“I’m going to Long Island to visit the nuns at the convent. I’ll be there for a week maybe.”
I had never questioned why she visited with the nuns on Long Island and didn’t ask now. Maggie had a history of being connected to the nuns’ way of life. She spent her childhood in a convent in Dublin and it was a nun who got her started in her singingcareer. In many ways Maggie was almost a nun herself. Had she not become a singer she might well have taken religious vows and lived a life opposite to the one she was living. She lived a life as a single woman and for the most part embraced being alone as a religious expression.
“When I come back here I’m going back to Ireland,” she then said very matter-of-factly.Intentional or not, the absence of emotion in her words pained me. I felt a shiver in my body. As I heard her words ring in my ear I thought she had purposely underlined the implication of them. For the first time since the day I arrived I wondered what my life would be like without her being in it and close by. The freedom of having my own car was suddenly relegated to a meaningless reality. The thought of living in the castle without Maggie was not a good feeling. In fact it was not unlike the sense of detachment I had with my mother when I was packing my suitcase the morning I left home. HereI was again, only a few months but thousands of miles away from home, feeling another emotional trapdoor opening under me. The sense of falling and floating and the feeling that I couldn’t grip or hold onto anything became pervasive all over again in my mind. At the same time I knew the only option I had was to wait and witness what was gradually unfolding in front of me. My mother Molly was home in Dublin and that link had snapped insofar as I could emotionally comprehend. Today, standing in Maggie’s room, I was doing my best to ignore and deny in my mind that I was once again vulnerable to the thought and feeling of abandonment. To fend off the rush of fear and pain, I thought of the car I was now in possession of. I imagined myself driving up and down the entire State of New York. Or even America for that matter. Knowing I could jump in the car and speed away helped me somewhat but Maggie’s reaching out to me in the hotel in Dublin was a big part of my life. Even though it was a near-silent relationship, my life and welfare was still very much determined by her.
WheneverMaggie came down from her apartment for dinner she sat at the table as if an opera was about to begin. Maggie’s biting wit and humouralways electrified those who sat with her. Her personality and fame as an opera singer added an element of fun and culture to the life of the Axes. Ruth and Maggie complemented each other in ways that either might not have thought about or imagined. Maggie’s presence kept Ruth’s artistic impulse alive and Ruth’s business success and wealth afforded Maggie a lifestyle she might not otherwise have had. Emerson’s passion for opera embraced both realities.
In the world of opera, particularly in the late thirties, Margaret Burke Sheridan had a glorious history and career as a first-class diva and prima donna. Her suggestion that I be brought to America might have had something to do with her own disappointments in life. She was essentially alone and not financially secure. Her voice had failed earlier than she would have wished. It was rumoured that the failure had coincided with the failure of a love affair she’d had with a married man in Italy when she was both young and in her prime as a singer.
Maggie in her floating retirement was accepted by both the Axes as if she was part of the family. The thought and inspiration of having me leave Dublin and serve her breakfast in Tarrytown, New York, may well have resonated in Maggie’s mind as part of an operatic plot line by Verdi or Puccini. Mr. and Mrs. Axe may well have seen it in the same context.
The impending reality of Maggie returning to Ireland left me with the impression that I was now in an opera of uncertainty.
As I stood now in front of Maggie I could feel a change coming over my life and I was immediately saddened and even a bit frightened. Before I could fully digest the implications of her pending departure, she broke into my thoughts again.
“What will you do with yourself? You’ll have more time on your hands if I’m not here.”
I could feel a tone of concern in her voice but I didn’t know how to respond. I’d no complaints and for the most part everything had gone quite well since I’d arrived. The Axes were supportive and considerate.
Maggie walked to the armchair and sat down on it. I sat on the chair that was in front of her small desk. I simply didn’t know what I was going to do if and when she returned to Ireland.I got the feeling she wasn’t truly anxious to go but I also sensed that she felt she had to. Why that was she didn’t relate to me. As we both sat in a sad kind of silence Maggie began to talk again.
“Think about going to school while you’re here, Gabriel. Mrs. Axe is in favour of that. Mr. Axe might have little input on the matter at the moment but Mrs. Axe thinks you can improve upon yourself by going to school. Would you like to go to school? I know you’re a bit older now, but you can still go to school if you want to. With all the tutoring Mr. Axe has been heaping on you,” she was referring to our ‘chats’, “you should have no problem getting into school here in Tarrytown.”
* * *
The ritual of family dining was essentially non-existent at the castle. More often than not Mrs. Axe either had a meeting in Manhattan that ran late or she got tied up in traffic on her way home. Sometimes she’d stay in the city if her meetings went past a certain hour. Mr. Axe would then eat alone at the dinner table while reading a book or listening to an opera. When he was in a good mood and wasn’t overtly annoyed at his wife’s absence, he’d share some of his thoughts with me about the opera or the classical music he was listening to. If his business day had gone well he would give me a lesson in chess. One day he’d explain the function of one chess piece, the next day he’d spend time explaining another. By the end of that month I knew where all the chess pieces on the board were placed and what purpose they served.
I learned to play chess but it didn’t take long for me to come to the conclusion that my life in the castle was a bit like a chess game itself. I was never sure of which direction to move. Some days I could move forward. Other days I could move sideways. On days when Mr. and Mrs. Axe were entertaining guests I could even leap out the door and jump into my car and speed away.
When I’d meet up with Mrs. Axe she’d inform me about Maggie’s whereabouts. At one point she related to me that Maggie had gone into hospital in Dublin but was out again and staying in a special nursing home. Mrs. Axe didn’t tell me and I didn’t feel it my place to ask why Maggie was in a nursing home instead of the Shelbourne Hotel.
After Maggie’s departure I was less inclined to stay at home. Without her presence and indirect supervision I was free to drift about in my car. I didn’t hesitate to take the opportunity to get behind the wheel of the Ford Convertible and drive to town to listen to Frank Dillon talk about his non-existent time in Hollywood.After an hour or two of heavy drinking Frank would announce that he was leaving for Tinseltown to seek fame and fortune, only to be backsitting on the same bar stool the next night and the night after that.
The stories I brought back to Pat and Jim prompted them to warn me about spending too much of my time in the bar.Whether it was on purpose or not, Pat and Jim found a way to keep me home at night. They asked me to help in the kitchen when Pat was under stress and in need of assistance. I agreed that I would forgo my trips into town and oblige, particularly when Pat informed me that Mrs. Axe had expressed concern about my visits to the local wateringhole at night.
Because of its isolation my apartment was a place I only wanted to be in when I was asleep. Once I had climbed the marble staircase and entered the quarters I felt I had entered a lock-up. As comfortable as it was with its big bathtub and hot water, clean bed sheets and great view of the Hudson River, I felt as soon as I lay down on the bed that I was lost to the world at large. There wasn’t a phone or any way of contacting anyone. To get attention or to let anybody know I was home or even alive I’d either have to step out on the landing and y
ell or run all the way back down to the kitchen or knock on Pat’s apartment door.
The kitchen had become my favourite room in the castle. I ate there most of the time and it was where I met up with Mrs. Axe when she wanted to talk to me or when she was giving Pat orders for the week’s menu.
Sometimes the Axes entertained guests. I avoided so many parties and functions at the castle that Mrs. Axe gave up on inviting me to them. Most of her guests were business associates and elderly folk. I didn’t fit in and I didn’t want to either. My life with the Axes since Maggie’s departure had fallen into a void and a limbo. The daily routine of living in the castle with them was something akin to being a pendulum. One day I’d be talking to Mr. Axe, another day I’d be talking to Mrs. Axe. Without prior notice I’d drive with them when both went into New York City. In Manhattan they would stop off at the Metropolitan Club on Fifth Avenue. The club was an exclusive address for wealthy patrons. In the course of two or three months I had dinner several times in the dining room and sat next to the big window that faced Fifth Avenue. The view from the window opened up to Central Park. Between dessert and coffee I saw half of America walking by outside. At such times I was always alert to be on my best behaviour and to display my table manners and all the facets of upper-class living that I had observed at the Shelbourne and that Maggie and Mrs. Axe had instructed me in.
But whether I was dining at the Metropolitan Club on Fifth Avenue or sitting in a rundown bar in Tarrytown with Frank Dillon and his cabal of disillusioned mates, I sensed a feeling growing in me that was telling me I wasn’t comfortable in either reality. I wanted to be on the road and highway hearing the blast from the dual exhaust pipes I’d had put onto the old Ford I drove. The feeling of being alone and moving fast at the same time was, if nothing else, intoxicating.
* * *
Sitting in the office one day I got a call from Mrs. Axe. She told me she was driving into Manhattan and suggested I go along with her and that I could drive her car if I was up to it.
An hour later I was behind the wheel of her Cadillac driving down the Saw Mill River Parkway and heading for New York City. The journey to Manhattan took about forty minutes and, by the time I’d parked the car in a garage on West 56th Street, Mrs. Axe and I had talked to each other more than we had since we first met in Dublin. I learned how the business she and Mr. Axe founded had become so successful. Both of them had a passion for finance and each was a highly respected financial adviser in different fields of expertise. The Axes had established a very successful mutual funds corporation that enhanced their reputation in the world of Wall Street. Even though I had been living in the same residence as Mrs. Axe and frequently meeting up with her for many months, the one-on-one conversation in the car was like two people meeting for the first time. It was my sense that when Maggie was around Mrs. Axe kept her distance. For a time I actually believed she was a bit cold and icy: always nice but somewhat indifferent and distant. Prior to today there was always another individual, such as Maggie, Pat or Mr. Axe in our company. As I drove along the highway Mrs. Axe heard more about my life than she had ever heard before. Most of her knowledge of me had come from Maggie, though she and Maggie had also met my mother in Dublin – a meeting I still cringed to think about. When she asked in detail about my schooling I, with some embarrassment, told her I had very little of it in Dublin. I had assumed she knew but by her reaction I realised she didn’t. That put a new light on her efforts to mould me into a financial whizz kid. She simply had no idea I could barely compute.
As I drove closer to Manhattan Mrs. Axe got around to talking about her love of music and the opera, and her own life. Her childhood ambition was to be a violinist but when she met and married she neglected to pursue her creative impulse. I sensed, if only vaguely, that at some level or in some part of her brain her attachment to Maggie substituted for the lack of her own artistic expression.
She talked on, telling me how she had contemplated going professional and joining an orchestra. Had she not embarked on a weekend trip to Boston where she met Emerson Axe, the captain of the Harvard fencing team, a gifted student in economics and a descendant of the ninth Attorney General of the United States, she might be playing in some orchestra pit in a major American city. Whether it was his rapier, his mind or a combination of the two, Emerson Axe persuaded Ruth Houghton to abandon her musical ambitions and throw her lot in with him. Both graduated in the same year and shortly thereafter got married. Not long after that they formed their own financial advisory company and set up offices in New York City. For some thirty years they worked in tandem with each other and shared just about everything in life except children. Over the years, as they became more and more successful in the world of finance they became less personal in their marriage and relationship. When they moved from New York City to the castle in Tarrytown they had decided on separate living quarters and a sharing of professional responsibilities.
She told me how she was so attached to Maggie and how much she missed her. I expressed the same sentiment. We both laughed when we innocently remarked on Maggie’s temperament. Mrs. Axe laughed out loud when I told her about Maggie’s reputation at the Shelbourne Hotel. What made the conversation about Maggie humorous was that Mrs. Axe always paid Maggie’s hotel bills and she jokingly apologised for causing the ruckus that seemed always to take place when Maggie registered in the hotel.
Since the time she had become my legal guardian via Maggie’s influence, this was the first long and uninterrupted opportunity for Mrs. Axe and me to talk and exchange thoughts, ideas and perceptions.
She inquired about how I was getting along with the people I sometimes worked with in the office and if I was receiving my pay cheque of forty dollars per week. She queried me about my relationship with Pat and Jim. She mentioned that she was aware of the time I was spending driving about town in the car she had allowed me to have and the amount of time I was using up in the local bar with some of the town drunks. When I explained that I only went to the bar for a bit of company and amusement she laughed.
Mrs. Axe appeared to be pleased with how I had integrated into her home, her life and the area in general. For a part of the drive she talked about my family in Dublin and wanted to know if I had kept in touch with them, mainly my mother Molly, and asked if she should send Molly the dress she’d promised. I told her I hadn’t written home since I arrived and, with the exceptionof two small one-page letters I received from my mother when I first left Ireland, I hadn’t heard from her or anybody else in the family. As for sending my mother a dress, I submitted that Molly, because of her obsession with pain, suffering and penitence, would in all likelihood not wear it. Transforming my mother from her self-imposed image of a sixth-century martyr would take a miracle. The first thing she would do with the dress would be to take it to the pawn shop and get whatever she could for it. She would rather be seen wearing an old and tattered dress and a crown of thorns. The latest fashion in clothing, particularly if it had come from America, would in Molly’s eyes be an attack on her devotion to her religion and an obstacle in the way of her journey to Heaven. I didn’t want to deny my mother a new dress nor did I want to influence Mrs. Axe in her proposal of sending one to her, but I was convinced that it would be better for both of them if the gift of a dress was postponed indefinitely. The existence of a new dress in Molly’s life, were she to accept and wear it, would be a life-changing experience not only for her but for those who knew her. It wasn’t the Way of the Cross and no saint ever got to Heaven wearing a new dress. Also the presence of a new dress would probably have a traumatic effect on my father. If, by way of a miracle, Molly wore the dress, he’d be obliged to change his lifelong opinion of her and the consequence of that would impact on both of them and force them to reassess their marriage and relationship.
In the course of the drive Mrs. Axe also told me how I might rethink my own life.Essentially she said she had talked to Maggie prior to her departure and both agreed that I should go to high schoo
l in Tarrytown. I was happy to hear this and felt very positive about my future at the castle. As Mrs. Axe related it, I was to go to the school the next week with a Mr. Dolan, a man from the office designated by her, and enrol in the school. The thought of jumping into my hot-rod car every morning was as exciting as it could get for me. Washington Irving High was about a five or ten-minute drive from the castle. For days, weeks, and months I had observed students entering and exiting the building on the main road that went through Tarrytown.
Tom Walton and I had gone to see the school play soccer on a few occasions and I looked forward to being not only a student at Washington Irving but a member of its soccer team as well. Nor had I forgotten the cheerleaders.
* * *
On the way back from New York City that evening, as I drove through the main gate of the castle, Mrs. Axe asked me if I would prepare and serve her breakfast every morning before I attended school. She required her breakfast brought to her room about seven forty-five. She also requested that I bring it to her by the back door to her office and living quarters. This directed me away from passing by Mr. Axe’s quarters so early in the morning.Part of the fascination of the castle was that it had so many doors and staircases and passageways that one could almost live an entire life in one part of the castle and not be seen or even noticed by those residing in another part.
The schedule we discussed before getting out of the car allowed me enough time to get myself ready for school which started at about eight thirty. After the early-morning chore I’d be free the rest of the day to attend school as well as being out of the castle and inhabiting a new world that I very much looked forward to.
* * *
I Dream Alone Page 4
