Lady of Fortune (75 page)

‘I –' he let hands drop with a slap on to the arms of his chair. ‘I don't know, he said. ‘I never even considered that it could happen. A baby? I mean, it never even entered my mind.'

‘You're disappointed?' asked Effie. With sudden frustration and annoyance, she found that her eyes were already filling with tears.

‘Disappointed? Of course not. I'm just surprised. What did you expect me to say? I mean, we're way past the age when people
normally
have children.'

‘Did I ever make any claims to you that I was normal?'

‘But there's the risk, too,' Caldwell protested. ‘Have you thought of the risk? It's all right when a woman's twenty … even thirty. But the incidence of malformed babies born to woman over forty … well, I was reading the Pacific Mutual's insurance statistics the other week, and –'

‘This isn't a statistic!' Effie burst out at him. ‘It's your baby! How can you
talk
about it like that?'

Caldwell pressed his knuckles against his jaw, his expression unexpectedly bitter and rigid. He let out tightly controlled breath; then he turned his face away from her. The
tension of his anger gradually left him, but he still wouldn't look at her, and still wouldn't speak.

‘Caldy,' said Effie, as gently as she could. ‘It's your baby. I want to have it.'

He didn't answer. She walked around his sunlounger chair, but he kept turning his face away from her.

‘I don't understand why you're so angry,' she said. ‘I thought you'd be pleased.'

‘I am,' he said, unconvincingly. ‘Believe me, I am.'

‘Then what's wrong?'

‘You might have told me,' he said.

‘Told you what? Told you that little girls sometimes have babies if little boys play doctors and nurses with them? Is
that
what I should have told you?'

‘Don't be so foul.'

‘Foul?' Effie demanded. ‘How can you call me foul? You're behaving like a fifteen-year-old brat.'

‘I'm sorry,' he said.

Effie reached out and grasped both of his hands. His fingers remained inert, like the fingers of a man who has just died. ‘Caldy,' she said, seriously, ‘you have to tell me what's wrong.'

Caldwell said, with an abrupt and shocking outburst of tears, ‘I'm thinking of leaving you.'

Effie stared at him, frozen cold, cold in August in California. ‘
What?
' she heard herself saying.

‘I've been thinking about it for a month or two now,' said Caldwell, wiping his eyes. I'm sorry. This is a bad moment to tell you.'

‘As if there could ever be a
good
moment.' She was so devastated that she could only answer with a wisecrack.

He gave her a brief, unhappy smile. ‘I'm sorry. It was just that when Dougal's letter arrived…'

‘And then I told you that I'm having your baby …' Effie put
in.

Caldwell said, ‘Yes.'

‘But why?' asked Effie. ‘Aren't you happy with me? Whatever's wrong?'

Caldwell was silent for a long time. A small bird perched on the rail of the balcony, and chittered at him, and then flew away. Effie said, ‘Is there someone else?'

‘No.' he said, emphatically. ‘It isn't that.'

‘Then what?'

He looked up at her. His eyes were dull and unfocused. ‘I think you explained it all yourself, on the day we were married. You remember when we walked along the beach? You said you were free, and independent; and that no matter how much you upset people, you were determined to live a free and independent life'

‘But I'm dependent on you. You know that.'

‘Sure you're dependent on me. You're dependent on me whenever you need someone to discuss one of your financial projects with; or whenever you haven't managed to reach your investment target at the end of the month. You're dependent on me for sex, I suppose, but anybody could provide you with that. You need me as a business partner, and as a social asset. I think there are quite a few times when I actually provide you with comfort. But, Effie, it isn't enough. You could easily make it without me and you never let me forget that you could. Until I married you, I was smart and successful and full of self-confidence. I was a man. But the drive and independence you have inside of you – no matter how carefully you conceal it – no matter how meek you seem to be – no matter how much you compromise and act like a modest little girl – that drive and independence is too much for me. I can't take it.'

He swung his legs off the sunlounger, and stood up. ‘A year ago, everybody talked about Effie Watson as Caldwell Brooks's “little woman”. These days, people are talking about Caldwell Brooks as Effie Watson's “little man”. I love you, Effie. I know that I do. But I can't happily live my life in your shadow. I've got my own independence to think of. My own freedom.'

Effie lowered her gaze, little by little, until she could see nothing but the Mexican clay tiles of the balcony floor. A blurred pattern of terracotta squares. She knew that Caldwell was right: that she had been building the Commerce Bank hard and quickly, according to a scheme that she kept nowhere else but inside of her own head. She knew that she had used him as a sounding-board for some of her most outrageous financial ideas, like her recent scheme for ‘zero bonds' – bonds which would technically pay no interest, but which would be discounted by as much as two-thirds on the day of sale, and would pay out a guaranteed full price on the day of maturity, ten years later. She knew that she had been
taking advantage of Caldwell's professional wits, as much as his love; sometimes more of one than the other.

But his dearness to her had not diminished. And when she had missed her period last month, and realised that he might have made her pregnant, she had felt nothing but confidence and joy.

She said, shakily, ‘Caldy … you can't leave.'

‘I can't stay, either,' he told her. ‘You're not going to change, and I can't ask you to.'

‘Can you stay her at least until I come back from New York? We have go talk it over.'

He shrugged. ‘I don't know. I guess so. If you're not here, I suppose it doesn't make any particular difference.'

‘You don't care about the baby?' she asked him.

He was trying to be far more objectionable than he actually was. He was trying to make her angry with him, so that it would be easier for him to storm out. But she wouldn't be angry with him. He may not have been the greatest and fieriest love of her life, but she loved him, with great care and with great depth. She had decided to spend her old age with him; and for their marriage to collapse after only a year was unthinkable. She wouldn't consider it. She wouldn't let it happen.

Caldwell said, ‘Don't you think it would be better if you didn't go to New York at all? If you really are pregnant, all that flying and railroad travelling …'

‘I have to go.'

‘Well, sure, you have to. It's your family. And dealing with your family is one son-of-a-bitch that you can't delegate to anybody else; not even to me.'

Effie said, ‘I'm trying to be reasonable but you won't help me.'

‘Why should I help you? You're the boss. You're the one who knows all the answers.'

‘Do you really feel that bitter about me? What have I done to you?'

Caldwell came over and stared her straight in the face. ‘You've done nothing. Nothing that matters. I'm just the good-old obliging president of Commerce Bank when I'm at work; and just the good old obliging husband when I'm at home. I'm like a tatty old lion in the circus, Effie, a lion who used to be sleek and fast and good, and who now has to sit up and beg
when the lady lion-tamer snaps her whip. Oh, she's kind, all right, this lady lion-tamer. She feeds me and waters me and tosses me sugar-knobs. She keeps a roof over my head, and has my claws manicured by the best veterinarian in town. I'm a happy creature, Effie, but I'm not a lion any more, and that's why I have to go.'

Effie sat down, tired and bewilderd. She took a cigarette out of her bathrobe pocket, and Caldwell lit it for her with a match.

‘I really treat you like that?' she asked him.

‘That's what it feels like, Effie. You've buried my independence under yours.'

She said, ‘I have to think.'

‘Sure,' nodded Caldwell. Think all you want. I've been thinking about it day and night for months.'

Primo, the butler, came in, and began to clear away the dishes Caldwell said, ‘Primo – is my car out of the garage?'

‘I ask for you, sir.'

‘Never mind. I'll get it out myself.'

‘You want Carl to drive you, sir?'

‘No, thanks. I'll drive myself.'

Effie said, without looking at him, ‘Are you going to tell me where you're going?'

‘If I knew, I'd tell you,' said Caldwell. ‘Maybe I'll drive to San Luis Obispo, and see if I can have any money revelations down at the beach.

There were six hundred things more that Effie wanted to say; but this wasn't the moment. Caldwell stalked back to his room, and left her sitting on the balcony smoking her cigarette, while Primo quietly stacked the breakfast plates on to his tray.

‘Primo,' she said, ‘what kind of a day is it going to be?'

Primo scraped melon and orange rinds from one of the sideplates. He didn't look up a the sky; any more than Effie had looked at Caldwell. ‘Too hot for walks, Miss Watson.'

It was the first time anybody had called her ‘Miss Watson' for a year.

Effie flew out of Glendale just after nine o'clock on Sunday morning, on the daily 48-hour through-service from Los Angeles to New York. She had left a letter for Caldwell on her dressing-table – a short, sentimental note, telling him how much she loved him, and how much she wanted him back. She had written four notes altogether, but the first three had been either too censorious, or too self-pitying, or both.

She sat by the window as the Fokker airplane climbed unsteadily and noisily over the red and white clutter of Pasadena. She felt intensely alone. She still didn't know for certain if she was pregnant. She had missed only one period. But she had always been so regular; ever since that first day in Edinburgh when she had cried in her mother's arms because she thought she was bleeding to death. And besides that, she intuitively kenew that Caldy had given her a baby. He must have done. There had been too many energetic nights of lovemaking for them not to have conceived a child.

But – perhaps I'm behaving like a banker, she thought. Perhaps I'm behaving as if everything in life, including love-making, should pay a dividend. It is possible that I've simply missed the curse this month, because of tension or dieting or even the change of life. It's possible. I'm well over forty years old. And here I am in my wool dress in this narrow airplane seat, bucking and swooping over the San Gabriel Mountains, when all I want to do is hold Caldy close to me; keep him near to me; and protect my marriage as dearly as I want to protect this child that I'm nestling within me.

Flying at near 100 miles an hour, the 2000-horsepower Fokker rose higher and higher into the hot summer air, until it was droning eastwards across the scrubby Mojave Desert towards Kingman, Arizona, at 8000 feet. The steward brought Effie a glass of seltzer and a small selection of seafood canapés, and asked her whether she would prefer the devilled kidneys for breakfast or the fruit and ham salad. She sat with her drink and watched the Fokker's shadow cross the ochre-coloured sand, and wondered whether it was worth renting another airplane at Kingman to take her straight back to Los Angeles.

The man on the other side of the aisle, a college-professor type in a crumpled linen suit, said, ‘You don't mind me interrupting your reverie?'

Effie tried to smile. ‘Of course not.'

‘It's just that I'm sure I've seen your face in the newspapers,' the man said. He took off his circular spectacles, and blinked at her.

‘I'm afraid you're mistaken,' said Effie, trying to be pleasant without being encouraging. ‘The only time my picture ever appeared in the papers was when I graduated from high school in Winslow, Arizona.'

The man replaced his spectacles. ‘I'm sorry. I really could have sworn.'

‘We all feel like swearing at times,' said Effie.

The rail-air journey continued relentlessly through Sunday, Sunday night, Monday, and Monday night. Although it was by far the fastest way to cross the continent, from California to New York; and although its inaugural flight had been cheerfully piloted by Charles Lindbergh, and had counted Mary Pickford among its passengers, it was still a gruelling obstacle-race from air-station to Kingman, from Winslow to Albuquerque; from Kansas City to St Louis, from Indianapolis to Port Columbus. By a quarter to eight on Monday evening, when she boarded The
American
express train at Port Columbus, Effie was giddy with constant take-offs, refuelling stops, and bouncing drives by so-called ‘Aero-Car' from air-station to railhead.

But on Tuesday morning, as the clock in the elegantly-arched concourse of Pennsylvania Station struck ten, The
American
hissed and squealed its way into track 11, sounding like a huge hog exhausted from a night's rutting, and Effie sat up in her sleeper to realise that she had reached New York. After she had dressed, and breakfasted on a cup of Russian tea and a buttered croissant, hot and steaming from
The American's
galley, she stepped down from the train to find that a red carpet had been rolled out for her, and that Dan Kress and her driver Kosczinski were already waiting for her, as well as reporters and photographers from Reuters and Associated Press and the New York
World Telegram
. Rumours of a possible break-up between Effie and Caldwell had already reached the east coat by wire, and the first words that anyone spoke to Effie after her two-day journey
were, ‘How are you feeling, Mrs Brooks? Is your marriage still intact?'