The Chameleon (66 page)

“This has been the oddest custody case I've ever been involved with, Senator.” Sam, the young attorney who was already considered a preeminent Supreme Court advocate, had smacked his lips over his Perrier and shaken his head on the flight over. Odd indeed.

Ophelia had finally been defeated, but only by the clout of the mighty, one of whom Claire had now undeniably become. This time Claire had the press on her side and the strength that came from “under the table” influence. But still she felt uneasy.

The ride from the airfield was interminable. Claire could hear her heart thumping in her ears, feeling as nervous as the first time Harry had brought her here as his young bride, three weddings ago. She felt beads of perspiration forming at the wings of her brown-and-silver chignon, the widely imitated Claire Harrison coiffure. She took a deep breath and asked one of the attorneys to turn up the air conditioning in the sedan. As her face returned to its usual look of composed serenity, she glanced down at her dark Chanel suit and peeled off one of her trademark white gloves, laying it over the handle of the cognac crocodile handbag that rested perfectly centered in her lap. Only a simple gold wedding band adorned her hand. She had dressed carefully for this occasion. Ophelia was so devious. She might make a last-ditch effort to stand in her way. She wanted to be impeccably groomed so as not to arch even an undertaker's eyebrow. Suddenly she felt as ill prepared as the schoolgirl she had been on that first visit to Charlotte Hall. As they turned down the long driveway, she imagined a pair of eyes behind every tree.

When they pulled into the courtyard, Claire was sure she saw one of the stone lions move. It was Ophelia, standing on the threshold of her house as if to turn them away.

“Jesus, Senator Harrison,” one of the young lawyers piped up. “You didn't tell us we were serving papers on Medusa.”

A decade of ferocity was etched on Ophelia's face. Her creased chins jutted out like a ski jump from the glum valley of her downturned mouth. The meanness and hatred that had been part of her features for so long had been petrified on her face. The narrowing, rheumy eyes and protruding lower lip dropped to reveal a line of brownish bottom teeth.

“God, Senator. Does she wear a muzzle?”

Claire steeled herself and stepped out of the car. What was the old Medusa myth? If she looked you in the eye you turned to stone. Claire wondered if she should push on her sunglasses. One granite monument to the past was enough.

She shook off the chill that even on this summer day shivered down her spine and willed herself to picture something pleasant. Ah, the Aunties. She saw them young, as they used to be. Their goodness and love were the perfect antidote to Ophelia.

She wanted to get this business over with as quickly as possible. She mounted the flagstone steps with determination, marching up the stair entry, chin thrust up, white gloves concealing her clenched fists. Ophelia's walking stick, a heavy black pole topped with a silver dog's head, missed her foot by less than an inch.

“Don't come any farther. You're a trespasser here, Senator Strumpet. And your bastard isn't ready.” She moved her eyes up and down Claire's clothing until Claire felt naked and exposed. She sneered at Claire, her eyes flashing with yellow specks. “His grave is the one with the shallow stone. Food for worms. Dig him up yourself, if you will.” Ophelia showed the rest of her teeth as she tilted her hand back toward a servant wearing a carnation and holding a shovel.

Claire looked momentarily frightened as she turned to her legal team for answers. It wasn't supposed to have been like this. Six was supposed to be ready.

Young turk number one was already on the car phone, yelling about the whereabouts of the exhumation crew. He turned to Claire, relieved.

“She kept them out all morning but they're at the grave site now, with some guys from the sheriff's office. She's just bluffing.”

There was an instant look of dislike on his young face for the bad witch guarding her Tudor dungeon. Both men moved in as if to protect Claire from some dark force of evil.

“You can't take him. He's mine. He belongs with the ancestors.” Ophelia raised her stick.

“He was never yours,” Claire said quietly. “He was only Harrison's.” She watched as the look of understanding spread over Ophelia's twisted features. She backed off and Claire moved in.

“Ophelia, you're an ugly fool. Once you had everything. Now you are like a foul-smelling puddle. Just something we have to step over on our way home.” The word “home” gave her courage. “You're just a living illustration of a snaggletoothed witch from one of Harry's old nursery books. You haven't changed at all. Go back to hell.”

Both the chauffeur and lawyers were startled to hear the ladylike senator with the aristocratic bearing haul off at the mouth. The tips of Ophelia's ears brightened to an unhealthy pink. The younger attorney glanced at his Perrier bottle in the car and vaguely wondered whether it was true that if you poured water on a witch she would melt.

Her venom exhausted, Claire turned on her low heel, giving Ophelia nothing but her back as she eased her way into the car, the doors still expectantly open. Her shoulders trembled with rage. Under her shaky directions, the limousine pulled into the plotted ground that housed Charlotte Hall's mausoleum and the few mathematically arranged lesser stones planted around the outside perimeter marked by two massive granite urns. The site was cold and impersonal, closer in proximity to Harry's house than Ophelia's. Six's undistinguished flat stone was off to one side, its grave open as two men in overalls and a hydraulic iron lift pulled the child-sized casket into the air.

Claire's breath momentarily left her body, and her knees weakened at the sudden lightness. Still she managed to hang on. She would not crumble in front of Ophelia, who stood rooted to her spot watching. As the bronze casket was removed and pushed into the Cadillac hearse, Claire caught a glimpse of two petty, living ghosts. Harry and Minnie were peering from behind a curtain at her bold action of taking home her own. Claire turned to confront them full face. But then she softened. How pathetic these pale remnants from her past appeared now. Harry's fly-boy handsome features had been ravaged by quarts of Boodles gin and decades of self-loathing. Minnie's face, pinched next to his, wore the expression of a cranky governess. And to think she had even lived in that poor excuse for a home, decorated with silk snobbery and sterling-silver prejudice. How little had changed here. Claire noticed that even the crewelworked curtains were the same pattern Ophelia had ordered for her and Harry thirty-five years ago. How far away and long ago it all seemed. What if she had stayed? In Washington she lived in a world of power and action, where everyone was in perpetual motion. But here everyone was like figures painted on an expensive antique vase, forever frozen, doomed to go on repeating the same useless activity.

She didn't breathe normally or even sigh until Six's casket was loaded onto the plane and she and her admiring attorneys, their faces bursting with adulation, were onboard. By now they would have fought battalions for Claire.

“Senator Harrison, I would have gladly bopped that old witch in her crooked nose. It would have been worth sixty days in jail!” Sam slapped a cocky backhand on his gray flannel thigh.

“I could get you a reduced sentence. Thirty days,” Robb boasted.

“Yeah, Claire. Excuse me, Senator. I just feel like we're pals now that we've been in the trenches together. You know.”

“I know.”

“Why didn't you just haul off and hit the dragon lady? I wouldn't have told. I would have perjured myself for you.” There was a look of fealty on the earnest face of Williams's brightest protégé.

How like youth, even my own, she thought. To want to feed evil with anger.

“Because, son, it wasn't necessary. I'm leaving with what we came for. We've won. Now we can go home.”

Claire leaned her head back on the gray leather seat. The Gulfstream jet taxied down the runway and pulled into its takeoff slot. Soon they would be away from here. She closed her eyes. Six was safe and she was protected by her two by-now doggedly faithful guardians.

“Senator. Senator Harrison!” The Harrimans’ pilot was standing over her. “Excuse me, Senator.” He cleared his throat and Claire could smell the coffee on his breath. In her anxiety, her adrenaline level had jumped, making all her senses more vivid.

“I'm sorry to disturb you, Senator.”

She had been dreaming. Italy. Six. Sara. And always Harrison. “Yes. What's the matter?” Her efficient Senator side was awakened.

“A big summer storm with gale-force winds has moved in over the mid-Atlantic states. National Airport and Dulles are both closed. We can try to make it into BWI if you want, but it's risky. It's the inland turbulence from Hurricane Nan. We'd like to wait it out until morning.”

“Hurricane Nan? L-M-N-O-P, she played out the alphabetical order in which hurricanes were named. N. The next would be O. It could be Hurricane Ophelia.

“Yes, of course.” She didn't want to put Six's remains in jeopardy. “We'll wait until it's safe.”

“Probably not until morning, ma'am. I'll make some hotel reservations.”

Claire thought about Six, alone in the cargo hold. “I'll sleep onboard if you don't mind. I'll just need some tea and a blanket.”

The Harrimans’ pilot looked doubtful. Mrs. Harriman would never have slept aboard unless they squeezed in a four-poster draped in Porthault linens.

“Please. I don't want to leave my son's remains unguarded.” She leveled her violet eyes at him.

The former air force lieutenant snapped to attention. He would never leave a fellow soldier returning in a wood box alone, either. “Yes, ma'am. We'll all wait it out. I'll have sandwiches brought aboard.”

By seven
A.M
., the storm had dissipated and the still crisply uniformed captain informed Claire that they would soon be ready for takeoff. They were checking the fuel now. Robb went into the small private terminal for doughnuts and newspapers. He came back as white as a sheet. He leaned down toward Claire almost in apology.

“There was a terrible automobile accident last night.” He slipped to one knee. “The radio is reporting that Fenwick Grant was seriously injured … another report says he was killed in the storm on the Eastern Shore. And—this is none of my business, I guess, but I think you should know this, too. They're saying he was with that TV journalist Prudence Savage. She died too.” He held out his hand for her to hold.

She didn't need the comfort.

“My husband. And Prudence Savage. Killed? Together?”

Robb respected the way she held herself together.

“Could there be a mistake?” Did it have to be one of Grant's virtues?

“Not according to the early news reports.” His admiration for this remarkably strong woman was growing. She was beautiful in her composed, quiet way. Even in the hard glare of morning, after a night spent sitting on an airplane seat with her long legs folded under her. Why, half the gals he knew would have looked like hell. And been going to pieces.

“Are we going to be able to take off now?” she asked softly. She folded her hands and readied herself for what lay ahead.

The sun spilled onto the Pie, brighter after the series of roiling thunderstorms. Today the light was shining undiluted onto the freshly clustered beds of summer roses, black-eyed Susans, peonies, and sweet William that encircled HurryUp's garden of tranquillity like a charm bracelet. The waist-tall boxwood and carefully planted burst of Virginia wildflowers separated the clearing from the surrounding blue grass and the steep elderly trees whose leafy arches folded over them.

She listened as Sara read her poem and watched as little Violet and Dylan each showered a little shovelful of red clay over Uncle Six's grave. And Slim and Violet threw handfuls of sweet William and white rose petals. Claire felt a great wave of relief, content to let the others take the lead celebrating his memory and pouring their love upon the fresh grave at the top of the east corner of the Pie. Six's statue stood in the center of the circle like a heavenly imp, as much the handiwork of Sara as of the sculptor. The marble likeness was astonishing even down to the dimple in his cheek and the wink of mischief in the eye. What Sara had added to the body of the sculpture was the best of her flower-child whimsy. And the personality of Six, with sisterly love.

She had given him wings the spread size of Icarus's, only folded, the carved feathers acting as an eternal umbrella to shield the body of Six from the vicissitudes of the elements. She had found a way to protect him.

Finally, it was Claire's turn to approach Six's resting place.

“You are home, my darling.” She patted the headstone with one hand and Sara's shoulders with the other. The wind blew up, stirring yellow pollen from the golden sycamore tree under which mey stood, fluttering down upon them like gold caviar. The private little band of Six's celebrants—they numbered less than a dozen—formed a circle in the clearing and gave up a moment of silence. She wished Harrison had been able to attend. It would have meant so much to her. But Starling was seriously ill again—hospitalized in London— and Harrison was unable to leave her bedside. He had made sure to send the pocket watch that Six had always admired, however, the one Harrison had promised him when he was older. Claire laid it in the ground beside the blossoms. Finally the family clasped hands and sang Six's favorite hymn as they filed out of the garden.

Two days later, Claire trooped up to the Pie again, only this time shoulder to shoulder with the East Coast establishment and an assortment of Kennedys, journalists, the current president and several hopefuls, both political parties well represented. There were about two hundred folks in all, including the entire first string of the Washington Redskins. As it was still uncertain as to whom the childless Grant had left his empire, no one in the running wanted to snub the publisher's widow. She didn't bother with a veil, opting for a black Chanel and sunglasses, her official mourning suit that she wore to all the State funerals she was invited to attend.