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‘I know.’
‘Mal, I have to go out of town. On an assignment.’
‘Oh,’ I said, surprised by his announcement. ‘This is very sudden, isn’t it?’
‘Yes. It just came up a short while ago. The magazine’s sending me to Bosnia. I’m leaving immediately. This United Nations–NATO situation is turning out to be something of a fiasco. So off I’m going to —’
‘But you don’t usually cover things like this, do you?’ I cut in, ‘I mean, you don’t cover wars.’
‘Nor am I doing so now. Not really. I’m going to be writing one of my special “think” pieces, based on the kind of things we’ve all been saying about the wholesale carnage going on over there, the dithering of the Western leaders and the terrible indifference the world is showing to such human suffering.’ He paused, then murmured, ‘It’s a replay of everything that happened in Nazi Germany sixty years ago …’ His quiet, concerned voice trailed off into silence.
‘It’s the most hideous situation!’ I exclaimed, my voice rising. ‘We’re no more civilized now than we were in the tenth century! Nothing’s changed, we’ve learned nothing. Man is rotten. Evil.’
‘I know that, Mal,’ he answered, sighing imperceptibly.
Striving to adopt a more normal tone, I said, ‘And so you’re leaving today?’
‘I’ll be heading for Kennedy in a couple of hours.’ There was a little pause, and then he said, ‘Mal?’
‘Yes, Richard?’
‘Do you have an answer for me?’
I was silent for a moment or two. Eventually, clearing my throat, I said, ‘No, I’m afraid I don’t. I’m sorry, Richard, I need time. I told you that …’ Now it was my turn to let my voice fade away.
Richard did not say a word.
I held the phone tightly, waiting, wondering how he was going to take my negative attitude.
Suddenly, he spoke. ‘Perhaps when I get back from Bosnia,’ he said in a firm, strong voice, ‘you’ll have good news for me, tell me what I want to hear. You will, won’t you?’
‘When will you be back?’ I asked, not rising to the bait.
‘In a week to ten days.’
‘Be careful, Richard. It’s dangerous where you’re going.’
That light careless laugh I had grown to know echoed down the wire. ‘I don’t aim to die, if that’s what you’re getting at. That’s not part of my destiny.’
‘Nevertheless, just be careful.’
‘I will. And take care of yourself, Mal. So long.’
He hung up before I could say goodbye.
After a moment or two I walked out of my office, across the back hall and out into the garden.
I took the stone-paved path that led across the vast lawns at the back of the house, walking rapidly until I came to the ridge overlooking part of my property and the valley far beyond. Hills darkly green with lush and splendid trees soared high above this valley, giving it some shelter from the elements in the harsh winter months. The two small houses nestling in the bed of the valley, always so forlorn in bad weather, now looked cool and inviting with their white-painted shingles and dark rooftops, their gardens bright with vivid colour.
Presently I shifted my gaze, let it rest just below me. Here, at the bottom of verdant lawns sloping away from the ridge where I stood, the horses grazed contentedly in the long meadow. To the left of them, and adding to this bucolic scene, were the old barns, freshly painted dark red with white trim. To the right of the long meadow, the pond, calm and glassy as a mirror, shimmered in the sun; a family of Canada geese swam, one after the other, in a straight line across its dark surface, where water lilies, waxy and pale pink, floated in profusion.
After a short while my eyes wandered, my glance sweeping over the resplendent rose bushes, luxuriant and in full flower, then moved on to survey my vegetable garden behind its white picket fence, the cutting garden bursting with perennials in a galaxy of the gayest hues. Everything blooms so well here; how beautiful the land is, so rich, so ripe with life.
I lifted my head and looked up at the sky. It was the brightest, most piercing of blues, banked high with pure white flossy clouds, and dazzling. I blinked several times against the light and then I realized, suddenly, that I was crying.
As the tears ran down my cheeks unchecked, I thought of Richard’s words a short while before. ‘I don’t aim to die,’ he had said, almost dismissively.
I shivered in the sunlight, unexpectedly cold in the sultry air. No one ever knows what life holds, I thought, what destiny has in store. I understand that better than anyone.
Five years fell away.
I stepped back into the past, into the summer of 1988, a summer which would be etched on my heart for ever.
PART ONE Indian Meadows (#ulink_80521b0f-d0cc-5582-92b5-885f9c8442f7)
One (#ulink_c0879fc4-7dc7-519f-8614-917868a71c12)
Connecticut July 1988
I awakened with a sudden start, as though someone had touched my shoulder, and I half expected to see Andrew standing over me as I blinked in the dim room. But he was not there. How could he be. He was in Chicago on business and I was here in Connecticut.
Pulling the covers over me more securely, I slid further down into the bed, hoping to fall asleep again. I soon realized there was no chance of that, since my mind had already started to race. Andrew and I had quarrelled earlier in the week and that silly little row, over something so petty I could scarcely bear to think about it now, still hovered between us.
I should have swallowed my pride and called him last night, I admonished myself. I had thought about it, but I had not done so. He hadn’t phoned me either, as was his custom normally when he was away, and I was worried things would get blown out of all proportion; then our weekend together, which I had been so looking forward to, would be spoiled.
I’ll make it right when he gets here tomorrow, I resolved; I’ll apologize, even though it really wasn’t my fault. I hated to have rifts with anyone I loved; it has always been that way with me.
It soon became apparent I wasn’t going to fall asleep again this morning, and, restlessly, I slipped out of bed and went to the window. Raising the blind, I peered out, wondering what kind of day it was going to be.
A band of clear, crystalline light was edging its way along the rim of the distant horizon. The sky above it was still ashy, cold and remote, tinged slightly with green at this early hour just before dawn broke. I shivered and reached for my cotton robe. It was cool in the bedroom, almost frosty, with the air-conditioner set at sixty degrees, where I’d positioned it last night in an effort to counteract the intense July heat. I flicked it off as I left the bedroom and headed along the upstairs hallway towards the staircase.
It was dim and shadowy downstairs and smelled faintly of apples and cinnamon and beeswax and full-blown summer roses, smells which I loved and invariably associated with the country. I turned on several lamps as I moved through the silent, slumbering house, and went into the kitchen; once I had put on the coffee I made my way to the sunroom.
Unlocking the French windows, I stepped outside onto the wide, paved terrace which surrounded the house and saw that the sky had already undergone a vast change. I caught my breath, marvelling as I always did at the extraordinary morning light, a light peculiar to these northern Connecticut climes. It was luminous, eerily beautiful, and it appeared to emanate from some secret source far, far below the horizon.
There were no skies like this anywhere in the world, as far as I knew, except, of course, for Yorkshire; I have come across some truly spectacular skies there, most especially on the moors.
Light has always fascinated me, perhaps because I am a painter by avocation and have a tendency to look at nature through an artist’s eyes. I remember the first time I ever saw a painting by Turner, one of his masterpieces hanging in the Tate Gallery in London. I stood in front of it for a full hour, totally riveted, marvelling at the incandescent light that gave the picture its breathtaking beauty. But then capturing light on canvas so brilliantly, and with such uncanny precision, was part of Turner’s great genius.
I don’t have that kind of gift, I’m afraid; I’m merely a talented amateur who paints for pleasure. Nonetheless, there are times when I wish I could re-create a Connecticut sky in one of my paintings, get it just right, just once, and this morning was one of those times. But I knew, deep down, that I would never be capable of doing it.
After lingering for a few minutes longer on the terrace outside the sunroom, I turned and walked around the house, heading for the back. Heavy dew clung to the grass and I lifted my nightgown and robe as I walked across the lawns, not wishing to get them drenched.
The light was changing yet again.
By the time I reached the ridge overlooking the valley, the sky above me was suffused with a pale, silvery radiance; the bleak, grey remnants of the night were finally obliterated.
Sitting down on the wrought-iron seat under the apple tree, I leaned back and relaxed. I love this time of day, just before the world awakens, when everything is so quiet, so still I might be the only person alive on this planet.
I closed my eyes momentarily, listening.
There was no sound of any kind, nothing stirred; not a leaf nor a blade of grass moved. The birds were silent, sleeping soundly in the trees, and the stillness around me was like a balm. As I sat there, drifting, thinking of nothing in particular, my anxiety about Andrew began to slip slowly away.
I knew with absolute certainty that everything would be all right between us once he arrived and we made up; it always was whenever there had been a bit of friction. There was no reason why this time should be different. One of the marvellous things about Andrew was his ability to put events of today and yesterday behind him, to look forward to tomorrow. It was not in his nature to harbour a grudge. He was far too big a man for that. Consequently, he quickly forgot our small, frequently silly quarrels and differences of opinion. We are much alike in that, he and I. Fortunately, we both have the ability to move forward optimistically.
I have been married to Andrew Keswick for ten years now. In fact, next week, on the twelfth of July, we will be celebrating our wedding anniversary.
We met in 1978 when I was twenty-three years old and he was thirty-one.
It was one of those proverbial whirlwind romances, except that ours, fortunately, did not fizzle out as so many usually do. Our relationship just grew better and better as time went on. That he swept me off my feet is a gross understatement. I fell blindly, madly, irrevocably in love with him. And he with me, as I was eventually to discover.
Andrew, who is English, had been living in New York for seven years when we met. He was considered to be one of the boy wonders of Madison Avenue, one of those brilliant advertising men, a natural in the business, who can make an advertising agency not only fabulously successful but incredibly famous as well, the kind that attracts a flock of prestigious multi-national clients. I worked in the copy department of the same agency, Blau, Ames, Braddock and Suskind, and at the time, despite my lowly position, I rather fancied myself as a writer of slick but convincing advertising copy.
Andrew Keswick seemed to agree.
If his compliments about my work went to my head, then he himself went straight to my heart. Of course, I was very young then, and even though I was a graduate of Radcliffe I think I was most probably rather naive for my educational background, age and upbringing. I was a slow starter, I suppose.
In any event, Andrew captivated me entirely. Despite his brilliance and his standing on Madison Avenue, I soon came to realize that he was not in the least bit egotistical. Quite the opposite, in fact. He was unassuming, even modest for a man of his considerable talents; also, he had a great sense of fun, and a dry humour which was often rather self-deprecating.
To me he was a dashing and sophisticated figure, and his very Englishness, plus his mellifluous, cultivated voice, set him apart. Medium of height and build, he had pleasant, clean-cut looks, dark brown hair and candid eyes set wide apart. In fact, his eyes were his most arresting feature, of the brightest blue and thickly lashed. I don’t think I’ve ever seen eyes so vividly blue in my life before, or ever again, except in Clarissa and Jamie, our six-year-old twins, who have inherited them from their father.
Every young woman in the advertising agency found him immensely attractive, but it was I in whom he began to take an interest and whom he eventually singled out for special attention. We began to go out together, and at once I discovered that I was completely at ease with him; I felt comfortable, very natural in his presence. It was as though I had known him for ever, yet there was so much that intrigued me about him, and his life before we met, so much to learn about him.
Andrew and I had been seeing each other for only two months when he whisked me off to London for a long weekend to meet his mother. Diana Keswick and I became friends instantly, actually within the first hour of knowing each other. You could say we fell in love, and that is the way it has been between us ever since.
To some people, the name mother-in-law inevitably conjures up the image of an enemy, a woman who is overly possessive of her son and in competition with his wife for his attention and affection. But not Diana. She was lovely to me from the moment we met, a female Andrew. Or rather, I should say, Andrew is a male version of his mother. In a variety of different ways she’s proved to be loyal and devoted to me, and she is a woman I truly love, respect and admire. Many qualities make her unique in my eyes, not the least of which is her warm and understanding heart.
That weekend in London, which was actually my first trip to England, remains vivid and alive in my mind to this very day. We had only been there for twenty-four hours when Andrew asked me to marry him. ‘I love you very much,’ he’d said, and taking hold of me he had pulled me close and continued in that beautiful voice of his, ‘I can’t imagine my life without you, Mal. Say you’ll marry me, that you’ll spend the rest of your life with me.’
Naturally I’d said I would. I told him that I loved him as much as he loved me, and we celebrated our engagement by taking his mother to dinner at Claridge’s on Sunday night, before flying back to New York on Monday morning.
On the return journey, I kept glancing surreptitiously at the third finger of my left hand, admiring the antique sapphire ring gleaming on it. Andrew had given me the ring just before we had gone out to our celebration dinner, explaining that it had belonged first to his grandmother and then to Diana. ‘My mother wants you to have it now,’ he’d said, ‘and so do I. You’ll be the third Keswick wife to wear it, Mal.’ He had smiled in that special, very loving way of his as he slipped it on my finger. And in the next few days, every time I looked at it, the old prayer-book words sprang into my mind: With this ring I thee wed, with my body I thee worship.
Twelve weeks after our first dinner date, Andrew Keswick and I were married at St Bartholomew’s Church on Park Avenue. The only person who was not entirely overjoyed by this sudden union was my mother. Liking Andrew very much though she did, and approving of him, she was, nonetheless, filled with disappointment about the extreme hastiness of the nuptials. ‘Everyone is going to think it’s a shotgun wedding,’ she kept muttering, throwing me piercing glances as she had rushed to have the invitations engraved and hurriedly planned a reception to be held at the Pierre Hotel on Fifth Avenue.
My glaring eyes and stern, obstinate mouth must have warned her off, warned her not to ask if I was pregnant – which I wasn’t, by the way. But my mother deems me impractical, has for years characterized me as an artistic dreamer, a lover of poetry, books, music and painting, with my head forever in the clouds.
Some of what she says is true. Yet I am also much more practical than she could ever imagine; my feet have always been firmly planted on the ground, despite what she thinks. The reason for the quickness of the marriage was simply because we wanted to be together, to live together, and we saw no reason to wait, to drag out a long engagement.
Not all brides enjoy their weddings. I loved mine. I was euphoric throughout the church ceremony and the reception. After all, it was the most important day of my life; but, furthermore, I had also managed to outwit my mother and get my own way in everything. No mean feat, I might add, when it came to social situations.
By my own choice, and with Andrew’s acquiescence, the affair was tiny. Both of our mothers were present, of course, as well as a few relatives and friends of Andrew’s and mine. Andrew’s father was dead. Mine wasn’t, although my mother behaved as though he were, inasmuch as he had left her some years before and gone to live in the Middle East. In consequence of this, she thought of him as being non-existent.
But exist he did for me, and very much so. We corresponded on a regular basis and we spent as much time together as we could, whenever he came to the States. And he flew to New York to give me, his only daughter, away.
Much to my astonishment, my mother was pleased he had made this paternal gesture. And so was I, although I had expected nothing less. The thought of getting married without him by my side as I walked down the aisle had appalled me. Once Andrew and I became engaged, I had called him in Saudi Arabia, where he was at the time, to tell him my good news. He had been overjoyed for me.
Even though my mother barely spoke to my father the entire time he was in Manhattan, she at least behaved in a civilized manner when they were together in public. But, not unnaturally, he departed as soon as it was decent to do so, once the reception at the Pierre was drawing to a close. My father, an archaeologist, seems to prefer the past to the present, so he had rushed back to his current dig.
He had fled my mother permanently some years before, when I was eighteen to be exact. I had gone off to Cambridge, Massachusetts, and my new life at Radcliffe College, and it was as though there was no longer a good reason for him to stay in the relationship, which had become extremely difficult for him to sustain. That they never divorced I always found odd; it was something of a mystery to me, given the circumstances.
We left the wedding reception together, he and I and my bridegroom, and rode out to Kennedy Airport in one of the grand stretch limousines my mother had hired for the wedding.
Just before we headed in different directions to catch our planes to different parts of the world, he hugged me tightly, and, as we said our goodbyes, he whispered against my hair, ‘I’m glad you did it your way, Mal, had the kind of wedding you wanted, not the big, splashy bash your mother would have preferred. You’re a maverick like me. But then that’s not half bad, is it? Always be yourself, Mal, always be true to yourself.’
It had pleased me that he’d said that, about being a maverick like he was. We had been very close since my childhood, an emotional fact that I suspect has been a constant irritant to my mother. I don’t believe she has ever understood my father, not ever in their entire life together. Sometimes I’ve wondered why they married in the first place; they are such opposites, come from worlds that are completely different. My father is from an intellectual family of academics and writers, my mother from a family of affluent real-estate developers of some social standing, and they have never shared the same interests.
Yet something must have attracted Edward Jordan to Jessica Sloane and vice versa, and they must have been in love, or thought they were, for marry they did in 1953. They brought me into the world in May 1955, and they stayed together until 1973, struggling through twenty years of bickering and quarrelling, punctuated by stony silences that lasted for months on end. And there were long absences on the part of my father, who was always off to the Middle East or South America, seeking the remains of ancient civilizations lost in the mists of antiquity.
My father aside, my mother has never understood me, either. She is not remotely conscious of what I’m about, what makes me tick. But then my mother, charming and sweet though she can be, has not been blessed with very much insight into people.
I love my mother and I know she loves me. But for years now, ever since I was a teenager, I’ve found her rather trying to be with. Unquestionably, there is a certain shallowness to her, and this is something which dismays me. She is forever concerned with her social standing, her social life, and her appearance. Not much else interests her, really. Her days revolve around her dressmaker, hair and manicure appointments, and the luncheons, dinners and cocktail parties to which she has been invited.
To me it seems such an empty, meaningless life for any woman to lead, especially in this day and age. I am more like my father, inasmuch as I’m somewhat introspective and serious-minded; I’m concerned, just as he is, about this planet we inhabit, and all that is happening on it and to it.
In many ways, the man I married greatly resembles my father in character. Like Daddy, Andrew cares, and he is honourable, strong, straightforward and dependable. True blue is the way I categorize them both.
Andrew is my first love, my only love. There will never be anyone else for me. We will be with each other for the rest of our lives, he and I. This is the one great constant in my life, one which sustains me. Our children will grow up, leave us to strike out on their own as adults, have families of their own one day. But Andrew and I will go on into our twilight years together, and this knowledge comforts me.
Suddenly, I felt the warmth of the sun on my face as its rays came filtering through the branches of the big apple tree, and I pushed myself up from the wrought-iron seat where I sat. Realizing that the day must now begin, I walked back to the house.
It was Friday the first of July, and I had no time to waste today. I had planned a special weekend for Andrew, Jamie and Lissa, and my mother-in-law who was visiting us from England, as she did every year. Monday the fourth of July was to be our big summer celebration.
Two (#ulink_8f318ec7-34bb-5ec9-97d9-f4720cfe0609)
As I approached the house I could not help thinking how beautiful it looked this morning, gleaming white in the bright sunlight set against a backdrop of mixed green foliage under a sky of periwinkle blue.
Andrew and I fell in love with Indian Meadows the minute we set eyes on it, although it wasn’t called Indian Meadows then. It didn’t have a name at all.
Once we had bought it, the first thing I did was to christen it with a bottle of good French champagne, much to Andrew’s amusement. Jamie and Lissa, on the other hand, were baffled by my actions, not understanding at all until I explained about ships and how they were christened in exactly the same way. ‘And so why not a house,’ I had said, and they had laughed gleefully, tickled by the whole idea of it. So much so, they had wanted their own bottle of Veuve Clicquot to break against the drainpipe, as I had done, but Andrew put a stop to that immediately. ‘One bottle of good champagne going down the drain is enough for one day,’ he laughed. I’d rolled my eyes to the ceiling, but couldn’t resist flashing a smile at him as I appeased the twins, promising them some cooking wine to do their own ‘house christening’ the following day.
As for the name, I culled it from local lore, which had it that centuries ago Indians had lived in the meadows below the hill upon which our house was built. And frequently, when I am standing on the ridge looking down at the meadows, I half close my eyes and, squinting against the light, I can picture Pequot squaws, their braves and their children sitting outside their wigwams, with horses tethered nearby and pots cooking over open fires. I can almost smell the pungent wood smoke, hear their voices and laughter, the neighing of the horses, the beat of their drums.
Highly imaginative of me, perhaps, but it is a potent image and one which continues to persist. Also, it pleases me greatly to think that I and my family live on land once favoured by native Americans centuries ago, who no doubt appreciated its astonishing beauty then as we do today.
We found the house quite by accident. No, that’s not exactly true, when I look back. The house found us. That is what I believe, anyway, and I don’t suppose I will ever change my mind. It reached out to us like a living thing, and when, for the first time, we stepped over the threshold into that lovely, low-ceilinged entrance hall I knew at once that it would be ours. It was as though it had been waiting for us to make it whole, waiting for us to make it happy again. And this we have done. Everyone who visits us is struck by the feeling of tranquillity and happiness, the warm and welcoming atmosphere that pervades it, and which envelops everyone the moment they come through the front door.
But in June of 1986 I had no idea that we would finally find the house of our dreams, or any house for that matter. We had looked for such a long time for a weekend retreat in the country, without success. And so we had almost given up hope of ever finding a suitable place to escape to from New York. The houses we had viewed in various parts of Connecticut had been too small and poky, or too large, too grand, and far too expensive. Or so threadbare they would have cost a fortune to make habitable.
That particular weekend, Andrew and I were staying with friends in Sharon, an area we did not know very well. We had taken Jamie and Lissa to Mudge Pond, the town beach, for a picnic lunch on the grassy bank that ran in front of the narrow strip of sand and vast body of calm, silver-streaked water beyond.
Later, as we set out to return to Sharon, we inadvertently took a wrong turning and, completely lost, drove endlessly around the hills above the pond. As we circled the countryside, trying to get back to the main highway, we unexpectedly found ourselves at a dead end in front of a house.
By mistake, we had gone up a wide, winding driveway, believing it to be a side road which would lead us back, hopefully, to Route 41.
Startled, Andrew had brought the car to a standstill. Intrigued by the house, we had stared at it and then at each other. And in unison we had exclaimed about its charm, something which was evident despite the sorry signs of neglect and disuse which surrounded it.
Made of white clapboard, it had graceful, fluid lines and was rather picturesque, rambling along the way it did on top of the hill, set in front of a copse of dark green pines and very old, gnarled maples with great spreading branches. It was one of those classic colonial houses for which Connecticut is renowned, and it had a feeling of such mellowness about it that it truly captured our attention.
