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“You’re not going to let that old monster Calderwood nag at you again, are you?”
Ever since Rudolph had told Calderwood he intended to retire from the business in June, Calderwood had argued with him almost every time he saw him. “Who retires at the age of thirty-six, for the Lord’s sake?” Calderwood kept repeating.
“I do,” Rudolph had once replied, but Calderwood had refused to believe him. Suspicious, as always, Calderwood felt that Rudolph was really maneuvering for more control and had hinted that if Rudolph would stay he would give it to him. Calderwood had even offered to move the main office down to New York, but Rudolph said he no longer wanted to live in New York. Jean now shared his attachment to the old farmhouse in Whitby and was pouring over plans with an architect to enlarge it.
“Don’t worry about Calderwood,” Rudolph said, standing. “I’ll be home for lunch.”
“That’s what I like,” Jean said. “A husband who comes home for lunch. I’ll make love to you after lunch.”
“You’ll do nothing of the kind.” He leaned over to kiss the dear, smiling face.
It was early and he drove slowly, enjoying the town. Small children in bright-colored parkas were riding tricycles on the sidewalks or played on the drying lawns, burgeoning with the first frail green of spring. A young woman in slacks pushed a baby carriage in the sunshine. An old dog dozed on the warm steps of a big gingerbread house, painted white. Hawkins, the mailman, waved at him and he waved back. Slattery, standing beside his prowl car and talking to somebody’s gardener, saluted him with a smile; two professors from the biology department, walking toward the university deep in conversation, looked up long enough to indicate a mild hello. This part of town, with its trees and large wooden houses and quiet streets, had an i
He had to pass the athletic field on the way to the Administration Building and he saw Quentin McGovern in a gray suit, jogging along the track. He stopped the car and got out and Quentin came over to him, a tall, serious young man, his skin gleaming with the sweat of his exercise. They shook hands. “I don’t have my first class till eleven,” Quentin said. “And it was a nice day for ru
They didn’t run in the morning anymore. Since his marriage, Rudolph had taken up te
“How’s it going, Quentin?” Rudolph asked.
“Not bad. I’m twenty-two eight for the two twenty and the Coach says he’s going to run me in the four forty and the relay as well.”
“What does your mother say now?”
Quentin smiled, remembering the cold winter mornings. “She says for me not to get too swell-headed. Mothers don’t change.”
“How about your work in school?”
“They must have made a mistake at the office,” Quentin said. “They put me on the Dean’s List.”
“What does your mother say about that?”
“She says it’s because I’m colored and they want to show how liberal they are.” Quentin smiled faintly.
“If you have any further trouble with your mother,” Rudolph said, “tell her to call me.”
“I’ll do that, Mr. Jordache.”
“Well, I’ve got to be going. Give my regards to your father.”
“My father’s dead, Mr. Jordache,” Quentin said quietly.
“I’m sorry.” Rudolph got back into his car. Christ, he thought. Quentin’s father must have worked at least twenty-five years at Calderwood’s. You’d think somebody would have had the sense to pass the word around.
The morning was no longer as pure and pleasurable as it had been before his conversation with Quentin.
All the parking places were taken in front of the. Administration Building and Rudolph had to leave his car almost five hundred yards away. Everything is turning into a parking lot, he thought irritably, as he locked the car. The radio had been stolen out of it some time before, in New York, and Rudolph now locked the car wherever he left it, even if he was only going to be five minutes. He had had a mild argument with Jean on the subject, because she refused to lock the car at any time and even left the front door of the house open when she was home alone. You could love your neighbor, he had told her, but it was foolish to ignore the larceny in his heart.
As he was testing the door, he heard his name called. “Hey, Jordache!” It was Leon Harrison, who was also on the board of trustees and was on his way to the meeting. Harrison was a tall, portly man of about sixty, with senatorial white hair and a misleading heartiness of ma
“How are you, boy,” Harrison said, putting his arm around Rudolph’s shoulder as they walked toward the Administration Building. “All prepared to put a fire under us old fogies again this morning?” He laughed loudly, to show his lack of malice. Rudolph had had many dealings with Harrison, not all of them agreeable, about the Calderwood advertising in his paper. Harrison had started out calling him, boy, then Rudy, then Jordache, and by now was back to boy, Rudolph noted.
“Just the same routine suggestions,” Rudolph said. “Like burning down the Science Building to get rid of Professor Fredericks.” Fredericks was the head of the department and Rudolph was sure that it was safe to say that the science courses were the worst in any university the size of Whitby north of the Mason-Dixon Line. Fredericks and Harrison were cronies and Fredericks often wrote scientific articles for Harrison’s paper, articles that made Rudolph blush with shame for the university. At least three times a year Fredericks would write an article acclaiming a new cure for cancer that would appear on the editorial page of the Whitby Sentinel.
“You businessmen,” Harrison said largely, “you never can appreciate the role of pure science. You want to see a return on your investment every six months. You expect to see the simoleons come pouring out of every test tube.”
When it suited his convenience, Harrison, with his acres of choice downtown property and his interest in a bank, was very much the hard-headed businessman. At other times, publisher that he was, immersed in printer’s ink, he was a literary figure, decrying the elimination of Latin as a required subject for graduation or inveighing against a new English syllabus because it did not include enough of the works of Charles Dickens.
He tipped his hat grandly to a woman instructor in the psychology department who crossed their path. He had old-fashioned ma
“There are always interesting things going on at Dee Cee,” Rudolph said.
“More interesting than usual,” said Harrison. “There’s a rumor that you’re going to step down.”
“I never step down,” Rudolph said and then was sorry he said it. The man brought out the worst in him.