'She could have said, "No comment",' Fran observed coldly. 'She could easily have known nothing about our marriage. As a matter of fact, I would have thought it was better if she didn't. She could have told them so with perfect truth, and that would have been a protection in itself.'
'And the questions that come after that? How do you feel now you do know about it, Mrs Mercier? Do you think there is any significance in the fact that your ex-husband's new wife bears such a close resemblance to you? Would you like to give us your comments, Mrs Mercier?' He drew a deep breath and looked across at her. 'Have a heart, Fran.'
She lowered her eyes to the photograph again, the sickness of the initial shock fading as she realised she believed him. Ironically, because she trusted Julia. Knowing he had married again, she would never have agreed to meet him except for a very good reason. Fran knew she had absolutely nothing to fear from her in the sense of physical infidelity, but it wasn't physical infidelity she was afraid of. Unfaithfulness in the mind had as much power to destroy and could rouse just as much jealousy, and it was against Grant's thoughts and emotions that she had no defence.
His insistence on secrecy for their wedding now appeared in a new light. At the time there had been no reason to believe it was anything but what he said—that he didn't want their privacy invaded—but then she hadn't fully grasped that whatever he did was new, nor had it occurred to her that the likeness between Julia and herself was something the press would leap on. If the photographer outside the register office had been more alert and recognised Grant the situation would have blown up then, catching Julia unprepared.
Indicating the picture in the restaurant, she said, 'This was after we were married. Why didn't you tell her before?'
'I tried to but she was away. I couldn't get hold of her.'
'So that's why you wanted to keep our wedding quiet,' she said, her voice flat. 'To protect Julia.'
He hesitated. 'Not only Julia. Both of you.'
'I don't remember you giving me any warning of what to expect,' she commented sharply.
'There was no need. I was ready to deal with it, and it was pointless to worry you with something which might never happen.'
'All right,' she said at last. 'I'll accept that you wanted to save her from unpleasantness since it's hardly her fault, but a phone call would have done it. It didn't need a candlelit dinner for two.'
Beginning to show impatience, he said forcefully, 'It was seven-thirty in a packed restaurant with a party going on ten yards away! Hardly the setting for a night of nostalgia! It so happened that when I rang her she was coming up to London the following day, so I said I'd meet her after I'd finished at the studio. We had a meal while we discussed it and afterwards I put her in a taxi back to her hotel.'
'Without even a good night kiss?' Fran enquired cynically.
It struck home and Grant closed his eyes wearily. 'We were married for six years.'
Fran stared at him in disbelief. His tone wasn't even defensive—he had spoken without the slightest trace of guilt, and stunned, she realised he felt none. It seemed that his guilt, his concern, was reserved for Julia. She wanted to rage and scream at him, and vent her helpless jealousy with her fists, but she daren't, and it would accomplish nothing anyway. In a hard voice she said, 'It all sounds terribly friendly and considerate. Perhaps she regrets now that she divorced you. After all, she hasn't re-married.'
'Oh, for God's sake!' he exclaimed. He slapped his open palm down on the paper in front of him. 'Look, you've seen this rubbish. This is what they can do with a simple likeness on a day when they're short of news, but that's all it is—rubbish. They're not actually saying anything, just inviting the readers to let their imagination run riot and see if it suggests anything scandalous to them. Everyone will watch us for a while just in case there is a bit of scandal somewhere, and no doubt the press will hang round hopefully, but then it will die down. We've all been annoyed but nobody's harmed. I've been waiting for it and I had my answers ready, but I had to be certain Julia had as well. You said yourself that it wasn't her fault this had arisen, and the very least I can do is to try to make sure it doesn't rebound on her as well.'
Fran's lips were dry and she moistened them. 'Possibly I'm dense but I can't think of any questions which could be so very terrible.'
He said deliberately, 'Can't you? Then try these for size. Have you ever met your ex-husband's second wife, Mrs Mercier? Can you tell us where he met her?' He paused, then went on, 'See what your imagination could make of the answers to those if you were a reporter digging for dirt.'
Her eyes flew to his face. 'But… but there's nothing for them to find.'
'Prove it!' he challenged. He shoved the newspapers away from him with a gesture of distaste. 'Look what they managed to come up with there. Oh, it would all be very carefully phrased—nothing we could sue them for, but unfortunately I offended one or two members of the press in my early days and they wouldn't lose a chance to come back at me.'
Fran was silent. It was a short step from gossip column to gutter press, and they could suggest something salacious merely by virtuously denying that they were suggesting it. If they discovered she once lived within sight of Grant and Julia the implications were obvious, but a heavily veiled insinuation that his marriage had foundered because of a torrid affair with a teenager would only be damaging to them, and it was Julia he was mostly concerned for.
Grant was slowly pacing the kitchen, his hands shoved into the pockets of his bathrobe. He went to the window and let up the blind, then swore and pulled it down again. 'I'd better go and get dressed. There's a couple of them outside and they won't go away until I've spoken to them.'
She nodded, then said as he reached the door, 'I still don't see how Julia could really be affected by any of this. We're the ones who won't come out of it smelling of roses if they try to make out we were having an affair, and anyway she knows there is no foundation for it. I only ever saw you in the distance after you were married—I never so much as spoke to you, so I don't see why she should be particularly upset.'
Even to her own ears her voice sounded pettish, and Grant halted and half-turned back towards her. 'Don't be uncharitable, Fran. She's not as tough as you, and she would be both embarrassed and humiliated by that sort of publicity. I'm not exactly overjoyed at the prospect of my role in it either.'
'And I suppose it isn't reasonable for me to feel humiliated,' Fran retorted bitterly. 'I've no right to be resentful if everyone now regards me as a sort of… clone of your first wife! I might have taken comfort from the fact that at least I was the one left in possession, but after that photograph there would seem to be some doubt about it!'
'I'm sorry about that. It's unfortunate that we were seen together.'
Incredulously, Fran noted that he was apologising not for the fact that he had taken Julia there, but that it had been made public. Sudden, violent anger seized her. It must have shown in her face, and his expression arrested, Grant said, 'For God's sake, Fran, you're not jealous! You must surely know you've no cause to be!'
Of course she knew. There had been three years when Julia might have taken him back but she hadn't, and even if she'd had thoughts of it, her principles were too high to allow her to consider it now. But the jealousy was still there, and to hide it she said acidly, 'Other people are bound to think I have reason to be. I might be tougher than Julia, but I shall still find all the speculation about us unpleasant.'
'I've said I'm sorry for that and I am, and yes, with hindsight it would have been very much better if it had all been done on the phone. At the time I'm afraid I was only concerned with getting together so that we should tell the same story. As far as the press are concerned, you and I met at that party where you collapsed. We don't want them delving any further.'
'I expect you're right,' she agreed woodenly. 'Though anyone in the valley could tell them there was nothing of interest.'
'It wouldn't be wise to rely on it.'
She looked u
p, startled, and he held her eyes with a level gaze and said, 'Not if they went back far enough.' He paused again, and she felt her face wash with scarlet colour under his steady regard. 'There's always talk in a village, Fran—you know that. For our sake as well it's best not stirred up again.'
She was speechless, her face and neck still burning from the tide of heat. He gave a small shrug, then to her inexpressible relief there was a long, insistent peal on the doorbell. He said irritably, 'Oh hell, ignore it. I'll be down to them in a minute,' and she was left staring after him, her mind grappling with the inferences of his oblique statement.
She felt sick with shame as she considered them. She had known he left home to escape her, but it had never even crossed her mind that her pursuit of him might have been noticed by others and he was escaping from the gossip she had caused as well.
She would never dare mention his meeting with Julia again and she wished she had never learned of it. Gazing into her half-empty coffee cup, she tried to banish her miserable, suspicious thoughts, but she found herself wondering if Grant had always kept in touch with Julia; if there had been other times, since their marriage, when he had met her and there hadn't been a photographer on the scene.
In her heart she knew there hadn't, but she was shocked, her confidence shattered. Grant had known last night what to expect, but his fury over Brenda's mistake had not been because of its effects on her, but on Julia. She had come second. The knowledge resurrected all her doubts. She was back to the beginning again, unsure of herself and of him, and against her will her eyes were drawn again to the picture taken in the restaurant.
What did Julia possess that evoked such staunch love and loyalty? And why, oh why, did the camera have to capture so exactly that softened expression in Grant's eyes as he smiled at her?
When he came back in she was still sitting in the same position at the table. He glanced at her, his dark brows drawn heavily together, and said, 'I'm beginning to think it might be a good idea to go home straight away. I want to get down to some uninterrupted writing anyway, and we should be free of this nuisance.'
He had been thinking of it for some time, and she had been quite agreeable when he mentioned it before. Now, however, the prospect filled her with dread. She exclaimed quickly, 'Oh no!' then tried to moderate her reaction as she saw his surprise. 'I mean, wouldn't it look as though we were running away? That we really had got something to hide?'
'Frankly, I don't give a damn how it looks.' He paused, watching her. 'Don't you want to go?'
'Of course I do,' she returned, forcing a smile. 'But I don't want anyone to think we're turning tail, and it would seem odd when we've accepted for several parties and dinners. And aren't you supposed to be declaring something open?'
'I could come back for it. Would you mind missing the parties?'
They reminded her all too strongly of the interminable affairs she used to attend with Seth and it would be a relief to miss them, but she said lightly, 'I was rather looking forward to them actually. I must have somewhere to show off my new necklace and earrings, and besides, I haven't had time yet to get used to being married to Grant Mercier, the sought-after playwright. I get quite a lot of reflected glory, you know—everyone is terribly nice to me.'
Even without Grant's quick frown she knew it was the wrong thing to have said. He was quietly scornful of the hostesses who regarded his presence merely as a social achievement. He would spend hours talking over problems and techniques with fellow writers and those in the television business, but it made him uncomfortable to be paraded and lionised.
He said, 'All right, we'll forget it for a while, but don't accept any more invitations.' His voice was unrevealing, but Fran suspected he was disappointed in her, and confirming it, he said, 'Life can't be all play, Fran—I do have to work as well, and though I have a good manager in charge of the farm, there are still things I need to discuss and oversee.'
He went out, and she sat for a moment longer. The whole issue had started out with a near-row over Grant seeing Julia without her knowledge, and despairingly she wondered how it could possibly have ended with her being the one in the wrong.
There was a constraint between them for the next few days, though she couldn't honestly say it was due entirely to Grant. He had been remote occasionally before when his mind was heavily involved with thoughts of the play he was on, and it might have been the reason this time. They went out a couple of times in the evening, once to one of the parties, and unexpectedly she enjoyed it since she met a girl she liked and had lost touch with. They had started out in modelling together, but Margot had progressed through television commercials to acting parts, and was now quite successful.
Fran gaily introduced her to Grant, and was inwardly gratified when she looked him over with open envy, and said, 'I'd swap my career for him any day.'
'Oh, being married to a writer isn't nearly as glamorous as you might think,' Grant drawled. 'People are inclined to get the wrong idea about us, particularly if we write for television. They think we spend all our time mingling with the rich and the famous, but actually we can be very silent and boring, can't we Fran?'
'Sometimes,' she agreed uncertainly. 'Though it's not as bad as you're making it sound.'
'But it's not the exciting life that outsiders might imagine,' he insisted.
She looked across at him, and meeting his mocking smile, realised with a sense of shock that he was slightly drunk. Uncomfortably, she said, 'Perhaps not. It all depends on what you consider exciting. A lot of people wouldn't find that kind of life enjoyable anyway.'
She was embarrassed and beginning to feel apprehensive. She had never known Grant drink too much before and she didn't know how to handle him. Observing her unease he smiled at her again, then turned to the other girl and said, 'So don't swap your career until you're certain what you'll be getting in exchange. Ask my wife.'
The sparring little episode ruined the rest of the evening for Fran, and she was thankful when they left. They were silent in the taxi on the way home, but inside the apartment he put his arm round her and she shook him off irritably.
'Stop it—you're drunk.'
His hand fell away from her at once. Agreeably he said, 'Who should know that better than I? Another fascinating aspect of my character which you haven't been privileged to observe before. And I'm not so very drunk, my darling, or I shouldn't have been able to say that. Note also that I am quite docile. I'm not one of your noisy, aggressive drunks—quite the reverse, in fact. It is merely that under the influence I perhaps have a tendency to say things which prudence would normally forbid.'
'Like that rubbish you were talking to Margot.' She glared at him in exasperation. 'What was behind all that, for heaven's sake?'
'Merely a little friendly advice—what else?'
'You made it sound as though I married you for the life I expected to lead!'
'The mingling with the rich and the famous? But don't you enjoy it, darling? You always assured me you did when I asked you, and you've never even hinted that you didn't want to go to any of those bloody affairs. I've watched you getting ready for them, preparing to outshine all the other dresses and furs that would be there. Not that I'm complaining—you look quite delightful in furs, and it's a small price to pay for your contentment.'
Fran bit her lip, then said in a stifled voice, 'Actually I don't enjoy them, but I thought you more or less had to go to them so I was making the best of it. If you want the truth, I'm usually bored a lot of the time.'
'Ah, the truth,' he said consideringly. 'Which is it, I wonder? What you told me before, or what you're saying now? Because if it's what you're saying now, then you certainly had me fooled! You positively lit up at some of those dinner parties, darling, and if a man happened to be a millionaire you were dazzling.'
'Because you need millionaires as backers for your plays and you never know when it might pay dividends! Would you rather I was rude?'
He raised his brows. 'You mean it was all fo
r my benefit?'
'Yes,' she muttered. 'Though I don't suppose you'll believe it.'
'You suppose quite rightly. I wanted to go home, if you remember, but no. There were a few functions where I had to be exhibited first, and you had to display your jewellery. You're surely not claiming that was for my benefit as well!'
She looked at him with a sense of helplessness and found he was watching her cynically, his eyes still alert and intelligent, despite the alcohol.
'Well?' he challenged.
'No,' she said after a pause. 'I'm not claiming it in that instance, but it wasn't because of the invitations that I didn't want to go.'
The glance he sent her was rich with scepticism. 'Really, darling? Then enlighten me—what was the reason?'
Shrugging, she turned away from him. 'Nothing that matters now.'
'Of all the answers to a question that is possibly the most irritating,' he observed dispassionately. He walked over to the sideboard and took out the Scotch bottle and a glass, swinging round to face her again with the drink in his hand. Her lips tightened, and he said, 'If you're about to point out that I've already had enough, I know I have, darling, but I feel like having a little more, so go to bed and don't bother me. Save your wifely concern for the hangover I shall have in the morning.'
Fran didn't see him again until breakfast time. She knew he must have slept on the settee, but he was showered and changed when he appeared, and if he was suffering he gave no sign of it. His manner was so normal that she wondered how much of the previous evening he remembered. But he wouldn't have forgotten, she knew—his brain had still been keen enough. He was indicating to her that he wanted the subject ignored, and on the whole she was relieved. She might be smarting at the injustice of what he believed of her, but explanations could make things worse and it was better left.
Sacha rang towards evening, breaking a long silence. Fran knew she had landed a job in Rome and gone off triumphantly to model some new young designer's spring collection, but that had been weeks ago, and when she heard her voice, Fran said drily, 'It must have been some assignment.'
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