by Jack Waddell
Conor stopped reading. He got up from his chair and made himself another drink. He came back to the desk and sat down. He understood now what had happened. It had been Mary's joy and her embrace that had chased Annie away. She had been there in the gallery. She did see him win. She had wanted to celebrate his moment with him. But she didn't. She left never to be found again. Until now.
It was well past midnight when Conor finished the book. The rest of the story had been pure fiction. Ryan and Charlene married and moved inland to Redlands at the foothills of the San Bernardino Mountains. She found work with the local newspaper. He took a series of jobs… bartender, truck driver and waiter. But they were happy. Finally, he found a job at a golf course there and became a golf professional. He was quite successful. They conceived a child. But the happy story suddenly twisted. She died giving birth. Alone with his infant son, Ryan decided to return to Ireland, to his roots. He was a caddie no longer, he was a professional and he had a son to raise in the memory of his dear Charlene. The epilogue was that the son grew up to be a writer in the grand tradition of Irish bards.
Conor closed the book and turned it over to again look at Annie's picture on the dust jacket. Now he knew. She had loved him. She had wanted him. She imagined in her book being with him forever, just as he had yearned to be with her.
He decided he needed a nightcap. He got up and poured the rest of the bottle into his glass. He moved to the corner of the study were there stood two old golf bags full of clubs. One bag held the clubs he had used to win the Calcutta. The other smaller canvas bag held Annie's clubs – clubs he'd had Gino purloin from the bag room a few months after Annie disappeared. Sylvia had always complained about the golf bags, claiming them eyesores and dust catchers. Conor had simply replied they were a reminder of his poor caddie days and that they might be worth money one day as antiques. He touched her clubs and thought back to those few days when they had been together falling in love. Time had no meaning when they were together. But now it was time that separated them even more than an entire continent did. Where had those thirty years gone?
Conor sat down in the leather winged back chair opposite his desk. He took a sip of his drink. He leaned his head back and tried to think. She was married. But hadn't she been married when they first met? He dismissed that train of thought immediately. No, she was married with a husband and a daughter and a life of her own, a life he knew nothing about. Happy or sad it was a life she chose and had made for herself.
And what to make of Bridie? She obviously was her mother's daughter. The resemblance and mannerisms were uncanny. He wondered who the father was. He obviously wasn't Franklin. But had she married when she got to Chicago? He tried to guess at Bridie's age. She had to be younger than thirty-three. That would mean Bridie possibly would have been born not that long after the move to Chicago.
The more he thought, the more questions he had as each question begat more questions. He found his mind looping around everything he had learned that day. He had enough. He took a final drink from his glass and put it on the edge of the desk. He rose and made his way upstairs to his bedroom. Tomorrow would be time enough to sort everything out.
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Chapter 35
Westchester
Sunday, September 27, 1964
Annie put down the book review section of The New York Times and sighed. She had to get a move on. The movers were coming Wednesday and she had to start packing the things she didn't want them to pack. There simply was no time for her usual Sunday morning lounging in bed. She got up and went to the window. It was a gray morning, a light mist clinging and building over the lawn, the trees, the rhododendrons. It was beginning to look like autumn. She could see Nigel in the backyard tending to Dylan, their cocker spaniel. She wondered how Dylan would like apartment life in Manhattan. Then again she wondered how she would like apartment life in Manhattan.
The move was all about Nigel. At sixty-seven he still wanted to work. The publishing house had been his life and it was a life he didn't want to give up. But the daily commute from Westchester was wearing on him. Up at five thirty to catch the seven thirty to the city, he often didn't return home until seven in the evening. It was too long a day for someone his age. Annie had been hesitant about agreeing to the move. She liked suburban living. The spare bedroom in their colonial house that she made into her office was sunny and quiet. It was perfect for her daily writing regimen. Since marrying Nigel and moving into his house five years ago she had made quite a nice and comfortable life for herself. There were her friends at Whippoorwill Country Club and their Tuesday golf games she so enjoyed. There was bridge on Thursday nights and dinner there on Saturdays. She'd made friends at the local butcher and delicatessen and had finally found a hairdresser that gave her just the cut and shade of blonde she liked. Life was almost perfect. It seemed like a lot to give up.
On the other hand, Nigel was worth it. She treasured his companionship. After so many years living with her aunt in Chicago, she had become incredibly lonely when Louise passed away. Bridie was out in California about to give birth to Tommy when Louise had the stroke. Annie had already begun work on her first novel and through some contacts at the paper had made Nigel's acquaintance. It was a sweeping time of change; becoming a grandmother, finding herself alone, starting what she hoped would be her new calling. It was somehow apt that a man like Nigel would become part of her life. Widowed for some years, he was kind, he was considerate and he was supportive of her creative endeavor. When her first book was finished and after a long-distance courtship in which he pursued her attentively, relentlessly, they married and she moved east.
After years of virtual abstinence the paucity of a sex life didn't bother her that much. Nor did the fact that Nigel preferred two bedrooms. She slept better alone. What she did enjoy were their conversations over morning coffee and evening suppers. He loved the museums and galleries of New York as much as she did. He encouraged her writing and was almost her muse, asking questions about her characters and plot that forced her toward more creative solutions. The friends they had as a couple were far more interesting and intellectual than those she'd once had in Hollywood, or in Chicago for that matter.
She saw Nigel heading back into the house with Dylan. She put on her robe and went downstairs to meet him in the kitchen for coffee.
"Good morning, dear," he greeted her. "You're down early this morning."
"Oh, there's just so much to do," she replied. "I'm not going to feel right until I get a handle on things."
"Well, don't forget the movers can take care of most everything. There shouldn't be that much to do. So don't tax yourself. Did you get any writing in this morning?" he said pouring her a cup of coffee.
"No, not really. I slept in a little. But I'm at a good break point. Need to think some things out before I go further."
"Well, I'm going to go out for the bagels and then work in the garage a bit this morning. Anything I can get you while I'm out?"
"Maybe just some peanut butter if it's not too much trouble. I think we're out and I just have a taste for it this morning."
Nigel chuckled. "Never before you had I ever heard of peanut butter on bagels. You are one of a kind, my dear,"
Annie smiled back. She loved the trace of an English accent that Nigel maintained even after a lifetime in America. It always made her feel somehow elegant, even on a Sunday morning in her pajamas and robe. "Oh you!" she teased back. "I'll be upstairs in the study so call me down when you get back."
Nigel took a last sip of coffee and grabbed his car keys from the counter. "I'll be quick. Keep the coffee warm!"
"I'll just make another pot," Annie said. As she did so she heard the automatic garage door open then shut as Nigel left on his errands. She warmed up her cup and took it upstairs to begin her mission.
Standing in the doorway of the study she surveyed the task. The room wasn't exactly cluttered, but it wasn't ready for Better Homes & Gardens either. The stacks of manuscri
pt pages and their carbon copies that had been building on the floor under the desk would be too precious to entrust to movers. She'd have to find a suitable box for those. She moved behind her desk and sat down in the chair in front of the typewriter. Framed pictures of Bridie and her grandchildren and Nigel occupied one corner of the desktop. In the other stood the chrome mermaid hood ornament from her long lost red Cadillac coupe. Years before she'd had a walnut wood base made for it so it could stand upright like a trophy. Where once it symbolized her freedom, now she took it as a reminder of the Oscar she almost won. And she always thought it certainly a better-looking piece of sculpture than that tacky little fellow. Those items would need to be specially boxed and carried down to the city in the car as well.
She opened the desk drawer and started picking through the pens, pencils, paperclips, erasers and dried out bottles of Whiteout for any important ephemera she could find. She was surprised to find several valuables. There was Bridie's baby ring that her Aunt Louise had given her with the comment that every princess needed jewelry. There was her laminated press pass from her days at the Trib. Pushed to the back of the drawer was her book of Keats poetry with the dried yellow tulip still pressed between the pages. Paper clipped together were two newspaper clippings of her parents' obituaries. They had died within a year of each other, her father first, her mother second pining at his loss. She always regretted that she never had that close a relationship with them. But she came to understand that it was only because she was so different from them. Louise had always been the only relative who had ever recognized her for who she was and who never judged her against expectations she could never meet.
Thinking of Louise she spied the black boxes stacked neatly on the bottom shelves of the bookcase on the wall opposite her desk. A professional photographer, Louise had made a life's work of chronicling Bridie's childhood and the boxes contained hundreds of mounted black and white prints from all phases of her daughter's life. She moved from behind the desk and sat down on the floor cross-legged in front of the bookcase. She pulled out the box labeled "1931-1934" and took off the lid. She never tired of looking at Bridie's baby pictures.
Her daughter almost hadn't been. Annie arrived in Chicago broken and empty, bereft of any identity. She spent her first weeks with Louise as a recluse often not dressing for days at a time. She couldn't understand how she could have been so stupid as to let Franklin use her and Conor betray her. All the work she had done in the past few years meant nothing now. It was in July that she found out she was pregnant. She felt as if she'd taken another mortal blow to her soul. She didn't share the news with Louise for some days. When she did she declared she would be looking for an abortion. But Louise would hear nothing of it, arguing that the only right thing to do was to go back to California and find Conor and marry him. Annie loved him and the two of them should raise their child together. Whatever she had imagined she had seen that day at the Calcutta would mean nothing if she would just go back and tell him how much she loved him and how much she wanted to give him their child. Every phone call Louise and Annie had those final weeks in California indicated to Louise the love was mutual.
Annie argued back that she couldn't return to California. The shame and embarrassment were too great. The tabloids would find her and make a mockery of any life she tried to live. Conor was but a caddie and could barely support himself much less a family. She saw what she saw, a scullery maid for goodness sakes. And she had no way to support herself there or here, for that matter. Louise countered they would find a way together. Annie said no and stormed from the conversation.
A few days later they talked again. Louise softened on the idea of Annie returning to California. That Conor was but a caddie kept her from contacting him herself. But she remained adamant that she have the child. She told her that she had saved enough over the years to support them all, despite the Depression. Finally, she threatened to turn Annie out if she didn't have the baby. Annie eventually relented. If her life so far had any meaning at all perhaps it would be in this child. She resigned herself to the pregnancy. When Bridie was born she realized Louise had been right all along. She loved the baby more than she could bear. Part of her wished she could share her with the father.
As Annie leafed through the photographs showing Bridie growing from infant to toddler she reminisced about the early years in Chicago. When Bridie was two she'd found part-time work as a stringer for a weekly newspaper on the North Side. Three years later she was able to talk her way into a column for the Trib by dropping names and anecdotes she'd picked up during her years in Hollywood. Right from the beginning she used a nom de plume. Writing an entertainment column she knew she had to hide her past. She decided "A.C. Harrington" had a nice ring to it and would imply the gravitas of a male correspondent.
The years settled into a comfortable existence. Annie, Louise and Bridie created their own little cocoon of a household that sustained and protected them through the lean years of the Depression and the war. When the country emerged into prosperity in the fifties Bridie emerged as a beautiful, intelligent and talented young lady. Louise constantly reminded Annie of what a good mother she had been.
Of course it hadn't been easy for Annie. There had been longing for a man in her life. She had two brief affairs, but very brief. She realized both times she couldn't help but compare them to the feelings she had held years before for her caddie. He may have been a scoundrel, he may have been only a caddie, but she had loved him from a place deep in her soul that had no judgment to render.
With Bridie gone Annie had time to think of her future alone. Her thoughts of Conor were a constant impediment to another relationship. And she did want a relationship, a companion to share with her the rest of her life. She decided she needed to write a book, a book that would let her expel all the anger and hurt and sadness. A catharsis was needed and Tuesday's Caddie was the result. The book did more than soothe her soul. Her life emptied of tortured memories and filled with hope for the future. It led her to Nigel and the kind of writing that did more than make money.
She was putting the photographs back into the box when she heard her husband return. She realized she'd wasted more than an hour lost in remembrances and she was miffed that she had indulged herself so. She replaced the box of photographs on the shelf and got up from the floor. It was time for a bagel with peanut butter and some time with Nigel. Maybe she would have grape jelly too.
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Chapter 36
Truth
Saturday, October 3, 1964
Conor closed the book and laid it down next to him on the park bench. He lifted his gaze out over the lake with the swans and the ducks and the rowboats drifting about and considered what he had read. Annie's third book had been much like the first two; a story of love found then tragically lost. The Doctor's Daughter, her second book, took place in the Civil War and described an affair between a small town Northern girl and a Confederate soldier lost behind enemy lines. He'd finished that story last weekend. Her most recent novel, the one he just finished, was titled Dateline Cicero and told the story of a young newspaper reporter falling in love with the daughter of a Chicago mobster in the 1920's. He'd been disappointed that the photographs and dust jacket blurbs describing Annie had been basically the same for all three books. He wanted more information. On the other hand, he could feel her in the words she wrote. Even after all the years he still felt like he knew her better than he knew anyone else.
He shifted in his seat and reached for his coffee in the paper cup he'd placed on the ground. He took a sip, put it back down and then lit a cigarette. He crossed his leg. He glanced at his watch. Ten thirty. Jim Taggert was due any minute. Reading Annie's books had not been the only research he'd conducted. Taggert was a trusted private detective the company used from time to time to turn up backgrounds on prospective clients and employees. He'd proven himself reliable and discreet. And discretion was critical for Conor. It was the main reason he'd chosen MacArthur Park for
their meeting. The area around it had changed a great deal in thirty years and not in a good way. He could thus be sure no one he knew would be here. Of course the other reason was that he wanted to revisit this place. There had been precious little time shared with Annie and this place, the former Westlake Park, had been where he felt they had realized they were in love.
He took in the view and remembered their walk around the lake. The park was different now, but he could still imagine feeding the ducks and picking the tulips. He caught a glimpse of movement to his left and saw Taggert approach down the walk looking conspicuously out of place in his suit and hat and carrying a briefcase. Conor rose to greet him. They exchanged hellos and shook hands. Taggert sat down next to Conor on the bench, put his briefcase on his lap, opened it and took out two file folders, one labeled "CO #1" and the other "CO #2."
"Well, Connie, I have to say, the daughter was easy but the mother was hard."
"What do you mean?"