He took Simone by the arm and led her away. Ted was right beside them. ‘Simone has just told me you’re old friends.’
Stephen looked in surprise from Ted to Simone. ‘We are that. But I didn’t realise you two knew each other.’
‘Simone knows everyone.’ Ted draped his arm familiarly over her shoulder and chuckled.
She shrugged him off. ‘That is praise from you, Ted. I gather you’re here to do some of your high-powered shopping, the kind that leaves our poorer countries bereft of their best.’
Stephen caught the note of tension beneath the lightness in her voice. ‘Shall we find Jan, Simone? And Ted, I really should introduce you to Slava Aronovitch.’
‘Not now, thanks.’
‘Look, there’s Jan over by the buffet.’
‘Leave us Ted.’ Simone steadied herself, tried to shake off Ted’s eyes which seered and followed her. She walked slowly at Stephen’s side, letting him manoeuvre her round clusters of people. Only when she could see the white of the tablecloth, and against it a pair of grey trousers did she let her gaze rise slowly. She noted a jacket, a lean long-fingered hand, a yellow print tie, obviously chosen by a woman, and then his face. He was half turned towards the table and examining parcels of salami and heaped crudités as if they were intruders from a foreign planet. The freshness had gone from his skin, but the wry intelligence was still there, more pronounced now, etched in lines round eyes and lips, the nose somehow bolder, the hair strewn with grey here and there.
She took a deep breath as he turned towards her. The eyes. She had forgotten the wonderful clarity of the eyes.
‘Simone.’ He grasped her hand in both of his, lifted it to his lips. ‘You’ll permit me,’ he said in Czech. ‘It’s been so long.’
‘Better not to dwell on the years,’ Simone murmured.
‘Let me look at you.’ He held her shoulders and scrutinized her and smiled. ‘Beautiful. Still as gloriously beautiful as our long-ago Spring. It must be the Paris air. The air of liberty. Or your particular genius,’ he added in French.
Ted leapt in, understanding this last. ‘Now Jan, you mustn’t go falling in love with Simone. Her particular genius is to treat men as a superior form of entertainment. Am I right, Simone?’
‘I do not find you very entertaining at the moment, Ted. I would really rather you left us. Jan and I have a lot of catching up to do.’
Ted’s face darkened. Before he could protest, Stephen intervened. ‘There’s Professor Aronovitch. Let me introduce you to him now.’ He drew Ted away.
Simone watched them for a moment. ‘That man is dangerous, Jan. Don’t let yourself be charmed by him. I was once and I have regretted it ever since.’
‘Oh?’
‘But let’s not talk of that now.’ She gave herself a little shake. ‘I want to know everything about you. I have neglected you for too long.’
‘I think so, too.’ He wrapped her arm through his.
‘For very bad reasons.’ She met his eyes, wondered at the fact that she was here. With him.
‘No, no. For very good reasons. I was so stupidly young. So gauche, as you say.’
‘Not that, Jan. Never that. I’ll explain it to you. But perhaps not tonight. Tonight I want to get to know you all over again.’
PART THREE
-15-
____________
Change in a relationship is a peculiar process. You can never quite chart all the big and little things, all the external circumstances and subliminal impulses which bring it about.
If anyone had said to Tessa three days ago that on this grey Thursday morning she would wish for nothing more than that Ted’s attention should momentarily find another object, she would adamantly have denied it. Yet as she stood at the arched doors of St Agnes’s convent and felt the full force of his eyes on her back, she wished just that.
With a flinch of irritation, she turned to wave a second good-bye and hurried into the cavernous quiet of the building.
Timing. The two parts of a couple rarely seemed to want or need the same things at the same time. Then, too, she didn’t understand this new jealous vigilance of Ted’s. It had become the tenor of their relations ever since he had found out she was Mrs. Stephen Caldwell. Yesterday morning, he had decided they had to move hotels and now they were ensconced between spires and domes at the Pariz, their breakfast lit by beautiful chandeliers. Later, despite her protests, he had insisted on personally depositing her at the National Museum and had more or less demanded a detailed itinerary from her. She hadn’t followed it, of course. What she did with her days was her own business.
The process had been repeated this morning for St Agnes Convent.
Maybe, Tessa thought as she purchased a museum ticket, now that Ted knew her husband was someone he admired, his combative instincts had simply come to the fore. He was afraid she would give him up for Stephen before he was quite ready to give her up. Certainly his passion for her seemed to have trebled. Today she felt exhausted by the adventures of the night, her legs shaky as she pretended to look at pictures. It was odd, too, that this should make her plaintive.
There were men like that, she supposed. Men whose passion was competitive and inspired by the near presence of another man. But somehow she didn’t feel Ted was altogether like that. There were other things. She still hadn’t discovered how he had found out about Stephen. The whole business made her uneasy. And Ted was so much moodier now, as if the fact that they had made unprotected love rattled him. It rattled her too, if she was honest with herself.
It was odd, given that she had so much wanted it, had dreamt of little else since she had met him. But no sooner had her dream come true than she found herself trying to imagine an ordinary daily life with Ted. She realised she couldn’t imagine it. And what of Stephen? Everything had grown so confusing. The bubble she had climbed and soared in had suddenly burst in mid-air.
Tessa clenched her fist and forced herself to look at the painting in front of her. It showed a peasant family in a dark interior. A white kerchiefed mother ladled something out of a copper pot on an open hearth. A fat toddler played at her feet. A tabby cat curled beneath a rickety chair. At the door, a thick-set man was removing his jacket. Tessa stared at the child.
That was it, of course. Amy had displaced all her more nebulous wishes. A real child whose presence in her mind was far sharper, more precise than the notion of any seed that might germinate inside her. She didn’t dare say that to Ted. He was so against the idea of adoption.
Yesterday, after he had dropped her off at the Museum, she had waited ten minutes and then taken a taxi to the British Embassy. She wanted to investigate the mechanics of adoption and she needed to talk to someone about that. They had told her she needed an appointment, but she had insisted there wasn’t time. So she had waited. One hour, two, three, before she was at last allowed to see some minor official.
He was a young man with a thin face and neatly parted hair and she knew from the public school reek of him, the slight disdain of the lips, that he would hardly make things easy. No sooner had she breathed the word ‘adoption’ than he began to treat her like some menopausal biddy whose grey matter had gone decidedly soft and slightly rancid. It was as if the very notion of adopting a foreign child was tantamount to opening the flood gates and inviting in a sea of alien invaders. Definitely something to be frowned upon, something unclean and to be avoided at all costs. Despite the difference of tone and gesture, he had reminded her of Ted.
He had told her in no uncertain terms that nothing could be done from this end. She must return to Britain and put in her application with her local council. They would investigate her. The social workers would investigate her. It would take, oh, at least six months before a report came through. She would also need medical certificates and marriage certificates - she was married, he presumed? He said it as if that notion, too, filled him with distaste, then hastened to add that all this applied to her husband as well as herself. Criminal records, bank
accounts, financial status, would have to be checked. And character references supplied.
All that before one confronted a single nappy, Tessa had thought to herself. She wanted to say it aloud, wanted to ask that singularly self-important young man whether a mother had ever changed his, but she kept her mouth shut, nodded politely and left. Only after she had done so, did she realise that he had not once met her eyes.
She felt slightly battered, as if he had whipped her with words and behind each word stood the weight of a mountain of official forms and procedures. She wandered through the narrow streets beneath the Castle, knowing that she was probably lost and not particularly caring. She wished for a moment that Stephen was with her, Stephen who knew how to talk to bumptious officials, whoever it was he cared to sleep with. Then the careful parting in the young man’s hair appeared before her again, the hint of a stubborn slick. She couldn’t allow herself to be beaten by that, she thought ruefully. She straightened her shoulders, found the Charles Bridge and walked emphatically across into more familiar territory.
It had been too late to go to the orphanage, so instead she had dropped in on Rachel Witzmanova. She was sitting with her feet up on her desk and she grinned and didn’t bother to put them down when she saw Tessa.
‘Come to pay your debts?’
Tessa nodded. ‘And to get your advice.’ She realised as she said it, that something about Rachel made her feel safe, imbued her with confidence.
By the time she had finished telling Rachel about her experience with the embassy official, they were sitting in a dilapidated bar and Rachel had flung back a tiny glass of some potent concoction and ordered her to do the same.
‘Pah! All alike these red-tapers. You should go and talk to a friend of mine. A lawyer. He’s relatively honest, but he knows how to fix things. And I know he’s not one of those who would snatch a baby from its mother’s womb.’ She stuck her stomach into the air and made a snipping gesture.
‘What! What do you mean.’ Tessa was shocked.
‘You know. Like those baby thieves in Paraguay. They make millions. Everyone except the mamas.’
‘Oh.’ Guilt hovered over her. She urged it away. ‘But if the mothers want to give the children up for adoption?’
Rachel shrugged. ‘Okay then. Why not? A better life.’
‘Will you come with me to see your friend?’
‘You can’t afford me, I told you already.’ Rachel winked. ‘And at this rate, I can’t afford you. I’ll phone him for you. Tomorrow.’
Tessa stood at the doors of the Convent and scoured grounds and street just in case Ted was still lurking. No sign. She walked quickly through the gates. Later today she would go and see Rachel, but first she must visit Amy. Her heart started up a rapid patter.
The orphanage looked more propitious today. Pale sunshine glinted over snow. Dirt and rubble wore a feathery cloak. In the courtyard a group of children played, their voices muted, but not unfriendly. They all wore blue, the boys overalls and the girls knee length skirts above thick woollen socks. Their jackets had seen better days. As she walked past them, they stopped their play to watch her. One of the boys put out a begging hand and retracted it quickly when a woman wearing a nun’s wimple approached. Beneath its white, she was black and she smiled sweetly at Tessa. Tessa smiled back, didn’t attempt language.
She made her way past the holly bush and into the little building where Amy was housed. She had brought something with her today: a wooden rattle with a shiny red bead at its centre, and she dug it out of her bag and showed it proudly to the nun who came to greet her.
The woman looked at her askance and started to chatter away incomprehensibly. She shook her head, made odd gestures. It took Tessa a few minutes to understand what she didn’t want to know. Amy was gone. Where? Tears sprang into her eyes. She tried to make herself understood, said ‘where’ in all the languages she could summon, ‘ou?’ ‘dove?’ ‘wohin?’, finally remembered her phrase book and brought out, ‘kde je?’
Again the woman shook her head. Either she didn’t know or wouldn’t tell her. She pointed her towards the main building. Tessa didn’t go. There was no point. If she was to find out anything, she would have to come back with Rachel. But there was probably no point to that either. Amy had been returned to her mother. Her real mother.
By the time she reached the street, Tessa’s vision was blurred with loss. She felt emptied out, desolate, as hollow as if she had suffered a death. Amy’s little face rose up before her, with its dark-eyed trust and obliterated houses and people and traffic. She saw only that steady, sorrowful gaze; those tiny hands with their surprising grip.
She didn’t quite know how she arrived at the hotel, but suddenly she was there amidst marble and mosaic and she heard her voice asking for her room key.
‘Ah yes, Madame Hughes. There is an urgent message for you.’ The receptionist placed a piece of paper in her hand. ‘The police. I’m afraid it is the police.’ She gave her a look of avid curiosity.
Tessa scanned the note. ‘Attend Vy~sehradsk’a Police Station. Two o’clock.’ She glanced at her watch. She had five minutes to get there. Her heart lifted. Amy. Perhaps they had Amy.
The station clock showed fifteen minutes past the hour. Tessa steadied her voice as she addressed the young policeman she had met two days before with Rachel. He made no sign of recognizing her. Instead, after she had pronounced her name slowly three times, his face lit up. ‘Ano, ano.’ He picked up the desk telephone and blurted something down the line, then led her into a back room.
Seated on a long wooden bench was Jan Martin. He rose as she came in, an ironical lilt to his features. ‘Your interpreter has preceded you, Miss Hughes.’ He stretched out his hand. ‘I have spent more time with the police in these last few days than I have for over a decade.’ He smiled. ‘In the interim, I have worked hard to stay out of their way.’
‘I’m so sorry. So sorry to have put you to all this trouble.’
‘No, no. It is an experience for me. I have rarely been in a station as a helper before.’ He winked at her, then studied her face more seriously. ‘You are not well. You are troubled.’
She didn’t have time to answer. The officer she recognized from her first visit had just come into the room together with the policewoman. They were both in uniform today. He nodded at them and gestured them out of the room. They followed him through a dank, airless corridor, through a vast bolted door, down a series of narrow concrete steps. The walls here were made of large stone which crumbled moistly to the touch.
Tessa was suddenly filled with foreboding. No place for a baby here. She gripped her bag and held it to her like a talisman.
At the bottom of the steps, the man unlocked a second heavy door and ushered them in ahead of him. Cells bordered one side of the long rectangular room, their bars as heavy and forbidding as those of a medieval dungeon. There was a persistent sound of rustling, like rats, Tessa thought nervously, and the drip, drip, drip, of water.
From one of the cells on the left a lone prisoner stared out at them. His face was a mass of bloated veins and jagged teeth. Gnarled hands gripped bars. He called something out. Tessa jumped, turned toward Jan. He shook his head, put a steadying hand on her shoulder.
In the last of the series of cells, two women sat on scruffy, uncovered mattresses. One of them rose as the officer called a name. It was the woman from the church. She was wearing the same faded, flowery dress. A tangle of long electric hair spilled over her face. Seeing Tessa, she started to shriek, hurl what could only be imprecations. She spat, pointed, as if Tessa were the accused in an identity parade.
Tessa began to tremble. The woman’s rage seemed to swallow her balance. She leaned against Jan for support.
‘What is she saying?’ she murmured, her voice echoing oddly against stone walls.
Jan didn’t answer immediately. Instead he addressed the officer and as he did so the woman stopped her diatribe. She followed their movements warily with slate-dark ey
es. As the men walked out of her line of vision, a new nervousness invaded her face, a tiny tremor at the lip. With a furtive motion, she wiped beads of perspiration from her brow and rubbed her palms on her skirt.
Tessa was suddenly engulfed by a wave of compassion. If she had known how, she would have tried to console her.
Perhaps the woman sensed it, for she suddenly threw a rough woollen sweater over her shoulders with such regal aplomb that the gesture brought forth a rich floral shawl. She began to pace, her shoulders and colour high, her demeanour so dramatic that the sordid cell took on an operatic aura. The woman had a strong vital beauty, Tessa thought, a physical pride which made her feel shadowy, somehow ashamed.
‘Apparently they picked her up at the orphanage, who phoned the police station.’ Jan was addressing her in muted tones. ‘Somehow she found out the baby was there. Now she claims that you stole her, walked off with the baby when she had only asked you to hold her for a moment.’
Tessa gazed at him in incomprehension. ‘But that’s not true. I waited for her to come back. Waited for over an hour. It’s not true. Not true.’
Tears bit at her eyes and for a moment as she glanced from Jan to the suspicious face of the officer to the woman, she felt that perhaps it was she who wasn’t telling the truth, that she had indeed walked off with Amy, whatever her protests. Her thoughts were askew. Could she have acted on her fantasies? Had this woman unearthed them? She did want Amy. That one thing was clear to her. But so it now seemed did her mother. A sob escaped her.
She felt Jan’s arm round her shoulder again, calming her. She had to hold on to the facts, cross the tightrope which separated the real from the imaginary. ‘It’s not true,’ she protested again. ‘I didn’t steal. I came to the police. I…’
‘It’s all right.’ Jan was speaking. ‘The police do not believe her. She had more money on her than she ought in the normal course of things to have had. And she has no papers. That is serious. But the police have to make certain. That is why we are here.’
The Things We Do For Love Page 26