The Tight White Collar (12 page)

“But, Jess—”

“A mentally defective child, an idiot, Nate, is absolutely helpless. It takes the patience of a saint to care for a child like Robin. Do you have that kind of patience? Does Margery?”

“I'll discuss it with her, Jess.”

But there was nothing to discuss as far as Margery was concerned. Her first, final and only answer was an unqualified “No.”

“Darling, will you talk to Jess about it?” asked Nate.

“No.”

“Margery, listen to me,” pleaded Jess. “You cannot give Robin the care that she needs at home. Caring for a defective child has to be done not only lovingly—”

“Are you insinuating that I don't love Robin, Jess?” she interrupted angrily. “Do you think that just because she is as she is I love her less?”

“If you love her, Margery, you'll do what's best for her and best for you. I know you love her, but love isn't the only consideration. “

“Leave me alone!” screamed Margery. “Leave me alone, both of you! I love her. She didn't ask to be born. I'll give her as much of myself as she can use, and I never want to hear another word about sending her away, locking her up somewhere, pretending that she's dead. Leave me alone, do you hear? Leave me alone!”

The voices of love surrounded her.

“Margery, darling, darling.”

“Margery, Margery.”

“Miz Marg'ry, honey.”

Ten years later, Margery stood behind one of the maroon velvet drapes in the living room that Nathaniel Cooper I had furnished and watched Anthony Cooper come out of his house and walk down the path to the gardener's cottage. The room was as wrong for her now as it had been when she had first seen it for, except for the fine lines around her eyes and the tightness around her mouth, she looked much the same as she had as a bride. Beneath the expensive tweed skirt she wore, her hips were as trim as they had been when she used to ride horseback every day, and the thrust of her breasts under the pale yellow sweater was still sharp and firm. The hand with which she pushed the drape aside was still white and slim-fingered, and her hair was still a dark, glossy cap, but the eyes with which she watched Anthony, although as blue as ever, were dull and looked as if they would take weeks and months of crying to be washed clear again.

The house at which Margery looked had been built by Ferguson Cooper as a wedding gift for his son, Benjamin. It was made of white clapboard in an exact replica of the brick house in which Ferguson himself had lived.

“If your father was set on twin houses,” Margery had said to her husband, “why didn't he go the whole hog and build Benjamin's house out of brick too?”

“Because at the time, this was the only brick building in town,” Nathaniel replied, “and Pa kept it that way because he figured that's the way Grandpa would have wanted it.”

It used to amuse Margery that to this day, even though there were now municipal buildings made of brick, hers remained the only brick house in Cooper Station.

“We're so effin exclusive in our brick house,” she had told Nathaniel in a moment of vulgarity, “that sometimes I feel like a royal-arsed Duchess.”

The house across the street from Margery had the same graveled drive, the same gates and posts and brass nameplates as the brick house, and it had always meant less than nothing to Anthony Cooper. Margery watched him now as he walked down the path. He was tall and too thin, so that his brown sports jacket seemed to be too large for him. His hair, like that of all the Cooper men, was a dark chestnut, but his face was not a Cooper face. His was thin, with a sharply aquiline nose and thick black brows that rose like little pitched roofs over deep-set, gray-green eyes. His lips were full over a deeply cleft chin and his cheekbones had prominent hollows beneath them.

“None of Benjamin to him at all,” Ferguson Cooper had said, and except for Anthony's hair, the old man had been right. Anthony took after his mother. He was all Ford.

He doesn't look well, thought Margery. But at least, he's here, thank God. Perhaps now he'll stay home where he belongs and everything will be all right.

She remembered a conversation that she had overheard several years before, when Anthony had come home for Robin's christening.

“Well, Jess,” Anthony had said to the doctor, “maybe I'll find a good healthy girl when I get back to New York. One who'll be willing to marry me and give me a son in a hurry. I'd better, or soon there'll be nothing left of the Coopers except our name on a lot of buildings and a lot of gravestones.”

Margery clenched her teeth against memory. Goddamn him, she thought. And then, No, I mustn't. If Anthony doesn't stay . . . she let the thought drift off. He'll stay, she told herself. This time he has to. He'll stay and settle down and find a nice girl and have a son who'll eventually learn to run the mills.

Lisa Pappas and Jim Sheppard's wife, Polly, had met during the war while both women were serving as hostesses at the USO in Cooper's Mills and despite the ten years difference in their ages, they had discovered in each other a mutual fondness for many things, including books and music and people, and they had become fast friends.

When Lisa and Chris had returned to Cooper's Mills after West Farrington, it was Polly who convinced Lisa that Chris's decision to teach at the state school at Marmington was a wise one, and when the Cooper Station high school needed a new teacher, it was Polly who suggested Chris to Jim Sheppard.

Polly was small and dark with the kind of vitality that caused many people to say, “My! Polly Sheppard is so alive, isn't she?” while others, who were younger, said, “Gee, I hope I have her pep and energy when I'm her age.” There were, however, plenty of people in Cooper Station who were not so kind and they were the ones who said that Polly was a do-gooder, a busybody and a meddler.

“Always got her nose into something, that woman,” said some of Cooper Station.

“You'd think with four kids to look after she'd have all she could do right at home.”

“Oh, Polly's all right. It's just that she's got to keep up with everybody and everything all the time.”

“Reckon there wasn't enough for her to do down there in Boston, so she had to come here and run things.”

Polly, herself, was not unaware of what people said about her, but she went along in her own way just the same and regarded herself as a humanitarian and a champion of the underdog. The truth of the matter was that Polly Sheppard was the victim of a frustration so deep-seated that all her energies were dissipated along a hundred different pathways in a futile attempt to escape. In her headlong flight toward unreality, she had first tried drinking, which left her with nothing but enormous hangovers and a weight problem, and then a lover who first lived off her money and then left her for another, younger woman. It was after these two attempts that she had come to Cooper Station, determined to make a place for herself and her children, and the fact that her husband had come with her was incidental for she and Jim despised one another.

“Don't marry him,” her mother had warned. “He's not our kind.”

“But I love him,” Polly had said. “I'll love him forever and I'll die if I can't have him.”

She was nineteen years old at the time and Jim Sheppard was her first beau.

“He's so handsome,” Polly had said. “Every girl I know is blind with jealousy because he dates me.”

“There's more to marriage than being handsome and having a good-looking head of hair,” warned her mother.

In the end, of course, Polly won. She and Jim were married and for the first year everything was just as Polly had said it would be. She and Jim had a small apartment in Boston and Jim was expected to be a great success in his job with the auditing firm of Hitchcock, Pierce and Jamison. Polly learned to cook and Jim bought her a little cocker spaniel. On Sundays, the two of them went to visit Polly's parents and it always felt so good to get back to their own little place.

“I'm alive!” cried Polly over and over again. “Isn't it wonderful?”

And Jim kissed her and laughed at her. “You're a nut,” he said.

The only times they ever argued were when they went to parties. Then Jim was apt to pay too much attention to every good-looking woman and Polly always felt as if she were dying a little every time it happened.

“You belong to me!” she said angrily.

“For God's sake, Polly. All I did was bring her a fresh drink. Does that mean I want to take her to bed?”

“Don't even say such a thing!”

“I'll say it if I feel like it.”

“Is that what you were thinking? That you'd like to sleep with her?”

“Oh, Christ!”

“Then how come you mentioned it if you weren't thinking it?”

“Please, Polly. Let's just forget the whole thing.”

“Forget it! How do you think I felt with you making a fuss over everybody but me?”

“I wasn't making a fuss over anyone.”

“You were so!”

They went to bed stiffly and kept their backs turned on each other and invariably it was Polly who relented first.

“Honey?”

“For God's sake, what now?”

“I'm sorry.”

“Sure you are.”

“Truly I am.”

“That's what you say every goddamned time.”

“Honey?”

“What?”

“Please don't be mad at me.”

“I'm not mad.”

“How can I tell? You sound mad.”

“Well, I'm not. Now for God's sake, let's get some sleep.”

“Honey?”

“Now what?”

“Turn over.”

“All right. So now I've turned over.”

“Put your arms around me.”

Then she would begin to stroke him, to try to excite him and most of the time she succeeded. It was the times when he refused to be aroused that were terrible for Polly.

“You don't love me anymore.”

“Polly, I'm just tired.”

“I don't believe you.”

“Well, don't then. Just let me get to sleep.”

The only solution that Polly could think of was to keep away from parties but Jim wouldn't hear of it.

“If you don't want to go, all right. But I'm going.”

“Jim! You wouldn't!”

“Yes, I would.”

Several times he did. Then Polly would sit home alone, torturing herself, wondering what he was doing, and thinking that if he would cheat on her right here in Boston what in the world would he do when his work took him away from her to northern New England where his firm frequently sent him.

In the end, of course, Jim had a trite little love affair with his secretary and Polly found out about it. At once, she went home to her parents.

“I can't stand it!” she wept.

“We told you he wasn't our kind.”

“But you should see her! She's not even pretty!”

Jim came to get her to bring her home and Polly knew that she had to go because now she was pregnant.

“Look, Polly,” said Jim. “We had it pretty nice together. So I made a mistake. Let's try to patch it up.”

Polly's eyes were hard when she looked at him.

“I gave you everything,” she said. “All the love I had in the world. And it wasn't enough for you.”

“Polly, say you forgive me.”

And she did, just as she had known all along that she would.

But within two years it happened again and it happened while Polly was carrying her second child.

“I hate you,” she said to Jim. “I'll hate you all the rest of my life.”

She locked him out of her room but she would not lock him out of her life.

“Divorce? Don't be a fool, Jim. Do you think I'm going to admit to the world that I made such an abysmal mistake in marrying you? Never.”

But Polly could not stand the pitying glances of her friends and relatives. She began drinking heavily and kept it up until her figure began to go, then she stopped. She met Bill Cadmus at a cocktail party and had a rather half-hearted love affair with him and she could not even weep when he left her for a young fashion model.

I've got to get away from here, thought Polly in desperation.

Then she remembered Cooper Station and a trip she had once taken through northern New England. Within three months she had bought a house and moved in with the two children.

“You can do whatever you want,” she told Jim. “But you're going to take care of the children and me and when you're here, you're going to make a nice face and act married. If you want to screw around, you can do it during the week in Boston. But you're not going to do it here.”

“You're getting pretty damned bossy, aren't you?” said Jim angrily. “I could take off, you know. Then you wouldn't have a damned thing.”

“Try it,” said Polly coldly. “I'll follow you everywhere you go. I'll walk into every place you ever work and I'll camp on the doorstep of every tramp you ever take up with and I'll bring the kids with me. Go ahead. You'll see how long you keep a job or a whore then.”

Twice, during the years they had lived in Cooper Station, the old magic worked for Jim and both times Polly got pregnant.

“I hate you,” she told him savagely.

But most of all, she hated herself and the old weakness that came when he tried to touch her.

The Sheppards were a handsome, popular couple in Cooper Station. Finally, Jim's firm agreed to let him make his headquarters in Cooper Station since his clients in northern New England required more and more of his time. And soon after that a group of townspeople decided that he should run for the Town Board of Guardians, and Polly felt that she had truly arrived at her place in the world at last. To the eyes of Cooper Station, the Sheppards presented a solid, united front. One of the few who knew the truth of the whole situation was Lisa Pappas, and the only reason she knew was because Polly had told her.

Whenever Polly had needed someone to confide in, she had always gone to Lisa, and whenever Lisa had found herself in need of a helping hand she had turned to Polly. Now Lisa needed help again, and again it was Polly who stood beside her friend.

“She'll never get anywhere with her damned petition for a referendum,” said Polly. “Even Doris Delaney Palmer isn't big enough to be able to argue with a signed contract.”

“Oh, Polly, do you really think so?” asked Lisa, almost in tears. “I've been so sick over this thing. Surely, just because Chris quit one job we don't deserve to have this happen to us.”

“You just cheer up, hear? Everything's going to work out fine.”

“Everybody makes mistakes,” said Lisa. “We made ours and Chris paid for it with a whole year at that damned state school.”

“You're damned right everybody makes mistakes,” agreed Polly, and because she was sometimes addicted to gossip she added, “I could tell you things about some people in this town that'd make your hair stand on end. No, very few people in Cooper Station have any business holding any kind of mistake against anyone.”

“Like what?” asked Lisa.

“Not this morning, dear,” said Polly and stood up. “I've got the kids coming home for lunch, then I've got to go to a meeting up at the Mills. But I'll try to stop in tomorrow. In the meantime, don't you worry about a thing. Everything's going to work out fine. I just have a feeling.”

The days of spring began to lengthen and stretch themselves toward summer and they were long, long days for Lisa. The children, little Chris and Midget, were at school until four o'clock every afternoon and Chris seldom got home from Marmington before six in the evening. The gardener's cottage was small and easy to care for so that by ten o'clock in the morning, Lisa's work was finished and the whole day loomed emptily before her. There seemed to be nothing to do except wait for the children and wait for Chris because, except for Polly, no one came to call on her and no one but Polly ever invited her anywhere. Lisa took to reading as she had done during the long years that Chris had been at the university and almost every day now, she sat in a lawn chair in front of the cottage and struggled her way through some of the books Chris had used in his literature courses at school. One Thursday morning she was sitting in her chair, reading, when all at once a shadow fell across the page. She looked up, startled, and Anthony Cooper was standing behind her. She had not seen him since the day she had moved in.

“You've got the damndest hair,” said Anthony. “It's really no color at all and yet it has more life to it than any hair I've ever seen before.”

“How did you get here?” demanded Lisa, jumping up from her chair. “I never heard you walk up behind me at all.”

“On my little cat feet,” said Anthony. “Come on, sit back down and let's see what you're reading today.” He sat down on the grass next to her chair and took the book out of her hands. “Dostoevsky, eh? That's pretty dry stuff on a day like this. Got any cold beer in your icebox?”

“Yes, I have,” said Lisa, still startled at the fact that the fabulous Anthony Cooper was sitting at her feet.

“Well, then, let's waste no time. Come on.”

He took her hand and pulled her up on her feet.

“But it's only eleven o'clock in the morning,” protested Lisa.

“Eleven o'clock or any other time,” said Anthony, “if I'm going to explain the Russians to you, I'm going to need a cold beer in my hand.”

“You don't think much of yourself, do you?” asked Lisa sarcastically.

“On the contrary, my dear,” said Anthony as he led her into the cottage, “I think a great deal of myself.”

And that was how it began. Every day Anthony Cooper came to Lisa's house and drank beer and talked to her about everything that came into his mind. Sometimes he stayed for only an hour but at other times he stayed until it was time for the children to come home from school and the only times he left abruptly were when Polly Sheppard came to visit Lisa. Then he said goodbye very carefully and walked down the curving pathway to his own house.

“Every time I come here lately,” said Polly, “I trip over Anthony Cooper.”

“He's wonderful,” said Lisa, suddenly defensive for no reason at all. “He knows more about books than anyone I've ever met. Why, just listening to him is like taking a course in literature at the university.”

“I'll bet,” said Polly.

“What have you got against him anyway?” demanded Lisa.

“Nothing,” said Polly, “except that he's getting you talked about. Just because this cottage is hidden from Smith Road, don't think that it's hidden from the eyes of Cooper Station.”

“That's ridiculous,” cried Lisa. “What's wrong in my having Anthony for a friend?”