More Than You Know

by Penny Vincenzi

  “I’m hoping to get a couple of friends, mothers from Emmie’s school, to say I’m a good mother. But—” She stopped.

  “They’re perfectly happy until you tell them they’ll have to appear in court? Then they panic?”

  “Yes. I did have one friend, who I know would have done it, spoken up for me; she knew me right through the whole awful thing with the baby …”

  “But?”

  “I’ve lost touch with her,” said Eliza, realising how feeble this sounded.

  Her one really good friend. So good that she had no idea where she lived or what her phone number was …

  “What about your colleagues at work?”

  “Well … Jeremy Northcott—he’s the boss of my agency, very establishment—he would speak for me; we’ve known each other forever, since I was … well, since I was very young. In fact, at one point I nearly became engaged to him. Only I’d met Matt—” She stopped. “Is that bad or good?”

  “Clearly it was bad for Mr. Northcott,” said Philip Gordon, in an attempt to lighten the atmosphere.

  “No, I meant his being a witness. Bit biased, that sort of thing. Like my mother. Anyway, he was in Milan as well; he helped me get back to Emmie after the fog, so that would be another person in my favor …”

  “Any others? At the agency?”

  “I’m afraid they’re all a bit … a bit unreliable. You know, their lives are one long party; they—” She broke off. What if they asked Rob to be a witness, and it emerged that she smoked dope with him? God, was there no end to all this …?

  “Perhaps you could try to find someone who might be, shall we say, sober enough to speak up for you.” Toby Gilmour looked at her as if he was finding her rather unsatisfactory. She was being hopeless; then she remembered that she was the client, and therefore paying, and met his eyes very directly.

  “I’m absolutely confident I can,” she said.

  “Good.” He looked down at his notes, paused, and said, “Mrs. Shaw”—he seemed to be having trouble with “Eliza”—“forgive me for asking this, but was there ever any violence in your marriage?”

  She had been wondering when someone would ask her.

  “Yes,” she said, “yes, there was. Emotional violence, plenty of it. And verbal. Horrible rows, endless fights.”

  There was a silence, then: “But nothing physical? That was all?”

  “It was quite enough,” said Eliza. “Believe me.”

  There. She hadn’t lied. She had told nothing but the truth. Not the whole truth, perhaps. But it seemed to have worked. She was glad to have done that. It was a sort of run-through if she was ever asked in court. Because she still couldn’t bear to admit it. Not yet. Maybe if it made all the difference between keeping Emmie and losing her. But not yet … it was too horrible, too ugly …

  “Very well,” said Toby Gilmour, “I think that’s all for now. Thank you. I’ll start preparing my brief.” He didn’t smile. He didn’t look at all happy.

  “Eliza,” said Philip after a long pause, “what are your plans for lunch?”

  “Oh, I … I don’t think I can,” she said quickly. She really had had enough of Gilmour for now; he made her feel foolish, tongue-tied, completely uncool.

  “Pity,” said Philip. “Well … how about you, Toby; are you free?”

  “Yes, I am, as a matter of fact,” said Gilmour. “That would be very nice. Thank you, Philip. Mrs. Shaw—Eliza—I’ll be in touch. Thank you for your time.”

  “Oh … no,” she said politely, “thank you for yours,” thinking what an absurd thing to say, that, and what a lot of her money—or rather Anna’s money—would be going to pay him for it. And did she really want to work with him? Or were all barristers as abrasive as that?

  “Well,” said Philip Gordon as they heard the secretary say good-bye, heard the door of the outer office close, “what do you think?”

  “I … thought she was very attractive,” said Toby Gilmour, looking at Philip and smiling briefly, “very intelligent as well. I liked her. I would say incidentally there probably was some violence. Which she’s not prepared to admit. This is far from an open-and-shut case. Yes, the child is only six, which will clearly count in Mrs. Shaw’s favour, but the adultery … very messy. And there’s clearly some history of mental instability. If she won’t call the shrink, her husband undoubtedly will, and I’ve heard he’s got Bruce Hayward as his barrister. I don’t need to tell you he’s savage in cross-examination. I hate to say this, and I’d love to handle it myself, but I think you should at least consider briefing Selbourne. She’s going to need some very strong advocacy—she’s not going to be impressive in court; there are too many areas she’s obviously nervous about.”

  “Well,” said Philip Gordon, “I appreciate your honesty. I’m glad you like her, at least. So do I, very much. There’s something very vulnerable about her. Let’s go and have some lunch, shall we? I’ve booked a table at Simpson’s. Pity she couldn’t join us. But we’ll be able to speak more freely, at least.”

  “Now, Emmie, come on; we’ve got to go. Otherwise we won’t get to Granny’s till it’s really late.”

  “That’s all right. She won’t mind.”

  “She might not, but then you’ll be so late going to bed. And tired tomorrow. Too tired to ride Mouse.”

  “I won’t.”

  “Well, if you don’t hurry up now, I shall ring Gail and tell her not to have Mouse ready for you to ride until Sunday.”

  “I can get Mouse ready myself.”

  “Emmie! Do what you’re told. Or I shall get really cross.”

  Emmie’s eyes met her father’s and recognized defeat.

  “I’ll just pack my shoes.”

  “You’ve already got three pairs of shoes in there. You’re as bad as your mother.”

  “I want to bring my special shoes. My lost shoes.”

  “Emmie, if they’re lost how can you bring them, for heaven’s sake?”

  “No, they’re not lost. I was lost when I bought them. In Milan.”

  “What do you mean, you were lost?”

  “I got lost,” said Emmie patiently, “when Mummy went shopping. I was with stupid Anna-Maria.”

  “Well, you weren’t lost, then.”

  “Yes, I was. I didn’t want to stay with her. So I went shopping by myself. I went to find some shoes. By myself. She was stupid; she was talking to her friend.”

  “But … where was Mummy?”

  “She was with Mariella. Shopping for herself.”

  “Emmie, you went shopping alone in Milan? Without anyone with you?”

  “Yes. It was fun.”

  “So how long were you lost?”

  “Oh … a long, long time. I went to the toy place first. Then I looked at some party frocks. They were so pretty, all frilly. And then I saw the shoes. I liked lots of them. When Mummy came, I had two pairs on. One on one foot, one on another.”

  “And was she … had she been looking for you?”

  Emmie shrugged.

  “Yes, I think so. She was very cross,” she added, tucking the shoes into her small case.

  “I bet she was,” said Matt.

  “So … what are we going to do?”

  Jeremy looked at Mariella across the vast expanse of his bed. She was lying quite naked, one arm flung out, the other tucked under her head; her hair was splayed out on the pillow. The beauty of her body had taken him almost by surprise; he had somehow expected a few small imperfections, but there were none. And … what it could do, that body! He had been astounded by its power, its passion, its near fury in the pursuit of pleasure. And had found himself taken into a new country altogether by it: a bewildering, intense place that he had not, he realised, properly known before. And was this love, at last? he wondered, lying beside her after the first time. Did love work this wonder whereby physical pleasure increased a hundredfold, where desire became sweeter, exploration more joyful, and release quite astonishingly triumphant? He told her this, as they lay there,
and she listened, tenderly quiet, not the same Mariella at all that he had known for years, but someone wiser, sweeter, less self-concerned. “I will not ask you how you feel,” he said, “if it was different for you, for I would be afraid of the answer, afraid it would be no.” And: “Don’t be afraid,” she said, her eyes huge with tenderness, “but don’t ask it, just the same. It is best unspoken, I think. Safer that way.”

  That was when he asked her what they should do. And when she said she didn’t know.

  And when she left New York the next day to go home to her husband, there was nothing resolved between them whatsoever, and Jeremy walked round Central Park for hours, reflecting that this could not be just an affair, that he could never deceive Giovanni in so dreadful and shocking a way, but that life without Mariella was suddenly completely unthinkable.

  “What we’re going for is sole custody and care and control,” said Ivor Lewis. He was having lunch with Bruce Hayward, QC, the scourge of erring wives across the land. “The mother is going for joint custody, but Mr. Shaw feels that she isn’t fit to share in any major decisions about the child’s future. He’s looking therefore for day-to-day care and allowing the mother some access—”

  “Yes, yes, that’s all very well,” said Hayward. “I hope he’s aware how difficult that’s going to be. He’s clearly very fully employed and hardly likely to stay at home and look after her. The child’s not quite seven; any judge will award care and control to the mother, unless she is proven grossly unfit. I mean, he’ll have to employ a nanny, and it’s surely one of his beefs against the mother that she’s going out to work and employing one, and that’s only for two days a week. Joint custody, best he can hope for, and not sure about anything else.”

  “Ah,” said Ivor Lewis. “Well, there seems quite a good chance of actually proving the mother grossly unfit.”

  “Oh, really? What’s she doing, running a brothel?”

  “Not quite. I’ve had Jim Dodds doing a bit of work for me; there’s quite a lot of gossip about her at the advertising agency, not just the adultery with the photographer—which, of course, she admits—but there’re rumours of her having an affair with some art director, drinking with him after work, having the child brought to the agency and left with the receptionist—”

  “Ah, well, that sounds rather more encouraging,” said Bruce Hayward. “We might talk to the receptionist and maybe this artist chap, see if we can get them as witnesses—”

  “Art director,” said Lewis.

  “Art director, artist, they’re all the same, all in love with themselves, disappearing up their own orifices.”

  “Indeed,” said Lewis. It seemed to him that this was a pretty fair description of Bruce Hayward’s opinion of himself.

  That afternoon, leaving Maddy’s workshop, Eliza bumped into Jerome Blake.

  “Lovely to see you here; how are you?”

  “Oh … I’m fine. Yes, everything’s really good, thank you.”

  “Well, I know it’s not,” said Jerome, giving her a kiss, “and I’m sorry. But it’s very nice to have you back in the real world. I hope KPD know how lucky they are.”

  “I think it’s me that’s lucky,” said Eliza, “but they’re being very nice to me. Can’t say any more than that.”

  “So they should be. You know me and my camera are always at your disposal, don’t you? I’d just love to work on that cosmetic account, the Japanese one; any hope of that, do you think?”

  “I’ll talk to Rob. But … you know what he’s like; he has his favourites.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” said Jerome with a grin, “including you, we hear.”

  “Jerome!” said Maddy. “Don’t be tactless.”

  “Sorry. But what the hell, sauce for the goose and all that …”

  “What do you mean?” asked Eliza.

  “Well, I assume the blonde’s got quite a lot to do with all this?”

  “What blonde?” said Eliza.

  “A friend of mine,” said Eliza on the phone to Philip Gordon, “says he saw Matt getting into a taxi with a blond girl very late one night. Apparently they’d been in the same restaurant as him, and they were kissing and so on at the table. Shall I say anything to him, or—”

  “Absolutely not. It could be quite a nice little card for us to play. Would your friend be a witness for us, do you think?”

  “I … I don’t know. I could ask him.”

  She felt very odd at the thought of Matt being with someone else. Which was totally absurd, given her own behaviour, given how much she hated him. But … yes, she was jealous, unbearably hurt at the thought of him being physically—and worse, emotionally—close to someone else.

  “And … you’re still all right for Friday, are you?” Philip Gordon was saying.

  “Yes. Yes, fine. Looking forward to it.”

  She wasn’t, of course. He was taking her to see Tristram Selbourne, the senior QC at Toby Gilmour’s chambers. Philip had told her, very gently, that Toby felt she needed “a very big gun indeed.” That had really upset her. Not just that Toby wouldn’t be handling the case himself—but that he felt her case was pretty hopeless.

  “Of course it’s not true. Well …” Eliza faced him across the room; she felt physically weak, realising what she was really up against, the power of his rage and his hatred. It was horrible. “I … that is … she did wander off, yes.”

  “And you didn’t even notice?”

  “I was … I mean, I wasn’t with her; Anna-Maria was looking after her—”

  “So how long did it take before you decided to interrupt your shopping and look for her?”

  “Matt, this is so unfair. She went off in the care of the maid, with Anna-Maria, and we all arranged to meet in half an hour. Next thing I knew, there was Anna-Maria panicking—”

  “Well, I’m glad somebody was. So Emmie was alone in a foreign city, where nobody speaks English, for … how long? Long enough to be kidnapped, that’s for sure.”

  “Matt, stop it.”

  “You are disgusting; do you know that? Quite disgusting. Not fit to be a mother. Well, you can be sure you won’t be for much longer …”

  “I think it’s time to consider marriage.”

  “Marriage!”

  “Yes, my dearest love, what would you say?”

  “I would say yes,” said Scarlett, leaping out of the bed in excitement, “yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Oh, yes.”

  “Right.”

  “But … don’t you think it’s a bit soon? I mean, we haven’t known each other properly for very long, and—”

  “Scarlett,” said Mark, “tell me some of the things you love. Really love.”

  “Oh, now, let me see. Well, you.”

  “Apart from me.”

  “OK. Trisos.”

  “Yes. Very good.”

  “Fast cars.”

  “Excellent.”

  “Champagne.”

  “Fine.”

  “Um … eggs with Marmite soldiers dipped in them.”

  “OK. That’ll do. Anyway, how long did it take you to decide you loved them?”

  “No time at all. Instant love at first whatever.”

  “Well, then. And have you changed your mind about any of them?”

  “No.”

  “Then I rest my case. Why should you change your mind about me?”

  “It’s a bit different,” said Scarlett, laughing.

  “I don’t see why. Love is love. It’s about absolute emotional happiness. Which I believe we have found. Listen,” said Mark, and his grey eyes were very serious, moving over her face with great tenderness, “you are the heart of my life. I want you to be there always. Please say you will. Dear, dear love, say you will.”

  “Oh, Mark,” said Scarlett, “I do love the way you talk. So much. How could I live without that? Of course I will. Thank you.”

  “And we will be married on Trisos, of course.”

  “Of course.”

  “In the autumn, after the tourists hav
e gone and before the bad weather arrives. And my mother can write us an epithalamium.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Wait and see.”

  It was wonderfully odd to be so very, very happy.

  “Well, my dear, you are going to be very lucky not to lose this case. Very lucky indeed.”

  Eliza, close to tears, stared at Sir Tristram Selbourne, QC; everyone had told her how marvellous he was, including her godmother—“That ghastly old fruit with halitosis? Sheer genius, darling, if anyone can do it he can”—and she had walked to his chambers with hope in her heart. God, she thought, looking at him now, how absurd he would look in his wig, this odious man, with his red, self-satisfied face, his full lips spraying saliva as he spoke—Sir Tristram Selbourne, QC.

  Toby Gilmour sat in on the interview, a slightly disturbing presence, face an aloof blank as he looked at his master.

  She had managed to stay calm, not to rise to the occasional bait: “Surely you must have been aware of the dangers of feeding information to the press … Of course you do realise admitting adultery is all very well, and you don’t seem to have an alternative, but it won’t be considered responsible behaviour, you know …” and even, unforgivably, “That must have been difficult for you, losing your baby.”

  Not difficult, she had wanted to scream, but hideous, horrible, unbearable.

  “And would you say you became—shall we say—unstable at that point?”

  “No,” she said. “Distressed, of course. It would have been very odd, I’m sure you would agree, to have been otherwise.”

  She heard Gilmour rustling papers at this point and turned to look at him; his brilliant dark eyes were fixed on her, and she thought she could read some slight degree of approval. For the first time she felt she might grow to like him.

  She stood out in the sunshine, when they had said their good-byes to him and to Selbourne, breathing in the fresh, warm air, and feeling closer to despair than she had been since the whole dreadful business began.

  “You did awfully well,” Philip Gordon said.

  “I did?”

  “You did. Held your own, refused to give any ground. And he’s on your side: imagine what he must be like across a courtroom …”