Sleeping With Ghosts

The memory of your face I will take with me to my death, which I know will not be long; months, weeks, who can be sure with cancer. I have … she had to skip the next word … my welcome on this earth and await my end with no fear, only a mixture of profound relief and anticipation. I will be with your mother once more. If I don’t write again, you will know why. Don’t forget what I told you, and your promise to me, Freda. It is all up to you now. I love you, have always loved you, and always will.

Kathryn shuddered, recalling the voice in her nightmares. The letter was not signed, and she couldn’t make out the postmark. Riffling through her kitchen drawers, she eventually found a tiny magnifying glass that had come out of a Christmas cracker the previous year. Using one eye, she read the postmark again: 2nd June, St Lucia, West Indies.

Chapter Four

‘I’m absolutely adamant: Calvin is not going to Art School. Have you seen some of the students? I doubt they can string an articulate sentence together. Probably too high on dope.’

It crossed Adam’s mind that the students were there to paint and not to be articulate, but he kept quiet. When Jennifer was in a determined mood, she became totally unreasonable. Past experience had taught him that arguing back invariably made her much worse.

She uncrossed her long, willowy legs and Adam was afforded a brief glimpse of stocking top and a millimetre of black lace. They were sitting in his apartment, facing each other on opposite sofas, like military opponents. Jennifer tossed her head defiantly, a gesture he knew well. It was one of the things he had noticed the first time he had met her. Her dark auburn hair had been longer then, swinging across her shoulders like a slick of russet gloss paint. Two weeks after they had split up, she had cut it and he had to admit she suited it short. The style gave her face a boyish quality, and today, wearing very little make-up and with her creamy skin tanned from twelve days’ vacation in Hawaii, Jennifer looked much younger than thirty-eight. She reminded Adam of a wary colt; fresh, bold and very beautiful.

‘Not all art students are as you describe. In fact, I can name two kids who’ve just graduated and who look more like budding stockbrokers than aspiring Andy Warhols. And I don’t need to remind you about Luke, Matt and Kelly Bronson’s son, who got expelled from Yale last year for taking drugs.’ He spread his hands wide. ‘So it doesn’t necessarily follow …’

‘OK, OK, Adam. I’m sure there are exceptions; we can all pull examples out of the bag if we choose, but that’s not the point.’

‘Well, what is? Correct me if I’m wrong, Jennifer, but didn’t you kick up a storm at a very similar age? Your father told me that he almost went berserk when you took up modelling instead of a business course at Vassar. He still thinks to this day that you would have made a brilliant lawyer.’

‘He’s a stubborn old fool!’

‘Stubborn, I’ll give you, Jennifer. Old, yes; if you call seventy-four “old”. But a fool? Come on, Richard Carmichael is nobody’s fool.’

With a wave of her hand, she snarled through clenched teeth. ‘I didn’t come here to discuss my father, you always were good at changing the subject when it suits you.’ She began twisting the diamond ring she was wearing on her wedding finger.

Adam raised his eyebrows. ‘New ring?’

‘Yes, I’m engaged.’ He felt his stomach contract into a tight knot, followed by a searing pain, as if someone had just injected boiling water into his gut. The reaction made him want to throttle Jennifer, this woman whom he had loved with a passion. Sitting now on his sofa, in an apartment they had shared, she looked so poised and in control. And she was armed with the ability to wound him, so painfully, with a few simple words.

He could hear the contempt creeping into his voice, but was unable to contain it. ‘How can you be engaged to marry when you’re still married to me?’ Not waiting for her reply, he went on, ‘So Jordan Tanner has bought you a ring, big deal. I wouldn’t get carried away if I were you, Jennifer. If his past record is anything to go by, he seems to get through women like most men get through—’

‘Shut up, Adam, or try and say something original. We are engaged to be married when my divorce comes through; anyway, I came here to talk about our son’s future, not to hear you run Jordan down.’

‘Yeah, yeah, you’re right; sorry. Old wounds, you know how it is.’

Jennifer lowered her eyes, concealing the flash of guilt his words had produced. She did know how it was for him.

‘Does Cal know you’re engaged?’

When she looked up to speak, some of the cool edge had left her voice. ‘No, not yet, we’re going to tell him next leave-out weekend. Jordan’s planning a trip to his place upstate.’ She paused, ‘You know, to help find the right moment. I shouldn’t worry, he’s very fond of Calvin.’

Adam doubted there was a ‘right moment’ and he knew, without a shadow of doubt, Calvin did not reciprocate Jordan Tanner’s affection. ‘Cal still harbours hopes of you and me getting back together, so I really don’t know how he’s going to take the happy news.’

Adam shifted in his seat, pulling a cushion out from behind his back. Jennifer stood up to her full five foot eight, stretched, and with both hands on her narrow hips walked across the room, not stopping until she came to the bookcase on the far wall. Picking up an ashtray, she walked back towards him. Adam watched her slow feline movements, they had always aroused him. She lit a cigarette, the smoke rising in front of her face, and she looked at him through slanted eyes.

His hair, normally flowing on to his shoulders, was caught in an untidy ponytail – several strands had strayed and were curling into his neck. The top three buttons of his shirt were open and his initials could be seen, hand embroidered in pale blue, on the inside collar. Jennifer recalled the first time she had kissed that neck; she had noticed the monogram and thought it very chic.

Adam stretched his left leg, worn denim pulling taut across his upper thigh. His jeans rode up to reveal an inch of calf, thick black hair curling over the rim of his tan cowboy boot.

God, you’re an attractive son-of-a-bitch, his wife thought to herself, fighting an overwhelming urge to touch him. She had never stopped wanting him. No man had ever physically satisfied her like Adam Krantz. There was a warmth between her legs as her mind ran rampant with thoughts of him inside her, his mouth on her body, hot and hungry, like a starving animal on a feeding frenzy. Inhaling smoke deeply, she was scrutinizing his face.

‘And how do you feel about the idea of us getting back together, Adam?’ There was something in the way she narrowed her eyes to slits that gave her the distinct look of a cat. An alley cat, Adam thought, realizing with a surge of anger that it was exactly the way she had looked on that afternoon, eighteen months ago, when he had arrived back from London two days earlier than anticipated.

He hadn’t called home but had called Joanne to make a reservation for dinner at the Manhattan Ocean Club, one of Jennifer’s favourite restaurants. The scene remained like a stage set in his head: always in vivid colour – every word, movement, nuance, in excruciating detail. Jennifer was bent over his desk, her blue skirt hiked up around her waist, both legs were spread wide apart, a pair of white lace panties hung from one ankle. Her left breast was exposed; the nipple, puckered and dark, seemed unusually large. There was one gold button missing from her white Chanel blouse – the one he had bought her in Paris on vacation the previous year. As she strained forward, holding the edge of the desk, her abundant hair fanned across his open diary.

Jordan Tanner, his trousers gathered around his ankles, was gripping her hips and there were pink marks on her smooth skin where his fingers had been. His open shirt flapped against his naked thighs as he moved rhythmically in and out of her body.

Stunned into silence, Adam had watched them from the open door of his study – the Hermès carrier bag containing a scarf and belt for Jennifer dangling from his grip. He had felt strangely detached, like watching a film, and at one point even wanted to laugh. Hardly daring to breathe, he had listened to Jennifer’s moans, and Jordan’s increasing grunts as his thrusting approached ejaculation. Adam would never forget their faces which had turned towards him in shock when he had spoken very quietly, in a voice that he didn’t recognize as his own. ‘I do hope Jordan is wearing a condom, Jennifer; you really don’t know where he’s been.’

‘I asked you a question, Adam.’

A thin spiral of smoke curled into the air between them.

‘Us? I don’t think it would ever work.’ His mouth tightened. ‘Too much water under the bridge. You must understand I can’t get this vision of you shacked up with that senseless creep Jordan Tanner out of my mind. I mean if a beautiful woman like you has to get laid behind her husband’s back, I really think there are—’

‘Stop it, stop it, please!’ Jennifer was shaking, and it pleased him to see her robbed of her cool composure. ‘We’ve been through this before, it’s all totally negative stuff.’

‘Oh negative, is it? I don’t think saying what one really thinks can ever be negative, Jennifer.’

Ignoring this reasoning, she ground her cigarette out viciously into the bottom of the ashtray, the calm voice of her therapist whispering in her ears, ‘Guilt is negative. You must be positive. Do not under any circumstances take on your husband’s guilt. He will, if you allow him, try to make you feel responsible for everything that’s gone wrong in your relationship; most men do.’

Composing her features into a smile that, to Adam, resembled a sneer, she said, ‘I really would like Cal to go to Harvard, Adam. He’s very bright, it’s a great university and can offer him everything. Think of the people he’ll meet, the cream of society, how can you deny him that opportunity? I would really appreciate it if you didn’t fight me on this one.’

‘I think Calvin has a mind of his own, Jennifer. You know as well as I do that he’s headstrong, and if he wants to go to Art School – he will. I don’t think I’ll have to fight, this is something he wants real bad. The kid’s got a gift, real talent; think about him for once, and not yourself.’

Jennifer stood up, her expression unreadable. ‘You’re right, Calvin is strong-willed. He takes after you in that respect, you always were a stubborn bastard, and so secretive. I really don’t know what I hoped to achieve by coming here. Jordan warned me that you would deliberately try to oppose me.’

‘Did he now? I suggest you tell Jordan Tanner to come over here and say that to me personally if he dares. The little asshole may be brave enough to make a pass at my wife, then get laid, but he’s scared shitless to face me.’

Jennifer glared like a wild predatory cat. ‘Damn you, Adam Krantz! You know why I had to seek the comforts of another man, you were never around.’ She strode towards the door, grabbing her jacket from the back of a nearby chair. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll see myself out. And mark my words, I’m determined no son of mine is going to Art School, to end up like you, trying to sell a few meagre paintings and struggling to survive. I’m certain that if your father hadn’t died and left you everything, you’d still be struggling.’

‘Thanks, Jennifer, you always did have a special knack of making me feel great.’

‘It’s the truth, and you know it.’

Adam sprang to his feet, blocking her way to the door. ‘Money isn’t the be-all and end-all of everyone’s existence. Need I remind you of our early years together, how we laughed and loved in my basement in Greenwich. At that time we had very little, so how come we were so happy?’

They both fell silent, remembrance of pleasures past evident on their faces.

‘That was a long time ago, Adam, I don’t even want to think that far back. Like you said earlier, too much water … I need to think about what’s happening right now, and I want the best for my son.’

‘Our son, Jennifer, or were there other dalliances I know nothing about?’

Her right hand rose, poised in midair as if to strike him, but something held her back. She dropped it down by her side. ‘Please step aside. I’ve nothing more to say to you; except, believe me, you’ve both got a fight on your hands.’

Hopelessly he stepped to one side, but warned, ‘Be careful, Jennifer, you’ll lose him.’

His words fell on deaf ears, Jennifer was already out of the door, slamming it so hard it rattled the hinges.

Five minutes after his wife had left, Adam put on some old jazz records and started to drink. He usually restricted himself to a couple of Scotch and sodas, but tonight he felt like getting thoroughly smashed. Had he neglected Jennifer? The question nagged at him: was he to blame for her blatant love affair with Tanner? Dropping two ice cubes into a large tumbler, he filled it to the top with whisky and drained the glass. Staring into the bottom, he concluded that Jennifer was probably right. He refilled, thinking back over his eighteen-year marriage.

He’d always tried to divide his time equally between his family, his work, and his search for the man responsible for the murder of his late father’s family. But now he knew he had failed to balance all three. The promise he had made to his father twelve years ago had become an obsession. Jennifer understood that; he had not.

Adam sat down on the sofa still warm from Jennifer, the words she had uttered so passionately after his father’s funeral, resounding loud in his head. ‘Your father is dead, Adam; for all you know this German guy is dead also. And even if he is still alive, when you eventually get to him, he’ll be too old and senile to stand trial. For God’s sake forget it. Let them all go, they’re your father’s ghosts not yours. Your life is here and now, with Calvin and me. We need you.’

Images of his wife flooded into his mind. He tried to banish them, but they refused to be exiled: Jennifer on their wedding day, a vision in white lace and tulle; then on honeymoon, alighting from a vaporetto at San Marco in Venice, laughing at his stumbling Italian. A smile creased his face as a picture of Jennifer in the last stages of pregnancy entered his mind, her huge belly suspended above long skinny legs had put him in mind of a red-headed stork, albeit a beautiful one.

You’re a glutton for punishment he told himself as he visualized her the day they had met in his father’s gallery. She had accompanied her father, a collector of Dutch art. Whilst old Benjamin and Richard Carmichael had discussed a Rembrandt, Adam had observed Jennifer, tall and slim, dressed in a simple silk shift. It had been obvious to him she was not wearing a bra. As she leaned forward to study the paintings, he had been unable to keep his eyes off her small, perfectly formed breasts, straining against the sensuous fabric.

Aware of his scrutiny and enjoying the effect she was creating, she had played the coquette. They had both giggled afterwards, when he had admitted that for him it was lust at first sight.

The first time they had made love would stay with him for ever. Her skin was the colour and texture of alabaster, her pubis a slightly darker shade of auburn than her hair. She had recently returned from a vacation in the South of France, and he recalled admiring her all-over tan, and listening to her stories of nudist beaches and discotheques under the stars.

Adam had thought Jennifer very sophisticated and worldly, even though she was three years younger than him. He could hear her voice as clearly as if it were yesterday, telling him he was her drug – she was addicted to him, and she wanted him to go on making love to her for the rest of her life …

‘Goddamn it, Jenny baby; what happened?’ he whispered into his glass. She was an affliction that was going to take a long time, and a lot of treatment before remission, and at this moment Adam wasn’t sure if it was a complete cure he really wanted.

He tried to think back over the years. Deep down, Adam knew that it wasn’t only his promise to his father that had rankled with his wife. It was something more subtle. His ambition had never matched hers. Whatever she got or however much he gave her, it was never enough: Jennifer always had to have more. ‘You should have licked more ass, that’s where you’ve gone wrong all your life,’ he muttered into his half-empty glass, as he crossed the room to get the bottle of Johnnie Walker. ‘You could never get up those tight rich butts.’

With the bottle swinging in his right hand, he sat down again in the same position. The voice of Ella Fitzgerald singing ‘Long Ago and Far Away’ seemed poignantly apt as the alcohol slipped down his throat, and oblivion rose like an old friend to enfold him in a warm, protective glow. Dropping his head against the back of the sofa, Adam closed his eyes. The bottle slipped from his relaxed fingers, whisky soaking the Indian rug. He didn’t even notice, his mind had strayed to the last weekend he had spent with his father in his home in Connecticut ten days before his death.

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