The Last Summer of the Camperdowns (29 page)
D
ESPITE MY MOTHER’S AVERSION TO THE HUMAN RACE, SHE
was an accomplished and generous hostess and beautiful to see, like a string of white lights stretched across an evening sky. “Why do you look so glum?” she asked me as I lay across my parents’ antique bed watching her dress for the party. “How would you like to be me? You’re lucky. You can hide up in your room. I’m the one who’s stuck front and center all evening with these professional windbags and their vacant wives. I’ll tell you something, Riddle, this is my enforced stint in the army and I only intend to do one short tour of duty. I feel like a preacher’s wife.”
“You don’t look like one,” I said, turning over onto my abdomen, elbows on the chenille bedspread, chin in hand. “You sure as hell don’t act like one.”
She stood up, wearing a strapless cobalt blue dress with ruffles on a boned bodice and more ruffles on the front of a full skirt that had its own red tulle crinoline. She was the world’s most sophisticated cupcake.
“Come, zip me up,” she said.
“It just seems weird, that’s all,” I said.
“What seems weird?” she asked, leaning forward, staring into the mirror, curling her long black eyelashes.
“Having a party after what’s happened. I mean, to the Devlins. It doesn’t feel right.”
“As Mr. Kipling once noted, grave digging is not cheerful, Riddle,” she said, powdering her cheeks, reaching for her lipstick, the same red shade as her crinoline.
“It’s only been ten days.”
“Life goes on.”
“I don’t understand why Camp wants to have a party. It’s like he’s celebrating.”
“Well, that’s the conventional interpretation, anyway,” my mother said. “A more enlightened thinker might conclude that he’s seen too much death in his time on this earth and this is his way of having the last word.”
“Or not caring. Or gloating.”
“Would you prefer crocodile tears? Would that satisfy your sense of propriety?”
“Do you think that Camp is happy that Michael is suffering?” I asked.
She sighed and hesitated, her hand faltering briefly before she resumed applying her lipstick.
“No,” she said finally. “I do not.”
I
COULD HEAR THE DULL
thrum of honeyed party chatter from my perch on the landing, the main floor slippery and sliding in the dross of panegyric, doggerel and indiscreet divulgence. As far as I was concerned, my parents’ get-togethers were the social equivalent of a doily.
This little get-together was further distinguished by the noisy presence of campaign workers and handpicked supporters and a number of big-ticket donors being rewarded for the size of their contributions to Camp’s campaign. Camp enjoyed a significant lead in the polls against the hapless Joe Becker, and he seemed determined to enjoy the moment. If he was worried about Michael’s threats, he kept those concerns to himself.
“Gorgeous, as usual, sheer poetry, that’s what you are, Greer,” Gin said, taking both of my mother’s milky white hands in his, surveying her as if she were someone’s idealized artistic vision, an impeccable piece of writing or a painting, as he searched in vain for a clumsy phrase, a single visible brushstroke, anything that might break the spell.
“Why, thank you, Gin, you look as cute as a button yourself,” my mother said, kissing him on the cheek, her arm wrapped lightly around his shoulders, skimming his aura rather than his person—my mother had perfected a style of hugging that was essentially devoid of human contact—a lit cigarette poised between her fingers, like a glamorous extension of her signature French manicure, inducing in her guests a sweet asphyxia.
“What a wonderful idea to have a party,” Gin said. “There’s been too much sadness. Let’s celebrate life. What better way to defy death? Oh, and here’s Mother,” he said, as Mirabel appeared behind him on the threshold of the open door.
“Greer, darling!” Mirabel exclaimed, walking right past her only child and into my mother’s arms. “Beautiful! Sensational! You are breathtaking, my dear,” Mirabel gushed, as my mother strained manfully to return the compliment.
“My, what an unusual dress, Mirabel,” she said. “Are those peacock feathers?”
“Oh, my goodness, no, dear, it’s llama. Isn’t it marvelous?” Mirabel said.
“I don’t care if it’s desiccated bull penis, you look fabulous,” my father said, lifting her off the ground with his bear hug. “If I were twenty years older . . .”
“My, you’re terrible, Camp,” Mirabel said. “Oh, and there’s dear little Quiz,” she gushed, spotting me in my pink and orange dress—my mother’s choice.
“Nobody else in the world has hair this vivid, might as well exploit the hell out of it,” she had said.
“Her name is Riddle, Mirabel,” my mother said.
“I knew it had something to do with being perplexing,” she said.
A
S THE HOUSE FILLED,
as guests grew more familiar and well oiled, the conversation ricocheted back and forth as predictably as a tennis ball, from politics—the election, Vietnam and the Watergate break-in—to people, to pop culture, to the state of things.
“We simply must find a way to convince the blue-collar chap that the opera has something to offer him.” Harold Bristol, a New York philanthropist with an interest in the arts, was holding court, expressing, to nods all around, his frustration with the common man’s preference for low culture.
“Oh, you’re so right, Harold,” Mirabel quickly agreed. “I always say to Gin, if I do nothing else in my life, let me impart my deep love of
Don Giovanni
to the man in the street.”
Sitting alone on a little embroidered stool, burying my face in a sofa pillow, I tried to suppress a giggle.
“Please,” my father said. “Who are you trying to kid? The day you find yourselves sitting next to a welder during a performance of
Carmen
is the day you’ll find another interest to inflict yourselves on.”
I reappeared from behind my protective pillow, exhilarated by Camp’s recklessness.
Generally speaking, among my parents’ set, where mortal sins were visual infractions measured in pounds and polyester, Camp’s social activism was about as welcome as a teetotaler at a wine tasting.
“Well, if it isn’t the poor man’s Che Guevara. I must say, you’re looking suitably lean and hungry. What’s new in the revolution business, Godfrey?” Gordon Crenshaw, a family friend, Scotch and soda in hand, narrow legs supporting a thick girth, hollered across the room.
“You’ve got it all wrong, Gordon. I’m just a humble, hardworking candidate from Massachusetts, an anonymous drone. I’ve got more in common with a carpenter ant than with an insurgent, let alone a name-brand revolutionary.” Camp, who had already downed a few fortifying drinks in preparation for the evening’s familiar challenges, was trying his best to be agreeable to this disagreeable man, even making a good-hearted attempt to change the subject.
“You’ve lost some frontage this year to erosion,” he said brightly enough as Gordon made his way across the room, but his efforts failed to distract.
“What the hell are you thinking, giving ammunition to the enemy with this Trang Bang business? Fact-finding mission? What unmitigated nonsense. We need to stay the course in Vietnam, unless of course you want to see all of Southeast Asia fall into the hands of the Communists? Next thing you know they’ll be marching into Washington Square. You fought a war, Camp. You know what it’s all about—or you should, anyway. If we pull out now, all we’ll be doing is dishonoring the sacrifice of the thousands of men that have died over there. Assuming you give a damn, of course.”
“Where’s Harriet?” my mother hastily inquired. She was being courteous but somewhat supercilious in her manner. She despised Gordon’s thuggish CEO demagoguery.
“She’s gone with her friends to some hen party at the Hendersons in Boston. Thank Christ. I’d heard enough of their prattle. They’re planning to spend the night. They’re very disappointed not seeing you tonight, my dear. Harriet loves to show off her friendship with you.”
“I can’t imagine why,” my mother said coyly, fully conscious of her high-wattage appeal.
“Come, come, Greer, you are every inch the movie star and you know it,” Mirabel chided, fanning her face with her fingers. “I never get tired of your performance as Maude in
The Fragrant Letter
. Oh, my, what have I said now?” She was reacting to my father and me laughing out loud, in unison. My mother hated that picture and despised the character of Maude. Inevitably, it was the role she was most identified with.
Despite Greer’s best efforts, Gordon refused to be dissuaded from his mission.
“By the way, Camp, I’ve been wanting to talk to you. Rumor is you might be sitting on the wrong side of this inheritance tax business. That’s crap. Why in hell should my family’s hard-earned wealth wind up in the hands of the government? I’ll tell you why. So they can hand out my dough to some street criminal on welfare who’ll use it to buy drugs, Kentucky Fried Chicken and a gun so he can mug me and continue to rob me blind. Is this what you’re supporting?”
“I understand your frustrations, Gordon, but I like to think it’s a more complex issue than that,” Camp said.
“Yeah, well, I’d like to think that everyone’s interested in working for a living, too, but I know goddamn well they’re not. Why not sit on your ass and let someone like me pay your way? Nice work if you can get it.”
“Time to turn down the sheets at Bellevue,” my mother whispered in my ear as Gordon, heartened by the supportive rattling of jewelry, reached for another drink. Despite my best efforts otherwise, I was beginning to enjoy myself.
“You listen to me, Chairman Mao, my grandfather and my father worked hard. I work hard. I’ve earned every bit of money and success that has come my way. I deserve it.”
“You work hard?” Uh-oh, it was official, Camp was coming undone. The tables in the room began to shake. I could hear the tinkling of glass in the china cabinet. The gardenias in the glass vase on the coffee table trembled and disseminated in invisible odorous waves. “Doing what? Struggling through three-hour liquid lunches and terrorizing your employees? I don’t care if you work from dawn to dusk—you’re amply rewarded. You think those kids from poor countries imprisoned on rock piles and tethered to sewing machines for eighteen hours a day don’t work hard? What do they deserve? Your contempt, apparently.”
“Do you talk to all your supporters this way? You might recall, Camp, I crossed party lines for you. Out of loyalty to your mother and respect for your wife’s family, I’ve been a big contributor to your campaign, but if I thought for one moment that you were serious about this socialist garbage . . . You need to get this hippie claptrap under better control, my friend. After all, you have ambitions beyond the House, so I hear. Unless you’d prefer to go back to writing songs that nobody’s ever heard of.”
“Why don’t we all just take a deep breath and calm down?” Greer urged. “Camp tends to be idealistic and impassioned. He’s a true romantic. They’re a scarce commodity. All the more reason to cherish him.”
“Jesus Christ, Greer, I’m not Howdy Doody,” Camp protested.
“I think it runs a little deeper than idealistic intemperance or exuberance, Greer. Have you read this man’s books? Sheer claptrap.” Gordon was talking about Camp as if he were invisible, or at least beyond the reach of rational discourse.
“Oh, Gordon, come now, we’re so fortunate to have Camp at the intellectual helm. He makes the hard decisions so we don’t need to. It’s very restful,” my mother said.
Crenshaw laughed, a deep appreciative guffaw, as empty in its own way as the champagne glasses spread out on the bar next to him in trim opportunistic hedgerows. “You know, you’re absolutely right. I always say that in his own way Camp is a brilliant guy. It’s only that I look around and everywhere I see a lack of ambition, people content to sit back in their little wartime houses with their ugly wives and their drab surroundings and their dumb kids and let debt and life happen to them. What has become of ambition? When did it become a dirty word?”
“Edmund Burke made a rather interesting observation about ambition,” Camp said. “Ambition can creep as well as soar.”
“Whatever the hell that’s supposed to mean,” Gordon said.
“So now that’s settled,” Gin piped up, “I hear the Devlins have left the country for a while. Terrible, what’s happened.”
“Wouldn’t surprise me if Michael decides to live abroad,” a lady in a green dress said.
“Yes, after all, what is there for him here?” a woman in a red cocktail dress spoke up. “It may even be dangerous for him. Who knows? Very mysterious what’s happened to that family.”
“My, but the son is a good-looking boy,” another woman said. “But then Michael was always so handsome, wasn’t he? People speak well of Harry, too, from what I understand.”
“Harry’s wonderful,” I said dreamily from my spot in the dining room next to the table. I realized in horror that what I was thinking about in such earnest I had spoken aloud. All eyes were upon me as I clapped my hand over my mouth.
“Well, I won’t be shedding any tears for the Devlins. The world’s their oyster,” Gordon said, coming to my rescue, an unlikely savior. “As for the younger boy, what do you expect when you drink and take drugs? Sure, they’ve taken a tumble, but hell, don’t we all? They have a nice, big, fat, fluffy cushion to land on.”
