Woman in Red (46 page)

Colin knew he owed her a call, and minutes later, when his mother’s voice on the answering machine reminded him that it was Marma’s birthday tomorrow, her ninetieth, it only increased his guilt. He’d been so preoccupied lately, he’d forgotten all about it. He phoned his mother back at once.

“I wish you could be here for it,” she said, after the usual pleasantries, when talk turned to his grandmother’s birthday. “It would mean so much to Marma. We’re throwing her a little party. I’m making all her favorite foods.”

“I wish I could be there, too,” Colin lied.

There was a sigh at the other end. “Who knows how many more birthdays she’ll have?”

Colin laughed. “You’re beginning to sound like Marma.”

His mother gave a mock gasp. “Am I? Oh, God. It must be rubbing off.”

“Don’t worry about Marma. She’s a tough old bird.”

“I won’t deny that.” His mother chuckled knowingly. “But, really, Colin, it wouldn’t hurt you to come for a visit. It’s not just Marma. We
all
miss you.”

“I know, Mom,” he said, with a sigh. He missed them, too, in a way. At the same time, he found the mere thought of his childhood home in Queens, with its little patch of grass out back that only a fast-talking realtor would call a yard, and its walls permeated with the smell of every meal that had been cooked in it for the past three decades, profoundly depressing.

They chatted a while longer, his mother giving him the latest status report on his dad’s sciatica and telling him all about the house his brother and sister-in-law had bought in the Poconos. Colin provided a brief, generalized update on his own activities, leaving out any mention of Alice. His mother lived in perpetual hope that he would remarry one day and he didn’t want her to be disappointed when she learned that no wedding bells were in the offing.

After they’d hung up, he phoned his grandmother. For all her contrary ways, he admired the old gal. Forever blond and always dressed to the nines, in full make-up, she was the siren of Heritage Manor, where she reputedly had the men who were still sentient lusting after her. Last year for her birthday Colin had given her a subscription to
Glamour
magazine, and when she’d declared it to be her favorite present of all, he’d known she’d meant it.

“Did I wake you?” he asked, after she’d answered the phone in a groggy voice.

“In the middle of the day?” She snorted at the absurdity of such an idea. “Don’t be silly. I was only resting my eyes.”

“There’s nothing wrong with taking a nap,” he told her.

“Sure, if you’re an old lady. I’m not old, I’m just getting on in years. There’s a difference.”

“You’ll never be old, Marma,” he agreed. “You’re too busy keeping the rest of us on our toes.”

She laughed heartily. Colin was the only one in the family who could get her to laugh like that. They didn’t always agree, but the bond between them was tight. “Like you would know. I haven’t heard from you in ages,” she chided. “What are you doing out there that’s so important you can’t give your grandma a call now and then?”

“Not much,” he admitted. “But that’s sort of the point.”

“How’s the oystering business coming?”

“I’ll let you know as soon as I have something to show for it,” he said. “Right now, it’s not much to look at.”

“Never mind. Mister Deets would be proud. He was an old coot, but he knew his stuff. We had so many oysters they were coming out our ears. I used to make oyster stew every Sunday and feed what was left over to the dog. Imagine! How’s the old place holding up?”

“I’ve had to do a few repairs, but all in all it’s in surprisingly good shape.”

“You don’t get lonely rattling around in it?”

“At times, but I kind of like it. Seems a shame, though, that I’m the only one who gets to enjoy the view. It’s pretty spectacular, especially on clear days.”

“I remember it well.” Her tone turned wistful.

On impulse, he said, “You should come out for a visit. Seriously, Marma. I’ll even send you a ticket.” He’d sold some of the antiques to finance the oyster farm and cover his living expenses: a pair of Tiffany lamps and the dining room sideboard, which had turned out to be a signed Stickley. He wasn’t rich but he could afford the airfare.

There was a long pause in which he could hear the rustle of her breath, a sound that made him think of yellowing pages being turned in an old book, before she answered with regret, “Thank you, dear. It’s sweet of you to offer, but I don’t think I’d be up to it.”

“Arthritis acting up again?”

“It’s not that, and you can stop pretending you don’t know perfectly well what the reason is,” she said somewhat tartly.

“Actually, I
don’t
know. We’ve never really talked about it.” Normally he would have dropped the subject, but he wasn’t backing away this time. Being in this house had made him wonder more and more about the circumstances of his grandparents’ divorce. And now he could feel his grandfather’s spirit chafing at the dishonesty and unspoken resentments that had been so corrosive to their family.

“I can’t see what possible interest it would be to you. It’s all ancient history,” his grandmother said in a dismissive tone. “Anyway, if you’d wanted to know so badly, you should have asked your grandfather about it while he was alive.”

“We never talked about it, either.”

“I find that hard to believe.” She spoke with a bitterness that was undiminished by the years. “I’m surprised he didn’t fill your ear with tales about what a rotten wife I was.”

Colin was amazed that his grandmother would think that. Clearly she hadn’t known William as well as she thought. “Actually, he never had a bad word to say about you or anyone. All he ever told me was that you and he disagreed on how Dad should be raised.”

Marma snorted in disdain. “He was upset because I took Daniel to live with my parents. But, honestly, what choice did I have?”

“You could have stayed on the island.”

“What, and have everyone feeling sorry for me? Poor Missus McGinty, whose husband made a fool of her!”

“So it was another woman.” Colin had guessed as much.

She hesitated before replying, as if realizing she’d already said too much. At last, she heaved a sigh that seemed to come down the long tunnel of years. “Yes. Her name was Eleanor.”

“The woman in the portrait.”

There was another long pause, and for a moment he wasn’t sure she would reveal any more than that. But maybe it was the advent of another birthday, a reminder that she didn’t have many more years left, or maybe that she’d simply decided the statute of limitations on his grandfather’s crimes was up, for she replied, “It wasn’t just an affair—I might have forgiven him that. He loved her.”

“Did he tell you that?”

“He didn’t have to. The portrait said it all.”

“I always wondered about that, why he never sold it.” Taking advantage of his grandmother’s unexpected candor, he asked, “Why did you leave him? Was it because he refused to give her up?”

“Partly, though I probably could have persuaded him to—for Danny’s sake, if not mine. But I had too much pride.
And I loved him too much to stay, knowing how he felt,” she said, in a strange, hollow voice. “Of course, I never told him that. He wouldn’t have believed it, if I had. Our life had become . . .” Her voice trailed off. “After you’ve been married a while you get into a routine. And it was the war. I was doing my part along with everyone else. I suppose I wasn’t paying as much attention to my husband as I should. And your grandfather . . . he did what men do. He looked elsewhere.”

Colin found himself gazing up at the portrait that had stood at the center of his family’s mystery and that even now carried a hint of intrigue. “So why didn’t he marry Eleanor?”

“She was already married, for one thing. Her husband was off fighting in the war when they met. For a while everyone thought he was dead, but it turned out he’d only been missing in action.” Colin listened raptly as the tale grew even stranger. “He was wounded pretty badly, from what I heard, and I suppose she couldn’t bring herself to leave him.”

“Once you found that out, you never considered going back?”

“No.” Another deep sigh. “Even if I’d been able to forgive him, I doubt he would have forgiven me.”

“Because of Dad?” Colin asked, knowing the bitterness it had caused when she’d taken their only child away.

“No, he’d have done almost anything to get Daniel back. It was the portrait.” She seemed reluctant to continue.

“What about it?” Colin prompted, gazing at the portrait as he puzzled over her cryptic words.

After a moment Marma said, “That’s how I found out about the affair. I came across the portrait in his studio, where he’d been working on it in secret. I knew the moment
I laid eyes on it, of course.” Her voice was soft with a kind of wonderment, as if she were surprised to find those memories, locked away all these years, still alive and intact. “No one but a man in love could have painted her like that. Almost as if she were glowing. I couldn’t bear it, so I grabbed the first thing I could get my hands on—a pair of scissors. I wasn’t thinking clearly at the time. I’m not even sure how it happened.” She faltered a bit before going on. “By the time I was finished, there was nothing left of it.”

Colin struggled to make sense of what his grandmother was telling him. “So the one he left me isn’t the original?”

“He painted it again from memory. Every detail, exactly as it was.
Better
even.” He heard the bitter pride in her voice. She might have scorned William in private, but she’d always seen the value in being Mrs. William McGinty. Why else keep his name? “When I saw it, I could hardly believe my eyes. I’d gone to a show of his works, at the Brooklyn Museum. More out of curiosity than anything. And there it was, up on the wall bold as you please. Like I’d only dreamed that I’d hacked it to pieces. Like . . . like I’d never existed. It wasn’t until later on that I figured out what must have happened.”

“That’s quite a story.” Stunned, Colin stood there shaking his head. He couldn’t quite picture his grandparents as those younger people embroiled in all that drama. Briefly he thought about mentioning that he’d become friendly with Eleanor’s granddaughter—more than friendly, in fact—but he decided against it. It would have been too much for Marma to handle.

“Well, now you know. I hope you’re satisfied,” she said.

“I’m sorry for dredging it all up,” Colin apologized.

“Oh, I’ll survive. I have so far. You don’t get to be my age without your share of hard knocks. I might have had more than most, but I’m still here, aren’t I?”

“That you are.” Colin smiled. “Happy birthday, by the way. I’m sorry I didn’t send you anything.”

“Never mind. You’ve given me something far better than anything money can buy.” From the note of affection in her voice, he knew that he was forgiven.

“What’s that?” he asked.

“You didn’t let the fact that I’m old and sick stop you from speaking your mind.”

Colin chuckled. “Well, Marma, maybe it’s because I don’t think of you that way.” More soberly, he added, “Anyway, I’m the one who should be thanking you. This explains a lot. Not just about Grandpa, but about our whole family.”

“I’d rather you didn’t mention to your father that we had this little chat,” she said. “You know how he feels about your grandfather. It would only get him worked up.”

What Colin knew was that if his father harbored ill will toward William, the seed had been planted there by Marma and nourished through the years until it could flower on its own. But there was no point in dredging up that, too. It wouldn’t have done any good.

“I’ll try to make it out next year for your birthday,” he told her, as they were saying good-bye.

“If I live that long,” she muttered.

“Marma, you’ll outlive us all,” he said, with a laugh, almost believing it at that moment.

The house seemed quieter than usual after he’d hung up. He sank down on the sofa, his gaze drawn once more to the portrait. His grandmother had told only one side of the
story—the rest William and Eleanor had taken to their graves—but she’d provided a crucial detail. Her words came back to him now.
He painted it from memory. Every detail. Even better than before.
A revelation that had rocked Colin to the core, for it spoke of a love so powerful that nothing, not even time, could diminish it. A love that had enabled William to see Eleanor through the eyes of memory, as clearly as when he’d painted her in life. The kind of love that could only be when you know you’re loved as deeply in return. Colin had seen it on his grandfather’s face the one time he’d asked about the woman in the portrait: He’d been true to Eleanor till the end.

Colin could only imagine the exquisite hell of their living so close to one another yet so far apart. And yet both had stayed on the island. Maybe because to have moved away would have been even more unbearable. What would those two have made of the friendship, for lack of a better word, between the children of their offspring? That the happiness that had eluded them could have been his and Alice’s for the taking? Might they even have had a hand in their being thrown together? Colin didn’t believe in ghosts, except the ones of his own making, but at the same time he was having difficulty
not
believing that there was something more at work here than mere coincidence.

He thought now of Alice, warming at the memory of their lovemaking. This time it wasn’t clouded by thoughts of Nadine. As if a fog had lifted, he saw Alice as clearly as the image in the portrait, to whom she bore such a striking resemblance, an image that shone now like a lighted window materializing out of the darkness at the end of a long journey, guiding the way as he searched for what was in his heart.