Robert Heinlein: Farnham's Freehold

"It's not a hearing aid," Hubert Farnham explained. "It's a radio, tuned to the emergency frequency."

Barbara Wells stopped with a bite halfway to her mouth. "Mr. Farnham! You think they are going to attack?"

Her host shrugged. "The Kremlin doesn't let me in on its secrets."

His son said, "Dad, quit scaring the ladies. Mrs. Wells-"

"Call me 'Barbara.' I'm going to ask the court to let me drop the 'Mrs.'

"You don't need permission."

"Watch it, Barb," his sister Karen said. "Free advice is expensive."

"Shaddap. Barbara, with all respect to my worthy father, he sees spooks. There is not going to be a war."

"I hope you're right," Barbara Wells said soberly. "Why do you think so?"

"Because the communists are realists. They never risk a war that would hurt them, even if they could win. So they won't risk one they can't win."

"Then I wish," his mother said, "that they would stop having these dreadful crises. Cuba. All that fuss about Berlin-as if anybody cared! And now this. It makes a person nervous. Joseph!"

"Yes, ma'am?"

"You fetch me coffee. And brandy. Café royale."

"Yes, ma'am." The houseboy, a young Negro, removed her plate, barely touched.

Young Farnham said, "Dad, it's not these phony crises that has Mother upset; it's the panicky way you behave. You must stop it."

"No."

"You must! Mother didn't eat her dinner... and all because of that silly button in your ear. You can't-"

"Drop it, Duke."

"Sir?"

"When you moved into your own apartment, we agreed to live as friends. As my friend your opinions are welcome. But that does not make you free to interfere between your mother-my wife-and myself."

His wife said, "Now, Hubert."

"Sorry, Grace."

"You're too harsh on the boy. It does make me nervous."

"Duke is not a boy. And I've done nothing to make you nervous. Sorry."

"I'm sorry, too, Mother. But if Dad regards it as interference, well-" Duke forced a grin. "I'll have to find a wife of my own to annoy. Barbara, will you marry me?"

"No, Duke."

"I told you she was smart, Duke," his sister volunteered.

"Karen, pipe down. Why not, Barbara? I'm young, I'm healthy. Why, someday I might even have clients. In the meantime you can support us."

"No, Duke. I agree with your father."

"Huh?"

"I should say that my father agrees with your father. I don't know that my pops is carrying around a radio tonight but I'm certain that he is listening to one. Duke, every car in our family has a survival kit."

"No fooling!"

"My car out in your father's driveway, the one Karen and I drove down from school, has a kit in its trunk that Pops picked before I re-entered college. Pops takes it seriously, so I do."

Duke Farnham opened his mouth, closed it. His father asked, "Barbara, what did your father select?"

"Oh, lots of things. Ten gallons of water. Food. A jeep can of gasoline. Medicines. A sleeping bag. A gun-"

"Can you use a gun?"

"Pops made me learn. A shovel. An ax. Clothes. Oh, yes, a radio. But the important thing was 'Where?'-so he kept saying. If I were at school, he would expect me to head for the basement of the gym. But here- Pops would expect me to head up into the mountains."

"You won't need to."

"Sir?"

"Dad means," explained Karen, "that you are welcome in our panic hole."

Barbara showed a questioning look. Her host said, "Our bomb shelter. 'Farnham's Folly' my son calls it. I think you would be safer there than you would be running for the hills-despite the fact that we are only ten miles from a MAMMA Base. If an alarm comes, we'll duck into it. Right, Joseph?"

"Yes, sir! That way I stay on your payroll."

"The hell you do. You're fired the instant the sirens sound-and I start charging you rent."

"Do I pay rent, too?" asked Barbara.

"You wash dishes. Everybody does. Even Duke."

"Count me out," Duke said grimly.

"Eh? Not that many dishes, Son."

"I'm not joking, Dad. Khrushchev said he would bury us- and you're making it come true. I'm not going to crawl into a hole in the ground!"

"As you wish, sir."

"Sonny boy!" His mother put down her cup. "If an attack comes, of course you're going into the shelter!" She blinked back tears. "Promise Mother."

Young Farnham looked stubborn, then sighed. "All right. If an attack comes- if an alarm sounds, I mean; there isn't going to be an attack- I'll go into your panic hole. But, Dad, this is just to soothe Mother's nerves."

"Nevertheless you are welcome."

"Okay. Let's go into the living room and break out the cards-with a firm understanding that we drop the subject. Suits?"

"Agreed." His father got up and offered his arm to his wife. "My dear?"

In the living room, Grace Farnham declined to play bridge. "No, dear, I'm too upset. You play with the young people, and- Joseph! Joseph, bring me just a teensy bit more coffee. Royale, I mean. Don't look that way, Hubert; it helps, you know it does."

"Would you like a Miltown, dear?"

"I don't need drugs. I'll just have a drop more coffee."

They cut for partners; Duke shook his head sadly. "Poor Barbara! Stuck with Dad- Did you warn her, Sis?"

"Keep your warnings to yourself," his father advised.

"She's entitled to know, Dad. Barbara, that juvenile delinquent across from you is as optimistic in contract as he is pessimistic in-well, in other matters. Watch out for psychic bids. If he has a Yarborough-"

"Drop dead, Duke. Barbara, what system do you prefer? Italian?"

Her eyes widened. "The only Italian I know is vermouth, Mr. Farnham. I play Goren. Nothing fancy, I just try to go by the book."

"'By the book,'" Hubert Farnham agreed.

"'By the book,'" his son echoed. "Which book? Dad likes to ring in the Farmers' Almanac, especially when you're vulnerable, doubled and redoubled. Then he'll point out how, if you had led diamonds-"

"Counselor," his father interrupted, "will you deal those cards? Or shall I stuff them down your throat?"

"I'll go quietly. Put a little blood in it? A cent a point?" Barbara said hastily, "That's steep for me."

Duke answered, "You gals aren't in it. Just Dad and myself. That's how I pay my office rent."

"Duke means," his father corrected, "that is how he gets deep into debt to his old man. I was beating him out of his allowance when he was still in junior high."

Barbara shut up and played cards. The stakes made her tense, even though it was not her money. Her nervousness was increased by suspicion that her partner was a match player.

Her nerves relaxed, though not her care, as it began to appear that Mr. Farnham found her bidding satisfactory. But she welcomed the rest that came from being dummy. She spent these vacations studying Hubert Farnham.

She decided that she liked him, for the way he handled his family and for the way he played bridge-quietly, thoughtfully, exact in bidding, precise and sometimes brilliant in play. She admired the way he squeezed out the last trick, of a contract in which she had forced them too high, by having the boldness to sluff an ace.

She knew that Karen expected her to pair off with Duke this weekend and admitted that it seemed reasonable. Duke was as handsome as Karen was pretty-and a catch... rising young lawyer, a year older than herself, with a fresh and disarming wolfishness.

She wondered if he expected to make out with her? Did Karen expect it and was she watching, secretly amused?

Well, it wasn't going to happen! She did not mind admitting that she was a one-time loser but she resented the assumption that any divorcee was available. Damn it, she hadn't been in bed with anybody since that dreadful night when she had packed and left. Why did people think- Duke was looking at her; she locked eyes with him, blushed, and looked away, looked at his father instead.