Vivien realized she was hungry. Optimism had set her stomach working again. ‘I’d love to. Mrs Carraro’s cooking always deserves to be celebrated.’
Without saying anything else, they left the room and closed the door behind them.
After a few moments the figure of John Kortighan emerged from behind the screen. He stood there for a few moments looking at the door, grim faced and with tears welling in his eyes. Then he sat down on the bed and, as if that movement had cost him an immense effort, hid his face in his hands.
CHAPTER 31
Seated in a comfortable red armchair, Russell waited.
He was used to waiting. He had been waiting for years, without even knowing what he was waiting for. Even now, when he was almost breathless with impatience, he sat quietly, casually observing his surroundings.
He was in the waiting room of an ultra-modern Philippe Starck-designed office that occupied one whole floor of an elegant skyscraper on 50th Street. Crystal, leather, gilt, a touch of moderate kitsch and deliberate craziness. In the air, a vague aroma of mint and cedar. Attractive secretaries and solid-looking executives. Everything put together in such a way as to welcome and astonish visitors.
It was the New York office of his father’s company, Wade Enterprises. A company with its headquarters in Boston and various branch offices in the major cities of the United States and a number of world capitals. The company had its fingers in many pies, from construction to supplying technology to the army, and from finance to commodities, principally petroleum.
He looked down at the tobacco-coloured carpet with the company logo. It must have cost a fortune. Everything around him was a silent, discreet act of homage to Mammon and his worshippers. He knew them well, and he knew how loyal they could be.
Russell, on the other hand, had never cared much about money. Now less than ever. The only thing that mattered to him right now was that he didn’t want to feel like a failure any more.
Never again.
That had always been his life. He had always been in the shadows. Of his father, his brother, the name he bore, the great headquarters building in Boston. And the protecting wing of his mother, who up to a certain point had managed to overcome the distress and embarrassment some of his actions had caused her. Now the time had come to get out from under those shadows. He hadn’t asked himself what Robert would have done in this situation. He knew for himself. The only possible way to tell the world the story he had in his possession was to get to the end and then start from the beginning.
Alone.
When he had finally realized this, the memory of his brother had changed. He had always idealized him so much, he had refused to consider him as a person, with all his qualities and all his defects – indeed, for years he had stubbornly rejected the idea that he had any defects. Now he wasn’t a legend any more, but a friend whose memory was with him, a point of reference, not an idol on an excessively high pedestal.
A bald, bespectacled man in an impeccable blue suit came in and walked up to the reception desk. Russell saw the woman who had greeted him get up from her desk and lead the man into the waiting room.
‘Please, Mr Klee. If you don’t mind waiting a few moments, Mr Roberts will see you straight away.’
The man nodded in gratitude and looked around for somewhere to sit. When he saw Russell, he reacted with disgust to his crumpled clothes and went and sat down in the chair furthest from him. Russell knew that his presence struck a wrong note here, in this padded kingdom of harmony and good taste. He felt like smiling. It seemed that his greatest talent had always been to be a nuisance.
Vivien’s words forced themselves back into his mind, the night he had kissed her in her apartment.
The one thing I know is that I don’t want complications …
He had said the same, but at the same time he knew he was lying. He felt that Vivien was something new, a bridge he wanted to cross to discover what was on the other side. For the first time in his life, he hadn’t run away. And he had been made to suffer what he had often made women suffer. With the bitter taste of irony in his mouth, combined with embarrassment, he had heard himself say words that he, too, had uttered many times before turning his back and leaving. He hadn’t even given Vivien time to finish what she had to say. In order not to be hurt, he had preferred to hurt her. Afterwards, he had sat in the car, looking out the window, feeling alone and useless, debating with himself the only truth: that night clung to him like a made-to-measure suit. And in spite of everything, the complications had come.
When, in front of his very eyes, Vivien had suddenly turned into a person he didn’t know, he had left the apartment on Broadway weighed down with disappointment and resentment. He had entered a bar to get something to drink, something strong that would go down and warm that cold knot he felt in his stomach. By the time the barman reached him, he had changed his mind. He had ordered a coffee and started thinking about his next move. He had no intention of giving up his search but was aware of the difficulties he would have in getting a result using only his own resources. Reluctantly, he had had to admit that he had no choice but to turn to his family.
He didn’t have either battery or credit on his cellphone, but he had seen a pay phone at the other end of the bar. He had paid for his coffee and asked for a handful of quarters. Then he had walked to the phone booth to make one of the most difficult calls of his life.
The coins had fallen in the slot with a sound like hope, and he had dialled the number of his home in Boston, pressing the keys like a wireless operator launching a desperate SOS from a sinking ship.
Naturally, the impersonal voice of a servant had answered. ‘Hello. Wade Mansion.’
‘Hello. This is Russell Wade.’
‘Hello, Mr Russell. This is Henry. What can I do for you?’
The butler’s prim face had superimposed itself on the advertising cards in front of him. Medium height, punctilious, impeccable. The right person to run a household as complicated as the Wade family residence.
‘I’d like to speak with my mother.’
An understandable moment of silence. The servants, as his mother persisted in calling them, had a very efficient grapevine, and he was sure everyone knew about his difficult relations with his parents.
‘I’ll see if Madam is at home.’
Russell had smiled at the butler’s tact. What his cautious reply actually meant was, ‘I’ll see if Madam wants to speak to you.’
After what seemed an interminable length of time and another couple of quarters
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swallowed by the telephone, he heard his mother’s kindly but suspicious voice.