There was another silence. How awkward we are, Gini thought, and how bleak we sound. She opened her bag and began to rummage inside it for her car keys.
“I used to think of you,” Pascal said in a sudden, abrupt way. “I’d see articles you wrote. I could see you were doing well. I was glad. I always wanted you to succeed. To be happy. I hope you know that was the case—”
“I am happy,” Gini replied quickly. “I’m fine. Everything’s worked out very well. Listen, I should go, Pascal. We’ve got work to do. I think I’ll go over to the Press Association, go through the clippings on the Hawthornes. And you’ll want to check in at your hotel. Can I give you a lift?”
“No, no. There’s a cab pulling in. I’ll take that.”
He signaled to the taxi driver. Gini still fumbled for her keys in her overflowing bag. Her fingers touched wrapping paper, a box, the cold metal of a pair of handcuffs. She had almost forgotten this parcel. She fumbled again, and found the keys at last. When she looked up, she saw Pascal was still watching her, a slight frown on his face.
“Your father? How is he?” he asked. “Well, I hope.”
“My father’s at the Washington bureau now. Drinking just a little bit more. I rarely see him. You don’t have to be polite.”
“And your stepmother? She lives in the country still?”
“No. In London. She remarried some years ago. Very happily. Her husband died a year ago. So it’s been hard for her. But she’s fighting back. She’s like that.” She paused. “You’d like her, I think. You should meet her anyway.”
“I should?” He looked surprised.
“Oh, yes. She might help us. She’s the reason Jenkins put me on this story. She’s the ‘contact’ Jenkins mentioned.”
“Your stepmother?”
“Yes. Mary’s known the Hawthorne family for forty years at least. They’re old, old friends. She and Hawthorne are very close. It was through Mary that I met him. At her house, at her party.”
A look she could not quite interpret crossed Pascal’s face. “Oh, of course,” he said. “All those family connections of yours. Instant entrée.”
“I don’t advertise them, Pascal.”
“I’m sure you don’t.”
“Mary’s nothing like my father, in any case. And my father…” She broke off. “Pascal. You shouldn’t have blamed him.”
“I didn’t blame him.” He spoke sharply. “I blamed myself.” Across the yard, the taxi driver leaned on his horn. “Damn.” Pascal glanced over his shoulder. “He’s getting impatient. I’d better go. And you’d better hurry if you want to go through the clippings on Hawthorne. The files will be a foot thick. So…” He turned to glance at her. “What shall we do? Would you like to meet later? Shall we have dinner tonight?”
“No, not tonight. I’m going out tonight. Let’s make a start in the morning. Call me then. You’ve got the number?”
She stopped. Another memory had come back. For an instant she felt on her skin the heat of a Beirut summer. Sometimes, when he was working, Pascal would be away all night. If he was, he always called her hotel first thing in the morning. He always called at eight. She always picked up on the first ring. That was their ritual. Darling can you come over now? I got the pictures. It’s all right. I’m safe. She turned away. These memories hurt.
Pascal hesitated, as if about to say more, then moved off to the waiting cab. Over his shoulder, from a few yards off, he said, “I’ll call in the morning. I’ll call at eight.”
Inside her little Volkswagen it was cold. The seats felt damp. Gini switched on the windshield wipers. She watched the cab pull away, then disappear through the gates. She switched off the car engine. The windshield became a blur of water. Water rattled against the car roof. She slumped against the steering wheel and covered her face. She felt tense with the effort of concealment. If she had known she was to meet him, then she would have coped so much better, she thought. It was hard to be greeted by him as an acquaintance, a virtual stranger, yet if she had had time to prepare, she would have known that was likely, and what she should expect.
She straightened, started the engine once more, and looked out across this prison-yard place. It was twelve years since Beirut, and five since the last occasion, the only other occasion, when they had met. Sitting outside a café on a wide Paris boulevard on the Left Bank. It had been a day of bright sunshine, the light dazzled in the street. And she had not been alone, she had been with another journalist, an Englishman much older than herself. Her affair with him had been uneasy and quarrelsome from the first; the visit to Paris had not improved things. They had spent much of the previous night arguing, and all of the morning. As she sat outside the café, she was trying to blot out the stream of accusations that came from her left. She had been thinking: In a moment I’ll just stand up and leave. Then I’ll never need to see him again. And she looked away, up the boulevard, with its plane trees, watching the passing people, and her eyes focused on a single family group.
They were walking toward her at a leisurely pace, a tall, dark-haired man, a dark-haired woman, and their child. The man had his arm around the woman’s shoulder; the woman was pushing a stroller with a little girl in it. The child was laughing, and waving her fists. She looked about two years old, Gini thought. It was their ease, their evident contentment, that drew her eye. She watched them approach; the little girl was wearing a bright blue dress, a little pinafore—and then she realized. It was Pascal who was laughing at something this woman had just said to him. It was Pascal who took one of her hands, and swung it, and increased his pace. It was Pascal who stopped just a few yards away, turned to her, said something, and kissed her upturned face.
The shock was acute. She had known that he was married; she had heard he had a child; until that moment she had not understood what she had lost.
She had looked away quickly, and bent her head. She told herself that he would not notice her, and that if he did, he would walk on by, but he did not. He stopped, hesitated, and then he spoke.
She did not want to remember the scene after that. The stiff introductions, the meaningless exchanges, the fixed and glassy smiles. The air eddied with undercurrents. Pascal’s wife’s face became tight. The little girl began to cry. Eventually, the family group moved off. Beside her, the man with her knocked back his drink.
“Well, well, well,” he said. “Pascal Lamartine, no less. So tell me, when did you screw him—and don’t bother denying it, Gini. It was written all over your face. And his.”
She had not said one word. She simply rose and walked away. As she did so, she felt the headiest relief. She ran back to their hotel, packed her bags, and left. The man was completely unimportant. Now, still sitting in her car, she could scarcely remember his name, let alone his face.
But that glimpse of marital happiness—she could remember that only too clearly. Looking across the wet yard, she watched it, gesture by gesture, Pascal’s other life. When, just a few minutes earlier, he had mentioned his daughter, he had made no reference to the incident. Perhaps he had forgotten it, forgotten she had ever seen his wife or Marianne.
It was likely, to be expected. Releasing the brake, she drove forward, and out of the gates.
Pascal’s hotel turned out to be in Park Lane. It was large, efficient, international, and anonymous. He had been assigned a business suite with two telephones and a fax machine. His life was now lived in similar hotel rooms. He felt he could move around them blindfolded. It took him two seconds to unpack.
He checked his cameras, dialed room service, and told them to bring some food at eight. He showered, changed, inspected the crumpled garments in the closets, and resolved to reform. Would Gini want to work with a man who looked as if he’d slept the night before in a hedge? No, she would not. He rang the valet service, and feeling proud of himself, gestured grandly at the clothes hanging in the closets.
“Take them away,” he said. “All of them. I want them all cleaned and pressed. Oh, and the shirts laundere
d. Can you do that?”
The valet smiled and said he could. He made no comment when he opened the closet doors to find it contained three ancient shirts, three pairs of blue jeans, and innumerable pairs of mismatched socks.
“The leather jacket as well, would it be, sir?”
Pascal ran his hands through his hair, so it stood on end. “No. Maybe not the jacket. It’s cold. I’ll need this.”
“Replace the missing buttons on the shirts, sir?”
“That’s possible? Superb.”
“If you’ll be staying with us some while, sir, I could make a suggestion…”
“One week. Two weeks. Maybe more. What?”
“There is a very good shop in the hotel arcade, sir. It sells excellent gentlemen’s clothing….”
“Suits?” Pascal said on a suspicious note.
“More your actual informal wear, sir. I think you’d find it to your taste. It stays open until eight.”
“Excellent.” Pascal gave the man a very generous tip. He went downstairs at once. He inspected the shop in question warily, since clothes did not interest him in the least, and he bought them rarely, only when the previous garments gave up the ghost. Steeling himself, he went inside and began grabbing things from shelves.
“These,” he said, “and these. And three of these. And those over there…”
The pile on the counter mounted. The assistant watched him, straight-faced. “They’re all black, sir. You’re sure you—”
“Yes, yes, black,” said Pascal, proffering plastic. He was already bored with this. “Everything black. It’s simpler like that.”
The assistant knew a pushover when he saw one: customers in a hurry were usually the best. Besides, this customer would be a pleasure to advise. He was tall, lean, rangy. He deserved to be well dressed.
“If I might make a few suggestions, sir? To complement these purchases. A classic white shirt, perhaps? We have Turnbull and Asser in stock. And a nice tie to go with it. Knitted silk is back….”
Pascal was not aware that knitted silk had ever been away. He gave the man a blank look. “Ties? Ties? I never wear ties….”
“For a dinner engagement, sir? Or a business meeting, perhaps?”
Pascal hesitated. He had a sudden vision of Gini seated next to him at a candlelit table. He and Gini were drinking champagne and eating wonderful food. Gini looked rapturously happy. Women liked to be taken to restaurants, he thought vaguely. He frowned.
“A tie,” he said in a meditative tone. “A tie. Yes, maybe you’re right.”
“And then, sir, we have the new Armani jackets just in. The unstructured look, with just a fraction more tailoring than last year. Now, this one here…” He produced a jacket. Unfortunately, Pascal looked at the price tag. An expression of pure horror came upon his face.
“Ah, no. Here I draw the line. Impossible. Unthinkable. Indefensible. I have a leather jacket upstairs.”
“Ah, yes. But for that dinner engagement, sir? Would the leather really be suitable? This is cashmere, of course.”
Pascal still looked shaken, and unconvinced. Inspiration came to the assistant.
“And then it would last, sir, there’s always that. Classic styling, superb fabric. Ten years from now, you could still be wearing it.”
Pascal was less naive than he seemed. He knew an astute sales pitch when he heard one. He smiled and made a quick calculation: Perhaps it could be justified, this once. He added the white shirt, the knitted tie, and the jacket to the pile.
“Ça suffit. Not a sock, not a belt, not an item more. Enough.”
Returning to his hotel room, Pascal made an effort. He actually hung up the new clothes. Then they made him feel guilty and despondent. Restaurant, what restaurant? He’d probably never even take Gini to a restaurant. They would work together during the day, and then in the evenings she’d go out with whoever was the new man in her life. He glowered at the foolish clothes and shut the door on them at once.
Work, he said to himself, and he set himself to work. He could feel the memories, just there at the edge of his consciousness, and he wanted them no closer. Work would keep them at bay. He opened his heavy address book and began to run down the names of contacts. Forget Beirut, forget that small square bare room above the harbor, forget everything that happened there. That was in another country, in another life.
He closed his eyes briefly. For an instant he saw Gini, the Gini he had known then. She was standing, quietly, near the window. It was dawn, the shutters were closed, and the pale outline of her naked body was striped with the pinkish light from the louvers. She was watching him silently, a little sadly, as he slept. Waking, seeing her, he at once ached to hold her. He lifted his hand to her.
“Darling. Don’t worry. Don’t be sad. We’ll find a solution. I love you. Come back to bed.”
He swore under his breath, closed the address book, opened it again. The memory faded, eased away, but he knew it would come back. Names, contacts, he said to himself. Somewhere in this address book there would be someone who could help with the Hawthorne story. Someone—but who? Of all these numbers—which?
Pascal’s contacts were his lifeblood. They had to be better than those of his competitors: His contacts, as much as his camera skills, kept him ahead of the pack. These connections spanned the social scale. At one end were the hostesses, the party-givers, the jet-set pleasure-seekers; at the other end were those who serviced the needs of the first—the private-plane pilots, the chauffeurs, the hotel clerks, the ski instructors, the security operatives, the maids, nannies, and gardeners—all those who quietly, efficiently, and invisibly serve the whims and caprices of the rich.
The nightclub owners, the croupiers, the swimming-pool servicers, the golf pros, the tennis coaches, the vendeuses, the call girls. It was a huge and useful underclass. Pascal had experienced the pulse of their resentment. Their banked hostility to their employers no longer surprised him. Like them, he had learned from proximity. He had little sympathy for the hypocrisies of the privileged and powerful, little sympathy for the sublime carelessness of the rich.
He paid well and promptly for information received. Sometimes the advantage this gave him amused him, and sometimes it disgusted him. His mother, tough, forthright, and uncompromising, had attacked him for this work, right up to and including the day of her death.
“Once your work meant something,” she said. “Now what are you? A jackal, a hyena, un espèce de parasite.”
Pascal had not replied. He was adding bills in his head. French lawyers. English lawyers. A house in the suburbs that cost five million francs he didn’t have. A house—or so the French lawyer believed, so Helen had said—that would make his ex-wife happy and keep her in France. Keep Marianne in France, nearby, near him, at a French school, speaking French.
This had mattered to him once, passionately. Now even that achievement, that attempt to rescue some security for his child from the wreckage of the marriage, even that might be lost.
Pascal opened his address book, flicked its pages, closed it again.
“If there was no wrongdoing, Maman, I would have no story….” He had said that once, twenty times. “People lie, Maman. They cheat. They double-cross. My photographs show them doing that. They show the truth.”
His mother had not deigned to answer him, and Pascal, shamed, had turned away. Better not to try to justify this work, although it could be justified, perhaps. He needed money and this paid better than wars or deprivation. There was an inexhaustible appetite for these stories. He was in tune with his society’s values: Let that be his excuse.
He stood up and switched on the television. On the news program were reports from several Middle Eastern countries. The previous week, Israeli troops had opened up on a village in the occupied territories. Sixteen Arabs had died, two of them possible terrorists, and five of them children. The incident had occurred while the latest round of U.S.-Israeli talks was proceeding. Increased U.S. aid to Israel, and a boost in U.S. arm
s supplies were widely rumored to be part of the new package. The anti-U.S. demonstrations had begun in Egypt, in Syria, now in Iraq and Iran: outside the U.S. embassies, outside the premises of U.S. businesses. Pascal watched his past in his present: the processions, the placards, the slogans, the burial of the dead.
In London, the latest IRA bombing campaign was continuing. A bomb had been defused in a van outside Victoria Station. In Brussels, EEC ministers had met to…In the West Country, severe flooding had…Pascal rose and switched off the set. He spent some time on the telephone to various contacts of his, including one—formerly the madame of an exquisite brothel in the sixteenth arrondissement of Paris, who might know where a powerful man would go, once a month, to hire blondes for a liaison with sadomasochistic overtones. The results of the calls might prove helpful, but for the moment were inconclusive. Pascal stood, and stared at the wall of his hotel room. He thought of Genevieve; he heard the music of that small room above a dance hall in Beirut.
At seven, needing air, feeling trapped, he left the hotel and walked the streets for a while. He passed through a silent Mayfair and skirted the brilliant empty shops of Oxford Street. He thought he walked at random, without purpose or direction, but this was not the case. His footsteps led him to Grosvenor Square, and to the U.S. embassy there.
He halted, and watched the building from across the street. Rain now fell heavily, in a thick curtain. Lights still blazed from the office windows with their protective bomb-blast curtaining. Outside the main doorway, at the head of the steps, two marines stood on guard. This was unusual; Pascal stared. He could see the startling white of their puttees, the glint of brass buttons. The front of the building was floodlit. Pascal’s eyes moved up to where the bronze eagle, wings outspread, soared along the roofline.
Protective in its attitude, yet predatory: Pascal regarded it with distrust Eagles, hammers, sickles—he disliked the icons of imperialism. He shifted his eyes higher to the flagpole, with its stars and stripes.
The marines alerted him. He heard the stamp of their feet as they came to attention. As he lowered his gaze, the doors were already swinging back.
Lovers and Liars Trilogy Page 8