Flight (16 page)

It was Giles who minded most – because of the money, because of Harper Cox's reputation, because he personally had hired Martagon and put his trust in him. He didn't say much more about it, but Martagon felt the disappointment and anger behind his studied normality.

I'll make it up to Giles. I don't know how, but I will. Perhaps in some personal way that would really mean something to him.

There was egotism in this as well as remorse and a proper humility. Martagon didn't like feeling morally inferior to Giles. He stopped going swimming, and put his energies into the work, not wanting to confront his own thoughts. Am I a messer, a wanker?

*   *   *

‘What are you doing for the millennium?'

Martagon was sick of the question. If he'd been asked it once in London, he'd been asked a hundred times. Yet here he was asking Marina all the same, over the telephone, ‘What are you doing for the millennium? We should be together. But you'd have to come to London, I can't get away again right now, I've got too much to do. We have a bit of a crisis on our hands, I have to see people, do stuff. Will you come?'

She wasn't sure. She thought not. She had a lot of work to get through by the end of the month. And then, Nancy Mulhouse was giving a big party in Provence, and there was another party she had been asked to in Paris. ‘You might come to Paris. It would be wonderful if we were in Paris together for the millennium, wouldn't it?'

‘It would, my darling, it would be magical, but it's true what I told you. I've got meetings back to back right until the very last moment.'

Marina was stubborn. Martagon was equally stubborn. Why would she never come to London? He could, conceivably, fly out on the evening of 31 December, though he most probably wouldn't get a flight at this late date. Besides which the plane might fall into the sea, he told her, if the electronics went down. He didn't believe that; but it was Marina's turn to fit in with his requirements, just for once. Neither did he fancy sharing her at a party with
le tout Paris,
a horde of society and media types he didn't know. If Marina had a fault, it was that she was wilful. She was also, perhaps, selfish. Her script-editing work was scheduled to suit herself. She could have come over a few days ahead of time, and done her work in his house. She had never even seen where he lived. Didn't that interest her at all?

*   *   *

Amanda rang him at home first thing in the morning: ‘Have you seen the papers?'

‘No?'

‘Tom Scree has got a peerage! Tom is a lord!'

‘
WHAT
?'

‘Listen, I've got it here' – there was a rustle of newsprint over the line – ‘Thomas Carew Scree, and then it says “For services to development”. And there's a picture of him at the top of the page.'

‘I don't believe it.'

‘Have a word with Giles.'

Giles had had no idea, he said. Tom would have known for some weeks, but certainly he hadn't tipped the wink to anyone at Harper Cox.

‘But why Tom?'

‘Why not Tom? They have to give these things to someone. Tom gets what he wants. He must have gone all out for it. But he'll be a proper working peer, the government'll get their money's worth.'

‘Do you mean he paid for it?'

‘Oh no, I don't suppose so. But now I understand why he's been in and out of the DfID office so much. And I saw him having lunch with the minister at the Caprice some time in the autumn. He's been putting himself about, big-time. We saw him on
Newsnight
banging on about this group he heads up…'

‘The Grid Group. Conflict-resolution stuff. He doesn't head it up, it's some old Texan mogul.'

‘Right. Anyway. You'd have thought he did, by the way he was going on. And then do you remember he wrote that arse-licking letter to
The Times
defending some crap planning policy, back in the summer? Very Tom Scree, very New Labour.'

‘I never saw that,' said Martagon. ‘I was in and out of France all summer.'

‘I wouldn't have seen it either,' said Giles, ‘you know I never read anything but comics. That's what you think, anyway. But Mirabel Plunket saw it, and she showed me.'

‘Well, I'll be buggered.'

‘Me too,' said Giles. ‘But it's good for the firm, it won't hurt having “Chairman: The Lord Scree” on the Harper Cox letterhead. Or perhaps you don't put “Lord Scree”. Perhaps you put “Baron Scree of Leake”.'

‘Of
where?
'

‘Leake. You have to be the lord
of
somewhere, don't you?'

‘Is that Leak as in drip, or Leek as in Welsh vegetable?'

‘It's where they live in Lincolnshire, in the Fens. Leake with an E. So, yes, drip, basically. We'll have to give a party for him. A small dinner party, Amanda says. We're going up to Amanda's family in Wakefield for the millennium. Julie too. Big get-together. See you after that.'

Martagon knew the decent thing to do would be to ring Tom and congratulate him, but he couldn't bring himself to.

*   *   *

‘What are you doing for the millennium?'

Martagon had a last-minute invitation from the wife of an acquaintance in the industry, a property developer for whom he had done some work. Her husband had chartered a launch to go up the Thames from St Katherine's Dock to the Dome, and there were one or two places unfilled. Martagon knew that the woman fancied him. That was the reason he had been asked. He did not find her in the least attractive, but he was glad of the invitation, and accepted.

So there he sat, squashed at a convivial table under cover on the upper deck with a bottle of champagne and a plate of lobster in front of him, and around him pleasant people, many of them professional friends or good acquaintances. His hostess was fully and shriekingly occupied with her husband's guests and clients, so there was no danger from that quarter. He had his mobile phone with him so that he could ring Marina, as they had arranged, at midnight. He didn't have much to say to anyone, but it was better than wandering the streets on his own, or sitting in front of the television in Child's Place. Better to get pissed in company than by yourself. Idly, he watched people excitedly milling about, moving up and down the gangway that led to the lower deck where the bar was.

And then he saw them.

The stairway was momentarily deserted except for this couple slowly coming up. It was like watching a film in slow motion. A very tall, glamorous, eye-catching couple. When they reached the top, they paused. Heads turned.

The man was exotic, with slanting cheekbones and eyes and an impressive physique. He was wearing an extraordinary ankle-length overcoat made of some shaggy, whitish animal-hair. The woman also wore a long coat, of quilted mulberry-dark satin with an edging of glistening black fur down to the ground. One long white hand was on the stair-rail, the other held her coat together at the throat, half hidden by fur. Her flaming hair was piled on top of her head, with curling tendrils escaping to frame a lovely face.

‘Heavens!' breathed the plump Irishwoman next to Martagon, with whom he had been chatting amiably about people they both knew in Dublin. The man opposite her, a stranger to Martagon, swivelled round to see what everyone was looking at, and turned back to the table.

‘Lin Perry and Marina de Cabrières,' he said, with fat satisfaction. ‘Well, well. The A-list. We're obviously at the right party.'

‘Wow!' said the plump woman. ‘Do you know them?'

‘I know that's Perry because I know what he looks like from photographs. And I met
her
once, at a party in the South of France. At Nancy Mulhouse's, do you know her?'

‘No, no, I don't…' said the woman. ‘But isn't
she
just gorgeous?'

‘I didn't know she was going out with Lin Perry. There was some talk when I was down there that she was carrying on with a local man who makes wine. A very local man, by which I mean a bit of rough. She's quite a number. Apparently she's come into a lot of money. Sold the family silver or something.'

‘They make a lovely couple, though, don't they?'

Martagon, who seemed to himself to have turned to stone, heard his voice say, ‘They aren't a couple. She's not going out with Lin Perry.'

They looked at him with interest. Just at that moment the scene changed and there was a general rush towards the open section of the deck. Chairs were pushed back, tables half overturned, voices raised, as everyone scrambled for a good position. It was five to twelve, the boat was approaching the Dome, a magic mushroom throbbing with changing coloured lights; it was nearly time for the fireworks. Lin and Marina were swallowed from sight in the throng. Martagon remained at the table motionless, paralysed. He felt as if he had been hit on the head.

Either he believed in Marina and in her love for him, or he did not. He had moved light years away from his old, rational self. All belief, all trust, is irrational. Martagon made an act of faith.

At two minutes to midnight, alone where he sat, he retrieved his phone from his jacket pocket. He called up Marina's number and pressed the ‘Yes' button. She answered at once: ‘Where are you?'

‘Where are
you?
'

‘Darling Marteau, you won't believe this, but I'm in London! On a boat on the river! I was in Paris, and Lin had these two tickets for Eurostar, and we came over this evening.'

‘Why didn't you call and tell me?'

‘I wanted to give you a surprise, I wanted to make you suddenly happy! I had to come on this boat with Lin as he had been so kind as to bring me over, and when you rang like you said you would I was going to give you this surprise, it was a plan. Are you surprised? Are you pleased? Where are you, where shall I come and find you?'

‘Where exactly are you on this boat?'

‘Right at the front of it…'

And then their phones went down, since absolutely everyone all over the time-zone was ringing up someone else, because it was midnight and cannons were firing and hooters hooting and bells ringing and lasers shooting green arcs and fireworks blossoming in the sky and falling in bright showers over the gleaming dark Thames and on the crowds on the banks and on the small boat where Martagon fought his way through the crowd to Marina's side and they were together for the millennium.

‘Hi, Martagon,' said Lin Perry. ‘You want to come on into the Dome with us?'

‘Hi,' said Martagon. ‘No,' he said firmly. ‘No. I think Marina and I will take a rain-check on the Dome.'

And, after a second's stand-off, that was that. Marina was smiling at him. She linked her arm in his. Martagon took a deep breath and relaxed. They were together. That was all that mattered.

*   *   *

Martagon could not get used to having Marina staying with him in Child's Place. This house was where he had longed for her, missed her, telephoned her, thought about her so consistently that it seemed impossible she could actually be there. It was defined by her absence.

Being in bed together was different in London. They heard the roar of the traffic on Earl's Court Road, watched the wavering pattern of naked branches against the street-lamp. Marina felt cold all the time, and Martagon had to get out all the blankets and coverings that he possessed.

‘I've been suffering from jealousy,' he told her. ‘I'm jealous of every boyfriend you ever had. And I'm jealous of the people you see in France when I'm not there. I'm still jealous of Pierre.'

‘You're so funny. You don't have to worry about Pierre. He and I understand each other.'

‘That's what I'm afraid of. And now I'm jealous of Lin too.'

‘You idiot! Lin is gay. Well, a bit gay.'

‘I've never heard anyone say that about him.'

‘Even when he loves a woman he is perhaps being a bit gay.'

‘Does he love you?'

‘Of course. He loves the way I look, he loves us both to dress up and go out. Like on the boat.'

‘Narcissism
à deux.
'

‘Perhaps. And perhaps you could say the same of us, you and me. It's not a crime.'

‘Why do you love me, Marina? Why do you want me? You could have anyone.'

‘Because I do. Because of the way we are. I want to be with you. The person you love is the person you want to be with. There doesn't have to be a reason.'

‘But can I trust you, my darling? Don't laugh any more, it's serious. For me.'

‘I am serious now. Are you always faithful to me? The only reason, Marteau, that a woman will be unfaithful to the man she loves is to protect herself, to escape from his spell, his total monopoly of her passion and her thinking, to give herself back to herself. For a short while.'

‘And then?'

‘And then, having done that deed, she can inhabit her relationship with the one she loves more rationally.'

‘Love is not rational. But I don't think it's irrational of me to love you. It is an absolute. The one absolute of my life.'

He did not ask her whether she had in fact ‘done that deed'. He did not believe she had. Jealousy is pitiful, ludicrous, unattractive. He would have nothing more to do with it. He had pinned his future on the romantic principle and he would see it through.

*   *   *

The Harpers' little dinner for Lord Scree was not a success. It would have been satisfactory to combine a celebration of his peerage with a public announcement of the imminent opening of the new airport. Now that was off. There was a shadow over the occasion.

‘A bit of a cloud … A bit of a cloud,' as Arthur Cox used to say.

The big surprise was that Tom's wife Ann came up from Lincolnshire for the dinner. She turned out to be a dark-haired, handsome, bespectacled person of high seriousness, wearing a full floral skirt and a beige jersey strewn with a pattern of pearl beads. Her lack of social grace endeared her to Martagon.