Caroline's Daughters (37 page)

“It's actually much easier and much less brave than staying at home.” That is what Caroline would have liked to say, and what she felt to be true. But she did not say that. Staying at home was indeed far harder to do; there were whole lists of simple and highly complicated demands, from people and from the house itself, enough to fill all her time.

And there at home was where she missed Ralph most. At many times, in many corners—in bed—at times intolerably.

But in Italy, and especially in Rome, Caroline walked all day, savoring the crowds and sheer foreignness, the frenetic bustle of streets, the rare shadowed peace of gardens. She was not thinking at all, she believed—she was simply enjoying the privilege, rare in her life, of being all alone.

At night, alone, she went out to restaurants, dressed up in her best (each night a new restaurant, but the same fairly old best dress). She held her head high, and shamelessly eavesdropped on all possible conversations. She ate pasta and marvellous veal and beautiful fruits and cheeses—and did not gain weight. She drank a lot of wine.

One day, in the Villa Julia, at a distance, Caroline noticed a smartly dressed American woman, navy silk with big white polka dots, who strongly reminded her of someone, somewhere—or was she only a type, from the mold of upper-class women everywhere—especially during the Fifties, all those women in their silks and hats and gloves, seemingly going underground or elsewhere in the Sixties and most of the Seventies, to resurface with bells on, so to speak, in the super-rich Eighties. And then Caroline thought, It is Mary Higgins Lord, who did not, after all, become a homeless, chanting bag lady.

On closer viewing, though, the polka-dot woman is far too young to be Higgsie Lord, and her eyes are dark, not pale yellow. She is neither a type nor a recognized person, then, but a very young, very proper, slightly overdressed young woman, whose moist upper lip betrays some crucial error: she has worn too much silk for the day, which is very hot.

She will have to call Jim McAndrew as soon as she gets
home, Caroline determines. Perhaps Caroline can find Higgsie herself.

In the meantime she simply wanders about Ravello, through gardens with sudden, breathtaking views of the sea, past courtyards of white stone statuary, sometimes stopping at a small open café for coffee, or an apéritif. A woman alone, testing waters—though Caroline herself would probably describe her activities as resting.

Tomaso, her white-haired host, remains discreetly, availably helpful. Would she like a trip to Capri, to Paestum or to Pompei? Any or all of those could be most easily arranged. But Caroline thinks not, actually (she has been to all those places with Ralph, on one of their Italian tours—though not to Ravello, which was one fact that brought her here). Caroline has the sense too that should she show the slightest interest Tomaso would also make himself available to her, a very temporary, probably very thoughtful lover. But she lacks that interest—entirely.

It is Tomaso, though, who wakes her from a longer-than-usual siesta—to announce, of all things, a phone call. (No room phones: she must come downstairs to take it.)

“From the States?” Caroline has thought first, of course, of her daughters, of some possible new disaster in any of their lives.

“No, it comes in fact from Palermo. Much less far.” Tomaso smiles, secretly.

Hurrying toward the phone, Caroline is thinking, Roland, of course, but however did he—? And then in an instant she decides that since he could only have got her number from one of her daughters, with all of whom she leaves itineraries, she does not want to know which daughter, how, why.

“Well, here I am in Palermo,” Roland tells her, quite as though from the next room. “I've tracked you down!”

Sensing that he would like to be asked how he did so, Caroline again decides not to ask, and only comments, “You sound much closer.”

A laugh. “Well, actually I could be, but I'm not quite as tricky
as all that. Palermo is absolutely marvellous, though.” He pauses, lightly clears his throat. “In fact I have high hopes of persuading you to join me here.”

“Roland, really—”

“What you would do, my dear Caroline, is to go down to Naples, easy enough by car, Tomaso could handle it for you, and from Naples a most pleasant overnight boat to Palermo, where, in the morning, I greet you. You see? It is almost all arranged.”

But I don't want to come to Palermo, is what Caroline would have liked to say. Instead she temporizes, “How nice of you to have thought it all out.”

“It's as good as done,” Roland tells her, somewhat too emphatically. “I have the hotel reservation for you, can you stay a week, two weeks?”

“My dear Roland, actually I can't come to Palermo at all, nice as it sounds. I'm meeting a friend in Madrid next week. An old school friend.”

“You fly to Madrid from Naples?”

“Uh, yes.”
Can
one fly to Madrid from Naples? Caroline very much hopes so.

“Well, in that case, a slight detour to Palermo. Perfecto.”

“Roland, I'm sorry, but I honestly cannot come to Palermo.”

A pause. “Then perhaps I should come to you there.”

“I think not, on the whole. Thanks, though.”

“But, my dear Caroline, I had at least two things of the utmost importance to say to you.”

But I don't want you here, Caroline does not say. However, she does manage, “I have to tell you, Roland, that I'm much enjoying being by myself. You know, I've had rather little of that in my life, and I value it now.”

A long, no doubt expensive pause. “In that case I must come to you there.”

“No, Roland, honestly. Please don't. Really. Please.”

Roland arrives about mid-morning of the following day, having taken the Palermo-Naples boat and driven (surely madly) up from Naples.

Seemingly not wishing to commit themselves to a single place, any venue for what must be a difficult conversation, for an hour or so they simply walk about, Roland and Caroline. Each, perhaps, playing for time.

It is over Camparis at Caroline's small café that Roland, as though from the blue, begins to talk about Buck Fister.

“It is true that we were friends,” Roland tells her, earnestly. “I talked to him, I don't know, something about him seemed to invite certain conversations. As you have no doubt observed, ordinarily men do not have conversations with each other.”

“Yes, it seems very sad for them.”

“Indeed so. In any case I did find myself talking to Buck, we had enjoyable lunches, though not with great frequency. It always seemed that it was I who talked, though. I had not noticed this, I had not thought of it, not giving it much attention. And then—” Roland scowls, as his voice simultaneously deepens and strains, as though he now speaks from great dark depths, with great effort. “And then one day he talked to me,” Roland with difficulty says, “and he told me in some detail of what he was doing. His business—his business with girls.”

“Girls?” Tired Caroline is not picking up the threads of this conversation.

“His, uh, traffic. The prostitution.”

“Oh.” But why are we talking about this, and why now? Caroline would like to know.

“But not with prostitutes. With
nice girls
. The prostitution of nice girls.” Roland brings these last words out heavily, large stones on the table between them. Ugly stones, repellent. “I knew already that he had an interest in some houses,” Roland continues, “but the houses were quite another thing from these girls. Girls even from families that you might know, sent out to hotels. Businessmen from wherever, even doctors, of course many lawyers.” Roland pauses, staring across the table at Caroline, almost accusingly. “He mentioned one girl, and then I had to end it. I made a certain phone call. Concerning Buck. To certain people.”

He is telling me that Jill was involved with acts of prostitution, thinks Caroline, her mind reeling. That Jill went to hotels for money, with strangers, and that for that reason he caused Buck Fister to be
murdered. Caroline receives this dizzily, it almost makes her faint. Closing her eyes against it, beginning to deny it, “I am tired,” is all Caroline said.

A moment later, opening her eyes, revived to a degree perhaps by sheer curiosity, she asks him, “But how did you know—to call—?”

“How did I come to be involved with such people? My darling, this is a very long Italian story, very Sicilian, commencing with the youngest sister of my grandfather. I will tell you at a later time.”

It is enough—just for an instant—to make Caroline believe that she might never return to San Francisco, nor to her daughters. How selfish they all are, really—beautiful, selfish, spoiled and greedy girls, San Francisco girls, perfect products of that spoiled and lovely city. She almost wishes that an earthquake might overtake them all, so that San Francisco, like Pompei, like Paestum, would be historical.

“S
tevie, I have something to tell you. I've fallen in love with you. Really. I'm sorry, but there it is. I love you.”

“Uh, Stevie, instead of going out why don't we just take some dope and go up to bed? I'll cook something later.”

“Uh, Stevie, have you ever given much thought to how you, uh, feel about me?”

“Stevie, something really sort of amazing has happened.”

Sage, who is having considerable trouble getting to work, is saying all that to Stevie, all those nutty sentences, in her mind. They are to have dinner together tonight, and it is true, she is in love with Stevie. Tremendously. She realized it only this morning.

And how wonderful, really, to fall in love with an old and trusted friend, good kind smart dear Stevie. It struck her like a whirlwind, as, at breakfast, she began to think of the coming night. Of seeing Stevie. And then the feeling went on and on, as she tried to work.

How very surprised he will be to hear this, though. But since they are indeed friends, Sage feels a clear compulsion to tell him of her feelings, just as she would if she were in some way angry at him. The problem is how to put it so that Stevie will not be embarrassed. He is such a gentle, on-the-whole quiet person.

Strong mid-afternoon sunlight, strained through the streaky windowpanes, illuminates all the comforts of Sage's studio: the broken-down but still comfortable leather sofa; the small bookcase, holding some favorite poetry (what Sage reads when she really cannot work): Neruda, D. Levertov, Auden, Chaucer, Yeats. A. Rich. A Bible, and
several green Michelin guides. Two bentwood chairs, her worktable, the radio—turned always to the classical music station, which is just now playing some Brahms, familiar, stirringly melodic, undoubtedly contributing to Sage's mood, all that lavish lonely love. The haunting cello, tremulous violins. Enough to make anyone believe herself in love.

But despite the support of such surroundings, the sunlight and the music, Sage is getting nowhere with her work.

Her fingers dig into the clay, and her delving, shaping tools form and re-form and shift its small mass, but whatever she had in mind does not come forth. (She had Stevie in mind actually: not literally Stevie but a tall heavy man like Stevie with a group of less defined small children. Very interesting, she thought—and whatever is that all about?)

Sometime later, though, an hour, maybe two, there on Sage's table is a small intricately and delicately fashioned naked man, far more detailed than most of her figures: she had shaped his shoulder blades, rib cage, loins, penis and long muscled legs. He stands in repose, his head just bent, his hair too long. And Sage sees that it is Noel. It is far more clearly Noel than if she had meant to portray him. With a painful accuracy she has re-created Noel, strong and intense and very beautiful.

All she has heard from him is a postcard from Grass Valley: “Burned out. (Joke.) Divorce me. I'll sign.” And a box number.

Sometimes, unexpectedly, she has wept for Noel. His lost beauty, the sheer waste of their life together. She does so now, there in the sunny studio that he made for her, as from her radio still come the lovely rippling trembling piano runs. More Brahms.

Sage weeps until she realizes that she is enjoying the tears, along with the music—and then she stops, and gets back to work.

“We celebrate today the birthday of Johannes Brahms,” says that unctuous voice. “Over a hundred and fifty years ago today, in Frankfurt, Germany. His mother, already in her early forties, his much younger, by seventeen years, father—” (Which explains what all that Brahms was about.)

As Sage thinks, Amazing! And, That's not a bad life plan, marry
a much younger man when you're in your forties, and then produce a genius.

“I wonder what on earth my mother's doing in Italy,” Sage muses aloud to Stevie, that night, as she not very successfully tries to grate fresh ginger into a marinade. They are both in her kitchen, which, since Noel, Sage has tried to finish up: with a butcherblock table, a Cuisinart and a microwave, all attesting to considerable money spent (“My nouveau riche cuisine,” Sage has earlier remarked to Stevie). Plus some blue-and-white toile curtains, and a Barcelona chair, in which Stevie now comfortably lounges.

“What she says is most likely the truth,” he tells Sage. “I'd imagine she's having a very good time, like she says. And probably not really wishing you all were with her.”

“I guess. Oh shit!” Sage has just grated her thumb, which she now protectively sucks.

Getting up, unwinding, “Here, let me do that,” Stevie tells her. “I must say, for a sculptor—”

“I know, clumsy fingers. Noel always said that.”

“Which I did not. Give me credit.”

“Dear Stevie, I do. Well, I hope she's just having a good time. Caroline.”

“What on earth else would she be doing? Why are you so suspicious of your mother? An unusually nice woman, as you know.”

“I do know. She's so nice that I get suspicious. And she is staying a lot longer than she said.”