Deceptions (63 page)

'One moment. I have it.' He had known Sabrina, and, after offering his sympathies in a voice that creaked like the armor he sold, he vanished into the back of the tiny shop to bring out a small shield brilliantly decorated with a griffin protecting a castle keep. 'Used by one of the Cecils in practice jousts when he was about ten.' It was perfect, Sabrina thought, and, as she wrote a check, she imagined Cliff showing it off and then hanging it on his bedroom wall to remind him he once had a mother who loved him.

At Falkiner's she put together a collection of artist's papers for Penny-Japanese parchment, watercolor, marbled sheets in fantastic designs and vellum with fine deckle edges. At Winsor and Newton she bought one of their largest boxes of oil paints, then, caught up in her vision of Penny's delight, she stopped at CoUett's for a set of Oriental brushes and ink sticks.

'Brian,' she said, when she returned to Ambassadors, 'how does one ship this unwieldy mass to America?'

The same way we ship unwieldy art. Leave it to me, Mrs Andersen.'

'Wait. One thing more.' She disappeared into her office and returned in a moment with a sealed envelope. 'It all goes to this address.'

A shield, art supplies, a letter.

'My dearest Penny and Cliff: I think of you and I miss you, and every time 1 close my eyes 1 see you very clearly. I can't reach across the ocean to hug you, so instead I'm sending you the presents I promised, for now and an early Christmas. I love you both, i love you both.'

And a note for Garth. 466

•Whatever you dedde to tell Penny and Cliff, please let them have these gifts. I won't write to them again, or send them anything else, unless you tell me I may, but I promised to send them presents as soon as I arrived in London. Please let me keep my promise. It is the last favor I will ask of you.'

She had nothing more to do for her family now except long for them and wait for the pain of her longing to diminish. But she had forgotten her mother.

Laura called on Saturday noon as Sabrina and Gabrielle were going out to buy a wedding dress. 'Stephanie, what in heaven's name is going on? Garth says you're staying in London indefinitely. Just what does that mean?'

'What it sounds like. Mother. I'm living here now.*

'And Garth and your children?'

'Mother, you know the answer to that. They're in Evanston.'

'You've left your children?'

'I left... Yes. They're with Garth.'

'And you've left him?'

'Yes.'

'For how long?'

'For ... as long as necessary.'

'Necessary! To do what? To destroy a wonderful marriage, a fine home, the lives of two—'

'Please, Mother, don't...'

'Why shouldn't I? Do you know whatyou've thrown away? The best—'

'Mother, stop it. Please. Garth and I both decided I should leave. We have more than enough pain without your making it worse. Someday I may be able to tell you the whole story, but I can't now. You'll just have to trust me, that I'm doing what I have to do.'

'Stephanie,' Gordon said on the extension phone, his voice like a frail thread. 'You don't love Garth anymore?'

/ love him with all my heart. I love him more with every memory that haunts me and clings to me through the long endless nights. 'There are problems I can't talk about,' she answered. 'You'll have to believe that. And trust me. I'm sorry I've caused you unhappiness—'

*So soon after Sabrina!' Laura cried. *You might have waited and dealt us just one blow at a time.'

'Yes, Mother. It was thoughtless of me. I apologize.'

'I don't need your sarcasm—'

'What will you do?' Gordon interrupted. 'Alone in London.'

'I've formed a partnership with Nicholas Blackford to run Ambassadors. I'll keep Sabrina's house, make friends, make a life for myself.'

'Terrible,' Laura moaned. 'Terrible. The last thing we ever would have expected. We were so sure of you.'

'Yes. I'm sorry. I let you down.'

'But you'll go back, of course. You'll think things over and then go back to your family. Women are doing that these days; you read about it all the time: someone who seems perfectly happy suddenly ups and decides she needs space, whatever that is. I don't understand what these women mean when they say they need space. Most of them mean they want a lover. Is that what you want?'

'No.'

'Well, if it is, have one and get it out of your system and then go back to your family. If you're not looking for a lover, what are you looking for? A career? You had one, that little place, what was it, Collectibles. Are you looking for a new career?'

•No.'

'Then what are you looking for? What do you expect to find by living in Sabrina's house and running her shop?' Sabrina did not answer. 'Stephanie? Stephanie, are you trying to pretend you're Sabrina? I remember you always talked about her glamorous life in London, her successes... and I suppose I encouraged you... is that whatyou're trying to do? Finally, after all these years, to turn yourself into Sabrina?'

'Mother.' Sabrina's voice caught between an involuntary laugh and a sob. 'I am trying to be myself.'

'Do you know who that is?' Gordon asked.

'Not always,' she said. 'But I'm finding out.'

How simple that sounded: Finding out. And I will, she told herself the next day as she took a taxi to Kensington Cemetery. It will just take a little while.

She walked slowly toward the small rise in the ground where they all had stood not so long ago. The cemeteiy was gray and damp, as she remembered it, wavering in a mist that made the stones seem to soften and change shape. The trees wept clear drops, and puddles on the walks were small flat mirrors reflecting the scudding clouds, gray on gray.

She stood beside the grave, letting her memories weave in and out - childhood, school days, Juliette, visits to New York, visits in London, childhood again, servants packing, the strangeness of new schools, two sisters always holding hands. But soon the dampness cut through her coat and the suit beneath it, and, shivering, she turned and left.

Near the gate, a tall man got out of a waiting car. 'Your housekeeper told me you were here,' Dmitri said. 'May I drive you home?'

She looked at his thin face, dark eyes beneath fierce brows, deep lines on either side of his firm mouth. His arm was extended to help her into the car. She remembered a young boy forcing himself to be brave while men in heavy boots searched his room and clomped above the cellar where he was hiding two American girls. He wants to protect me, she thought. But his eyes were gentle and undemanding. He was offering friendship. 'Yes,' she said. 'I'd like a ride home.*

Chapter 22

No one met Garth's plane from New York; no one expected him for two more days. He had left the hotel early Tuesday, phoning Rolf from La Guardia to say he would not be at the executive committee meeting, and flew back on the first plane leaving for Chicago. He had not slept, and in his fatigue everything seemed exaggerated: too loud, too bright, voices clattering off hard walls and floors. But at home, when he unlocked his door and stepped inside, the silence overwhehned him. An empty house. Penny and Cliff at school. Piis wife dead. Her impostor in London. A silent, empty house.

He stood in the center of the kitchen and wondered what to do. Nothing that he could think of seemed worth doing. He looked about at the neat kitchen, at the couch and low table where Penny's sketches lay beside a book Stephanie had been reading, at the breakfast-room table. A picture sprang to Garth's memory: night-time, very late, the house dark and hushed. Penny and Cliff were asleep, and he and Stephanie sat together at the round table, eating pumpkin pie from a single plate. Only it hadn't been Stephanie. That had been—

'NO!' he cried, a long anguished note that echoed through the empty rooms. Snatching her book from the table, he hurled it at the wall. Its page fluttered as it fell to the floor, and Garth sank to the couch, weeping for his wife and the shattered pieces of his world.

Exhausted, he fell asleep, and when he woke it was dark. Confused, he fumbled for the light and looked at his watch to discover it was only five o'clock. He shivered; they had turned the furnace down when they left, and the house was cold. Then he remembered everything that had happened, and he could feel his anger setthng, spreading through his body in a cold viscous mass, inseparable from the flow of his blood and the pumping of his heart and the roar in his ears.

He had to move, act, occupy his mind, 'At least be practical,' he said aloud, and called Vivian to tell her the meeting had been shorter than expected; he would pick up Penny and Cliff in an hour.

'Come for dirmer,' she urged. 'And tell us about New York.'

'Not this time. Give me a rain check.'

'Then let your offspring eat before you pick them up. They helped make the food; I think they should be compelled to eat it.'

'All right. Eight o'clock?'

'Eight o'clock. Garth, whatever it is, eat something. You'll feel better.'

So it was in his voice. Well, why not? How much anger could one person conuin before it spilled over into public view? He unpacked, washed his face, changed his shirt and

downed two quick Scotches. Refilling the ice tray, he saw that the refrigerator was full. How thoughtful; the bitch had left them well taken care of before she flew the coop to go back to her European playground.

He paced the house, his thoughts flying wildly like debris from an explosion; nothing was whole, nothing was solid. Why hadn't he suspected her? He'd been over it time and time again, trying to understand how he had been so thoroughly taken in. Looking back, remembering slips of the tongue and quick recoveries, atypical behavior, lapses in memory, he could not understand it. He was a trained observer, a man who collected facts and analyzed them. Why had he been so easily deceived? He didn't know. Nothing made sense; he had nothing to hold onto except his house and his children, and that was why he had to see them as soon as possible; they were all he could be sure of.

He left early for the Goodmans' house, driving slowly on snow-packed side streets. He was rehearsing.

/ have something to tell the two of you; it's not easy» it's not very nice —

Sit down, both of you, I want to talk to you about your mother—

I have to tell you, some time ago your mother was in an accident - no, not on the bicycle, another accident, on a yacht, in Europe; you see, the woman who's been living here, the one who had the accident on the bicycle —

The woman who's been living here, making fools of us, laughing at us for loving her and needing her while she was playing a game —

How the hell did a man tell that to his children?

He brought Penny and Cliff home, and the three of them sat in the breakfast room, eating ice cream and pretzels.

'Mom doesn't think this a great combination,' said Cliff. •But 1 like it.'

'It's ice cream and dill pickles she really doesn't like,' Penny said. 'And I think she's right.'

'I do, too,' Cliff admitted. 'Dad, can we call her in London?'

•No.'

* Why not? You called every night when she was there after Aunt Sabrina's ftineral/

'That was different/

'Why?'

'She was very unhappy then ... *

'Well, maybe she's unhappy now, missing us.*

'No, Cliff.'

'But why? Does it cost a lot?'

'More than a dollar a minute. Are you wiUing to pay for it?'

'Yeah, if you won't. If that's the only way I can talk to Mom.'

'Daddy?' Penny said. 'Why are you mad? Are you mad at Mommy? Is that why you came home early? Is she mad at you?'

Through the coldness that gripped him. Garth felt a flash of wry humour. We take pride in our intelligent children, and then we have to live with the fact that they see through us.

But why didn't these intelligent children see through that woman and know she was not their mother?

Because they are innocent and trusting and she took advantage of them.

'Daddy?'

'It's true. Penny, I am angry. I'll tell you why.' He searched for a way to begin. His children watched him, their bright, curious faces just beginning to be apprehensive. Garth let the moment drag on, unable to say the first word. Finally, he opened his hands and dropped them in resignation. He could not do it. Later, perhaps, when the time was right. But not now. * I 'm angry because your mother is off in London instead of being here with us. And because she thinks she has to stay there for awhile, to think about her life away from everything here.'

'But she already did that,' said Penny, biting her lip. 'In China.'

'That's right, she did. And remember, when we talked about it, I said that often people need to get away from their everyday lives to think about themselves in different ways.

But sometimes they have to do it more than once, or for a longer time.'

'But when we talked you said you weren't going to get a divorce.'

Garth felt a wave of nausea and clenched his teeth. No divorce; a surgical operation: cut her out of our lives. *We're not talking about divorce, Penny. Look, it's late; don't you two have homework?'

'We did it this afternoon,' said Cliff. 'Is Mom coming back?'

'! don't know.'

'She is!' Penny screamed. 'She'is! I know she is! You're lying!'

'I'm not lying!' Garth said, more sharply than he intended. He lowered his voice; he had to make them understand. 'Penny, sometimes people do things that may not seem right or sensible to you, but that doesn't mean they're wrong. Your mother and I had a ... disagreement about something, and she thought she'd go back to London for awhile. You knew she was going anyway, to take care of her sister's business. The only change is that she's going to stay longer than she thought—'

'How long?'

*I don't know.'

'You do! You and Monrniy decided and you're lying about it! It's not fair, nobody asked Cliff and me what we wanted and we live here, too, and she's our mother, and I'm going to tell her we're waiting for her to come home and you can't stop me!'

She dashed from the room and up the stairs. Cliff looked at his father and spoke carefully, trying to be more grown up than his sister. 'She is coming back, isn't she? I mean, you said you don't know, but isn't that what scientists always say when they don't know exactly what's going to happen?'