Nick shook his head sadly. Very simple to be wise now, after the fact. Past deeds, past actions always take on wholly new aspects, assume new proportions, when viewed from a great distance through mature and experienced eyes. And memories too are distorted and embellished and changed by time in its flight.
Memories, he repeated inwardly, then thought: Oh no, I’m not going to sift through my memories tonight, struggle with the demons buried deep in my soul. I don’t trust them. I’m afraid of them. This admission startled him, but he knew it was true. Memories usually brought only anguish and yearning and discontent, and frequently anger, for him at least. Another truth gripped him, brought his head up sharply. He was shackled to his past. Shackled to his memories. Shackled to those who had once inhabited his life. Familiar faces flickered in the eye of his mind. Lovers. Friends. Enemies. It seemed he would never slough them off, or absolve them of all they had done to him. They lingered, pale ghosts in his subconscious.
What abominable things we do to each other in the name of love and friendship, Nick thought. To protect ourselves, no doubt, because love in particular has its own nameless terrors as well as its joys and ecstasies. He rubbed his aching face. Don’t we ever do good to each other? Yes, sometimes, he answered. But, regretfully, far too rarely. We give so little, take so much. Every relationship has its small treacheries and betrayals, and we continually justify our ugly acts, see the manifold imperfections in others, disregard those in ourselves. Noble thoughts we may have, but nothing any one of us has ever done has been ennobling. No, none of them was without guilt, not even he himself.
Straightening up on the sofa, he lit a cigarette, tried to shake off this reflective and melancholic mood which had descended on him after his chance meeting with Estelle. Unwittingly, she had triggered all the switches, turned on the computer that was his brain. Lifting the snifter he rolled the cognac around on his tongue, enjoying the drink he had thought he did not want. Nick suddenly began to chuckle to himself as his eyes roamed around his study. How could he possibly expect to flee the past when so much of it was rooted in this room? The mementos it contained appeared more potent tonight, taunted him unexpectedly, reminded him of all which had gone before, all that might have been.
He put the glass down and, almost against his own volition, he walked over to the bookshelves. They housed years of his life as well as books. He touched the scripts he had written, bound in burgundy Morocco and tooled in gold. Below them stood his three Oscars, two of them rubbing shoulders. The Siamese twins, he called them. Both had been awarded to him for best screenplays adapted from another medium. One for Wuthering Heights, the other for his script based on Francesca’s biography of Chinese Gordon. He trailed his hand along the shelf, let it rest on The Sabres of Passion before lifting down the volume. He turned the pages, his eyes settling on the dedication, set in black type. To Nicholas Latimer, my friend, my mentor, with love and gratitude. He closed the book with a sharp slap, stared at her photograph on the jacket. He touched the imprint of her face, and lovingly so, remembering her as she had been then.
Involuntarily, Nick found himself focusing on the late fifties, that span of time after they had left England—he and Vic and Katharine. Hard years, he recollected, especially for Francesca. It seemed astonishing to him now that she had immured herself behind the grey walls of Langley, had lived like a cloistered nun, sustained only by her writing and her inner strength. He had gone to Yorkshire to see her whenever he was in Europe, and Katharine had been unwavering in her devotion to her friend. But they had been the only ones permitted to enter Francesca’s private world. If they had not been wasted years exactly, they had been lost years for her… years spent mourning Victor Mason.
But Vic did his own penance, Nick reflected. He played Abelard to her Heloise. And he lived like a man on a rack, tortured and desperate in his loneliness and his longing for Francesca. But oh how he worked, Nick thought, remembering those specific years in Hollywood. Vic had made nothing but blockbusters in those days, and had consolidated his position as the biggest box-office star in the world. He had also been caught up in the maelstrom that rocked Monarch, and trapped in that grievous marriage with Arlene. There had been no respite, no resolution for Victor until 1960, when everything had levelled off and Arlene had finally divorced him.
Yes, emotionally troubled years for Vic, for all of us, Nick thought. Arid years in their personal lives, yet professionally they had not been able to put a foot wrong. Success and wealth and fame had showered down on them, but a price had been exacted. Even Katharine had not gone unscathed. She had won the Oscar she coveted, for her portrayal of Cathy Earnshaw, and had become an international star, as they had predicted she would. She had captured and enraptured the public, with her unique talent, her mesmeric magic, her startling looks. But turbulence and unhappiness had taken its toll on her too. She had married Beau Stanton in 1957, surprising everyone, himself included. He had attended that fairytale marriage, conducted by the side of the Swan Lake in the bucolic and picturesque gardens of the Bel-Air Hotel. But the fairy tale had not had a happy ending. The union had foundered on the rocks of Hollywood, and Katharine had divorced Beau several years later.
And what did I do in those disastrous years? Nick questioned himself, and then laughed ironically. He had run foul of emotional upsets too, had wasted his time and energy endeavouring to win Diana, to make her his wife, to no avail. He had been exceptionally prolific, despite his woes, had written two novels and two screenplays in between the countless transatlantic trips. Trips to see Diana.
Returning the book to the shelf, Nick swung his eyes to the antique porcelain clock on the right. Diana had given it to him for his thirty-second birthday, eight months before they had split up permanently in December 1960. He exhaled heavily, thinking how easy it was to be clever and perceptive about other people’s lives. Victor had been absolutely right about the Princess. She had refused to marry him in the end, as Vic had predicted, because of her obligations to her family, who, she said, needed her desperately. At the time he had wondered: What about me? I need her just as much. Poor Diana. She didn’t waste five years, she wasted her entire life, threw it away, he thought as he went back to the sofa. He stretched out on it, clasped his hands behind his head, and closed his eyes.
He had run into Diana von Wittingen in Paris in 1971, for the first time since they had separated eleven years before. Even now he could recall, with clarity and vividness of detail, how she had looked that winter afternoon, how his heart had quickened at the sight of her. The spectacular silver hair had been coiled in a coronet on top of her head, and she had worn a violet-coloured wool dress and a sable jacket, with a bunch of real violets pinned to her lapel. And ever since that day, whenever he saw violets, or smelled them, he thought of her, and with gentleness.
They had met, quite by accident, in the lobby of the Ritz Hotel, where he had been waiting for Victor, and he had rushed her into the American Bar for a drink. For old times’ sake, he had insisted. She had been beautiful and strong in spirit and as always very brave, and happy in her life, or so she had said. He had been sad when he had left her and that sadness had remained with him, unaccountably, for a whole week.
What had Diana done with her life in the past few years? Had she married since then? Somehow he doubted it. And what about Francesca? What a damned fool he had been, letting her leave his life after she had married Harrison Avery in 1970. She had begun to mix in different social circles, to spend her time in Virginia or travelling abroad, and he had allowed the friendship to gradually drift and drift until it had finally drifted away. No, he should not have given up Francesca so easily. She had a special place in his heart, was so very dear to him. It must be five years since he had seen her. Good God! Those five years had flown, and in that entire time he had never bumped into her once.
‘I hope Francesca is happy,’ Nick said out loud to the empty room. ‘One of us has a right to be happy, haven’t we?’ Only the silence answered h
im, and then Diana’s antique Bavarian timepiece chimed the hour. He glanced at the painted dial, saw that it was two o’clock. I’d better go to bed. I have work to do tomorrow. Besides, his head ached, and he’d had enough of memories for one night. Memories, whether good or bad, were cold comfort in the last analysis, quite apart from the distressing emotions they dredged up. Come on, finish your drink, old sport, he coaxed himself.
He reached for the cigarette box, but then, instead of taking a cigarette, he picked it up, rubbed the lid with the end of his robe to remove the finger marks. He studied the box carefully. Engraved in the centre of the lid was the American eagle, and the words inscribed above and below the spreading wings proclaimed the Inauguration of John Fitzgerald Kennedy as the Thirty-Fifth President of the United States. Nick clutched the box tightly, and the sixties engulfed him with a terrible suddenness.
The sixties… Katharine’s years with him. Their time together. She might have been sitting in the room, so acutely did he feel her presence at this moment. He tried to push her away from him. Too much pain, he thought, and painful memories too quickly evoked, too slowly dispelled. Fever. She had been a fever in his blood. She had also been his grand passion. And his Nemesis.
Jack Kennedy. Katharine Tempest. They truly symbolize the sixties for me, Nick said inwardly, settling back against the cushions. Two bright stars in their unique and different ways. One snuffed out. The other dimmed. It was odd that he had come to know Katharine so much better, had gained new insight into her complex character because of the Kennedy campaign.
The antipathy they had previously had for each other had been overshadowed, and curiously lessened, by their shared belief in the Senator; in a sense it had created a bond between them. Vic had been working strenuously for the Kennedy group in Californian politics, after the Democratic Convention in 1960, and Nick had volunteered his services to Vic. So had Katharine. And after JFK had won the election, the three of them had been invited to the Inauguration in Washington, and they had gone together.
Nick placed the silver box on the coffee table, his eyes resting on its gleaming polished lid, and, as though looking into a crystal ball that told not the future but the past, he saw them in Washington in January of 1961, and he was hurtling into the past as time fell away again.
Icy weather. Blowing snow. Flaring bonfires down the Mall. Floodlights trained on the Washington Monument. The snowscape and the fires and the brilliant lights creating a setting that was eerily breathtaking and beautiful and impossible to forget. The Inaugural Gala that night. Victor, staggeringly handsome in evening dress, his eyes filled with pride and emotion. And Katharine poised between the two of them, exquisite in a ball gown of shimmering silver lace, diamonds sparkling at her throat and on her ears. The living embodiment of the word star. And the next day, huddling together, shivering in the cold in the Capital Plaza as Robert Frost had read the first lines of his commemorative poem. The poet unable to continue because he was blinded by the light from the sun bouncing off the snow. Vice President Lyndon Johnson shielding him with his hat, and then an apology from the frail old genius because still he could not read, and Frost finishing with another of his poems, recited from memory. Finally, the young President arriving, hat-less and without a topcoat, standing before them to give his inaugural address. And hearing those first words in that distinctive Bostonian accent: ‘Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans…’
Nick blinked. The voice faded away in his inner ear, was replaced by other voices… Victor’s and Katharine’s and his own, as they had talked excitedly and laughed joyously through those happy celebratory days in Washington and then afterwards in New York. There had been another shift in his relationship with Katharine that January, and the friendship slowly deepened. Whenever he went to California she always invited him to dinner, just the two of them at her house in Bel Air; and they saw movies and went to smart restaurants in Beverly Hills where she could show off her glamorous gowns and jewels and reign supreme like a young goddess. And all the while she giggled at the absurdity of it all and poked fun at herself with wit and humour and he had adored her for that characteristic. In 1963, two years after their trip to Washington for the inauguration ceremonies, she had come to New York to start rehearsing a Broadway play. It was a revival of her London hit, Trojan Interlude, which had never been performed in the States. Katharine was starring opposite Terry Ogden, by that time a popular movie star and a name to be reckoned with in his own right.
And it was during that autumn of sunlit days and gaiety and hard work and quiet evenings filled with intimate talks and gentle laughter that they had fallen in love. And so completely they had been dazed.
Nick brought his hands to his face, blocking out the image of her pale fragile face, her eyes the colour of the sea, her tumbling cloud of chestnut hair. Go away, go away, I don’t want you in my head. I don’t want you in my life. I will not see you, Katharine.
Lifting the brandy balloon, he drained it, shivering as he did so. And suddenly he thought of Francesca, wondered what her reactions had really been when she had first heard the news of Katharine’s impending return. Whatever they had been, and were, he was certain they shared one emotion—fear.
Nick rose, turned off the lights and went to bed. But try as he might he could not sleep. He blamed his insomnia on the brandy, which he believed had over stimulated him. But as the grey dawn of morning trickled into the bedroom he recognized he was trapped in the net of his memories. Wearily he closed his eyes. Katharine. Ekaterina. Katya. Katinka. Kay. Cathy. Caitlin. Kit. Kate. Katie Mary O’Rourke. Her name in every variation came back to haunt him, and that face beguiled him, those turquoise eyes beckoned him. Go away, damn you, he told her in the silence of his heart. She would not.
Finally he dropped into a restless sleep.
Act Two Downstage Left 1963–1967
‘And the end and the beginning were always there
Before the beginning and after the end.’
T. S. ELIOT
Chapter Forty-Two
‘What’s going on between Francesca and your brother?’ Nick asked, eyeing Katharine carefully.
‘Nothing,’ she replied, but as she shifted her position in the garden chair her eyes held a mischievous sparkle as she added, ‘At least not yet.’
‘Aha! So they are about to fall into each other’s arms. Is that what you’re suggesting?’ Nick leaned forward, staring at her expectantly, considerably intrigued.
‘I didn’t say that,’ Katharine laughed, lifting her wine goblet. ‘But they do seem to like each other quite a lot. And as you know, Ryan’s taken her out constantly when he’s been in New York over the past few months.’
‘Yes, and that’s why I asked the question in the first place.’ Nick had witnessed the growing friendship between these two, and it troubled him. Francesca had not been involved with anyone since Victor, and it seemed incomprehensible to him that she could ally herself with O’Rourke, who he considered to be weak and ineffectual. He also knew Francesca was a deep, serious young woman, who did not love lightly. If she ended up with the wrong man she would undoubtedly suffer great misery. He wanted something better for her than a liaison with Katharine’s brother. Momentarily Nick reflected on them both, and the disparities in their natures.
Katharine studied Nick for a second, and speculatively so, her brow knotted in a frown. Did he disapprove? Didn’t he like Ryan? She was on the point of asking him, then changed her mind, glanced around the small garden Nick had created behind his new house on Seventy-Fourth Street. There was only one tree, but it was large, and its spreading leafy branches offered cool shade on this hot and sunny Sunday afternoon in early September. Clay troughs filled with pink geraniums and redwood boxes overflowing with white impatiens marched around the perimeter, and there was an old stone fountain gently splashing in one corner, an English Tudor sundial resting in the centre. With its white
wrought-iron chairs and matching circular table, the area had acquired a charming rustic ambience, was a small oasis of calm green tranquillity in the middle of bustling Manhattan.
Katharine swung her head to Nick, smiled approvingly. ‘Everything’s looking so pretty out here, darling, and the house is coming along wonderfully. When do you think you’ll be finished?’
Nick replied, ‘Thanks, and it is nice out here, isn’t it? And I guess I’ll be through in a couple of months. Once the living room is done I’m going to stop all this remodelling for a while. The top floor can wait.’ He grimaced. ‘I’m sick of living with workmen. I feel as though they’ve moved in with me. Permanently.’
‘A year is a long time, Nicky. Still, it’s worth it, when you look at the results.’ Her eyes drifted to the fountain, rested on the sparkling water jetting up into the bright sunlit air, and she went on, as though thinking aloud, ‘If the play’s a hit, and if we’re set for a long run, I’m seriously thinking of taking my own apartment in New York.’
This statement surprised him, and he said, ‘But Francesca’s place is large and luxurious. Don’t you like sharing with her? I thought you were happy there.’
‘Oh, yes, I am,’ Katharine asserted quickly. ‘And it is beautiful, but it’s not really her apartment, is it? I mean it belongs to Doris, and I keep thinking she’ll descend on us at any moment, along with the Earl and little Marigold.’ With a light shrug, she added nonchalantly, as an afterthought, ‘My decision has nothing to do with Francesca. You know we love each other dearly. But I think it would be nice to have my own apartment.’
‘Sure, that’s a good idea.’ Nick hesitated, then, wanting to know more about Francesca’s involvement with Ryan, he plunged in: ‘What about Frankie and your brother? Is it developing into something serious?’
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