CHAPTER TWENTY.
Hell Hath No Fury.
I read a lot of Agatha Christies that fall of 1938-maybe all of them. The Hercule Poirots, the Miss Marples. Death on the Nile. The Mysterious Affair at Styles. Murders . . . on the Links, . . . at the Vicarage, and, ... on the Orient Express. I read them on the subway, at the deli, and in my bed alone.
You can make what claims you will about the psychological nuance of Proust or the narrative scope of Tolstoy, but you can't argue that Mrs. Christie fails to please. Her books are tremendously satisfying.
Yes, they're formulaic. But that's one of the reasons they are so satisfying. With every character, every room, every murder weapon feeling at once newly crafted and familiar as rote (the role of the postimperialist uncle from India here being played by the spinster from South Wales, and the mismatched bookends standing in for the jar of fox poison on the upper shelf of the gardener's shed), Mrs. Christie doles out her little surprises at the carefully calibrated pace of a nanny dispensing sweets to the children in her care.
But I think there is another reason they please-a reason that is at least as important, if not more so-and that is that in Agatha Christie's universe everyone eventually gets what they deserve.
Inheritance or penury, love or loss, a blow to the head or the hangman's noose, in the pages of Agatha Christie's books men and women, whatever their ages, whatever their caste, are ultimately brought face-to-face with a destiny that suits them. Poirot and Marple are not really central characters in the traditional sense. They are simply the agencies of an intricate moral equilibrium that was established by the Primary Mover at the dawn of time.
For the most part, in the course of our daily lives we abide the abundant evidence that no such universal justice exists. Like a cart horse, we plod along the cobblestones dragging our masters' wares with our heads down and our blinders in place, waiting patiently for the next cube of sugar. But there are certain times when chance suddenly provides the justice that Agatha Christies promise. We look around at the characters cast in our own lives-our heiresses and gardeners, our vicars and nannies, our late-arriving guests who are not exactly what they seem-and discover that before the end of the weekend all assembled will get their just deserts.
But when we do so, we rarely remember to count ourselves among their company.
That Tuesday morning in September, when Mason Tate showed his concerns for my health, I didn't bother trying to apologize. I certainly didn't bother trying to explain. I just sat down in my wheelchair and started typing. Because I could tell exactly where I stood-about three feet from the trapdoor in the floorboards.
In Mason Tate's world, there was no room for extenuating circumstances or divided loyalties; so, there wasn't going to be much patience with displays of jauntiness or wit or other signals of the self-assured. I was just going to have to shoulder the yoke and accept whatever additional humiliations the boss had in store for me, until I had earned my way back into his good graces.
So that's what I did. I arrived a little earlier. I avoided the watercooler. I listened to Mr. Tate's critiques of others without a smirk. And Friday evening when Alley went to the automat, like any good penitent from the Middle Ages I went home and copied out rules of grammar and usage: * When you are reluctant to do something, you are loath to do it, not loathe.
* Of toward and towards, the former is preferred in America, the latter in the UK.
* With possessives, the apostrophe s is used in all proper names ending in s other than Moses and Jesus.
* Use colons and the impersonal passive sparingly.
As if on cue: There was a knock at my door.
It was three succinct raps, too precious to be Detective Tilson or the Western Union boy. I opened the door to find Anne Grandyn's secretary standing in the hall. He was wearing a three-piece suit, every button buttoned.
-Good evening, Miss Kontent.
-Kontent.
-Yes. Of course. Kontent.
Though as disciplined as a Prussian soldier, Bryce couldn't resist eyeing my apartment over my shoulder. The sum of what little he saw lent a hint of satisfaction to his terse little smile.
-Yes? I prompted.
-I apologize for bothering you at home . . .
He added a sort of grave inflection to the word home to indicate his sympathies.
-But Mrs. Grandyn wanted you to have this as soon as possible.
He flicked two fingers forward revealing a small envelope. I plucked it free and weighed it in the air.
-Too important to trust to the post office?
-Mrs. Grandyn was hoping for an immediate response.
-She couldn't phone?
-On the contrary. We tried telephoning. Many times. But it seems . . . Bryce gestured to where the unhooked phone still sat on the floor.
-Ah.
I opened the envelope. Inside was a handwritten note. Please come and see me tomorrow at four. I think it's important that we speak. She signed it, Respectfully, A. Grandyn, and concluded with the postscript: I've ordered olives.
-Can I tell Mrs. Grandyn to expect you? Bryce asked.
-I'm afraid that I shall have to think on it.
-If I may be so bold, Miss Kontent, how long might that take?
-Overnight. But you are welcome to wait.
Naturally, I should have thrown Anne's summons in the trash. Almost all summons merit an ignominious end. As Anne was a woman of intelligence and will, a summons from her should have been looked upon with particular distrust. And on top of all that was her presumption that I should go to see her! The gall, as they say in all places other than New York.
I tore the letter into a thousand pieces and hurled them at the spot on the wall where a fireplace should have been. Then I carefully considered what I should wear.
For what was the point of standing on ceremony now? Hadn't we sailed a few hundred nautical miles beyond grandstanding? Hercule Poirot certainly wouldn't have turned her down. He would have been hoping for such a summons-practically counting on one-as the unforeseen development that would speed the plow of justice.
Besides, I could never resist the sign-off Respectfully; or those who remembered my cocktail preferences with such exactitude.
The bell at suite 1801 was answered at 4:15 by Bryce with a smarmy grin.
-Hello Bryce, I said, holding the sibilant just long enough, so that it would hiss.
-Miss Kon-tent, he said punching back. We've been ex-pect-ing you.
He gestured toward the foyer. I walked past him into the living room.
Anne was sitting at her desk. She was wearing glasses, the half-frame sort that prudish women wear-a nice touch. She looked up from her correspondence and raised an eyebrow to acknowledge that I had dispensed with the normal formalities. To even the score she gestured toward her couch and continued writing. I walked past her desk to one of the windows.
Along Central Park West, the taller apartment buildings jutted over the trees in solitary fashion like commuters on a railroad platform in the hours before the morning rush. The sky was Tiepolo blue. After a week of sudden cold, the leaves had turned, creating a bright orange canopy that stretched all the way to Harlem. It was almost as if the park was a jewel box and the sky was the lid. You had to give Olmstead credit: He was perfectly right to have bulldozed the poor to make way for it.
Behind me, I could hear Anne folding the letter, sealing the envelope, scratching the address with the nib of her pen. Another summons, no doubt.
-Thank you, Bryce, she said handing him the letter. That will be all.
I turned around as Bryce left the room. Anne offered me a benign smile. She looked opulent, unabashed, as arresting as ever.
-Your secretary's a bit of a prig, I observed, taking a seat on the couch.
-Who, Bryce? I suppose so. But he's quite capable, and really more of a protege.
-A protege. Wow. In what? Faustian bargains?
Anne raised an ironic eyebrow and moved to the bar.
-You're rather well read for a working-class girl, she said with her back to me.
-Really? I've found that all my well-read friends are from the working classes.
-Oh my. Why do you think that is? The purity of poverty?
-No. It's just that reading is the cheapest form of entertainment.
-Sex is the cheapest form of entertainment.
-Not in this house.
Anne laughed like a sailor and turned around with two martinis. She sat in the chair catty-corner to me and plunked the drinks down. In the center of the table was a bowl of fruits so well-to-do that half of them I'd never seen before. There was a small green furry sphere. A yellow succulent that looked like a miniature football. To get to Anne's table, they must have traveled farther than I had traveled in my entire life.
Laying in wait beside the fruit bowl was the dish of promised olives. She picked up the dish and poured half of them into my glass. They were piled so high that they broke the surface of the gin like a volcanic island.
-Kate, she said. Let's dispense with the catfight. I know it's a temptation, and a sweet one. But it's beneath us.
She raised her glass and extended it toward me.
-Truce?
-Sure, I said.
I clinked her glass and we drank.
-So. Why don't you just tell me why you asked me here.
-That's the spirit, she said.
She reached forward and plucked the olive off the apex of my island. She put it in her mouth and chewed thoughtfully. Then she shook her head with a laugh.
-You'll find this funny; but I hadn't the slightest suspicion about you and Tinker. So when you stormed out of Chinoiserie, for a second I actually thought that you were scandalized. The older woman and the younger man, or what have you. It was only when I saw Tinker's expression that I put it together.
-Life is full of misleading signals.
She smiled conspiratorially.
-Yes. Rebuses and labyrinths. We rarely know exactly where we stand in relation to someone else, and we never know where two confederates stand in relation to each other. But the sum of the angles of a triangle is always 180 degrees-isn't it.
-Well, I think I understand a little better how you and Tinker stand in relation to one another.
-I'm glad of that, Katey. Why shouldn't you? I had my little game for a while. But our relationship isn't really a secret. And it's not that complicated. It's nowhere near as complicated as your relationship with him or my relationship with you. Between Tinker and me the understanding is as straight as the line in a ledger.
Anne put her thumb and finger together and drew an imaginary pencil across the air to emphasize the linear perfection of the accountant's underscore.
-There's a pretty clear difference between physical and emotional needs, she continued. Women like you and I understand this. Most women don't. Or they're unwilling to admit it. When it comes to love, most women insist that the emotional and physical aspects of a relationship be inextricably intertwined. To suggest to them otherwise is like trying to convince them that their children might not love them one day. Their very survival depends upon believing otherwise, no matter what history suggests to the contrary. Of course, there are plenty of women who turn a blind eye to their husbands' indiscretions, but most of them are miserable about it. They perceive it as a tear in the fabric of their lives. But if one of those women were to look coolly into herself, when her husband comes into a restaurant a half an hour late smelling of Chanel No. 5, she's probably more angry about being kept waiting than about the perfume on his collar. But as I say-I think we see eye to eye on all this. And that's why I asked you here instead of Tinker. I think that you and I may come to an understanding that serves Tinker well. An understanding in which we all get what we want.
To emphasize the spirit of cooperation, Anne leaned forward and took another olive off of my stack. I put three fingers in my drink, scooped out half the olives, and dumped them in her glass.
-I'm not sure that I'm as good as you are at using people, I said.
-Is that what you think I'm doing?
Anne took an apple from the fruit bowl and held it up as if it were a crystal ball.
-You see this apple? Sweet. Crisp. Ruby red. It wasn't always like that, you know. The first apples in America were mottled and too bitter to eat. But after generations of grafting, now they're all like this one. Most people think this is man's victory over nature. But it's not. In evolutionary terms, it's the apple's victory.
She gestured disdainfully toward the exotics in the bowl.
-It's the apple's victory over hundreds of other species competing for the same resources-the same sunlight, water and soil. By appealing to the senses and physical needs of humans-we beasts who happen to have the axes and oxen-the apple has been spreading across the globe at what in evolutionary terms is a breakneck pace.
Anne leaned forward to put the apple back.
-I'm not using Tinker, Katherine. Tinker is the apple. He has ensured his survival while others have languished by learning how to appeal to the likes of you and me. And probably to some who went before us.
Some people called me Katey, some Kate, some Katherine. Anne cycled between the options as if she was comfortable with all my incarnations. She sat back in her chair adopting an almost academic pose.
-I'm not saying this to Tinker's discredit, you understand. Tinker is an extraordinary person. Perhaps more than you know. And I'm not angry with him either. I assume that the two of you have slept together and that you might well be in love. But that doesn't instill in me jealousy or spite. I don't view you as a rival. I knew from the beginning that he would eventually find someone. I don't mean a firefly like your friend. I mean someone as sharp and urbane as me but a little more contemporary . So, the two of you should know that with me it is nowhere near all or nothing. It's quite happily some or something. All I ask is that he be on time.
As Anne was elaborating, I finally got it-the reason that I had been summoned: She thought Tinker was with me. He must have walked out on her, and she had leapt to the conclusion that I had him stashed away. For a brief moment, I considered playing along just to spoil her afternoon.
-I don't know where he is, I said. If Tinker's stopped answering to your whistle, it's got nothing to do with me.
Anne eyed me cautiously.
-I see, she said.
Buying time, she walked casually to the bar and poured gin into the shaker. Unlike Bryce, she didn't bother with the silver tongs. She put her hand in the bucket, took up a fistful of ice, and dumped it in the booze. Rattling the shaker lightly in one hand, she came back and sat at the edge of her seat. She seemed immersed in thought, weighing possibilities, recalibrating-uncharacteristically unsure of herself.
-Would you like another? she asked.
-I'm fine.
She began filling her own glass but stopped halfway. She looked disappointed with the gin, as if it weren't translucent enough.
-Every time I drink before five, she said, I remember why I don't.
I stood up.