The Unforgotten, page 15
“What was he like with Ruth? Please tell me.”
“Why do you want to know?”
“Nobody talks. It makes it sort of — important.”
“Weren’t you unhappy when you were a child?”
He was still unwilling to tell her what she wanted to know in spite of the alcohol.
“My mother was always sick so I was shuffled about. She had me too late. When I finally came home she was huge, unrecognizable. I thought I’d been played some terrible trick.” She thought of her mother now, filling her days aimlessly, ashamed of her loneliness.
“That’s what Gerry likes about you. Your sadness appealed to him when he first met you.”
“But I wasn’t sad.” She remembered.
“Gerry was such a nice man when he was young. Ricks broke him. He was a bitter bastard. Everything black, white. Enemy list, friend list. It’s no good for Gerry in Oxford anymore. I think that’s why he’s so depressed.”
“Depressed. Does he get depressed?”
“He gets the blues. Ricks’s death illustrates that. He was killed outright in an air crash. Gerry was in L.A. Nobody knew how to tell him, so we all gathered at the president’s house at the university, trying to decide the best way and getting drunk at the same time. In the end, Lilly’s father flew in from the East and broke the news. Gerry didn’t break down as expected. He didn’t do anything. Lilly’s father assumed he was in shock, so he assured Gerry Ricks had died outright with no suffering. Then Gerry spoke. ‘Some people have all the luck.’ That’s all he said. And you didn’t know he got blue? That’s funny.”
She tried to know by asking questions. Her intuition would have been a better instrument. She didn’t know Gerry. She fell for him the way she had for James Dean. What a time to decide that. Less than six weeks. He was a planet surrounded by highly colored, deceptive mists that were attractive and held the visitor’s attention. Camouflage was his particular specialty.
Victoria tried to turn the talk to Ruth again. Her name was slipped in with the next brandy. This time Gittes rose to the bait. “She was born to play. It took Gerry de Santos to stop her.” He went on as though he’d said nothing out of the ordinary. “Her Beethoven Emperor was magnificent. Then they got married.” He sounded sad about that.
“What do you mean it took Gerry to stop her?”
“He meant more than her music.” That’s what I should have said. But after all, it was through him she became so successful. He found a sponsor for her, prestige, money. When he met her she was unknown. She’d had some little concert at Wigmore Hall.
“But I understand Gerry didn’t have money to begin with.”
Robert looked weary. “Did I say he did? I said he got her a sponsor. When they married he had nothing. He couldn’t wait to marry her, although he didn’t have a job. I remember she lay in bed in her impresario’s house on the morning of the wedding and Gerry came in, and she looked so beautiful, so wonderful, he was so moved, he couldn’t think of a gesture to do justice to what he felt. So he rushed into the garden and came back, his arms full of flowers. He covered her with them, from her feet to her head. Not roses. His passion for them began when she was ill. Before they married she used to wear a pink bud in her scarlet dress.” Then he realized who he was talking to. “It’s great with you, though. Much saner. Calmer.
“I don’t think sex is so important to him anymore. I mean he’s done it all. He can tell the decibel of a woman’s orgasm just by looking at her. He’s been satiated by women.”
“What’s he marrying one for?” she asked sharply.
“Something about you touched him. He has a true concern for people, you know. Once he takes you on, he’ll look after you. I know Alexander’s exciting, but I wouldn’t have thought he’s the stuff relationships are made of. I think you’ll have a good life with Gerry. He’s not jealous like he used to be, thank God.”
“No, but I am,” she whispered.
*
Because it was dark she was unsure which house was the Kingsley-Roes’. She peered through the high hedge trying to see what was going on in the basement. Shapes were visible, probably furniture. It had a gloomy, unwelcoming air. She couldn’t see any people. The basements of other houses were lighted, ordinary.
She trod over a tangle of rusty bicycle and arrived at the back door. She pressed the bell and stood some moments, undecided. She called out and upset the dogs. Of course, the Kingsley-Roes wouldn’t do anything normal like open a door. She gave up and went back to the street.
In the next house a dinner party was in progress. By chance she looked in and her attention was drawn to the festive atmosphere. She was reminded of the postcard of the beggar girl outside the restaurant: 1910. Some things hadn’t changed.
Around the table, ten people were visible. Four of them were familiar: Professor Gully, Sarah Kingsley-Roe, James, Lilly.
She wasn’t surprised.
She knew Gerry was behind the ruse. The offending members of his family were out of sight in a city called Boston, but available to him in a place called Islington. He wouldn’t lose touch with the child. She should have known that. She had to admit he’d got them out fast, smoothly. What had he used? Bribery? Threats? How and why he had such power she did not know.
Of course, he admitted to nothing. They’d changed their minds on the way to the airport. Richard Holly had kindly put them up. At first he’d tried to act surprised. “In London? Are you sure?” The way she looked at him discouraged any more of that.
Now that she’d located them, there was no reason why they shouldn’t visit. He suggested Victoria take the child out for an hour or two. “Lilly’s in bad shape. She’s depressed. You more than anyone should know the effects on a child of a disturbed mother. You could spend time with her and —”
She covered her ears.
He turned sensuously and she saw he was undressed beneath the sheet. “Come here.” His eyes widened provocatively. Her body flared up and accepted but one part of her held back. He reached over, grabbed her leg. “Don’t you want to?” He looked into her eyes. “You want to. Get on top of me.” He threw off the sheet. He looked at her until she ached for him to touch her. Her hand, with desire of its own, tumbled toward his. He grabbed it, pulled her onto him, his hands firm and very alive. His breathing was fast, mouth over hers. “Don’t hold back. Don’t do this to me. You don’t have to play games. You know that. I just said you could look after her sometimes. Something for you to do. You keep going on about getting a job.”
The resisting part of her was talking, too. “He has to have his own way. He always gets his way.”
Then the resistance was stripped off, an article of clothing, and that took care of what might have been a new thing in their life together. Some control for her.
By the time she got up from his bed she could see there were advantages in taking care of Ruthie. Making Gerry happy was one of them.
*
Victoria took Sylvia to Oxford to meet the family. Victoria didn’t feel excluded anymore so she no longer needed to exclude her friend. Gerry took them to his favorite restaurant on the river. There was some light conversation about sickness for Sylvia’s benefit. Everyone had a turn at that. Sylvia threw in a couple of medical horror stories which went down well anywhere. Then Gerry said, “There’s no sickness. Just sick people.”
“For chrissakes!” said Lilly, outraged. “Have you forgotten your wife? She was sick as a dog.”
“She got sick, you mean.”
“How can you say that after all you saw her go through? Oh, Jesus Christ. After all the help my father gave you. Taking her to Lourdes in a private plane. Flying in those new treatments from Russia.” She held her head. “I just wish you hadn’t said that.” She looked as though one of the lights of her life had gone out.
Sylvia shooed away the whiskey and chose a mild cocktail. “Just a weak one.” Victoria supposed she was trying to act demure. Also Sylvia had to be on duty first thing the next morning.
Sylvia was all right because she was used to her father’s evenings. She juggled brand-new gossip, failing careers and alcoholism without losing sight of the point of her evening. She’d promised herself Robert Gittes as her going-home present. She talked to him about contingency: Nothing was certain so you could do what you wanted. He got her message. Away from her father she flourished. Her hands were never far from Robert’s body. She tried to look innocent but the “weak” cocktails — she’d had several — were catching up.
Lilly seemed dismayed. Gerry’s statement, that the sick woman had brought it upon herself, had taken the sunlight from the Oxford vacation.
“Ruth did smoke a lot. Is that what you mean about making herself ill?”
Gerry ignored her.
Victoria left to go to the ladies’ room. When she returned, Lilly was flushed, her eyes watery. “The Oxford job’s not on. You can’t have my little girl.”
“Of course not.” Everything about Gerry was honest, even his eyes.
“My father’s a clever strategist,” said James. “You must remember that, Lilly. His technique is one of sincerity. Gilbert Ricks said that.” He turned to Gerry. “It suited you to have me sweating it out in the States. Then you see the kid and you decide you need to — protect her. Or cherish her or whatever it is. So we have the Oxford switch. It doesn’t matter, you know. Only don’t lie about it.”
Smoked out, Gerry revealed his true motive. “I’d look after her, wouldn’t I?”
“Perfectly,” James whispered, upset.
“But she’s my child as well!” Lilly cried.
“The old blood argument isn’t that crucial,” said Gerry simply. “Influences are more important. And we all know the influences around that child may not be for the best. When I talked about pollution I didn’t mean a certain city. I had in mind a certain family.” He brought up the child’s lack of speech. Even Victoria was convinced his wishes were all for the best.
Lilly looked at Sylvia, then at the other tables. “I think this is a conversation best held in private.” Her tone was threatening.
“I won’t see my flesh and blood in a spiritually unprosperous environment whatever the material benefit,” said Gerry.
“You have changed. There was a time when spirit was just something you drank. In fact, I’d be very careful if I were you,” Lilly warned.
Gerry snorted. “That’s your father talking.”
“My family did all right by you. They were there when you needed them.” Lilly jabbed him with a fork, her eyes, everything about her, murderous. “My father won’t like this.”
“Don’t start leaning on him, darling,” said Gerry. “Or you’ll disappoint me.”
Sylvia was entranced. She whispered to Victoria, “What do you mean, they’re hard to understand? I haven’t had such fun at a dinner party for years.”
“Better be sure you don’t disappoint my father. He doesn’t take well to that sort of thing. Now send me away again for bad behavior. Better make it farther than Richard Holly’s this time. Your girlfriend’s not altogether dumb.”
Gerry cornered his son. “It’s perhaps fortunate the child can’t speak.” He folded his napkin neatly. He was the only one not out of control. “She’ll speak with me. Oh, yes.”
Robert said coolly, “Start thinking about Oxford, Lilly. Okay?” He picked up the bill, ready to leave.
Lilly turned to Victoria. “Do remember what I said to you about having something to do. You’ll be needing it. People change in this family. I think they have all the charm in the world, but they sure missed out on loyalty.”
Sylvia missed the end of the quarrel because she was talking to Robert about a suicide attempt she claimed to have made. Victoria thought she should get Sylvia home.
“When I woke up still here, I thought I should try shooting myself. I got my father’s gun and went into the garden. But I didn’t do it,” she explained.
“Why not?”
“The sun came out. Still another time. Don’t tell anyone at the hospital,” she told Victoria.
“You seem remarkably open about it,” said Lilly. “I would have thought bungled suicide was a thing you kept to yourself.”
“Life’s a cage,” said Sylvia. “Didn’t you know? Attempted suicide? Just shaking the bars.”
When they got home, Sylvia drank wildly. Victoria had never seen anyone so smashed, except Alexander. By midnight Sylvia was ablaze with drink but still standing. She could use words just enough to explain her immediate wants. Robert accepted responsibility for fulfilling them and took her back to London.
Before Robert drove her back, she told Gerry he was partly right. It wasn’t sickness that made people sick. For example, in some cases suppressed hate caused cancer.
“Shut up!” he said, furious. “My wife had cancer. She was the sweetest, brightest person. There was no hate around her, I can promise you.”
Sylvia said she was sorry and blamed the theory on a medical journal. When they next met, Sylvia showed Victoria the article: Repressed negative emotion can cause cancer.
Chapter 19
ROBERT WAS RIGHT. GERRY DID NOT LET PEOPLE DOWN. ON impulse, he took the family out on the river. They played poker, swam, picnicked. His enthusiasm increased toward dusk and they took a train to London. They saw a sex film, got stoned, got thrown out of a gambling club. A car was hired, a party gate-crashed. All the time, Gerry was smiling, loving, playing. Victoria had never seen anyone so unhappy.
“You didn’t enjoy yourself, did you?” she said, when they got back.
“No. But I hope they did.”
The bedroom, reflected in the window, had all the ebullience of a fairground. “Shall I draw the curtains?”
He didn’t answer.
She turned toward the real room and realized what was different. Everything was new in the reflected room. The quilt was unused, the lampshade, especially, looked fresh. There was something white on the bed. Flowers? A wedding gown? Was this how the room had looked before the other ceremony? She didn’t dare look at the reflection of Gerry but swung the curtains violently, and as they closed, they created a sound like jeering laughter.
“I hear you went to see Sarah Kingsley-Roe,” he said.
“I was in the neighborhood, that’s all.” She told him what Sarah had said about her talent being thwarted. “I like the big painting, but I don’t think her gift quite warranted all that suffering and deprivation.”
“You’re sure she was talking about herself?”
“Well, what was she talking about?”
“How do I know?” He sighed and poured a drink. “I’d like to get away from the self-obsessed world of the colleges and back into life. Lilly says academics are pathetic, over-qualified, inbred. She says we roll in relativism like pigs in shit. Do you know the worst thing you can do?”
“Kill someone,” Victoria answered.
“Impose your will on another person. That is the real crime. Taking away another person’s free will. There are people who are capable of that.”
“Well, never mind about their problems. Get on with your own,” Victoria countered.
She got into bed and he touched her hungrily, then he paused, cautious, and drew back his hands. “It’s not a good thing.” It was like the dream. She turned around wildly and tried to bury her head, her life. She must find reality again, the world she used to know, something she could rely on.
“What they’re doing to that little girl …” he said. “You’re so free, Victoria.”
“Well, so are you.”
He almost laughed.
*
Robert mowed the grass and said the Honorable Mrs. Brooke wanted to look him over.
“Yes, she would,” said Victoria.
“Gerry’s gone to the pub. He keeps talking about Gilbert Ricks and the past. You can’t keep tilting at a ghost, so he might as well go into soft drinks.”
“Soft drinks?”
“I understand there’s a little leather-topped desk waiting for him.”
“Where?”
“New York. He has a friend in the business. Be kind to him, won’t you, Victoria. He’s my dearest friend.”
She wished she could burst into tears and let it all out, all the unexplained, distressing moments. The world had become schizophrenic. It wasn’t she. She was sure it wasn’t.
“Gerry used to be such an innocent person. He saw only the good in everything,” Robert added.
Lilly came out wearing a white dress, startling against her tanned body. Robert bent low over her hand. “The way you look, you could have anything you wanted, Mrs. de Santos.”
Victoria, having a pretty good idea of what she wanted, doubted it.
James carried Lilly’s shawl and said they were going for a walk. “Is my father actually serious about soft drinks?” he asked.
“Your father needs a challenge. He’s been spoiled.”
“It’s such a jump,” said Lilly. “Oxford. Orange soda.”
“Will he be any good at business?” asked Victoria.
“His charm can exist anyplace: Oxford, New York, lecture halls, carbonated beverages, sales conferences. Charm is movable,” said Robert.
James’s silence was eloquent. In some lights he looked like his father. They showed disapproval in the same way.
“You don’t seem convinced,” said Victoria.
James turned on Robert. “I don’t discern even a hint of reality in what you’re saying. I’m sorry. The only tycoon that could be real for my father would be a character who appeared in a novel.”
Victoria could never tell whose side James was on, if any.
“A very real person offered it to him,” said Robert coldly. “He doesn’t make offers lightly.”
Several times during the following days she was aware of James looking at her, wanting to communicate without the danger of words. His expression was not without pity.
*
