Classic Love: 7 Vintage Romances (5 page)

Rodney, the charmer, made instant inroads with all and sundry. Naturally Nancy made Cleopatra eyes at him, and he told her she was Titania, should wear a jewelled diadem round her hair and that if all American girls were anything like her he would very much enjoy being in this part of the world.

“That’s a bit thick,” Nancy retorted, though clearly satisfied with his assessment of her. “You must have met dozens and dozens of American girls. I thought only Italians laid on the baloney like that. I thought British men were too busy ad’ miring themselves.”

“You probably think we all wear bowlers and go to the city every day with furled umbrellas.”

“Don’t you?”

“Some. The rest of us idle our time away at pubs and clubs and sleep late of a morning.”

“Then you should mend your ways.”

With Bruce Rodney was very matey, treating him like someone his own age, very man to man. He asked Bruce question after question about his studies, career aspirations and when informed about the latter turned to Carl with a congratulatory expression.

“You must be frightfully proud,” he said heartily. “Your son following in your footsteps. It’s just what every father wants. Good for you, Bruce, I think that’s splendid.”

As for Christine, he kept glancing her way every now and then, with a kind of conspiratorial look, as if they were in this together, he and she, a sort of Hansel and Gretel pair, venturing into the company of others and on their best behavior. She was amused at his proprietary manner toward her: he entertained the others rather like a host putting guests at their ease, but with her there was an air of insouciant camaraderie. She wouldn’t have been one bit surprised if, leaving the dining room after the meal for coffee and liqueurs in the living room, he had slapped her on the back with a pally hand and called her “Ducks.”

He seemed, in fact, to have adopted her, rather than the other way around.

They all stayed up rather late that night, discussing conditions abroad, the state of the dollar and fluctuations of all currency in these latter days, talking about employment and unemployment: all the polite things people talked about when they were still relatively strangers. Carl asked Rodney what his own career aspirations were and Rodney said, “Oh, I expect banking, or something beastly like that.”

Then he slid down in his chair and shrugged. What he would really like to do was write. He thought he might have some aptitude for it. “Of course,” he admitted, “in England it’s not the same as here, an author sort of, you know, just barely gets by. In this country you have all kinds of juicy plums, large advances, big reprint sales,
enormous
advantages we don’t have. Anyway, I expect it’s something I’ll get over.”

“Hey, why?” Bruce demanded eagerly. He was a serious reader. “Something creative, that’s the best.”

“Time will tell,” Rodney surmised, and covered up a burp behind a hand. “Sorry,” he murmured, glancing at Christine. “I ate far too much, I fear, but it was such a splendid meal. We don’t get haute cuisine at home, not like that. Mum’s good at putting up jams and jellies and conserves, but as for anything else it’s quite ordinary.”

“You have a cook,” Christine reminded him, smiling. “So don’t try to fool me. Furthermore, this may be the only showy meal you’ll have in this house. It’s not one of my pet occupations, chopping and dicing and braising and all that. I’d rather read a book.”

“Bully for you.”

“Maybe I’ll be reading one of yours some day.”

“I shouldn’t count on it.”

The conversation was petering out. For the first time Rodney looked tired. Young and dewy and sleepy-eyed and, Christine thought probably dying to crawl into bed. It had been a long day for him. It was about five in the morning in the city he had just left, and Christine was abundantly familiar with jet lag.

She got up. “Come, I’ll show you where things are in your room,” she said, beckoning. He dragged himself up and followed. “Good night to you all,” he called back. “Thanks for everything. Thanks so much, you’re all so kind. Cheerio and God bless.”

“God bless,” Nancy replied, and the rest of them said simply “Good night, Rodney.”

“You’ll be comfortable?” Christine asked him, pulling out the sleeper. It was made up, she had done that earlier. “Plenty of extra towels in the bathroom closet. Oh, and the refrigerator is raid-able in case you wake up dying for a snack.”

“I shall be just fine,” he assured her. “Everything, simply everything is super. I can’t thank you enough. I feel so at home.”

“That’s the way you’re supposed to feel. We love having you. I love having you.”

“And now you’ll tuck me in, surely?” He twirled an imaginary mustache.

“It’s not in the contract,” she said, laughing. “Good night, my dear, and sleep well. Sleep as late as you want. The kids will be off to school, Carl will be at his office, and you won’t have to hang a Do Not Disturb sign on your door. I’ll see to it that the housekeeper knows this room is off limits.”

“I shall be up at dawn’s early light and ready to go,” he stated. “I have a whole set of plans, places to see, places I’ve heard about all my life. I’m not even sure I’ll be able to sleep for thinking about it.”

“You’ll sleep, you look half dead already. So good night, and pleasant dreams.”

“Good night, love,” he said, his eyes following her. “Good night, sweet princess.”

She was snickering as she went to her room. Nancy was Titania, she was a princess, Peggy had certainly raised a courtly boy. Carl lay on his side, his eyes closed. She thought he was asleep, but just before she got into her bed he opened one eye. “Chris?”

“What are you doing still awake? Do you realize what time you have to get up?”

“Just wanted to say good night.”

“Good night, dear.”

She snapped off her night light and lay on her back, her arms under her head. It was pleasant having company. He was a dear boy. Tomorrow they’d go sightseeing. Herself and Rodney, of course, since the others would be in absentia until the weekend. She would see that he had a really good time, and in the process have a good time herself, have a little holiday.

Lord, he certainly had a huge appetite.

• • •

He had claimed to be shy, or at least a slow starter when embarking on new horizons, but so far as Christine could see, Rodney didn’t have a timorous bone in his body. He crossed avenues against the light, learned the bus system almost at once, and had a natural sense of direction. It had been a Monday when Rodney’s flight landed in New York. By the time the weekend arrived, with Bruce and Nancy free to do the honors, Christine and the boy had covered a large portion of Manhattan, had even gone to Brooklyn at Rodney’s insistence: he wanted to see the Brooklyn Bridge.

With Rodney’s itinerary of places to see and Christine’s own preferences for him, they didn’t miss much. South Street Seaport, the Village, Gramercy Square, Henderson Place, Times Square (of course), Broadway from Forty-second Street right up to the Nineties. There was a blister on Christine’s heel, the right foot, which she covered with a Dr. Scholl’s plaster, and she was finally reduced to the walking shoes she saved for trips to Europe. She felt like a first-timer herself, seeing it with a newcomer’s eye, and to boot about fifteen years old. She was wiped out by the time Saturday came, but happily so.

However, she bowed out for the weekend. “You’re not coming with us?” Rodney demanded, when Bruce and Nancy champed at the bit to get a good early start doing the town with their guest.

“Dear, it’s their turn. After all, they have only the two days. They don’t want me barging in. They can do without the authoritative presence of Belinda the witch. Enjoy yourselves.”

“It won’t be the same,” he mourned, looking dashed.

“You should be happy to be with your peer group. They’re not that much younger, after all. Now go on, the three of you, and give it a whirl.”

“He leans on you,” Carl said when they left. “You don’t think he’s a fag, do you?”

“What in the world would make you think that?”

“They always form these attachments to older women. You know that, it’s common knowledge.”

“Thanks for referring to me as an older woman. That makes you an older man, you understand.”

“I only meant — ” he laughed, put his arms around her and told her of course he could see why that boy had a thing for her. “Anyone would, you’re a sexy broad.”

“At the moment I’m a bushed broad. Let’s eat out tonight. They won’t be home till late. I gave Bruce plenty of money for lunch and dinner.”

“Okay with me. Let’s decide where to go and I’ll make a reservation.”

“No, we’ll go to some place we won’t have to make a reservation. Just something quiet and relaxing, no fancy stuff. We don’t have to decide until later on. I’ll get these dishes done, you just take it easy.”

It was a long, pleasant day. After trudging about all week she was glad to take it easy too, just laze around, listening to music on the stereo, Schubert, Liszt, Mozart, Saint-Saëns (that gorgeous organ symphony). Changing from grabbles into the street clothes later and walking over to Tre Amici for veal piccata. The wanderers got home at a little after ten. “You took a cab, I trust,” Christine said quickly. “You weren’t walking around at this hour?”

“We took a cab,” Nancy said patiently. She looked quite set up, Rodney must have buttered her up plenty. They had a wonderful day, they enthused, gone to the Statue of Liberty and to Staten Island on the ferry. “I hope you ate well and sensibly?” Christine probed.

“Yeah, sure.”

“Did you have enough money?”

“Of course.”

The next day, Sunday, tended to drag, there was a kind of letdown. Empty rooms, a quiet house. “Mind if I put on some music?” Christine asked Carl in the early afternoon.

“Of course not, you don’t have to ask permission, you know.”

“We
could
take a walk.”

“Yeah. Maybe before dinner. How about eating out again tonight?”

“No, not particularly on a Sunday. I have a capon in the fridge, I’ll put it on around five. I have a feeling they’ll be home early tonight, there’s school tomorrow.”

She chose some records at random, put them on the turntable. They sat there in the living room, she in a caftan Carl especially liked. Sections of the Sunday
Times
were here, there and everywhere. Carl was reading the business section. It was possible he’d get a call from the hospital. Or some patient. Someone in trouble. Maybe not, though, at this time of year. The cold months brought flu and pneumonia and then he was out of the house a lot. She was a doctor’s wife, she expected that. But the phone was silent.

Once they had taken to bed when the children were out. That was long ago and far away, she thought, undismayed. There was love between them. Sex had a part in their lives, naturally, but it was not a compulsion. Carl wasn’t a man to insist on his connubial rights, he had never asked for submission. But as a doctor he regarded sex as not only pleasurable but therapeutic as well, essential for one’s well-being, the best exercise there was, and fine for the plumbing, not to mention its salutary effect on soma and psyche.

It was not passion, it was exercise. No matter. His body was dear to her, a familiar body that was always a comfort, that was there, together with hers and had been together in good times and bad. One of her aunts had said once, shortly after her husband died, “I loved going to bed with your uncle. I don’t mean for sex. Chrissie. That is, not just sex and certainly not always sex. Just having him lie close to me. I don’t know. I felt, somehow, like a pioneer wife. As if we had crossed the plains, under great duress and with terrible hardships, and had conquered the hardships. It seems so wrong that he should have been taken from me. I feel, you know, as if a terrible mistake had been made. As if it weren’t supposed to be that way, that there was a grievous error of some kind, and now it can’t be undone.”

Of course her aunt and uncle, like her own mother and father, had slept in a double bed, whereas she and Carl had single beds. It must be so sad and wrenching to reach out to the other pillow and find it empty.

But then, she reflected, it must be just as hard to turn over and see that empty, single bed beside your own.

Why was she thinking about death?

Why not, it would happen some time.

Upset with her train of thought, she got up and went to the kitchen, made some coffee. She now wished that the others would come home, wished that laughing voices would conquer the quietness, vanquish the somnolence of the hours that were passing without event.

When she went inside again with the tray with coffee urn and mugs Carl was asleep, his head back against the chair and his mouth slightly open. Soon he would start to snore.

She wasn’t annoyed. Why shouldn’t he be fagged out? He worked his butt off and he merited a weekend’s relaxation. She was, however, unwilling to drowse along with him, the two of them sitting there together, like Buddhas in their chairs, Darby and Joan. She felt like doing something and she did. She scanned the theater section, found an Italian flick playing at the Plaza. She left a note: she would be back at around five.

Then she left the house, flagged down a taxi on the street and got to the Plaza in plenty of time to catch the next showing. It was an engaging little film, with a charmingly aging Marcello Mastroianni. She enjoyed it very much and wished, when she left the theater, that she could go to some simple place for dinner and a drink, which she would very much like to do.

She thought of Clover, who could do things like that. No dependents. A man she loved but not someone she was conventionally yoked to. And no children for whom she was responsible. With a kind of startled astonishment, Christine Jennings thought — and truly for the very first time — I should never have married. I should never have had children. They ate you. Little bites over the years, like predators, or parasites, feeding on a host.

But when she let herself into the house she was heralded with welcoming cries. Carl had made a pitcher of drinks, Old Fashioneds. Nancy had prepared a tray of hors d’oeuvres. They sat her down and waited on her. Carl looked refreshed after his nap. Nancy and Bruce plopped down on the sofa beside her, Rodney sprawled on the floor at her feet. The sun, the late day sun, made a glory of the room. They asked about the film she had seen, and said they themselves had walked their feet off.