“I’m not telling.”
I noticed the gates to the old Foxland estate ahead, now part of the New York Technical University. A number of these larger estates have become schools, conference centers, and rest homes. A few intact estates are owned by the county, as Lester and I discussed, and some of these have been restored for visitors, instant museums of a period in American history not quite dead yet.
Among the most enduring and useful structures of this Golden Age are the gatehouses and the staff cottages for gardeners, chauffeurs, and other servants who did not traditionally live in the great house. These quaint quarters are now occupied by former servants whose masters were good enough to deed them away or give them rent free—as in the case of the Allards—as a reward for past service, or occupied by people who have bought or rented them. They are quite desirable as homes or artist studios, and a stone gatehouse such as Stanhope’s can sell for several hundred thousand dollars. If the Allards ever move on to their final, final reward, William Stanhope will sell the gatehouse.
An estate’s guesthouse is an even more desirable home for a modern upper-middle-class family—perhaps because there are no working-class associations. It is in Stanhope’s guesthouse, of course, where Susan and I live, which might be appropriate for me, but is a long step down for her.
As we came to another new subdivision, Susan said, “Sometimes I can’t remember the names of the old estates or their locations or what they were called, unless the builder uses the same name for his development.’’ She nodded toward the new homes going up in an open horse meadow surrounded by wrought-iron fencing. “What was that place called?’’ she asked.
“That was part of the Hedges, but I can’t remember the last owner’s name.”
“Neither can I,’’ she said. “Is the house still there?”
“I think it was torn down. It was behind those blue spruces.”
“That’s right,’’ Susan agreed. “It was an English manor house. The Conroys owned it. I went to school with their son, Philip. He was cute.”
“I think I remember him. Sort of a twit with terminal acne.”
Susan punched my arm. “You’re the twit.”
“I have clear skin.’’ We headed due west now, and as the last rays of the sun came through the windshield, I put the visor down. Sometimes these rides are pleasant, sometimes they aren’t. I asked, “Have you thought about moving?”
“No.”
“Susan . . . I give this place another ten years and you won’t recognize it. The Americans are coming. Do you understand what I mean?”
“No.”
“The hamburger chains, shopping malls, twenty-four-hour convenience stores, pizza parlors—they’re here already. There will come a day when there won’t be a secluded beach left for us to make love on. Wouldn’t you rather remember everything as it was?”
She didn’t reply and I knew it was no use trying to introduce reality into her world.
In some ways, this place reminds me of the post-Civil War South, except that the decline of the Gold Coast is not the result of military operations, but of a single economic catastrophe followed by a more subtle class war. And whereas the ruined plantations of the Old South were spread over a dozen states, the ruins of this fabled world are contained within an area of about ninety square miles, comprising about a third of the total area of this county.
Most of this suburban county’s massive population of a million and a half people are contained in the southern two-thirds, and very close by are New York’s teeming eight million. These facts—the numbers, the history, the present realities of population, taxes, and land development—color our world and explain, I hope, our collective psyches and our obsession with wanting to freeze a moment in time, any moment in time except tomorrow.
I glanced again at Susan, who had her eyes closed now. Her head was still tilted back, and those magnificent pouty lips seemed to be kissing the sky. I was about to reach out and touch her when she seemed to sense my look or perhaps my thoughts, and she laid her hand on my thigh. She said, “I love you.”
“And I love you.”
Susan caressed my thigh, and I shifted in my seat. I said, “I don’t think I can make it to the beach.”
“To the beach, my man.”
“Yes, madame.”
• • •
The sun had set now, and here and there I could make out the lights of a big house through the newly budded trees. I got my bearings and headed north through the village of Sea Cliff, then west to Garvie’s Point, the former estate of Thomas Garvie, and the site of an old Indian camping ground, now returned again to nature as a wildlife preserve and an Indian museum, which was sort of ironic, I guess.
The park was closed, but I knew a way in through the adjoining Hempstead Harbor Yacht Club, where we parked the car.
I took a blanket from the trunk, and Susan and I held hands as we made our way down to the beach, a narrow strip of sand and glacial rock that lay at the base of a low cliff. The beach was nearly deserted except for a group of people a hundred yards farther up who had built a fire.
There was no moon, but the sky was starry, and out on Hempstead Bay, powerboats and sailing craft headed into the yacht club or continued south toward Roslyn Harbor.
It had gotten noticeably cooler, and a land breeze rustled through the trees at the top of the cliff. We found a nice patch of sand that the outgoing tide had deposited between two large rocks at the cliff ’s base. It was a well-sheltered spot, and we spread out the blanket and sat looking at the water.
There is something about the beach after dark that is both calming and invigorating, and the majesty of the sea and the vast sky makes anything you say sound feeble, yet any movement of the body seems graceful and divinely inspired.
We undressed and made love under the stars, then lay wrapped in each other’s arms in the lee of the cliff and listened to the sound of the wind through the trees above us.
After a while, we dressed and walked along the beach, hand in hand. Across the bay I could see Sands Point, once home to the Goulds, the entire Guggenheim clan, August Belmont, and one of the Astors.
When I walk this beach and look across to Sands Point, I think of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Jay Gatsby, the location of whose mythical house is the subject of some local theories and literary essays. My own theory, shared by some others, is that Gatsby’s house was Falaise, Harry F. Guggenheim’s home in Sands Point. The colossal house that Fitzgerald described sounds like Falaise, including the coastline and high bluffs of Sands Point. Falaise is a county museum now, dark at night, but if it were lit in all its glory, I would be able to see it from here.
And on this side of the bay, up the beach on the next point of land, there is a big white colonial house which still stands and which I am certain is that of Gatsby’s lost love, Daisy Buchanan. The long pier behind Daisy’s house is not there any longer, but locals confirm that it existed, and the haunting green light at the end of the pier that Gatsby would stare at from his mansion across the water—well, I’ve seen it from my boat on summer nights, and Susan has seen it, too—a spectral glow that seems to float above the water where the pier must have ended.
I’m not sure what that green light meant to Jay Gatsby nor what it symbolized beyond the orgiastic future. But for me, when I see it, my worries seep away into the sea mist, and I feel as I did as a child one summer night many years ago when from my father’s boat I watched the harbor lights playing off the sparkling waters of Hempstead Bay. When I see the green light, I am able to recall that innocent hour, that perfect, tranquil night with its sea smells and soft breezes, and the sound of gentle swells lapping against the swaying boat, and my father taking my hand.
Susan, too, says the green light can bring on a transcendental moment for her, though she won’t or can’t describe it precisely.
But I want to tell my children about this; I want to tell them to find their green light, and I wish that for one magic hour on a summer’s evening, a weary nation would pause and reflect, and each man and woman would remember how the world once looked and smelled and felt and how nice it was to draw such supreme comfort and security by the simple act of putting one’s hand into the hand of a father or mother.
The green light that I see at the end of Daisy’s vanished pier is not the future; it is the past, and it is the only comforting omen I have ever seen.
By Wednesday, I had gotten the necessary paperwork together to apply to the Village of Lattingtown for a building permit to erect a stable on Susan’s property. I did not specifically state that the stable to be built already existed on Stanhope property, as the Stanhopes, of course, owe the village, the township, and the county a lot of money, and I suppose that the part of the stables that we were going to chop off and spirit away could be considered an asset on which there are tax liens. But if it’s legal to tear down structures to save taxes, I guess it’s legal to move them to property on which the taxes are paid, and will, in fact, go up because of the stables. I honestly don’t know how anyone functions in this society without a law degree. Even I, Harvard Law, class of ’69, have trouble figuring out legal from illegal, as the laws pile up faster than garbage in the county dump.
Anyway, I also drew up the petition for the variance on which we needed Mr. Frank Bellarosa’s autograph. Over dinner that Wednesday night, I said to Susan, “It is customary, as you know, to hand carry the petition to our neighbor and chat for a while about what we intend to do.”
Susan replied, “I’ll take it over.”
“Fine. I’d rather not.”
“It’s my stable. I’ll take care of it. Would you please pass me the meat loaf?”
“Meat loaf? I thought it was bread pudding.”
“Whatever.”
I passed whatever it was to Susan and said, “I suggest you go to Alhambra tomorrow during the day, so perhaps you can meet and deal with Mrs. Bellarosa, who I’m sure is not allowed to go to the bathroom without asking her husband’s permission, but who can pass the petition on to Il Duce, who can ask his
consiglieri
what to do.”
Susan smiled. “Is that what you suggest, Counselor?”
“Yes, it is.”
“All right.’’ She thought a moment. “I wonder what she’s like.”
I thought she might be like a busty blonde, which is why I was sending Susan and not me. “Could you pass me . . . that over there?”
“That’s spinach. I think I cooked it too long.”
“I’ll just have the wine.”
• • •
The next day, Susan called me at my New York office and informed me, “There was no one home, but I left the papers at the gatehouse with a young man named Anthony, who seemed to comprehend that I wanted them delivered to don Bellarosa.”
“All right.’’ I asked, “You didn’t say ‘don Bellarosa,’ did you?”
“No. Anthony did.”
“You’re kidding.”
“No, I’m not. And I want George to call us don and donna from now on.”
“I think I’d rather be called Sir John. See you about six-thirty.”
• • •
That evening, over one of Susan’s special dinners—steak
au poivre
with fresh spring asparagus and new potatoes, delivered hot from Culinary Delights—I remarked, “I’d call Bellarosa, but he’s unlisted.”
“So are we. But I wrote our phone number on my calling card.”
“Well . . . I suppose that’s all right.’’ Susan has calling cards, by the way, that say simply:
Susan Stanhope Sutter, Stanhope Hall.
This may sound to you like a useless and perhaps even pretentious thing to carry around, but there are still people here who use these cards, leaving them on a silver tray in the foyer after a visit. If the master and mistress are not at home, or are not receiving, the calling card—or visiting card, as it is also called—is left with the gatekeeper, maid, or nowadays anyone who’s around to take it. Mr. Frank Bellarosa, for instance, should have left his calling card with George when he first learned I was not receiving. I have calling cards, too, but only because Susan got them printed for me about twenty years ago. I’ve used four of them socially and a lot of them under wobbly table legs in restaurants.
As I was contemplating the importance of calling cards in modern society, the telephone rang. “I’ll get it,’’ I said. I picked up the extension on the kitchen wall. “Hello.”
“Hello, Mr. Sutter. Frank Bellarosa.”
“Hello, Mr. Bellarosa.’’ I glanced at Susan, who had taken the opportunity to transfer my asparagus to her plate.
Bellarosa said, “I’m looking at this thing here that your wife dropped off.”
“Yes.”
“You gonna build a stable?”
“Yes, if you have no objections.”
“What do I care? Am I going to smell the horse shit?”
“I don’t think so, Mr. Bellarosa. It’s quite a distance from your house but near your property line, so I need what is called a sideline variance.”