Lovers and Liars Trilogy

by Sally Beauman

  Today she could do anything: she could make water spring from dry rock; touch a mountain and make it move. Remake a marriage? Heal a breach of trust? Easy. Easy. She could do it with one finger, one flick of her wrist, one word. Never in her life had she felt so female, and never in her life—no, never—had she felt this power. Such bounty: taking Pascal’s hand, she waited; it passed through her palm and fingers; it passed from her hand to his.

  Pascal said: “When did you know?”

  “At once, I think. The next day. The next hour. But I had to be sure. So I waited. I saw the doctor yesterday.”

  “Yesterday? You should have told me.”

  “I had to wait. I meant it to be perfect. I was going to wake you, and then…” She caught his hand and pressed it against her stomach. “Do you think it’s a girl? Or a boy? I think it’s a boy. Your son. And you know how old he is? I know exactly. Six weeks, two days, and—oh, about five hours. I know you remember…”

  “I think I do.” Pascal smiled.

  “The Monday. By moonlight. We’ll have a moonlight child. We—” She stopped, seeing his tears. “Oh, tell me—please tell me. You did want this? You are happy? You will love him? Or her? And me… You will love me and trust me now? Always? I will, always. Oh, please, answer me, Pascal.”

  Pascal drew her against him and pressed her face against his heart. Just for an instant, there and then gone, he felt some vestigial sadness, almost a weariness, as if his morning’s dream had returned. It clouded the edge of his vision momentarily, this product of the disparities between them, in years, in experience. Fortunately the sensation was brief; wisely, he concealed it.

  “Which question first?” he asked gently, kissing her. “My darling, this may take some time…”

  Lindsay always wept at weddings, and of course at funerals. At christenings, she discovered, she wept too. First she wept because the words of the service were so beautiful; then she wept because Max and Charlotte’s baby was sleeping so peacefully; then she wept again because holy water woke it, and on waking, the angelic baby bawled.

  As she was leaving the group by the church after the ceremony, making her way along a narrow pathway bordered by gravestones and the foam of May wildflowers, Markov caught up with her.

  “Good,” he whispered. “But don’t overdo it. Your mascara’s running again. We want discreet sentiment. Wipe your eyes.”

  “Oh, piss off, Markov,” Lindsay said. “This isn’t acting. Go away.”

  Markov went. Lindsay rubbed her eyes with a tissue, then skulked off to a corner, under some trees.

  She watched the rest of the large christening party linger by the church for a few last photographs. Various friends and neighbors, whom she knew; Tom, persuaded into a suit for once, with his girlfriend Katya on his arm; Charlotte cradling her lovely baby; and Max, beaming at everyone, Max looking absurdly tall, thin, elbowy, and proud. For some reason Max’s elbowiness made her want to weep again. She sobbed quietly into her sodden Kleenex. From the church came wails from Max’s sons: “More pictures? Do we have to?”

  “Shut up, Alex. Stand still.”

  “What’s all the fuss about? It’s only a stupid girl…”

  Lindsay smiled. She fixed her eyes on the tombstones in front of her and began to read the epitaphs: 1714, 1648, 1829. Much-loved wife, dearly beloved husband of, widow of, daughter of… The epitaphs calmed her; she dried her eyes.

  The group by the church was leaving now. Only a few of the guests lingered, as the rest set off for the party at Max’s and the christening champagne. She could see the tall figure of Rowland McGuire, on the edge of the group as always. He was in conversation with a young girl Lindsay knew to be Mina Landis. Her parents were divorcing—or so Charlotte said; she and her mother were returning to America soon. The girl was slightly built, and seemed painfully shy; Rowland seemed to be making an effort to draw her out, but his kindness was receiving little reward. The girl hung her head, and seemed to make monosyllabic replies; shortly afterward she was claimed by her mother and swept away. Rowland lingered, looking up at the church, unaware he was observed.

  Lindsay thought: I could go over to him and join him. I could put Markov’s advice into practice right now. I could ask him about buttresses and pillars. I could look at that famous Norman doorway with him. We could look at saints and angels together—and he could explain their symbolism, no doubt. But she turned away. She did not have the heart for the deception, and she could not bear the spectacle of Rowland, being kind.

  None of this is going to work, she thought miserably; none of it. She waited until Rowland McGuire had disappeared back into the church—why? To examine its architecture? To pray?—and then she returned to the path. She picked some cow parsley—Queen Anne’s lace, Charlotte called it, a much prettier name—as she walked. She went down the old, worn steps, out through the lych-gate, and into the lane.

  In the distance, some guests, the last stragglers, had reached the entrance to Max’s driveway. She saw the floaty pastels of the women’s dresses, heard a shout, then laughter from the men. Rowland McGuire said: “You cried.”

  She turned around to find him at her shoulder, frowning into the sun, very nearly a foot taller than she was, impossibly handsome, unreadable, maybe amused, maybe sad.

  “Yes, I did,” she replied a little irritably, walking on, Rowland keeping pace with her. “I’m sentimental. I like babies…”

  “I can see that.”

  “I also like puppies. Kittens. Foals. Lambs. The last time my cat had a litter—there were eight kittens—I cried all morning. It isn’t a virtue. I do know that. No one else cried back there.”

  “Charlotte did.”

  “Charlotte has cause.”

  They walked on a short distance in silence. Lindsay tried to think of memorable remarks, and failed. For the first hundred yards she felt self-conscious and tongue-tied, an intellectual pygmy; for the second hundred yards she felt happy—he had chosen to walk with her, after all. By the time they reached Max’s drive—that cursed optimism of hers—full-blown elation had taken hold. He was there, she thought, drinking in the sunshine, and the air, and the scent of new-mown grass.

  “I like your dress,” Rowland said into the silence, in somewhat cautious tones.

  Lindsay tripped; she turned to stare at him.

  “What did you say?”

  “Your dress. It’s—I can’t stand fussy dresses. I like that. It’s…” He searched around for an adjective.

  Lindsay looked down at her dress, cream linen, midcalf, high-necked, short-sleeved. She was aware that it looked good—well, quite good—against her tan.

  “Plain?” she offered, smiling. “Modest? Elegant? Restrained? Matronly? Dull? Cream?”

  “Most certainly not matronly. It suits you. It makes you look…”

  Apparently the appropriate adjective failed him again. Lindsay could see how hard he was trying, and she felt a rush of pure affection for him. With a naturalness which surprised her, she took his arm.

  “Come on, Rowland. I can see you find compliments difficult. It doesn’t matter. Let’s get some wine. There’s champagne, and a wonderful cake. It has three tiers, and a stork with a baby in a bundle in its beak…”

  “Does it indeed?”

  “God—what a glorious day!”

  Lindsay lifted her face to the sky. Rowland watched her do this but made no comment. He escorted her through the gardens to the rear lawn, where formal Max, who liked ceremonies, had organized a resplendent marquee. Lindsay, among friends, began to enjoy herself, although every so often Markov would materialize at her elbow and remind her, in a sepulchral whisper, to look tragic.

  “Jesus,” he hissed, toward evening, when the party was winding down. “You’re supposed to have a broken heart. Go off somewhere on your own. Linger in the distance, looking kind of pensive. Don’t argue. And give me that damn champagne.”

  Lindsay obeyed him. It was actually quite natural to do so, because all afternoon Row
land McGuire’s polite attentions had been marked. He had ensured, for over three hours, that she was plied with canapés and cake, and that her glass was filled. He had ensured that, when trapped, she was extricated, and when stranded, she was not alone. As a result, Lindsay felt somewhat tipsy, but pleasantly and not dangerously so. She felt a benign dreaminess that might have been due to the attention as much as the champagne.

  She wandered off from the remaining crowd of adults and children to the far end of the garden, where there was a lopsided summerhouse, constructed several years before by Max for his sons, and—thanks to Max’s inexpert joinery skills—now half falling down. It had a pleasing dilapidated air, and was canopied with a strangulation of roses and vines.

  Lindsay sat down on the rickety bench beneath it and breathed in the scents of flowers. The light was just beginning to fade, becoming mauve on the flanks of the far hills. She could hear voices, and was glad they were distant and muted, and glad she was alone.

  She closed her eyes and listened to these unfamiliar and welcome country sounds: birdsong and birds’ wings, from the field just beyond the hedgerow, the soft, velvety breathing of cows. In one more month, she thought, I shall be thirty-nine years old. She sighed contentedly; this fate, which had previously struck her as terrible, now did not seem so terrible at all.

  “Are you all right?” said a voice. “I’ve been looking for you.”

  Lindsay opened her eyes. There, outlined against the light, was the tall, dark-suited figure of Rowland McGuire.

  “I’m fine,” said Lindsay, forgetting to act the tragic heroine. “I’m glorying in all this.” She gave a broad, encompassing gesture of the arm. “The smell of grass and flowers. The shade. The birds. The cows.”

  “I’m interrupting you.”

  “No, no—not at all.”

  Rowland looked unreassured. He hesitated and then sat down next to her. He crossed his long legs, then uncrossed them again, then frowned in the direction of the fields.

  He might have been calculating their exact acreage, Lindsay thought after a silence had fallen and endured for several minutes.

  “Your friend Markov,” Rowland ventured, after a while. “He’s an interesting man. Not what I expected at all.”

  “You were prejudiced, I imagine. People are. He plays to their prejudices—you know, the dark glasses, those foolish clothes.”

  “I suppose,” Rowland said with a certain weight and a sideways glance, “that it was arrogance on my part…”

  “Possibly. A little,” Lindsay said with a smile. “You can be arrogant occasionally, Rowland.”

  “I know,” he replied with a certain amusement and possibly some gloom.

  “You should let people surprise you.”

  “You think so?”

  “Yes, I do. I’ve always liked the unexpected. Things coming at you, out of left field…” Lindsay, catching his eye, suddenly remembered her role. She gave a small sigh and folded her hands together. “Even when”—she went on, aiming at a pensive tone of voice, dignified but bravely sad—“even when the surprises are painful. Yes, even then. After all, in life, there’re always lessons to be learned.”

  There was a silence; a long silence. Lindsay did not dare to look at Rowland. She felt almost sure she had overdone that last remark. Unconvincing, she thought, and fatuous. She rose.

  “I was just wondering…” Rowland, who looked vastly amused by something, also rose. “I gather Tom and his girlfriend aren’t going back to London with you tomorrow?”

  “No. They’re going on to friends.”

  “I suppose it wouldn’t be possible for you to give me a lift back, would it? I came down with Max, you see…”

  “You won’t criticize my driving?”

  “I wouldn’t dream of it.”

  “Fine, then. Very well.”

  Two hours, Lindsay was thinking as she made this crisp reply. Three if she drove slowly, if the traffic was bad. Why had she never noticed how glorious Max’s garden was? It looked like Eden. She began to walk back toward the voices, and the fluttering pink and white draperies of Max’s rented marquee. Rowland appeared to be intent on escorting her this short distance. Lindsay began to pray for traffic jams, for a ten-mile tie-up, for a punctured tire, a broken fan belt. In the distance she could just glimpse Markov, half concealed behind a bush, much the worse for drink, making faces at her. She began to pray that Rowland would not notice this odd behavior, and this prayer seemed to be answered. Giving a violent gesture, Markov toppled over into the bush with a crashing of branches. Lindsay stole a glance at Rowland; but no—God was merciful—he was looking the other way.

  As they reached the French doors that led into Max’s drawing room, the telephone began ringing. Rowland excused himself, went inside, and presumably took the call, for the ringing stopped and a long silence ensued.

  Lindsay lifted her face to the sun contentedly.

  A few minutes later, his features expressionless, Rowland emerged.

  “Did they want Max?” Lindsay asked. “He’s still up by the marquee, I think.”

  “No. The call was for me. I’ve been expecting it, I suppose.”

  “Good news? Bad news?” Lindsay looked at him curiously. “Are you all right, Rowland?”

  “I’m fine. Shall we join the others?”

  He guided her around to the terrace. As they reached the steps, he sighed, then smiled and took her arm.

  Sextet

  Sally Beauman

  For Alexander Mackinnon

  fear ioúl gasda, caraid

  gasda, agus duine gasda.

  Contents

  INTERVIEW

  Chapter 1

  HALLOWE’EN

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  BONFIRE NIGHT

  Chapter 7

  FRIDAY THE THIRTEENTH

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  TWO LETTERS AND FOUR FAXES

  Chapter 12

  THANKSGIVING

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  ADVENT

  Chapter 17

  There are terrible spirits, ghosts, in the air of America.

  D. H. Lawrence, Edgar Allan Poe, 1924

  Hippolyta: ’Tis strange, my Theseus, that these lovers speak of.

  Theseus: More strange than true: I never may believe

  These antique fables, nor these fairy toys,

  Lovers and madmen have such seething brains,

  Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend

  More than cool reason ever comprehends…

  Such tricks hath strong imagination,

  That if it would but apprehend some joy,

  It comprehends some bringer of that joy;

  Or in the night, imagining some fear,

  How easy is a bush supposed a bear.

  Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream

  INTERVIEW

  Chapter 1

  WAS SHE AFRAID OR not afraid? The interview was drawing to a close; from outside the theatre dressing-room, where it was taking place, came the murmur of traffic and the wash of rain; it was early afternoon, yet the light was already beginning to fade.

  Across the room from her interviewer, both women seated on hard upright chairs, the actress Natasha Lawrence was positioned with her back to her dressing-table and its mirrors, which reflected her in triplicate. She was leaning forward a little, hands clasped in her lap, answering a question about her work. She did so in a low, somewhat hesitant voice, which, mingling with the sound of rain and the faint purr of a humidifier, had a lulling effect. Was she afraid? This question, and most of the other questions her interviewer, Gini Hunter, would have liked to ask, had not been, and apparently could not be, voiced.

  This interview, like many Gini had conducted in the past, had
been hedged around with restrictions from the first. For the past year, Natasha Lawrence had been playing the title role in Estella, a musical by a celebrated English composer which had been a succès fou in London, and was now a succès fou in New York. The musical was based on Dickens’s Great Expectations, and adjustments had been made to the novel. The part of Estella, that lovely poisonous child, trained up by mad Miss Havisham to break men’s hearts, was given greater prominence in the musical than in the book. There had been surprise when Natasha Lawrence took this role—her first singing role—for her fame was as a movie actress. Confounding the critics, however, she had proved to have a powerful, true, sweet singing voice. This, combined with her acting ability, never in doubt, had helped to turn Estella into a triumph. Gini Hunter, an agnostic where musicals were concerned, admired Lawrence’s performance, but retained a strong preference for the original novel; this preference, obviously, she had been careful not to express.

  Now, after nearly a year of eight performances a week at the Minskoff theatre, an exhausting and demanding schedule, Natasha Lawrence was leaving the show. She was being replaced by a slightly less famous name, and the rumour was that bookings were beginning to fall off. Natasha Lawrence was returning to film work, specifically to a movie directed by her former husband, Tomas Court; this movie, Gini gathered, was to be shot in England—and beyond that would not be discussed. She was here, for The New York Times, at the behest of an editor friend there. She would interview Natasha Lawrence as she prepared to leave the cast of Estella. That, at least, was the reason for the interview, or its peg, given to the collection of press agents, PR representatives, secretaries and aides who stood between Natasha Lawrence and the outside world; the true reason behind the decision to run the piece was rather different—as, in Gini’s experience, was usually the case.

  ‘I hear talk,’ said Gini’s editor friend, a young man who was rising fast; so fast was he rising that he had attention span difficulties; one of his eyes, Gini always felt, was permanently fixed on what he was going to do and be next. He was playing with rubber bands, a quirk of his.