It had taken him seven hours to travel from Connemara to Dublin by bus. He had a letter in his pocket and had worked out how to get it to her in the course of the evening. They were the most important words he had ever written, explaining his decision and his reasons for leaving her, but setting out a plan for how they could be together. How he remembered her dream of living in a cottage in Antibes with a bowl of peaches in the window and a view of the sea, and although Connemara wasn’t exactly the South of France, he could glimpse the ocean from his bedroom and there was nothing quite like the simple pleasure of collecting mussels from the beach and cooking them for lunch.
He had stood opposite the theatre where she was due to appear for over half an hour, waiting for her to show up. It had been raining and at first he couldn’t make out whether it was her, stepping out of a taxi on to the street. She had turned to face the vehicle, and when she had smiled, he had thought for one glorious moment that she had seen him, and that her smile had been for him. But someone else had got out of the taxi. A man, who snaked his arm around her waist and then kissed her lightly on the lips as she giggled and touched his face in a way so warm and tender that Dominic had barely been able to watch them for a moment longer.
Right then, he had understood the true meaning of love. It was not the way your heart fluttered when you saw the object of your affection, how their conversation could make you feel alive, or their absence make you desperate with longing. No. True love was simply the desire to make that person happy, no matter the cost to yourself. And right there, on that cold, wet street in Dublin, Dominic knew that Rosamund Bailey would have a better life, the life she deserved, without him in it.
‘Are you still there?’ Jonathon’s voice shook him from his thoughts.
‘Yes,’ he said quietly.
‘Expect us on Thursday.’
After Jonathan had hung up, Dominic stood in silence until there was a knock on the study door.
‘Dom. Are you coming through to eat?’ said Julia, poking her head into the room.
‘I think I should probably go,’ he said, hardly glancing up at her.
Julia pushed the door open and came inside.
‘Is everything okay?’ she asked, putting a reassuring hand on the sleeve of his jacket.
Dominic nodded gratefully.
‘Are you sure? The phone call . . . it wasn’t bad news, was it?’
He looked at her and felt as if a fog was lifting.
‘It’s the call I’ve been waiting for my whole life,’ he said with a smile.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Rosamund Bailey had never been to the west coast of Ireland before, and standing at the window of her small hotel in Clifden, Connemara’s largest town, she wondered why. After Dominic’s disappearance, all she’d seemed to do was travel, from California to Kathmandu, mostly in the name of work, sometimes to simply broaden her horizons, but now, letting her gaze settle over the gentle misty hills, she realised that sometimes you ignored the beauty and pleasure on your own doorstep.
A faint knock on the door shook her from her thoughts and sent a flutter of nerves coursing around her belly.
‘Come in,’ she said, knowing that it was unlocked.
Abby Gordon was holding a piece of toast and smiling at her.
‘We should go,’ said the younger woman reassuringly.
Ros glanced at herself in the mirror. She didn’t feel ready. She was wearing a red dress, bought specially from Jaeger the previous morning, because she knew how much Dominic had liked her in the colour. It had seemed a bold and passionate choice when she had tried it on, and in the changing rooms it had looked flattering. But this morning, as the cool Irish light cut through the window pane, she felt old and gaudy, mutton dressed as lamb.
‘Are you ready?’ pressed Abby. ‘Jonathon is waiting for us in the breakfast room.’
Ros had heard the expression ‘run for the hills’, but never had it felt more apt.
She took her coat from a hook on the door and put it on. It was now too late to change her dress, so she fastened the buttons to cover it, grateful for the tepid early August weather.
Abby was waiting patiently. Ros was grateful that her new friend had travelled with her to Ireland. She knew Abby had her own life, her own problems, but she had been there every step of the way.
Not much surprised Ros any more. She’d been a Fleet Street journalist for fifty years: she’d watched a man set foot on the moon, witnessed a wall go up – and then come down – through the middle of Berlin, and seen a black man become President of the United States of America, something that had seemed quite unthinkable that summer of 1961, when race riots raged in the Deep South. But never had she been more taken aback than when Abby Gordon had phoned her thirty-six hours earlier with the news that Dominic was still alive. At first she thought it was some cruel trick, or that Abby had gone mad through the stress of her divorce. It was only when Jonathon Soames had also contacted her to confirm the news that she had believed it, and felt a tide of joy so strong she thought it would knock her over.
‘Before we go, I just wanted to say thank you,’ she said, touching Abby on the arm. ‘Thank you for finding the photograph, for helping me, for believing in Dominic and for making an old woman happy.’ She felt her eyes moistening. ‘You didn’t have to do any of that, but you did, and I will never forget it.’
Abby didn’t say anything. She just smiled and nodded, like a sage old owl, then made her way down the stairs, checking every few seconds that Rosamund was following her.
Jonathon Soames was waiting for them in the lobby. Ros was still mad with him, of course. She had fallen out of touch with him many years before, but she still couldn’t believe that he had known all along that Dominic was alive and had not put her out of her misery. She’d asked him about it a dozen times on the flight over to Ireland, but he had been frustratingly vague and had simply said that it was for Dominic to explain.
He linked arms with her as they walked outside, and any anger that she had felt towards him began to soften. They were here now, and she was going to see Dom; that was really all that mattered. It mattered so much.
‘Should I drive?’ asked Abby after helping Ros into the back seat.
‘Yes, I suppose that’s best,’ smiled Jonathon wearily. ‘People get nervous seeing an eighty-six-year-old at the wheel.’
‘Where are we going?’ asked Ros as Abby started the engine.
‘Just a few miles along the coast,’ replied Jonathon. ‘I’ve called him to say what time we’ll arrive.’
Him. She felt light-headed. A wave of nausea hit the back of her throat, and she opened the window to let in some fresh salty air.
The road hugged the coast, and Ros tried to relax as she took in the view: broad white sandy beaches studded with rocks that stretched into clear blue ocean; fields and bog in every shade from moss green to ochre. Clouds gathered in the sky until they smudged into the rugged hills known as the Twelve Bens on the horizon. It was quite magical, a land of lochs and legend, and Ros thought it appropriate that she should be meeting him here.
She talked about the old days with Jonathon, and the recent deaths of some of their mutual friends: her wonderful flatmate Sam, who had moved to Cape Town many years before, and the glamorous art dealer Zander whom she had met at Jonathon’s dinner party.
‘We just need to turn left here,’ said Jonathon, not entirely convincingly, after twenty minutes or so. He looked at his watch and frowned. ‘I do believe we are a little early. The drive didn’t take as long as I thought it would.’
They stopped outside a small single-storey house. Ros had seen many of these properties since her arrival in Galway – typical Irish low-slung cottages with rough whitewashed walls and slate roofs. Wide lawns stretched on either side and down towards the sea. She sighed at the view. She was glad Dominic lived with a view like this.
They all got out of the car. The iron gate creaked as Jonathon pushed it open.
Ros held b
ack for a moment, a thousand questions whirling in her mind.
She had practised her opening line to Dominic countless times since Jonathon had told her that he was still alive, and every single word now seemed inadequate. She remembered the woman she once was, smart and opinionated and – yes, she could admit this now – attractive, but she wondered how much of that woman existed now, how much of her was left to love.
‘Well, what are you waiting for?’ asked Jonathon, smiling.
Feeling a swell of panic, Ros looked at Abby, then back at Jonathon, who gave her an encouraging nod and knocked on the door.
They stood and waited, but there was no reply. Ros hardly dared to breathe.
‘He’s probably round the back,’ said Jonathon quite casually.
They took the path around the house to the garden. Ros saw him immediately, standing with a spade at the far end of the lawn.
One of the few benefits of old age was that her distance vision was very good. He turned and wiped his brow, and she could see the look on his face as he spotted her. His expression of pure joy fortified her so that she did not turn around and run away.
As they began to walk towards one another, everything else slipped away, until she could see only Dominic.
He was wearing a worn navy sweater, dark trousers and gardening boots. He was still tall; age had done nothing to diminish his impressive physique, as it had with so many of her contemporaries. His hair was thin and white, his face deeply lined, but as he came closer, she could see that his clever grey eyes, those eyes that she loved, were as clear and alert as she remembered.
‘Ros,’ he said simply, his eyes glistening.
‘Hello, Dom,’ she replied, feeling a single cold tear escape down her cheek.
He exhaled, and she could hear his breath shuddering, as if he was choked with emotion.
‘I suppose you have a few questions.’
She couldn’t remember a single one of her over-rehearsed lines. She could only feel a strong surge of love and frustration.
‘A few,’ she nodded, biting her lip to stop more tears from falling.
‘You’re beautiful,’ he said, touching her jaw with his fingertips.
‘Not any more.’ She wanted to unbutton her coat and show him the red dress.
‘I’m old, not blind,’ he smiled, keeping his hand against her face.
She closed her eyes, unable to rid herself of that sharp and sour sense of injustice.
‘Why did you leave me, Dom?’ she said, opening them again, her hand curling into a fist. ‘Why didn’t you at least let me know that you were alive? I’ve spent over fifty years mourning you. You left me in the dark, believing you were dead.’
Her anger swelled like an ocean wave that peaked then crashed as it hit the shore. Her breath stuttered and she looked into his eyes, and she couldn’t be angry for a second longer.
‘I was recruited into the Security Service at Cambridge,’ he said finally.
She nodded and smiled softly. ‘I know. Jonathon told me. He told me that he was British Intelligence too. Who’d have thought it?’
‘I always said Jonny had missed his calling. He would have been an incredible actor.’
‘And you liked the adventure,’ she said, trying not to sound bitter.
He was silent for a few seconds.
‘I was fifteen years old when my father returned from the war,’ he said eventually. ‘He was sick, injured, mentally traumatised from a six-month spell in a prisoner-of-war camp. But he used to tell me and my mother that everything he had been through was worth it in the fight against oppression, and that was something I took with me to university. I wanted to be part of the struggle against whoever it was – fascists, communists, anyone – who wanted to keep people down.’
She could imagine him – young, handsome and brave. She hadn’t known him then, and she sighed with regret, realising how much she wanted to.
‘I didn’t even think you cared,’ she said with a touch of humorous complicity, that familiar banter between them returning.
‘I cared very much,’ he nodded, not looking away from her for even a moment. ‘That was the first thing I loved about you, Ros. The first thing I loved when I heard you protesting under my office window. I loved the fact that you cared.’
‘But why didn’t you tell me about your other life?’ she whispered. ‘I often suspected that there was something going on behind the scenes, I just didn’t know what. For a long time I thought you were having an affair with Victoria. I don’t know why you couldn’t trust me.’
‘It was nothing to do with trust, Ros,’ he said, taking hold of her hand. ‘I was a double agent. That compromised me, and the people I loved. I wasn’t sure how you’d feel about me working for the establishment and I didn’t want to jeopardise our relationship. And besides, I was desperate to leave.’
‘Why didn’t you?’
‘The Russians considered me useful. Leaving wasn’t that easy.’
‘But there were so many things we could have done. I could have helped you think of a way to get out.’
‘I didn’t want to involve you. I wanted to protect you. Especially when I found out that my KGB friend Eugene Zarkov had been killed, probably murdered. I knew it wasn’t safe to be around me.’
‘So you disappeared.’
‘Jonny had seen intelligence that I was in danger. At one of Victoria’s parties, just a few weeks before I met you, Zarkov told me about the Soviets’ true nuclear capabilities. Through his work, he’d been in a unique position to find out how many missiles the Russians really had. He was worried that America could blow his country to smithereens and they wouldn’t be able to retaliate. Despite Brezhnev’s rhetoric, they didn’t have the firepower.’
‘How many people knew about this?’
‘Hardly anyone. It made us vulnerable, a liability. It was information that put us at risk. Jonathon heard that Zarkov had been killed, and that there was going to be an attempt on my life. So I escaped through the jungle and ended up in Central America, where I stayed for twelve months, until Jonathon sorted me out with a new identity, a new life.’
‘Miguel, Willem,’ she said, thinking of the other men on the expedition. ‘Did any of them know?’
Dominic shook his head.
‘But I could have come with you,’ she croaked. ‘We could have disappeared together.’
‘How could I ask you to give up your whole life for me, leave your friends, family, everything you knew and cared about, to spend the next, what? Forty, fifty years looking over your shoulder? It was too much to ask.’
‘But at least you could have got in touch.’
He turned away and walked towards the edge of the garden, where a cliff overlooked the sea. He breathed in deeply, his eyes lost on a point on the horizon.
‘Looking back, there are things I would have done differently.’
Ros looked around: a herd of sheep bleating in a neighbouring field, the sound of the waves crashing on the shore, the sight of nothing but glorious nature for miles around.
‘It’s a long way from Tavistock Square,’ she smiled.
‘It’s a long way from you.’
Her eyelids fluttered shut with regret.
‘But Dom, the Cold War ended over twenty years ago. We could have had all that time together.’
He paused before he continued, and Ros opened her eyes to look at him.
‘I wanted to come back to you. Jonny discussed feigning my death in a more obvious way, leaving some sort of evidence in the jungle, but I always wanted to show up on your doorstep. I thought we could run away together, live in Cape Town, Bogotá, even here. But then Jonny told me that you’d got a job at the Observer, that you’d found a boyfriend and were happy . . .’
He looked away for a moment, lost in the memory.
‘I came to see you in Dublin. A literary event. I wanted to let you know that I was alive, hoped I could convince you to come and live with me. But then I saw you . . . I was on
the street, you were getting out of a taxi, and you kissed someone, and you just looked so happy, so alive, so absolutely where you should have been, a successful writer on top of the world, that I turned around and left.’
Ros felt her breath shudder. She remembered that night well, remembered the excitement she’d felt about attending an important literary evening, but she hadn’t realised for a second that she was being watched by the man she had loved so much.
‘You came for me?’ she whispered.
‘Came and left,’ he said, his mouth a firm, unhappy line. ‘I spoke to Jonathon a few weeks later. He said you were engaged and I knew that I had to leave you to live the life you’d created for yourself, a life you deserved.’
‘I called it off, Dom. I got engaged a few days after Dublin, but I called it off.’
His face fell with a strange, sad regret.
‘I’ve lived for over forty-five years in this spot,’ he said slowly. ‘It’s not been the life I ever imagined for myself, but I had friends, a job. I tried to forget all about you, but that was an impossible task. I should have come and spoken to you . . .’
‘And I shouldn’t have stopped looking for you,’ she said. She knew they were both picturing themselves in Dublin, at that one moment that changed the course of their lives for ever.
‘Did you ever marry?’ she dared to ask.
‘No. Did you?’
Feeling her heartbeat slow with relief, she dipped her hand in her pocket and pulled out the ruby ring. It looked very old-fashioned after all this time, but in the palm of her hand, it glinted pink in the sun.
‘This is the only ring I ever wanted.’
She thought she heard him sigh with happiness.
‘I’m sorry for all those missing years. I’m so, so sorry for leaving you.’
She clenched her fist and held it towards her heart.
The Last Kiss Goodbye Page 32