by Ray Connolly
He had not seen Kate since that first night back. Half a dozen or so times he had set off from Lansdowne Road to walk deliberately past her flat again. Each time something like fear of what he might see had stopped him, and he had ended up making circuitous routes around Kensington which finally avoided any possibility of seeing or meeting her.
Yet she had rarely been far from his thoughts. There was so much that was mysterious about her. Was she really married to one of the thugs who had beaten him up in Taormina? Who was her handsome Arab friend in the Lincoln Continental? Did her husband, if that’s what he was, know about him? And then there was the jewellery? On holiday she had worn none and had seemingly been overjoyed with the cheap trinket he had bought her. But in London she was a person of limousines, furs and diamonds. Nothing about her added up. The woman who had climbed from the black Lincoln was the woman with whom he had fallen in love. But she was now more of an enigma than ever. This was a person he did no know, a woman familiar with the best things of life, who was rich and at ease with the privilege of wealth.
He had thought about her every day as he had sunbathed in the garden while his body had gradually repaired itself. It had been the first time he could remember that he had been unable to play, and robbed of the comfort of his piano he had sought refuge in his imagination, letting his mind compose and perform for him, a musical short circuit. He had been surprised to discover that unharnessed from the disciplines of the piano or guitar his compositions were more varied, less derivative and altogether more original. Worried in case he should forget this sudden outpouring of melody he would sit for hours with a manuscript book, painfully forcing his fingers to copy down the notes, singing all the time into his tape recorder. He was particularly pleased with one song which was based roughly on some lyrics left him by Colin. It was called Wild Strawberries. It was, he knew, the best thing that he and Colin had produced in their years of collaboration.
Sometimes Colin and Marty had called around, and shortly after his return he had been both flattered and moved when an enormous bunch of flowers had been delivered to his door with the message: ‘To Mr Fairweather. Come back soon, we miss you.’ and signed by the ‘Girls of Remove’. Like Florence, the headmistress of Prince’s Gate School had not enquired too closely into how he got his injuries, and it had been a matter of some satisfaction to know that his teaching job was waiting for him as soon as he was fully recovered.
On a couple of occasions old girl-friends had called but he had not welcomed their attentions. He resented any moments when he was not thinking about Kate, although to remember her was to be again hurt.
For weeks he had been visiting the outpatients’ department of St Stephen’s Hospital in Fulham Road, where they had reexamined his injuries and waved heads in disbelief at the patchwork job done on his face by the Taormina seamsters, and his local dentist who had been entrusted with the job of repairing or disguising his broken teeth. Today was his last appointment.
‘Open wide now.’ Rawlings, the dentist, was standing over him again, blocking out the view of the pastoral window. In one hand he was gripping the new canine crown with what looked like a pair of long tweezers.
Charlie opened his mouth. Something was being screwed in to hold his jaw steady. The heat of the afternoon and the effect of the Valium shot had made him dreamy. He pushed his head back into the leather of the rest behind him and stared up the nose of the dentist. It was, he thought, the most singularly unattractive angle from which to observe a man doing his everyday job.
Carefully Rawlings fitted the crown over the canine stump, and immediately put his finger on it and pressed while the glue did its bonding. After a moment the dentist stood back and admired his handiwork: ‘Good as new. Better actually. That bugger had always been a bit twisted. There can’t have been enough space for it when you were growing up. Here, take a look.’
Charlie took a hand mirror from the dentist and opening his mouth grinned like a ventriloquist’s dummy. Amazing. Two rows of nicely polished even teeth. He could smile at little children and dogs again now.
‘You were lucky that your friends left enough for me to work on,’ Rawlings was saying as Charlie smiled at him. ‘You’d better take care of the company you keep in the future.’
Charlie nodded, and, trying not to let his smile fade, paid the exorbitant bill and left.
Whether it was the result of the Valium injection, or just the fact that he had completed his last lap towards recovery, he did not know; but for the first time since the beginning of summer he felt a delirious sense of well-being as he made his way across Kensington Church Street, past the empty antique shops, and on westwards towards Holland Park – and, inevitably, Phillimore Mansions.
When he had left home that afternoon it had not been his intention to go anywhere near her flat, and indeed he was two-thirds of the way there before he admitted consciously to himself that that was where his feet were taking him. At the corner of Holland Street he stopped in the shadow of a grotesque new building he understood to be Kensington and Chelsea Town Hall. He needed a moment to reassess his decision.
But it was no more than a moment, and five minutes later he was walking up the short path to the double doors of the mansions. Today there was no black Lincoln parked outside. Across the road another policeman kept a solitary watch outside the Jordanian Embassy.
‘Sir?’ The porter stepped forward as Charlie pushed aside the doors and entered the hallway.
Charlie grinned a stage smile until the bonhomie seemed to glow from his skin and his brand new Pepsodent-white caps: ‘Sullivan, Flat Fifteen. She’s expecting me,’ he said. He had been expecting a challenge.
The porter was reassured by Charlie’s charm and self-confidence. ‘Nice day again, sir, isn’t it?’ he said, and sat down again in his chair by the door.
‘Lovely,’ agreed Charlie, and still smiling walked jauntily towards the lifts. He knew now that she was in. He hoped to God that she was alone.
As the lift doors closed behind him he examined the buttons. Alongside each was a list of the flat numbers on each floor. Flat 15 was at the top of the building, the penthouse apartment on the sixth floor. Charlie pressed the button, and as the lift began to move he turned and made a quick examination of himself in the mirrored walls. He was glad now that he had put on his light beige summer suit today. His smartness gave him added confidence. Again he flashed his teeth, and smiled nervously at their reflection. Good enough to eat, he said to himself – or to eat with, at any rate.
The lift doors opened on to a sunny landing. A deep wine-coloured carpet shone crimson in the shaft of afternoon light surging in from a skylight.
Charlie stepped tentatively out of the lift. A thick deeply-varnished door faced him at the other end of the landing. For one moment he wanted to run away. But he had come too far now to turn back.
He walked up to the door. A bronze lion’s head served as the door knocker. He tapped gently, and listened for sounds from inside the flat.
There was no immediate response.
He tapped again. This time he heard the sound of someone approaching. He felt his pulse rate quickening.
The door opened.
For a second her face was blank – and then in the split second of recognition it became a swiftly changing map, as a flurry of expressions that ranged from shock, to joy, and then fear raced through her eyes.
For a long moment Charlie just stood there and searched into those startled eyes. ‘I was just passing,’ he said at last, although that was not what he had planned to say. ‘I thought I’d call.’
On her fingers were a collection of ultra-expensive dainties. In confusion she bound her fingers together and hid them.
‘Aren’t you going to ask me in?’ asked Charlie. He had to keep talking while the confidence was still with him.
‘I can’t believe it,’ she said at last. ‘I can’t believe it.’
‘Seeing is believing,’ said Charlie.
She shook her
head. She was wearing an ankle-length midnight blue cotton dressing-gown. At the neck and the sleeve cuffs he could see the traces of a delicate white lace nightdress. Her skin was less tanned now than when he had first seen her, and her hair was more ornately fashioned, pulled off her face and tied round into a loop on top of her head. How small and sharply-tipped were her ears, he thought.
‘Can I come in?’ he repeated. ‘I’m not selling anything.’
A slight furrow appeared between her brows, but she opened the door a little for him. As he stepped inside he was aware that she was looking down the corridor in the direction of the lift.
‘I came alone,’ he said. ‘And no one followed me up.’
She nodded and tried to smile. ‘It’s great to see you, Charlie.’ Her voice was strained and nervous. She looked anything other than pleased to see him.
She led him along a small hall of thick fitted carpet that swished like uncut grass as they walked over it, and into a living-room. It was large and luxurious: a split-level home of polished rosewood block floors, settees and armchairs which Charlie knew would sink so far they would be virtually self-collapsing, silver ornaments on open glass shelves, and walls covered in some kind of rich, sound-devouring oatmeal fabric.
‘Would you like to sit down?’ Her voice was strained and polite.
‘You have a wonderful view,’ he returned with equal formality. He looked out through the huge window that ran across the whole southern wall of the room. Although the day was hazy with heat he could see the Thames snaking below the belt of Chelsea.
She didn’t answer. He realized now that his voice was beginning to waver under the tension. The palms of his hands were moist, and the back of his throat had become dry.
‘I didn’t know whether you would want to see me again,’ he said, now stumbling over the words.
She didn’t answer. She was staring at him.
‘What’s the matter?’ he asked.
‘Those marks … around your chin and mouth … they’re new. What happened?’
He hadn’t wanted to be faced with that question. There was too much that he did not yet know about her. He tried what he hoped was a careless shrug and rubbed his hands across his mouth to hide the stitch marks. ‘Oh … you know how it is … too much to drink … someone didn’t like my playing … an argument … and before you know it some idiot’s butted me in the face. My own fault.’
He could tell at once that she didn’t believe him.
She moved across to where he was still standing awkwardly by the window. Very delicately she put a hand out and ran her fingers across the white scars under his lips.
‘It was me, wasn’t it?’ she said. ‘They beat you up, didn’t they?’
He didn’t answer.
‘Oh God, Charlie, I’m sorry. That wasn’t meant to happen. I’d no idea they’d do that.’ Kate’s face was flickering between remorse and fury. It was an expression he had never seen in Sicily.
‘Who are they?’ he asked.
‘I can’t tell you that.’
‘Your husband?’ he asked.
She looked puzzled: ‘I told you, I’m not married.’
‘Well, there’s some ape with blond hair going around telling people that you’re his wife.’
She shook her head: ‘I promise you, Charlie, I’m not married.’
He tried another tack: ‘What about the nice man who drives the Lincoln Continental then? Who’s he?’
She was surprised by that: ‘When did you see me?’
‘A couple of months ago.’
Again she shook her head: ‘I can’t tell you. It’s better that you don’t know any more than you do already. It won’t be safe if you know any more.’
‘For Christ’s sake … it wasn’t safe before and I didn’t know anything. Do you know what they did? They smashed both my arms. See this one. It still won’t close properly. I spent two months in plaster, I got my mouth and teeth smashed to hell, I got a face full of stitches … and you tell me that it isn’t safe for me to know anything. It isn’t safe not to know anything. At least if I knew what was going on I might be able to duck them when they come for me next time.’
‘No,’ she cried out, an edge of alarm and determination biting into her voice. ‘There mustn’t be a next time. You have to stay away from me. It’s too dangerous for you.’
‘Oh, come on now! That won’t do. You have to tell me. I can’t just accept that. You once told me you loved me. I believed you, and then half an hour later some gorillas half killed me because of you. At least you owe me some kind of explanation.’
Kate continued to shake her head: ‘Do you remember I told you that you were the unluckiest man in the world? Do you remember that day?’
‘I’ll never forget it.’
‘You’ve got to believe me. I was telling the truth.’
‘Then why don’t you tell me some more truths instead of all this double Dutch?’
‘Because I don’t want to see you get hurt any more. Next time they may not stop with just a beating up.’
‘Who are they?’
‘For Christ’s sake, Charlie, I’ve told you … you mustn’t ask me these things.’
Charlie stared at her: ‘Who are they, Kate?’
She turned away: ‘Look … I think you’ll have to go now.’
‘Like hell I’ll go now. I’m not going until you come up with some answers. I want to know who you are, who that ape in Taormina was, and who Ali-Smoothy-Chops in the fancy car is. And I want to know what all the mystery is about.’
‘Don’t you see? I can’t tell you. I won’t tell you. Listen, we made a mistake … I made a mistake … it was just a holiday thing … you told me you’d had holiday affairs before … that’s all it was …’
‘But we didn’t have an affair, did we?’ he said. ‘And what you’re saying I don’t believe, It wasn’t like anything else … don’t spoil my memories. Don’t try to take those away from me.’
The early embarrassment of their meeting had now been blown away in the sharpness of the exchanges. Kate turned to a cocktail cabinet, and opening it, poured two large whiskies, without bothering to enquire if Charlie would like one. He stood with his back to the window watching her.
She added a squirt of soda and offered him a glass: ‘I want you to drink this, and then I want you to leave. Not because I don’t love you, but because it’s for the best,’ she said. Her voice was now precise and clear and grittily matter of fact.
He let the whisky go down: ‘I don’t understand,’ he said miserably. ‘You must make it easy for me. You must give me some idea of why your life is such a bundle of mysteries.’
There was a silence. She gazed at her hands.
‘Is it that there’s someone else … the Arab bloke with the big car? If you’d just tell me you were in love with him … I’d understand everything and it would be easy … well, easier for me. I’d rather you told me. I mean I want to know. It’s better that I know now.’
She shook her head. He carried on.
‘When I saw you together you looked very happy. The policeman … the one over the road … he said something about seeing you and him every night … if it is him … well, that’s all right. I could understand that. If I had a choice between a rich and handsome Sheik and a … piano player … well, I know which I’d choose.’
‘Don’t make yourself sound pathetic, Charlie. There’s no need to.’
‘You’re bloody right there’s no need to. But there is a need for some answers.’
For a few moments there was another silence. They were now sitting on facing white leather couches which were positioned on either side of a huge table of glass and steel.
‘Well?’ he asked at last.
She looked at him very deliberately: ‘You once told me something about how you enjoyed the melody of your life, even if the lyrics … the mechanics or something, were a bit dull now and again. Do you remember?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well
… I’ve got used to the melody of my life. I can’t change now … I don’t want to change now.’
Charlie didn’t follow: ‘What life? I don’t understand. What are you talking about?’
Kate gazed at him: ‘You really don’t know, do you? God! I can’t believe it. Most men know straight off.’
Charlie was suddenly frightened. He knew now that he didn’t want to know about her way of life. But it was all too late. It had been staring him in the face all the time, but he had refused to accept it.
She sat forward and took his hands: ‘Charlie, you used to call me a merry saint … a Sunday kind of woman, because I was unattainable. I was never a saint, Charlie. The reason I wouldn’t make love to you was because I loved you too much.’
She paused for a moment to allow her words to sink in. He wanted to stop her there, but he couldn’t.
‘To me, Charlie, sex has never had anything to do with love. Sex has been my way of paying my bills, of living in style, of having beautiful clothes and nice holidays … sex has been my currency, Charlie. Like you use your piano, Charlie, I use my body. I didn’t want you to know this in Taormina. I didn’t want you to know it when you came. But I can’t see you again. You can see that now, can’t you? I can’t see you again, Charlie, because I’m a whore. Your Sunday kind of woman is a very expensive whore. And in Taormina I was just a whore on holiday who made a dreadful mistake and fell in love. I’m sorry, Charlie. Believe me. I’ll be sorry for what I’ve done to both of us for the rest of my life.’
Part Two
Chapter Eight
Kate heard the door on to the landing close softly behind him. In her hand she still held a half-full glass of whisky. She listened hard, so hard that she realized she was holding her breath, and then came the inevitable humming of the lift as Charlie Fairweather made his way down and out of her life.
She got up from the settee and moved to the window. The sky was now clouding over from the west. The dusty dryness of a London summer’s day was about to be washed away. Leaning forward over the window-sill she peered down. After a moment Charlie appeared walking slowly away down the path and into the street. Not once did he turn his head to look back in her direction. Suddenly his size diminished; he had appeared to shrink inside his suit and his shoulders were bent and hunched, although his chin and head still jutted forward. Then he was gone, round the corner and on towards the park.