Pot of gold : a novel

by Michael, Judith

  "No, that's not what I think. A lot of things happen besides desertion, Emma; there are lots of ways of being hurt. I don't want you to make a mistake that hurts you—"

  "You can't stop me from making every mistake in the world; you can't do it. Let me make my own mistakes! You did what you wanted; you were lucky, you didn't have parents to tell you—"

  ''Lucky F'

  "Oh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I didn't mean that. I just meant, nobody tried to stop you from getting married."

  "My friends did; I didn't listen. I can't say I'm sorry I married Ted, because I have you, but if my parents had been alive they might have helped me make other decisions—"

  "You wouldn't have listened," Emma said boldly. "You would have done just what you wanted, just—" She stopped.

  "Just like you.''"

  "You've got to trust me!" Emma cried.

  "I do. But we all can use help once in a while, somebody to talk to, somebody to point us in a different direction or just make a suggestion. . . . When Hannah does that for me, I'm grateful."

  "Hannah meddles," said Emma with the scorn of youth. "I really like her, but she ought to know when to mind her own business."

  "She lives with us. We're a family. And if Hannah is concerned about us and thinks we're her business, we should be grateful. There's a big world out there and only a few people are really going to care about you."

  "I'm not her business," Emma said stubbornly. "I just want her to leave me alone."

  Claire knew that meant her, too, and as always with Emma, in the end she backed off. "We'll both leave vou alone, if that's what

  you really want. But I would like to see you once in a while on this trip; I thought it would be nice if we could share some of it."

  "Sure." Then, suddenly alarmed by how careless she was being with her mother's feelings, she said, "That's what I want, too. I love to do things with you; you know that. Remember Simone's.^ We had so much fun. I love to do things with you."

  And so Emma joined Claire and Hannah in Juneau and dutifully spent the day with them. But the next day, their fifth in Alaska, she and Brix were together from the moment the ship entered Glacier Bay at six in the morning. Claire caught glimpses of them all that long day; they were always touching, their shoulders brushing, their hands clasped, Brix's arm around Emma. For the first time, Claire envied her daughter. She remembered the sparkling clarity of the world when love and sexual excitement heightened every perception, and once again she wished for someone to put his arm around her. And that made her think of Quen-tin. But they had not spoken since she walked away from him on the deck, and Claire could not push herself forward with him. Perhaps Emma was right, she thought; after so many static years, she probably didn't know how to live, didn't even know how to begin.

  The ship sailed through water as smooth as glass, mirroring a clear, azure sky as they moved deeper into the bay, past old forests of spruce and hemlock to newer forests of alders, and then, at the far end, fields of plants and lichen. Park Service naturalists who had come aboard at Bartlett Cove walked around the ship explaining everything, and helping passengers spot black bears, mountain goats, and whales. Everyone was on deck, cameras ready, and the ship's engines and the murmur of a few hundred voices had a hollow sound, as if they were bottled up, surrounded by huge glaciers whose rough-hewn walls were a hundred or more feet high. Suddenly, with a sound like a cannon shot, a chunk of ice the size of a building broke off one of the glaciers and fell, almost in slow motion, into the bay. Sprays of water and chunks of ice flew hundreds of feet up and splashed thunderously down, making long waves that rolled across the bay and rocked the ship.

  Claire felt apart from all of it. She heard the excited voices around her, the snapping of cameras, the clink of china as waiters brought orange juice and coffee to the deck, and Hannah's murmurs about how grand everything was, but Emma's sharp words

  were still with her and she was thinking about where she was in her life. They had been in Alaska more than half of the week-long cruise, and suddenly she could not figure out why she was there, or why she would be anywhere. Her life seemed so random, without rhyme or reason: she had bought a lottery ticket, a small piece of paper, and then nothing was the same, or would be, ever again. If she had earned a lot of money with her own clients, or if she had inherited a fortune, everything would make more sense. But now, she felt adrift.

  She never had to work again, or watch over Emma, who would be in college. She had a staff of people who did all the housework she had once done, and Hannah did the rest. How did a person fill the days when there was no work to do.^ Would she take one trip after another, just like this one.^ Would she keep meeting people she did not care for, but who seemed to know the secret of a kind of life that Claire had never before tried to understand.^

  That made her think, again, of Quentin. They had not spoken for three days. She had seen him with others in the dining room and lounges, but their eyes had not met. She had seen Ina and Zeke dancing one night on the small dance floor in the bar, Ina striking in green silk and Zeke with his tie loose and gold cuff links gleaming, and they had looked intimate and happy. Ina had waved to Claire as if they were old friends, but they had not come to her table. Lorraine had stopped to chat one morning at breakfast, saying they should get together on one of the shore excursions, but that had come to nothing. It was as if their life were closed to Claire unless Quentin brought her into it, and as the days went by and it seemed unlikely that he would, that life began to seem more desirable to Claire: exciting and busy and exotic, even with its squabbles and animosities and backstabbings.

  So the scenery in Glacier Bay slid past her as she thought her thoughts and looked for Quentin, but did not see him, and watched Emma and Brix from a distance, all that long day.

  "You've been very quiet; are you worried about Emma.''" Hannah asked. They were having drinks in the lounge, before going to change for dinner.

  Claire smiled faintly. "She says I worry too much. She says I'm old and haven't lived. She thinks I don't have the courage, or maybe the know-how, to really live, as opposed to just getting through each day."

  "Oh, dear. Well, she's young and full of opinions, many of them wrong."

  "Which ones.''"

  "You could answer that yourself, my dear. Your courage, for one; you know you're not a coward. And know-how, for another. You've done a lot, all on your own; you built a life, for goodness' sake, by yourself. You have friends, you have a profession, and you're going to do a lot more." Claire was silent. "Well, what's the problem.'' Just Emma.'' Or is it Quentin.'' You haven't talked to him at all.^"

  "No. But it's not important."

  "Well, of course it is. You liked him, you were intrigued by him, and you wanted to see more of him. It does have a bright side, I suppose; there's something so trite about shipboard romances, you might have been embarrassed to find yourself in one."

  "I said something like that to Emma, and she ignored me."

  "She'll find out for herself. Cruises are tricky; I know that for a fact. They make nice fairy tales, but how do you sort out what's true and important and worthwhile in a relationship when you're in this artificial atmosphere.'' Here we are, floating past glaciers that are breaking apart while we sit in velvet armchairs, drinking French wine and eating caviar on toast points. How real is that.''"

  "How do you know for a fact that cruises are tricky.'"'

  "Well, as it happens, I was on one once. They're all alike, you know, whatever part of the world they're in: luxurious hothouses that have nothing to do with what we were doing last week or what's ahead when we get home."

  "And did you have a shipboard romance.'"'

  "Yes, indeed. Hot and heavy. I was eighteen and he was fifty, a thoroughly married Italian industrialist with seven children; oh, a respectable, settled man if there ever was one. I was a lovely girl in those days and he made me feel I was a princess in a fairy tale, a nymph floating through paradise. We were in the Mediterranean, a
nd I didn't see anything on that whole cruise but him. I can still feel his hands on my waist, lifting me into bed."

  Claire watched Hannah in amazement. "Where was his wife.^"

  "On the ship, with three of their children. They were on another deck and they stayed there. I'm sure he and she had made their arrangements a long time ago; that was why the mar-

  riage lasted. I didn't ask. At the time I was sure he would leave her as soon as we docked. How could anyone say those things and touch me that way and look at me the way he did—good Lord, those Italian eyes, like melting chocolate—and then go back to his wife.'' In any just and reliable world, he couldn't. But of course that was exactly what he did. Without a backward glance or a single romantic sigh of regret."

  There was a silence. Claire finished her wine and set it down. She was seeing herself, eighteen years ago, standing at the telephone, her throat dry with fear, frantically calling everyone she knew who might have an idea where Ted had gone, who might have seen him in the last twenty-four hours, who might be willing to tell him to go back to his wife and the child she was carrying. No one had known where he was. As far as Claire knew, he had left without a backward glance or a single romantic sigh of regret. And she never saw him again.

  "Did you ever see him again.''" she asked Hannah.

  "Never. It's such an old, trite story, and for a long time, after I recovered from him, I was too embarrassed to tell it. But by now I think of it as one of Grimm's fairy tales: the young princess and the horny bull who didn't turn into a handsome prince at the end. Married men without a conscience are like wild bulls outside their pen: you can't stop them with reason; they run amok, crushing anything in their way, and they never look back to see what damage they might have done."

  Claire gave a small laugh. She had long since recovered from Ted, but still, it was not pleasant to remember. "How long did it take you to recover.'"'

  "Oh, months. Close to a year. I was sure I would die. Quite literally. I thought it must have been my fault—I'd done something or not done something to make him change his mind about us—and I felt I was smothering under such despair, such a sense of loss and deadly emptiness, that I really thought my body could not sustain it and it would simply stop. It wasn't that I would kill myself; I didn't have the will to do that. It was just that I didn't see how a human organism could function so full of grief and self-hatred."

  Yes, yes, yes, that's ho'nr it m^as. And it 'iu'ent on and on, past the time Emma was bom. I think it must be the reason I stayed so close to home

  all these years. No adventures; nothing I couldnt be sure of. Even the affairs I had were tepid dead ends, and I always knew that, too.

  "But my organism kept going," Hannah said. "Isn't it amazing how tough we really are? And eventually I got over it and started taking trips again. I did a lot of traveling in those days." The waiter appeared and she looked up. "I'll have a vodka this time. And another glass of wine for my friend." She turned back to Claire. "Why am I going on as if this is new to you.^ You had it even worse; you had Emma on the way. My little affair seems puny by comparison."

  "Unhappiness isn't ever puny. It's always bigger than we are, at least until we can look back on it and turn it into a Grimm's fairy tale."

  Hannah smiled broadly. "I like that. It's nice to hear you give words of wisdom."

  "Oh." How strange, Claire thought; I never do that. It was not that she lacked ideas about what people did and why they did it; she had a lot of ideas. But she always kept them to herself because she could not believe anyone would find them sensible or interesting. But Hannah was smiling. Maybe I can do this sort of thing as well as anyone, Claire thought. "Well, it must be contagious," she said lightly to Hannah. "I must have caught it from you."

  Their drinks arrived and Hannah raised hers. "To your health and happiness and words of wisdom. I want you to know what a good time I'm having. And how grateful I am. And I hope you're having a good time, too."

  "Of course I am."

  "But"—Hannah contemplated her—"it isn't enough."

  "It's more than I've ever had. I'm very satisfied."

  "Well, you shouldn't be. You should always want more out of life, Claire; why are you in such a hurry to declare yourself satisfied.'' You know what you do.'' You treat yourself like a painting; you put yourself in a frame—a cruise ship, Alaska, Hannah for a companion—and you hang it on the wall and there it is, fixed, permanent, finished. Absolutely no place for surprises. You're too young for that; that's for people my age. I'm very touched and pleased that you like my company, and I hope you feel that way for a long time, but if you want to get to know other people—

  Quentin Eiger, for instance—why don't you invite him for drinks after dinner tonight? He invited you, once; maybe it's your turn."

  "I can't do that. Anyway, didn't you tell me a few minutes ago how trite shipboard romances are.^"

  "Does it have to be a romance.'* I said, if you want to get to know him."

  Claire flushed. "It won't be a romance."

  Hannah let it go. She did not comment when Quentin came into the lounge with Lorraine and Ozzie Thurman after dinner and nodded a greeting to her and Claire, or when they saw him at breakfast the next morning with a woman they had not seen before. And by the time they reached Valdez that afternoon, the last port before Anchorage and the end of the cruise, Hannah was talking about what they would do in the new house when they returned to Wilton, and other trips that might be interesting in the fall, after Emma left for college, as if she already was finished with Alaska and thought Claire should be, too.

  At Valdez, the passengers went in different directions, to glaciers and canyons, and a waterfall named Bridal Veil Falls, while Emma and Brix went on a raft trip, with a guide, and to dinner in town. Hannah went to explore Valdez and Claire went with her, feeling melancholy. The cruise was almost over and she felt disappointed. She was not sure what she had expected—probably excitement and glamour and romance—but then she should have chosen a more exotic place than Alaska. Maybe I'm not made for glamour and romance, she thought, or excitement either. But then, what good is all this money.'^ It was supposed to change my life, it was supposed to change me. It's got to change me; that's what money is for: to turn us into people we can't be when we're poor. As she followed Hannah around Valdez, as far from the glittering capitals of Europe as she could be, her melancholy deepened. Maybe I'm just one of those people who never have anything dramatic happen to them, she reflected, no matter what they do. That is a very- depressing thought.

  "I've never spent so much time thinking about myself," she said to Hannah later, at dinner. "It feels incredibly selfish. It must be because of the money. I used to think about basic things, like food and rent, and now I think about ail the things I ought to be doing. And wondering why I'm not doing them. Where do you suppose Emma is.'' I told her to be back at eight-thirty."

  'i haven't seen her." Hannah met Claire's eyes. "But of course they're on the ship; they knew it was leaving at nine. They're probably on deck somewhere; you know how everyone likes to watch the crew cast off."

  "I suppose." Claire was beginning to feel a familiar sinking inside her, the same sinking fear she had every' time Emma was late coming home from a date. "But you'd think she would have found us, at least to let us know she's back."

  "She's a little self-absorbed right now," Hannah said gently.

  "But maybe they're not here at all. Maybe something happened to them." Claire looked up to see Quentin coming toward them.

  "I'm looking for Brix," he said. "Have you seen him.^"

  "No. We were just wondering where they are." She pushed back her chair. "I'll take a walk around the deck . . ."

  "I've looked there. And in all the other obvious places." Without being asked, he pulled out a chair and sat down.

  Claire's fear ballooned; her heart began to pound. "Something's happened to them."

  "There isn't a lot that can happen in Valdez."

  "But they w
ere on a raft."

  "Brix told me they were going with a guide. There's no way a guide would take them anywhere dangerous, or bring them back late."

  "Weren't they planning to eat dinner in Valdez.'*" Hannah asked.

  Quentin glanced briefly in her direction. "Yes. Brix didn't tell me where they were going."

  "There can't be too many places," Claire said. "It's such a small town. Couldn't we call the restaurants to find out where they were, and when they left.''"

  "Mr. Eiger.^" The ship's captain stood beside the table. "We have had a telephone call for vou. From Mr. Brix Eiger."

  "Where is he.?"

  "And also one from Emma Goddard for Mrs. Goddard, if you know who she is—"

  "Yes," said Claire. "That's my daughter." She s all right. She's all right. Not drowned or kidnapped or murdered in some forest, not lost. She's all right.

  "Where are they.''" Quentin asked again.

  "In Valdez. The young man said they missed the ship and they are at the Westmark Valdez Hotel. You understand, Mr. Eiger, and Mrs. Goddard—"

  "You could have brought us the telephone," Quentin snapped.

  "Your son said we should not bother you. You understand, Mr. Eiger and Mrs. Goddard, this is a grave matter. We of course make clear to our passengers that we cast off exactly on time and it is their responsibility to be on the ship, not ours to go hunting for them, but I understand the young lady is underage, and this poses a serious problem for us."

  "I'll take care of it; there won't be any problem." Quentin stood. "I'm going to call Brix," he told Claire. "Do you want to come with me.^"

  "Yes. I'll come to your cabin later," she said to Hannah, and then she walked with Quentin to his cabin.

  "Damn fool," Quentin muttered. "Damn fool; he knows bet-ter.

  "So does Emma," said Claire.

  "Brix is older. He was in charge."

  Claire was silent. Of course Brix was in charge. And Emma, willful with her mother and with Hannah, would probably follow Brix Eiger wherever he led, because Emma thought he was perfect.