The War of the Roses

14

Harry Thurmont bore the brunt of her rage. Barbara had hurried over to his office after a most debilitating conversation with the Greek ambassador’s wife.

‘She said her guests were polite until two of them vomited, one directly on the table.’

‘That must have put a damper on things,’ Thurmont said, unsuccessfully trying to hide a smile.

‘You’re not taking this seriously, Harry. It’s sabotage.’

She was trying to control herself, to be cerebral rather than emotional. But her morning had been awful, absolutely awful. She had been summoned to the embassy at seven a.m. The Ambassador and Mrs. Petrakis met her in the dining room, which smelled unmistakably of vomit. Without a word, they led her into the kitchen to view the evidence.

‘Taste,’ the ambassador ordered. Their faces were dead white, their eyes bloodshot from lack of sleep. Barbara sniffed at the loaves, from which emanated peculiar odors.

‘Taste.’ The ambassador repeated his order. From his wife’s face Barbara could draw no pity, and she dutifully put a lump of meat in her mouth, spitting it out immediately.

‘A caterer. You call yourself a caterer. You poisoned my guests.’

She was too shocked to offer any explanation. Besides, her throat was paralyzed from humiliation.

‘At first I thought the Turks had put you up to it.’

‘The Turks?’

Then I decided I wouldn’t dignify this sort of thing by putting it on the level of a diplomatic incident.’ His anger was accelerating. ‘It tastes like shit. Shit,’ he began to shout as his wife tried to calm him.

Barbara had run from the house in tears.

‘I really believe we have an actionable issue here,’ she said calmly to Thurmont. ‘It’s what we’ve been waiting for. He deliberately ruined the food.’ The memory made her stomach turn. ‘Not to mention the damage to my business. The loss of a client.’

Thurmont stroked his chin.

‘You have proof?’

‘Who else could it be? I believe in Ann.’ She found herself strangely hesitant as the memory of Ann on Christmas Eve floated into her memory. Something barely detectable had surfaced and her mind fished for it. She had, she remembered, sensed the presence of Oliver in the library, a fleeting sensation, just below the level of consciousness. She let the idea pass for the moment as Thurmont interrupted her thoughts.

‘It won’t hold up, Barbara. We could harass. But we won’t win in a way that will satisfy you. It won’t get him out of the house.’

‘He’ll admit it. He’ll have to admit it under oath.’

‘Barbara, do me a favor. Stop practicing law. Becoming an object of ridicule won’t help your case.’

She felt the provocation and her anger erupted.

‘The orchids weren’t a big deal. Not in comparison.’

‘The orchids?’

She hadn’t intended to tell him, but now her words overflowed. She had told about the Christmas-tree fire but had left out the matter of the orchids.

‘Christmas was ruined. I was throwing out buckets of foam. I saw the orchids and they made me angry. I’m afraid it wasn’t very rational. Besides, I didn’t know the stuff would kill them. That is, I wasn’t sure. I wanted them injured. Not dead.’ He looked at her and shook his head in mock rebuke. She wondered when he would point a finger at her and say, Shame, shame.

‘The name of the game is discipline, Barbara.’

"It’s easy for you to say.’

"And I can’t be available at every little crisis.’

’Little crisis.’ She glared at him. ‘Harry, I can’t lock up my food. I intend to make this business my livelihood. Why should he interfere with that? It’s… it’s cruel, heartless.’

‘It’s just that you need something more… more damaging. More bizarre.’

‘You didn’t do much with breaking and entering,’ Barbara huffed. But what he said had triggered the errant thought again of Ann and Christmas Eve.

‘Something with moral turpitude,’ Thurmont continued. ‘You need a real hook.’

‘Like another woman?’

‘Not necessarily.’ He looked at her shrewdly. ‘You need something that is damaging enough for a judge to say he’d better get out. It’s a bad influence on the kids. A danger.’

Oliver was there. In the library on Christmas Eve. She was certain. She had sensed it, dismissed it. Little, innocent Ann.

‘At least one good thing has come out of this,’ Thurmont said. ‘Oliver can be provoked. If only the provocation wasn’t so obvious. The thing you must avoid is the appearance of tit for tat. Judges don’t appreciate that. It puts everything on a lower plane and the tendency is to compromise, which is exactly what we want to avoid.’

‘All right, Harry,’ she said smugly. ‘I won’t be obvious.’

What was obvious was that Harry Thurmont and the law could provide only the most limited of options. She was beginning to understand the process. He came around from his desk and stood before her.

‘I have absolutely no objection to your driving him crazy, Barbara. But if he knows you’re trying to drive him crazy, he won’t go crazy. Do you understand that?’

‘Perfectly.’ She smiled demurely, thinking about her new idea. He studied her in silence for a long moment.

‘You look like the cat that swallowed the canary.’

‘Not swallowed, Harry. I’ve just discovered it chirping in its cage.’

She had never really thought of the conception of Eve as an act of deceit. Loving, she had believed once, was more than just being together. Loving needed something tangible to validate it. And family wasn’t real family without children. It was difficult now to reassess her state of mind at the time. It was too foreign to the present, to the end of love.

What she concluded was that her deliberate conception of Eve had not been out of love but out of fear. Perhaps it was merely intuitive at the time. Perhaps too, subconsciously, she had been frightened that her marriage was all there was or would ever be, a long, endless plateau of sameness. Oliver, off to school each day. Soon he would be off to a job, with meeting people, colleagues and clients. She loved those words, so exotic, full of promise and adventure. He, doing marvellous, exciting things. She, off to work at some dead-end job, doing silly things like demonstrating kitchen gadgets or selling ladies’ underwear. Then, off to home, to prepare their dinner, to wait for her sun to rise. Him. The world was him. At the time, she must have thought it was the most wonderful way to live a life. Yet something, she must have sensed, was missing. Something. She was so sure then that it was a child. What was a woman’s life without a child? Nature had decreed it to happen, hadn’t it? It became her most pressing ambition. To have his child. His. That was why she had named the baby Eve. Joshua had come after that time had passed, merely because it seemed indecent to have an only child, and it was carefully planned that he would arrive just when Eve started nursery school. It was a time to be practical.

Looking at things in retrospect wasn’t really fair, she decided, deriding the idea of ‘fair.’ Nothing was fair. Even the thought came to her in Harry Thurmont’s voice, because he had said that to her and she had been immediately convinced.

‘Fair is weather. Fair is not so good. Fair is a shindig. But fair is not life.’

‘Do you think he has any ladyfriends?’ she had asked Ann one day. Her back was turned as she labored over a huge colander in one of the sinks, laying out leaves of romaine lettuce for a batch of salade nicoise she was making for a luncheon later that day. It was morning. The kids had just been sent off to school and Ann was lingering over a second cup of coffee.

Ann did not respond.

‘Ladyfriends,’ Barbara repeated. ‘I mean it seems logical. What do you think he does every night? After all, a man is different from a woman.’

When Ann still hadn’t responded, Barbara turned toward her. ‘What do you think?’ she pressed.

‘I have no idea,’ Ann answered avoiding Barbara’s eyes. Clever bitch, Barbara thought.

‘He’s still a man.’

*I haven’t had much experience.’

Barbara sensed Ann’s discomfort and proceeded cautiously.

‘Do you suppose he’s seeing prostitutes?’ she wondered aloud. ‘I doubt that.’

The response was whispered, almost furtive.

‘You do? Why so?’ Barbara turned again to watch her cope with her confusion, sure now that Ann was responding to the bait.

‘He just doesn’t seem like that kind of person,’ Ann said, her face flushing. Barbara pressed on.

‘Men don’t really care where they put it. They seem to have a very low threshold of pleasure compared to women. I never did understand it. That thing of his. Always saluting. How do they carry that around with them all the time? Like a popgun ready to go off.’

She had gotten up and brought the cup and saucer to the dishwasher, sliding the rack out and placing them on it. -

‘I hope I’m not embarrassing you, Ann,’ Barbara said. ‘I suppose he’s unhappy as hell. Probably thinks I put a detective on his trail. Not so. It doesn’t really matter. He could even have an affair in this house and it wouldn’t matter.’ She held her breath.

‘It’s none of my business,’ Ann protested, unable to hide her irritation.

‘I know, Ann.’ She paused. ‘Actually, I wish it would happen. Another woman might solve things for us.’

‘What about another man? For you?’

Barbara laughed.

‘I’m not going to fall into that trap so easily again.’

‘Trap?’

‘It is a trap, Ann.’

‘And love?’ Ann asked. The question seemed reckless, involuntary.

‘Love? What’s your opinion?’ Barbara turned in time to see Ann blush scarlet. Good, she thought, remembering love.

‘I have no opinion.’

‘Come now, Ann,’ Barbara snapped. ‘Surely you’ve had that I-can’t-live-without-you feeling. That clutching of the heart, those palpitations of desire.’

‘I don’t think about it,’ Ann replied nervously. ‘I’m too busy with my studies.’

‘Don’t you?’

‘It’s not a priority. That’s all.’

Perhaps she had gone too far. Certainly she had stirred things up. She retreated quickly, sure now of this newly discovered weapon. Yet she was fond of Ann, and using this tactic made Barbara uncomfortable.

‘I’m sorry, Ann,’ she said, half sincerely. ‘It’s beginning to get to me. All this strain. Perhaps if I went away. Maybe up to Boston to visit my parents. And took the kids.’ She was being deliberately hypothetical, waiting for some reaction. But none came. Ann got up and started to move away.

‘What do you think?’ Barbara asked hurriedly.

‘About what?’ Ann asked.

‘About me going away for a weekend with the kids.’

‘I don’t know, Barbara.’

You know exactly what to think, Ann, Barbara thought, laying the anchovies on the salad mound.