فصل ۶

6

Money can’t buy everything

WHEN the letter came from the Law School, it changed our lives. I came third in the final examinations and suddenly everyone wanted to offer me jobs. It was a wonderful time. Think of it: an ail-American boy with a famous name, third in his examinations and a Harvard hockey player too. Crowds of people were fighting to get my name and number on their company writing paper.

At last I accepted a job with Jonas and Marsh in New York. I was the highest-paid graduate of my year too. After three years of spaghetti and looking twice at every dollar, it felt wonderful.

We moved to a beautiful flat in New York. Jonas and Marsh’s office was an easy ten-minute walk away. And there were lots of fashionable shops nearby too. I told my wife to get in there and start spending immediately.

‘Why, Oliver?’

‘Woman, you supported me for three years. Now it’s my turn!’

I joined the Harvard Club of New York. Ray Stratton was working in New York too and we played tennis together three times a week. My old Harvard friends discovered me once more, and invitations arrived.

‘Say no, Oliver. I don’t want to spend my free time with a lot of empty-headed preppies.’

‘OK, Jen, but what shall I tell them?’

‘Tell them I’m expecting a baby.’

‘Are you?’

She smiled. ‘No, but if we stay at home tonight, perhaps I will.’

We already had a name for our child.

‘You know,’ I said one evening. ‘I really like the name Bozo.’

‘You honestly want to call our child Bozo?’

‘Yes. It’s the name of a big sports star. He’ll be wonderfully big and strong,’ I continued. ‘Bozo Barrett, Harvard’s biggest football star.’

We had a name for our child and we wanted him very much.

But it’s not always easy to make a baby, although we tried very hard. Finally I became worried and we went together to see a doctor.

Doctor Sheppard checked everything carefully. He took some of our blood and sent it away for examination. ‘We’ll know soon,’ he said.

A few days later he telephoned me at my office and asked me to visit him on my way home that evening.

‘Well, Doctor,’ I said, ‘which of us has the problem?’

‘It’s Jenny,’ he said. ‘She will never have children.’

I was ready for this news, but it still shook me. ‘Well,’ I said, ‘children aren’t everything.’

‘Oliver,’ said Doctor Sheppard, ‘the problem is more serious than that. Jenny is very ill. She has a blood disease.

It is destroying her blood, and we can’t stop it. She is dying, Oliver. I am very sorry.’

‘That’s impossible, Doctor,’ I said. I waited for the doctor to tell me that it was not true.

Kindly and patiently he explained again, and at last I understood the terrible words.

‘Have you spoken to Jenny, Doctor? What did you tell her?’

‘I told her that you were both all right. For the moment it’s better that way.’

I wanted to shout and scream at the unfairness of it all.

Jenny was twenty-four, and she was dying. ‘What can I do to help, Doctor?’ I asked at last.

‘Just be natural,’ he said. Natural!

I began to think about God. At first I hated Him. Then next morning I woke up and Jenny was there beside me. Still there. I was ashamed. Thank you, God, I thought. Thank you for letting me wake up and see Jennifer.

‘Be natural,’ the doctor had said. I did my best, and all the time I was living with my terrible secret.

One day Mr Jonas called me into his office. ‘Oliver, I have an important job for you. How soon can you go to Chicago?

You can take one of the younger men with you.’

One of the younger men? I was the youngest man in the office. I understood the message: Oliver, although you are still only twenty-four, you are one of our top men.

‘Thank you, sir,’ I said, ‘but I can’t leave New York just now.’

I had decided not to tell anyone about my troubles. I wanted to keep my secret as long as possible. I could see that old man Jonas was unhappy about my refusal.

On the way home that day I saw a notice in a travel shop window: ‘Fly to Paris!’ Suddenly I remembered Jenny’s words: What about my scholarship? What about Paris?

I went into the shop and bought two tickets to Paris.

Jenny was looking grey and tired when I got home. When I showed her the tickets, she shook her head.

‘Oliver,’ she said gently, ‘I don’t want Paris. I just want you . . . and I want time, which you can’t give me.’

Now I looked in her eyes and saw the sadness in them. We sat there silently, holding each other. Then Jenny explained.

‘I was feeling terrible. I went back to the doctor and he told me. I’m dying.’

Now I didn’t have to be ‘natural’ any more. We had no more secrets from each other. Now we could discuss things . . . things that young husbands and wives don’t usually have to discuss.

‘You must be strong, Oliver,’ she said. ‘For Phil. It’s going to be hard for him. He needs your help. OK?’

‘OK. I’ll be strong,’ I promised. I hoped Jenny could not see how frightened I was.

A month later, just after dinner, Jenny was playing Chopin on the piano. Suddenly she stopped.

‘Are you rich enough to pay for a taxi?’ she asked.

‘Of course. Where do you want to go?’

‘To the hospital.’

In the next few busy, worried moments, while I hurriedly packed a bag, I realized. This is it, I thought. Jenny is going to walk out of this flat and never come back. I wondered what she was thinking. She sat there, looking straight in front of her.

‘Hey,’ I said, ‘is there anything special that you want to take with you?’

‘No,’ she said. Then she thought again. ‘Yes. You.’

The taxi-driver thought Jenny was expecting a baby. ‘Is this your first?’ he asked.

I was holding Jenny in my arms, and I felt ready to explode.

‘Please, Ollie,’ Jenny said to me softly. ‘He’s trying to be nice to us.’

‘Yes,’ I told the driver. ‘It’s our first. And my wife isn’t feeling very well. So can you hurry, please?’

He got us to the hospital in ten minutes. ‘Good luck!’ he called as he drove away. Jenny thanked him.

She was having trouble walking. I wanted to carry her.

But she said clearly, ‘Not this time, Preppie.’ So we walked.

‘Have you got health insurance?’ they asked us in the hospital.

‘No.’ We had never thought about buying insurance. We were too busy buying furniture and kitchen things.

Of course, the doctors knew about Jenny and they were expecting us.

‘Listen,’ I told them. ‘Do your best for Jenny. I don’t care what it costs. I want her to have the best, please. I’ve got the money.’