Where You Belong (27 page)

III

After the confrontation with my mother, I had bottled it all up again—the rage, the hurt, the anguish. I had done so in order to survive.

But there were times when a pall hung over me, and I continued to be haunted by my disturbed past, by the terrible injustice meted out to me by that woman who called herself my mother.

My childhood had been a tragedy, that was the only word for it. How sick she had been and probably still was . . . unable to love me because of her love for the illegitimate daughter she had given away, had abandoned to her own fate. She had been saddled with a guilt that burdened her down, a guilt that ultimately must have ruined her life. Because it became a morbid and obsessive guilt that dominated her and submerged all rational thought. I had come to believe that Margot Denning was irrational, among other things.

I wondered if she had ever tried to find that abandoned child, Anjelica. And I also wondered about her, wondered what had happened to her, and where she was today. Somewhere out there I had a half sister, a sister who had probably had as bad a childhood as I.

I had discussed some of these thoughts with Jake, but I really tried hard not to burden him with my pain. Anyway, there really was nothing anyone could say to give me comfort, or help alleviate the agony I experienced at times.

Nor could I simply stick a Band-Aid on my psychic wounds and hope they would eventually heal. They wouldn't, at least not all that easily, and not for a long time. But now that I had a grasp of the truth at long last, perhaps I could do something to heal myself. I hoped I could.

The only thing I had not asked my mother during our confrontation in New York had to do with my father. And it was actually a twofold question—had he known about her involvement with Vincent Landau and her illegitimate child? And why had he condoned her cruel behavior toward me when I was a child?

Troubled and perplexed, I had finally called her before leaving New York, and she had immediately come to the phone to speak to me. No doubt she thought I had changed my mind about Lowell's.

When I launched into the questions about my father, she had obviously been taken aback momentarily. There was a silence before she had finally answered in a clipped tone, “No, I never told your father about Vincent and Anjelica. What was the point? That part of my life was over, finished.”

I had then posed the most pertinent question of all. Why had my father followed her lead and virtually ignored me all my life until the day he died?

Her answer flowed so easily down the wire, and instantly; she hadn't even had to think about it. “Peter didn't want children, he believed they would get in the way of our relationship. He wanted me all to himself, you see. I suppose he resented you, and Donald too, even though you were both fathered by him. He thought you were a nuisance. And I know for an absolute certainty that he was jealous of you.”

“Jealous!” I had retorted. “That's a laugh under the circumstances. And tell me, why did you bother to have kids at all?” I knew the answer before she spoke.

“For Lowell's, of course. I needed an heir. Or perhaps I should say an heiress.”

I hung up.

Who could deal with a woman like that? Later that morning, when I had related everything to Muffie over our farewell lunch at Le Cirque, she had been as upset and as angry as I was myself.

But there were moments when I dwelt on Margot Denning, as I was doing now, trying to fathom her out, to understand her, as I struggled to slay the demons of my blighted childhood. And in the process I hoped I could help myself and my mental health.

On the surface I was calm, controlled, and functioning very well on a daily basis. But I was aware that I was needy, and in a variety of ways. I was insecure about Jake, afraid of losing him, and I craved his nurturing. And sometimes I was assaulted by an irrational panic that something terrible would happen to him and I would be left alone. And on those days I asked myself if I should visit a psychiatrist. But I kept changing my mind about that, strangely ambivalent about taking this step. And on the whole, I did manage to cope, and so I never did go to a doctor for help.

IV

My brother and I had talked about Peter Denning before I left for Paris, and Donald said right from the outset that he had not been a normal father. “No Little League for me, or any of that other stuff!” Donald exclaimed. “Have you forgotten? We didn't do anything together, none of those typical father-son activities. Oh, nosiree. And listen, don't you remember, they even left us to our own devices with Annie when we went on vacation. She used to call them ‘the lovebirds' and we'd laugh about them.”

“You're right, I had forgotten. But your mother fussed about you, Donald. She was always singing your praises and listing your virtues.”

He was quiet for a moment, looking somewhat abashed, and then he had agreed. “That's true, Val, she did do that,” he had answered in a quiet voice.

Donald and I had grown closer during my visit to New York, and he was pleased that Jake and I had taken to his fiancée, Alexis. She was a nice young woman and very pretty, but most important, she was clever and street smart. Jake and I both agreed on that, and we believed that Donald had made a good choice for himself.

Ever since my return to Paris, my brother had stayed in touch with me, and I was beginning to realize this was not merely out of self-interest on his part. In fact, Donald had more than proved that he cared for me. I would never forget how well he had looked after me when I had fled our mother's apartment the day of the row. This rapprochement pleased me, and I was glad we had a normal relationship at long last.

I

Yorkshire, December
“We get quite a lot of tourists in the summer and autumn, and even in the winter,” David Ingham told me as we walked together down a narrow cobbled street, doing some last-minute Christmas shopping together.

“I can well imagine why,” I answered, smiling at him. “This is magnificent country. I don't think I've ever seen anywhere like it.” As I spoke, I lifted my eyes to the higher moors that rose above the quaint little town of Middleham in a grand and majestic sweep. “I went for a walk with Françoise the previous day and I couldn't get over it . . . the country is so beautiful in its starkness, in its emptiness.”

“Aye, by gum, it is, lass!” David responded, and then immediately began to laugh.

“What is it?”

“I can see you eyeing me again, Val, wondering about my accent. But it always happens to me when I get back here. I sort of lapse into Yorkshire talk, as I call it.”

I laughed with him and remarked, “But at least I can understand you. When Fiona and I were out marketing, I needed a translator in some of the food shops, especially the butcher's. Yorkshire dialect is a bit odd, isn't it?”

He nodded, “Aye, it is, and even those who have been brought up here, like me, can't always make out what some of the dalesmen are saying. And you're correct about the countryside, Coverdale is probably the most beautiful of all the Yorkshire dales. Did you get some nice pictures yesterday?”

“I did, especially of Middleham Low Moor and those steep, bare hills beyond. It's very bleak country indeed, but breathtaking. I also got some great shots of the castle ruins.”

“I'm hoping it snows,” David said. “You'll be amazed how the moors look then, like a giant white patchwork quilt because of the higgledy-piggledy drystone walls. Their distinct patterns look like seams on a quilt. And the castle ruins are eerily beautiful.”

“I can't wait for Jake to get here to see this place. He's going to fall in love with Yorkshire, just as I have, and with Fiona's house.” Glancing at David, I squinted in the bright morning sunlight and murmured, “That's a strange name, isn't it . . . Ure House?”

“It does sound a bit peculiar, I'll grant you that, although not to the locals. You see, the river Ure runs through here, which is obviously how it got its name in the first place. It was built at the turn of the century, and it's always been called Ure House, and I think Fiona felt a little funny about changing the name. Superstitious, I suspect.”

“She's done a fabulous job with the decoration, David.”

“Hasn't she just!” he agreed, sounding proud. “And Françoise has really helped to pull the restaurant together. Pig on the Roof has acquired a bit of Continental charm, I must admit, but we all love her touches, Frenchified though they might be.”

“So do I. And listen, thanks for all you've done, David. You and Fiona. She's so much calmer than when she stayed with me in Paris.”

“She's doing fine, although I have a feeling she gets nervous from time to time about that husband of hers.”

“Jake might have some news when he gets here tomorrow. He was planning on calling her parents. He's always been quite close to Simone.”

“Not from his office, I hope!” David exclaimed sharply, glancing at me.

“No, from a pay phone. I just hope that Olivier hasn't got a private investigator watching Mike, or me and Jake, for that matter.”

“That gets to be very expensive, so I doubt it,” David reassured me. “And from what she's told us about him, he sounds like a conceited bugger. He more than likely thinks he can do better than anybody else, when the time is right. I understand he's still caught up in that murder investigation.”

“He is, according to the French newspapers.”

“Anyway, don't worry about investigators. I doubt there are any on your tail, as I just said, and there's been no one snooping around here. Also, Jake and Mike are coming by private plane to Yeadon, which is the best way, the safest, in my opinion.”

“I guess I sort of took a chance,” I muttered, frowning to myself. “But at least I didn't fly. Thank God for the train.”

“Now, shall we go in here?” David suggested, and explained, “I want to get a couple of extra gifts.” As he was speaking, he pushed open the door of a shop that had a collection of carved wooden sheep in the window. “Best place for slippers,” he added as he bundled me inside.

He was right about that, I soon realized as I browsed around the shop. It was a boutique really, and it specialized in a variety of items made from sheep's wool. Most of all, I liked the slippers David had mentioned. Each pair had been handmade and hand sewn from sheep shearings, the hide turned on the outside, the fluffy white wool on the inside.

I immediately bought a pair for Jake and Mike's two daughters, who were flying in tomorrow with their father and Jake. I knew that Lisa and Joy would love them, and that the Fair Isle sweaters which were on display would also appeal to the girls. After a short discussion with the saleslady, I settled on medium-size sweaters for the two teenagers, who were fourteen and twelve. Not sure of what else I might need at the last moment, I finally took a couple of lovely hand-knitted scarves, two more pairs of slippers, a knitted vest which I suddenly spotted for Jake, and a heavy cream-colored fisherman's knit sweater for Mike. I had brought gifts for Françoise, Fiona, David, and his son Noel from Paris; perfume and silk scarves for the women, Hermès ties for the men, Jake and Mike included.

II

Armed with our shopping bags full of gifts, we walked back to Ure House at a steady pace, chatting in a desultory fashion as we walked.

David, who was full of folklore, local legend, and genuine history, kept me well entertained as he spoke about Middleham and its historic and illustrious past, when the castle had been the stronghold of that great feudal baron Richard Neville, the Earl of Warwick.

“And what a man he was,” David told me. “Handsome, persuasive, rich, charming, brave, and courageous. And powerful. At one moment in his life, and in the history of England, he was the most powerful man in the land. The uncle of Edward IV, who was Edward Plantagenet of the House of York. The prized White Rose of York, a true prince of the blood and one of England's greatest kings. Thanks to Richard Neville, who put him on the throne of England and brought an end to the War of the Roses, and ruled the land, the real power behind the throne.

“And here he lived at Middleham Castle, known in those days as the Windsor of the North, and it was at the castle that he raised Richard of York, who married Neville's daughter, and also became, for a short while, Richard III of England.”

“Jake will love all this historical stuff,” I exclaimed. “I find it fascinating myself, and Jake will just eat it up. He was a Rhodes scholar and majored in British and European history at Oxford.”

“So Fiona told me, I was very impressed indeed,” David said. “I shall be eternally grateful to Jake, you know, Val.”

“Oh, why?” I asked, raising a brow, glancing at him.

“Because he was very straightforward with Fiona in New York. It did her good, I'll tell you that. We're going to get married in the New Year. I wanted to do it immediately after we got back from New York, but she was a bit reluctant. We even talked about tying the knot at Christmas but changed our minds because we knew we would open Pig on the Roof on December fifteenth. I've taken a couple of weeks off from my job in order to help out, and it's going very smoothly so far. Much to our delight, we've done record business.” He came to a halt and stood looking at me.

I also stopped walking and stared back at him. “What is it, David?”

“And what about you and Jake? When are you two going to get married?”

I shook my head. “I don't know. Jake hasn't asked me.”

“Such a grand lass like you, he'd better not leave you hanging around too long. Somebody else'll snatch you up.”

“That's not likely, David,” I answered swiftly, and laughed as we set off walking again.

“What, a gorgeous lass like you! Don't be daft, Val!”

III

Ure House stood a little up the hill from the center of the picturesque little town, nestled in the fold of the lower moors. The higher undulating moorland swept around it like a giant Elizabethan ruff, just touching the edge of the sky, which was a lucid blue this morning and scattered with wispy clouds.

But how easily these northern skies could change, I had discovered after being here for only two days. When the thunderheads blew in from the seacoast of East Yorkshire, the sky turned black as night and looked eerily lit, as if from behind. And the fierce and icy winds brought sleet and rain from the North Sea and a decided change in the temperature.

Ure House was set back from the road on a patch of green grass, with a semicircle of trees growing behind it. The house was surrounded by a low wall made of local gray stone, and a paved stone path cut through a neat front lawn, stopped at the front door.

Beautifully proportioned, the house was built of a different gray stone, which Fiona had explained came from the ruins of Middleham Castle. At least the stones on the front façade of the house. Low and rambling, it had a sloping slate roof, many windows, tall chimneys, and a door made of heavy oak painted white and trimmed with black wrought-iron hinges.

When I first saw it two days before, I had thought at once of my grandfather. He would have loved Ure House because it was ideally suited to the moorland landscape, designed to blend into those bleak, implacable moors, and yet able to stand on its own without being humbled by the breathtaking scenery. The architecture was somewhat similar to the stone houses of the Cotswolds that my grandparents had both loved, as did I.

As we walked up the path together, the door suddenly sprang open and Fiona stood there, smiling at us cheerfully, her fiery halo of red hair brought even more into focus by the emerald-green twinset she was wearing with her tailored gray slacks.

“You two look as if you've bought up the whole town!” she cried, eyeing our packages and then coming forward to help us.

“Val raided the sheep boutique,” David told her, grinning.

“And so did you, it seems, my lad,” Fiona shot back. “But I'm glad to see you've both been supporting the local industry.” She glanced at me and added, “The one thing they've got in Yorkshire is a lot of sheep. Now, you both look as if you could do with a wee drop of something. Soup or a drink, which will it be?” she asked as we trooped into the front entrance hall. It was warm, welcoming with its stone floor, terra-cotta-colored walls, and moss-green-velvet draperies at the windows.

Although I didn't like to drink much at lunchtime, I said, “I wouldn't mind one of those Bloody Marys you make, David. They're so delicious. And you can't even taste the vodka.”

He laughed good-naturedly and said, “Am I being accused of stinginess with the vodka, Val? Oh, dear, that's not good.”

I began to laugh too, and explained, “No, not at all. I'm not a big vodka drinker, and what I meant was that you put in all those wonderful spices, and I don't notice the taste of the alcohol.”

After hanging up my coat and his own, he and I followed Fiona, who had walked on into the living room. This was a long room with four windows that looked out onto the moors, and a huge stone fireplace was built at one end. A highly polished wood floor was covered with a large cream rug patterned with green-and-black scrolls, and this picked up the color of the green-and-black-striped silk draperies at the windows.

The walls had been painted a funny green, which Françoise had informed me was called eau de Nile, literally water of the Nile, and it was created by putting a lot of gray into the pale-green paint. I had discovered that Françoise was a fount of information about design and decoration and had quickly come to understand how useful she must have been to Fiona with the decor of Pig on the Roof.

The room was comfortable, yet it had elegance without being overly pretentious. Two overstuffed cream sofas faced each other near the fireplace, and antique tables, brass lamps, and several good paintings completed the setting.

David went out to the small bar that opened off one end of the living room to mix Bloody Marys for us all, and Fiona and I moved toward the fireplace. I sat down in one of the armchairs, and she went and stood with her back to the fireplace.

After a moment she said, “We can have dinner alone tonight, Val, if you like. David's going down to Pig on the Roof to play ‘mein host,' and Françoise wants to help Noel in the kitchen, you know how she loves cooking. Anyway, when you got here on Monday you said you needed to talk to me, and tonight is as good a time as any. Before the others arrive tomorrow.”

“That's great, Fiona, thanks,” I responded, and then I thought to add: “It's nothing to do with Tony, I just want you to know that.”

She gave me a funny little smile and murmured, “I think it would be fair to say that we've exhausted the subject of Tony Hampton, don't you agree? Is it Jake you want to be discussing, Val?”

“No, it's not, actually. I wanted to talk to you about my mother, about something that happened between us in New York. I've struggled hard with the problem, tried to understand her, and I've hit a blank wall. I thought if I told you a few things, you might be able to give me some insight. . . . I don't know what makes her tick. You're so wise, Fiona, and understanding, and I'm sure you can help me.”

“I'll certainly try, Val. 'Tis my pleasure.”

“Oh, there you are, Fiona . . . Val!” Françoise cried from the doorway and came hurrying into the room. She was now fully recovered from the loss of the baby and the spousal abuse, at least physically. I did not know how she was coping with the psychological damage, because she had not talked to me on that level as yet.

But she looked wonderfully fit and healthy, and seemed more relaxed. Her entire demeanor was different than it had been in Paris. There was no question in my mind that this was because she was so far away from the dreaded Olivier, cop with an agenda.

She came across the room, kissed me on both cheeks French-style, and then kissed Fiona, whom she obviously adored. I had spotted that on Monday afternoon when I had arrived from London and walked into this warm and friendly house.

Fiona said, “Did you and Noel get the tree finished, Françoise? I can help this afternoon if you haven't, I am thinking.”

“No, no, it is not necessary, Fiona. Noel finished it an hour ago. I helped him. . . .” She began to giggle. “I have never seen a tree like it. Oh, mon Dieu!”

“It's full of little pigs, isn't it?” Fiona said.

Françoise nodded. “But what funny pigs!”

“Don't tell us any more, you'll spoil it for us.” Fiona glanced around as David came back into the room carrying a tray of drinks. She said to him, “Moira phoned when you were out shopping with Val. She's coming for Christmas after all. She'll take the train to Harrogate with Rory on Thursday morning.”

“Is she bringing the boyfriend?” David asked as he placed the tray of drinks on the coffee table.

“No, and seemingly that's the whole problem, David. They've broken up, and so she now has nowhere to go, since they were intending to spend Christmas Day with his parents. I gather she had really wanted to come up here to us, and that's when the rift started. They quarreled about it.”

“I'm sorry it blew up,” David murmured to Fiona as he handed me a Bloody Mary. “He seemed like such a nice boy. But I must say, I am pleased she's going to be with us. I feel we should all be together as a family at Christmas.” He gave Françoise a glass of white wine, handed a Bloody Mary to Fiona, and took the last one for himself.

“Cheers, one and all!” he said.

“Cheers.”

“And to our extended family, Françoise, and Val,” Fiona graciously added.