The Loving Couple

  The Loving Couple: His Story

  Patrick Dennis

  (written as Virginia Rowans)

  By the Author

  Oh, What a Wonderful Wedding

  House Party

  The Loving Couple

  Copyright Page

  THOMAS Y. CROWELL COMPANY • NEW YORK

  Copyright © 1956 by Thomas Y. Crowell Company

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, except by a reviewer, without the permission of the publisher.

  Library of Congress Catalog Card No. 56-10793

  Manufactured in the United States of America by the Vail-Ballou Press, Binghamton, New York

  THIRD PRINTING, SEPTEMBER 1956

  for J. P. M.

  another dedicated book from an undedicated author

  All the characters in this book are fictitious, and no reference is intended to any actual person, living or dead.

  To ebook readers

  The Loving Couple was originally printed, as a gimmick, with His Story and Her Story back to back, with the covers reversed, so that a reader could at whim begin reading either story, then upon completion turn the book over and upside, and read the other spouse’s point of view.

  As in so much of life, the two stories met somewhere in the middle.

  For the purposes of this electronic version I’ve arbitrarily put His Story first, and let Her Story have the last word. Please be aware that the two versions might just as easily be read in the other order, however.

  The Loving Couple: His Story

  One

  "All right, damn you," she shouted, "leave me! get out, get out, get out! Get out and don't come back!" The front door slammed with a force that shook the house. Then there was an eerie quietude like the silence that follows a major explosion. The only sound he could hear was the click of his leather heels on the flagstone walk.

  It was a beautiful October morning in Riveredge, cool—but not too cool—and clear with a blue, blue sky. The elms, the maples, the copper beeches were all doing their stuff—"Jack Frost's paint brush splashes exclusive Riveredge with all the glorious colors of Autumn's Palette," the real estate brochure had said. "Well, let it splash!" he muttered. "God damned prison of a showplace!"

  He reached the road and turned sharply to the left. Too late he remembered that he had left the car keys on his dresser, his hat on the bedroom floor, his topcoat in the closet. "To hell with them all," he said, "I'll walk to the gate and then call a cab. I'd walk to Moscow before I went back to that house and her."

  "What say, sir?" one of the grounds crew asked, leaning picturesquely on his wooden rake. "Didn't quite hear, sir. Lovely morning, sir."

  "I said good morning!" he shouted and kicked viciously at the blue gravel on the road, defacing a good square foot of what the brochure called "more than three miles of glorious drives winding through beautifully landscaped terrain to be enjoyed only by members of Riveredge, their families and their guests." Member of Riveredge, eh? At the moment he'd rather be a member of the House of David—much rather. Not only had his wife set him to bleeding figuratively from every pore, but his razor had nicked him seriously in three different places so that he was bleeding literally from what were, thank God, not yet jowls. Never shave when you're shaking with rage.

  At the moment he would have liked to have looked back at the house—for the last time, of course—just to see if she were gazing at him from a window. But if he should glance over his shoulder, and she should be peeping from behind a curtain, then she'd have seen him looking back and that would ruin the whole exit. Even if she tried to call him back—not that she would; that woman was so stubborn she wouldn't have called to him if the house were on fire—he'd march on to the gate and ignore her.

  It did seem kind of a shame to leave a forty-thousand-dollar investment—and an investment he'd go on paying for for years—without one last look. But there were things that money couldn't buy and pride was one of them, "Forty thousand!" he scoffed. "More like fifty."

  Yes, once Alice Marshall, his wife's power-driven sister, and her stuffy husband, Fred, had lured them into buying a piece of Riveredge; once the Membership Committee had interviewed him, bringing everything to the four meetings but thumb-screws and a lie-detector; once he had been checked and double-checked for veracity, gentility and credit, then it was his privilege to live out here with ninety-nine other prime grade, government-inspected, well-heeled young husbands and their wives and their families and their guests.

  He still had the agent's brochure to remind him that Riveredge was "no ordinary housing development, but a proud and gracious Hudson River Estate, exquisitely converted into an exclusive community of just one hundred distinguished families—ladies and gentlemen of breeding, taste and background whom you would be proud to call your friends." In other words, a snob subdivision where everything cost twice what it should and everybody pretended they could afford it. "Yep, more like fifty thousand smackers," he said. His acre on the river had cost three thousand—"You'd think it had uranium under it instead of the lousy Hudson River," he growled.

  The house, a trim little Regency pavilion, had been built by a prospective Riveredge member who had been almost successful in concealing from the Membership Committee the unsettling fact that his wife was part Jewish. But they had found out in the nick of time, had had three scenes and two lawsuits and had finally sold the completed house to John at thirty-five thousand—not including kitchen equipment at twenty-five hundred.

  Repainting had cost another thousand, moving had run to nearly five hundred. New furniture and old antiques from Mrs. Updike's decorating establishment had come at cost through his wife's connections, but cost was just under five thousand plus fifteen hundred for carpets plus four hundred for what Mrs. Updike and her sibilant son, Gerald, called "the sheerest conceit of a chandelier, dear." Landscaping had been a thousand and John's own forays into the garden—a pastime which he detested but felt that he ought to like to be as one with the men of Riveredge—had been so disastrous that the man from Goldfarb's had to come back to replant two hundred dollars' worth of hardy perennials.

  A car was essential in Riveredge, unless you were a cross-country runner. Most of the members had two cars—a big one and a station wagon or a jeep. But if you only had one, it had to be spiffy. His—well, like the house, it was in her name—was a mammoth black convertible. And that had cost plenty, although his Christmas bonus would undoubtedly cover it.

  And then there were the steady, clipping assessments for the services and improvements that made Riveredge the showplace it was. He had been hit for his share of dressing rooms at the swimming pool; a boost in the life guard's salary—since the lifeguard had been popping corn with Fran Hollister all summer, he didn't know why Fran didn't reimburse him out of her considerable alimony for services above and beyond the call of duty. Then there were hospitalization and pension plans for the staff of men who guarded Riveredge's privacy at the gate and trimmed the hedges and mowed the lawns within; for the private bus that carted husbands to the station and kiddies to the school.

  And the last blow had fallen at his sister-in-law's house two weeks ago when, instead of leading her monthly Discussions of Foreign Affairs panel, Alice had rapped for order and launched into her own plans for building a private school for Riveredge children. "It is not fair,” Alice had said, "for the less privileged children in the town to have to compete with our children. You all know that I am one hundred percent for democracy and the public school system, but a method of education that holds back exceptional children and forces children beyond their . . ."

  He had stopped listening right there. He knew his sister-in-law Alice, all right. She had a gift for taking the simple
st statement of fact, such as "I want my children in a private school," and twisting it, coloring it, reversing it, filling it with psychiatric terms and liberal sentiments until it sounded like a declaration by Charlotte Corday. You could take a girl out of Santa Barbara, but you couldn't take Santa Barbara out of a girl. Alice was one of the most elaborate and self-effacing snobs John had ever known, and Mary—well, no, there was nothing snobbish about her. That was one thing—and just about the only thing—he could say for her. But the upshot of the whole school plan was that now everybody would be assessed five hundred dollars to turn an old stable into a very progressive and very private school. And John and Mary didn't even have any children.

  Of course there might have been a child. It would have been born about now. He wondered aimlessly what the baby would have been—a boy or a girl—and what it would have looked like. The miscarriage had been a horrible, horrible thing. Heavenly Rest, the Mother Immaculate Peace maid, had called him at the office, wailing and blubbering and praying over the telephone. By the time he had got to the hospital it had been too late and there wasn't going to be any baby—at least not that time. "At least not ever," he said aloud.

  He supposed it was all for the best. A couple splitting up was messy enough—complicated enough—even when there were just two adults unencumbered by children and livestock. No, it was better not to have kids to worry about and fight over. He knew a number of men—three, anyway—who were divorced and spent weekends and holidays with their children. The strain and the competition were terrible. Well, take Jack Hennessey, just down the road: there he was, a big, hearty loudmouth—yes, loudmouth—with a tart for a second wife, being visited every so often by his mousy little girl of twelve with braids and pink-shelled glasses who . . .

  John had just come abreast of the Hennessey's house, its solid glass sides opened to let in the cool air, its fieldstone slabs of chimneys belching smoke from the four huge fireplaces. There was a big yellow Cadillac in the drive next to Hennesseys' souped-up red Jaguar—company for the weekend. The red Jaguar was just as typical of Jack and Adele Hennessey as the three stars painted on their front door, as typical as their playroom with its tipsy glasses and dribble glasses and its quarter slot machine and the gin bottle that played "How Dry I Am."

  Jack and Adele were older than most of the couples in Riveredge—older and a lot richer. They kept a colored couple and served St. James's Scotch. All their furniture was custom-made and expensive and terrible. They were loud, gregarious, aggressive people, always pressing invitations on you to meet the loud, gregarious, aggressive people whom they had picked up on West Indies cruises, at the Shamrock in Houston, in the club car of the Super Chief. The Hennesseys were incapable of living in quietude. Their house contained four television sets, five radios, two record players and hi-fi piped throughout. The Hennesseys liked popular tunes delivered by Sammy Kaye and Julius la Rosa, for more serious music they leaned toward André Kostelanetz and Liberace—and they liked all of it loud.

  As he passed the Hennessey house he could hear Arthur Godfrey, a news broadcast, Ravel's "Bolero," "All the Things You Are" and a women's commentator issuing simultaneously. He thought he could get past without being seen. He was wrong. "Howdy, neighbor!" a voice boomed. It was Jack Hennessey. Jack was given to fringed buckskin shirts, to tartan trews, Countess Mara ties and unusual footgear—purchased mostly by his wife, whose taste in men's clothes was a little worse than his own.

  Today Jack was wearing a pink shirt with a black shoestring tie, black Bermuda shorts, black tasseled loafers and black and pink and white Argyles to the knee. On a younger, thinner, taller man the outfit would have inspired whistles. On Jack it drew only a stunned silence. His large pumpkin of a stomach, his two muskmelons of a bottom, his thin, slightly bowed legs, his red Irish face just didn't go with so carefully contrived a costume. His wife joined him, wearing an identical get-up plus a pink hair ribbon.

  "Hello, sweetie," Adele called, "how's your cute wife?" Terms like sweetie, cutie, honey, and doll came naturally to Adele. She was able to convince some people that she was only thirty-five, a few people that she was actually an ash blonde, and almost no one that she was a lady. Rumors—all of them totally unfounded—had placed Adele in a number of interesting occupations before she became Jack's second wife. She had been variously described as a model, a show girl, a manicurist, a secretary, a call girl and a gangster's mistress. As for Adele herself, she was secretive about her past, which had almost certainly been a checkered one.

  Adele said things like "between you and I" and "lonjeray" and "It'ly" generously interspersed with such recently acquired elegancies as "eye-ther" and "to-mah-to" and "entre nous" Well, one who knew simply knew that Adele didn't know. But Adele did know that, with the possible exception of Fran Hollister, she could buy and sell every well-reared young matron in Riveredge. She reveled in the knowledge.

  There was considerable speculation as to just how the Hennesseys had been admitted by the Riveredge Membership Committee and there was even more considerable speculation as to what Jack had done for a living before all that Army surplus material came his way. People at Riveredge said—and with some reason—that the Hennesseys were common, pushy and ostentatious. Jack's booming openhandedness was felt to be especially vulgar and the people who owed Jack the most money—payable when convenient and without interest—were the most captious in their muttered criticism.

  "Hey! C'mon in an' bend an elbow!” Jack roared, flourishing an Orrefors vase filled with milk punch. "We sure hung one on at Ver-sales last night. Boy, what a head!" The Hennesseys' boxers, Scotch and Soda, bounded out, barking ecstatically.

  "Yeah, come in, honey," Adele called. "I want you to meet my two favorite people—Dan and Peggy Slattery." She indicated a small brunette in leopard slacks and a big Irishman with black hair sprouting from his ears, cheeks and nose.

  "Pleased to meet you," Mrs. Slattery called. Mr. Slattery shouted something jovial, but he couldn't hear him above the barking of the dogs.

  "S-sorry, I can't," he yelled, with a stab at good cheer. "I've got to get to town." If the Hennesseys had to find out about their split-up, they could find out from her. He was damned if he was going to stand in the middle of the road and announce his impending divorce like a train caller. As he disappeared behind a hedge he could hear Adele screaming something about showing the Slatterys their dreamy house—"all Regent."

  Although he usually went out of his way to defend the Hennesseys in front of Fred and Alice and the Martins or a bitch like Fran Hollister—the real Riveredge people—he privately felt that Jack and Adele were a little cheap and more than a little tiresome. One thing about leaving Riveredge forever, he reflected, was that he'd never have to see the Hennesseys again; never again have to listen to Jack's barroom platitudes such as "first today" and "tee many martoonis"; never again be confronted by Adele's impregnable vulgarity as she described "Car-tee-air's dreamy little store on the Roo dee la Paze" or the "cute old antique voz" which she "purchased on Lye-sess-ter Square." Yes, divorce had its advantages.

  There was a blast of a horn and he was nearly run down by a United Parcel truck. "Watch it, stupid," the driver yelled.

  "Bastard!" he muttered.

  "And good morning to you!" a hearty voice called. He stood face to face with Whitney Martin, flanked by his wife and two children.

  If the residents of Riveredge had been put to a vote to select the community's ideal family, they would have unanimously elected Beth and Whitney Martin, their children Peter and Deborah, and the soon-to-be-born littlest Martin who, no matter which sex it happened to be, would be named Goodhue for Beth's family.

  Both Beth and Whit came of very good stock. They had gone to excellent schools. While Beth had been coming out, Whit had been very brave in Naval Ordinance. Their wedding had been the first really big social function—for nice people, that is—after the war and in suitable time little Peter had been born. (The story of the accouchement, with its many mix-u
ps, the drive through the snow from a weekend party in Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania to Doctors' Hospital in New York, was a familiar one in Riveredge, but Beth and Whit told it with such charm and taste—such refreshing spirit of cooperative raconteurism—that people pled to hear it again and again.)

  The Martins had progressed appropriately from two rooms on Washington Square to four rooms in Gramercy Park to six rooms above East End Avenue to their present Georgian splendor at Riveredge, concurrent with Whitney's meteoric rise from junior contact man to senior vice-president in Beth's cousin's advertising agency.

  And Whitney, although in advertising, was a gentleman and no huckster. Both he and Beth considered his work a mission—that of informing a woefully neglected public of the splendid new products which were appearing on the market solely to brighten their drab lives. Whitney took his calling seriously and spoke often—and at some length—of the Service which advertising performed.

  And Beth took her career as a wife and mother seriously, too. In her efficient, ladylike way she endeavored to indoctrinate her children with the True Values, to bring warm, cultivated conversation and continental cooking—somewhat modified—to her heirloom Sheraton dining table, to keep abreast of current events and to read The 100 Great Books.

  Together the Martins operated as a powerful force for culture and a better way of life. Whitney was on every committee in Riveredge, except the Mothers' Child Development Group (and Beth was co-chairman of that with Alice Marshall).

  Together the Martins went all out for liberal Republicanism, subscription dances, the United Nations, free enterprise, the recognition of both Fascist Spain and Communist China, natural sports, private schools but not snob schools, casual clothes, European travel, exchange students, psychoanalysis, foreign films and the preservation of wild life.