The Carousel

  “No, I don’t care,” Dan drawled. “My children don’t interest me at all.”

  “Don’t mock me, Dan Grey. I won’t stand for it. I have as much right to make decisions in this family as you have.”

  “Seems to me you make plenty of decisions. I never stop you.”

  “So I want to take Tina back to Dr. Lisle, or somebody else. I want to change, and you’re trying to stop me. So don’t say you never do.”

  “Then this will be the exception.”

  “Who says?”

  “I say.”

  Tears of anger brimmed over onto Sally’s cheeks.

  “Damn you!” she cried as Dan left the room.

  Frustrated and furious, she did not know what to do with herself. She moved away from the window so that Tina would not see her and come in to demand attention that she was in no mood to give. Perhaps a walk, a long, demanding climb up into the hills, would relieve the worry and the anger. She went upstairs to change from heels into sneakers, comb her hair—she did look woebegone, uncared-for—and come very gently down to avoid Dan’s notice. Damn him!

  She had just reached the front door when he came out into the hall, looking more like his usual self.

  “Sit down,” he said, and as she followed him into the living room, continued, “This is all wrong. We’re both worried and unsure, so we’re taking it out on each other. We both know,” he said ruefully, “that this is quite normal. It’s what people do, unfortunately, when they’re half out of their minds with worry. I’m sorry it happened. Forgive me, Sally.”

  Instantly softened, she admitted, “I’m sorry, too. I’ve not always been the sweetest lately either.”

  “I’ve thought of something. This is September. Let’s be both fair and practical. Let’s give this man until the first of the year to work with Tina, and then if we don’t find any change for the better, we’ll go elsewhere. Either to Dr. Lisle if you wish, or look for somebody. How does that sound?”

  “It sounds fine if Tina will go back,” Sally said with some doubt.

  “Well, if she refuses, then we’ll know for sure that he’s not the right person. Maybe it’s even possible that between you and me and Nanny, in time she’ll straighten out. Shall we try?”

  Still doubtful, she nevertheless assented. The suggestion was reasonable enough.

  “There’s something else that’s got me disturbed. Ian and I each had a piece of overnight mail, and that’s what took us both to the office on a Saturday morning.”

  “I wondered why you went out this morning. What happened?”

  “It’s Amanda again. Here, I’ll read. ‘I have waited too long already. I made you a proposition last March, and I’ve heard nothing from you, Dan, but a rejection, a very final-sounding one, and from you, Ian, yet another request for patience. Well, I think I have been very patient. From Clive I never get any answers except that he doesn’t take sides, which is ridiculous. I’m tired of waiting for your foreign investors, who may, after all, change their minds. And even if they do not change their minds, who is to say, with you people unable to agree, how much longer I will have to wait for you to straighten out your affairs? No, you’ll have to buy me out at the market price or I’ll sell my shares to strangers. I’ve told you that before, but you haven’t believed me. My new law firm in New York advises me now—’ and so on and so on,” Dan concluded, wiping his forehead. “So that’s another reason why I was in a bad humor, Sally. Things are coming to a head, and I’m so worried, I can’t see straight.”

  “So you saw Ian. What then?”

  “It was bad,” he said gloomily. “We had a knock-down fight. Oh, a verbal one, but it was bad. Bad. He attacked me as if he had caught me robbing him. Well, the bottom line is that Ian can’t resist that offer. He says so himself. ‘They’ve made an offer we can’t resist.’ Simply put, it’s greed. Never in his life has he complained about overwork! He always loved the challenges. Now he says he’s sick of a strike in South America holding up deliveries, and our chocolate business slumping because there’s a new European brand in competition and rising costs, and on and on. So if we sell the forest, we can afford to get rid of the business with all the headaches—well, you know,” Dan said, breaking off.

  The sight of his distress brought forth Sally’s deepest loyalty. “I think he’s disgusting,” she cried. “To take an inheritance like this and throw it away in the trash!”

  “To say nothing of any allegiance to the workers and the community.”

  “When is Oliver coming back from France?”

  “Not until close to Christmas. He’s been invited to stay with friends at their house in the Alps. But it wouldn’t make any difference if he were here. He wants no part of this decision, so that’s that.”

  “Oh dear, are you and Ian really on the outs now? Not speaking to each other? I hate to see discord like this, especially since Happy and I are such friends.”

  “It needn’t have anything to do with you two. As for me, I don’t see Ian and me having much to say to each other from now on.”

  The falling cadence of Dan’s voice saddened the room, that room so filled with life, in which chrysanthemums and the last of the roses stood among books and photographs, where a rag doll lay on the floor and an enormous jigsaw puzzle lay on a table. A stranger, walking in, would never imagine that any family who possessed so much could have such troubles.

  “I think,” Dan suddenly said, “I’ll run down to the hospital and visit Clive. He’s going home tomorrow, so I don’t see any harm can come by just filling him in on our fight this morning and maybe getting his opinion. It’s time he declared himself, anyhow, one way or the other.”

  Clive, sitting up in bed, was glad to see Dan come in.

  “I thought you’d be walking up and down the hall, getting ready to go home tomorrow.”

  “No, I’m resting.”

  “Sure. Pneumonia takes a lot out of you.”

  “That it does. You never had it?”

  “Not yet.”

  “You’ll live to a hundred. You’re what they call the picture of health, Dan.”

  It was true. Fair, pink-cheeked, tall and muscular, Dan was “the very model of a man,” thought Clive. And yet he had never resented that superiority. There was a decency in Dan that made it impossible to feel anything but goodwill toward him. Still, at this moment he saw something in the other’s expression that caused him to ask, “Is anything wrong?”

  “No. Why? I only came to see you.”

  Clive narrowed his eyes. “Something’s upset you. I see it in your face.”

  Dan smiled. “Pretty shrewd, you are. Yes, Ian and I had a blowup this morning. The same business about the consortium and my difficult sister. Amanda wrote a letter. Or should I say, an ultimatum? I wouldn’t be bringing this trouble to you today if I hadn’t known you were okay again and going home tomorrow.”

  “That’s all right. You need to know where I stand.”

  “Yes, I realize, of course, that this foreign offer may blow away like hot air, but still we must know where we all stand, every one of us.”

  “It’s not going away. I’ve gone over the figures, and from the investment standpoint, they make sense. Those people are very eager.”

  “People in town are anxious. Anxious about the Greys splitting up. The news has gotten around.”

  “I know. One of the nurses here was worried about it. People, except for the usual merchants and contractors, don’t want any new community, and they don’t want to lose Grey’s Foods, she tells me.”

  “Well, then?”

  Clive reflected: “To Father and Dan, the wilderness is everything. Every tree, every little animal is precious. For me, it’s not so. As long as I can have a small part of it where my horse and I can be alone, that’s enough. But for them, it’s everything. If I vote with Dan against Ian and Amanda, the family and the firm will be torn apart. Two against two, through every court in the land. But if I vote with Ian, it will break Father’s heart
. Either way, it will break his heart.”

  Dan, waiting, could not restrain himself. “I can’t understand what’s happened to Ian. Although I told Sally it was temptation, the sheer size of the offer, I still can’t get it through my head.”

  “Power and prestige. This is a tremendous, innovative project. It will be written about.”

  “I wish I knew why your father stays aloof. Is it because he really doesn’t care?”

  “He cares.”

  “Then why won’t he say so?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You’ve stayed aloof, too, Clive, unwilling to declare yourself. May I ask you why?”

  Why? Because I was the odd man. Because it was easier not to be involved, to do my work magnificently—so they told me, and I knew it anyway—to live quietly with Father and let them all do what they wanted with the business. It made no difference to me. I needed nothing, a new suit now and then, books, a trip abroad now and then, that’s all. It’s different now. I have Roxanne. Now I am involved. Now I will speak.

  “I’ll stand with you, Dan. I’ll vote with you. We’ll fight it out if we have to, and it looks as though we’ll have to.”

  Dan grasped his hand. “By God,” he said, laughing, “by God, we will. I can’t tell you what this means to me.”

  “I know what it means to you,” Clive told him.

  “We ought to have a meeting with Ian and discuss it, and discuss the next step.”

  “Are you sure you’re on speaking terms?”

  “We’re not children, and we’ll have to be. We’ll certainly have to talk business, as well as keep the firm on an even keel until—well, until when. We can meet at your house any day this week that you feel up to it.”

  Clive braced himself. He had not told anyone yet, had not spoken to anyone since the two doctors had left the room an hour ago.

  “Not this week, Dan,” he said, wondering how the words were going to sound out loud on his lips. “Naturally, when you have pneumonia, they take X rays of your lungs. They found a spot in the right lung, a fairly large one, in the right hilum. So then they did an open biopsy. The pathologist did a frozen section and came back in half an hour with the news. It’s cancer.”

  Cancer. Now he had said it.

  “My doctor brought a pulmonary specialist just now to talk to me. They’ll have to remove my lung.”

  Dan’s eyes were wide and sad. It was clear that he was feeling a genuine compassion. So many people merely act appropriately, Clive thought, merely act.

  “I told him I wanted to know the truth, always. If it’s spread beyond the lung, I want to know the truth, and he gave me his word.”

  “Don’t leap ahead.” Dan spoke softly. He reached over to touch Clive’s hand. “It happens far more often that things turn out well than that they turn out badly. That’s statistically correct.”

  Clive smiled. “Always the optimist, Dan.”

  “No, I’m a realist. Can I do anything for you, anything at all?”

  “Only in a negative way. Roxanne will be here any minute. Don’t say anything. I want to tell her myself when we’re alone. Poor girl.”

  “I won’t say a word.”

  “Tell me, how’s my Tina? I’ve missed her and Rosalie these past few weeks.”

  “She’s fine. Sally’s been riding with her.”

  “That’s good, but I know she’ll be happy to go with me again. I love that little girl. As soon as I get on my feet, we’ll have her up at Red Hill, now that the little house is finished. You see, your optimism is catching, Dan.”

  Chapter Twelve

  September 1990

  Clive was an oblong white bundle on the bed, connected to machines by a series of tubes. The intravenous tube was attached to his arm. From the area of his ribs, draining through a larger tube, came a yellow fluid, slightly bloody. Inserted in his mouth was still another tube leading to the respirator that, standing beside the bed, emitted a gentle, rhythmic sound. Pitying, Ian stood looking down at his brother. The man seemed smaller than ever, even shrunken, and his face was a sickly green. Still, what else would you expect of a man who had just had a lung removed? Poor guy. He didn’t deserve this.

  Desperately, with pleading eyes, Clive was pointing to the tube in his mouth.

  “Not yet, Mr. Grey,” the nurse said kindly. “Twenty-four hours from now we’ll take it away and you’ll be able to talk all you want.”

  Roxanne was on the other side of the bed, looking scared. He hadn’t seen her since the day he had gone to the house and found her lying in the hammock dressed in those very short white shorts. Today she was a proper suburban lady, discreet and smart in a gray fall suit with a coral scarf over her shoulders. Having a keen eye for women’s clothes, he noted her fine dark brown bag and pumps, the simple gold earrings, and the pale glow of her nails. Recalling the long, dark red claws that she had taken care to display as she rested her hand on a tablecloth, he had to smile to himself. He had always known she was a fast learner, but this was extraordinary speed indeed.

  “Poor man,” she mourned. “My poor man.”

  She laid her hand, the one with the fiery diamond, over the limp hand that lay on the sheet. Ian was thinking, That ring cost him a bundle of money. It makes Happy’s look insignificant, and I know what I paid for hers.

  “You must have lost ten pounds. But you’ll be out of here by Monday, and then I’ll fatten you up. I make the best potato soup. Maybe I’ll bring you some tomorrow if they’ll let you have it.”

  Ian said sharply. “Monday? Who said Monday?”

  “Why, the doctor, of course.”

  He stood up and went to the door. “I need to talk to him. I’ll go see whether he’s in the building.”

  “You don’t need to. I’ve already talked to him, and I’m Clive’s wife.”

  “And I’m his brother,” Ian said, still sharply.

  “I know you’ve already spoken to Mrs. Grey”—this title did not come easily to his tongue—“but she’s only been his wife for three months, while I’ve been his brother all his life.”

  When the doctor’s eyebrows went up, Ian knew that he had spoken with asperity, that he had denigrated Roxanne. But the very thought of her taking the position of wife to any man named Grey had stabbed him, here in this building where serious matters were treated. His feeling of responsibility for his brother, his feeling of blood tie, had already come to the fore. But he softened his tone.

  “You’ve removed his lung, so my question is, naturally, what is the prognosis?”

  The doctor spoke precisely. “The spot on Mr. Grey’s lung revealed, as you know, carcinoma. When we removed the lung, we also removed nodes in the hilum area. We’re pretty sure we’ve made a clean job, gotten rid of everything in the lung area.”

  “So that’s it?”

  “Not quite. He’ll need a course of chemotherapy to be on the safe side. Two or three months’ worth. And naturally we’ll keep in touch with him, taking some bone scans, an MRI, tests as indicated. If we find nothing anywhere else as time goes on, we’ll congratulate ourselves that we have succeeded.”

  “And that will mean a complete cure? Is that what you’re saying?”

  “Mr. Grey, there can always be straying, microscopic cells anywhere in the human body that can’t be seen. But if after the most sophisticated tests that presently exist we find nothing, we shall emphasize the positive and rejoice.”

  “Good. I want to be able to cable something positive to our father. He’s on vacation in Europe, and my brother absolutely forbade me to say anything that would bring him home unnecessarily.”

  Back in the room, the nurse was washing Clive’s face with a cool cloth. The two stood there watching, uncertain, feeling superfluous.

  “I think,” the nurse said, “he’ll be going to sleep soon. There’s really no reason for you people to stay here unless you want to. He’ll be just fine.”

  “Well, in that case,” said Ian, “I’ll be going along. You have Mrs
. Grey’s telephone and my number, too, in case you need us.”

  “I wonder whether you might give me a lift home, Ian,” said Roxanne. “I’m without a car. Yes, dear,” she explained to Clive, whose eyebrows had formed a question. “Both cars conked out. Yours is still in for a tune-up, and my battery went dead this morning. They told me I’d have to wait an hour and a half for them to come, and since I wanted to get here, I called a taxi. So can you take me, Ian?”

  “Of course, no trouble.”

  But it would be. Half an hour’s ride making conversation with her. He had nothing to say. He had everything to say: you conniver, you second-rate actress—but she was far from second-rate. She was superb. See her now, bending over that poor, balding, sweating head and clinging to that innocent hand. Hear her now.

  “Good-bye, honey. Have a good night’s sleep. I’m sure they’ll give you something to help you sleep if you need it, but look, your eyes are closing already.”

  She tiptoed out, whispering in the hall, “Poor Clive. He looks terrible, doesn’t he?”

  “What did you expect, to see him dolled up for a day in the country?”

  “You have no heart. He looks awful, and I’m worried about him.”

  “I have a heart and you give a perfect imitation of a worried wife.”

  “Listen, if you’re going to yell at me all the way home, I’ll take a taxi,” she said as they stood at the curb.

  “Who’s yelling? I never yell.”

  “Well, scolding. I don’t have to take it from you.”

  “Then don’t take it.”

  Two young men passing slowly in a red soft-top with the top down looked and whistled.

  “Fresh,” she said, tossing her head, then turning to Ian. “I could take a lift from them, you know.”

  “I wouldn’t be surprised if you did. Come on,” he growled, “get in the car.”

  She sat down, carefully adjusted the seat belt to prevent a wrinkle in her suit, crossed her legs neatly at the ankle, and rested her hands in her lap. It was a prissy-lady pose for her, whereas for women like Happy or Sally it was simply natural with nothing prissy about it. The comparison amused him. People in their million subtle variations were an endless amusement. Often he did not mind being delayed in an airport because he could always watch people. “The proper study of mankind is man,” he thought. Or women …