A Season in Purgatory (32 page)

“Really.”

“Well, Gerald thought he died and went to heaven after an hour with Maxine. He sent her a mink coat from some French place in New York City, I forget the name. He used to say to me, ‘Hey, Johnny, get me that Maxine girl,’ but by then she was with the big man, and if you knew what was good for you, you didn’t fuck around with Sal Cabrini’s girl. Right?”

“Apparently.”

“If memory serves, the son was a fagola,” said Johnny. “Right?”

“Memory serves.”

“I never once took a leak at Maxine’s house that the kid didn’t follow me into the john, stand at the next urinal, and sneak a peek at my equipment.”

“He’s dead.”

“AIDS?”

“No, a gunshot between the eyes.”

“No shit!”

“I’m waiting for you to say he died like a man,” said Harrison.

“Right. That’s right. You know, Harry, it’s nice having
a real conversation with you like this. I’ve been with this family for, lemme see, almost twenty years now, and Grace has never spoken to me, not once. You’re not like what I thought you’d be. I remember you when you and Constant were in that fancy boarding school, and then you turn out to be this big success. You never can tell, can you?”

“That’s right, Johnny. You never can tell.”

If Constant Bradley and Harrison Burns no longer saw each other, they continued over the years to remain aware of each other. Constant missed his friend. In his own way, he grieved for him; there had been no contact between the two for sixteen years. In the intervening time, Constant had become the focus of much attention. Except for a minor incident or two, his years at Yale had been everything and more than his father could ever have hoped. He was one of those undergraduates whom people talked about. His nickname on campus was Magnifico. When girls came to New Haven for football weekends, they always said to their dates, “Point out Constant Bradley to me.” On weekends he spent less and less time in Scarborough Hill, preferring to visit friends in New York and Long Island. “All doors are open to him,” Gerald bragged proudly. His name and photograph appeared frequently in newspapers. During summers, he spent part of each vacation working in Washington in the office of his brother Sandro, who had gone from the House of Representatives to become a senator. Constant loved the Hill, as he called it. After his six-week stint with Sandro, he took off for a trip to Europe each year, a combination of playtime on the Riviera, where he mingled in the set that surrounded the princesses of Monaco, and more serious weeks studying the coming collapse of the communist regimes in the Balkans, as arranged for him by representatives of his father’s various business activities. After graduation, he received a great deal
of notoriety as a polo player, a pastime he abandoned, on the advice of his family, when, at the age of twenty-six, he ran for and won a seat in the House of Representatives. His marriage to Charlotte Stafford, from an old Baltimore family, was held at the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen in Baltimore with a reception following at the Stafford farm in Glyndon, Maryland. Class. That’s what everyone said about Charlotte Stafford. She had class.

Through a peculiar twist of fate, Constant’s wedding to Charlotte and Harrison’s wedding to Claire Rafferty took place on the same day, although in different states, a fact noticed by no one at the time except Harrison. The society wedding of Constant and Charlotte received a papal blessing and a great deal of publicity, while the Philadelphia wedding of Harrison and Claire was a small and private affair, unreported in the press.

All was not always well in the Constant Bradley marriage. There were breakups from time to time, and expensive reconciliations. Gerald, who saw in Charlotte the perfect qualities for a political wife for his favorite son, came to the rescue over and over.

“What happened? What’s gone off?” he would ask Constant.

“We’ve just gotten sick of each other, I suppose,” Constant would say.

“That’s not a good enough reason.”

“When you can’t get it up anymore, it’s time to move on, Pa.”

“Grow up, kid. Grow up. You need Charlotte. And don’t you ever forget it.”

When Harrison entered the marble-floored hallway of the Bradley house in Southampton, he expected to be greeted by Constant, but it was a young Irish maid in a pink
afternoon uniform and white apron who opened the door and took his bag. He looked around at the elegance of the hall and of the rooms opening off it. Only the large color photograph of the Pope looked familiar to him.

“The family’s all out playin’ golf,” she said. She spoke with a lilt in her voice. “They’ll be back sometime after four. Bridey particularly wanted to say hello to you. Do you want to go into the kitchen before I take you up to your room?”

“Yes, of course,” said Harrison. “Which way?”

“There, through the dinin’ room. It’s her rest time between lunch and dinner, but she’s waitin’ there for you.”

“Bridey,” said Harrison, when he entered the kitchen. She was sitting on a comfortable chair in a small alcove off the kitchen, reading. “No, no, don’t stand up. I’ll come over there. You look wonderful, Bridey.”

“Oh, no, I’m gettin’ old. Be seventy in August. Let me look at you, Harrison. You didn’t grow too tall. You’re awful serious looking, but you was always a nice boy, Harrison. Always nice manners. Always came in the kitchen and said ‘Thank you, Bridey’ before you went back to school. Not many of them did, you know, the ones who came to visit. And once, after I did your laundry, you gave me a tip, two dollars, and I knew all the time you was in that fancy school on a scholarship and didn’t have two dollars to give away, so I stuck the money back in your pants pocket that night.”

Harrison laughed. “So that’s where that two dollars came from? I’ve got to give you a big kiss on that one, Bridey.”

“Do you still like your eggs poached in the morning? Five minutes?”

“No, Bridey. I’m strictly Grape-Nuts Flakes with strawberries and skim milk these days.”

“Shame on you. You need a good breakfast to start the day.”

“Everybody’s out, I guess,” said Harrison.

“They’ll be back soon enough. Golf, golf, golf, that’s the big thing now. They all play golf. Even Missus, if you can believe it. And her not so young, either. Look what I’m readin’, Harrison. I hold it like this, with your picture on the outside, and I say to the girls at Mass on Sunday, ‘I happen to know the author.’ ”

“Oh, Bridey.”

“Terrible man, that Max Goesler. Imagine doing such things to a little girl. Good for you for exposin’ all these awful people. And I’m glad they caught those two who killed your parents. The looks of them in the paper at the time. On drugs, the paper said. There’s the car. They’re coming back. I’m happy to see you, Harrison.”

“Hello, Harrison,” said Gerald. “I’m sorry there was no one here to greet you. I had hoped to be back. I was out playing golf with Des and Sandro at the Maidstone Club in East Hampton, and the traffic was terrible getting back here. The worst-looking people you ever saw, in the worst-looking cars. These people are ruining the Hamptons. The condominium people, and the day-trippers who come to look at the big houses. Grace and the girls are at a committee meeting for the Southampton Hospital dance this summer. I hope you’ll be able to come back and sit with us that night. We’ve taken four tables.”

“I haven’t seen Constant,” said Harrison in reply.

“He’ll be along. Just between us, he’s had a little fight with his wife. Nothing serious, but he got delayed. You know how women are, Harrison. I know Constant has a bit of a wandering eye, and sometimes these little misunderstandings occur.”

“You have not set a particularly good example, Mr. Bradley,” said Harrison.

“What do you mean by that, Harrison?”

“You have left a coast-to-coast trail of mink coats from Revillon Frères.”

Caught, Gerald smiled. “I suppose you could say I’m a man with a healthy appetite for pussy,” he said.

“An appetite your son has inherited.”

“All my sons, I am proud to say. It is an important part of a man’s life, Harrison. Let’s face it. Constant is a young man who is mad about women,” said Gerald.

“I’ve never been convinced of that,” said Harrison.

“Oh, yes. He likes the way they walk, talk, smile. He finds women intoxicating. He once told me he couldn’t imagine a greater pleasure in life than being with the woman he loved. Now, that’s a beautiful thought.”

Harrison paused. “Then why does he hit them?” he asked.

Gerald, taken aback, paused. His nostrils flared slightly. He leaned away from Harrison and looked at him with disapproval, but the softness of the words that followed belied the anger he held in check. “Don’t you think he’s suffered enough from that old allegation?” he asked.

“I’m not sure
allegation
is the correct word, Mr. Bradley.”

“What’s the matter? You don’t like women, Harrison? What happened? Your marriage didn’t work? Who did you marry?”

“Claire Rafferty.”

The look on Gerald’s face suggested that the name had a familiar ring to it.

“Who?” he asked.

“She was a bridesmaid in Maureen’s wedding. You tried to fuck her in the guestroom of your house in Scarborough Hill the night before the wedding.”

Gerald, momentarily nonplussed, stared at Harrison.
He spoke in a hearty voice as if he were the good-natured brunt of a practical joke. “No, no, no, there is some mistake here. You shouldn’t make jokes like that, Harrison. Now, hold on. Hold on. I think I hear a car on the gravel.” He walked over to one of the long French windows, pulled aside a fluttering curtain, and looked out. “Yes, yes, yes. There he is. That’s Constant’s Testarossa. Isn’t it a beauty?”

“Some car,” said Harrison, walking out the front door.

“Not bad, huh?” answered Constant.

“Some house,” said Harrison.

“Not bad, huh?”

“Urns in niches. Very West Egg.”

“Very what?”

“Gatsby. It looks like Jay Gatsby’s house.”

“Oh, my God, you’re not still on Gatsby, are you?”

The two old friends looked at each other. Constant was lean, startlingly good-looking, aware that he had become the focus of much attention, but there was also a complacency on his face, a slight boredom, even. Harrison wondered if his arranged life had not come all too easily for him. Constant opened his arms and walked toward Harrison and hugged him.

“Still got all your hair,” he said.

“You, too.”

“That’s a given with the men in my family,” said Constant, laughing. “There’s no such thing as a bald Bradley. I’ve missed you, you son of a bitch. You just went off and dumped me.”

“That’s not exactly how it happened, Constant,” replied Harrison. “Or words to that effect.”

With a dismissive gesture, Constant brushed off further exploration of that line of conversation. “Let me see. You’re married, I know. Two children. Twins. Boys. And successful.
On the road to fame, I hear. Oh, I keep track of you. Let me look at you. You look great. How do you stay so thin?”

“I swim every day.”

“Swim? You didn’t even make the team at Milford.”

“I probably still wouldn’t. My swimming has nothing to do with speed or form. I’m more interested in distance than style. I swim every day at my club, but in the summers, or when I’m in Florida or California, I swim in the ocean. I set goals for myself. It’s the one time of day I’m not haunted. Don’t ask me what haunts me.”

“Well, there’s a pretty big ocean right out there for you to try out.”

“It might still be a little cold.”

“Johnny Fuselli uses a wet suit.”

“Maybe I’ll try.”

“Well, I’m waiting,” said Constant.

“For what?”

“My compliment. How do I look after all these years?”

“I see your picture in the paper all the time, so I’m not surprised you’re still the best-looking man I ever saw.”

“People say you used to love me.”

“A poor boy’s crush on a rich boy. No more than that. That was long ago. Over and out. A moment in time.”

“You’re different,” said Constant.

“Oh, I hope so,” replied Harrison.

They sat in Harrison’s room and caught up. In times past, in Scarborough Hill, they had either shared a room when the house was particularly crowded, or had rooms side by side with a connecting bath, Harrison’s room being the room he always thought of as Agnes’s room, as that was what Grace had called it the first time he had visited that house. There, in Southampton, there was no room remembered as
having once been Agnes’s, and Constant no longer was in the next room.

“Pa’s impressed with you. I can see that. They’ve given you the best guestroom in the house,” said Constant.

“It’s pretty swell. I’ve never slept in a bed with a tufted headboard and a canopy before,” said Harrison.

“Sally Steers did it up.”

“Not Sally Steers? You can’t be serious. This is where I came in.”

They burst out laughing.

“Strictly on the up-and-up these days. All business. Sally’s almost sixty now, and a little hefty. Too many creampuffs. Pa likes ’em younger, and slimmer,” said Constant.

“Where’s your room?” asked Harrison.

“Charlotte and I have one of the cottages. Des and Lee have another. Maureen and Freddy have the biggest cottage, with all those kids. Sandro has a couple of rooms at the end of the hall for when he comes.”

“Des is married then?”

“Oh, yes. For years.”

“Children?”

“Two girls.” Constant stood and looked out the window toward the sea. “You’re going to launch me, I hear. Write my book for me.”

“I told your father no. I can’t write that book for you, Constant,” said Harrison. “It’s not what I do. Besides, I wouldn’t much enjoy watching you on the TV chat shows taking credit for a book I’d written.”

“You’ve got to give me a better reason than that,” laughed Constant.

“I told your father this, but he insisted that I come anyway to talk it over. You know how your father is when he wants something.”

“But it would be like old times, Harry,” said Constant. “Do you remember the Christmas speech at Bog Meadow? What a hit you made me that afternoon. The old biddies couldn’t get enough of me. Oh, and the paper for Shugrue, to get me back into Milford after the putz kicked me out. That was a wow. And my graduation speech.”