A Season in Purgatory (27 page)

“Why did you marry him then?”

“It’s hard being a Catholic girl and hoping to make a good marriage. And in our family, with my mother, you just had to make a good marriage. Maureen did all right with Freddy Tierney. And Mary Pat got the count. Everybody loves Philippe. Then I met Cheever in Aspen one year, at a winter wedding. It was my fourteenth stint as a bridesmaid and his tenth as best man. At first it seemed like a dream. Oh, I suppose I wanted to stick it to those girls back home who used to snub me at the club. I made the best marriage of the whole lot of them, Weegie Somerset or Belinda Beckwith, or any of those girls, except that I wasn’t a bit happy with Cheever. His family hated the idea of him marrying a Catholic, which was part of the reason I was so determined. And, to boot, we made him convert, not that it meant a damn thing to him. We didn’t get the papal blessing, like Maureen and the others did. Even Cardinal couldn’t swing that one. Ma minded horribly about that.”

Harrison said nothing.

“Maybe I always knew it wasn’t going to last. Maybe that’s why I didn’t write thank-you notes for my wedding presents. I suppose I’ll be the first divorcée in the Bradley family,” said Kitt. “Shall we talk about our flop marriages? Do you want details?”

He laughed. “No. Not tonight. Tomorrow.”

“Of course, you’re right. Tomorrow. After Mass. There’s an eight-thirty and a ten in the village.”

“I don’t go to Mass anymore.”

“Naughty, naughty. Hell’s fires for you.” She reached for her bag. “It’s two o’clock. I’m going to bed. You better join Leeza and her friends. How about breakfast?”

“They’ve closed the airport in Bangor, and the roads on the way to the airport are closed, too. We seem to be in a raging blizzard. The lines are down. The fax is out. We’re trapped,” said Harrison.

“It would be quite nice to be snowed in, wouldn’t it? Marooned in Maine. Roads blocked. Sounds heavenly, doesn’t it? This almost calls for champagne. Did you phone Claire?”

“Yes. Are you going to phone Cheever?”

“No. He’s in Las Vegas with a hand model.”

“It’s like that, is it?”

They stared at each other.

“Were you thinking of kissing me?” she asked.

“Yes. How did you know that?”

“About time. I’ve been waiting for twenty-four hours. I began to think you were one of those who didn’t kiss on the first date. Well, do it, for God’s sake.”

He moved toward her on the sofa and took her in his arms. They kissed each other, looked at each other, and kissed each other again. Their hands moved over each other’s backs and shoulders.

“You’re not thinking of Constant, are you?” Kitt whispered.

“Oh, no,” he said. “I was thinking of you.”

“Good. I’m mad about your tongue. I like a good
strong tongue. Do you think I’m terribly forward?” she asked.

“Yes, but I like forward. I need a hand held out. I’m not good as the instigator,” he answered.

Again they kissed. Their embrace became more passionate.

“What is it you want?” she asked.

“I’d like very much to see you undressed.”

“I think that could be arranged. Quite easily,” said Kitt.

“Your room or mine?”

“Mine, of course. How would it look for me to be sneaking around the halls of the Bee and Thistle after midnight? Gerald Bradley’s daughter. Think of the talk. The door will be open. By open I mean closed, but unlocked. You will be able to walk right in.”

That night Harrison became Kitt’s lover. They did not emerge from Kitt’s room for most of the next day.

“Ma, I won’t make your party tonight. I’m snowed in up here. Worst storm in years. Roads closed. Lines down. I’m talking on a cellular phone. You won’t believe whose cellular phone it is. You won’t believe who I am sitting here with. Harrison. Harrison Burns. Constant’s old friend from Milford. Do you remember?” There was a pause as she listened to her mother. Then she looked at Harrison, covered the receiver, and said, “She said you dropped out of our lives. She said you forgot all about us.” Her attention went back to her mother. “Well, he’s fine. Serious looking. Scowl line between the eyes. Staring at a word processor all day, I suppose. Oh, Ma, a lady asked for his autograph, and he signed it like he was used to it.” She listened to her mother again and then said, “She said she reads your books. She wants to know what you’re doing here. He’s visiting someone, Ma. No, he’s not writing about the place for a magazine, at least
I don’t think so. No, Ma. I won’t tell him about Agnes. I promise. Oh, she’s pretty much the same. She fights with Esme in the next room. Over rosary beads mostly. You’d better get Cardinal to order some more, by the way. Blessed, and all that.” When she hung up, she looked over at Harrison. He was looking back at her.

“Come here,” she said.

“I find it odd that you ask no questions about Constant. Don’t you have any curiosity about your former best friend?”

“How is he?”

“In Congress. You must know that. The youngest congressman there. He’s going to run for governor. Pa thinks there’s more visibility as a governor than there is in Congress if you want to make a run for the White House. Pa wants him to speak at the next convention.”

“Ah.”

“Something went off between you two, didn’t it?”

“Boarding school friendships aren’t necessarily meant to last forever.”

“There are the occasional character flaws, I know. But you have to admit he’s utterly charming, and he’s done marvelous things in Congress.”

Harrison said nothing.

“Now, Charlotte, his wife. That’s another story. Oh, she’s all right, I suppose. She thinks she’s sweller than we are, which she is. She’s a Weegie Somerset type, but, fortunately for everyone concerned, Cardinal located a Catholic grandmother in Charlotte’s past, on her mother’s side, got her baptized fast, and wham, bam, an instant Catholic, and a perfect political wife.”

Still Harrison said nothing.

“She thinks we’re too loud when we get together, but
she hangs in there. She likes the money. She tried to leave Constant once, and Pa gave her a million dollars to stay. Then the next year she tried to leave him again, and Pa gave her another million. I don’t know how many times she can pull that one off.”

Harrison, reluctant to be a participant in the conversation, said, “Why does she want to leave him so often?”

“She claims he hit her, and you know perfectly well that’s ridiculous. Constant wouldn’t harm a flea.”

“My father would like to see you,” said Kitt.

“Gerald? See me? Why?”

“I don’t know why. He called this morning. Ma told him we’d met. He seemed very pleased that I had discovered you again, if that is what I have done. Pa admires success, you know. He likes the way you write. He said, ‘He’s on the side of law and order. I like that.’ ”

“Your father actually said that?”

“Yes.”

“Good heavens.”

“He wants to take you to lunch at the Four Seasons.”

“Oh, I don’t think so.”

“Please, for me, do it. Please, Harrison.”

“No. I don’t want to.”

“There’s something he wants to ask you.”

“What?”

“I don’t know. At least you’ll get a good lunch. And you’ll see everyone. My father is the only man allowed to smoke cigars in the Four Seasons.”

“Yes, I know that.”

“But how could you know that?”

“A man named Rupert du Pithon told me. He said it was the sort of information he was full of, that was of interest to no one.”

“Will you see him?”

“When I get back. I’m going to Arizona right after Christmas.”

“Pa doesn’t like to be put off, you know.”

“I said I’d see him when I got back from Arizona.”

“Oh, what a stern look on your face. What’s in Arizona?”

“The mother of Dwane Lonergan.”

“Should I know who Dwane Lonergan is?”

“The prostitute Esme Bland killed.”

“You fell asleep with your glasses on,” said Kitt. Her face was radiant with tenderness. “I was watching you.”

“How’d I look?”

“There are dark places inside you, Harrison.”

“What do you mean?”

“Someday you should videotape yourself sleeping. Watch yourself thrash. Listen to yourself cry out. If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were the killer of your parents. Oh, that’s a horrible thing to say, Harry. I’m sorry. I went too far, as usual.”

“Forget it.”

“What happened to those boys?”

“Twenty years.”

“I feel envied, but unworthy. Seeing you, realizing what you’ve done, makes me see how purposeless my life is. What am I really? Just a rich man’s daughter. I’ve made a lousy marriage. I haven’t had a child. My life is all about having lunch, going to Kenneth to have my hair done, going out to the kind of party that gets written up in Dolly De Longpre’s column, and sipping too much white wine. This is not how I ever imagined it was going to be for me. I thought I would do great things, but I haven’t done anything really, except
learn to speak French, fluently, and with a perfect accent, or so Philippe tells me, but that’s not such a big deal, is it? Look at you, Harrison. Once they found the key that opened the door to turn on the generator, you were back in your room typing away on your laptop the story of Esme Bland and the prostitute she killed. What was that guy’s name?”

“You haven’t let them break your spirit, have you, Kitt?” asked Harrison.

“By them, do you mean Cheever?”

“No, by them I mean your family.”

“The roads are open. The airport in Bangor is open,” said Harrison. “I guess it’s time to put the show on the road.”

“I’d like to stay here forever,” said Kitt. “Let’s stay through Christmas, Harrison. Just the two of us at the Bee and Thistle.”

“I can’t.”

“Why?”

“I have two little boys to spend Christmas with.”

“And Claire, I suppose?”

“Yes. And Claire.”

“I can’t bear to end this,” said Kitt.

“Who said it’s going to end? We just have to go back. The storm’s over. Real life again.”

“Harry, I think I’m beginning to love you,” said Kitt.

“No, let’s not fall in love, Kitt.”

“No?”

“No. It’s too complicated.”

“Yes, yes, you’re right, of course, no love. Lots of lovely lust. No love. It’s already too complicated.”

“Yes.”

“But it’s not going to end, is it? Tell me it’s not going to end, Harrison. Please, please, please.”

Harrison took a plane to Phoenix, where he transferred to a plane for Tucson. The heat was scorching and the sunlight blinding. At the Tucson airport, he rented a car to drive the sixty miles south to the town of Nogales on the border of Mexico. On the outskirts of Nogales, he stopped and took out the directions Maxine Lonergan had given him over the telephone. “I’m on the American side, remember,” she said. “Don’t cross the border. You get on the Patagonia Highway at the 7-Eleven store, just before you hit town. Stay on it for about six miles. You’ll come to a dirt road called Vista del Cielo. Hang a left there for a couple of miles. On the right-hand side you’ll see a mailbox with RFD and a picture of a red cow on it. Turn in there. That’s me.”

At the mailbox with the picture of the red cow he turned in, as directed. He had imagined a small adobe or a trailer home, but there was no house in sight. He drove on the dirt road for a couple of miles. At times his vision was impaired by the dust his car raised. On each side was barren desert land with an occasional cactus. He thought he had misunderstood her directions. Then he came to two stone pillars and a closed gate. On each side of the pillars there was a high brick wall that seemed to surround the area of the
house beyond. Confused, he pulled up to the gate before he noticed a bell and a speaker on a freestanding post. He pushed the bell. He could see that a closed-circuit television camera directed at him was activated by the bell. A man’s voice said,
“Si?”

“I think perhaps I’ve made a mistake,” said Harrison into the speaker. “I’m looking for a Mrs. Maxine Lonergan. I thought she said to turn in at the post box with the red cow, but perhaps I misunderstood her. I wonder if you could direct me.”

“Your name?”

“My name? Harrison Burns.”

The gates opened. Harrison drove in. Inside was a green lawn with gardens, and ahead, at the end of a gravel drive, was a long, low ranch house of handsome design and graceful lines with a red tile roof. He parked his rented car in the circular courtyard in front of the house. Almost immediately the door opened. A tall, thin handsome young man dressed in cowboy clothes and wearing a gun in a holster stepped outside.

“Mr. Harrison?” he said.

“Burns, it is. Harrison is the first name,” Harrison said.

“Right. Come in.”

Harrison walked past him. Inside, the house was air-conditioned cool. There was a big central hall. To the right, through a set of double doors, was a large living room. Beyond it, through another set of double doors, was a smaller room. From the hall Harrison could see a giant television screen. A sound system was playing the songs of Dom Belcanto, the late Las Vegas and Hollywood singer who was widely believed to have had gangland connections.

“She’s puttin’ on her face,” said the man with the gun. “She don’t like nobody to see her until she’s put on her face.”

“I see,” said Harrison. “Does she work here?”

“Who?”

“Maxine Lonergan.”

“Work here? Are you kiddin’? This is her house.”

“This is Mrs. Lonergan’s house?” asked Harrison, unable to disguise the surprise in the tone of his voice.

“
Miss
Lonergan, not missus. Yeah, this is her house. What’d you think?”

Harrison nodded away his doubts. “Why do you have a gun?” he asked.

“I’m her bodyguard.”

“Oh.” He nodded his head. “Is it loaded?”

“Of course, it’s loaded.”

“Oh. Looks like it’s a beautiful house.”

“Yeah, it’s beautiful. And safe. It’s like a fortress, this house. The windows are all bulletproof. I could fire this gun right at that window, and it wouldn’t do nothing but shatter the glass. See this button here? You push this button and zap, just like that, steel doors drop out from under the eaves, and you’re encased. Completely encased. She’s got buttons like that in every room.”