Nelson DeMille: The Gate House

I now live in London, and the purpose of my return to America is to see an old lady who is dying, or who may well have died during my seven-hour flight. If so, I’d be in time for the funeral, where I’d see Susan Stanhope Sutter.

The presence of death in the coffin should compel us into some profound thoughts about the shortness of life, and make us rethink our many disappointments, resentments, and betrayals that we can’t seem to let go of. Unfortunately, however, we usually take these things to the grave with us, or to the grave of the person we couldn’t forgive in life.

Susan .

But now and then, we do find it in our hearts to forgive, and it costs nothing to do that, except some loss of pride. And maybe that was the problem.

I was sitting on the starboard side of the business class cabin, and all heads were turned toward the windows, focused on the skyline of Manhattan. It’s truly an awesome sight from three or four thousand feet, but as of about nine months ago, the main attraction for people who knew the city was the missing part of the skyline. The last time I’d flown into New York, a few weeks after 9/11, the smoke was still rising from the rubble. This time, I didn’t want to look, but the man next to me said, “That’s where the Towers were. To the left.” He pointed in front of my face. “There.”

I replied, “I know,” and picked up a magazine. Most of the people I still knew here in New York have told me that 9/11 made them rethink their lives and put things into perspective. That’s a good plan for the future, but it doesn’t change the past.

The British Airways flight began its final descent into Kennedy, and a few minutes later we touched down.

The man next to me said, “It’s good to be home.” He asked, “Is this home for you?”

“No.”

Soon I’d be in a rental car on my way back to the place I once called home, but which was now a place that time had partly eroded from my mind, washing away too many of the good memories and leaving behind the hard, jagged edges of the aforementioned disappointments, resentments, and betrayals.

The aircraft decelerated, then rolled out onto the taxiway toward the terminal.

Now that I was here, and would remain here until the funeral, perhaps I should use the time to try to reconcile the past with the present – then maybe I’d have better dreams on my return flight.

Aweek had passed since my return from London, and I was sitting at the table in the dining room of the small gatehouse of Stanhope Hall, my ex-wife’s former estate, wading through old files, family photos, and letters that I’d stored here for the last decade.

After my divorce from Susan, I’d fulfilled an old dream by taking my sailboat, a forty-six-foot Morgan ketch named the Paumanok II , on a sail around the world, which lasted three years. Paumanok, incidentally, is the indigenous Indian word for Long Island, and my illustrious ancestor, Walt Whitman, a native Long Islander, sometimes used this word in his poetry – and if Uncle Walt had owned a forty-six-foot yacht, I’m sure he’d have christened it the Paumanok , not “I Hear America Singing,” which is too long to put on the stern, or Leaves of Grass , which doesn’t sound seaworthy.

Anyway, my last port of call was Bournemouth, England, from which my other distant ancestors, the Sutters, had set sail for America three centuries before.

With winter coming on, and sea fatigue in my bones, a dwindling bank account, and my wanderlust satisfied, I sold the boat for about half what it was worth and moved up to London to look for a job, eventually signing on with a British law firm that needed an American tax lawyer, which is what I was in New York before I became captain of the Paumanok II .

I spread out some photos of Susan on the table and looked at them under the light of the chandelier. Susan was, and probably still is, a beautiful woman with long red hair, arresting green eyes, pouty lips, and the perfect body of a lifelong equestrian.

I picked up a photo that showed Susan on my first sailboat, the original Paumanok , a thirty-six-foot Morgan, which I loved, but which I’d scuttled in Oyster Bay Harbor rather than let the government seize it for back taxes. This photo was taken, I think, in the summer of 1990 somewhere on the Long Island Sound. The photograph showed a bright summer day, and Susan was standing on the aft deck, stark naked, with one hand covering her burning bush, and the other covering one breast. Her face shows an expression of mock surprise and embarrassment.

The occasion was one of Susan’s acted-out sexual fantasies, and I think I was supposed to have climbed aboard from a kayak, and I’d discovered her alone and naked and made her my sex slave.

The woman had not only a great body, but also a great imagination and a wonderful libido to go with it. As for the sexual playacting, its purpose, of course, was to keep the marital fires burning, and it worked well for almost two decades because all our infidelities were with each other. At least that was the understanding, until a new actor, don Frank Bellarosa, moved in next door.

I picked up a bottle of old cognac that I’d found in the sideboard and topped off my coffee cup.

The reason I’ve returned to America has to do with the former residents of this gatehouse, George and Ethel Allard, who had been old Stanhope family retainers. George, a good man, had died a decade ago, and his wife, Ethel, who is not so nice, is in hospice care and about to join her husband, unless George has already had a word with St. Peter, the ultimate gatekeeper. “Wasn’t I promised eternal rest and peace? Can’t she go someplace else? She always liked hot weather.” In any case, I am the attorney for Ethel’s estate and so I needed to take care of that and attend her funeral.

The other reason I’ve returned is that this gatehouse is my legal U.S. address, but unfortunately, this house is about to pass into the hands of Amir Nasim, an Iranian gentleman who now owns the main house, Stanhope Hall, and much of the original acreage, including this gatehouse. As of now, however, Ethel Allard has what is called a life estate in the gatehouse, meaning she has a rent-free tenancy until she dies. This rent-free house was given to her by Susan’s grandfather, Augustus Stanhope (because Ethel was screwing Augustus way back when), and Ethel has been kind enough to allow me to store my things here and share her digs whenever I’m in New York. Ethel hates me, but that’s another story. In any case, Ethel’s tenancy in this house and on this planet is about to end, and thus I had returned from London not only to say goodbye to Ethel, but also to find a new home for my possessions, and find another legal U.S. address, which seems to be a requirement for citizenship and creditors.

This is the first time I’d been to New York since last September, coming in from London as soon as the airplanes were flying again. I’d stayed for three days at the Yale Club, where I’d maintained my membership for my infrequent New York business trips, and I was shocked at how quiet, empty, and somber the great city had become.

I’d made no phone calls and saw no one. I would have seen my daughter, Carolyn, but she had fled her apartment in Brooklyn right after 9/11 to stay with her mother in Hilton Head, South Carolina. My son, Edward, lives in Los Angeles. So for three days, I walked the quiet streets of the city, watching the smoke rising from what came to be known as Ground Zero.