peacocky house, its peacocky people. Well, they were shrinks, so they were playing some sort of mind game, Delia divined, and if as children they had been taught good manners, the lessons hadn’t struck or stuck. They coagulated clannishly, and needed no encouragement to eat or drink; now that they had arrived, the buffet was opened.
Todo and Rufus took Delia to the buffet and heaped her plate with goodies: lobster, shrimps, caviar, crusty bread, indescribably tasty sauces, and the best company in the room. Then, all three plates filled, the three of them repaired to a small table having just three chairs. Ideal for talking, but not yet, she thought, her eyes as busy as her antennae, thrumming on full alert.
Dr. Aristede Melos, Jess’s senior assistant, was a thin, dark man of forty-odd—strange, that nearly all the protagonists were around forty. His face was plain, his expression dour, and his eyes conveniently hidden behind thick-lensed glasses with horn rims. His brand-new wife was the bustling, cheery type, but looking into her pale-grey eyes didn’t inspire much cheer, Delia felt. Rose’s fair complexion would have benefited from pinker clothes; white simply bled her to a chalky effigy.
The other two shrinks were husband and wife: Dr. Fred and Dr. Moira Castiglione. They radiated a long marriage complete with a couple of kids. Delia knew that Jess valued the Castigliones more than she did Melos, whom she found stubborn and afflicted with tunnel vision. Moira was red-haired and hazel-eyed, had a plain face and little charm of manner, whereas Fred, a brown man, was outgoing and ebullient. He had the gift of seeming an intent listener, though whether he actually did listen was moot, for his eyes gave nothing away. Like most married couples in the same profession, they worked as a team, used each other to bounce ideas off, and had a conversational shorthand.
The meal ended, Todo excused himself, and Delia started to dig. “Rufus, exactly why do you and Rha invite Jess’s shrinks to your shindigs, as Shirl calls them?”
“Ah, you’ve sensed the negative feedback.”
“What rot! One would have to be dead not to sense emotions that strong. Your people dislike Jess’s shrinks intensely.”
“They do, which is unfortunate,” Rufus said on a sigh. “It’s all to do with music, with Jess’s comfort, and ultimately with our duty as well as our love for Ivy. It goes back to 1962, when we invited Jess to an evening very much like this one. She went back to HI raving about it, and her senior staff got it into their heads that they should have been invited too. So they nagged.”
“Over not being invited to a party thrown by people they didn’t know? Jess’s personal friends, unrelated to her work?”
“You’ll understand better when the evening’s over,” Rufus said, “and I’d rather you experienced what’s going to happen in the same ignorance Jess felt at the time, which is why I don’t want to go into explanations this minute. Just take my word for it, Jess’s shrinks felt left out in the cold, and thought they deserved to be let into the warm.” He shrugged, looked wry. “A work situation can be uncomfortable when the people who consider themselves indispensable get it into their heads that they’re unappreciated. They carped and nagged.”
“Jess is a very strong and fairly ruthless woman,” Delia said, unconvinced. “Senior professional staff behaving like children? As an explanation, Rufus, it’s weak, though I don’t doubt it’s the one fed to you and Rha—and possibly Ivy too.”
“Point taken. Personally I tend to think that Ari Melos or one of the Castigliones caught Jess out in a bureaucratic error she’d find embarrassing to explain.”
“More likely, yes. Capital criminals incarcerated for life as insane provide institutions like HI with their patients, and the paperwork is a nightmare.” Delia grinned. “You’ve whetted my curiosity, I’m dying to find out what’s so special about this kind of shindig. I must confess that the arrival of the shrinks looks a little like cabbage moths invading an orchid house.”
Jess and Ivy bore down on her; Rufus escaped.
“You both look sensational,” she said, kissing Jess’s cheek and, on a little upward leap, Ivy’s chin.
“I’m sorry we were so late,” Jess said. “A conference.”
“On an August Saturday?”
“Or an August Sunday,” Jess answered dryly. “Don’t tell me it doesn’t happen to you, Delia.”
“Oh, I understand. I love Rha and Rufus.”
“I knew you would,” Ivy said.
“Maybe it was better that you meet Rha and Rufus without our moral support,” Jess added, enigmatic black eyes gleaming. “It’s easy to see you’re in your element. Excuse me, girls, I see the great Dolores Kenny.” And off went Jess, looking excited.
Despite her stunning appearance, Ivy seemed—unhappy?—unwell?—uneasy? Something was wrong, though Delia fancied it had nothing to do with Rha, Rufus, Jess or the shindig. Perhaps she felt caught in the middle of the situation Jess’s shrinks provoked? But why should she feel that more than Jess did? No matter how she might have felt in 1962, when the contretemps occurred, by 1969 Jess obviously had come to terms with it.
Delia put her hand on Ivy’s arm. “Are you well, dear?”
A pair of beautiful blue eyes fell to rest on Delia’s face, a startled expression in their depths; then they began to fill with tears. The finely painted red mouth quivered for a moment, then Ivy visibly brought her unruly emotions under control, and smiled. “Yes, Delia, I’m well. But thank you for asking. You’re a very perceptive person.”
“I wouldn’t go so far as to say that, Ivy dear, but I can tell when the people I’m fond of are troubled.”
“Troubled … Yes, troubled is a good word for my state of mind. It’s purely personal, and by tomorrow I’ll be fine. Do you believe in right and wrong? I mean the kind of thing they used to teach us in first grade?”
“Before we understood the importance of grey, you mean?”
“Yes, exactly.” She sipped her martini. “Let’s go over there for a minute, do you mind? No one will notice us.”
Curious and disturbed, Delia followed her towering companion to a Victorian love seat tucked in a corner and partially hidden by the graceful curling fronds of a belmoreana palm, and sat the opposite way to Ivy, yet heads together. How like the Victorians! she thought. Nether regions barred from each other, upper regions in close proximity. Keep the lovers chaste!
“What’s the matter?” Delia asked, disposing of their glasses on the broad arm separating her from Ivy.
“I’m considerably older than Rha,” Ivy said, “and Ivor, our father, was chauffeur, bodyguard, caretaker and God knows what else to the third Antonio Carantonio.”
Considerably older than forty? Shocked, Delia stared into the face near hers, but couldn’t see a single sign of age.
“I’ve lived in Little Busquash all my life,” Ivy continued, oblivious to the sensations she was triggering in Delia. “Rha’s and my mother was—was ‘simple’—she couldn’t read or write, and was barely capable of keeping house. When Antonio III died in 1920 and Dr. Nell inherited, Ivor kept on running things for her. Mind you, she was hardly ever there—university and medical school took priority. I loved Dr. Nell! When she disappeared my father was like a man demented, though I didn’t realize until later that he had expected to be mentioned in her will, that all his frantic behavior was really just Ivor looking for a will. Well, there wasn’t one, so he had to ingratiate himself with the new heir, Fenella—also Nell.”
Delia looked about uneasily, not sure where this story was going, and beginning to wonder if it should be aired in such a public place. Ivy proceeded to confirm her impressions.
“My father was a very strange man. He was heterosexual and homosexual—” She broke off when Delia grasped her hand, looking surprised. “What is it?” she asked.
“Ivy,