Voice of the Heart (102 page)

At six-fifteen that evening, Lyndon Baines Johnson appeared on television and made his first statement as President to a stunned and grieving nation. And it was only then that Nicholas Latimer accepted the fact that John Fitzgerald Kennedy was really dead, slain by an assassin’s bullet. He felt so great a personal loss that he was as profoundly affected as he had been when his sister Marcia had been killed in the accident seven years before.

***

Nick lay on the sofa in his study, smoking a cigarette in the darkness, unable to sleep, his mind turning endlessly. Nick knew something dangerous and evil was loose in his country, that dark forces were at work, and this alarmed and terrified him. He was a voracious reader of newspapers and magazines, and a student of history, the past and in the making, and so he had long understood that the Radical Right was on the march, that hatred and bigotry flourished. His country had just been savaged by an insane
and incomprehensible act of violence, but had it not been savaged for a long time and from within?
Fascism
? He shuddered. As a Jew he could not help thinking of Nazi Germany. He remembered, suddenly, how he had once had a conversation with Christian von Wittingen about the rise of Hitler, had asked him how in God’s name Hider had persuaded so cultured a nation as the Germans to espouse his anti-Semitism, his racist policies. Christian had looked at him in surprise, had answered with a question of his own: ‘What has culture to do with anything?’ Nick recalled now that he had shaken his head silently. And Christian had gone on to say, in a gloomy voice, ‘You’re a Rhodes Scholar, look to the history you read at Oxford. You will soon understand that hate and bigotry and prejudice are emotions all too easily engendered in people, in a nation as a whole, when evil and sinister men are at their diabolical work. Those maniacal fanatics play on weakness and fear and ignorance. Look into the history books, Nicholas. You will find atrocities jumping out from every page. Tomás de Torquemada and the Spanish Inquisition, the Turks slaughtering innocent Armenians, and what about the pogroms which started in Russia after the assassination of Csar Alexander II?’ Christian had exhaled heavily, sorrowfully. ‘Regrettably, lamentably, atrocity is a human crime, one that has been perpetrated for centuries, by
people
, Nick. Shocking, is it not, when one thinks that the most heinous acts imaginable have been committed by supposedly civilized men against other men? And we’d better watch ourselves, watch the whole world, be on our guard against that kind of blind and terrible wickedness, otherwise we may find ourselves facing new unholy terrors in the not too distant future. History is cyclic.’

Nick shuddered again, recollecting Christian’s warning, recollecting how he had stared helplessly at Christian’s stern and suffering face, and then at the young man’s crippled and useless legs. And he remembered thinking at the time: He knows. He’s been there. To hell and back.

Stubbing out his cigarette, Nick pulled the blanket up over himself. He wondered if Katharine was asleep in the other room. She had asked if she could stay the night, telling him she could not bear to go back to the empty apartment. Just after midnight she had donned a pair of his pyjamas and crept into his bed, looking as drained as he had been feeling.

Towards dawn, Nick heard the door creaking open and Katharine whispering, ‘Are you awake, Nicky?’

‘Yes, darling.’ He sat up as she came into the room.’ I haven’t closed my eyes all night,’ she said, hovering near the sofa. He moved, made a place for her next to him, and she came into his arms gratefully, willingly, clinging to him.

After a while, she said, ‘I’m so scared, Nicky.’ He felt her breath near his cheek as she continued, ‘Afraid for all of us, and especially for Ryan. I wish he weren’t going into politics. If this kind of thing can happen once, it can happen again.’ When he made no reply, she whispered, ‘Well, it can, can’t it?’

‘Yes,’ he admitted reluctantly, thinking of Christian’s words, and praying that it never would.

They continued to talk, holding each other tightly, trying to console each other as best they could. And Nick, growing increasingly conscious of her warmth and sweetness and closeness, moved her hair away from her face at one moment, kissed her deeply. ‘I love you, Katharine,’ he told her, unable to contain himself a second longer.

‘And I love you, Nicky,’ she responded at once. Her arms crept around his neck and she kissed him in return.

And much later they made love for the first time, baring their feelings at last. And their act of love was an affirmation of life.

One morning, about four months later, Katherine awakened to find herself filled with a curious and unfamiliar sense of lightness. It was as if a terrible burden had been lifted from her, and for a few seconds she was baffled. Then it began to dawn on her that the feeling of lightness was compounded of two things: relief and joy. For the first time in years, the gnawing anxiety she lived with had evaporated, no longer existed; and she was euphoric with happiness because of Nicholas Latimer.

Jumping out of bed energetically, she pulled on her dressing gown and went into the kitchen of her new apartment, which Nick had found for her and which she had recently purchased. She made herself a pot of tea, toasted an English muffin and carried her simple breakfast back to bed on a small tray. Sipping the tea, she glanced at the framed photograph of Nick on her bedside table. She loved him so much, more than she had ever loved any other man, and so wholeheartedly she was continually dazed by the depth and strength of her emotions. Her gaze lingered on the lean and handsome face, the light, amused eyes, the puckish smile. He was everything she could ever want in another human being. Loving, thoughtful, intelligent, wise, tender and also very very funny at times. She wondered suddenly how she could have ever thought his one-line cracks were acerbic. She smiled to herself. They
were
a little sardonic, but now she understood that there was never any cruelty behind his words. They sprang, quite simply, from his wry view of the world, his penchant for poking fun at it, and at himself most of all.

Her thoughts swung to Beau Stanton. Like Nick, Beau
had always made her feel safe and secure and at ease, and she
had
loved him, although not to the degree she loved Nick, and they had been happy. In the beginning at least. And then their relationship had started to deteriorate, why she had never been sure, and Beau had become withdrawn and moody. One day she had admitted to herself that he had changed towards her, was more of a friend and mentor than a husband. She had not minded this gentle shift, but apparently Beau had been bothered about it. In the end their marriage had collapsed, perhaps because Beau had totally misunderstood her and had attributed her placid acceptance of the situation to indifference on her part. No one had been more surprised than she when he had insisted on a divorce. Yet she knew Beau still cared for her, loved her even, in his own way, and they were now the dearest of friends. And instinctively Katherine was certain Beau would always be there for her, if ever she needed him.

Katherine laughed out loud, remembering how jealous Nick had been two weeks ago, when Beau had flown in from the Coast specially to see her in the play. Although it had opened as a limited engagement, it had been held over twice because of its enormous success, and was still playing to packed houses. Beau had been thrilled about this, crediting her with the long box office queues, and awed by her performance. He had insisted on taking them to dinner after the show, and he had so doted on her through the meal Nick had grown suspicious and wary of Beau. For days afterwards he had pestered her about her marriage, bombarding her with probing questions about its failure, but without eliciting any real responses from her. It was not that she was reluctant to confide in Nick. There was nothing to confide really, since she herself was uncertain why the marriage had gone on the rocks in the first place. Nick’s jealousy had amused her. She and Beau had separated in 1959. It was now March 1964. There was hardly anything to be jealous about. Not any more.

The small Tiffany carriage clock shrilled, the alarm announcing it was ten o’clock, reminding Katherine it was Saturday and that she had a matinée as well as an evening performance to give. Hurrying into the bathroom, she turned on the taps, poured perfumed oil into the tub and pinned up her hah. Her fetish about cleanliness had not waned over the years; if anything, it was even more pronounced. Consequently, her toilet, grown increasingly ritualistic and lengthier than ever, always took well over an hour. After working through an assortment of toothpaste, mouthwash, deodorants and perfumes, she brushed her hair, secured it in a pony tail and went into the bedroom. The large chest of drawers held an incredible amount of exquisite and expensive underwear, stacked in meticulous piles, and she selected lace-trimmed white satin items to wear under her white silk shin and an azure-blue trouser suit of tailored wool. Stepping into low-heeled black suede shoes, she tied a blue ribbon on her pony tail and added her watch, as well as the aquamarine-and-diamond pendant and matching ring Nick had given her for Christmas.

She put on her dark glasses, picked up her suede bag and a small overnight case and left the bedroom. Since it was Saturday she would spend the weekend with Nick at his house, as she always did. She locked the apartment door behind her, glided to the elevator and, as she rode down to the lobby, realized how much she was looking forward to the next couple of days. Nick had been at Che Sarà Sarà for the entire week, conferring with Victor Mason on the new script, but was due back from California in the early evening. She could hardly wait to see him, to tell him how much she had missed him.

When she reached the lobby of the apartment building she saw Howard, her driver, chatting to the doorman. He came forward, greeted her pleasantly, took the case from her. ‘Hello, Howard,’ she said, smiling. She glanced out at the street. ‘It looks like a lovely day. I wish I could walk to the theatre.’

Howard shook his head. ‘No way, Miss T. Mr Latimer would kill me. You know you’d be mobbed in two minutes.’

‘Yes,’ she sighed, thinking the price of fame was a high one sometimes, especially when it came to small things such as taking a walk.

As the car rolled away from the kerb and proceeded down Seventy-Second Street towards Park Avenue, Katharine sat back, mentally ticking off the things she had to do the following week. There were the final decisions to be made on the last purchases for the apartment, which she had been decorating herself with Francesca’s help. They must have it ready by the middle of the month, when she was throwing a party for Hilary Ogden. She also had to talk to the caterers about the menu for the buffet supper, send out invitations, buy a gift for Hilary, and go shopping for a new summer wardrobe. The play was closing at the end of March, and in April she and Nick were taking a vacation in Mexico, at a place Nick knew called Las Brisas, in Acapulco. It would be a marvellous, much-needed rest for them both, before he went to work on his next novel and she started her new picture.

She frowned, concentrating her thoughts on this. She liked the script and her co-star, and the director was one of her favourites. The only aspect of the deal which induced nervousness in her was the studio producing the film: Monarch. It belonged to Mike Lazarus now, or rather his conglomerate, Global-Centurion, had controlling interest. In an odd sort of way, Lazarus still fascinated her, and apparently he felt the same about her. Nick could not stand him, and had been vociferous in his condemnation of Mike, warning her repeatedly about becoming too friendly with him. But Nick had eventually agreed she should do the picture, particularly since it was a quality production and they were meeting her very high price. She now wondered what to do about her house in Bel Air, whether to sell it or not. She planned to reside in New York on a permanent basis. She loved the city
and also wanted to be as close to Nick as possible; he had made it abundantly clear he would never live in California, because he found the atmosphere in Hollywood stultifying. Perhaps at the end of the summer she would put the house up for sale. They planned to live in it whilst she was filming, but after that she really had no use for it. In November they were all going to Africa, she and Nick and Victor, to start shooting the screenplay Nick had just finished for Bellissima Productions. Quite a year ahead of me, she thought, pursing her lips and looking out of the window. She was surprised to see they were heading into Times Square and Broadway.

***

Nick pressed Katherine back against the pillows and, leaning over her, he stared into her face, ‘No, I’m not going to let you get up,’ he said quietly.

Katharine laughed. ‘Nicky, you’re impossible, and quite insatiable.’ She tried to slither out of bed, but he increased his pressure, securing her under him with the weight of his body. He gripped her arms a little too tightly, and she winced, ‘Please, Nicky, let me—’

‘No, not yet, Kath. And you’re mistaken if you think I’m trying to make love again. I’m not. I want to talk to you.’

‘We can talk as much as you wish, darling, if you’ll just let me go to the bathroom first.’

He shook his head slowly. ‘That’s what I want to talk to you about—the way you rush out of my arms the minute we stop making love.’ His voice became a shade quieter as he added, ‘I don’t like it, Katie darling. It bothers me.’ He cleared his throat, and his blue eyes, so steady and honest, pierced through her. ‘To be truthful, I find it a bit insulting.’

Katherine gaped at him, her eyes wide with incredulity. ‘I don’t understand,’ she began falteringly, and stopped.

‘I know you have a desperate need to be pristine every minute of the day and night, but is it really necessary to leap out of bed so abruptly? It’s as though you want to wash every trace of
me
off
you.
’

His words startled her, hurt her, and she bit her lip, blinked nervously. She touched his face with one finger, tracing a line down his cheek. ‘Don’t be so silly, Nicky, you know how much I love you.’ She laughed tensely, feeling inexplicably embarrassed. ‘I can’t help the way I’m made. I like to feel fresh, clean…’