The Odd Job (2 page)

Tweeters had hoped that Sarah’s Aunt Emma would join the auking party. He’d been performing tentative courtship rituals for the past year or so, but Emma was not getting the message. Instead, she’d kept telephoning Sarah, demanding to know why Tweeters couldn’t take his mating instincts to some far-off haunt of coot and hern.

Sarah hadn’t been able to offer much in the way of cheer or counsel, she’d had enough on her hands helping Max to set up a gest of his own.

One of Max’s scouts in South America had sent word of a
rancho grande
in Argentina where there was a highly touted though quite possibly chimerical opportunity to recover two charming Watteau
fêtes galantes
that were still missing from the Wilkins Collection. Finally released from a long and tedious convalescence, too much a professional to ignore even the ghost of an inkling, Max had packed his bag, kissed his wife and child, and soared off into the blue.

Sarah had rejoiced to see her husband back on the job, though she wished he hadn’t had to go so far away so soon. She also wished he’d been more specific about some of the things she’d be having to cope with during his absence, including this latest brainstorm of Percy’s, whatever it might be. Max had mentioned it when he’d last telephoned from Argentina Thursday night; he’d suggested that Sarah might give Percy a buzz and see if she could figure out what the hell he was talking about.

She hadn’t heard from Max since then, to her regret, but she’d heard plenty from Anne, who’d been acting, no doubt, on Percy’s instructions. The gist seemed to be that Anne had been unofficially delegated by Percy to wheedle Cousin Sarah into going with them on Sunday to a luncheon at the Turbots’ as Max’s proxy. Just why had it been so important for her to alter her plans and come all this way to eat a boring meal with boring people and stare at a pastureful of large, ruddy beasts, when she might be missing a phone call from Max? What new machination did Percy have in mind?

It stood to reason that Percy Kelling would never have let himself be dragged out of his own armchair on a peaceful post-Labor Day weekend without some more powerful incentive than a bunch of bovines. Sarah had thought at first that this visit must have something to do with the Wilkins, but that was a bit unsubtle for Percy. One thing she was sure of, Elwyn Fleesom Turbot had to be one of Percy’s absolute top-ranking clients. Even his polled Herefords were purported to be so highly pedigreed that it seemed like lèse-majesté to be partaking of one.

At least Mr. Turbot claimed that the beef now on the table had come from one of his own steers. There was no way to tell, as the meat had been cut up for what Sarah assumed was meant to be boeuf bourguignon. The fancy menu was of a piece with the too obviously interior-decorated dining room; that and the drawing room in which they’d had their aperitifs were all she’d seen of the house. These were quite enough.

On the whole, Sarah would have preferred to go back outdoors and hobnob with those handsome animals she’d watched lolling in lush green pasturage with their red-brown legs tucked under their snow-white chests and their jaws moving back and forth in placid rumination. They reminded her a little of George III.

So, now that she thought of it, did Elwyn Turbot. The resemblance had been quite marked when he’d stood out beside the pasture gate, contemplating his herd. His wife, however, showed not the slightest hint of resemblance to that shy, plain, docile little Charlotte Sophia who had dutifully borne His Bucolic Majesty fifteen children, dutifully shared the dull, rural life that farmer George had preferred to the not much livelier pomp and circumstance at court, and had dutifully kept her own counsel about the then-unknown disease that had gradually and sporadically driven Britain’s beloved ruler, who was also his rebellious American subjects’ allegedly baneful tyrant, into madness and ultimate death.

Bereft of the cows’ company, Sarah tried to amuse herself by guessing Mrs. Turbot’s age. Either Lala, as the others were addressing her although that was hardly likely to be her proper name, was at least twenty years younger than her sixtyish husband, or else she knew an awfully clever plastic surgeon. Her hostessing costume was stunning. The tight-fitting silk pants, the low-cowled satin blouse, the flowing chiffon kimono coat, all in shades of old gold and smoky amber, struck precisely the right note with her swept-back auburn mane and her greenish eyes, and must have cost old Elwyn a mint. The shoulder-length golden earrings, the heavy gold neck chains in various lengths, the armloads of golden bangles, the up-to-the-knuckles gold rings on all eight fingers and both thumbs were perhaps a bit much for a quiet day in the country, Sarah thought, out perhaps they helped to take Lala’s mind off the Herefords.

If, in fact, Lala had a mind. She must have run through her entire repertoire of elevated small talk over the aperitifs. Since they’d moved to the dining room she’d done little but smile vaguely when anybody addressed a direct comment to her and keep on playing with her freight of jingling bracelets. Perhaps she’d had a drink too many, she was eating almost none of the food that a good-looking but sour-mouthed young male servitor, got up in brown denims, a floppy-sleeved homespun shirt, and a buckskin waistcoat, was handing around with no great éclat. Sarah couldn’t blame Lala for her lack of appetite; the much-touted main dish said little for the Turbot beef and still less for the Turbots’ cook.

Sarah herself could turn out a tastier bourguignon with a cheap cut from the supermarket, and often had. Her sister-in-law could do it even better in half the time. Once more Sarah wondered what had possessed her to give up a chance to spend some time at the lake with Davy and her beloved inlaws for a cool reception and a so-so meal. She might have got more of Elwyn Turbot’s attention if she’d been a polled Hereford.

What it would take to capture Lala’s undivided attention Sarah could not imagine, unless, God forbid, she and Anne had both shown up in garb even more exotic than their hostess’s. Neither Sarah’s sleeveless blue silk dress with its loose-fitting jacket nor Anne’s crisp, daisy-patterned shirtwaist, though both becoming and suitable to the place and the occasion, could begin to compete with all that swoosh and jingle. Whatever had possessed Anne to insist so passionately—passionately for Anne, anyway—that the Turbots were both on tiptoe to meet her interesting cousin? And why had Sarah been fool enough to capitulate?

Along with the Tulip Street brownstone, Sarah had inherited from her first husband over thirty acres of waterfront and a dilapidated wooden firetrap at Ireson’s Landing on the North Shore. Now the old Kelling place was gone; in its stead had arisen a joyous, simple house that seemed to be made out of sea air and sunshine. Sarah’s friend Dorothy Atwood had drawn up the plans, Max’s father had supervised the building, Max’s mother had sewn the curtains, Max’s sister had embroidered the cushions. The Kelling family’s reactions had been mixed.

Cousin Percy’s voice had been loud among those who’d excoriated Max Bittersohn and all his ilk for having destroyed the ramshackle ark that not one of the whiners would have raised a finger, much less a penny, to keep in decent repair. Actually it had been Sarah herself, alone and unaided, who had hired a wrecking crew and watched in triumph while they’d razed the drafty relic to the ground and trucked it away down to the last splinter.

Sarah had told Percy time and again that the house had been hers and hers alone, and that its destruction had been all her own doing. Nevertheless, he’d been adamant that nobody of Kelling blood could have committed so flagrant an act of vandalism unless she’d been goaded into it by that tribe of Shylocks she’d been fool enough to get mixed up with.

Percy had begun to modify his tone, though, now that he’d been made to realize how highly the Bittersohn family were rated around the North Shore, and where Max in particular stood with Dun & Bradstreet. No certified public accountant in his right mind could wax too censorious over an in-law whose income and reputation for probity were both right up there with Percy’s own.

And this despite the known facts that Cousin Max’s hair was still showing not a hint of gray, much less a bald spot, that his doctorate had been earned at a university which was not Harvard, and that no evidence could be found to show he had ever joined a fraternity. Or one of the right clubs. Or even a wrong one. The man was an enigma.

But a successful enigma. Sarah was beginning to read the fine print. Percy must be working up to have one of his upper-echelon assistants drop a hint into Mr. Bittersohn’s ear about advantages that could accrue should Mr. Bittersohn care to consider transferring his accountancy business to the prestigious firm of Kelling, Kelling, and Kelling. This engineered visit, taking Percy’s cousin to meet one of Percy’s affluent clients, was just another case of the camel’s nose and the nomad’s tent.

Naturally Percy would not come straight out and admit that Turbot was one of his clients. Percy was chary of naming names; but if Turbot hadn’t been on Percy’s books, then Percy would not have been here today. Turbot had just been elected to chair the Wilkins Museum Board of Trustees. Max Bittersohn still carried their carte blanche to seek out and return as many as possible of the museum’s stolen originals. Just why these circumstances should become a tempting hook to catch another well-heeled client didn’t make a great deal of sense to Sarah; but why else would Percy have primed his dutiful wife to lure her into acting as bait?

Sarah saw no earthly reason why Percy couldn’t have approached Max directly. It wasn’t as though the two were strangers, they’d met often enough at Kelling family festivities and funerals, between which there was often not much difference. It was simply that directness was not Percy’s way. He loved to plot some intricate plan of action, then turn over the legwork to one of his trusted deputies. Since engineering these sorties was about the only fun Percy ever allowed himself, his reasonably well-treated staff were quite willing to fall in with his schemes, playing their parts like real old Yankee horse traders. And this despite the fact that two of them were Finnish and one was Japanese.

*
The Family Vault

I
F MAX WANTED TO
play games with Percy, that would be up to him. All Sarah wanted was to hear his voice. Max might be trying to reach home right now, hearing her taped message on the answering machine and wondering why she wasn’t around to take his call.

Well might he wonder. On Wednesday, she’d had her work schedule and her support group all lined up in perfect order. Early Thursday morning, the kind lady who obliged at Ireson’s Landing had woken up with some kind of stomach bug and didn’t think she’d better come to work for fear of passing it on to Davy. Normally Max’s sister Miriam Rivkin, who lived nearby in Ireson Town, would have been delighted to take Davy long enough for Sarah to get some work done, but she and Ira, her husband, had rented a vacation cottage on a lake that was just too far away for a reasonable commute.

That left Sarah and her son alone at the Landing, with Mariposa and Charles holding the fort on Tulip Street. Late Friday night, Mariposa had got an urgent summons to the bedside of a cherished great-aunt who was fading fast and calling for her. The aunt was in Puerto Rico. Sarah had spent most of Saturday rushing to Boston, with Davy in the car because she’d had nobody to leave him with, getting Mariposa paid, packed, and ticketed; turning her over to Charles for delivery to the airport, then rushing back to Ireson’s Landing in hope that a miracle would happen.

Miracles weren’t hard to arrange in the Rivkin family. Davy’s grown-up cousin Mike had offered to pick him up first thing Sunday morning, drive him out to the lake, and give him a crash course in sand castles and minnow-chasing so that Sarah could get some work done. At bedtime, Sarah had told her son a story about a minnow, given him several extra good-night kisses, sung him to sleep, packed his small duffel bag, and staggered off to her own bed. Shortly after daybreak, Mike and his girlfriend had zoomed up the drive. The girlfriend had picked up the duffel bag, Mike had slung Davy over his shoulder and carried him off gurgling with joy.

Sarah had stood waving until they were out of sight, gone back inside to get dressed, decided it wasn’t worth the bother, and carried a cup of coffee out to the deck. The seagulls weren’t much company but they were better than nothing.

Not a great deal better. Sarah had had a premonition that, once Mike had got Davy out to the lake, Miriam would be on the phone suggesting that he stay on a while so that Sarah could get some work done. Sarah had seen beneath the artifice. Miriam and Ira wanted Davy to themselves, she’d be lucky to pry him loose by the end of the week. A whole, long week without Max, without Davy, without Miriam and Ira, without Brooks and Theonia, without Mariposa, even without Jesse. It was a grim prospect.

But somebody had to mind the store, as Max was wont to say. Sarah had weighed the situation and decided to drive back to Boston sometime during the afternoon; it would be neither fair nor prudent to leave Charles alone at Tulip Street. She’d had to let Mr. Lomax, who’d been tending the Ireson’s Landing property since before Sarah was born, know that his services as caretaker would be particularly needed this week. It wasn’t a good idea for the seaside house and grounds to be left unwatched and she didn’t know how long she might get stuck in Boston.

At least this ordeal of a meal could not go on much longer. Sarah managed to suppress a sigh of relief as the sullen young waiter took her plate away. She’d done all that could reasonably be expected of her. She’d made admiring noises about the polled Herefords, she’d struggled to find words of praise for the stiff, garish, ruthlessly clipped and weeded plantings about which even Cousin Anne, consummate gardener that she was, couldn’t wax enthusiastic. Because Anne had said Cousin Sarah was an artist, she’d been herded into the painfully restored barn and forced to look at the ever so quaint, mildly pornographic, too devastatingly folk-arty mural that some vandal had painted on a long panel knocked together from beautiful pumpkin pine boards, each nearly two feet in width. Those boards must have weathered at least a century of legitimate use, only to be sacrificed to an idiot’s whim. Sarah felt queasy again at the recollection, or perhaps it was the boeuf bourguignon.