The Rich Are Different (30 page)

‘You’re seeing everything from the typical woman’s point of view. Elizabeth wasn’t a typical woman. If you could stop looking at the situation so romantically—’

‘Romantically! Paul, I’m talking realistically! I’m talking about the way things really are, not the way they are in some intellectual theory which has no relation to reality whatsoever!’

‘I was always realistic!’ cried Paul, suddenly becoming more overwrought than I had seen him since Jay’s death. ‘It was Elizabeth who lost touch with reality, lying to Bruce like that! She blamed me for the way Bruce and I became estranged, but it wasn’t my fault, it was hers! If she hadn’t lied, I
wouldn’t have had to tell him the truth, and I hated having to tell him, hated having to hurt him, hated the whole damned interview—’

‘Oh darling, don’t upset yourself so—’

‘—but I had to tell him, didn’t I? What choice did I have? How could I have let him go on believing a lie like that? I had to tell him!’

‘Yes,’ I said, ‘you did. It was just sad such a confrontation had to happen, that’s all. Isn’t it a terrible irony that in any—’ I fumbled for the tactful word ‘—unusual relationship, it’s always the children who seem to suffer most?’

‘I wouldn’t have hurt Bruce for the world …’ He dragged himself to his feet. ‘God, I’m tired! I’d better go to bed.’

‘Stay here with me.’

‘No, I must be alone, I feel so disturbed. I mean,’ he added clumsily, as if the effort of arranging words in a sentence was too much for him, ‘I don’t want to disturb you and I’m sure that no matter how tired I am I shall find it impossible to sleep.’

I did not press my request since it was obvious he wanted solitude, but when he had gone I lay awake for a long time while I wondered if I could somehow assume the role of peacemaker. Obviously there could be no quick reconciliation between Bruce and Paul, but perhaps later I could attempt to pour oil on the troubled waters. It would be a challenge for my diplomatic talents, it would make Paul deeply grateful to me, and it would certainly take my mind off all thought of Dinah Slade.

[2]

It was October when I spoke to Bruce. He and Grace had spent the summer months in Europe before returning to New York for the start of the academic year, and Paul and I had gone up to Bar Harbor as usual after the Fourth of July. I had paid secret visits to four more doctors who specialized in female medical problems, but although they had all been discouraging I had heard there was a doctor on the West Coast who had had success in helping women through difficult pregnancies, and I thought that when I was next visiting some cousins in San Francisco I would make an appointment to see him.

Meanwhile there was no opportunity to visit the West Coast. When I returned from Bar Harbor it was late September, my New York social calendar was already full and it was hard enough finding a free afternoon when I could see Bruce.

We eventually agreed to meet in the Tea Room at the Plaza, and three days later beneath the glass dome I began my attempt at peacemaking. The palms drooped elegantly in the muted indoor light, and the small orchestra was playing Viennese tunes as the waiter arrived with our tea.

‘Of course it’s about that row you had with Paul before the wedding,’ I said after we had spent an awkward five minutes exchanging pleasantries.

He sighed, ran his fingers through his thick hair and took off his glasses to polish them with a grubby handkerchief. He was dressed casually in a
tweed suit with an unpleasant red-spotted necktie. There was a smudge of ink on one of his cuffs. He looked erudite, distracted and vaguely Bohemian.

‘Sylvia, I don’t see how we can possibly have a profitable conversation on the subject. If you’re aiming at a dramatic reconciliation complete with tears of joy on both sides and a pounding piano accompaniment in the best tradition of motion picture melodrama, you’re just wasting your time.’

‘What about a quick cocktail on Christmas Eve? No tears, no pounding piano, no fuss. I’ll invite about a dozen other people and we’ll have the traditional eggnog.’

‘I’m afraid you don’t understand. Paul and I are finished. I spent twelve years trying to pretend for my mother’s sake that we were still friends but when my wedding came I realized I couldn’t go on with such a farce just to please my mother. Was Paul really so upset? He surely couldn’t have been surprised. He must have been well aware that we haven’t had an honest conversation with one another since I was seventeen.’

‘Yes, Paul told me what happened when you were seventeen.’

‘He did?’ He flushed. ‘I bet he didn’t tell you the whole story.’ He looked away from me as the orchestra began to play ‘Tales From the Vienna Woods’, and when he said nothing more I felt obliged to add: ‘He told me there had been a very unhappy scene.’

‘We quarrelled.’ Unexpectedly he looked me straight in the eyes. ‘It was about you.’

‘Me?’ I stared at him. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘When I was seventeen it was 1912, Sylvia. The April of 1912.’

‘When Paul and I became engaged.’

‘Exactly. I went down to Willow Street – it was before the merger so he was still at Nineteen Willow in his old office – and I told him to break off the engagement with you and marry my mother.’

After a moment I took a sip of tea. ‘Go on.’

‘Is this going to upset you? I’ve no quarrel with you now, Sylvia—’

‘Go on, Bruce.’

‘Well …’ He took a tea-cake and shredded it with quick nervous movements of his hands. Across the room ‘Tales From the Vienna Woods’ swept into a lush new coda. ‘My mother had been hoping to marry Paul for several months. She told me so – she was quite frank about it. She said she knew he’d decided to remarry, and she was convinced that he’d eventually come to the conclusion that she was the only woman who could possibly be an adequate wife to him. But when I asked her why she didn’t immediately seek a divorce from Eliot and make Paul aware of what she wanted she said no, she couldn’t do that, because that would put her in the same category as all the women who chased him, and her entire success with Paul had always lain in the fact that she had never put any kind of pressure to bear on him. Well, you know what happened. She knew about you, of course, but she never thought he’d marry you. She said you were too young and unsophisticated, and that Paul needed a mature woman, not an inexperienced girl. Paul was
visiting our house, you know, all that winter he was seeing you, and – I’m sorry, I guess I shouldn’t have said that.’

‘Dear Bruce, don’t let’s get bogged down in embarrassment – I’m perfectly well aware he continued his affair with your mother both before and after he married me. What did Elizabeth do when she heard he was engaged to me? Was there some frightful scene between her and Paul?’

‘Oh God, no! My mother had too much pride for that. She congratulated him and said she hoped he would be very happy. Then she went to her room and cried all night. Eliot, thank God, was away somewhere, but I was down from Groton for the Easter Recess, and after I’d heard my mother cry all night I couldn’t bear to think of her suffering any more so I went downtown to see Paul. Of course it was a complete failure. He just told me I was too young to understand his relationship with my mother, and then I ruined everything by dragging in the paternity issue to try to persuade him to listen to me … What a mistake! The entire issue of his marriage was forgotten and we had to exhaust ourselves establishing just who on earth I was. However, when he had finally finished demonstrating that I wasn’t his responsibility and that he didn’t give a straw about my mother, he went on board his yacht with you and sailed off into the sunset. Happy ending!’

‘I can see Paul must have hopelessly mishandled his interview with you, Bruce,’ I said steadily, ‘but he sincerely felt he had to be honest with you. I’m sure you’ll admit what a passion he has for honesty.’

‘Honesty? Paul Van Zale? My God, he’s the biggest liar in town! All that trash about what a unique relationship he had with my mother – all that garbage about how he was so fond of me! He treated my mother like a whore and our home like a brothel and me like some amusing little lap-dog who could be trained to perform clever tricks. He didn’t care about me! When I got in his way and made a boring scene I was just a nuisance to be flicked out of the way. Year after year he pretended to be a father to me and then suddenly it’s: “No, we’re not related, I’m sorry, can I get you a cab uptown?” I no longer amused him so I was discarded – and the same thing happened to my mother. For years she listened to him saying she was the most important woman in his life and then suddenly it’s: “Oh, I don’t think I want to sleep with you any more. Goodbye, see you again some time—”’

‘I always wondered why their affair ended so suddenly.’ I was trying to deflect him from his pain by altering the focus of the conversation. I was disturbed to see how distressed he had become; his face was white, there was sweat on his forehead and his hands had abandoned the ruined tea-cake and were locked together in a tight agonized clasp.

‘It was something to do with Vicky’s death,’ he said at once. ‘It all dated from that time when she broke the news to him. My mother would never speak of it afterwards except to say she had come to know Paul so well that the affair could no longer be sustained.’

I was baffled. ‘What on earth could she have meant by that?’

‘I think
she found out what a liar he was,’ said Bruce. ‘I think she discovered that although Paul pretended to be bosom friends with Jason Da Costa he hated his guts and planned to ruin him. In the shock of Vicky’s death Paul could easily have admitted that.’

‘But it’s not true! Are you saying that Paul hated Jay even before Vicky died?’

‘When my mother first knew Paul,’ said Bruce, ‘when she was twenty-one and he was twenty-two, he told her that the one man on earth he was going to get even with eventually was a young banker down on Wall Street called Jason Da Costa. Later she thought he’d got over all that, particularly when he encouraged Jay to marry Vicky, but—’

‘You surely don’t think—’

‘—I think it just took Paul twenty-five years to rig the Salzedo affair and get the revenge he’d always wanted.’

‘Bruce, that’s the most terrible slander!’ I tried to rise to my feet but was riveted to my chair. ‘How can you possibly believe such a thing?’

‘I know the Da Costa brothers.’

‘Ah, that explains it! They’d say anything against Paul!’

‘Can you blame them? Quite apart from what he did to their father he’s succeeded in forcing them out of the country. They were being investigated for tax evasion. Paul fixed that because they were trying to make trouble for him by reopening the investigation into the Salzedo affair – they unearthed some secretary who said she saw the confidential report on Paul’s desk, and of course Paul always swore he never saw that report from Terence O’Reilly. Anyway Paul came back from Europe at the end of 1922 in order to put an end to the trouble. He bribed the secretary in order to prove she was venal and her evidence worthless, and then he told the I.R.S. to hustle Stewart and Greg out of town.’

‘Paul couldn’t possibly do that!’ I exclaimed, but I knew he could. I tried to keep my voice steady. ‘Not even the President could do such a thing!’

‘Sylvia, there’s nothing that husband of yours can’t do. He’s so darned rich and so darned powerful he can buy himself whatever he wants and if he can’t buy it he can extort it. Those people in government all owe him favours. All he ever has to do is pick up the phone and exert a little pressure.’

I fell back on the defence which had always reassured me whenever I had felt ambivalent about Paul’s power. ‘But Paul is an honourable man. The investment bankers rely absolutely on their integrity. All the bankers said that to Untermyer during the Pujo investigation.’

Bruce shrugged aside the ancient testimonies of 1912. ‘I can’t speak for all investment bankers – I can only speak for Paul, and all I know is that there’s no law that can touch him and his very existence makes a mockery of American democracy. Why do you think I became attracted to communism? It was because I came to resent not only Paul’s private life but his public life as well. I think it’s a crime that men like Paul Van Zale can make a half a million dollars by a couple of handshakes on Wall Street while people are starving in the rural south or toiling in the industrial sweat-shops of the north!’

‘I don’t
want to argue with you about politics, Bruce. I just want to argue with you about the Da Costa brothers. If the tax evasion was a trumped-up charge, why didn’t they stay in this country to fight it?’

‘The choice was between footing a huge legal bill and maybe going to jail, and retiring to a beautiful ranch in Mexico with a guaranteed annual income. Greg and Stewart aren’t rich – Jay left most of his estate to that fifth wife of his – and they’re not particularly smart. I’ve no doubt they probably did get in a fiscal mess with the money they inherited from Jay before they blew it all in the market, and in the circumstances a life south of the border could have had certain attractions.’

‘But how on earth do you know Paul bought them the ranch in Mexico?’

‘Greg told me.’

‘I don’t believe Greg Da Costa!’ I was pulling on my gloves, or trying to. My hands were shaking.

‘Sylvia … Look, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you, I really didn’t. But your husband’s a dangerous man, and if you don’t know that then I can see he’s been lying to you as efficiently as he’s been lying to everyone else. How well do you really know Paul, Sylvia? Do you know him well enough to realize you’re much too good for him?’

‘Bruce—’

‘Don’t let him treat you as he treated my mother, Sylvia. Don’t let him take and take and take until one morning you wake up and find there’s nothing left.’

I had finally managed to get my gloves on, but although I looked around feverishly for the waiter I could not remember what he looked like. The desire to escape from the opulent prewar atmosphere and the Strauss waltzes was overwhelming.

It was Bruce who discovered the waiter and insisted on paying the bill.

‘I expect you’re now wishing you’d never suggested this meeting,’ he said as he escorted me outside. ‘I’m sorry.’