A chill iced through me. Her tone did not match the devastation etched on her face. She was in control of her emotions, as practical as ever, and in fact there was an almost aggressive edge to her voice. It didn’t take me long to realize what it was.
Rage.
She allowed me to hug her for a fraction of a second before pulling away.
“Did you see him?” She jerked her head in the direction of the reception area of the apartment and for a second I thought she meant the Phillionaire. “Scott? He arrived here a couple of hours ago. If Pedro hadn’t called on the house phone and told me he was on his way up in the elevator, I doubt he would have even come to find me. When he walked in and I started to talk about Phil, he just grunted.”
“He didn’t comfort you?” I was horrified.
“Nothing,” she said. “To give him his due he was in a terrible state himself. I think we were both trying hard not to cry but he looked so awful that I started whimpering just at the sight of him and he couldn’t get away from me fast enough. He went straight to Phil’s bureau in the library and broke open the drawer where Phil kept his will. Today! Within hours of his father’s death. Hours! I hadn’t even thought of it.”
By this time she had got to her feet and I led her by the elbow to the bedroom and persuaded her to lie down on a chaise by the window. I covered her with a shawl and perched on the end by her feet.
“Before he opened it, he turned away from me as if he expected me to peep over his shoulder. Do you know what he said? I just could not believe it. He said ‘I suppose you want to see what’s in here. Well, just remember something, you’re not Vanessa Abernathy. You never became his wife, you’re still Vanessa Bartholomew. And you won’t be living here much longer.’ He was actually telling me in so many words to get out of the apartment. On the day Phil died.”
Rufus and I could not have got there any faster than we did but I found myself wishing that we had arrived first. But Southampton was that much closer to Manhattan and Scott had beaten us to it. It sickened me to know that he had raced to the apartment not to take care of my mother but to look at the will before Rufus got there.
“Well, whatever he found in the will it won’t be much use to him,” said my mother. “Phil told me he saw his lawyer and changed it right before we left for Europe. Even I don’t have a clue what’s in it now.”
Outraged, I went in search of Rufus but when I found him, I backed away in confusion without saying anything. He was sitting on the end of a sofa in the foyer of the apartment with Scott slumped at his feet. Scott’s awkward frame seemed to be hunched around his brother’s knees as he uttered awful choking sobs. Rufus was patting the back of his neck and telling him it was okay and “Dad loved you” over and over again. When he saw me he gave a little wave and mouthed “Later?”
I crept away and sought refuge in the kitchen. But I walked straight into a huddle of maids in the pantry and they all turned and looked at me expectantly and after we had stood there in silence for a beat or two, I realized with horror that they were waiting for instructions and I didn’t know what to tell them.
I wandered back through the cavernous apartment and found a phone to call Shotgun. I got the machine and left a message explaining what had happened and saying that I would be in touch on my return. I added the suggestion that if he felt like making a few tapes on his own, that would be great. I imagined him sitting on the sofa with his eyes tightly shut, talking to an empty room with the tape recorder whirring beside him. It created such a lonely image I almost called him back and told him not to bother.
I went to check on my mother and found that she had emerged to be with Rufus. Scott had recovered and they were all seated at the dining room table making plans for the funeral. I sat quietly beside them for a few minutes observing that my mother appeared to be in command of the proceedings and that she and Scott were at least being civil to each other. There was a moment of tension when Scott said that his father should be buried beside his mother in the family plot in Amagansett. But Rufus said he was pretty sure that the Phillionaire would want to be cremated and have his ashes scattered over the bay. My mother exercised surprising restraint and stayed silent but I piped up like an idiot and said I agreed with Rufus.
Scott turned on me. “You keep right out of this. You do not belong in this discussion.” And the lump in my throat returned. “Anyway,” Scott went on, “I’ve got the will right here so maybe he left instructions.” Whereupon my mother broke her silence and informed him of the existence of the new will and he erupted again.
I turned my head and whispered to Rufus, “Do you need me here?” And he whispered back, “No, you take off. Probably better we sort this out on our own. Don’t worry, I’ll root for Vanessa.” So I slipped away and took the elevator down to the lobby.
Aching with unhappiness I went for a long walk in Central Park and when I returned, I found the foyer in almost total darkness and Scott and Rufus ensconced in a heavy drinking session in the dining room.
“Where’d you go?” said Scott. “We’ve been looking all over.” He said this in a way that made me think he hadn’t even noticed I’d been gone. Rufus said they’d given the staff the night off to mourn their father and sent out for Chinese and I was welcome to help myself. He gestured to the little cartons scattered all over the table. “We ordered some for your mom but she went to bed so there’s plenty.”
I reached for a pair of chopsticks and began to root around in the cartons. Much as I loathed Scott, I was pleased to witness a brotherly bonding between him and Rufus. I ate in silence listening to them reminiscing. “Do you remember the time when he . . .” and “I’m never going to forget the look on his face when you . . .” But it wasn’t really the Phillionaire I had known and after about an hour or so, I crept away to my room.
Hours later I awoke and acting on instinct, I got up and went in search of my mother. I found her curled up in the middle of the vast bed she had shared with the Phillionaire, clutching a pillow. She was snoring gently and I went and lay down beside her, remembering with affection how Phil had once told me that she snored almost melodically, even, on one occasion, giving a passable rendition of “La Vie en Rose.” I could tell what he meant. There was a soft underlying hum to her snoring that made it sound as if she was trying to sing in tune. As I lay where he had lain every night in the short time he had known her, I blessed him for bringing at least a brief period of joy into my mother’s life.
I thought about what a simple and genuine man he had been despite the unbelievably sophisticated life he must have led. And after I had leaned over and given my mother a gentle kiss on the forehead, just as I imagined he might have done, I closed my eyes and said my own silent good-bye to the Phillionaire.
The next day it was decided that I should take the jitney back to Amagansett because there was only room for one passenger in Rufus’s truck and he was driving my mother out. Scott had made it clear that he intended to take root in the apartment and my mother had caved.
“It’s not as if I have any particular affection for the place now Phil has gone,” she said, sounding frighteningly cool and pragmatic although her drawn face betrayed her. “And apart from the funeral, I want to be as far away from Scott as possible. I need to be with you, Lee. You’ll take me in, won’t you?”
But when I began to describe the Phillionaire’s cabin and the fact that there was only one bed and one shower behind a curtain, she changed her mind about moving in with me before I’d even finished the sentence.
“I’m not sleeping in the same room with you, darling. No offense but you snore.”
I almost smiled.
“Could you live with a room at the Stucco House until you decide where you want to be?” suggested Rufus. And of course it was the perfect solution. We were all being very careful not to mention that she couldn’t really make any decision until we had heard what provision the Phillionaire had made for her in his new will.
The man sitting next to me on the bus looked fami
liar. He kept glancing at me with a half smile as he pretended to read his Times in a way that I found quite disconcerting. But then he stuck out his hand as we pulled out of Manhattan along the stretch of road that rises high above a cemetery—a sight that filled me with renewed gloom—and said “Louis Nichols. We met at the Old Stone Market and you’re Vanessa’s daughter, aren’t you?” and I realized that it was just because I was seeing him out of context that I hadn’t been able to place him.
The president of the Stone Landing Residents Association. And Martha Farrell’s lover?
“Yes. I’m Lee Batholomew. You know my mother?”
“My condolences,” he said immediately. “I am just devastated by what’s happened and I can’t imagine what she must be going through. Phil and I were classmates at Harvard together,” he explained. “And I grew up with Alison. His wife,” he added when I looked blank. “Rufus and Scott’s mother. I introduced her to Phil.”
I didn’t say anything. I hadn’t figured him for being the same age as Phil. For all his immaculate grooming, Phil had seemed older than this man. Was it because his role in my life, though brief, had been caring and avuncular whereas at close quarters there was the faintest hint of flirtatiousness in Louis Nichols? He was certainly attractive, I could see how Martha had become smitten, yet he was too smooth for my taste, and a little too pleased with himself.
“You’ve been to see your mother.” It wasn’t a question. “How are Rufus and Scott doing?”
“Rufus better than Scott,” I said, wondering how much I should reveal to this man. “Scott is staying in New York till the funeral but Rufus is coming out today. He’s bringing my mother. The funeral’s on Friday.”
“Yes, I know,” he said and I wondered how. “Your mother called me on my cell just before I turned it off. Tell me, you’ve become quite a good friend of Franny Cook’s, haven’t you?”
I nodded.
“How serious is it between her and Rufus? It’s okay.” He held up his hand when he saw the look on my face. “As I just said, I went way back with Phil and he used to talk to me about his concerns for the boys. Phil saw it coming a long time ago between Rufus and Franny. Rufus was besotted with her when he was a boy but then she got involved with the guy in New York and it looked like whatever torch Rufus had burning for her would have to be extinguished. But then she came back and even though Rufus was jumping on every good-looking girl on the East End of Long Island, Phil knew it was only a matter of time before he threw his cap at Franny again. Except now that she’s gone and had Scott’s baby it all gets pretty messy.”
“Phil knew about Eliza?”
“Of course he did, although he never told Scott or Rufus he knew.”
“And did he ever see her? Or Franny?”
“The baby? That I don’t know. He knew Franny as a kid, of course, when she used to hang out with Rufus. He had a soft spot for her.”
“I’m pleased,” I said.
“Yeah. Too bad what happened later on.”
“What do you mean? Dumpster?”
“That’s the boy? Yes, well, there was his drug problem but Franny got in with a pretty bad crowd herself for a while. I’m not sure Rufus even knows about it. I hope not.”
I didn’t like the sound of this.
“You didn’t know about her past?” He looked at me.
I was annoyed with myself. I didn’t want to gossip with this man about Franny but I was itching to know about her.
Louis Nichols hesitated for a fraction of a second. Then he gave a little shrug that caused the sleeves of the cashmere sweater looped around his shoulders to untangle and flop down his chest.
“Okay, I’ll tell you. But Franny Cook needs a friend around these parts, so just don’t go judging her too harshly, okay?”
Now it was my turn to shrug. Hadn’t he just established that I was Franny’s friend?
“It wasn’t really that bad. She had men and, I don’t know any other way to say this, they paid her.”
“For sex? She was a call girl?” My shocked reaction was involuntary but it was there all the same.
“In a way but it was all pretty high class. Men dated her—publicly—they took her to dinner, the theater, even the opera, showed her off all over town—and believe me, she was worth showing off—and they had affairs with her and they paid her. It works like that with most relationships except women get paid in kind—gifts of jewelry, clothes, or foreign travel. The only way it was different with Franny was that she got hard cash. And a lot of it. For services rendered.”
Suddenly I had a horrible thought: Had Louis Nichols been one of those men who had taken advantage of Franny’s “services”? I banished it immediately.
I didn’t say anything. I didn’t want to dignify what he had just told me with a comment, although a quick flash on the high-end contents of Franny’s closet and the box of photographs I had found told me there might be some truth to what he said.
And then I had another unsettling thought. Had Bettina known about Franny’s slightly murky past? Had she threatened Franny in some way? Maybe she had told Franny that Scott knew and that he would use the information to help him gain custody of Eliza in some way?
“What about Eliza?” I asked Louis Nichols. “What will happen to her?”
“As I said, it’s messy. It all depends what provision Phil has made for her in his will, as his only grandchild. If it’s substantial in any way, then you can bet your life Scott will want to play a bigger role in her life.”
That was it, I thought. Scott had to be aware that his father had known about Eliza. Maybe he’d known for some time and that was why he was suddenly taking more interest in Eliza.
“By the way, I’ve become friends with Martha Farrell,” I said, to see what sort of reaction that would get. “I’m reading the manuscript of her novel for her.”
“Really?” Louis Nichols sounded surprised. “Who’d have thought Miss Havisham would have it in her. A woman of many talents.”
I didn’t quite like the patronizing way he said it.
“You knew her when she was an actress?”
“Well, I’ve known her since she first came to live out here. I wasn’t aware she was ever an actress although I suppose it’s possible. Tell you the truth, none of us knew where she came from when she arrived out here. She kept pretty much to herself in the beginning and we all let her have it that way. That’s one of the things you can count on, being left alone to do what you want. It’s the reason some people come here in the first place—it’s the end of the road in more ways than one. You get people who ride the Long Island Railroad all the way out to Montauk, check into a motel room, and boom! It’s all over. And no one ever hears the shot.”
Surely that wasn’t what he was saying about Martha?
“No,” he went on, “I never knew Martha was an actress. When she first came out here, all she ever did was fish. She set herself up in those damned trailers and she was out in her boat on the bay at first light along with everyone else. We thought we had a born-again Bonacker—that’s what we call the locals, people who live around the Accabonac Harbor—but then she got involved in all that wedding dress crap.”
“You see quite a lot of her now, don’t you?” I wanted him to know that I knew about him and Martha.
“Oh Lord, what’s she been saying?” He smiled in what was intended to be a charming, throwaway manner. But his next words made my blood run cold. “Sure, I see Martha from time to time but I have no intention of getting any more involved with her than I am now. I mean”—he shrugged again, an irritating habit he had that indicated he didn’t want to take anything too seriously—“it’s Martha. Come on!”
I was still finding all my spare thoughts directed toward memories of the Phillionaire and I think I would have forgotten Louis Nichols’s chilling dismissal of Martha sooner rather than later had she not been standing on the shoulder when the bus drew to a halt in Amagansett. I knew immediately that she had come to meet him, to surprise
him, but when she saw me get off the bus ahead of him, she rushed to embrace me and he used this to slip off toward his car parked farther up the road.
“Louis!” she called. “Here I am.”
“Oh hi,” he called back, “how are you? I would have given Lee a ride but it’s great you’ve come to meet her.”
He knew exactly why she was there and it killed me to see the look on her face.
Just as it killed me to see how valiantly my mother was trying to keep it all together when Rufus deposited her at the Stucco House that evening. I was touched by the way Rufus included her in all the decisions that were made over the next few days for the simple service that was to take place on the beach at the end of the week. But when the time came, for all that we’d spent the week discussing how it would be, I wasn’t prepared for the devastating sight of the Phillionaire’s coffin being held aloft above the high beach grass as it was carried down to the beach.
We were to gather at the very same spot where the commitment ceremony had taken place, only this time the weather was the kind you prayed for if you were having a wedding. I was in the process of trying to steam the creases out of a black linen shift in the shower—the Phillionaire hadn’t deemed it necessary to keep an iron at the cabin—when a shadow fell across the open doorway. I looked up and screamed.
But in surprise not fear.
Dumpster stood there, his lanky frame towering above me as he stepped into the room and looked around. “You’re alone, right? I need to speak with you.”
CHAPTER 13
MY MOM TOLD ME YOU WERE LIVING HERE,” HE said, eyeing me warily. “You guys hang together, right? You’ve become friends?”
I nodded again, yes. I was horrified to see what a terrible state he was in, a far cry from the outgoing, rosy-cheeked youth I had encountered at Shotgun’s. His hair was matted and gave new meaning to the term “dirty blond.” His clothes were filthy and I knew that if he came any closer I’d get a nasty whiff of his unwashed state. He looked disheveled and hollow-eyed from lack of sleep.
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