Irwin Shaw - Rich Man, Poor Man

Rudolph got into his Chevrolet and drove to Sillitoe Hall. He looked at the plaque commemorating Lieutenant Sillitoe as he went into the silent building. A girl of about four in blue overalls was pedalling a three-wheeler around the cluttered common room on the ground floor. A large setter in the room barked at him. Rudolph was a little disconcerted. He hadn’t expected four-year-old girls in a boys’ school.

A door opened and a chubby, pleasant-faced young woman in slacks came into the room and said, ‘Shut up, Boney,’ to the dog. She smiled at Rudolph. ‘He’s harmless,’ she said.

Rudolph didn’t know what she was doing there, either.

‘Are you a father?’ the woman asked, grabbing the dog by the collar and half strangling him, while he wagged his tail madly, full of love.

‘Not exactly,’ Rudolph said. ‘I’m Billy Abbott’s uncle. I called this morning.’

A curious little expression - concern? suspicion? relief? -shadowed the pleasant, chubby, young face. ‘Oh, yes,’ the woman said. ‘He expects you. I’m Mollie Fairweather. I’m the housemaster’s wife.’

That explained the child, the dog, herself. Whatever was wrong with Billy, Rudolph decided instantly, it wasn’t the fault of this healthy, agreeable woman.

The boys’ll be back from chapel any minute now,’ the woman said. ‘Don’t you want to come into our place and have a drink, perhaps, while you’re waiting?’

‘I don’t want to put you to any trouble,’ Rudolph said but didn’t protest further, as Mrs Fairweather waved him in.

The room was large, comfortable, the furniture well worn, the books many. ‘My husband’s at chapel, too,’ Mrs Fairweather explained. ‘But I do think we have some sherry.’ A child cried from another room. ‘My youngest,’ Mrs Fairweather said, ‘making an announcement’ She poured the sherry hurriedly and said, ‘Excuse me,’ and went off to see what announcement her child was making. The cries stopped immediately. She came back, smoothing her hair, poured herself a sherry, too. ‘Do sit down, please.’

There was an awkward pause. It occurred to Rudolph as he sat down that this woman, who had only met Billy a few months ago, must know him much better than himself, who was on a mission unbriefed and flying blind, to rescue the boy. He should have asked Gretchen to read the letter that disturbed her so to him over the phone.

‘He’s a very nice boy,’ Mrs Fairweather said, ‘Billy. So handsome and well behaved. We do get some wild ones, Mr…’ she hesitated.

‘Jordache,’ Rudolph said.

‘So we appreciate the ones who know their manners.’ She sipped at her sherry. Looking at her, Rudolph decided that Mr Fairweather was a lucky man.

‘His mother is worried about him,’ Rudolph said.

‘Is she?’ The response was too quick. Gretchen wasn’t the only one who had noticed something.

‘She got a letter from him this week She said - well, of course, mothers are prone to exaggeration - but she said it sounded as though Billy is in despair.’ There was no sense in not revealing to this obviously level-headed and well-meaning woman what his errand was. ‘The word seems a little strong to me,’ he said, ‘but I’ve come to see what can be done. His mother’s in California. And … ‘ He was a little embarrassed now. ‘She remarried.’

That’s not so uncommon around here,’ Mrs Fairweather said. She laughed. ‘I don’t mean about parents living in California. I mean the remarried.’

‘Her husband died several months ago,’ Rudolph said.

‘Oh,’ Mrs Fairweather said. Tm so sorry. Perhaps that’s why Billy -‘ She left the sentence unfinished.

‘Have you observed anything in particular?’ Rudolph asked.

The woman pushed at her short hair uncomfortably. ‘I’d prefer it if you talked to my husband. It’s really his department’

Tm certain you wouldn’t say anything that your husband wouldn’t agree to,’ Rudolph said. Without meeting the husband, he was sure that the wife would be less guarded, less defensive about the school, if indeed the school was at fault.

‘Your glass is empty,’ Mrs Fairweather said. She took it from him and refilled it

‘Is it his marks?’ Rudolph asked. ‘Are any of the boys bullying him for some reason?’

‘No.’ Mrs Fairweather handed him the tiny glass of sherry. “His marks are fine and he doesn’t seem to have any trouble keeping up. And we don’t allow bullying here.’ She shrugged. “He’s a puzzling boy. I’ve talked it over with my husband and we’ve tried to sound him out. Without success. He-he’s remote. He doesn’t seem to connect with anybody. Not with any of the other boys. Or any of his teachers. His roommate has asked to be transferred to another house.’

‘Do they fight?’

She shook her head. ‘No. The roommate says Billy just doesn’t talk to him. Ever. About anything. He does his share of housekeeping neatly, he studies at the proper hours, he doesn’t complain, but he barely answers yes or no, when he’s spoken to. Physically he’s a strong boy, but he doesn’t join any of the games. He doesn’t even throw a football around and during this season there’re always dozens of boys playing pickup touch-tackle games or just passing the ball back and forth in front of the house. And on Saturdays when we play other schools and the whole school is in the stands, he stays in his room and reads.’ As she spoke, her voice sounded just as troubled as Gretchen’s when she had spoken over the phone about Billy.

‘If he were a grown man, Mr Jordache,’ Mrs Fairweather said, ‘I’d be inclined to say he was suffering from melancholy. I know that’s not very helpful … ‘ She smiled apologetically. It’s a description, not a diagnosis. But it’s the best my husband

and I have been able to come up wife. If you can find out anything specific, anything the school can do. we’ll be most grateful.’

The bells of the chapel were ringing far away across fee campus and Rudolph could see the first boys crossing from the chapel porch.

‘I wonder if you could tell me where Billy’s room is,’ Rudolph said. ‘I’ll wait for him there.’ Perhaps there would be some clues there that would prepare him for his meeting with the boy.

‘It’s on the third floor,’ Mrs Fairweather said. ‘All fee way down the corridor, the last door to the left’

Rudolph thanked her and left her wife the two children and fee setter. What a nice woman, he thought as he mounted the steps. There certainly had been nobody as good as that connected with his education. If she was worried about Billy, there was something to be worried about.

The door, like most of the doors along the corridor, was open. The room seemed to be divided by an invisible curtain. On one side the bed was rumpled and strewn with phonograph records. Books were piled on fee floor beside fee bed and there were pennants and pictures of girls and athletes torn from magazines pinned to the wall. On fee other side, the bed was tightly made and there were no decorations on fee wall. The only photographs on that side were on fee neatly ordered small desk. They were separate ones of Gretchen and Burke. Gretchen was sitting in a deck chair in the garden of fee house in California. The portrait of Burke was one that had been published in a magazine. There was no picture of Willie Abbott

One book, open and face down, lay on fee bed. Rudolph leaned over to see what it was. The Plague, by Camus. Peculiar reading for a fourteen-year-old boy and hardly designed to rescue him from melancholy.

If excessive neatness was a symptom of adolescent neurosis, Billy was neurotic. But Rudolph remembered how neat he had been at fee same age and no one had considered him abnormal. Somehow, though, fee room oppressed him, and he didn’t want to have to meet Billy’s roommate, so he went downstairs and waited in front of the door. The sun was stronger now, and with the groups of boys, all shined up for chapel, advancing across fee campus, fee place no longer seemed prisonlike. Most of the boys were tall, much taller than fee boys Rudolph had gone to school with. Increasing America. Everybody took it for granted that it was a good thing. But was it? The better