Peach (37 page)

“Yes, oh yes. I am now,” Peach gasped, sinking shivering on to the shabby plastic seat.

“If anybody’s been bothering you, Miss, I’ll take care of him for you,” said the burly Irish cab-driver, eyeing her sympathetically in his mirror.

“No. No thanks,” sobbed Peach. “It’s all right really. It was my own fault.”

“Well … If you’re sure. Where to then?”

Where to? She couldn’t go back to Radcliffe at this hour. She remembered Uncle Sebastião. “Beacon Hill,” she said firmly.

Sebastião do Santos’s small narrow house on a sloping street on Boston’s Beacon Hill was painted white with grey trim
and had a view of the Charles River from its first-floor drawing room windows.

Huddled on his grey velvet sofa Peach sipped hot coffee, mopping away her tears every now and then with Uncle Sebastião’s large white handkerchief.

Sebastião thought she looked like a twelve-year-old waif—but she was a waif in trouble and he hoped it wasn’t as drastic as it seemed. He could remember playing this same role of helpful uncle with Peach’s mother Amelie.

Sebastião do Santos had always been in love with Peach’s mother but Amelie had married his wild younger brother. After Roberto’s tragic death Sebastião had hoped Amelie would turn to him, but like a fool he had introduced her to Gerard de Courmont; he might have known they’d be right for each other. Once again Sebastião had had to watch a man he cared for marry the woman he loved.

The troubled young girl sitting opposite him now might easily have been
his
daughter if he hadn’t played the game of love like a loser. Unlucky in love—lucky in money—wasn’t that what they said? It was certainly true of him. He was one of America’s foremost architects. Large international companies as well as wealthy private individuals vied for his services. He was an honorary professor at Harvard and his name was followed by so many letters they had spoiled the perfect symmetry of his letterhead, so that now the plain white pages were inscribed simply in the lightest grey—“Sebastião do Santos”. And that was it. The address and telephone number were in minute lettering at the foot of the page. Sebastião thought that the design of the paper was exactly like the lifestyle he had created for himself. Simple perfection.

He sighed as Peach’s hand shook and coffee spilled on the immaculate velvet of the pale grey sofa. Perhaps perfection needed a stain or two to humanise it. And at least the stain
would always remind him that Peach came to him when she was in trouble.

“Do you feel like talking yet?” he asked, taking the cup from her.

“What about school?” whispered Peach, worried.

“I already called them, told them you were safe with me and that it was all my fault. I said you thought I had already asked permission for you to stay out.”

Peach heaved a sigh of relief. “Thank you. Radcliffe means a lot to me. I’d hate to lose it for a silly mistake.”

“Is that all it was then, a silly mistake?”

“Oh Uncle Sebastião,” she cried, hurling herself at his feet and leaning her damp cheek against his knee, “I almost made such a fool of myself.”

“Well thank God for the ‘almost’,” he replied drily.

“His name’s Jack Mallory,” said Peach, the story spilling from her, “I’d never met anyone like him before. I mean he’s older, and he’s not like the boys I’m used to … with them it was just fun.
You know
. But with Jack I felt different. It was like a battle between this new person who wanted him so badly and the old me who never wanted anything to change.”

Sebastião’s hand stroked her thick glossy hair absently as she told him the story. Poor little girl. Life’s first lesson had been a hard one for her. “You’re young, Peach, enjoy the fun of parties and dating,” he said, “you’ll know when you meet the right man. And then you won’t need to run away.”

Peach sank back on her heels, relieved. “I’ve already met him,” she murmured yawning. She was so
tired
suddenly. But now everything was all right again and her life was back on course.

Noel’s room was in the basement of a grey five-floor walk-up in a littered treeless dead-end street. Its two advantages were that in return for janitorial duties it was free—and it was located next to the boiler room and therefore was always warm. It was also within a mile of MIT and saved on subway fares.

It hardly mattered that the room was small and dark, it suited Noel’s needs. It contained a single burner hot plate, a scarred saucepan and a mug stained brown from endless cups of coffee when he stayed awake all night to study. There was one clean plate, one knife, one spoon and one fork, a can-opener next to a couple of cans of soup and a jar of instant coffee. An old iron-frame bed stood in the far corner, its dingy mattress covered with a blue sleeping bag, and behind the door hung an old tweed overcoat bought second-hand for five dollars from a departing student and which also served Noel as a bathrobe on his treks to the bathroom two flights up.

A scarred table under the sunless window was where Noel worked, losing himself in the beautiful logic of engineering, and while one part of his agile brain tracked scientific theses and mapped rapid calculations, absorbing like a sponge all that could be poured into it, another part of him would conjure up his dream automobile. Not all at once, of course, just piece by piece. He’d analyse the radiator on the latest model Ford and then figure out what he would do to improve its design, he’d spend hours re-designing the seating of
the new Chrysler or analysing the Jaguar’s aerodynamics. He’d make improvements to hub caps and bumpers as well as engines. He covered large thick expensive sheets of paper with sketches and calculations, filing them neatly in a big black portfolio. And he spent as many hours as possible at MIT, working in the libraries when he wasn’t in class or at his job as a barman. Noel had a brief, businesslike acquaintance with his fellow students but he was still the loner. Except with women.

To his surprise expensive upper-class girls found him attractive. They liked his off-hand attitude, mistaking his silence for a smouldering sexuality. But Noel kept his mouth shut because he had no small talk and he didn’t know how to act with girls. They took him as he was—raw and muscular, silent and virile.

They’d pick him up in the bar of the Copley Plaza or in the university libraries or in coffee houses and it was because of them that Noel became aware of his need to do something about his lack of culture. He knew nothing of the latest novels or biographies but now he began to borrow them from the libraries, trying to make time to read them. He had never been to an art gallery in his life and his first visit to Harvard’s Fogg Art Museum so overwhelmed his senses that he went every day for a month, spending exactly one allotted hour of his time there, absorbing paintings so intently that he seemed to be imprinting each brushstroke on to his memory. He bought the cheapest student seats for the Boston Symphony and, drunk on the power of music, he went as often as he could afford, losing himself in an emotionally uncharted world.

He met Cassie Plumpton at Symphony Hall. Noel had noticed her there on a couple of occasions before she spoke to him. You couldn’t miss Cassie. She was twenty-nine and told him she was considered by her smart Boston family to
be “on the shelf”. She wasn’t exactly pretty but she was so beautifully groomed that she always looked attractive. She had short, dark, curly hair, fluffy as a poodle’s, large brown eyes and a penchant for wearing shocking pink.

“
Who are you?
” she demanded, approaching him in the foyer of Symphony Hall. “I seem to see you
everywhere
. Don’t you work at the Copley Plaza?”

Over a drink Noel told her the old story about his parents being killed in an accident years ago and having to make it on his own through college and MIT and she was sympathetic but not really interested. Cassie liked his rugged looks and unintentionally rough manner. “You’re like someone who’s been locked out of civilisation,” she’d told him after their first time in bed together, “an urban peasant!”

Noel despised himself for not knowing how to behave, even in bed. Where did you go to learn the sort of manners these women expected?

“But you mustn’t ever think of changing,” Cassie warned him, “it’s part of your charm.”

They’d been seeing each other for several months on and off—whenever Noel permitted himself to break free from his work schedule. He took her to art galleries and coffee houses and Cassie took him to the theatre and for dinner in out-of-the-way little restaurants. Noel didn’t mind the fact that Cassie paid for dinner, but he was self-conscious about his shabby clothes; yet when she suggested she take him to Brooks Brothers for some shirts and maybe a new jacket, he was furious. “I am what I am,” he snarled, “I’ve paid for everything I’ve ever had by working for it and until the time I can afford better, I’ll wear what I have.”

“I don’t mind, if you don’t,” she replied. “I just wanted to give you a present.”

Then out of the blue she asked him to escort her to the
party tonight. “It’s Boston’s welcome to Harry Launceton,” she told him. “You know—H
ARRY
L
AUNCETON
?”

Noel shrugged. He’d never heard of him.

“He’s to be Harvard’s youngest ever writer-in-residence. Because of his social background—he’s
Sir
Harry now that his father has died—and the fact that he’s probably a genius—to say nothing of his good looks—Boston society is taking him to their bosom. It’s black-tie, darling, so you’ll need a dinner jacket.”

Noel had often played the role of hired barman at these sort of parties, handing around drinks on a silver tray, but this would be his first time ever as an invited guest. Cassie was part of smart Boston society and he knew he would be meeting her friends.

He shaved carefully, hoping his beard wouldn’t grow in too fast and give him that blueish unshaven look, and inspected his appearance in the bathroom mirror. He had an athlete’s body, medium height, wide-shouldered, well-muscled—and one thing he had learned from his expensive girl friends was how to use it to good effect. Dressed in the hired tux that didn’t fit too well Noel thought he looked pretty good—but he still didn’t look like a man born to a dinner-jacket lifestyle. Turning uneasily from the too-honest mirror, Noel headed for the door. One day he’d be a part of that smart society. For tonight he’d just have to pretend.

Sebastião do Santos was waiting for Peach in the bar of the Copley Plaza and as usual she was late, though after the way she’d bombarded him to get her invited to Harry Launceton’s party the least she could do was to be on time.

The evening would be a mixture of academia, publishing and old Boston snobbery and Sebastião would have declined if it hadn’t been for Peach. “How wonderful,” she’d said,
laughing at Sebastião’s bewilderment, “oh how simply marvellous. I’ve been waiting for this for years.”

Sebastião spotted her by the door of the bar. You couldn’t miss her in that dress. Jesus Christ!

“Here I am,” said Peach, kissing his cheek.

“So I see.”

“Well, what do you think?” Peach looked at him doubtfully. She’d spent hours deciding on this dress, wondering if she had the nerve to wear it. She wanted Harry to notice her and the strapless scarlet dress was cut very low—by Boston standards anyway—and its slender skirt, scalloped like a tulip petal, hugged her as though silk knew it belonged next to her skin. Sebastião was uncomfortably aware that Peach was the centre of the bar’s attention.

“I’m not sure about the dress,” he said.

Peach lifted her chin haughtily. “Nobody would think twice about wearing a dress like this in Paris.”

“But I bet you did,” Sebastião said with a smile, “you look terrified of it. Let me tell you a little story, Peach. When your grandmother was a young girl she was about to go on stage for the very first time and she was wearing a very skimpy costume. She hung back in the wings, shivering and afraid, but she had to go on—she needed the work and the money. It meant survival to her. Something one of the other showgirls said changed her whole life. ‘If you have to do this,’ she told her, ‘be proud of yourself. Stand tall, put your chin up, pretend you’re a queen.’ And it seems to me, Peach, that if you’re going to wear that dress then that’s how to carry it off.”

Peach stared at him, amazed. “You’re right,” she said with a grin, “of course you’re right! Come on, Uncle, we’ll be late for Harry’s party.” Head up, back straight, and with a queenly smile to the curious drinkers in the bar, she strode towards the door, every eye upon her.

*  *  *

Harry Launceton really didn’t like parties. He much preferred a quiet dinner with a few friends to this mob-scene. However his wife Augusta, over there in the corner talking to that sharp old dame in the brown lace with the immense rubies decorating her withered chest, loved parties. It was for her sake that he’d agreed to come. “So that we can meet everyone all in one go, darling,” Augusta had said. “After all, we’re going to be living here for a year. It’s all right for you,” she’d gone on, “immersed in your work and meeting all those people at Harvard, but I shall be stuck in that big rented house on my own.”