“Scarlett! I thought you would know me better than that. I cannot imagine anything worse. Oh, now I have to go get a taxi down to Piraeus; I shall miss the big ferry. Good-bye for now.”
“Bye, Mark. Have a good trip. Hope it’s calm.” For the crossing could be extremely rough, and even the goat—inevitable passengers on the small ferry—got seasick.
She looked after him, smiling, thinking how nice he was, and what a shame he was married—and as she settled into her seat on the plane, how odd that Mrs. Frost had not been named among the guests at the housewarming.
Twenty-four hours later, Mark sat on the veranda with Demetrios and Larissa, admiring the new baby and hearing how Miss Scarlett had been not very happy at all and they had more than once heard her crying in her room late at night.
“We think she has no boyfriend still, so sad,” said Larissa.
Mark agreed that it was very sad, but reflected that if it meant whatever relationship Scarlett had had with the blow-dried brown-haired bugger was over, it was an excellent thing and a big relief to him, at least. He wondered whether he might try to see her in London.
Meanwhile: “I want to speak to you,” he said to Demetrios, “about constructing some ramps up the steps for my mother’s wheelchair …”
Mariella found out about the party by accident: a very lucky accident, as she said. She was in New York for a few days, ordering some clothes and shopping, and had offered to take a friend to dinner at Elaine’s. The friend was charmed and impressed. “I’ve wanted to go there so long. Did you know Woody Allen met Mia Farrow there?”
Mariella said she didn’t, but she wasn’t surprised. “Everybody meets everybody here. I love it. And she is so wonderful, Elaine, so bigger than life. Those flower-covered dresses she wears, so vulgar, and all those gold chains. I will book a table and we will have a wonderful evening. See how many famous faces we can see.”
However, there was not a table the following evening; Elaine’s was full. Mariella was not one of the vast number of people who would have been told this anyway, or turned away at the door; she was one of Elaine’s pets.
“We have a big party tomorrow night, Signora Crespi. I am so sorry.”
“Oh, that is so sad. I am not a large person; nor is my friend; could you not find us a tiny table in a corner?”
“I’m afraid not. Lunch perhaps?”
“Ah. Yes. We will come to lunch. Thank you. Not so exciting, perhaps, but … it will do.”
She and her friend had a very good lunch, eating the fettucine dish that Jackie Kennedy had famously cooked to Elaine’s recipe, and were drinking their coffee when a tall, incredibly thin blond woman walked in looking distracted, demanding to see Elaine. She was told Elaine was not available.
“It’s about the seating plan for this evening. I wanted to leave the place names with her and to make sure they were put out before Mr. Northcott’s party arrived.”
“And you are?”
“Mr. Northcott’s PA.”
“I can do that for you, madam.”
“Are you sure? They must be right; it’s quite imperative. I would really like Elaine to do it personally.”
“I will do it, madam. If you just give me the seating plan …”
“Come, cara!” said Mariella to her friend, jumping up. “We must go. I have a great deal to do.”
The Summercourt effect had not lasted. They were hardly inside the door before Matt was checking the answering machine, standing over it, listening to it intently, and then riffling through the post. Eliza felt a flash of hurt.
“You don’t trust me, do you? You really don’t.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Matt, you’re checking up on me. Just to make sure that Jeremy hasn’t rung, that there aren’t any love letters lying on the mat—”
“You’re being neurotic, Eliza. The purpose of an answering machine is to take messages in the owner’s absence. I merely wanted to see who might have rung.”
“Yes, sure. Well, now you know. Two of my friends. Women, so that’s all right. Unless you think I might be about to become a lesbian, of course.”
“Don’t talk in that disgusting way; Emmie might hear.”
“She’s heard you being pretty disgusting already, in my view. Oh, for God’s sake, Matt, give it a rest. I’m going up to bathe her.”
“It was you not giving it a rest. I’m going to do some work now; some of us have more to do than picking quarrels.”
“If I had more to do,” cried Eliza, her voice cracking with pain, “I maybe wouldn’t be picking quarrels, as you call it.”
“God, give me strength,” said Matt. “I thought we had heard the last of that one for a while, at least. You go to bed, Eliza. I’ll be very late. I’ll go into the spare room.”
“And bloody well stay there,” she said, and set off up the stairs.
Waking in the morning alone in the bed, she realised she was still hurting. When she got down to the kitchen, there were the messy remnants of toast making and a note saying, “I’ll be late tonight.”
And this was meant to be a marriage.
Reflecting that if marriage and motherhood were genuinely to be her life for the foreseeable future, she must pull herself together and put a one hundred per cent effort into it, Eliza called Matt midmorning to hold out a rather well-worn olive branch, and ask him whether he really had to work late, and if not, then she would cook proper dinner for them both, rather than the soup-and-sandwich supper she could leave out for him otherwise. He wasn’t there, and so she left a message to call her; an hour later, Mandy rang and said she was sorry, Mr. Shaw was out of town, but he had asked her to say that he would have to be late and not to wait for him for dinner. Stung that he had not even bothered to call himself, and feeling particularly lonely, Eliza rang Maddy and invited her to have supper with her.
“I need an injection of gossip; I’m going crazy.”
The phone was ringing when Eliza was getting in after school with Emmie and a small friend; she shot over to it, but the answering machine had cut in. As so often when a caller unused to such things was confronted by it, there was a long silence, and then a voice said, “Oh, doesn’t matter,” and rang off. It had sounded like Heather, but she couldn’t be sure; the voice was echoey and distorted. Eliza decided she would go round and see her in the morning, just in case—she could hardly go now—and addressed herself to settling the little girls in the playroom and making their tea. If it was important, Heather would surely ring again.
Heather sighed; she had no more change, and anyway, she needed every last penny for the meter. She would try again tomorrow. And it was perfectly all right about the article, she was sure. She just thought she ought to tell Eliza.
Eliza and Maddy were settling happily into gossip mode in the small sitting room when a key turned in the lock and Matt walked in.
“Oh,” he said, “oh, hallo.”
“Matt … hallo. What are you doing here?”
“I live here, I thought,” he said. He was clearly making an effort to sound lighthearted, but it didn’t quite work.
“I thought you were going to be late.”
“Yes, well, after your rather touching phone call, I made an effort, got back early; here I am. Evening, Maddy.”
“Hallo, Matt.”
“Well, how lovely.” Eliza got up, gave him a kiss. “You must join us, of course.”
“That would be charming,” he said, “but I can see you’re having a girls’ evening; I won’t intrude. I’ll just have something in the study, Eliza.”
“Matt, don’t. We’d like you to be with us, wouldn’t we, Maddy?”
“Course.”
“Come on. Sit down, chat to Maddy while I cook the pasta.”
After about an hour of stultifyingly awkward conversation, with Matt sitting silent and half-sullen, Maddy left, clearly embarrassed; Eliza turned on him in a fury.
“That was so rude. Maddy was my guest and you couldn�
��t have been less friendly to her, didn’t even try to join in …”
“Eliza, I can’t do all that stuff. I offered to go to my study; you had to insist. I suppose she’d come to commiserate with you over the job,” said Matt, “show solidarity with—what is it—oh, yes, the sisterhood.”
“Don’t be silly,” said Eliza. “She’d just come for a gossip. About, you know, the business, what she’s doing, all that sort of thing.”
“Why is it always that lot you want to see? From your old life? You just can’t tear yourself away, can you? What about some new friends?”
“I have new friends, thank you; I just don’t particularly want to spend the evening with them.”
“Because?”
“Because they’re not interested in what interests me.”
“And she is?” he said, indicating the chair where Maddy had been sitting. “A woman with no children, just obsessed with the business, as you call it, banging on about all those poncey designers and photographers; that interests you, does it? I thought—I hoped,” he said, “after our last little upset, you were really going to throw yourself into it, forget all that rubbish—”
“It is not rubbish,” she shouted. “It’s what I care about, what I want to be doing—”
“Oh, so you don’t want to be at home, looking after Emmie; you’re just doing it out of some sense of duty. You really want to be back out there, having your arse licked. You’re not really going into this wholeheartedly at all, are you?” he said. “You’re just biding your time, softening me up, waiting for the next opportunity.”
“That is so unfair—”
“Is it? I don’t think so. It seems very fair to me. Oh, I’m going to do some work. I’m sorry I’ve spoilt your girly evening.”
“Yes,” she said, “you have. Totally.”
He finally picked up the phone, took a deep breath.
“I … well … that is, I wondered if you’d like to have dinner one night,” he said. “Nothing … nothing grand, more like supper, really.”
He had put it off several times, finding excuses: he was too tired one day, too busy the next, a bit low the third. He needed to feel his absolute best to do it right.
He had often wondered why he was so pathologically shy when it came to relationships. He could, after all, be charming and amusing when he was on show: a different person altogether. But the combined terror of looking foolish and being rejected was too much for his rather fragile ego.
He had been in love only twice in his life: first with his childhood sweetheart, who had turned her back on him and gone off with the rich, smooth heartthrob of the upper sixth; and the second time with a sweet, gentle, funny girl who had demanded nothing of him except that he loved her in the way she loved him. They had been engaged for only six months when she had found a lump in her breast; she had died exactly a year later, leaving him utterly broken both in his heart and his head. Since then, and for more than ten years now, he had not ventured into a new relationship.
He could not have told you what it was about Scarlett that appealed to him so much; she was lovely, of course, and she had a glamour about her that he liked. And she was clearly very clever and successful in a business that was notoriously tough and cutthroat and didn’t suffer fools in any way. But those were all qualities that would normally have frightened him off. And while she was very intelligent, she was far from well educated and not well-read—which would normally have troubled him, not for any intellectually snobbish reasons, but because it precluded so many sources of conversation. He had decided that what drew him to her was her vulnerability, which lay beneath the gloss and the glamour and the success; like him, he felt she was not personally secure and that personal happiness had eluded her. And if she was looking for it in people like that idiot at lunch that day, no wonder.
Whatever the reason, he was sufficiently drawn to her to risk an invitation to dinner …
There was a long, rather unnerving silence. Then she said, “Mark, I don’t think so. I’m sorry. You must know the reason; you really must. But thank you. And it’s very flattering, Good-bye, Mark. I’ll … I’ll see you on Trisos.”
“Yes, of course,” he said, longing to ask her what was this reason that he must know. And wondering how he could ever feel easy on Trisos again, were she around.
“Oh, shit,” said Scarlett, close to tears, looking at the phone, now replaced on its receiver. “Shit, shit, shit.”
It was so long since anyone she fancied and liked so much had asked her out. But she wasn’t risking that again.
“Fuck,” said Mark Frost, feeling utterly wretched, looking at the phone as he replaced it on its receiver. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”
It was so long since he had fancied and liked anyone enough to ask them out. But he wouldn’t be risking that again.
Suddenly, with frightening speed, Eliza and Matt seemed to have moved into a new, strange country: a silent, unsmiling land filled with suspicion and a lack of warmth or even courtesy. They moved around, wary of each other, he staring at her with cold, blank eyes, her expression resentful and defiant. Day after day.
He went to work, came home very late, went into his study and then to bed. The spare room bed.
With Emmie he was himself: greeting her with hugs and kisses, talking to her, playing with her, reading to her, taking her out to the park. Emmie had begun to notice the coldness and the blankness, did her best to ease it. She tried to set up conversations, said, “Will Mummy come too?” when Matt said he’d put her to bed or take her to the swings. It was precociously touching; it did no good.
Eliza was in despair.
Johnny Barrett had found the terrace quite quickly; there were only two that properly fitted the description, and after spending a couple of hours in his car outside each of them, and watching a pretty, heavily pregnant young woman walking gingerly down the steps of one of them with a little girl, and then returning half an hour later carrying shopping, he felt confident he had found Eliza Shaw’s friend.
He went over to her the second morning and smiled.
“Excuse me, but can I help you with that shopping? It looks very heavy, and those steps seem pretty treacherous to me.”
She flushed, clearly embarrassed.
“Oh … no, no, it’s perfectly all right. I’m fine.”
“Well, I don’t think it is. Look—come on, just to the front door. It’s all right; I’m not some kind of mugger; I promise I won’t try to come in.”
“Well … it would be nice. Thank you.”
“These steps are a death trap,” he said, kicking at one of them; a shower of plaster fell onto the one below.
“I know. We’ve tried to get the landlord to fix them, but he never does. He never fixes anything, as a matter of fact; the place is a tip inside.”
“Going to be worse when you’re trying to get a pram up and down the steps.”
“Yes, well, we won’t be here then. We’re looking for somewhere else, but landlords don’t like babies, so we may have to—Sorry; you don’t want to hear all this.”
“Yes, I do. Don’t be silly. I’m very sympathetic, as a matter of fact. My sister’s in the same fix. She and her husband have been trying to find somewhere for months; they live up north, Manchester way.”
“Really? Well, I suppose a landlord is a landlord. Out for all they can get. And babies put other tenants off.”
“Seems so. Look—I think I’d better come clean. Johnny Barrett, Daily News. Your friend Eliza Shaw told me about you.”
She looked alarmed. “Oh … goodness. I thought … Eliza said you’d decided not to do the article after all.”
“I had. But to be honest with you, seeing what my sister’s going through made me keen again. I really think these people shouldn’t be allowed to get away with it. It’s not right. Look, you wouldn’t like to tell me a bit more now, would you?”
“Oh … I don’t know. I don’t think so. I don’t want to get into trouble while we’re still livin
g here—”
“Of course not, but like I said to Eliza, no names.”
“Really?” Her large grey eyes met his. “It would be completely anonymous?”
She was very pretty, he thought. And very vulnerable.
“Completely. And you’d only be one of several stories. Look—there’s a café down the road. Why don’t I take you there and you can tell me all about it.”
“Matt, hi. It’s me.”
“Oh … Gina. Hallo.”
“You don’t sound very pleased to hear from me. It’s been a while.”
“No, no. I am … sorry. I … well, yes, of course I am. How are you doing?”
“I’m doing pretty well, thanks. Very well, actually. Which is why I’m ringing you.”
“Oh, yes?”
“Yes. I’m looking for new premises. To open a second shop. I thought you might be able to help.”
It annoyed him when people thought he was a sort of glorified estate agent.
“Gina, I don’t handle that sort of thing. Sorry.”
“Oh … OK. I just thought—”
“Well, you thought wrong,” said Matt shortly.
“I’m sorry,” said Gina. Her voice was sharp; it cut through Matt’s misery.
“No, no, I’m sorry. Got a few problems at the moment.”
“Anything I can help with?”
“ ’Fraid not. No.”
“Well … you know where I am, Matt. If you need me.”
It worried him that he knew where she was. He hoped nobody else did.
Jack Beckham told Barrett to stay after the evening conference. He was holding the first draft of his article.
“There’s not enough here,” he said, “too much sentimental claptrap. This isn’t fucking Woman’s Own. What’s this girl’s name, for a start?”
“I … said I wouldn’t give that.”
“Well, you need to give it, OK? And we need facts and figures, and I’ve told you, we certainly need the name of the developer, and a quote from him. Otherwise, we could have made it all up.”
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