A Season in Purgatory (18 page)

“This is my fiancé,” Maureen kept saying over and over to everyone she met, introducing Freddy Tierney, who had not gone to Milford. Later in the day I heard from Kitt, the family chatterbox, that harsh words had passed between Maureen and her father in the wake of Winifred Utley’s death. Maureen said that her upcoming wedding would be ruined by all the negative attention on her brother. She told her father that Freddy did not want Constant to be an usher. Gerald would brook no criticism of any of his children, especially not from his daughter’s fiancé, who was not yet even a member of the family. When he spoke, according to Kitt, his voice was like ice. “Constant is going to be an usher in your wedding, whether Freddy Tierney likes it or not, and your sisters and you are going to dance with him for all to see, just as you and Freddy are going to sit in the front row at his graduation from Milford and cheer for him. Or there is going to be no wedding. Do I make myself clear?”

On the long walk up the hill from Hayes Hall to the chapel, where Mass was to begin the graduation ceremony, students and parents lined the walk as the graduating class, in caps and gowns, and the faculty marched through. Then, following Mass, the ceremony took place in the gymnasium. The Bradleys had the whole front row of seats that had been set up for the parents and friends of the graduating class.

Dr. Shugrue had revised his unfavorable opinion of Constant since the dirty-picture episode. When he introduced
him to speak, he said, “Constant Bradley is what everyone has in mind when they think of a son. At Milford, he has been an honor student, vice president of the student body, house president of Hayes Hall, and captain of the tennis and lacrosse teams. Oh, lest you think he is too perfect, there have been the occasional lapses of a disciplinary nature—” Here the student body roared with laughter, everyone remembering his near expulsion of the year before. Dr. Shugrue, in good humor, held up his hand to quell the laughter and continued. “But these we must blame on an overabundance of youthful vitality. If there were such a thing at Milford as a vote on the student most likely to succeed, there is no doubt that Constant Bradley would win that vote hands down.”

When our names were called and we went forward to receive our diplomas, no one received more applause than Constant Bradley. His family accompanied their applause by cheers and shouts, and a stamping of feet by his brothers, and Constant acknowledged his ovation with a wave and charming smile. I realized that in spite of what had happened life would continue almost unchanged for Constant and his family. His mother and sisters, ignorant of the facts, would remain steadfast in their adoration of him. His father and brothers, who knew of his culpability, would overlook it, as if it were nothing more than a youthful prank that had gotten out of hand, the memory of which would be dimmed in time by his subsequent maturity and success. They believed in him. He was their hope.

When I went forward to receive my diploma, the applause for me was courteous, nothing more, despite the honors I had received, until a voice from the front row, Kitt’s, yelled out, “Yay, Harrison,” and her enthusiasm drew laughter from the crowd and an increase in the volume of applause. I wonder now, looking back, remembering, if I
could have known then that one day we would meet in another place, married to other people, and fall in love. For that moment at Milford, all that I had witnessed such a short time before in the woods between the Bradley and Somerset estates seemed like nothing more than a nightmare from which I had awakened.

Later, lunch was served under a yellow-and-white-striped tent set up in front of the Bradley Library, which was still under construction. Gerald pushed back his plate of lobster salad, gulped down his iced tea, and asked me if I would accompany him on a tour of the new building.

“Be careful of that scaffolding,” he said. “You see, those windows on either side of the front door were Maureen’s idea. She told the architect that they would brighten up the entrance. Of course, she was right. Even the architect agrees now. Maureen’s a bright girl.”

I did not reply, merely nodded. I knew he was making conversation until he got around to the subject at hand.

“You seem quiet.”

“I have always been quiet, Mr. Bradley. I have simply become quieter.”

“Why?”

“Because I am a participant in a cover-up. Because of what Mrs. Utley said on television—you must have heard Chief Quish speak for her when Gus Bailey questioned him. She said, ‘Somebody knows.’ I am that somebody.”

“Who is this reporter, Gus Bailey? He persists in keeping alive a story that has run its natural course. He has suggested things about us, without calling us by name, because he knows I will sue if he does. He has made it appear that we have impeded the progress of the police. But he will stop. That much I know. Fuselli is doing a check on him. Where he’s from. What he’s about. Everyone has something to hide.”

“Not Winifred Utley. She had nothing to hide,” I said.

“Have you ever been to Europe, Harrison?” asked Gerald, shifting gears. He did not want to pursue my statement.

“No.”

“Never been to London or Paris?”

“No.”

“That should be part of every young man’s education, such a trip as that. A great learning experience. Wouldn’t you think so?”

“I suppose.”

He reached up into his inside suit pocket and pulled out two envelopes. “You will see that Sims Lord has drawn up the contract I spoke about some months ago. Any dealings through the years of your education you should take up directly with Sims. The tickets to Europe are a little graduation gift from Mrs. Bradley and me. You have been a wonderful friend to our son and to our family. You know that you will always be a part of us.”

“You are sending me out of the country?”

“I am sending you on the trip of a lifetime.”

“For how long?”

“Until university begins in September.”

“Will Constant come, too?”

“No.”

“I suppose that would make it convenient for you,” I said.

He paused before he spoke. “You’re a curious boy, Harrison,” he said. “Why in the world would my sending you on a trip to Europe, all expenses paid, the experience of a lifetime for a young man your age, make it convenient for me? Explain that one.”

“You would then have only one thing to worry about: Constant. Instead of Constant and me. I am the wild card, am I not?”

“Wild card?”

“I suppose my proximity is a little unnerving during this period.”

I expected his wrath, but that day Gerald held his temper in check. There was not an inkling of it.

“It is terrible that this suspicion has fallen on Constant. Terrible. The boy is innocent. His own mother saw him in bed at the time it happened.”

“No, she didn’t,” I said.

He ignored me.

“There are terrible stories being spread about Constant. Buzzy Thrall, Piggy French, Eve Soby—that whole club crowd. They say that he roughed up Weegie Somerset last summer in Watch Hill. A lie. A terrible lie. Vicious. You know that. You were there.” He plowed on with his diatribe, not allowing me time either to agree or disagree with his statement. “Constant is a good boy. We all know that. Careless occasionally, yes. Bad, never.”

“Careless,” I repeated, nodding at the word. “What an odd word for you to use.”

He looked confused. “That’s all Constant is. Good, but careless.”

“Have you ever heard of Gatsby, Mr. Bradley?”

“Who?”

“His friend Nick said, about the Buchanans, but he might have been talking about the Bradleys,
‘They were careless people.… They smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.’
I feel that I have been entrapped by Constant’s carelessness.”

Gerald appeared displeased. “It seems to me that this family is doing quite a lot for you,” he said. With a sweeping
gesture he indicated the contract for my education and support and the airline tickets for a summer abroad.

“It seems to me I am doing quite a lot for this family,” I replied. I felt braver than I had ever felt in Gerald Bradley’s presence. “I do not think you are getting the short end of the stick in this bargain, Mr. Bradley.”

He ignored me. “I myself called on Mr. and Mrs. Utley. They, naturally, are distraught over their loss. I know what that is like. I remember all too well the night of Jerry’s accident, when we didn’t know if he would live or die. I think they are convinced that Constant did not see Winifred again once they left the club that night.”

“I don’t equate the two things,” I said.

“What things?”

“Jerry’s accident and Winifred’s death.”

“Of course, you’re right, in principle. One died. One didn’t. But each is a tragedy.”

“It’s more than that. One innocent girl was beaten on the head with a baseball bat until she was dead. Jerry’s dick was in some girl’s mouth while he was driving eighty miles an hour with a half dozen beers in him and he crashed into a tree.”

I think if I had been one of his own children, he would have struck me. The look on his face was frightening.

“Where did you hear such a vile story as that?”

“Not from Constant. He plays by the family rules. You have no worries there.”

“From whom then?” he insisted.

I shook my head. Sally Steers’s name was not to come from my lips. “May I ask a question?”

“What?”

“Have the police questioned Weegie Somerset?”

“Yes. And she denied that Constant had roughed her up. She said they had an argument and that was all. She said
that nothing physical happened. I was able to tell that to Mr. and Mrs. Utley.”

Then, from outside, came Kitt’s voice. “Harrison, are you in there? Harrison?”

“I’ll be right out, Kitt,” I called back.

“Stay away from Kitt,” he said, pointing his finger at me. “She knows nothing.”

“Who does know?” I asked. “It would be helpful for me to know that. Does Mrs. Bradley know?”

“Good God, no.”

“Maureen?”

“No.”

“Who knows?”

“Jerry. Sandro. Desmond. Myself. No one else.”

“Not Johnny Fuselli?”

“Yes, Johnny Fuselli. He would never talk. He works for me. I trust him totally.”

“And Sims Lord?”

“Yes, Sims. He knows. He is my lawyer.”

“That’s quite a lot of people to keep a secret, Mr. Bradley.”

“That’s my worry, not yours.”

We did not look through the rest of the Bradley Library. It had merely been a place to be alone. We rose to go back to the tent.

“I want to stop in here a minute,” he said, indicating the men’s room. “Shugrue said the urinals are working.”

He stood in front of one of the urinals while I waited. Not wanting to part on an unfriendly note, he spoke in a confidential tone. “I’m getting older, Harry,” he said. “When I was a young man and sat on the toilet, my cock used to touch the water. Now my balls do.”

It was meant to be a joke, to smooth possibly troubled
waters between us. I was meant to laugh. Before Easter I would have. That day I didn’t.

“Sometimes you look like a defrocked priest, Harry,” he said.

I had things to say. “Liquor does not elate your son, Mr. Bradley. It brings out the dark side in him. You should know that.”

“You’re making too much of this. Getting drunk is a thing all young men do when they’re seventeen, or eighteen, or nineteen,” said Gerald.

“Not Constant. There is no exuberance in Constant’s drinking. No sense of wild oats. No fun. It goes straight to the dark part of him.”

“Oh, please,” said Gerald impatiently.

“A former mistress of yours pointed it out to me first. I said ‘Oh, please,’ too, at least I said it to myself. But she was right.”

“What dark part?”

“He killed a woman when he was drunk, Mr. Bradley. What’s darker than that? What happened could happen again.”

“Never. It was an accident.”

“That’s the party line, I know. ‘It was an accident.’ But don’t use it on me. I was there, remember. I saw. And listen to what I’m telling you about Constant. It could happen again.”

“I thought you were his friend.”

“I am. Or I was. That’s why I’m telling it to you.”

He zipped his fly and moved away from the urinal. He brushed some sawdust from the elbow of his blue linen suit. He moved toward the main doors of the library. Then he stopped and returned to where I was standing. He reached into his pocket and brought out two envelopes. In one were airline tickets. In the other was my contract from Sims Lord.
He dropped the two envelopes on a board that connected two ladders and then moved outside to rejoin his family. He did not ask me to come along. I did not want to. I felt that I had become another version of the girl in the wheelchair, whoever she was, wherever she was, the one in the car with Jerry. Silenced by big money. My soul was lost, but my future was bought and paid for.

On the day I was to leave for Europe, business class, I was informed by Sims Lord that the Bradleys’ chauffeur, Charlie, would drive me to JFK and accompany me to the Admirals Club to wait for my flight. It seemed to me an unnecessary inconvenience to have Charlie come from Scarborough Hill to Ansonia, but Sims said that Gerald had insisted. To offset the disapproval of Aunt Gert, who was embarrassed by the luxurious limousine parked in front of her apartment house, another example to her of the Bradleys’ bedazzlement of me, I offered to sit in the front seat next to Charlie, as if I were a friend of the chauffeur, but he would have none of it. “Oh, no, Harrison, Mr. B. wouldn’t approve of that,” said Charlie. “You get right there in back, and I’ll open the door for you.”

Along the way, we talked. Or, rather, Charlie talked, all the time looking at me in the rearview mirror. Like everyone around the Bradleys, his conversation was totally about the doings of the family. Maureen’s wedding was the big family news. The wedding dress was being made in Paris by Mr. Givenchy, which he pronounced
Jivinchy
. The swimming pool was to be covered over with a dance floor, and the tent, which was going to be almost as long as a football field, was being decorated by Cora Mandell, the great decorator, and lined in French toile. There were to be ten bridesmaids. Mary Pat and Kitt were to be maids of honor. Congressman Sandro, Dr. Desmond, and Constant were to be ushers. Jerry
was to be Freddy Tierney’s best man, but he wouldn’t be taking part in the procession up and down the aisle, “because, you know, of his limping like that.” Cardinal was going to say the nuptial Mass in the cathedral, and Cardinal was going to read the papal blessing from His Holiness in Rome.