“Are you never bored anymore?”
“Let’s say that I’m not bored now. I’ve never owned a forty-million-dollar girl before. I wonder what I should do with you first?”
“Maybe if you thought of me as just a girl …” Maxi murmured, trying to make out his face in the darkness of the deck. Most of the other yachts in the port had put out all but their running lights while they talked, and Bad Dennis Brady had almost disappeared in the moonless night. She missed being able to watch his half-tragic, half-fey face, she realized, rather more than she’d expected.
“But if you were ‘just’ a girl I’d never have told you all this,” he protested.
“What do you talk about with girls you don’t own?”
“Not much,” he said wistfully.
“You’re shy,” Maxi diagnosed.
“No, basically just Australian. Australian men prefer action to talk when it comes to women. At least that’s the general notion.”
“But according to you, no one was ever a less typical Australian.”
“Well I can’t be can I? Poor eye-to-hand coordination, you know. I never was any good at games, particularly soccer. My guardians, when my parents died, sent me to England for quite a while so I don’t even sound right. A half-assed Australian and an all-around total misfit, I’m afraid.” He sighed pathetically in the darkness and reached out and took Maxi’s hand in both of his. The minute she felt his touch she knew that there was at least one sport in which Dennis Brady had won high marks. Feckless, whimsical, admittedly fit only for loafing, but not, oh no decidedly not harmless. Every warning bell in her system went off.
“Ah, poor Bad Dennis, that’s a sad story and no mistake,” she crooned. “But as much as it pains me to have to remind you—the meter’s running.”
“The meter? Oh, of course … I’d almost forgotten. How much?”
“One million dollars.”
“Per week?” he asked hopefully.
“No, Dennis,” she said patiently.
“Per day?” He tried to sound incredulous.
“Per hour … and you’ve just spent two of them talking.”
“Good Lord! I think that’s a bit high. On the other hand, it is slower than roulette. Or should be, if done properly. Well, if you’re sure?”
“I am,” Maxi answered crisply.
“In that case, perhaps you might … care to go below?” he said, springing to his feet.
“I’m yours to command,” Maxi answered.
“I like this game,” Dennis Brady announced happily. “Even if you can’t bet on it.”
“Would you consider marrying someone like me, Maxi?” Dennis Brady asked humbly. Startled, Maxi turned toward him as he lay, long, lean and unexpectedly strong, beside her on the bed of the main cabin of the yacht. Without his deplorable garments he was a superlatively well-made man and all the energy he had been too bored to turn toward mineral rights had apparently been saved just for her, to judge by the last day and a half.
“Someone ‘like’ you?… there isn’t anyone like you, Dennis, or the world would be a different place—no aggression, no ambition, just sex and casinos … maybe paradise is like that.” She ached exquisitely in every major and most minor muscles and her mind was so blissfully unhinged that it was almost impossible to speak, much less think.
“Well, actually, to come right down to it, I meant me in particular, yes, just me, Maxi.”
“Would I? Marry you?”
“That’s the general idea, yes.”
“What time is it, Dennis?” Maxi mumbled, remembering.
“It’s ten in the morning.”
“How long have we been on board?” she asked, yawning hugely.
“Exactly thirty-four hours. Oh, Maxi darling, come on and answer me,” he pleaded.
Maxi made an effort to consider. This seemed important. “Let’s see. Thirty-four hours plus the two hours you spent talking makes thirty-six so that leaves you four more hours … so … if you can manage to arrange it before the time’s up, what choice do I have?”
“I aid hope you’d see it that way,” Dennis Brady said joyfully, wrapping a towel around his middle and grabbing the phone at the side of the bed. “Captain, how long will it take you to get out into international waters? What? No, I don’t give a damn about the harbor master. How many of the crew went ashore? Well, make do, man, make do. By the way, you are a real captain aren’t you? I know, I know, of course I’ve seen your Master’s Certificate—have you ever performed a wedding? Just a burial at sea? Well if you can do one you can do the other. Break out your Bible, Captain, and let’s get under way.”
“I don’t have anything to wear,” Maxi said automatically, choking with laughter. Mrs. Bad Dennis Brady. What would people think? What did it matter? What a dear he was. What fun they would have! She simply wasn’t responsible. Everyone understood that a debt of honor had to be paid or you lost your good reputation.
14
“Poor dear sweetie, old Bad Dennis,” Maxi said thoughtfully as she and India sat over a frivolous dinner at Spago, their favorite Hollywood restaurant. “He still sends me the saddest postcards and it’s over a year since I left him.”
India paused in the middle of lifting a forkful of goat cheese pizza to her lips. “Why do you sound even faintly regretful? I clearly remember your telling me that you couldn’t take life in Monte Carlo another minute. I even remember your quoting Emerson. ‘To live without duties is obscene’—wasn’t that it?”
“It was. It still would be. I deeply regret another divorce but I’ll never forget waking up and realizing that the darling lad hadn’t had a dull moment during the few months we’d been married and I was going out of my mind. Oh, India, it was so boring, boring, boring to live with a man who didn’t do anything in particular but hang about being an utterly lackadaisical, perfectly joyous good-for-nothing and didn’t even feel the smallest twinge of guilt about it. I suppose I kept comparing him to my father, which wasn’t fair, of course, because Dennis had warned me what he was like. You know how much my father accomplishes every day and how charged up and enthusiastic he is about his work, and how he communicates that energy, and how much I admire him? I guess he’s ruined me for a man who isn’t at least trying to do something, no matter what. What’s more, shuttling poor little Angelica and Nanny Grey back and forth from Monte Carlo to Manhattan every month was just about impossible but that bastard, Rocco, simply wouldn’t, under any circumstances, let her spend more than half the time with me. He took a much bigger apartment with plenty of room for Angelica and Nanny and since he has joint custody what could I do? Still, Angelica might have been on the verge of getting too much attention with a crew of twenty all doting on her.”
“Did the lovemaking get boring too?”
“No,” sighed Maxi. “I wish it had. But you can’t base your entire future on sexual attraction.”
“You can’t?” India asked suspiciously.
“Not beyond a certain limit and I didn’t want to reach that day so I left before it happened.”
“Are you sure you’re not still a little bit in love with him?” India said dubiously.
“Actually I don’t think I ever was ‘in love’ with him … I just plain loved him … he was so needy and lost and … lusty. I loved the Australian in him. If only he hadn’t been so totally determined to be shiftless.” Maxi sighed deeply. “I did care for him, but not enough, India, not nearly enough.” She looked severely at her mesquite broiled salmon and wished it were pizza too.
Maxi had flown to Los Angeles to visit India who had a free weekend between pictures. India had slipped into movie stardom with the irritating ease with which she’d gone through school with straight A’s and Maxi felt jealous of the demanding film industry that imprisoned her friend so far from New York, or sent her on location to impossible places; jealous of the fun she was certain that India was having in spite of her complaints that making movies was irksome drudgery, comparable at best to being a privileged inmate in a
minimum-security prison.
“Well, forget Dennis Brady,” India advised, tackling a huge plateful of pasta with wild Japanese mushrooms and duck sausage.
“I did, a long time ago. You were the one who brought him up.”
“I simply asked if there were any new men in your life and you said not even one who was worth comparing with Bad Dennis.”
“India, how come you’ve started going to a shrink yet you’re still giving me advice?” Maxi asked sharply.
“What does my being neurotic have to do with my ability to help someone else?” India asked, offended. People never understood about psychoanalysis, not even Maxi.
“I don’t understand why you’ve started to think of yourself as neurotic,” Maxi replied. “You’re no different than you used to be as far as I can tell—precocious, flaky, much too beautiful and kind of weird. But now you’re famous.”
“I’m a ten-foot-pole neurotic, the kind who won’t let a man get emotionally close to her until she meets a guy who’s a seven-foot-pole neurotic with a three-foot feather duster attached to his head,” India said broodingly. “And fame only makes it worse.”
“What’s this Doctor Florence Florsheim going to do about you?”
“Do? She’s not supposed to do anything—I’m the one who has to change. The best thing about her is that she validates.”
“You mean that she’s supportive, that she believes in you?” Maxi asked excitedly.
“No, Maxi, she validates my parking ticket for the lot next to her office,” India explained patiently. “You’re supportive, you believe in me, because you’re my friend and you don’t know any better. She’s my shrink, not my buddy. She listens and doesn’t make judgments and every two weeks or so she might ask a question. Also she doesn’t give a hoot in hell what I look like, which is the most marvelous relief. There’s no point in not telling her the truth because she can’t read my mind and if I lie it costs me time and money, since eventually I have to tell the truth or I’m not playing fair and won’t get helped. I can tell her anything I want to and know she’ll never be shocked because there’s nothing she hasn’t heard already. If I should say anything important she’ll certainly remember it.”
“Are you absolutely sure about that?”
“No. It’s an article of faith. You have to have faith in your shrink, Maxi, and if you start to doubt her you have to tell her all about it which takes another year. The main thing, I guess, is that she’s my ally. I pay her for it admittedly but still I’ve got to have a staunch day-to-day ally, especially in this town.”
“Did she say she was on your side? How do you know she’s your ally?”
“I feel it … and stop asking for guarantees because she doesn’t pass them out. Now, could we stop trying to explain the inexplicable and talk about what you plan to do next with the life you’ve utterly wasted except for producing Angelica?” India asked kindly.
“I’m going to London next week. I’ve wanted to spend time there for years and Angelica’s going to be with Rocco all of July this year.”
“Where are you staying?”
“With my grandparents, of course. They’d be terribly offended if I didn’t. They’re in their late sixties now and more alarmingly vigorous than ever. They’ve planned all sorts of things for me involving jolly entertainment and meeting people including cousins in the second, third and fourth degree, none of whom I know.”
“That sounds … interesting,” India said.
“You mean it sounds perfectly awful.”
“That too, that too,” India agreed cheerfully.
“There’s no point in trying to do anything about it,” Viscountess Adamsfield said to her husband in a gloomy tone that was at odds with her feeble attempt at philosophy.
“But of all men to choose, of all possible Scots, and god knows, I like the Scots almost more than any other people on earth, your granddaughter had to pick a Kirkgordon! Laddie Kirkgordon no less, and after knowing him less than two months—his family lost almost everything at Flodden Field well over four hundred years ago and they’ve been going downhill ever since,” her husband growled.
“She’s your granddaughter too and he is, after all, Oswald Charles Walter Angus, Earl of Kirkgordon, ruined or not.”
“Oswald! No wonder he’s called Laddie,” Evelyn Gilbert Basil Adamsfield fumed. He’d been lucky to extract a miserable “Bertie” out of his name after two dozen fistfights at school.
“Oswald was king of Northumbria from 635 to 642. Apparently the name is a family tradition,” Lady Adamsfield said sadly. “Oswald was king for only seven years, unfortunately, but he must have been a very holy man, sending out all those missionaries to convert the heathen, you know.”
“No I did not. And I don’t care. Why didn’t Oswald mind his own business? I suppose Maxi’s been educating you? Is that girl bucking for sainthood this time around?”
“She’s in love, Bertie. She told you herself. I think you’re being perfectly vile about it.”
“I’m not going to pretend that I like it, Maxime, and that’s that. I had a splendid husband picked out for her, as well you know.”
“Maxi said he was a twit.”
“No marquis is a twit, and most particularly not one who’s practically a duke. His father won’t last out the year. He’s a bit dim, perhaps, but not a twit. What’s more, his family has always been loyal to the crown and those wild, daft Kirkgordons are still loyal to the House of Stuart. As far as they’re concerned a descendent of Mary Queen of Scots should be on the throne. No wonder they’re down and out; idealistic, unrealistic, notoriously eccentric, the whole crazy, stubborn pack of them. And her Laddie the worst of the lot.”
“I rather think that’s what Maxi sees in him. She said he had a strong sense of destiny, something to live and fight for, a deep meaning to everything he did, a passionate striving, a …”
“Spare me, Maxime, my darling. I was at the wedding too and what Maxi sees in him is obvious.”
“You have to admit that he is rather gorgeous,” Lady Adamsfield said dreamily. “In fact, I haven’t seen a better-looking creature in a long, long time … that noble head, those blue, blue eyes, that wonderfully fresh, ruddy coloring, that sandy hair, almost golden, when you come to think about it, that great height, those shoulders …”
“That crumbling castle, those barren acres …”
“Those historic, twelve-feet-thick walls, that breathtaking view …”
“He doesn’t have a shilling and she could have been a duchess …”
“She’s quite rich enough in her own right, pet, she is a countess and he absolutely adores her …”
“Maxime,” said Viscount Adamsfield, “you’re a hopeless romantic. I used to think you were a sensible woman.”
“Well, I just hope she’s settled down for good this time.”
“Maxi? Settled with a Kirkgordon? I very much doubt it, my dear. Settled down indeed!”
“What’s that, for heaven’s sake?” Milton Bizet demanded, recoiling.
“What does it look like?” his partner, Leon Ludwig, said smugly.
“A telephone-book-sized telegram. It must be from Maxi. Hand it over.”
“If you knew, Milton, why did you ask me what it was?”
“To indicate my alarm, curiosity and feverish delight. I’ve actually been wondering why we hadn’t heard from her except for the announcement of her wedding to that utterly glorious-looking Kirkgordon person. Our Maxi and her indecently macho earl must have bought a marvelous house in London by now, I said to myself, and she certainly isn’t going to be unfaithful to us and let some English decorators get their beastly little hands on it. Where is it? In Mayfair, of course, but where in Mayfair? Now give me that telegram.”
“It’s a castle,” Ludwig announced, handing over the pages.
“Trust Maxi. We taught her to think big.”
“In Scotland,” Ludwig said ominously.
“Oh, no.”
“Oh,
yes. Somewhere between Kelso and Ettrick Forest, so she says, as if we’d know where that was, no heating at all except for a few fireplaces that are big enough to roast a whole sheep in, no minstrel galleries, no follies, no marvelous paneling, no family heirlooms, no tapestries, no pictures, almost no bathrooms, tiny little windows so that it could be defended from the invading Royalist troops, whatever that means, Lord knows how long ago. And the whole damn thing has been falling to pieces for at least a thousand years and even when it was in its glory it wasn’t vaguely comfortable … not a stately home, Milton, oh no, a bloody fortress. She calls it ‘Castle Dread.’ Maxi wants us to get over there as soon as possible, preferably tomorrow, so we can start to make it cozy. Apparently she’s found a horrendous problem with dry rot and you know what that can lead to. She says the decor consists of a hundred stags’ heads and hoards of horrid stuffed fish hanging on the walls and that there isn’t even any decent family silver except for some sort of sacred chalice or other. Poor Maxi.” Ludwig subsided with a tiny sigh.
“Why ‘poor Maxi’ when money’s no object?” Milton Bizet inquired. “I remember when we had to fly to Monaco to redecorate Blissful Dennis’s yacht … he didn’t care what we spent. I did love that job. In fact I rather loved Dennis, didn’t you? He looked just like Peter O’Toole in Lawrence of Arabia.”
“Only not as well dressed,” Leon Ludwig pointed out, with a small, nostalgic smile.
“And will you ever forget the job we did on Maxi’s second town house, after we talked her into getting rid of that first little brownstone?” Bizet continued. “She really went the distance on that place. I suppose that she’ll keep the new apartment she’s bought in Trump Tower for a pied à terre when she gets tired of deer stalking or whatever it is she intends to do in Scotland, don’t you?”
“All I’m sure of is that money isn’t the problem. It never is with Maxi. It’s us … we’re going to have to spend months and months in Scotland. What does Scotland mean to you, Milton? Besides deer stalking?”
“Cashmere sweaters, plaids, whiskey, ah … shetland sweaters, tartans, Drambuie, ah … haggis, bagpipes, trout … kilts! Leon, is this a quiz show?”
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