Her Last Flight(69)
“Doris, your brother is not a dummy,” Lindquist says.
I look helplessly at Leo, begging for relief, and although I can just about read the words peanut butter sandwich on his face, he only shakes his head and smiles, the bastard.
I set down my imaginary sandwich and unscrew an imaginary lid from an imaginary jar of peanut butter, and some fraught time later Doris screams out PEANUT BUTTER SANDWICH! at goddamn last and I crumple to the ground.
“I knew it! That was my charade!” Wesley says.
Doris is sulky. “I don’t even like peanut butter sandwiches, that’s why.”
Wesley jumps up and runs for the charades bowl. “My turn!”
And so on and so on for another hour or two, until Wesley’s curled up asleep on my lap and my cocoa’s finished, and Leo bends down to lift the limp carcass and carry it upstairs. Careful, I mutter.
Doris trips along after them, chattering about something. The bourbon’s gone to my head and I’m feeling a little reckless. When Lindquist stands to follow the ankle-biters upstairs, I say, “Not so fast.”
“Oh? Haven’t you got enough out of me already?”
“Just one question, really. I was mulling it all the way home.”
She crosses her arms and frowns. “What, then?”
“This thing you’ve told me about Mrs. Mallory. How she tried to kill herself. That wasn’t in the papers. I mean, this is the first I’ve heard of it.”
“George was always an expert about managing the press.”
“But that didn’t matter, did it? Wouldn’t have changed what happened, if the newspapers knew all about it and made Mallory out to be some philandering daredevil who drove his wife to suicide. Because his goose was already cooked.”
“Why do you say that?”
“You had already eclipsed him. You were the star now. Morrow made sure of that, didn’t he?”
She looks to the stairs and back again. “Yes. He wanted to make me a star, and he did.”
“Because I’ve been thinking about what you said, the way he managed everything in Australia, and you know what? I think it was all part of his plan. He wanted to separate you and Mallory, so he could get control of your career, and Mrs. Mallory’s little temper tantrum just fell right in his lap, didn’t it?”
“You could look at it that way. Or you could conclude that he was just doing what he thought was best for me. He thought Sam was reckless and impulsive, and I would be better off on my own.”
“Not alone. With him. With Morrow.”
Lindquist shrugs. “It seemed like the logical thing to do at the time. And we were happy. George took care of all the details and salesmanship I hated. He was considerate and faithful. You might say he was the ideal partner for me.”
I climb from my chair—not altogether steady, you understand, on account of the bourbon—and walk right up to her. “You know something? I don’t believe you. I don’t believe for one moment you were in love with Morrow.”
Lindquist glances at her watch. “I’m going to put the children to bed now. We’ll discuss all this in the morning.”
She starts up the stairs in smooth, elastic movements. Even for dinner, she doesn’t wear dresses, just these long, flowing, wide-legged trousers made of silk or sometimes crepe de Chine, set off by some delicate blouse or another. She’s got style, Irene Lindquist, even if she pretends to be above such things.
I call up after her. “One more thing?”
She sighs and turns, one hand on the railing.
“Was it true? Did the daughter find her like that?”
Lindquist stares at her hand. The lamplight slants across the scar that blooms from underneath her blouse and over her neck.
“Yes,” she says softly. “Poor thing. They say she was hysterical.”
“How awful. How awful for her.”
Lindquist turns and continues up the stairs. “It was awful for everybody,” she calls down behind her.
Sometimes I think about what might have happened if some German antiaircraft gun hadn’t got the better of Velázquez in the winter of 1945. The war was nearly over, after all, and he might well have survived those last few months of it.
By May, I was in the Obersalzberg, photographing the advance to Hitler’s mountain retreat. Velázquez was right about one thing; I had not been faithful, either to him or to his memory. Even before his death, I had picked up a lover or two, as the occasion presented itself. I had also struck up a friendship with a certain American general—four stars and married, another breach of the rules, but this fellow was an incorrigible philanderer so I felt I was not corrupting anybody, and anyway the wife had made her bargain long ago. This energetic and purely physical affair proved fruitful for my career. No longer was I given stupid assignments to photograph the revival of the Paris fashion houses in the wake of liberation; here I was on top of the world, the very front lines of the front lines as American troops liberated all the wine in Hitler’s cellar, to say nothing of the silver. I don’t know, maybe you’ve seen a few of those snaps yourself. One of them won the Pulitzer a year back.
Anyway, as I said, I was in the mountains of southern Germany when news of victory reached me. The Fascists had been defeated at last! Japan remained, of course, but everybody knew that was only a matter of time and blood. I took some dutiful shots of the jubilation among the GIs, and then I requisitioned a Jeep and drove into Berchtesgaden and drank myself senseless on the cheap local liquor.