Possessions

by Judith Michael

  As they disappeared into the dressing room, Tobias said cheerfully, "She has twenty sweaters in the bureau to the left of her bedroom door in Menton. After this summer, she will no doubt have thirty. Are you feeling melancholy, my dear?"

  "About the loan? No—"

  "I was not thinking of the loan."

  Katherine gave a little laugh. "It's not fair that you can read my mind, Tobias; I can't read yours."

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  "Of course you can. Why do I think you might be melancholy?"

  "You think I'd like to go to the unpretentious south of France and stay in my own villa and take side trips to Paris and the wine country and the Alps."

  "And wouldn't you?"

  "Yes."

  "Quite right. I would be profoundly worried about you if you didn't. What are you going to do about it?"

  "Nothing, Tobias; what can I do? I'll feel better when Victoria has left for her villa. I have plenty of work to keep me busy, and you'll be here to cheer me up; I won't brood all summer, if that's what you mean."

  "Of course you won't brood; you're not the type. I was simply wondering why you don't go to the south of France."

  "I cannot afford to go to the south of France."

  *True. But Victoria does not demand rent from her guests, and three airline tickets could be called an advance birthday present—your birthday is in August, is it not?"

  'Three airline—? To France? To stay with Victoria? But she's never said a word about it."

  "Ah, but she has. To me. Since Christmas, she has fretted over how to ask you to join her in Menton. Why do you think she is going in July when her usual time is April and May? She waited until Todd and Jennifer were out of school. But still we kept debating how to ask you. Victoria is not timid, as you no doubt have noticed, but after your severe refusal last March of her offer to help your jewelry career, she tiptoes around you, wanting to give, but afraid to try. You are so fierce in your rejections, my dear. But just now you graciously accepted a knit suit and it occurred to me that you might accept a trip to France if I explained it carefully, which I have just done. Now, my dear, quickly, before you have time to think of obstacles: would you like to go to France with Victoria?"

  "Of course I'd like it—^I'd love it. I've never been there, I've never been anywhere in Europe. But how can we? I haven't made arrangements—"

  "No obstacles allowed! Of course we should have asked you earlier, but each time we talked about it, we put it off. Two old people afraid of being turned down. But it's not com-

  POSSESSIONS

  plicated; you don't need much time. Let me think. Passports. Are they current?"

  Katherine shook her head. "We never traveled. And we didn't need them to move here ..."

  "Oh, dear, oh, dear. Well, we have friends in the government offices; we'll manage. What else? Your jewelry. You can work on designs in France and make the pieces when you return. You could stay quite a while and still accomplish that. Three weeks? Four? The children, of course, are out of school, and you said you would not be sending them to camp."

  She nodded.

  "Yes?" Tobias asked.

  "Yes, I'm not sending them to camp." They laughed.

  "And you told us some time ago you are no longer seeing Derek, so unless you have returned to him or found someone else—?"

  "No."

  *Then there is not even a romance to keep you in the city."

  "Not even that," Katherine said. "There's really nothing to keep me in the city." Except Craig. The words were dark against Tobias' bright confidence. If he comes looking for us, he'll find another empty house. But excitement was running through her like quicksilver, and thinking of Craig only reminded her of the times, long ago, when she wanted to plan trips to Europe and Craig refused. He preferred trips in Canada, he said, though when she asked why, he gave no specific reasons. Now, suddenly, she understood why. He didn't have a passport. He couldn't get one without a birth certificate . . . and there was no birth certificate for Craig Fraser. I suppose he could have had one forged, Katherine thought. But perhaps he thought enough of his life was forged already. She felt a rush of pity for him. He wasn't free to travel about the worid, and he couldn't explain that to me without telling the truth about himself. So there was one more secret, one more space between us . . .

  "Nothing to keep you here," Tobias was echoing with a gleeful smile and Katherine felt her excitement return as Victoria, who had been listening, came out of the dressing room, her arms filled with clothes, saying, "Of course, Katherine, you will want your blue jeans and your own casual things, but

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  I have far too many sweaters and shirts and all of them are perfect for you—" She stopped as Katherine and Tobias burst into renewed laughter. "As part of your birthday present," she went on calmly. "I cannot imagine why you two should find that hilarious. Katherine, it will take a day or two for you to get passports, but after that, how soon can you come? You will fly to Nice; the limousine will meet you, and you and I will take a separate shopping trip to Paris. Did Tobias say four weeks?"

  "Yes," Katherine breathed. "But I'm not sure—"

  "Four weeks sounds quite satisfactory. Can you be ready to leave in a week? July fifth. My dear"—Victoria laid her hand on Katherine's cheek—"forgive me if I seem a trifle autocratic; I am so very happy that you will let me give you this. It has been so long since there were young voices at the villa . . . We think we become self-sufficient and tough, but we never stop longing to share the things we love. Without it, we're only half-alive. How wonderful that you are coming!" She coughed and impatiently wiped her eyes. "Well, then" —briskly she turned back to the piles of clothes on the bed— "it's settled. Tobias will arrange for passports and three tickets for July fifth. Unless, of course, you have a serious objection— T

  "Take the good the gods provide thee,'" murmured Tobias urgently. "Dryden. Wise man. Valuable advice."

  "Of course," said Katherine softiy. "After all, she only seemed to be a trifle autocratic." Their eyes met in a smile. Then her excitement was too much to contain and jumping up, she put her arms around Victoria. 'Thank you. Thank you. Oh, it sounds so pale —how can I tell you—?"

  "Quite sufficient, dear Katherine. As long as you are pleased."

  "I love you," Katherine said. "And now I'm going home because I can't wait to tell Jennifer and Todd. Or may I help you pack?"

  "Lily is here. And Tobias helps by telling me I need nothing, which reduces the amount I pack. I'll call you tomorrow morning before I leave." Victoria kissed her on both cheeks. 'Tell your children to practice their French. Oh, my dear, what fim we are going to have!"

  POSSESSIONS

  Katherine was smiling as she left the building, her voice dancing with such delight when she said goodbye to the doorman that his face creased in an answering grin. It was still there a few minutes later when he opened the door to let Ross in. "Happiest young lady I ever saw, just left Mrs. Hayward," he said, shutting the grille on the elevator and starting the stately ride to Victoria's floor.

  Ross had seen her, walking down the steep pitch of Washington Street. Her distinctive beauty drew glances from pas-sersby, but it was the brightoess of her face that had struck him, and the eagerness of her step. At a stoplight, she had crossed in front of him, her eyes looking to the distance. A happy woman, he thought: joyously anticipating, hurrying— probably because someone is waiting.

  "You just missed Katherine," Victoria said, kissing him. "You'll have sherry with us, won't you? Tobias thmks it is sustenance for packing."

  "Otherwise I grow faint from your exertions," said Tobias. He handed Ross a glass. "Derek was here earlier, to wish Victoria a good trip, and Ann and Jason called, from Maine. It is astonishing how the solicitude over Victoria's well-being has increased in the past year."

  "Has it?" Ross asked. "I didn't know."

  "Do you know why?"

  He reflected. "Craig, of course. The chance that he might come back.
Odd, how he hovers over the family."

  "Disruptive," said Tobias sagely. "Thoughts of him bring thoughts of emotional and financial disruptions."

  Ross pictured the Craig of his youth: brown eyes watching for approval as he busied himself with model airplanes, wood carvings, and intricate matchstick houses, or sailed his boat on the bay, dreaming of the skyscrapers he would build, and the trips he would someday take to Europe and Asia, as far as he could go. Disruptive? Only Derek had found him disruptive in those days.

  "Derek mentioned Bay Bridge Plaza," said Tobias very casually. "He seems to think we're being frozen out. Where would he get that idea?"

  "He got it from me. Don't be cagey, Tobias. Derek told you he came to see me."

  POSSESSIONS

  "So he did. I thought I should hear your side of the story before forming an opinion."

  *The Hayward Corporation will have a small part of Bay Bridge. The rest will be built by other subcontractors. The developers are afraid of the appearance of a conflict of interest. That's all there is to it." Ross began to pace from one end of the bedroom to the other. "I didn't think, Tobias, I'd have to make excuses to you. There's never been any reason for you to doubt my honesty. Or my family loyalty." His strides grew longer. "Of all the places where I hope to find acceptance this is the one I count on most; I don't expect to walk in at the end of a hellish week and be grilled about my relationship with my brother."

  "Whoa, whoa, now, dear friend." Tobias looked keenly at Ross. "I was speaking of the corporation, not you and Derek. However, this is not the time. You seem tired—"

  ■seem

  I"

  "And fuming. Would you care to dump your problems— as the young people say?"

  Ross gave an apologetic laugh. "I'm sorry, Tobias. You didn't deserve that. Do you really want to hear about my week?"

  "Does it have more plot than Victoria's discussion of what she will pack—which I have listened to all day?"

  They laughed. "Well, then." Sitting on a hassock, his elbows on his knees, Ross described his staff meetings on crises at Bay Bridge, and his session with Derek. "And at least a dozen times this week I started a letter to Jacques Duvain, telling him I can't be his consultant in Paris."

  "Started?" Tobias asked. "Not finished?"

  "Not yet. For some reason I keep putting it off. I'll do it tomorrow. But I haven't finished with my week. Friday evening I picked up Carrie and Jon. Do you know what it feels like, Tobias, to knock at a front door that was mine for years?"

  "You said Melanie gave you the new key."

  "I won't use it unless I have to. I don't live there anymore, so I knock."

  "Correct but depressing." Tobias poured more sherry. "And how did the three of you get on?"

  "Acrimoniously. We squabble over little things—trying to get used to everything, I suppose. This afternoon, when I was

  POSSESSIONS

  driving them home, Carrie said, 'Mother goes around singing about Guy what's-his-name, and you have a house with a Jacuzzi; we're the only ones who are unhappy, and what's fair about that?'"

  "What indeed?" asked Tobias. "How did you answer?'*

  "I told them life wasn't fair." Ross began to pace again, "On my way over here, I bought a stack of books on divorced fathers. Do you think they'll help?"

  'They'll show you you're not alone. That should help."

  Quietly, Victoria had come up behind them. She put a hand on Ross's hair. "Poor boy. So many pressures on you."

  Tobias glanced up sharply at the note in her voice. No one knew Victoria as well as he; no one else, hearing her sympathize with her grandson, would have been aware that her thoughts were racing ahead with plans. "Yes," he agreed. "A difficult time for Ross."

  Victoria smiled at him with a glint of conspiracy, then as if suddenly inspired, exclaimed, "Ross! I have a grand idea!"

  Ross looked up. "You mustn't wony about me; I'll be all right. You're supposed to be thinking about France, and taking a rest from all your boards of directors."

  "I am thinking about France! How clever of you to understand. You shall come to France! You have work to do in Paris—"

  "I'm turning that down."

  "Please do not interrupt. You just told Tobias you put off writing your letter. Why? Because you want to go. Voild! You shall go. Do your consulting in Paris and when you are finished come to Menton. You haven't been there in far too many years. We will have a visit. Are you listening?"

  "I'm listening. Carrie and Jon are spending July with me."

  There was barely a pause. "Bring them. The Riviera is very healthy for children. And their fathers. Your staff can handle your new plaza for a while. You haven't had a vacation since Melanie began refusing to go away with you; I am offering you one, with a chance to do the woric you wish to do. There are other reasons—"

  "Stop," Ross laughed. His head was up, his body felt lighter and more buoyant than it had in weeks. "You don't need any more reasons. You've convinced me. I don't know why I never

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  thought of going; it's exactly what I need." He stood and hugged Victoria, kissing her boisterously. As he turned, he saw the glance she and Tobias exchanged. "What is it? What don't I know?"

  "How happy you've made me," Victoria said smoothly. "How much I look forward to seeing you in Menton. How sorry Tobias is that he is not going. Oh, my," she added with a tremulous sigh. "What fun we are going to have!"

  Chapter 13

  Hv

  .UGH Hayward had dreamed of a villa near Nice since spending several months there during the First Worid War. Not yet mobbed by tourists, it had a leisurely pace, vivid beauty and year-round golden warmth that he remembered for the next thirty years. The depression and another war intervened before he could return, this time with Victoria, to explore the region of Provence from Marseille to Nice until they found the Villa Serein. At the time, in the spring of 1948, it hardly matched its name, being far from serene as it huddled, empty and desolate, behind tangled weeds. Its stucco walls were flaked, its windows broken, the roof pocked with holes, and all its doors had been used during the war for firewood.

  But the villa stood near the top of a hill overlooking Menton and its harbor, long a favorite of European royalty, and its rooms were large and solid. Besides, so soon after the Second World War, properties on the Cote d'Azur were bargains, especially those in disrepair. Before returning to America, Hugh

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  bought six, and some years later sold five of them at a handsome profit.

  There never was any question of selling Villa Serein. Once the weeds were gone, the trees tamed, and the rooms newly whitewashed, Victoria had fallen in love with it and undertook its renovation with the experience and enthusiasm that had been pent-up since she had run the Hay ward Corporation.

  After Derek and Ross were bom, the villa was enlarged to fourteen rooms with a terrace in front and a garden with a small pond at the rear. Over the years it was refurbished many times, and when Katherine and the children arrived, they found square, low-ceilinged rooms, bright and inviting, filled with plump furniture in the sun-filled colors of Pissarro and Matisse, painters who had lived in Provence and whose paintings, bought by Hugh when he was a soldier, hung on the walls of the villa as well as in Victoria's apartment in San Francisco.

  "Magnifique" pronounced Todd. "Merveilleux. Beau." Having nearly exhausted his French vocabulary, he added a final, "Merci."

  Victoria laughed. "Well done."

  Jennifer, remembering instructions from Katherine, said, "It*s very good of you to have us here."

  "It is a pleasure," Victoria responded. "I want you to have a wonderful time, so we shall begin by going over your choices ..."

  There was swimming in the Olympic-size pool in Menton, tennis lessons in town and sailing lessons at the harbor, badminton and croquet, which Victoria had imported from England, the villa's own library, with French and English books, down the hall from their bedrooms ("Our own rooms," Todd s
aid, jabbing Jennifer with his elbow), and a garden filled with vegetables to pick for lunch and dinner.

  To help them choose, the next morning Victoria gave them a supply of francs to pay for lessons or to go shopping in town. And finally she introduced them to the gardener, and Sylvie and Charles, the couple who cooked and managed the villa, and who would watch over them for the next few days. "Because your mother and I are going shopping in Paris," she announced.

  "We just got here," objected Todd, "and you're already leaving."

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  "We will be away for three days," said Victoria calmly. "I am confident you will cope quite well."

  Katherine let her thoughts drift while Victoria took charge. How pleasant, she thought, to let someone else take over for a while.

  It was a little space of time in a fantastic place like none she had ever known. Tropical palm trees along the harbor; cypresses and ancient, gnarled olive trees on the steep hills, shading flat-roofed villas covered with climbing roses; the narrow dusty-pink houses of Menton stopping just short of the harbor's edge, beyond which huge, gleaming yachts and sixty-foot sailboats rocked gently in the soft breeze. A little bit of time in a place so beautiftil and warm, the sun heavy and golden, the air spicy and sensuous, it was impossible to believe anyone could frown or worry or weep. Far from familiar routines and problems; far from everyday thoughts; far from memories.

  Far from Craig.

  He wasn't there, Katherine realized. And the next morning, when she and Victoria flew to Paris, it was still true. His shadow had not followed her. Crossing an ocean to a different world, she had broken away from him. For a while.

  The next morning, as the plane climbed rapidly above the white crescent of Nice, Victoria said, "I waited for you, so we could go shopping together. One of the few joys of being old is introducing the young to new pleasures. It would take you months of wandering to discover the best places by yourself, while I can show them to you in three days. So unfortunate, the tourists who have no one to direct them."

  "Perhaps they enjoy wandering," Katherine suggested.

  "Nonsense. Without a plan? I cannot imagine it."