Read The Gold Coast for Free Online

church I feel closer to God than I do inside the church.
    You might well ask why we go at all or why we don’t change churches. I’ll tell you, we go to St. Mark’s because we’ve always gone to St. Mark’s; we were both baptized there and married there. We go because our parents went and our children, Carolyn and Edward, go there when they are home on school holidays.
    I go to St. Mark’s for the same reasons I still go to Francis Pond to fish twenty years after the last fish was caught there. I go to carry out a tradition, I go from habit, and from nostalgia. I go to the pond and to the church because I believe there is still something there, though I haven’t seen a fish or felt the presence of the Holy Spirit in twenty years.
    Susan pulled into the drive, went through the open gates, and stopped to let the Allards out at the gatehouse. They bid us good day and went inside to their Sunday roast and newspapers.
    Susan continued on up the drive. She said to me, “I don’t understand why he didn’t come to the door.”
    “Who?”
    “Frank Bellarosa. I told you, I rode right up to the house and called up toward the lighted window. Then I pulled the bell chain at the servants’ entrance.”
    “Were you naked?”
    “Of course not.”
    “Well, then he had no interest in making small talk with a fully dressed, snooty woman on a horse. He’s Italian.”
    Susan smiled. “The house is so huge,’’ she said, “he probably couldn’t hear me.”
    “Didn’t you go around to the front?”
    “No, there was construction stuff all over the place, holes in the ground, and nothing was lit.”
    “What sort of construction stuff?”
    “Cement mixers, scaffolding, that sort of thing. Looks like he’s having a lot of work done.”
    “Good.”
    Susan pulled up to our house. “I want to get this thing straight with him about the horse trails. Do you want to come along?”
    “Not particularly. And I don’t think it’s good manners to approach a new neighbor with a problem until you’ve first paid a social call.”
    “That’s true. We should follow custom and convention, then he will, too.”
    I wasn’t sure about that, but one never knows. Sometimes a neighborhood, like a culture or civilization, is strong enough to absorb and acculturate any number of newcomers. But I don’t know if that’s true around here any longer. The outward forms and appearances look the same—like the Iranians and Koreans I see in the village wearing blue blazers, tan slacks, and Top-Siders—but the substance has been altered. Sometimes I have this grotesque mental image of five hundred Orientals, Arabs, and Asian Indians dressed in tweeds and plaids applauding politely at the autumn polo matches. I don’t mean to sound racist, but I am curious as to why wealthy foreigners want to buy our houses, wear our clothes, and emulate our manners. I suppose I should be flattered, and I suppose I am. I mean, I never had a desire to sit in a tent and eat camel meat with my fingers.
    “John? Are you listening?”
    “No.”
    “Do you want to go with me and pay a social call on Frank Bellarosa?”
    “No.”
    “Why not?”
    “Let him come to us.”
    “But you just said—”
    “I don’t care what I said. I’m not going over there, and neither are you.”
    “Says who?”
    “Says Lord Hardwick.’’ I got out of the car and walked toward the house. Susan shut off the car engine and followed. We entered the house, and there was that pregnant silence in the air, the silence between a husband and wife who have just had words, and it is unlike any other silence except perhaps the awful stillness you hear between the flash of an atomic bomb and the blast. Five, four, three, two, one. Susan said, “All right. We’ll wait. Would you like a drink?”
    “Yes, I would.”
    Susan walked into the dining room and got a bottle of brandy from the sideboard. She moved into the butler’s pantry, and I followed. Susan took two glasses from the cupboard