Possessions (49 page)

But her world was growing, she thought; it was expanding, stretching ahead with more possibilities, more people to consider, so much more to think about . . .

“Ha!” cried Jon, using his marble to leap over four others to reach the colored triangle that was his goal. “First one in.”

“Not for long,” Ross responded with a wicked gleam and jumped over six marbles to his own goal. “Katherine? Are you with us?”

“Oh. Yes. Let me see . . .”

“Dad,” said Jon as Katherine surveyed the board. “There's a party this weekend at the Casino in Monte Carlo. We've been invited.”

Ross raised his eyebrows. “They don't allow youngsters in the Casino.”

“One of the kids' fathers rented a private room and they're putting in roulette and blackjack and everything. Really neat. It starts at eight o'—”

“Hold on,” Ross said. Jennifer, Todd and Carrie watched him, almost holding their breath. “This party is for nine- and ten-year-olds?”

“Well . . . most of the kids are like sixteen and seventeen but they asked us 'cause we're good on the diving team. So can you drive us?”

“No. I don't want you at the Casino, even in a private room, especially with an older crowd.”

“Dad—!”

“I doubt that you'd even be allowed in, but we're not going to find out. You have plenty of things to keep you busy; gambling isn't one of them.”

“But, Dad—!”

“No, Jon. That's final. It's no place for any of you. You're not going.”

“Jee-sus,” muttered Jon.

“I told you,” Carrie said. “I knew he'd say no.”

At the obvious relief in her voice, Ross and Katherine exchanged an amused glance. “About the diving—” Ross began.

“Maybe I'll just go home,” Jon muttered. “If you won't let me do what I want, maybe I won't stay. Or visit you anymore on weekends, either.”

“Jon!” said Katherine sharply. Ross was frowning, his mouth tight, and for the first time she saw in practice the power of his children.

“Jon,” she said again. Jennifer, recognizing the tone in her mother's voice, became so nervous she dropped one of her glass marbles and as it rang on the flagstone terrace, she and Todd scrambled down to look for it. Katherine waited until Jon looked at her. “Blackmail,” she said softly, “is a nasty means of persuasion. And when it uses love as a weapon it is disgusting. Do you understand that?”

Ross had turned, his eyes fastened on Katherine. Victoria, too, was watching her, uncharacteristically silent.

“Do you?” Katherine repeated.

“No,” Jon muttered.

“It means it is disgusting when you threaten to withhold love from people who love you and need your love.”

“I didn't—!”

“Yes, you did. You said if you didn't get your way you'd walk out. And your family would be left behind, missing you. Don't play hard-to-get, Jon; it hurts the rest of us, and it hurts you. Is any party worth all that?”

After a moment, Jon mumbled, “I don't want to go home anyway.”

“That's not the point,” Katherine said gently.

“She means apologize,” Carrie whispered loudly.

Ross put his arm around Jon's shoulders. “Why don't we talk about this later? Katherine's right, you know: if you threaten to go home every time I say something you don't like, we'll have a hard time getting along. You'll end up like a yo-yo, back and forth so fast we can't keep track of you . . .”

Below the table, Jennifer and Todd began to giggle, mostly in relief at the easing of tension. “Can we get some cake from the kitchen?” Jennifer asked, standing up now that the air was clearing.

“A fine idea,” Victoria said crisply. “And Sylvie made more lemonade; help yourself.”

“Come on,” urged Todd when Jon still sat in his chair.

“I'm sorry, Dad,” Jon said. “I didn't mean it.”

Ross tightened his arm around his son's shoulders. “Good thing,” he said casually. “This place wouldn't be the same without you. Go on, now; get yourself some cake.”

As the four of them walked into the living room, Carrie's piercing whisper could be heard on the terrace. “Wow, did Katherine ever tell you off!”

“She's gotten real tough since Dad left,” said Todd. “She used to kind of be careful, but now sometimes she just lays it on us. I don't know . . .” His voice diminished as they went through the swinging doors into the kitchen. “Mostly she's great, but she sure is different.”

Ross took Katherine's hand. “Thank you. For caring, and for giving me a chance to catch my breath. I live with that damned fear every day, wondering when they'll decide they have better things to do than stay with me . . .”

“I don't think they will,” Katherine said. She wanted to lift
her hand and smooth the lines between his eyebrows; instead, she said quietly, “I've watched them follow you around; they're crazy about you and they need you. I think they're testing their weapons. Jennifer and Todd do it, too, only with different ones. I just hope Jon doesn't pull that one too often.”

He chuckled. “Now that he knows he has Jennifer and Todd's tough mother to contend with, I doubt he'll ever do it again. Thank you,” he repeated, his voice low, and later, when he went to talk with Jon, his step was light.

The children's diving team was scheduled to practice the next day from morning until late afternoon, and Ross and Katherine took advantage of the day, leaving before breakfast for Aix-en-Provence and its international music festival. Ross took an inland road that was, at that hour, almost empty, and they drove in silence amid the green-and-gold splendor of the countryside. The air was soft and caressing; the sun spilled like honey over orange and olive groves that parted suddenly to reveal small stone villages with steep rust-colored roofs and flocks of pale brown sheep watched over by a single shepherd, hands clasped behind his back, his staff sticking out as if he, too, had a tail.

Aix was filled with the music of the festival, and it was market day, with stands crowded together in the Place de Verdun beneath a rainbow of parasols. Ross bought a bouquet of carnations and pinned one to the collar of Katherine's cotton shirt and when they turned to walk on, their hands touched and their fingers twined together. They strolled through the market and the quiet side streets, along worn stone walks shaded by enormous plane trees, and then to a concert in the courtyard of the archbishop's palace, and when they sat down Katherine took another carnation from the bouquet and pinned it to the lapel of Ross's sport jacket. In the afternoon, blue shadows lay across the town, and fountains in the courtyards reflected the sunset. And much later, on the drive back along the Mediterranean, the brilliant lights of the Riviera blocked out all signs of the small towns, the orange and olive groves, and the single shepherd with his flock.

Everyone was asleep when they reached the villa. At the door to her rooms, Katherine sighed, resting her head against the wall. The spicy scent of carnations was all about them, and the pungency of the almond paste
calissons
they had brought
back for Victoria and the children. “We brought the day home with us,” she said, and laughed softly. “Such a perfect day.”

His face was shadowed in the dim corridor. “More than any I've ever known.” He held her face between his hands. “Thank you.”

Katherine shook her head. “I'm the one who should thank you. For all the perfect days.” She stepped back, into the doorway, wanting more than his hands; refusing to admit it. “Goodnight, Ross.”

“Goodnight, Katherine.” He lingered a moment, wanting her, knowing she wanted him. Not yet, he thought. We have time. “Is tomorrow the diving competition?”

“Tomorrow morning.”

“I'll pick you up at the breakfast table.”

She laughed and watched him walk down the corridor and turn into his own rooms.

They had avoided the populous vacation areas and the next morning for the first time they encountered the impenetrable crowds of the Riviera's high summer season. “July,” Ross murmured as they descended the steep stairway from Victoria's villa and found themselves surrounded. “Don't fight it; don't even try to walk; they'll carry you.”

The crowd was cheerful and noisy, exchanging shouted itineraries and names of restaurants. Everywhere, strangers held out their cameras to other strangers, asking them please to take their pictures. A large round man with a Polaroid snapped a picture of Katherine and kept pace with Ross as the image developed.
“Bella, bella,”
he said.
“Uomo fortunato.”
Amid a torrent of Italian he handed Ross the photograph, nodded amiably and turned to walk on.

“Grazie,”
said Ross, and he and Katherine looked at it together. Katherine's eyes widened.
Is that really me—that woman laughing in the sunlight? She looks so happy.
I didn't know she was so happy. She felt vaguely uneasy—as if everything was speeding up and she was not sure she was in control.

But then they reached the pool, and she saw Jennifer and Todd standing near the diving board, lean and tanned, chattering excitedly with a swim-suited group that included Carrie and Jon. We're all happy, she thought, and nothing is out of control. With another glance at the picture, she asked Ross,
“Did you understand what he was saying when he took it?”

“Most of it.” Ross pulled two chairs together near the edge of the pool. “He looked at you and said you were beautiful. And then he told me I was a fortunate man.” The crowd milled about them but there was a small space of silence around their chairs. He tucked the photograph in his pocket and took Katherine's hand in his as they turned to watch their children's diving skills. “And of course he was absolutely right.”

*  *  *

The shapes and colors of the Riviera glowed in the sketches spread on the drawing table Victoria had bought for Katherine's sitting room. There were fish and birds, exotic cactus flowers, the scalloped edges of the orange overlapping roof tiles of Provence, the symmetrical arches of Roman bridges, the swirl of water rushing over stones in a mountain stream.

Katherine had redrawn the sketches she liked best, then, on each, tried different variations of the basic shape until she had one that was bold, simple, striking: uniquely hers. When she was satisfied, she colored it with oil pastels—a cross between colored chalk and crayons, with subtler shades and a permanent finish.

She had been holding a blue-black oil pastel in her fingers for half an hour, wondering if the soaring bird she had drawn, with wings outspread, should be a perched bird with wings folded back. A simple problem, but she could not resolve it because her thoughts kept returning to Ross. Finally she threw down the colored stick and raised her head to gaze through the glass doors at the sailboats swaying in the harbor. “Ridiculous,” she said aloud. “I'll finish it tomorrow.”

She walked down the corridor to Victoria's room and knocked on the closed door.

“Yes,” said Victoria. “Ah, Katherine, how lovely; come in. I thought you would have left by now.”

“We put it off for half an hour. Ross had some telephone calls to make before he goes to Paris tomorrow.”

“How nice. For us, I mean. A quiet time together.” Lying on a silk chaise beside the open doors to her terrace, she tilted her head, inspecting Katherine's madras shirt and khaki jeans, her dark hair held by a gold band, her hazel eyes flecked with blue in the Mediterranean light. “You look delightful: a week
in the sun has put color in your face. Where do you go today?”

“Ross said the Turini Forest and Vesubie Valley. Does that sound right? My pronunciation . . .”

“Is improving. Ross is invariably sensible. You will have a memorable afternoon.”

“And it's been two weeks in the sun.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“We've been here almost two weeks for the sun to put color in my face.”

“When time goes too quickly, Katherine, I make a practice of ignoring it. What else has Ross planned? Has he mentioned the folk festival at Nice?”

“We're taking the children when he gets back from Paris. And we want you to come along.”

“No, my dear, how pleasant that you thought of it, but no; I shall stay here and wait for you to tell me about it.”

Katherine sat on the edge of the chaise. “You haven't gone anywhere with us, except to dinner, twice. After Paris, I don't want to accuse you of being obvious, but—”

“Katherine. I am never obvious. I may occasionally become careless and tip my hand, but I am not obvious. My dear, I do not go with you because I no longer enjoy all-day excursions, or even half-day ones. I'm too tired.”

Worried, Katherine asked, “Is something wrong? You always seem to have so much energy.”

“The only thing wrong is my age. As for my energy, I have plenty, so long as I know when to rest and preserve it.” She grimaced. “It's dreadfully tiresome; I get so annoyed at my body. Until recently, I could force it along and think I'd fooled it into renewing itself. But it was going its own way, wearing out, and then one day I could not longer ignore it. I'm eighty-two, my dear, and I no longer can romp through the Vesubie Valley. And if I cannot romp, I refuse to go at all.”

“Are you sure you're all right?” Katherine pressed. “You haven't even gone out with your own friends since we arrived.”

“Oh, that has nothing to do with me; they're not here. Most of them scatter to their other homes in July and August.”

Katherine remembered something Tobias had said. “You came in July because of us. So you missed all your friends.”

“I have you; I have Ross. Who is more important to me? And if I know where you are
and what you are doing,
I may
be lying here like a piece of crumpled tissue paper, but I can imagine myself with you. I remember all the places, you know, so clearly. And it gets easier to pretend, the older I am.”