Heart Troubles Page 7

“There they go!” said Mr. Foley. “Look at the Penguin. What a boat!”

  “What a boat!” Mrs. Foley echoed.

  The Lightning Class was racing.

  Mrs. Foley sat down beside her husband. “I’m wondering,” she said. “Do you want red diamonds with white crisscross or white diamonds with red crisscross? I can do either.” She started to open her knitting bag.

  “Whichever is easiest for you, dear,” Mr. Foley said, not looking at her.

  “Well, now, don’t say that,” said Mrs. Foley. “Say something definite so I’ll have something definite to go on. I can’t go ahead at random and do just anything.”

  “Uh-huh,” said Mr. Foley. Then, turning to her, he added crossly, “Don’t knit now, Grace. Do you want everybody to get the idea you don’t give a hoot about the races?”

  “Well,” Mrs. Foley said, “you know, I really don’t give a hoot about the races. You know that. Not actually. Besides, I don’t see why I can’t knit and watch them at the same time.”

  “Uh-huh,” said Mr. Foley. “Well, I think it looks kind of funny.”

  Someone said, “Hello, Jim. Hello, Grace.”

  “Why, hello, Frank,” Mr. Foley said, standing up.

  “Good morning,” said Mrs. Foley.

  “How’s your wife, Frank?”

  “Just fine, Jim. How’re you two?” He looked at Mrs. Foley. “I haven’t seen you around here in a long time.”

  “Well—” Mrs. Foley began.

  “I’ve been down,” Mr. Foley interrupted, “but Grace was on the sick list. She hasn’t been down lately.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” Frank said.

  “Oh, I haven’t been sick really,” Mrs. Foley said. “I had my spring cold in April, but it’s just that I don’t care much for sailing. I mean, I don’t pretend to understand all the rules—starboard tacks and handicaps and everything. It’s all Greek to me.”

  “Well, you’ve really been neglecting us,” said Frank. “You coming to the Sailors’ Dinner?”

  “No, I don’t believe so,” Mrs. Foley said.

  “Why, sure we’re coming,” said Mr. Foley. “We wouldn’t want to miss that, would we, Grace?”

  “Well,” said Mrs. Foley, “I’ll have to see. Just when is that, Frank?”

  “It’s on the club calendar, Grace—the twenty-second. Gosh, Jim, you two haven’t been getting your dues’ worth out of this place. Well …”

  Mr. Foley laughed. “Guess you’re right, Frank,” he said.

  “Got to be pushing along,” Frank said. “Nice to see you again. Got to get back to the wife.”

  “Nice to see you,” said Mrs. Foley.

  “See you around, Frank,” said Mr. Foley.

  When he had left them, Mrs. Foley reached into her knitting bag and took out her glasses. They were tinted green and gold-framed. Mr. Foley sat down heavily beside her. “You going to wear those?” he asked sharply. “You know you look like the devil in those.”

  “Yes, I know,” said Mrs. Foley, “but I can’t read without them. I was going to do a crossword puzzle.”

  “What are you going to do a crossword puzzle for?”

  “Well, I’ve been putting off doing it,” Mrs. Foley said.

  “Ye gods, Grace!”

  “What’s the matter?”

  “What do you mean, what’s the matter? Do you mean to say you’re going to sit here and do a crossword puzzle while the race is going on? Don’t you give a darn what people think about you?”

  “Of course I do, but—”

  “Ye gods,” he said, “if you don’t care what people think about you, you might at least think of what people think about me. Ye gods, right in front of Frank Hillman you said—”

  “Oh,” she said, “that’s who that was. For the life of me, I couldn’t think of his last name.”

  “Frank Hillman? You couldn’t think of Frank Hillman?” He struck his forehead with the heel of his palm. “He’s only the new commodore of the club, that’s all! Ye gods!”

  “Please don’t keep saying ‘ye gods,’ dear.”

  “Quite an impression you must have made on him! Incidentally, when I said you’d been sick why did you contradict me? He’s the most important man in the club. You know darn well he’ll think it’s funny.”

  “Why should he think it’s funny?” Mrs. Foley asked. “Besides, I haven’t been sick, and I don’t see why—”

  “Look,” he said, “couldn’t you see he thought it was funny you don’t come down here more often? You know the way that wife of his talks. You know she’ll think it’s funny. They’ll get the idea you don’t like the club.”

  “Oh, I do like the club,” Mrs. Foley said. “It would be silly of them to get the idea that I don’t like the club.”

  “Then you’d better come to the Sailors’ Dinner. It’s the twenty-second. Gosh, you should have known that!”

  “It must have slipped my mind,” she said. “I guess I just hadn’t planned on going.”

  “Look,” he said, “I’m pretty well thought of here, you can tell that. There’s a good chance I’ll be put on the board of governors next year. But you act like you’re deliberately trying to ruin all my chances.”

  “Now, now,” Mrs. Foley said consolingly, “you know that isn’t true.”

  His eyes turned toward the water again. “The Penguin is still out in front,” he said. “There she goes. That’s the Pitcairns’ boat. They’ll get the cup this year, wait and see.”

  Mrs. Foley watched the boats for a moment or two. Then she reached into her knitting bag and took out a folded section of the newspaper and a pencil. She studied the page. “Oh, dear,” she said. “Current affairs. I don’t know a thing about current affairs.”

  “Hmm,” said Mr. Foley, his eyes still on the boats. “What about ’em?”

  “That’s the subject of the crossword puzzle. Every week they have a different subject.”

  He turned and glared at her. “So you’re going to do it!”

  “Oh, please,” she said. “Nobody’s paying any attention to us. Please let me do it. I brought it out here to do.”

  He turned away, not answering her. “Hey!” he said. “Look—they’re coming about now. Roddie Pitcairn’s the skipper of that boat. Good little skipper, too.”

  “Is he the one at Harvard?”

  “No, Dartmouth.”

  “Oh, yes.”

  Mrs. Foley concentrated on her puzzle and Mr. Foley crossed his legs and leaned forward, watching the boats.

  “Can you think of a six-letter word meaning ‘cabinet,’ Jim?” Mrs. Foley asked after a moment.

  “Bureau,” said Mr. Foley. “Does that fit?”

  “Perhaps,” Mrs. Foley said. “But then seventeen across doesn’t work. I’ll have to see …”

  “Why, hi there!” a girl’s voice said.

  “Ruth,” he said, “how are you? Ruthie, you know my wife, Mrs. Foley? Grace, this is Ruthie Pitcairn. This is Roddie Pitcairn’s sister.”

  “How do you do?” Mrs. Foley smiled.

  “Why, how do you do?” the girl said. She was perhaps eighteen, with long, tanned legs below her blue sailcloth shorts. A striped blazer was across her shoulders.

  “We’ve been watching the races,” Mrs. Foley said.

  “Aren’t they exciting?” Ruth Pitcairn said, tossing her head. “You know, I’ve lost my lighter. That’s why I came over. You haven’t seen it, have you? It’s silver with my initials on it.”

  Mrs. Foley looked around her on the bench, on the terrace beneath her feet. “Why, no, we haven’t,” she said. “Can you remember where you had it last?”

  “No, I can’t,” the girl said. “Isn’t that silly of me? Well, if you should see it …”

  “Oh, we’ll let you know,” Mrs. Foley said.

  “The Penguin is doing just fine,” said Mr. Foley. “Just fine.”

  “Yes, it is, isn’t it,” said the girl.

  “Your brother’s a fine little skipper, yessiree. He’ll
get the cup this year.”

  “He’s doing splendidly,” said Ruth. “I’m so thrilled. Well,” she said, “it was awfully nice to meet you, Mrs. Foley. Hope I’ll see you again soon. Are you coming to the Sailors’ Dinner?”

  “Well …” Mrs. Foley began.

  “Sure thing,” Mr. Foley said quickly. “We’ll be there.”

  “I hope so,” Mrs. Foley said.

  “Good. Well, if you should see my lighter …”

  “We’ll be on the lookout,” Mrs. Foley said.

  When they were alone again Mrs. Foley said, “My, isn’t she pretty? How did you meet her, Jim?”

  “Ruth? She took the junior tennis championship last summer. Nice girl. You’d meet people too, Grace, if you’d come here more often.”

  “She was wearing a fraternity pin of some sort,” Mrs. Foley said. “I think it was Psi Omega. My, don’t girls get engaged young these days!”

  “It wasn’t Psi Omega,” Mr. Foley said. “I don’t know what it was, but it wasn’t Psi Omega.”

  “If we had a daughter I’d like to have her look exactly like that,” Mrs. Foley said. “Exactly like that.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Mrs. Foley looked back at her puzzle.

  “Pitcairn’s going to get this race,” Mr. Foley said. “Just look at that. That boat is perfectly handled. Ha! There’s Joe Winter’s boat way behind. Boy, that does my heart good.”

  “Mm, yes,” said Mrs. Foley.

  “What a race, what a race! They’re doing the long course today.”

  “Isn’t it warm!” Mrs. Foley said.

  “Stan Pitcairn owns one of the biggest paper mills in Connecticut. They live in Old Greenwich. I hear they have quite a mansion up there.”

  Mrs. Foley nodded.

  “Did I tell you Joe Winter wanted to draw up a contract with our firm?” Mr. Foley asked. “Boy, I wouldn’t trust him as far as I could throw him. Now, Pitcairn’s another matter. I’ve been getting pretty buddy-buddy with Pitcairn lately, and one of these days I’m going to put the proposition to him. That’s why I want you to play up to the Pitcairns at the Sailors’ Dinner.”

  “But I don’t know them at all,” Mrs. Foley said.

  “You will. I’ll introduce you at the Sailors’ Dinner.”

  “Jim,” she said softly, “I don’t really want to go to the Sailors’ Dinner.”

  He looked at her. “Why not?”

  “Jim,” she said, “I don’t really know any of these people. I guess you’d say I’m shy. And quite frankly, dear, I don’t like a lot of them.”

  “Huh?” he said. “In one breath you say you don’t know them; in the next you say you don’t like them. What kind of sense does that make?”

  “The ones I’ve met, I mean,” she said.

  “Why don’t you like ’em, for gosh sake?”

  Mrs. Foley thought a moment. “I don’t think they’re sincere,” she said finally.

  “What do you mean ‘sincere’?”

  “By sincere I mean sincere. I mean, so many of them seem to feel they’ve got to be friendly to me just because I’m a member of the club, not because they like me.”

  “Look, Grace,” he said, “if you’d just put yourself out more—like me—they’d like you. Look at me. Why, I guess you’d say I was one of the best-liked guys in the club. It’s because I’m—well, I’m friendly. I don’t bury my nose in a crossword puzzle.”

  “Oh, I know, I know,” Mrs. Foley said.

  Just then a woman passed them, glanced at them, then turned and started back toward them. “Grace and Jim!” the woman said. “How wonderful to see you! Isn’t this a glorious day?”

  “How are you?” said Mrs. Foley.

  Mr. Foley stood up. “Molly!” he said. “My, you look more beautiful every day.”

  “Flatterer!” the woman said. “Isn’t the race exciting? That darling Pitcairn boy—isn’t he a wonder?”

  “He certainly is,” Mrs. Foley said. “We were just remarking—”

  “We’re all going down to the beach to watch the finish,” the woman said. “Why don’t you come down with us? Stan and Louise Pitcairn are down there already.”

  “Oh, I’m afraid we’ve got to be going soon,” Mrs. Foley said.

  “Say, that sounds great,” Mr. Foley said. “We’ll be right down.”

  “Good!” the woman said. “Quick, slip into your swim suits and meet us on the beach.” The woman hurried off.

  Mr. Foley remained standing. “C’mon, Grace,” he said, “let’s change.”

  She looked at him imploringly. “Oh, Jim, must we?”

  “Grace, for gosh sake, come on. Look, the Pitcairns are down there!”

  “But it will mean we’ll have to stay for lunch—”

  “So what? Come on.”

  Mrs. Foley picked up her pencil and hurriedly wrote “b-u-r-e-a-u” in the empty squares. She folded the paper and put it in her bag. She stood up and looked across the water. The sails of the Lightnings seemed suddenly loaded, sagging, filled with the stillness of the day. Standing up gave her the impression that the boats were now standing absolutely still.

  “Come on.”

  She followed her husband back through the clubhouse, out toward the bathhouses. At the door to the women’s section they separated. Mrs. Foley walked down the open corridor to her dressing room and stepped inside. Her bathing suit and cap were hanging on the hook inside. She began to undress. Of course Jim was right, she thought. She did not try. She did not put herself out. She failed him at every turn. And yet—and yet—Well, she would try once more. She got into her bathing suit and sat down on the hard wooden bench to put on her shoes. Through the thin partition she heard the sound of the door to the next room being unlocked, then opened. There was a mumble of feminine voices and laughter. Suddenly one voice rose above the other. It was Ruthie Pitcairn’s.

  “Guess where I found it,” Ruthie was saying. “Mr. Foley was sitting on it—it was on their bench. It was under his fat ass the whole time. As soon as they got up to leave I saw it there. Fasten my bra strap, will you?”

  “‘They’?” said the other voice. “Who are ‘they’?”

  “His wife, of course. Who else?”

  “You mean there’s someone who would actually marry that old fart? C’est incroyable!”

  “And they’re perfectly matched,” Ruthie said. “A computer couldn’t have done a better job.”

  Mrs. Foley didn’t move. She wanted to get up and run out, but she couldn’t move.

  “What’s she like?”

  “Like hint—a bore. But at least she’s quiet. Have you ever listened to that man? Pretending to be such a sailing buff, calling everybody ‘skipper,’ and ‘mate,’ walking around in those dirty old sailor pants, looking like a horse’s rear end? Daddy says it’s a wonder they ever let him in the club. Ask Daddy to tell you about the time he—”

  Mrs. Foley shut her ears. She became conscious suddenly of a big bluebottle fly that buzzed noisily about the room. She noticed that there was a smell in the air, like bacon frying, from the clubhouse kitchen. In her nostrils that bacon smell seemed to grow until it was almost overpowering, and the sound of the buzzing fly seemed unbearable. She felt stifled, ill, suffocated by the smothering smell, the sound of the fly, the heat of the day, the closeness of the dressing room. Something was happening inside her. A hot arrow of pain was moving slowly through her, piercing one by one all the chambers of her heart. I can’t get up, she thought. I’m rooted here.

  After a while she heard the door of the other dressing room open again and close, and the sound of voices and footsteps recede along the corridor. She stood up and opened the door.

  One end of the corridor opened upon a short flight of wooden steps that led down to the beach. From the top of the steps she saw her husband. He was in his bathing trunks, still wearing his visored cap, talking animatedly to the two couples on the beach. He looked up and saw her, excused himself, and started toward her.

&nb
sp; At the foot of the steps she met him. She wanted suddenly to take him in her arms, to cradle him as she might a child, to say to him, “Oh, my dear, it doesn’t matter. You’re not that kind of man. Not to me.” He took her arm and whispered, “That tall fellow’s Pitcairn. His wife’s the woman in the blue suit. Be nice to them.”

  She gave him her brightest smile. “I’ve been thinking,” she said. “Shall I ask them to join our table at the Sailors’ Dinner?”

  He pinched her elbow. “Atta girl!” he said. “I knew you’d come to your senses. Atta girl!”

  WE LUCKY GENIUSES

  “Do you know what day this is?” she asked him. They were driving down the Coast Highway, heading south from Carmel. The sun was indulging itself—really overdoing it a bit, he thought—setting flashily into the sea on their right, capping the waves with fiery points and turning the sky all the colors of a ribbon counter. But he had been intent not so much upon the sun’s California behavior as upon the lanes of automobiles before and behind him. And in his mind he had been weaving lines to be carved on his headstone, in case there should be, as the radio had said, thirty-six more traffic deaths that weekend and his number should be included among them.

  He asked her to repeat the question. And when she did he simply said no, annoyed at haying his happy, mortuary thoughts interrupted. He had been writing for his epitaph: “Devoted husband, good provider, loyal friend”—things like that—and “Had love the pow’r to stay the hand of death!” while ticking off in his head the names of all the people in the world who loved him.

  “It’s September twentieth,” she said.

  “Oh?” Noncommittally.

  “It’s a year. A year is up tonight.”

  “Well, well!” he said. And then, “I guess you’re right. At midnight.” He glanced at her. She looked very tanned, very decorative in the open car with her wavy blonde hair blowing. She spread her slim fingers from the open window, moving them as if she were groping for a chord on a piano or trying to seize the sun’s last rays. But her next words dispelled that illusion.

  “Good-by!” she said, and he realized that she was doing nothing more poetic than waving a childish farewell to the sun. “I can’t wait for it to be midnight,” she said, and he wondered if one of his mistakes hadn’t been marrying a girl six years younger than he.