I smiled. Actually, I did feel better, maybe because I was happy to discover that Susan and I were still in touch.
Susan threw her arm around my shoulders, which I find very tomboyish, yet somehow more intimate than an embrace. She said, 'I wish it were another woman. I could take care of that damned quickly.'
I smiled. 'Some attractive young women take me seriously.'
'Oh, I'm sure of that.'
'Right.'
We left the gazebo and walked on a path that led into a treed hollow that lay south of the mansion. I said, 'You're not always a bitch. And I don't dislike your father. I hate his guts.'
'Good for you. He feels the same way about you.'
'Excellent.'
We continued our walk into the wooded hollow, Susan's arm still thrown over my shoulders. I'm not usually into self-pity or self-analysis, but sometimes you have to stop and think about things. Not only for yourself, but also so you don't hurt other people.
I said, 'By the way, the Bishop stopped by last Saturday. George told him I wasn't receiving.'
'George said that to Bishop Eberly?'
'No, to Bishop Frank.'
'Oh…' She laughed. 'That Bishop.' She thought a moment. 'He'll be back.'
'You think so?' I added, 'I wonder what he wanted.'
Susan replied, 'You'll find out.'
'Don't sound so ominous, Susan. I think he just wants to be a friendly neighbour.'
'For your information, I've called the Eltons and the DePauws, and they haven't heard from him or seen him.'
The Eltons own Windham, the estate that borders Alhambra to the north, and the DePauws have a big colonial and ten acres, not actually an estate, directly across from Alhambra's gates. I said, 'Then it appears as if Mr Bellarosa has singled us out for neighbourly attention.'
'Well, you met him. Maybe you said something encouraging.'
'Hardly.' And I still wondered how he knew who I was and what I looked like.
That was upsetting.
We came out of the trees at a place where there was a small footpath, paved with moss-covered stone. I steered Susan toward the path and felt her resist for a moment, then yield. We walked up the stone path, which was covered by an old rose trellis, and at the end of the path was the charred ruin of the gingerbread playhouse. The remaining beams and rafters supported climbing ivy that had crept up from the stone fireplace chimney. The fireplace itself was intact with a mantel and a large black kettle still hanging from a wrought-iron arm. In true fairy-tale fashion, there was, and had been as I recalled before the fire, something sinister about the cute little cottage.
Susan asked, 'Why did you want to walk here?'
'I thought since you were analysing my head, I'd like to know why you never come here.'
'How do you know I don't?'
'Because I've never seen you walk here, and I've never seen a hoof print near this place.'
'It's sad to see it this way.'
'But we never came here before the fire, never played our games here.'
She didn't reply.
'I suppose I can understand not wanting to have sex in a playhouse with childhood memories.'
Susan said nothing.
I walked up to what had been the front door, but Susan didn't follow. I could make out a flower box that had fallen from a window ledge, pieces of stained glass and melted lead, and the burned skeleton of a bed and mattress that had fallen through from the second floor. I asked, 'Well, are the memories good or bad?'
'Both.'
'Tell me the good ones.'
She took a few steps toward the house, knelt, and picked up a shard of pottery. She said, 'I had sleepovers here in the summer. A dozen girls, up all night, giggling, laughing, singing, and deliciously terrified at every noise outside.' I smiled.
She approached the house and surveyed the blackened timbers, which still emitted an odour ten years after the fire. 'Lots of good memories.' I'm glad. Let's go.' I took her arm.
'Do you want to know about the bad things?'
'Not really.'
'The servants used to come here sometimes and have parties. And sex.' She added, 'I realized it was sex when I was about thirteen. They used to lock the door. I wouldn't sleep in that bed again.'
I didn't respond.
'I mean, it was my house. A place that I thought belonged to me.'
'I understand.'
'And… one day… I was about fifteen, I came here and the door wasn't locked and I went inside and up the stairs to get something I'd left in the bedroom… and this couple was lying there, naked, asleep…' She glanced at me. 'I guess I was traumatized.' She forced a smile. 'Today, I don't know if a fifteen-year-old girl would be traumatized by that. I mean, how could they be? You see naked people on TV doing it.'
'True.' But I couldn't believe that still bothered her. There was more to it, and I sensed she was going to tell me what it was.
She stayed silent awhile before saying, 'My mother used to come here with someone.'
'I see.' I wondered if it was her mother that she'd seen in bed, and with whom.
She walked across the littered floorboards and stopped beside the burned bed.
'And I lost my virginity here.'
I didn't respond.
She turned toward me and smiled sadly. 'Some playhouse.'
'Let's go.'
She walked past me, onto the path between the rose bushes. I came up beside her.
I said, 'Was it you who burned the place down?'
'Yes.'
I didn't know what to say, so I said, 'Sorry.'
'It's all right.'
I put my arm around her and said in a lighter tone, 'Did I ever tell you about that Good Friday when I was a kid and the sky suddenly darkened?' 'Several times. Tell me how you lost your virginity.'
'I told you.'
'You told me three different versions. I'll bet I was your first lay.'
'Maybe. But not my last.'
She punched me in the ribs. 'Wise guy.'
We walked in silence back through the hollow, and when I ran my fingers over her cheek, I discovered she was crying.
'Everything's going to be all right,' I assured her.
'I'm too old for fairy tales,' she informed me.
At Susan's suggestion we turned toward the plum orchard, the so-called sacred grove, and made our way toward the Roman love temple. More than half the plum trees were dead or dying, and each spring there were fewer blossoms, but still, the air was perfumed with their scent.
We came into the clearing where the round marble temple stood, and without speaking we mounted the steps and I swung open the big brass door. The sun was low on the horizon and shone in on a slant through the opening in the domed roof, illuminating a section of the erotic carvings on the lintels. Susan walked across the marble floor and stood before the naked statues of Venus and the big Roman male. The statues of pink marble were seated side by side on an uncarved slab of black stone, and though they were in a partial embrace, about to kiss, the view from the waist down was of full frontal nudity. The man had forgotten his fig leaf, and his penis was in an excited
