Too Much Too Soon (56 page)

Abruptly Curt turned. The
Odyssey
’s deck was above the level of the dock and he vanished instantly. Honora was left remembering what time had blurred and softened. Curt’s punitive streak. He was helpless before his implacable vindictiveness. He could not control himself from smiting those who wronged him, in whose ranks he must surely place his estranged wife.

You’ll pass out if you don’t put your head between your knees
, advised an unsympathetic nurse within her. She sat sideways in the car, her feet on the blacktop, her back bowed deeply until the vertigo passed. She walked slowly to the gangplank, which was guarded by an elderly man wearing a navy sweatshirt with
Odyssey
imprinted in white across the chest.

He leaned back in his metal folding chair, resting his magazine on his thighs. “May I help you?”

“I’m Mrs. Ivory,” she murmured.

At this he raised and lowered his eyes in what she and Crystal eons ago had called the-once-over-lightly.
Was he gauging her against Curt’s starlets? Was he wondering whether this old broad in a white silk shirt and flowered skirt bought several summers ago had any authentic connection with the princely vessel he guarded? Honora had never caught on to the aristocratic vibes she gave off, and it shocked her when the man got politely to his feet.

“Yes, Mrs. Ivory,” he said. “Go right aboard, ma’am.”

Large wicker chairs were clustered in the shade of a noisily flapping cream and white striped awning that matched their upholstery. On a double chaise in direct sunlight lay a girl. She was stretched out on her stomach, the untied straps of her bikini coiling at her sides. Not raising her head, she called, “They’re in the main saloon, right through there.”

“Who . . . ?”

“Hey, aren’t you one of the lawyers?”

“No, I’m . . . uhh . . . Honora Ivory.”

The girl sat up, her large, slightly bulging eyes fixed unabashedly on Honora. Her tanned, pancake-shaped breasts with their large, brownish nipples were exposed, and unconcernedly she raised long, thin arms to tie her straps. An elongated, curving Nefertiti neck, a sparely fleshed face, a dominatingly large, lipstickless mouth. She was either beautiful or ugly—or maybe both. She couldn’t be much more than twenty, yet there was a hard worldliness about her. Honora felt a powerful surge in her viscera. This, then, was Curt’s latest mistress—no.
Relationship was the current term.

“I’m Marva Leigh,” the girl said, pausing as if for a reaction before going on to enlighten Honora. “I’m this month’s
Vogue
cover.” Her tone was that of a long-term acquaintance, a friend even.

Honora wondered whether the new mores dictated that sharing somebody’s husband was a tie that bound. Her own churning, outmoded jealousy disturbed her. “Oh yes, I saw it at the airport. With your hair pulled back like this you look entirely different.”

Marva Leigh nodded. “Looking different’s one of the tricks of the modeling trade. You’re divorced, aren’t you.”

“Separated,” Honora corrected, then felt impelled to add, “But it’s been a lot of years.”

“Yes, sure, Curt told me something or other. Listen, sorry about thinking you were a lawyer, but with this Washington shit they’ve been swarming aboard for days. I’ve counted fifty of ’em. The high command’s in the saloon right now.” She gestured toward the awning: a great curve of windows was coated with a substance that acted as a reflector.

“Would you mind very much telling . . . uh . . . Curt, that I’m here?”

“He can see you.” Marva Leigh was scrutinizing herself in a large round magnifying mirror. Poking her cheek out with her tongue, she frowned. “I adore the sun but it’s a bitch on the skin.”

“. . . Would you mind?”

“You English have all the luck with complexions.
Jesus, is that a wrinkle?” Marva Leigh thrust the mirror back in a terrycloth bag. The tendons on the inside of her emaciated thighs stood out like steel as she pushed to her feet. She was at least six feet tall, with broad shoulders, strong burnished knees. “Yeah, sure, Honora. I have to cream up anyway. I’ll give him the word.”

Her long, bare feet leaving milky prints that slowly faded from the highly varnished, lightwood deck, she pushed through double doors inset with Mondrian-patterned stained glass.

Wavelets lapped against the
Odyssey.
A gull, kept stationary by a gust of wind, descended with owner’s arrogance to perch on the wire strung with lights.

Marva Leigh returned, face and arms gleaming, her streak of ankle-length white linen transforming her boniness to enviable chic.

“Curt says he’s totally tied up,” she said, her tone informing Honora of the fraudulence of the message.

Honora felt the blood rush to her face. Pride told her she ought to head for the
Odyssey
’s gangplank. She was, however, imprisoned in her well-sprung wicker chair by psychological chains.
If he has that many lawyers, he must really need my help
, she thought.
Besides, how would I explain leaving to Joss? The truth is that I want to see him; I’m dying to see him.

“Did he say how long it would be?”

“Look, suddenly he’s in one of his moods. Personally, I’d take off and come back later.”

“I’ll wait,” Honora said, her accent and
anxiety making her sound remote.

“It’s up to you, but he’s going to make you sweat it.” Resting a hand on her hip, Marva Leigh glanced at her reflection in the mirroring windows. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Once again she went below.

Honora took out her novel, opening it at random.
Lucien’s character made him attentive to first impressions and the most trivial incidents of this evening in society were to have a great effect on him. Like all inexperienced lovers, he arrived so early that Louise had not yet come into the drawing room.

The words conveyed no meaning, and she did not turn the page. She had forgotten her watch and had no idea how long she waited, but the elderly crew member who had been guarding the gangplank changed places with a short, fat boy—also wearing an
Odyssey
sweatshirt.

Lucien’s character made him attentive to
. . .

Suddenly the modern glass doors swung open and Curt emerged with his chief lawyers. The soberly clad men made a foil for him, and with his white ducks, open white T-shirt and bare feet thrust into sandals, he looked vital, resiliently energetic.

Honora felt old, dowdy. Awkwardly she got to her feet.

“Hello, Curt,” she whispered.

“Honora,” he said brusquely, slicing his hand toward each of his legal staff as he named them. Though the five attorneys must have seen her through the coated windows, there
was a suggestion of appraisal in their glances as they responded to the introductions with affable politeness.

“Mrs. Ivory, we’ve met.” The shortest man stepped forward, shifting his briefcase so he could extend his right hand. About sixty, his frail, potbellied body in the rumpled dark jacket looked too slight to support his massive bald head. His grip, though, was strong. “Arthur Kohn.”

She couldn’t remember ever meeting Arthur Kohn, but she knew him by reputation. He had clerked for Justice Brandeis, he presented important cases
pro bono
to the Supreme Court, he was the senior partner of the prestigious law firm that Curt used as outside counsel in Washington, D.C.

“Certainly, Mr. Kohn. How nice to see you again.”

“We’re very grateful you’re here,” he said. The eyes behind the glasses were warm yet speculative. “I’m not going to mince words, Mrs. Ivory. We’re hoping you can be with us in Washington for a few days.”

The breeze gusted, beating a drumroll on the awning. The lawyers watched her, Arthur Kohn’s expressive mouth slightly open, as if he were a teacher encouraging a star pupil to come up with the correct answer.

Before she could respond, Curt said to her, “There you have it. Learned counsel, having no faith in my financial honesty, feel your presence is necessary at the hearings.” He went to the rail and lounged against it, staring in the
direction of the harbor’s rocky entry, into which a freighter was easing.

Her voice came out of her high and stammering. “I’d . . . th-that’s why I came back to the States. To help if I can . . . .” Honora couldn’t take her eyes from Curt’s back.

“We’re deeply grateful,” said Arthur Kohn, beaming with approbation. “I can’t overestimate your importance at the hearing.”

“I’m glad to be there, but, well, you’re being kind. I’m not vital.” Honora replied, still staring at Curt.

“We need as much sympathy as we can muster,” said the stoutest lawyer, who bore a vague resemblance to Henry Kissinger.

“Will I have to do anything? I mean . . . testify?”

“No, just attend with us,” said Arthur Kohn. “If I may, I’d like to set up a meeting with you in the next day or so.”

“Certainly. I’m staying with my sister.” She gave him Joscelyn’s phone number. Arthur Kohn turned to the youngest member of the team, who took out a small leather book. She repeated the seven digits.

Without a goodbye to any of them, Curt strode inside, and Honora watched the flicker of stained glass as the doors swung in decreasing arcs.

The lawyers shook her hand again and filed off the
Odyssey.

After a minute, Honora pushed
Lost Illusions
back in her raffia bag. As she followed the others down the gangplank, she was filled with
conflicting emotions about Curt. Anger and pity that he felt compelled to behave so rudely toward her. The helpless attraction of a pin to a magnet. Unexpected shock that he had given in so easily—she could not recollect him ever succumbing to unwanted professional advice.
Is he more upset about Congress’s probing than he lets on?

A step or so before reaching terra firma, she halted irresolutely. The narrow, ridged boards creaked and shifted gently under her feet, a zephyr flipped a wisp of hair across her lips and she pushed it back absently. The lawyers, caucusing by a large blue car, were glancing circumspectly in her direction, and the pudgy young guard a few yards away peered at her over his wind-riffled
Playboy.

She barged back up the gangplank precipitately, as if fearing she might change her mind.

In her momentum she took the step onto the deck too hard, a jolt that burned through her spinal column and cut like an excruciating wire down the sciatic nerves of her left hip. Cautiously in her heeled sandals she limped inside. The double doors flapped behind her and the fresh sea air gave way to the flat odor that permeates ships, no matter how luxurious. She could feel a faraway throb of engines—or was the vibration an echo of the drumming
of her heart?

Ahead of her, a short flight of elegantly curving steps led upward. To her left was the main saloon.

The three sides of treated windows infused an evenly brilliant light which had the effect of making the space appear yet more extravagant. The walls, following the natural contours of the yacht, were covered with silk that matched the thick white of the carpeting. The couches and chairs, enormously deep and low slung, were upholstered in white buckskin. The man-size, smoothly abstract bronze statuary added to the impersonal, masculine sumptuousness.

Curt lounged in one of the chairs, sandals kicked off, his bare feet outthrust, a tall drink in his hand. How could she have forgotten this near feline quality of his, to seem charged with energy even when absolutely still.

“Well, if it isn’t Mrs. Ivory,” he said. “Didn’t I just see you go ashore?”

“I need to talk to you,” she murmured, biting her lip.

He stretched out his free hand, opening it as if to say,
You have the floor.

“It’s about . . . well, I wanted to explain, to s-say . . .”
My God, at my age, stammering
, she thought, and her face grew hot.

He took a long sip, sitting there peering up at her with a purposefully questioning expression.

“Ab-bout . . .”

“You must be waiting to hear my gratitude,”
he said. “Okay, I’m deeply obligated for what you are about to do, and forever in your debt.”

“Don’t be like this,” she whispered.

“How?”

“S-sarcastic . . . m-mean.”

“It’s been so long that you must have forgotten,” he said. “You were ever the noble, generous soul in the Ivory family—even if you can’t quite get the noble, generous words out.”

She was numbed with misery, not so much for herself as for him. What had the years done to him that he, never petty, was reduced to sneering at a minor physical defect? “Curt, don’t. Please don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

“Why can’t we talk?”

“Aren’t we? Or have I lost the knack of conversing with you?”

“That’s what I mean.”

“My learned counsel tell me for their fat fees that I need a loyal helpmeet at my side when I appear in Washington—voluntarily, by the way—the story of my subpoena is incorrect reporting. And you, the high-born UK gardener, flesh of my flesh, have miraculously appeared. I gather from your reaction, a simple thank you won’t suffice. Now what? Should I prostrate myself?”

A surge of emotion overcame Honora, and she, who so seldom lost her temper, was carried by rage. “Do not speak to me this way!” Her words emerged clear edged and frosty. “I am not one of your women.”

“Baby, you’ve made
that
abundantly clear,” he said with loud, hectoring sarcasm. “Now do me a favor and get the hell off my boat.”

Once, in a hospital room that smelled of antiseptic and dying roses he had rubbed his unshaven cheek against hers and promised to kill anybody who ever hurt her. What if she called that promise now? Would he commit hari-kari and get blood all over the white leather and carpet? She emitted a discordant titter, then tears spurted from her eyes. Appalled, she turned away from him. A witless move. He must see how it was with her.

“Honora, sit down,” he said in a flat, emotionless voice.

In her humiliation and misery, she pretended not to hear, fishing in her purse for a Kleenex, dabbing at her eyes as she headed for the entry.

“You’re right,” he said quietly. “If we’re going to be together in Washington we better get the hostilities ironed out. Stay a minute or two.”