My Father's Wives (19 page)

“I have so many things I’d like to ask you,” I said.

“Then you’re going to have to buy me a drink,” Ciara said. “At the very least.”

“How about dinner?”

“Lovely, when?”

“How about now?”

Ciara batted her eyes. On another woman the gesture may have seemed out of place, even desperate. But not on Ciara. She was so beautiful it almost hurt to look. “Well then,” she said. “Follow me.” Without another word she was out the door, leaving the bell jingling in her wake. For a moment I couldn’t move; I was simply overwhelmed.

From behind me, Judith cleared her throat. “It was delightful meeting you,” she said. “You’d best run along after her.”

I turned in surprise. I had forgotten Judith again.

“Don’t feel bad,” she said. “Ciara has that effect on everyone. Just shake my hand and walk out the door. Everything will be all right.”

She extended her tiny hand. I grasped it loosely and smiled. Then
I took one last, deep breath before I chased my father’s fifth wife out the door into the London night.

WE WERE STILL NEAR
enough to the flower shop to smell the cigarettes outside the pub when Ciara stopped abruptly and pointed down an alley.

“That’s where I live,” she said. “Your father loved it.”

“My father lived here?”

“Not exactly. He lived in Washington and New York. But he loved London and when he was here, this is where we stayed. Private Mews, flat fifteen, Kinnerton Place South.”

“You lived here when you two were married?” I asked.

“Before, during, and after,” she said. “I’ve had this flat thirty years, and I ain’t going anywhere.”

We continued walking. On Sloane Street, with the Knightsbridge Underground station in the foreground, we arrived at the place that had made Ciara famous. “Home away from home,” she said, brushing her fingers gently against the glass door. “Harvey Nichols.”

The department store, of which I’d heard but to which I’d never been, was as spectacular as advertised. Tall and stunning, with sensational windows, all the displays designed by Ciara herself: the Irish supermodel who’d been synonymous with the store long before she married the senator from America.

“Your father had a very sensitive eye when it came to fashion,” she said.

That didn’t seem to fit. “That surprises me,” I said.

“It surprised me too,” Ciara said. “I remember the first time we stood in this very spot, staring into this very same window. There was a tiny cat in the corner of the display, almost an afterthought. Percy took it all in quietly, then he turned to me and said: ‘I think the cat should be on the bed.’ And I asked him why, and he said: ‘The colors are off. The cat is so light brown it is practically orange. Either put it
on the bed, or get a darker cat.’ You could have knocked me down with a feather, because he was absolutely right.”

“What did you do?”

“I slept with him that night,” she said with a devilish grin, “and the next day I changed the cat.”

THE RESTAURANT, ZUMA, WAS
on Raphael Street, a few short blocks away from the bustle.

We received a celebrity’s greeting from the hostess and even more enthusiastic welcome from the flamboyant waiter, who appeared at our table the moment we were seated. “Delightful to see you, Ms. Cavanaugh,” he said in an Irish accent nearly identical to hers. “How long has it been?”

“What time is it now?” she asked, and they laughed in unison. To me, she said: “I had lunch here, as I do nearly every day. Martin was here as well.”

“As I am nearly every day,” said Martin, and they laughed again. “What can I get for you to wet the whistle tonight?” he asked me, his hand absently resting on Ciara’s shoulder.

“Whatever is the lady’s pleasure, please bring two.”

Without even asking he was gone, and Ciara settled comfortably into her chair. The room was dimly lit; a candle flickered on the table between us, reflecting in her eyes. “Tell me about yourself, Johnny,” she said.

It made me think of Bruce, who was the only person who called me Johnny. “I grew up in New York,” I said. “My mother was Percy’s first wife.”

“Alice, I know. Is she well?”

“She is, thank you.”

“I’m delighted to hear that. I never met her, but I heard wonderful things about her. You should know that down deep inside, your father loved her to his dying day.”

“Do you mean that?” I asked.

“I never say anything I don’t mean.”

That made me feel good. “I’ll remember that,” I said.

“What else?” she asked. “You married? Family?”

“Yes, I have two kids,” I said. “And my wife is actually of Irish descent, named Claire.”

“Lovely name.”

“Where in Ireland are you from?” I asked.

“Limerick,” she said proudly. “Have you heard of it?”

“Frank McCourt?”

“Precisely. I never met him. He made a lot of folks angry with his depiction but I found it mostly accurate. I was raised working-class, as he was. My father was conductor of the
Shannon Breeze,
the ferry that crosses right at the mouth of the river Shannon, from County Kerry to County Clare.”

“Sounds exciting.”

She eyed me like I had to be insane. “You’re obviously a wealthy American,” she said. “They were the only ones I ever saw smiling. Drove their cars onto the boat to cross over to play golf at Lahinch after playing Ballybunion. The Irish on the boat were freezing and miserable. The wind was so strong off the Atlantic, if you were on the deck you felt like you could be blown off. The air was always dank, fog over the water, wet even when it didn’t rain.”

The waiter returned, noisily, carrying two steaming ceramic flasks on a tray. He set them down in the center of the table, laid two small cups beside them.

“Do you like sake?” Ciara asked me.

For all my travels, and all my drinking, I’d never tried it. “I guess we’re going to find out,” I said, and poured two cups full to the rims and handed her one. We clinked. “To your health.”

“Or yours,” she said, “if you’ve never tried this before.”

I enjoyed the sake a great deal; in fact I fired down two cupfuls as though they were shots, just as Ciara demonstrated. The flavor was
bitter with a hint of fruit, more akin to beer than wine. The first shot warmed my chest. The second left the impression it could take any situation and make it better.

“So, how did you get from the deck of the ferry to London?” I asked.

Ciara put her hand to her chin thoughtfully. “I left school when I was sixteen. I had an older cousin who’d come to London to model; I stayed with her. She worked at the perfume counter at Harvey Nichols. My first day in town I cried from morning to night, homesick. My second day I went to visit my cousin at work. One of the designers was in the store that day, saw me. That fall I was on the cover of the catalog. That was forty years ago and I’ve been there ever since. No matter where my life has taken me, I’ve never left Harvey Nichols and I never will.”

“Amazing story.”

“All stories are amazing, Johnny. You just have to know how to tell them.” She filled our cups again and, this time, sipped at the warm sake. I did too, and found I liked it less that way.

“Do you eat sushi?” Ciara asked.

“Love it.”

“Perfect,” she said, and raised her hand in the direction of the waiter. “Tell Eric to send out whatever suits him tonight.”

Martin nodded and was gone as quickly as he’d come. I stared at Ciara, a little tipsy, so overcome by her I had no idea where to begin.

She did. “So, what would you like me to tell you?”

“You were with my father later in his life. What was it like?”

Ciara sighed deeply. “The truth, Johnny, is that it was awful.” She looked at me with sad eyes. “I assume you want the truth.”

I wasn’t expecting that. I leaned closer. “Of course I do.”

“When I met your father, his health was declining. He wasn’t ill, per se, but he had everything wrong with him. Heart trouble, mostly, which caused a variety of problems.”

“How was his mind?”

“Brilliant. He was the most brilliant man I ever met; no one else was close. But he was depressed. He hated growing old, Johnny. He used to beg me to make him young again.”

“How?”

Ciara smiled. “Precisely.”

I hadn’t even noticed Martin approaching, but now he laid multiple dishes on the table: a plate of squid, another of eggplant, a tray of sushi rolls. It looked extraordinary, but I wasn’t especially hungry. “Tell me more,” I said.

“Your father was an obsessive person. He could be charming, but mostly he was manic. He could not sit still, ever. I would find him pacing during the night, physically exhausted but unable to rest. He would read three or four books in a week. It was as though he was an hour from death and wasn’t going to waste a second.”

“That’s similar to what Anne told me. Sounds like it got worse.”

“
Much,
” Ciara said emphatically. “It got much worse.”

“What did you do?”

“There wasn’t anything to do. Your father married me because he thought I would make him feel vibrant again. Once he realized I couldn’t, he didn’t have much use for me at all. He wanted to talk about policy and government. I don’t know a thing about those. I love things of beauty. He did too, but gradually those began to matter less and less, as though they were a waste of time.”

“This was the same man who noticed the orange cat in the display?”

She shook her head. “He wasn’t. That man slowly disappeared.”

This was so far from the image I always had of my father. “So what happened?” I asked.

Ciara sighed. “I was smart in that I never let go the flat in London. I began spending more and more time here until it became obvious to us both we were married in name only.”

“That reminds me,” I said. “The other women my father married all took his name, and they all told me it was very important to him that they did. Why didn’t you?”

The sparkle returned to her eyes. “Because, young man, when you are Ciara Cavanaugh you stay that way.”

Her smile brightened my mood. I picked up a pair of chopsticks and speared a sushi roll, doused it in soy sauce, popped it in my mouth. “Delicious,” I said.

“The best sushi in London.”

Suddenly, I was hungry. I sampled the eggplant, which was equally superb.

“
Bon appétit,
” Ciara said.

I nodded politely, then motioned for the waiter. “This,” I said to them both, “requires a bottle of wine. Lady’s choice.”

And so went our evening, a delightful hour of food and drink and conversation. Almost none of the rest of it involved Percy and that was fine by me; I had spent more than enough time thinking of my father. Ciara, meanwhile, was everything I imagined she would be: intelligent, fearless, provocative. I reveled in the opportunity to enjoy her company and ignore for a while the cloud that had been hovering over me.

When we were finished and back on the street she unsnapped her clutch and, to my surprise, retrieved a lighter and two cigarettes. She lit one and offered the second to me.

“Thanks, no,” I said.

“Why don’t Americans smoke anymore?” she asked.

“It’s bad for your health.”

“I know, but, Johnny, how long do you plan to live?”

“As long as I can.”

Ciara sniffed dismissively. “Just like your father.” She pointed her finger at my nose. “Don’t be so afraid to die that you forget how to live, Johnny.
That’s
what Percy did.” Then she smiled. “Fancy a stroll? It’s still early.”

“I’d love it.”

We started back in the direction from which we’d originally come, walking slowly and mostly in quiet. She pointed out a pub she liked, a
shop where they sold the finest tea, the most overrated restaurant in Knightsbridge.

“Are you comfortable in silence?” I asked as we neared my hotel.

“Sorry?”

“It just reminds me of my mother, how you can be with someone and not feel compelled to fill the space with words. You and I are practically strangers, yet you seem content to be quiet.”

“There isn’t always something worth saying.”

“I know,” I said. “But that usually doesn’t keep me from saying it.”

“That doesn’t tell me you’re uncomfortable with me, it tells me you’re uncomfortable with you.”

I stopped short. I had never thought of it that way before.

“I didn’t mean to insult you,” she said. “Your father never stopped talking either; there was never a moment of silence with him.”

“I’m not insulted,” I said truthfully. “Was that a problem? That he was always talking?”

“In his very unique case, no. Because, bless him, he always had something interesting to say.”

“What would he have said right now?”

Ciara looked me up and down. “He’d have said, ‘Don’t answer that, Cee, it’s a trick question.’”

I laughed. We had reached my hotel but I wasn’t ready for our time together to end. “I would love to keep walking, if you would,” I said.

“Ever seen Buckingham Palace?”

“Only on television.”

“Let’s go.”

It wasn’t more than fifteen minutes’ walk before we turned a corner and my breath caught in my throat. Before us, lit against the dark night, surrounded by uniformed guards and tourists of every nationality, was the palace. I had been to London on business a dozen times, but I had never been here. We walked closer, slowly, in unspoken reverence.

“Spectacular,” I said.

“It is. No matter how you feel about the royals, the sight of it never grows old.”

“Did my father like it?”

“Your father had business inside. He went in and out in the back of a limousine and, to my knowledge, never once looked out the window. Which is why he never once thought to ask the question you’re about to ask me.”

There wasn’t any way not to be confused. “What?”

Ciara smiled devilishly. “Your father was always so busy looking ahead that he never looked around. I want
you
to look around right now, and ask me about the place where we are.”

“Do you mean the palace?” I asked.

Ciara shook her head emphatically. “The palace is in
front
of us. Look around us.”