Rich Man, Poor Man (82 page)

Brad remained at the bar and ordered another drink. He always had a high flush on his face, but it was impossible to tell whether it was from the sun or from drink. ‘A man of your stature,’ Brad said. ‘Everybody in this town always talks about you as though you’re ten feet tall.’ That’s why I stick to this town,’ Rudolph said. ‘You going to stay here when you quit?’ Brad didn’t look at Rudolph while he spoke, but nodded at Hank as Hank put his glass in front of him on the bar.

‘Who said anything about quitting?’ Rudolph had not talked to Brad about his plans, ‘Things get around,’ ‘Who told you?’ ‘You are going to quit, aren’t you?’ ‘Who told you?’

‘Virginia Calderwood,’ Brad said. ‘Oh.’

‘She overheard her father talking to her mother.’ Spy, information gatherer, demented night-lurker on quiet feet, Virginia Calderwood, listening in and out of shadows.

‘I’ve been seeing her the last couple of months,’ Brad said. ‘She’s a nice girl.’

Student of character, Bradford Knight, originally from Oklahoma, open Western plains, where things were what they seemed to be. ‘Uhuh,’ Rudolph said.

‘Have you and the old man discussed who’s going to take your place?’

‘Yes, we’ve discussed it.’ ‘Who’s it going to be?’ ‘We haven’t decided yet’

‘Well,’ Bradford said, smiling, but more flushed than ever, ‘give an old college chum at least ten minutes notice before it’s announced, will you?’ ‘Yes. What else has Miss Calderwood told you?’ ‘Nothing much,’ Brad said offhandedly. ‘That she loves me. Stuff like that. Have you seen her recently?’

‘No.’ Rudolph hadn’t seen her since the night Enid was born. Six weeks wasn’t recently.

‘We’ve had some laughs together,’ Brad said. ‘Her appearance is deceptive. She’s a fun girl.’

New aspects of the lady’s character. Given to laughter. A fun girl. Merriment on porches at midnight. ‘Actually,’ Brad said, ‘I’m considering marrying her.’ ‘Why?’ Rudolph asked. Although he could guess why. ‘I’m tired of whoring around,’ Brad said. ‘I’m getting on towards forty and it’s becoming wearing.’ Not the whole answer, friend, Rudolph thought. Nowhere near the whole answer.

‘Maybe I’m impressed with your example,’ Brad said. ‘If marriage is good enough for a man of your stature -‘ He grinned, burly and red. ‘It ought to be good enough for a man of mine. Conjugal bliss.’

‘You didn’t have much conjugal bliss the last time. That’s for sure,’ Brad said. His first marriage, to the daughter of an oil man, had lasted six months. ‘But I was younger then. And I wasn’t married to a decent girl like Virginia.*And maybe my luck’s changed.’

Rudolph took a deep breath. ‘Your luck hasn’t changed, Brad,’ he said quietly. Then he told Brad about Virginia Calderwood, about the letters, the phone calls, the ambushes in front of his apartment, the last crazy scene just six weeks ago. Brad listened in silence. All he said, at the end, was, ‘It must be plain glorious to be as wildly desirable as you, kid.*

Jean came up then, shining from her shower, her hair tied back in a velvet bow, her brown legs bare in moccasins. ‘Hi, Mom,’ Brad said, getting off his bar stool and kissing her. ‘Let me buy everybody a drink.’

They talked about the baby and golf and tennis and the new play that was going into the Whitby Theatre, which was opening for the season next week. Virginia Calderwood’s name wasn’t mentioned, and after he had finished his drink, Brad said, Well, me for a shower,’ and signed for the drinks and ambled off, a thickening aging man in orange pants, his expensive golf shoes making a pecking noise with their spikes on the scarred wooden floor.

Two weeks later, the invitation to the wedding of Miss Virginia Calderwood to Mr Bradford Knight was in the morning mail. The organ struck up the wedding march and Virginia came down the aisle on her father’s arm. She looked pretty, delicate, fragile, and composed, in her bridal white. She did not look at Rudolph as she passed him, although he was standing in a front pew, with Jean beside him. Bradford Knight, bridegroom, sweating a little and flushed in the June heat, was waiting at the altar, with Johnny Heath, best man, both of them in striped pants and Prince Alberts. People had been surprised that Rudolph hadn’t been chosen as best man, but Rudolph had not been surprised.

It’s my doing, Rudolph thought, as he half listened to the service. I brought him here from Oklahoma. I took him into the business, I refused the bride. It’s my doing, am I responsible?

The wedding was held at the Country Club. The buffet was laid on a long table under an awning and tables were set all around the lawn, under brightly coloured umbrellas. A band played on the terrace, where the bride and bridegroom, now dressed for travelling, had led the first dance, a waltz. Rudolph had been surprised at how well Brad, who did not seem like a graceful man, had danced.

Rudolph had kissed the bride dutifully. Virginia had smiled at him with exactly the same smile she had given everybody else, Maybe, Rudolph thought, it’s all over, she’s going to be all right.

Jean had insisted upon dancing with him, although he had protested. ‘How can you dance in the middle of the day?’

‘I love weddings,’ Jean said, holding him close. “Other people’s.’ Then, maliciously, ‘Shouldn’t you get up and make a toast to the bride? You might mention what a loyal friend she is - waiting outside your door night after night to make sure you got home safely and calling you at all hours to see if you were afraid in the dark and offering to keep you company in your poor lonely bed?’

‘Sssh,’ Rudolph said, looking around apprehensively. He hadn’t told her about the night of the hospital.

‘She does look beautiful,’ Jean said. ‘Are you sorry about your choice?’

‘In despair,’ he said. ‘Now, dance.’

The boys in the band were a combination from the college and Rudolph was saddened by how well they played. He remembered his days with the trumpet when he was about their age. The young did everything so much better these days. The boys on the Port Philip track team were running the two twenty, his old distance, at least two seconds faster than he had ever run it. “Let’s get off this damned floor,’ he said. ‘I feel crowded.’

They went over and had a glass of champagne and talked to Brad’s father, who had come from Tulsa for the occasion, wearing a wide-brimmed Stetson hat. He was weatherbeaten and thin and had deep sun-creases in the back of his neck. He didn’t look like a man who had won and lost fortunes, but rather like a small-part player in the movies, hired to play the sheriff in a Western.

‘Brad sure has talked enough about you, sir,’ old man Knight said to Rudolph. ‘And about your beautiful young bride.’ He raised his glass gallantly to Jean, who had taken off her hat and who now looked not bridal, but coeducational. ‘Yes, sir, Mister Jordache,’ old man Knight went on, ‘my son Brad is eternally in your debt, and don’t think he doesn’t know it. He was turning on his own tail out there in Oklahoma, hardly knowing where his next square meal was coming from when he got the call from you to come East. And I was in mighty poor straits myself at the time, I don’t mind telling you, and I couldn’t raise the price of a broken-down oil rig to help my boy. I’m proud to say I’m back on my own two feet again, now, but-for a while there it looked like poor old Pete Knight was finally ready to be put to rest Me and Brad were living in one room and eating chili three times a day for sustenance when like a bolt from the blue, the call came from his friend Rudy. I told him when he came home from the service, now you see here, Brad, you take the offer of the United States Government, and you go get yourself to a college with that old GI Bill of Rights, from now on a man ain’t going to be worth spit in this country if he ain’t been to college. He’s a good boy, Brad, and he had the sense to listen to his pa, and now look at bimer He beamed across the dance floor to where his son and Virginia and Johnny Heath were drinking champagne among a group of the younger guests. ‘All dressed up, drinking champagne, with all the future in the world, married to a beautiful young heiress. And if he ever says he doesn’t owe it all to his friend Rudy, his pall be the first to call him a liar.’

Brad and Virginia came over with Johnny to pay their respects to Knight and the old man took Virginia on to the floor to dance with her, while Brad danced with Jean.

‘You’re not celebrating much today, are you Rudy,’ Johnny asked. Nothing escaped those sleepy eyes in that smooth round face.

The bride is pretty, the champagne beautiful, the sun is shining, my friend thinks he’s got it made for life,’ Rudolph said. ‘Why shouldn’t I be celebrating?’ ‘As I said,’ Johnny said.

‘My glass is empty,’ said Rudolph. ‘Let’s get some more wine.’ He started towards the end of the buffet table under the awning, where the bar had been set up.

‘We’re going to have an answer on Monday from Harrison,’ Johnny said. ‘I think he’s going to go for the deal. You’ll have your toy.’

Rudolph nodded. Although it annoyed him when Johnny, who didn’t see how any real money could ever be made out of the Sentinel, called it a toy. Whatever his feeling were, Johnny, as usual, had come through. He had found a man

called Hamlin, who was putting together a chain of small-town newspapers, to act as the buyer of record. He was contracted

to sell out his interest to Rudolph three months later. Hamlin was a hard dealer and he had demanded three per cent of the

purchase price for his services, but he had beaten down Harrison’s first demands so far that it was worthwhile to meet his conditions.

At the bar, Rudolph was clapped on the back by Sid Grosset, who had been Mayor of Whitby until the last election, and who was sent every four years as a delegate to the Republican convention. He was a hearty, friendly man, a lawyer by profession, who had successfully squashed rumours that he had taken bribes while he was in office, but had chosen not to run at the last election. Wisely, people said. The present mayor of the town, a Democrat, was at the other end of the bar, equally drinking Calderwood’s champagne. Everybody had turned out for the wedding.

‘Hi, young man,* Grossett said. ‘I’ve been hearing about you.’

‘Good or bad?’ Rudolph asked.

‘Nobody ever hears anything bad about Rudolph Jordache,’ Grossett said. He wasn’t a politician for nothing.

‘Hear, hear,’ Johnny Heath said.

‘Hi, Johnny.’ A handshake for everybody. There was always another election. ‘I got it from the horse’s mouth,’ Grossett said. ‘You’re quitting Dee Cee at the end of the month.’

‘Who’s the horse this time?’

‘Mr Duncan Calderwood.’

‘The emotions of the day must have gone to the poor old man’s head,’ Rudolph said. He didn’t want to talk about his business to Grossett, or answer questions about what he was going to do next. There was plenty of time for that later.

‘The day any emotions go to Duncan Calderwood’s head,’ Grossett said, ‘you call me. I’ll come running. He tells me he doesn’t know what your future plans are. In fact, he said, he didn’t know if you had any plans. But just in case you’re open to suggestions - ‘ He swivelled around sniffing the air for possible Democrats. ‘Maybe we could talk in a day or two. Maybe you could come around to my office some afternoon next week.’

‘I’m going to be in New York next week.’

‘Well, there’s no sense beating about the bush,’ Grossett said. ‘Have you ever thought you’d like to go into politics?’

‘When I was twenty,’ Rudolph said. ‘Now that I’m old and wise’

‘Don’t give me that,’ Grossett said roughly. ‘Everybody thinks about going into politics. Especially somebody like you. Rich, popular, with a big success behind you, a beautiful wife, looking for new worlds to conquer.’

‘Don’t tell me you want to run me for President, now that

Kennedy’s dead,’ Rudolph said.

‘I know that’s a joke,’ Grossett said earnestly. ‘But who knows if it’ll still be a joke ten years, twelve years from now? No. You got to start politics on a local level, Rudy, and right here in this town you’re everybody’s fair-haired boy. Am I right, Johnny,’ he turned, pleading to the best man, ‘Everybody’s fair-haired boy,’ Johnny nodded. ‘Up from poverty, went to college right here, handsome, educated, public spirited.’

‘I’ve always felt I was actually private spirited,’ Rudolph said, to cut off the praise.

‘Okay, be smart. But just look at all the goddamn committees you’re on. And you haven’t got an enemy in the world.’

‘Don’t insult me, Sid.’ Rudolph was enjoying baiting the insistent little man, but he was listening more closely than he seemed to be. ‘I know what I’m talking about.’

‘You don’t even know whether I’m a Democrat or a Republican,’ Rudolph said. ‘Ask Leon Harrison and he’ll tell you I’m a Communist.’

‘Leon Harrison is an old fart,’ Grossett said, ‘If I had my way I’d take up a collection to buy his paper away from him.* Rudolph couldn’t refrain from winking at Johnny Heath. ‘I know what you are,’ Grossett went plugging on. ‘You’re a Kennedy-type Republican. It’s a winning model, Just what the old Party needs.’

‘Now that you’ve got the pin in me, Sid.’ Rudolph said, ‘mount me and put me in a glass case.’ He disliked being categorised, no matter what category.

The place I want to put you is in the Whitby Town Hall,’ Grossett said. ‘As Mayor. And I bet I can do it. How do you like that? And from then on, up the ladder, up the ladder. I suppose you wouldn’t like to be a Senator, the Senator from New York, I suppose that rubs you the wrong way, doesn’t it?’ ‘Sid,’ Rudolph said gently, ‘I’ve been teasing you. I’m flattered, really I am. I’ll be in next week to see you, I promise. Now, let’s remember this is a wedding, not a smoke-filled hotel room. I’m off to dance with the bride.’

He set down his glass and gave Grossett’s shoulder a friendly pat, then went looking for Virginia. He hadn’t danced with her yet and if he didn’t go around the floor at least once with her, there would undoubtedly be talk. It was a small town and there were sharp eyes and tongues everywhere. Good Democrat, potential Senator, he approached the bride

where she stood, demure and gay, under an awning, her hand light and loving on her new husband’s arm. ‘May I have the honour?’ Rudolph asked.