She told me she had inherited the apartment from her grandfather, an adventurous sort, the only person in her family who didn’t believe that a woman should restrict her sights to husband and children. ‘My father was furious that he had been bypassed. He didn’t talk to me for years. My mother tried to broker an agreement but by then there were the … other issues.’ She sighed.
She bought her groceries from a local convenience store, a tiny supermarket that operated on tourist prices, because it was one of the few places she could walk to. I put a stop to that and twice a week headed over to a Fairway on East 86th Street where I loaded up on basics to the tune of about a third of what she had been spending.
If I didn’t cook, she ate almost nothing sensible herself, but bought good cuts of meat for Dean Martin or poached him white fish in milk ‘because it’s good for his digestion’.
I think she had become accustomed to my company. Plus she was so wobbly that I think we both knew she couldn’t manage alone any more. I wondered how long it took someone of her age to get over the shock of surgery. I also wondered what she would have done if I hadn’t been there.
‘What will you do?’ I said, motioning towards the pile of bills.
‘Oh, I’ll ignore those.’ She waved a hand. ‘I’m leaving this apartment in a box. I have nowhere to go and no one to leave it to, and that crook Ovitz knows it. I think he’s just sitting tight until I die and then he’ll claim the apartment under the non-payment of maintenance fees clause and make a fortune selling it to some dotcom person or awful CEO, like that fool across the corridor.’
‘Maybe I could help? I have some savings from my time with the Gopniks. I mean, just to get you through a couple of months. You’ve been so kind to me.’
She hooted. ‘Dear girl. You couldn’t meet the maintenance fees on my guest bathroom.’
For some reason this made her laugh so heartily that she coughed until she had to sit down. But I sneaked a look at the letter after she went to bed. Its ‘late payment charges’, its ‘direct contravention of the terms of your lease’ and ‘threat of compulsory eviction’ made me think that Mr Ovitz might not be as beneficent – or patient – as she seemed to think.
I was still walking Dean Martin four times a day, and during those trips to the park I tried to think what could be done for Margot. The thought of her being evicted was appalling. Surely the managing agent wouldn’t do that to a convalescent elderly woman. Surely the other residents would object. Then I remembered how swiftly Mr Gopnik had evicted me, and how insulated the inhabitants of each apartment were from each other’s lives. I wasn’t entirely sure they’d even notice.
I was standing on Sixth Avenue peering at a wholesale underwear store when it hit me. The girls at the Emporium might not sell Chanel and Yves St Laurent but they would if they could get it – or would know some dress agency that could. Margot had innumerable designer labels in her collection, things I was sure that collectors would pay serious money for. There were handbags alone that must be worth thousands of dollars.
I took Margot to meet them under the guise of an outing. I told her it was a beautiful day and that we should go further than usual and build up her strength with fresh air. She told me not to be so ridiculous and nobody had breathed fresh air in Manhattan since 1937, but she climbed into the taxi without too much complaint and, Dean Martin on her lap, we made our way to the East Village, where she frowned up at the concrete storefront as if somebody had asked her to enter a slaughterhouse for fun.
‘What have you done to your arms?’ Margot paused at the checkout and gazed at Lydia’s skin. Lydia was wearing an emerald green puffed-sleeve shirt, and her arms displayed three neatly traced Japanese koi carp in orange, jade and blue.
‘Oh, my tatts. You like ’em?’ Lydia put her cigarette in her other hand and raised her arm towards the light.
‘If I wanted to look like a navvy.’
I began to shepherd Margot to a different part of the shop. ‘Here, Margot. See they have all their vintage clothes in different areas – if you have clothes from the 1960s they go here, and over there the 1950s. It’s a little like your apartment.’
‘It’s nothing like my apartment.’
‘I just mean they trade in outfits like yours. It’s quite a successful line of business, these days.’
Margot pulled at the sleeve of a nylon blouse, then peered at the label over the top of her spectacles. ‘Amy Armistead is an awful line. Never could stand the woman. Or Les Grandes Folies. Their buttons always fell off. Cheap on thread.’
‘There are some really special dresses back here, under plastic.’ I walked over to the cocktail-gown section where the best of the women’s pieces were displayed. I pulled out a Saks Fifth Avenue dress in turquoise, trimmed with sequins and beads at the hem and cuffs, and held it up against myself, smiling.
Margot peered at it, then turned the price tag in her hand. She pulled a face at the figure. ‘Who on earth would pay this?’
‘People who love good clothes,’ said Lydia, who had appeared behind us. She was chewing noisily on a piece of gum and I could see Margot’s eyes flicker slightly every time her jaws met.
‘There’s an actual market for them?’
‘A good market,’ I said. ‘Especially for things in immaculate condition, like yours. All Margot’s outfits have been kept in plastic and air conditioning. She has things that date back to the 1940s.’
‘Those aren’t mine. Those are my mother’s,’ she said stiffly.
‘Seriously? Whaddaya got?’ said Lydia, giving Margot’s coat a visible up and down. Margot was in a Jaeger three-quarter-length wool coat, and a black fur hat the shape of a large Victoria sponge. Even though the weather was almost balmy, she still appeared to feel the cold.
‘What do I have? Nothing I want to send here, thank you.’
‘But, Margot, you have some really fine suits – the Chanels and the Givenchys that no longer fit you. And you have scarves, bags – you could sell those to specialist dealers. Auction houses even.’
‘Chanel makes serious money,’ said Lydia, sagely. ‘Especially purses. If it’s not too shabby, a decent Chanel double flap in caviar leather will make two and a half to four thousand. A new one’s not going to cost you much more, you know what I’m saying? Python, woah, the sky’s the limit.’
‘You have more than one Chanel handbag, Margot,’ I pointed out.
Margot tucked her Hermès alligator bag more tightly under her arm.
‘You got more like that? We can sell ’em for you, Mrs De Witt. We got a waiting list for the good stuff. I got a lady in Asbury Park will pay up to five thousand for a decent Hermès.’ Lydia reached out to run a finger down the side of it and Margot pulled away as if she’d assaulted her.
‘It’s not stuff,’ she said. ‘I don’t own “stuff”.’
‘I just think it might be worth considering. There seems to be quite a bit you don’t use any longer. You could sell it, pay the maintenance fees, and then you could, you know, relax.’
‘I am relaxed,’ she snapped. ‘And I’ll thank you not to discuss my financial affairs in public, as if I’m not even here. Oh, I don’t like this place. It smells of old people. Come on, Dean Martin. I need some fresh air.’