by Karen Swan
He held onto her hand for a moment longer than was necessary, before allowing her to sit back in her chair. He was older than she’d thought from a distance. Late thirties, early forties, perhaps? His hair was raven-black and he had a neatly clipped beard that made a feature of his teeth when he laughed. His nose looked like it had been broken on more than one occasion and beneath his three-piece suit he was stockily built, looking more like a wrestler than the sailor type she was used to with Jack.
‘Leo here is the finest sports agent I ever met,’ said Mr Charles.
‘Oh?’ She arched an eyebrow, appraising him openly. He had an affability that was reassuring – ready to smile, with eyes that seemed to see and not just look. Her maiden name hadn’t seemed to provoke any reaction either.
‘I’m the only sports agent he ever met,’ Leo quipped.
‘True,’ Mr Charles laughed. ‘But he represents eight of the top ten players in the NBA and he signed them all in college. There’s a reason they show this man loyalty.’
‘Yeah, it’s called a no-break clause in their contracts,’ Leo quipped again, his eyes coming back each time to Laney. ‘Do you like basketball, Miss Valentine?’
‘. . . Why, yes,’ she said, deciding on the spot that she did.
‘Who do you follow?’
‘Boston Celtics.’ She had heard of them.
He looked pleased. ‘They’re having a very good season. I think they could go all the way.’
‘Do you represent any of them?’
‘Sam Jones.’
‘How wonderful,’ she smiled. ‘He’s my favourite player.’
‘Well, if you’d like to meet him, I could arrange something. Dinner perhaps . . . ?’
There was a pause and Laney was vaguely aware of Mr Charles looking between the two of them. She blinked. Looking into Leo’s eyes, she had a feeling of being caught in a new current, of an undertow carrying her back to shore, back to safety. ‘How kind. I’d like that very much,’ she replied, keeping her voice as neutral as she could.
‘I’ll get your number from Stan and set it up then,’ he said, taking a step away from the table and preparing to leave. She managed not to stare after him as he shook Mr Charles’s hand and walked away, studying instead the menu that had lain untouched on the table since they had arrived.
Mr Charles cleared his throat. ‘Laney, listen, Leo’s a good man but he’s much older tha—’
‘Shall we order now, Mr Charles?’ she interrupted, feeling suddenly brighter than she had done for months. ‘I’m simply ravenous. I’m afraid I’ve been letting the day run away from me. Now, Mother always says the shrimp salad here is to die for. Have you tried it?’
Chapter Thirteen
Rome, July 2017
‘You were married at sixteen?’ Cesca couldn’t keep the shock from her voice as she looked back at the wedding photograph. Unlike all the others which had prompted a wistful nostalgia, Elena had barely glanced at it, leaving it lying on the table between them.
‘It seems so young now, I know, we were just babies.’
‘But surely your parents—’ She silenced herself before she offended Elena again. It hadn’t gone down well the last time she’d questioned her over her parents. But, surely, even Elena could see this begged the question: what on earth had they been thinking, letting their sixteen-year-old only child wed at such a young age?
‘It was a different time back then and I wasn’t really expected to do much else anyway, beyond finding a husband and having children,’ Elena said, as if reading her mind. ‘Certainly it never crossed anyone’s mind that I might “go out to work”. What for, after all? We had more money than we could spend in a hundred lifetimes.’ She sighed, her eyes resting on a Caravaggio behind Cesca’s left ear. ‘Besides, my childhood was so out of the ordinary – we had President Eisenhower to dinner, we spent part of every summer at Ari’s villa – that, really, I was sixteen going on forty.’
Cesca nodded, assuming Ari was Aristotle Onassis; she had seen with her own eyes the pictures of little Elena clutching her fur-robed mother’s hand at film premieres, jumping off the side of a full-sailed yacht with her armbands on, sitting in a scaled-down Bugatti buggy car. It had indeed been no ordinary childhood.
‘What was the President like?’
‘Very sweet. I remember he wanted to know my doll’s name. He and my father would play golf together at Graystones.’
A golf course in the back garden? With a president playing the fourth hole? But of course, Cesca mused, unable to stop herself from drawing a parallel with how excited and awe-struck she’d been when her parents had merely bought a trampoline for her and her two brothers, even though it had taken up almost half of their narrow suburban garden. There was no comparison.
And it was beside the point, she told herself, forcing herself back on track. There was a different definition of normal within these thick palace walls. ‘So tell me about him, then. What made you fall in love with Jack Montgomery?’
Elena sighed. ‘Oh, darling Jack. Such a sweet boy. So sweet – although far too handsome for his own good,’ she added with a wry smile.
‘He was incredibly handsome,’ Cesca agreed. ‘Was it love at first sight?’
‘Good lord, no. I absolutely hated him for the first five minutes.’
‘The first five minutes?’ Cesca grinned. ‘But then it was love?’
‘Oh yes. He was a wonderful kisser.’ She sighed. ‘He just adored me and I him.’
‘How did the two of you meet?’
Elena inhaled deeply, thinking back. ‘He gatecrashed my Sweet Sixteen party – which was no mean feat, let me assure you. My father lived in perpetual fear that I would be kidnapped for ransom, so the security was off the scale.’
‘So how did he get in?’
‘Oh, he used someone else’s invitation, I think. I can’t quite remember the details. But once he was in, he just behaved like he belonged there. No one thought to question him at all. It didn’t cross their minds that anyone who was there hadn’t been invited.’
Cesca was impressed by his daring – not just for getting in, but staying there. He would have had to behave as an equal to the great and the good, which given their usual roster of house guests . . . The cockiness of youth, she supposed. ‘So he blagged his way in. What then?’
‘We met for the first time down by the lake. I was feeling a little overwhelmed by all the attention: everyone wanted to talk to me, I’d been dancing all night and I just needed a few minutes to regroup. To this day I don’t know whether it was coincidence that we both happened to go down there, or whether he somehow knew I’d make a beeline for it. The boathouse was always my place of refuge. I was scared of the water as a child, so no one ever thought to look for me down there if I was upset. They assumed it was the very last place I’d want to go.’
She shrugged. ‘Regardless, he spent the first few minutes wildly insulting me and then, just when I thought he was going to kiss me, he grabbed my hand and pulled me into the lake with him. I couldn’t even swim but he made me feel safe, towing me to the side. Oh, but my beautiful dress! My hair! It was so utterly thrilling. He made me feel free,’ she enthused, as Cesca gasped and laughed in surprise. ‘I honestly believe my life changed that night. I glimpsed another world, somewhere that wasn’t ruled by etiquette and reputation. After that, I became obsessed with him, sneaking off as much as I could to meet up with him in secret. We only managed a few dates before Winnie rumbled me. I never could keep anything from her.’ She smiled and shook her head. ‘Oh, I was so furious when she told my parents; I saw it as such a betrayal. She and I had always been a team till then – us against the world or, at least, my parents.’
‘What did your parents do?’
‘What they always did when they wanted to get rid of someone – they invited him for dinner.’
Cesca gave another surprised laugh. ‘Why?’
‘To intimidate him. My father was very protective of us. He vetted everyo
ne in my life. Father was such an excellent judge of character that he could tell immediately if someone was getting close for the wrong reasons.’
‘But Jack passed?’
‘With flying colours! He refused to be beaten by my father at backgammon – in contrast to most people, who would allow themselves to be beaten in order to be invited back – and flirted outrageously with my mother. He’d asked for my hand, and been given it, by the time dessert was served.’
‘Crikey!’
Elena threw her head back and laughed at Cesca’s very British turn of phrase. ‘“Crikey.” I like that . . . Yes, my parents adored him. I think, in some way, they saw him as the son they’d never had. He was like a miniature vision of my father – athletic and competitive. They were both avid sailors and regularly went hunting together.’
‘It sounds like a very happy time.’
‘Oh, it was. I was a very lucky girl to land him. Very lucky indeed.’ She nodded, smiling brightly.
‘It helps when parents are on board with a relationship.’
‘Yes. It was a funny thing, really: I would almost say he helped to bring me closer – even closer, I mean – to my parents. Once I was married, Mother became more of a friend, which suited her much better. I think the maternal role had always made her rather uneasy.’
‘Uh huh,’ Cesca agreed, keeping her face impassive whilst thinking how sad that sounded. ‘And did you and Jack live at Graystones?’
‘Heavens, no! Part of the point was to get away from there,’ Elena said quickly.
Cesca looked up in surprise. ‘The point of marrying him?’
‘I mean, I loved him, obviously. Of course I did. But as you’ve just pointed out, I was very young too, barely sixteen. I was just in such a rush, you see, to start living my life, and I suppose at some level, I realized getting married meant that could happen. The last thing I wanted was to stay put. I needed to get out into the world.’
Cesca could see how claustrophobic life at Graystones must have been. Hidden away from the curious gaze of America – not to mention mercenary kidnappers – Elena would nonetheless have been painfully visible within the compound, her movements observed at all times by the watchful gaze of teams of staff. There would have been no privacy, no freedom, no spontaneity; Cesca wondered whether all the land and toys and glamorous parties were worth it. ‘So what happened?’
‘Happened?’
‘Well, when you’ve mentioned your husband up till now, you’ve called him Vito. And Jack is . . . well, Jack, surely? I’m assuming they’re not the same man? That the marriage ended?’
Elena stared at her for a moment. ‘You really haven’t googled me, have you?’
‘Well, no, you asked me not to.’ Cesca swallowed, wondering if she’d just failed some sort of test. ‘Should I have?’
‘No.’ Elena shook her head. ‘I am just always so surprised when I meet a person I can actually trust. Such terrible things have been printed about me over the years, practically none of it true. I would hate for you to form an opinion of me based upon that.’ Elena glanced out at the yellow-bibbed teams working on the sinkhole in the garden beyond the French doors. ‘The truth is, Jack and I loved each other very much, but we were far too young. He was the first boy I ever kissed. He should have been my boyfriend, not my husband.’
‘Can you tell me a little about your married life together?’
Elena sighed, glancing at her hands briefly, and Cesca noticed she was gripping them together tightly, the knuckles blanched. ‘Well, we moved to Newport, only thirteen miles from Graystones. It was a tiny house, just darling,’ Elena said, eyes bright, a smile on her mouth, a small vein protruding on her forehead which Cesca hadn’t noticed before now. ‘Jack refused to take a cent from Father, he said he wanted to provide for me himself, like any other husband, and Father respected that.’
Cesca chose her words carefully. ‘But wasn’t your father worried about your security? You just said he was worried about the kidnap risk—’
‘Yes, and I should have known better at the time. I thought I’d got away, scot-free, but of course I should have realized . . .’ She sighed, the sound weary and heavy. ‘Unbe-knownst to either of us, Father had bought the houses on all sides of ours and installed people from his security team – undercover, of course. Jack never knew a thing about it. I didn’t either until I happened to see one of them talking to Davis, Father’s personal bodyguard.’
‘Were you angry about that?’
‘Yes, but a part of me understood it too. It was what I had grown up with. I suppose it was naive to think I could just move into town and become a regular person.’
‘Did you become a regular person?’
‘I think I did. I certainly tried my best. I took such pride in keeping our home clean and tidy, and having Jack’s meals ready. It was an enormous learning curve, of course. I had to learn to cook and clean and darn, and do all those things which give you your independence and which others take for granted. My whole life, everything had always been done for me, but it left me yearning to be mistress of my own home. I can’t tell you how thrilled I was to learn how to iron a shirt and see him wear it the next day. It was the first time I’d ever been allowed to do anything like that. It was like an adventure to me. It felt just wonderful to be able to look after him in that way.’
Cesca tried to imagine the sheltered sixteen-year-old bride playing housewife. It was the kind of game Cesca herself had played as a toddler – and promptly outgrown by the time she’d started school. ‘So you had to learn to do the laundry? Cooking?’
Elena nodded.
‘Did Winnie teach you?’
‘Lord, no! She thought it was beneath me to do those things. I think she was very disappointed by the marriage.’
‘And yet your parents weren’t . . .’
‘Well, they too had married for love. Whereas Winnie thought only a prince would be good enough for me.’ She laughed suddenly. ‘And it turned out she was right, as she always was!’ she smiled, gesticulating to indicate the lavish palazzo in which they were sitting. ‘No, I can see now that my life with Jack was just a fantasy – and me being the housewife was just one part of it. Naturally, I wasn’t remotely equipped for it all; I had no idea what I was letting myself in for.’
‘Can you give me an example?’
‘Oh, well, I just completely threw myself in at the deep end, trying to cook the dishes we’d had at home, for example, even though I’d never so much as boiled water.’ She laughed again. ‘I once made duck à l’orange – it was nothing like duck à l’orange by the time I’d finished with it, I can assure you! But I did my very best and when, after hours in the kitchen, I set it down in front of Jack . . . I realized I had no idea how to carve it!’
Cesca grinned at the image. ‘What did you do?’
‘We had to eat it straight off the serving plate, cutting the meat off the bone like cavemen in a huddle. It was so terrible and so funny all at once. I kept thinking about my parents’ faces if they could only have seen us. And Winnie. Poor Winnie. All those years teaching me how to eat properly and there I was, eating like a savage.’ She chuckled again at the memory.
‘It sounds like a liberating time for you.’
‘Oh, it was. I made many great friends in the town. I joined the Ladies’ Guild and we would meet fortnightly.’
‘Did they know who you were? That you were a Valentine, I mean.’
Elena hesitated. ‘I’m not sure, but if they did then they were terribly discreet, which I appreciated. They never let it make a difference. To them, I was just one of the girls.’
Cesca nodded. ‘So when did things start to go downhill with Jack . . . ?’
‘Oh, who could pinpoint it exactly?’ Elena replied vaguely. ‘I suppose it was just a sad, steady disenchantment.’
‘Who . . .’ Cesca faltered, not quite sure how to phrase this. ‘Who left who?’
Elena stilled. ‘He left me. Desertion.’
&nbs
p; ‘I’m so sorry . . . Can I ask why? Was there someone else?’
‘Nothing like that. Jack just didn’t know when he was beaten, that was all. He was a fiendishly good card player; he and my father would play late into the night. But when his luck failed, he didn’t slow down, he played more, raising the stakes each time, certain that his losing streak was about to end.’
‘And instead the debts grew exponentially?’ Cesca sympathized.
‘You’ve had experience with gamblers too then?’
‘It’s not quite the same – my dad got a bit hooked on lottery tickets for a while. He was spending up to forty pounds a week at his worst.’
Elena looked baffled. ‘Gracious.’ There was a short silence as she drifted through the dim corridors of her past. ‘On our wedding night, he lost the lovely Bentley my father had given us as a wedding gift. He was terribly upset about it.’ Her voice was quiet and hollow, her eyes fixed, unseeing again, on the Caravaggio.
‘Anyway, I guess I should have seen the signs,’ she said finally, rallying. ‘But I thought I could help him, you see. I was just like every other sixteen-year-old girl, believing love was the answer. I wanted to save him from his demons. I thought I was invincible; money had always shielded me from ugly realities, so what a terrible irony it was that penury should be our downfall. But eventually he got into trouble with the casinos and, really, there was no coming back from that.’
‘Surely your parents could have bailed him out?’
‘Of course – if they’d known about it, but Jack wouldn’t hear of it. He was very proud like that. My father’s good opinion of him was very important to him.’
‘So . . . what? When you say he deserted you . . . he just disappeared?’
‘Mm hmm. Drove into Newport one day and never came back.’
‘But that’s terrible.’
‘Yes. It is.’
‘Did you ever see him again?’
‘Once. At a basketball game. I had remarried by then and Jack was on the far side of the court, sitting with a dark-haired woman. I remember thinking she looked a little like me . . .’ She tailed off, shrugging her shoulders.