Classic Love: 7 Vintage Romances (69 page)

Dazed, she collected her things when the plane put down, her alligator handbag, her small flight carrycase. “Have a
nice
time,” the stewardess said at the exit door, with one of those sickening professional smiles.

A hell of a lot that insipid girl cared.

There was a cab almost immediately.

Others were waiting, but a driver spotted her unmistakable air of affluence.

“The Hotel Madrid,” she told the driver.

“Si,
Senora.
”

“And hurry, please.”

“
Si
.”

She knew he would. Anyone looking at her realized she was good for a sizeable tip. It had always been that way. Money and privilege was part of her background. You paid for it; you got it.

Her face was set. She wasn’t all that eager to see her son; she was only determined to drag him away from her husband’s brother. The gall of the man! And that tarty wife of his …

Smoldering, she lit a cigarette. In the rear view mirror she saw the driver’s curious glance. His eyes were bright and inquisitive.

She glared back at him, and his eyes slewed away.

There was a bottle — several bottles — in her bags. She was dying to get one out, take a drink. But that would have to wait. It was very hot, and the perspiration dewed her forehead and the back of her neck.

What am I and where am I going? she asked herself desolately, and leaned despondently against the leather of the seat.

“Is it much farther?”

“Very soon now,” he said.

“Can’t you go any faster?”

“But,
perdon.
There is a speed limit, Senora.”

“All right, but as fast as you can,” she said, and pulled out her cigarettes.

Why couldn’t she be happy? Others were happy. Why did she have to feel so wretched?

He didn’t have to die, she thought, blaming her dead husband for leaving her all alone. She had never loved him, but … he had taken care of her, kept her from —

An old, ghastly fear returned to her. It was a commonplace in these latter days. I’ll end up in the gutter, she thought. I know it. I always knew it.

Why should she
think
things like that?

She saw the driver looking back at her again. This time she didn’t glare. Because there was such open admiration and respect in his eyes. The man thought she was beautiful, was aristocratic. There was veneration in his look. He could tell she was a superior person.

For a moment she felt a little better.

“Is there anything the Senora wishes?” the driver asked, fawning.

“Thank you. No. Just get me to the hotel as fast as you can. It’s a very hot day.”

“Very hot, yes. I will do the best I can.”

All he wanted was money, she thought, her mood shifting again. A big, fat tip. Well, he’d get it. What did all that matter?

Her hands gripped the seat. That bitch, Dolores.

And Constant …

The final showdown.

“You don’t deserve to have a boy like that.”

“Why, why?” she had screamed. “I have a life to live! I’m a young woman. Are you any better, with that woman from the Basura …”

“My brother would turn in his grave.”

I’m so tired, she thought. So God damned tired.

Her head lolled, and if she had guessed what she looked like, as she fell asleep, she would have been horrified. Her young face was suddenly haggard; her mouth fell open and her jaw dropped. The circles under her eyes became puffs, ugly and disfiguring. Her whole aspect changed, became shocking.

The driver saw the transformation, felt pity, and put his foot on the gas pedal. Poor woman, he thought vaguely. Poor American woman. They lived such crazy lives, in that insane country.

• • •

The Hotel Madrid in Seville, a former monastery, was very lovely. It leaned on simplicity, was a little like the fine, quiet hotels in the Provence of France. There was the feeling of being in a retreat, due to its monastic aspect.

An inner courtyard with great old trees was one of its most beautiful features, and before starting out on their sightseeing tour the travelers refreshed themselves there. Richard with his coke and Steve and Kelly with a
tonica.
They had arrived in Seville at just after one. The change in temperature was immediately apparent. Seville was the heart and capital of Andalusia; here the heat really scorched. You could feel it burning, thickening your tongue and slowing up speech.

Their investigatory tour of the city was faintly apathetic. Richard yawned constantly, complaining that he was terribly thirsty, and after visiting the Torre de Oro, the Tower of Gold on the banks of the Guadalquivir River, they went into a nearby
posada
and had more liquids.

“What else is there to see here?” Richard asked, his eyes half closed.

“We should go to the Plaza de Espana. Wake up, Rich.”

“It’s just so
hot.
”

“Stop grousing.”

“I’d like to take a dip in a pool.”

“Sorry, the Hotel Madrid doesn’t have a pool. Drink your coke and let’s get going.”

The Plaza de Espana was worth it, however, with its subsections celebrating, in gorgeous tiles, the medieval kingdoms and historical provinces of Spanish Iberia: Andalusia, Aragon, Asturias, Old and New Castile, Estramadura, Galicia, Leon, Murcia, Navarre and Valencia.

The sun beat down, but there were interior spaces where the sheltering stone formed cool oases, where you began to perk up … until you went outside again, and wilted in the hot glare.

Even Steve was glad to call it a day after that.

“Too muggy,” he said. “Let’s get back to that air conditioning.”

They went to their rooms and did as the natives did; observed siesta.

At seven in the evening, it was better. There was a slight breeze stirring in the courtyard. Kelly, tanned and her nose peeling, sipped her martini, looking pensively at the tiny colored lights strung from the trees. It was still strong daylight, but the foliage darkened the garden.

The little colored lights were so pretty, so festive.

This was the last stopping-off point. In a few days she would be going home.

Steve was laughing at Richard’s attempt at the Spanish “c”, the lisped consonant that threw so many Americans.

“Andaluthia,” he said. “It sounds as if you had a tooth missing.”

Felipe, one of the men at the desk, came out and looked around, spotted them and walked over to the table.

“Buenas noches.”

“Same to you,” Steve said.

And then Felipe bent to him and said something in his ear.

Kelly didn’t pay much attention. She was writing postcards. “I don’t know,” she said to Richard, when he wondered what was up. She had no sense of drama unfolding; so much for telepathy and extra sensory perception. “Dear Mother,” she wrote on the back of a highly-colored postcard view of the Giralda. “Andalusia is very charming and we’ve all had a marvelous time. I don’t know how this will end, but — ”

She looked up abstractedly. How
would
it end? Was it just a summer romance?

There had been other summer romances.

Richard sucked on his coke, bottoms up. It was only an hour away from dusk, and the birds were getting ready for their night’s roosting. They were chirping madly. She sipped her martini and pushed the postcards aside. How could you keep your mind on mundane things?

“I gotta have another coke,” Richard said. “This heat makes me thirstier than — ”

“You’ll turn into a coke,” Kelly said absently.

And then Steve came out from inside the darkening hotel. In his wake was a tall, stunning girl … woman. A woman with very dark hair and a too-controlled face. As if she had a stomach ache but wasn’t going to let anybody know it. Her clothes were fabulous … a navy knit with a red belt. A huge alligator handbag in that expensive shade of cherry-red.

A very beautiful woman, walking just in back of Steve.

There was no way she could know, but somehow she knew.

She sat up straight. And saw Richard’s open mouth, his wide, unbelieving eyes. He looked quickly at Kelly and then flushed.

“It’s my mother,” he said in a low voice. “Jaysus … how did she ever find me here?”

Steve was marvelous. That was a man, Kelly thought, who knew how to handle a situation. Good or bad. Anything. He was at present ordering a third very, very dry martini for Mrs. Comstock. He had already seen to à room for her. He was all but holding her hand, and she loved it. Her eyes kept going to him.

Halfway through the third drink her voice slurred a bit. She was telling them of her misfortunes. “Imagine,” she said. “I called home, to New York, and found that Richard wasn’t there. Imagine!”

She turned in her chair so that she was facing Steve, with her back more or less to the others. “The child was sent over here without my knowledge or consent, and I only found out about it because I called my housekeeper.”

“That must have been upsetting,” Steve said soothingly.

“Everything was upsetting. There was … a little trouble … in Rome. And then I learned that my child was in Spain. With strangers!”

She had the grace to lower her eyes apologetically. “But please forgive me. You’ve been so … you’ve been better than his uncle! Imagine foisting a young boy off on perfect strangers, just like that.”

She swigged a little bit more of the drink and set the glass sharply down on the table.

“I’ll never forgive him. My lawyer will hear about this.”

Nobody else was saying anything; except for an occasional sympathetic grunt from Steve, Mrs. Comstock was doing all the talking. Richard had his eyes down. His face was tight; he looked, suddenly, like a little old man.

I suppose I should help Steve cope, Kelly thought. But how? What could you say?

What could you say when the son looked so distressed and the mother was getting tighter by the minute? The heat, of course, made heavy drinking inadvisable, to say the least. Even Steve had been going light since they’d hit Seville. But Mrs. Comstock was packing them away, not sipping but frankly guzzling.

Her heart went out to Richard, who only a minute before had been laughing, relaxed and happy. Oh, poor child.

With the fourth drink Mrs. Comstock realized her own plight, got to her feet unsteadily but made no gaffes. She simply said, “My word, I must get some sleep. I think it would be friendly if someone would show me up to my room.”

Kelly got up right away.

“I’ll go with you,” she said easily, and took the woman’s arm.

Not that Richard’s mother really needed help. She managed very well. Her eyes might be glazed and slightly watery, but she handled herself creditably. Her room was a good room, and the air conditioner hummed pleasantly.

“You’re very nice,” the woman said. “Now let’s see … I just need my travel case. The little one, the Vuitton. A nightie, that’s all. Can you find it?”

“Is this it?”

“Yes. Oh, thank you. You’re so sweet. What’s your name, dear?”

“Kelly Jones.”

“I must remember that.”

She started shedding garments. The dress, the underwear. The body underneath was rail-thin, but elegantly put together. A good, strong body … but for how long?

“That’s a nice man,” Mrs. Comstock murmured, pulling the nightgown over her head. “Who is he, anyway?”

“A friend of ours.”

“Ours?”

“Richard’s and mine.”

For a second a good, sound intelligence flickered in the liquor-dazed eyes. “I see,” Mrs. Comstock said dryly, and pointed to another small case. “Could I ask you to be an angel and open that?”

When opened, the case revealed a cache of liquor. There were several flasks. “That one,” Mrs. Comstock said, pointing, and Kelly obediently took the flask out.

“It’s vodka,” the woman said, with a defiant smile. “That’s always the best, you know. Maybe you don’t know yet, but some day you will.”

She unscrewed the cap, tipped up the flask and drank.

There was a quick little shiver of the slender shoulders in the beautiful, frothy nightgown. Then she got into bed. Her eyes, looking up from the pillows, were dark, long-lashed, unfocussed.

“I’ll be all right now,” she said.

“Sure there’s nothing else I can get you?”

“Nothing.”

“All right, then I’ll … the telephone’s right there, if you should need anything.”

This time there was no answer.

Mrs. Comstock’s eyes were closed and she was breathing regularly. The beautiful lips were parted. There was the faint sound of a snore. A very small snore, it was true, but nevertheless a snore.

There was no reason to stay longer. Richard’s mother was fast asleep, gin-soaked and played out. The scent of flowers in a bowl mingled with the costly perfume of a famous designer.

It smelled nice in there, Kelly thought, closing the door.

Yet, in a certain way, it stank.

• • •

Mrs. Comstock slept all through the morning hours. Kelly was told that breakfast had been sent up, but she hadn’t summoned her son to her room. Evidently she had decided that Richard was in safe hands.

Richard had, miraculously, recovered. So his mother was here, so what? She was an absentee parent, whether in spirit or in the flesh. He woke Kelly up playing castanets outside her room. When she opened the door, there he was, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, clapping the circlets of wood together.

“Yes, Richard?”

“Steve sent me to wake you.”

“Tell him I’m awake.”

“When will you be down? We’re waiting.”

“In a very short time.”

“Like what?”

“Half an hour.”

“Okay. I’m drinking milk. Steve said you wanted that.”

“I do. Drink a lot.”

“Yes, Kelly.”

“You’re a good boy.”

“Sometimes.”

“You’ll do as far as I’m concerned.”

• • •

After breakfast Steve told her a few things. “You may not think I’m God’s gift to women, but someone else does.”

“What do you mean?”

“I had a call at four o’clock in the morning. She invited me up to her room for a drink.”

“Richard’s mother?”

“Uh huh.”