The Prodigal Son by Colleen McCullough Read Free Book Online

last.

    Then, out of the blue, he’d called them from Kennedy to say he was on his way to Holloman, and would they be up for a cup of coffee if he came around? Only last night! With all this torment on his mind, he’d talked of the old times, nothing but the old times, and feeling his eyes rest on her, Millie had given a shudder of fear. Not that too!
    Millie jumped, so deep in her reverie that Davina’s voice came as a shock.
    “To the table, everyone!”
    With so few women, no surprise to find she occupied the middle slot on one side of the table with the pregnant doctor’s wife opposite her. Ivan was on Max’s side of her, Dr. Al Markoff on Davina’s side; Jim sat opposite her down one next to Davina, and Val sat on Muse Markoff’s other side. Not a remote table of several conversations; everyone was within good hearing distance. Millie winked at Jim, whom Davina was already monopolizing.
    They had to go through that awful speech about the fatted calf, the pointed references to the absentee Tunbull wives — she was a monster! Some of the tendrils of her hair, thought a fascinated Millie, were stirring to form snakes — wasn’t that a head and a forked tongue in there? This woman speaks with a forked tongue!
    The first course was Iranian caviar.
    “Of course Russian would have been better,” said Davina, demonstrating how to eat it, “but this is still Caspian sturgeonof malossol variety. What silly rules a Cold War causes! No Russian caviar. No Cuban cigars. Silly!”
    Iranian caviar is good enough for me, thought Millie as she piled a toast finger high and tamped everything down with sour cream; minced egg and minced onion had an annoying habit of tumbling off, and she wasn’t about to waste one of those tiny, heavenly black blobs.
    “I’ve died of sheer bliss,” she said to Muse Markoff.
    “Isn’t she amazing?” Muse asked as the plates were whisked away. “Even to having Uda, the perfect housekeeper. Things sure have changed in the Tunbull zoo since Max married Davina.”
    “Muse! How did you get that name?” Millie asked.
    “A father steeped in the Classics. He was an associate professor at Chubb, poor baby. Sideways promotion. Once an associate, never a full.”
    “And how have things changed for the Tunbulls, Muse?”
    “This passion for Max’s Russian roots. I always thought they were Polish roots, but Davina says they’re Russian.”
    “Just as well the McCarthy era is over.”
    Muse winced, patted her huge tummy. “That was rich for a first course. I hope I last — my liver doesn’t like rich food. D’you think the roast veal will be terribly fatty? The way Davina spoke, I see it kind of swimming in fat.”
    “No, no fat,” said Millie, smiling. “‘Fatted calf’ is a stock phrase, like — um —‘lean pickings’— roast veal isn’t at all fatty, I promise.”
    Nor was it. The veal was plain but perfectly cooked, very thin slices of pinkish meat with a gravy rather than a sauce,mashed potatoes, steamed broccoli, thin and stringless green beans. Muse, Millie noted, ate with enjoyment, and made no complaints about her sensitive liver.
    When Millie overheard Max and John talking about Martita, more of the puzzle fell into place. From her own little speech, Davina must have worked feverishly to disprove John’s story — what was the ring reference all about? So even through their phone conversations, Max must have kept to legal matters, Davina probably literally breathing down his neck. Those two poor men are not going to have an easy time of it …
    A glance at Davina revealed a head of living snakes. If she caught their eyes, she’d turn them to stone.
    What was with this Emily, the persecutor of John’s mother? Absent because she’d grown off in her own direction rather than because she had offended. Though so many years would soften anything, and she was Val’s wife, Ivan’s mother. Ivan … How did he feel, seeing his share of the family business steadily