The Proprietor's Daughter

by Lewis Orde

  The light turned green. Katherine let up the clutch and roared away, the instant of anger past. “Are you sure you really want a pizza?”

  “Obviously, you don’t. I can see you looking down your nose at the very idea.”

  “I must admit that I would prefer something else.”

  “Fine! I’d say let’s grab a hamburger — if only you could find a decent hamburger in this city.”

  “Only the best for your gourmet palate, eh? All right, pizza it is.”

  She drove to Soho, to a restaurant that was part of a small pizza chain. When they sat down, Katherine asked, “How’s your book going? Your great American novel that’s staged in Vietnam, and is being written in England.”

  “I’m getting close to where I write thirty.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “In the States, copy ends with the figures three-zero. Once I’ve finished this one . . . no, let’s be optimistic . . . once I’ve sold this one, I can get going on book two.”

  “Two books. You are ambitious, aren’t you?”

  “Three books. It’s a trilogy. Vietnam seen by the officers, the noncommissioned officers, and the enlisted men.”

  “What do you know about Vietnam?”

  “Only what I learned during a thirteen-month tour of duty.”

  “You were there?” Katherine’s interest sparked; she’d never met a veteran of that war.

  “In ’seventy, ’seventy-one. Just about when we all knew that the war was a lost cause.”

  “Which were you? Officer, noncom, or enlisted man?”

  “Officer. First lieutenant working for the public information office. I majored in journalism, worked on a daily newspaper called The State for a couple of years, then the nice men at the draft board remembered that they’d missed me. So long South Carolina, hello South Vietnam.”

  “Did you see any fighting?”

  “Only by accident. I was one of many assistant public information officers at a place called Tan Son Nhut. That was an airbase just outside of Saigon, which served as headquarters for the American presence. MACV, to give it the proper title. The improper title was Pentagon East.”

  “What duties did you have to perform?”

  “Prepare news releases for the daily press conference which took place at five every afternoon. The Five O’Clock Follies, as some wag once termed it. We had the worst public relations job in the world, trying to sell an unpopular war to journalists whose cynicism was eclipsed only by their total disbelief. When I got out, I went back to South Carolina for two years, then I got a job in New York with the International Press Agency.”

  “Never married?”

  “I was. To my college sweetheart.”

  “What happened?”

  Barnhill did not answer for a long time. He just sat there, chewing on his lower lip, and Katherine thought she had asked one question too many. Finally, he said, “I keep telling myself that my marriage was just another casualty of Vietnam. Mary didn’t dump me while I was away, but I think that was when she started looking elsewhere for company. I used to hear things from friends I’d left behind in Carolina. When I got back home, everything was fine again. It was only when we moved up to New York City that it all seemed to go haywire. She kept complaining that she couldn’t settle down in New York. She felt out of place — she belonged in the rural South, not in the big city.”

  “Did Mary work?”

  “She was a teacher. She qualified to teach in New York, but she couldn’t handle the kids. I don’t think she knew what hit her the first day she walked into a New York City public school. She gave me an ultimatum: either we returned to South Carolina, or she was going to make my life a misery.”

  “Did she?”

  Barnhill nodded. “Our working hours were so different that we might just as well have been two strangers. She worked days, and I was on the night shift. On top of that, during the long school vacations, she went back to South Carolina on her own. One night, I had a lousy cold. Before I could give it to everyone else on the night shift, I was sent home. When I let myself into the apartment, I found Mary with a friend of mine.”

  Katherine tried to imagine Barnhill flying into a fury, beating up the friend, and then turning on the unfaithful wife. The vision failed to materialize. “What did you do?”

  “I turned around and walked out. The next day, I saw a lawyer and started divorce proceedings. Later, when I got my head together, I applied to be transferred to the London desk. And here I am.”

  “Has your divorce come through?”

  “A few weeks ago.” Barnhill stared down at the table. “And I feel more alone now than I’ve ever felt in my entire life. How about you?”

  “Alone? No. I’m married to a man who’s confined to a wheelchair, but I’m far from alone.”

  “That’s right. You have kids who aren’t old enough to understand a soccer game, and that’s why you don’t let them go. Not for fear of being beaten up, or recruited into a fascist organization, but because they wouldn’t understand the rules.”

  Katherine laughed. “You could be amusing if you weren’t so bloody cynical.”

  “What kind of a mother are you?”

  “I try to be a good one, but with a journalist’s hours I’m afraid that my children sometimes get ignored.” She listened to what she was saying. “You know, you’ve got a damned nerve asking me that!”

  “Why did you answer?”

  “Because your question was so out-of-the-blue that it caught me right off guard.”

  “Mark of a good reporter,” Barnhill said. “Asking questions that catch people off guard. I learned that trick from the reporters at the Five O’Clock Follies in Vietnam.”

  From the restaurant, Katherine returned Barnhill to his apartment. He invited her in for a cup of coffee. She shook her head and said, “Get on with your book. I want to read it.”

  “You have more faith than I do. Thanks for the dinner. Next time it’ll be my treat.”

  “We’ll see.” She waved a hand before driving away.

  It was nine-thirty when Katherine reached the street in which she lived. As she neared the house, she realized that Franz was not aware that she had a new car. He would get a big surprise when he looked out of the window and saw the sleek silver Porsche in front of the house.

  She pulled into the driveway. Suddenly, the surprise was all hers. Parked next to the Jaguar sedan was a maroon Rolls Royce. Katherine braked hard, skidding the Porsche in the gravel. She fumbled with the clutch and gearshift, trying to find reverse. She had to get out of here before she came face to face with John Saxon in her own home.

  Wheels spun. Gravel spat at the two parked luxury cars. Before the tires could grip, the front door of the house swung back, and Katherine knew it was too late. Edna Griffiths stood in the doorway, staring out uncertainly at the unfamiliar sports car that was trying desperately to make a getaway.

  “Is that you, Mrs. Kassler?” came the singsong Welsh voice. “Oh, yes, it is. I didn’t recognize the car. You have a visitor. A Mr. Saxon. He’s been waiting almost an hour.”

  Katherine climbed out of the Porsche. She walked right past Edna Griffiths without any kind of greeting and marched along the hallway toward the television room, where she could hear voices. She did not know what had possessed Saxon to come to the house. Jealousy, because she’d stood him up this one night? Some raging macho anger that was forcing him to destroy everything? She had no idea. But now that she was in the house, she wanted to get the confrontation out of the way as quickly as possible. Face the explosion. See where all the pieces of her life fell. Then pick them up and start over again.

  Her last thought, as she walked through the doorway of the television room, was: How the hell am I going to explain all this to my father?

  “There she is,” Saxon said. “The tabloid crusader herself.”

  One step inside the television room, Katherine stopped dead. Franz sat in his heavily padded chair. John Saxon sat next to
him. Cups of tea were set out on the table between them, even some of Edna Griffiths’s freshly baked shortbread. There was no fight. No acrimony between the man who’d stolen a wife, and the man from whom he’d stolen her. Instead, a party was taking place. A tea party. The only thing missing, as far as Katherine could see, was the Mad Hatter.

  Saxon stood up, hands outspread. “A telephoned apology, even a written one, for my behavior today would never have sufficed. As rude as I was, only a personal apology would be enough. So, I apologize.”

  “You could have made a personal apology just as easily at the Eagle.”

  “And missed this wonderful hospitality? Your husband and I have spent the past hour, while waiting for you to return from your late assignment, by exchanging Katherine Kassler anecdotes.”

  “I was not aware that any existed.”

  “Many!” Saxon exclaimed. “The time you arrived at my office in St. James’s Square, dumping photographs on my desk and claiming to be the lift operator’s niece.”

  Katherine glanced at Franz. He was smiling. Obviously, Saxon had told the story well. He must have charmed Franz the same way he charmed everyone. Selling freezers to Eskimos in the middle of winter . . .!

  Saxon checked his watch. “Regretfully, I have to leave. Again, accept my apologies for the way I jumped down your throat today. I think you’re wrong to publicize lunatic organizations like the British Patriotic League, and I think this special assignment you mentioned is even more wrong — further interest by the Eagle will just make the League believe it is important. But I should never have told you so in the manner I did.”

  “I’ll show you out,” Katherine offered.

  “Thank you.” Saxon shook hands with Franz. “Good night, it was a pleasure to meet you.”

  Katherine saw him to the forecourt. As Saxon opened the door of the Rolls Royce, Katherine whispered, “What the hell do you think you’re doing, coming around to my home like this?”

  “And what do you think you’re doing,” he responded, “by standing me up?”

  “I didn’t particularly like your tone of voice when you told me off. Or what you called me.”

  “For a journalist, you’re very thin-skinned.”

  “I expected better from you.”

  “I’m sorry.” She thought he was going to kiss her, and she backed away. Not here, not in front of her own home. Instead, he shook her hand formally. “I’ll be speaking to you.”

  After watching the Rolls Royce move down the driveway, she returned to the house. Franz was no longer smiling.

  “So that is the Wunderkind. He must know you very well to telephone you at work and yell at you.”

  “He thought I was wrong, but my father told me I’d done the right thing. I’d rather listen to my father.”

  “Is the Wunderkind the man you’ve been seeing, Katherine?”

  “Pardon?” She stared at Franz. Just what had Saxon said?

  “Katherine, I am not without sympathy for you. A young, attractive woman with a husband who can do little for himself.”

  “If I were having an affair with the man, do you seriously think he’d turn up at the house? He just disagrees with the Eagle’s stand on this hate group. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going upstairs to take a shower. It’s been a very tiring day.”

  She turned to leave. “Remember, Katherine, what we talked about once before. If you want a divorce, I would not be angry. I would understand.”

  “Do me a big favor and stop being so blasted understanding!”

  Franz’s voice followed her out into the hall. “All I ask is that you do not treat me like a fool. My body might be wrecked, but my mind still functions.”

  Upstairs, as she turned on the shower and stepped into the refreshing spray, Katherine realized exactly why John Saxon had come to the house in Hampstead. He was staking his claim to her. He was making it quite public, even to her husband, that she belonged to him.

  Of all the unmitigated arrogance!

  Chapter Twelve

  KATHERINE WAS SO UPSET by John Saxon’s action in coming to the house that she could not sleep that night. She lay on her back, looking up at the ceiling, and asking herself what she was going to do. The answer seemed blatantly obvious. She had to find the courage to give Saxon his marching orders. The relationship had been nice, but this was where it ended. Where it had to end, because one partner was placing far more emphasis on it than the other.

  Edna Griffiths was serving breakfast to the children when Katherine came downstairs the following morning. A worried frown crossed the housekeeper’s round face. “Are you feeling all right, Mrs. Kassler? May I get something for you?”

  “If that’s a nice way of saying I look bloody awful, Edna, I appreciate it.” Makeup had failed to hide the dark circles beneath her eyes. “I slept badly, that’s all.”

  When Franz entered the breakfast room, he made no mention of the previous evening. All he said was, “Does the Porsche belong to you, or did you borrow it?”

  “My father gave it to me yesterday.”

  “Very nice. I wish” — he shrugged and glanced down at the blanket covering his legs, the hands and arms that possessed only minimal movement — “that I was able to drive it.”

  Katherine was glad to get out of the house. This morning, it was like a trap. The aura of John Saxon hung everywhere. Even as she walked the short distance from the front door to the Porsche, she could see the tire marks left in the gravel by Saxon’s Rolls Royce.

  Within a half hour of Katherine arriving at the Eagle, Saxon telephoned four times. Twice, Katherine explained that she did not wish to speak to him. The next two times, she replaced the receiver the instant she recognized his voice. At eleven o’clock, an enormous bunch of flowers was delivered to Katherine by one of the messengers. No card accompanied the flowers. “They were left at the front desk by a short, dark-skinned man wearing a chauffeur’s uniform,” the messenger told Katherine.

  William, Katherine thought, Saxon’s chauffeur. “There must be some mistake. Please take them away.”

  Ten minutes later, Saxon telephoned again. Katherine suspected he wanted to learn whether she had received the flowers. She hung up on him before he had the chance to ask.

  At midday, just as Katherine was believing that Saxon had given up, came the last straw. The telephone rang again. Katherine snatched it from the hook.

  “This is reception, Mrs. Kassler. There’s a gentleman here wishes to see you. A Mr. —”

  Katherine cut off the receptionist in mid-introduction. “I’ll be down immediately!” She walked quickly to the elevator. “I’ve got a job for you, Archie. There’s a man downstairs who’s pestering me. He needs to be thrown out.”

  “Leave it with me, Miss Eagles,” said the elevator operator.

  Just before the doors opened at the ground floor, Katherine turned away, unwilling to watch. There was only one man waiting in reception. Archie recognized him instantly. “You, is it? I’ll teach you to come around here bothering people.”

  “Get your goddamned hands off me, you superannuated King of the Khyber Rifles!”

  Katherine recognized that voice. Too late, she looked out into the reception area. Despite his age, Archie was remarkably fit. He was having little trouble in forcing Raymond Barnhill toward the main door of the building.

  “Archie! No!” She ran out of the elevator. “Let him go, Archie! It’s not the man I thought it was!”

  Just short of the door, Archie stopped. His hands opened, and Barnhill jumped free. “What do they feed you on, old man? Raw meat and jalapeno peppers?”

  Katherine stepped between the two men. “I’m sorry, Archie. I thought it was someone else down here.”

  Archie glared at the American before executing a smart about-face and marching back to his elevator. “And just who did you think I was?” Barnhill asked Katherine. “I’d surely love to know who deserves that kind of a greeting.”

  “Just someone who’s been making a nuisanc
e of himself.”

  “I didn’t come to be a nuisance. I came to thank you for dinner last night, and to return the courtesy. I know it’s short notice, but how about having lunch with me today?”

  “I can’t. I’m busy.” What was it, Katherine asked herself, about women with handicapped husbands? Did they carry a huge sign declaring that they were available? First Saxon, and now this American journalist.

  “Well, what about lunch tomorrow? Or dinner, if that fits in better with your schedule.”

  Katherine’s head spun. What had she done to deserve this? In the few hours she had spent with Barnhill, had he seen something that did not exist? Had his self-confessed loneliness prompted him to see it? She wanted to scream. When she was trying so hard to simplify her life — when she was doing her level best to find a way to end her affair with John Saxon — why did she have another man rushing in to take his place?

  “Not today, Raymond! Not tomorrow! Not lunch! Not dinner! I am going on a week’s holiday tonight. Now will you please leave me alone?”

  She swung around and went back to the elevator. By the time she reached the third floor, her head had stopped spinning. Her mind was accepting the lie her lips had uttered so spontaneously, and she was congratulating herself. In a desperate bid to get rid of one man, she had discovered the way to lose another.

  She would take a week off work. She would take her brand-new silver Porsche and drive around the country. Get out of London before she was suffocated by her husband’s understanding, by John Saxon’s arrogance, and by Raymond Barnhill’s need for contact with another living soul.

  “I’m going away for a week,” she announced to Franz that night over dinner.

  “What kind of assignment takes an entire week?”

  Had his eyes narrowed just a fraction? Did he suspect that she would spend the week with Saxon? “No assignment. I’m taking a week off work and going on a thoroughly well-deserved holiday.”

  “Are you taking the children?”