The older woman set her empty glass down and clasped her hands behind her head. “Americans are insecure. No matter how rich we are, we still feel gauche. So we buy these ostentatious mansions and try to make them look as European as possible.”
Sara smiled, thinking Mr. McKie would certainly agree with that. “Yes. You particularly admire the English, but if you don’t mind my saying so, you have a very peculiar idea of what English manners are supposed to be. Stiffness is the prominent feature, you think, and so you’ve adopted stiffness as the highest mode of social conduct.”
“That’s right,” Daisy agreed, nodding and reaching again for the bottle. “You’re exactly right. Oh, but you should’ve seen Newport thirty years ago, Sara, before the Vanderbilts and the Astors got their hands on it. I used to come here when I was a girl with my family, and it was such a lovely place. The houses were all wooden and rambling, with wide verandahs and porch swings, picnics, and rides on donkey carts. Swimming anywhere you liked, no ‘Bailey’s Beach’ to separate the upper class from the vulgar masses. Maybe that’s why I can’t seem to leave it now—I remember so clearly what it was like before it all turned to stone.”
Sara felt her neighbor’s melancholy settling over them like a subtle fog. Even Michael seemed affected by it; he wrapped his arms around Gadget’s neck and stared up at his mother with worried, searching eyes. She felt a disproportionate relief when the screen door squeaked open and the maid announced that she had a long distance call from New York.
Daisy heaved herself up. She’d better go home, she said; she was feeling in need of a little nap. They bade each other quick good-byes, then Sara rushed into the house.
There was only one telephone, in the foyer at the foot of the staircase. The operator identified the calling party—Lauren, thank God, not Ben—and then her friend’s strong voice came through as clearly as if she were in the room.
“Sara! Hello, how are you? Can you hear me?”
“I can hear you perfectly. How are you?”
“I’ve just come from your house. I took Lulu over in a cardboard box and gave her to Tasha. I think it was love at first sight for both of them.” Lulu was Lauren’s cat; Tasha was going to keep her while Lauren was away in Europe. “Now I’ve got just a little bit more packing to do, and then I’m off. The boat sails at six this evening.”
“Are you excited? I can tell you are.”
“Manic! I’m looking at myself in the mirror right now, and my cheeks are so red I look like a clown! I can’t keep two thoughts together. Won’t it be interesting to unpack this suitcase tonight and discover what bizarre things I’ve put into it?”
Sara laughed, although she felt like crying. “I wish I were going with you.”
“God, yes, then it would be perfect.”
“What did you think of Tasha?”
“I liked her a lot. She’s very sweet, isn’t she? So simple, and yet very strong, I think. But to tell you the truth, I’m amazed that Ben is letting her stay there. It doesn’t seem like something he would do.”
“Yes, it was a surprise.” He’d made the decision suddenly and without explanation. Sara’s private theory was that he had a new mistress, and that he’d realized he could consort with her more freely from his club than his home, away from the watchful eyes of his own servants. So the offer to move out for Tasha’s sake was really a fine piece of hypocrisy.
“How’s Michael?” Lauren asked.
“He was sick for the first three days—nothing serious this time, just a cold. But now he’s well and running around everywhere. We have an interesting next-door neighbor and he’s made friends with her dog. And he loves to visit with Mr. McKie at the site.”
“That’s that beautiful man I met at your house?”
“He’s the architect you met, yes.”
“Don’t you think he’s beautiful?”
She laughed again. “That’s not quite the word I would choose.”
“I would. I’d love to paint him—What? Yes, Mother, I know. Sorry, Sara, I have to hang up, Mother says it’s time to go. She’s trying to scare me, but I should probably finish packing now anyway. I just called to say good-bye. I’ll write to you all the time.”
“I’ll write to you, too.”
“The address might change, but for now it’s the one I gave you. Take care of yourself and have a wonderful summer—”
“I hope Paris is everything you want it to be, Lauren, everything you deserve—”
“Give Michael a kiss—”
“I will, and be careful, don’t do anything silly, don’t be reckless—”
“I will be careful, and you stop sounding like my mother. I love you.”
“I love you—good-bye!”
“Good-bye!”
“Bon voyage!”
The line went dead. Sara held on to the earpiece for a long moment before finally cradling it and getting slowly to her feet. She despised good-byes and had never been any good at them. And this was how bereft she felt because Lauren was leaving: what would it be like if Ben made good on his threat and took Michael away from her?
But it wouldn’t happen—she was almost certain he’d only been trying to frighten her. The day after he’d brutalized her and told her of his spiteful plan, she’d forced herself to confront him, despite her fear and a cowardly hope that by not dealing with it at all it might go away.
“If you send Michael away,” she told him, dry-eyed, in his study the next morning, “I’ll leave you.”
He smiled, taunting her. “No, you won’t. You’ll never leave.”
He was right. She knew it then, she knew it now. If she left him, he would find her and take Michael away from her for good. Because he was the one with the power. He was the American millionaire, she the penniless foreigner, and although he was an adulterer ten times over, she could never prove it.
Hating herself, she’d wept in front of him. And that was the victory he’d been craving all along; after that he could pretend to be generous. “We’ll discuss it later,” he said softly, eyes glittering with triumph. “There’s no hurry to make a decision yet. I’ve been in touch with this school—it’s in Heidelberg, by the way. They say they’ll take him as late as September, so—”
“Why are you doing this?” she burst out. “Damn you, how can you hurt your own son just to get at me? How, Ben? What kind of a man—”
“You’re the one who’s hurting him,” he retorted, irate, “turning him into a damned sissy—”
And so on and so on, an ancient, poisonous argument they both slipped into with the ease of habit. But no more was said of the German military school after that. All she could hope was that it was another weapon of torture he would hold over her for the rest of the summer, then let go. He’d perpetrated similar cruelties before, after all, too many times to count. And this one would hardly be the last.
“Mummy!” Michael ran into the room, skidded on the just-waxed floor, and careened into her, nearly knocking her back on her chair. “It’s four-thirty,” he announced breathlessly, backing up.
“Thanks very much,” she said when she’d caught her balance. “I guess I won’t be needing my watch anymore.”
“Four-thirty,” he insisted. “Mr. McKie says that’s a good time to come and see him!”
“He does, does he?”
“Yes. And he wants you to come with me.”
“Indeed. And when did he say that?”
“I can’t remember. But one time he said, ‘How is your mother today, Michael?’ and I said, ‘Fine’ and he said, ‘Sometime you must ask her to come along with you,’ and I said, ‘Yes, sir,’ and so—and so—”
“And so you’re asking me.”
“Yes. So—will you?”
It was time for her to go to the site, to see how her own house was progressing. Avoiding Mr. McKie was childish and self-defeating. She ought to have gone immediately after the Casino party, not put it off day after day, adding weight to his inevitable speculation that the t
hings he’d said to her that night had affected her. They had, but she might have hidden that if she’d possessed the wherewithal to confront him sooner. Now it would be awkward. But not as awkward as it would be if she procrastinated even longer.
“Yes,” she decided quickly, to Michael’s delight. “Give me two minutes to put on better shoes for walking, and then well go.”
Alex saw them through the open door of the contractor’s hut, where he was rescaling a section of the first-floor elevation for the master carpenter. He threw down his pencil and jumped up, dragging both hands through his hair to comb it, grimacing at the dirt on the knees of his trousers. He had no idea where he’d left his coat. He looked like one of his workmen, and Mrs. Cochrane looked, as usual, as if she’d stepped off a page of one of her fashion magazines. Michael was pointing at the hut and dragging her toward it, so there was no sense in prolonging his useless toilette; he made a halfhearted loop in his tie, tucked in his shirt, and stepped outside.
“There he is!” shouted Michael. He dropped his mother’s hand and broke into a run, not stopping until he’d slammed full-tilt into Alex’s hip. Used to this welcome by now, Alex countered it by seizing Michael under the arms and swinging him around in a wide arc, making aeroplane noises while the boy shrieked with glee.
Sara stopped in her tracks, amazed by the degree of familiarity the enthusiastic greeting implied. When had this happened?
“I’ve brought my mum!” declared Michael once he was on the ground again.
“So I see.” Alex wiped his dusty palm on the pocket of his trousers, then took Sara’s outstretched hand. “I was hoping you’d come,” he said simply.
“I meant to before now, but—I’ve been so busy.” She almost made a face at herself. Seven days to come up with a good reason for her cowardly absence, and all she could manage was “I’ve been so busy”? Shocking incompetence. She consoled herself with the thought that she might have fashioned a really clever, believable lie, but she couldn’t have used it anyway with Michael standing beside her, listening to every word.
She took her hand back and glanced around. “You’re much further along than I thought you’d be. To tell the truth, I expected a great hole in the ground and very little else.”
Each time they met, her English accent took him by surprise for a few seconds. He folded his arms across his chest and stopped staring at her long enough to follow her gaze. “That’s where we would’ve been if Ben hadn’t changed his mind.” Again, he added to himself.
“Yes, I heard about that.”
The latest design was for a house with two fronts, one facing the street and one facing Cliff Walk, which got nearly as much pedestrian traffic as Bellevue Avenue. Ben had settled on leaving the building where it was once that had been pointed out to him. Now, though, he wanted a new, more castle-like facade for what had originally been conceived of as the back of the house, including double studded oak doors from a Spanish cathedral, nine feet wide and a foot thick. Alex, who had expected him to demand a moat and a drawbridge next, considered he’d gotten off easy. This time.
“Come on, Mum, I’ll show you everything,” offered Michael, tremulous with responsibility.
“Mind if I come along?” Alex asked solemnly.
“No, you can come,” he answered in the same tone.
“But you were working,” Sara started to protest, “we don’t want to take you—”
“No, I was finished. Really. And Michael gives a wonderful tour; I should know, I’ve taken it several times myself.” She laughed—a light, lovely sound that offered forgiveness and forgetfulness and made Alex feel blessed—and they all set off across the bumpy ground. It seemed natural to take her arm so she wouldn’t stumble, and he did it with gratefulness and almost motiveless solicitude. The sunlight was kinder, the fresh air sweeter, now that he’d gotten back what he’d nearly thrown away. He told himself he would never be so rash again.
Michael made a bee-line for his favorite piece of equipment, the huge, steam-powered crane used for moving heavy steel beams and unwieldy piles of materials. The crane was idle now; so when he begged to be allowed to sit in it, Alex obligingly hoisted him up into the controller’s seat.
“He can’t turn it on, can he?” worried Sara in a low voice.
“I think he could do anything he set his mind to.” He laughed at her expression. “No, of course not. Not from up there, anyway.”
Relieved, she turned in a slow circle, surveying the site. Most of the workers had gone home, even Mr. Perini, the building contractor, whom she’d met at the groundbreaking. The sandy yard was strewn with neat stacks of lumber and metal and glass; Michael pointed at them from his high perch and told her what they were all for—a recital which gave her a strong clue as to the sort of pest he’d made of himself in the past week. The house’s foundations had been dug, and cement footers laid along their bottoms. Rudimentary floors already lay over about half of the partitioned spaces, so that it was possible to discern shapes and forms even though no walls had been erected yet. “Tell me where the rooms are going to be,” she said, curious now in spite of herself.
“I will!” cried Michael, clambering down from the crane with Alex’s help. “Come over here, this is the front.”
He showed her the main entrance and pointed out the future location of reception rooms, drawing rooms, parlors and sitting rooms, as well as an immense ballroom that would run along the whole rear section of the main wing. Beyond it was a courtyard, and beyond that, she learned to her horror, was a separate building that would house “the kitchens.”
“You’re joking,” she said to Alex in disbelief.
He shook his head. “He’s modeled it after Castello Firenzuola, a castle in—”
“Italy. Yes, I’ve heard of it. It’s a medieval castle.” She put her hand on her forehead. “My God, it’s worse than I thought.”
“No—I mean yes, it’s—not good, but it could be worse.”
“How?”
“Well, he wants a tunnel, and a sort of conveyer belt constructed inside it in order to transport food between the house and the kitchens, and then dumb waiters down to the cellars—”
“Oh, please. Stop.”
She’d turned away; she was hugging herself and her shoulders shook. He thought she was crying. “Sara—” Just then she let out a strangled whoop, and he realized she was laughing.
Michael heard, and ran around to face her. “What’s funny?” he wanted to know, already laughing with her. “What’s funny, Mum?”
She wiped her eyes and pulled herself up straight. “Nothing, I’m just being silly. Tell me where your room is going to be.” She found her handkerchief in her pocketbook and used it, sending Alex a private look of chagrin.
“Well, it’s not on this floor, of course,” Michael explained with exaggerated patience. He took her hand and led her over toward one of the drawing rooms he’d just pointed out. “It’ll be above this room right here.”
“How nice; you’ll have a tree to look at out your window. It’s a copper beech, isn’t it? I’m glad you could leave that,” she told Alex.
“We left as many as we could.”
“And your room will be there,” Michael went on, gesturing, “and Daddy’s is down there. This is a corridor and his is at the end. See?”
“Yes, I see. Very nice.”
“Mummy, why don’t you and Daddy sleep in the same room?”
First she flinched, then she turned pink. She opened and closed her mouth once, but nothing came out. Alex wanted to look away from her embarrassment, out of courtesy. At the same time, he was dying to hear her answer.
“Charlie O’Shea’s mum and dad sleep in the same room,” Michael pursued doggedly, “and Charlie says they even sleep in the same bed. The same bed,” he repeated, mystified. “Why don’t you and Daddy—”
“Michael.”
“Yes, sir?”
“Do you know the difference between a trabeated roof and an arcuated one?”
“Come over here and I’ll show you.”
“Oh, boy.”
While Sara waited for her cheeks to stop burning, half a dozen brilliant answers to her son’s question leapt annoyingly to mind. She unfurled her parasol with a vexed snap and walked over to watch Mr. McKie demonstrating something to Michael with a handful of small sticks. They were crouched together, perfectly at ease, faces displaying identical interest in whatever it was they were making. The picture moved her in an odd way. For reasons she would never understand, Ben wasn’t able to play with Michael in this simple, good-hearted way. He must love him—she had to believe that—but he was incapable of showing it. And yet Michael loved his father, with a generous, uncomplicated love that broke her heart because she was afraid that someday Ben would use it to hurt him.
Alex looked up and grinned at her. She moved closer, smiling back. He was in shirtsleeves and suspenders, his shoes caked with mud, tools sticking out of his pockets. The summer sun had bronzed his skin and gilded his hair. He looked strong and healthy, muscular and male, and as much in his element kneeling there in the dirt as he did in evening clothes at Sherry’s or in her drawing room. All the cloudy, unconfronted reasons she’d been avoiding him became perfectly clear then, and focused in the sharp but simple truth that she wanted him. Wanted to have him for her own.
And she never could.
Well, that was all right, then. Sad, too bad, maybe even a tragedy—but not dangerous. It was hopeless, and so it was safe. Nothing would ever come of it.
That was why, when Michael asked if Mr. McKie could come with them tonight on their walk—an evening ritual they never missed, although they trod the fashionable Cliff Walk at an unfashionable hour—Sara said yes. And when the invitation was later extended to the next night, and the next, and then wasn’t extended at all because it was simply assumed by all three that he would, of course, accompany them, she felt no alarm. Only a little stab in the heart, and she was used to that.
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