” Cliff Dunbarton said. “Her name is Sherrill or Merrill or something, and I never would have met her if I hadn't come here. She lives in that new development. What is it? Something about a tree.”

“Every new development is something about a tree,” Charles said.

“Don't interrupt me. Let me concentrate.” Cliff Dunbarton placed the notebook page against the wall and began writing slowly. “Bea Merrill. She asked me to call her Bea. I wish I knew what her husband's name was. She lives in that new, young-executive development. I remember the name now—Sycamore Park.”