by Karen Swan
‘Quite.’
‘I just have such visions of walking him down to the water and watching his expression when he sees the boat he admired sixty miles away, docked here and waiting for him.’
Her mother smiled. ‘It’s a simply wonderful idea, darling. What do you need?’
Laney swallowed, feeling a wave of relief so powerful, she thought she might throw up. ‘One twenty.’
Whitney picked up the telephone on the table beside her and spoke into the mouthpiece, issuing an order for the transfer to be wired into her daughter’s account.
In the next moment, the teacup was back in her hand. ‘Now we must discuss Palm Beach,’ her mother said. ‘We’re going to throw a party and we’re thinking of theming it. Tell me, what do you think of Carnivale . . . ?’
April 1962
Laney sat in the front seat of the car, which Jack had deliberately parked in the farthest corner of the parking lot, but from where the babble of chatter from the town hall’s single small room could still be heard. Disembodied cameoblack heads drifted past the high-set windows as everyone greeted each other and chatted animatedly, before gradually taking their seats and dropping out of sight.
She took a deep breath, willing herself to go through with this.
‘This is stupid,’ Jack muttered, watching as she readied herself to go, checking her appearance in the mirror one last time. They would be waiting for her. ‘What’s going in there going to do for you?’
‘I must make an effort to be sociable, Jack. We need to build up our circle of acquaintances. Don’t you want us to entertain?’
‘Not them,’ he sneered, his eyes on the profile of a particularly toothy lady with her hair in a demure chignon, who was laughing at something said by someone out of sight.
Laney stared straight ahead, a sob stuck in her throat that he didn’t see the irony of their situation. Stranded by his own pride, he now felt either unwilling or unable to accept what he considered her father’s charity – money they desperately needed. On the other hand, he considered as beneath him anyone of his own financial standing; none of whom dared approach them anyway, intimidated by the great Valentine name. The result was that they were set apart, isolated. Her old friends – unmarried and eligible and still going to balls and parties all year long – had fallen away, scared off by the rumours of Jack’s drinking and his troubles with the casino bosses. She knew they gossiped about her, holding her up as the parable for an unwise, rushed marriage.
‘Don’t be such a snob,’ she said, as lightly as she could. ‘I’m sure they’re perfectly nice. And besides, they do such good works for the community and raise so much for charity. It’s only right I should get involved and give back.’
‘They’ll never accept you. You’re just a freak show to them, a zoo animal. They only want to stare at you and see whether you cry tears of solid gold.’
‘You’re wrong. I’m just like them now.’
He grabbed her wrist, suddenly infuriated. Challenged. ‘What? Impoverished?’
‘I didn’t mean that.’
‘No? What did you mean?’
‘You know what. I just want to live a normal life, Jack. As your wife. I don’t want to be shut away like I’m made of glass. I want normal things – a husband, a home, friends.’
He gave a snort of derision, but didn’t stop her as she opened the car door and moved to get out. ‘I’ll be waiting here.’
‘You don’t need to. I can walk—’
‘I’ll be right here,’ he reiterated firmly.
She nodded, seeing the threat in his eyes, and he let her go. She took out the covered coat from the back seat and walked towards the noisy hall, feeling his eyes on her back the whole way to the door, then eyes on her face on the other side of it, as she stepped in and fifty-four women turned towards her. Mary-Beth Erskine, the leader of the Newport Ladies’ Guild and she of the toothy profile, looked relieved to see her.
The room fell silent.
‘Ah, Mrs Montgomery,’ she beamed. Mary-Beth stood at the front of the room; there was a fashion mannequin with one arm bent and a hand poised in a conversational manner standing nude behind her. ‘We were just about to begin.’
‘I’m sorry if I’m late,’ Laney said, seeing in one scan of the room that she was younger than everyone by at least four years. The Young Wives division of the Ladies’ Guild clearly didn’t mean that young.
‘Not at all. We were just remarking how pleased we are by tonight’s turnout. Almost a full register!’
Laney felt her heart rate quicken. Was it diligence for the club or sheer curiosity to ogle her that had driven them out in such numbers tonight? She felt heat in her cheeks as she walked to the front; felt, too, the keen-eyed gazes assessing the cut of her skirt, the silk of her blouse, how she had rouged her cheeks, the size of the diamond on her finger – and she knew she had her answer. Jack had been right: everyone wanted to see the billionaire’s daughter who was mingling with the masses.
Keeping her face turned away, summoning courage, she took out the coat she was carrying and draped it carefully over the silent moulded figure.
‘Ladies, we’re so lucky to have our newest member, Mrs Elaine Montgomery, talking to us tonight,’ Mary-Beth said, addressing the expectant room. ‘Elaine has agreed to share her expertise on storing your furs for the summer months. Elaine?’
‘Thank you, Mary-Beth.’ Laney stared out at the sea of faces, the mink that had been a sixteenth birthday present from her paternal grandmother like a ghost at her shoulder as she faced what she hoped would be her new future, her new friends. ‘It’s very kind of you all to come tonight. I hope I can be helpful to you.’
‘Sorry, could you speak up?’ a voice from the back called.
Laney flushed and cleared her throat. ‘So . . . uh, obviously, with summer coming, this is the time to prepare our coats for storage and the first thing is to ensure they’re cleaned thoroughly beforehand. If dust permeates the fur and is trapped there, it can mix with the natural oils in the hair shafts, acting like a sponge – soaking up the natural moisture and leading to cracking of the hide, so cleaning it first is a really important part of the process. Then—’
A hand rose in the audience.
‘Yes?’
A woman at the back rose to stand. ‘So how do you clean the fur?’
Laney blinked. Winnie did it. Or rather, Winnie took it to the person who did it. ‘Well, you, uh . . . shake it out, first of all. And then . . . gently beat it with a small paddle.’ She had come across one of the maids doing just that to her mother’s lynx coat, when she’d been much younger.
‘Should I apply water?’ the woman asked.
In a flash, Laney remembered her mother’s horror at once coming across a sable that had been left damp in a cupboard, proclaiming water ‘the devil!’ ‘No. No water.’
The woman nodded, satisfied, and sat back down again.
Laney, her heart pounding now that the interrogation was over, swallowed and resumed her talk. ‘If your fur has an odour – perfume, cigar smoke or the like – zip it into a garment bag and add ground coffee beans at the bottom, stirring them every day. After a few days, the odour will have been absorbed.’
Another hand. ‘But surely the fur would then smell of coffee?’
‘Yes. But if you hang the coat somewhere dry and cool for a day or two, the coffee aroma will disappear from the coat too.’
Another nod; an impressed look.
‘I always store my furs in silk bags, but you can use cotton too. Just no synthetic materials, that’s the important thing.’
A hand went up. A different one.
‘Yes?’
‘Exactly how many furs do you have?’
Laney felt her mind blank again. What did that have to do with anything? ‘Um . . . I’m not sure.’
‘You’re not sure?’ the woman – an attractive brunette – echoed. ‘Gosh. It really must be a number then.’
‘How old is she?’ so
meone whispered not so quietly at the front.
‘Seventeen?’ someone else replied, guessing.
‘Looks younger.’
‘It’s eight. I have eight,’ Laney said decisively, talking over them, shutting down the buzz that was beginning to stir like a colony of disturbed bees. ‘Anyway, um . . .’ She tried to remember where she’d been in her speech. ‘The ideal temperature for storage should be between forty to fifty degrees Fahrenheit, with fifty per cent humidity. The worst thing would be if the hide were to dry out and crack because then the coat would tear at the slightest movement. Keep it somewhere dark, away from both sunlight and light bulbs. And make sure to hang it on a large padded hanger with a clearance of three to four inches from other clothing, else the fur will be crushed.’
A hand. ‘What about moths? Can I use cedar sachets?’
‘Well, the problem with cedar is that the odour is so pungent and it would be absorbed straight into the fur. I personally steer clear of it. Cleaning it before storing it in the garment bag should be sufficient.’
A hand. ‘Just going back to your eight furs again, what exactly are they?’
Laney was quiet for a moment, able to see the dark interest in the women’s eyes, all of them craving this detail, as though to know what hung in her closet was to know what her life was really like, what it was like to be her. ‘I would have to check,’ she mumbled, her eyes darting towards the window and the dark parking lot beyond. She couldn’t see Jack, sitting in the car, but he could see her, she knew, backlit in this room of gingham-clad hyenas.
‘Roughly, though,’ the woman persisted. ‘I mean, you must have a general idea – mink? Sable?’
Laney swallowed again, feeling herself shrink, wishing Winnie were here. ‘Well, this is a mink,’ she said quietly, holding its arm as if for moral support.
‘Your newest?’ someone asked.
She nodded. The silence that followed was expectant, pregnant with awe and envy and judgement. ‘And there’s a lynx, a gold fox, a white fox, a sable, chinchilla—’
‘She’s barely more than a child,’ a woman at the front tutted to her friend.
‘Terribly overindulged. What does a girl of her age need all those furs for? Why, it’s more than one for every day of the week.’
Another tut. ‘With their money, they probably work on a monthly schedule.’
A titter rippled through the front rows.
Laney looked down, feeling her composure desert her. It had been a mistake coming here, thinking she could do this. She had thought this would help make her one of them, not mark her out even further.
‘You’re so lucky,’ one of the younger women in the room said, half-standing with a kind smile.
Laney shook her head, feeling tears gathering like storm clouds, ready to break. ‘No—’
‘Oh, but you are. It must be so wonderful being you.’ She began to clap, a few others joining in too.
Laney kept shaking her head, wanting them to stop. It was everything she didn’t want; everything Jack had said would happen. She would never be accepted. She would always be on the outside. Always alone. ‘Please, don’t—’ But as their claps grew, the storm inside her broke and everyone craned to see the tears fall: was she flesh and blood, or something more – rarer, more precious? All of them envying an idea, a mirage.
‘Oh, don’t cry,’ one called. ‘Why are you crying? You’re just the luckiest girl in the world.’
Chapter Ten
Rome, July 2017
‘I really was the luckiest girl in the world,’ Elena said, from the same chair in which she had sat the other day, her eyes moving back and forth over the small selection of images Cesca wanted to discuss today. It was late afternoon and the sun had moved round to the windows on Cesca’s left, throwing down a dazzling flare of light across the papers on her lap, bleaching out the questions she had been compiling all day as she sorted through the photographs – who was that man? What was the name of that dog? Where was this house? Already, her job of a week ago, tramping through the heat with a gaggle of tourists behind her, felt like a distant dream. In the space of just four days, she had become fully immersed in Elena’s life and was gaining a rhythm for editing the images as the shock of the Valentines’ colossal wealth began to recede and their lifestyle began to seem normal. Not just that, but she was now beginning to be grateful for the palazzo’s 100-foot-long rooms, of which her ‘office’ was just one, for she had begun to lay out her edited selection of images in long lines along the marble floor; Alberto now had to tread carefully when he brought her tea. ‘It was a truly golden childhood.’
‘When we last spoke, we discussed in some detail your relationship with Winnie, your nanny.’
‘Yes.’
‘Today I’d like to get some more detail about your relationship with your parents.’
Elena tipped her head interestedly, a benign smile on her face. ‘What would you like to know?’
‘Well, you said your father inherited his wealth, that he was born into money, but what about your mother?’ She pressed ‘record’ on the digital recorder beside her.
Elena crossed her ankles. ‘My mother was born in Connecticut to second-generation Portuguese immigrants. She was the third of six children and her father worked at the Ford factory. They weren’t poor, but there was never anything extra – no second helpings at dinner, one present at Christmas, clothes that were recycled from her siblings. But my grandfather was a very proud man; he worked hard and had climbed his way up to the rank of foreman before his sudden death.’
‘Oh? What happened to him?’
‘He got his arm trapped in the machinery. It was torn clean off and he bled out before the paramedics could get to him,’ she said with grim matter-of-factness.
‘Good lord.’
Elena nodded and sighed. ‘Apparently, my grandmother never really recovered from the shock.’
‘No. I can imagine.’
‘She’d never been of a strong disposition anyway and although my mother was only fifteen at the time, she said she realized immediately that she had to save the family. Her eldest sister was already married and had moved away to Indiana; the eldest boy had learning difficulties, which meant he could never provide financially. So it was up to Mother to bring the money in.’
‘What did she do?’
‘Modelling. She began as a house model for a local dressmaker, then she was noticed by a photographer who began using her for a magazine called Ladies’ Home Journal, and that opened the door to more magazine work. When my father first set eyes on her, it was in an advertisement in Vogue magazine.’
‘So your father fell in love with her image?’
‘Yes. I’m not sure whether it comes across so much in the black-and-white photographs but my mother had striking looks – very dark hair and olive skin, but with light, bright-green eyes. It was the Portuguese genes. My father had never seen anyone like her before.’
‘Wow. So how did he go about meeting her?’
‘He made an appointment with the dressmaker in whose advert she had starred, on the condition that she – my mother – modelled the collection. He bought every single piece and then gave them all to her, taking her out for dinner that very night. They were engaged within the month.’
‘So it was truly love at first sight, then?’
‘Yes. They were infatuated with one another until my father’s death in 1979. He fell from his horse,’ she added, as though anticipating Cesca would ask.
Cesca found herself taken aback by the unemotional way in which Elena recounted her life – the losses told in the same tone as the joys and triumphs, as though she had rehearsed the words so many times in her head they ceased to have any meaning as she now recited them by heart. ‘And how did your mother cope, being widowed quite young too?’
‘Oh, in her own way. She wasn’t like my grandmother; she remarried within the year – Artie Shaffer, the Hollywood film producer.’
‘I see,’ Cesca said
in surprise. The name was familiar but she couldn’t conjure a face. ‘What was he like?’
‘I don’t know; I never met the man. I was informed of the marriage by telegram. I was living in New York by then and obviously they didn’t want to make a fuss.’ Elena gave a wry smile before adding, ‘Which, translated, meant my mother didn’t want the press writing headlines about her.’
‘So she moved to California?’
‘Yes, Pacific Palisades.’ Elena gave a light sniff. ‘I never visited – not my sort of climate. So arid.’
Cesca hesitated, musing on the tension this development brought to what she knew of the family so far: a passionate marriage in which even their only child was sidelined, yet the mother remarried within a year of her husband’s death. The one negated the other, surely? She thought about the family’s stiff body language in the photographs, Elena’s unsmiling face as she gripped her nanny’s hand. Was Whitney Valentine’s concern about press headlines anything to do with the speed of the marriage? Cesca wondered. And if so, did that imply some sort of relationship – nay, affair – before the death of Elena’s father? Did passion trump love at Graystones? Did they actually feel anything quiet and true, these people, or was their sentiment all for show too, along with the well-bred ponies and gleaming cars? Because the principal feeling Cesca had been getting as she immersed herself in their past, was that for all their material good fortune, the family had seemed . . . unglued somehow, as though they’d all been living under the same roof without ever really seeing each other. ‘Would you say that you and your mother moved apart after your father’s death?’
Elena hesitated, her smile becoming fixed. ‘No, I wouldn’t say that. But neither did we move any closer. I suppose you might say we were like the fixed points of a compass, never moving further apart, nor ever closer, just pivoting around each other in circles.’
