by Gill Paul
Sometimes a letter revived the spark of their friendship. When Mary wrote with descriptions of three beaus she was spending time with, Wallis replied: Let me advise you in your choice between Squinty Sid, the Lanky Lothario and the Case of the Unpleasant Odour: stay single! Her letters told how much she loved the lush plants, the light and the heat of California, and said that she was starting to make friends among a very glamorous set, a crowd who sometimes mixed in movie circles. Mary noted that she never mentioned Win any more, not even in passing. She did not like to ask about her marriage in a letter; besides, she suspected Wallis was too proud to tell her.
One summer evening she was at the Baltimore Country Club with a group of friends when she heard someone speaking in a foreign accent and turned to see a tall and extremely handsome man in military uniform. His chestnut-brown hair was receding, giving him a widow’s peak, and he was clean-shaven. He saw Mary watching and his eyes crinkled in a smile.
She turned away quickly, but seconds later he appeared at her side.
‘Jacques Raffray,’ he said, extending his hand. ‘Please take pity and make a little conversation with me. I know so few people here.’
Close up, his eyes were hazel and very warm. Mary shook his hand and it was warm too. ‘What brings you to Baltimore?’ she asked. ‘You are clearly not from these parts.’
‘Very true.’ He smiled. ‘I am French, and have been sent here to train American pilots to fly the death machines we call aeroplanes. But before we talk of such serious matters I must fetch you a drink, because it is very warm this evening, is it not?’
Mary was grateful for the offer, and as she sipped the root beer he brought, she asked about conditions in war-torn France.
‘You know that both sides have dug trenches, with what is called “no-man’s-land” in the middle?’ Mary nodded. ‘It means huge areas of our countryside have turned to mud, with bodies rotting in it because neither side dares to fetch their dead. It’s hell for the soldiers, yet a mile or so behind the front line life goes on. Farmers grow their crops, bartenders serve drinks and pretty girls flirt with soldiers during their precious time off.’
Mary blushed at this and suddenly he reached out and brushed her cheek with the side of his finger. ‘My God, you are beautiful.’
She was startled by his touch and for a moment she gazed into his eyes, spellbound, before remembering herself. ‘I hope your family are safely away from the front line, Mr Raffray.’
He kept his eyes fixed on her as he replied. ‘My father is in Rome; he’s a scientist. I grew up with him there because my mother died soon after I was born, but I attended school and military college in France. Part of the time I stayed with my Aunt Minnie, who’s an artist. She lives a very bohemian life with lots of unconventional friends. You’d like her.’
Mary was flattered that he thought she would like someone bohemian. She wasn’t entirely sure what the word meant, but imagined someone bold and artistic.
Jacques asked about her family, and she told him the Kirks were silversmiths, owners of a company dating back to 1817. He asked how she liked to spend her time and she replied that she loved reading and music.
‘I could tell you were an intellectuelle,’ he said. ‘You have intelligent green eyes.’
‘My goodness, you are a flatterer.’ She laughed, then decided to try the kind of bold line she had often heard Wallis using. ‘Anyone would think you were trying to seduce me.’
He chortled out loud. ‘Ah, you have spirit as well. I think you are my ideal woman. Of course I am trying to seduce you.’
Before the end of the evening, they had agreed that he would call on her the following day and he would also purchase tickets to take her to the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, who were playing Strauss at the weekend.
In bed that night, Mary felt as if she was glowing all over. She replayed their conversation in her head, remembering the way he’d looked at her as if she were the most fascinating creature who ever lived. She thought of Wallis’s words that you knew instantly when you were in love because it was as different from liking a boy as peaches from pickles.
I guess I must be in love, she decided as she drifted off to sleep.
Jacques appeared the next day holding a bunch of roses in a pale shade of yellow. When Mary accepted them, a delicious cloud of scent enveloped her. She introduced him to her mother, who was soon charmed by his impeccable manners and general affability.
‘What kind of plane do you fly?’ her mother asked.
‘I trained in the Blériot XI,’ he told them, ‘which we pilots call Le Tuer – “The Killer” – because its mechanics are not very stable. We’ve switched to the Nieuport design now. It’s got one and a half wings on each side – the lower ones being much smaller and narrower – and that makes it more agile and safer in the air. I’m over here to train American pilots to fly Nieuports.’
‘What kind of things went wrong with the Blériot?’ Mary questioned.
‘Pfft . . .’ He sighed, as if the problems were too many to mention, before saying, ‘It was not uncommon for one of the wings to break off. Thank God that never happened to me. But I did have one stall in mid air and I had to climb out onto the wing to restart the propeller.’ Both women gasped out loud, and he smiled. ‘I wouldn’t like to do that too many times. You are only born with so much luck.’
‘We read in the papers about someone called the Red Baron and his Flying Circus. They seem very fearsome. Do the Germans have better planes than you?’
Jacques’ face darkened briefly and Mary wished her mother had not asked such a tactless question.
‘They fly Fokkers. In my opinion, Herr Richthofen, whom you call the Red Baron, and his colleagues are successful not because of the technology of the planes but because of their tactiques. They fly in formation, choose a victim and separate him from his squadron, then swoop from above and chase to the kill . . . I have lost many friends to them so I can’t think of it as a “circus”. But Richthofen will not see out the end of the war. We will get him. You can be sure of that.’
‘I’m sorry we reminded you of sad times, Mr Raffray,’ Mary said. She wanted to wrap her arms around him and give him a hug.
‘Ah, not at all.’ He smiled. ‘I’m happy to be here in America, doing work that is useful to the war effort. And I am delighted to have met you – both of you.’
On the evening of their date at the Symphony, Jacques presented Mary with some French perfume. Called Black Narcissus, it was in an elegant glass bottle with a lady in a ball gown on a black and gold pastille. She was overwhelmed by the gift, and clasped her hand to her mouth.
‘Allow me.’ Smiling, he removed the stopper and touched it to her wrist. The scent was rich and exotic, like nothing she had ever smelled before.
‘I love it,’ she breathed, stumbling over the words and almost saying ‘I love you’ instead.
Mary wrote a long letter to Wallis telling her about Jacques. She said she was delighted that both of them had fallen in love with aviators because he and Win would have lots in common when they met. But she was disturbed by the reply that came from Wallis two weeks later. Whatever you do, don’t marry an airman, she wrote. Win’s brother Dumaresque just died in the air over France and he is distraught. It’s patently ridiculous for a grown man to take off into the clouds in a tin can, and I fear it attracts those who have a warped, suicidal character.
She’s writing of her own experience, Mary thought. Jacques was not like that. He was motivated by patriotism and just wanted to save his country from being overrun by the Kaiser.
By this time she was seeing Jacques most evenings and sometimes during the day as well. She felt as though she was floating on air as they listened to French music on his phonograph, sat arm in arm at concerts, and kissed with ardour – lips slightly ajar – whenever her parents left them alone in the drawing room.
The morning when Jacques asked whether he might petition her father for her hand in marriage was like a dream. She
said yes straight away, almost before he had finished his sentence, making them both laugh.
He knocked on the door of her father’s study and Mary hurried into the morning room to tell her mother, Anne and Buckie the news.
‘He’s a very charming man,’ her mother said straight away, ‘and I can see why you have fallen for him, but I worry that he is not wealthy enough to keep you in the style you deserve.’
‘He’ll make money after the war,’ Mary insisted. ‘He’s very clever.’
‘Will he not want you to go back and live in France?’
Mary shook her head. ‘No. He wants us to live in New York. I would be close enough to visit often, Mama. Or you can come to me.’
‘You’re just copying Wallis,’ Buckie remarked in a cynical tone. ‘She married an aviator so you feel you have to as well.’
‘That’s nonsense!’ Mary rebuked. ‘You know you like him. Why can’t you be happy for me?’
Jacques managed to persuade Mr Kirk that he would take good care of his precious middle daughter and the wedding was planned for the following summer. They needed plenty of time to make it a society event worthy of the family name.
Mary asked Wallis to be her matron of honour and was overjoyed when she said yes, but closer to the time, Wallis announced she could not be part of the pre-wedding celebrations. She had other commitments that kept her in San Diego so she would not arrive till two days beforehand. That meant Mary had to find a gown for her that matched those of the rest of the wedding party and get the dressmaker to adjust it to Wallis’s measurements. Wallis arrived in time for a final fitting, whereupon she immediately rejected the gown Mary had chosen, preferring to wear one of her own instead. She seemed distracted and unhappy. Mary did not have any time alone with her, so was not able to ask what was wrong.
When Wallis was introduced to Jacques, he bowed with old-fashioned courtesy, exclaiming how delighted he was that she had been able to come, and saying she would always be welcome in his and Mary’s home.
Wallis barely replied. She was acting very strangely altogether.
Just before the ceremony, as they stood in the church porch waiting for the music to strike up, Wallis whispered one piece of advice to Mary: ‘Remember not to let him south of the Mason–Dixon line, kiddo.’
I’m not you, Mary thought. Jacques drove her into such a frenzy with his kisses that she couldn’t wait for that aspect of their marriage.
She smiled and took her first step down the aisle.
Chapter 12
London, 5 September 1997
THE SMELL HIT RACHEL SOON AFTER THEY EMERGED from the tube station and crossed the road into Kensington Gardens: warm, sweet and biological, like the compost heap in her dad’s garden. She turned to Alex with a question in her eyes and he nodded. ‘That’s it.’
When they were still some way off, she could see the outline of the vast expanse of floral tributes and hear the rustle of cellophane wrappers fluttering in the breeze; they sounded like a Greek chorus whispering in a tragedy.
Alex led her down the main approach to the palace, shadowy in the gathering dusk, carrying Rachel’s holdall, which she had filled with charity-shop finds.
‘I can’t believe how empty it is,’ he said. ‘Earlier this place was heaving, but now the hard-core fans have gone to stake a claim for their places to watch the funeral.’
Rachel was stunned into silence as she absorbed the sight of thousands upon thousands of wilting bouquets, hand-drawn cards, balloons, photographs, candles and teddy bears. Only a few souls stood around the vast memorial: a blonde woman who was sobbing quietly while a friend tried to comfort her; a bespectacled Chinese man, who was stooping to peer at the cards; a family with two small children, who were squawking their boredom. A banshee sound filled the air and Rachel turned to see a bearded man in baggy shorts and knee-length socks blowing into a didgeridoo. The mournful tones seemed oddly appropriate.
She wandered round, reading some of the cards: We miss you, Di; Always in our hearts; We will love you forever. People had written poems, or cut pictures out of newspapers and put them in heart-shaped frames attached to heart-shaped helium balloons, straining on the end of their ribbons. That ubiquitous symbol of love, always red, was so overused as to be meaningless. She and Alex didn’t buy each other Valentine’s cards or pay a premium for a meal out on 14 February. He was romantic in other ways, often leaving her little notes in the form of skilful hand-drawn animal cartoons, a legacy of his art-school education.
‘Isn’t it strange how people seem to think they own a piece of her?’ she remarked. ‘She’s their princess, they’re on first-name terms, and they love her, even though they never met her and were never likely to had she lived. They might not have liked her in person.’
‘Shhh!’ he cautioned. ‘That’s heresy.’
As they walked to Kensington High Street in search of a restaurant, Alex described the video footage of Diana leaving the Ritz that had been released by Mohamed Al-Fayed’s press office that afternoon.
‘She’s wearing white trousers and a black jacket, pushing her way out of the door towards the car, completely unsuspecting. She looks a bit agitated, a bit tired after a long day. It’s emotional to watch, knowing what was going to happen next . . . And interestingly, at one point I can see the glint of a silvery bracelet on her wrist. It looks as though the heart I found could have fallen off it.’
‘Really?’ It felt eerie to know they had something belonging to the Princess in their possession. ‘Why do you think Al-Fayed released the video?’
‘The main reason is because it shows Henri Paul walking around looking perfectly sober. They are claiming he wasn’t drunk at all, and that someone tampered with his blood sample. There’s a huge conspiracy theory growing.’
Rachel chuckled. ‘I bet there is: all those people who think Kennedy was assassinated by the Mafia and Marilyn was killed by the Kennedys and Elvis is still alive.’
Alex didn’t laugh. ‘Actually, there are quite a few anomalies. I don’t know why it took them so long to get her to a hospital. I spoke to an A and E doctor who told me that because they missed the golden hour straight after the accident, it would have been impossible to save her. When they opened her up, the surgeon even massaged her heart in his hands but it simply wouldn’t start again.’ His voice sounded choked, but he controlled himself and continued. ‘In the UK, the strategy would have been to pull her out of the wreck pronto and get her straight to the nearest hospital.’
Rachel was startled by the image: the heart of the so-called Queen of Hearts being squeezed in a surgeon’s hand. ‘It’s a shame they didn’t do it that way, but you can’t believe the French ambulance service was part of a conspiracy. That’s loony talk, sweetie.’ She twirled a finger by her temple.
They stopped to read the menu outside a Chinese restaurant but Rachel decided against it: too many gloopy sauces.
‘They think there could have been a motorbike or another car involved in the collision, but it didn’t stop at the scene,’ he continued.
Rachel hadn’t heard that. ‘It’s possible, I suppose. Maybe one of the photographers crashed into them then legged it. It would be a natural reaction.’
‘Or it could have been set up by one of the secret services if they wanted Diana dead.’
Rachel frowned. ‘And what motive would they have?’ She checked the menu at a Lebanese restaurant: hummus, falafel, shish taouk. ‘Let’s try this, shall we?’ It had the benefit of being cheap, and she had a constant nagging worry about money at the back of her mind.
Alex waited until they were seated in the glass-fronted conservatory-style eatery before answering. ‘Diana allegedly hinted to journalists about a wooden box of secrets she was keeping as an insurance policy. If the royal family treated her too badly, she could threaten to release it.’
‘But that would make them wary of killing her, wouldn’t it? Presumably she had left instructions for its release if anything happened to her.’
‘Some sources are saying she was killed because she was planning to marry a Muslim and Princes Harry and William could have had Muslim half-siblings.’
‘That doesn’t make sense either,’ Rachel murmured. ‘Wasn’t her last boyfriend Muslim too? That doctor chap . . .’
‘Hasnat Khan. True . . .’ He cleared his throat. ‘Anyway, something doesn’t add up about the story and I want to look into it. It means I’ll have to spend a lot of time in Paris over the next couple of months.’
Rachel swallowed. She could have used his moral support while she fought to save her business, but he was bursting with enthusiasm for his new project and she didn’t want to make him feel guilty for neglecting her.
‘Where are you going to film the funeral from?’ she asked.
‘My cameraman has a spot opposite the Abbey. He’s been camping there since early morning. And I’ve got another cameraman and a sound guy walking round catching crowd reactions. They’ll be filming as the princes walk behind Diana’s coffin before the ceremony, with Prince Charles, Prince Philip and Charles Spencer.’ Suddenly his eyes filled with tears.
Rachel was puzzled. ‘Are you OK?’
He dabbed his eyes with a napkin and struggled to stop himself from crying. ‘Don’t you find it tragic?’ he asked. ‘Those poor boys.’
There was a strange moment when Rachel peered at him, expecting him to grin and say, ‘Ha! Fooled you!’ But he didn’t. He was serious. Of course, thinking about what the boys were going through must be bringing back the shock of his own mother’s death when he was their age.
She leaned over the table, cupped his face between her hands and whispered, ‘I do love you.’
It still seemed incredible that this man was soon to be her husband. Her business might be in danger, but she couldn’t believe how extraordinarily lucky she was in love.