Lady of Fortune Read Online Free Page A

led Effie on his arm up to Alisdair’s grave, and she stood beside it for almost ten minutes, while Carl stood a little way off with his cap tucked under his arm, and winked at a young woman in a charcoal-grey suit and a flowered hat.
    Effie had erected for Alisdair a square plinth of white Italian marble, on which stood the nude statue of a muscular young man, in bronze, with a sword and helmet fallen at his feet, and his face raised sadly but defiantly to the sky. The statue had stylized curly hair, as curly as Alisdair’s and as Merritt’s. His chest was defined with well-exercised muscles, and his thighs were as convex as those of a Greek discus-thrower. His penis was half-swollen, as if his own defeat had stirred in him a perverse sensuality. That was Alisdair all over.
    Effie said, ‘Oh, Alisdair,’ out loud, and Carl glanced around at her for a moment because he thought, mistakenly, that she was calling for him. But when she said mournfully, ‘Oh, Merritt,’ he looked away.
    Effie closed her eyes, and she could picture Merritt as if he were standing next to her. The way he used to run his hand back across his hair and then give a tiny, self-satisfied smile. That funny sideways look he had always given her when he was suspicious of some financial deal that she was proposing. She could hear his laugh, and feel the touch of his hand. She could see him now, sitting at a table on the verandah of the Silverado Country Club, with the golf course and the mountains behind him, and the summer flowers nodding beside his chair. She could see his white silk Italian shirt, very Rodeo Drive, with the cuff casually rolled back over his darkly-suntanned arm. His gleaming gold wristwatch by Patek Philipe, with a face of closely-set diamonds. And only two rings on his fingers. One, his fraternity ring from college. The other, a huge brown diamond set in gold claws, which Effie had given to him after their success in Saudi Arabia. Small brown diamonds are usually worth very little, but this one weighed 44.2 karats, and had been graded flawless. Besides, Effie had told him, it was the exact colour of his eyes. It had been worth paying $780,000 for a diamond which was the exact colour of his eyes.
    â€˜Well, Alisdair,’ Effie said quietly, to the nude bronze man, ‘you still managed to disappoint me, didn’t you, even aftereverything you promised? After everything you said! My children will carry on your fortune, you said. My heirs will make sure you’re immortal. Well, I can’t bear you any grudges, my dear. I don’t suppose it was really your fault, and I was never a girl to bear a grudge. Herr Hitler called me frivolous. Can you imagine that? “Effie,” he used to say, “
du bist so schõn, aber du bist so leichtfertig.
” That’s what he used to say. But he wasn’t really right, was he? You were pretty, too – prettier than me, in your way; and you were frivolous. And look what it earned you. A tomb, my darling, at thirty-three. Can you imagine that? Merritt will be thirty-four this year. You are younger than your own grandson.’
    She found, strangely, that she was crying. She took a small lace handkerchief out of her pocketbook and dabbed at her eyes, beneath the secrecy of her veil.
    â€˜Oh, you were such a fool, Alisdair,’ she said, more to herself now than to the statue. ‘You were such a fool to die so soon. I don’t know whether I feel sorrier for you than I do for myself.’
    Carl, with discreet rubber-soled steps, stepped forward and took Effie’s arm. He didn’t attempt to tug her away from the graveside. He was only supporting her, firmly and wholesomely, while she wept. But it wasn’t long before she put away her handkerchief, and closed her purse, and said bravely, ‘We’d better be getting back. There’s no point in bringing on heatstrokes for that dead young idiot.’
    â€˜No, Miss