Frank was buried quietly with no fuss; his funeral got much less space than a Minett-Beaufort divorce would have done. Margaret wept beside the grave. They were not crocodile tears but genuine: now that he was dead, and because of the manner of his death, she at last felt sorry for Frank. She had not meant to drive him so far; indeed, it had never occurred to her that he would even contemplate suicide. She was burdened with guilt, but there was also genuine sorrow. She made a beautifully sad figure beside the grave, but she was unaware of it.
Next day Jack Minett came to see her. He looked suddenly aged: the pain of grief and shock crippled the broad dark face. ‘Why did he do it, Meg? His mother will never get over it. She thinks his soul is damned forever.’
‘I don’t know why he did it, Mr Minett. Things weren’t too happy between us – ’
‘He never said anything.’
‘We kept it to ourselves. My parents didn’t know. There were other things troubling him – he was in debt – ’
‘Couldn’t you have helped him there?’
‘He wanted more money than I could raise without going to my father. I couldn’t do that.’
‘You should’ve gone to him, your father, I mean. If it meant saving Frank’s life – ’
Faintly, from the back of the house, came the sound of a radio: Kay Starr was spinning the Wheel of Fortune. Margaret reached for the bell to call one of the servants, have them turn down the radio. Then she changed her mind, turned a deaf ear to the song. There would be a lot in the future to which she would have to turn a deaf ear.
‘Mr Minett, I didn’t know he was going to commit suicide. Don’t you think I’d have gone to my father if I’d known that?’ She told herself she would have done just that; but there would always be the nagging doubt. She had felt differently towards him that last night from what she felt now. Guilt was a breath blowing on some dead ashes. ‘If only he’d left a note, we’d have known …’
‘Well, don’t blame yourself. Things go wrong.’ He looked around the living-room; he had never felt at home in this house when he visited it. ‘Maybe he should never have asked you to marry him.’
‘Perhaps.’
Once a month after that she took the children over to the Minett home in Johnson County. Jack and Francesca Minett showed no desire to visit her at Beaufort Park and she never encouraged them. The children were still too young to form any attachment to their Minett grandparents and Margaret knew the Minetts would never become possessive towards them. The least she could do was give them access to the children.
Nina had not come home for the funeral, but she wrote a long letter of condolence to Margaret. Then she suggested that Margaret should bring the children to Europe: Come over here and live with me for a year. You need a break from that atmosphere at home. I’m moving on to Rome and taking a villa there …
Margaret wrote back and said she would think about it; but she would not come immediately: Mother is still reeling from the shock of Frank’s death. First, Tim’s and Michael’s disappearance; then this tragedy. I don’t think it ever entered her head that you and I would be anything but gloriously, blissfully happy. I must stay here, at least for a few more months …
‘I think we should wear mourning for three months,’ Edith said.
‘Mother, you don’t have to – Frank wouldn’t have expected it.’
‘Darling, I’m doing it for you. And for him, too, of course.’ But the last sounded like an afterthought, a polite bow to custom. Edith would never understand why her son-in-law had visited such grief and shock on her daughter and grandchildren. And on herself. She had begun to wonder if there was some forgotten sin in her past life that merited all the punishment God was giving her. ‘Your father has his business to attend to. And there will be the election campaign. Thank God he has that to take his mind off what has happened to you.’
‘I’m glad for him,’ said Margaret and managed not to sound sarcastic.
Sally had flown home for the funeral, then returned to Vassar the next day. Now she came home for Easter, bringing a friend with her. Cindy Drake was a small, pretty girl, quiet and almost too feminine, the very opposite of the bouncing Sally.
‘We have nothing in common except a crush on our English prof,’ said Sally as Margaret drove them home from the airport. And we both love Europe. Cindy’s father is with the State Department. He’s one of Dean Acheson’s pet diplomats.’
‘I shouldn’t mention that to Daddy. Has she warned you about our father, Cindy?’
Cindy smiled shyly. ‘My mother is a Republican, too. When we were at the embassy in Paris she had to clear everything with Dad before she spoke.’
‘Fortunately we don’t have to do that with Daddy,’ said Sally. ‘Though he wishes we would.’
Another rebel, thought Margaret. And wondered what problems Sally was going to raise for herself and their father.
Lucas was still stiff-necked in his attitudes; he knew what was best for himself, his family and America. He was not very concerned with what was best for the world, just so long as America was pre-eminent in it and could set the standards. The Beaufort empire within the United States was doing well; the Cattle Company had already almost recovered from the devastation of last year’s flood. Beaufort Oil was now well established in Abu Sadar, had outlets in Britain and was in partnership with local companies in France, Germany and Holland. Beaufort Trust money was being invested overseas in Australia, South Africa and certain South American countries which were governed by the more reliable dictators. Lucas still indulged his xenophobia, but one didn’t have to carry it to ridiculous lengths.
Despite his obstinate attitudes, he had softened; or anyway was quieter in expounding them. He still blamed himself for what had happened to Nina; he would never forgive himself but he could never confess it to her. He had a recurring nightmare that, when he was dead, Tim would return and tell only half the story, that he had been paid to disappear by Lucas. Now he had a further worry: he knew that, in some way, he had helped ruin Margaret’s life. He had never been close enough to her to ask her to confide in him; and he blamed himself for having failed, too, in that direction. But it was too late for him to change. He could only hope to avoid mistakes with his two younger daughters.
‘You girls have a wonderful life ahead of you. When we elect General Eisenhower President in November, there will be a whole new America opening up. Is your father a career officer, Cindy?’
‘Yes, Mr Beaufort.’
‘Then he’ll appreciate working under a President who knows how to run things properly. He must have been a very disturbed man these past few years.’
It was Easter Sunday and they had all come back from the morning service at St Andrew’s Episcopal Church. They were sitting out on the wide back porch while George Biff and two of the maids served morning coffee. No one had yet changed into casual clothes and, with the servants hovering around, the table set with a lace cloth, a passing stranger might have been forgiven for thinking that time had slipped back into a more gracious era. The same stranger might have also been forgiven for wondering, if such a scene could take place in President Truman’s day, what elegant graciousness must lie ahead under President Eisenhower.
‘I liked Reverend Luckson’s sermon on idealism.’ Edith, like Margaret, was dressed in dark clothes; though she had been relieved when Margaret had vetoed any idea that they should go as far as wearing plain black. ‘We should have more of that.’
‘Idealism is what you talk about on Sundays,’ said Lucas, who had thought the Reverend Luckson could have done with a course in common sense. ‘Practicality is what gets you through the other six days of the week. Would your father agree with that, Cindy?’
‘Her father probably doesn’t have time to be idealistic,’ said Sally. ‘He has to be watching out for Senator McCarthy.’
‘Your father isn’t on the Senator’s list, is he?’ Lucas looked startled, wondering what Vassar had sent home this time.
‘I don’t think so,’ said Cindy. ‘Mother wouldn’t have married him if he was even remotely sympathetic to Communism. Mother is a staunch Republican, though I’m afraid she is more for Senator Taft than for General Eisenhower.’
Lucas relaxed. ‘Either is better than what we have. As I said, you’re very fortunate girls. It’s a pity you aren’t old enough to vote, so that you could claim some credit for putting America on the right road.’
‘I think I’ll vote for Henry Miller when I grow up,’ said Prue, all dressed up but for her shoes, which she had kicked off.
‘What party does he stand for?’ asked her father.
‘The Capricornia Party,’ said Margaret.
‘Capri – ? You don’t mean the Tropic of Capricorn Miller?’ Lucas looked in horror at his youngest daughter. Vassar was bad enough but the Barstow School seemed worse, far worse. ‘Are you reading that at school?’
‘Of course not, Daddy.’ Prue had never been afraid of her father; she might not be his favourite but she had her own way of handling him. ‘I’ve been reading it here at home.’
‘Where on earth did you get it?’ her mother demanded.
‘In the mail. In a plain brown wrapper. It was advertised in Esquire and I wrote off for it.’
‘What was she doing reading Esquire?’ Lucas turned on Edith, who evidently couldn’t run a clean house.
‘How on earth do I know? Darling – ’ Edith looked at her youngest. ‘You had better give me Mr Miller’s book.’
‘Oh, let her keep it,’ said Sally. ‘You’re not corrupted by it, are you, Prue?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Prue. ‘I hope so.’
During this Margaret had been observing Cindy Drake. The girl, demure as a convent novice, hardly took her eyes off Sally except when someone spoke directly to her. Occasionally Sally would look towards her and smile, but Cindy’s answer would only be in her eyes, a secret smile that one had to watch closely to catch. Margaret, disturbed at the thought that suddenly entered her mind, mentally shook her head. She had to be wrong in what she was thinking.
‘Time I was getting back to the children.’ She stood up. ‘What are you doing the rest of the day, Sally?’
‘Oh, we have plans,’ said Sally lightly, after a glance at Cindy.
‘May I come over and see the kids?’ said Prue.
‘Children,’ said Edith. ‘Kids are what goats have. Go and get me Mr Miller’s book first.’
‘I lent it to Sue Harrap.’
‘Oh good heavens, what will Helen Harrap think of me!’
‘You’d better call her,’ said Lucas. ‘Tell her our youngest daughter is disseminating obscene literature.’
‘Am I?’ said Prue, unworried, beaming with braced teeth at her father. ‘That sounds really criminal.’
‘Come on,’ said Margaret and took her youngest sister off towards the other house.
As they crossed the lawns Prue said, ‘Do you like Cindy?’
Her tone was too innocent, even for an eleven-year-old: Margaret looked at her warily. ‘She seems nice enough.’
‘She never says much. Unless you ask her.’
‘You could take some lessons from her.’
‘Don’t start talking like a mother, even if you are one. I caught them kissing last night.’
‘Who?’ But she knew.
‘Who do you think? Sally and Cindy. Real kissing, too. Do you think they’re lesbians?’
‘For God’s sake!’ She stopped suddenly beside the spaced line of shrubs that curved round the house. Azaleas bloomed red and pink, syringa was a creamy-white hoar frost; early spring hung in the air like an innocence itself. You’re not corrupted, are you? Sally had said. ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about. That’s a dreadful thing to say about Sally.’
Prue looked unrepentant. ‘I think it might be true. I don’t miss much, you said that yourself.’
‘Well, you should! Miss things, I mean. You’re too damned watchful. Don’t you dare mention this – ’
‘I’m not stupid. Mother would have a fit. What are you going to do?’
‘What am I? What the heck do you think I’m going to do? I don’t believe it, for one thing. And even if it were true, which I doubt very much – ’ Am I arguing too hard? ‘ – it’s none of my business. It may be just a phase she’s passing through.’
‘Did you go through a phase like that when you were her age?’
‘No, I didn’t. But I had crushes – ’
‘Not on girls, I’ll bet. You had a crush on Tim – ’ Prue looked up at her, an angel with braces on her teeth. She’s too artless, Margaret thought. And looked for horns among the blonde curls. ‘But then we all did. Even Sally.’
‘Well – ’ She was at a loss. She did not want to interfere with Sally; that would be too much like their father’s attitude. Yet she had to protect her parents from discovering Sally’s … Sally’s what? Indiscretion, aberration, perversion? She couldn’t bring herself to put a name to it. ‘Well, I’ll have a talk with Sally. But you stop spying on her.’
Prue was indignant. ‘I wasn’t spying! It was an accident I saw them. Sally’s bedroom door was open – ’
‘All right, all right! Just let’s keep it quiet. You could be all wrong about what you saw – I hope you are. Now let’s go in and feed the children.’
After lunch Margaret saw Sally and Cindy driving out of the park in Sally’s MG. They looked exactly as she had thought of them up till a couple of hours ago: two attractive girls in whom any boy would have been interested. But it occurred to her now that since Sally and Cindy had arrived home on Thursday night, no boys had come near the place. She wondered if the same thought had occurred to her mother.
She spent the afternoon with the children. She loved being with them, a fact that sometimes surprised her; till she had become pregnant with Martha she had never shown the slightest interest in children, had, indeed, been bored by them. Now she was fascinated by them, even the baby Emma; and she loved them both. She did not have to pretend to herself on that: she loved Frank’s child as much as she did Tim’s. She still thought of Frank, sometimes with regret, more often with guilt, never with love. She also thought of Tim, less frequently but still with yearning.
That evening Lucas and Edith went to the Kansas City Country Club for supper. Prue had gone to spend the night with her friend Sue Harrap, her co-admirer of Henry Miller. Margaret knew that Sue’s mother, Helen, would not make a big thing of her daughter’s reading Tropic of Capricorn; Helen was one of the new breed of progressive-minded mothers, a philosophy that Edith thought was only a synonym for dereliction of a mother’s duty. Margaret would not be surprised if Helen Harrap, her daughter and Prue were right now sitting grouped together discussing Mr Miller.
It was nine o’clock in the evening when Margaret decided she was bored. The children had been asleep two hours, she had had her supper, she had watched television: she had to get out of the house. She went out, crossed the lawns, was entering the back door of the main house before she admitted to herself that she was not bored, that all day she had been trying to put her mind against talking with Sally. Yet now she came into the house slyly, like a spy.
She heard the soft laughter in Sally’s room as she came quietly up the stairs. Faintly from the servants’ quarters there came the sound of other laughter, canned: someone was making a fool of himself on television. Sweating a little, afraid of what she was going to find, she knocked gently on Sally’s door. She knocked gently because she knew she did not want to be heard. Then she opened the door.
Sally and Cindy, both nude, were in bed together, arms round each other. Margaret stood unable to move; all at once she wanted to retreat but couldn’t. She had wanted to spy on them, and now she was shocked and ashamed. Sally turned her face away from Cindy’s and looked at her. Later Margaret would recall that there was no defiance in Sally’s expression. She looked surprisingly and incongruously sad.
Margaret started to close the door, backing out. ‘Don’t go, Meg,’ said Sally.
She sat up, reached for a robe and slipped into it as she got out of bed. She didn’t look at Cindy, who had rolled on to her back, pulled the sheets up to her chin and lay staring at the ceiling. Margaret, suddenly wishing she had stayed in her own house, came into the room and closed the door.
‘Now you know.’ This was a Sally Margaret had never known: quiet, adult, nothing of the hoyden she had always been. ‘I’m sorry you had to find out, Meg.’
‘You haven’t made much effort to hide it.’ She did not mean to sound sharp, but she was ill at ease. All day she had been thinking of talking with Sally, putting it off but knowing she would eventually have to do it. And now she had no reasoned argument to put and consequently was awkward and abrupt. ‘Even Prue knows. Or suspects.’
Sally sighed worriedly, looked at Cindy. ‘Better go back to your own room, Cindy.’
Cindy slid out of bed, pulled on a robe and looked at Margaret. ‘I don’t know how Sally feels, but I’m not ashamed. I love her.’
Margaret had had no experience in this sort of love, not even as an observer. There had been girls who had been suspected lovers at college, but the girls and the subject had always been avoided. Lesbianism was something that only girls who couldn’t get a man went in for, a last resort for love.
Margaret said nothing and her silence seemed to upset Cindy, who looked at Sally, then put her hand to her face and ran out of the room. Margaret waited for Sally to say something, since for the moment she had nothing herself to say.
‘I suppose you think I’m a pervert?’
Margaret went to sit down on the bed, the side where Cindy had lain; then she changed her mind and sat in a chair. She had the feeling she was backing off from everything and was annoyed at her cowardice. Nobody had pressed her to come here, she had come of her own accord to interfere. But with the best of intentions, she told herself.
‘I’m shocked, Sally – I admit that. But I’ve never thought of what you’ve been doing as a perversion – maybe it is with some girls, but not all. It’s not with you, is it? I mean, you’re not doing it for the thrill?’
Sally looked for a moment as if she was going to be angry; then she sat down on the bed and once more looked sadly at her sister. ‘I’m not like that, Meg. I mean the thrill bit. I saw you looking at the bed – what were you looking for? A dildo, something like that? You’re like a man – they all think we have to use those things.’
‘I wasn’t looking for anything,’ Margaret said. ‘How did you get – involved like this?’
‘I don’t know why I got into it, if that’s what you’re asking. It just sort of happened.’
‘Is Cindy the first?’
Sally nodded. ‘She started it. Made the first advances, is that how they say it? I’m not blaming her. I didn’t hold off. I think I welcomed it. Not the sex bit, but just someone loving me for myself.’
‘Oh God – how can you say that? We’ve always loved you!’
Sally shook her head almost fiercely. ‘You all thought you did. But I was always the odd one out. Daddy was always only concerned for Nina. Mother was always fussing over you.’
‘What about Prue?’
‘She’s self-contained, even at her age. I’m not – ’ Suddenly she began to cry, tears streaming down her face.
Margaret got up, went quickly round the bed and took her in her arms. She held Sally to her, stroking her hair and back while Sally drained herself of tears. Part of her mind wondered if Cindy had done this, and she began to understand. Whatever else they had done did not matter. It could not have been any worse than the deceitful sex she had given Frank.
At last Sally sat back and dried her eyes on the sheet. ‘Thanks. I mean for being so understanding – ’
‘Cindy has to go home. I’m afraid that Mother and Daddy will catch on if she doesn’t.’
‘You won’t tell them? No, I shouldn’t have said that. I can see you won’t. What about Prue? You said she suspected – ’
‘She’s a shrewd little devil. But she’s not a mischief-maker. Don’t discuss it with her, just let it ride. If she brings it up with me again, I’ll say we, she and I, were mistaken. You and Cindy just liked each other.’ She looked carefully at her sister. ‘Cindy says she loves you. Do you love her?’
Sally didn’t reply at once, then she said, ‘No. I could never tell her, but there are times when I get bored with her. I still like boys … Do you think I’m – what do they call it? – double-gaited?’
Margaret suddenly laughed: she had never heard the expression. ‘You sound like a trotting horse!’
Sally also laughed; or rather, smiled. She was still quiet, nothing like the girl who in the past would have let out a gust of laughter. Margaret wondered how much of that laughter had been forced. ‘You know what I mean. Maybe there’s some hope …’
‘Of course there is! For God’s sake – ’ Margaret squeezed her sister’s hand; it was hard to believe that Sally thought no one had loved her. ‘Look, tell Cindy to go home. She can tell Mother that she got a phone call tonight about some crisis at home. Then when she’s gone, you can start working things out for yourself.’
‘She’s still going to be there – at Vassar, I mean.’
‘Yes, that won’t help. But it will only be for another semester. You can’t leave Vassar now – that would cause too many complications with Mother and Daddy. And Prue might start asking questions. You never were a very good liar … Look, I’m going to Rome in the summer to stay with Nina. Come with me and the children.’
It was a moment or two before Sally said, ‘You’re not doing this because you’re sorry for me?’
Margaret leaned forward and kissed her on the cheek. ‘I’m doing it because I love you.’
Cindy Drake went home next morning without any fuss, but to the regret of Edith. ‘She’s such a nice girl. You must have her again.’
‘Of course,’ said Sally.
At the end of June, when Sally came home from Vassar, Margaret asked her, ‘How did it work out with Cindy?’
‘She left. She’s transferring to Bennington next semester.’
‘Are you glad it’s over?’
‘I’m glad it’s over. But I’m not sorry it happened. At least it brought you and me closer together.’
Prue had proved no problem. Margaret had told her that she had been mistaken, that there was no lesbian relationship between Sally and Cindy. ‘I suppose they were just fooling around when you saw them kissing.’
‘Some fooling! Any girl kisses me like that she’s going to get kicked in her what’s-it.’
Margaret was afraid to ask what a what’s-it was. ‘Well, we have nothing to worry about with Sally. So forget it.’
‘I wasn’t making a big thing of it,’ said Prue airily. ‘It’s life, isn’t it?’
‘Oh God. What are you reading now?’
When Margaret announced that she was going to Rome and taking the children with her, Lucas erupted with some of his old bombast. ‘You don’t appreciate what you have here! Nina’s over there, lonely and unhappy among all those foreigners – ’
‘How do you know she’s lonely and unhappy?’
‘I know.’
‘Then I’m doing the right thing going over there. I’ll help relieve her loneliness and unhappiness. You should be glad. If you were a loving father, you’d be coming over, too – ’
‘I am a loving father! But there are things to do here – ’
‘Like electing General Eisenhower,’ said Sally, but only Margaret noticed the acid note in her voice. ‘I’m going to Rome, too. For the summer, anyway.’
‘Darling,’ said Edith, ‘you sound as if you’re thinking of staying over there.’
‘I may,’ said Sally with polite defiance: she did not want to fight with her mother. ‘I just think it will be nice for the three of us to be together.’
‘What about me?’ said Prue.
‘You be the sensible one and stay with us,’ said Lucas, as if he had to reason with an eleven-year-old daughter who wanted to go tearing off to Europe.
‘For the life of me I can’t see why you all want to run away from home,’ said Edith, trying not to sound hurt.
‘You’ll all be glad to come back some day,’ said Lucas. ‘This is the heart of America. The country’s crumbling all around the edges, but not here. We’ve got stability here. Standards and principles. Some day you and all the ones like you will appreciate that the Middle West is the heart and soul of this country. You’ll come back.’
‘We’re not going forever,’ said Margaret in exasperation. ‘We are just – just broadening our horizons, I suppose. Broadening our perspective,’ she said, looking at her mother.
‘There are limits,’ said Edith, who had become like her husband, more isolationist. The broader world had not treated her or her two eldest daughters kindly at all. They might still be happy if they had married their own kind. ‘Just be careful in Rome, that’s all I ask. Those Italians – sorry, darling.’
‘It’s all right, Mother,’ said Margaret. ‘I don’t think Frank ever thought of himself as an Italian Italian.’
The day before she left for Italy Margaret went to dinner with Magnus McKea. He took her to a small French restaurant where the proprietor, a French-Canadian, had hopes that the natives might consider something besides a T-bone or rib roast. He was also aberrant enough to refuse to serve any pre-dinner drink but an aperitif, contending that diners at his establishment should not shrivel their taste buds before eating his food. He was the spiritual descendant of those traders who had passed through here over a hundred years before hoping to sell soap to the buffalo hunters. Magnus was one of his favourite customers, a man of enlightened tastes.
‘Henri has hopes for us,’ Magnus said. ‘Having you dine here will give him a boost. Your name will be in next week’s Independent.’
‘It won’t be much of a boost for him when they also read that I’ve just left town. Will you look after things for me while I’m gone, Magnus?’
‘I’m taking care of Nina, why not you? Did you hear from your friends up in Chicago after Frank’s death?’
‘Just a condolence card from Philip Gentleman – that’s the old man’s son. Perhaps his father got him to send it.’
‘Did you write and thank him? No? Good girl. Write all of that off to experience. I mean meeting them. I don’t mean Frank.’
‘I’ve written him off to experience, too. Does that sound callous?’
‘Yes. I know you don’t mean it that way, but I shouldn’t repeat it to anyone else.’
‘If you proposed to me, Magnus, I think I might marry you.’
Henri came to the table, a dark-haired plump advertisement for his own food. He showed Magnus a bottle of wine. ‘A Pommard 1947, m’sieu. A very, very good year.’
‘The lady is suggesting champagne.’ Margaret was surprised at Magnus’s light touch.
Henri shook his head. ‘Too soon, madame. Later.’
He poured the red wine and went away. Magnus said. ‘There’s your answer. Too soon. You’d be marrying me on the rebound or out of gratitude, Meg. You should never do that.’
Don’t tell me: I know. ‘I think you’re afraid of marriage. What do you do – I mean, for women?’
‘You mean for sex, don’t you? I’m a gentleman – or I try to be. I have my little affairs. Not here, but in other places. I don’t go to St Louis and Tulsa and Omaha just on business. There are plenty of women of my age, widows and divorcees, who are willing to share their bed with a gentleman. A discreet one, such as I am.’
She laughed softly, shaking her head at him. ‘You make it sound like a legal service. The lawyer with the bedside manner.’
‘None of the women has complained.’
They had champagne with their dessert and by the time they left the restaurant they were both merry. And Margaret was also a little sad.
‘I’m going to miss you, Magnus.’
‘Don’t stay away too long. For your own sake.’
‘I’m going to miss Kansas City, too.’
‘I don’t think so. You don’t really know KC. All you know is the country club district and that’s not this town. You haven’t a clue about how the people live out on Wornall Road or down in Little Italy or the Mexicans over on the West Side. Or the blue-collar workers over in the North East. You’re an over-protected rich girl whose family made a fortune out of this town. When did you ever go down to the pit at the Board of Trade and watch the bidding for wheat or corn or barley? Or down to the stockyards? The only time you ever see beef on the hoof is at the American Royal show every November and I doubt very much if you pay much attention to it even then.’
‘Magnus, you are starting to sound like Daddy.’
‘Sorry. But I’m sold on this town and you annoy me when you say you’re going to miss it, because I know you’re not. All you’re going to miss is Beaufort Park and what lies between it and Country Club Plaza. I guess I’d feel the same way about the café-society lot who say the same thing about New York City but never move off Park or Madison Avenues. Kansas City is in my blood, but I don’t think it’s in yours. But that’s probably more your parents’ fault.’
‘Well, it’s a little late now. But when I come back …’
‘That’s the important thing. To keep coming back.’
He drove her home, in past the security guard (where did the guard live? she wondered. Out on Wornall Road?) and pulled the car up outside her house. He switched off the engine, reached across and kissed her on the mouth, no lawyer’s kiss.
‘You should have taken me back to your place,’ she said. ‘Showed me how the other half lives.’
‘I know that. It took a great deal of willpower to get the car on to the Ward Parkway. One of us might have regretted it tomorrow morning if I hadn’t brought you home.’
‘Which one of us? You or me?’
He didn’t answer, just kissed her again and squeezed her breast. She kissed him in return, putting her arms round his neck and pulling him into her. She felt a cheat: she wanted to be made love to, but she knew he was right. One of them in the morning would regret it.
‘Goodnight, Magnus. Keep in touch.’
He touched her breast lightly, smiled in the darkness. ‘Like that? Some day when I’m even merrier than I am now, I’ll tell you why I’ve never married. Take care of yourself.’
She went into the house wondering what secret he had.
Her goodbye to George Biff was shorter and less complicated. They had had no discussion since Frank’s death; she had taken him enough into her confidence before that unexpected tragedy. She knew he would respect that confidence and she hoped he would ask no further questions of her. At least his attitude towards her had not changed: she still seemed to be in his favour.
‘You can have the Buick, George.’ He had never had a car of his own. ‘I’m sure Miss Nina would like you to have it.’
He was carrying bags out to pack them into the two cars that were taking Margaret, Sally, the nurse Ruth and the two children to the railroad station. Margaret had decided, for the children’s sake, that they should go by train and ship to Italy. Miss Stafford had, with her usual efficiency, arranged all the tickets, but she had hinted in her manner that she agreed with Edith, that Margaret and Sally were doing the wrong thing.
George shoved the bags into the trunk. ‘Your daddy always loans me a car when I want it. Dunno how he gonna feel, me having a car of my own.’
‘George, sometimes you sound like Uncle Tom when you talk about my father. He’s not nineteenth-century.’
He grinned. ‘I hear you girls sometimes, you talk like you think he just that.’ Then he sobered. ‘You take care over there, Miz Meg. You got all that other trouble behind you now. Don’t buy yourself any more.’
‘Thanks, George. For everything.’
The farewell to her parents was complicated. It was a quiet whirlpool of love and resentment; Edith and Lucas did not hide their hurt at this desertion. Francesca Minett, still in black, came to the station to say goodbye to her grandchildren; her farewell kiss to Margaret was perfunctory, as if the latter no longer meant anything in her life. Margaret, for her part, was suddenly glad to be leaving. Relationships in Italy should be much simpler than here.
‘We’ll come to see you after the elections,’ said Edith. ‘Your father will want a vacation.’
‘The country will be in good hands then,’ said Lucas. ‘You’re foolish to be leaving now. You should have gone when that feller Truman was re-elected back in ’48.’
A bell rang, a whistle blew, a voice cried All Abo-o-a-a-rd! They were sounds that were dying out, already echoes, but none of the travellers knew it then. The train rolled out of the station and Margaret looked back at the city that Magnus had told her she did not know and wondered whether she would be back in six weeks, six months or six years. She felt she was throwing off a corset that, though it had constrained her, had had its feeling of security. A corset: there’s a nineteenth-century thought.
‘I feel like starting a new life,’ said Sally, who had been told by her parents that she must return to Vassar in the new school year.
‘I wonder how people do that?’ And Margaret, going to live with his wife, wondered once again about Tim.
That year was a momentous one, at least for Republicans. For the first time in twenty years they at last had one of their own in the White House; God, who could have voted in a Republican primary any time He wished, was in His Heaven and all was right with the world again. President Eisenhower, who was not God and very soon began to look as if he wished he were not President, sent for Lucas and offered him a Cabinet post. Lucas, to everyone’s surprise, declined the offer. He had begun to feel that doors were closing on rooms in his life. He did not want to be in Washington when his daughters came home to Kansas City; and he was certain that eventually, if not soon, they would do that. He had to believe that they would or his whole life would collapse like a house of cards.
In the meantime his errant daughters had fallen in love with Italy and the Italians. By September Sally had decided that she was not going back to college and that brought Edith flying across the Atlantic with Miss Stafford; Lucas had to remain at home, caught up in the efforts to have General Eisenhower elected. There were arguments and tears between Edith and Sally, but the latter was adamant. Finally Edith flew back home, comforted by Miss Stafford, having extracted a promise from Nina and Margaret that they would never, never let Sally out of their sight.
Edith had been impressed by the villa Nina had leased on the Appia Antica. It was an old house that had belonged to a rich Fascist before the war, had been the headquarters of a German general during the war, and since the war had been the home of a successful black marketeer: it could not have picked a better set of owners for keeping it in the best of condition. The black marketeer had made his money and fled to Switzerland, where respectability could be bought at the border with a resident’s permit. He had recognized that de Gasperi’s Christian Democrats, frightened by the growing support for Togliatti’s Communists, were about to embark on a campaign against such corruption as his. Campaigns against corruption, in Italy, were almost as seasonal as the pasta harvest; but some were more serious than others. The black marketeer recognized that the government, pressed by the Americans who seemed to think that any country which accepted their aid had to be less corrupt than themselves, might even go so far as to throw him into the Regina di Coeli prison and forget all about him. Blaming the Americans for the pious influence, he set about finding an American tenant for his villa, extracted a ransom rent from her and left for Lugano and respectability.
‘It’s beautiful. Much better than that place you had in England.’ Edith had not meant to be tactless, but her thought processes of late had started to become muddled. ‘It must be full of history.’
‘The partisans shot seven Nazis out there in the garden,’ said Nina.
‘I wasn’t thinking of that sort of history.’ Edith was selective in her view of history; there were enough good things in the centuries past without paying attention to the bad. ‘Look at that furniture! I’d love to take some of it back with me. I wonder where your landlord got it?’
‘Probably stole it.’ Nina had no illusions about her landlord.
‘I love you all so much,’ said Edith and wept all the way back across the Atlantic, an emotional reaction that worried Pan American Airways, who thought there was something wrong with their service until assured by Miss Stafford that everything was all right.
The three Beaufort sisters settled down to enjoy Rome. Sally bought a car, an apple-green Maserati, and once more began to look and act like the old Sally, though there was a sheen of sophistication on the hoyden now. Nina had already become slightly Europeanized, helped by the fact that she had a better ear for languages than her sisters. Margaret was the one who found it hardest to adapt.
She was still troubled by guilt. At what had happened to Frank; at running away from her parents; but most of all, at having stolen Tim from Nina. He and Michael were still part of Nina’s life: a large silver-framed photo of the two of them stood on her dressing-table. She never mentioned them unless Margaret or Sally did, but she still had the private investigators on retainer in case they came across a clue to Tim’s and Michael’s whereabouts. And Margaret occasionally saw her stop in a crowd and look, with a mixed expression of pain and delight, at some passing man who would resemble Tim. The pain would be reflected in Margaret’s own face and she would pray that night that Nina would never learn of her and Tim’s deception of her.
In the spring of 1953 Sally announced that she was going to enter the Mille Miglia. That brought Lucas and Edith across the Atlantic faster than Sally would drive the 1000 kilometres around Italy.
‘You were supposed to be looking after her!’ Lucas thundered at his two elder daughters.
‘She’ll be killed!’ Edith would have preferred to have fainted instead of being as angry as she was; that might have brought her daughters to their senses, showed what they were doing to her. ‘I’ve seen how those Italians drive!’
‘Mother, they are not going to run her off the road. She’ll be safer in this race than just driving around Rome day to day. They’ll all be going in the same direction. That’s something for Italians.’
Margaret had been angry and upset when Sally had told her and Nina what she intended doing. Both of them had tried to talk Sally out of it, but she had been wilful and stubborn and in the end they had given in. They knew she was an excellent driver and they knew, too, that she was not reckless. She drove fast but always within the outer limits of safety.
‘I think one of you should go with her,’ said Edith.
‘Mother – how illogical can you get?’
‘Then it must be dangerous!’ Logic, in Edith’s view, had nothing to do with mother love.
Margaret looked at her father. ‘Daddy, will you reason with her? She’s getting more dithery every day.’
‘Don’t add insult to injury,’ said Lucas. ‘Come outside.’
They went out into the garden, walked round the marble-faced swimming pool. It had been a cold winter and the air still had a chill to it. A gardener was trimming some frost-damaged shrubs and a houseman was pulling in leaves from the cold-looking water of the pool. Lucas shivered and put his hands in the pockets of his tweed jacket.
‘Your mother hasn’t been the same since you all left home.’
‘Daddy, it had to happen sooner or later. She still has Prue.’
‘Prue isn’t enough. She’s not old enough yet. Your mother was looking forward to all of you growing up, being old enough to talk to, to take her into your confidence.’ He made his own confidence: ‘I was looking forward to it myself.’
‘Daddy,’ she said gently, ‘it’s always been hard to talk to you.’
He nodded, not looking at her. ‘I think it was all of you being girls – it would have been easier for me if I’d had sons. I tried with Tim and Frank – ’
‘You weren’t very successful.’ She still spoke gently, having no desire to hurt him further.
‘I was never close enough to them. I’m never comfortable with outsiders. I’m like that when I go to Washington. Perhaps it was my father’s fault. He and Mother, your grandmother, sheltered me too much.’
Oh Daddy, how can you be so blind? But it would be useless to point it out to him: he would forever go on trying to shelter his own children. It was too deeply engrained in his nature: they were Beauforts, a different species, and they had to be protected. Yet she knew, despite Magnus’s criticism of her lack of knowledge of what made Kansas City and by extension the rest of America tick, that she and her sisters were not so much different. Except, of course, in their wealth. The rich are different, someone (Fitzgerald? Hemingway?) had said. But whoever had said it had not been rich and really did not know.
The gardener went by, touched his cap, said Buongiorno, signore; and Lucas nodded acknowledgement and approval. Perhaps the Italians were not so bad after all: they had the proper respect for class. They knew nothing about democracy, of course, and that probably gave them an advantage. He had heard that President Eisenhower had been upset to learn that Washington could not be run like the Army. America could do with a dose of respect and discipline. It was a pleasure to see some proper respect here in this walled garden, even if he was not quite sure what the attitudes were outside it.
‘Don’t worry about us, Daddy. We’ll all come back some day, perhaps sooner than you expect. Why don’t you stay on with us for a while? Sally would love to know she had your moral support.’
‘She’ll get none from your mother, you know that. But all right. Can we stay here?’
‘It has twelve bedrooms and six bathrooms – why not?’
‘Can’t understand why they don’t build a bathroom to each bedroom. These Europeans seem afraid of plumbing.’
He knows no more than I do. ‘Have you been in Appalachia lately?’
He suddenly smiled and just as suddenly put his arm round her. She hid her surprise, not wanting to hurt him; but she had to thrust the stiffness from her body and relax within his embrace. She felt for his hand and held it.
‘You see?’ he said. ‘We can talk.’
‘Of course we can,’ she said and wanted to weep, knowing that it was too late.
Lucas and Edith stayed for a month. Sally, accompanied by a mechanic from the garage that serviced her car, went off to Brescia to practise for the Mille Miglia. Unlike most of the private starters in the annual race, she was not handicapped by lack of finance. The works teams drove round the 1000-kilometre route at least once, sometimes twice; most private drivers could not afford to do that, but Sally and her mechanic did it twice. She ran the car off the road once, but confided this only to Margaret and Nina.
‘I’m all right, so there’s no need to scare the pants off Mother. I’m having the dents hammered out and we’ll be there at the start tomorrow morning.’
Margaret, Nina and their parents had come up to Brescia the night before the race was to start. Sally was quartered in the town, but the rest of the Beauforts had had to stay in a hotel at the northern end of Lake Garda. Lucas, who never went to a sporting event of any kind in Kansas City, was not happy about travelling fifty miles to see the start and finish of a race, the greater part of which would be run well beyond the sight of him and everyone else in Brescia.
‘Ridiculous,’ he said. ‘At least at Indianapolis you can see them going round and round.’
‘I’d rather not see it,’ said Edith. ‘My heart would be in my mouth for the whole time – how long will it take you, darling?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Sally. ‘Thirteen or fourteen hours, if I’m lucky. Maybe longer. I don’t expect to win. All I want to do is finish.’
‘I’ve always believed winning is important,’ said Lucas, forgetting himself.
‘It is not!’ said Edith. ‘You just finish, darling, that’s all I ask.’
Lucas was not happy when he learned he would have to stay up half the night to see his daughter start off down the Viale Rebuffone; even in his youth he would not have stayed up half the night to see Babe Ruth go to bat or Man O’ War run, supposing those two sports figures had competed at night. He had stayed up all night to hear Julia Lee and Count Basie and others, but that had been different. He was also not happy when he saw the size of the crowd in the Piazza Vittoria and the Viale Rebuffone and heard the noise of revving cars, brass bands, firecrackers and what seemed to be a million shouting, gesticulating Italians. His third daughter must be a lunatic to want to belong to such an atmosphere.
Sally, using money, had managed to get her parents and sisters a vantage point on a balcony overlooking the start. The first cars went off at nine o’clock, tiny family cars taking their drivers on their one day of glory in the year; at half-minute intervals up to ten o’clock and then at minute intervals after that, the cars continued to roll down the ramp and start the long journey. The noise was deafening and Margaret knew that her mother and father would be suffering headaches long before Sally got away. She persuaded them to go and lie down and the owner of the apartment, a motherly woman older than either Edith or Lucas, pushed them into a bedroom, chattering at them in Italian and oblivious of the fact that neither of them understood a word she was saying. She closed the bedroom door on them and shooed Margaret and Nina out for a breath of fresh air.
They went out for a breath of gasoline-and-oil-filled air. They fought their way through the crowd, several times having their bottoms pinched by men whose interest was not solely in the cars thumping down off the starting ramp. They found Sally and her mechanic standing beside the apple-green Maserati, both of them in driving overalls. With them was another driver whose back was to Margaret as she and Nina were squeezed out of the crowd into the tiny space beside the car.
‘Here’s another American driver,’ said Sally. ‘So I shan’t feel so isolated. My sisters Nina and Meg. Philip Mann.’
The driver turned and smiled at the arrivals. ‘Hello,’ said Philip Gentleman.
‘Mr Mann?’ said Margaret. ‘No longer gentle?’
‘What is this?’ said Sally and Nina.
‘A joke,’ said Margaret, suddenly afraid of giving herself away. ‘Mr Mann and I once met at a party.’
‘You know Kansas City then, Mr Mann?’ said Nina.
‘I was there only once. Your sister and I met only fleetingly.’
Then he excused himself and went away to his own car, a red Ferrari. Margaret said, ‘Is he here just for the Mille Miglia?’
‘In Italy you mean? No, he lives in Milan. He represents some Chicago investment firm. He’s attractive, don’t you think?’
‘I was thinking that,’ said Nina. ‘What a pity he doesn’t live in Rome.’
‘Maybe it’s just as well,’ said Margaret, for reasons of her own.
‘What’s the joke about gentle?’ said Sally. ‘Oh, I get it. Gentle Mann.’
‘Something like that,’ said Margaret. ‘Let’s go and have a drink.’
The three of them had no difficulty in getting a table in a bar. Three beautiful American girls, one of them about to drive in the Mille Miglia, brought every man in the bar to his feet. They ordered Camparis and the bar owner brought them free, on the house, con molto fortuna. The bar throbbed with excitement and passion; a car thummed its engine out in the street and men moaned as if they were hearing the sound of love-making. There were no other women in the bar, but the Beaufort sisters did not feel and the men did not let them feel that they were breaking some rule of propriety. Sally, in her driver’s overalls, her helmet hanging by its strap from her arm like an outsize handbag, brought them all together in, as far as it was possible in an Italian bar, a sexless paean to the race.
Then it was time for Sally to leave. The entire bar stood and raised their glasses, blew her kisses, came to the door and cheered her. Flushed, laughing, eyes glistening, she went out with her sisters and across to her car, slipped into the driver’s seat beside the mechanic who was already waiting for her.
‘Oh God, aren’t they marvellous!’
She’s all right, thought Margaret. While she responds like that to men cheering her, she’s not going to look at any girls. She bent and kissed Sally. ‘Good luck, darling. Come back safely.’
‘Holy Jesus, I wish I were coming with you!’ Nina shouted above the noise of the crowd. ‘Tell Angelo to get out and I’ll take his place!’
‘Drunk on two Camparis,’ said Margaret, dragging her away.
‘No,’ Nina waltzed along the edge of the crowd. Margaret had not seen her so gay since … Since Tim had gone away. ‘Drunk on Italy!’
They went up to the apartment, went out on to the balcony with their parents, saw Sally bring the green Maserati up under the glare of lights on the starting ramp. Sally looked across towards them, but they knew she couldn’t see them. They saw a gloved hand wave, then the car rolled down the ramp, there was a screech of tyres as it accelerated, then it was heading down the Viale Rebuffone between the creek-banks of people. It disappeared into the dark morning and Margaret turned away to follow Nina and her parents back into the apartment.
Then she saw the red Ferrari already on the ramp, crouched there like an animal of prey. Then it slid down the ramp and went in a thunder of exhaust down the long road to Rome after Sally.
Sally was unplaced in her class in the Mille Miglia but she did finish. Philip Gentleman, or Mann, was not so fortunate. He went off the road coming down out of the Radicofani Pass north of Viterbo and was taken to hospital. Margaret read about his crash in the newspapers and wondered if she should send him a sympathy note; then decided against it and put him out of her mind. Sally sent him fruit and magazines, but did not go to see him in hospital.
Lucas and Edith, satisfied now that Sally was safe, satisfied also with their three daughters now they had spent a happy month with them, went home to Kansas City. As soon as her parents were on the plane for home Sally announced she was entering the Le Mans Twenty-Four-Hours race in France.
‘Like hell you are,’ said Nina and Margaret agreed with her. ‘We promised Mother we’d keep an eye on you and we’re going to.’
‘You can come to Le Mans and keep an eye on me for the whole twenty-four hours.’
‘No,’ said Margaret flatly. ‘I don’t know anything about motor racing, but I’m sure you’re not experienced enough for that one. Anyhow, I don’t think they’d accept you. Try something else, if you must keep racing.’
Sally argued, but her sisters were adamant. In the end she accepted their decision and did not seem to resent it. The argument, which went on for several days, never got heated; indeed, it seemed to deepen the relationship among the three girls. Without actually being able to put her finger on it, Margaret became aware of a growing interdependence among the three of them. Never stated openly, it was as if each of them was coming to realize that she needed the other two, that there was a link binding them which, back home, they had never noticed because they had taken it for granted.
So Sally went in for rallies, travelling all over Europe to compete in them. Margaret and Nina became part of the social life of Rome. The Italian film industry was now off its knees, having given up making films about partisans and bicycle thieves; it was standing up and looking around before heading off in the same direction as American and British films. It had discovered the box-office value of bosoms, and film posters now looked like advertisements for over-developed glands. Audiences flocked to see Silvano Mangano, Elena Drago Rossi and the new girl Gina Lollobrigida; and the young men stamped their feet and whisded just as the youths in Tulsa or Leeds or Melbourne did when Jane Russell or Marilyn Monroe swung their personalities across the screen. Rome had at last shoved the late war to the back of its mind and, aided by its growing film industry, started to become a social centre to rival Paris and London. It would not reach its peak till the Sixties, but the Beaufort sisters would always be remembered as among the foundation members.
The sisters did not go home for the summer; instead they promised their parents faithfully to go home for Christmas. One night in late summer they threw a party for two hundred guests at the villa. It was an extravaganza, the sort of social event that made good anti-capitalist propaganda in L’Unita, but was run as a spread in Life magazine as an example of how Europe was at last beginning to enjoy itself. The guest list ranged over expatriate Americans, impoverished Italian aristocrats, homosexual English aristocrats, a go-getting Hungarian aristocrat, assorted diplomats, film stars, racing drivers and such clergy from the Vatican as could persuade themselves that staying up late would not merit purgatory, excommunication or being featured in tomorrow’s L’Unita. The garden was hung with coloured lights, a board floor was put down for dancing, a toga-dressed band played in a scaled-down model of the Forum. Everyone except the clergy came in fancy dress. Some of the women’s dress was so fancy that one or two of the clergymen, years ahead of the anti-celibacy movement, wondered why sin was so bad.
Margaret thought it was all vulgar and in dreadful taste and loved every moment and spangle of it. She was dressed as Dolley Madison, Nina was Nell Gwynne and Sally was Annie Oakley, an unlikely trio of sisters. Half-way through the evening a slim Nero appeared beside Dolley Madison.
‘I can’t remember you being on the guest list,’ she said.
‘I came with a friend,’ said Philip Gentleman. ‘That’s her over there. The Venetian Doge who’s trying to get the monsignor to reverse his collar.’
‘That wouldn’t worry Michele. She’s a very versatile actress. No talent but versatile.’
Margaret looked across at the actress with feigned interest, while she wondered if she was glad to see him or not. ‘Are you down from Milan just for the night?’
‘I’m living in Rome now. We’re putting money into the Italian film business.’
‘Who’s we?’
‘My father and his partners.’
‘Do the locals know who they are?’
‘No. I don’t think they’d care even if they did know. In the film industry money is money, Mrs Minett. It is in any business, if you really cared to look into it. Your husband understood that. I was sorry to hear about his death.’
She changed the subject quickly. ‘I’m glad to see you recovered from your accident. Are you still racing?’
‘No. I’m afraid my father doesn’t like the idea of his only son taking too many risks.’
Another protected one. ‘Do I go on calling you Mr Mann?’
‘If you have to be formal, yes. But I’d prefer Philip.’
‘Do you want me to tell my sisters who you really are?’
‘That’s up to you.’ He seemed unworried, a Nero who would turn his back on Rome burning. ‘But it might be awkward for you.’
Then Sally, in fringed buckskin, swept up to them. ‘I thought it was you! Who are you supposed to be?’
Nero looked at his fiddle. ‘Jack Benny?’
‘Are you still racing?’
Margaret left them and moved on through the crowd. The Venetian Doge had forsaken the Vatican monsignor and was talking to Nina, the two of them sitting in a small rose bower.
‘Meg, this is Michele Mauriac.’
If there was a more beautiful woman at the party Margaret had not seen her. Michele Mauriac was a mulatto and the two races, black and white, had combined to give her the best of each. Her skin was slightly darker than café-au-lait, but she was very little darker than some of the Italians just back from summer at the seaside. She had taken off her Doge’s pointed cap and her black hair, cut very short, lay close to a perfectly shaped skull. Her dark, heavily-lidded eyes were coolly amused and there was the hint of a smile on the full, very red lips. Margaret was fascinated by such beauty.
‘French? In Italian films?’
‘I haven’t got as far as Paris yet. Rome was my first stop north from Ougadougou and I don’t seem to have got past it,’ Her English was good, though heavily accented.
Margaret had no idea where Ougadougou was, but she wasn’t going to show her ignorance. This French-African girl looked ready to be amused by the ignorance and weaknesses of everyone she might meet. She had the arrogance of someone who was not only intelligent but truly beautiful; there was a sophistication to her that hinted of decadence that she had survived without scars. Margaret felt suddenly provincial.
Nina said, ‘Michele was telling me she’d really like to go to Hollywood, but she’s afraid she would come up against the colour bar there.’
‘Not only there,’ said Margaret, thinking of Kansas City, wondering what effect this girl would have on the men at the country clubs. Probably give them hernias while they sorted out their lust from their prejudices. ‘Don’t you run into it here?’
‘Only outside Rome,’ said Michele. ‘And I’d run into it here, too, if I weren’t a woman. Being a woman helps, don’t you think?’
Nina and Margaret looked at each other. ‘Sometimes,’ said Margaret, replying for both of them. ‘Not always.’
A ravaged elderly woman, dressed as a houri, went by on the arm of a handsome young hussar. ‘Principessa,’ he was saying, ‘you must introduce me to – ’
‘How tragic.’ Nina looked after the odd couple.
‘More so than you think,’ said Michele, but there was no pity in her voice. ‘All she has is her title and all he has are his looks and no brains. It’s not enough these days.’
Margaret said, ‘Who looks after you when you’re not working?’
‘Philip does, don’t you, caro?’ She put out a long slim arm, lithe as a snake, and took Philip Gentleman’s hand as he and Sally came up. ‘He has a very generous nature. Like all Americans.’
‘Thank you,’ said Nina. ‘For all us Americans.’
Michele smiled at them all, then took Philip away. She did not snatch or pull him away; she just seemed to glide off and he went with her like her shadow. Margaret was surprised: she had not expected him to be so pliable and obedient. At least not to a woman, though perhaps to his father.
‘My God,’ said Sally, ‘what a beautiful couple they are!’
‘Who invited her?’
‘I did,’ said Nina. ‘I met her the other evening at the Orbanis’. She’s on everybody’s guest list, because she’s so unusual. The story is that her father was a French diplomat and her mother a chieftain’s daughter. Whether it’s true or not doesn’t matter. She looks as if it could be true.’
‘We must have them again,’ said Sally.
‘Who are you interested in?’ Margaret said.
‘Both of them,’ Sally looked at her innocently, Annie Oakley straight as a gun-barrel. ‘Aren’t you?’
Then an Arabian sheik grabbed her arm and swept her away to dance. Nina and Margaret moved on slowly through the gardens and their guests. ‘I think,’ said Nina, ‘I’d like a man to spend the night with.’
‘Take your pick. There must be more gigolos here tonight than you could shake a cheque at.’
‘I wouldn’t know how to begin. I haven’t had an affair since – ’ Nina smiled a hostess’ smile at Snow White who looked as if she was about to be slushed by an outsize Dwarf. ‘I wonder what Mother would say if she could hear us talking?’
She’s lost, Margaret thought. And all at once felt an aimlessness of her own. ‘Do you think we should go home?’ she said abruptly.
Nina did not attempt to confuse the villa where they lived with the house where they had been brought up: Kansas City would always be home. But she had to keep looking for Tim and Michael and she knew she would never find them in Kansas City. Her memories of Tim were still as fresh as if they were yesterday’s: the desire for a man to go to bed with tonight grew out of memories of the flesh that she had had so long ago. ‘It would be no better there. Do you want to go back?’
The party, like so many Roman parties, was winding down. Margaret did not know how parties progressed in the rest of Italy; or even in the rest of Rome. But these guests seemed to bring their own ennui, like a social disease that had infected everyone above a certain social status. The band was playing listlessly and a few dancers still lingered on the open-air floor like the survivors of a marathon contest. Margaret wondered if these people, even the diplomats from other countries, still suffered from war fatigue. Only some of the expatriate Americans and English were making a noise, but even their efforts had a forced heartiness about them. They had the embarrassing gaiety of Anglo-Saxons trying to be Mediterranean.
Do I want to go back? To what? ‘Not yet,’ she said at last. ‘I’ll give Europe another chance.’
‘The Europeans will be flattered. Shall I make an announcement?’
‘Not while I’m around. I’m going to bed.’
‘Alone?’
So they both went to bed, watched regretfully by an assorted pack of harlequins, hussars, condottieri, Grenadier Guards, sheiks, cowboys and a lone Tarzan, all of whom would have deserted their partners to spend the night with either or both of the beautiful American heiresses. The third heiress had disappeared.
She re-appeared next afternoon, still in her Annie Oakley outfit, as Nina and Margaret, covered in sun-tan oil and eye-shades, lay beside the pool. With her were Philip Gentleman and Michele Mauriac, no longer Nero and Doge.
‘We had the most marvellous night. We’ve only just woken up.’ Sally stripped off her buckskins and in her panties and brassiere dived into the pool.
Whom did she spend the night with? Margaret, disturbed, looked at Philip and Michele. They were both in slacks and silk shirts, sleek and beautiful. But Margaret hardly noticed Philip. Her eyes were drawn to Michele. She had been fascinated by the mulatto’s beauty last night, but the Doge’s cloak had hidden her body. Now Margaret found herself staring at the body that the shirt and slacks seemed to expose rather than clothe. She shivered, suddenly aware that she was falling in love with the beauty of this coffee-skinned, lazily-smiling girl. There was nothing sexual to it: it was as if she were moved by something so incredibly beautiful: a piece of statuary, a sunlit sky, anything that suddenly made the eye, the mind and the soul helpless before its perfection. At the same time she knew, only too fearfully, that Michele had her sexual appeal, though not for her.
Nina, behind her dark glasses, had also been studying the French-African girl. But now she spoke to Philip. ‘Would you do me and Meg a favour? Try and persuade Sally to give up motorracing. You’ve had a bad accident, you know the dangers of it.’
‘I never try to persuade a woman to do anything.’
‘Not even make love?’ said Margaret, one eye on Michele.
‘Not even that.’ Philip smiled. ‘I’ve never been a hunter.’
‘Is that true, Michele?’ said Nina.
‘If he is, he disguises it well. I’ve never noticed it.’
‘That’s because you’re a hunter yourself,’ said Philip.
He said it off-handedly: if it was meant to be an insult Michele ignored it. ‘You do what you can with what you have. All I have is this.’ She ran a graceful hand down the outline of her face and body. It was done without conceit: just as a hunter might gesture at a favourite gun, Margaret thought. ‘I don’t have the advantages that you have.’
She included them all in her smile: a good-natured smile but mocking, too. Then Sally lifted herself out of the pool, wiped water from herself with her hands. Her brief underwear clung to her wet, tanned body: in a different, more innocent way she was almost as beautiful as Michele. But there was a healthiness to her that made her looks almost commonplace beside those of the indolent, more sensual mulatto.
‘Ask Michele to persuade Sally,’ said Philip. ‘They are going north tomorrow to compete in some rally in France.’
‘You might have told us,’ said Margaret.
Sally had picked up a towel and was drying her long hair. Head down, avoiding Margaret’s gaze, she said, ‘I’ve had my entry in for some time. I just needed a partner.’
‘Do you drive?’ Nina asked Michele.
‘A little.’
‘Is that good enough?’
Sally came out from under her towel. ‘We’re not trying to win. It’s just the fun of it. Right, Michele?’
‘It fills in time.’
‘Between what?’ said Margaret.
‘Come inside, Michele.’
Sally stalked off into the villa, leaving her buckskins lying beside the pool like last night’s skin, an identity she no longer wanted. Without a word Michele got lazily to her feet and followed her. She was smiling her arrogantly mocking smile and that too, thought Margaret, is a weapon.
‘Don’t depend on Michele to do anything for you,’ said Philip.
‘I don’t like her,’ said Nina.
‘That wouldn’t worry her in the least. She’s not looking for love or affection. She’ll marry some rich guy and be entirely self-contained even then.’
‘Some rich guy like you?’ said Margaret.
‘You flatter me, Meg.’ But he did not explain whether he meant she was flattering his financial status or his chances with Michele.
‘May I take you two out to dinner tonight?’
‘What about Michele?’
‘I think she and Sally have something arranged.’
He took them to dinner at the Grand Hotel and Nina remarked upon his choice. ‘Why here? Why not the Excelsior or George’s or even Doney’s?’
‘I’m not trying to impress you. But this is one hotel in Rome where our American disease, café society, hasn’t been allowed to penetrate. They are very discreet here and anyone who wants his name or picture spread across the newspapers isn’t welcome. I like anonymity and I get it here. Even the Shah of Persia can be anonymous here if he wants it that way.’
‘I don’t mean to sound rude, Philip, but why do you want to be anonymous?’
He smiled. ‘Meaning you think I’m anonymous anyway? You’re right. I just thought you’d prefer it for yourselves. I thought Meg was very keen on anonymity.’
Touché, thought Margaret.
Later they drove home through the soft Italian night. Philip no longer had his Ferrari, had replaced it with a dark blue Fiat, a good anonymous car. They drove past the stone latticework of the Colosseum, past the long-dry Caracalla’s Baths, through Porta San Sebastiano that was no longer a gateway to anything. Whores stood by the roadside, the only living relics of history: Vespas were no substitutes for chariots, white-gloved policemen were pale stand-ins for centurions. The moon came up over the Tomb of Cecilia Metella and in the Catacombs of San Sebastian shadows moved among the bones, though no light reached there. The past brushed Margaret like a bat’s wing and she felt the humility of being totally anonymous.
‘Rome is a humbling experience,’ said Philip, and Margaret, with a start, wondered if she had spoken aloud. ‘Especially to empire builders.’
‘Perhaps we should bring Daddy back here again,’ said Nina. ‘What does your father do?’
‘He’s an empire builder, too.’ Sitting beside him in the front seat, Margaret saw the profile of Philip’s smile. ‘In a smaller way than your father.’
‘Has he ever been to Rome?’
‘No. He saw Naples, on his way to America. He was not impressed.’
‘So your name isn’t really Mann?’ said Nina shrewdly.
‘It’s good enough.’ He did not sound awkward or uncomfortable, Perhaps after all he is not ashamed of his father, Margaret thought. ‘America is full of families who have changed their name. Some day there may be a Beaufort who will wish they had another name.’
Neither of the sisters said anything. He turned his head, looked first at Margaret, then at Nina in the back seat. But he, too, said nothing. He drove the car in at the gates of the villa. There was no security guard, something that had worried Lucas when he had been here. But kidnappers and bandits were only to be feared in Sicily and Sardinia; Rome was still safe, kidnapping on the mainland still lay in the future. And if a security guard were needed, Margaret thought now, what better one than the son of a Mafia don?
He kissed them both goodnight, in a most gentlemanly way. ‘I’m going to France tomorrow.’
‘With Sally and Michele?’
‘No, I’m flying to Paris.’
‘I wonder if Sally is home yet?’
‘She’s probably spending the night with Michele. I told you, Michele is versatile. Goodnight.’
‘Does he mean what I think he meant?’ Nina watched the car go down the long drive.
‘Sally can look after herself,’ said Margaret, lying bravely, feeling sick.
Sally, Michele and Philip left next morning for France. Margaret, Nina and the children and the nurse went down to Amalfi for a month, each sister driving down in her own car. Villas were being renovated and re-decorated and, with the season coming to an end, it was not difficult to rent a place. Other Americans were living in nearby villas; a small colony of writers, most of whom seemed to be homosexual, lived just round the coast. That section of the coast had become fashionable and Nina seemed to take pride in the fact that she and Margaret were in the front line of the foreign invasion.
‘It will all be overrun in a couple of years. The Germans are being allowed to spend money outside Germany now – they’ll be down here soon. And when the English have some money to spend … I can remember once in Hamburg – the day I met Tim – ’ there was just a faint pause – ‘I remember looking at a queue of people and feeling sorry for them, wondering if they had any future at all. And now – ’
‘I don’t think the Germans would be too welcome here.’
‘They’ll be welcome if they have money to spend.’
She sounds just like Philip. ‘Nin, are you trying to be a Scott Fitzgerald heroine?’
They were sitting out on the terrace of the villa they had rented, shaded from the noon sun by a grape arbour. The sea glittered like a field of diamonds below them; far out it faded into a mountain range of white-topped clouds. A ferry boat had come round the point from Salerno, heading for Capri, another hedonist retreat.
Nina did not turn her head, just continued to stare out through her dark glasses at the smudged horizon. ‘What makes you say that?’
‘You mentioned it in one of your letters. We’re just wasting time here.’ She had taken off her own dark glasses, but now she put them back on. ‘You’ll never bump into Tim down here.’
‘Jesus, you can be cruel!’
‘If I am, it’s with the best of intentions. You know the sort of reputation we’re getting? Easy touches for all the bums who want a free party or a free meal.’
‘Who told you that?’
‘I don’t need to be told. I can see it. So could you, if you wanted to. We hadn’t been here two days before the first of those writers came up and introduced themselves – they knew all about us. They’ve been in our hair ever since, bringing their friends – ’
‘They’re interesting. A damn sight better than most of those we’ve been entertaining in Rome.’
‘Rome was no criterion. Nin, can’t you see what a lazy, decadent lot they are? Oh, I know one or two of them may have some talent. But the majority of them – ’
‘They keep us entertained, don’t they? How much wit did you ever hear back home to compare with what we hear every night? They’re so much livelier – ’
‘I wasn’t thinking specifically of Kansas City.’
‘Where, then?’
‘I don’t know. Just somewhere where you might, might, hear something about Tim and Michael.’
She knew that was cruel and she intended it to be. She got up and went along to the far end of the terrace where Martha and Emma were playing under the supervision of the nurse. Sometimes she felt guilty about the children. She loved them, but too often, as now, she felt she retreated to them as a defence rather than approached them out of sheer love and the desire to be with them. They had become the nurse’s responsibility, not her own.
‘Let’s take them in and feed them, Ruth. We’ll take them for a drive this afternoon.’
Ruth was a thin pleasant girl from a farm in Nebraska; some day she would finish up back on a farm with children of her own. On the surface she did not appear to have a critical thought in her head, but Margaret sometimes wondered what she thought of this life the Beaufort sisters lived.
‘They’re both very tired, Mrs Minett. They didn’t sleep very well last night.’ She picked up Emma, her face hidden behind the child. ‘The noise of the party – ’
‘Do you think we should take them back to Rome?’
‘It’s not for me to suggest it, Mrs Minett – ’ Last night she had seen two of the men guests kissing each other, something that did not happen on the farms around Chappell, Nebraska.
‘We’ll do it. Pack the things and we’ll leave right after lunch.’
From the other end of the terrace Nina watched her sister and the children. There were times when she envied Margaret her good fortune; today she hated her for that cruel remark about Tim and Michael. Margaret could not guess at the emptiness that was still there within her, that was not helped when she saw Martha and Emma or heard their pealing laughter. Sometimes she wanted to sweep them up in her arms, smother them with the love that she could not expend on her own missing child.
She reacted quietly but coldly when Margaret told her she was returning to Rome. ‘If that’s the way you feel – ’
‘I think it’s better. I might enjoy all this more with you if it were not for the children – ’ Margaret had softened her attitude; she was ashamed of her moment of cruelty.
‘Are you going back home?’
‘I don’t know. I was going home at Christmas anyway. I’ll think about it when I get back to Rome. You’ll stay on for the month here?’
‘Yes.’ Coolly. ‘Perhaps even longer.’
Margaret drove back to Rome, arriving after dark. The children were put to bed as soon as they were bathed and fed. Margaret herself had a bath, put on a robe and made herself comfortable in bed with the air-mailed copies of the New York Times and the Kansas City Star which arrived each week. Then the phone rang.
‘Meg,’ said Sally, voice strained and crackling from a bad connection, ‘I’m not coming back to Rome.’
‘Where are you?’
‘Antibes.’
‘I thought you were supposed to be in a rally around Rheims or somewhere. How did you do?’
‘That was last week. We won the women drivers’ section.’
‘Congratulations. What’s the rally at Antibes?’
‘Meg, I don’t think you’ve got the drift of what I’m trying to tell you. I’m not coming back to Rome. At all. Michele and I are taking a place here in Antibes for the winter. Then we’re going up to Paris in the spring. Michele thinks it’s time she tried her luck in French films.’
‘And what are you going to do? Try your luck in French films, too?’
‘I’ll keep driving. I’m going to enter the Monte Carlo rally next January.’
‘With Michele as your co-driver?’
‘Maybe.’
‘Sally – ’ It was as if she were stumbling with a new language. ‘Sally, is Michele taking Cindy’s place?’
There was silence at the other end of the line, but on the line itself there were cracklings, whistling, something that even sounded like a truck changing gears. Mountains, valleys, rivers, a border separated them on the line: but something else also separated them. At last Sally said, ‘I’m afraid so, Meg. We’re in love.’
‘Oh Sal – ’ She cried aloud in anguish. ‘God Almighty, can’t you see she couldn’t be in love with anyone but herself?’
The line went dead. Margaret sat with the phone still held to her ear. Then a man’s nasal voice said, ‘Fini, madame?’
‘I think so.’ Margaret looked at the phone. ‘Si. Qui.’
She lay back against the headboard, staring at the newspapers scattered in a debris of headlines: Ike Veto … Train Wreck … Earthquake … The world was falling apart here in her bed. Then she sat up, reached for the small address book on the side table. She flipped through it, thinking, even as she did so, that she had never believed she would be calling on him for help. Then she dialled a number.
‘Philip? I’ve just been talking to Sally. We – we were cut off. Do you know where she and Michele are staying in Antibes?’
She could sense his hesitation. ‘Yes. I don’t think you can do much about it, Meg.’
‘I can try.’
‘I think I better come and see you.’
‘Not tonight.’ She wanted time to think. ‘Tomorrow morning?’
‘I’ll be out at Cinecittà all morning. May I come for lunch?’
She hung up, debated whether she should call Nina, decided against it. Perhaps Sally would come to her senses; there was no need to broadcast the disaster just yet. She swept the newspapers off the bed: a headline slid out of sight: Dow Jones Climbs … There was hope for some, even if they were only the moneymakers. She put out the light and slipped into a dream that gave her no hope at all. Tim and Michele, hand in hand, smiled their mocking smiles as they retreated into the distance …
Philip came for lunch, which they had out on the terrace overlooking the pool. The weather had cooled, clouds coming in over the Alban Hills. She wore a cashmere twin set, he a tweed jacket and a silk club tie with a button-down shirt. He thought she looked Junior League and she thought he looked Ivy League, but neither made any comment. They did not look like a pair who should be discussing what to do about a couple of lesbians.
‘You’ll have to let it run its course,’ he said over the vitello tonnato. ‘Sally, as you know, is a pretty stubborn girl.’
‘What about Michele? Is she stubborn, too? Or can she be bought?’
‘Oh, she can be bought, all right. Everyone has their price, my father says.’
She did not want his father brought into the conversation. ‘I should think Michele would think of nothing else but her price. I’m just surprised you let her attach herself to you.’
He smiled. ‘Don’t be hypocritical, Meg. I saw you looking at her that Sunday we were here. She’s the most gorgeous thing either of us has ever seen. She knew she wasn’t going to be anything permanent with me – I told her that the first night we met. For one thing, you know what my father thinks about blacks. Even half-niggers.’
‘Does she know you call her that?’
‘I don’t call her that at all. I’m quoting what my father would call her if ever he met her. What will your father call her if ever he meets her?’
‘He won’t, I’ll see to that. But my father is not anti-Negro. He would be prejudiced against Michele for other reasons.’
He waited till the young houseman took away their plates and came back with the fruit and cheese. ‘I like the white gloves on your servants. Sometimes I wish I could settle here, have a place and a staff like this, be a Roman gentleman.’
‘Why don’t you? You can’t be short of money.’
‘My father would cut me off without a cent if I mentioned it. I don’t have any money of my own. It’s all in the family.’
A long time later she would realize that he had meant The Family: but she was ignorant then of Mafia society. ‘Ours is family money, too. But we’re allowed a certain amount for ourselves.’
‘I should get your father to talk to mine.’
She ignored that, instead said, ‘I think I’ll go to Antibes anyway. Just for a couple of days.’
‘Leave them be, Meg.’
‘She’s my sister – I have to do something! That Michele is – she’s evil. God knows what she’ll do to Sally.’
‘She’ll grow tired of her eventually, look around for another buyer. Michele isn’t a natural lesbian. She’s almost asexual, if you like.’
‘Like hell she is.’
He shrugged. ‘I’ve been to bed with her. You haven’t. It’s like making love to a machine. She doesn’t care whether you’re male or female. All you have to do is meet the price.’
‘Oh God – ’ All at once she broke down, began to weep.
He gave her a handkerchief, sat and watched till she had recovered and dried her eyes. ‘Don’t go to Antibes. I’ll give you their phone number and you can call them. Every day, if you like. But don’t go to see them. It would only be ugly and you might lose Sally forever.’
‘How do you know so much about women? Did they teach you that at the London School of Economics?’
‘I just try to be the opposite of my father. He’s an old-style Sicilian, the sort who never made any attempt to understand a woman. My mother told me that on her death-bed.’
‘You should talk to Nina. She says she’s never felt so womanly since she’s been in Italy.’
‘That’s Italy, not Sicily. Didn’t any of you feel – womanly in Kansas City?’
I did, with Tim. And I suppose Nina did, too, if she were truthful. ‘Occasionally.’
That night she called Sally in Antibes. She made an effort to sound friendly, even helpful. ‘Do you want me to send your things over to you?’
‘I’ll send you a list. And Meg – thanks for calling.’
‘It was a bad line last night.’
‘Meg – have you told Nina yet? No? Well, shall I write her or will you explain?’
‘Sally – ’ She tried not to sound like a mother; or even like an older sister, one who thought she knew too much. She was skating on virgin ice: which was not a good metaphor in the circumstances. ‘Sal, let’s keep it between us for the time being.’
‘Meg, I’m not ashamed of what I’m – ’
‘Don’t let’s argue again – please. I’m not making any moral judgement. All I’m trying to do is not have Mother and Daddy find out. You may not be ashamed of what you’re doing, but it would wreck them both. You know what they’re like. You don’t want that, do you, if it can be avoided?’
‘No, of course not – ’
‘All right, then. I’ll just tell Nina you’ve decided to set up house in Antibes because you want to start preparing for – what was it? The Monte Carlo rally? Let her find out in her own time what’s going on. I don’t for a moment think she would tell Mother and Daddy if she knew, but the less lines we have to Kansas City the better. All I ask, Sally, is – please be discreet.’
Margaret thought she heard what could have been a sob. Then Sally said in a strained voice, ‘I do love you, Meg. All of you. But I can’t help this …’
‘Goodnight, darling. Give – ’ But she could not send any love to Michele. ‘Remember me to Michele.’
Nina came back from Amalfi at the end of the month with two American writers in tow, both homosexual. They kissed Margaret as if they were long-lost maiden aunts, admired the shirt she was wearing, flicked fingers at the children and went off to one of the guest rooms for a nap. One of them was short and fat and the other tall and thin and they reminded Margaret of an illustration she had seen.
‘They look like Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, less a few hormones. Do they attack windmills in their writing?’
‘I don’t know. I’ve never read anything they’ve written. Have you heard from Sally?’
‘She’s staying on in France, at Antibes. She and Michele are going to drive in the Monte Carlo rally at the end of January.’
‘With Michele, eh?’ Nina seemed unconcerned, even uninterested.
‘I’m going home, Nin. I don’t think Rome suits the children. You don’t mind, do you? I mean my going home?’
A faint shadow crossed Nina’s face, but it was gone in the flicker of an eyelid. ‘Of course not. You have to think of the children. I may come home for Christmas.’
‘Do come, please. For Mother’s sake. I spoke to Daddy a couple of nights ago. He says she isn’t as well as she used to be.’
‘I’ll come, then.’ The shadow crossed her face again, lingering this time. ‘Have we been cruel to them, Meg?’
‘I think so,’ said Margaret after a moment.
She left for home at the end of the week. Philip, Nina and the two writers came to the airport to see her, the nurse and the children safely aboard the plane. The writers were as compulsively witty as they had been for the past five days and Margaret noticed that even Nina seemed tired of them. Impulsively she wanted to ask Nina to walk on to the plane with her, come home at once; but she held back. Nina and Sally had to go their own ways, she could not take on the responsibility of both of them.
‘I have to go over to France regularly on business,’ Philip said. ‘I’ll drop in on Sally if I’m down her way.’
She kissed him goodbye. Then the two writers fluttered around her, pecking at her, each giving a witticism as a farewell present, one trying to out-do the other. Finally she had a moment alone with Nina.
‘I’m fed up with them,’ said Nina, nodding towards the writers clucking like peahens above the children. ‘I heard Philip say he was going to France and would drop in on Sally. I think I’ll go with him.’
Should she warn her or not? Then again she took the line of least resistance, least interference. ‘Try and bring Sally home for Christmas with you. Without Michele, if possible.’
‘You mean because Michele is black?’
Margaret nodded, glad of any excuse. ‘You never know how Daddy will react.’
‘How would it be if I brought Michele and Tony and Freddie?’ She nodded at the two writers who, limp-wristed, were doing a soft-shoe shuffle that was entertaining the children, the porters, the airport police and the rest of the passengers about to board the aircraft.
‘Daddy would generate his own tornado. Goodbye, Nin. Take care. And keep looking.’
Nina knew what she meant. ‘I never stop. Not even when you think I’m wasting my time.’
The plane took off and Rome fell away like a cracked ceramic plaque. Goodbye Italy, Margaret thought. It had been an experience but she had had enough of it. Unexpectedly, she found she was looking forward to Kansas City, where the stones were younger by centuries, the philosophies simpler, the hopes less jaded. She had tossed coins in the fountains of Rome, but none of her wishes had been granted. There were more fountains in Kansas City than in Rome: she would try her luck with them. Though, unlike Nina, she was not exactly sure what she was wishing for.
The welcome home was so warm that Margaret wondered why she had gone away. Edith was thinner and paler, but she said nothing about not feeling well and seemed to take on vigour and colour as she fussed over her granddaughters. Martha and Emma had forgotten her, but Edith was a grandmother not to be denied and before they reached the estate the children had once more taken to her. Lucas, for his part, just sat back in the car and beamed as if he had been guaranteed personally that henceforth everything would be right in his world. The return of his children and grandchildren had begun, the Dow Jones index would do nothing but continue to rise, the Republicans would be granted a perpetual lease on the White House.
Margaret moved back into the second house in the park, felt at home at once, almost as if she had never been away. But there was a difference: the ghost of Frank had, somehow, been exorcized. She no longer felt any guilt about him.
Prue came across to stay with her that first night home. ‘What books are you reading now?’
‘Sexual Behaviour in the Human Female.’ Prue had already been divested of her braces and had a smile that enthralled Margaret. She’s going to be a knock-out, make the rest of us look plain and homely. ‘Golly, Meg, we Beauforts live a simple life, don’t we?’
Margaret smiled. ‘Not so simple. Your turn will come. How has Mother been?’
Prue made a face, shook her head. ‘Rather poorly, as Jane Austen would say. You see? I do read other books besides sex ones. I think she’s just been pining for you and Nina and Sally. Which is very crappy for my ego.’
‘You still reading Henry Miller? Watch your language in front of my kids, kiddo. Oh Prue!’ She grabbed her, held her tight. ‘I’m so glad to be home!’
Two night later she went to dinner with Magnus McKea at Henri’s. ‘We’re surviving,’ said Magnus. ‘But only just. The country’s going backwards under Ike.’
‘How can you say that, a true-blue Republican? I thought everything was just fine.’
‘There’s no spirit of adventure left. Everyone’s settling for security. He’s moved the White House to the Burning Tree Country Club. That’s the national aim now, lower your golf handicap. I’m beginning to wish I’d voted for Adlai Stevenson.’
‘Does Daddy know?’
‘Even he’s disappointed in Ike. He has hopes for Nixon.’
‘I don’t know anything about him except that he talked about his dog on television. I thought only the English voted for pets.’
‘Where have you been the past year? For a girl who was married to a professor of political history, you sound dumb.’
‘I just turned off, Magnus. I suppose it was a way of getting Frank off my conscience. It worked.’
‘He’s all past history now?’
She nodded, then reached across the table for his hand. ‘You didn’t keep in touch, you know. Just those quarterly statements and a scrawled Hope you are well on the bottom of them. Is that how you keep in touch with your ladies in St Louis and Tulsa and Omaha?’
‘I don’t even send them statements.’
‘Do you still live in that big house of your father’s?’
‘No, I sold it. To a heart surgeon whose fees guarantee him a clientele for life – all his patients keep having relapses when they see his bill. No, I’m now living in The Chestnuts, preparing for retirement with the blue-rinsed old ladies and the whisky-soaked old codgers.’
‘You’re far too young for there!’ The Chestnuts was the most exclusive block of apartments in town, populated mainly by elderly retired people who had found their own mansions too empty and lonely as their families had grown up and moved out.
‘I don’t spend all my time cooped up in my apartment. There’s still St Louis and Tulsa and Omaha.’
‘Is it a nice apartment?’
‘Do you want to see it?’
‘I thought you’d never ask.’
An hour later they were in bed, as naturally as if they had done it many times before. He was an experienced lover: St Louis, Tulsa and Omaha could have nothing to complain about. She felt no inhibition: she had gone too long without sex. Observe, Dr Kinsey: no kinkiness, just hunger. The sexual behaviour of the human female who, if she had lost love, had not lost the desire for love-making. She surprised him with her passion, as she had surprised Tim and Frank; but he was too experienced to show it. But St Louis, Tulsa and Omaha would have to raise their standards from now on.
When they had at last exhausted themselves, he got up, went into the bathroom, had a quick shower, came back, put on a robe and sat in a chair facing her.
‘Do you always have a shower right after it?’ she said.
‘You scratched hell out of me. I wanted to put some mercurochrome on the marks.’
‘I’ll wear gloves next time.’
‘There’s not going to be a next time. You know that as well as I do.’
She agreed with him. There was always a cold clear mind after making love without love: she had discovered that with Frank. But she was grateful to Magnus for the release, no matter how temporary, that he had given her. ‘I shouldn’t want it to stop us being friends. And that’s probably what would happen if we went on going to bed. Are you friends with those women in those other places?’
‘Not the way you and I have been. I think you’d better look around for another husband. Someone you really love this time.’
‘It’s not easy. Finding someone you love, I mean.’ I know whom I really love, but I can’t go looking for him.
When she was dressed and leaving she said, ‘You said once that you would tell me why you never married. Are you still going to keep it a secret?’
He smiled, kissed her. ‘I have several secrets. Tonight is another one.’
‘You’re a good lawyer. You’re also a terrific lover.’
‘Sh-h-h. I’d be thrown out of The Chestnuts if that got around.’
‘You’re kidding. The ladies here would never let you get to St Louis or Tulsa or Omaha again.’
She did not go looking for someone to fall in love with. She settled back into the routine she had left. She rejoined the Society of Fellows of the Nelson Gallery. She was co-opted as a late member of the social committee of the American Royal, the annual saddle horse and livestock show; she had not ridden a horse in three years and all breeds of cattle were the same to her, but she was a Beaufort and that made her prime livestock. She accepted an invitation to join the board of the Kansas City Philharmonic, replacing Edith who confessed she no longer had the energy to fulfil all her engagements.
‘There’s nothing seriously wrong with me, darling. I think I’ve just been worn out by worry.’ She managed not to sound as if she were complaining.
‘I’m sorry about all that, Mother.’ She tried to joke: ‘You shouldn’t have brought us up with so much respect for perspective. That’s why we all rushed off – to get perspective.’
‘I’m beginning to think your father is right. Security is better than perspective.’
Perhaps you’re right, Margaret thought. And felt the first beginnings of change in herself.
Nina and Sally, as promised, came home for Christmas. It was a warm wonderful two weeks for all the family, only spoiled by the knowledge that Nina and Sally would be returning to Europe. But Lucas and Edith had given up trying to persuade their daughters; it seemed that they now settled for whatever the girls were prepared to give them. But Margaret, the new stay-at-home, saw the pain that sometimes marked her father’s face as he sat gazing at Nina and Sally.
Margaret waited till after Christmas itself had gone before she asked Sally about Michele. ‘How is it working out with her?’
‘Great. No, really, Meg – ’ As she saw the still-questioning look on Margaret’s face. Then, after a moment, she shrugged. ‘I don’t know, that’s the truth. Sometimes she’s marvellous. Other times …’
‘Have you seen Philip?’
‘He’s dropped in a couple of times. He’s nice.’
‘Don’t get involved with him,’ she said carefully. ‘He has a father something like ours. He runs Philip’s life.’
‘He told you that? Well, don’t worry. I’m still hoping things will work out permanently with Michele. She’s not driving with me, though, in the Monte Carlo rally. She has a part in a film they’re shooting in Paris. Do Mother and Daddy know about her? I mean, you haven’t told …?’
‘They don’t know. Does Nina?’
‘I think she suspects, but I’m not sure. She came up to Antibes once with Philip, but she didn’t stay with us. They stayed the night in Nice.’
‘You mean she stayed with Philip?’
‘I don’t know. Don’t worry so much, Meg. You’re developing into a real mother hen. If Nina wants to sleep with Philip, that’s her business. No matter what his father’s like. What does his father do?’
‘I don’t know, exactly. He’s something in investments.’
‘Then Daddy would probably know something about him.’
Margaret felt on the verge of panic, but she still sounded cool and casual. ‘I don’t think he wants to know about our European friends. He has a mental block about Europe. Sal – ’ She looked with tender love at her sister. Sally, the most resourceful of them all, the most adventurous, was really the most vulnerable of them. ‘If anything happens with Michele, call me at once. You’ll need someone to talk to.’
Sally blinked back tears. ‘You’ll be the first I’ll call on.’
She and Nina went back to Europe the first week in January. At the end of January she drove in the Monte Carlo rally with an English girl she had met, crashed her car in the mountain section above Grasse but was unhurt, though the car was a write-off. She told all this by letters to Margaret, who told none of it to her parents, just saying that Sally had been unplaced in the rally and was thinking of buying a new car.
Nina wrote from Rome that she had grown tired of that city, that Meg had been right about the hangers-on, that she was now moving to London, where she had leased an apartment in Eaton Square.
I’ll be there for Wimbledon, if you feel like coming over. Who knows, I may be sitting in the stands and catch a glimpse of Tim on the other side of the Centre Court? He always loved Wimbledon, though we never went there together. Michael will be seven, going on eight, old enough to enjoy the game with his father. Or his mother …
Time went by, like a careless, endless river, like the Missouri itself. The country settled into an era that, even only a decade later, people would remember with nostalgia and a certain disbelief, as if they were not quite sure that everything had been as it seemed. Youth had not yet discovered it was a separate species; even the market survey scientists had not yet stumbled on that fact. The kids of America still listened to the same music as their parents; mothers and daughters alike wished they could go to Rome and toss coins in the fountains and they swooned together as Eddie Fisher crooned to them about his papa. Fathers and sons went to boo Yogi Berra or Willie Mays and, if the son was old enough, maybe shared a cigarette but never a joint. If there were any demonstrations they never got any coverage in the media, a word that, like youth, had not yet been discovered; the loudest shouts still came from high school cheer-leaders, who all looked alike, as if they had been shipped out by Sears Roebuck. Sloppy joes were the nearest thing to rebellion in fashion; boys were short on hair and long on cleanliness; girls wore brassieres that turned their breasts skywards like searchlights. Ike was still sinking two-putts from the edge of the green and everything was right with the Burning Tree Country Club if not with the world at large.
True to Jack Minett’s prediction, Joe McCarthy was shoved overboard: not by his fellow politicians but by the Army and a Boston lawyer. Politicians are always reluctant to kill off one of their own, as they would once again prove in another twenty years in the future; they will wrap up the body if only someone else will first pull the trigger. The Army scored one of its greatest and most honourable successes when it took on Senator McCarthy. but its victory would never be marked by a battle star on any of its flags. In Vietnam (‘Where the hell’s that, for crissake?’) the French were defeated at Dien-Bien-Phu; and Ike, coming in from the greens, substituting one game metaphor for another, warned about the domino effect. But soon a treaty was signed in Vietnam and Washington said it was satisfied and Ike went back to the golf course. There was still the Cold War with the Russians to worry about and that was enough worry for anyone. There was no dividend in getting mixed up with a lot of Asians you couldn’t sell anything to.
In September 1955 President Eisenhower had a heart attack while vacationing in Denver. Everything plunged: Republican hopes for next year’s election, the stock market, the sale of golf clubs. ‘I hope he retires,’ said Lucas. ‘I’ve never been so disappointed in a man. He’s no better than Ulysses S. Grant, except he’s sober. It only goes to prove that running an army is no training for running a country.’
‘I thought you’d said General Franco was doing a great job in Spain?’ said Margaret. ‘The only stable country in Europe, wasn’t that what you said?’
‘How did you hear that? The only time I’ve mentioned Franco was last week over lunch at the River Club. Did you tell her, Magnus?’
‘Yes,’ said Magnus. ‘Was it supposed to be confidential?’
‘Why did you mention it to Meg?’
Margaret answered. ‘I asked him if he knew anything about Spain. Nina is leaving London and going down to a place called Torremolinos to live.’
Lucas shook his head in quiet despair. ‘Why doesn’t she come home? Always running from place to place … Does your mother know?’
‘I haven’t told her yet. I only got Nina’s letter yesterday.’
‘Well, keep it to yourself for a few days. Till we find out what’s wrong with Mother.’
Edith had had a mild collapse two days before and had been put to bed to rest. She insisted that it was only exhaustion from trying to do too much, but the doctors had insisted on her submitting to some tests. Margaret, her father and Magnus were now waiting for one of the doctors, Dr Kenning, to come out to the house with the results of the tests.
‘If it is just exhaustion, I think you should take Mother away on a long vacation. Take her on a cruise and then perhaps go across and join Nina at Torremolinos. Forget work and give yourself up to Mother for a whole year. Don’t you agree, Magnus?’
‘It would be a good idea, Lucas.’
‘I’ll think about it. You’re probably right. It’ll take some adjustment – a whole year doing nothing.’
‘Not a whole year doing nothing. A whole year looking after Mother. Something you haven’t done all the years you’ve been married to her.’
‘You know how to poison your arrows, don’t you?’ But he did not seem to mind her accusation; and once again she remarked the lessening of spirit in him. He was no longer the Lucas Beaufort who was always right. ‘I’ll try. I promise I’ll try.’
Dr Kenning arrived at six o’clock. He was a tall thin man with a booming voice not designed for imparting bad news; but he did his best to keep it down to a whispered shout. ‘It’s not good, I’m afraid. In fact it’s the worst. She has leukemia. Acute.’
Lucas remained silent and after a moment Margaret said, ‘What can be done for her?’
‘Nothing, I’m afraid. It’s too late. I don’t want to sound facetious, but she has a galloping case of it. The leucocytes, the white blood cells, are multiplying while we look at her.’
‘How long?’ Lucas said at last.
‘A month. Two at the outside.’
‘Should she be told?’
‘That’s up to you. I think she already knows it’s more than just exhaustion, as she’s been telling you.’
‘I’ll tell her.’ Lucas raised himself slowly out of his chair; he looked gaunt and suddenly aged. ‘Leave me alone with her for half an hour, Meg.’
‘I’ll phone Nina and Sally to come home at once.’
Lucas just nodded and went out of the room, walking stiff-legged as if willing his legs not to collapse beneath him. Margaret called Nina and Sally, only to find that neither phone answered; she felt the unreasonable annoyance the distraught feel, as if everyone should be on call at all times for bad news. She hung up and went back into her father’s study where Magnus sat in one of the big leather chairs weeping quietly.
‘Magnus – ’ She went down on her knees in front of him. ‘What’s the matter?’
He wiped his eyes with a handkerchief, blew his nose, leant his head back against the chair and drew a deep sigh. He stared at the opposite wall, composing himself, then he looked down at her still kneeling in front of him.
‘That’s the secret. I’ve been in love with your mother.’
She at once hated herself for the stupid remark:
‘But she’s so much older than you!’
‘Nine years, that’s all. There’s much more difference between you and me and we might have married in other circumstances.’
‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that. How long has it been?’
‘Years. I was sixteen when I first fell in love with her. She was already married and she’d already had you and Nina. But it made no difference.’
‘Does she know?’
‘No. I’ve never given so much as a hint. And you must never mention it to anyone, promise? You owe me that.’
‘Whether I owed it to you or not, Magnus, I’d never tell anyone.’ She got to her feet, leaned down and kissed his cheek. ‘How did you stand it all these years? Why didn’t you move away?’
‘I thought of that while I was in Germany. But in the end I knew I had to be near her. So I settled for being her friend and legal adviser.’
Could I have settled for something like that if Tim had not gone away? But she knew that she could not have. ‘Do you want to come up with me to see her?’
He shook his head. ‘I’ll go home. I’ll see her tomorrow.’
He seemed to move as stiffly and slowly as her father when he got up to leave. Margaret went with him to the door, then went up to Prue’s room. Prue, her radio playing softly, was preparing work for tomorrow’s classes at Barstow.
‘It’s a real drag, all this study. I’ve been reading about a school in England where they let the kids do what they like – ’ Then, sharp-eyed as ever, she stopped. ‘What’s the matter, Meg?’
‘It’s Mother.’ She sat down on the bed, determined to remain dry-eyed. She realized even then that she was going to have to take her mother’s place, not only with Prue but with Nina and Sally. She turned down the radio: Lena Horne faded away into silence. ‘She has leukemia. The doctors say she has only a couple of months to live at the most.’
Prue blinked and for several moments remained expressionless, as if she were thinking about what she had been told. Then she slowly bent forward, laid her head in Margaret’s lap and began to cry silently but with her shoulders shuddering as if she were in some dreadful fever. Later Margaret would recall that it was not a child’s weeping but a terrible adult grief. She held Prue to her, saying nothing, her mind utterly empty of words.
At last she lifted Prue, wiped her eyes and cheeks with the edge of a bed-sheet. ‘Go and wash your face. Then we’ll go in and see Mother.’
They went along the hall and into their parents’ huge bedroom. Edith sat propped up in the big four-poster bed and Lucas sat in a chair beside it. Margaret and Prue kissed their mother without saying anything. Edith looked at each of them, bit her lip, then smiled weakly.
‘Well, it’s disappointing, isn’t it?’
‘Edith – ’ Lucas’s protest was weak, hoarse.
‘No, sweetheart, I’m not going to use stronger words. I was looking forward to so many things and now I’m not going to be able to do them. So I’m disappointed. My biggest disappointment will be if I don’t see Nina and Sally.’
‘They’ll be here,’ said Margaret. ‘I tried to call them, but I’ll also send off cables.’
‘If they reach them,’ said Lucas. ‘You can never be sure where they are. Always gallivanting – ’
‘Sweetheart – don’t. They’ll be here.’
Nina and Sally, reached at last by phone, arrived within forty-eight hours. They were shocked by the change in their mother since they had seen her in January; to Margaret she seemed to be dying by the hour. Lucas never left the house, was just a silent grey man already hollowed out by grief. Magnus came by the house every day, but never stayed longer than five minutes. The four girls took it in turns to be always with their mother, aided by Miss Stafford, who moved into the house to stay till the vigil was over.
Late one afternoon, a week after Nina and Sally had come home, Margaret was sitting with Edith. Fall dusk had darkened the room, but so far Margaret had put on no lights. A wind blew from the north-east out of Kansas and Nebraska, bringing the bitter promises of winter; leaves flattened themselves against the windows like the dismembered wings of dead birds. It was weather for secrets, for confidences.
‘Meg – ’
‘I’ll put on a light.’
‘No.’ Edith’s voice was little more than a whisper, a sighing of soft words in the darkness. ‘Meg, take care of them all – ’
‘Of course. Don’t tire yourself – ’
A fragile claw found her hand, rested on it rather than held it. ‘Don’t leave your father alone again …’
‘No, Mother. But please rest – ’
‘Is Magnus coming by this evening?’ The shrunken skeletal face turned on the pillow. ‘Give him my love, Meg …’
The voice died away suddenly, was no longer even a whisper. Margaret reached behind her, fumbled for a switch, turned on a lamp. When she looked back Edith was at the last threshold, at the moment when secrets no longer have any meaning. Margaret looked into her mother’s eyes, saw that Magnus’s love had never been as secret as he had thought. Then the eyes were just marbles, reflecting the light without recognition. The lids slipped down over them, sealing Edith Beaufort’s life.