Bartholomew 02 - How to Marry a Ghost (2 page)

Then it suddenly dawned on me. I’d been too jet-lagged to notice before but now I understood. She’d had work done—quite a lot of it by the looks of things. And there was something about her teeth—were they not considerably whiter than they had been? That’s what all these trips to America had been about. Each time she’d come back to London looking glowing and re-

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juvenated and I’d put it all down to meeting the Phillionaire (at the bar in the British Airways first-class lounge at Heathrow—his Gulfstream was getting its cabin redecorated or something). But then why had she been going to America in the first place? She’d been pretty secretive about it all and again I’d assumed she didn’t want to reveal his existence until she was sure the relationship was going somewhere. But maybe she’d met Phil much later than she’d said,
after
she’d had the work done? Indeed, maybe her makeover had resulted in him noticing her in the first place. I took a step forward and peered at her, trying to figure out exactly what she’d had done.

“Best not to get too close to me,” she said quickly, backing away again. “I stink a bit. I’ve just spent an hour running along the ocean. Now I’ve got a ton of things to do so I’m going to leave you to find your room on your own. It’s up the main staircase, turn left, and go all the way along to the end. It’s the door on the right and you’ll have a view of the bay.”

I looked around for my bag but it was already being whisked inside by one of the posse of servants hovering on the doorstep.

And then out of their midst emerged the Phillionaire.

“There you are,” he said and engulfed me in a welcoming embrace that made up for my mother’s pretend version. Even though his tall slim frame was encased in casual beachwear with an old straw hat perched on the back of his head, he still managed to look as distinguished as he did in the elegant tailored suits he wore in the city. If I’d ever been asked to guess his profession from his appearance I’d have said “Latin American diplomat” right away. He was always so impeccably dressed that I retained the fantasy that he kept a tiny Lilliputian tailor in his pocket at all times, ready to climb out and attend to his sartorial needs.

I followed him into the house under the ugly stone portico and let out an involuntary shudder as I noted the gloomy pre-

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dominance of wood paneling. I had the sense that dust sheets had been whipped from the furniture only seconds before we arrived. It didn’t say beach house; it said wealthy Long Island mansion suitable for resale as a retirement home.

“Your mother loathes this place,” he said, noting the look of horror I was unable to disguise. “It’s been in my wife’s family for years.” He explained, “She inherited it but we both felt it was a bit like being in a mausoleum at the beach. Still when my boys came along we made good use of it for summers out here. But your mother hates it.”

“Oh, I’m sure she doesn’t,” I said quickly, cringing at the thought of what my mother must have said about it. Had she hurt his feelings?

“It’s understandable,” said Phil, “it was my wife’s.Your mother wants us to start afresh. She wants to oversee the installation of a brand-new home so I’m building something totally modern along the bay. It’ll be steel and glass and minimalist, nothing like this except that it’ll have the same spectacular view.”

“Do you own the whole bay?” I asked him, not entirely joking.

“Not quite but I wish I did. I bought up as much as I could on either side of my wife’s house, probably around eleven acres. Paid under ten million dollars quite a few years ago, a real steal. It’s my favorite area around here because you can keep a low profile.

I never say I have a place in the Hamptons, because I don’t. This whole area is a kind of no-man’s-land. In fact it’s called Promised Land and it’s pretty far removed from the dreadful scene that goes on in East Hampton all summer.The only bit of fancy action is at the Devon Yacht Club over there.” He pointed to a cluster of buildings with a flagpole and a jetty in front at the far end of the bay. “In the old days they said that if the wind was blowing the wrong way, the snooty crowd at Devon complained about the stench of the fish factory right here at Promised Land. The fish

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used to be shipped straight to the Fulton market in the city; you can see the remains of the railroad running through the dunes. I remember the bunker operation they had here. It was shut down in 1968. Now there’s a fish farm on the same site, see? Over there?

“Oh yes,” he sighed, “those were the days. All I do out here now is go for long walks along the beach and take my boat out in the bay to fish. Don’t catch much besides blues but I’m never happier. I’ve told your mother, if she wants to go rushing off to the Hampton Classic horse show and all those fancy parties and benefits, she’s going to have to do it without me. I get enough of that in the city. This commitment ceremony’s the only event in which I’m going to participate. After that she’s on her own.” He put his arm through mine. “Come on, let’s go down to the beach and see what she’s up to.”

My mother had called in a ton of markers from her advertis-ing days to plan her waterfront ceremony, roping in all her former Madison Avenue contacts, and preparations were already in full flight for the ceremony that would take place at the end of the day. A team of stylists with whom she had worked on commercials was in the process of transforming the beach. They were raking sand, picking up litter, and setting out rows of white church-supper chairs with an aisle in the middle leading to a bamboo archway that had been draped with white tulle. Here my mother and the Phillionaire would exchange their vows at sunset.

Tall zinc planters bearing a variety of ornamental grasses were being carried out and placed along the edge of the dunes. Tents were being erected on the lawns, tables were being laid for the dinner following the ceremony. Giant seashells formed the cen-terpiece of each table.

“Total waste of time.” A man had appeared at Phil’s side.

I noticed the Phillionaire didn’t even turn to look at him.

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“Lee, this is my son, Scott. Scott, this is Lee,Vanessa’s daughter. Flown over from London.”

My mother had told me about Phil’s sons by his late wife.

Scott, the elder, was an orthopedic surgeon with a thriving practice in East Hampton. He looked a lot like the Phillionaire only he had more hair, spiky black tufts of it sticking straight up. But he wasn’t distinguished like his father. Far from it. He had the same long legs but he was even thinner than Phil and it gave him a mean look. He had a hooked nose where Phil’s was straight and a curious habit of hunching up his shoulders almost to his ear-lobes, and then suddenly relaxing them in a jerky movement.

“Pleased to meet you, heard a lot about you.” He said it very fast, making it obvious he wasn’t and he hadn’t. “Waste of time putting up all this stuff. We’re going to get another bad storm in a few hours and it’s going to blow it all away.”

What was he talking about? There was no sign of a storm. I looked up at the royal blue sky and the sun beating down. There was a slight breeze but it was so gentle that it didn’t even disturb the rose petals that were now being strewn between the chairs and along the sandy aisle.

“Well, don’t tell Vanessa,” said Phil, “she’ll be devastated. I heard there was a storm coming up the eastern seaboard but I thought it was going to blow itself out over the Atlantic.”

“Oh, I already did,” said Scott, “and she was. A beach ceremony after Labor Day, what does she expect?”

I think that was when I had my first ominous feeling that there was something sinister lurking beneath the idyllic surface of the day. But I dismissed it quickly. I’ve always had a curious belief that mayhem is just around the corner waiting for me.

Imagining myself being sucked out to sea in a tidal wave just because someone had mentioned the word “storm” was a pointless exercise. I wouldn’t give it another thought and besides, I really

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resented the way Scott was pouring cold water on my mother’s excitement.

Except he turned out to be right.

By early afternoon torrential rain was pelting down, the wind raged, and occasional gusts of up to sixty miles an hour raced along the beach, tossing the white supper chairs in the air, dis-mantling the bamboo arch and carrying it and the uprooted tents out to sea. It flared up so suddenly, only one or two of the table arrangements were saved. It was all over within a couple of hours but the damage had been done.

I found my mother standing alone at one of the upstairs windows and I could see there were tears in her eyes. I went to put my arm around her shoulders, searching desperately for words of comfort.

But as usual she didn’t need them. She shrugged my arm off with an imperceptible movement and clapped her hands together.

“Right,” she said and though her eyes were bright, her voice was strong and determined. “Slight change of plan.We can’t cancel at this late stage. Most of our guests will have traveled a fair distance to the East End of Long Island and we mustn’t disappoint them.We’ll just have to go ahead without the props.”

And that was exactly what happened. When the guests began to arrive at around six o’clock, some of them wearing galoshes and bundled up in rain capes to protect their finery, they were directed to the veranda at the back of the house overlooking the beach. Here they were served a warming punch from a recipe my mother had given the kitchen staff at the first sign of the storm.

I had been instructed to be dressed and ready and waiting at the bottom of the sweeping staircase in the great hall. When I arrived, feeling very sophisticated with my hair swept securely into an elaborate updo by my mother’s hairdresser, I found the Phillionaire standing there with Scott.

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“You look quite beautiful, my dear,” said Phil. As he held me in his arms for a second, I heard his sharp intake of breath as he looked over my shoulder. “But not as beautiful as your mother.”

She was coming down the stairs in a white satin dress with a high round neck and long tight sleeves that set off the shape of her toned arms to perfection. The narrow body buttoned up the side and had a dropped waistline that descended into a full and softly pleated skirt ending at the knee. Tossed around her neck was a long white garland of gardenias. She was regal and serene and she carried a posy of white gardenias to match the bloom attached to the side of her headband just above her left ear.

When she reached the Phillionaire she didn’t say a word, just looked deep into his eyes, took him by the hand and led him out via the French windows onto the veranda where everyone parted to let them through. Scott and I made up the rest of the family party and we followed. The rain had stopped but the wind was still howling and the waves were pounding onto the shore.

My mother turned and instructed us to take off our shoes and then she gave a slight nod to someone waiting at the far side of the deck.

“Watch,” she whispered to me. “Something for Phil. He used to be a great surfer in his day, so I’m told. Here’s his other son, Rufus.”

Around each corner of the house came a procession of bare-chested hunks bearing surfboards.They lined up at the bottom of the steps to the deck and raised their boards to form an awning under which we picked our way barefoot across the eroded beach strewn with debris from the storm. We stopped at a small patch of sand that had been raked clean right at the edge of the sea.

The surfers were the groomsmen, forming a semicircle around my mother and Phil, and holding their boards upright in the sand beside them like monuments. To look at, Rufus was as unlike his

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brother as he could possibly be. He was blond and cheeky with an upturned nose and freckles. He was quite short but his upper body was strong and muscled. He had a knapsack on his bare back from which he extracted two long garlands of white gardenias.

He hung one each around my mother’s neck and the Phillionaire’s and then took his place by my side. Scott was trying to look cool in a lightweight gray suit and bare feet but he didn’t stand a chance next to his buff and tanned brother.

My mother and the Phillionaire stood facing each other, barefoot in the sand, hands clasped, and suddenly I realized that we would not be able to hear their vows above the roar of the surf.

But it didn’t matter. From the expression on their faces, there was no doubt that what they were exchanging were declarations of love.

And then I stopped abruptly because a figure had appeared on the horizon, walking toward us along the shoreline, and once again I sensed a portent that something disturbing was approaching. As it came closer, I saw it was a woman, not in the first flush of youth, long gray hair flowing past her shoulders. She was a beauty, whoever she was, but her appearance was as unkempt as my mother’s was groomed and elegant. She was dressed hippie style in a loose flowing caftan and an Indian shawl was tossed around her shoulders. Hard lines of disappointment were etched in her strong face but there was no escaping the fierce intensity of her eyes.

The Phillionaire had told me that he didn’t own the actual beach—anyone could walk along it—but it was surprising to see someone out for what appeared to be a leisurely stroll in the wake of a tropical storm. I expected her suddenly to sense she was intruding on a private ceremony and turn back but she kept on coming until she was near enough that a stranger might have

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mistaken her for one of our party. Then she stopped and stood there, watching and smiling at us in an eerily familiar way.

Rufus winked at me. We hadn’t actually been introduced but he seemed to know who I was. “That’s all we need,” he muttered to me, grinning.