Villa America (6 page)

“Yes, sir.” The cutter hesitated. “I think, though, sir, that the leather will be a little stiff to roll. Would you like me to oil and stretch it?”

“I see, yes.” He nodded, then looked up: “Thank you.”

“It’s nothing, sir.” The cutter took the case from Gerald, their hands brushing. Gerald pulled away quickly but couldn’t help watching the back of the man, the softness of his chambray shirt, as he walked away. He seemed purposeful, Gerald thought, comfortable in his own skin.

Two days passed with no response from Sara. Nothing either at home or at the office. He tried to be nonchalant when asking their maid, Evers, if there’d been anything in the post for him, but she just pressed her lips into a white line and gave a sour “No, Mr. Gerald,” leaving him feeling both sorry and, for some reason, humiliated.

At dinner, he asked his mother whether she knew if the Wiborgs were in town.

“I have no idea,” his mother said, “although those awful papers are full of Adeline’s troubles with customs.” She sighed. “Luckily, your father got that Mr. Stanchfield onto it.”

When the Wiborg women returned from Europe, Adeline had made something of a stink with the customs officials, steadfastly refusing to pay the duty they demanded. She’d swiftly been indicted for smuggling, delighting the tabloid newspapers, which ran lurid headlines about the affair. Gerald’s father had helped with a lawyer.

Perhaps, Gerald thought now, they’d left the city for a while to avoid the publicity. He was wondering if he should send a letter to Sara at the Dunes when his mother put a hand to her head, as if feeling for an impending headache, and said: “There is something, Gerald, that needs attending. I’d forgotten, because, as you know, I’ve not been well lately.”

Gerald put down his spoon and looked over his soup at Fred, who gave a small flicker of his eyebrow.

“Esther and I were asked to attend Mrs. Fallow’s evening of chamber music tomorrow,” his mother said. “But Esther has a poem to finish.” Anna Murphy stopped and stroked his younger sister’s lank hair. Esther took no notice, continuing to scribble in her tattered book, her soup pushed off to one side. “And,” his mother continued, “I must be here to see that she does.”

Esther, Gerald’s sister, was their father’s favorite. She wasn’t a beauty—at fifteen, she was gaining on six feet tall and had a lazy eye. Still, she had been deemed a genius at eleven and had recently begun publishing her poems in some of the best magazines. Their mother understood nothing really of what Esther wrote or said, but she insisted on Esther being her companion through her depressions, under the guise, of course, that she was helping her daughter. Gerald felt that Esther’s formidable brain and patchy attention to her personal appearance were her ways of exerting some form of limited independence, as if her physical and mental geography were the only terrains that she had under her command, and so she would command them ferociously. He loved and admired her for it.

“So,” his mother continued, “you must go in my stead, Gerald. We really can’t disappoint Mrs. Farrow.”

The subtext, Gerald knew, was that the Murphys were lucky to be invited at all. Mrs. Farrow was a terrible snob, and while his father could be quite charming when he wanted to be, he still came from modest beginnings, had made his money in trade, and was a Catholic. Three strikes in Mrs. Farrow’s drawing room. And his mother, who distinctly lacked her husband’s charisma, couldn’t stand the stress of the required performance. So he was being sent. It didn’t really matter; he was used to it.

“Yes, Mother,” he said, but when he picked up his soupspoon again, his appetite had deserted him. He could see Fred smirking into his own supper.

“Good,” Anna Murphy said vaguely, applying pressure to her temple. Then, after a moment: “Oh, and Fred, you must go too.”

The next evening was bitterly cold. Fred hunkered down in his coat in the taxicab, sighing, his dark hair combed back from his forehead.

“Well, this should be a fine time,” Gerald’s brother said. He blew into his collar. “I could be at Delmonico’s instead. Mother and her headaches.”

The mention of Delmonico’s caused Gerald a small prick of pain. He put it out of his head; she didn’t feel the same, and that was all right. Why should she?

“I bet you’re very much looking forward to fielding questions about the finer points of Catholicism from Mrs. Farrow.”

Gerald groaned. “‘Do you think you Catholics will get another saint this year? I hear the pope is just awfully busy.’ ‘What is there to say? One can only pray, Mrs. Farrow.’ God, that woman is a bitch.”

“Well, if they made old New York blue bloods saints, she would consider conversion.” Fred chuckled.

“Maybe I’ll float the idea to her.”

They were silent awhile, then Fred said: “Are you going to this board meeting tomorrow?”

“No,” Gerald said. “I’m just the design manager.”

“Whatever that means.”

“Yes.”

“I envy you, I really do. You don’t have to listen to these bores going on and on or Father telling endless limericks. God, I hate this job.”

Gerald looked at his brother.

“I just keep thinking that there must be something more than this,” Fred said.

It was unusual to hear him speak so openly. It wasn’t that their relationship was strained, exactly. It was more that he and Fred seemed to have an unspoken agreement to keep to certain topics. And those didn’t include honest appraisals of their feelings.

“Yes,” Gerald said, leaning his head back against the seat. “There must.”

Fred clapped his hands together as if to warm them, then looked at Gerald. “Well, what’s wrong with you, then?”

“Nothing,” Gerald said.

“Yes,” Fred said, turning towards him, a knowingness in his eyes. “Oh yes, there is. A girl?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“You heard me. A girl?”

“No,” Gerald said, “no girl.”

“Hmm,” Fred said, still regarding him.

“We’re here,” Gerald said, and he pushed the door open before his brother could ask him any more questions.

Mrs. Farrow’s blue silk drawing room was crammed full of hothouse lilies, making Gerald feel as if he were at a state funeral. The sideboard was laid out with sliced veal, jellied salmon, preserved whole fruit, small tender green beans, and a large glistening bowl of grapefruit salad dotted with pimentos. He picked a sherry off a tray and looked for a spot where he might stand unseen while he gathered his strength.

He’d had only a sip from his glass when Fred came up next to him and said: “Let’s just get it over with.” He steered Gerald towards one of the large windows, where their hostess stood, looking like the prow of Nelson’s ship encased in mauve taffeta. She was talking with a gentleman of the same age but slightly less girth.

“Mrs. Farrow,” Fred said, taking her hand. “Our mother sends her regrets. She’s devastated not to be able to be here tonight. I hope we’re not too disappointing as replacements.”

“Lovely to see you both.” Mrs. Farrow turned towards her companion. “Mr. Beardsley, I don’t think you know Fred and Gerald Murphy. Their father is the Mark Cross man, you know, all that lovely saddlery. Patrick Murphy. Do you know him?”

“I don’t believe so.”

They all shook hands, although Mr. Beardsley appeared relieved to have an opportunity to sidle off, which he did fairly smartly.

“I hope your mother isn’t unwell,” Mrs. Farrow said.

“Not exactly in top form,” Fred said.

Gerald, facing the entrance to the drawing room, felt his attention wander to the other guests milling about.

“It’s funny you two should show up at this instant,” Mrs. Farrow continued. “Delphine Conrad and I were just discussing that Saint Rita—Saint
Rita,
really, too prosaic—that the pope canonized a few years ago. Have you met Mrs. Conrad? Where has she gotten to? Oh, there she is, by the sweet sherry. Well, no matter. Do you know the one I’m talking about, Gerald?”

Gerald felt her hand on his arm and he turned back. “Mrs. Conrad?”

“No, the saint with the funny name. Like a shopgirl. Anyway, apparently she’s the saint of abused wives.” Mrs. Farrow smiled at Gerald and then Fred. “We were saying, Delphine and I, that really, perhaps we could all use a little saint like that.”

Gerald knew Fred was trying to keep from laughing; he could feel him almost vibrating next to him.

“How’s that brilliant sister of yours?”

He didn’t listen to Fred’s response. He was looking across to the doorway where a shape in cream silk was passing, face turned away. He knew that shape: the large breasts, the small waist, and all that hair, the color of aster honey, piled up. She came back and stood, listening to something. She saw him and he saw her. She didn’t smile, and Gerald’s chest felt tight. And then, without realizing that it was going to happen, he said: “Sara.”

“What’s that?” Mrs. Farrow turned in the direction of Gerald’s gaze. “Ah yes, Sara Wiborg. Goodness, is she still unmarried?”

Fred was looking now too.

“You’re quite close with the Wiborgs, aren’t you? They often have you to stay in East Hampton.”

“No,” Fred said tartly. “We visit them, and yes, they are friends. But our father has his own house in Southampton. I believe you lunched with us last summer.”

“Did I?” Mrs. Farrow asked sweetly. “I don’t remember.”

Gerald didn’t care about Mrs. Farrow’s sudden amnesia or Fred’s annoyance or the saint with the name like a shopgirl or any of it; he cared only that she was walking towards them and any second she would be with them.

Her expression was serious until she was about three or four steps away when her face lit up in a smile, like an actress coming onstage. She took Mrs. Farrow’s hand and must have exchanged the usual pleasantries, but Gerald was fixated on her mouth moving, and the words spilling out were meaningless to him. Every moment that she didn’t look at him or speak to him was an agony. He felt like demanding in a loud voice if she’d received his letter, if she gave a damn about him. Instead, he gently clasped his hands behind his back and looked at the floor.

“Gerald?”

He looked up.

“Won’t you take my hand?” She smiled at him. He wondered if it was the stage smile or a real one.

“Of course,” he said. He tried to feel the warmth of her through her glove but felt only the heat of his own hand. Aware of Fred’s gaze on him, he released her.

“I must check that the musicians have everything they need,” Mrs. Farrow said. “We’ll be starting shortly. Sara, do get yourself a sherry.”

“I’ll get it for you, Sara,” Fred said gallantly, leaving Gerald embarrassed for not offering first and alone with the only person he really wanted to talk to.

“How have you been?” Gerald asked, trying to sound as neutral as possible.

“Busy,” Sara said. “There’s this uproar with Mother’s customs.” She colored a bit. “Well…you know.”

“Yes.”

“Your father was wonderful,” she said quietly. “She pleaded guilty in court yesterday. It was actually quite awful…Anyway, this is a dull topic.”

It hadn’t occurred to Gerald that Sara would take such a thing so hard. She’d always seemed impervious to societal judgment of this sort. But of course, reputations were everything. “No,” he said, “I’m the one who’s sorry. My invitation must have seemed so trivial and insulting with everything that’s going on.”

She looked up at him, still a little pink, and said: “No, not at all. It was quite dashing and lovely. I just wasn’t sure if it was out of pity and then things got a bit busy and I didn’t know what to say.”

“It wasn’t out of pity.” He looked at her seriously.

“Oh, no. Of course. Well…”

“Sara, your sherry,” Fred said, joining them. “And Mrs. Farrow has sent word for us to take our seats.”

 They stood in the glass-fronted gallery, not speaking. The graceful shapes of Léon Bakst’s Eastern demigods, priestesses, and fairy-tale characters—their pointed toes and voluminous costumes, heavy headdresses weighing on slender necks, all colored in indigo and emerald—hung on the white walls before them.

Gerald could hear the sounds of ladies’ shoes and gentlemen’s canes hitting the walnut floorboards, the whispers and occasional giggles as they glanced at the images. Swollen brown bellies and peacock feathers created by a Russian Jew for the holy trifecta of the Ballets Russes: Stravinsky, Diaghilev, and Nijinsky. But he and Sara were quiet.

They moved slowly and stopped in front of each watercolor; the other spectators outstripped them and disappeared.

The Blue God was waiting for them at the end. When they drew up in front of him, Gerald heard Sara breathe a little harder, saw her chest rise, all the tiny buttons on her day dress shivering. His own breath seemed caught somewhere in his chest.

The knowing face and cruelly drawn eyebrows, the satyr’s smile. The skin, starting out green like the Atlantic, deepening into an almost black smoothness. The forearm and biceps muscles of a man, but the delicate, elongated fingers of a woman. Male and female in one. Dressed in gold, with pink over the chest where a bosom might have been and balancing on one leg, like a lotus. It was the shape, both powerful and graceful; the watercolor texture of the flesh; but mainly it was the Blue God’s eyes looking directly at you, as if he knew everything, judged everything, was everything.

He couldn’t say why, exactly, but Gerald thought he might cry and was ashamed. As if whatever he saw in the image before him echoed in some secret place in his heart. Then he felt Sara take his hand in hers, clasping it tightly, reaching across the wide black space of all his longing and loneliness.

The Wiborgs had set sail for India in December and the first letter Gerald received from Sara was posted from London, where the family had stopped to spend Christmas. They’d stayed at Belvoir Castle with the Duchess of Rutland, whom Sara seemed to worship, and her daughter Diana, whom she loved. They’d ridden to hounds, she informed him, and dined outdoors, and been forced to eat burning plum pudding at every meal, even breakfast. In short, she’d written him, he wouldn’t believe just how picturesque she’d been. Although Sara mocked the experience, Gerald felt slight panic at the thought of all the things she had done and seen, all the people she knew, that he had not and did not.