Winter of the World

‘Are you crazy? If we walk in there together everyone will guess what we’ve been doing – especially with that dumb grin all over your face.’

Woody tried to stop grinning. ‘Then why don’t you go inside and I’ll wait out here for a minute?’

‘Good idea.’ She walked away.

‘See you tomorrow,’ he called after her.

She did not look back.

(v)

Ursula Dewar had her own small suite of rooms in the old Victorian mansion on Delaware Avenue. There was a bedroom, a bathroom and a dressing room; and after her husband died she had converted his dressing room into a little parlour. Most of the time she had the whole house to herself: Gus and Rosa spent a lot of time in Washington, and Woody and Chuck went to a boarding school. But when they came home she spent a good deal of the day in her own quarters.

Woody went to talk to her on Sunday morning. He was still walking on air after Joanne’s kiss, though he had spent half the night trying to figure out what it had meant. It could signify anything from true love to true drunkenness. All he knew was that he could hardly wait to see Joanne again.

He walked into his grandmother’s room behind the maid, Betty, as she took in the breakfast tray. He liked it that Joanne got angry about the way Betty’s Southern relations were treated. In politics, dispassionate argument was overrated, he felt. People should get angry about cruelty and injustice.

Grandmama was already sitting up in bed, wearing a lace shawl over a mushroom-coloured silk nightgown. ‘Good morning, Woodrow!’ she said, surprised.

‘I’d like to have a cup of coffee with you, Grandmama, if I may.’ He had already asked Betty to bring two cups.

‘This is an honour,’ Ursula said.

Betty was a grey-haired woman of about fifty with the kind of figure that was sometimes called comfortable. She set the tray in front of Ursula, and Woody poured coffee into Meissen cups.

He had given some thought to what he would say, and had marshalled his arguments. Prohibition was over, and Lev Peshkov was now a legitimate businessman, he would contend. Furthermore, it was not fair to punish Daisy because her father had been a criminal – especially since most of the respectable families in Buffalo had bought his illegal booze.

‘Do you know Charlie Farquharson?’ he began.

‘Yes.’ Of course she did. She knew every family in the Buffalo ‘Blue Book’. She said: ‘Would you like a piece of this toast?’

‘No, thank you, I’ve had breakfast.’

‘Boys of your age never have enough to eat.’ She looked at him shrewdly. ‘Unless they’re in love.’

She was on good form this morning.

Woody said: ‘Charlie is kind of under the thumb of his mother.’

‘She kept her husband there, too,’ Ursula said drily. ‘Dying was the only way he could get free.’ She drank some coffee and started to eat her grapefruit with a fork.

‘Charlie came to me last night and asked me to ask you a favour.’

She raised an eyebrow, but said nothing.

Woody took a breath. ‘He wants you to invite Mrs Peshkov to join the Buffalo Ladies Society.’

Ursula dropped her fork, and there was a chime of silver on fine porcelain. As if covering her discomposure, she said: ‘Pour me some more coffee, please, Woody.’

He did her bidding, saying nothing for the moment. He could not recall ever seeing her discombobulated.

She sipped the coffee and said: ‘Why in the name of heaven would Charles Farquharson, or anyone else for that matter, want Olga Peshkov in the Society?’

‘He wants to marry Daisy.’

‘Does he?’

‘And he’s afraid his mother will object.’

‘He’s got that part right.’

‘But he thinks he might be able to talk her around . . .’

‘. . . if I let Olga into the Society.’

‘Then people might forget that her father was a gangster.’

‘A gangster?’

‘Well, a bootlegger at least.’

‘Oh, that,’ Ursula said dismissively. ‘That’s not it.’

‘Really?’ It was Woody’s turn to be surprised. ‘What is it, then?’

Ursula looked thoughtful. She was silent for such a long time that Woody wondered if she had forgotten he was there. Then she said: ‘Your father was in love with Olga Peshkov.’

‘Jesus!’

‘Don’t be vulgar.’

‘Sorry, Grandmama, you surprised me.’

‘They were engaged to be married.’

‘Engaged?’ he said, astonished. He thought for a minute, then said: ‘I suppose I’m the only person in Buffalo who doesn’t know about this.’

She smiled at him. ‘There is a special mixture of wisdom and innocence that comes only to adolescents. I remember it so clearly in your father, and I see it in you. Yes, everyone in Buffalo knows, though your generation undoubtedly regard it as boring ancient history.’

‘Well, what happened?’ Woody said. ‘I mean, who broke it off?’

‘She did, when she got pregnant.’

Woody’s mouth fell open. ‘By Papa?’

‘No, by her chauffeur – Lev Peshkov.’

‘He was the chauffeur?’ This was one shock after another. Woody was silent, trying to take it in. ‘My goodness, Papa must have felt such a fool.’

‘Your Papa was never a fool,’ Ursula said sharply. ‘The only foolish thing he did in his life was to propose to Olga.’