What Tomorrow Brings

by Mary Fitzgerald

  ‘Hello, Persephone.’ He turned towards me.

  ‘Amyas,’ I said, putting out my hand. ‘How very nice to see you.’ I was trying hard to be calm and professional.

  He looked down at me and grinned. ‘Don’t give me that offhand line, darling girl. I’ve explored every inch of your body and will do so again.’

  ‘Oh!’ I gasped and quickly looked around to see if anyone was listening. There were other people in the lobby, men mostly, and at least two of them were watching us quite intently. But no one was within listening distance. ‘Stop it,’ I smiled and reached up to kiss his cheek. His face was cool and smooth, perhaps older-looking, and the sprinkles of grey in his hair that I’d noticed last year in Cornwall had spread through his temples, so that he now looked less of a dashing young man and more distinguished. A yellowing bruise painted his cheekbone and when I gently pushed up the sunglasses I could see that he had a healing black eye.

  ‘What . . .’ I started to ask, but he put a finger on my lips and shook his head.

  ‘Later,’ he whispered.

  He took my arm and led me to the reception counter. ‘I’ve booked you a room,’ he said, and winking at the young, but rather smart, receptionist, spoke to her rapidly in Portuguese.

  He was clearly flirting with her and with pink cheeks and a suppressed giggle she turned to me. ‘Welcome, senhora,’ she said and then added, in halting English, ‘we have a room for you . . . on the floor . . . number one.’ She clicked her fingers to a young porter, who hurried over. Taking the key, he picking up my suitcase and headed towards the lift.

  ‘Where’s Xanthe?’ I asked, as we followed. ‘Is she on the same floor?’

  ‘No,’ Amyas said. ‘I’ll tell you in a minute. Let’s get to your room.’

  The suite was luxurious, decorated in the belle époque style of over-the-top gold-framed mirrors and glossy marble floors, so that everything was reflected and glistening. Billowing drapes at the open windows showed that I had a small balcony. I glanced quickly outside and saw that the hotel overlooked the Avenida da Liberdade and the Restauradores Square, with its great obelisk and neoclassical buildings. I could have been back looking out of my hotel room in Berlin, except that here palm trees, not lindens, lined the streets, their flat leaves moving sluggishly in the slight breeze. Even now, in the late afternoon, it was very hot.

  Looking back into the room, I gazed at the enormous bed with its carved dark wood headboard and pale rose silk spread. I took off my hat and undid the buttons of my grey silk jacket. Already I could feel a prickle of sweat on my chest. Was it the heat, or was it the presence of my lover?

  ‘Good bed,’ Amyas laughed, perhaps knowing what I was thinking. He handed the porter a few coins and waited until he’d shut the door, before taking me in his arms.

  ‘You look wonderful, Persephone,’ he breathed. ‘Just as I imagine you when I’m lying in my lonely bed.’

  ‘I bet you’re never in a lonely bed,’ I murmured, my face against his neck, but I was smiling. When we were together, we were lovers; apart, well, that was a different life.

  ‘And sharp-tongued as ever,’ he said, pretending to frown. He kissed me, his mouth on mine, giving and taking, until, once again, I was lost in him. His hands moved over my body and I felt myself being pushed gently towards the bed. In a moment, I would be on that beautiful silk cover and Amyas would be on top of me.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘No. Not now. I need to know about Xanthe.’

  ‘All right,’ he said and smiled at me. ‘We’ll leave that . . . for later.’

  ‘Where is she?’ I asked. Damn Xanthe, part of me was thinking. All I want to do is to lie in Amyas’s arms, but I have to worry about her. ‘Is she here, in the hotel?’

  ‘No.’ Amyas took off his white jacket and loosened his tie. He moved his arm carefully and I wondered whether he was still bothered by that chest wound. Surely it had healed by now. ‘She isn’t in Lisbon,’ he said. ‘I thought it was too dangerous, because von Klausen has men looking for her.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You must know that Lisbon, being neutral, is full of agents from all sides. I had Xanthe here, in the hotel, but you know how she is.’ He shook his head. ‘She wouldn’t keep quiet, was in the bar every night, telling her story to the world. I told her to shut up but,’ he groaned, ‘she’s impossible. In the end, I got her out of Lisbon and took her to a place in the mountains. She’s furious with me, but I think she’s safe.’

  I sat down on the bed. ‘When can I see her?’

  ‘Tomorrow?’

  ‘Why tomorrow?’ I was weary, but I’d made the long journey for a purpose and needed to get on with it.

  ‘Because, my darling, I have to meet someone in about . . .’ he looked at his watch, a new one, I thought and expensive, ‘ten minutes.’

  ‘What for?’ I felt grumpy and heard the whine in my voice. He should be focusing all his attention on me.

  ‘For a bit of business, but . . . you have a rest and then meet me in the lobby at about seven thirty and we’ll have a drink and decide where we’ll go on to eat. There’s so much to talk about, why rush?’

  I nodded. He was probably right. I was tired, it had been a long flight, one I don’t think that I, or even the paper, could have managed to get me on.

  That had been Charlie. He’d organised it.

  I wondered briefly how he was and my face must have changed, because Amyas narrowed his eyes. ‘All right, Persephone?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said and almost felt guilty for thinking about Charlie. ‘Yes. Perhaps it is a good idea. I am tired.’

  ‘Good. Then we’ll meet in the lobby at seven thirty.’

  I stood up and he put an arm around my waist and pulled me to him. ‘You are lovely,’ he murmured. ‘I’ve missed you.’ It was nice. It sounded as though he meant it. He picked up his jacket and panama hat and went to the door.

  As he put his hand on the knob a thought struck me. ‘Xanthe was expecting a baby,’ I said. ‘D’you know where it is?’

  ‘Oh, God, yes.’ Amyas scowled, as he went through the door. ‘She’s got him with her. A little boy. He never stops whimpering and she’s no idea how to look after him.’

  So it was a son, after all. My sister had a son. It was so unfair. After he’d gone, I lay on the rose silk bed cover and wept. How dare she have a baby when my child, my natural child, had been aborted from me in that clinic in Mayfair, where I’d been dragged by my mother.

  ‘I want to keep it,’ I’d wailed. ‘It’s my baby.’

  She wouldn’t listen to my pleading.

  ‘If you have this child,’ she’d snarled, ‘you’ll bring shame on the entire family.’ Her words had spat poison on me. ‘You went with a man who’s a thief and a gigolo, who has left you and there isn’t a chance that he’ll come back. You’ve been a fool and behaved quite disgustingly, but now you have to think of your family.’ She’d closed her eyes, dramatically, imagining the disgrace. ‘I would never be able to hold my head up again – and as for poor Xanthe?’ My mother’s face went even whiter. ‘Her chances of a good marriage will be wrecked.’ She waited for her words to sink in, before delivering the deciding blow. ‘And of course, it will kill your father.’

  So I went. My baby, mine and Amyas’s, had been destroyed and I was left infected, with pieces of the child still inside me, and had nearly died during the operation to correct the Mayfair butcher’s work. Now I was barren. And Xanthe had her own child, which I could never have. Not a child for Amyas, nor a child for Charlie.

  I cried until I was exhausted. The intensity of my distress surprised me, for I’d thought that I’d buried that horror years ago and couldn’t understand why it had come back now. But it seemed that the pent-up emotions of many months had surfaced and I needed to get them out before I could move on. So I wept, until there was nothing left, then I got up and unpacked my case. I put Marisol’s photograph on the bedside table and stared at it. Her eyes, those brown, mysterious pools of light
, gazed back at me, loving me and telling me that I did indeed have a child. I had this beautiful, little person who kissed my face and called me Mama. How could I have forgotten? I was ashamed of myself. ‘Good girl,’ I said to the photograph and gave it a kiss. I felt better and by the time seven thirty arrived I was washed and dressed in a turquoise cocktail frock, ready to meet my lover.

  We walked into the bar at the same time, me from the passageway from the lobby and he from the door which led to the street outside. I saw Amyas before he saw me and I noticed again that he was moving awkwardly, as though damaged in some way.

  ‘Persephone,’ he smiled and kissed my hand. ‘You look lovely.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I said and allowed myself to be led to a table close to the bar, where Amyas ordered drinks and I looked around the room. It was noisy, and full of people of all descriptions. Some of the women were dressed in evening clothes and some weren’t, and the men were similarly attired. Some stared shamelessly at Amyas and me, couples putting their heads together and nodding towards us.

  ‘We’re being talked about,’ I said.

  ‘Of course,’ Amyas grinned. ‘Lisbon has become a great big transit lounge. Everybody is on the move, or looking to see who has arrived or left. They know me, I’m always in here, but you? You’re the most exciting thing they’ve seen all week.’

  ‘But who are they?’

  ‘Refugees, diplomats, crooks, journalists and, of course,’ he laughed, ‘spies.’

  I sipped my gin. ‘What do they think I am?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh, you, they know. Your entire history will have been passed around from the moment you stepped off the plane. As far as they’re concerned you’re a respected journalist, probably here to get information for a feature piece. The fact that you’re here to collect your sister will not be known. Nobody will connect the reporter, Persephone Blake, with the blonde drunken Xanthe, because, for one thing, you and she don’t look a bit alike and, of course, she is calling herself Frau von Klausen.’

  ‘My God.’ I was shocked. ‘Don’t tell me she’s still devoted to that bastard.’

  ‘Oh yes. And as mad as ever. Pretending that she’s the real wife, and longing to get back to the Fatherland.’

  I sat back. Persuading Xanthe to come home was going to be awfully difficult. ‘How on earth did you get her out?’ I asked.

  ‘It was tricky. First I had to get her away from her minders and I did that by saying that von Klausen was in a hotel in Munich, but that the visit had to be secret.’ He shook his head. ‘She wanted to see him so much. I know she hated the people she was with. According to her, they were provincial and common and she couldn’t understand why von Klausen had made her stay with them for so many months. So, one day, when they went skiing, she claimed a slight cold and stayed behind. And instead of driving to Munich, I took her into Switzerland, which was bloody difficult because she hasn’t got a passport; that bastard, von Klausen, still has it.’ He looked into his glass and frowned and repeated the words, ‘Bloody difficult’.

  ‘She could have flown home from there,’ I said. ‘Why didn’t she?’

  ‘Because she went into labour.’

  I laughed. It was so typical of Xanthe to frustrate the best-laid plans. ‘And afterwards, why didn’t she come home? Why did you drag her halfway across the Continent?’

  He sighed. ‘Europe’s at war, people are on edge and it doesn’t take much for a suspicion to become a fatal action. I couldn’t get her on a flight, especially as she didn’t want to go and would have made a fuss. I was stuck with her, but I had to get to France. A little job needed doing. So I drove her there, to a place I know in Provence.’ He looked at me and his mobile features changed again and he smiled. ‘It’s a place I wanted to take you, a beautiful perched village where the soil is red and sunflowers and lavender fill the fields. From my house you can see for miles.’

  ‘Your house?’

  He nodded. ‘One day, we’ll go there.’ He reached over and took my hand. ‘I promise you, Persephone. One day we’ll drink wine on the terrace and watch the sun going down.’

  It sounded real, the words more heartfelt than I ever remember coming from him, and even while I smiled at him, part of me was wondering, why is he different?

  He looked across to the waiter and ordered more drinks, then stood up to shake hands with a couple who had walked to our table. He introduced them as the Prince and Princess Romanov and I shook hands with a large, heavyset, middle-aged man and a thin, sad-looking woman. When they’d moved away I whispered, ‘Are they really Romanovs?’

  Amyas grinned. ‘Probably not, but the name does get them a decent table in various restaurants and possibly an extended line of credit. They’re trying to get visas to go to America.’

  When our drinks arrived I said, ‘Tell me how you got from France to Lisbon.’

  ‘Well,’ he sighed. ‘As you know, the Germans were moving south all the time and I was advised to get out. I suppose I could have left Xanthe there, but I couldn’t. She’d have been picked up and taken back to Berlin.’

  ‘Why?’ This was the thing. Why had he taken her from Bavaria in the first place?

  ‘Why?’ He laughed. ‘Why? Well, because of you, Persephone, my darling. You were worried about her and wanted her home.’

  I stared at him. He’d rescued Xanthe for me, even though he didn’t like her and she was putting his life in danger?

  ‘Thank you, Amyas,’ I said and, reaching over, kissed him on the mouth. It was something I wouldn’t normally do in public and he was obviously surprised.

  ‘Shall we go upstairs?’ he said and grinned, his throwaway lightness of touch returning.

  I shook my head. ‘Not yet. I want to hear the rest of the story.’

  ‘Nothing much more to tell. I brought her here a couple of months ago. I’d have hopped on a plane with her and the baby, the day after we arrived, but . . . there’s work here I have to do. My employers made that abundantly clear. It’s been hard enough keeping Xanthe’s name away from them as it is. Still, she loved being in a city again, in a hotel, but was an absolute pest. In the end I had to rent a place in Sintra, which is about ten miles north from Lisbon. It’s up a winding mountain road, where, once again, she’s hidden from sight. A woman comes in daily, to clean and make food, but she speaks no English and you know how Xanthe is with languages. So, she’s stuck for the moment. But you must get her out. There are German agents all over Lisbon. Somehow, von Klausen has got wind that she’s here, and although he doesn’t care for her, he definitely wants the child.’

  ‘There’s one more thing,’ Amyas added, and his look was unlike anything I’d ever seen on his face before. ‘Persephone, my darling girl, you’ll find Xanthe changed. I don’t know what’s wrong with her, but she can’t travel by herself, and certainly not with the baby.’

  For a moment, I’d forgotten the boy. After I’d got over my weeping session, I’d tried to put Xanthe’s baby out of my mind. I didn’t want to think about him but now I had to. ‘How old is he?’ I asked.

  Amyas shrugged, ‘I suppose,’ he frowned, thinking back, ‘she had him in January, so that makes him about seven months old.’

  ‘What’s he like?’

  ‘He’s the image of von Klausen.’ Amyas’s mouth turned down in distaste. ‘A true son of the Fatherland.’

  On that sour note, Amyas finished his drink, and stood up. ‘Let’s have dinner,’ he said.

  We went to a restaurant a few streets away, where Amyas was obviously known, for the maître d’ welcomed him as an old friend. ‘This is the oldest restaurant in Lisbon,’ Amyas said, as we sat at a white-clothed table, surrounded by gilt-framed mirrors and under a brilliant chandelier. ‘The owner is a friend of mine and the best families in Lisbon come here to dine.’

  ‘Did you bring Xanthe here?’ I asked.

  ‘Christ, no. Have you seen her eat? If she manages a lettuce leaf it’s a miracle. Drink, though? She pours it down like there’s no tomorr
ow.’

  That was worrying. Xanthe had always been a picky eater, but, from what Amyas said, she seemed to have got worse. And the drinking?

  ‘How is she, really?’

  ‘Oh, mad. Thin. Hysterical a lot of the time. And she loathes me. Calls me her jailor.’

  ‘Well, I suppose you are. But thank you for rescuing her from von Klausen.’

  He grinned. ‘So, I’m back in your good books, yes?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘No matter what Charlie Bradford says. Right?’

  I blushed, remembering Charlie speculating on which side Amyas worked for. ‘He’s guessed what you do,’ I said. ‘I didn’t tell him. The only thing he doesn’t know is whether you’re working for us or the Germans.’

  Amyas smiled. ‘He won’t be wondering for long. Now that he’s working for SIS.’

  ‘Is he?’ I asked, trying to pretend that I already knew but was feigning ignorance. ‘How d’you know that?’

  He laughed and tapped his nose as the waiter appeared with our first course, a little pot of slow-cooked cuttlefish. It was delicious, as was the piri piri chicken that followed.

  ‘Tell me about the black eye.’ I wiped my mouth on the napkin and took a sip of the vinho verde, rolling it around my tongue and enjoying its slight fizzy quality. Amyas had appeared without his sunglasses this evening and his eye, although still slightly bloodshot, appeared to be healing.

  ‘I was careless,’ he shrugged.

  ‘Don’t try and tell me you walked into a door.’

  He laughed. ‘It could happen.’

  ‘It’s more likely a reprimand from a jealous husband.’

  He grinned again, not answering me and I knew then that his injury had been caused by something far more serious.