A Season in Purgatory (7 page)

After dinner, Gerald suggested to Constant that he read to the family the paper he had written that had so impressed Dr. Shugrue. Constant hopped to his feet and stood in front of the fireplace as his parents, brothers and sisters, and guests settled in chairs and sofas around the room to listen to him. From the inside pocket of his blazer, he removed the twenty typewritten pages that I had mailed his father weeks ago. When he started to read, I forgot that it was I who had written the words. They became his. He talked about his grandfather arriving poor from Ireland, working hard in a butcher
shop to make a life for his family. He talked about his parents. “I once said to my mother, ‘When you were young and first married, and the future was still uncertain, not yet defined, did you have any idea that Pa was one day going to be so successful?’ And my mother said, ‘Oh, yes, I always knew. Your father exuded power.’ ” He talked about his brothers and sisters. He talked about family, the importance of family. Like an orator, he held his family spellbound. When he finished, they broke into applause.

“You’re going to be a politician,” said Gerald. “You are a great speaker, Constant.”

His sisters crowded around him. His brothers patted him on the back. His mother kissed him. His father hugged him. Weegie Somerset, so quiet in the noisy crowd, smiled proudly. I had no way of knowing then that Gerald saw in me the possibility of becoming the resident hagiographer for the Bradley family, particularly for Constant. Neither Gerald nor Constant looked in my direction. Only Kitt met my eye. She knew. Later, when everyone was preparing to go to the Labor Day dance at the beach club, we walked outside to one of the connecting verandas that encircled the house and sat down side by side on wicker rockers painted white.

“I like this house, don’t you?” she said. “It’s so old money. People in Scarborough Hill call us
nouveau
. Did you know that? Constant probably wouldn’t tell you that. Those people at the club think our house is
nouveau
, too.”

She reached over and pulled the cigarette I was smoking out of my hand and took several puffs. Everyone still smoked then. There was no talk of fatalities, or very little.

“If the Blessed Virgin cries when I whistle, imagine what she must be doing when I smoke,” she said.

I laughed.

“You don’t laugh very much, Harry. It looks nice on you. You should do it more often.”

“You sound older than fourteen,” I replied.

She handed me back the cigarette. “You’re going to discover something about yourself one day, Harry,” she said.

“What’s that?”

“You have a real talent for fiction.”

“What does that mean?”

“You wrote that paper for Constant, didn’t you?”

I flicked the cigarette out over the railing. It landed in a shrub. I walked down the stairway to the lawn and retrieved it from the shrub and stamped it out on the ground. I didn’t reply. I remembered Gerald’s warning.

Kitt remained on the veranda watching me. She understood. “But it was Constant’s delivery, though, that was the whole thing, wasn’t it?” she said, retreating from, rather than pressing forward with, her assertion of my authorship. “I mean, he was marvelous.”

“Yes, yes, it was the delivery,” I replied, anxious to disassociate myself from my own work. “He speaks wonderfully.”

“He’s always given the best toasts of anyone in the family. Especially after a few glasses of wine.”

Inside the house, Constant, bored now that he was no longer the center of attention, yawned audibly and got unsteadily to his feet. “Let’s go to the club,” he said. “The music’s already started.”

That night at the beach club dance, Constant became seriously intoxicated. I had noticed before, while drinking beer with him surreptitiously at school, that his natural charm and wit gave way to a morose side of his character with the first signs of intoxication. I have not often been drunk in my life, but that night I was, too. My purpose was to keep up with Constant, to do what he did. On my own I would not have had so many drinks. Other than my duty
dances with the Bradley sisters, I avoided the dance floor, preferring to watch rather than participate. I wandered about staring at people I didn’t know and probably never would. There was not an angry or worried face among them, or so it seemed to me then.

Finally I went toward the bar and stood there, ordering another drink I didn’t really want. It was the only place a single man could linger without being asked to whirl some young lady around the dance floor. When I went outside to smoke, through the French doors that led to the beach, I heard voices and saw in the darkness two figures pressed up against the back wall of the cabanas. Because of my condition, my memories of the conversation I overheard between Constant and Weegie Somerset are somewhat fragmented. I was torn by guilt at snooping on my friend but troubled by the unpleasantness of the intimate scene I overheard. It was not the whispering of lovers. His voice was harsh, like Jerry’s, devoid of its usual refinement.

As I turned to walk in the opposite direction, I heard Weegie Somerset say, “Hey, hey, hey. That’s it. That’s enough, Constant. Tongue in the mouth is very advanced for me.”

“Don’t give me that,” said Constant.

“Don’t give you what? I’m serious. That’s it, Constant. A little kiss. A little tongue. Period.”

“I know you want it. Here, touch this. It’s hard as a rock.”

“If I wanted it, Constant, which I don’t, it wouldn’t be out here in the sand leaning against the back of the cabanas, believe me. Now, let go of me. I’m going back inside.”

“No, you’re not.”

“You’ve torn my dress strap.”

He slapped her very hard. I didn’t see him, but I heard the sound of the slap and then Weegie’s surprised cry.

“You’re mean when you’re drunk,” she said between sobs.

“I’m not drunk,” he said.

She pulled away from him and started for the club.

“It wasn’t hard,” pleaded Constant. “It was just a tap.”

I hurriedly returned to my place at the Bradleys’ table in the club. Shortly thereafter, Weegie came in through the same French doors. She turned back to speak to Constant outside. “I can’t take this. I just want you to know I can’t take this.” She left the club in tears. No one knew that night that she would never speak to Constant again.

“What happened?” I asked Constant the next morning when he awoke.

“Nothing,” he replied.

“Don’t say nothing. She cried at the beach club. We all saw her.”

“Nothing,” he repeated.

“I was outside, Constant. I went out to smoke. I heard.”

Constant turned his head to the wall and didn’t answer. Whenever Weegie Somerset’s name came up after that, he remained silent.

Two weeks later we went back to school for the sixth form. Things were more serious that year. Even though the architectural drawings for the new Bradley Library at Milford were framed in the entranceway to the dining hall, Constant knew that one more infraction on his part would mean permanent expulsion and eliminate his chances of getting into college. He played on the lacrosse team in the fall, skied on the ski team in the winter, and was captain of the tennis team in the spring. He never sneaked into the village to see a film. He no longer hitchhiked places on free afternoons.
He went to Communion on Sundays, and he maintained a B average.

All thoughts were on college. Constant knew that his father expected him to go to Yale or Harvard. No Holy Cross, no Villanova, no Fordham for the Bradley boy. It had to be the Ivy League to please Gerald.

That Christmas, the Somersets gave Weegie a dance in their house next to the Bradleys’ house in Scarborough Hill. Her photograph appeared in the newspaper, and she was called the most popular debutante of the season. Although Constant exhibited indifference, I knew he felt a pang of disappointment when he heard that invitations to Weegie’s party were in the mail and he had not received one. None of the Bradleys was invited. The snub infuriated Gerald Bradley.

“I saved Leverett Somerset’s ass when he was in financial trouble,” he said to Grace.

Grace cringed as she always cringed when Gerald used profanity. “I think it must have something to do with Constant and Weegie,” said Grace. “They don’t see each other anymore. It’s just as well, really. He’s too young to get serious. And she’s not a Catholic.”

“My children should be at that party, and I’m going to find out why they weren’t asked,” said Gerald.

“How?”

“I’m going to call Leverett.”

“No, Gerald. Don’t,” said Grace. “I think something must have happened, don’t you? With Constant and Weegie?”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know what I mean, but Mary Pat said that night last summer at the beach club dance, Weegie ran out crying.”

“Hmmm. So they had a fight. So what? That’s no excuse
for us to be humiliated by being the only people at the club not invited to the debut.”

“Why don’t we take the children to Florida for Christmas, Gerald. We’ll stay at the Breakers. Let’s not be here when the party happens.”

Constant, to everyone’s surprise, chose not to go to Florida. He was concentrating on his studies. Getting into Yale meant everything to him. I was summoned to come and keep him company over the holidays. On the train going up to the country, I spotted a familiar figure. There, in her mink coat, was Mrs. Steers, Sally Steers, looking too glamorous by far for the local train, reading a house magazine.

“Mrs. Steers?”

“Yes?” She looked up.

“I’m Harrison Burns.”

“Yes?” She did not recognize me. I blushed in embarrassment. I had in those days the kind of looks that people tended to forget.

“I met you in Watch Hill. At the Gerald Bradleys’.”

“Oh, yes, of course. I do remember. You’re the friend of Constant.”

“Yes.”

“Who writes?”

“Hopes to.”

“Yes. Sit down, for heaven’s sake. You never know who’s going to plop down next to you. I’d rather it be you.”

“You’re not the sort of person I expected to see on the morning local out of Grand Central.”

“I’m doing a house in Fairfield—the Hardwicks, do you know them?—and my driver’s sick, and I can’t drive. Such a nuisance. How are the Bradleys? Have you seen them? I don’t see them so much now that the house is finished. I finally weeded out all that reproduction Chippendale and got them
to buy the real thing. Next Gerald will be into art. You mark my words. Rich people always atone for their sins with art.”

“But he already has art,” I said defensively.

“A very bad Renoir, too sappy for words, but Grace likes it, naturally, and that head of Christ by Zurbarán with the crown of thorns and the blood coming down the face. Puhleeze. I had to beg him on bended knee not to hang it in the living room.”

I had heard she was not so much in evidence anymore. I assumed the ardor had cooled. “I’m on my way there now. But they’re in Florida for the holidays. Except Constant. I’m going over to keep him company for a few days.”

She looked at me. “You’re very fond of Constant, aren’t you?”

“We are friends, yes.”

“I felt it was somewhat more.”

“More?”

“It happens in England, that sort of thing, in those public schools they have. You know, Eton, Harrow, those schools. Mad crushes, that sort of thing.”

There was nothing accusatory or mocking in her voice or attitude, but what she was suggesting was a matter about which I was extremely sensitive. I was not then adept at deflecting conversation from one subject to another, so I remained silent, only looking at her quizzically, as if I did not understand her. She, unperturbed, seemed not to demand an answer.

“When is Fairfield?” she called out to the conductor.

“Next stop,” he said.

She took a compact out of her bag, opened it, and looked at herself in the mirror. “Do I need lipstick?”

“No.”

She began to brush her hair. “Poor Grace,” she said.

“Why do you say ‘poor Grace’?” I asked.

“It’s that Catholic thing. Their wives are for children, not for pleasure. Keep them preggers, and play. I’m surprised she stopped when she did. Of course, there were those miscarriages. Three, I think. Or maybe four. Her little saints in heaven, she calls them. She tries so hard to please Gerald. All that ghastly singing of Irish songs around the piano after dinner. I thought if I had to listen to ‘I’ll Take You Home Again, Kathleen’ one more time, I’d go mad. That quivering contralto. She buys all her clothes in Paris, spends an absolute fortune, and still looks wrong. She didn’t even know how to lay the table properly, and all that sort of thing, when I started doing the house for them.”

I was stunned to hear a mistress discuss a wife in such a manner.

“You were there that day, weren’t you, by the pool, when Gerald and I were talking? I saw you, reading your book, but I knew you were listening. Gerald didn’t see you. I suppose someday you will write a book about them all. I mean, they are fascinating, in their Irish way. Oh, so keen to belong. But watch them. Twenty years from now. Or less. Fifteen. Ten even. Everyone in the country will know who they are. Mark my words. Tell me your name once more. I’m hopeless with names.”

“Harrison. Harrison Burns.”

“Oh, of course. Harrison.”

“I won’t,” I said.

“You won’t what?”

“Write about them. They are my friends.”

“You’re a damn fool if you don’t. What is writing but putting down what you see, what you know? You are having a bird’s-eye view of a dynasty in formation. Remember it all. Keep a journal. It will all come in handy. I wish I could write. Give me a call when the time comes. I could fill you in on a thing or two.”

I looked at her, stunned by what I thought of as her disloyalty to the family that was paying my tuition at Milford and had taken me into their bosom, but I also did not want her to stop talking. I was caught between wanting to know everything there was to know about the Bradleys and hesitating to learn it from a discarded mistress. She seemed not to notice either my shock or my disapproval as she continued.

“They discuss only their triumphs. You must have noticed that by now. Poor Agnes. The retarded one. Hidden away. Unmentioned. As if she had done something wrong. And Gerald Junior, or Jerry, as they call him. Do you know about the accident?”