Читать книгу Out Of Control - Janice Macdonald - Страница 10

“WITH RISING TEMPERATURES and Santa Ana winds stoking fires throughout Southern California, the question on the minds of many in Laguna Beach is, Can it happen again?”

Nick slumped on the sofa, and gazed bleary-eyed at the TV. Late morning sunshine poured in through the French doors, heating the room to tropical temperatures. He sneezed, then sneezed again. He wore the white terry-cloth robe that had been in the bathroom, along with other niceties, such as shoe-cleaning cloths and lavender-scented body wash—compensation, he supposed, for the small fortune he was paying for an oceanfront apartment. A justifiable expense since this would be his definitive work. The work that would earn him a vast quantity of money, enough to take Bella on holidays to exotic destinations, indulge her every whim and, possibly, buy himself the silver Porsche Carrera GT he’d salivated over in the showroom window of Laguna Motors yesterday.

I should get up and open the doors, he thought. I should turn off the TV and start work. I should try to reach Daisy Fowler again. He was starting to feel mildly rejected by Daisy Fowler and just a bit disappointed in her.

He sneezed again. And again.

He’d awakened just before dawn, sneezing his head off. Allergies, apparently from the winds that blew like demons and kept him awake half the night. At one point, he’d been certain someone was breaking into his apartment. Grabbing a shoe, the only thing remotely weaponlike he could find, he’d crept into the living room. The noise, he’d discovered, was a plastic plate, probably blown from somebody’s rubbish bin, hitting the glass of the French windows.

On TV, a reporter was interviewing a fire chief.

The current weather, Nick learned, was eerily similar to conditions fourteen years ago when flames ravaged the local scenic canyons and hills, destroying hundreds of homes in and around Laguna Beach.

“It’s not a question of if fire will revisit Laguna Beach,” the fire chief was saying. “It’s a question of when.”

He would have to remember to tell Bella. “It’s a good thing you didn’t come, darling. No really. Fires burning everywhere. Entire hillsides blazing. No, no, the beaches haven’t burned up, but still…”

He sneezed. He got up from the couch, sat down at the table where he’d put up his computer. He thought about Daisy. Perhaps he’d built up an image of her that no actual woman could live up to. The golden-haired child basking in the sunlight of her father’s love, grown into an ethereal goddess…who had an ex-husband, a fourteen-year-old daughter and goats. And who didn’t return his phone calls. He mulled this for a while, tried to come up with plausible reasons why she might not want to talk to him. He sneezed. Difficult to think while sneezing. He returned to the couch.

He had lined up some other interviews over the next few days. A woman from the Laguna Historical Society who knew Frank from years ago; another breakfast, this one with a gallery owner who had worked with Truman. All peripheral to the biography, though. Truman’s relationship with Daisy as reflected in his art was the central theme of the work. Truman was dead, so no one else really mattered but Daisy. He would give her until this evening and if she hadn’t called, he’d leave another message. Sending more flowers might be overdoing it. He thought about driving past her house. He sneezed.

He was considering spending the entire day on the couch watching the telly when the phone rang.

Valerie, his girlfriend in England. She had also wanted to come with him to Laguna, but things with Valerie were rocky. Actually the entire six-month relationship had never been anything but rocky, rooted mostly in sex and a mutual fondness for tandoori takeout. He listened as she complained at length about the dreary weather in London and her life of late, also dreary.

“It’s horrible, Nick. I’m honestly not sure how much more I can take.”

“Maybe it would help if you got away for a bit,” Nick said. Actually, driving by Daisy Fowler’s house might not be a bad idea. He could be casually passing by just as she happened to walk out. Although her uncle had said something about her living in a compound off a dirt road, which might make casually passing by difficult to explain.

“D’you think so?” Valerie’s voice had brightened. “Maybe you’re right.”

“Absolutely.”

“Brilliant. Well, I’ll get started on it right away. How are things with you?”

Nick sneezed.

“Is that a good thing?”

“Allergies,” Nick said. “Wind’s stirring up dust and pollen and God knows what. It’s having a rather debilitating effect on me.”

“Maybe I shouldn’t read the review of your Bongiovanni book, then,” Valerie said, a note of hesitation in her voice. “It ran in this morning’s Times.”

Nick stared, unseeing now, at the TV. He steeled himself. “Favorable?”

“Shall I read it?”

“Broad strokes will do.”

“You’ll get angry…”

“I won’t get angry, damn it. Do you have the review there?”

“I’m looking at it right now. It’s not bad exactly.”

“For God’s sake—”

“It just says that you…it, the biography, doesn’t add anything to what we already know about Bongiovanni. That was a quote. It also said you held him, Bongiovanni, at arm’s length, that you never really got to the heart of who he was. Inconclusive, that’s another quote and, hold on, here it is. Shallow and superfici—

“Right.”

“More?”

“No.”

He carried the phone into the kitchen, took a carton of orange juice from the fridge and set it on the counter. He’d had his hopes set on definitive. Wynne has written the definitive biography of Bongiovanni. In this uncompromisingly honest work, Wynne has captured the soul of the tenor. He decided he didn’t want orange juice after all. He went back into the living room and collapsed on the couch.

“Nick?”

“What?”

“You’re not sulking, are you?”

“Don’t be so stupid,” he said sulkily. “Sulking about what?”

“The review.”

“Already forgotten about it.” Already mentally composing the vituperative letter he would write to the Times railing about the sheer idiocy of the reviewer who…or maybe biting sarcasm would be more the ticket. He’d think about it later.

“How’s the current project?” she asked.

“The daughter could prove to be something of a roadblock. I sense resistance.”

“The daughter?”

“Daisy. The child in the pictures, except she’s now about forty, has a daughter and runs a restaurant here in Laguna with her ex-husband.”

“Why is she resisting?”

“Well, I’d have to ask her, wouldn’t I? Which I would if she’d answer her bloody phone. I’ve lost count of the messages I’ve left. Ignored every one of them. Apparently she lives in a wooden cabin on the outskirts of town and keeps goats.”

“Goats?”

“Hires them out to homeowners who live in the hills.” He’d learned this from Martin, who had called earlier to check on his progress. “The goats eat the brush, which works to keep the fire danger down. That’s how Truman died. Burned to death in his home.”

“How ghastly. Maybe that’s why the daughter doesn’t want to talk. Maybe it’s all too painful for her.”

Nick considered. “It’s been fourteen years.”

“It was her father, Nick,” Valerie said reprovingly.

He sneezed again and blew his nose. He felt like hell.

“Would it be better if I booked to San Diego?” Valerie was asking.

“Sorry?”

“When I come over. Would it be better if I book into L.A. or San Diego?”

“I thought you were talking about going to your sister’s in Kent.”

“Which sister?”

“How many sisters do you have?”

“Two. Neither of them lives in Kent.” She sighed. “Do you ever listen to anything I say?”

“I heard you say you needed to get away.”

“You said I needed to get away. That was your suggestion.”

“My suggestion?”

“Nick, have you been drinking? You sound…odd.”

“I’m unwell.” The television was showing pictures of orange flame rolling like molten lava down a hillside. The sight momentarily distracted him. “You should see this,” he told Valerie. “Houses burning all over the place, sheets of flame shooting up into the sky. It’s incredible. They’re showing someone leading horses down a hillside, and the fires look as though they’re just a few feet away.”

“That happens in California, doesn’t it?” Valerie asked. “It seems there’s always one disaster or another. The price of living in paradise, I suppose.” She paused. “Still, at least it’s warm. And it’s not raining, is it? There’s a lot to be said for nice weather. What are the beaches like?”

“Covered in ash.”

“Oh, come on. It can’t be that bad.”

“Look Val,” he said. “I told Bella she couldn’t come because I needed to work, and I’m telling you the same thing. I’m trying not to be superstitious, but I get here on the day Truman’s widow lands in hospital, so obviously I can’t talk to her for a while. Then the daughter, who’s central to the whole book, is proving difficult…..” He sneezed. “Excuse me. Let’s talk about something else, all right?”

But there wasn’t much else that Valerie wanted to talk about, and after they’d said their goodbyes Nick picked up the phone and punched in Daisy’s number again.

“My mom?” a young girl asked. “Sorry, she’s not here.”

Of course she isn’t. “I’ve left several messages,” he said. “She must be very busy.”

“Yeah, she is, kind of.”

“You must be…”

“Emily. Except everyone calls me Emmy.”

“And you’ve attained the ripe old age of fourteen.”

A beat of silence. “How d’you know that?”

“I’m omniscient,” he said. “It just came to me in a flash of lavender-colored smoke.”

“Seriously.”

“I’m a biographer. I snoop for a living.”

She laughed. “I’ll tell my mom you called.”

“Thank you, Emily. I enjoyed our little chat.”

“Me, too,” she said. “Bye.”

Nick was smiling as he hung up. He called Bella but got her mother.

“She’s next door at her friend’s,” Avril said.

“Isn’t it past her bedtime?”

“Not for a couple of hours. Anything else about your daughter I can fill you in on?”

Ran out of mood stabilizers, did you? “Just tell her I called, please. I’ll try again tomorrow, or she can call me here.”

“Actually, while I have you on the phone, Bella’s in love with this little cottage in Devon. We took the train down there last week just to get away from the city for a bit and—well, her disappointment about you know what—and lo and behold, there it was. A sweet cottage that we could use on weekends and school holidays…I did put in an offer, but now I’m having second thoughts. I haven’t broken the news to Bella yet, she’ll be devastated.”

Nick’s left eye had started to itch uncontrollably. He sneezed. Now his right eye was tearing. “Why are you having second thoughts?”

“It’s rather a stretch financially, I’m not sure—”

“Go ahead,” he said impulsively. “I’ll make up whatever you need.”

“Nick. My God, are you absolutely sure?”

“I got a decent advance for the Truman book,” he said.

“Bella will be over the moon. She was terribly disappointed about the Laguna thing—”

“Yes, I know,” he said. “Well, I hope this helps.”

THE VAGUE SENSE OF DOOM he’d felt after making the offer stayed with him for the rest of the morning. Daisy Fowler had no idea of course, but she had the power to make his life very, very difficult.

Later that night, he wandered down to the Hotel Laguna and had a couple of beers on the balcony while he watched the sun set over the Pacific. Instead of uplifting him, though, he found himself sinking into a morose gloom. The words of the Bongiovanni review lingered like an ill-digested meal “Arm’s length,” indeed. He sipped his beer. Gloom gave way to anger. He’d show them arm’s length. He was going to write the definitive biography of Frank Truman, and he would take no prisoners in the process. Darling Daughter Daisy be damned.

“YOUR GRANDFATHER, he was a very handsome man,” Amalia was telling Emily. “All the girls, they fell in love with him because he was so funny and so big and strong.”

“Dinner’s almost ready, you guys,” Daisy called from the kitchen of Amalia’s cottage. “Emmy, get those pictures cleared off the table so we can sit down.” She and Emmy had brought Amalia home from the hospital that morning. Predictably, Amalia had insisted on coming back to the place where she said Frank still lived in the walls and the shadows, and where the ocean that crashed onto the beach brought gifts of pale pink seashells that were also from Frank.

Daisy sighed. How could you argue with that? All you could do was case the cabin for booze bottles and accidentally on purpose hide the keys to the dune buggy so she wouldn’t take it into town until she’d recovered completely.

She set the enchilada casserole under the broiler in Amalia’s yellowing enameled stove, washed up the dishes she’d used in the deep, square sink, chipped and stained from years of use. On the draining board was a jelly jar of purple statice Emmy had picked to welcome Amalia home from the hospital.

As she took the plates from the cupboard, she spotted the fifth of vodka. She set the plates down, uncapped the bottle, poured it down the sink and stuffed it to the bottom of the trash can.

“It is very sad that you never knew your grandfather,” Amalia was telling Emily. “But a good thing that this man, Mr. Wynne, is writing a book about him because you will learn many things about him that maybe you didn’t know.”

Which is part of the problem, Daisy thought. There had been another message from Nicholas Wynne that morning. She checked the casserole—not ready yet. Amalia’s antiquated stove took forever to heat up.

She opened the back door to the balcony. A cool breeze off the ocean tossed her hair. Fog had obscured the moon. The surrounding cottages, empty in the winter months, were dark. Amalia’s cottage was at the end of a cluster of twenty that lined Dolphin Cove’s crescent-shaped beach. Before she was born, her father had used the cottage as his studio, and he and Amalia had spent summers there—fairly wild summers, she’d gathered from bits and pieces dropped by Amalia over the years. Above the fireplace was a painting of Amalia in a 1950s-era bathing suit, draped against a fin-tailed Cadillac convertible bristling with old wooden surfboards.

Pictures—of Amalia, of Amalia with Frank, of Amalia and Frank with other handsome, windblown, sun-kissed friends—lined every square inch of wall space. All were taken in the first half of her father’s relationship with her stepmother. Before Daisy, or B.D., as she often thought of it. Something had happened right before she was born, and Amalia had left.

The second phase of the Frank and Amalia relationship began on the day of her tenth birthday. She’d come down to breakfast, excited about the presents she knew would be waiting for her and found only this exotic-looking woman with huge gold rings in her ears and a red chiffon scarf tied around her head. “Say good morning to Amalia,” her father had said. “She’s made flan for breakfast.”

“It’s my birthday,” she’d blurted. “Where are my presents?”

Frank had pointed to Amalia. “Happy birthday. Meet your new mother.”

And that was it. No explanation. No little talk beforehand. “Honey, a very dear friend has come back into my life. I hope you will learn to love her as much as I do…but if for any reason you’d rather she left, just say the word. You’re always first in my life.”

Hah. Amalia had taken over the kitchen, always making dishes with too much spice and big chunks of unidentifiable meat. She’d play this weird, sad music that nothing drowned out, and she and Frank were always kissing and giggling and tickling each other.

“Either she goes or I do,” she’d told her father about six weeks after Amalia appeared at the kitchen table. “I was here before she was and it’s not fair.”

“Amalia was here long before you were,” he’d responded. “And life’s not fair.”

“Where’s my real mother?” she’d screamed. “I’m going to live with her.”

“Write me,” her father had said.

Years later, long after she’d accepted Amalia as a stepmother, she’d asked again about her real mother. Amalia claimed not to know. “I came back to your father and found him with a daughter. Frank never wanted me to ask questions.”

“Your real mother?” her father had smiled. “Who would you like her to be? Mother Teresa? Dolly Parton? Mae West?”

“Hey, Mom.” Emmy appeared on the balcony. “What’s burning?”

“Damn.” She darted inside and opened the oven. “Caught it in the nick of time.”

“Nick,” Emily said, following her.

Daisy looked up from the casserole.

“That just reminded me. Nick called.”

“The biographer?” Daisy raised an eyebrow. “Since when has he been Nick?”

Emmy rolled her eyes. “Jeez, Mom. That’s what he said his name was. He sounds nice. Kind of like… Hugh Grant. You know, in Bridget Jones’s Diary.”

Daisy nodded. They’d rented the video last week. “But Hugh Grant wasn’t really nice, was he? He was deceitful and—”

“Jeez, Mom. Chill out,” Emmy said.

Daisy carried the casserole to the table, where she had to shove aside a gigantic vase of yellow roses to make room for it. As she did, a card fell out.

To Amalia. I hope that doesn’t strike an overly familiar note, but on some level I feel as if I know you already. In any event, I wish you a speedy recovery and am looking forward to meeting you in person and learning all about your late husband. Warmly, Nicholas Wynne.

“Emily!” Daisy yelled to her daughter, who had wandered outside. “Are you going to help me, or do I have to do everything around here?”