Snowstorms in a Hot Climate

by Sarah Dunant

  What indeed? Elly had made her decision and taken control of her life. Mission accomplished. Nothing else mattered. There were no longer any secrets to conceal. What Lenny did now was his own business. Not hers, not mine. An eye for an eye. One thing was sure. There would be no grouse chasing in the Scottish Highlands for him. I was glad not to know the details. What wasn’t known couldn’t be withheld.

  “How do you feel?”

  She grimaced. “It’s a bit like pulling teeth—I think I’m still under the anesthetic.” She screwed up what remained of the tissue and lobbed it at the wastepaper basket. It missed.

  “So, what now?”

  “I’ve got one last obligation. I have to go back and sort out the store. I owe him that much. It won’t take me long. Four or five days, then Indigo can take over till he decides what to do. But you don’t have to come. You could go straight to Paris. Or check out a little more of America. I’m sorry, it hasn’t exactly been the greatest of vacations. You could always stay here. Soak up some sun.”

  I smiled. “And what would I do, lying frying on a California beach on my own?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Why don’t you ask J.T. to join you?” she said, with admirably concealed mischief.

  “Because two silent people do not a conversation make,” I retorted just a little sharply, remembering the hours between four and six that morning. “What about Lenny? What are his plans?”

  “He has some business here, then he’ll come back to New York. I suppose we’ll spend the last few days together. Maybe go up to Westchester. It sounds corny, but I’d like it to end well. But you know you’re always welcome, I—”

  “No. No thanks. There’s someone I want to visit in Boston. I’ll go there and join you later.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yes, I’m sure.” And I was. After all, I had won. I could afford to be generous.

  Downstairs in the Tudor bar, wasp-waisted wenches in freely adapted Elizabethan costumes were revving up for the evening trade. But Lenny was drinking alone. J.T. had gone. I subdued a small flash of panic. Elly was upset. Lenny, I noticed, was interested in her distress. I kept my feelings on the matter strictly to myself.

  “But I wanted to say good-bye,” she said with a hint of petulance.

  “So wait till he gets home and call him.” Lenny sounded almost amused.

  “It’s not the same.” Pause. “Did you tell him?”

  “Tell him what?”

  “About us?”

  “No. Why? Did you want him to know?”

  “Oh … I don’t know …,” she faltered. “I just thought. I mean we had some good times together, all of us. Maybe he’d like to know.”

  “Yeah, maybe he would.”

  It was not necessarily a sarcastic remark. I had been playing the wallflower, keeping my eyes fixed firmly on the fake oak table leg. Now I risked a glance upward. And ran straight into steel blue eyes. Without J.T.’s broad shoulders, the world seemed suddenly very full of Lenny.

  “How about you, Marla?” He smiled. “Are you feeling deserted too?”

  “Hardly,” I said lightly. “He always made it clear his first priorities were his chickens.”

  “How right you are.” That seemed to please him. “Well, ladies, since this is, in all manner of ways, an exceptional occasion, I’d say a celebration was called for. I suggest a stroll in the park—take in the evening air—then perhaps a trip across the bay for a little Sausalito seafood. Unless, of course, you two would prefer to dine alone?”

  So Lenny had taken her leaving in his stride, had he? This time the razor edge broke through the skin of his charm. She felt it too. “Don’t be ridiculous, Lenny. Of course we’ll go together.”

  I shook my head. “Only on one condition.”

  That turned both heads in my direction. When I had my audience, I addressed him. “That I pay for the meal.”

  Elly winced. Lenny smiled. “Marla, I’d be delighted to be your guest.”

  We took a cab to the park. It was a balmy early twilight. For once there was no chill wind coming off the bay, and the gardens were still full of people. There had been some kind of concert or performance that afternoon, and the crowds had lingered on in the sunshine and flowers. There were a lot of bodies on show, most of them brown and many of them beautiful. As befits the city’s reputation, the flesh exposed was more male than female. The pace was lazier than Polk Street, but it was still a parade-ground, a place to see and be seen. It was a strange experience, coming into a world where the roles were so suddenly and specifically reversed. Here the trade was exclusively male. Being with Lenny was a little like owning a prize racehorse at a track meeting; he turned heads as a matter of course. He seemed supremely unaware of it all. This cannot have been the first time he had tasted the triumph of his bisexual beauty, and he accepted it almost as his due. I admired his detachment, but found it despicable at the same time. There was something monstrous in his confidence.

  Outside the park we stood waiting for a cab. On the notice board by the gates, a flurry of colorful posters announced forthcoming attractions. Elly stopped to read them.

  “Hey, the Klondyke Klan,” she exclaimed. “Didn’t we see them once, Lenny? Weren’t they the group from Oregon who all live together and train their kids to join the circus too?”

  “Uh-huh.” Lenny’s response was casual, but the look he gave her was not. She was already talking to me. “Oh, you should have seen them, Marla. They were great. No animal acts or stuff like that. Just real circus skills. And they had this incredible finale, about twenty-five of them, all onstage, juggling to a speeded-up version of the Saber Dance. Brilliant. They were talking of doing a world tour, weren’t they, Lenny? Did it ever come off?”

  “I don’t know,” he said carelessly, as if he was thinking of something else entirely. Across the road a cab pulled up to let out a fare. I stepped out from the sidewalk, and we heard no more of the Klondyke Klan.

  An hour later we sat looking out over a picture postcard of the Golden Gate at sunset. All that was missing was a dry-ice cloud to elevate it to heaven. I was unimpressed. There had been too many stupendous views recently. I was gorged on beauty and suffering panoramic indigestion. Maybe it would not be so bad to sit on top of a London bus and watch concrete streaked with bird shit. At least there you knew your enemies. Here there were snakes in every canyon. Even in the cities.

  On the other hand, the meal was going well, despite the echoes of that first evening in the East, an occasion where the power structures had been so different. Then I had been the stranger, allowing myself to be wooed. This time I made the running, filling the air with chatter, because silence felt secretive and I wanted to make it clear I had nothing to hide. Lenny seemed content to let me control the show. I did the ordering and chose the wine and, when the waiter poured it into Lenny’s glass to taste, he handed it back to me with exaggerated ceremony. Any tension that there was—and there was—could easily be explained by the circumstances.

  For her main course Elly chose salad, declaring that after Nepenthe she associated lobster with bad dreams. The waiter presented her with a plate the size of a small tray and guided her toward a salad bar where someone had expended a good deal of energy doing extraordinary things with vegetables. Knowing Elly’s appreciation of art, I knew she would take her time. For the first time since that morning in New York, Lenny and I were alone together. It was like the silence in the marriage ceremony when objections are called for—that dreadful compulsion to speak, combined with the terror of what you might say—“If anyone knows any reason …” Lenny did.

  “Well, Marla. I think I should congratulate you.”

  Set poised to murder an oyster, I granted it a moment’s reprieve as I looked up to meet his gaze. “On what?”

  “Where do I begin? On Elly’s spiritual recovery? On your keeping of my secret? Or, perhaps, on the guarding of your own?”

  As I lifted the shell to my mouth, I could have sworn I saw the oyster shi
ver. “My own?” I swallowed.

  “I don’t think I’d realized that you’d come to take her home.”

  I swallowed again. “I hadn’t. It was her decision.”

  “Of course. And yet even when she made up her mind to go back with you, you were never tempted to tell her about my proposed trip?”

  “You asked for my word, Lenny. And I gave it.”

  “Indeed you did. As an officer and a gentleman. Alas, neither of the descriptions does you full justice, Marla. You know, it really is a shame our acquaintance has been so brief. I would very much like to have gotten to know you better.”

  I didn’t waste time trying to look flattered. “I’m not sure you would. I’m actually quite a dull person.”

  “That’s not what J.T. says.”

  It was a remark designed to cause a reaction. I gave him the pleasure of one. Since he had to be lying, my consternation could give nothing away. “What does J.T. know? We hardly spoke more than a dozen words to each other.”

  He shrugged. “Well, you must have picked the right dozen. You should be flattered. He really hates most people, you know. Sometimes I think he doesn’t even like me.”

  “Really,” I said evenly. “But I thought you were good friends.”

  “Well …” He made a dismissive gesture. “Perhaps I’m just paranoid. It’s only a feeling I get sometimes. That maybe we keep secrets from each other. But then I don’t find that strange. I think there’s probably quite a lot of ambiguity in friendship, wouldn’t you agree?”

  Come into my parlor, said the spider to the fly. Sod off, said the fly. “I wouldn’t know. I suppose it depends on the friendship in question.”

  “Exactly,” he said emphatically, as if it had been just the answer he was looking for. “Here comes Elly. Right on cue. You can always spot her in a restaurant. The smallest lady with the fullest plate. I’m going to miss her, you know. Although I daresay you find that hard to believe. Nevertheless, it’s true.”

  Suffice it to say I was not moved. As confessions go, it was a little threadbare. He was not telling me how much he loved her. He was simply expressing regret at losing her. It was still about possession. Not the noblest of qualities.

  She arrived back bearing a harvest in front of her and, mistaking the tension for the one she had left behind, took it upon herself to spread a little sunshine. The rest of the evening went passing fair. I think what I loved most about her that night was her innocence. She truly believed that she had fought her battle and won. I don’t think it ever occurred to her that Lenny had not conceded defeat. She had always been one for happy endings, and whatever wounds she had sustained over those last few years, it seemed that something of optimism and energy had remained. And so, when Lenny raised his glass across the table and announced with full pomp and circumstance—“To Paris”—she met his eyes and did not, I think, read the challenge in the toast. But then it was not meant for her.

  thirteen

  If we had lain becalmed in California sunshine, now the wind was up. I woke early, disturbed by the hermetic silence of the sealed box, and decided on a preemptive strike with regard to the bill. It was ten to eight when I approached the desk. But I had been outmaneuvered. The room had been paid for in advance, my night bought for me. At the house phone Elly answered. Lenny was gone. A call had come just after dawn and he had slipped away, instructing her to apologize and to say he would see me in New York. What could be so urgent as to pull him out of bed at such an inhuman hour? Of course Elly didn’t know. Why should she? He hadn’t told her his business when they were together, why should he start now that they were apart?

  I rode the glass casket up to the eleventh floor. Her door was unlocked, and breakfast was laid out on the table. She was standing by the window, staring out into a bright blue San Francisco morning, a woman alone. Rejoicing or regretting? I didn’t ask. Over hot rolls and coffee we made plans. A few local calls turned them into plane reservations, and then Elly picked up the phone one more time and asked the operator for an out-of-town number.

  “Santa Cruz 6791, please—J.T.,” she explained, her hand over the mouthpiece: “I just want to say good-bye.”

  6791 … 6791. I retreated to the bathroom to give her privacy and to scribble down a number which, with any luck, I would never need to dial. Through the half-closed door I heard chippings of conversation. J.T. did not appear to say much. I imagined him double-thinking every word, picking his way through meaning in search of unexploded mines. His reticence seemed to embarrass her, making her clumsy where, I suspect, she had rehearsed elegance. But the facts got out somehow. She had called to say good-bye. She was leaving, going to Paris with me, then back to England for a while. She had wanted to thank him, for hospitality provided and advice given. She was sorry they hadn’t talked more. She hoped he understood. She also wanted to ask him a favor, however stupid it might sound. Would he look after Lenny for her?

  In the bottom of my stomach something twisted, a small but sour pain. Conscience lives not in the head but in the bowels. I caught sight of myself in the bathroom mirror. My skin and hair had ripened in the sun, but the large strong nose and big mouth remained the same, and under them the chin still announced truculence to the world. Unlike Ophelia, I was neither honest nor fair. It was not, however, the time to mourn lost virtues. Through the door I heard the ping of the receiver, and I strode back into the room. Elly looked a little crumpled sitting there but smiled as I came in.

  “He sends you his regards. Said if you ever need any help with the sky at night to give him a call.” She frowned. “Whatever that means.”

  “It means I told him once that I was interested in stargazing. Just a white lie in the cause of keeping the conversation going.” I lied a darker shade of pale. “I’m surprised he remembered.”

  “Yeah, well, I always said you scored more of a hit than you realized.” She stood up, brushing the crumbs from her skirt. At the same instant there was a tap on the door. Time to go. She picked up her jacket and looked at me. “Well—ready for the mysterious East?”

  We said our good-byes under the soft hum of airport strip lighting. It was only a temporary separation, and we treated it lightly. Of course, we could have done it differently. We could have traveled back together and I could have gone on to Boston the next day. But we had decided against it. Or rather she had. Now that the going had begun, she wanted it done cleanly. She had started alone; that was how she would finish. I admired her certainty, but even so, as my plane circled over the Cape for our final descent into Boston, I couldn’t help but wonder how it was for her, arriving back in New York for the very last time.

  “Don’t fret, Marla,” she had said and smiled. “That apartment and I are used to our own company. We’ve shared a lot together. It’ll do us good to have a couple of days alone to say good-bye. Cleansing rituals, that’s all. But you’re not excluded. You can come back anytime.”

  Nevertheless, I would give her the full five days. Boston would occupy me for that long, sightseeing and visiting. I had embellished the truth a little when I told Elly that there was a friend I had to see. Teresa Geldhorn was not exactly a friend, and I did not have to see her. On the other hand, she was pretty high up on my list of acquaintances, and there were always things to talk about. She had been eleven years older than I when I arrived at Cambridge, but she was already the best medieval historian of her generation and one of the university’s toughest tutors. She was one of a new breed of women academics, feminist in word as well as action.

  Before her had been generations of advance guard, women who protected themselves against discrimination by denying their femininity: J. D. Pendleton, D. S. Johnson, the list continues; pince-nez women, with flat shoes and brains filed like teeth, digging into the silt of lost history; omnivorous, with insatiable appetite for detail. She was different. The brain was just as sharp, but she refused to bury herself in excavation. She challenged the status quo and made it clear that hers were victories for gender as well
as individual ego. The men, of course, were wonderfully threatened but could do nothing to undermine her.

  Against the odds, she and I had got on. Maybe it was her need to be challenged, or maybe she had sensed in my isolation and belligerence a shadow of her younger self. Whatever the reason, she had taken me up as her good academic cause and, with a thoroughly unsentimental dedication, had set about fashioning my academic future, guiding and bullying me through tripos exams to research, and from research to teaching. Our relationship had never been anything but formal and academic. I knew nothing of her private life, and she knew nothing of mine. But still over the years we had kept in touch. A kind of politeness almost. And so, when she decided to take up the Harvard offer of a three-year teaching post, six months after I had been appointed to UC, I had been one of the people she had written to, extending a firm invitation to tea if ever I should be passing through. And, since I was, I called her and we agreed to meet.

  Looking back now, I see that those Boston days were like the last days of summer, a time when everything is ripe and still, and yet you know it cannot last. I suppose I should have realized then that what was resolved could also be unresolved, but I was too busy enjoying the triumph of Elly’s return. Boston joined in the celebrations. The city was at its best—hot, green, and glorious—with its wide tree-lined avenues and its brown sluggish river shining under a hazy sun. It reminded me of London, rather formal and not without pride. Not unlike Teresa herself. America, it seemed, had done nothing to pollute her Englishness. She lived, fittingly, in Cambridge, in a small but elegant brownstone house within walking distance of my hotel.

  When I arrived there that first afternoon, punctual to the minute, I discovered it to be full of cats and bookshelves. She sat me down in an armchair in the study next to a window full of birdsong, poured me a dry sherry from a cut-glass decanter, and asked me questions in her cool precise way, for all the world as if this were her room in Girton and we were meeting again after the long vacation. And watching her sitting there in her blue skirt and blouse, a single gold chain around her neck, and her hair cut short with flecks of gray, I wondered whether I wasn’t looking at an image of myself ten years on, discussing academic futures with favorite pupils. Certainly I could do worse than this Olivia de Havilland self-containment; quiet pleasure amid the smell of paper and ink.