"It's simply heavenly of you to take pity on a poor widow."
"We're delighted to have you," said Nailles. Tony took her coat.
"How do you do," said Nellie. "Won't you please come in." She was in the living room to the right of the hall, where a fire was burning. The pleasure she took in presenting her house, her table, to someone who was lonely shone in her face.
"What a divine house," said Mrs. Hubbard, keeping her eyes on the rug. Nailles guessed that she needed glasses. "Can I get you a Manhattan," Nailles asked. "We usually drink Manhattans on Sunday."
"Any sort of drinkee would be divine," said Mrs. Hubbard, and Nailles made for the pantry. Tony asked if he could help and Nailles thought that he could help by throwing her out the door but he said nothing.
"Did you find the train trip boring," Nellie asked.
"Not really," said Mrs. Hubbard. "I had the great good luck to find an interesting traveling companion-a young man who seems to have some real-estate interests out here. I can't remember his name. I think it was Italian. He had the blackest eyes… Hmm," she said of a novel on the table. "O'Hara."
"I'm Just leafing through it," Nellie said. "I mean if you know the sort of people he describes you can see how distorted his mind is. Most of our set are happily married and lead simple lives. I much prefer the works of Camus." Nellie pronounced this Camooooo. "We have a very active book club and at present we're studying the works of Camus."
"What Camus are you studying?"
"Oh, I can't remember all the titles," Nellie said. "We're studying all of Camus."
It was to Mrs. Hubbard's credit that she did not pursue the subject. Tony got her an ashtray and Nailles looked narrowly at his beloved son and this stray. His manner towards her was manly and gentle. He didn't at any point touch her but he looked at her in a way that was proprietory and intimate. He seemed contented. Nailles did not understand how, having debauched this youth, she had found the brass to confront his parents. Was she totally immoral? Did she think them totally, immoral? But his strongest and strangest feeling, observing the boy's air of mastery, was one of having been deposed, as if, in some ancient legend where men wore crowns and lived in round towers, the bastard prince, the usurper, was about to seize the throne. The sexual authority that Nailles imagined as springing from his marriage bed and flowing through all the rooms and halls of the house was challenged. There did not seem to be room for two men in this erotic kingdom. His feeling was not of a contest but of an inevitability. He wanted to take Nellie upstairs and prove to himself, like some old rooster, that the scepter was still his and that the young prince was busy with golden apples and other impuissant matters.
"How did you lose your husband, Mrs. Hubbard," Nellie asked.
"I really can't say," said Mrs. Hubbard. "They don't go in terribly much for detail. They simply announce that he was lost in action and that you are entitled to a pension. Oh, what a divine old dog," she exclaimed as Tessie came into the room. "I adore setters. Daddy used to breed and show them."
"Where was this," Nailles asked.
"On the island," said Mrs. Hubbard. "We had a largish place on the island until Daddy lost his pennies and I may say he lost them all."
"Where did he show his dogs?"
"Mostly on the island. He showed one dog in New York-Aylshire Lassie-but he didn't like the New York show."
"Shall we go in to lunch," asked Nellie.
"Could I use the amenities," asked Mrs. Hubbard.
"The what?" said Nellie.
"The john," said Mrs. Hubbard.
"Oh, of course," said Nellie. "I'm sorry…"
Nailles carved the meat and absolutely nothing of any interest or significance was said until about halfway through the meal when Mrs. Hubbard complimented Nellie on her roast. "It's so marvelous to have a joint for Sunday lunch," she said. "My flat is very small, as are my means, and I never tackle a roast. Poor Tony had to make do with a hamburger last night."
"Where was this," Nellie asked.
"Emma cooked my supper last night," Tony said.
"Then you didn't spend the night at the Crutchmans'?"
"No, Mother," Tony said.
Nellie saw it all; seemed to be looking at it. Would she rail at the stranger for having debauched her cleanly son? Bitch. Slut Whore. Degenerate. Would she cry and leave the table? Tony was the only one then who looked at his mother and he was afraid she would. What would happen then? He would follow her up the stairs calling: "Mother, Mother, Mother." Nailles would telephone for a taxi to take dirty Mrs. Hubbard away. Nellie, her lunch half finished, lighted a cigarette and said: "Let's play I packed my grandmother's trunk. We always used to play it when Tony was a boy and things weren't going well."
"Oh, lets," said Mrs. Hubbard.
"I packed my grandmother's trunk," said Nellie, "and into it I put a grand piano."
"I packed my grandmother's trunk," said Nailles, "and into it I put a grand piano and an ashtray."
"I packed my grandmother's trunk," said Mrs. Hubbard, "and into it I put a grand piano, an ashtray and a copy of Dylan Thomas."
"I packed my grandmother's trunk," said Tony, "and into it I put a grand piano, an ashtray, a copy of Dylan Thomas and a football."
"I packed my grandmother's trunk," said Nellie, "and into it I put a grand piano, an ashtray, a copy of Dylan Thomas, a football, and a handkerchief."
"I packed my grandmother's trunk," said Nailles, "and into it I put a grand piano, an ashtray, a copy of Dylan Thomas, a football, a handkerchief and a baseball bat…"
They got through lunch and when this was over Mrs. Hubbard asked to be taken to the station. She thanked Nailles and Nellie, got into her Chesterfield, went out the door and then returned saying: "Oops, I nearly forgot my bumbershoot." Then she was gone.
Nellie cried. Nailles embraced her, saying: "Darling, darling, darling, darling." She went upstairs and when Tony returned Nailles said that his mother was resting. "For God's sake," said Nailles, "please don't ever do anything like that again."
"I won't, Daddy," said Tony.
VIII
On the night but one before Tony was stricken with what Nailles insisted was mononucleosis, Nailles and Nellie had gone to a dinner party at the Ridleys'.
The Ridleys were a couple who brought to the hallowed institution of holy matrimony a definitely commercial quality as if to marry and conceive, rear and educate children was like the manufacture and merchandising of some useful product produced in competition with other manufacturers. They were not George and Helen Ridley. They were "the Ridleys." One felt that they might have incorporated and sold shares in their destiny over the counter. "The Ridleys" was painted on the door of their station wagon. There was a sign saying "The Ridleys" at the foot of their driveway. In their house, matchbooks, coasters and napkins were all marked with their name. They presented their handsome children to their guests with the air of salesmen pointing out the merits of a new car in a showroom. The lusts, griefs, exaltations and shabby worries of a marriage never seemed to have marred the efficiency of their organization. One felt that they probably had branch offices and a staff of salesmen on the road. They were very stingy with their liquor and when they got home Nailles made a nightcap for Nellie and himself.
Nailles put on eyeglasses to measure the whiskey. Now and then his glasses flashed a double beam of light. He seemed, to Nellie, fussy that night as he measured out the ice and soda and she noticed a large lipstick stain along the side of his mouth. He would have exchanged an innocent kiss behind a pantry door and this did not worry her but the streak of crimson made him look ridiculous. His procreative usefulness was over-she thought-but his venereal itch was unabated-he scratched himself while she watched-and she wondered if there wasn't some massive obsolescence to the overly sensual man in his forties; some miscalculation in nature that left him able to populate a small city with his unwanted progenerative energies. Later, when Nailles lurched over to Nellie's side of the bed she didn't actually kick him but she made it clear that he was unwelcome.