Alexandra laughed. “She likes you. You should
hear
how Gran behaves with people she hates.”
“I wonder how she would feel if I told her that I want to marry you, Alex…?”
And she looked up at him and beamed. “We’d both feel wonderful, Peter!”
Kate had watched the progress of Alexandra’s romance with Peter Templeton with a great deal of interest. She liked the young doctor, and she decided he would be a good husband for Alexandra. But she was a trader at heart. Now she sat in front of the fireplace facing the two of them.
“I must tell you,” Kate lied, “that this comes as a complete surprise. I always expected Alexandra to marry an executive who would take over Kruger-Brent.”
“This isn’t a business proposition, Mrs. Blackwell. Alexandra and I want to get married.”
“On the other hand,” Kate continued, as if there had been no interruption, “you’re a psychiatrist. You understand the way people’s minds and emotions work. You would probably be a great negotiator. I would like you to become involved with the company. You can—”
“No,” Peter said firmly. “I’m a doctor. I’m not interested in going into a business.”
“This isn’t ‘going into a business,’ “ Kate snapped. “We’re not talking about some corner grocery store. You’ll be part of the family, and I need someone to run—”
“I’m sorry.” There was a finality in Peter’s tone. “I’ll have nothing to do with Kruger-Brent. You’ll have to find someone else for that…”
Kate turned to Alexandra. “What do you have to say to that?”
“I want whatever makes Peter happy, Gran.”
“Damned ingratitude,” Kate glowered. “Selfish, the both of you.” She sighed. “Ah, well. Who knows? You might change your mind one day.” And she added innocently, “Are you planning to have children?”
Peter laughed. “That’s a private matter. I have a feeling you’re a great manipulator, Mrs. Blackwell, but Alex and I are
going to live our own lives, and our children—if we have children—will live
their
lives.”
Kate smiled sweetly. “I wouldn’t have it any other way, Peter. I’ve made it a lifelong rule never to interfere in other people’s lives.”
Two months later when Alexandra and Peter returned from their honeymoon, Alexandra was pregnant. When Kate heard the news, she thought,
Good. It will be a boy.
Eve lay in bed watching Rory walk out of the bathroom naked. He had a beautiful body, lean and trim. Eve adored the way he made love to her. She could not get enough of him. She suspected he might have other bedmates, but she was afraid to ask, afraid to say anything that might upset him. Now, as he reached the bed, he ran his finger along her skin, just below the eyes, and said, “Hey, baby, you’re gettin’ a few wrinkles. They’re cute.”
Each word was a stab, a reminder of the age difference between them and the fact that she was twenty-five years old. They made love again, but for the first time Eve’s mind was elsewhere.
It was almost nine o’clock when Eve arrived home. Keith was basting a roast in the oven.
He kissed her on the cheek. “Hello, dear. I’ve made some of your favorite dishes. We’re having—”
“Keith, I want you to remove these wrinkles.”
He blinked. “What wrinkles?”
She pointed to the area around her eyes. “These.”
“Those are laugh lines, darling. I love them.”
“I
don’t! I hate them!” she yelled.
“Believe me, Eve, they’re not—”
“For Christ’s sake, just get rid of them. That
is
what you do for a living, isn’t it?”
“Yes, but—All right,” he said placatingly, “if it will make you happy, dear.”
“When?”
“In about six weeks. My schedule is full right—”
“I’m not one of your goddamned patients,” Eve snapped. “I’m your wife. I want you to do it now—tomorrow.”
“The clinic is closed on Saturdays.”
“Then open it!”
He was so stupid
God, she could not wait to get rid of him. And she would. One way or another. And soon.
“Come into the other room for a moment.” He took her into the dressing room.
She sat in a chair under a strong light while he carefully examined her face. In an instant he was transformed from a bumbling little milquetoast to a brilliant surgeon, and Eve could sense the transformation. She remembered the miraculous job he had done on her face. This operation might seem unnecessary to Keith, but he was wrong. It was vital. Eve could not bear the thought of losing Rory.
Keith turned off the light. “No problem,” he assured her. “I’ll do it in the morning.”
The following morning, the two of them went to the clinic. “I usually have a nurse assist me,” Keith told her, “but with something as minor as this, it won’t be necessary.”
“You might as well do something with this while you’re at it.” Eve tugged at a bit of skin at her throat.
“If you wish, dear. I’ll give you something to put you to sleep so you won’t feel any discomfort. I don’t want my darling to have any pain.”
Eve watched as he filled a hypodermic and skillfully gave her an injection. She would not have minded if there had been pain. She was doing this for Rory. Darling Rory. She thought of his rock-hard body and the look in his eyes when he was hungry for her… She drifted off to sleep.
She woke up in a bed in the back room of the clinic. Keith was seated in a chair next to the bed.
“How did it go?” Her voice was thick with sleep.
“Beautifully,” Keith smiled.
Eve nodded, and was asleep again.
Keith was there when she woke up later. “We’ll leave the bandages on for a few days. I’ll keep you here where you can be properly cared for.”
“All right.”
He checked her each day, examined her face, nodded. “Perfect.”
“When can I look?”
“It should be all healed by Friday,” he assured her.
She ordered the head nurse to have a private telephone installed by the bedside. The first call she made was to Rory.
“Hey, baby, where the hell are you?” he asked. “I’m horny.”
“So am I, darling. I’m still tied up with his damned medical convention in Florida, but I’ll be back next week.”
“You’d better be.”
“Have you missed me?”
“Like crazy.”
Eve heard whispering in the background. “Is there someone there with you?”
“Yeah. We’re havin’ a little orgy.” Rory loved to make jokes. “Gotta go.” The line went dead.
Eve telephoned Alexandra and listened, bored, to Alexandra’s excited talk about her pregnancy. “I can’t wait,” Eve told her. “I’ve always wanted to be an aunt.”
Eve seldom saw her grandmother. A coolness had developed that Eve did not understand.
She’ll come around
, Eve thought.
Kate never asked about Keith, and Eve did not blame her, for he was a nothing. Perhaps one day Eve would talk to Rory about helping her get rid of Keith. That would tie Rory to her forever. It was incredible to Eve that she could cuckold her husband every day and that he neither suspected nor cared. Well, thank God he had a talent for
something.
The bandages were coming off on Friday.
Eve awakened early on Friday and waited impatiently for Keith.
“It’s almost noon,” she complained. “Where the hell have you been?”
“I’m sorry, darling,” he apologized. “I’ve been in surgery all morning and—”
“I don’t give a damn about that. Take these bandages off. I want to see.”
“Very well.”
Eve sat up and was still, as he deftly cut the bandages away from her face. He stood back to study her, and she saw the satisfaction in his eyes. “Perfect.”
“Give me a mirror.”
He hurried out of the room and returned a moment later with a hand mirror. With a proud smile, he presented it to her.
Eve raised the mirror slowly and looked at her reflection.
And screamed.
It seemed to Kate that the wheel of time was spinning faster, hurrying the days along, blending winter into spring and summer into autumn, until all the seasons and years blurred into one. She was in her late eighties now. Eighty what? Sometimes she forgot her exact age. She could face growing old, but she could not face the idea of growing old and slovenly, and she took great pains with her appearance. When she looked in the mirror, she saw a neat, erect figure of a woman, proud and indomitable.
She still went to her office every day, but it was a gesture, a ruse to ward off death. She attended every board meeting, but things were no longer as clear as they once had been. Everyone around her seemed to be speaking too rapidly. The most disturbing thing to Kate was that her mind played tricks on her. The past and present were constantly intermingling. Her world was closing in, becoming smaller and smaller.
If there was a lifeline that Kate clutched, a driving force that kept her alive, it was her passionate conviction that someone in the family must one day take charge of Kruger-Brent. Kate had
no intention of letting outsiders take over what Jamie McGregor and Margaret and she and David had suffered and toiled so long and so hard for. Eve, on whom Kate had twice pinned such high hopes, was a murderer. And a
grotesque.
Kate had not had to punish her. She had seen Eve once. What had been done to her was punishment enough.
On the day Eve had seen her face in the mirror, she had tried to commit suicide. She had swallowed a bottle of sleeping pills, but Keith had pumped out her stomach and brought her home, where he hovered over her constantly. When he had to be at the hospital, day and night nurses guarded her.
“Please let me die,” Eve begged her husband. “Please, Keith! I don’t want to live like this.”
“You belong to me now,” Keith told her, “and I’ll always love you.”
The image of what her face looked like was etched in Eve’s brain. She persuaded Keith to dismiss the nurses. She did not want anyone around her looking at her, staring at her.
Alexandra called again and again, but Eve refused to see her. All deliveries were left outside the front door so no one could see her face. The only person who saw her was Keith. He was, finally, the only one she had left. He was her only link with the world, and she became terrified that he would leave her, that she would be left alone with nothing but her ugliness—her unbearable ugliness.
Every morning at five o’clock, Keith arose to go to the hospital or clinic, and Eve was always up before him to fix his breakfast. She cooked dinner for him every night, and when he was late, she was filled with apprehension.
What if he had found some other woman? What if he did not return to her
?
When she heard his key in the door, she would rush to open it and go into his arms, holding him tightly. She never suggested they make love because she was afraid he might refuse, but when he did make love to her, Eve felt as though he was bestowing upon her a wonderful kindness.
Once she asked, timidly, “Darling, haven’t you punished me enough? Won’t you repair my face?” He looked at her and said proudly, “It can never be repaired.”
As time went on, Keith became more demanding, more peremptory, until Eve was finally and completely a slave to him, catering to his every whim. Her ugliness bound her to him more strongly than iron chains.
Alexandra and Peter had had a son, Robert, a bright, handsome boy. He reminded Kate of Tony when he was a child. Robert was almost eight now, and precocious for his age.
Very precocious indeed
, Kate thought.
A really remarkable boy.
All the members of the family received their invitations on the same day. The invitation read:
MRS. KATE BLACKWELL REQUESTS THE HONOR OF YOUR PRESENCE TO CELEBRATE HER NINETIETH BIRTHDAY AT CEDAR HILL HOUSE, DARK HARBOR, MAINE, ON SEPTEMBER
24, 1982,
AT EIGHT O’CLOCK. BLACK TIE
.
When Keith read the invitation, he looked at Eve and said, “We’re going.”
“Oh, no! I can’t! You go. I’ll—”
He said, “We’re both going.”
Tony Blackwell was in the garden of the sanitarium, painting, when his companion approached. “A letter for you, Tony.”
Tony opened the envelope, and a vague smile lighted his face. “That’s nice,” he said. “I like birthday parties.”
Peter Templeton studied the invitation. “I can’t believe the old girl’s ninety years old. She’s really amazing.”
“Yes, isn’t she?” Alexandra agreed. And she added thoughtfully, “Do you know something sweet? Robert received his own invitation, addressed to him.”
The overnight guests had long since departed by ferry and plane, and the family was gathered in the library at Cedar Hill. Kate looked at those in the room, one by one, and she saw each with remarkable clarity. Tony, the smiling, vaguely amiable vegetable who had tried to kill her, the son who had been so full of promise and hope. Eve, the murderer, who could have owned the world if she had not had the seed of evil in her. How ironic it was, Kate thought, that her terrible punishment had come from the meek little nonentity she married. And then there was Alexandra. Beautiful, affectionate and kind—the bitterest disappointment of all. She had put her own happiness before the welfare of the company. She was not interested in Kruger-Brent and had chosen a husband who refused to have anything to do with the company. Traitors, both of them. Had all the pain of the past gone for nothing?
No
, Kate thought.
I won’t let it end like this. It’s not all been wasted. I’ve built a proud dynasty. A hospital in Cape Town is named after me. I’ve built schools and libraries and helped Banda’s people.
Her head was beginning to hurt. The room was slowly filling with ghosts. Jamie McGregor
and Margaret—looking so beautiful—and Banda smiling at her. And dear, wonderful David, holding out his arms. Kate shook her head to clear it. She was not ready for any of them yet.
Soon
, she thought.
Soon.
There was one more member of the family in the room. She turned to her handsome young great-grandson and said, “Come here, darling.”
Robert walked up to her and took her hand.
“It sure was a great birthday party, Gran.”
“Thank you, Robert. I’m glad you enjoyed it. How are you getting along in school?”
“All A’s, like you told me to get. I’m at the head of my class.”
Kate looked at Peter. “You should send Robert to the Wharton School when he’s old enough. It’s the best—”
Peter laughed. “For God’s sake, Kate, my darling, don’t you ever give up? Robert’s going to do exactly what he likes. He has a remarkable musical talent, and he wants to be a classical musician. He’s going to choose his own life.”
“You’re right,” Kate sighed. “I’m an old woman, and I have no right to interfere. If he wants to be a musician, that’s what he should be.” She turned to the boy, and her eyes shone with love. “Mind you, Robert, I can’t promise anything, but I’m going to try to help you. I know someone who’s a dear friend of Zubin Mehta.”