Angel

by Barbara Taylor Bradford

  Now, as she thought of her brother, a flash of anxiety shot through her, and it made her tighten her lips imperceptibly. Kevin’s lack of response to her calls was the only thing which marred her gladness at being back in New York. She had phoned him every day for the past week, first leaving her London numbers and then yesterday, knowing she was about to depart, she had repeated Nell’s number into the machine.

  He had not called her back, as yet, and her anxiety was running high; she had told him so when she had phoned once more, before leaving Nell’s apartment this morning, adding, ‘Please, Kevin, call me to reassure me you’re all right. I’m beginning to worry.’ Then she had repeated Nell’s number even though she knew that he knew it by heart.

  He’ll call me today, she told herself, genuinely believing this as she plunged on down Park, her pace increasing, her cape flying out behind her like a proud banner. She made a striking figure in her dramatic outfit, and her mass of coppery hair which caught and held the sunlight was turned into a bright burnished helmet around her creamy-complexioned, heart-shaped face.

  Quite a number of men glanced at her covetously, and several women admiringly, as she floated past them, staring straight ahead, intent in her purpose, aiming for her destination.

  But Rosie was unaware of the dashing figure she cut, and of her special kind of beauty. Vanity had never been one of her traits, and these days she was so consumed by her work and worry and responsibilities that she never had much time for primping and preening.

  Even getting herself ‘done up and dusted’—as Fanny called it—for the wrap party had been Fanny’s idea, and her two assistants had virtually had to drag her to Make-up and Hair at Shepperton Studios. She had only given in finally to Fanny’s entreaties when Val had pointed out how exhausted she looked. Gavin was bound to pounce on that, and the last thing she wanted was him nagging her, making snide remarks about Collie and Guy, which he would do because, for the most part, he blamed them for her tiredness and worry, and anything troublesome that ever happened to her, in fact.

  When she reached Sixty-fifth Street, Rosie swung to her right and strode down the block, passing the Mayfair Regent Hotel, where she loved to go for afternoon tea, and Le Cirque, one of her favourite restaurants in the city, heading in the direction of Madison Avenue.

  Just as the Faubourg St-Honoré in Paris, Bond Street in London and Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills were all special to her, so was Madison. It was lined with the type of elegant shops and boutiques carrying designer clothes and other high-fashion items that appealed to her, and to her sense of aesthetics as a costume designer. However, Rosie only intended to window shop on Madison this morning; her real destination was Bergdorf Goodman, where she planned to do the first of her Christmas shopping.

  Today was November the ninth, and Thanksgiving was still two weeks away, but Christmas was already very much in the air. It was in evidence in the store windows, and in the lights which were being strung up on the streets of Manhattan.

  Fifth Avenue had been dressed up no end, she noticed, as she turned the corner of Sixty-fifth. She smiled inwardly, hurrying down Fifth towards the department store, remembering how excited she had been as a child when her mother had brought her in from Queens to see the Christmas decorations.

  In particular, the store windows had always thrilled her, most especially the windows of Lord & Taylor. They were inventive, fanciful, imaginative; each one had been decorated to depict a specific scene, either religious or from a fairy tale, and was guaranteed to delight the eyes of a child—and the young in heart. She could easily recall how her eyes had stood out on stalks, how she had pressed her nose to the plate-glass window, mesmerized by what she saw, drinking everything in.

  Every year there had been something different to captivate her, and so much to absorb… the Nativity with Mary and Joseph and the baby Jesus… Santa Claus coming over the chimney tops in a sledge filled with toys, pulled by trotting reindeer which actually trotted… Swan Lake with pirouetting ballerinas that really moved, these two creations miracles of mechanical ingenuity. And the scenes taken from best-loved fairy tales were equally eye-catching and beautiful… Cinderella sitting in her glass coach, Sleeping Beauty in her glass coffin being awakened by a kiss from the Prince, and Hansel and Gretel in the gingerbread house.

  How they had enchanted her, those magical windows. It was not very difficult at all for her to cast her mind back to those Christmases of the past. Her mother had always been as excited as she, and once they had thoroughly viewed the windows, and she had feasted her eyes to the limit, her mother had taken her inside the store for lunch. They favoured the Birdcage Restaurant, where she was permitted to choose anything she wanted since it was a special treat. Without fail, as a finale to the lunch, she ordered a banana split for dessert, and, even though her mother was for ever saying she must watch her weight, she would order one too.

  Her mother had died when she was fourteen, and the day after the funeral and the wake—it was a Saturday and she remembered it so well, even today—she had gone to the Birdcage for lunch by herself. She had been trying to bring her mother back to life, to recapture the past, she knew that was why she had made the trip into Manhattan. But she had been so choked up she had been unable to eat lunch, even the dessert, and had sat staring at the untouched banana split, tears rolling down her cheeks, aching inside for her mother, filled with the most searing grief.

  She thought of her mother frequently, almost every day, even though she had been dead for seventeen years now. Her mother was part of her, residing in a very special corner of her heart, and as long as she was alive her mother would be alive too, for there was no such thing as death in her lexicon. And stored up inside herself were all those wonderful memories of the happiest of childhoods, and the memories gave her great comfort and strength when she felt alone or sad. How lucky she and Kevin were to have been so very loved as children.

  Kevin. She wondered what to get him for Christmas, and there was Gavin to think of, too, and Guy and Henri and Kyra, and her dearest friend, Nell. Their names danced around in Rosie’s head as she crossed Fifth Avenue at Fifty-ninth Street, skirted the Plaza, walked across the little square in front of the hotel, and into the famous department store.

  Coming over on Concorde she had made a few notes, and high on her list of priorities were special gifts for Lisette, Collie and Yvonne, who were stuck in the country and never got to visit exciting shops. After an hour spent browsing in the store she selected a cream silk shawl for Collie. This was trimmed with a gold fringe and embroidered with a peacock, its huge, colourful tail spread out like a fan composed of iridescent blues and greens and golds, and in Costume Jewellery she found an unusual pair of flower-shaped earrings made of pastel-coloured rhinestones for Yvonne.

  Once these purchases had been made, she left Bergdorf’s and headed down Fifth Avenue to Saks, glancing quickly in the store windows but not stopping as she walked at her usual rapid pace. When she arrived at Saks she went straight up to the children’s department, and within fifteen minutes she had picked out a party dress for Lisette. Beautifully made of fir-green velvet and trimmed with an ecru-lace collar and cuffs, it had a Victorian air about it, and she knew five-year-old Lisette would look adorable in it. Expensive though the frock was, Rosie couldn’t resist buying it.

  It seemed to Rosie that it was colder than ever when she finally left the big department store, and walked back up Fifth. The wind was icy and she pulled her cape around her more tightly, glad she had worn it. Passing St Patrick’s she paused for a moment, staring up at the beautiful old cathedral and its Gothic-style cusps; then she hurried on, wanting to finish her shopping and get home to the apartment, in case Kevin had called.

  The two last stops on her list were Gap and Banana Republic, not far from each other on Lexington. These were the best shops in which to pick up T-shirts and jeans for Collie and Yvonne, who so much admired hers. She generally donned these typically American clothes at weekends; in actuality,
they had become something of a uniform for her, worn with the mandatory white wool socks and highly-polished brown penny loafers, and Collie and Yvonne both wanted to emulate this look. Since she wouldn’t have time to go shopping when she returned to Paris, she had decided to take a supply back with her. Also, the jeans and T-shirts could be gift-wrapped to go under the big Christmas tree which they would put up in the stone hall at Montfleurie.

  FIVE

  Nothing much had changed in the apartment since she had last been here two years ago, Rosie noticed, as she wandered aimlessly around later that afternoon, waiting for Kevin to call. In fact, it was very much the same as it had always been.

  Rosie had first come to this apartment in 1977. She and Nell had met in the spring of that year, and they had taken to each other at once, each, perhaps, recognizing the maverick in the other, and not long after their first meeting she had been invited to Sunday lunch by her new friend.

  The instant she had stepped inside the large, somewhat rambling apartment on Park Avenue she had felt at home, and, with her discerning eye, she had recognized that whoever had decorated the place was knowledgeable about antiques, and had considerable decorating expertise, not to mention superlative taste.

  The expert turned out to be Nell’s Aunt Phyllis, her father’s sister, who had lived with them since Nell was ten, which was when her mother Helen Treadles Jeffrey had died of a brain tumour. In August 1976, when Adam Jeffrey, Nell’s father, had been appointed chief American correspondent for his newspaper, the London Morning News, and transferred, his sister had rushed over to New York with him. She had found the apartment relatively quickly, and begun decorating it without wasting a single moment of her time. When Nell finally arrived that Christmas, having left her English boarding school for good, the apartment had already been turned into a replica of the gracious flat they had just vacated in London.

  On that first visit, Nell had explained to Rosie that most of the lovely English and French antiques she was so busy admiring had been shipped over from their Chelsea home. Nell had added that Aunt Phyllis had zeroed in on some of the top New York fabric and wallpaper houses, had selected only the most handsome wallcoverings, and the finest French silks, English chintzes and brocades in order to create the look for which she was well known in London, where she enjoyed great success as an interior designer.

  Suddenly, in 1979, when he was only fifty-two years old, Adam Jeffrey dropped dead of a heart attack. Nell and her aunt had remained in New York, where the latter had already established herself as a decorator of some distinction, and acquired a roster of notable, wealthy clients. It was not until Nell was twenty-three that her Aunt Phyllis finally decided to return to London permanently, leaving her niece behind in New York.

  By this time Nell had a good job, most of her friends were in the city, and, not unnaturally, she had no desire to leave Manhattan, where she had lived for six years, and where she was perfectly happy and content. Nell’s father had left her the Park Avenue apartment in his will, and she had continued to live in it, had changed very little of the decor over the years, loving it exactly the way it was.

  To Rosie, one of the prettiest and cosiest rooms in the apartment was the small library, charmingly decorated all those years ago by Aunt Phyllis. It had striated, apricot-coloured walls, a lime-green-and-black needlepoint carpet, a colourful floral chintz used for balloon shades at the windows and to cover a sofa, and a collection of mellow English antiques. One long wall of white-painted shelves held books intermingled with English Staffordshire animal figures; current magazines and the day’s newspapers were arranged on several small tables.

  And so it was to this room that Rosie gravitated with her cup of tea around five o’clock, where she turned on the radio and sat down on the sofa to relax with the New York Times. Once she had finished reading the newspaper and drinking her tea, she leaned back, closed her eyes and drifted with her thoughts, praying that Kevin would call today. When she had returned earlier from her shopping expedition, the first thing she had done was check Nell’s answering machine. There were no messages on it at all, much to her disappointment.

  Lulled by the soft music on the radio, Rosie dozed off after a while. But some twenty minutes or so later she awakened suddenly, feeling oddly disoriented, and she sat up with a jerk, wondering where she was, completely at a loss, and it took her a few seconds to realize that she was at Nell’s in New York.

  Shaking herself awake and rising, Rosie carried the cup and saucer into the kitchen, where she rinsed and dried both, and then put them back in the cupboard.

  She stood in the centre of the large blue-and-white kitchen, hesitating for a moment, and then she went to the refrigerator and looked inside, wondering what Maria had left prepared for her. She found a delicious-looking veal casserole with vegetables in a covered glass dish, and there was also a cold roast chicken, as well as a selection of cold cuts, various salads, a cake, and assorted cheeses on the next shelf. Obviously Maria, who had the weekend off, was determined that she would not starve in her absence. It struck Rosie that if she did not hear from her brother she would not fare so badly here; she could at least have a light supper and watch television.

  ***

  By six-thirty, Rosie was beginning to feel more worried than ever that there had been no word from Kevin, and just as she was on the point of calling him one more time the phone began to ring. She lifted the receiver, hoping to hear his voice, and much to her relief she did.

  ‘Sorry, Rosie, but I couldn’t get back to you before now,’ he explained, after greeting her affectionately. ‘I’ve been unavailable all week. Business. I only just got your many messages, honey.’

  ‘I understand, Kevin,’ she said quickly, so happy to talk to him she instantly forgot about her anxiety and frustration of earlier. ‘I hope I’m going to see you. Is your… business finished?’

  He hesitated, but only for the barest fraction of a second, before saying, ‘Sort of… Well, yes, I guess it is, and I’d love to see you too. I can’t wait, in fact.’

  ‘So when can we get together, Kev?’

  ‘Tonight? Are you free?’

  ‘Of course I am! Where shall we meet? Or do you want to come over here?’

  ‘No, let’s go out. What about meeting at Jimmy’s? How does that sound to you?’

  ‘Like old times!’ she exclaimed, laughing.

  He chuckled into the phone. ‘Is seven-thirty too soon for you, honey?’

  ‘No, not at all. I’ll see you in an hour at Neary’s.’ Hanging up the phone, she raced into the bedroom to refresh her make-up and do her hair. Like Gavin, her brother would start chastising her if she looked tired or out of sorts, and this she wanted to avoid.

  SIX

  Kevin Madigan stood leaning with his back against the bar at Jimmy Neary’s Irish pub on East Fifty-seventh Street, his eyes focused on the door.

  And so Rosie saw him the moment she walked in, saw the wide grin spreading across his handsome Irish face when she raised her hand in greeting.

  She flew into his arms and they held each other tightly, hugging. They had been close from childhood, Kevin forever her protector, she his sage adviser, even when she was a little girl, always telling him what to do and explaining why he should do it. They had drawn even closer after their mother’s untimely death, taking comfort from each other’s presence, feeling more secure, safer, when they were in close proximity.

  Kevin had gone to London—as Gavin’s guest—at the start of principal photography on Kingmaker, and they had seen a lot of each other during the week he was there. But that had been six months ago and they both suddenly realized how much they had missed each other.

  Finally they stood apart, and Kevin looked down into her upturned face. ‘You’re a sight for sore eyes, mavourneen.’

  ‘So are you, Kevin.’

  ‘What would you like to drink?’

  ‘A vodka tonic, please,’ she answered and took hold of his arm, lovingly smiling up into his h
appy face. Her relief that he was safe and well so overwhelmed her it knew no bounds. She worried about her brother constantly; she supposed she always would, no matter what. He was her flesh and blood, after all.

  They stood at the bar, sipping their drinks and catching up, so happy to be in each other’s company the time just flew by. Eventually, Jimmy Neary himself came over to say hello to Rosie, whom he had not seen for several years, and after a minute or two of genial conversation he led them to Kevin’s favourite table, situated at the back of the dining room.

  Once they were settled and had ordered dinner, Rosie looked at Kevin across the table, fixed her eyes on him intently, and murmured, ‘I wish you’d give it up.’

  ‘Give what up?’ he asked, breaking his roll in half, spreading butter on it.

  ‘Being a cop.’

  Kevin stared at her, his eyes widening in surprise, incredulity registering. ‘I never thought I’d hear you say a thing like that, Rosalind Mary Frances Madigan. All the Madigan men have been with the New York Police Department.’

  ‘And some of them died because of it,’ she pointed out quietly, ‘including our Dad.’

  ‘I know, I know, but I’m fourth-generation Irish, fourth-generation cop, and there’s no way I can give it up, Rosie. I wouldn’t know what else to do. I guess you could say that for me it’s bred in the bone.’

  ‘Oh Kevin, I don’t think I explained myself very well! I didn’t mean you should quit the force—I just wish you’d stop working undercover. It’s so dangerous.’

  ‘Life is dangerous, and in a lot of different ways, honey. I could get killed crossing the street, taking a plane trip, driving a car. I could choke on my food, get a fatal disease, or drop dead from a heart attack…’ He left his sentence unfinished, gave her a long hard stare, and then shrugged his broad shoulders almost nonchalantly. ‘People other than undercover cops die every day, Rosie. Especially these days, what with kids toting guns and stray bullets flying around everywhere. I know you love this city, and so do I in my own way, but it’s gone to hell on crack and smack and random violence, to name only a few of its ills. But that’s another story, I guess.’