Glancing at the window I saw that by a trick of the light the room was mirrored in the pane.
‘So you’re a spy!’ I sat down on the chair next to hers.
‘No, just an observer. I was watching the debutantes and thinking there really are some compensations for being married.’
‘Which of these men is your husband?’
‘He’s not here. He was delayed in Albany as usual.’
‘He’s in government?’
‘The state senate. He’s going to try for Washington in the next elections
and since he has unrestricted access to my money I guess he’ll get in.’ She sipped her orange juice and looked bored.
‘Have you been married long?’ I said tentatively.
‘Three years.’
‘You must have been under the age of consent three years ago!’
‘I was seventeen.’ She finished her orange juice and opened her purse for a cigarette. ‘It was either marriage or suicide,’ she said, ‘and I didn’t have the nerve to kill myself. Do you have a light?’
I patted my pockets for several seconds before I remembered I had given up smoking. Eventually I found a bowl of matches near the fireplace.
When I had lit her cigarette she said: ‘You’re married, aren’t you? Isn’t your wife here?’
‘We’re separated.’
‘Oh yes, I remember now. I’m sorry. I never bother much with gossip. Where do you come from? You couldn’t have lived long in New York or I would have met you before we moved to Albany. My father’s Dean Blaise of Blaise, Bailey, Ludlow and Adams,’ she explained as an afterthought, ‘and he used to play tennis regularly with Paul Van Zale. How all those Yankee banking houses hang together!’
I took a moment to marvel what a small world it was and then asked her if she had always lived in New York.
‘Of course. Where else is there to live?’
‘Well, there’s Boston – or Philadelphia—’
She gave me the New Yorker’s classic response. Boston was ignored. She simply said with amazement: ‘
Philadelphia
?’
‘Well, perhaps Europe—’
‘Europe’s so insanitary,’ she said, ‘and it’s so depressing not to understand what people say. I detest Europe. Where did you say you came from?’
‘Cincinnati, Ohio.’
‘Such a pretty name! I’ve always wanted to go to the mid-west but St Louis is such a long way and my father never did approve of Chicago. Where exactly is Cincinnati?’
A shadow fell across our table as Sylvia paused to be a good hostess. ‘Alicia dear, it’s really so sweet of you to come without Ralph – I do appreciate it. These politicians with their busy schedules! And how’s your little Sebastian? He must be quite big now.’
‘Eighteen months. Yes, he’s running all over the place. He’s lovely.’ Long dark lashes swept downwards to cover those grey-green catlike eyes. Her smooth opaque hair swung forward to brush against her creamy skin. She still spoke in that hypnotic monotone, but I sensed the mention of her little son disturbed her, just as I had sensed she had nothing but contempt for her husband. When Sylvia failed to notice her distress I felt as if I had discovered an extraordinary talent in myself for interpreting a complex work of art.
‘… and I didn’t know you knew Cornelius!’ Sylvia was saying pleased.
‘We’ve only just met.’
‘How strange
– you look as if you’ve known each other for years,’ said Sylvia vaguely, and swept off to attend to the British tea-planter who was reclining sadly against the far wall.
I looked at Alicia. Alicia looked at me.
‘Your husband married you for your money, didn’t he?’ I said.
‘Yes.’
‘But you’ve only just found out.’
‘Yes.’
‘And you daren’t leave because you’re afraid he’ll try and take Sebastian.’
Now she was the one to be hypnotized, and as we gazed at each other I saw the missing half of my personality and felt an enormous joyous relief. The expression in her eyes changed, and suddenly my own knowledge was reflected brilliantly back at me in a blaze of emotion which lit the room. The other people seemed to fade away, the noise of conversation became a mere distant drone, and then as I reached for her hand at the exact moment that her hand groped blindly for mine, our lives touched, merged and streamed forward together in a single, irreversible tide.
[1]
When Alicia’s husband arrived in New York two days later she refused to return with him to Albany and tried to remain with her parents. However, when her father flew into a rage and her stepmother refused to have a deserting wife in the house, she left them too and moved with her little boy and his nurse into my house on Fifth Avenue. She was five months pregnant at the time.
At least on this occasion I no longer had to worry about what my mother would have thought although probably in view of my feelings for Alicia I would have told even my mother to mind her own business.
New York society spluttered in horror. We were shunned. Cholly Knickerbocker’s column could only refer to us obliquely; our names were so drenched with sin that they would have defiled any decent newspaper. I had to hire extra secretaries to sift the fevered hate-mail from fundamentalists, itinerant preachers and little old ladies in Dubuque. I had to hire two extra bodyguards to fend off the fanatics who waited at the gates of my house to pelt me with rotten eggs, and two new lawyers to cope with the legal abuse Foxworth kept slapping on me. Little Sebastian’s nurse could no longer take him for walks in the park. I was called depraved, debauched and disgusting while Alicia was described as a harlot, a hussy and a horrible disgrace to motherhood.
It never ceased to amaze me how people passed judgement on us without
having any idea of the true facts. Alicia and I both believed in the sanctity of marriage and motherhood – of course we did. Our joint ambition in life was to marry, raise a family and remain faithful to one another in the conventional Christian fashion. It was all very well my critics screaming that I had walked out on my pregnant wife and taken a pregnant woman away from her husband but they entirely misunderstood the options that were available to me. My choice lay not between fidelity and adultery but between honesty and hypocrisy, and I’m no Victorian; I’m a twentieth-century man, and I had no intention of building my private life around a lie in order to appease the petty demagogues who dictated society’s conventions. I didn’t choose to meet Alicia when she was pregnant – or even when she was married – but since I had met her I saw no point in pretending we could ever have lived apart. Similarly, once my relationship with Vivienne had been destroyed I saw no point in pretending that any part of it had survived. I was honest with myself and with other people, and if that shocked everyone I was sorry but I wasn’t about to jettison my honesty to accommodate them. However, I had to admit the uproar caused by my behaviour was tiresome and it took me some time before I became too bored with the fuss to pay it further attention. Fortunately I was busy at the office and although I missed going out for a walk in the lunch-hour I was equally happy to sit at my desk with a hot-dog and a bottle of Coca-Cola while I browsed through statistical reports. I had soon given up eating in the partners’ dining-room as all the other partners were so priggish about my situation and I hated to see how much Steve was enjoying my discomfort. I knew the scandal was bad for my career, but I knew too that if I continued to work hard, complete my assignments and make no mistakes, my reputation as a banker would ultimately be undimmed. The worst aspect of my situation was that it seemed to confirm the opinion that I was just a twenty-two-year-old kid who was too immature to be taken seriously, but again time was on my side. I would grow older; I would eventually be able to marry Alicia; and we would sink into the most stifling respectability imaginable.
In fact we already lived quietly and my evenings were no more remarkable than my hard-working well-disciplined days. What our critics thought we did with ourselves I have no idea. Perhaps half their fun was derived from the conviction that we indulged in orgies which would have put the ancient Romans to shame, but the truth, as so often happens, was more prosaic than any fantasy. I would come home from work and we would sit on the couch in the upstairs drawing-room for half an hour while we exchanged news. I would drink some tomato juice, Alicia would sip a glass of milk and we would hold hands. When our drinks were finished I would go to my rooms to shower and change for dinner before I joined Alicia in the nursery to say goodnight to Sebastian. Dinner would be a light meal, usually fish followed by fruit. Alicia lost interest in meat during her pregnancies and developed a craving for apples. After dinner we would listen to our favourite radio shows – we would be holding hands again by this time – but by nine-thirty Alicia would be
yawning and ready for bed. She tired easily in pregnancy and needed at least ten hours’ sleep a night.
No middle-aged suburban couple embedded in the most respectable of middle-class suburbs could have led a more exemplary life, yet of course I have to admit there were difficulties. Unfortunately it is not in the least natural for a young couple to live like middle-aged suburban marrieds when they’re in the grip of the hottest love affair in town.
Naturally I tried to make love to her. I tried several times, but the baby came between us. I could feel him. He moved a lot. He aroused all the guilt I felt as a young man brought up decently in a Christian household, and then all my brave words about being a twentieth-century man counted for nothing and I would tremble at the thought of the Ten Commandments. I didn’t seriously believe God cared a jot whom I was sleeping with, but childhood beliefs often run too deep to be easily exorcized by logic, and after the third time I had failed to make love to Alicia I said: ‘I’m sorry, but I can’t do this any more. It’ll be all right after he’s born, but it’s no use when he’s right here in bed with us. I’m very, very sorry. Please try not to be too angry with me.’
She did not answer but in the darkness I could feel her mind brushing without anger against mine. The silence continued, the tension building up between us until the air seemed heavy with our frustration, until at last she rubbed against me and put her hands on my body.
Seconds later I said automatically: ‘You don’t have to do that.’ I had had no idea well-brought-up young girls knew about such things. I could accept such knowledge when displayed by Vivienne, but I hated to think of Alicia behaving in a way which I had previously associated with maturer less principled women.
Alicia took no notice of me.
‘Alicia—’
‘You stupid prig, don’t be so goddamned provincial!’ she screamed at me, and I was struck dumb with shame.
Later when she had finished and I had recovered my breath I said humbly: ‘Shall I …’ and she said: ‘Yes, for God’s sake do before I pass out with frustration.’
Later when I took her in my arms I felt her tears wet against my cheek. ‘Alicia … darling …’
‘No, it’s all right, I’m happy. I love you. I’m sorry I screamed at you like that.’ She clung to me. ‘I wanted you so much.’
‘I feel terrible that I – I—’ I got stuck.
‘Oh for heaven’s sake, what does it matter how we make love?’
But it mattered to me. I was at heart very conventional about such matters, and as the weeks passed and we pursued what I can only describe as our very unusual sex life, I used to daydream longingly of a time when we were married, when Alicia was no longer pregnant with another man’s child and when we could go to bed without guilt and indulge in good clean straightforward sexual intercourse just like any other decent married couple.
Unfortunately
marriage was beginning to seem a long way off. Foxworth had not reconciled himself to the fact that Alicia was never going to return to him, and he flatly refused to discuss divorce. This meant that all his energies became focused on the custody issue, and in the battle for Sebastian he was unyielding. Alicia was an unfit mother, his lawyers argued with the full weight of public opinion behind them; no judge with any conscience could permit a child to remain with a deserting wife and her unprincipled lover; Sebastian and his nurse must return immediately to Albany.
Alicia and I fought Foxworth tooth and nail, but I knew there was no hope of winning. I was beside myself with anxiety, fearing that Alicia would become hysterical, but when the inevitable decision was handed down from the bench she accepted it quietly and I realized she had been resigned to her loss for some time. Alicia was much too clear-eyed to practise self-deception.
When the time came for her to say goodbye she kissed him calmly, told him she would see him again soon and asked him to be good. Then she gave him one last hug and walked away.
I caught up with her but all she said was: ‘I have to be alone now,’ so I let her lock herself in her room. She stayed there without asking for me for two days. Trays were taken up to her and left outside the door but most of the food remained untouched.
I felt sick with worry. I knew she was adjusting herself to the fact that she had lost her child because of me, and I was terrified she would be unable to endure the deprivation. I felt guilty that I was the source of her suffering, and my guilt was exacerbated by the fact that I had not cared for the child and was secretly relieved I would not have to be an active step-father. He was dark-haired and dark-eyed like Ralph Foxworth and I could see nothing of his mother in him at all.
After Alicia had been secluded for two days I had decided she would leave me, and my despair was such that I could hardly drag myself home from the office. But when I entered the drawing-room I had a surprise. Alicia was waiting for me. The glass of tomato juice and the glass of milk stood on the table. Alicia wore a new dress and a different hair-style and the diamond engagement ring I had bought her at Cartier’s.
It was five minutes before either of us could say more than a few incoherent phrases. We just sat and held hands but at last she said: ‘You’ve been very, very kind and patient and understanding. I’ll never forget it, never. I’m sorry this has all been so difficult.’
I kissed her and muttered something unintelligible.