The War of the Roses

10

Harry Thurmont was dapper in his pin-striped suit and high, oversized collar as he watched her from behind his free-form Plexiglas desk. Behind him, framed in a wide picture window, was the White House and, beyond, the Washington Monument. The senior partner in Oliver’s firm had a similar view, Barbara thought suddenly, remembering that Oliver had once told her that such a view automatically doubled the fee.

‘He hasn’t moved out. I don’t understand it,’ Barbara said. She sat in a deep easy chair, watching Thurmont’s pink face. He had a reddish, bulbous nose and watery gray eyes. ‘A drinker’ was her first thought until he announced that he was AA, insisting on the reformed drunk’s obligatory precis of his life.

‘My elbow is permanently bent,’ he told her. ‘But since I’m off the sauce, I’m mean as hell.’

‘I hope that side of you won’t be necessary,’ she had told him at their first meeting two days ago. She wasn’t so sure now.

‘He’s like some kind of animal. Almost invisible. He leaves early, before we get up, and comes home late, long after we’ve gone to bed. He doesn’t take his meals at home. I know Eve called him at the office and they spoke for a long time. And he’s been in touch with Josh. I think he met him yesterday after school. He’s really a good man. Believe me, if there was another way…’ Her voice trailed off.

‘More or less typical,’ Thurmont said. ‘I’m in touch with Goldstein and we’ll take it from there. The wisest thing is to let him phase out in his own time. ‘Suppose he doesn’t?’

‘Well, then, are you prepared to move out?’

It had begun to confuse her. Not that she had thought through any of it. She was simply obeying her instincts, knowing that it was absolutely necessary to do what she had done. She felt, quite literally, free.

‘Of course I’m not going to move out of my own house,’ she said flatly.

‘It’s also his,’ Thurmont said quietly, fastening his eyes on her face, inspecting her.

‘It’s unthinkable,’ she said. ‘You know that. I know that. He knows that.’ She stood up and walked to the window behind his desk, watching the sun glinting on the rump of Jackson’s horse in the middle of Lafayette Park. He picked up a typed sheet, put on his half glasses, and studied the page.

‘He’s agreed to two thousand a month to run the house, the kids, the whole kebash. He’ll pay the tuition at Sidwell Friends. That’s for starters to get us going on the road to the final settlement. There’s a whole procedure to be followed. Physical separation for six months. Things like that.’ He turned toward her, watching her, a canny smile on his face. The half glasses made him look shrewd. ‘In an uncontested situation, we’ll just hammer out a plan. Goldstein’s a pain in the ass. A talmudic Jew, always pinning arguments on great moral tenets. He runs up the rate. So far, your husband has been a pushover.’

‘He’s very family oriented,’ she said.

He put down the paper and removed his glasses. ‘You’re not home safe by any means.’ He reached over to a carved wooden humidor and drew out a short cigar, ceremoniously sucking the wrapper before he lit it. ‘The major question in these events is how we divide the spoils. Possessions. It’s the curse of the age. Next to child custody, which is wasteful and destructive. Property is different. It only looks simple. Here’s mine. Here’s yours. Like making a treaty in some ninth-century war between kingdoms. Your husband’s accountant is doing an inventory and as soon as that’s done we can cut into the carcass.’

She hadn’t been prepared for any of it. There’s no school for divorce, her divorced friends had asserted. They hadn’t gone into the substance of her material settlement, only the abstractions of what it meant to be on one’s own, the joy and the pain. And, of course, the different men. Barbara had been mesmerized by that part of it. ‘Most of them are like children,’ one of her friends, Peggy Laughton, had pointed out. She had been a housewife, professional volunteer, and, as she characterized it, ‘an occasional Saturday-night fucker.’ She had been lighthearted, amusing, full of cute little dirty digs like ‘I didn’t even know I was sexy. Now my blow jobs are getting great word of mouth.’ Remembering, Barbara grinned. She was eager to taste this aspect of her freedom.

‘He’s already offered you half the value of the house. But that’s only the opening gambit. A bit of bull-shit. It’s you who probably have the handle on that one. Unless, as I said before, you intend to move out. The upkeep is going to be fairly steep.’

‘My business is starting to roll,’ she said. ‘With his payments and my extra income, that should do it.’

He shook his head and smiled.

‘You didn’t understand the implication.’ She wondered suddenly why she hadn’t consulted a woman attorney. Surely a woman would have been more understanding, more tactful. They are all in it together, she decided, gathering a cloak of caution around her, remembering Peggy’s words: ‘It’s that goddamned cock of theirs. All their brains are there. Never mind palm reading. Reading the ridges of their cocks. You can really tell a man’s character from that.’

Suddenly the drawbridge over the moat went up. What she detested most was Thurmont’s posturing and superiority, as if he were the possessor of some special knowledge.

‘He offered you half the value of the house and its possessions. Not the house. Not what you have inside it. The value. Which means that an independent appraiser will look things over and determine what the real market value is. Then Oliver will probably go out and borrow the money and make one big settlement. As near as I can figure without the inventory, you might walk away with, say, between four or five hundred thou after fees. It’s a heavy wad. Should get you through the long, hard winter.’

He stood up and walked toward her, leaving his cigar in the ashtray. She saw his shadow loom close and caught the whiff of his musky cologne. For a moment she felt herself bracing for a physical onslaught. For some reason, she was certain, he had decided to make a pass. He didn’t, merely standing over her, looking down, underlining her helplessness.

‘I don’t think that’s fair,’ she said.

‘Fair?’ He stopped abruptly and she wondered if she had headed him off. She was annoyed that he had not made a pass. Maybe being fair game is what she really wanted, a real declaration of independence. With the exception of Josh and Oliver, she had no idea of what other men really looked like, felt like. That, too, wasn’t fair.

‘Are you going to lecture me about "fair"?’ he said.

‘I can’t lecture you about something that doesn’t exist.’ She enjoyed her jab at him. He offered a wry half smile, a broad hint of his arrogance. She was not intimidated.

‘You think it’s fair for me to have devoted nearly twenty years to his career, his needs, his wants, his desires, his security. I gave up my schooling for him. I had his children. And I devoted a hell of a lot more time to that house than he did. Besides, the house is all I have to show for it. I can’t match his earning power. Hell, in a few years he’ll be able to replace its value. I’ll just have cash. Well, that’s not good enough. I want the house. I want all of it. It’s not only a house. It’s a symbol of a life-style. And I intend to keep it that way. That’s fair.’

During the outburst his eyes had never wavered from her face and when she was through he offered her an unmistakably approving smile.

‘Well,’ he said, ‘we have here a live one.’ He bent down and whispered in her ear, ‘Do you mean it? Or is it merely indignation talking? In the real world indignation collapses first.’

‘It’s real as shit,’ she hissed, surprised at the extent of her firmness, wondering if it was really the way she felt inside. Was it possible that her resentment had been so deep? In the night, especially that first night, the guilt had come charging up at her, blocking out everything but her own imagined perfidy. She had called her mother in Boston and that hadn’t helped one bit.

‘I don’t understand what you’re saying,’ her mother had exclaimed after what Barbara knew was a long, garbled explanation. Hell, I don’t need her approval, she had told herself. Of course they would think her mad. Everyone, including her children, might think her mad. In the cavern of her empty bed, she wasn’t quite sure. All the resentment seemed to get screened through the lonely darkness and all that crawled into her mind was what one might call the good things. Oliver had been so supportive of her desire to get out and do something. Anything. He had been the principal motivator behind the kitchen, urging her on to the pursuit of the commercial possibilities of what she once believed was merely her pedestrian housewife talent. So he must think that he has created a monster. He was always someone to lean on, to be protected by, steady and sure and knowing and handy and decent and loving. A good provider. A good father. A good son. So, then, why was she doing this to him? She had barely been able to get her doubts through the night. The next night she took a Valium and things were better. Last night it had been still better. She was beginning to agree with herself again.

‘Up to now, Barbara,’ Thurmont said, intruding on her thoughts, ‘I would have thought you’d be the usual twenty-four-karat cliche, the I-just-want-out syndrome. The sad bleat of the unfulfilled woman. The beaches are strewn with their bloated corpses. They left home with empty purses, hot crotches, and high hopes. Fools. The lot of them. They didn’t have to leave home empty-handed. They didn’t even have to leave home.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘It’s possible, Barbara. We might be able to pull it off. But that will depend on you. He’ll buck, of course. It’ll be one hell of a mess. Dog eat dog.’

‘I won’t move. I want it all.’

‘It will mean time. My time. Your time. Pain. Arguments. Anguish. Inconvenience. Is it worth the candle?’

‘Damned straight.’

Thurmont looked at her with satisfaction. ‘You’ve got pluck, lady.’ he said happily, relighting his cigar.

In his words she read: I love messy divorces.

‘It’s my house. I worked my ass off for it,’ she said.