Irwin Shaw - Rich Man, Poor Man

It was a clear, warm night, and Thomas sat on the afterdeck, smoking a pipe, admiring the stars, waiting for Mr Goodhart. He had made up the bill and it was in an envelope in the pilot house. It didn’t amount to very much - just fuel, laundry, a few bottles of whiskey and vodka, ice and the twelve hundred francs a day for food for himself and the two others. Mr Goodhart had given him a cheque for the charter itself the first day he had come aboard. Before going ashore, Kate had packed the Goodhart’s belongings, extra bathing suits, clothes, shoes, and books, in two of the hotel baskets. The baskets were on deck, near the after rail.

Thomas saw the lights of Mr Goodhart’s car coming up to the quay. He stood up as the car stopped and Mr Goodhart got out and came up to the gangplank. He was dressed for the evening, in a grey suit and white shirt and dark silk tie. Somehow he looked older and frailer in his city clothes.

‘May I offer you something to drink?’ Thomas asked.

‘A whiskey would be nice, Captain,’ Mr Goodhart said. He was absolutely sober now. ‘If you’ll join me.’ He sat down in one of the folding canvas-and-wood chairs while Thomas went to the saloon for the drinks. On his way up, he went into the pilot house and got the envelope with the bill.

‘Mrs Goodhart has a slight chill,’ Mr Goodhart said, as Thomas gave him the glass. ‘She’s gone to bed for the night. She especially commanded me to tell you how much she enjoyed these two weeks.’

‘That’s very kind of her,’ Thomas said. ‘It was a pleasure having her with us.’ If Mr Goodhart wasn’t going to mention the afternoon’s adventure, he wasn’t going to say a word about it, either. ‘I made up the bill, sir,’ he said. He gave the envelope to Mr Goodhart. ‘If you want to go over it and . .’

Mr Goodhart waved the envelope negligently. ‘I’m sure it’s in order,’ he said. He took the bill out, squinted at it briefly in the light of the quay lamppost. He hii a chequebook with him and he wrote out a.cheque and handed it to Thomas. ‘There’s a little something extra there for you and the crew, Captain,’ he -said.

Thomas glanced at the cheque. Five hundred dollar bonus. Like last year. ‘It’s most generous of you sir.’ Oh, for summers of Goodharts!

Mr Goodhart waved off gratitude. ‘Next year,’ he said, ‘Perhaps we can make it a full month. There’s no law that says that we have to spend the whole summer in the house in Newport, is there?’ He had explained that ever since he was a boy he had spent July and August in the family house in Newport and now his married son and two daughters and their children spent their holidays there with Mrs Goodhart and himself. ‘We could give the house over to the younger generation,’ Mr Goodhart went on, as though trying to convince himself. ‘They could have orgies or whatever the younger generation has these days when we’re not around. Maybe we could steal a grandchild or two and go on a real cruise with you.’ He settled comfortably back in his chair, sipping at his drink, playing with this new idea. ‘If we had a month, where could we go?’

‘Well,’ Thomas said, ‘the party we’re picking up tomorrow at St Tropez, two French couples, are only taking the boat for three weeks and with any break in the weather, we can go down the coast of Spain, the Costa Brava, Cadaques, Rosas, Barcelona, then across to the Balearics. And after them, we come back here and there’s an English family who want to go south - that’s another three week cruise - the Ligurian coast, Portofino, Porto Venere, Elba, Porto Ercole, Corsica, Sardinia, Ischia, Capri …’

Mr Goodhart chuckled. ‘You’re making Newport sound like Coney Island, Captain. Have you been to all those places?’ ‘Uhuh.’

‘And people pay; you for it?’

‘A lot of them make you earn your money, and more,’

Thomas said: ‘Not everybody’s like you and Mrs Goodhart.’

‘Old age has sweetened us, perhaps,’ Mr Goodhart said slowly. ‘In some ways. Do you think I might have another drink, Captain?’

‘If you don’t plan to do any more swimming tonight,’ Thomas said, rising and taking Mr Goodhart’s glass.

Mr Goodhart chuckled. “That was a horse’s ass thing to do today, wasn’t it?’

‘Yes, sir, it was.’ Thomas was surprised at Mr Goodhart’s using an expression like that. He went below and mixed two more drinks. When he came back on deck. Mr Goodhart was stretched out in his chair, his long legs crossed at the ankles, his head back, looking up at the stars. He took the glass from

Thomas’s hand without changing his position.

‘Captain,’ he said, ‘I’ve decided to pamper myself. And my wife. I’ll make a firm commitment with you right now. Starting June first next year we’ll take the Clothilde for six weeks and go south to all those pretty names you were reeling off. I’ll give you a deposit tonight. And when you say no swimming, nobody will swim. How does that strike you?’ ‘It would be fine for me, but… ‘ Thomas hesitated. ‘But what?’

‘The Clothilde’s all right for you using it during the day the way you do, going to the islands …. but for six weeks, living aboard …. I don’t know. For some people it’s fine, but for others, who are used to luxury…’

•‘You mean for spoiled old crocks like my wife and myself,’ Mr Goodhart said, ‘it’s not grand enough, is that it?’

‘Well,’ Thomas said uncomfortably, ‘I wouldn’t; like you not to enjoy yourselves. The Clothilde rolls quite a bit in rough weather and it’s pretty stuffy down below when we’re under way, because we have to close all the portholes, and there’s no proper bath, just showers, and….’

‘It’ll do us good. We’ve had it too easy all our lives. Oh, it’s ridiculous, Captain.’ Mr Goodhart sat up. ‘You make me ashamed of myself. To have you feel as though going around the Mediterranean on a boat as nice as this one is roughing it for me and my wife. God, it sends cold shivers down my spine to think of the opinion people must have of us.’ ‘People get used to living in different ways,’ Thomas said. ‘You lived yours the hard way, haven’t you?’ Mr Goodhart said.

‘No worse than a lot of others.’

‘You don’t seem any the worse for it,’ Mr Goodhart said. ‘In fact, if I may say so, if my son had turned out like you, I’d be more pleased with him than I am now. Considerably more pleased.’

‘It’s hard to know,’ Thomas said neutrally. If he knew about Port Philip, he thought, burning the cross, on VE day, and hitting my father, and taking money for screwing married ladies in Elysium, Ohio, if he knew about blackmailing Sinclair in Boston, and throwing fights, and about Quayles and Quayles’s wife in Las Vegas, and about Pappy and Teresa and Falconetti, maybe he wouldn’t be sitting there being friendly, with a glass in his hand, wishing his son was more like me. There’s a lot of things I’ve done I’m not so goddamn proud of,’ he said.

That doesn’t make you any different from the rest of us, Captain,’ Goodhart said quietly. ‘And while we’re on the subject - forgive me for this afternoon. I was drunk and I had had two weeks of watching three splendid young people happily working together, moving around like graceful animals, and I felt old and I didn’t want to feel old and I wanted to prove that I wasn’t all that old and I risked all our lives. Knowingly, Captain, knowingly. Because I was sure you weren’t going to let us make that swim alone.’

‘It’s better not to talk about it, sir,’ Thomas said. ‘Anyway, no harm was done.’

‘Old age is an aberration, Tom,’ Mr Goodhart said bitterly. ‘A terrible perverted aberration.’ He stood up and put his glass down carefully. ‘I’d better be getting back to the hotel and see how my wife is doing,’ he said. He extended his hand and Thomas shook it. ‘Until next June first,’ he said and strode off the ship, carrying the two baskets with him.