Nantucket Read online

  “That’s a handsome offer,” said Joe.

  Meaning, “we’ll see,” said Andrew to himself. Joe was eager for the deal. Letting Shiva entertain his wife was no problem, so long as he got the patents. He’d even go to India himself, if they did a deal. Closing party, maybe. Lotta money in India. That was how Joe’s brain worked.

  “Do you have your own jungle?” Cynthia asked Shiva.

  “I think you could say that,” said Rosemary, but Cynthia ignored her.

  “We tend to call it a forest,” said Shiva.

  “With temples?” said Cynthia.

  “Quite a few,” said Shiva. He turned to Andrew. “But Prospero, my friend, I want to see all of your magical island.”

  Joe and Cynthia looked confused.

  “Hero of Shakespeare’s The Tempest,” said Rosemary. “Shiva’s unnaturally fond of Shakespeare.”

  “No, Rosemary,” said Shiva, as if admonishing a child. “Naturally fond. How can anyone fail to love Shakespeare’s plays?”

  “Well, I’ve read them all, and some are distinctly better than others,” said Rosemary.

  “She’s read them all,” said Shiva, mimicking his wife. “And she could write you a very good paper on Hamlet. But she does not feel them as I do.”

  “What he means,” said Rosemary, “is that Shakespeare’s characters are kings and princes, and that being a prince himself, Shiva responds to the plays in a visceral way, whereas Rosemary – being merely the daughter of an earl, and only the fourteenth of the title, making him a virtual parvenu – that poor Rosemary, despite her commendable mastery of the apparatus of scholarship, can never really appreciate the plays.”

  “Are you really a prince?” said Cynthia, cutting Rosemary off.

  “I fear I am,” said Shiva.

  “Haven’t you ever slept with a prince, Cynthia?” said Rosemary.

  Cynthia ignored the question, but Joe responded: “She’ll never tell, you know. She’s a perpetual virgin – acts like every orgasm is a surprise.”

  A flicker of embarrassment crossed Cynthia’s face. Sally came to her rescue. “I wish I could do that,” she said.

  “It gets old,” said Joe. For a moment, no one spoke, and then Joe went on: “What I like, since we’re talking about sex, and I suppose we should, Shiva – it’s a way of getting acquainted when you think about it, a way of letting down your guard – what I like is a bit of struggle followed by enthusiastic participation. If a girl’s got some…preferences, she ought to own up. If a man’s got some preferences, the girl ought to figure out what they are. Don’t you agree, Shiva? Andrew?”

  “Would that life were so simple,” said Shiva. “But let’s talk about this later – man to man.”

  “Oh, please,” said Rosemary.

  A casual observer might have concluded, Andrew told himself, that Shiva was way more sophisticated than Joe, that he was making fun of the American, even. But Andrew knew better. Someone who knew what Joe had accomplished as a businessman might have concluded that Joe was playing dumb to get Shiva to drop his guard. In Andrew’s view, that wasn’t true either. They each knew exactly what the other was doing. They were just warming up – like tennis players hitting balls back and forth before a match.

  “Caliban,” said Sally, as if on cue. “Andrew said you wanted to meet him, Shiva.” Cathy must have told her that, Andrew realised; he didn’t remember doing so himself

  “See him,” said Shiva. “I’d want to keep my distance. I have no need to meet a monster, which I think would mean engaging with him.”

  “One engages if the monster is inside oneself,” said Andrew.

  Rosemary turned and looked at him. “As it usually is,” she said. It felt like she’d noticed him for the first time.

  “I’ve never felt I had a monster inside me,” said Joe.

  “But you do,” said Sally. “Everyone does.”

  “I don’t,” said Cynthia.

  “Of course you do,” said Rosemary. “Cathy is right. Everyone harbours a monster. Monsters are a culture’s metaphorical representation of its desires and fears.”

  “And good sex,” said Sally, “means bringing the monster out – talking to him, talking about him sometimes, parading him even.”

  “And you’re good at that?” said Joe.

  “Some people have thought so,” said Sally, glancing at Andrew. “But going back to Caliban…”

  “You’re going to tell us that Moby Dick is Nantucket’s Caliban,” said Rosemary.

  “Well, I wasn’t,” said Sally.

  “But it’s an interesting idea,” said Andrew, responding to Rosemary. “The whale is certainly present in spirit…”

  “I was going to say,” said Sally, refusing to let Andrew divert the conversation, “that Caliban is pure sexual energy, which some cultures fear and some accept.”

  “Prospero,” said Rosemary, “being a very wise man, has Caliban under his control. Shakespeare is saying that sex, like power, is what you make of it.”

  “Or what you let it make of you,” said Sally.

  “Ahab’s obsession makes him a monster,” said Andrew. “It makes him just as much a monster as the whale is. Obsession deforms us all, though some more than others.” The thought briefly visited him that if obsession made monsters, the Governor of Massachusetts qualified. He’d been running for office since he was twelve.

  There was also the thought that Sally had an agenda. Just what it was, Andrew couldn’t say. But she’d clearly brought Caliban into the conversation in order to talk about sex – and to tease Andrew. She had to know he’d be wondering what would happen later that night.

  “My obsession is my audience,” said Cynthia. “I want to please them every single day, so they will tune in the next day. I don’t think that makes me deformed.”

  “And it does not,” said Shiva courteously.

  “Lotta people think I’m obsessed with business,” said Joe.

  “I try not to be,” said Shiva, “but sometimes I have no choice.”

  Sally started to clear away the salad plates. Andrew was going to have to figure her out. She knew The Tempest, which he would not have predicted. She believed in parading monsters.

  Cynthia got up to help, which was also unexpected. Maybe there was something she wanted to say to Sally. Like, “Stay away from my husband.” Joe was clearly intrigued.

  Rosemary evidently didn’t wait tables. With the others occupied in the kitchen, she was suddenly the only woman at a table with three men. It seemed to Andrew that she was somehow emphasising that point by being unnaturally still. It was impossible not to look at her. She could never be possessed, only desired. She accepted observation in the same way Andrew accepted Cathy’s failure to give him as much sex as he wanted. Except that passivity made Rosemary beautiful and it made Andrew deformed.

  “Does your wife go topless, Andrew?” Shiva said suddenly. “Or perhaps I should ask, what is the custom on magical Nantucket?”

  Andrew didn’t know how to answer. Cathy was a prude, but Sally clearly wasn’t. He couldn’t predict what she’d do.

  “Lady Rosemary does not,” Shiva continued, as if his wife weren’t sitting there. “Doesn’t even sunbathe. Wraps herself up in long sleeves and long trousers with a big floppy hat. You’ll see tomorrow. She claims it has to do with her sensitivity to the sun, but I think it is pure selfishness. Someone as beautiful as Rosemary should be required to show herself from time to time.”

  Andrew had no idea where this was going. He didn’t know what to do. He didn’t like the idea of Rosemary being put on display, like Hester in The Scarlet Letter, as if her beauty were a crime. Hester hadn’t had to disrobe, of course. It was Puritan New England. She’d just had to embroider a red “A” on her blouse. Perhaps Shiva had had something tattooed on Rosemary and that was why she kept covered up. What a horrible, fascinating idea.

  Andrew’s imagination changed religions and became a many-headed Hindu god. Shiva was a prince. Not that many gener
ations ago, Lady Rosemary would have been his absolute possession, to do with as he wished. He came from a long line of men who had exercised such power. And women who had leapt on their husbands’ funeral pyres. Rosemary’s stillness was a reminder of that history. It was like a literary reference that gave depth and resonance to a text – only it was a gesture rather than words, and its impact was on Shiva and the life they shared. But was Rosemary’s intention to give Shiva pleasure or to mock him? She did not strike Andrew as someone inclined to self-sacrifice.

  Shiva began to laugh. For a moment Andrew thought the Indian had read his mind, but he seemed to be addressing Joe. “You said we should talk about sex as a way of becoming acquainted.”

  “Well, since you ask,” said Joe, flustered for just a moment, “I don’t know if Cyn goes topless. She never has when I’ve been around.”

  “Sin Goes Topless,” Rosemary repeated. “Sounds like the title of an X-rated movie.” The threat had gone out of the conversation, which was a relief. Or maybe it was Andrew’s imagination that had calmed down.

  “Yeah, funny about her name, isn’t it?” said Joe.

  “I think of her as ‘Cynthia Jane,’ of course,” said Rosemary, but offered no further explanation.

  Before Andrew could question her, Sally and Cynthia came in from the kitchen, carrying red and yellow plates of food. Cathy had gone to some trouble finding dinnerware that was both casual and beautiful – but not French provincial, which she insisted had become a cliché. “I thought leg of lamb tonight and lobster tomorrow,” said the hostess.

  “Sweetheart?” said Andrew. It felt quite daring calling Sally that. “Sweetheart, Shiva wants to know if this is a topless beach. I said I didn’t know. There are so few houses at this end of the island.”

  “It’s whatever we want it to be,” said Sally, as if it were a question people often asked. “Personally, I find topless jolly. But I’ll keep mine on if it troubles any of you.” She set down three plates and went back towards the kitchen without waiting for a response.

  “Cynthia?” said Shiva. It occurred to Andrew that the Indian was actually quite interested in the answer.

  The glamorous Texan reached across the table and set down a lime-green bowl full of tossed salad. “You’ll have to wait and see, won’t you?” she said, not looking at him. She’s decided innocent won’t work, Andrew told himself.

  “Wine, please, Andrew,” said Sally. He got up and went to the sideboard, and then turned around to ask who was drinking what. Whoever was in charge of this party, it didn’t feel like he was. It felt like losing control when he was first learning to ski. He’d never mastered skiing. Cathy was much better at it.

  “Try the cabernet, Joe,” said Sally.

  “I believe I will,” he said.

  “Same for me, Andrew,” said Sally.

  “Same for all of us,” said Rosemary, “and if Cyn and Shiva choose to leave it, that’s their loss.” She paused. “I like that for a movie title too: ‘Sin and Shiva,’ the Bollywood classic.”

  It occurred to Andrew that Rosemary was authorising her husband to have a little fun with Joe’s wife. He had no idea whether that would be helpful or disastrous to his deal. You had to accept that billionaires did that sort of thing. Andrew lived in a different world, even if he had visiting privileges.

  There was a lot of passing glasses and distributing dinner plates and handing round the salad and the platter of lamb and roast potatoes. “Family style,” said Sally. “It suits the beach.”

  “Yes,” said Cynthia. “Imagine if we were a family – six sisters and brothers.”

  “We’d argue,” said Shiva. Andrew recognised that as a reference to his disputes with his half-brothers. Joe had to get comfortable with the state of that litigation. He needed to arrange for the two of them to have a walk on the beach.

  “If we were sisters and brothers,” said Joe, “we wouldn’t be allowed to fuck.”

  “What a pity that would be,” said Sally, giving Andrew a sly look. We have a secret, her smile said. Secrets are sexy. And we don’t really know where things are going. It occurred to Andrew that if he were the sort of man a lot of his business partners were, “intimacy without sex” would have a short half-life.

  “So Cathy,” said Joe, “how did you and Andrew meet?” Alarm bells went off in Andrew’s head. Would Sally be able to make a history up for the two of them?

  “We met in 1983,” said Sally, which thankfully was correct.

  “You sound like Philip Larkin,” said Rosemary.

  Andrew knew the reference but the rest of the table looked blank. “‘Sexual intercourse began,’” he quoted, “‘in 1963.’”

  “‘Which was rather late for me,’” Rosemary continued.

  “‘Between the end of the Chatterley ban,’” said Andrew.

  “‘And the Beatles’ first LP,’” said Rosemary.

  “That’s actually a poem?” said Cynthia.

  “Alleged to be,” said Shiva. “I think it lacks grace and is more like a limerick.”

  “That’s the point,” said Rosemary.

  “The point of what?” said Cynthia.

  “I believe,” said Shiva, “– correct me if I’m wrong, Rosemary – the grittiness of sex was one of Larkin’s themes.”

  “Well, it began for me in Point Pleasant, on the Jersey shore, and I thought it was marvellous.”

  That was generous of Sally. Helpful, in fact. It never hurt to have a client think you were a stud. Andrew hadn’t felt like a stud in quite a while, actually, but that wasn’t the point. The point was what your clients believed – or even better, assumed without really thinking about it.

  “I thought it was marvellous too,” said Andrew. “My parents had a house at the shore. Cathy was working as a nanny, a few blocks away.”

  “He was pointed out to me,” Sally continued. “He’d just graduated from Harvard. He was taking a few weeks of vacation before starting work at some super-prestigious firm on Wall Street. I was nineteen and about to be a sophomore at Smith. I wanted to meet him so I walked into him on the beach carrying three ice-cream cones.”

  “And offered to lick him off,” said Rosemary.

  “Not in so many words,” said Sally.

  “I asked her when she went off duty,” said Andrew, which was true. Sally had said Cathy told her “everything,” and perhaps she had. “We went to a movie.”

  “And afterwards we walked on the beach in the moonlight,” said Sally. “The sand was still warm.”

  “I was unprepared,” said Andrew.

  “I said I didn’t care. I was nineteen. I thought it was time I became a woman.”

  “A commendable attitude,” said Shiva.

  “We got married in August,” said Sally, “and moved into a tiny apartment in Brooklyn. I never went back to Smith.”

  “And I’ve been working my ass off ever since,” said Andrew, and was suddenly embarrassed. Telling billionaires how hard you’ve worked could sound like whining. For a moment no one said anything.

  “So your daughter was conceived under the stars,” said Shiva. “Does she know how beautiful that is?”

  “I fear not,” said Sally.

  “Perhaps she’ll come to see that as she gets older,” said Shiva. “She’s how old now?”

  “Twenty.”

  “So you’re what, Andrew? I assume you worked for a couple of years before business school.”

  “Forty-two,” said Andrew. “I didn’t go to business school. I went straight to work after college. I was in something called the ‘analyst program’ – a form of slave labour. If you did well enough, they made you an associate after three years.” He felt like he was being interviewed for a job or considered for membership in a club.

  “And partner nine years after that,” said Joe, who as always had done his homework.

  “Right,” said Andrew, “except that the firm went public in the nineties, so we aren’t really partners, even though we use the word.”
/>   “You look younger than forty-two,” said Rosemary.

  “Thank you – I guess,” said Andrew.

  “Were you a partner when the firm went public?” said Joe.

  “Yes,” said Andrew.

  “So you made some money,” said Joe.

  “I was a pretty junior partner,” said Andrew. “But yes.”

  “And all you’ve done since leaving college is crunch numbers and have ideas?” said Shiva.

  “Pretty good ideas,” said Joe.

  “Not a bad life,” said Shiva.

  It would have been the moment for one of Andrew’s guests to share some personal history, but the phone rang. “Probably a wrong number,” said Andrew as he stood up and went into the kitchen. His heart was pounding.

  It wasn’t Cathy, or for that matter Eleanor. It was a man’s voice. It was one of the infuriating men who ran the firm, newly named as head of investment banking and therefore theoretically Andrew’s boss. “I’ve just been told you’re not coming to the client outing tomorrow,” said the man. “And what area code is this? I found the number on the phone list but it doesn’t say. And your mobile phone must be turned off.”

  “Nantucket,” said Andrew, “and no, I’m not.” He realised he’d left his mobile upstairs.

  “Could I ask why not?”

  “I’m entertaining clients here.”

  “Well, it’s very dislocating of you. I will have to rearrange the tennis. I wanted you and Cathy – that’s your wife’s name, right? – I wanted you to partner with the Ellises. We’re trying to get his next equity offering – and damn it, what clients are you entertaining?”

  Andrew named the men in the next room as quietly as he could.

  “Can’t hear you,” said his new boss.

  Andrew tried again.

  “Right. But I wouldn’t have called them clients. Do you even have a fee letter from either of them? That Indian has never signed a fee letter in his life, as I understand it.”