Voice of the Heart (120 page)

‘No, thank you, Brooks. I think I can find my way.’

‘Yes, Mrs Lazarus. Would you like any refreshments?’

Katharine shook her head. ‘No, not right now. Thank you, Brooks.’ He nodded, and she walked slowly across the entrance foyer. For the first time since she had come to New York, Katharine felt a stab of nervousness. Her legs trembled and her heart felt squeezed. She had almost reached the drawing room’s large double doors when they opened and an elfin child peeped out inquisitively. Large green eyes widened and the pretty mouth formed a perfectly round O, but the child made no sound.

Katharine increased her pace, her face wreathed in smiles. ‘Hello, Vanessa,’ she said drawing to a standstill.

‘Hello,’ Vanessa’s eyes grew even bigger, and she opened the door wider. ‘Won’t you come in, please,’ she added solemnly.

Katharine did so, and stood looking down at her daughter, her heart clattering, her eyes bright with happiness.

Vanessa dropped a small curtsy and held out her hand. ‘I’m very pleased to meet you… Mother.’

‘Yes,’ Katharine answered softly. ‘But we’ve met before
you know, when you were a very little girl.’ She clasped the small hand tightly in her own.

‘I remember… I’ve been waiting for you.’

‘Your father thought I should give you time to change your dress.’

‘Oh I don’t mean
now
I mean I’ve been waiting for you to come back, ever since
then
, when I was a very little girl. It’s taken you a long time.’

The tears rushed to Katharine’s eyes and she had to look away quickly. She choked them back, immediately swung her gaze to Vanessa. ‘And I’ve been waiting to come back to you too, darling. Shall we go and sit down?’

‘Oh, yes.’ Vanessa, who was still clinging to Katharine’s hand, led her across the room. ‘You sit there, and I’ll sit here, and we can look at each other for a long time, Mother. That’s much better than looking at a photograph, isn’t it?’

‘Absolutely,’ Katharine agreed, striving to keep her composure. She met the unabashed bright green gaze head-on, relaxed against the cushions and allowed herself to be minutely and painstakingly scrutinized. Her daughter was small and delicately made, as she herself was, and the face staring at Katharine was a childlike miniature version of her own, except for the dusting of freckles across the nose and the cheeks. But unlike Katharine, Vanessa had her maternal grandmother’s vivid colouring. Her curly hair was the same burnished red-gold as Rosalie O’Rourke’s had been, her eyes an identical tourmaline hue. Katharine had always been struck by this resemblance when Vanessa had been a baby, but it was even more pronounced in the eleven-year-old girl. She has a look of Ryan also, Katharine commented silently. She’s an O’Rourke through and through.

After a great deal of assessing, Vanessa confided, ‘Daddy has always said you are beautiful, and I knew you were, because I’ve seen all your movies. But you’re much more beautiful in person.’

‘Thank you for your lovely compliment, darling. I think you’re beautiful too.’

‘Do you really?’ Vanessa sounded doubtful, eyed Katharine carefully, her head cocked to one side. ‘If only I could get rid of these freckles I’d feel much better. I’ve tried all kinds of lotions but they’re just stuck. Do you think they’ll ever go away?’

Katharine could not resist smiling at Vanessa’s mournful tone. ‘They might, but I doubt it. Anyway, I like them. They’re very distinctive, you know.’ Katharine nodded, adopted an appropriately solemn air. ‘If I were you, I’d try to keep them, Vanessa. Freckles are a mark of great beauty. Helen of Troy had freckles,’ Katharine improvised, then went on, ‘and
she
had such a gorgeous face, it launched a thousand ships.’

Vanessa looked both impressed and delighted. ‘Pooh! I didn’t know! Perhaps I’d better not use any more of those icky lotions and creams. I’m glad you’re not a big tall person. The girls at school call me shrimplet, that’s smaller than a shrimp, and I hate it. But now I can tell them you’re a shrimplet too, can’t I?’

‘Yes,’ Katharine laughed. ‘Well, it’s the first time I’ve ever been called that, but I rather like it.’

‘So do I then.’ Vanessa’s smile slipped away and gravity settled in its place. ‘Why did you wait so
long
to come back?’ she asked with unnerving forthrightness.

‘I was very sick, darling. I had to get better first.’

‘What was wrong with you?’

‘Hasn’t your father told you?’ Katharine hedged.

‘Yes, he said you were in a nursing home because you were tired. But that didn’t sound right to me. I mean, how can you have been tired for nine years. Don’t you sleep well?’

‘I didn’t, but I do now. I had a nervous breakdown actually, darling.’

‘Did it hurt?’

‘Yes, a little bit. In my head. But the pains have gone. I’m cured.’

‘I’m glad.’ Vanessa thought hard, then said, ‘Did you have to see a shrink?’

‘Yes, Vanessa. Do you… do you know about shrinks… psychiatrists?’

‘Oh sure,’ she said off-handedly, looked unconcerned again. ‘Now that you’ve come back, how long are you going to stay?’

‘I’m going to live in New York. Permanently.’

‘Hey, that’s neat! Then I’ll be able to see you all the time, won’t I?’ she cried, her elfin face lighting up with happiness. It instantly fell. ‘You’re sure you’re not going away again?’

‘No, I’m not. I’m staying in America,’ Katharine reassured her. She added gently, ‘Of course how often I see you depends on your father.’

‘Oh don’t worry about Mike. He’s no problem.’ She looked at her mother, wrinkled her nose. ‘You haven’t said you like my dress. I put it on for you. Specially for you. It’s my favourite.’

‘It’s beautiful, darling, and green is the loveliest colour on you. It echoes your eyes. Stand up, turn around, let me look at you,’ Katharine smiled. She was enjoying this effervescent, completely natural and confident little girl. It was a small miracle she was so unspoiled.

Vanessa was parading up and down, doing small pirouettes. ‘I love velvet… Mother. Do you?’

‘Yes. Particularly wine velvet.’

Vanessa stopped modelling, ran to the sofa and flopped down next to Katharine. She looked up at her, the gravity in place again. ‘I used to be mad at you sometimes. You know, for leaving me. But I think I understand now. You couldn’t help it, could you?’

‘Oh my darling, no, of course I couldn’t. I wouldn’t have left you, not for anything in the whole world. You’re my baby.’ Katharine reached out and touched Vanessa’s cheek
lovingly. ‘You’re the very best part of me, my darling.’ Katharine felt the tears stinging the back of her eyes and she opened her arms to her daughter. Vanessa came into them swiftly, clung to her with a child’s tenacity. Katharine stroked her bright and shining hair. ‘I’ve loved you more than you’ll ever know,’ Katharine told her. ‘Since the very first minute you were born.’ As she raised her eyes, blinking, Katharine saw Mike Lazarus in the doorway, watching them. She released Vanessa, said, ‘Here’s your father.’

Vanessa straightened up, jumped off the sofa, raced across the floor. ‘Hi, Daddy!’ she cried flinging herself at him. ‘Everything’s neat neat neat! Mom’s going to stay in New York and we’re going to see each other all the time and it’s going to be great great great! And Mom’s staying to dinner.’ The girl swung around. ‘You are, aren’t you, Mommy?’

Katharine smiled, looked at Mike, not knowing how to respond. Vanessa pivoted to her father, grabbed him round the waist unceremoniously. ‘Hey, Pops-Pops, Mom’s waiting for you to invite her!’

Hugging his daughter to him, Mike said, ‘Will you stay, Katharine, my dear?’ His voice was pleasant and he was smiling lightly, but his eyes were frigid and unsettling.

‘Thank you, Michael. I’d like that very much,’ Katharine responded, thinking she had never seen a more unlikely pair than Michael and Vanessa Lazarus.

Katharine sat at the desk in the living room of her suite at the Carlyle. She picked up the felt-tipped pen and began to write in her neat meticulous script. After marking the page with the date and the time, she filled the sheet of thick smooth paper with her impressions of the day, her thoughts and her feelings about all that had happened in the last few hours.

Thirty minutes later, she put down the pen and closed the book, turned the key in the small brass lock. The book was ten inches by ten inches, bound in soft kid, the colour of the leather resembling the deep deep blue of lapis lazuli. On the front, gold embossed letters read:
To V.L. from K.T
. Early in December of 1978, when Katharine had decided to return to the States, she had gone to Smythson’s in Bond Street and had the book custom-made to her specifications. It was not a diary as such, but rather a notebook of memoirs and intimate, wandering thoughts, often simple everyday happenings, and each entry truly revealed the woman. It was intended for Vanessa, at some time in the future when she was a little older, and Katharine hoped the notebook would be illuminating, would help her daughter to understand her on a variety of levels, to know her better. When she had been undergoing psychiatric treatment, and at a stage when she was recovering, Edward Moss had suggested to Katharine that she write in this manner, using the exercise as a kind of catharsis. She had quickly acquired the habit, enjoyed expressing herself through words. And later she had hit on the idea of producing her ‘hours of the day’, as she called the notebook, for her child.

Returning the book to the drawer of the desk, Katharine stood up, stretched and walked over to the sideboard. After
filling a tall glass with Perrier and ice she went into the bedroom, made herself comfortable on the bed and picked up the telephone. Her first call was to her brother at his house in Georgetown. They chatted about generalities for a while, and Ryan reiterated his invitation, tried to cajole her into coming to Washington at the end of the coming week. He was anxious for her to meet his wife Anne, and his two small children, Toby and Patricia. Katharine declined graciously, made a tentative date for the middle of February, and they hung up. She spoke to Estelle Morgan, invited her for dinner that evening, then glanced at her watch. It was six-ten, three-ten in California, the ideal time to reach Beau.

Katharine had a great deal to report about her activities of the last three days and the time she had spent with Vanessa. ‘She’s very endearing,’ she told Beau. ‘In some ways not a bit like I expected. Singularly unspoilt, despite her father and all that money. Precocious, but not in a bratty way, you know, rather old-fashioned. I call her my little old lady. And she’s very outspoken, sometimes unnervingly so, fast on the draw too.’

‘Kids today are very sophisticated,’ Beau laughed. ‘They even make my jaw drop at times, and I’ve seen and heard more than most. And her father? How’s he been behaving himself since he agreed to the visits?’

‘So far so good, but remember I saw him on Wednesday… today’s only Saturday. Not much time to really judge. But he’s been pleasant, in a removed sort of way, removed with me, I mean. He’s perfectly marvellous with his daughter. They’re pals, if you can believe such a thing. I think he just might have mellowed a little.’

Beau Stanton hooted at the other end of the line. ‘Now that is hard for me to believe.’

‘But it’s true, darling. He took us to lunch today at Tavern on the Green, and actually cracked a few jokes. Vanessa says the most outrageous things to him, calls him Pops-Pops, teases him unmercifully. He takes it in his stride. They
have a good relationship, Beau, which I’m pleased about. I also think he’s been a good father. She’s a gay little thing, fairy-like, and whimsical. And, most important, very natural. You’d think I’d been around continually and not absent for so long. She behaves as if we’ve never been apart, which has put me at ease. We’re getting to know each other, and I adore her. She’s pretty too, much prettier than those photographs I showed you—the snapshots Mike sent to England last year.’

‘Any child of yours would be beautiful, Monkey Face,’ Beau murmured. ‘So it looks as if you’ll be staying in New York for a while. Yes?’

‘I think so, Beau.’

‘I’m pleased things have been working out so well for you,’ Beau said, genuinely delighted for her, if somewhat disappointed for himself.

‘So am I!’

They continued to speak for another half hour. Beau reported his news, gossiped about old acquaintances whom he had seen on his recent trip to Beverly Hills, and regaled her with a few amusing anecdotes, as always loving the sound of her lilting ageless laughter. He promised to call her in a few days, and Katharine replaced the receiver, rested her head on the pillow, her thoughts instantly turning to Vanessa. My little sprite, she mused, golden and bright like a shiny new penny. Vanessa had admired the tiny diamond heart she had been wearing on Friday. I must get one for her. I’ll go to Tiffany’s…

She jumped, startled from her reverie by the shrilling telephone, reached out for it. ‘Hello?’

‘Hi. It’s me. Nicholas.’

‘I know it’s you, Nicky,’ she laughed. ‘Don’t you think I know your voice after twenty-three years.’

There was a moment’s silence, then he said in a rush, ‘I’ve been trying to get through to you for ages. And I—’

‘What’s wrong, Nicky?’ Katharine broke in, well acquainted with the particular inflection now echoing in his voice.

He chose to brush over the question, asked, ‘Would it be an intrusion if I came up? I’m in the lobby. Or if there’s someone with you, could you come down for a minute? It’s important.’

‘I’m alone. Please do come up.’

The telephone went dead. She stared at it worriedly, wondering what was troubling Nick, then ran to the dressing table, smoothed her hah with the brush, straightened her shirt and put on her jacket. Hurrying into the living room, she found her shoes under the desk and stepped into them as Nick rapped on the door.

She let him in, took the overcoat slung over his arm, placed it on a chair, looked at him questioningly. Nick pecked her cheek, said, ‘Sorry to burst in on you like this, Kath, but when I couldn’t get through I decided to run up here.’ He paced into the middle of the floor, swung to face her. ‘I thought you might be going out to dinner, and I wanted to catch you before you left.’ He shook his head. ‘I’ve just had some rotten news.’