In this second installment of his affair with the 22-year-old Lucy, my father mentions inserting a copy of the letter he received from her—the only letter he supposedly received before her arrival. The letter has never been found among his papers.
Well, eight months and a broken heart can produce a fuzzy memory; but Lucy and I did see quite a bit of each other during those last two weeks of April, and we did make plans. I can remember several meetings and matings in my office on the main campus. It was so delicious because our mutual feelings turned a potentially sordid situation into a delicious and exciting experience.
It is so terribly tempting to let hindsight infect my account of what happened. So easy to interject that now I see it as two very different experiences for each of us. I tried to hold myself—or rather my galloping enthusiasm in check. I had to, after all, make plans. In general, it all seemed quite clear: I would have Highworth Avenue just as soon as I arrived in England. Arriving mid-day on Sunday I could have the house in at least a livable condition if Lucy were to come as early as the following Thursday, which was possible. I couldn’t envision that Lucy, feeling as she seemed to (and as I did), would want to delay our being together any more than absolutely necessary to make things smooth for the other parties involved (our two families, as it were).
So, somewhere in that first week after, during our meetings, two big factors loomed. The first was her promise to go through the graduation exercises which were not until 27 May! Fifteen more days than if she came on the following Thursday. Half a month: it certainly was too long for me and, so I thought, would prove too long for her. I mean I could understand her sense of filial duty and all. At one point I proposed paying for an extra round trip so she could return to go through the ceremony! I reluctantly agreed to her coming after the 27th . . . but I also warned her that, since she wouldn’t see me after early Friday the 5th, she might find herself changing her mind by the following Wednesday and coming the next day after all. I stupidly began to emotionally rely on that, for I knew that is how it would be had our positions been reversed. But I put it aside for all the other plans and wrote off to Roland Spicer to get straight on with working at getting Highworth Avenue livable just as soon as that dumb Neanderthal moved out; we had no time to lose.
The second factor did not actually loom too large mostly because I didn’t let it. This was Lucy’s comment that she was making no commitment for the fall. When I started discussing the fall, she said that she would not move in with me. Having spent nearly all her years up to then living at home, she was looking forward to having her own job, her own place, her own car, in short, her independence, her freedom which she felt she had at last earned. Well, it was not a subject that I could see, right then and there. We should go into it, thought I, with the idea that everything could change even halfway through the summer.
I was concerned, and I told her so, about her choosing to work, rather than go to Wharton grad school in business. Anyway, I told her, well, I really was quite happy merely to have her with me for the summer and that the fall, one way or another, would take care of itself. And here I must say that I really did mean what I said . . . There is nothing mutually exclusive between wanting her by my side forever and being willing to accept the limited offer of a summer together. One can always hope. Clearly, the factor of emotional fidelity over the summer was something one would have thought—see how retrospective writing can infect the story!—one could have taken for granted.
I’m sure now that Lucy was the first to realize what turned out to be the crux of the whole affair: that it is difficult, if not outright impossible, to go wholly and rightly into an affair if you know in advance that it will end on a specific date. In the end, but before the actual end, we came to feel that we could have a great summer despite the fact that it would have to end in the fall. I had no misgivings whatever, but that was principally because I never believed it would end in the fall, if we spent the whole summer together.
She, as it turned out, knew that there was no way it would continue after August. It was certain and unswerving . . . and as sure as the fact that she did not love me . . . never did. But I did not know this . . . nor would I have ever wanted to know this. My decisions would have been very different. Doubts I might be reluctantly willing to assign to her; but that she possessed near certainty would have scared the hell out of me. And ‘scared’ really is the appropriate word. To have literally handed my heart and soul to someone who could literally ‘know’ they were going to walk away even, as it were, in the very act of making love with me, well, I find that frightening: it is, as I see it, a confrontation with true immorality.
As respectful as I am of a true Machiavellian, it is respect at a distance . . . the healthy respect that is equally accompanied by a feeling that one is happily at a distance and not involved personally. But face to face, with one’s own heart, mind, or well-being involved—no way. Run! But, I saw it too late . . . and now part of my life is gone forever and I will never be the same. And I have not only lost a part of myself, but an innocent giving of self that I will never recover. I have seen it starkly in evidence in terms of my subsequent relationship with Alexis.
When Lucy and I parted on 5 May, I told her I would call her on Tuesday: I thought by then she might truly be persuaded to come then. I had taken her down to TWA and bought her an open ticket, and she had her passport in hand, so that there was literally nothing to stop her. Since I thought she needed the added psychological incentive, I told her I would even arrange to have her best friend fly over with her for Stanley. I left believing that there was at least an even chance that Lucy would come some 4 days later. And brother did I go to work accordingly! Tuesday evening late I called Lucy from Stan’s boathouse. Stan was not that amenable to paying for Mary Ann, Lucy’s friend, but he would have done it for me, had I asked him. But it was hardly a viable point, because Lucy was not going to come before her graduation it was now clear. Then too, Lucy had, before I left, mentioned that her father liked to take the long Memorial Day Weekend for a family trip but had never succeeded in getting more than 4 out of 8 family members to go on it. And Lucy feared that this might be the last year in which they could conceivably do that; and I think she wanted to give her father the present of her company for that weekend as well. That meant her coming as late as June 1st. However, the way I assumed we both felt when I left was that, if she did make the concession over the graduation ceremony, I would at least get her by that Saturday weekend, as opposed to the Tuesday or Wednesday following. However, it was only May 9th or 10th, so the subject didn’t come up that night.
I went on, bouncily shopping for paint, wallpaper, prints, furniture, all manner of things to set up house and enjoyed every blissful minute of it. My true love was coming.
But my true love wasn’t writing.
One week passed, no letter. I called; she was writing, she said. Two weeks, no letter. I called again. In fact, I called three times before I received her one and only letter. Later on it would be a sore point with me that she could write Carl, her ex-boyfriend, at least twice, and about 6 times to her newest lover! A comparison, I’m sure, she never made herself. My calls must have sounded worried, insistent, and a little insecure. And they turned her off. She even said so. And then that letter came. What a blow! Right in the pit of my stomach. It turned, it churned. I went inside out.
Little did I know that this would be the first of 5 great blows, each of seemingly greater nauseating intensity. Even now I cannot bring myself to write it out, or even read it, I will simply append a xerox copy and let it go for that. The reader can see for him/herself without me having to suffer through another reading/feeling of it.
I called; a stupid, slobbering, emotion laden, hurting call which any objective idiot could have known would not have had any desirable effect. Half a day later, when I cooled down a little, I was able to write a slightly better letter. But it was a hokey letter simply because I didn’t mean a word of it. Sure I was cool . . . I told her I wanted her, but if she was going to screw it up, forget it. But I wanted her so badly that the ‘cool’ strategy, the ‘stance’ was pure sham. Sending her the Footlights tickets was an empty gesture. But she came. She had, in essence, exacted from me a promise of attitude that, well, I genuinely believed I could live with. It was little different from before in that it was now up front. It was that it would be for the summer only. Fine. But I thought I would at least get her wholehearted commitment, even were it only for that limited time period.
It is now coldly clear to me: there is no way you can get any serious or worthwhile commitment from a person who can coldly and clearly see the end of the affair at its very beginning. It is impossible. She was kidding herself if she thought she could do it. Of course, she never did and that is the immoral irony of it all and that, by the way, is why I must now reluctantly agree with my friends no matter how much I love her still that I was ‘used’ grossly by her and I was kidding myself if I honestly expected that she could. I honestly thought she couldn’t either, but I erred by expecting that her failing would come in the form of realizing how much she really cared for me after all!
I can remember the evening I told Beverly that Lucy was coming. You know, in 10 1/2 years of marriage I never exacted any real retaliation for the things that Beverly coldheartedly and intentionally did to me. But that early evening I finally did. It was a blow delivered right between the eyes. And I am ashamed that, for a few fleeting moments I savored it, relished it, luxuriated in it. She had, nearly two years before screamed at me . . . ‘why didn’t I divorce her?’ ‘Why didn’t I leave her?’ and I screamed back because I had nowhere to go and no one to go to. And so it came out . . . she led right into it . . . and I took my cue and delivered my crushing blow: Do you remember your once asking me why I didn’t leave you? And do you remember my telling you it was because I had nowhere to go and no one to go to? Well, Lucy’s coming tomorrow morning. Now I have somewhere to go and someone to go to . . . and I’m leaving. You can call who you want, whenever you want, but you can’t stop it from happening. So long, and thanks for nothing.’ Dramatic, yes; cruel, yes; but also a little satisfying considering the crap that had accumulated all over and around me in the previous 4-5 years. It was almost worth it.
Naturally, I didn’t sleep that night. The flight was due in at 7:35 a.m., and I got to the airport at 6 a.m.! Now I was certain that Lucy was on the flight. It was Tuesday, 7 June, Jubilee day, and 2 days before Lucy’s 22nd birthday—the last day she was eligible to fly at youth rate and thus the latest day she could come and still save the money. Clearly my mind did play on the lots of possibilities that would not have put her on the plane . . . and it was sweet torture to have to wait outside the customs barrier as seemingly so many passengers passed out without her in sight. But she was there . . . and so was I with my nice little Jaguar and a nice day for a drive through rural England.
I had made my mind up that I would not bring up the subject of the future, nor would I play upon her failure to come any sooner, her failing to write but one letter, her offer to not come, etc. I knew that she would probably try to say something . . . but I was absolutely determined that, two hour and a quarter drive notwithstanding, we would say nothing on it until after we’d made love. I think she at least agreed with that; she did bring up some of those subjects, but I put them aside with that admonition, and we went no further. It made her momentarily more comfortable. But I was very much aware that there was much she had to say. That bothered me, but I was determined to be totally happy. Look what price I had paid! Jennifer and Jessica were to be in the village Jubilee Celebration and parade at 10:30 that morning and here I had just walked out on them and their mother! I was not in the greatest emotional state that day.
Anyway, Lucy and I made love that morning as she went to bed for a rest. I was so sensitive to Lucy that it tore me to bring up the fact that I should go out to Pampisford to photograph the girls in their triumphant Jubilee Day parade and celebration. It was a terribly cold and overcast day, with a hint of rain in the air. Only after a while and with great reluctance did Jenny agree to put on her fawn mac, she just couldn’t bear to hide her period costume. Jessy, as always, was less flappable, and she joined her day school teacher and class on the truck float that was to carry them through the village as the Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe. I took lots of snaps and a bit of film footage. Beverly hardly said a word; I don’t think Lucy was even mentioned, except to ascertain for sure that she’d arrived as planned.
Lucy was still asleep when I returned to the house a little after 1 p.m. I was pleased that she seemed so ‘at home’ snuggled up in that somewhat shoddy double bed that Odera had left behind. I think we went to the Fort St. George that night, Lucy wearing her Fort T Shirt under her yellow windbreaker. She had gotten quite tanned in the States since I’d last seen her and she not only filled out the shirt quite well, but she contrasted against its white deliciously. I knew she’d make a big hit. And I knew that my friends would appreciate that my wait was well worth all the mooning around and ribbing I had been taking as I admitted to each of Lucy’s prior delays in coming over. Lucy liked the crowd, and it was quite a decent one at that: Jo Hatfield, from Abbott’s travel, and her husband were there, plus all the usual Fort crowd . . . even Rudy the Swiss, who later became my boon companion for the last half of the summer, and Phil Gosling, were there. It was a grand and comfortable evening and I was quite happy.
On Wednesday we did the tour of the town, but Lucy was showing her first signs of depression at the rather foul but not altogether untypical English weather. We did the colleges, and Lucy caught sight of her first church brass, the l9th century one, in Trinity College Chapel. We did a little shopping, bought film and musical tapes. I think we had dinner at Don Pasquale’s that night, also stopped by the Spread Eagle. That, as I remember, made Lucy a little uncomfortable as this was Bev’s local one night a week. Even though there were one or two people who knew me a number of years before I married Bev, it was one of these, on a subsequent night Dickie Webdell who had been my tenant as far back as 1960, who had to have a fatherly chat with me. We had but one drink and we pushed on. I remember that we were also anxiously looking to rendezvous with Stanley who Lucy was looking forward to meeting, but whom we’d not seen as yet.
Thursday was Lucy’s 22nd birthday and I felt I wanted to make it especially nice because I could feel that she was sensitive to not only her physical dislocation but more psychological factors as well. I went by, as previously arranged, and picked up the girls. It was another cold and bleak day, again with hints of rain. Lucy felt awkward as I parked the car outside Pampisford to fetch the girls. Bev didn’t know that Lucy was in the car, it not being clearly visible from the house and Lucy having slightly hunched down reading a magazine or booklet on brass rubbing. Anyway, the girls met Lucy for the first time, and all seemed to be going well. We pushed off for the church at Little Shelford where there is a lovely brass of a medieval couple holding hands only about 3 feet high. I had told Lucy it was one of my favorites, not very far away, and a good one to begin her brass-rubbing career with. So enthralled with her initial success was she that we stopped to book Sir Roger of Trumpington on the way home later that day.
Once we had Lucy underway and instructed in basics, the girls and I headed out to find the makings for a surprise birthday party for Lucy. It was not that easy, Thursday being the local early closing day. But we did find a small shop and got an 8 inch square chocolate cake, some tinned soft drinks, plastic forks and party napkins. The Shelford brasses finished, we held our party in the Jaguar. Fortunately it was big and roomy and the girls had the little pull down trays back of the front seats. As the rain pattered down we had a lovely cosy party, which I know Lucy will never forget. I know I felt so very happy then: everything I loved before me even the rainy and bleak Cambridge seemed to lend itself to the mellow mood it evinced in me. But the mellowness was not to last very long.
That evening Lucy and I rendezvoused with Sammy and Maureen Singh at the White Horse in Milton. We had several rounds there and talked about what we were going to do. We thought we’d take one side trip before leaving for Pamplona. We wouldn’t leave for the fiesta until 30 June earliest, three possibly very rainy weeks away. Lucy was getting itchy. Clearly, we’d have to pop into Abbott’s to see what one week holidays were available.
Anyway, we had a nice time with Sammy and Mo and soon ‘time’ was called at the pub and we drove them home. As Sammy was leaving the car, he turned to me and said, in a half whisper, “Don’t go way, stay here a minute” as he took Maureen into the house. A minute later he was back, but he surprised me by circling round the car and jumping in the back. “Let’s go, man,” said Sam, “before Mo changes her mind.” Sammy was going to continue the evening by drinking with us at Don’s on the market square. Well, I enjoyed Sammy’s company a good friend and mate for over 15 years.
There weren’t all that many people at the Don’s that night. Giuseppe was bartending, Don was there, so was his brother, and his partner. But it was just Sam and Lucy and I at the little bar, drinking Rum & Cokes. By l a.m., after at least the third round, but possibly the fourth, I was tired and ready to call it a night. But Sammy and Lucy were very into each other, having a helluva good time. I turned down participation in the next round, a not very subtle hint that I’d had it. Sammy disparaged my gesture, over insisted and the two of them went into another round. Over sensitive and insecure, I felt a little wounded. I wondered how far Sammy would go. We’d had at least three longish heart to heart talks before Lucy arrived; wherein I not only extolled her virtues, but fairly dramatically conveyed the depth of my feelings to Sam in the early hours of a couple of weekends. So Sammy knew. But there he was, charming the pants off her just like any other beautiful bimbo who crossed his trail. The absence of further alcohol in my body only brought the fatigue on sooner. But Sammy and Lucy went for yet another round. And then Sammy went into his almost traditional routine wherein I was set apart as the party pooper, spoil sport, old man, etc. It seemed I had to either flaccidly admit it or vehemently deny it. I just got angry.
As I mentioned, I’d known Sammy for 15 years. When it comes to women he has no morality whatsoever, not even a twinge of ethics. Sure, we have both long since taken the position that NEVER will we allow a woman to stand between us or affect our relationship in any way buddies to the end and no woman is worth the price of a longstanding friendship between two worthy men. But that is easy for Sammy; he was the sociosexual powerhouse, always winning the birds, and my role was the chap who had to say ‘no hard feelings’. And Sammy played it to the hilt.
Back in 1963, he not only took a drunken sweetheart of mine up to MY OWN BEDROOM to make love to her; but when I had the audacity to bang on my own door and Sammy opened it a few inches, he had the chutzpah to ask me if I could lend him a rubber! So, I knew Sam alright, bright and cunning, and too attractive. He knew full well what he was doing. Unforgivingly stupid, I let my emotions play me right into his hands, and he played social handball with me, finally chucking my cool over the backwall fence.
Lucy was pissed at me for being such a drag and getting uptight over sweet, charming, innocent Sammy! I KNOW that if we were in Philadelphia that Lucy and Sam would have found a way to spin me off, carry on drinking somewhere else, and, even though she will probably steadfastly deny it, eventually succumb to Sammy in bed. What a thought to be thinking . . . and Lucy only two days at my side. But the greatest frustration is not only in the having such a mind-breaking thought but feeling it had a real foundation! In other words, how much was due to stabs of personal insecurity and how much over realization of a true situation. It doesn’t matter, does it? I think I knew then that we wouldn’t be going to a May Ball. I could have had tickets at an extravagant price, but my spirit had been sapped, and the ball was five days away.
I retrieved myself a little at the close of that evening. As the three of us headed towards the house at Milton Road, outside of which Sammy had parked his own car, there was a police road block looking for people as drunk as we were. We were pulled over, and I could see that the officer with the flashlight had a partner with a clipboard and several of those breathalyzers dangling from it. After 20 years of unremitting intoxication on the roads of Great Britain my number, it appeared clearly, was finally coming up. Sam quickly rolled down his window, as I did mine, to clear the air inside the car it was enough to explode in the presence of a lighted match. But I remained cool, calm, and imperturbable partly due to my still shitty attitudinal shape over Lucy. And, by God, I answered all the tricky questions right down the line. We chit-chatted to a conclusion and he passed me along down Milton Road. Sammy was beside himself with disbelief, and for the next 5 minutes until we got back to the house, he praised and amazed over my performance and luck!
Sam went home, but Lucy and I had a little scene. That was, in fact, even more frustrating because I felt so strongly for her and I didn’t want to alienate her at so early a stage, that I laid the blame wholly at Sammy’s doorstep. Now, in terms of the bulk of the blame, or what one might call ‘active participation’, Sammy does carry the burden; but while that was a necessary element, it was not sufficient Lucy’s enjoyment of the flirtation, her insensitivity to my tiredness which clearly was also related to a difficult 48 hours She hadn’t seen me pick up and drop the kids at Pampisford, see their begging and tears, see Beverly’s ranting and hissing of future revenge, to be aware of the trying times I was going through and so much of it dedicated to sparing her of uneasiness daily. She, consciously or unconsciously—doesn’t make a damned bit of difference to me!—encouraged him. Never mind, I don’t even like the upward visceral feelings that I feel right now just recalling it all!
Friday we did more brass rubbing. Lucy was getting freaked out on it. Were it not for the cold and the rain and the clouds I think she could have easily roamed Britain rubbing the brasses. She loved it! That night we went to the Footlights, the first real event of May Week. It was good, as they say, but not great. Lucy enjoyed it . . . it was a nice part of everything. I think it was not until Saturday that we finally caught up with Stanley. He had come by the house. I think they liked each other. We didn’t go anywhere as Stanley was just stopping by on the way home. I got the feeling that Fraucke wasn’t encouraging Stanley’s socializing with us out of a sense of loyalty to Beverly.
Saturday we stopped in at Abbott’s and got the literature on various one week holidays. Lucy was very keen on Morocco, where I had been two years before. I said I’d rather go someplace that was similar, but where I’d not been before. Anyway, we took the various literature and went home.
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