Then she’d return and begin to search the room, already searched thoroughly several times. The need to find the will was sharp in her chest like the stays in those corselets worn in the fifties. … Mary would remember, what were they called, merry widows? So thin we were, but we encased ourselves in those iron maidens, and sometimes the stays broke through the fabric. Metal or bone, they poked at, dug into the skin, they hurt. Happened to me once at a tea dance with some Princeton boys. By the time I got back to my room, the skin over my ribs was cut and bloody under my breasts, my ostensible breasts, as Mary called them. She was five years younger but twice my size, there at least. So proud of that. Funny. So much feeling about the size of breasts. Never understood. Still, I was trying in those days to be a girl, to be like other girls. Deep red lipstick, pale eyebrows, high heels.
She always said I was jealous of her looks but I never tried to compete with her, knew I couldn’t. Didn’t even want to. It wasn’t looks I wanted. …
She slammed a file drawer in exasperation. Why am I doing this! I have searched this room five times over! Why am I so intent on finding the will? She flopped in the desk chair and her head fell onto the desk. Oh, god because I want it, I want to be his heir, I want to see the words typed on the paper, I want to hear my name read out: “and to my daughter Elizabeth … my dear daughter Elizabeth” … I could even accept “my dear daughters Elizabeth and Mary” …
I need to hear it.
But I don’t need the money. In itself.
Knock it off, Upton, you’d love to have millions.
What would I do with them?
Feel rich. Buy a country house. Buy a Porsche like Clare’s. You loved driving that car.
But you’re dreaming of money like winning a lottery. You don’t need it.
I need it I need it.
Don’t tell me you believe in symbols: Money equals love. If he loves us, he will leave us his estate? My father’s house. My father’s estate.
What I really want is to see my name listed as executor, as he would have named a son.
She raised her head. Oh, god, what if he didn’t! She bit her lower lip, eyes alarmed, upper body stiff and erect. It would be unbearable if he had not entrusted her—an assistant secretary of the treasury—with that job, if he had consigned her along with his other daughters to the keeping of some man. Unbearable.
Mary had had Browning build a fire in the sitting room. It was a large room for one person to sit in, large even for four or five, but it was more comfortable than the stiff formal drawing room and had a wider fireplace. She nestled in a big armchair wearing a soft sweatsuit, a cashmere confection. As she read, she sipped herbal tea, which the housekeeper replenished every hour. But she kept drifting off and would come to staring at the fire remembering her mother sitting in this chair in a white dress, laughing, holding out a pale graceful delicate arm encircled with diamonds, reaching for the cocktail glass the butler handed her. A party it must have been, me carried down for a good-night kiss.
She glanced down at her own pale delicate wrist lying across the book and started, shuddered in horror to see tiny brown hairs rising out of her arm. “Arms that are braceleted and white and bare / (But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!)” Ugh! Disgusting.
She rose, stretched, walked through the front hall, peered into the empty dining room, walked down the hall past the billiards room and into Father’s study. She studied the books on the shelves, ignoring Elizabeth at the desk.
“Not much there you’d be interested in,” Elizabeth said nastily.
“No,” Mary murmured absently.
“Mostly history and politics. Law. Not many novels and no romances,” Elizabeth goaded her.
“Yes,” Mary said, drifting out.
Alex found lots of old rain gear in the mudroom behind the kitchen. She took a raincoat and hat and short dirty boots that fit her and went for a walk. She walked for hours, welcoming the cool rain on her face, her mind drifting murkily, all paths leading into an opacity heavier and less penetrable than the weather. Twice as she walked, her entire body jerked the way it might jerk in a bad dream—a sudden, electric, terrifying spasm. It seemed to pierce her entire body. Then it would pass. Am I going crazy? Pushing the thought away, she kept walking.
Ronnie hooked up her computer, transferred her research data from floppy disks to the hard, and made up a schedule. Then she collapsed on the bed, lay there spread-eagled, staring at the ceiling. It was cracked and discolored, probably hadn’t been repainted since she first entered that room as an infant, a few months old. Noradia had told her the room’s history once when she was around fourteen after she railed against Stephen. Momma explained that Stephen had had the huge old kitchens renovated and subdivided after Ronnie was born, so Noradia and her baby could have rooms on the first floor. Momma’s face shone as she told Ronnie of His kindness, His pity for her at having to climb all the way to the third floor several times a day. Ronnie shot back that He’d probably done it so she wouldn’t carry a baby with her as she moved around the house working. Noradia sighed, laid her hands gently on Ronnie’s cheeks, looked at her with that sweet face full of sorrow but radiant. Said, “Ronalda, Ronalda, to be happy in life you must love.”
“Love what!” she’d cried, “anything that comes down the pike? Love evil, love the devil, is that what you’re telling me?” She leapt up, crazy with rage, danced around the kitchen with it, jumping up and down: “Love a rapist, a murderer, a massacrer, a marauder, is that what you’re saying?” Frightening her mother, who sat back heavily, pale, staring at her, murmuring “Ronalda, Ronalda” and twisting her fingers.
The next day I shoved some clothes in a backpack and took off, hitchhiked into Boston. She must have been frozen with fear, not knowing where I was, whether I was alive, if I’d been kidnapped or just run off. He summoned the police for her after two days, but it was hopeless, they couldn’t trace me and what the hell, just a wetback kid, His servant’s kid. Different if it had been His kid. Almost a year I let her wait here in torment. Poor Momma, how I made her suffer, I wanted her to suffer, I didn’t care.
But you deserved it, Momma. You did.
She leapt up from the bed, wandered to the desk, the closet, the door, wandered out, met Alex coming in from the mudroom with wet hair, eyes glazed, not even a smile, no word. She just passed by.
Restless, each of them except Ronnie, who never changed for dinner, went up early to change her clothes, and simply by chance each meandered down again and peered into the dining room around six. Table not even set yet. Meeting in the hall, they made their way into the sitting room, seeking something, feeling a need for something. The fire was low but still burning.
“Shall we have cocktails before dinner?” Alex asked brightly. The others agreed with varying degrees of sullenness. “I’ll pour them!” she chirped. Elizabeth had a Perrier, Mary a vermouth cassis, Ronnie a cola; Alex had white wine. “Isn’t this nice?” she smiled, snuggling into a big armchair. “It seems so much homier with a fire, doesn’t it?”
No one responded.
Ronnie added some logs to the fire, piling them on their ends as if she were building a tepee.
Mary frowned at this unorthodox method. “Browning takes care of the fire. She doesn’t do it that way.”
“Mrs. Browning has enough to do getting dinner,” Ronnie said dismissively. The fire flared brilliantly. She wiped her soiled hands on the sides of her jeans, then perched on the footstool beside the fireplace, watching over it as if it were a baby in a cradle.
“Oh, there’s just nothing homier than a fire!” Alex cried joyously.
Elizabeth rolled her eyes, Mary eyed her.
“It’s true!” she protested, laughing. “Say it isn’t true!”
They smiled. Grudgingly.
Alex leaned back expansively in her chair. “This is such a beautiful house. Has it always been in the Upton family?”
Mary looked at Elizabeth. “You’re the family historian,
Lizzie.”
Elizabeth frowned. “No, it came from Margaret Linden, who married Abner Upton in 1868. She was our great-great-grandmother and the only heir to the Linden fortune, one son having died in his youth, the other during the Civil War. Lincoln has an interesting history. One Squaw Sachem sold the six square miles that became Lincoln to English settlers in exchange for some hatchets, hoes, knives, cloth, and clothing. In 1636, Thomas Flint settled Concord farm and Flint’s Pond, which became the town center of Lincoln—which was incorporated separately in 1754. On April 19, 1775, Paul Revere was captured here. It was always a town of mavericks, people who insisted on their own religion, their own ways. It was just a little farm town until the twentieth century, when the railroad was extended, and people began to build summer homes here. It’s still a maverick town, really. The first Linden house burned down; this one dates back to the 1780s, the old part, Father’s study. The house was added to and added to over the years, the last time after Margaret married Abner. And of course it’s been modernized since. Inside.
“The Uptons have lived in Louisburg Square for generations. Worth got that house of course, he was the older brother. Old man Upton didn’t believe in total primogeniture but Worth got the lion’s share—the house on the ocean in Manchester, most of the money. Father got this house and a goodly chunk of stocks. Prudence got mainly jewelry, some of it very valuable. No real estate, but the old man bought her a house in Back Bay when she married Samuel—Grandfather Upton was still alive then. Father was the youngest child. He would probably have inherited more from his mother if he hadn’t scandalized her by marrying a Catholic—my mother—then divorcing her. He’s had to make his own way to some degree. Far more than Worth did.”
“He had to make his way with only a few measly millions?” Ronnie jeered.
“Less than that,” Elizabeth said coldly. “You may scoff, but it takes effort and talent to build a fortune, even when you start with a million dollars.”
“Of course! Even when most people were earning twenty dollars a week or less.”
Elizabeth threw her a look of disgust.
“My mother decorated this house when she married Father,” Mary said dreamily. “It hasn’t been redone since her time.” Over forty years: looks it.
“Well, she did a beautiful job!” Alex cried. “So tell me: what has everyone decided to do! Is everyone going to stay?”
Elizabeth lighted a cigarette. “Well, if I’m going to be conservator, I guess I’ll have to. I made some phone calls yesterday. I can probably get leave, although it’s a bad time: we are involved in major negotiations with Chile, there’s a chance of new constraints on trade with South Africa,” she said self-importantly. “But I’ve already drawn up the guidelines and I’ve overseen most of the background work. My staff can draft the reports and express mail them to me for approval. I can work with them over the phone.”
They were silent, comparing Elizabeth’s life with their own.
Tuesday night Women’s Club, Wednesday the shelter, Thursday the hospital. David plays golf every weekend, the kids gone most afternoons and weekends: I am a useless person, thought Alex.
Nothing but boredom and unpaid bills waiting for me, thought Mary. How long will it be before the girls realize how long it’s been since I picked up the lunch check? How long will my old clothes see me through? I’ll end like some nineteenth-century spinster, replacing the collar and cuffs of the old black dress worn shiny.
I have important work to do too, Ronnie thought fiercely. I just have to get going on it. But if I leave here, I’ll have to get a job to live. Then how will I finish the dissertation? If I stay, I live free. Is that corruption?
“So,” Elizabeth continued, “I’ve decided to work on my book while I’m confined here. I thought I’d take the Alfa and drive down to Washington tomorrow and vote while I’m there. You know Tuesday’s Election Day—maybe you all want to fly home and,” she grinned, “make sure the right man wins. I’ll get my computer and files and bring them back.”
“Oh! Election Day!” Alex murmured.
I can vote in Massachusetts, you snotty cow, Ronnie thought. And will, to cancel out yours.
“Election Day,” Mary repeated vaguely. “But surely there’s no question but that Reagan will win, is there?”
“None,” Elizabeth announced.
Mary said lazily, “I think Alex is right about—it’s probably good for Father for us to visit every day. So I’ll stay for a while. Even though it’s a real bore here.”
Alex clapped her hands like a child. “Oh, I’m so glad! So happy! I really want to get to know you,” she said. “My mom’s retired, she’s taking care of the kids and David while I’m here. And I just called them, and they’re all fine and she says she’s happy to stay on, it gives her something to do. And David … well, David believes family always comes first, he wants me to do everything I can to help Father. And the kids … well, I think they barely notice I’m gone. Such an indispensable mother I am!” she mocked herself. “So I can stay!” she crowed. “And you too, I hope,” she said to Ronnie, who was staring at the fire.
Mary’s face stiffened. “I’m sorry but I have to say that as far as I’m concerned, Ronnie definitely has no right to be here. Neither Elizabeth nor I has invited her and I don’t think you have the right to invite her.”
Alex frowned questioningly. “Why?”
“You left Father when you were ten and never saw him again!”
“He’s still my father,” Alex argued quietly, “and Ronnie’s. What do you say, Elizabeth?”
Mary screamed, “Don’t ask her! I’m saying she can’t stay! I’m saying it, me! I’m saying I don’t want her here! She’s the bastard child of a colored servant! As far as we’re concerned she has no relation to him—or us! And you he repudiated! He never invited you to the family parties! Only Elizabeth and me! He threw your mother out! A little nobody, a secretary, a nothing!”
“So was my mother,” Elizabeth inserted coldly.
Mary whirled on her. “And look how he treated you!”
“Are you saying you are the only legitimate daughter?” Elizabeth laughed.
Mary sealed her lips and sat back.
Ronnie watched them, fascinated. And herself: how come I’m not storming out of the room? she wondered.
“Well, all right, Alex can stay but Ronnie can’t!” Mary burst out finally.
Without rancor, Elizabeth said, “Because her mother lacked a marriage license? He lived with Noradia longer than any of our mothers.”
Ronnie gaped at her.
“She was a servant! Not even white!”
“My children are Jewish—I converted when I married David. And two of yours had an Italian father,” Alex said firmly. “And Noradia probably gave him more comfort than any of our mothers.”
“Alberto was an aristocrat!”
“Oh, please,” Elizabeth cut in, “save us your snobbery. You were always such a snob. The only thing you learned at Peabrain Academy.”
“Miss Peabody’s was the finest girls’ school in Virginia!” Mary protested. “You talk about snobbery, there’s no bigger snob than you! Always boasting about Concord Academy, Smith College, that fancy London Economics College!”
“London School of Economics!” Elizabeth blasted.
Mary charged on. “Who’s the snob around here! Of course with a background like yours, you insist social distinctions are snobbish! Your mother’s family was nothing but shanty Irish from Chelsea.”
“Somerville,” Elizabeth said.
“She was a little tramp who trapped him into marriage.”
Elizabeth turned white. “My mother was no tramp, but your mother was a lush who committed suicide in a drunken car crash hushed up by family money!”
“She was not! It was the other driver’s fault! Father told me!”
“What other driver, you idiot! She drove into a tree! Spoiled brat princess pissed off at Father because he was working day and night in the W
ar Effort. He had it hushed up, but it was suicide! How would you know anything about it, you were only seven! But I was twelve, I heard the servants, the aunts and uncles talking. Everyone knew but you!”
“You bitch! You bitch!” Mary sobbed.
“She was a drunk! Don’t tell me you don’t remember her drinking. If I saw it, just spending summers with her, even a stupid cow like you must have seen it living with her! She was falling-down drunk half the day and she stank of booze all the time!”
Mary wiped away tears, glaring at Elizabeth. “My mother was a lady, she was sweet, gentle, everyone loved her. Yours—even you call her a world-class bitch! A cheap tramp! You call me names! Father even caught her with another man, there were photographs! Aunt Pru told me!”
Elizabeth spoke slowly, coldly. “You stupid fucking cunt, you silly cow bitch, you asshole. That was a setup. Don’t you know Father yet?” She stood up and walked to the bar set up on the sideboard. Leaning against the wall, she poured Perrier into her glass. She stood there looking down at it.
Mary was sniffling. The others watched white-faced.
“My mother never looked at another man,” Elizabeth said after a time. “Even after the divorce. Said once was enough. I think she hated men after Father. When Father lived with us we were living in a brown-stone on Beacon Street. I don’t think he was there very much. I don’t remember him but I was very little. I don’t know where he spent his time. Mother said he was either fucking some secretary or sucking up to some man who could advance his career. ‘Fuck or suck, everything he does rhymes with luck,’ she said. The setup—I was only two and a half when it happened. But I remember it. One night, I was asleep in my crib but I heard terrible noises, pounding, shouting, Mother screaming. I was big enough to climb out of the crib and I ran out of my room, there was a man in the upstairs hall holding a camera with a flashbulb that kept going off. It was blinding, I was terrified, I didn’t understand what was happening. Mother was screaming, her nightgown half off, her breast flopping out, she was pounding another man on the chest, yelling at him, screaming.
Our Father Page 9
