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Crawford insisted upon carrying Billy’s bag and they crossed the campus to a three-story red-brick building that was obviously newer than most of the other structures surrounding it.
“Sillitoe Hall,” Crawford said, as they went in. “You’re on the third floor, William.”
There was a plaque just inside the doorway a
Gretchen was sorry she had seen the plaque, but took heart from the sound of young male voices singing from other rooms and the pounding of jazz groups from phonographs, all very much alive, as she climbed the stairs behind Crawford and Billy.
The room assigned to Billy wasn’t large, but it was furnished with two cots, two small desks, and two wardrobes. The small trunk they had sent ahead with Billy’s belongings was under one of the cots and there was another trunk tagged Fournier next to the window.
“Your roommate’s already here,” Crawford said. “Have you met him yet?”
“No,” Billy said. He seemed very subdued, even for him, and Gretchen hoped that Fournier, whoever he was, would not turn out to be a bully or a pederast or a marijuana smoker. She felt suddenly helpless—a life was out of her hands.
“You’ll see him at lunch,” Crawford said. “You’ll hear the bell any minute now.” He smiled his sober responsible smile at Willie and Gretchen. “Of course, all parents are invited, Mrs. Abbott.”
She caught the agonized glance from Billy, saying plainly, Not now, please! and she checked the correction before it crossed her lips. Time enough for Billy to explain that his father was Mr. Abbott but his mother was called Mrs. Burke. Not the first day. “Thank you, David,” she said, her voice unsteady in her own ears. She looked at Willie. He was shaking his head. “It’s very kind of the school to invite us,” she said.
Crawford gestured at the bare, unmade cot. “I advise you to get three blankets, William,” he said. “The nights up here get beastly cold and they’re Spartan about heat. They think freezing is good for our unfolding characters.”
“I’ll send you the blankets from New York today,” Gretchen said. She turned toward Willie. “Now about lunch …”
“You’re not hungry, are you, dear?” Willie’s voice was pleading, and Gretchen knew that the last thing Willie wanted was to eat lunch in a school dining room, without a drink in sight.
“Not really,” Gretchen said, pitying him.
“Anyway, I have to get back to town by four o’clock,” Willie said. “I have an appointment that’s very …” His voice trailed off unconvincingly.
There was a booming of bells and Crawford said, “There it is. The dining room is just behind the desk where you signed in, William. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to wash up. And remember—anything you need.” Upright and gentlemanly in his blazer and scuffed white shoes, a credit to the three years of schooling behind him, he went into the corridor, still resounding with the clashing melodies from three different phonographs, Elvis Presley’s wail, frantic and forlorn, dominating.
“Well,” Gretchen said, “he does seem like an awfully nice boy, doesn’t he?”
“I’ll wait and see what he’s like when you’re not around,” Billy said, “and tell you.”
“I guess you’d better get over for your lunch,” Willie said. Gretchen could tell he was panting for the first drink of the day. He had been very good about not suggesting stopping at any of the roadhouses they had passed on the way up and he had been a proper father all morning. He had earned his martini.
“We’ll walk you over to the dining room,” Gretchen said. She wanted to cry, but of course she couldn’t, in front of Billy. She looked erratically around the room. “When you and your roommate do a little decorating here,” she said, “this place ought to be very cosy. And you do have a pretty view.” Abruptly, she led the way into the hall.
They crossed the campus, along with other small groups converging on the main building. Gretchen stopped some distance from the steps. The moment had come to say good-bye and she didn’t want to have to do it in the middle of the herd of boys and parents at the foot of the steps.
“Well,” she said, “we might as well do it here.”
Billy put his arms around her and kissed her brusquely. She managed a smile. Billy shook his father’s hand. “Thanks for driving me up,” he said evenly, to both of them. Then, dry-eyed, he turned and walked, not hurrying, toward the steps, joining in the stream of students, lost, gone, a thin, gangling, childish figure departed irrevocably for that budding company of men where mothers’ voices which had comforted and lullabyed and admonished were now and forever heard only from afar.
Through a haze of tears she watched him vanish through the white pillars, the open doors, out of sunlight into shadow. Willie put his arm around her and, grateful for the touch of each other’s body, they walked toward the car. They drove down the winding drive, along a tree-shaded street that bordered the school’s playing fields, deserted now of athletes, goals undefended, base paths clear of ru
She sat in the seat beside Willie staring straight ahead. She heard a curious sound from Willie’s side of the car and he stopped the car under a tree. Willie was sobbing uncontrollably and now she couldn’t hold it back any more and she clutched him and, their arms around each other, they wept and wept, for Billy, and the life ahead of him, for Robert Sillitoe, Jr., for themselves, for love, for Mrs. Abbott, for Mrs. Burke, for all the whiskey, for all their mistakes, for the flawed life behind them.
“Just don’t pay any attention to me,” the girl with the cameras was saying to Rudolph as Gretchen and Joh
Gretchen and Joh
When Gretchen came to where Rudolph was standing, making notes on a pad on a clipboard he was carrying, the photographer was crouched a few feet in front of him, shooting upward, to get the Calderwood sign in behind him. Rudolph smiled widely when he saw her and Joh