The Blue Bath

by Mary Waters-Sayer

  “Do you know who bought them?”

  Margaret considered this for a moment. “The rumor is that Malcolm Jeffries got one. You know how close he is with the gallery. Although one might have hoped Penfields would have better taste. He is so flash with all his new money.” She paused and her eyes came to rest on Kat. “Oh, no offense, of course.”

  Kat smiled, although perhaps a moment too late.

  Margaret laid a manicured hand on her arm. “Now, don’t be cross with me. I am not belittling what your husband does, it’s just that he doesn’t create anything, really. He just works out clever ways to do things.” Kat could hear Margaret trying on the trace of a British accent. Holding it up against herself, like a posh frock, to see how it fit.

  “Right,” Kat said. “Except for money. He does create quite a bit of that. I can’t imagine that had escaped your notice. It is, after all, the reason you asked us here, is it not?” She smiled sweetly at the older woman.

  “Well, isn’t the devil in you tonight,” Margaret mused, an approving glint in her rheumy eyes. “But any fool can make money. In fact, many of them do, as you can clearly see from the crowd tonight.”

  “True,” Kat agreed, surveying the room and seeing that the older woman was indeed right.

  Margaret leaned in closer and smiled wickedly at Kat. “Of course, you know that whole Cinderella story is a bit put on.”

  “Is it?” Kat was suddenly interested.

  “Bearing in mind that this is an artist already known to and indeed owned by some of the top collectors, it is all really rather convenient, when you think about it,” Margaret mused. “This ‘discovery’ of this stash of paintings of a mysterious girl … I daresay the value of all his other portraits is going to get quite a bump from this show. Were I a more cynical creature, I might suspect the whole thing to be contrived.”

  Kat tried momentarily to picture a more cynical Margaret.

  Margaret took a step back and squinted at Kat, as if seeing her for the first time. “You know, I had not noticed it before, but there is definitely a resemblance. The girl in the paintings could be the daughter you never had.”

  Kat flushed, but Margaret’s gaze by now was fixed on something behind Kat’s back.

  Kat turned to see Martin approaching.

  “Mrs. Browning, such a marvelous evening—you and the board have outdone yourselves,” Martin greeted the older woman deferentially before turning to Kat. “And Miss Lind—you are looking pretty as a picture in that green gown this evening.”

  Kat glared at him through a tight smile.

  “I didn’t know you two were acquainted.” Margaret frowned.

  “Everyone has their secrets. For instance, were you aware that in her younger days Katherine spent a year in Paris studying French literature?” Martin smiled benignly.

  Margaret looked slightly betrayed by this disclosure. “I was not.”

  Kat looked at Margaret—the older woman’s face animated under a layer of colors that were not its own. Although her mouth was moving, Kat no longer heard what she was saying. Margaret didn’t notice. Her eyes were once again scanning the area behind Kat and Martin for any signs of other people more worthy of her attention. Spotting someone, she excused herself, tossing a few final words over her shoulder as she left.

  “Do make sure you put your paddle to good use this evening. I’ll be watching,” Margaret warned.

  “Yes, of course,” Kat managed, addressing Margaret’s back as she headed toward a cluster of people who had just arrived in the lobby.

  She and Martin stood side by side in silence for a moment before the gilded metal doors swathed in intricate chinoiserie birds and butterflies. Kat waited for him to leave. She would not be run off. She was the one who belonged here, not him. The crowd moved around them. Martin nodded intermittently at select people. After a while, he sighed.

  “All this beauty … do you think anyone even sees it?”

  Through her anger, Kat was surprised. By his words. By the almost mournful expression on his face.

  “I know that sometimes all they can see is the price. But what they don’t know is the real cost. Look at them.” He surveyed the crowd as it moved around them, multiplied in the antique mirrored paneling. “They don’t want to know. And maybe they’re right. Maybe knowing doesn’t make it more beautiful. Maybe knowing makes it less beautiful. But I think you have to know what it cost. What was destroyed or abandoned or forgone for it. You have to know that in order to see it fully.”

  Kat stood speechless for a moment. Before she could reply, Martin turned toward her gravely.

  “You know what being an agent is? Waving your arms about and yelling, ‘Look at me! Look at me!’ And then, the moment you get someone’s attention, pointing at your client and saying, ‘Look at him.’”

  “Perfect but for the last bit, I suppose,” she replied dryly.

  “On the contrary, Katherine. I am well aware of my place.” He paused, the briefest of smiles passing over his face. “It was Baudelaire, was it not, who said that there are only three things worthy of respect—to know, to kill, and to create? Now Daniel—he creates, obviously. But, I can look at a painting and I know its beauty, its value, immediately.” He snapped his pudgy fingers in the air, producing a surprisingly sharp sound. “It is my gift, my curse. Perhaps you and I are similar in that way. We both recognize beauty and value.”

  “Perhaps. But I know the difference.”

  “But, my dear.” He turned to face her, smiling. “There is no difference. And I am afraid that leaves only one opening.”

  * * *

  FOR A WHILE after that Kat had the vague sense that she was invisible. That everyone recognized her, but that no one really saw her. Several acquaintances politely engaged her in conversation, all of which invariably led back to Jonathan and the company. People loved to talk about Jonathan. After many years she was well practiced in the verbal sleight of hand required of a corporate spouse and was well able to engage in conversation without revealing anything about Jonathan’s whereabouts, schedule, or general state of being. For the remainder of the cocktail hour, she bobbed silently through the crowd of people, enjoying the relative anonymity that not being accompanied by Jonathan brought her.

  It was only as the cocktail hour wound down and she made her way among the tables in search of her seat that she became aware that she was being watched. Like the lone gazelle in the wildlife programs Will favored on the BBC, she was being stalked. He mirrored her movements as she weaved among the tables. She evaded him halfheartedly for a while, but after a quick glance ahead revealed her way to be blocked by a clutch of other attendees in search of their tables, she stopped, marshaling her defenses as he made his approach, an exhausted-looking man with extravagant eyebrows.

  “Mrs. Bowen.” He bowed slightly, a gesture that she found simultaneously awkward and patronizing.

  “Mr. Warre.”

  “You’re alone this evening?”

  “I am.” A two-word answer. One more than she had found to be prudent with reporters.

  “How is your husband enjoying China?”

  She smiled her most benevolent smile at him and opted for silence, reasoning that she had already used her quota of words in replying to his last question.

  He sighed at her silence, his eyebrows migrating southward in a frown.

  “It’s impossible to travel undetected these days, is it not? With all the new regulations and paperwork. Such a shame, really. But I was schooled on Fleet Street, so I admit I am a bit old-fashioned. Nothing beats the long lens.”

  He paused, allowing for the possibility that she would speak. When she did not, he continued.

  “Should you be speaking with your husband, you might remind him that in the event he would like to explain to the British public why he is selling out to the Chinese, the Mail would be pleased to provide him the opportunity to do so.”

  “Enjoy the evening, Mr. Warre,” she said as she moved past him.

&
nbsp; “I intend to, Mrs. Bowen.”

  Kat made her way to her table. Jonathan’s place card was there next to hers, neatly embossed in thick black letters. She looked at the empty chair. Since she had returned from New York, nothing seemed to be in its proper place. If Jonathan were here, although they would both be in conversation with others most of the time, his hand might wander over and squeeze hers occasionally during the evening. Maybe she would brush the back of his jacket lightly. She thought about going home to her empty house. She should not have let Will go to the country with his grandparents. She needed him like oxygen. She wondered at the absence of a child. So utterly different from any other absence.

  A tall gray-haired man pulled out the chair on her left and sat down next to her, eyes alighting almost imperceptibly on her place card as he did.

  “Hello, I’m Peter Galbraith.” His smile was warm and sincere. She couldn’t help but return it.

  “Kat Lind.”

  Kat looked at his place card. Dr. Peter Galbraith. Of course. She had seen his name on the foundation’s reports. He ran the research lab. She watched as he introduced himself to the other guests at their table. Smooth, polite, handsome. This was the man who had failed her mother. Dinner was served.

  There was a jubilant feel to the evening that she didn’t share. What exactly were they celebrating anyway? Certainly not victory. Cancer had not been defeated, as she well knew. It was not even as if they had it on the ropes. As far as she could tell they were losing the battle. She looked around the room at the familiar, smiling faces. What did tonight have to do with cancer anyway? What did any of this have to do with the disease that had stolen her mother’s strength, spirit, and dignity before taking her life? She knew the answer was money. But was it? Her mother had the best care that money could buy—the best hospitals, doctors, treatments—and it hadn’t been enough.

  With the chair on her right empty, Kat was forced to speak with Dr. Galbraith on her left. Throughout dinner, he made polite inquiries about her involvement in the charity. She answered briefly, struggling to remain civil. What was he doing here anyway—picking politely at his salmon en croute and making small talk with her? Shouldn’t he be in the lab? Weren’t there experiments and investigations and research that needed his attention?

  Despite where she was and because of where she was, Kat thought about her mother.

  He was about the same age as she had been. She looked at his hands. Long delicate fingers. He wore a thin gold band on the third finger of his right hand. Was he a widower? Had he lost her to cancer? she wondered. Had her death inspired him to do what he was doing now?

  Glancing briefly around the large, crowded ballroom, Dr. Galbraith turned and smiled warmly at Kat. She saw that the left cuff of his tuxedo was worn in the place where his watch brushed against it. He must attend a lot of these events. Kat felt something restless begin to expand in the empty spaces inside of her. She took slow, deep breaths in an effort to compose herself.

  Despite her clipped answers, he persisted undeterred in his efforts at conversation.

  “This really is a wonderful event.”

  “It’s not enough, though, is it?”

  “True.” He nodded solemnly. “We could always use more.”

  “How much will it take to find a cure?”

  If he was taken aback by this, he didn’t show it, meeting her eyes. “I wish I knew, Kat. All I can say for sure is that every little bit takes us a step closer.”

  “But you’re not going fast enough.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “I said you are not going fast enough.” She saw the heads at the table turn toward her. Her voice was too loud. She was trying to maintain control, but she had to make him understand.

  She looked around the room. “Is this really the best we can do to cure this disease? Have a party? Why does everything need to be so removed from its real meaning? Why do we have to dress it up like it is something else? Why can’t we just do what needs to be done?”

  The doctor looked genuinely concerned. It was a look she knew well, having seen it on the faces of so many medical professionals so recently. He leaned toward Kat, a gesture designed either to make sure that she heard him or to quiet her voice.

  “I assure you, we know how urgent this is. And I assure you that events like this do matter. I know it may not seem like it, but they do.” He spoke earnestly. “The money from this evening alone will fund our lab for six months. Sometimes in order to get something done, you have to dress it up like something else—because that is sometimes what it takes to get people to part with their money.”

  “I just don’t believe it. It can’t just be money. If it is, then why haven’t we done it yet? If all it takes is money, then there is probably enough of it in this room.”

  She looked around at the bright and the beautiful of London. She wondered how much all the jewelry in the room tonight alone was worth. She remembered going through the contents of her mother’s jewelry box, feeling the weight of the pieces in her hands. There were fewer pieces than she remembered. All cold stones and metal. She remembered how light and frail her mother had become toward the end. Like a bird. Stripped of all the things that fell away so easily when she lost the strength to hold on to them. She thought about how much strength it took to carry these things. And about how under all the clothes and the jewelry and the perfect wrapping—we were all the same. Frail bodies. Frail egos. Frail lives.

  Walking into the green bedroom four weeks ago. Sleeping cocooned among the quilts and oversize pillows on the big bed, her mother had looked so small. So still. Stopping at the edge of the bed, Kat caught her breath. Still the figure in the bed did not move. As Kat bent down closer, her mother suddenly opened her eyes. She must have seen the fear in Kat’s face.

  “Don’t worry, love. I am not going to leave you.”

  The words were slurred and small—delivered on the back of a shallow breath. But Kat had believed them and had been relieved. An hour later her mother was dead.

  Why hadn’t she moved back when her mother had first become ill? She should have been there with her. What was she doing in London anyway? Why hadn’t she just curled around her mother and stayed with her? What could have been more important than that? It was impossible to accept that she was gone. That there would be no new moments with her. For her.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, may I have your attention please?”

  The crowd quieted as their host began to introduce the evening’s speaker. Dr. Galbraith slid his chair back and made his way through the crowd to the front of the ballroom. As the polite applause died down, he moved to the podium and surveyed his audience. He began speaking, his voice low and warm.

  “Everyone in this room will be affected by cancer in their lifetime. More than a quarter of a million people are diagnosed with cancer each year in the UK alone. But even those lucky enough not to be among this number will be touched by the disease through someone whom they know. Maybe someone whom they love.”

  He found Kat’s eyes briefly. Kat looked away, glancing instead around the table. The rather large, red-faced man to the far right of her was engaged in the dogged pursuit of an errant band of petit pois, fleeing erratically across his plate. Across the table, Margaret enthusiastically chatted up her octogenarian companion while just as enthusiastically ignoring his much younger wife. The room buzzed softly with conversation and the faintly musical rhythms of crystal against crystal and silver scraping china.

  His voice floated above the noise of the room. As he continued to speak, detailing the specific research projects and goals of the foundation, Kat was surprised to hear what sounded like faint laughter. As she listened, the noise level in the room slowly began to rise until it had returned to the level it had been prior to Dr. Galbraith beginning his speech. Until it was difficult for Kat to make out what he was saying. Perhaps sensing that he was losing his audience, Dr. Galbraith cleared his throat loudly and began to wrap up his speech.

&nb
sp; When he resumed speaking, the timbre of his voice had changed. The words he now spoke seemed to originate in a different part of him, a softer part, than the ones he had uttered before. “I look around this room and I see people who have the power to do extraordinary things. People who can build empires, move mountains, truly change the world.” He paused and looked up from the podium. “But I’m not asking you for that tonight. Tonight I am asking for only one thing. For money. With that we can and we will move the mountains.”

  In her final days, her mother had refused pain medication. It had been excruciating for Kat to watch her suffer. But it was all her mother had control over at that stage and, as she told Kat, “I want to feel everything. I don’t want to die before I die.”

  In those last few days her pain had fixed her to the earth like a pin. Holding her fast to each moment, to each breath. Kat wondered if she would make the same choice. To feel pain over feeling nothing. She wondered if she had already.

  Kat heard the scattered applause that followed Dr. Galbraith off the dais after the brief pause required for the crowd to register the absence of his voice. She thought about the people who were dying. The mothers and fathers and sons and daughters for whom this would be their last night. Their last moments to feel. She thought about the weight of Daniel’s hand at the small of her back.

  As she left the ballroom, Kat heard a reverential hush descend as the first auction lot was being described. She pictured the good doctor returning to his seat at the table, and finding the chair on his right empty.

  chapter thirteen

  She paused outside the Dorchester waiting for the valet to retrieve her car. Shivering under the thin layer of silk, she tried to conjure another destination. But there was only one place. She wondered if she could find her way back. She didn’t know the address and it was not exactly an area she was familiar with. She followed the same route he had taken along the top of the parks and then through Marylebone. With the neighborhoods and parks cloaked in darkness, it seemed there was no city outside of the maze of lighted streets. She expected to get lost. She expected an obstacle. A diversion. But there was none. She thought that it should not be so easy.