The Visitors, page 16
It was as though everybody in the lobby had been holding their breaths; there was an audible exhalation as Uncle George strode to the elevator, and life at the Ritz resumed its normal course.
His next stop was Brooks Brothers, a block up Newbury Street from the hotel. The clerk recognized him and smiled. “Well, Mr. Merkimer!” he said, beaming. “Been doing a little boating, have we?”
“Boating, my ass,” replied Uncle George. “Give me some clothes.”
The smile disappeared. “Yes, sir,” said the clerk. “What would you like?”
“Everything! Shorts, shoes, socks, shirts, suits, a hat, a—”
“Yes, sir. Suppose we start at the inside and work out.”
“That’s what I tried to tell you,” said Uncle George. “Why is that so hard to understand?”
Once he was dressed and looking like himself again, he felt better. After notifying the insurance office of the loss of his boat, he went to the yacht broker from whom he had bought it and demanded another. The broker’s office was small, and paneled to look like a pilot house, and the fittings on his desk were brass miniatures of ship’s hardware.
“Well, now, let’s see,” said the broker, picking up a letter-opener with a gold anchor on the handle. “What kind would you like this time?”
“One that floats,” replied Uncle George. “That goddam thing sank right out from under me.”
The broker looked blank. “What happened?” he asked.
“Don’t ask me. All I know is there was trouble with the seacocks, and all of a sudden she sank. Like to drown us all.”
“Well, then. I assume you’d like a different kind—something in a steam yacht, perhaps?” He indicated a picture on the wall, showing what looked like a small ocean liner with a bowsprit.
“I want the same kind I had before, but this time I want a guarantee it’ll float. And I want a written agreement that if it sinks, I get to sink the president of the company that built it. Tie him to a rock and sink him.”
The broker laughed nervously. “That may be a little hard to get in writing,” he said. “An oral agreement, perhaps, but in writing—” He shook his head, and glanced thoughtfully at his cufflinks, which were gold-and-jeweled miniature port and starboard lights. They were reversed, but he couldn’t change them now.
“Then I get to sink the yard foreman,” said Uncle George. “I need some kind of guarantee this thing stays afloat.”
The broker drew himself up and assumed a wounded air. “Mr. Merkimer,” he said, “we would not handle a boat that had not been fully surveyed and found, or guaranteed by the builders.”
“Then what happened to mine?”
“It was just an—uh—unfortunate accident. I can’t understand it. But I assure you—”
“Never mind the assurances,” Uncle George cut in. “Just get me a boat.”
In the end he got a boat, more or less like the one he had lost. Finding a captain at that time of year was more difficult, but after inquiring through local yacht clubs and boat yards he signed on a burly Swede named Iverson, who claimed to know the local waters and to be familiar with the type of boat. Uncle George signed him for a week’s trial period, with the understanding that he be paid nothing if it turned out he’d lied about his qualifications.
He took delivery at the Quincy Adams Yacht Yard, a large and venerable establishment to the south of Boston harbor. It was the last week in July; Boston was like a blast furnace, and he looked forward to getting on the water and cooling off. When the final papers had been signed he went down to the dock where Iverson was loading provisions. The boat floated gently on the water, its white sides gleaming and its brasswork flashing tiny specks of fire. It looked as sleek and new as a plastic toy, and at the same time as solid as a hotel. Uncle George stepped aboard and nodded to Iverson. “All right,” he said. “Shove off.” Then he sat in a wicker chair on the after-deck and waited.
There came the whine of a starter, and the hollow cough as one engine took hold, then the sound was repeated with the other engine. Uncle George listened approvingly to the low, even pulsing of the engines, and he could hear the change in tone as Iverson put them in gear. The twin screws whirled beneath him, driving a churning mass of water astern, and he was aware that people were shouting. He looked at the dock, from which the boat had not moved, and saw two yard workers screaming at Iverson as they tried to cast off the stern line, which was tight as a bowstring and beginning to quiver.
“Stop!” one of them roared. “Stop the boat, you dumb bastard!”
Iverson put his head out the window. “Dumb bastard yourself! Throw off the goddam line!”
“We can’t! We gotta have some slack! Stop the sonofabitching boat!”
Uncle George leaped up and ran forward, and pulled back the engine controls. The throbbing stopped, and he glared at Iverson. “What’s the matter?” he snarled. “Haven’t you ever run a boat before?”
“Sure I run a boat,” said Iverson. “Those dumb bastards don’t throw off the lines.”
Uncle George looked back and saw that the yard workers had got the line off the bollard, and one of them threw it scornfully at the boat. “All right,” he said. “You can go ahead now.” He walked aft and retrieved the line, wondering if this were an omen of any sort.
It turned out it wasn’t an omen; it was a symptom.
During the remainder of the day, Iverson missed Marblehead completely and almost ran aground on Cape Ann; he missed Boston Lightship on the way back (a slight heat haze had now turned into true fog), and was saved from running aground at Scituate only by the sound of the surf ahead; and when Uncle George finally took over the navigation and got them back into Boston harbor he narrowly missed colliding with a freighter by insisting he had the right-of-way, which he didn’t. When, finally, the yacht yard loomed up ahead, Uncle George was drenched with perspiration and speechless with rage. He had the controls, and as he slowed down to approach the dock he looked at Iverson and, controlling his voice with great effort, said, “I have one more order for you, and that’s all. You go forward, and you take the line you’ll find on that cleat—we call it the bow line—and when the front end of the boat almost touches the dock you jump off, with that line in your hand, and put the loop over whatever you see that you think might hold it. There are several posts there, called bollards, and you should be able to find at least one of them. When you have done that you turn and run up that dock as fast as you can go, and if I ever catch you near the water again I’ll have you arrested as a menace to navigation. Is that clear?”
Iverson nodded. “Sure,” he said. “When do we go out again?”
He finally got a competent captain, a thin, wiry man with the un-seagoing-sounding name of Gainsborough, and for a week they cruised the local waters with something approaching real pleasure. But there was one element missing; each day ended with an odd feeling of incompleteness, and by the time the week was out he forced himself to admit there ought to be a woman on board. It was all very well to have a large and comfortable yacht, to cruise at will on the summer seas and count the trillions of stars at night, but the fact remained that he had become accustomed to having a woman around, and no day was really complete without one. He tried not to think of Estelle, the only one who had ever got the better of him, but it was unavoidable and it made him grind his teeth in rage. To make matters worse she had not filed for divorce, so for the time being he was still married to her, and unable to take on a legal successor. He knew that, at his age, it would be hard to come to an understanding with any woman without first having a very specific agreement about money, but that shouldn’t be too hard once he found the right person. He thought back through the list of possibilities, and was not cheered. Most of the available women he knew were getting on in years, and were likely to be too set in their ways to adapt themselves to his. He could try for something younger, but where, and how?
The next Saturday, he directed Gainsborough to take him to the anchorage of one of the larger yacht clubs along the coast, and there they dropped the hook. They hoisted the “T” flag, and presently the yacht club launch came alongside and took him off. He was wearing a yachting cap, white flannel trousers, and a blue blazer with a yacht-club emblem on the pocket. He was freshly shaved, and had doused himself liberally with cologne. If it weren’t for the blue veins showing through his pale skin he would have looked almost rakish.
An orchestra was playing tea-dance music on the lawn, and after signing the visitors’ book Uncle George took a seat on the terrace and ordered a Tom Collins. He looked around and surveyed the action. The tables were about half full, and seemed for the most part to be occupied by married couples. There were a few people his age, gnarled old men in Panama hats, and flabby, overpainted women in dresses that showed too much of their arms, and they watched with the silent contemplation of people who have nothing to contribute, and expect nothing in return. Then there were the middle-aged couples, most of whom wore shorts and other revealing clothing they should have stopped wearing ten years ago, and they talked too loudly and drank with a strange kind of desperation. The younger marrieds were quiet, and more serious, and they still had a kind of freshness that made their suntans seem natural, and attractive. The only single females Uncle George could find seemed to be age sixteen and under, and they were either playing tennis or lugging sailing gear across the lawn, mostly accompanied by crew-cut youths in letter sweaters. He nursed his Tom Collins for a long time, and then had another, thinking that perhaps a mature lone woman might show up during the cocktail hour, but in his heart he knew it was a losing proposition. There might be, and probably were, women there who would be delighted to take a trip with him, but without knowing who they were, and specifically how to go about springing them loose, he was wasting his time. He ate alone in a corner of the dining room, then rode the launch out to his boat and went to bed.
The next day, he and Gainsborough took the boat back to the yacht yard in Quincy, and when they had tied up he told Gainsborough he didn’t know when he’d be wanting to use it again.
In desperation, he called some of the elder women he had first rejected, but they were off at their various vacation resorts, and his telephone calls rang in empty, sheeted apartments. He went to the Tavern, a men’s luncheon club to which he belonged, and made guarded references to the fact that he was on the market for a female sailing companion, but the only response he got was the jocular suggestion that he call the Radcliffe Employment Bureau.
He went back to his suite at the Ritz that night and lay awake, wondering what he was going to do. It was no fun cruising alone, but he’d invested too much money in the boat to want to retire it for the season. Furthermore, he hated feeling that the sea had got the best of him, and he would like to return to the cove as though nothing had happened. Then an idea came to him. Why hadn’t he thought of it before? Kathryn would be the perfect one to come with him! She was a good housekeeper, she could do the cooking, and she would probably like nothing better than to get away from that hideous house she was trapped in. There would even be room for Powell and Steve if they wanted to come, too, but he had the feeling that the family members had been getting on each other’s nerves, and they’d probably like a short vacation apart. Chortling at his cleverness, he was soon asleep.
The next day, he instructed Gainsborough to load provisions and to top off the fuel and water tanks, and early the following morning they left the yacht yard. It was a hot, coppery day, and as they cruised up the coast he felt the exhilaration of knowing he was no longer bound to the land. Years of doing exactly what he wanted had dulled his appetite for normal pleasures, and only at sea could he find the kind of freedom that really excited him. He could go anywhere he liked (except of course to Europe, and he might buy that steam yacht some day and do exactly that), and with someone to take care of the housekeeping and act as a general companion, he could ask no more. He breathed deeply of the clean, salt air, and felt with pleasure the way the deck surged under his feet. He went forward and took the wheel from Gainsborough, and put the boat in a hard right turn. When it had completed one circle he made a full turn to the left, then handed the wheel back to the astonished Gainsborough and went aft, whistling.
It was midafternoon when they reached the cove. He could see the house, brooding on the cliff above it, and through his binoculars he thought he saw someone in a window. I bet this’ll give them a surprise, he thought. This’ll show them it takes more than a little old storm to get me down. They entered the cove carefully, to avoid any possible wreckage, but it all seemed to have been washed into deeper water, or broken up so completely as to be harmless. They dropped the anchor, and Gainsborough rowed him ashore.
He was halfway to the house when Kathryn came out on the porch. She was singing, but when she saw him, and saw the boat, she covered her face with her hands and burst into tears. He hurried forward, and took her by the arm. “What happened?” he asked. “What’s the matter?”
“Nothing,” she said through her sobs. “It’s just—I’m surprised to see you, that’s all.”
“I thought you’d be. But hell, that’s nothing to cry about. Pull yourself together; I’ve got good news.”
Gradually she stopped crying, and blew her nose. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I guess it was just the shock. We thought you were dead.”
He laughed. “Not this one,” he said. “The storm hasn’t been made that can get me. You see the new boat?”
“Yes. It’s like the old one, isn’t it?”
“Only one difference. There’s no woman aboard.”
“That’s right. Has Estelle—”
“But there’s going to be.”
“Oh? Who?”
“You.”
They had been walking toward the house, and Kathryn stopped and looked at him. “What do you mean?” she asked.
“How would you like a vacation from everything, and join me on a cruise?”
“I couldn’t leave the men; you know that.”
“Well, it’d be good for them. Make them self-reliant for a change.”
“No I couldn’t. Besides—”
“Then bring them along, if you have to. There’s plenty of room.”
“Well, we’ve been planning a party, and—”
“Call it off. Tell everybody you’ve gone away.”
She hesitated, wondering if it might not be a good idea to get Powell away from the house. He probably wouldn’t want to come, but there might be some way she could persuade him, especially if she got Steve on her side. “I’ll talk with the men,” she said at last. “I’ll see what they think.”
Steve, after recovering from the shock of seeing Uncle George, was all for the idea. As far as he was concerned, anything different was a good thing, and if this would be nothing else it would be different from the rest of the summer. He agreed to help put pressure on his father.
Powell had been at Cranton, and had stopped off at the Heart’s Ease on his way home. He hadn’t been able to persuade Dorple to tell Kathryn about the cove, and he was beginning to doubt he ever would. Instead of becoming more relaxed Dorple showed signs of increasing tension, and Powell had stopped even trying to discuss the matter.
He was so preoccupied that the sight of the boat in the cove didn’t register immediately, and even then he didn’t connect it with Uncle George. He wondered who might have come in and anchored there, and whether people could do that without his permission, and as he entered the house he was framing a sentence to Kathryn about the possibility of putting a “No Trespassing” sign on the dock. He went into the kitchen, said, “I wonder if it mightn’t be a good idea—” and then stopped, as he saw Uncle George. “My God,” he said. “I thought you were dead.”
“Not on your life,” said Uncle George, and he laughed. “It takes more than a little old storm to get me.”
“You might have told us,” said Powell. “Steve and I almost got pneumonia looking for you.”
“A little fresh air never hurt anybody. That’s what I’m here for—to take you all on a cruise.”
Powell looked at Kathryn. “Oh?” he said.
“Yes,” she replied. “Steve and I have already accepted—provided you’ll come, too.”
“How long a cruise?”
“As long as you want,” said Uncle George. “I don’t have to be anywhere until after Labor Day.”
“What about the party?” Powell asked Kathryn.
“We could have that another time. I haven’t sent the invitations yet.”
Steve came out of his room. “What about it, Pop?” he said. “Doesn’t it sound swingin’?”
Then it occurred to Powell that this would be the answer to everything. It would get them away from the house, and give Kathryn a chance to rest, and let them get back to where they were before the whole ghost business came up. It wouldn’t be easy living with Uncle George, but it would be no harder on the boat than in the house, and the boat would have the added advantage of not being haunted. “I think it sounds fine,” he said.
Kathryn ran to him, and threw her arms around his neck. “Darling!” she cried. “I was expecting you’d put up a fight!” Her eyes were bright, and her voice quivered with happiness.
“Why should I fight?” Powell replied. “It’s not every day you get invited on a cruise. When do we start?”
“Tomorrow,” said Uncle George. It hadn’t worked out exactly as he’d hoped, but it was still better than nothing, and if any unpleasantness developed he could always cut it short on the pretext of a sudden business crisis. But at least he now had somebody to cook and do the housekeeping, and that made all the difference between pleasure and tedium.
