Possessions (17 page)

“Homework,” she said, adding almost defiantly, “I'm studying jewelry design.”

“Ah.” Tobias nodded. “But—toothpaste tubes?”

“For models. They're so soft I can cut and shape them the way I'd cut and shape silver and gold—if I had any. You haven't told me why you're here.”

“To deliver my gift—which I'm pleased you like—and to talk. My dear, is there anything to drink in your house?”

“Oh.” She was embarrassed. “I haven't had a chance to stock anything—”

She hasn't the money to stock anything, Tobias thought. “My favorite is ice water,” he lied cheerfully. “Or coffee. If you wouldn't mind—?”

Following Katherine to the kitchen, he sat at the oak table, talking, while she made coffee. “I thought you should know something about us, since you're here—and you are here, aren't you? That is, permanently. Is that correct? You're not going back to Canada?”

Just like Derek. They all want to know when I'm leaving.
“It depends on what Craig wants to do.”

“Craig?”

“When he comes back.” She met his eyes, daring him to challenge her.

“But until then,” he prompted.

“This is where we live. The children are in school and I have a job. If you're trying to get rid of me—”

“No, no, what an odd thing to say; why would we want any such thing?”

“Because of the corporation, and his grandmother's estate.”

“Where did you get that idea?”

“Derek said some of the family were concerned—”

Tobias began to laugh, his pointed beard dancing. “Katherine, dear Katherine. When Derek tells you someone in the family is worried about something, what do you think that means?”

She filled two mugs with coffee and carried them to the living room. “He told me what he meant.”

“Yes, but with Derek, my dear, one looks under the words to pry out the unspoken ones. Now think; who is most worried about Hayward money and power?”

Katherine watched the steam rise from her coffee. She had liked Derek until he talked bitterly about Ross. She had liked Tobias until she heard the sharp glee in his voice as he talked about Derek. “Does your family always make accusations about one another?” she asked. “It's not very pleasant.”

“Ah.” Tobias, too, contemplated the steam. “Do you know how Hugh Hayward made his money?”

“Of course. Construction; the Hayward Corporation.”

“Oh, my, no. The company was fairly modest until Curt took over—his son, you know, Derek and Ross's father—though Hugh had made the Hayward reputation for excellence. The real money came earlier, in the twenties, when Hugh smuggled liquor from Europe and Canada. Prohibition, my dear: good Scotch made many a millionaire in those dry days. No one in the family likes to recall it, but I find it amusing that our enterprising Hugh was slipping cases of Scotch past the eagle-eyed law, while he and Victoria danced at charity balls and had their pictures in the newspapers as fine young
socialites who donated generously to good causes. ‘Everyone is a moon and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody.'”

“‘A dark side,'” Katherine repeated slowly. “Who wrote that?”

“Mark Twain. Fits the Hayward men like a glove. Hugh was only the first.” He sighed and sipped his coffee. “I did enjoy Hugh. I still miss him, even after all this time. A huge man, devious, witty, handsome. How he adored Victoria. He would have handled that sailing mess differently, but he'd been dead three years, and Victoria had shut herself off, mourning him, and there was no real authority in the family. Is there more coffee?”

Katherine refilled his cup. Of course, she thought. He came to talk about Craig. “You mean the sailing accident,” she said.

“Ah, well.” Tobias looked around the room, nodding to himself. “It was a mess. Not that I ever heard the whole story, but I expect to know it some day. Professors of literature are experts at ferreting out long-buried tales. And as I am writing the family history, of course I must discover everything there is to know. Your husband, my dear, caused me untold problems, since no one would talk about him. These days of course everyone is talking about him because you're here, reminding us.”

He sipped coffee. “Well. Of course Derek and Craig quarreled on the boat; actually, they came to blows. Ross says he doesn't know why, and Derek won't talk, and Craig, we now know, fled the scene, so I must wait. Now you, my dear, could learn more; no one has a better right to ask questions and demand answers.” He looked at her with innocent blue eyes. “You could be my research assistant.”

Katherine longed for Craig. He could tell her whether or not to trust this foolish-looking old man. She did want the truth; she wanted to learn as much as possible about Craig. But only to understand him better—and also herself: how she could live for ten years with a man and never suspect he was hiding in a maze of lies. But if she learned bits of Craig's past, why should she give them to Tobias or anyone else in a family she distrusted?

Tobias sighed and stood up. “I won't push you, my dear.
But you and I could help each other and I'm quite reliable, you know. Well, of course you don't know that, but when you've been part of us for a while—”

“I'm not part of you,” she said. “I don't want to be part of you. I'm waiting for Craig to come back and since none of you cares about him the way I do, just for himself, I don't need any of you.”

“I think you might,” he said gently. “Why don't you mull it over and I'll call in a week or so. Perhaps we could have lunch. Not in Union Square, however. My knees, you know . . . sitting on the grass . . .” He shook his head and walked to the door. “You've improved since that night at Victoria's. You're better-looking and I like your spirit. Craig would be proud of you.”

She looked at him in surprise. He nodded, pleased with himself. “Think about that.” He opened the door and was gone, but suddenly his head appeared again, eyes bright blue and smiling. “We'd make quite a team, you know.” And the door closed behind him.

*  *  *

“Just wait,” Leslie said when Katherine told her about Tobias' visit and showed her the cases of wine, and boxes of cheese, nuts, and crackers, that had been delivered the next day. “Pretty soon there'll be another one. Looks like you've been discovered by the Haywards.”

Katherine didn't want another one. She had enough on her mind. She had Gil Lister, day after day, and when she left him she came home to children who were cross and difficult to handle. At night she was restless, hungry for love-making and companionship. She went to her jewelry class twice a week, and Leslie came for dinner, or just to talk, at least once a week, but otherwise Katherine was very quiet, with plenty of time to think. Ross had called twice to see if she needed anything, but he had seemed distracted by problems at work, and something else—something personal—and when he did not mention another lunch, Katherine did not either. No more Haywards, she thought. Maybe later, when I figure out how to deal with them.

But Leslie had been right. A few days after Tobias' visit, Claude Fleming telephoned: not a Hayward but, as he had told her at Victoria's, almost one of the family. “The top of the
Hyatt,” he said when she agreed to meet him the next day after work. “Just across the square from Heath's.”

He was waiting when she arrived: a tall man in his fifties with carefully brushed silver hair, observant eyes, and a well-exercised body set off in an expensive suit. When Katherine sat opposite him in the booth, he pointed to the crest of a distant hill where a salmon-colored, balconied apartment building stood alone against the golden sky of late afternoon. “Do you recognize it?” Katherine shook her head. “Pacific Heights. Victoria's. You were there for dinner.”

The waitress brought wine for Katherine, Scotch for Claude, and a dish filled with toasted cereal and nuts. Claude slid it aside. “Execrable dish. The view, however, is fine. Are you settled in your apartment? And your job? And the children in school?”

Katherine gazed at him a moment. “Perhaps we should have a meeting of the whole family. I could answer all the questions just once and then find out what everyone wants from me.”

His eyes narrowed. Then he smiled and lifted his glass. “To your new life. Evidently it will be a lively one.”

Katherine's face was flushed. She wasn't used to talking that way, especially to polished and successful older men who made her feel like a child. She wished she hadn't come. She'd already said she didn't want any more of this strange family that had rejected her in June and now sought her out in October. They made her nervous and when she was with them she acted in ways that surprised everyone, including herself.

“—hope it is lively,” Claude was saying, beckoning the waitress for another drink. “Everyone hopes so. As they hope to get to know you better.”

“Why?” Katherine asked. “To find out why I moved here and if I'm lying about Craig? To keep tabs on me so they'll know, the minute he returns, how big a dent he might try to make in their bank accounts?”

He was taken aback. “Did Derek put that into your head? All we want is to help you. If Craig has abandoned you—”

“He hasn't!”

“Let us assume he has. It would not, after all, be the first time. After four months with no word or sign from him—”

“It's just as likely he had an accident,” Katherine said stubbornly.
“Or something happened that we haven't even thought of. I won't listen to you criticize him—any of you—you never liked Craig; you don't give him a chance.”

“Some of us did,” Claude said quietly.

“Not the whole family.”

He smiled. “That's asking quite a lot of any family. But some of them adored him. He was in a peculiar position, you know: the first grandson. There were Victoria and Hugh, with their two sons, Jason and Curt—who were always in competition for one thing or another—and then Jason and Ann produced the first grandson, a year before Curt and his wife had Derek. Not that it was a contest, you understand, but Victoria adored Craig from the day he was born; so did Ann; and as Jennifer grew up, she joined the admiring female chorus. Hugh expected his grandson to be another version of himself—aggressive, dominating, confident; Jason wanted a son who was a legend like Hugh Hayward; and Victoria and Ann called Craig their golden boy: perfect, excelling in all things. I felt sorry for him; there was no way he could live up to any of those demands. Curt, who's retired now and living in Phoenix, never liked Craig; he thought he was coddled and weak. Derek followed his father's lead, but then Derek never could tolerate people on pedestals, especially a cousin only a year older than himself. Ross, far less competitive, was Craig's friend. I suppose it helped that Victoria loved Ross but never could like Derek and he never forgave her. Well—” He gestured with his hand. “Families. The best of them have their feuds. Ross escaped: went to college in New York, got married, found a job. In fact Curt arranged that; a friend of his in New York took Ross into his firm. Derek stayed here and was running the company long before Curt took early retirement. By now he's doubled its size—took some chances that could have been disasters but proved enormously profitable. A real gambler, is Derek. And no one interfered with him, not even Victoria, who's the major stockholder. He became the head of the family by default when Victoria withdrew from everything after Jennifer and Craig were killed—after we thought Craig was killed.”

Katherine saw again the picture of the laughing girl. “What was Jennifer like?”

“Jennifer.” He waved for another drink and looked inquiringly
at Katherine, who shook her head. “Tobias called her sunlight and shadow. She was lovely, with a freshness that made one regret one's age. She danced through life, taking nothing very seriously, until the last few months of her life, when she became quite preoccupied. Tobias was here at Easter and thought her somber. I thought she was worried. Certainly Ann and Jason were. She was so changed: distant, stubborn . . . she'd been accepted at Radcliffe but then out of the blue said she wouldn't go. No one knew why.”

After a pause, Katherine asked, “Why did Ross come back?”

“I think, to be near Victoria. He never explained it, though Derek tried his damndest to find out. But his return didn't change anything. He opened his own firm of architects, made a remarkable reputation entirely separate from the one Hugh and Curt and Derek had made at the Hayward Corporation, and he and Melanie built a house in Tiburon. There really was no family: Craig and Jennifer were gone, Jason and Ann had withdrawn to Maine, Derek and his father ran the company, Victoria was frantic with grief and then just got more and more crotchety. Nine years ago, when Tobias retired, she gave him an apartment on the second floor of her duplex. He and Ross were the only ones who got along with her. All of them went in separate ways, measuring their lives in different possessions.”

The words caught Katherine's fancy. “What does that mean? Measuring—?”

“What we own, what we are, what we fight for. Derek, for instance, measures his life in money and power. Wives, perhaps, if you count the three he's had. And things: he accumulates everything from art to gadgets.”

Katherine thought of a picnic hamper. “And Ross?” she asked.

“Accomplishments, I suppose. How much he can achieve in rebuilding the cities of America. No small dreams for Ross. In the meantime he makes good money—nothing near what Derek makes, but he's hardly worrying—and he cares about money, if for no other reason than his extremely extravagant Melanie, but I've never thought of him as measuring his days in dollars. Or power, though he must know it takes power to make his dreams a reality. Interesting man; isn't it because of him that you moved here?”