Nightwork (42 page)

It was nearly six o’clock by the time we got to Evelyn’s house, the rural, gentle landscape through which we passed neat in the seaside dusk. Fabian had checked into a hotel in Southampton on the way, and I had waited for him while he bathed and changed his clothes and made two transatlantic telephone calls. I had told him that Evelyn expected him and was readying a guest room for him, but he had said, “Not for me, my boy. I don’t relish the idea of being kept awake all night by sounds of rapture. It’s especially disturbing when one is intimate with the interested parties.”

I remembered Brenda Morrissey reporting at breakfast on the same phenomenon in Evelyn’s apartment in Washington and didn’t press him.

As we drove up to the house, the outside lamp beside the door had snapped on. Evelyn was not going to be taken by surprise.

The lamp shed a mild welcoming light on the wide lawn in front of the house, which was built on a bluff overlooking the water. There were copses of second-growth scrub oak and wind-twisted scraggly pine bordering the property, and no other houses could be seen. In the distance there was a satiny last glow of evening on the bay. The house itself was small, of weathered, gray, Cape Cod shingle, with a steep roof and dormer windows. I wondered if I would live and die there.

Fabian had insisted upon bringing two bottles of champagne as a gift, although I had told him that Evelyn liked to drink and was sure to have liquor in the house. He did not offer to help as I unloaded my bags and picked them up to carry them into the house. He considered two bottles of champagne the ultimate in respectable burdens for a man in his position.

He stood looking at the house as though he were confronting an enemy. “It
is
small, isn’t it?” he said.

“It’s big enough,” I said. “I don’t share your notions of grandeur.”

“Pity,” he said, grooming his moustache. Why, I thought, surprised, he’s nervous.

“Come on,” I said.

But he held back. “Wouldn’t it better if you went in alone?” he said. “I could take a little walk and admire the view and come back in fifteen minutes. Aren’t there some statements you want to make to the lady alone?”

“Your tact does you credit,” I said, “but it isn’t necessary. I made all the required statements to the lady on the telephone from Vermont.”

“You’re sure you know what you’re doing?”

“I’m sure.” I took his arm firmly and led him up the gravel path to the front door.

I can’t pretend that the evening was a complete success. The house was charming and tastefully although inexpensively furnished, but small, as Fabian had pointed out. Evelyn had hung the two paintings I had bought in Rome and they dominated the room, in a peculiar, almost threatening way. Evelyn was dressed casually, in dark slacks and a sweater, making the point, a little too clearly, I thought, that she wasn’t going to go to any extra lengths to impress the first friend of mine she had ever met. She thanked Fabian for the champagne, but said she wasn’t in the mood for champagne and started for the kitchen to mix martinis for us. “Let’s save the champagne for the wedding,” she said.

“There’s more where that comes from, dear Evelyn,” Fabian said.

“Even so,” Evelyn said firmly, as she went through the door.

Fabian glanced thoughtfully at me, looked as though he was about to say something, then sighed and sank into a big leather easy chair. When Evelyn came back with the pitcher and glasses, he played with his moustache, ill at ease, and only pretended to enjoy his drink. I could see he had had his taste buds ready for the wine.

Evelyn helped me carry my bags upstairs to our bedroom. She was not one of those American women who believe that the Constitution guarantees that they will never be required to carry anything heavier than a handbag containing a compact and a checkbook. She was stronger than she looked. The bedroom was large, running almost the full width of the house, with a bathroom leading off one side of it. There was an oversized double bed, a vanity table, bookcases, and two cane and mahogany rocking chairs set in an alcove. I noticed that there were lamps, well placed for reading.

“Do you think you’ll be happy here?” she asked. She sounded uncharacteristically anxious.

“Very.” I took her in my arms and kissed her.

“
He’s
not very happy, your friend,” she whispered, “is he?”

“He’ll learn.” I tried to make my voice sound confident. “Anyway, he’s not marrying you. I am.”

“One hopes,” she said ambiguously. “He’s power-hungry. I recognize the signs from Washington. His mouth tightens when he’s crossed. Was he in the Army?”

“Yes.”

“A colonel? He seems like a colonel who’s sorry the war ever ended. I bet he was a colonel. Was he?”

“I never asked him.”

“I get the impression that you’re very close.”

“We are.”

“And you never asked him what his rank was?”

“No.”

“That’s a funny kind of very close,” she said, slipping out of my arms.

Fabian was standing in front of the mantelpiece, on which stood his half-drunk martini. He was staring at Angelo Quinn’s painting of the main street. He made no comment when we came down the stairs and into the living room, but reached, almost guiltily, for his glass. “As for refreshments,” he said, falsely hearty, “let me buy you two dear children a magnificent seafood dinner. There’s a restaurant in Southampton I …”

“There’s no need to go all the way to Southampton,” Evelyn said. “There’s a place right near here in Sag Harbor that serves the best lobsters in the world.”

I saw Fabian’s mouth tighten, but all he said was, “Whatever you say, dear Evelyn.”

She went upstairs to get a coat and Fabian and I were alone for a moment. “I do like a woman,” he said, a hard glint in his eye, “who knows her own mind. Poor Douglas.”

“Poor nothing,” I said.

He shrugged, touched his moustache, turned to look at the painting over the mantelpiece. “Where did she get that?” he asked.

“In Rome,” I said. “I bought it for her.”

“You did?” he said flatly, but with a hint of unflattering surprise. “Interesting. Do you remember the name of the gallery?”

“Bonelli’s. It’s on the via …”

“I know where Bonelli’s is. Old man with sliding teeth. If I happen to be in Rome I may look in …”

Evelyn came down from the bedroom, with her coat over her arm, and Fabian was quick to help her on with it. Somehow, as was the case with any woman whom he considered attractive, his movements at moments like that were caressing, like a lover’s, not a headwaiter’s. I took it as a good sign.

The lobster turned out to be every bit as good as Evelyn had promised, and Fabian ordered a bottle of American white wine from Napa Valley that he said was almost as good as any white wine he had drunk in France. Then he ordered another bottle. By then, the atmosphere had relaxed considerably and he teased me gently about my Roman suits, praised my skiing to Evelyn and told her that she must allow me to teach her, mentioned Gstaad, St.-Paul-de-Vence, Paris, all very casually, told two funny, unmalicious anecdotes about Giuliano Quadrocelli, listened seriously as we described the blowing up of the boat in the harbor, did not bring up the names of Lily or Eunice, stayed away from the topic of business, deferred at all times when Evelyn wanted to say something, and in general behaved like the most charming and considerate of hosts. I could see that for better or worse he had decided to win over Evelyn and I hoped he would succeed.

“Tell me, Miles,” Evelyn said as we were finishing our coffee, “in the war were you a colonel? I asked Douglas and he said he didn’t know.”

“Heavens no, dear girl,” he laughed. “I was the lowliest of lieutenants.”

“I was sure you were a colonel,” Evelyn said. “At least a colonel.”

“Why?”

“No particular reason,” Evelyn said carelessly. She put her hand on mine on the table. “Just a kind of air of commanding the troops.”

“It’s a trick I learned, dear Evelyn,” Fabian said, “to cover up my essential lack of self-confidence. Would you like a brandy?”

When he had paid the bill, he wouldn’t hear of our driving all the way to take him to his hotel in Southampton. “And tomorrow morning,” he said to me, “don’t bother to get up early. I have to be in New York by noon and the hotel will find a limousine for me.

As the taxi drove up to the restaurant, now half-obscured by fog rolling in from the bay, he said, “What a lovely evening. I hope we will have many such. If I may, Gentle Heart …” I did not miss the echo … “If I may …” He leaned toward Evelyn. “I would love to kiss this dear girl good night.”

“Of course,” she said, not waiting for my permission, and kissed him on the cheek.

We watched him get into the taxi and the red taillights faded wetly into the fog.

“Whew!” Evelyn said, reaching for my hand.

That night and the next morning I was glad Fabian was in a hotel and not in Evelyn’s house.

He did not make it to the wedding, as he was in England that week. But he sent a superb Georgian silver coffeepot as a gift from London, hand-carried by a stewardess he knew. And when our son was born, he sent five gold napoleons from Zurich, where he happened to be at the time.

T
HE SOUND OF HAMMERING
woke me up. I looked at the clock on the bedside table. It was six forty. I sighed. Johnson, the carpenter who was working on the new wing of the house, insisted upon giving you what he called an honest day’s work for your money. Evelyn stirred in the bed beside me, but did not awake. She was breathing softly, the covers half-thrown back, her breasts bare. She looked delicious lying there, and I would have liked to make love to her. But she was cranky in the morning, and besides, she had worked late the night before on a brief she had brought home from the office with her. Later, I promised myself.

I got out of bed and parted the curtains to see what the weather was like. It was a fine summer morning and the sun was already hot. I put on a pair of bathing trunks and a terry-cloth bathrobe, got a towel, and left the room, barefooted and silent, congratulating myself for having had the good sense to marry a woman who came complete with a house on a beach.

Downstairs, I went into the guest room, which was now transformed into a nursery. I could hear Anna, the girl who looked after the baby, moving around in the kitchen. The baby was in his crib, gurgling over his morning bottle. I stared down at him. He looked rosy, serious, and vulnerable. He didn’t resemble either Evelyn or myself; he just looked like a baby. I didn’t try to analyze my feelings as I stood beside my son, but when I went out of the room, I was smiling.

I turned the bolt on the second lock that I had installed on the front door when I moved in with Evelyn. She had said that it was unnecessary, that in all the time she and her parents had the house there never had been any trouble. So far there had been no uninvited guests, but I still made certain the bolt was in place each night before I went to bed.

Outside, the lawn was wet with dew, cool and agreeable on my bare feet. “Good morning, Mr. Johnson,” I said to the carpenter, who was putting in a window frame.

“Good morning, Mr. Grimes,” Johnson said. He was a formal man and expected to be treated formally. The rest of the building crew wouldn’t arrive until eight, but Mr. Johnson had told me he preferred working alone and that his early-morning labor, when nobody was around to bother him, was the best part of the day. Evelyn said the real reason he started so early was that he enjoyed waking people up. He had a Puritanical streak and didn’t approve of sluggards. She had known him since she was a little girl.

The new wing was almost finished. We were going to move the nursery into it and there would be a library where Evelyn could work and keep some books. Up to now she had had to work on the dining-room table. She had an office in town, but the phone was always ringing there, she said, and she couldn’t concentrate. She had a secretary and a clerk, but she always seemed to have more work than she could comfortably handle between nine in the morning and six at night. It was amazing how much litigation went on in this peaceful part of the world.

I circled the house and crossed to the edge of the bluff. The bay stretched out below me, glittering and calm in the morning sunlight. I went down the flight of weathered wooden steps to the little beach. I took off the bathrobe and took a deep breath and ran into the water. It was still early in July and the water was shockingly cold. I swam out a hundred yards and then back and came out tingling all over and feeling like singing aloud. I took off my trunks and toweled myself dry. There was nobody else on the whole stretch of beach at that hour to be offended by momentary male nudity.

Back in the house, I turned on the kitchen radio for the early news as I made myself breakfast. There was speculation in Washington that President Nixon was going to be forced to resign. I thought of David Lorimer and his farewell party in Rome. I sat at the kitchen table and drank my fresh orange juice and lingered over bacon and eggs, toast and coffee. I pondered on the special, marvelous taste of breakfasts that you made for yourself on a sunny morning. In the fourteen months since we had been married, I had become addicted to domesticity. Often, when Evelyn came home tired from the office, I prepared dinner for both of us. I had made Evelyn swear never to tell this to a soul, especially not to Miles Fabian. On his subsequent visits, after the first touchy evening on which they had met, Evelyn and he had come to terms. They would never be friends, but they were not unfriendly.

Fabian had been in East Hampton for three weeks, helping me get ready for the opening. Early in the year, he had gone to Rome and had gotten in touch with Angelo Quinn and made a contract with him for all his output. He had done the same thing with the man whose lithographs he had bought in Zurich. Then he had come out to Sag Harbor and outlined a scheme that I had thought was insane at first, but which, surprisingly, Evelyn had approved of. The plan was to open a gallery in nearby East Hampton and have me run it. “You’re not doing anything, anyway,” he said, which was true at the time, “and I’ll always be available to help you when you need it. You have a lot to learn, but you certainly picked a winner with Quinn.”