They went inside amid a great deal of chatter, both Ryans trying to talk at once. Forrester felt curiously detached, unable to enter into the spirit of hearty reunion; he had always liked Bill and Alice, had always been at; ease with them, but up to now they had been friends with no outside issues to color the relationship.
The room was self-consciously new, deliberately underfurnished, with large expanses of parquet floors and vastnesses of plate glass. The obligatory display case of a commanding officer; but in it, Bill Ryan looked alarmingly out of place.
There was a mild confusion of choosing seats and talking loudly across the room while Ryan, mixed strong drinks and served them with Alice trailing him around distributing napkins and appetizers from a wooden tray. Forrester marked the contrast between all this and the cluttered pillowy comforts of the quarters Ryan had inhabited in his throttle-jockey youth. In those days they had sat around a kitchen table drinking beer from cans.
They were feeling each other out like strangers. Alice’s bouncy enthusiasm was forced, she was drinking too fast, and Ryan was putting on a hearty front but he was searching for things to talk about and there was too much postmorteming of old times. Ronnie was the only real stranger here but it wasn’t her presence that made for the awkwardness; Ronnie seemed to fit in more easily than any of them—perhaps because she did not try too hard.
Alice fluttered nervously in and out of the kitchen, preparing to serve dinner. Once Forrester heard the crash of porcelain from the kitchen and Alice’s explosive curse. Ronnie hurried to the kitchen door—“Won’t you let me help?”—but Alice snapped at her: the kitchen was too small for two, she had everything under control; the words did not convey the meaning in her shrill tone. Ronnie returned to her seat, subdued, and Ryan made a clumsy effort to cover the moment with a hurried joke. But when Alice appeared Forrester did not miss the tight-lipped turn of Ryan’s face or the sulky glance Alice threw him.
Dinner was equally awkward and Forrester felt saddened by the sense of disintegration. Prism lights, recessed in the fake-beamed ceiling, threw too much bland illumination across the table, showing up the tremor of Ryan’s hands as he ate the telltale thread of moisture on Alice’s pouty upper lip. The meal was delicious and perfectly served but Alice hardly touched it; she sat pushing her ice cubes around with a wooden chopstick. Ryan tried to keep a Conversation going but Forrester caught him gritting his neat white teeth.
In the end Forrester felt ashamedly stupid: it had taken him too long to realize they were nervous and Upset because they were in the presence of a United States Senator. He made the discovery in a remark Ryan let drop; a moment later he could no longer remember the remark itself but he knew what he should have known all along. They were commoners in the presence of royalty; Ryan was an unhappy Falstaff whose Hal had become king.
He took no comfort from the discovery; he could see no way to put them at their ease. It made him quietly miserable. Over coffee he caught Ronnie watching him with kind compassion: she understood, but it was not her place to break the ice. Nor, he realized, was it his. He was in fact a Senator and there was no way on earth to deny it or change it.
Ronnie wanted to help with the dishes but they wouldn’t let her. Ryan helped his wife carry things out to the kitchen. Forrester heard water running in the sink, the clatter of washing up, the hiss of Ryan’s sibilant berating, Alice’s strident, contentious, carelessly drunken reply: “All right! Just once, let’s do things my way, all right? Get back in there and act like a host.”
Forrester turned away when he heard Ryan’s step; he began to speak to Ronnie, pretending he hadn’t heard. Ronnie put her hand on the table, forming a loose fist; he had the feeling she would have touched his hand if they had not been separated by the width of the dining table.
Ryan came in red-faced, trying to beam. “How about a little snort of brandy to go with that coffee? Whaddya say, buddy? Mrs. Tebbel?”
“Please call me Ronnie. No, no brandy for me, thank you.”
“How about you, buddy? Not going to let me down, are you?” Ryan’s grin was painful. He had started to clap Forrester on the shoulder but thought better of it. He wheeled furiously toward the bar without waiting an answer. “Got some real fine Havanas here. Old buddy of mine flew them in from Guantánamo.”
They left the table and settled around the phony brick fireplace. Forrester heard the click of the refrigerator door and in a moment Alice arrived from the kitchen, unsteady on her feet, carrying a tall glass full of ice cubes and whiskey. Ryan launched into another Good Old Days monologue with heavy jocularity but rapidly ran down, dragged on his cigar and jetted smoke, and finally squirmed in his chair and said, “Time to go from the preamble to article one. This damn house hasn’t got much more than this one room. You want to exile the ladies to the bedroom or take the cigars out on the patio?”
Alice muttered something unintelligible and Ryan professed not to hear her; he got up and said, “You gals mind entertaining each other for a while?” and marched toward the sliding glass doors at the back of the room.
Ronnie smiled up at Forrester. “Go on, now. We’ll get along fine.” It was a lie and everyone knew it except Alice, who was filing her nails with an emery board, sulking, nearly drunk enough to pass out or go into a crying jag. Forrester did not want to leave Ronnie with that on her hands but this was important. He said, sotto voce, “I’m sorry, Ronnie,” and went out onto the patio after Ryan.
Ryan had turned the outdoor lights on. “No bugs this time of year. I love it out here on the flagstones. But if you get chilly I’ll hunt up a sweater.”
“This is fine, Bill.”
Ryan slid the doors shut, closing them out. “Sit down, sit down. Want another drink before we start the brouhaha?”
“No, thanks.”
“Neither do I. Well then, old buddy, let’s have at it.”
“You don’t like this, do you?”
“Oh, hell, don’t mind any of this. I don’t like anything right now. It’s a bad patch. Alice and me, I don’t know—it seems to’ve become nothing more than some kind of incessant bargaining. And this stinking job of mine …”
“What’s wrong with it? It’s a pretty important job.”
“Nuts. I’m just marking time here. It’s a dead end. This command’s supposed to belong to a brigadier general, you know. I’m just filling in until they find themselves the right general to take it over.”
“Maybe they’ll give you a star.”
Ryan snorted. “I don’t expect to get another promotion before World War Four.”
“Why not? You’ve got a good record.”
“As a pilot, buddy. As a pilot. But I started in P-51’s and that’s the kiss of death; now I’m overage and I’m just an embarrassment to have around. They take people like me and shuffle us around from one boondock job to another until it’s time to retire us gracefully and forget us. I’m just sitting around waiting to be put out to pasture; but by God I hate being thrown out like an old shoe. I hate it. Do you know what I am down here? A pencil pusher. They’ve got a SAC wing commander to run operations and an ICBM wing commander to run the silos and all I do is take care of the real estate for them.”