Constance

by Rosie Thomas

  Then, very suddenly, the end came.

  Connie and Bill had flown back from Rome, and they were standing at the carousel at Heathrow waiting for their bags. Two whole days and nights with Bill had lulled Connie into a wifely rhythm. She linked her arm through his as streams of luggage circulated on the belt, then stretched up to kiss the corner of his mouth.

  An instant afterwards they turned their heads, sensing that they were being watched.

  The moment froze into horror for ever afterwards.

  Cousin Elaine – who was returning with her best friend from a fortnight in Tenerife – was staring at them across the revolving suitcases.

  It was immediately clear to all three of them that a bomb had silently exploded in baggage reclaim and that the fallout was going to affect every corner of their lives.

  Within twenty-four hours Elaine had told Jeanette exactly what she had seen.

  (‘Well. Not to tell would have implicated me in the affair, wouldn’t it? You couldn’t expect me to enter into that sort of conspiracy with Bill and her against my own cousin. No right-thinking person would do such a thing. No, I did what was right and proper and I’m not ashamed of it.’)

  Jeanette made an unprecedented journey to Belsize Park.

  She marched into the flat with her coat pulled round her body as if to let it fly loose might expose her to lethal contamination. She refused even to sit down. Instead she stood in Connie’s kitchen, her eyes burning and the muscles in her throat working as she fought for the words.

  She told her adopted sister that she was a despicable adulterer, ungrateful, a liar and a cheat, and not worthy of having been taken out of council care and welcomed into the Thorne family.

  – That’s what we did, and this is your response.

  Connie stood and silently took it all. In the grip of hurt and fury Jeanette looked like an avenging angel in a Renaissance painting. With a kind of bleak detachment, Connie had to admire her magnificent passion. Back came the memories of clawing and scratching at each other as children. Those battles seemed almost affectionate compared with this one-sided fight.

  – You are not my sister. You never were, Jeanette said.

  Connie didn’t point out that the biological bare fact was hardly news to her. And if Jeanette now chose to sever the remaining connection, with all its patina of Echo Street and the crannies and knobs of resentment that had accumulated over all their years – then Connie couldn’t really blame her.

  – You will not see my husband again.

  Connie couldn’t disagree with that either. She said that she was very sorry, and ashamed. She could have tried to add that Jeanette loving Bill so much herself might at least have lent her some sort of understanding of why Connie should love him too, but her fingers felt too cold and heavy to sign one more syllable and her face was stiff with misery.

  – I don’t want to see you ever again.

  Connie tipped her head in silent acknowledgement. Jeanette wrapped her coat even more tightly around her and swept out of the flat.

  After she had gone, Connie stood behind her front door and listened to the silence. She had never felt as lonely as she did then.

  ‘How bad was it?’ Bill asked in a low voice.

  Connie pressed the receiver to her ear as if that would bring him physically closer.

  ‘It was bad. What about you?’

  ‘The same.’

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘I’m at the office. I want to see you.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Is that all, Con? Just no?’

  ‘You know that this is not just anything.’

  ‘I do. You’re right. You’ve got more guts than I have. Listen: remember what I told you.’

  Bill had told her many things, but what he meant was I love you.

  ‘Me too,’ Connie breathed. She reached out and put the receiver back in its cradle.

  Jeanette and Hilda formed an alliance of two. Bill was to be forgiven, eventually, once he had endured enough reproach. But Connie was never to be properly rehabilitated. She tried to forget Bill by immersing herself in work, by travelling to wherever she could reach that was a long way from London, by constructing all the appearances of a happy and productive life.

  Over time, the absolute exclusion from the family softened a little. She was invited to set-piece events like Jeanette’s fortieth birthday and Noah’s eighteenth, but by then she was with Seb Bourret and this thawing of the ice probably had more to do with his glamor and fame than with Jeanette’s or Hilda’s reviving affection for herself. But still she went to the parties. The Thornes and the Buntings were the only family she had. And it meant that from time to time she saw Bill, or at least a quiet and correct version of him. They never touched each other, and spoke hardly a word in private. There was, in any case, nothing they could have said that they did not know already.

  Then Hilda died, and there was one more terrible argument on the day Connie saw the contents of the old cardboard box.

  She and Jeanette did not speak again until Jeanette knew how ill she was.

  Connie waded through the water, the soaked hem of her skirt clinging to her legs. At last she saw the dot that was Bill’s head dip as he swam in a circle and headed back to the beach.

  She waved her arm over her head and pointed to her watch.

  Jeanette was lying on her side, but her eyes were open.

  ‘Did you sleep?’ Connie asked.

  – No. I just wanted to lie here.

  Connie helped her to sit up. Jeanette rubbed the sand out of her hair and her face twisted because the movement hurt her. Connie put her wrap around her sister’s shoulders, and chafed her hands as if she could massage some more life back into them.

  Bill sprinted the short distance up the beach. He hopped on one leg as he dragged on his trousers.

  ‘Let’s get going.’ He took Jeanette’s hand to lead her.

  Connie picked up the folded blanket and the picnic box and they began the slow walk back. The sand was hot under their feet.

  Their taxi was parked in the shade of some scrubby bushes, with all four doors open to catch a breeze. The driver had been asleep on the back seat, but he leapt up as soon as they approached.

  ‘Lapangan terbang. Airport, quick, quick,’ he beamed, and they settled Jeanette into her seat.

  They had spent longer at the beach than they intended, and the checkin queue had shortened to a handful of people. Connie could see from the sign that the Singapore flight was already boarding. Jeanette stood with her hand tucked under Connie’s and her slight weight resting against Connie’s arm while Bill checked them in.

  – I wish you were coming home.

  ‘I’ll be there in a couple of weeks,’ Connie said with an easiness she didn’t feel. She had deliberately chosen not to return with Bill and Jeanette because she thought it would be right for them and Noah to have a few days alone together, without having to work out whether or not she should be with them. After that she would fly back to London for what they all knew was likely to be the beginning of the end.

  ‘We’d better go through,’ Bill said.

  At the barrier Jeanette turned and held up her arms, like a child.

  Connie kissed her, and closed her arms around her sister’s shoulders. There was almost nothing left of Jeanette’s once luscious body.

  – Thank you. It was wonderful, Jeanette signed.

  ‘It was,’ Connie agreed. A man in a booth held out his hand for passports and boarding passes.

  Bill and Connie exchanged the briefest hug. Bill and Jeanette held hands, and walked through the barrier. They turned back just once to wave before they passed out of sight. The last thing that Connie noticed was that the backs of Jeanette’s legs were still lightly powdered with sand.

  The taxi driver was waiting for her in the line outside Arrivals. Connie waved and he pulled over. ‘Back to the village,’ she told him.

  Noah was driving home from Surrey. He stared at the lines
of rush-hour traffic but he couldn’t get his mother’s changed face out of his mind. In the two weeks since he had last seen her, she had faded and shrunk. Her skin was like stretched tissue paper over knobs of bone. Instead of firing questions at him and demanding to be told the latest details of his life, she was content to sit quietly and hold his hand.

  ‘Mum? Tell me all about Bali. What was it like?’

  – Beautiful, she smiled. ‘Do you feel rested?’

  – Yes, she agreed, but he knew that she said it only to please him.

  ‘Okay,’ Noah murmured. He squeezed her brittle fingers.

  – How is Roxana?

  ‘She’s fine. Very good. She’s still working for Auntie Connie’s friend, in the film business.’

  Jeanette didn’t ask any more, whereas once she would have wanted to know all about it.

  ‘Dad? She looks terrible,’ Noah burst out when they were alone together.

  ‘The flights were very hard for her,’ Bill said.

  ‘She’s…’ Noah began, then stopped. He had been about to exclaim, She’s going to die. It was stupid; he had known for months. But it was not until now, this minute, that he properly understood what dying was going to mean.

  ‘I should have come with you to Bali,’ he said despairingly. ‘I didn’t realise.’ Instead he had gone to meetings, and played football, and made love to Roxana.

  Bill smiled at him. ‘Bali was very good, for all three of us. You’d have enjoyed it, but it wasn’t essential for you to be there.’

  Noah absorbed this. ‘Was it all right with Auntie Connie?’

  ‘Yes,’ Bill said. ‘It was.’

  Noah blinked, but he couldn’t see properly to drive. He pulled over and called Roxana on her mobile.

  ‘Where are you, Rox?’

  ‘Still at work. How is your mother?’

  ‘She’s very weak. Not seeing her for two weeks has made me realise how fast she’s going.’

  ‘That’s bad, Noah. I’m really sorry.’

  ‘What are you doing? I want to see you.’ He needed very much to hold her and let some of her life and strength seep into him.

  ‘I was going back to the apartment. But I’ll meet you. We can have a drink and talk.’

  He smiled, fastening on to the prospect. ‘I’ll be there in an hour.’

  They went to a pub they both liked. Nowadays Roxana knew all about how to order beers and which ones Noah preferred. She came back to their table and set his drink in front of him.

  ‘There,’ she said. ‘Cheers.’

  ‘Good health,’ Noah said sadly.

  They had several drinks. Roxana listened to him talk about his mother, but she didn’t try to offer too much sympathy. She just accepted what was happening, and Noah thought that she did it in just the right way. He knew that he loved her, and looking at the angle of her thigh and the way her forearm lay along the back of an empty seat he was even more strongly aware, right now, of how much he wanted to fuck her.

  He shifted in his chair.

  His mother’s hold on life was loosening, and his response was to feel an overwhelming need for sex? Was that shocking, or was it perhaps the normal, selfish response of those who were still healthy?

  ‘Roxana?’

  ‘Yes, Noah?’ Her mouth curved in a smile he recognised. She knew what he was thinking.

  He leaned forward, caught her by the lapels of her jacket with the big buttons and drew her an inch closer.

  ‘Can we go back to Limbeck House?’

  Noah didn’t feel particularly easy about using Auntie Connie’s place, but Andy was in the flat in Hammersmith and Auntie Connie herself was still out in Bali, so it wouldn’t matter that much.

  Roxana’s forehead touched his.

  ‘Why not?’ she teased him.

  In the mirrored lift as it rose to the top floor, Noah trapped Roxana in a corner. She pretended to dodge him, then crooked her arms to draw him closer.

  ‘Ha ha, now I have you,’ she murmured.

  The lift doors parted and they stepped out into the lobby. A slit of window gave a different view of the city from the one inside the apartment. Roxana lingered to gaze at the chains of lights separated by mysterious wells of darkness.

  ‘Look, it’s so beautiful.’

  ‘I’ve seen it.’ Noah’s mind was on other matters.

  ‘Hey. Wait a minute. Let’s go inside.’

  Roxana searched her bag for the keys, found them, and singled out the heavy Chubb. She fitted it into the lock, laughing a little because she had drunk enough to find the process a challenge. She turned the key to the left, expecting the familiar resistance and then a click, but instead the key refused to turn at all. The door was already unlocked.

  Frowning now, she let her shoulder fall against it. The very slight give indicated that the Yale latch was in place.

  When she went out to work she must have forgotten to secure the Chubb.

  She fitted the Yale without difficulty and the door smoothly opened. She turned on the lights and the white walls were flooded with brightness.

  She knew that she hadn’t forgotten to lock up properly, that was just the explanation she allowed herself to reach for, but at first glance everything seemed as it always did. Relieved, Roxana took a few steps forward into the big room. Noah turned towards the bathroom and she continued down the corridor towards Connie’s music room and bedroom.

  And then she saw the open doors and she knew that the worst had actually happened.

  The tidy work area had been turned upside down. The computer and the keyboard had gone. File cabinets and drawers stood open and the floor was a drift of music manuscripts and papers and strewn debris. She had no idea what else might have been taken.

  A tide of horror swept through Roxana. She wanted to run and bury her head, but she made herself walk on into Connie’s bedroom.

  Every drawer and cupboard stood open. The mattress had been pulled off the bed. Clothing and lingerie and photographs and emptied boxes had been flung everywhere.

  She pressed the heels of her hands into her stinging eyes, then looked again.

  The devastation was still there.

  She walked back to the big room, although her legs were shaking.

  Noah was standing by the window.

  ‘What?’ he demanded as soon as he saw her face. ‘What’s happened?’

  Roxana’s hands were at her mouth.

  ‘A bad thing.’ In her anguish, language escaped her. She couldn’t remember the English words for burglar or break-in.

  In her room, the mess was the same as in Connie’s but Roxana had nothing worth stealing. Her savings were in the bank, thanks to Connie’s intervention. Even her beach postcard was still on the wall beside her bed.

  Noah was at her shoulder. ‘Shit, look at this place,’ he breathed.

  Cold shockwaves were breaking over Roxana, and the breath was torn out of her as if she were fighting the Suffolk sea all over again.

  ‘It is my fault, it is my fault,’ she kept repeating. The whole picture now played itself out in her mind.

  Noah put his hands on her arms. ‘You’ve been burgled. How did they get in?’

  Roxana could see it all. She was standing over there by the kitchen counter, where she had made unwanted tea for Cesare, and then tried to kick Philip in the balls. The evening’s silly golden glow of champagne and sumptuous food had already faded into the dull reality of stale old bargains and men wanting sex from her. Philip had muttered that he would use the bathroom before Roxana threw them out, and she had let him go.

  She had stood there and allowed Cesare to soft-soap her with apologies.

  Philip must have crept down the corridor and gone swiftly through Connie’s belongings. And somewhere in a drawer he must have discovered a set of keys. How perfectly delighted he would have been with that.

  Roxana screwed her eyes shut. If only she and Noah could be coming up in the lift again, with everything still fine, before she had betrayed C
onnie’s trust in her.

  ‘How can it be your fault?’ Noah insisted. When she looked again he was picking up clothes from the floor, laying them on the overturned mattress.

  ‘Come and see in Connie’s rooms.’

  He followed her.

  ‘Shit,’ he said again. ‘Look, we shouldn’t be touching anything. How did they get in? The front door was locked, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Yes,’ Roxana said miserably. ‘I mean, no. I’m sure it was the men who did it.’

  ‘What men?’

  ‘I asked them up here.’ She could easily have cried, but she kept her neck and mouth frozen. She could have tried to tell a lie, but honesty seemed the last thing she had left to offer.

  Noah gazed at her. ‘Go on.’

  ‘Mr Cesare Antonelli,’ she whispered.

  ‘Who is he?’

  ‘A film director.’

  Disjointedly, while Noah still stared at her, Roxana told him about the evening.

  ‘Nothing happened, Noah. I know I was foolish. I was thinking about movies, about maybe being a model. They said I could be.’

  ‘I thought you were pretty streetwise, Rox, but you still brought them up here, to Auntie Con’s place? What were you thinking?’

  ‘Nothing. I got rid of them. But one of them, the bad one, I let him go to the bathroom.’ She pointed.

  Noah let out a long sigh.

  ‘Noah, I am so sorry. I…wanted to seem like a London girl. I let them think that this was my place. I wanted to be like your Auntie Con.’

  ‘Well, you aren’t, are you?’ His voice sounded hard. ‘Right. Let’s think. We’ve got to start by calling the police. You’ll have to tell them everything.’

  Roxana sank down onto a chair. She was afraid of the police. At home, they were not the people you looked to for any help.

  ‘And then we’ll have to telephone Auntie Con. What’s the time in Bali?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she whispered.

  ‘We’ll have to deal with everything. I don’t want to tell my parents. I don’t want Dad to have to think about anything except Mum.’