Chocolates for Breakfast (15 page)

Courtney smiled at him. “You're not so wicked, are you? Not so different.”

“Angel,” he smiled. He put his arms around her and ran his hand through her hair. “When will I see you?”

“I'll call you when I wake up.”

“Promise me,” he said. “As soon as you wake up.” He sighed. “I can see now that my social life will be shot. Becoming the lover of a moral child. I never envisioned such a fate. I should have known better than to get involved with an Irish girl. They're all so moody and passionate, and so terribly conscience-stricken about the whole thing. You know,” he said, “I can't go on seeing you constantly. Only for a while, then my polygamous self will be reasserted.”

“You think so,” she smiled. “We'll see. You haven't made such an auspicious beginning, you know. Dropping your pose. You've made yourself vulnerable.”

“Courtney,” he said, “have you ever been beaten?”

They laughed and it wasn't ugly any more.

Chapter 18

W
hen she went home that night Courtney was not afraid, and her first thought on waking was: I have been loved. She was surprised and pleased that she felt neither the burden of loneliness nor the consciousness of sin. Because there had been no love, because, actually, there had been not even desire, there was no guilt. It had simply happened. She looked forward to seeing Anthony, and she thought again: Perhaps this is what I have been looking for. Perhaps this is love without evil, without the ugliness.

She cleaned her room, a thing which she had not done in days, and then she called Anthony. Her mother was not in; she had gotten a featured role on a TV dramatic show, and was at rehearsal. Courtney was reassured by her absence. It was good to have her mother working again, it was, as Sondra said, “Like the old days.” It was different now, though. Courtney no longer felt dependent on her mother's success, and her ability to pay bills and take her to dinner. While Courtney made breakfast for herself, as she had so often when her mother was working in Hollywood, she realized how, first with Barry, then with Janet's friends, and now with Anthony, her life had become separate from her mother's. The feeling of independence reassured her. Centering her life around men rather than around her mother was more secure: men were at least replaceable if they failed.

Although Anthony offered to pick her up, Courtney chose to go to the Pierre by herself. Even though her mother was not home, the doorman might mention to her mother that she had left with a young man, and Courtney did not want her mother to know how much time she spent with Anthony. She left a note that she and Janet were going to the movies and would probably go on to dinner and then to a cocktail party. She was careful to account for the whole day in her note to her mother. How we deceive our parents, she thought as she propped the note beside the telephone. But it's kinder this way; it would hurt them to know us better. She took the subway, because the contrast between the subway and Anthony's suite amused her. As she walked into the Pierre, she thought to herself with pleasure, “I always live in glamour.” But then she cut herself short because she was beginning to sound like her mother. She knocked on the door.

“Hello, darling.” He greeted her casually and without presumed familiarity. “Come into the living room, the bedroom depresses me in the morning. Beds in the morning,” he said as they walked into the other room, “are merely something to be gotten out of.” He looked at her. “I've been thinking of you all morning, angel. Oh, have you had breakfast?”

“Yes, before I came.”

“Well, then, have some coffee with me.”

“Anthony, did I wake you up or something? You haven't shaved.”

“No.” He smiled. “I've decided to grow a beard. I had a three-day growth a couple of weeks ago, and it had a marvelous effect on the elevator men. I really couldn't find suitably iniquitous occupation, though, so I shaved it off.”

“Well, I think you should shave it off again. It looks foolish.”

“Oh, dear, you're always deflating me. Do you drink your coffee black?”

She nodded.

“I'm terribly bored this morning, angel. But I can't think of any hope for it as I consider making love in the morning a barbaric practice.”

Courtney suddenly wondered what she was doing here, but the sensation passed quickly. She sipped her coffee.

“Are you depressed this morning, Courtney?”

“No, I don't think so.”

“Come sit by me,” he said as he put down his coffee. She sat beside him and he put his arm around her. She leaned against him and felt at peace again. “Tony will tell you a story,” he said.

“Oh, no,” said Courtney. “Not another tale of deviation.”

“No,” he said. “This is the story of a child.”

She settled comfortably in his arms.

“This is the story,” he said in his low, gentle voice, “of a little boy who lost his childhood. The boy was bred to wealth and boredom and his nursery was a little pocket of a private beach on the prewar Riviera. It was a lovely beach, with fine white sand and quiet waters, and there was always sun on the beach. There were some caves in a cliff at the end of the beach, very mysterious. It was really an ideal nursery. He and his childhood used to play with each other there, swimming and building intricate castles, and his parents were content to let him play without his governess because he had his childhood to keep him company. They got along so awfully well. So his parents had lavish lunches for charming people, and never needed to worry about their little boy.”

“Wasn't there ever anyone else on the beach?” asked Courtney. “You mean, he just played by himself all day long?”

“I told you,” said Anthony patiently, “it was a private beach. Besides, he had his childhood to play with him. Now, don't interrupt me with these academic enquiries.”

Courtney nodded, chastised. He brushed her hair gently from her forehead as he resumed his story.

“He was ecstatically happy, this little boy. He was terribly fond of his childhood, and didn't go anywhere without it. One day, he was exploring the caves in the cliff. Now, he had never been off the private beach, so exploring was very exciting to him. It was dark in the cave, and darkness was something he wasn't used to. You see, it was always sunny on his beach. When he went into the cave he was a little frightened, but he soon got over that in his excitement. He even forgot to pay attention to his childhood as he wandered through the tunnel. Well, he found to his delight that the tunnel went all the way through the cliff, and he saw sunlight ahead of him. He came out at the other end and found himself on one of those ghastly public beaches, with men rubbing sun-tan oil on women's backs and lying with the
Times
over their heads. It was a shocking sight, so he hurried back into the cave. When he came out on his own beach, he looked behind him, and suddenly realized that he had lost his childhood somewhere between the two beaches.”

“Didn't he go back to look for it?”

“No, of course not,” Anthony said crossly. “If you must know, he called into the cave, but there wasn't any answer, so he simply walked wretchedly back to his villa and had a Brandy Alexander.”

“He never found it again,” Courtney said despondently.

“No,” said Anthony gravely. “It was lost for good.”

“What a sad story. What's the moral?”

“Now, the moral is obvious, angel, and if you're so thick you can't see it, I refuse to explain it to you. Did you like the story?”

“Yes,” she said. “I like it very much.”

“Do you feel better now?”

“Yes,” she smiled.

“I thought you would,” he said. He ran his fingers along her mouth, tracing its curves. “Perhaps it's not so barbaric to make love in the morning,” he said thoughtfully.

“Perhaps not.”

The sun was soft, spilling through the partly closed Venetian blinds. It was very still, with no indication that life existed beyond the room.

“I want to lie here for years,” he said. “Just like this. Making love and then lying here like this.”

“And people will walk to work in the morning,” said Courtney, “and come home to nag their wives and pay their bills, and everyone will grow old outside our room. And we'll just lie here like children in a secret place.”

“Building sand castles.” He smiled. “Did it ever occur to you that we might sound a little foolish?”

“No, not really,” said Courtney thoughtfully. “The people who sit and pay their bills are the ones that sound foolish to me.”

“Think of it,” he said. “Never living to excess, never taking a chance, never touching the heights.”

“I don't know that we would touch any heights, either,” said Courtney, thoughtfully. “Maybe we would go as far as scaling the walls of our secret garden, but that would be all.”

“And drop back in horror at the sight of the outside world?” He put his head against her breasts like a child and ran his thumb absently along her arm. “Possibly you're right. I've done my damndest to find the heights. Making love, risking my life, occasionally—in my wayward youth,” he smiled “—getting involved in slightly illegal dealings. None of it really worked, though. Something was still missing.”

“I don't know, really. Sometimes I think it's necessary to be a child to find the heights—you know, illusion is necessary. Then sometimes I think the harsh light of adult reality is what's needed, and that children only climb sand hills.”

“We haven't any choice in the matter,” he said. “If it takes an adult to know the joys of excess, I haven't any hope. So I like to think that only a child can come upon euthanasia, that isolation at the height of ecstasy. But the question is academic,” he said crossly, “and it depresses me.”

“We need some wine,” she said, “and some lunch, to descend from fantasy for a moment.”

“Yes,” he said sadly, “I suppose we do.”

“Where will we go? Some place special, heavy and dark, where we'll drink marvelous white wine and have things flambeau.”

“I know a place,” he said. “You have expensive tastes, my dear.”

“Not always,” she said. “But I have always eaten either very expensive food or terribly cheap food. I refuse the in-between. Both poverty and wealth are excellent things, because they are extremes, but the middle ground is damaging to the soul.”

“Schrafft's,” he said. “Good, wholesome food at a moderate price.”

“And three women haggling over the check.”

“I agree with you,” he said. “Far better a fifty-cent meal served by fugitives from an early Bogart picture, in filthy aprons.”

“You know,” she said, “we're going to have a delightful life.”

The restaurant was exactly what Courtney wanted. They walked down stone steps to enter it, and when they sat down they lost all awareness of the fact that it was daytime.

They were the only young people in the dimly lit room, which was half filled with leisurely diners. Courtney had not known that such places existed in New York, and she was enchanted. She did not have to think of the cost of the meal, because she knew that, somehow, the world gave Anthony his living without his having to work for it.

Courtney sat with studied nonchalance while the waiter set her roast duck afire in solemn ceremony. When he had left she sipped her wine, and then looked over at Anthony. Her face was relaxed and very young, and her eyes were green indeed in the dimness.

“I'm marvelously happy,” she said.

He watched her silently for a few minutes.

“You know,” Anthony smiled, “if I'm not awfully careful I shall fall in love with you.”

“Oh, no,” she said solemnly, “you mustn't do that.”

“You object?”

“You must promise me never to fall in love with me.”

“What an odd child,” he said. “I'll promise, if you wish.”

“And you must keep your promise, like a monastic vow.”

“I'll do my best, angel. Because you're quite right; if we ever fell in love we should fail miserably in our quest. Great phantoms of doubt and jealousy would slip into our room. We must hold to our vow, and keep ourselves pure.”

“This is a marvelous wine,” she said suddenly, “and an enchanting place. I like it here.” She looked at him thoughtfully. “No, I mustn't say that. I mustn't say that wherever I am with you seems enchanting.”

“No, you mustn't say that.”

“We're idiots, do you know that?”

“The thought had occurred to me once or twice today,” he said. “Now eat the dinner that you were so anxious to get.”

“And then what will we do?”

“I don't know. Does it really matter?”

“No,” she said thoughtfully.

Chapter 19

T
ime passed in timelessness, and the city settled down under the oppressive heat of July. In almost a month not a day had passed when Courtney had not seen Anthony, and as she lay on her bed with her clothes off in a vain attempt to keep cool she felt strange at being alone. Anthony had called her when she woke up late in the morning, and had told her that he would have to have dinner with his lawyers that evening. They were conferring about his estate, and he would be with them for several hours after dinner as well. Courtney was faced with the prospect of having dinner with her mother, or alone. Neither appealed to her, so she decided to call Janet. Janet was delighted to hear from her.

“Courtney, sweetie, what has happened to you? I called a few times, but you were always out. Have you been having a mad affair with someone?”

“I've been awfully busy,” Courtney answered. She did not want to tell Janet about Anthony, because she felt a little disloyal, knowing about Janet and Anthony when Janet had visited his island last winter. “I really meant to call you,” she went on. “Look, I wondered if you were tied up this evening?”

“I'm not doing anything for dinner, except the family, but after dinner I'm going to Pete Murray's cocktail party. You remember Pete?”

“Vaguely. Well, what about my seeing you for dinner, then?”

“Sweetie, that would be great. Then maybe you could come to the party. I know Pete wouldn't mind.”

“I don't have a date—”

“That doesn't make any difference. You'll know the whole crowd. It's going to be a real blast—the whole of Pete's house is turned over to us. His family is away for the weekend, and every bad actor in town will be there.”

At its wildest, Courtney knew that at least the party would be better than sitting at home. Courtney felt more and more ill at ease with her parents these days, conscious that somehow she was betraying them, and painfully aware of how careful she must be to keep them, for their own sakes, from knowing of her life with Anthony. It was a difficult duality that she must maintain at home, and she avoided contact with her parents as much as possible.

“Jan, I really would love to go to the party,” Courtney said finally. “Are you sure your parents won't mind my coming up for dinner?”

“Well,
I
would be delighted to have you, sweetie, and it's as much my home as theirs. I'm afraid dinner will be a real drag, though. Mother is back, and Daddy will be there, too.”

“That's all right, Jan. It will be great to see you, and I'm really sorry I haven't called before.”

“Don't worry about it, Court. You can come right on up—it's about five thirty, isn't it?”

“Yes. I'll be there about six. So long, sweetie.”

The familiarity of Janet's apartment was reassuring to Courtney; it was reassuring to be reminded that she had a group to return to if somehow her world with Anthony should dissolve. Although she could see no reason why her garden should wither, the caution that she had learned at such great cost remained with her.

Courtney had not seen Mrs. Parker in almost three years, but Janet's mother was just as Courtney had remembered her. She was a slight woman, with the small, regular features and the almost formless face of the women whose pictures can be found every day on the social page of
The New York Times
with the caption: Benefit Aides. She was wearing a nondescript black suit and clutching a glass of sherry as though it were a period prop which she had just been handed and was not yet accustomed to. When Courtney came in she rose with great agitation to greet her, as though she was anxious to take Courtney's attention from Mr. Parker, who was sitting beside the window with his usual glass of bourbon.

“Courtney dear, I'm so glad to see you, it has been such a long time. Thanksgiving vacation a long time ago, when you and Janet were in Scaisbrooke, I think it was, you
have
changed, you look so much
older
, but then I suppose you are”—this with a little laugh—“I was so glad when Janet told me you were coming to dinner with us, I've been looking forward to seeing you so much,” and by this time her speech had carried her across the room and she kissed Courtney on the cheek, a gesture which Courtney had objected to since she was a little girl.

“It's good to see you again, Mrs. Parker. You're looking very well,” Courtney managed to say.

“David,” Mrs. Parker addressed her husband, “
isn't
it nice to have Courtney with us.”

“Mmm-hmm,” he said, not moving from his chair. “How have you been, Courtney? Janet tells us that you're going to a tutor in the fall.”

“Yes,” Courtney answered, “Mummy thought it would be good for me to have intensive schoolwork without all the rules I had at Scaisbrooke.”

“You know,” said Mrs. Parker with her head to one side, “I was saying to my husband that it might be a good idea for Janet to go to a tutor, rather than going back to that school she went to last year, because she didn't seem to be very happy there.”

Janet laughed. “They just sent Daddy a letter saying that I might be happier somewhere else, and indicating that they might be happier, too. The polite axe.”

“It might be a very good idea,” said Courtney.

“We'll have to look into that, won't we, David?” Receiving no response, she continued, “What is the name of your tutor, dear?”

“Mr. Bigelow,” Courtney answered. “I'll write it down for you.”

As she wrote the name and address of her tutoring school, Courtney looked over at Mr. Parker. What a strange, angry man, she thought. He looked very sorry for himself, sitting with his glass of bourbon. She remembered that Janet said he was worse when Mrs. Parker was home, that the rest of the time they had a sort of understanding, but when the third person entered the house his rages and his crying jags were more frequent. “I hear him getting up at five in the morning,” Janet had said, “and when I go into the kitchen in the morning there is almost always an empty fifth of bourbon on the counter.”

The maid came out of the kitchen.

“Dinner is served, Mrs. Parker,” she said as though unfamiliar with the phrase and her new mistress.

“Thank you, Ann,” said Mrs. Parker. “I do hope there is enough, Courtney. Janet told us at the last minute that you were coming and I did wish she had given us a little more warning, but she is so vague about these things, springing guests and parties on us without
any
warning. I do wish she would be more considerate of Mr. Parker and myself,” she said to Courtney in a confidential tone.

“Court, do you want to wash up or anything—in other words, go to the john?” asked Janet.

Courtney was enough at home in the Parker household so that she would have excused herself had she cared to, and she sensed in Janet's unnecessary remark that Janet had something she wanted to tell her.

“Yes, I think I will,” said Courtney. “Please excuse us.”

When she entered Janet's room, Janet closed the door and took a letter from the jumble of clothes in her top drawer.

“It's been so long that I haven't had a chance to tell you anything,” Janet said. “I've been having a
thing
with this really great guy, Marshall Richards, for weeks now,” she explained. “We're madly in love, and he wants to marry me and all, and Daddy can't stand him—he's a really bad actor—bad news all the way—and he wrote me this letter from Newport last week.” She opened the letter. “This is the part you've really got to hear. ‘I hope that your father, that Babbittesque caricature of Samuel P. Insull, is sufficiently steeped in drink so that the next time I see you we won't have another scene like the last.' ”

“Very amusing,” Courtney said, “but what is the point of all this?”

“Well, I've suspected for a long time now that Daddy has been reading my mail, so I stopped leaving letters around the house. Last night though, when I looked in my drawer for this letter to get Marshall's address, it wasn't there, and this morning it had somehow returned. There's a whole lot more in the letter, too, about my body, and how much he loves me, and all that.”

“This is all your father needs,” said Courtney.

“Well, he knows about me already, because once when we were having an argument I threw it up at him because I knew it would make him mad. But the thing I'm glad about is that I caught him in the act this time. So at dinner I want to let him know that I know he's read the letter. That's why I wanted to tell you before dinner,” Janet said. “Now we'd better go out so we don't hold up dinner. Daddy is drunk as a lord,” she added as they went out the door.

Courtney and Janet took their appointed places at the dinner table, beside each other. The maid brought the first course, and they ate in strained silence. Mr. Parker was contemplating the centerpiece with a fixed and moody gaze, and Mrs. Parker was nervously alternating her food with sips of water, because she drank only one glass of sherry, never more or less, a day. Mr. Parker's fresh glass of bourbon was beside him.

“How are your parents, Courtney?” asked Mrs. Parker in an attempt at conversation.

“They're fine, thank you.”

“I would like to meet them some time. They must be very talented people.”

There was another agonizing silence as the first course was cleared and the soup brought.

“Daddy,” Janet said suddenly, “who was Samuel P. Insull?”

Mr. Parker fixed his gaze upon his daughter.

“Why do you want to know?”

“I ran across his name in a book,” Courtney said hastily, “and I asked Janet who he was. She thought you might know.”

“He was a very great man,” Mr. Parker answered gravely.

“But what did he do?” asked Janet.

“He controlled utilities in Chicago.”

“What was he like?” asked Courtney.

“A great public benefactor,” Mr. Parker said solemnly. “He gave his fortune to the Chicago Opera. A very generous and great man. A man who should be the model and inspiration for any businessman,” he continued.

Courtney was delighted. Knowing the game they were playing, Mr. Parker was extolling the virtues of the Chicago tycoon. He was really getting quite worked up, she thought as she listened to him, quite personally involved, as though he were defending himself against his daughter's thrust.

“Yes, a very great man,” Mr. Parker repeated, taking another sip of his drink. “He had very little education, Samuel P. Insull, but he never forgot where he came from, and how he got to where he was. That's a thing a great many people overlook,” he went on. “Janet with her debutante parties and her friends and her snobbery, she's forgotten the value of hard work. Hard work, and humility. That's why she can have all these things, because I worked so hard. Started as a messenger in the firm I work with, just a clerk when her mother and I were married, worked my way up. My own hard work, humility, and God's help.”

Courtney was beginning to get a little embarrassed by the man's alcoholic intensity. Their game was getting out of hand.

“God's help,” he repeated. “Young people these days forget to thank God. To thank God for what He has given them, to respect their parents and fulfill their obligations. Ungrateful, the whole generation. Worthless.” He started to weep quietly as he talked.

Courtney said nothing.

“Now, David,” said his wife in agitation, “don't upset yourself.”

He turned to her angrily. “Shut up.”

There was a silence broken only by Mr. Parker's heavy breathing. He blew his nose loudly. Courtney looked at her dinner with fleeting distaste.

“You read that letter.” Janet broke the silence. “You went into my drawer and you took out a letter written to me, and you read it.”

He didn't answer.

“You know you had no right to do that,” she said triumphantly. “And it was because you read that letter, because of what it said about me and the boy who wrote it, that you cut a hundred dollars of my allowance this morning. You weren't fining me for coming in late last night. You were taking almost half of my allowance, because that was the only way you knew of hurting me, because you knew I didn't care what you said or thought of me any more. The only hold you have over me is money, and you know it. You know that's the only reason I stay in this house, because the food and the bed are free!”

He looked up in fury, struck in his most vulnerable point.

“Yes, I read that letter,” he said. “I have a right to know what you're doing, as long as I pay the bills. I have a right to know what everybody else in New York seems to know, that my daughter is nothing but a whore!”

They knew how to hurt each other, these two.

“Sure I sleep with boys!” Janet was almost shouting. “What do you expect me to do? At least they care what happens to me, at least I know I'm wanted. Do you expect me to stay in this house at night, when all I get is abuse from a drunken father? Do you think I feel this is a home?”

The maid came and cleared the dishes, bringing the main course unnoticed. Mrs. Parker had started to cry, and got up hastily, running into the bedroom. Courtney was very hungry, and tackled her dinner with relish.

“You can leave,” Mr. Parker was saying. “You can leave whenever you feel like it; you're eighteen. I'll be glad to see you go. How do you think I feel when I sit here alone at night and I know you're off sleeping with some drunken college boy?”

“Just the way I hope you feel. Just the way I want you to feel.”

The lamb chops were a little too well done, Courtney noticed.

“All I worked for all my life,” he shouted. “I wasn't working for myself, I was working for you, and your mother—”

“Crap,” said Janet calmly.