Page 27 of The Six Murders of Daphne St Clair
Chapter Nineteen
RUTH: You met Andy Warhol? Wow, he’s so famous.
DAPHNE: If you lived in New York as long as I did, and spent the kind of money I spent, you met them all: Truman Capote, Mia Farrow, Frank Sinatra. My life story’s the history of the twentieth century.
RUTH: A nice little chunk of the twenty-first century as well.
DAPHNE: Ah well, I don’t count the part I was in Florida for. Florida’s where history goes to die. Anyways, there I was in 1968, single, beautiful, and being invited to a different party every night.
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RUTH: Sounds expensive though, especially for someone living off an inheritance. I would imagine, anyways. . .
DAPHNE: Yeah, you lost your grandmother right? She didn’t leave you any cash?
RUTH: No, she didn’t have much. Mostly old newspapers and a lot of stuff from her ex-husband. She was a bit obsessed with him because he left her.
DAPHNE: And you’re not in your father’s will. So it sounds like you’ll never get a big inheritance.
RUTH: Definitely not. There was a time when I thought. . . but no.
DAPHNE: Hmm. . .
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RUTH: Anyways, you sound like you were really burning through that inheritance. What were you planning to do when it ran out?
DAPHNE: Find another man before it was too late. It’s an unusual form of financial planning, but it works.
RUTH: So. . . David?
DAPHNE: David was in New York for work and from Day One I could tell that he was decent.
Let’s just say he was that one rich man who was actually going to make it into heaven.
We had a swell time, and he extended his visit because he’d fallen hard for me.
I would catch him looking at me with a kind of wonder on his face as if he couldn’t believe his good luck.
RUTH: Did he know you had three children?
DAPHNE: Yep. Sometimes we brought them on dates. It’s hard, isn’t it? Finding a man who will accept a woman with a body count?
RUTH: Oh. . . I see, you mean the kids! Yeah, it is. My mom was pretty much single until I grew up.
DAPHNE: Is she married now?
RUTH: She’s seeing someone, has been for a few years. It’s good; he helps her. Her health’s. . . not so good so he does the driving and a lot of housework.
DAPHNE: Sounds like a keeper. David was great with the kids.
By that time, James was eleven and the twins were six.
One day David took us to Coney Island, and we rode roller coasters and ate ice cream on the beach.
At the end of his visit, he popped the question in the oyster bar in Grand Central Station, which no New Yorker would have done because that station was a shithole in the Sixties.
He asked me to come home with him to Vermont, said that he’d be a father to the children, and I wouldn’t have to worry about money.
He really gave me the hard sell, like a vacuum cleaner salesman being shown the door.
RUTH (shocked): And you agreed to the marriage? And the move? Just like that?
DAPHNE: Look, people didn’t spend decades hemming and hawing about marriage back in the day, they just slapped a ring on and got on with life.
Besides, David must have caught me on a raw day because I was starting to think that maybe my problem was all the high living.
Sure, I hated small-town life when I was growing up, but I was poor .
Being rich out there had to be more fun.
RUTH: Well, it certainly couldn’t hurt.
DAPHNE: There’s never a bad place to be rich. You grew up here, right?
RUTH: Yeah.
DAPHNE: I gotta tell you, you should get out of Florida. It’s holding you back. This is where you retire, not where you find success. You should be somewhere buzzy like—
RUTH: Don’t say New York.
DAPHNE: New York!
RUTH: The solution to everything is not New York! I’m not ready to leave Florida; there’s still things I’m trying to work out. And my mom lives here. But tell me about you and David.
DAPHNE: Well, we got married in New York and then we moved north to Leosville, Vermont.
I loved New York, but David would have never lived there.
And I wanted to give my kids the best childhood, all the happiness denied to me.
I guess I was swept up by the Norman Rockwell picture he’d painted me of the children playing in the apple orchard as I sat in the sunshine with a gin rickey and a Vogue .
RUTH: To be fair, that does sound nice. Although I will have to google what a gin rickey is. So, how did the kids react?
DAPHNE: Well, they were shocked at first, but David promised the twins horseback riding lessons and James a dog, and they came around.
Besides, they already loved David. The twins had never known their father and Geoffrey had been more like a shitty roommate to my son.
David was so grateful for a family too. He was infertile because of a teenage case of the mumps, and he’d always wanted kids.
I’d pulled off the triple crown: finding an unmarried man with a good job, great house, and who was excited to be a stepdad.
RUTH: Yeah, that does seem like a rare find.
DAPHNE: And I’ve only made them more endangered.
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RUTH: Have you ever broken up a marriage?
DAPHNE: Why? Is that where you draw the line? Killing my husbands is fine but they better have been single when I met them?
RUTH: I’m just wondering. . .
DAPHNE: Just wondering if I’m like your mom?
RUTH (irritated): My mom didn’t break up a marriage. She was just a young woman and he was her boss. And she wasn’t a homewrecker; he never left his wife.
DAPHNE: Okay, okay, calm down. So, your mom was an unsuccessful homewrecker, big deal. And I wouldn’t call you nothing . And yes, I dated a few married men but I preferred men with fewer financial commitments. I didn’t want to hold someone’s hand through a legal battle.
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“This is the house,” David said, opening the car door for me.
I stepped out and craned my neck up. The house was blue with white trim, three stories with a sharply angled roof.
It was freshly painted and gleamed as if someone had spit-polished it.
Everything was pristine, from the matching red tartan curtains in every window to the manicured flower gardens beyond the little white gate.
“It’s quite the house,” I murmured. He smiled as he began to pull suitcases out of the trunk. My children got out and stood next to me, staring up at the house in awe.
“Are we the only ones who live here?” James asked.
I smiled. “Yes, darling, it’s not like New York. People don’t have apartments here. Although to be fair, most people don’t have houses like this,” I said.
“This house has been in my family for over a hundred years,” David said.
“Or should I say, our family,” he said tentatively, squeezing James’s shoulder.
My son smiled up at him and David beamed back.
I could see why he was glad to have a family now, a single man would have rattled through a place like this, unable to make enough movement and noise to bring the house to life.
“Welcome home,” David whispered in my ear, taking my hand and leading me up the stairs. I couldn’t help smiling. Not bad for a farmgirl born in a shack.
The next day, I decided to take the kids to the playground.
I was walking hand in hand with James. The twins were following sullenly behind, intentionally kicking the sidewalk with every step to scuff their shoes.
We walked in the long shadows of the houses, the street silent around us.
It was unsettling, as if everyone lay dead behind their doors, sprawled out on freshly vacuumed carpets and soap-scented bedspreads.
I was used to a dogpile of car horns, angry voices slipping out of window cracks, the metallic grinding of a city constantly erecting itself.
The playground was livelier and James breathed a sigh of relief to see other children running around and shouting.
A group of Stepford wives had congregated by the benches.
They were dressed like Easter eggs, all soft pastels and gentle patterns, with wasp waists that meant they must have girdles surgically attached.
I was wearing a black miniskirt and a striped top with a pair of very expensive boots.
I looked like a brunette Brigitte Bardot, all boobs and legs, but with a better face.
Unfortunately, Doris Day still reigned supreme here.
I lit a cigarette and watched, idly, as three women detached themselves from the flock and cruised over to me.
They looked me up and down and smiled, but I could see in their eyes the grudging acknowledgment that I was beautiful and they were merely decorated.
I’ve never had a problem admitting I was attractive.
In life, you have to be honest about your strengths and weaknesses or you’ll waste your time trying to be a brain surgeon when you’re as dumb as a bag of hammers.
“Hello, we’ve been waiting to meet you!” one of the women exclaimed, as if I had made some mistake by failing to find them.
“You’re the new Mrs. Priestly aren’t you?” another asked, her eyes fixed on my wedding ring.
“I am!” I said brightly, trying to convey that special newlywed excitement at hearing my married name. I’d already had so many names at that point that I felt like replying: ‘I don’t know. Am I?’
I gestured at the children to go and play.
Diane and Rose ran off, hand in hand, and were instantly surrounded by other children who were fascinated by them being identical.
It was always the same. Whether it was kids or adults, everyone went crazy for the twins.
They accepted this adoration, like they accepted everything they were given.