Chapter 29Faulconbridge Follies
“Mark Twain was right. Sir Walter Scott
does have a lot to answer for.” Kelly stepped through the front door of Faulconbridge, where we were staying for the weekend. She looked around at the entrance hall to what was once a faux baronial home; a mid-Victorian Gothic monstrosity, complete with moss-covered stone, a turret, battlements and a moat gone dry. It was now a resort and we were staying there for a weekend with Alison and Laurence.
It had been Kelly’s idea. She’d seen the advertisement for Faulconbridge in the Sailing Club magazine. “Peter, it’s just the place for a long weekend away! Listen...‘wood fires, hearty meals, horse riding, walking in the woods, golf, tennis, spa’. It all sounds excellent...just what we need for a short break in early spring. Let’s go with Laurence and Alison.” I’d glanced up, remembering Kelly’s confrontations with Alison last year. She’d smiled. ”Yes Peter, I know what you’re thinking. Alison has learnt the error of her ways.”
That wasn’t what I was thinking. I was thinking that the last time I’d ridden a horse had been in High School. It had thrown me off and I swore to myself I’d never get on one again. But Kelly was partly right. I couldn’t see Alison and Kelly getting on well. “Peter,” she’d fixed me with that look that said she wouldn’t be turned away from this idea, “I want to be friends with your friends. So go on...invite them next time you see Laurence.”
I’d voiced my doubts when I met Laurence over a steak. We’d discussed business over the food and when coffee arrived I broached the subject. “Laurence, Kelly wants you and Alison to come spend a weekend with us at Faulconbridge...the resort that advertises in the club magazine. It’s up in the backwoods of Wisconsin. It’ll be our treat, of course.”
Laurence nodded. “I’ve seen the ad...and that’s very generous of you too.” He grinned. “Is it Kelly’s peace offering?” He hadn’t forgotten what had taken place between Alison and Kelly, any more than I had.
“I wouldn’t say that. She says Alison’s learned some manners.”
“Is that so?” Laurence smiled. “Yes, I’d love to come and I think Alison would too. You and I are going to have an interesting time. Kelly might be in for a surprise. I’ll tell you – d” Then he stopped. “No, on second thoughts, I think Alison would like to tell you herself. Will you be at the training leaders’ meeting next Monday?”
I nodded. Ever since I'd graduated from the Sailing Club’s training squad, I'd trained kids in sailing. It was my way of paying my dues to society. For me, it was the same as giving blood. It was something my father had taught me. His motto as a platoon leader in Vietnam had been ‘God and Right’. I hadn’t followed his Presbyterianism but enough of his ethics had brushed off. It was always time to do what’s right. Helping kids to sail, especially kids from poorer backgrounds, was right. I knew Laurence felt the same way.
I wondered what Laurence meant by a surprise for Kelly. All I told Kelly though, was that I’d mentioned her vacation idea to Laurence and that I’d see him and Alison at the Sailing Club training leaders’ meeting. “Make sure you do. I want you to sell the idea.”
“But Kelly, you’re the marketer.”
She shrugged, then emitted a huge sigh. “Do I have to do everything?” Then she collapsed in a giggle.
I was glad when the leaders’ meeting came round.
“Hello Ro. Where's Brendon?” I almost wondered if this was Alison’s surprise. Rowena O'Neill and Brendon Chamberlain were inseparable even if they lived separately, so I was almost shocked to see Rowena sitting alone.
“You silly man...Brendon's presenting the safety talk. He has to get the vests ready,” Rowena said. I was sure that was a half truth. Rowena's comment was just too glib not to have been rehearsed.
Laurence and Alison's arrival interrupted my thoughts so I put the topic out of my mind. I greeted them, sat down and the meeting proceeded.
Brendon sat with the other presenters, before and after his talk. I nudged Laurence, whispering, “He sat with Ro last year, didn't he?”
Laurence nodded. “Yeah. Kinda surprised me too.”
Speculation wasn’t going to get me anywhere. Laurence obviously didn’t know any more than I did so I changed the subject, hoping he’d open up to my probing question. “Is it as surprising as whatever you say Alison has lined up for Kelly?” He smiled back at me, deliberating ignoring my remark, and nudged me to pay attention to the speakers.
I had to wait till the meeting was over, when I got him and his wife together over coffee.
“So...what's the surprise?” I repeated to both of them.
“Oh Alison...tell him,” laughed Laurence. “You've got to put him out of his misery...and mine! He's been bugging me all night.”
“You shouldn't have told him anything,” Alison said reprovingly.
“My dear, you know how he just loves women fighting.”
“Almost as much as you do, hun,” she retorted with a wink.
“Come on!” I interjected, not too proud to beg. “Tell me...please!”
“I do believe your friend's getting impatient,” Alison giggled. “Such a poor character trait.”
“You should talk,” Laurence chided her, “Your impatience was how all this started. Not that I minded,” he added.
“Come on! Spill the beans!” I implored.
“We will if you buy a round of drinks,” Alison smiled. I did so, came back from the bar and sat down.
Laurence started. “We don’t just sail, you know. We play golf too...generally at the Beverley.” I nodded. That was where Alison and Harriet Stowe had come to blows, to Alison’s harm. It wasn’t just her handicap that had suffered that day. She’d left the field with more than a few bruises. “Yes I know what you’re thinking.” Laurence smiled wryly. He put his arm around Alison’s shoulder. “Usually we just play golf.”
“But not always,” Alison broke in, “and a couple weeks ago...right at the beginning of the season...was one of the exceptions. We’d met after work. Laurence needed some exercise.” She poked him in the ribs. “It was time to get rid of some of that winter weight. He does put on
so much in the winter.”
“Hon, it’s only because we can’t exercise. I sail, I golf...I’ve never been one for gyms. Besides, you wouldn’t like it if I
were at a gym. You’d think I was ogling all the girls...like Peter does at the beach.” He grinned at me.
“Hey, that was before I met Kelly!” I defended myself.
“Hmmph,” replied Alison. “It wasn’t you ogling a girl that started this. More like the other way round...at least, so I thought at the time. Yes, don’t start on me again, Laurence. I admit I was wrong...and I’ve made amends.”
Alison turned to me. “At the time though...well, I guess I was a little hasty. But how would your Kelly feel if she saw you holding a young brunette's hips while she took a golf swing. She was a cute young thing, probably early twenties...yes Laur', I thought you were cradle snatching at the time...and about average height. She had longish, not quite shoulder length brown hair which she’d held back off her face by pushing her sunglasses up. She wasn't dressed as fashionably as most of the women there...longish shorts and a two tone triangle patterned green top and sneakers. Not real golfing attire.”
Laurence interrupted his wife by saying, “Hun, you saw that clip of Nick Faldo. His coach got his girl caddy to hold his hips. And that caddy...well, you'd have a fit if she held mine!" He kissed his wife's cheek.
"Not at all...and the evidence is there. If the only thing had been you holding her hips, nothing would have happened. But that wasn’t all.” Again she turned to me. “That was just the first incident. I saw them together, Laurie and this floozy, just as I drove in. Yes, they were right next to the car park."
“Well, think it through hun. If there was anything wrong, would I have been doing it right there where everyone could see?”
“Yes, so you kept telling me at the time.” Alison’s annoyance was feigned.
“When I could get a word in edgeways. Peter, she stormed up to me, her face black, her eyes flashing. I stood up and tried to introduce Kimberley Workman. Kim’s a Biotech at the Feinberg. We’re trialling some new equipment there.” I nodded. Laurence’s firm made electronic equipment for hospitals and the medical industry generally. He held several patents himself – small advances he'd worked on in his spare time. Laurence was a very smart guy – and a good golfer too but not it seemed, at explaining himself to his wife. “Alison just didn’t want to listen. She slipped her arm into mine, said a very perfunctory 'good evening' to poor Kim, then 'it was nice to meet you' in a way that told me...and Kim...that she was lying, and walked me off to her car, talking about shopping she wanted me to put in my car so she could get her golf gear out. Poor Kim just stood there, speechless. And then you dear,” he turned to his wife, “started to giggle.”
“I couldn’t help it! She looked so comical, standing there with her mouth half open, golf club in her hand. She looked like a fish with her mouth opening and closing like that. Yes, a very pretty, very cute fish. That was the problem. If she hadn't looked so cute and...well...kinda helpless, I wouldn’t have worried. But Kimberley Workman looked like the kind of girl so many men like to 'protect'. She probably practices at it every day.” She smiled. “Really, you guys should wake up to us girls.”
I thought for a moment of other women who'd played the same card – Kim Curzon who, the first time I met her, sought my help when she lost her fight with the cigarette machine. Then there was Margot Tennant who’d used it once too often. But I wanted to hear about the fight – I guessed that was where this story was leading – so I asked, “A pretty harmless first incident and it sounds like you came out ahead, Alison. So...what happened next, and what’s this about Alison being impatient?”
“She got in a huff with me,” said Laurence. I grinned at the way he used such a quaint English phrase.
“Tell it how it was, Laurence,” Alison scolded him mildly. You made a mess of the fifth hole, and you were making an even bigger mess of the sixth.” Unlike Kelly, I didn’t play golf much. I never saw the point, or got any enjoyment, in hitting little balls around a field, so the explanation they gave confused me. I knew, from caddying for Kelly, that the fifth hole had two sharp doglegs – the first left hand, the second right hand. The sixth had a water hazard as well as a sharp dogleg of its own. Kelly swore those two holes were very difficult. She claimed they’d been designed by some degenerate troll who wanted to destroy friendships and generally wreak havoc. Laurence, it seemed, had got his ball caught in one bunker after another on the fifth, then took so long getting it to the green that Alison had given up waiting for him and gone onto the sixth.
While Alison cruised through that hole, her husband had more problems. His ball landed in some muddy ground on the edge of the water hazard. Why they didn’t call it what it was – a marsh – I don’t know. He hit it out of there but only managed to land it in another bunker.
And there he met Kimberley again. From that point on, his story and his wife’s differed. If you believed Laurence, he and Kimberley were fellow victims of the troll who’d designed the course and no doubt lived under the bridge in the middle of the sixth hole. They were commiserating with one another and Laurence was trying to show Kim the best way to get a ball out of a bunker – apart from actually picking it up and carrying it. If you believed Alison, the commiserations had gotten more than intimate, with the couple cuddling – or at least with Laurence leaning over Kim with his arms around her.
“How else do you hold a golf club and show someone how to swing it?” Laurence protested. “Anyway, by then you were looking for an excuse to pick a fight.”
“Who...me?” Alison said archly.
“Yes my friend, you!” I laughed. “Laurence is right. You love to pick fights. I’ve known you for a long time.” I smiled, remembering what Margot had told me all those years ago.
“Indeed, you know her well.” Laurence smiled. “Alison stormed into the bunker.
“Peter, Alison said Kim Workman was cute. But Alison was
majestic. She looked like a Valkyrie – no, that's not quite right. I couldn’t be reminded of the line from the Mikado...you know Katisha's song...
There is beauty in the bellow of the blast,
There is grandeur in the growling of the gale,
There is eloquent outpouring
When the lion is a-roaring,
And the tiger is a-lashing of his tail!”
I had to bite my tongue. Was Laurence really comparing his wife to Katisha? It was a good thing Alison didn’t like – or know – Gilbert and Sullivan.
He went on. “And there was indeed beauty in your flashing eyes as you stormed up, roaring truly lion-like. Peter, she turned to me her eyes flashing! ‘I can't leave you alone for a moment without that hussy getting her claws into you!’ she said. She turned to where Kim stood, next to me. Kim had moved away when Alison stormed up. ‘What do you think you’re doing, hitting on my fiancée?’
“Kim wasn't taken aback, not in the least. ‘Clearly you’ve made up your mind what I’m doing’ she said. ‘Apparently I’m hitting on your fiancée’. To give her her due, Kimberley had some sassy repartee. She smiled. ‘But you’re jumping to conclusions and like most people who do that, you jumped to the wrong one. A little thought would have led you to the right one...that he was just showing me how to fight my way out of this bunker.’
“I thought Alison's reply was lame. 'It looked like you were hitting on my guy,' she said.” He turned to look at Alison. “I was so surprised. You’d normally have come back with something much stronger."
“Your expression told me that,” she said. “You wanted to see a fight. That was so aggravating!” She lifted her chin a little. “I don't fight for your amusement. And anyway I was thinking maybe you and she were right. I'd have given her the benefit of the doubt, except for her next comment. Yes Laurence, I was about to back down and apologise. I've picked too many fights in the past and I thought it was about time to grow up.” Alison looked at me. “That’s something your Kelly could learn too."
I glanced up quickly. That wasn’t something I'd be telling Kelly – not if I wanted to stay on her good side. It seemed that maybe Alison wanted to teach Kelly some 'manners'. If so, this could be interesting. Still, manners or not, a fight had started and I wanted to know how. I replied, “But you didn't apologise. What made you change your mind?”
“Kim was so sassy. She looked at me and said, ‘If you don’t trust your fiancée...and you clearly don’t...then you shouldn’t go on to the next hole and leave him for girls like me to get their claws into. But, no, you’re too impatient to do that. So you leave him alone and when you come back to find him, you jump to conclusions and you get furious. Impatient, hasty women who don't trust their men don't deserve good men...and I’m sure Laurence is a good man.'
“Peter, she
smirked at me!” Alison sounded sad.
“I clenched my fists. I was so close to losing it. If I hadn't held my arms pinned against my side, I think I'd have lashed out at her. Still, without knowing it I must have stepped forward, but only realised it when so did she and we were standing less than a foot apart, right in each other’s faces. Laurence, you were silent. Yeah I know,” she half laughed, half snorted, “you wanted to see us go toe to toe. And then you got your chance. I think I'd have let her go if she hadn't sneered, 'Temper, temper’.”
“That did it. Peter, for all she says, Alison was ravenous for a fight.” Laurence took up the story. He squeezed his wife’s shoulder. “Don't deny it. I know all the signs...all the body language. Sure, you may have been trying to master your desires, but you still had them.” He continued, at me, “Kim's stupid slur was enough to break down Alison's last inhibition. She let loose with a stinging slap aimed at Kim's face.
“Kim ducked down, quicker than I thought she could. You, dear, almost toppled forward and she punched you hard in your stomach.”
“Laurence I did
not 'topple forward'! I may have stumbled a little but that's all.” She glowered at her husband, then smiled. “But yes, the hussy bobbing down like that fooled me. I didn't expect her comeback blow...that hurt. I didn't expect her speed or her strength either. That punch, followed by a second one a moment later, almost half winded me. I felt the air gush out of my mouth. As I stepped back to regroup, she weighed into me with a barrage of light but effective jabbing punches. She hit my face, my sides, my boobs...she kept mixing those blows up and I couldn't defend them all. They just kept thudding home. I told myself I had to do something quickly or she'd batter me into the ground...but for the moment, I couldn’t think what. ”
Again Laurence interrupted his wife. “Alison, admit it. You thought she'd be easy pickings. You didn't expect her to be a good fighter. Peter, Kim was hammering Alison. I've seen Alison fight quite a lot, but I’ve never seen anyone take it to her so early in a fight as Kim did. For about thirty seconds, Kim was all over her.” He hushed Alison's protest. “Sweets, she battered you. But you did get it together, just like I knew you would. Peter, even as Kim pressed her attack, I knew Alison was thinking of a plan. She was too disciplined to let Kim get away with the fight.
She hunkered down to make a smaller target. That didn't faze Kim though. She switched her attack, aiming downwards, but she didn't have the same success. After a few frustrating seconds...I heard her curse under her breath...Kim lashed out with a kick aimed at Alison's ribcage. That was enough. While Kim was still a little off balance, Alison sprang up and to the side. The kick missed completely. Alison's head didn't. It landed right in Kim's breadbasket. You should have heard her groan. One moment she was on top of the world, raining blows on a cowering enemy, but less than ten seconds later she was doubled up, spluttering and clutching her belly.” He added to Alison, “She gave you just the opportunity you needed.”
Again Alison continued, “Yes, she’d hammered me. I'll be honest, she'd had the best part of the fight up till then. And yes...honest again...I hadn't expected her to fight so well. The head butt gave me the breather I needed. I stepped back and we stood glaring at each other.
I began to size her up. She was just a little shorter than me and I launched a few light jabs to keep her out. We were both careful on our feet, moving better as we both recovered...me from the pounding she'd given me, Kim from the head butt I’d given her. I sensed her inching towards me, closing the gap between us. I took a step back to keep her out of range. I blocked a punch by putting my fists up. I dropped my shoulder, stepping to the left and getting under her next blow, which was aimed at where my head had been a split second before.
I closed, lunging with my fist aimed at her stomach. But she blocked my blow too, and my fist hit her forearm, not her gut like I intended. I glanced up. Kim growled at me and before I could do anything, she dug out my stomach with a heavy blow. Yes, she'd out-thought me. My gut churned and I sprayed out spit and air as the blow...followed by a second one before I could defend myself...half winded me.
“Again I had to step back. I'd already begun to, and that was what saved me from a worse pounding by her second punch. Mind you, it still hurt. It still damaged me. I pulled back out of her range. I settled down to a grim defence. I needed time to recover.”
“And Peter she did defend well.” Laurence took up the tale agfain. “Alison was light on her feet. She moved when she had to, and kept Alison at bay. She conserved her energy, fighting smart. Kim didn't. She kept pushing, trying to find openings. She couldn’t. Alison’s defence was just too good. Sure, Kim got a few blows in, but no more than Alison did and none of them did any damage.
“Alison’s didn't do much damage either, but I could see that you, dear, didn’t mean to. You were just trying to keep her away while you got your breath back, and you did. Kim started to get frustrated as Alison began to fight back. She attacked. Her fist lashed out straight for Alison's head...but it wasn't there. Alison had bobbed down and from a half crouch, she fired a left and a right into Kim's belly. Kim was still outstretched from her missed punch and she just couldn’t defend herself.”
“But what was worse for her, was she didn't even tense up her abs.” Alison resumed the story. “My first fist just sank in deep, and my second followed too quickly for her to do anything. She staggered, gagging. I pushed forward cautiously. This skank could fight and I wasn't going to open myself up to her tricks again. I guess I was too cautious. Anyway, I’m more a wrestler than a boxer. I needed to work out how to grapple with her. That was my mistake when I fought Harriet. I tried to punch when I should have stuck to my own game.”
She paused, then went on. “Anyway, for a while there was a standoff. Kim regrouped. I could see her recovering. She got the colour back in her face. She wasn't gasping like a fish any longer. I hadn't been idle either. I'd tried to close with her but she'd backed away every time. Sure, punched a few times, but like I say, that's not my natural style. Then I saw an opening. I kicked her, hard, hitting her right on the kneecap. She groaned. I've never been kicked there but they say it hurts like hell.”
“It does!” Again Laurence took up the story. “We've all banged our kneecaps and a kick is just like that...but on steroids. It made Kim buckle. She staggered backwards, and that was all you needed.” Again he squeezed his wife's hand.
I was about to comment on how affectionate they were, but I thought of how fighting was such a turn on for Kelly and I, so I bit my tongue and let Laurence continue. “Kim still didn't have her balance right when Alison came at her. A low sweeping tackle brought Kim crashing down on her butt. Alison didn't give her a break. She grappled with her gasping foe and succeeded in getting her into a headlock but before Alison could exploit her advantage, Kim wriggled free.
“Kim got to her feet, slowly. She was tired, her clothes were sweat-stained, her hair was matted. Yeah, I should have noticed that before. But she'd seemed so on top of her game that I hadn't.”
“No Laurence, but I had.” His wife smiled. “She was tiring. I sensed it when she backed away instead of taking the attack back at me. She'd spent too long doing that and dodging me to be simply recovering. She needed an opening...just like I did...but she didn't get one. The more tired she got, the more openings there would be for me. I just had to keep the pressure on.
So I did. I kept her on the defensive by nonstop jabbing at her, always with an eye to breaking through her defence. Then my chance came. She was puffing by then. I ducked into a crouch and swept my arm in low. I hooked it around her leg and at the same time, I slammed my head into her gut.
She went down on her butt again and this time she lay there, gasping like a fish. I thought she was finished. I straddled her. I was about to grab her head and slam it into the dirt when she swung her legs up. I was so surprised I froze for a moment and she locked her ankles in front of my face. She used them to try to shove me off, but I managed to stay on. Then she rocked. I still stayed on but it was a lot harder that time.
“I remembered that fight with Harriet Stowe. There was no way this one was going to have the same ending. I bounced up on my knees. She thought she'd just about won but as she rolled, I slammed my butt down on her. She was already hurt there and she groaned. I felt her legs weaken. I reached out with my arm, grabbed at her head, yanked it up and then slammed it into the earth. That was what I’d planned all along. It just took me a little longer to get there.
“Kim went slack underneath me. I yanked her head up and slammed it down again, harder. I reared up and crashed my butt down into her stomach again. She groaned. I could see the despair in her eyes. We both knew I’d won. I pushed her legs apart and my other hand seized a fistful of hair as well. I kept yanking her head up and slamming it into the ground till she went completely limp.
“I stood up. ‘Laurence, I’ve still got eleven holes to play. You can work out what to tell the groundskeepers about..’ I gestured to what was left of Kim. ‘...this.’ I shouldered my bag of clubs and went on with my round.”
“She did Peter! She just went on.” Laurence shook his head in admiration. “I had to help Kim up...she came to almost straight away...and borrow someone's golf cart to get her back to the club house. I told Kim I'd see her home but she insisted I didn't. ‘It’ll only put you in more shit with your wife’ she said. She was right of course. I got her out to the parking lot and waited for a cab. By then it was dusk and people were coming in from the course. I had to deal with a few questions. I don’t think I was too convincing. The cab took a while to arrive and we were still waiting when Alison came back.”
“Yes, I'd finished my round. Laurence wasn't handling things right. I took over. I told Kim I’d drive her home and Laurence would follow in my car. I told her that there were no hard feelings on my part. But she’d better stay away from my man.”
I smiled inwardly. Alison was so like my Kelly but from what Laurence said in wrapping up the story, it seemed Kim Workman wasn’t as easily brought to heel as Kim Curzon had been. Curson had been Kelly’s protégé...almost a pet, ever since they’d fought. But then, the biotech worker wasn't really in the same circles. Laurence and Alison still saw Kim Workman from time to time, but only at the golf club. Still, I wondered.
“How was the meeting?” Kelly looked up from her book when I walked in the door later that night. She wriggled over so I could share the couch. I sat down and kissed her.
“It was ok, as those meetings go.”
“And how was Alison?”
“She was ok. I didn't mention your idea though. I thought I'd leave it to you.” Not wanting to open Alison as a topic – Kelly’s antennae were always too active – I changed the subject. “Rowena and Brendon were a little distant.” I explained what had happened.
“Hmm...yes. Only to be expected. Brendon probably thinks a family that prays together, stays together. In my experience, a couple is like any other two objects joined together...they need a good screw or they come loose.”
We talked over the arrangements for the weekend at Faulconbridge. That night I told Kelly, "Ï think you’ll get some objections from Alison.”
“Leave it to me,” she replied, already pulling out her cell. I listened to the conversation – she’d switched her cell to speaker. At first Kelly demonstrated the marketing skills that made her one of the best in the field. She stressed all the things she knew Alison would like about the resort. Kelly patiently and quietly overcame each objection Alison put up. Just as patiently and quietly, she persuaded Alison that this really was a vacation too good to miss.
By the time Kelly hung up, Alison had not only happily agreed to come but was enthusiastic about the whole idea, as though she’d thought of it herself. I had to smile.
“Look at this hall!” Kelly’s voice brought me back to the here and now. “It’s the size of a small cathedral. How would they heat it in the winter? At least they’ve put a coffee lounge at one end. After almost five hours in the car, I’m dying for a coffee and some cake.” She looked around as I checked us in. She was right too. The hall was vast – two stories high and wide enough to drive two trucks abreast. There was a second floor gallery around three sides, supported on arched piers. We headed down to the coffee lounge at the other end, underneath the gallery and near a blazing log fire. At least the fire kept that part of the room warm.
We placed our orders and sat down. “Twain was right. Sir Walter Scott
does have a lot to answer for,” Kelly repeated, still flabbergasted by the enormity of the building.
“Why do you say that?” asked a woman at the next table. I glanced over at her. She was blonde-haired and attractive, about our age. While it was hard to judge her height while she sat down, she was slim, athletic looking – I sensed the muscles beneath the smooth, lightly freckled skin. She wore little if any makeup and little jewelry but what she did wear – a pearl necklace and matching earrings – spoke both of expense and taste. At first I thought the jewelry and her sky blue, figure hugging dress a little formal, but then I realised it suited the Faulconbridge atmosphere much better than Kelly and Alison's more casual clothes. We were all in the clothes we had travelled in – comfortable jeans and sweaters. The woman at the next table made us look under-dressed.
Kelly smiled. “I never liked Sir Walter. His histories were never accurate and his love of homeland was quite chauvinistic. Look at his tales of chivalry and romances of the border, historical pictures of feudal England and the Crusades. They were lullabies.” She paused and extended her hand. “By the way, I’m Kelly Haldane from Chicago. This is my man Peter Balfour, and these are our friends Laurence and Alison Chamberlain." Kelly’s wave encompassed us all. She returned to the topic of Scott and went on, “But more importantly, he was a romantic writer who loved the past...or rather his version of the past...and who built his own mock baronial hall which he called Abbotsford. He almost went bankrupt building it too.”
"Ï thought his financial problems related to the failure of his publishers, the Ballantynes and the Constables,” replied the woman. “He wrote his way out of those problems. I’m Becky Krueger and this is my husband Kirk. We’re from Alabama.”
“You’ve come a long way.” Kelly smiled. “And I see you know something about Scott.”
“Yes, I do. Kirk inherited a complete set of Scott’s books from his grandfather, and I took to reading them again.”
"And
your knowledge surprised me," Alison broke in, addressing Kelly. "I never knew you read much. I’ve certainly never seen you read anything serious."
"Just because you haven’t seen it, doesn’t mean that I don't.” Kelly’s hackles rose.
“Ok, hun,” I said carefully, trying to calm my girl.
"No Peter, it’s
not ok. Alison, I'll have you know I studied Eng lit as my humanities subject in college. My major field was nineteenth century novelists." She turned and looked Alison in the eyes. “And I made the Dean's list.” She turned again, took a sharp breath – so sharp I heard the hiss of air – and turned away from Alison as if to put her needling – that’s what it was – behind her. "You’re partly right Becky.” Her voice returned to her normal conversational tone. “At the very least, Ballantyne's bankruptcy didn't help Scott’s finances."
"He did write his way out of his difficulties, and he supported Ballantyne too. A less ‘honourable’ man would have accepted all the offers of help Scott received, and left the Ballantynes to swing in the wind.” Becky defended Scott, her eyes gleaming in the firelight. “The range of support he was offered shows how important Scott was at that time. Even King George IV offered him help. Scott wasn't just a writer, either. He was a lawyer, and a senior one too...a judge."
“That's true. Scott was one of the key people behind the Quarterly Review. But that’s a good example of the mish-mash that’s wrong in Scott. The Quarterly was meant to be a moderate conservative journal...what the British would have called ‘one nation Tory’. I don’t know what we’d call it.”
“RINO,” interjected Alison who – most surprisingly for a teacher – was a neocon. “Republican in name only. Closet liberals.”
Kelly looked at me and patted my hand. She knew how many times people said that about me. She also knew how much it rankled. So did Alison. She was being a bitch, breaking into a polite and serious conversation – the kind Kelly really enjoyed – and needling her. I wondered why. Alison usually enjoyed this sort of talk too.
Kelly coughed and went on, “Maybe so. Its editorial line was ‘change when needed – and not otherwise’.” And that,” she turned to look Alison in the eye, “is as conservative as Edmund Burke himself. Scott dragged his heels on Catholic Emancipation...even that deepest dyed Tory the Duke of Wellington was in favour of that.”
That shaft went home. Alison's family were Polish. It didn't matter that they were third or fourth generation Americans, or that Alison was – unlike the rest of her family – less than observant. Catholicism was still part of her cultural identity. If this was a battle of wits between Kelly and Alison, Kelly had just scored well.
“But I digress,” said Kelly. “Sorry Becky...back to Abbotsford. It’s a good example of all that’s wrong with Scott. First, it’s a mish mash of styles. The entrance isn't really ‘period’. It combines 16th century armour with cuirasses Scott collected from Waterloo. Scott had his ancestral armorial bearings engraved on the walls – even though his family were really only middle class. His father was a lawyer. Like I say, so much is fake about Scott."
"It's still an impressive home," Becky replied. "You sound as though you've been there. We went in the fall, about eighteen months ago."
"Yes, I've been there and yes it’s impressive...but it’s still a monstrosity. Just like this place. You’d have to agree that these monstrosities are just that – monstrous. Did you read the history of the building? It’s on the resort’s website.” Without waiting for an answer, Kelly went on, “It was built by Rundstadt, a German immigrant who made his money out of logging. He started out as a lumberjack and rose from there. He promoted the railroad that served the district...it eventually became part of the old Milwaukee railroad...and then he built this.”
Alison smiled. “Kelly, I guess you'd say that, just like Scott, he wanted to reinvent himself as a medieval baron.”
Kelly glanced across at her. “Yes I would. How perceptive,” she drawled, “of me and Rundstadt.” I sensed she wasn’t pleased. She turned back to Becky. “Would you like to explore the building? Let’s see the atrocity for ourselves.” Almost as an afterthought she added, "You’ll come with me, won’t you Alison?”
Alison shook her head. "Kelly, I need a shower and a meal. Also, we still need to go and find our rooms. We're tired of fast food. That's all we got, the whole way up the freeway from Chicago." She stood up.
Kelly made a face.
“Kelly, Alison’s right. We need to go to our rooms,” said Laurence.
Kelly stood up too. “Maybe so. Anyway, it was good to chat with you, Becky. I hope to see you again later.” She strode off, calling over her shoulder, “Peter, where are our bags?”
I caught up with her a few moments later. As I guessed, she wasn’t pleased. “Alison tried to show me up. She failed. And she won’t come exploring with me. She was all for it in the car on the way up but now, when I suggest it...she’s ‘too tired’. She sniped at me all the way up here. Remember?”
I lobbed a grenade. “I thought you said Alison had learned not to cross you.”
“Clearly she needs another lesson.” Kelly fumed. “Two beatings...one from me and one from Harriet...obviously weren’t enough to knock some sense into her.”
We got to our room. “Oh my god!” Kelly exclaimed as we walked through the door. “It’s huge! You could keep an elephant in here! At least it’s been modernized. I’m having first shower. Peter, I’m worn out. I think I’ll get room service to bring me up a tray.”
“And leave Alison in possession of the field of battle?” I lobbed another grenade.
Kelly thought for a moment. “You’re right. That would never do. She’d think she’d gotten the best of me.” Kelly dressed again. She went up-style – dress, jewelry and heels “Peter, we’re going to dinner. Let’s look like it. Coat and tie for you, my boy.”
We invited Becky and Kirk to join us for dinner. Kelly resumed the conversation about Abbotsford and soon had all of us in an animated discussion about vacations to historic places – all of us except Alison. It seemed Kirk and Becky had been on some long vacations. I asked Kirk what he did to afford this. It turned out that like me, he managed a family manufacturing business. That led to more conversation.
Becky raised her voice. “Hey!” she all but shouted. “Where’s our order? Some of these people,” she waved her hand around the table, "have travelled a long way. How about some service!”
Laurence looked at her reproachfully. "Don't worry yourself on our behalf. The waitress is over-worked. She’s probably just as tired, if not more so, than we are."
“So?” Becky shot back. “We’re paying. She’s paid to take care of us.”
Kelly looked meaningfully at me, then resumed the former conversation.
Kelly and Becky went off after dinner to explore the old building. Alison excused herself. Kelly again tried to invite her, but Alison shook her head and went to bed.
I sat down in front of the fire and invited Kirk and Laurence to join me in a brandy. We started talking about our businesses – about how difficult it was to make a decent living, what with Wal-Mart and the Chinese. It seemed Kirk's furniture business had gone through the same hard times that many people we sold machine tools to had experienced. Like them, Kirk’s business had made the same changes – a decision to strive for quality and aim at the upper end of the market. Restructuring had been hard. “I hated firing people. I'd gone to school with some of them.” He shook his head and picked up his drink. “It was tough on my marriage too. I wasn't married to Becky then."
Afterwards it amazed me how much a man will confide to a couple of strangers he expects he’ll never see again. Kirk told us how he'd grown up with Becky and another girl – Ellie, “the two cutest southern belles you’d ever meet.” The girls were best friends and later, at college, they were roommates. They’d both fallen in love with him. “They did everything else together so I guess falling in love with the same guy was just another thing they shared.” Originally Kirk had favoured Ellie but she’d seemed to fall out of love with him. “Later I found out she just loved Becky too much to stand in her way.”
He took a large sip of his brandy. “I wish she hadn't,” he declared. “Becky and I got married and it wasn’t long before Becky got prissy...bossy. She was a high-maintenance princess.” He sighed. “My parents favoured Becky too. In their eyes she was a princess of a different kind. She was ‘old family’ southern nobility. Her ancestors had been in town since before the civil war. One them was even a major in the Confederate army. They weren't that well off but they had the social standing that our family lacked.
“The South is a peculiar place. Some of them have never got over losing what they call the ‘War Between the States’. Some of the schools teach that the war wasn't about slavery at all. Becky believes that. She’s a member of the Daughters of the Confederacy.
“Heck, what did we know? My granddaddy was a refugee from Latvia after the Second World War. He'd been a cabinet maker back in the old country. He got a job at the saw mill. Becky's granddaddy was a clerk in some government office. He never got his hands dirty. I never saw him outside his home without a tie on.
“My granddaddy started making furniture in his garage while he worked for the lumber company. He wanted to marry my grandmother who was still in Latvia. They’d been sweethearts during the war. You had to pay some kind of tax to the communists in Eastern Europe back then...not just Latvia but everywhere...if you wanted to marry someone and bring them out. So he needed more money. A few years on he was making it full time. The business just boomed. Soon they were rich. But people like Becky's family still looked down on him and then on my Dad too. They weren't just ‘those Balts’...that was bad enough...but they worked in a factory. They were ‘in a trade’.
“Grandpa never minded but my parents did. They wanted so much to be part of the town. They joined Rotary, the Chamber of Commerce, they established parks and gardens. My daddy wanted to run for the county. He was told he had no chance.
“They weren't accepted, and they wanted to be. Years later when I started dating Becky, they were so happy. They saw me marrying Becky as a way to get accepted. Ellie wasn't like that. Her family had no Confederate ancestors. My parents didn't push me but I knew who they preferred and why, and I guess it influenced me.
“Still, Becky and all her friends have some funny ideas. They may say they’re in favour of racial integration and civil rights, but scratch the skin...” He shook his head and drank his brandy.
I thought he had finished his monologue but he went on to tell us how Becky used to humiliate Ellie at church, in the drab store where Ellie worked, in fact wherever she could. One day it seemed it had all gotten too much for Ellie who'd risen up and beaten the crap out of her ex-friend.
That, it seemed, had produced an epiphany. Kirk and Ellie had met, told each other their secrets about Becky and renewed their love. Kirk had divorced Becky and married Ellie.
“But it didn't work out,” he went on. “That was the worst time in the business. I was always worried and distracted. I expected Ellie to do things I'd never asked of Becky. We had almost no sex life – Ellie was too tired after all I'd asked her to do and I was too worried about the business.
“So Becky seduced me back. Thinking I'd go back to how things had been, I made the worst decision of my life. Ellie didn't help either. She’d turned into a real spitfire, fighting other women, playing around. All I needed to do was to treat her little better, the way I should have treated her as my wife...but I didn't. We wound up getting a divorce and I married Becky again. I guess we're happy enough now, but I still can't help thinking what Ellie and I could have been like together.
"Becky’s still high maintenance. That’s what's behind all the trips and tours. Thankfully the firm has turned the corner so we can afford them, and I like travelling with her. But she’s prissy...she's pushy...you saw how she bawled out the waitress earlier.”
He finished his drink and shrugged. “Ah well, I’ve probably spoken out of turn. Here are the ladies, come back.” He stood up. “Sugar, it’s time for me to turn in. Are you coming?” Becky nodded and together they walked off.
A light-skinned African American girl had come back with them. Now Kelly introduced her. “Peter, Laurence...meet Loretta. Becky and I met her while we were exploring the building.”
I smiled and said hello. We made a little small talk, and then Kelly and I decided to turn in too.
The next morning we ate breakfast early, Kelly having ignored my request for a longer sleep. She said there were too many fun and exciting things to do at the resort. She threw a pillow at me when I suggested there were many fun and exciting things to do in bed.
Kelly waved over Kirk and Becky when they came down, then Loretta who introduced us to her husband, Jesse. We all sat down for a hearty meal.
Kelly and Becky resumed their talk – you might call it an argument – from the night before. Kelly fired opened the opening salvo. “As I was saying about Sir Walter Scott, the romantic of trivial sentimentality and muddled thinking...all those gallant knights...the historical vision that was never, actually, very historical? He longed for a golden past, lost in the industrial age, but it was never the
real past that he longed for. Look at
Ivanhoe. What could be more specious than that story, conflating Robin Hood and a knightly tournament, King Richard’s return incognito with Friar Tuck? It’s all just a boy’s story. Not that any boy would want to read it. It’s way too long and too boring."
“It’s not just a boy’s novel,” argued Becky. “Scott wasn’t just writing a romance. He was making some important points about then-contemporary England and Scotland.” She elaborated on her theme, “Firstly, there’s the enmity between Saxon and Norman. Maybe that didn’t exist in the twelfth century...maybe it did. But there certainly
was enmity between the Scots and English, and for much the same reasons as Scott writes about the enmity between the Saxons and the Normans. After the Act of Union, the Scots felt they were oppressed by the English, just as Scott has the Saxons resenting the Normans. It’s allegorical.” Becky clearly knew what she was talking about.
“A good concept, if not historical,” Kelly conceded. “But Scott messed it up. He didn’t even get his Saxon names right. Look at Cedric, for example. It’s a misspelling.”
“Maybe so, but that’s not the point.” Becky returned fire. “Second, you mentioned Richard. Scott’s portrayal of him as a man who loved adventure and pleasure more than he loved the well-being of his subjects isn’t romantic, nor is it the view that was current in Scott’s day, but it
is the view of most serious scholars today.” She took a drink of her coffee.
“Perhaps so, but
Ivanhoe was a model for the Eglington tourney. And that...a whole lot of aristocratic nineteenth century Englishmen dressed up as thirteenth century knights...was hardly accurate,” my girl returned. I was enjoying the cross fire. This was another facet of Kelly's character, one that few people saw. I knew she loved poetry and Kim Curzon had shown me how much Kelly liked theatre, but I'd rarely seen her debate history and literature like this before. This was more like a college seminar than a breakfast discussion at a backwoods resort. Kelly was just as forceful a debater as she was a fighter. "Many wrong ideas came from
Ivanhoe.” Kelly leaned forward, her remaining breakfast forgotten as she spoke. Her eyes shone brightly.”
“Bit of a washout...literally,” Alison broke in. “The site was flooded out. It's harsh to say it wasn't accurate. It was the first time there had ever been any kind of medieval re-enactment.”
