I'll Take Manhattan (60 page)

“Good God, Lily, what’s happened?” he asked in horror. “Gerry told me about the ravine. What the
hell
kind of stunt was that, Lily, to go and look at it, of all stupid things to do. How could you
do
that to yourself? Just look at you …”

“No.” Her voice was dry and broken by the tears she had shed, hoarse and ancient. “Don’t bother to look at me. It doesn’t matter what I look like. Look in the mirror, look at yourself.”

“What kind of riddle is that supposed to be?” Cutter asked, disgust and ferocity mixed. “Damn! I should never have brought you to Canada. If I’d known that you were so morbid—”

“You shouldn’t have. But you didn’t anticipate everything, for once in your life. You didn’t know that I’d find out.” Lily’s voice had faded to a whisper.

“ ‘Find out’? There’s nothing here for you to find out. What are you talking about?”

“How … how did Zachary die?” she hissed.

“Lily,” Cutter said in a reasonable way, “Lily, you have
always
known how Zachary died. Darling, everyone knows. You’ve had a shock, that’s all, from being so near the place where it happened. Come on, let me help you up and get you into a warm bath. You’re going to make yourself ill if …”

“
Murderer
,” she screamed.

“Lily! Stop that at once! You’re hysterical!” In a bound he reached the chair and pulled her to her feet, trapping her flailing arms behind her back with one powerful hand.

“
Murderer
!”

“Shut up! The Wilders are in the next room, they’ll hear you …”

“
MURDERER
!”

Cutter clapped his other hand over her mouth and she bit deeply into the pad of his thumb. Roughly he pushed her away so that she fell onto one of the beds. “That’s enough! That’s more than enough out of you. You’re out of control, don’t you understand that, Lily? It’s this place, that’s all, it’s making you hysterical.”

Lily shook her head violently and rose, standing to confront him. “You were there, at the ravine, yes, you were there.
It was you
! You knocked him in and you left him to die.” She looked at Cutter in bitter wonder and there was steady accusation in her voice now as she only stated the facts that she had spent the hours facing.

“That’s the most … the most purely, utterly
insane
thing you’ve ever said in your life, you’ve gone mad, completely mad—”

“You can bluster all you like, it’s all the same to me.” Lily kept looking at him as if she were trying to assemble his separate parts into one human being, looking in bewilderment as if she were trying to persuade herself that he was Cutter Amberville, the man she had loved, trying and failing utterly. Yet she continued to speak firmly, without faltering, and her voice seemed to come from far away, from inside a death’s head, primitive, hollow and devoid of life. “Bob Davies told me. He didn’t know what he was saying. Now I understand why his father was able to retire at forty-seven. I know who gave him the money to go to Florida. Only one man saw what happened but he was as talkative as his son. We heard it all, Gerry and I. Two men in the clearing, two men who got off their horses, two men who got into a fistfight, one man who was hit—or was he pushed?—into the ravine and one man who came back and
did not
send a rescue party for his brother. In subzero weather. The closest ravine to the house. You must have been terrified when Davies came back the next day and told you he’d seen what happened. But you didn’t get him out of the way quickly enough. He told his son and he’d tell any court in the world. I’ll make sure of that.”

“Lily, you can’t believe that story! That kid is full of wild stories, lies—”

“Shall I call his father down in Florida? It’s only one little long-distance call. He’ll admit everything when I tell him he’s an accessory to a murder.” Lily reached for the telephone. “I have his number. I asked Bob for it when Gerry wasn’t listening. I said I wanted to tell him what a nice, helpful son he had.”

“Wait! Put that phone down. I can explain—”

“No, I don’t think you can.” Lily’s voice made Cutter go cold with fear but she put the phone back in its cradle. He drew a deep breath.

“Lily, something did happen that day. I hoped you’d never have to know. I
was
with Zachary when he fell into the ravine. We did have a fight,
but it was an accident
, Lily, an accident!”

“But why didn’t you send back a rescue party?” Lily asked relentlessly.

“I still don’t understand it. I was in total shock, Lily. I don’t remember what happened for hours afterwards. I was out of my head with grief. I looked over the edge and I could tell he was dead just by the way he lay there. Even if he’d been rescued right away it wouldn’t have made any difference. I found my way back here somehow and I just blanked out. I couldn’t function. My brother was dead … my brother … I just couldn’t believe it. That’s why I had to get rid of Davies—sure I bribed him. I knew nobody would believe what had happened. Oh, but Lily,
you
have to believe me! You know I would never have harmed Zachary on purpose. Why should I have done such a thing?
Why
? It doesn’t make any sense. Admit that it doesn’t make sense. It would have been insane.” Cutter stopped, his eyes searching her face pleadingly.

“What did you fight about?” Lily asked.

“You. I don’t know what had given him the idea or why he suddenly picked that particular time to bring it up but, Lily, he had suspicions about us. He got violent. Raging mad. He accused me of having been your lover when we were young. He said he was beginning to think that Justin was my son and not his. I can’t imagine what might have made him sniff out our secrets so many years after they’d happened but I couldn’t take the risk of reacting in any way
but as if he were insulting
you
. I swung that first punch for you, Lily. It was so out of character that it was the only way I could think of showing Zachary how wrong he was. I did it to protect you. I did it for your sake, my darling. If I hadn’t, who knows what might have happened? How he might have taken it out on you and Justin? I admit I did it, but it was for you, only for you, Lily.”

“You can’t
stop
lying, can you?” she said, wearily, no surprise left, only contempt.

“Lying?—Lily, what else would have made me fight my own brother?”

“
I told him about us thirteen years ago
. He knew about you and me and Justin all those last years. We made our peace with each other, Zachary and I, but before we did I wanted to start fresh or not at all. So I told him everything.
Everything
. He forgave me completely. He had always loved Justin as his son and he kept right on loving him until the day you killed him. He was hurt, but he hadn’t exactly been a saint himself. So we made it up and went on to create a good life together. You’re the last person in the world to whom he would have admitted that he knew.” As empty and dead as Lily’s voice was, her tone was irrefutable. Truth rang through every word. Cutter turned his back to her.

“Whatever your reason for killing my husband, it doesn’t matter. Envy and hatred were at the root of it. That’s why you made me love you. To take something of his away. I was almost as bad as you, then. But I’m not a murderer. Or a liar. Not anymore.”

“Lily …”

“Not another word. Never,
never
another lying word. I’m leaving now, back to New York. You can tell the Wilders whatever lie you choose. I’ll send the plane back for them as soon as it lands. Zachary Amberville was murdered by his brother. I know the truth. Nobody else will. I won’t try to punish you. It would serve no purpose. You’re not worth it. Unless …”

“Unless?” Cutter said, still unable to believe that she really meant what she was saying.

“Unless you ever try to come into contact with any
member of the Amberville family again. If you do, I’ll bring you to trial. I swear it, by all that’s dear to me.”

“Wait, stop—” he cried, but she had already gone.

Every other time that Maxi had crossed the lobby of the Amberville Building in the last year it had been at a run. Today she lagged, finding more than enough unwelcome time to inspect the giant ferns that flourished under their special health-giving lights, many minutes to sneer at the lusty condition of the bromeliads, to count with disdain the ranks of huge palms and reflect on the greening of corporate America. What was wrong with the city fathers of her Manhattan who permitted more and more builders to reduce the amount of sunlight that could reach the streets so long as they guaranteed that each new, ever-taller building was to have a mere token indoor green space? Greener lobbies, darker streets, she thought to herself, aware that her mood was generated by the dread with which she approached the summons she had received to talk to Lily, a meeting for which she was early, due to Elie’s overly skillful driving. Still, even if she had been precisely on time—even if, unthinkably, she had been late—the outcome of this interview had already been decided, she thought as she took the elevator to the executive floor.

“Mrs. Amberville is waiting for you in Mr. Amberville’s office,” the receptionist said to her as soon as she appeared. The full treatment, Maxi realized, backed up by the authority of Zachary Amberville. Good news didn’t come hedged by such a display of legitimate command, of absolute jurisdiction.

She went in. Here, at least, the prodigal sun could enter and rollick, here the two rivers that clasped Manhattan like the arms of a giant lover could both be perceived, one running darker than the other, but both running to the
ocean. She looked around, momentarily dazzled, and could not distinguish her mother’s presence until her eyes adjusted to the light. Lily was sitting on the lower step of a library ladder and she held a bound volume of copies of
Seven Days
from the 1960s, open to pages of photographs from the Kennedy-Nixon campaign, taken by the many Amberville photographers who followed every step of the national drama. She put the heavy book down when Maxi approached her and looked up almost unchanged in her still moonlit beauty and intensely studied elegance. Yet there was something battered, something blighted in the flesh around her eyes that Maxi had never seen before, as if a flower had been sucked of its freshness overnight, grown limp, tired, faded.

“Who ran for Vice-President with Nixon?” Lily asked.

“Damn,” Maxi said. She couldn’t remember, except that it certainly wasn’t Spiro Agnew. Or was it?

“I didn’t know either, Maxime.”

“That’s reassuring.… How was your weekend?” she added, since small talk seemed to be the first thing on the agenda.

“… Illuminating. And yours?”

“Horrible. Poor Toby. I think I’m still in shock,” Maxi answered.

“I went to see him at his house yesterday but you weren’t back with Angelica yet. Thank God he’s going to be as good as new as soon as he heals. Tell me, just who is Dunk and what is a Dunk?”

“Angelica’s first boyfriend. He’s fourteen, very polite, and eats like an army, Napoleon’s army. But he has excellent table manners.”

“Toby and India spoke highly of him.”

“Angelica’s not
their
daughter. He’d just better treat her properly,” Maxi said in a warlike tone, her fists clenched.

“Or?”

“I’ll get Rocco to deal with him. Imagine Angelica sneaking off on her first date when she knew perfectly well I wasn’t going to be home. She’d never have dared try that with her father. I’m still fuming.”

“The trouble with you, Maxime, is you forget what it’s like to be young,” Lily said, brushing her objections aside.

“Mother! I’m not even thirty yet! Not for a few weeks. And I didn’t start dating until I was … sixteen.”

“Ah, but when you did …”

“I remember, that’s what I’m worried about.”

“Angelica’s a very different kind of person than you were. She’s sensible and well balanced. If I were you, I wouldn’t worry about her.”

“Thank you,” Maxi said with dignity, refusing to rise to the bait. She had no intention of trying to defend her teenaged self. If Lily still thought of her that way, there was nothing she could do about it.

“Of course,” Lily continued, “she’ll change, in all sorts of ways as time goes on—we all do, we all have to, don’t we? But Angelica’s character is pretty well formed. I can imagine her almost as she’ll be in ten years’ time, unlike you, Maxime. I could never be sure just what was going to happen to you. You were a rather difficult child, you know, but I had no idea that you’d be a late bloomer.”

“A late bloomer? Just what is that supposed to mean?”

“Now don’t be defensive, Maxime. I simply mean that you hadn’t reached your full potential … no, you hadn’t started to reach your potential … until very recently.” Lily’s voice was as neutral as clear water, and as difficult to read meaning into as a night without stars.

“I suppose that you’re leading up to the letdown with these kind words?” Maxi said, barely listening to Lily, burning over the description of herself as a “difficult child” and the implied comparison to Angelica who had managed to escape being judged in any way by her doting grandmother. Not that Angelica wasn’t ideal. More or less.

“If you would just sit down, Maxime, we could discuss this more comfortably,” Lily remarked, settling in one of the chairs in front of the desk.

Maxi, who had been standing throughout the conversation, went to the desk and automatically sat down in her father’s chair, where she had sat when she asked Pavka not to resign. Lily allowed a little silence to fall.

“Do you feel comfortable there?” she finally asked Maxi.

“Oh. I’m sorry!” Maxi stood up abruptly, confused. “I wasn’t thinking.”

“I know. I’m quite aware of that.” Lily smiled at her, an involuntary smile. “That chair’s been empty for so long. You almost fit it.”

“Mother?” What was this cat-and-mouse game, Maxi asked herself, thrown off balance.

“I told you that you forget what it’s like to be young, really young, Maxime. Well, so do I. But sometimes I’m smart enough to remember. Your father was younger than you are now by the time he had founded his first magazines. You’re the age he was when I met him. You’ve already founded one magazine and made a roaring success out of it, if we ignore your untraditional financial methods. Why shouldn’t you be able to take over the others … with the help of all the people who’ve been running them since your father died? That is, if you want to.”