A Certain Age

by Beatriz Williams

  How extraordinary.

  So what else could I do, in loco maternis? What else could I do, except to give that broken, heavily yoked Mrs. Fitzwilliam an encouraging squeeze about the shoulders, and the best advice available from the vast four decades’ store of my experience?

  “Well, then, my dear,” I said briskly. “I think it’s about time you did something about it. Don’t you?”

  BECAUSE, EVENTUALLY, WE ALL COME upon that point of decision. The point at which you must act at last, for good or ill, and I suppose the choice you make, in that instant, represents the true nature of the bargain you have negotiated with your Creator. What sort of person you are. What sort of person you will be. What sort of soul you will, one day, commend to His keeping.

  I stroke the Boy’s cheek with my thumb, and I notice how wizened the poor digit looks, how sharp the nail, next to his new, clean skin. And we were so happy together, once.

  “My precious, precious Boy,” I whisper. “I think it’s time for you to go.”

  The New York Herald-Times, June 15, 1922

  TIT AND TATTLE, BY PATTY CAKE

  Dear readers, for the past two decades I’ve brought you the latest from the world of the greatest, and today I have the privilege of outdoing even myself. Yes, my dears, your own Patty Cake has scooped them all in the Trial of the Century.

  My sources tell me that the dramatic events of two days ago—the conviction of the Patent King on the charge of murder, to the great dismay of the pretty Patent Princesses, followed by the notorious shootout at the Pickwick Arms Hotel that sent both Mr. Faninal and his apparent rival, Mr. Lumley, to their final rewards—have proved a mere cover for the real story, the genuine article, which I now bring to you in all its horrifying certainty.

  Far from being an injured party, it seems, Mr. Lumley is the mastermind of all. In a tear-streaked confession to the authorities, Mrs. Lumley revealed that she did not, in fact, first encounter her husband at the Bluebeard Restaurant in Scarsdale, two weeks after the murders, but that he had begun stepping out with her earlier that summer. It was he who conceived a plan by which the kitchen maid would seduce the master, who (Lumley learned from his comely partner) had been left brokenhearted by the easy behavior of his wife in the years following the birth of their second child. Blackmail would then ensue (over which liaison I can’t say for certain, since there are so many to choose from), enabling the Lumleys to start off married life on the right foot: that is to say, shod by the affluence of the Faninal family.

  But plans went awry, as they so often do, and the soon-to-be-Lumleys were interrupted in a heated discussion one morning by none other than the lady of the house. The kitchen maid, it seems, was developing too great a tendresse for her victim, and wanted to make an honorable retreat. Mr. Lumley, I am sorry to say, was of a different mind, and in the course of the ensuing argument, Mrs. Faninal became unavoidably cognizant of their scheme. Hearing the victim’s gasp of outrage, Lumley took the nearest weapon—the famous kitchen knife—and made certain threats. The gallant lady defied him, and for this final act of courage paid the ultimate price, God rest her troubled soul.

  In the immediate aftermath of this dreadful act, Mr. Lumley naturally swore his paramour to secrecy, and concocted a scheme by which she would make a false confession to Mr. Faninal, claiming that their guilty affection had been discovered by Mrs. Faninal; that during this violent confrontation the maid had been forced to strike her mistress in order to save herself, and the blow proved fatal. Mr. Faninal, racked with guilt that his lady love should have endured such a horrifying struggle because of his own passion for her, gave the girl sufficient money to start a new life, and then—as the world knows—disappeared with his two daughters, promising to take his kitchen maid’s secret to his grave.

  And so, it seems, he tried to do.

  No doubt you will be hungry for particulars, dear ones—heaven knows I am—and I feel confident that my colleagues in the newsroom will labor day and night to satisfy your appetites. For now, however, I mean to sit back and absorb what we have just learned, and to perhaps spare a prayer or two for the soul of the Patent King, whose character we have all misjudged so grievously.

  And lastly, I offer up another prayer for his two surviving daughters, whose whereabouts at the moment are not publicly known. I don’t know about you, but I find I cannot blame them for their current seclusion, given this mauling they have both gracefully endured, and I wish them every possible happiness in the years to come.

  CHAPTER 27

  Marriage is like twirling a baton, turning handsprings, or eating with chopsticks. It looks easy until you try it.

  —HELEN ROWLAND

  THERESA

  Southampton, Long Island, the fifteenth of June

  FOR SOME time, I sit straight in my chair, elbows on the desk, and regard those last words on the page before me.

  In the absence of the steady clicking of the typewriter keys, the ocean makes itself heard from the open window to my left. The slow, familiar crash of water. It’s not quite dawn, and the wind is calm and briny, the gray light just visible on the sky outside. I grasp the knob on the right-hand side of the typewriter and scroll the paper upward, until it falls free from the roller.

  Ordinarily I would mail the column to New York, inside a plain brown envelope addressed NEW YORK HERALD-TIMES, Attn. MR. MIGS BERKELEY, but this is a special story, a scoop that will appear on the front page of the afternoon edition, and I’ve got to telephone every last word to Migs by seven o’clock this morning, from this quiet little office on the attic floor of Windermere, of which even Sylvo is unaware.

  But for now, it’s only four thirty, and I’m not inclined to pick up the receiver and make conversation, though I know poor Migs is standing by, checking his watch, smoking a nervous cigarette. Well, let him wait. It’s the least he can do, isn’t it? When I’m delivering the scoop of the century straight into his waiting cup, cherry on top.

  I lean back and stretch—my God, that feels good, poor old bones and sinews all cramped up—and look out the window. The surf bubbles quietly on the sand, that same stretch of beach on which my children have played, my guests have frolicked, my lovers have made love between the dunes. Every possible joy has been realized there. But you would never know, just now. It’s empty and dark, the color of soot, and the sun is just a violet-pink promise to the east.

  OUTSIDE, THE BREEZE IS BOTH stronger and cooler than I expect, and I sit at the edge of the tide and bring my knees up to my chest, cradling the little lump of humanity inside. I think, as I always do, about the Boy. Not about that last dreadful half hour yesterday—I’d rather not think about that, the sight of his disappearing pink neck as I stood nobly next to my Sargent portrait in the foyer—but about those early days. The relief of physical intimacy. January the second, when the Boy was all mine, and we lay in the attic of the old carriage house while the frozen dawn assembled outside.

  The Boy is no longer mine, but at least he’s left something of himself behind, which—if I still believed in anything, and maybe I just do—I would consider a gift. A kind of earthly reward for my brief moment of nobility, only maybe it’s a penance instead. Maybe the Boy’s little daughter is my shame. God knows the world will consider her so. God only knows what I’m going to do with her. I suppose, like everything else, I’ll find a way.

  The sun rises and spreads, and I guess I’d better head back inside and telephone my column to Migs, before he has an apoplexy.

  BUT THE HOUSE IS NOT quite so empty as I left it. The scent of human habitation is thick in the hallway, and as I turn the corner to the back stairs, I catch a glimpse of its source: my husband, sitting on the floor of the morning room, smoking a cigarette.

  The sight is so unexpected I’m rooted to the spot. Hand on the newel post, foot on the step. Sylvo looks up, flushed and unsteady.

  “My God,” I call out softly. “Sylvo? Are you all right?”

  He doesn’t answer, and I propel myself into mot
ion, across the hallway and the worn rug. The smell of whisky surrounds him, though there’s no visible evidence of sin. I lower myself next to his right side, shaking with terror.

  “The boys?” I whisper.

  “They’re fine.”

  The breath escapes me. I cross my legs, Indian-style, and take the cigarette from his fingers. It’s nearly exhausted, but I extract a long draft anyway and hand it back to him. He crushes it out against his shoe and drops the stub atop the rug.

  “She’s left me,” he says.

  “Adelaide?”

  “Yes. She ran into an old flame, a younger fellow. It seems he’s made himself a bit of a fortune since then. Army contracts.”

  “Oh, Sylvo. I’m so sorry,” I tell him, and I mean it. I thread my arm through the crook of his elbow and lean my head against his shoulder.

  “Don’t be sorry. I don’t deserve it. I’m just an old fool, I suppose. Older and more foolish than most.”

  “Not that old, really.”

  “I’ll be sixty-three next month. My own father would have been dead for two years by now.”

  “But you’re not dead, darling. You’re hale and hearty and handsome, with plenty of good years before you. You’ll find someone else, I’m sure.”

  He makes a noise that might be a sigh, but is really more like a snort, buzzing with nasal derision. “No doubt. No doubt I’ll be shortly making a fool of myself all over again, won’t I?”

  “Oh, Sylvo.”

  “Well, at least you’re happy with Rofrano. I suppose that’s something. I suppose that’s the least I can offer you, after all I’ve forced you to endure. Which you have, with immeasurable dignity. My dear and long-suffering wife.”

  “No.” I stroke his arm. “That’s over, I’m afraid. He’s left me.”

  “What? When?”

  “Yesterday. I’m far too old for him, you know. I’m from another age, really. It simply wouldn’t work.”

  “Oh, dear,” he says. “Oh, dear. Look at us.”

  “Isn’t it funny?”

  The sun, fully risen, turns the window alive. In another moment, it will be too bright to stare out to sea like this, the way we’re doing, side by side.

  “Forgive me,” Sylvo says.

  “You were forgiven long ago, darling. We are who we are.”

  “But I’ve made you unhappy.”

  “I’ve made myself unhappy. And I suppose I’ve made myself happy, too, from time to time, so I can’t really complain. In the great sum of things.”

  He reaches for my hand. Sylvo’s hand, well tended and familiar. The gold signet ring, nothing else. I weave my fingers into his.

  “We could still be unhappy together, you know,” he says. A light, quiet suggestion.

  “Now, that would be even funnier.”

  “I’m quite serious.” He squeezes my hand and turns a bit, so we are just barely looking at each other, married eyeball to married eyeball. Breath to vinous breath.

  “You’re a little the worse for whisky, darling, but I appreciate the thought all the same.”

  The sun blisters the glass, too bright. Sylvo draws me back on the rug, and we lie there, staring at the ceiling, for some time. I breathe in the comforting fumes of his drunkenness, the lingering rasp of his cigarette, and I think about the first time we arrived here, after returning home from our obligatory European honeymoon. I was already pregnant with Tommy, and not much inclined for what, in those days, we sometimes delicately called bedsport. Like the gentleman he was, Sylvo didn’t insist on what (again, in those days) we called his matrimonial rights. He settled me in his arms instead, and we contemplated the bedroom ceiling together, and I remember how perfectly contented I felt, how perfectly married: even more, perhaps, than I had felt in the aftermath of passion.

  Sylvo says softly, holding my hand against the rug, “How about it, though?”

  I smile at the ceiling, high and white above us, so elegantly finished, and try to imagine my husband saying those exact words a quarter century ago. When we were both so young.

  I reply, just as softly: “I suppose that depends.”

  “Depends on what?”

  I lay my other hand on my stomach, and I tell him what.

  CHAPTER 28

  Love, like a chicken salad or a restaurant hash, must be taken with blind faith or it loses its flavor.

  —HELEN ROWLAND

  SOPHIE

  Somewhere in Oklahoma, four weeks later

  WHAT SOPHIE loves most about the open road are the stars. In Manhattan, only the very brightest ones are visible, and those usually turn out—disappointingly, somehow—to be planets. Here, in the middle of Oklahoma, there are millions of miraculous dainty suns, a dazzling array. You can lie back on your blanket, next to your sleeping husband, and count all night.

  But you don’t. All that open air and exercise means you’re usually fast asleep by the time you reach a hundred or so. Still, the plenitude is reassuring. It’s good for the imagination.

  Tonight, sleep hasn’t come so quickly, and not even the stars are helping. That happens, too, and Sophie knows what to do. Another quarter hour of fruitless counting, and she slides out from beneath the blanket—Octavian stirs, but doesn’t wake—and finds the notebook in which she keeps the letter she’s writing to Virginia.

  Letter. It’s really more of a diary, since she’s received only a single communication from her sister—a postcard sent from Miami three and a half weeks ago, promising to send a forwarding address that hasn’t yet arrived. Sophie will send her the letter (forty-six pages and counting) when there’s somewhere to send it.

  Or maybe she won’t.

  Sophie lights the kerosene lantern and carries it away from the sheltering hollow in which they’ve set up their camp, to the boulder that’s served as a table, and sometimes a sofa. She takes out a pencil stub and writes: Still in Oklahoma. We love our little campsite here too much to leave, I guess. There’s a lake nearby, where we bathe in the morning, and the weather’s been terrific, nice and hot and dry. We haven’t put up the tent in days. Of course, we’ve got to leave sometime, but we don’t have to be in Los Angeles until the middle of August, when Octavian’s new business partner returns from Europe.

  She pauses, chewing on the pencil, because she’s repeating herself, isn’t she? Telling Virgo all the facts she already knows. And this letter isn’t supposed to be like that. It’s not supposed to be about facts.

  I miss Father

  The pencil hovers. Sophie adds a period.

  Isn’t that funny? I miss him awfully. I have so many questions he can’t answer, so many things I want to tell him. I wish I could tell him that I’m doing fine, that I’m building a brave new future, and I’m not quite happy yet—at least the way I’ve always understood happy to mean, the way I used to be happy—but I’ve got something close to it, something maybe even a little better than simple joy. Or at least, it will be. Octavian says

  She stops again. She hasn’t written for a few days, and she’s conscious that her words are stiff, the way words sometimes are when you haven’t spoken with a person in some time. She’s forgotten how much she already told Virginia, how much she’s kept to herself.

  And that single word: Octavian.

  She looks over her shoulder, at the bed they’ve made for themselves in the grass, covered by a tarpaulin and a blanket and a sheet—that’s the mattress—and another blanket to cover them, just one, because it’s July. The moon is thin and distant, shedding only the faintest amount of light, and she can’t really see her husband. But she doesn’t need eyes to know he’s there, does she? His presence is like a magnet, like a gravitational center, communicating itself to her as a current of electricity along some invisible primordial wire. His arm is a faint gray smudge atop the blanket, where Sophie should be. She can almost feel the weight across her breast. That’s how connected they are, these days.

  She turns back to the notebook on her lap.

  Octavian says we’ll hav
e plenty of time for walls and roofs when we get to California. (And clothes, ha ha

  She scribbles that out.

  For now, it’s the best honeymoon a girl could ask for. It’s just us, getting to know each other, and as far as I’m concerned, I never want to see another human being. (Except you and Evelyn, of course.) No doubt that will wear away in time—wanting him and only him—but right now it’s perfect, because I think he’s the only one in the world who understands, and that understanding ebbs and flows between us in this beautiful and astonishing way, every time we touch each other, every time we speak. What I mean, I guess, is that we both need this freedom at the moment: to kiss and touch and be man and wife whenever we want, without anyone else to see or care or intrude on what we are saying to each

  The lead breaks. Sophie’s writing too urgently again. She takes the penknife out of her pencil case and sharpens the end, by the oily yellow light of the kerosene lantern. Around her, the peeps and hoots and rustles of the nocturnal world go quietly on, not regarding her at all. The prairie wind has died down, and the air is warm and still, smelling of sweet July grass. When she sets down the pencil case, she writes the word other after each, and puts a period after it.

  Anyway, married life is grand and we are making more plans every day. Octavian works on his airplane designs and I’m learning how to draft, because I want to be a part of this, too: a real partner, and not just a financial one. (Octavian won’t have it any other way, really, because he hates the idea that’s he’s somehow “taking” my money to build his airplanes.) We’re going to find ourselves a pretty cottage in the middle of an orange grove. Octavian seems to want about twenty kids and I think I’d be happy with two or three, so I guess we’ll have to compromise somewhere, although at the rate we’re going

  She smudges that out and puts a period after somewhere. Smiling to herself.