Eagles

by Lewis Orde

  ‘Everything all right, Kathy?’

  ‘Why shouldn’t it be?’ She sat upright, resting her chin on her tucked-up knees.

  ‘I don’t know.’ Roland sat down on the edge of the bed and looked around the room. The photograph of himself and Catarina that had been over the fireplace at the Regent’s Park apartment was now on Katherine’s window sill. Funny . . . he could have sworn it had been downstairs on a coffee table. ‘You just seemed a bit off tonight, that’s all. Didn’t you feel well?’

  ‘I felt fine. I just . . . I just don’t like being made fun of.’

  ‘About the horses? Kathy, darling, we’ve made fun of you for years and you never complained. You said you thought the jokes went with the boots and saddle.’

  ‘I don’t mind jokes from you.’

  ‘Oh?’ He began to understand. ‘Don’t you like hearing the same jokes from Sharon?’

  ‘She makes them all the time. When you’re not here she asks me what I’m going to do when I leave school. Am I going to be a mounted policewoman?’ Katherine’s voice cracked, as though she were on the verge of tears. ‘Or will I work in an abattoir because I know so much about animals?’

  ‘Kathy, she’s only teasing you.’

  ‘I don’t like being teased by her’ Finally the tears came, spilling down Katherine’s face. Roland held her close while her shoulders shook from sobbing, and he wondered about the odd inflection placed on the word her. It was always her and she – never Sharon. Was it simple jealousy on Katherine’s part? After being the favorite girl – no, woman – in Roland’s life for so many years, was she frightened of having to share him? Of taking second place to Sharon? Or was there more to it than that? Had he become so comfortable in his new environment, that he’d missed all the danger signs?

  ‘Would you like me to speak to her . . . to Sharon?’ he added quickly, afraid he was falling into Katherine’s habit. ‘Tell her to pick on someone else?’

  Katherine didn’t respond. After a while Roland gently eased her head back onto the pillow, stood up and left the room. Katherine barely heard the door close as she lay with her eyes fixed wide open, watching the shadows of trees outside the window dance across the ceiling. She had wanted to say more, much more. But she’d held it all in, not wanting to hurt her father. He’d been hurt enough, and Katherine loved him too much to ever want to see him hurt again.

  If she didn’t love him so deeply she would have asked why the picture of him and her mother had suddenly appeared in her room, placed out of sight from everyone else? She would have asked Roland why he no longer wore the watch with the names of three horses engraved on the back? Katherine loved the story of that watch, the win on the horses, the romantic exchange of gifts over dinner . . . with each gift having the same inscription. She had the charm bracelet now, hidden away in a box. But she never wore it – not since Roland had married Sharon. Just like her father never wore the watch.

  Katherine turned over and buried her face in the pillow, muffling the sound of her crying. Everything had seemed so wonderful only a few months ago, when her father had bought the house and told her of his plans to marry Sharon. Katherine remembered Sharon from when she was young, most of all being the bridesmaid at her first wedding. She’d anticipated Sharon’s return from Paris so eagerly, looking forward to renewing their friendship. But Sharon was nothing like the young woman Katherine remembered from her childhood. She’d changed drastically, become possessive – not of objects, but of Roland. Katherine swore that Sharon was trying to cut him off from the family he already had. She wanted him solely for herself. She even wanted to separate him from his memories – the watch, the photograph; and that, Katherine felt, was the cruelest of all.

  The pillow became damp as the tears continued to fall, but Katherine made no attempt to move or dry her eyes. She knew that Sharon wished she still lived in St John’s Wood with Janet and Ralph Morrison, so she wouldn’t be around to interfere with Sharon’s marriage . . . just by being there. Katherine wished it, too. She’d been happier in St John’s Wood.

  But most of all she wished that Sharon’s first marriage had succeeded. If Sharon were still married to Graham Sharp, she wouldn’t be here, in this house, trying to force Roland away from his daughter.

  *

  Sally’s decision was to leave the Mercury and begin working for Roland at Burnham Press. The publishing group’s headquarters were off Fleet Street, in the heart of the city’s newspaper industry. Sally’s first move was to have her office painted in pastel colors. She hated the drab atmosphere of so many newspaper offices, and was determined to show that a woman had arrived on the board – a woman who wasn’t content to sit in the corner and pretend she was a man.

  Her next move was more difficult – that of reassuring almost every journalist on the staff of the Burnham Press newspapers and the trade magazines that they hadn’t been acquired by a man who had no regard for journalists. Their fears weren’t helped by a new chapter in the Vulture Chronicles, in which Daniel Rushden hinted that Roland had bought the publishing group so that he could control what was written about him. Rushden even compared Roland with Citizen Kane, painting an interesting picture of the Vulture living in a fantasy world created by the movie, prodded on by an Orson Welles figure – Roland couldn’t help wondering who that was supposed to be . . .

  Roland’s response to the latest attack was to consider banning Probe magazine from the premises of Burnham Press, threatening to put on notice any employee found reading it during working hours. Sally stood her ground firmly, winning the admiration of the long-established directors and staff by taking the opposite stand. Instead she encouraged employees to read Probe, and privately told Roland that the best way to fight back against Rushden was to show that he didn’t care. Roland backed off, remembering he’d offered Sally the position with the understanding he wouldn’t get involved in the group’s affairs.

  Feeling duly humbled, he returned to the world he knew and enjoyed the most. His interest in Europe began to pick up again as he spotted companies he believed were ripe for acquisition by the Eagles Group. Instead of taking on the bulk of the work as he had before – no matter how much he reveled in it – he passed it on to Michael. Roland wanted to spend as much time at home as he could, especially with Sharon growing large with child. He felt content with life, as if he were being paid back handsomely for the two families he’d lost.

  But Katherine, he couldn’t help noticing, was becoming quite the opposite. His daughter seemed to be spending more and more time at the stables taking care of her horse, and less time at home and at her studies. She’d dropped from being a straight-A student at her previous school to midway in the class, bringing inquisitive comments from her teachers. Early one evening, while Katherine was at the stables and Sharon was at home preparing dinner, Roland went to a parent-teacher meeting. He learned that her behaviour at school, as well as her grades, had also taken a turn for the worse. She frequently didn’t complete homework assignments, and showed little respect for her teachers. When asked if she was experiencing any problems at home, Roland just shook his head numbly.

  When he returned home, though, he resolved to find out for himself what was causing the problem; it could only be the friction between Katherine and Sharon, and he wanted to know who was causing it – his wife or his daughter. Tonight would be the perfect time. Both the butler and the maid were off, and Katherine was going from the stables to a friend’s house for dinner, after which they would do homework together. It occurred to Roland that Katherine had been doing that more frequently as well. Whatever the cause of the problem, he was convinced it went far deeper than simple jealousy.

  After telling Sharon that he was going to change for dinner, Roland went to the bedroom and changed from the plain gray suit he’d worn for the school meeting to a sportcoat and a pair of gabardine slacks. He sat down on the edge of the bed, still not ready to approach his wife, debating how to bring up the subject. Too much was beginning to seem co
incidental. That question from Sharon on the very day they’d announced their wedding plans – about Katherine leaving Janet and moving in with her father. The picture of himself and Catarina that was now in Katherine’s room. Perhaps that wasn’t so strange, though, he thought; the new wife not wanting pictures of a predecessor on display. But what about the watch? The three-horse watch? The way Sharon had pushed up his sleeve that day she’d come back from Paris, just to see which one he was wearing? All that, coupled with the way Katherine was acting lately, was very peculiar. He stood up and went to his jewelry box. He wasn’t quite dressed for dinner yet . . .

  When Roland went downstairs, Sharon was preparing to serve dinner. He waited for her to finish, helped her into a chair and took his own, thinking how empty the huge room looked with just two people sitting at the long table. He began to eat, trying to think of a tactful way of broaching the subject. Sharon saved him the bother when she said, ‘With all this trouble Katherine’s having at her new school, I’m beginning to think she was far happier when she lived with Janet and Ralph.’

  ‘Oh, what makes you say that?’ Roland set his left arm on the table, the cuff of his jacket slightly raised. He saw Sharon’s eyes flicker towards his wrist.

  ‘Well, her schoolwork was much better, there wasn’t any trouble with the teachers. I think she spends too much time at the stables now. It’s interfering with her—’ Sharon stopped talking as Roland moved his hand a fraction. ‘Why are you wearing that awful watch?’

  ‘I thought it would make a change. Is there something wrong with it?’

  ‘Roland, you know how I hate that watch. It’s so . . . so crass.’

  ‘Was the photograph of Catarina and me at Claridge’s also crass?’

  Sharon’s eyes went blank for a moment. ‘Oh, that. I thought it should be in Katherine’s room. After all, Catarina was her mother.’

  ‘Catarina was also my wife.’

  ‘Roland . . .’ Sharon leaned as close to the table as her swollen belly would allow. ‘I am your wife now. And I’m expecting your child. Are you showing me as much consideration as you showed Catarina when she was pregnant? Or Janet?’

  ‘What kind of a question is that?’

  She didn’t answer. Instead she fired back another question. ‘Will you love our child as much you love Katherine? When we met in Paris I asked if you had a favorite among your children. You admitted that you did. You admitted that you felt closer to Katherine because she’d lived with you, while Richard and Carol had always lived with Janet. How will you regard our child? As your own, or just another niece or nephew?’

  ‘That’s ridiculous, Sharon. It’ll be our child, of course. Living with us in this house—’

  ‘With Catarina’s shadow always coming in between?’

  ‘No, not in between. Her memory will always live with me, just as Graham’s will live with you—’

  ‘Don’t mention him!’

  Roland held up a hand, intent on finishing what he had to say. ‘My memory of Catarina is a beautiful one, unlike your memory of Graham. But no matter what the memory is, you can’t wipe it away; it always remains a part of you.’ Well, he had wanted to find the crux of the problem, and now he had it. It wasn’t Katherine – it was Sharon. Her jealousy, her insecurity, was driving a wedge between him and his daughter. But could he really blame her? In truth he found it difficult. Sharon had already been through one stretch of hell, and because of that she was doubly sensitive. The scars of her marriage to Graham were carved too deeply to ever disappear, and Sharon was obviously petrified of anything that might come between them. Roland knew he had to live with it, to help her over the rough patch. He loved her, just as he knew she loved him. And he didn’t want anything to come between them – but he wouldn’t turn his back on Katherine.

  ‘Sharon, believe me . . . you, the child you’re carrying, are the most important things in the world to me. Just as important to me as Katherine, can’t you understand that?’

  ‘Roland, I try to. But each time I see Katherine, I . . .’ Her mouth opened and closed as she struggled for words. ‘I feel like Catarina is living in this house with us.’

  ‘That’s crazy, Sharon, and you know it. Catarina has been gone for fifteen years, since the week of your sixteenth birthday party.’

  ‘When you gave me this.’ She touched the gold pendant around her neck. ‘I always wear it. Why don’t you always wear the Longines I gave you?’

  ‘I usually do. I just wore this watch tonight – put it on especially – because I thought it might help me get to the root of this problem. I was honestly believing something was wrong with Katherine. But it isn’t her, Sharon. It’s you.’

  Sharon’s voice rose as she became defensive. ‘She doesn’t give me a chance, Roland. She’s always there, a constant reminder of how much Catarina meant to you. Tell me, do you love me as much as you loved her?’

  ‘Of course I do!’ he shouted back. And then he wondered. Could subsequent love ever equal that first romance for its passion and intensity? For the excitement – and the ripping, agonizing grief that accompanied it?

  ‘Then prove it to me, Roland. Send Katherine back to Janet—’

  ‘What?’ He started to get up from the table, unable to believe what he had heard.

  ‘Just for a while. For eight weeks, until I have the baby in July.’

  ‘I won’t hear of such a thing. Katherine belongs in this house. Please accept that. She belongs here . . . and she’s staying here.’ Why was it that he could control a virtual empire yet he couldn’t manage his own family? At work he was the consummate professional; here at home, he felt like a clumsy amateur. Was there some gross deficiency in him that continually tripped him up?

  A tear spilled from Sharon’s right eye, then another. Soon she was crying uncontrollably, tears spilling down her cheeks. Roland felt helpless, hated himself for being the cause of her misery. He walked around the table, knelt beside Sharon and hugged her. ‘Come on, don’t cry. It’s a waste of energy and you’ve got to save all that for the baby. We want a big, bouncing baby, don’t we?’

  She turned her face into his chest. ‘Roland, I know everything will be all right once the baby is here. But just eight weeks, is that too much to ask?’

  The tears had worked. Roland felt his resolve soften, then disintegrate completely. He’d come down to dinner, prepared to search out the core of the trouble, settle it there and then. Be cruel to be kind – just as he’d told Simon to do at one time. Then it had been easy to give such advice, when he didn’t have to face the effects of it. Now it was a different matter altogether. He had no defense against a woman’s tears.

  ‘I’ll talk to her,’ he promised. ‘I’ll talk it over with Katherine, explain the situation to her. I’m sure she’ll understand.’ He helped Sharon from the chair, put his arm around her as they walked toward the door leading to the downstairs hall. He would help Sharon to bed, then wait up for Katherine. She wouldn’t be home that late from her friend’s house. He would sit down with her and they’d discuss the problem as two adults. She knew the trauma Sharon had been through already, knew how much the birth of this child – the success of this marriage – mattered to Roland. Katherine was his own blood; he knew she’d understand.

  By the door Sharon stopped, lifted her head and gazed tearfully into Roland’s eyes. He felt the bulge of her belly between them, swore that he could feel the pulse of life within her. His mind flashed back fifteen years, to Catarina standing naked while she admired herself in the mirror before dressing for Sharon’s birthday party. Standing in front of the mirror, then blaming him for making them late! Of all the memories, perhaps that was the sharpest, the most poignant. But it was only a memory now, something to be treasured but not permitted to interfere.

  ‘Do you really think Katherine will understand?’ Sharon asked.

  ‘I’m certain of it.’ He opened the door to the hall and his stomach lurched, twisted into a tight, painful knot. Standing there, her face w
hite and stretched, blue eyes like glass, was Katherine.

  ‘Katherine . . .’ Roland couldn’t remember calling her by her full name for years, but the immediate moment seemed inappropriate to use the nickname. ‘How long have you—’

  ‘Been listening?’

  ‘Eavesdropping, that’s what you were doing,’ Sharon accused her. ‘You listen openly. Only sneaks eavesdrop.’

  Katherine ignored Sharon as she answered her father’s question. ‘I came back five minutes ago, to get some schoolbooks. Then I heard you both talking. I was going to come in—’

  ‘Why didn’t you?’ Roland asked.

  ‘Because I heard my name being mentioned. And I thought for one marvelous moment’ – her face grew even whiter, her eyes like blazing sapphires – ‘that you were going to stand up to her. That you were going to tell her that the entire universe does not revolve around her. You almost did, do you know that?’ she added, lifting her chin defiantly. ‘But then she started crying, and you drowned in her tears . . . just like she knew you would.’

  ‘Katherine! Go to your room!’

  ‘What? Before you sit down with me and explain the situation? I’ll understand. Understand why I’m being shoved around like some piece of driftwood, bumped onto this shore, thrown onto that.’

  ‘Katherine!’

  ‘I’m going! Good night!’ She swung away and ran up the stairs. Moments later her bedroom door slammed with enough force to shake the entire house.

  ‘Now do you see what I mean?’ Sharon asked.

  Roland clutched his head. ‘All I can see is that I’m caught up in a fight between two women. And whoever wins, the loser’s going to be me.’ He started toward the stairway but Sharon pulled him back.