Well, not every way. In one area she was as precise and methodical as a Swiss clockmaker. Her eldest daughter, Pam, had been born sixteen years ago on the seventh of June. Two years later, Robin was born on the twenty-third of June. Another two years and Barbie was born, on the sixteenth of June. Two years more and Tamara was born, on June third. And finally, two years after that, eight years ago, Jackie was born on June ninth. As Howard once said, “Don’t ever call the Simcoe house in September.” He also claimed it was the most literal interpretation of the phrase planned parenthood in the history of the human race.
The husband of this maternal metronome, Maurice Simcoe, was a stout balding man who owned a string of drugstores scattered around all the poorer suburbs of Los Angeles. He was silent. Wellington Lockridge might be invisible, as Evelyn had just recently discovered, but Maurice Simcoe was silent. One was always aware of him, sitting in an easy chair in a corner, a newspaper folded in his lap, a cigar jutting from the corner of his mouth, a faraway look on his face. What was he thinking of? September? No one had ever found out.
A charming group of guests, all in all, and that was only the adults. As to the children, the Simcoe girls were merely the identical brat in five different sizes. They fought constantly, and always about the same thing: who owned what. Their craving for possessions was permanently unassuaged, and in her mind’s eye Evelyn saw a composite Simcoe girl sitting on a bare wood floor, surrounded by broken toys of all descriptions, as many as possible of which she was enfolding in her arms or holding down with her legs, while she bared her teeth in a snarl at the world. Pam, Robin, Barbie, Tamara, Jackie. How hopeful the names were, their mother’s vain attempt to assure herself children who wouldn’t bully her as her sister and mother had done. Completely vain; all five bullied her.
And the sixth child, Bradford Chatham. Evelyn couldn’t help liking him, by which she meant she couldn’t help pitying him. Earl Chatham, four years younger than his wife, had been Patricia Chatham’s revenge against her first husband, John Kent, for not only leaving her but taking their two sons with him. (The family had persuaded her that John did have the goods on her, and a court fight would get her a black eye, but not the children.) And Bradford Chatham was the replacement of those sons, a child she didn’t really want but whom she had to have in order to prove a point. Named after Bradford for all the wrong reasons, just as he had been conceived for all the wrong reasons, and ignored ever since, young Bradford at twelve was a skinny silent child behind huge hornrimmed glasses, who lived his life in books and who flinched when he heard an adult voice. His mother was impatient at his existence and his father was embarrassed by it, and the result was that a period of time spent in young Bradford’s presence always left Evelyn emotionally drained.
As she waited now for the return of the bus, Evelyn felt a little knot of tension forming between her shoulder blades. It would form in any case, the next three days would be dreadful in any case, but she had done what she could.
The extra help was here, five domestics from an agency in New York. Evelyn had given all five of them a welcoming-cum-warning speech, and then the regular cook gave a long loud Swedish-accented speech which in essence said, “This is my kitchen.” No one disputed her, all five promptly obeyed the orders she gave them, and it was beginning to look as though she might stay after all. So the servant situation seemed to be well in hand.
Now for the guests.
iii
Patricia was the first one off the bus. “At first,” she said coldly, not looking directly at either Bradford or Evelyn, “I thought we were being arrested and taken to a concentration camp. But apparently not.” She looked around in the sunlight at the house and the grounds, the servants waiting to carry luggage, Bradford and Evelyn, and behind her the bus, from which came the clamor of squalling children. “Do we sleep in the main house?”
Evelyn had expected Bradford would answer her, but the silence continued five seconds, ten seconds, and when she glanced sideways at Bradford she saw that he wasn’t going to say anything to Patricia at all. He wasn’t even looking at her, he was looking at the bus, his eyes half-closed in the direct sunlight and with something like the beginnings of an amused smile lurking at the corners of his mouth.
The silence was becoming painful, a physical ordeal. Patricia was glaring at Bradford. Behind her, Harrison was just descending from the bus, a nervous smile on his face.
It was far too late to answer Patricia now, but Evelyn did so nevertheless, suddenly blurting, “Of course, Aunt Patricia!” And as Patricia snapped a look at her as though she were a servant who had suddenly spoken without having been spoken to, Evelyn added lamely, “We thought, Bradford thought the children might enjoy the bus.”
“Bradford was wrong,” she said coldly, but her words were over-ridden by her husband, who had now stepped down onto the gravel and was coming smiling forward, his eyes hidden behind California sunglasses but the nervousness evident anyway in his mouth, saying, “Hello, Brad! Beautiful weather! We had beautiful weather from coast to coast!” He pumped Bradford’s hand, while Bradford stood looking at him, the smile now fully in possession of his face, both amused and sardonic.
Herbert Jarvis was coming next. A stocky graying man of fifty-six, his long-time California residence was reflected in his tan, his sunglasses and his inevitable bright-hued tie and shirt (today’s were predominantly gold and rust), while his East Coast origins were displayed in the stolid dark grayness of his suit, the conservativeness of his plain-toed oxford shoes and his insistence on wearing a hat. The hat was in his hand as he stepped down from the bus now, but he put it on and removed the sunglasses instead as he came forward to shake Bradford’s hand. Out from behind the green glass, his eyes looked pale and weak, as though they’d been underwater too long.
“Bradford,” he said, taking the hand that Harrison had reluctantly given up. Harrison was looking more nervous than ever now, having gotten nothing from Bradford but that odd smile, and he was making quick jumpy head moves as he tried to watch Bradford and Patricia simultaneously. Patricia was still glaring at Bradford’s profile, but with something slightly uncertain beginning to creep into her expression.
“Herbert,” Bradford said, and continued to smile, and Evelyn looked at him in even greater surprise, wondering if Bradford could possibly be consciously mocking Herbert’s style of greeting. (The inevitable Herbert Jarvis salutation was one’s own name, announced as though it were a stop on a commuter line, and unattached to any sentence, as though Herbert considered it greeting enough to acknowledge the other person’s existence.)
“If someone would show us to our rooms,” Patricia said.
Evelyn said, “Oh, yes! It’s the same ones as always, Aunt Patricia. I’ll show you. The servants will bring up the luggage.”
“Naturally,” Patricia said.
Evelyn understood that Patricia would now savage her, Evelyn, for a while, to make up for having had no effect on Bradford. Retaliation, even self-defense, were obviously impossible, since she wasn’t equipped to fight in Patricia’s league, but there was no reason she couldn’t remain calm. It was easy to allow oneself to be rattled by Patricia, but unnecessary. When a person is always attacking, they need no longer be taken seriously after a while.
She led the way now to the house, but let the guests make their own way upstairs. These advents were fairly frequent, two or three times a year, so the same guests were given the same rooms as a matter of routine, and by now none of them needed to be shown.