Tatiana and the Russian Wolves. Stephen Evans JordanЧитать онлайн книгу.
friends I’d met at his gallery receptions. In the front pew sat two men whose profiles resembled Fred’s. The older man I decided was Fred’s father, the younger his brother. More uncomfortable than grieved, they were witnessing the conclusion of Fred’s journey when he stepped out of the closet in small-town Wisconsin and kept going until he reached San Francisco. Arriving in the late ’70s, Fred was another fresh face in the sexual anarchy of the Castro’s bars and bathhouses.
Before Fred, Drew had collected lovers and tried refashioning them into the men they were incapable of becoming. Most were tall, more than a few were blond; some lasted longer than others. All of them fled until Drew found Fred, who would not be made over; and, having given Drew his unconditional love, he could offer nothing more. With time, Drew returned Fred’s love, and their bond provided Drew the stability that allowed his talents to flourish. I thought that Fred was somehow a surrogate for the parental affection Fiona had denied Drew.
Drew was approaching the lectern. Looking at my watch, the service had started a half hour ago, and I couldn’t remember much of it. Drew spoke about death, its liberation for the ill, and the sorrow for the survivors. But it wasn’t death he was addressing; it was suicide. I realized that I had avoided Fred’s service as I had my mother’s. Like my mother’s, Fred’s was a contrived ceremony memorializing self-destruction without benefit of church or clergy.
When the service ended, I stood up and saw Fiona leaving. The rain had let up, and Fiona was going down the front steps when I called to her.
“Alexander, you look terrible,” she replied. “You’re okay?”
“Jet lag and a night in the Denver airport,” I said after we hugged. “Was my mother’s service held here?”
“Yes, in one of the smaller chapels.”
“I couldn’t get out of there fast enough.”
“Neither could I,” Fiona said. “Sorry, I’m somewhat frantic. Drew’s hosting a reception at home, and I have last-second things to do. We’ll talk later. Oh, most of my family will be there. Nothing I can do about that.”
“That’s too bad.”
“Isn’t it though,” Fiona said. “Do you want a ride?”
“Thanks, but I’m going to walk and try to clear my thoughts.”
The mental picture most people have of the Golden Gate is looking west from downtown San Francisco through the bridge out to the Pacific. Fiona’s home was in the Sea Cliff neighborhood on the City’s northwest side overlooking the Pacific Ocean, and the bridge was to the northeast and downtown San Francisco to the south. Sea Cliff was an eclectic collection of stately homes: French châteaus, Tuscan palaces, and ’50s modern. The expensive neighborhood was one of San Francisco’s foggiest, and the mist secluded the homes into individual manors or, in Fiona’s case, a hacienda.
Zorro could have designed Fiona’s California-Spanish home and commissioned Rob Roy to decorate it with paintings of Scotland. The collection’s centerpiece, an original oil of a battle the Scots lost to the English over two hundred years ago, was displayed in the dining room. Drew called it “kilts and claymores”—the Scottish broadsword. The home and the paintings were a terrible mismatch, and I thought the collection had less to do with Fiona’s Scottish heritage and more to do with Drew. Fiona appreciated good art, and Drew could have purchased paintings she would have enjoyed; instead, the dreary collection belittled Drew’s talent and served as a testament to their relationship’s desolation.
Everyone knew that Fiona and Drew didn’t get along, but in public, they implemented a truce. At the reception, they would transform themselves into a sophisticated mother and son by virtue of Drew’s captivating charm and Fiona’s acting ability when her family was present. And that afternoon, Fiona’s relatives would be out in full force; if Drew had AIDS, the implications for the Sinclair estate could be enormous.
The Sinclair fortune dated back to the Gold Rush when merchants like Leland Stanford made their initial capital by provisioning the miners and then went on to become tycoons. Three Sinclair brothers from Inverness started as teamsters and grocers. When the Gold Rush ended, the brothers and their descendants invested in California real estate. The extended Sinclair family was vast—direct descendants of the three brothers lived well; closer family had money for educations, distant relatives nothing. Fiona was the direct descendant of the oldest brother, Ian, and controlled the holding companies and trusts containing the fortune.
The crowd gathering at Fiona’s grew to over a hundred and included Drew’s friends, the haut monde of San Francisco’s gay community. I entered the cavernous living room when Robert de Montreville, one of Drew’s friends, stumbled into me. “Long time, no see,” he managed.
“Been in Moscow for several months on bank business.”
“Russia: an enigma, inside a puzzle, inside a condom,” Robert slurred. “Or a conundrum? Or something like that?”
“Something like that.”
“Oh my good gracious,” Robert said with a frown. “Have I offended the elegant Russian? What in the world got into me?”
“Sounds like a good deal of your inventory.”
Robert called himself a wine merchant and owned three wine/liquor stores in San Francisco’s upscale neighborhoods. He spoke Cajun and called it French; the t at the end of his first name was silent. I doubted if his original surname was the aristocratic-sounding de Montreville—not many of those types paddling around Louisiana’s swamps.
Speaking with the precision of the very drunk, Robert said, “Needed lashings of hundred-proof fortitude to make it through this afternoon.” He wobbled and didn’t notice when I took his arm. “Need some advice, financial. Tomorrow might be better.”
“I’m sure it will.”
Robert was leaning against me. I leaned against him to hold us up. I stepped back and put my arm around his waist as he stumbled backward. We made it to the foyer, where I sat him down and went to call a cab. I returned to watch Robert’s green Volvo station wagon lurch onto the street.
Behind me, Fred’s father and brother were clinging together like the early Christians before the lions were turned loose. Drew’s friends may have been too much. I extended my sympathies; they thanked me and said they were exhausted and would return to their motel by the airport. I told them that a cab was on the way; they waited outside even though it was sprinkling.
I joined the crowd around Drew, who was beguiling as ever. Friends and family jostled into his aura where the boring became clever, the unattractive appealing, and the dull unique. Drew broke free and took me aside. “You look dreadful.”
“Tired, that’s all. Spent the night in the Denver airport.”
“Sounds uncomfortable,” Drew said. “Still on for dinner this evening?” I nodded yes. “Let’s say eightish, at that Italian place on the corner of Fillmore and Chestnut. Now go get yourself a drink.”
“I was talking to Robert.”
“Sad story. Robert has AIDS and is determined to drink his stores dry.”
Another of Drew’s friends wedged between us, and I went over to Fiona, who was talking to a nephew. I stood across from her when a sleek woman stood next to me and made eye contact with a well-tailored man standing to Fiona’s left, facing me. The man looked familiar, and we smiled as he approached.
“Alex, how are you?” he asked, shaking my hand.
“All things considered, okay, I guess.”
He slapped me on the back. “You don’t remember me, do you?”
“It’s on the tip of my memory.”
“Townsend Morgan…people call me Townie, a cousin of Fiona’s, a distant cousin and way out of the money. So compared to the rest of this family, I’m a pretty nice guy.” He winked and made me laugh.
His