Carriage Trade (44 page)

This response struck me as a little odd, but I led her into the living room.

“Oh, what a pretty room,” she said. “But then I knew it would be, with Si's beautiful taste.”

“Thank you,” I said. “Do sit down. May I get you a cup of tea?”

“Oh, no, thank you. I'll only be a minute. I don't want to take up too much of your time, Mrs. Tarkington.” She seated herself in a chair and crossed her beautiful slender ankles, tucking them just slightly under the chair, just so, her shoulders forward, her chin tilted upward. “I do love the
Régence
style,” she said.

“Well,” I said, taking a seat opposite her. “What a pleasure to meet you. I've read so much about you. My husband and I are delighted that you've become a Tarkington's client.”

“Mrs. Tarkington, your husband has asked me to marry him,” she said.

Of all the opening gambits in a conversation between two women who've never met before, what could be more startling, more stunning, more shocking than that one?
Mrs. Tarkington, your husband has asked me to marry him
.

I stared at her, feeling the breath go out of me, unable to believe what I'd just heard. Her expression was apologetic, almost imploring, as though, as the bearer of ill tidings, she was saying that she was no more than a dutiful if unwilling messenger. “He never mentioned this to me,” I said at last.

“I realize that,” she said. “But we thought that you and I, as two intelligent and mature women, should meet and discuss this situation and work out a solution that would be both adult and—graceful.”

“In other words, he sent you to do his dirty work,” I said. “He didn't have the courage to do it on his own.”

“No, that's not it,” she said. “He thought that if you and I met first, woman to woman, and discussed the situation calmly and sanely, we could come to an intelligent conclusion on how we are all to proceed from here.”

“Calmly! Sanely!” I stood up. “Would you like a drink?” I asked her.

“Oh, no, thank you.”

“Then you won't mind if I do.” I went to the bar, dropped ice cubes into a glass, and splashed vodka over the ice. I took a few quick sips and then splashed in more vodka, right up to the rim. “Calmly! Sanely!” I said again. “In other words, you're asking me to take this like a perfect lady.”

Her face wore an expression now that was almost pitying. “Si and I are very much in love,” she said. “We want to marry. We only ask of you that you give him a divorce—a quiet, dignified, civilized, and amicable divorce.”

“Quiet! Dignified! Civilized! Amicable!” I was clutching my glass in my hand, and my hand had begun to tremble. “Don't give him a fight that would create publicity that would be bad for business, is that what you're saying?”

“I'd like to say that I'm also prepared to take on the responsibilities of motherhood for your little boy,” she said.

“Well, that's one responsibility you're not going to have!” I said. “My son is mine. He's never going to be yours!”

“We want to adopt him.”

“Never!”

“Let me say I'll be a good stepmother, then. Si is devoted to that child.”

“Not even that!”

“I just meant that, once Si and I are married, we intend to see to it that your little boy is given a wonderful home.”

“My son is never going to have anything to do with you, you bitch!”

Her eyebrows went up. “I'm sorry,” she said. “I can see I've upset you—”

“Upset? What do you expect me to be? First you come into my house to tell me you're taking my husband! Then you say you want to take my baby!”

“I was just hoping that, woman to woman—”

“Woman to woman!”
I leaned against the bar to steady myself. I hadn't had a drink in six months, and this one was affecting me as though I'd had several. “I'll tell you what I'll do woman to woman! If you don't get out of here this minute, I'm going to scratch your eyes out! Woman to woman! I'll scratch your eyes out, and then I'll pull your hair out by the roots!” I started toward her with my drink in my hand.

She reached for her purse and rose quickly from her chair. “My dear, drinking doesn't help,” she said. “It never really does, you know.”

“The hell it doesn't!” I said. “Let's just see if it does. Get out of here, you bitch.” And I threw my drink in her face. I was screaming now.
“Bitch! Bitch! Bitch!”

She turned on her heel and was gone.

I poured myself another drink. The back of the bar was mirrored, and I studied my reflection in the glass. I was not pleased with what I saw. The drink I was holding had smeared my brown lipstick, and I looked like an angry, sneering clown. In the mirror I looked haggard and old and I could see why my husband wanted a younger and more beautiful wife.

I hadn't finished feeding the baby, and from the next room I could hear him beginning to whimper, cross little cries. “I'm coming! I'm coming!” I called. Then I saw that milk from my full breasts had seeped through my bra and had left two dark, wet spots on the front of my navy sweater. Then I burst into tears.

When Si came home, I screamed at him. “Woman to woman!” I said. “You sent your whore here to tell me you wanted a divorce because you didn't have the guts to tell me yourself!”

“I simply thought the two of you could have a rational conversation about the future. But I see that in your case a rational conversation is not possible.”

“She's the same as all your other whores,” I said. “I know about them too, Si. You've been cheating on me ever since we got married. I thought maybe having a baby would change things, but it hasn't. Does this new whore know about all the others, Si? Shall I tell her about all the others?”

“You're drunk,” he said.

I denied it.

“Connie told me you threw your drink in her face.”

“That doesn't mean I'm drunk!” I said.

“Whenever you drink, you get drunk. You're always drunk.”

“So I threw a drink in the whore's face! That's all she is—a whore,” I told him.

“This discussion is getting us nowhere,” he said.

“Oh, I know why you want her, this new whore of yours,” I said. “You want her because she's younger and prettier than I am, and because she's a so-called famous socialite! You want her because you think she'll be good for business. You want to use her as a shill, a decoy, a come-on for your customers! All you want her for is decoration! You don't want her for a
wife
!”

“Well, you're not very decorative at this point, are you, Alice?” he said. “As a wife or as anything else.”

“What do you mean by that crack?” I said.

“Look at yourself,” he said. “You've lost your looks, and you've lost your figure. You can't even get your skirt buttoned in the back.”

My eyes were streaming now. “I lost my figure bearing your child,” I sobbed.

“You lost your figure drinking,” he said.

“It was bearing your child,” I repeated. “Bearing your child!”

“Look,” he said, “you can stay in this apartment for as long as you like, at least until everything's settled between our lawyers. I'll move to a hotel.”

“No!” I cried. “I'm not staying here another night! I'm leaving, and I'm taking Blazer with me!”

“No. Blazer stays with me,” he said.

“You can't take him away from me! I'm nursing him!” I said.

“I don't want my son drinking the milk of a drunken mother,” he said. “He's ready to go on full formula now. I checked with the pediatrician.”

“No!” I cried again, and I ran out of the room and down the hall to the baby's nursery, which I'd decorated all in blue and white, where Blazer lay sleeping on his stomach, one side of his face against a blue satin pillow, his thumb in his mouth.

Si followed me. “Don't wake him!” he commanded.

I reached into the crib and lifted Blazer from the pillow, cuddling him against my chest. “I'm taking him,” I said.

“Alice, you are not running out into the night with the baby,” he said. “It's below freezing outside. Put him back in his crib.” He stepped toward me. “Do as I say!” he said.

“No!” I said, moving back toward the wall. “Stay away from me! Don't touch me!”

“Put the baby back in his crib, Alice,” he said evenly, stepping toward me again. “Give the baby to me, Alice. Give him to me, Alice—now.”

“No! Never!” As I spoke, I suddenly felt the baby begin to slide out of my arms. He was just slipping through my arms. I tried to catch him by the armpits, and then by the neck, and then I slipped to my knees on the floor, still trying to clutch at my baby, at his pajama bottoms, at anything, and when I fell to the floor the baby landed, face forward, on my lap. My lap cushioned his fall.

My husband stood over me in a rage. “Do you see what you almost did?” he said. “You almost dropped him. You could have killed him. Do you see why you can't be trusted when you're in these drunken states? Do you see why I don't love you anymore?”

But I still clutched the child, moaning, “No, no!”

“Don't hold him like that, Alice! You're choking him!”

“Oh, Erick,” I sobbed. “Oh, Erick, why did you have to die? Why did you have to die, Erick? Why did you have to die?”

And now Blazer was wailing and screaming—high, shrill screams—and struggling in my arms, kicking his feet and waving his arms, and from the odor I realized his diaper was full, and the destruction of my day was complete.

22

Mrs. Alice Markham Tarkington (interview taped 9/15/91)

Yes, the divorce was pretty awful, though there weren't any more scenes between Si and me as bad as that one. The awfulness was all handled through lawyers after that, and of course I blamed Si and was very bitter about what he was putting me through. But I shouldn't have blamed Si, should I? I should have blamed myself and my mortal enemy, alcohol. I know that now.

The next day, I found a small apartment on the East Side, and my lawyer got a temporary restraining order allowing me to keep Blazer with me. But Si had this shyster lawyer, Jacob Kohlberg, and they were determined to take Blazer away from me. Si wanted absolute full custody of his son and said he'd accept nothing less. I was to have only very limited visiting privileges. They were saying I was an unfit mother, a hopeless alcoholic who had almost killed her baby once.

“It's very rare for a court to take a child this young away from its mother, Alice,” my lawyer told me. But he looked dubious. “Still, they're sure to have put detectives on you. I want you to be sure you keep your nose clean.”

“You mean my sex life?” I said with a laugh. “It's not me who has affairs.”

“I'm not talking about that,” he said, and he made a little jiggling gesture with his hand, as though he were holding a glass in it. “I'm talking about the booze.”

“That's nonsense,” I said.

“They're saying you drink a bit more than is good for you, Alice. You do drink a bit, don't you?”

“Hardly ever,” I said. “Sometimes I'll have a glass of wine with dinner, but that's the extent of it.” Of course I was lying.

“Do you ever drink in bars?”

“Never!”

“Good. Meanwhile, you do keep liquor in your house, don't you?”

“Of course. In case friends drop by.”

“Where do you buy it?”

“Sherry-Lehmann delivers it.”

“Watch those deliveries, Alice. Detectives will be keeping track of those deliveries.”

How was I going to get vodka into my apartment if detectives were watching my deliveries? I wondered.

“What do you do with your empties?” he asked me.

“Throw them out with the garbage.”

“Does your building have an incinerator?”

“Yes, but we're not supposed to throw glass or tin cans into it. Only flammable things.”

“Figure out some way of disposing of your empties without putting them in the garbage,” he said. “Detectives like to go through garbage.”

“Really, you're making much too much of this,” I said. “All these things they're saying about me are nothing but lies.”

“Hmm,” he said. “Well, just as long as you're aware of what they'll be looking for. Think twice about
any
thing you put out with your garbage—bills, receipts, letters. Your husband's lawyers will be very interested in seeing things like that.”

My immediate problem, of course, was how to get liquor into my apartment and empty bottles out. My friend Beverly helped me out. Every few weeks, Beverly would come to spend the night, and in her suitcase would be my vodka. When she left, she'd leave with the empties in the suitcase. See how clever we alcoholics are?

One day Beverly arrived at my place practically squealing with excitement. “You really do have someone watching your building,” she said. “When I got out of the taxi today, this man said to me, ‘That's a pretty heavy suitcase you've got there, little lady. Can I give you a hand with it?' I said, ‘No, thank you.' I was sure he'd try to jiggle it to see if he heard bottles in it.” She set the suitcase down on the floor, and we heard a
clank
. “Anyway, here's your stash,” she said.

We thought all this was terribly funny. But it really wasn't funny, was it?

I'd told my lawyer I didn't want any alimony. What I wanted was some sort of trust fund set up for Blazer's education. College tuition costs were escalating in the 1960's, and who knew how much it would cost to send a boy to Yale by 1980, when Blazer would be starting college? My lawyer thought we should ask for a fund that would yield an annual income of fifty thousand dollars. That meant about a million dollars. I told him I wasn't sure Si had that much to set aside, but my lawyer said, “We'll start with a demand that's on the high side and let them bargain us down.”