remarried?
'Well, we can't tell your mother. It would kill her. We'll have to make up some story. You went to a basketball game and it went overtime and you spent the night at the Crutchmans'.'
'But I've asked her to lunch.'
'Who.'
'Mrs. Hubbard.'
'Oh, my God,' said Nailles. 'Why did you do that?'
'Well, she's lonely and doesn't seem to have many friends and you've always told me that I should ask people to the house.'
'All right,' Nailles said. 'This is our story. You went into a bookstore and you met a lonely war widow and you asked her to lunch. Then you got some dinner somewhere and you went to a basketball game and you spent the night at the Crutchmans'. Right?'
'I'll try.'
'You'd damned well better.'
Nellie embraced her son tenderly. He said that he had invited a widow for lunch and Nailles explained that Tony had spent the night at the Crutchmans'. The boy might possibly dissemble but he was incapable, Nailles knew, of a forthright lie.
'How are the Crutchmans,' Nellie asked. 'I haven't seen them for so long. Do they have a nice guest room? They've always urged us to use it but I always like to come home. I suppose we ought to send them something. Do you think we ought to send them flowers? I could write them a note.'
'Oh, don't bother,' Nailles said. I'll send them something.'
After breakfast Nailles asked Tony if he wanted to cut wood but the boy said he thought he'd do his homework. The word 'homework' touched Nailles-it seemed to mean innocence, youth, purity, simple things-all lost in the bed of a sluttish war widow. He felt sad. He cut wood until it was time to bathe and dress and then he made a drink. Nellie was cooking a leg of lamb and this humble and innocent smell filled the kitchen. He looked at Nellie for some trace of suspiciousness, reflection or misgiving but she seemed so unwary, so truly innocent that he went to the stove and kissed her. Then he went to the living room window and waited.
Tony parked the car in the driveway and opened the door for Mrs. Hubbard, who got out laughing. She wore a gray Chesterfield with a velvet collar and carried an umbrella, which she swung in a broad arc, striking the ground like a walking stick. Her right arm was hooked rakishly in Tony's and she seemed propelled forward partly by Tony, partly by the umbrella. She was shorter than he and looked up into the young man's face with a flirtatiousness that angered Nailles. She wore no hat and her hair was a nondescript reddish color, obviously dyed. Nailles, at a glance, put her age at thirty. Her heels were very high and this made the calves of her legs bulge a little. Her face was round and flushed and Nailles wondered. Indigestion? Alcohol? He opened the door and welcomed her politely and she said:
'It's simply heavenly of you to take pity on a poor widow.'
'We're delighted to have you,' said Nailles. Tony took her coat.
'How do you do,' said Nellie. 'Won't you please come in.' She was in the living room to the right of the hall, where a fire was burning. The pleasure she took in presenting her house, her table, to someone who was lonely shone in her face.
'What a divine house,' said Mrs. Hubbard, keeping her eyes on the rug. Nailles guessed that she needed glasses. 'Can I get you a Manhattan,' Nailles asked. 'We usually drink Manhattans on Sunday.'
'Any sort of drinkee would be divine,' said Mrs. Hubbard, and Nailles made for the pantry. Tony asked if he could help and Nailles thought that he could help by throwing her out the door but he said nothing.
'Did you find the train trip boring,' Nellie asked.
'Not really,' said Mrs. Hubbard. 'I had the great good luck to find an interesting traveling companion-a young man who seems to have some real-estate interests out here. I can't remember his name. I think it was Italian. He had the blackest eyes… Hmm,' she said of a novel on the table. 'O'Hara.'
'I'm Just leafing through it,' Nellie said. 'I mean if you know the sort of people he describes you can see how distorted his mind is. Most of our set are happily married and lead simple lives. I much prefer the works of Camus.' Nellie pronounced this Camooooo. 'We have a very active book club and at present we're studying the works of Camus.'
'What Camus are you studying?'
'Oh, I can't remember all the titles,' Nellie said. 'We're studying all of Camus.'
It was to Mrs. Hubbard's credit that she did not pursue the subject. Tony got her an ashtray and Nailles looked narrowly at his beloved son and this stray. His manner towards her was manly and gentle. He didn't at any point touch her but he looked at her in a way that was proprietory and intimate. He seemed contented. Nailles did not understand how, having debauched this youth, she had found the brass to confront his parents. Was she totally immoral? Did she think them totally, immoral? But his strongest and strangest feeling, observing the boy's air of mastery, was one of having been deposed, as if, in some ancient legend where men wore crowns and lived in round towers, the bastard prince, the usurper, was about to seize the throne. The sexual authority that Nailles imagined as springing from his marriage bed and flowing through all the rooms and halls of the house was challenged. There did not seem to be room for two men in this erotic kingdom. His feeling was not of a contest but of an inevitability. He wanted to take Nellie upstairs and prove to himself, like some old rooster, that the scepter was still his and that the young prince was busy with golden apples and other impuissant matters.
'How did you lose your husband, Mrs. Hubbard,' Nellie asked.
'I really can't say,' said Mrs. Hubbard. 'They don't go in terribly much for detail. They simply announce that he was lost in action and that you are entitled to a pension. Oh, what a divine old dog,' she exclaimed as Tessie came into the room. 'I adore setters. Daddy used to breed and show them.'
'Where was this,' Nailles asked.
'On the island,' said Mrs. Hubbard. 'We had a largish place on the island until Daddy lost his pennies and I may say he lost them all.'
'Where did he show his dogs?'
'Mostly on the island. He showed one dog in New York-Aylshire Lassie-but he didn't like the New York show.'
'Shall we go in to lunch,' asked Nellie.
'Could I use the amenities,' asked Mrs. Hubbard.
'The what?' said Nellie.
'The john,' said Mrs. Hubbard.
'Oh, of course,' said Nellie. 'I'm sorry…'
Nailles carved the meat and absolutely nothing of any interest or significance was said until about halfway through the meal when Mrs. Hubbard complimented Nellie on her roast. 'It's so marvelous to have a joint for Sunday lunch,' she said. 'My flat is very small, as are my means, and I never tackle a roast. Poor Tony had to make do with a hamburger last night.'
'Where was this,' Nellie asked.
'Emma cooked my supper last night,' Tony said.
'Then you didn't spend the night at the Crutchmans'?'
'No, Mother,' Tony said.
Nellie saw it all; seemed to be looking at it. Would she rail at the stranger for having debauched her cleanly son? Bitch. Slut Whore. Degenerate. Would she cry and leave the table? Tony was the only one then who looked at his mother and he was afraid she would. What would happen then? He would follow her up the stairs calling: 'Mother, Mother, Mother.' Nailles would telephone for a taxi to take dirty Mrs. Hubbard away. Nellie, her lunch half finished, lighted a cigarette and said: 'Let's play I packed my grandmother's trunk. We always used to play it when Tony was a boy and things weren't going well.'
'Oh, lets,' said Mrs. Hubbard.
'I packed my grandmother's trunk,' said Nellie, 'and into it I put a grand piano.'
'I packed my grandmother's trunk,' said Nailles, 'and into it I put a grand piano and an ashtray.'
'I packed my grandmother's trunk,' said Mrs. Hubbard, 'and into it I put a grand piano, an ashtray and a copy of Dylan Thomas.'
