***
The pub was busy, loaded with executives and their clients, all mowing down the $5.99 open-faced club sandwich lunch special. At least, that’s what the accountants ordered. The brokers bought salads, Red Bull and hard liquor – fuel for furious finance, as it were.
Ten years ago, Stuart had noted, they’d all have been in the bathroom, neckties pulled down, top buttons undone as they leaned over the marble counter to do lines of cocaine. But it appeared most of them had learned two or three Red Bull and vodkas had much the same effect. The salads seemed like a guilty afterthought, as nearly all of them talked on the phone while eating.
Stuart chewed on a French fry. “So where did you leave your testicles last night?” he asked.
“I’m sorry?”
Wiping up some gravy on his plate, Stuart said, “Last night. You said earlier in the week that you were going to “put your foot down” about your wife dragging you to these god-awful parties.”
He was right, of course, but Burton didn’t want to admit it. “It’s just that she has this way of making it seem like I’m somehow misbehaving if I don’t go with her to these things,” he said, before raising a hand to his mouth to ward off yet another mammoth yawn.
Stuart sipped his beer. “Yes, I already covered that. You have no testicles. But what about the parties?”
Burton shot him a wounded look. “What am I supposed to do, exactly?” He was speaking with his hands, which was a sign of Burton desperate, Stuart thought. “Tell Delphinium she can’t go to her party, or that I won’t go to her party? Besides, these things are very important for her. And you’re familiar with Delphinium: would you tell her no?”
That was a matter of context, Stuart insisted. “If the question was ‘will you marry me, emasculate me, and drag me to society gatherings for the next decade?’ I think I might have managed a solid ‘no’ in that case.”
Burton munched on his club sandwich thoughtfully for a moment, “Hmmm, yes, well, here in the real world, ‘no’ isn’t a realistic option. Not if I want to stay married. And for all of her foibles, Delphinium is a good person, Stuart. She’s just … particular.”
Stuart smiled. “You have to say that, mate: you’re the one married to her.”
On the night in question, Burton said, she’d promised they would go home as soon as the auction was over. But one introduction had led to another, and one drink to another. He hardly saw his wife all night, as she flitted around the room with the speed and precision of a migrating swallow.
Finally, 1 a.m. had come and gone by the time the valet brought Delphinium’s little black Lancia around, as they stood in front of the mansion in the cool air.
Even used, the tiny Italian sports car had set them back egregiously. The mechanics’ bills made it doubly expensive. But Delphinium’s friends adored it, Burton told Stuart, as he surveyed the restaurant crowd for anyone from their firm.
Stuart said, “Yes, but what about you? Do you like the bloody thing, because you talk about how much it costs once daily. And if I recall correctly, you’re still driving that god-awful SUV she made you buy right after the wedding, that tank.”
It wasn’t Delphinium’s fault, said Burton. “She was worried about the traffic in the city. She likes to keep to her schedule.”
“Burty,” said Stuart, “she drives like she’s having a stroke. I mean, I just thank God you actually got her the little Italian thing; at least she can swerve out of the way in time to miss any poor unfortunate sod who crosses the road in front of her.”
He finished his sandwich and threw his napkin onto the plate. “If she was still driving the SUV like the commander of a Panzer division at Tobruk, I imagine that repair bill might be even higher.”
Burton’s instinct was always to protect Delphinium, had been since they met in college. But instinct couldn’t argue with her driving record, which redefined atrocious. As graceful as she was at a dinner party, she was utterly inept on the road. Delphinium collected speeding tickets as quickly as Burton could pay them. She’d so long ago lost the ability to flirt with traffic cops, thanks to sheer familiarity, that she knew most of those patrolling Connecticut by their first names.
She seemed to have developed a particular affinity for dinging parked cars, as well. In reality, any sane judge paying attention would have taken away her licence years ago.
“Still, there’s a theme to all of this,” Stuart suggested.
“Safety?”
“Delphinium. I don’t mean to be rude, mate, but when was the last time we had a conversation about you, Burty? Aside from discussing your seemingly-chronic fatigue, of course. I remember in college, you said there were all sorts of things you were going to get up to. But now, whenever we talk, the entire conversation defers to your wife. It’s bloody annoying sometimes, to be frank.”
The truth was, there were lots of things Burton wanted to talk about, to somebody. But they weren’t the kinds of thing in which Stuart or Delphinium had ever shown an interest, he thought, as the lunch clatter around them fell into a background din. Stuart wanted to talk about conquests at the bars, and at work, and on the squash court. Delphinium … well, Delphinium was never much of a conversationalist.
Burton had just never been much of one, either. But he wanted to be. He wanted to meet someone who was easy to talk to all of the time. He wanted to talk about things like politics, and literature, and social change, and history. Things other people thought were heavy, or dull, but which Burton had always secretly found fascinating.
Instead, he said, “I don’t know. I don’t have much to say really. You know how it is as you get older. You focus on the things that matter most to you.” He sipped his beer and eyed the rapidly flattening head of foam.
Stuart’s eyes narrowed for a minute. “Are you sure you’re all right? You haven’t got cancer or something?”
Burton looked peeved. “Why would you ask like that, with … with such ease? If you thought I might have cancer, wouldn’t it make sense to be a bit more sensitive about it? Who just says ‘it’s not cancer, is it?’ Geez.”
Stuart shrugged and chewed down another French fry. “I’m English. We’re about as tactful as a hot poker up the bum, most of the time. Anyway, you just seem a bit fatalist these days, that’s all, a bit too bloody serious — which by your standard is saying something.”
Burton drained the last of his beer and suggested they head back to the office.
“I don’t know about you, but I’ve got so much work on my desk they could use the pile to prop up a house,” Burton said. “I don’t suppose I could impose upon you to...”
“Noooo, no, no, no. Got a free beach house for the weekend nearer the Hamptons than Long Island, my girlfriend has managed to corral more than one consecutive day off work, and we are going to spend four glorious days ensconced in wine and passion.”
“Translation, you’re going to get drunk and laid.”
“Abso-bloody-lutely,” Stuart said as they headed outside. “Taxi!”
They hailed a few more times before a Yellow cab pulled up and they climbed into the back seat. “Rockefeller Plaza, please,” Stuart told the driver. “Say old man, can you grab the fare? I’m a little light right now...”
Burton didn’t mind. He knew people at the office thought he was a soft touch when it came to favors, but it always offered some sort of interesting preoccupation – a few kindly minutes of chat, whether it was giving one of the typically penniless junior accountants a lift to work in the morning or buying lunch for the pool secretary, Maddie. People were always happier when shown a little generosity, Burton had found, and that made him happy, too. Besides, it was a way to take his mind off the demands of home or the office ... which, despite their seemingly disparate natures, had his wife in common.
Burton worked for her father, the legendary Howard Ash, of Ash, Cooper, Smythe and Wibeck, a financial services firm in Manhattan. Ash, his silvery temples, well-coiffed short haircut and clipped moustache
reminiscent of a 1950s men’s suit ad brought to life, thought Burton was a weakling: a spineless Liberal Democrat who would bail a hippy out of jail if given the opportunity.
It was doubtful anyone, close family included, really liked Howard, who was the kind of man prone to staring out picture windows while holding his hands behind his back, judging the world for breathing his air.
But there was no doubt that they were all frightened of him. And Burton had to eat dinner with him every Sunday, as part of the Ash tradition. Everybody else got to leave work at night and pretend the crusty old bastard no longer existed. But Burton was beholden to him, at home and work.
Stuart was aware of the abject reality, it seemed, as on cue he asked, “Do you suppose the old man’s going to give you the long weekend off?”
Ash’s distaste for his son-in-law had become the stuff of office legend. “I think I could be choking from a cobra bite and he could be walking by with a 30-gallon tank of antivenin, and I’d still end up dying,” Burton said. “Howard believes people like me should be rendered down into plant food.”
The cab pulled up at the Plaza and they walked across to their building, waiting quietly for the elevator to take them up to the 53rd floor. Stuart said, “Well, if you ask me, it’s not healthy for a man to spend all of his time worrying about his wife, or what her father thinks.”
“Nice in theory. But I can’t ignore work, or he actually will grind my bones to make his bread. And as for worrying about my wife ... well, I love her, right? That’s what you do, when you love someone, you worry about them.”
The elevator clicked to a halt at their floor and the doors slid open. “I hope Delphinium takes that commitment as seriously as you do, Burton,” said Stuart. “I’d hate to think you were driving that awful rhino-on-wheels back to Connecticut every night when you could be the one with the tiny Italian sports car ... maybe with a tiny Italian bird driving it.”
Burton was ambivalent, distracted by the lengthening day. “It’s a horrible commute anyway. I don’t think it makes much of a difference which car I take, really.”
Stuart had started in the opposite direction, down the hall towards the junior partner offices, but he stopped and gave his friend a hard stare. “Did you even register the bit about the Italian bird?”
“Hmmm?” Burton had to confess it had gone right over his head. “Bird-watching? I don’t have time for hobbies,” he said, still absolutely tired, still a little perplexed.