Winter of the World (20 page)

‘A book,’ he said. ‘For Joanne Rouzrokh.’

‘She won’t be at the ball.’

‘I know.’

Mama stopped and gave him a searching look. After a moment she said: ‘You’re serious about her.’

‘I guess. But she thinks I’m too young.’

‘Her pride is probably involved. Her friends would ask why she can’t find a guy her own age to go out with. Girls are cruel like that.’

‘I’m planning to persist until she grows more mature.’

Mama smiled. ‘I bet you make her laugh.’

‘I do. It’s the best card I hold.’

‘Well, heck, I waited long enough for your father.’

‘Did you?’

‘I loved him from the first time I met him. I pined for years. I had to watch him fall for that shallow cow Olga Vyalov, who wasn’t worthy of him but had two working eyes. Thank God
she got knocked up by her chauffeur.’ Mama’s language could be a little coarse, especially when Grandmama was not around. She had picked up bad habits during the years she spent working
on newspapers. ‘Then he went off to war. I had to follow him to France before I could nail his foot to the goddamn floor.’

Nostalgia was mixed with pain in her reminiscence, Woody could tell. ‘But he realized you were the right girl for him.’

‘In the end, yes.’

‘Maybe that’ll happen to me.’

Mama kissed him. ‘Good luck, my son,’ she said.

The Rouzrokh house was less than a mile away and Woody walked there. None of the Rouzrokhs would be at the Yacht Club tonight. Dave had been all over the papers after a mysterious incident at
the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Washington. A typical headline had read: C
INEMA
M
OGUL
A
CCUSED BY
S
TARLET
.
Woody had recently learned to mistrust newspapers. However, gullible people said there must be something in it, otherwise why would the police have arrested Dave?

None of the family had been seen at any social event since.

Outside the house an armed guard stopped Woody. ‘The family aren’t seeing callers,’ he said brusquely.

Woody guessed the man had spent a lot of time repelling reporters, and he forgave the discourteous tone. He recalled the name of the Rouzrokhs’ maid. ‘Please ask Miss Estella to tell
Joanne that Woody Dewar has a book for her.’

‘You can leave it with me,’ said the guard, holding out his hand.

Woody held on firmly to the book. ‘Thanks, but no.’

The guard looked annoyed, but he walked Woody up the drive and rang the doorbell. Estella opened it and said at once: ‘Hello, Mr Woody, come in – Joanne will be so glad to see
you!’ Woody permitted himself a triumphant glance at the guard as he stepped inside.

Estella showed him into an empty drawing room. She offered him milk and cookies, as if he were still a kid, and he declined politely. Joanne came in a minute later. Her face was drawn and her
olive skin looked washed-out, but she smiled pleasantly at him and sat down to chat.

She was pleased with the book. ‘Now I’ll have to read Dr Freud instead of just gabbing about him,’ she said. ‘You’re a good influence on me, Woody.’

‘I wish I could be a bad influence.’

She let that pass. ‘Aren’t you going to the ball?’

‘I have a ticket but if you’re not there I’m not interested. Would you like to go to a movie instead?’

‘No, thanks, really.’

‘Or we could just get dinner. Somewhere really quiet. If you don’t mind taking the bus.’

‘Oh, Woody, of course I don’t mind the bus, but you’re too young for me. Anyway, the summer’s almost over. You’ll be back at school soon, and I’m going to
Vassar.’

‘Where you’ll go on dates, I guess.’

‘I sure hope so!’

Woody stood up. ‘Okay, well, I’m going to take a vow of celibacy and enter a monastery. Please don’t come and visit me, you’ll distract the other brethren.’

She laughed. ‘Thank you for taking my mind off my family’s troubles.’

It was the first time she had mentioned what had happened to her father. He had not been planning to raise the subject but, now that she had, he said: ‘You know we’re all on your
side. Nobody believes that actress’s story. Everyone in town realizes it was a set-up by that swine Lev Peshkov, and we’re furious about it.’

‘I know,’ she said. ‘But the accusation alone is too shameful for my father to bear. I think my parents are going to move to Florida.’

‘I’m so sorry.’

‘Thank you. Now go to the ball.’

‘Maybe I will.’

She walked him to the door.

‘May I kiss you goodbye?’ he said.

She leaned forward and kissed his lips. This was not like the last kiss, and he knew instinctively not to grab her and press his mouth to hers. It was a gentle kiss, her lips on his for a sweet
moment that was over in a breath. Then she pulled away and opened the front door.

‘Goodnight,’ Woody said as he stepped out.

‘Goodbye,’ said Joanne.

(viii)

Greg Peshkov was in love.

He knew that Jacky Jakes had been bought for him by his father, as his reward for helping to entrap Dave Rouzrokh, but despite that it was real love.

He had lost his virginity a few minutes after they had returned from the precinct house, and the two of them had then spent most of a week in bed at the Ritz-Carlton. Greg did not need to use
birth control, she told him, because she was already ‘fixed up’. He had only the vaguest idea what that meant, but he took her at her word.

He had never been so happy in his life, and he adored her, especially when she dropped the little-girl act and revealed a shrewd intelligence and a mordant sense of humour. She admitted that she
had seduced Greg on his father’s orders, but confessed that against her will she had fallen in love. Her real name was Mabel Jakes and, although she pretended to be nineteen, she was in fact
just sixteen, only a few months older than Greg.

Lev had promised her a part in a movie but, he said, he was still looking for just the right role. In a perfect imitation of Lev’s vestigial Russian accent she said: ‘But I
don’t guess he’s lookin’ too fuckin’ hard.’

‘I guess there aren’t many parts written for Negro actors,’ Greg said.

‘I know, I’ll end up playing the maid, rolling my eyes and saying “Lawdy”. There are Africans in plays and films – Cleopatra, Hannibal, Othello – but
they’re usually played by white actors.’ Her father, now dead, had been a professor in a Negro college, and she knew more about literature than Greg did. ‘Anyway, why should
Negroes only play black people? If Cleopatra can be played by a white actress, why can’t Juliet be black?’

‘People would find it strange.’

‘People would get used to it. They get used to anything. Does Jesus have to be played by a Jew? Nobody cares.’

She was right, Greg thought, but, all the same, it was never going to happen.

When Lev had announced their return to Buffalo – leaving it until the last minute, as usual – Greg had been devastated. He had asked his father if Jacky could come to Buffalo, but
Lev had laughed and said: ‘Son, you don’t shit where you eat. You can see her next time you come to Washington.’

Despite that, Jacky had followed him to Buffalo a day later and moved into a cheap apartment near Canal Street.

Lev and Greg had been busy for the next couple of weeks with the takeover of Roseroque Theatres. Dave had sold for two million in the end, a quarter of the original offer, and Greg’s
admiration for his father went up another notch. Jacky had withdrawn her charges and hinted to the newspapers that she had accepted a cash settlement. Greg was awestruck by his father’s
callous nerve.

And he had Jacky. He told his mother he was out every night with male friends but, in fact, he spent all his spare time with Jacky. He showed her around town, picnicked with her at the beach,
even managed to take her out in a borrowed speedboat. No one connected her with the rather blurred newspaper photograph of a girl walking out of the Ritz-Carlton hotel in a bathrobe. But mostly
they spent the warm summer evenings having sweaty, deliriously happy sex, tangling the worn sheets on the narrow bed in her small apartment. They decided to get married as soon as they were old
enough.

Tonight he was taking her to the Yacht Club Ball.

It had been extraordinarily difficult to get tickets, but Greg had bribed a school friend.

He had bought Jacky a new dress, pink satin. He got a generous allowance from Marga, and Lev loved to slip him fifty bucks now and again, so he always had more money than he needed.

In the back of his mind a warning was sounding. Jacky would be the only Negro at the ball not serving drinks. She was very reluctant to go, but Greg had talked her round. The young men would
envy him but the older ones might be hostile, he knew. There would be some muttering. Jacky’s beauty and charm would overcome much prejudice, he felt: how could anyone resist her? But if some
fool got drunk and insulted her, Greg would teach him a lesson with both fists.

Even as he thought this, he heard his mother telling him not to be a love-struck fool. But a man could not go through life listening to his mother.

As he walked along Canal Street in white tie and tails, he looked forward to seeing her in the new dress, and maybe kneeling to lift the hem up until he could see her panties and garter
belt.

He entered her building, an old house now subdivided. There was a threadbare red carpet on the stairs and a smell of spicy cooking. He let himself into the apartment with his own key.

The place was empty.

That was odd. Where would she go without him?

With fear in his heart, he opened the closet. The pink satin ball dress hung there on its own. Her other clothes were gone.

‘No!’ he said aloud. How could this happen?

On the rickety pine table was an envelope. He picked it up and saw his name on the front in Jacky’s neat, schoolgirl handwriting. A feeling of dread came over him.

He tore open the envelope with shaky hands and read the short message.

Had Lev found out that Jacky was living here, and somehow made her leave? He would not do that – would he?

Greg crumpled the paper and wept.

(ix)

‘You look wonderful,’ Eva Rothmann said to Daisy Peshkov. ‘If I was a boy, I’d fall in love with you in a minute.’

Daisy smiled. Eva was already a little bit in love with her. And Daisy did look wonderful, in an ice-blue silk organdie ball gown that deepened the blue of her eyes. The skirt of the dress had a
frilled hem that was ankle length in front but rose playfully to mid-calf behind, giving a tantalizing glimpse of Daisy’s legs in sheer stockings.

She wore a sapphire necklace of her mother’s. ‘Your father bought me that, back in the days when he was still occasionally nice to me,’ Olga said. ‘But hurry up, Daisy,
you’re making us all late.’

Olga was wearing matronly navy blue, and Eva was in red, which suited her dark colouring.

Daisy walked down the stairs on a cloud of happiness.

They stepped out of the house. Henry, the gardener, doubling as chauffeur tonight, opened the doors of the shiny old black Stutz.

This was Daisy’s big night. Tonight Charlie Farquharson would formally propose to her. He would offer her a diamond ring that was a family heirloom – she had seen and approved it,
and it had been altered to fit her. She would accept his proposal, and then they would announce their engagement to everyone at the ball.

She got into the car feeling like Cinderella.

Only Eva had expressed doubts. ‘I thought you’d go for someone who was more of a match for you,’ she had said.

‘You mean a man who won’t let me boss him around,’ Daisy had replied.

‘No, but someone more like you, good-looking and charming and sexy.’

This was unusually sharp for Eva: it implied that Charlie was homely and charmless and unglamorous. Daisy had been taken aback, and did not know how to reply.

Her mother had saved her. Olga had said: ‘I married a man who was good-looking and charming and sexy, and he made me utterly miserable.’

Eva had said no more.

As the car approached the Yacht Club, Daisy vowed to restrain herself. She must not show how triumphant she felt. She must act as if there was nothing unexpected about her mother being asked to
join the Buffalo Ladies Society. As she showed the other girls her enormous diamond, she would be so gracious as to declare that she did not deserve someone as wonderful as Charlie.

She had plans to make him even more wonderful. As soon as the honeymoon was over she and Charlie would start building their stable of racehorses. In five years they would be entering the most
prestigious races around the world: Saratoga Springs, Longchamps, Royal Ascot.

Summer was turning to fall, and it was dusk when the car drew up at the pier. ‘I’m afraid we may be very late tonight, Henry,’ Daisy said gaily.

‘Quite all right, Miss Daisy,’ he replied. He adored her. ‘You have a wonderful time, now.’

At the door, Daisy noticed Victor Dixon following them in. Feeling well disposed towards everyone, she said: ‘So, Victor, your sister met the King of England. Congratulations!’

‘Mm, yes,’ he said, looking embarrassed.

They entered the club. The first person they saw was Ursula Dewar, who had agreed to accept Olga into her snobby club. Daisy smiled warmly at her and said: ‘Good evening, Mrs
Dewar.’

Ursula seemed distracted. ‘Excuse me, just a moment,’ she said, and moved away across the lobby. She thought herself a queen, Daisy reflected, but did that mean she had no need of
good manners? One day Daisy would rule over Buffalo society, but she would be unfailingly gracious to all, she vowed.