The Blunderer Read online

  Walter took a fresh highball from the tray Claudia was passing round, and carried it over to Mrs. Philpott. She protested she didn’t need a new one, but Walter insisted. Unobtrusively, as he chatted with her by the fireplace, he interrupted, with a gentle foot, Jeff’s assault on a woman’s leg. Jeff ran off to the door to greet some new arrivals. Jeff had the time of his life at parties. He circulated through living-room, terrace, and garden, petted and fed canapés by everybody.

  “Your wife is the most wonderful worker we’ve ever had, Mr. Stackhouse,” Mrs. Philpott said. “I think there’s nothing she couldn’t buy or sell if she put her mind to it.”

  “I’ll tell her you said so.”

  “Oh, I think she knows it!” Mrs. Philpott said with a twinkle.

  Walter smiled back, feeling that he exchanged with her little blue, wrinkle-shrouded eyes a profound confidence. “Just don’t let her work too hard,” he said.

  “But that’s her nature. I don’t think we can do anything about it.”

  Walter nodded, smiling. Mrs. Philpott had said it gaily, and of course from her point of view it was fine. Walter saw Clara standing in the hall door of the living-room, and he went to her.

  “It’s going well, isn’t it?” he asked her.

  “Yes. Where’s Joan?”

  “Joan called and said she couldn’t come. Her mother’s sick and she’s staying home with her.” Joan was Walter’s secretary, a bright, attractive girl of twenty-four, whom Walter thought highly of. Walter was glad Clara had never shown any jealousy of Joan.

  “Her mother must be awfully sick,” Clara remarked.

  “Clara didn’t like her own mother. Walter had noticed she never approved of other people liking theirs. “You look terrific tonight, Clara, absolutely terrific!”

  Clara gave him a glance and a trace of a smile. She was still looking over her guests. “And that other one—what’s his name? Peter. He isn’t here.”

  “Pete Slotnikoff! You’re right.” Walter smiled. “Very clever of you to notice, since you’ve never met him.”

  “But I know all the people who are here—obviously.”

  Walter had seventeen minutes past ten by his watch. “Maybe he’ll turn up. He might have got lost.”

  “Was he coming in a car?”

  “No, he hasn’t got a car. I suppose he’ll take a train.” Walter wanted to offer Pete the couch in his study for the night, in case there wasn’t anybody who could take him back to New York, but decided to put off mentioning it to Clara until it became necessary. “By the way, honey, Jon asked me to go fishing with him next Sunday. Out around Montauk. You’re invited to come and stay on the beach, if you want to, because a girl friend of—of Jon’s will be along, too.”

  “A girlfriend of Jon’s?”

  “Well—a friend,” Walter corrected, because Jon was notoriously shy of women since his divorce.

  Clara’s small face had that rather stunned look, as if she were off balance for a moment until she had surveyed the idea from all possible angles, seen its advantages and disadvantages to herself. “Who is the girl?”

  “I don’t even know her name. Jon says she’s nice, though.”

  “I’m not so sure I want to spend a whole day with someone who might be a terrible bore,” Clara said.

  “Matter of fact, Jon said she—”

  “I think your friend is arriving.”

  Peter Slotnikoff was coming in the front door. Walter started towards him, trying to assume the pleasant, relaxed expression of a good host.

  Peter looked shy and bewildered and glad to see Walter. He was twenty-six, serious-looking and a little plump. His parents had been White-Russian refugees, and Peter had not known any English until he came to America at the age of fifteen, but he had finished brilliantly at the University of Michigan Law School, and Walter’s firm considered itself lucky to have him as a junior.

  “I brought a friend,” Peter said after Walter had introduced him to a few people near the door. Peter indicated a girl Walter hadn’t noticed. “This is Ellie Briess. This is Walter Stackhouse. Miss Elspeth Briess,” Peter said more carefully.

  They exchanged greetings, then Walter took them into the living-room to introduce them and get them drinks. Walter hadn’t thought Peter would have a girl at all. She was even rather pretty. Walter chose the darkest-looking highball from Claudia’s tray and handed it to Peter.

  “If you don’t find anybody you want to talk to, Pete, there’s television out on the terrace,” Walter said to him. Walter had put the TV set on the terrace for the people who wanted to watch the ball game that night.

  Walter went to the rolling bar and made Clara a drink of Italian vermouth and soda, her favorite, and took it to her. She was talking with Betty Ireton by the fireplace.

  “I wish my husband took as good care of my drinks,” Betty said.

  “I’ll get you another,” Walter offered.

  “Oh, I didn’t mean that. I’ve still got plenty.” Her handsome, narrow face smiled at him above the rim of her glass.

  Betty Ireton loved to flirt, in a thoroughly harmless way, and she often told Walter right in front of Clara that she thought he was the best-looking man in Benedict. And Clara, knowing its harmlessness, paid it no mind at all.

  “I wanted to take you over to meet Peter,” Walter said to Clara.

  “And I’m going to check up on my husband,” Betty said. “He’s disappeared in the garden.”

  “How about Sunday?” Walter asked Clara. “I want to give Jon an answer tonight.”

  “Must you choose the only day we have to spend together to go off fishing? I don’t think it’s very nice for me.”

  “Come on, Clara. It’s been months since I’ve gone fishing.”

  “And Chad’s undoubtedly going, there’ll be drinking, and you’ll come back reeking for hours from it.”

  “I don’t think that’s entirely warranted.”

  “I do. I know it too well.” Clara walked away.

  Walter set his teeth. Why the hell didn’t he just go? Well, the answer to that was; the hell she would raise later just wasn’t worth it. Mrs. Philpott was watching him from the sofa. Walter relaxed his expression at once. He wondered if Mrs. Philpott understood? Her face looked very old and sagacious. Practically everyone else at the party understood, everyone who’d ever spent an evening with him and Clara.

  “Walter, old man, do you think I can get a refill?”

  Walter smiled at the familiar, rubbery face of Dick Jensen, and felt like putting an arm around him. “You sure can, brother. I want one, too. Let’s go in the kitchen.”

  Claudia was busy with the cold roast beef. Walter told her it was too early to start serving, and that she’d better see who needed another drink.

  “Mrs. Stackhouse told me to bring the food on now, Mr. Stackhouse,” Claudia said with a neutral resignation.

  “There you are,” Dick said. “Overruled by the Court.”

  Walter let it go. Even Dick knew that Clara meant to prevent anybody’s getting drunk tonight by serving the buffet at an early hour. Walter made Dick a whopping drink and a generous one for himself. “Where’s Polly?” Walter asked.

  “Out on the terrace, I think.”

  Walter made a drink for Polly, in case she didn’t have one, and went out on the terrace. Polly was leaning against the terrace rail, watching the TV, but she smiled and beckoned to Walter when she saw him. Polly was not beautiful. Her hips spread, and she did her hair in a dull brown bun at the back of her neck, but she had the most pleasant personality in the world. For Walter simply to be near her for a few moments satisfied a deep craving, like the craving he felt sometimes to lie naked in the sun.

  “How does it feel to be married to a real estate tycoon?” Polly asked with her big toothy grin.

  “Great! Now I haven’t a financial worry in the world. I’m thinking of retiring soon.” Walter had just begun to notice his drinks. He felt a little warm in the face.

  Dick came up
and took his wife’s arm. “Sorry, I have to borrow this. I want her to meet Pete.”

  “Why can’t Pete come out here?” Walter asked.

  “He’s deep in some discussion in there.” Dick took Polly off.

  Walter picked up the extra highball that Polly hadn’t wanted, and looked around for someone to offer it to. His eyes stopped on a girl who was looking at him from the far corner of the terrace. It was Pete’s girl, all by herself. Walter went over to her.

  “You don’t have a drink,” he said. He couldn’t think of her name.

  “I’ve had one, thanks. I just came out to enjoy your country air.”

  “Well, you’d better have another!” He handed it to her and she accepted it. “Are you from New York?” he asked.

  “I live there. Just now I’m looking for a job there—or anywhere.” Her eyes looked up at him directly, warm and friendly. “I’m a musician. I teach music.”

  “What do you play?”

  “The violin. Piano, too, but I’m more interested in the violin. I teach music to children. Music appreciation.”

  “Music to children!” The idea of teaching music to children seemed suddenly enchanting to Walter. He wanted to say: what a shame we haven’t any children for you to teach music to.

  “I’m looking for a job in a public school, but it’s tough without a lot of degrees and qualifications. I’m just about to try some private schools.”

  “I hope you have luck,” Walter said. The girl looked about the same age as Peter. There was a simplicity about her, a peasantry robustness that Walter supposed suited Peter to a T She was suntanned and there was a faint highlight down her nose. When she smiled, her teeth looked very white. “Have you known Pete long?”

  “Just a few months. Just after he started working for you. He’s very happy there.”

  “We like him, too.”

  “He started talking to me on the bus one day—because we were both carrying violin cases. Pete plays the violin, too, you know—a little.”

  “I didn’t know,” Walter said. “He’s a nice boy.”

  “Oh, he’s such a nice boy,” she said with so much conviction, Walter felt his own remark had sounded flippant by comparison. “I’d love a little angostura in this drink—if you have any.”

  “Of course, we have! Give me your glass.” Walter went into the living-room to the rolling bar, dropped six drops in carefully, and stirred it with a muddler. When he went back on the terrace, Jon was talking with the girl. The girl put her head back and laughed at something Jon had said.

  “Walter!” Jon said. “What about Sunday?”

  “I’m not sure I can, Jon. It looks like Sunday we’re supposed to—”

  “I understand, I understand,” Jon murmured.

  “I’m sorry. If I’d—”

  “I understand, Walter,” Jon said impatiently.

  Walter glanced at the girl, feeling embarrassed and a little sick. If the girl hadn’t been there, Jon would have said, “Oh, tell Clara to go jump in the lake!” Jon had said that a couple of times in the past, though Walter hadn’t gone along on those occasions, either. Jon wasn’t going to bother saying it much longer, Walter thought.

  “Listen to me for a minute,” Jon said in the authoritative voice of an editor-in-chief, then he stopped and let his breath out as if it were hopeless.

  The girl had tactfully gone away, was walking down the steps into the garden.

  “I know what you’re going to say,” Walter said, “but I have to live with it.”

  Jon smiled his easy smile. He was choosing to say nothing. “By the way, Chad told me to tell you he wants you to come to the party he’s giving next Friday. Dinner at his house, then we go to the theater. His friend Richard Bell is opening in his new play on Friday. There’ll be about six of us. Get away from Clara. It’d do you good. Chad knows he’s in the doghouse with Clara. He doesn’t even want to telephone you out here.”

  “All right, I will.” If Clara excluded Chad, he thought, Chad would exclude Clara.

  “You’d better.” Jon waved a hand at him and went down into the garden.

  Nobody got drunk that night except Mrs. Philpott. She lost her balance and sat down hard in front of the radio-phonograph, but she took it very cheerfully and continued to sit there, listening to the music that Vic Rogers was playing for a small, attentive group. She was still there at 3 a.m. when all but six people had gone home. Clara got exasperated. Clara thought three in the morning was time for any party to break up, but clearly it was the Philpotts who were holding things up, and she could hardly dare drop a hint to the Philpotts.

  “Let her enjoy herself,” Walter said.

  “I think she’s drunk!” Clara whispered, horrified. “I can’t get her off the floor. I’ve asked her three times.”

  Suddenly Clara marched over to Mrs. Philpott, and Walter watched incredulously as Clara put her hands under Mrs. Philpott’s shoulders and lifted her bodily. Bill Ireton quickly pulled up a chair to catch her. For an instant, Walter saw the look that Mrs. Philpott gave Clara, a look of speechless surprise and resentment.

  Mrs. Philpott shook her shoulders, as if to rid herself of Clara’s touch. “Well! I never knew it was against the law to sit on the floor before!”

  A terrible silence fell in the room. Bill Ireton looked suddenly sober as a trout. Walter came forward automatically to help ease the situation, and began to tell Mrs. Philpott how often he sat on the floor himself.

  Bill Ireton burst out laughing. So did his wife. Everybody roared then, even Mrs. Philpott, everybody except Clara, who only smiled, nervously. Walter put his arm around Clara and squeezed her affectionately. He knew her impulse to pick Mrs. Philpott up off the floor had been absolutely irresistible.

  A few minutes later, everybody had taken leave.

  The bedroom window showed the milky grey of dawn. Jeff lay in the valley between the pillows of the turned-down bed, his favorite spot.

  “Come on, boy,” Walter said, snapping his fingers to awaken him, and the dog got up sleepily and jumped down from the bed. Walter patted the pillow in Jeff’s basket bed in a corner of the room, and Jeff crawled in. “He’s had a hard night,” Walter said, smiling.

  “I think he takes it a lot better than you do,” Clara said. “You smell of liquor and your face is red with it.”

  “I won’t smell when I brush my teeth.” Walter went into the bathroom.

  “Who is that girl Peter Slotnikoff brought?”

  “Don’t know,” he called over the shower. “Ellie something, I think.”

  “Ellie Briess. I just wondered who she was.”

  Walter was too tired to yell that she taught music, and he didn’t think Clara really cared to know. Ellie had a car, apparently, because she and Peter had driven back to New York together. Walter got into bed and put his arms gently around Clara, kissing her cheek, her ear, careful to keep even the smell of toothpaste away from her.

  “Walter, I’m awfully tired.”

  “So’m I,” he said, snuggling his head beside her on the pillow, avoiding the still warm spot where Jeff had lain. He passed his hand around Clara’s waist. She felt smooth and warm under the silk nightgown. He loved the rise and fall of her middle as she breathed. He pulled her towards him.

  She twisted away. “Walter—”

  “Just kiss me good night, Kits.” He held her despite her squirming and her expression of distaste that he could see in the grey light.

  She pushed him away and sat up in the bed. “I think you’re a sex maniac!” she said indignantly.

  Walter sat up, too. “I’m closer to a shrinking violet these days! The only thing the matter with me is that I’m in love with you!”

  “You disgust me!” she said, and flung herself down on the pillow again, her back turned to him.

  Walter smoldered, wanting to spring out of bed and go out, outdoors, or down in the living-room to sleep, but he knew he would sleep badly in the living-room, if at all, and feel worse for it tomorr
ow. Lie down and let it go, he told himself. He sank down on his pillow. Then he heard Clara make a little sound with her lips to summon Jeff, heard the click-click of Jeff’s sleepy steps across the floor, and felt the vibration of the bed as Jeff jumped up on Clara’s side.

  Walter threw back the sheet and leapt out of bed.

  “Oh, Walter, don’t be absurd,” Clara said.

  “It’s perfectly all right,” he said with grim calm. He got his silk bathrobe from the closet, put it back, and groped on the back hooks for his flannel robe. “I just never liked sleeping in the same bed with a dog.”

  “How silly.”

  Walter went downstairs. The house was grey, the color of a dream. He sat down on the sofa. Clara had removed the ashtrays and the empty glasses, and everything was in its proper place again. Walter stared at the big Italian bottle full of philodendrons on the windowsill. He had given Clara the bottle and a gold-chain bracelet on her last birthday. The dawn light shone through the green glass of the bottle and revealed the gracefully criss-crossing stems. They were beautiful, like an abstract painting.

  Ah, gracious living!

  4

  Walter felt tired and sickish the next day. He had a slight headache, though he did not know whether it was from lack of sleep or from Clara’s haranguing. She had found him asleep on the living-room floor, and had accused him of being so drunk he had not realized when he fell off. That morning, Walter took a long walk in the woods that began at the dead end of Marlborough Road not far from the house, then came back and tried unsuccessfully to take a nap.

  Clara had bathed Jeff and was brushing him out in the sun on the upstairs terrace. Walter went into his study across the hall from the bedroom. It was a room on the north side of the house, darkened restfully in summer by the trees just beyond the window. It had two walls of books, a flat-topped desk, and it was carpeted with a worn oriental rug that had been in his room at his parents’ house in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Clara wanted to get rid of the rug because it had a hole in it. It was one of the few things Walter took a stand about: the study was his room, and he was going to keep the rug.

  Walter sat at his desk and reread a letter that had arrived last week from his brother Cliff in Bethlehem. It was a letter on several pages of a small cheap writing tablet, and it told of the everyday events around the farm that Cliff supervised for their father: the rise in the price of eggs, and the champion hen’s latest record. It would have been a dull letter, except for Cliff’s dry humor that came out in nearly every line. Cliff had enclosed a clipping from a Bethlehem newspaper that Walter had not yet read, with the notation: “Try this on Clara. See if it gets a laugh.” It was a column called Dear Mrs. Plainfield.