I would grow so familiar.
There weren’t many who could peer down at Papa. Justin Hademak, the crazy Swede, must have been six and a half foot or more. He was a giant. ‘Misster Doyles?’ he repeated. ‘Iss it you?’
‘Aha!’ exclaimed my father, joyously, noticing him at last. ‘Saved by the bell. So to speak.’
‘You are Mr Doyles?’
‘Marcus Doyle. At your service. Jolly clever of you to spot us. You’re rather late. But no matter.’
‘Of courses.’ The giant bowed his head – it was absurdly formal – and flashed an unlikely smile. ‘I apologise. Unfortunately, at the moment of leaving, the mistress suddenly required the motor-car . . . with utmost urgency ...’
‘Don’t think about it for a second, old chap,’ my amiable father assured him. ‘When a lady requires a motor-car, she requires a motor-car!’
‘I am sent by Mr de Saulles,’ he continued, my father’s charm or humour – or whatever it was – quite lost on him, ‘but I am right to think you are indeed the portrait painter? It is important I locate him correctly. You are the renowned portrait painter from England, coming to America on the appointment of Mr John Longer de Saulles?’
‘I do solemnly declare that I am he,’ said my father. ‘Back me up, Lola, won’t you?’ he stage-whispered to me, above all the racket. ‘I’m not certain he believes me.’
‘And you are the daughter?’ said Mr Hademak.
I nodded.
‘You know, I’m almost certain de Saulles sent me a bit of paper, with all the particulars and so on, and I think he may even have mentioned you . . . a tall gentleman . . . ’ My father was patting his pockets again. ‘ . . . only it seems to have disappeared. Lola, do you suppose I may have given it to you?’
There was no opportunity to reply. Mr Hademak had taken a brief look at our travelling trunk and, in one easy swoop, bent from his freakish height, lifted it onto his shoulders and lurched headlong into the crowd. We had little choice but to end our conversation and follow him.
‘I am to put Mr Doyle into a motor vehicle and send him to Mr de Saulles in the city,’ the man shouted behind him. ‘Mr de Saulles is most impatient to see you again, Mr Doyle. You are to lunch together at Sherry’s, and afterward to join Mrs de Saulles for dinner at The Box . . . And the daughter . . . ’ he glanced back at me, not with any hostility, or with the slightest hint of interest ‘ . . . Mr de Saulles says you are to drive with me to The Box directly. The mistress wants . . . that is to say she doesn’t want . . . ’ He tailed off. ‘You are supposed,’ he tried again, ‘to begin your employment at once.’
‘To begin my . . . ’ I think I may even have laughed. ‘Papa?’ I turned to him. He looked away. ‘My employment . . . as what?’
‘Not quite employment . . . ’ my father muttered sheepishly. ‘Only the poor little chap’s got a Spanish accent, Lola. Y’see . . . That’s the thing. And he’s only four. Or nine. Or something frightful. He terribly needs someone to talk to . . . And then there’s dear Mrs de Saulles, hardly much older than you are, Lola, miles away from her native land and abysmally lonely most of the time. It’ll only be for a couple of months . . . ’
I didn’t say anything. I was too shocked – I had no idea what to say. I remember my silence seemed to annoy him. ‘Really, Jennifer, darling,’ he began to sound slightly peevish, ‘there’s no need to pull that long face. They’re excellent people. My friend Jack de Saulles is . . . top notch. And Mrs de Saulles comes from one of the most spectacular families in Chile. In fact I have a feeling her uncle might even be President. For example. And if he isn’t he certainly ought to be. In any case, darling, even if he isn’t, I don’t think you should complain when I arranged it all so nicely for you . . . Entirely because I was so utterly convinced you would enjoy yourself . . . ’
‘So . . . But we shall be living in different places?’
I could feel him itching to slide away from it all. How he longed for this conversation to be over! ‘Yes and no. That is to say, I shall be in the city mostly, at their apartment. But it’s all part of the same family. And I shall be travelling to see you during the week, of course. Or as often as I can . . . It’s really not far at all from New York. Only an hour or so by the train, Jack tells me . . . In any case it’s hardly up to me, is it?’
It seems ridiculous, I suppose, because I was a grown woman, with a father who was constantly broke, and of course I hadn’t a penny of my own – but it had never passed through my head, never, not even for a moment, that I should play any role during our great American adventure beyond the one I had always played: that is to say, to be hanging about with Papa in a daughterly fashion and occasionally slipping off to fall asleep.
But it was not to be. And why should it have been? No reason. One cannot remain a child for ever. Only I had been his constant companion for as long as I could remember. And the news that we were to separate came as a dreadful shock. I suppose, if I wish anything, I wish he’d had the courage to break the news to me a little earlier, so that I might at least have had time to prepare myself . . . It’s too bad. It doesn’t matter now, in any case. In fact, I am grateful it happened, and not simply because it allowed me to meet Rudy.
However, I was not grateful then. As I stood there on that crazy, bustling, deafening pier, the thought of being apart not just from my home but from the only person in the world I loved, or who loved me, filled me with nothing but a clammy dread. I looked across at Papa – still hoping, I think, that his face might break into one of those wonderful, wicked grins, that he might slap me on the back, as he did sometimes, always much too hard, and laugh, and tell me he was teasing.
But he didn’t look at me. Carefully didn’t look at me, I think. ‘Righty-ho!’ he said. ‘Jolly good. Well, take good care of my little Jennifer, won’t you, Mr . . . Mr . . . ’
‘Hademak. Justin Hademak. From Sweden . . . ’
‘Hademak. Of course you are. From Sweden. How delightful. Lovely. Well, jolly good.’
Mr Hademak put my father into a taxicab. Papa and I kissed each other briefly, without eye contact. I was afraid I would cry. He muttered something – good luck, old girl – something feeble, and not in the least up to the occasion. I didn’t reply. Couldn’t. And then, as he was driven away, he turned back to me.
I remember his expression, I see it now: it was as if he was apologising, and not just for this unfortunate incident but for everything. He looked awful: like someone else entirely – someone so old and so exhausted with the disappointment of himself it allowed me, briefly, to forget my own abandonment, and wonder, for the first time, what might become of him without me. He needed me more than either of us realised, I think. The sight of him, shrinking into the chaos, tore at my heart. It still does. He lifted his hat to me through the glass, and I think he whispered, Sorry. If he did, it was the first and last time . . . He never apologised to me again. Never. And he left me there, alone, with the giant from Sweden.
After Papa had disappeared into the great cloud of the city, Mr Hademak became (if it were possible) even more frantic than previously. Afterwards, when I knew him a little better, I wondered
