Reinhart's Women by Thomas Berger Read Free Book Online Page B

competitors in this one were female, all of them with exceptionally sturdy calves, thighs, and behinds. Reinhart found most of them vaguely attractive, however. They looked like good sports and seemed feminine enough all the same, and he was comforted by the sight of their solid upholstery and, on the average, seasoned age, as opposed to the sinewy striplings of swimming competitions and gymnastics.
    ...Ah, Mildred Donleavy, her pleasant plump face shadowed by the bill of her white cap, was plotting the likely route of her putt. Her sandy hair was gathered into a neat bun; just above her waist bulged a roll, a little bolster, of flesh.
    A telephone rang and, startled by the jangle, Mildred missed her putt. There should be a rule against phones on golf courses! But when the second ring came, Reinhart identified it as issuing from the instrument at his elbow.
    “Dad, I trust I haven’t woken you up.”
    It was his son. As usual Reinhart believed he detected an implicit criticism. But for many years now he had held his own against Blaine, who had undergone a total transformation since the late 1960s, in which era he had been an exceptionally obnoxious member of the “youth movement” or “counterculture” so beloved and encouraged by journalists and other rabble-rousers. Within a decade Blaine had become precisely what in his early twenties he had professed to despise most. He was now a stockbroker, with wife, two children, expensive suburban house with swimming pool, more than one gas-gluttonous car, and all the rest. He was also a regular churchgoer. His wife, first-named Mercer, came from a “good” local family.
    “What’s your pleasure?” he now asked Blaine.
    “Listen, Dad,” Blaine began angrily, and then he blurted: “Damn it all. I can’t talk about this on the telephone!” Suddenly he seemed on the point of tears.
    Reinhart had never liked Blaine, but if called upon he was capable of loving him, and almost everyone in distress evokes sympathy at the outset.
    “Well, then, why not come over here?” he asked his son. “If it’s confidential we’ll have total privacy. Your sister’s out for the afternoon.”
    “Damn her,” said Blaine.
    For a moment Reinhart was not sure he meant Winona, whom Blaine had habitually ignored all his life except to jeer at in her time of obesity. But the doubt was soon dispelled.
    “She’s just been here,” Blaine said, his voice contorted with loathing. “I threw her out. I don’t want my children contaminated. Dirty little bitch. Goddamned filthy little pervert.”
    It took all of Reinhart’s strength to keep control at this point. He said sharply: “Don’t speak like that about your sister, Blaine. I won’t tolerate it, I warn you. But if you’d like to talk rationally—”
    “I won’t come there,” Blaine said. He seemed to choke back a sob, but whether it was genuine or merely for effect Reinhart could not say. Blaine had a histrionic streak, derived undoubtedly from the maternal side.
    “I could come to you,” Reinhart told him, but with a hint of doubt. Blaine had never shown him an excess of hospitality. There were scorching days on which a dip in the pool might have been refreshing: his son had yet to issue an invitation however informal. Indeed in the several years Blaine had occupied the house, Reinhart had penetrated the front hallway but once. The holiday get-togethers had taken place at Winona’s apartment and in fact were confined to the lesser, secular fetes such as Lincoln’s Birthday and Labor Day. On the religious holidays Blaine consorted with his in-laws, the Seatons, to whom he had always been careful to deny his father access.
    And even at this apparent extremity Blaine was none too hospitable.
    “When you get here, pull down the road a little way, will you? Past the driveway, please?”
    “Shall I wear a disguise?”
    Blaine said: “Try to understand for once in your life, please.”
    Perhaps he had a point. Reinhart did have