Susan and I, along with Ethel and George, went to St. Mark’s for the three-o’clock service, which marks the traditional time when the sky darkened and the earth shook and Christ died on the cross. I remember a Good Friday when I was a small boy, walking up the steps of St. Mark’s on a bright, sunny day that
did
suddenly turn dark with thunderclouds. I recall staring up at the sky in awe, waiting, I guess, for the earth to shake. A few adults smiled at me, then my mother came out of the church and led me inside. But this day was sunny, with no dramatic meteorological or geological phenomena, and had anything of the sort occurred, it would have been explained on the six-o’clock weather report.
St. Mark’s was filled with well-dressed people, and the Reverend Mr. Hunnings, looking resplendent in his Holy Week crimson robes, stuck to business, which was the death of Jesus Christ. There were no social messages in the sermon, for which I thanked God. Hunnings, incidentally, also gives us a guilt break on Easter Sunday and usually at Christmas, except then he goes on a bit about materialism and commercialism.
After the austere service, Susan and I dropped off the Allards, parked the Jag, and took a long walk around the estate, enjoying the weather and the new blooms. I can picture how this place must have looked in its heyday—gardeners and nurserymen bustling around, planting, trimming, cultivating, raking. But now it looks forlorn: too much deadwood and layers of leaves from twenty autumns past. It’s not quite returned to nature, but the grounds and gardens, like much around here—including my life—are in that transitional stage between order and chaos.
Edward and Carolyn were not coming home for Easter this year, having made travel plans with friends, and I suppose Susan and I, like many couples who have discovered their children are gone, were reflecting on a time when the kids were kids and holidays were family affairs.
As we walked up the drive toward Stanhope Hall, Susan said, “Do you remember when we opened up the big house and had that Easter egg hunt?”
I smiled. “We hid a hundred eggs for twenty kids, and only eighty eggs were found. There are still twenty eggs rotting in there somewhere.”
Susan laughed. “And we lost a kid, too. Jamie Lerner. He was screaming from the north wing for half an hour before we found him.”
“Did we find him? I thought he was still in there, living on Easter eggs.”
We walked past the great house, hand in hand, onto the back lawn, and sat in the old gazebo. Neither of us spoke for a while, then Susan said, “Where do the years go?”
I shrugged.
“Is anything wrong?’’ she asked.
This question is fraught with all types of danger when a spouse asks it. I replied, “No,’’ which in husband talk means yes.
“Another woman?”
“No,’’ which in the right tone of voice means no, no, no.
“Then
what
?”
“I don’t know.”
She remarked, “You’ve been very distant.”
Susan is sometimes so distant I have to dial an area code to get through to her. But people like that don’t appreciate it when it’s reversed. I replied with a stock husband phrase: “It’s nothing to do with you.”
Some wives would be relieved to hear that, even if it weren’t true, but Susan didn’t seem about to break into a grin and throw her arms around me. Instead, she said, “Judy Remsen tells me that you told Lester you wanted to sail around the world.”
If Lester were there, I would have punched him in the nose. I said sarcastically, “Is that what Judy Remsen told you that I told Lester?”
“Yes. Do you want to sail around the world?”
“It sounded like a good idea at the time. I was drunk.’’ Which sounded lame, so in the spirit of truth, I added, “But I have considered it.”
“Am I included in those plans?”
Susan sometimes surprises me with little flashes of insecurity. If I were a more manipulative man, I would promote this insecurity as a means of keeping her attention, if not her affection. I know she does it to me. I asked, “Would you consider living in our East Hampton house?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because I like it here.”
“You like East Hampton,’’ I pointed out.
“It’s a nice place to spend part of the summer.”
“Why don’t we sail around the world?”
“Why don’t
you
sail around the world?”
“Good question.’’ Bitchy, but good. Time to promote insecurity. “I may do that.”
Susan stood. “Better yet, John, why don’t you ask yourself what you’re running from?”
“Don’t get analytical on me, Susan.”
“Then let me tell you what’s bothering you. Your children aren’t home for Easter, your wife is a bitch, your friends are idiots, your job is boring, you dislike my father, you hate Stanhope Hall, the Allards are getting on your nerves, you’re not rich enough to control events and not poor enough to stop trying. Should I go on?”
“Sure.”
“You’re alienated from your parents or vice versa, you’ve had one too many dinners at the club, attractive young women don’t take your flirting seriously anymore, life is without challenge, maybe without meaning, and possibly without hope. And nothing is certain but death and taxes. Well, welcome to American upper-middle-class middle age, John Sutter.”
“Thank you.”
“Oh, and lest I forget, a Mafia don has just moved in next door.”
“That might be the only bright spot in the picture.”
“It might well be.”
Susan and I looked at each other, but neither of us explained what we meant by that last exchange. I stood. “I feel better now.”
“Good. You just needed a mental enema.”
I smiled. Actually, I did feel better, maybe because I was happy to discover that Susan and I were still in touch.
Susan threw her arm around my shoulders, which I find very tomboyish, yet somehow more intimate than an embrace. She said, “I wish it
were
another woman. I could take care of that damned quickly.”
I smiled. “
Some
attractive young women take me seriously.”
“Oh, I’m sure of that.”
“Right.”
We left the gazebo and walked on a path that led into a treed hollow that lay south of the mansion. I said, “You’re not always a bitch. And I don’t dislike your father. I hate his guts.”
“Good for you. He feels the same way about you.”
“Excellent.”
We continued our walk into the wooded hollow, Susan’s arm still thrown over my shoulders. I’m not usually into self-pity or self-analysis, but sometimes you have to stop and think about things. Not only for yourself, but also so you don’t hurt other people.
I said, “By the way, the Bishop stopped by last Saturday. George told him I wasn’t receiving.”
“George said that to Bishop Eberly?”
“No, to Bishop Frank.”
“Oh. . . .’’ She laughed. “
That
Bishop.’’ She thought a moment. “He’ll be back.”
“You think so?’’ I added, “I wonder what he wanted.”
Susan replied, “You’ll find out.”
“Don’t sound so ominous, Susan. I think he just wants to be a friendly neighbor.”
“For your information, I’ve called the Eltons and the DePauws, and they haven’t heard from him or seen him.”
The Eltons own Windham, the estate that borders Alhambra to the north, and the DePauws have a big colonial and ten acres, not actually an estate, directly across from Alhambra’s gates. I said, “Then it appears as if Mr. Bellarosa has singled us out for neighborly attention.”
“Well, you met him. Maybe you said something encouraging.”
“Hardly.’’ And I still wondered how he knew who I was and what I looked like. That was upsetting.
We came out of the trees at a place where there was a small footpath, paved with moss-covered stone. I steered Susan toward the path and felt her resist for a moment, then yield. We walked up the stone path, which was covered by an old rose trellis, and at the end of the path was the charred ruin of the gingerbread playhouse. The remaining beams and rafters supported climbing ivy that had crept up from the stone fireplace chimney. The fireplace itself was intact with a mantel and a large black kettle still hanging from a wrought-iron arm. In true fairy-tale fashion, there was, and had been as I recalled before the fire, something sinister about the cute little cottage.
Susan asked, “Why did you want to walk here?”
“I thought since you were analyzing
my
head,
I’d
like to know why you never come here.”
“How do you know I don’t?”
“Because I’ve never seen you walk here, and I’ve never seen a hoofprint near this place.”
“It’s sad to see it this way.”
“But we never came here
before
the fire, never played our games here.”
She didn’t reply.
“I suppose I can understand not wanting to have sex in a playhouse with childhood memories.”
Susan said nothing.
I walked up to what had been the front door, but Susan didn’t follow. I could make out a flower box that had fallen from a window ledge, pieces of stained glass and melted lead, and the burned skeleton of a bed and mattress that had fallen through from the second floor. I asked, “Well, are the memories good or bad?”
“Both.”
“Tell me the good ones.”
She took a few steps toward the house, knelt, and picked up a shard of pottery. She said, “I had sleepovers here in the summer. A dozen girls, up all night, giggling, laughing, singing, and deliciously terrified at every noise outside.”
I smiled.
She approached the house and surveyed the blackened timbers, which still emitted an odor ten years after the fire. “Lots of good memories.”
“I’m glad. Let’s go.’’ I took her arm.
“Do you want to know about the bad things?”
“Not really.”
“The servants used to come here sometimes and have parties. And sex.’’ She added, “I realized it was sex when I was about thirteen. They used to lock the door. I wouldn’t sleep in that bed again.”
I didn’t respond.
“I mean, it was
my
house. A place that I thought belonged to me.”
“I understand.”
“And . . . one day . . . I was about fifteen, I came here and the door wasn’t locked and I went inside and up the stairs to get something I’d left in the bedroom . . . and this couple was lying there, naked, asleep . . .’’ She glanced at me. “I guess I was traumatized.’’ She forced a smile. “Today, I don’t know if a fifteen-year-old girl would be traumatized by that. I mean, how could they be? You see naked people on TV doing it.”
“True.’’ But I couldn’t believe that still bothered her. There was more to it, and I sensed she was going to tell me what it was.
She stayed silent awhile before saying, “My mother used to come here with someone.”
“I see.’’ I wondered if it was her mother that she’d seen in bed, and with whom.
She walked across the littered floorboards and stopped beside the burned bed. “And I lost my virginity here.”
I didn’t respond.
She turned toward me and smiled sadly. “Some playhouse.”
“Let’s go.”
She walked past me, onto the path between the rose bushes. I came up beside her. I said, “Was it you who burned the place down?”
“Yes.”
I didn’t know what to say, so I said, “Sorry.”
“It’s all right.”
I put my arm around her and said in a lighter tone, “Did I ever tell you about that Good Friday when I was a kid and the sky suddenly darkened?”
“Several times. Tell me how you lost your virginity.”
“I told you.”
“You told me three different versions. I’ll bet I was your first lay.”
“Maybe. But not my last.”
She punched me in the ribs. “Wise guy.”
We walked in silence back through the hollow, and when I ran my fingers over her cheek, I discovered she was crying.
“Everything’s going to be all right,’’ I assured her.
“I’m too old for fairy tales,’’ she informed me.
At Susan’s suggestion we turned toward the plum orchard, the so-called sacred grove, and made our way toward the Roman love temple. More than half the plum trees were dead or dying, and each spring there were fewer blossoms, but still, the air was perfumed with their scent.
We came into the clearing where the round marble temple stood, and without speaking we mounted the steps and I swung open the big brass door.
The sun was low on the horizon and shone in on a slant through the opening in the domed roof, illuminating a section of the erotic carvings on the lintels. Susan walked across the marble floor and stood before the naked statues of Venus and the big Roman male. The statues of pink marble were seated side by side on an uncarved slab of black stone, and though they were in a partial embrace, about to kiss, the view from the waist down was of full frontal nudity. The man had forgotten his fig leaf, and his penis was in an excited state. As I said, this was all pretty risqué for 1906, and even today an erect penis in art is considered by some to be pornographic.