Irwin Shaw - Rich Man, Poor Man

I think I bought them before the war,’ Boylan said. ‘When my wife left me, I thought I’d take up fishing.’

Rudolph looked over quickly to see if Boylan was joking, but there was no glint of humour in the man’s eyes. ‘I tried a dog for company. A huge Irish wolfhound. Brutus. A lovely animal. I had him for five years. We were inordinately attached to each other. Then someone poisoned him. My surrogate.’ Boylan laughed briefly. ‘Do you know what surrogate means, Rudolph?’

The school-teacherly questions were annoying. ‘Yes,’ he said.

‘Of course,’ said Boylan. He didn’t ask Rudolph to define it. “Yes, I must have enemies. Or perhaps he was just chasing

somebody’s chickens.’

Rudolph took off his boots and held them uncertainly. ‘Just leave them anywhere,’ Boylan said. ‘Perkins will put them in the car when I take you home. Oh. dear.’ He had seen the rip in the boot. ‘I’m afraid they’re torn.’

‘It’s nothing. I’ll have it vulcanised.’ Rudolph said.

‘No. I’ll have Perkins attend to it. He loves mending things.’ Boylan made it sound as though Rudolph would be depriving Perkins of one of his dearest pleasures if he insisted upon mending the boot himself. Boylan was back at the bar table. The drink wasn’t strong enough for him and he added whiskey to his glass. ‘Would you like to see the house. Rudolph?’ He kept using the name.

‘Yes,’ Rudolph said. He was curious to find out what an armoury was. The only armoury he had ever seen was the one in Brooklyn where he had gone for a track meet.

‘Good,’ Boylan said. ‘It may help you when you become an ancestor yourself. You will have an idea of what to inflict upon your descendants. Take your drink along with you.’

In the hall there was a large bronze statue of a tigress clawing the back of a water buffalo. ‘Art.’ Boylan said. ‘If I had been a patriot I would have had it melted down for cannon.’ He opened two enormous doors, carved with cupids and garlands. ‘The ballroom,’ he said. He pushed at a switch on the wall.

The room was almost as big as the high school gymnasium. A huge crystal chandelier, draped in sheets, hung from the two-storey high ceiling. Only a few of the bulbs in the chandelier were working and the light through the muffling sheets was dusty and feeble. There were dozens of sheet-draped chairs around the painted wooden walls. ‘My father said his mother once had seven hundred people here. The orchestra played waltzes. Twenty-five pieces. Quite a club date, eh, Rudolph? You still play at the Jack and Jill?’

‘No,’ Rudolph said, ‘our three weeks are finished.’

‘Charming girl that little … what’s her name?’

‘Julie.’

‘Oh, yes, Julie. She doesn’t like me, does she?’

‘She didn’t say.’

Tell her I think she’s charming, will you? For what it’s worth.’

‘I’ll tell her.’

‘Seven hundred people,’ Boylan said. He put his arm up as though he were holding a partner and made a surprising little swooping waltz step. The whiskey sloshed over from his glass on to his hand. ‘I was in great demand at debutantes’ parties.’ He took a handkerchief out of his pocket and dabbed at his hand. Perhaps I’ll give a ball myself. On the eve of Waterloo. You know about that, too?’

‘Yes,’ Rudolph said. ‘Wellington’s officers. I saw Becky Sharp.’ He had read Byron, too, but he refused to show off for Boylan.

‘Have you read The Charterhouse Parma?’

‘No.’

Try it, when you’re a little older,’ Boylan said, with a last look around the dim ballroom. ‘Poor Stendhal, rotting in Civitavecchia, then dying unsung, with his mortgage on posterity.’

All right, Rudolph thought, so you’ve read a book. But he was flattered at the same time. It was a literary conversation.

‘Port Philip is my Civitavecchia,’ Boylan said. They were in the hall again and Boylan switched off the chandelier. He peered into the sheeted darkness. The haunt of owls,’ he said. He left the doors open and walked toward the rear of the house. That’s the library,’ he said. He opened a door briefly. It was an enormous room, lined with books. There was a smell of leather and dust, Boylan closed the door. ‘Bound sets. All of Voltaire. That sort of thing. Kipling.’

He opened another door. ‘The Armoury,’ Boylan said, switching on the lights. ‘Everybody else would call it a gun room, but my grandfather was a large man.’

The room was in polished mahogany, with racks of shotguns and hunting rifles locked in behind glass. Trophies lined the walls, antlers, stuffed pheasants with long brilliant tails. The guns shone with oil. Everything was meticulously dusted. Mahogany cabinets with polished brass knobs made it look like a cabin on a ship.

‘Do you shoot, Rudolph?’ Boylan asked, sitting astride a leather chair, shaped like a saddle.

‘No.’ Rudolph’s hands itched to touch those beautiful guns.

‘I’ll teach you, if you want,’ Boylan said. There’s an old skeet trap somewhere on the property. There’s nothing much left here, a rabbit or so, and once in a while a deer. During the season I hear the guns popping around the house. Poachers, but there’s nothing much to be done about it.’ He gazed around the room. ‘Convenient for suicide,’ he said. ‘Yes, this was game country. Quail, partridge, doves, deer. I haven’t fired a gun in years. Perhaps teaching you will reawaken my interest. A virile sport. Man, the hunter.’ His tone showed what he thought of this description of himself. ‘When you’re making your way in the world it may nelp you one aay to oe Known as a good gun. A boy I knew in college married into one of the biggest fortunes in North Carolina because of the keenness of eye and steadiness of hand. Cotton mills. The money, I mean. Reeves, his name was. A poor boy, but he had beautiful manners, and that helped. Would you like to be rich, Rudolph?’

‘Yes.’

‘What do you plan to do after college?’

‘I don’t know,’ Rudolph said. ‘It depends upon what comes along.’

‘Let me suggest law,’ Boylan said: ‘This is a lawyer’s country. And it’s becoming more so each year. Didn’t your sister tell me that you were the captain of the debating team at school?’

‘I’m on the debating team.’ The mention of his sister made him wary.

‘Perhaps you and I will drive down to New York some afternoon and visit her,’ Boylan said.

As they left the gun room, Boylan said. ‘I’ll have Perkins set up the skeet trap this week, and order some pigeons. I’ll give you a ring when it’s ready.’

‘We don’t have a phone.’

‘Oh, yes,’ Boylan said. ‘I believe I once tried looking it up in the directory. I’ll drop you a line. I think I remember the address. He looked vaguely up the marble staircase. ‘Nothing much there to interest you,’ he said. ‘Bedrooms. Mostly closed off. My mother’s upstairs sitting-room. Nobody sits there anymore. If you’ll excuse me a moment, I’ll go up and change for dinner. Make yourself at home. Give yourself another drink.’ He looked frail going up the sweeping staircase to the other floors, which would be of no interest to his young guest, except of course, if his young guest were interested in seeing the bed upon which his sister had lost her virginity.

Rudolph went back into the livingroom and watched Perkins laying a table for dinner in front of the fire. Priestly hands on chalices and goblets. Westminster Abbey. Graces of the poets. A bottle of wine poked out of a silver ice bucket. A bottle of red wine, uncorked, was on a sideboard.

‘I have made a telephone call, sir,’ Perkins said. ‘The boots will be ready by Wednesday next.’

‘Thank you, Mr Perkins,’ Rudolph said.