The Ashford Affair (36 page)

“Yes,” said her mother.

“Bob? Bill?”

“No.”

It ought to have made her feel better that her brothers were equally ignorant, but it didn’t. They wouldn’t care, either of them. They’d always belonged more to her dad’s side. They’d known their other grandmother, Dad’s mother, who had died before Clemmie was born. It was Clemmie who had come to New York after the divorce, who had lived day in and day out in Granny Addie’s house, constantly being told how much alike they were, how much she was following in her grandmother’s footsteps.

Which grandmother?

“Jon knew, too, didn’t he?”

Clemmie didn’t even have to wait for the answering nod. It was so obvious. All of that about not digging too deep, letting sleeping dogs lie, et cetera, et cetera. She didn’t know whom she wanted to punch more, but one thing was clear: She couldn’t punch her seventy-eight-year-old mother.

Clemmie ran a shaking hand through her hair, Bea’s hair, short, and straight, and cut like a flapper’s. “I’ll talk to you later.” Guilt forced her to add, “If you need me for anything, with the apartment, let me know.”

“Where are you going?” her mother asked.

Away. Just away. Away where she could fume in peace. If she stayed—what was the good of staying? They would just go round and round and round and someone would wind up saying something horrible that couldn’t be unsaid.

You lied to me. You lied to me. You lied to me.

She wasn’t sure if she was saying it to her mother or Granny Addie, but either way, she needed out.

“Out,” she said shortly. “Just out.”

TWENTY

New York, 1999

“Clemmie! I thought you were the Chinese food.”

Jon stood in the doorway, his body blocking the entrance. He didn’t look entirely thrilled to see her. Good. Let him be afraid. Let him be very afraid.

She’d meant to go home. But once she started walking, her feet had turned her right instead of left, uptown towards Harlem. All around her, cabs with their lights off carried loads of revelers to their New Year’s celebrations. She knew from experience, it was nearly impossible to get a cab on New Year’s Eve. But Clemmie didn’t mind. She wanted to walk; she needed to walk. She’d left her gloves upstairs at Granny Addie’s—at Addie’s. There was no way she was going back for them, so she’d tucked her cold hands in her pockets, tucked her head down into her collar, and plowed into the park, picking her way over slick leaves and fallen branches. There had been a dusting of snow earlier, frozen now into a fine crust. She could hear it crunching under her heels as she walked, faster and faster, her breath coming in sharp bursts, misting the air in front of her.

Her mother would have been horrified at the idea of her walking through the park. The park had been no-man’s-land when she was little. That was one of the rules: no park after dark, no going above 96th Street, no West Side. Rules, rules, rules and she’d obeyed them all, Mother’s rules, Granny Addie’s rules, unquestioning. She’d worked so hard to please them—and for what? Clemmie’s inappropriate heels skidded on a thin layer of ice. She caught herself just in time. Let a mugger try to take her on; she’d have his balls for breakfast. Hell, she’d welcome it. She was spoiling for a fight, for something; the blood boiled in her veins. She should have been cold, but she wasn’t. She was seething, burning up from within.

No sensible mugger would take her on. She was muttering to herself, rehearsing arguments, practicing recriminations. The things she should have said to her mother! And Granny Addie—Granny Addie who wasn’t Granny Addie, who had spent all those years pretending and died before she could explain. Had she meant to tell her? Was that why she’d started with those stories? Maybe if Clemmie had been around more—

Guilt warred with anger, combining into a bilious brew of self-righteousness, doubt, and hurt feelings. Fine. What about all those other years? What about the hours she’d spent after school in Granny Addie’s apartment? What about all the Christmases and Thanksgivings? Their special grandmother-granddaughter trip to London together? Why had she never sat her down and said, By the way …

The park spat her out near 96th Street, on the West Side. She could have gotten on the 1, gone back to her own place to defrost and fume. Instead, Clemmie turned north. She didn’t remember the number of Jon’s building, but she remembered the block, or thought she did. She went down two wrong blocks before she found it, her adrenaline rising with every loop. There it was, Jon’s name on the buzzer, in block capitals in black ink on a piece of masking tape, unevenly applied over the name of the former tenant. By the time Jon’s crackly voice came on the intercom, she didn’t even bother to identify herself; she just barged right on through, stomping her way up the stairs, blood pumping, cheeks numb, hair standing straight up with static.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Clemmie’s voice came out in little pants. It had been too long since she’d been to the gym.

Surprise, guilt, and confusion chased across Jon’s face. He glanced back over his shoulder. “I only just…”

“Bullshit.” Anger felt good. Clemmie stepped forward, forcing Jon to move back, opening the door wider. “All that crap about letting sleeping dogs lie. You knew all along. Did you enjoy it? Being able to put one over on me?”

A curious expression passed across Jon’s face. “Your grandmother,” he said slowly. “That’s what this is about.”

“
Not
my grandmother,” Clemmie corrected him. “How long did you know?’

Jon pressed his eyes shut. “Not that long,” he said. “Only just a few years. Listen, Clemmie—”

“Just a few years,” Clemmie repeated flatly.

How many was a few? Jon was a historian; he dealt with decades at a time. Had he known in Rome? She knew, logically, the one didn’t have anything to do with the other, but somehow the thought made her even angrier. Sleeping with her, bad; lying to her while he was sleeping with her, unforgivable. Screwed and screwed over.

“How long?” she demanded.

Jon let out a short, frustrated breath. “I did some poking around when I was doing my dissertation research. You do the math. Look, Clemmie—” He blocked the doorway with his body, speaking quickly, “What difference does it make? Your grandmother was your grandmother. She loved you. I’ve always thought Bea sounded like a bitch.”

The very fact that he’d known Bea existed, that he’d had time to develop theories about her, made Clemmie see red.

“Great,” said Clemmie bitingly. “If she’s a strong woman, she must be a bitch.”

“I never said that! I wouldn’t say Addie was a bitch—would you call her weak?”

She didn’t know what to call her at all.

Jon was off on his own line of thought. “It’s the weak who have to resort to bitchiness, not the strong, like a cornered animal. It’s a defense mechanism.”

Lovely. Just what she needed. “Thanks for the fortune-cookie philosophy. Can I have some chow mein with that?”

Jon held up both hands, propping open the door with his back. “You want someone to take this out on? Fine. Knock yourself out. But what good does it do? It was what it was. At least you had someone to call grandmother. Be grateful.”

“Easy for you to say,” Clemmie shot back.

“Because it’s not my family?” Jon smiled crookedly. “Thanks. I’d wondered when that was going to come up.”

He had some nerve. “Because you’re not the one who’s been lied to for the past—forever!”

Clemmie’s voice cracked, and she realized she was dangerously close to tears.

She struggled for composure. Anger was okay; crying wasn’t. She couldn’t lose it all over Jon, not now. It had just been such an awful, awful day: the forced piety of the church service, the empty space where Granny’s bed used to be, lipstick on the teeth of the party guests… It all came crashing together. And now here she was, on Jon’s doorstep—not even in the f-ing foyer, for Christ’s sake—throwing a temper tantrum like a spoiled five-year-old who hadn’t gotten her cupcake.

She tried to speak but couldn’t find the words. If she said anything, she was going to burst into tears, and that was the very last thing she wanted. She’d thought having it out with someone would make her feel better. Instead, she wanted to crawl into a hole and bawl.

Jon’s expression softened. “I’m sorry, Clemmie. I mean it. I should have told you. Look, why don’t you go home. Sleep on it.”

Clemmie wordlessly shook her head, her lips pressed tightly together.

“I’ll go down with you and put you in a cab.” Jon put a hand on her arm, steering her back around. His voice was low and soothing. “We’ll talk tomorrow. I promise, I’ll tell you everything I can—everything I know,” he amended. “No more secrets.”

Clemmie looked up at him, green-brown eyes behind gold-rimmed glasses; the small scar by the side of his mouth from the time he’d taken her roller-skating in Wollman Rink in eighth grade and tripped over a daredevil six-year-old; the bits of gray just beginning to show at his temples.

The crazy adrenaline rush that had driven her through the park dropped away, leaving her tired and cold and shaky. She felt like a melted snowman, all the fight drained out of her. She felt hollow and very, very tired. It was good to be able to lean on Jon, good to have someone to hold on to. She wondered, abstractedly, if the cab ride back to her place might be more than just a cab ride, if they would finish what they’d started last week, blotting out everything that had happened since, the funeral, the relevations, the lies. They could burn the slate clean and start over, skin to skin, in her ridiculous little shoe box of an apartment.

“Okay,” she croaked.

Jon squeezed her arm. “Let’s get you—”

There was a noise in the foyer. The old floorboards creaked as a female voice said, “Hey.”

Clemmie felt a strange wave of vertigo. The hallway seemed to shimmer in front of her, or maybe that was just her eyes, still stinging from the cold. The cold, that was all. She looked up at Jon, trying to make sense of this latest development and failing utterly.

Jon’s Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. In a low, urgent voice, he said, “I meant to tell you—”

“Hi!” There was a woman standing on the other side of the door. Her hair was still damp from the shower, twisted half up with bits sticking out on top. She wore a pair of yoga pants, a UNC tank top, and she looked very much at home.

The last time Clemmie had seen her, she’d been wearing a big white dress, a veil, and a whole lot more makeup.

“Jon! Why didn’t you tell me we had company?” Caitlin padded forward on bare feet. “Hi. Have I met you?”

Kenya, 1927

“Quite a spectacle, isn’t it?” Frederick joined Addie at the base of the terrace.

Above them, on the verandah, Addie could hear the clink of ice against a shaker and the high-pitched clatter of sophisticated conversation. The real spectacle, though, lay ahead, where the Kikuyu were throwing a celebration in honor of the marriage of Njombo. Having patched him up all those months before, Addie felt somewhat of a proprietary interest in the proceedings.

She’d been told that a
ngomo
was a thing to behold, but she hadn’t realized quite what was meant until dark fell and, with the torches flaring, the dancing began. The men she knew as farmhands had transformed into warriors, their bodies oiled and decorated with intricate designs in white chalk and red ochre, feathered spears in their hands, clappers at the ankles and ornaments in their ears. Their headdresses were more elaborate than anything she had ever seen in the nightclubs and ballrooms of London, bursting with beads and feathers.

And then there were the women, oiled, too, decked with beads, bare but for the briefest triangle of grass fore and aft. They swayed unabashedly to the music, hips undulating, breasts bobbing, oiled bodies glinting in the light of the bonfire as the elders sat in their own section, looking on. And all the while the drums beat a primal rhythm as the dancers leaped and swayed, their elongated shadows twisting and swaying, too, all echoed in the movement of the long grass and the branches of the trees, so that all the world seemed swept up in their dance, bending and rolling to the rhythm of the drums, drums, drums.

“Listen to those drums,” said Frederick quietly, but Addie could feel the words resonating through and around her, everything somehow more pronounced, more vivid, in the light of the flames. “You can feel them beating all the way through you. Can’t you?”

“It’s … fascinating,” said Addie. Such a drab, safe little word. She felt as though she’d been caught out in some sort of voyeuristic indulgence, there was something so sensual, so erotic about the dance. Frederick was right. The music got right into one, throbbing like a second heart, promising all sorts of illicit pleasures. She hadn’t been drinking, but she felt as though she had, her cheeks flushed, her hands unsteady.

“Let’s go for a walk,” said Frederick. She was amazed by the urgency in his voice. Addie turned to look at him, the flames playing across his face.

“But,” she said weakly, “the party…”

Frederick glanced back over his shoulder, at the verandah where Bea was holding court, playing her admirers off one against the other. Addie was reasonably sure at least one of them was her lover, possibly more. She had missed the cues back in Mayfair, but now she was more sophisticated, she knew the signs.

“They’re all well entertained,” Frederick said, and held out a hand to her. “Shall we?”

It was a dreadful idea, she knew, a dreadful, dreadful idea. She and Frederick spent scads of time together—in the coffee shed, in the nursery with the children, walking the fields—but always in daylight and never alone.

It had been six months since she had come to Kenya, six months of working together, talking together, planning together. Addie had been so smug in their friendship. She had congratulated herself on their maturity in being able to put the past behind them, be the friends they had never been in London, equals now, as they had never been before.

She had willfully ignored the signs: the extra hours in the field, just to steal a few more moments together; the accidental brush of a hand over a ledger; looking back over her shoulder as she said good night to find Frederick’s eyes on her, his gaze following her as she walked from the room.