Sextet (16 page)

‘…I watch you with Tom sometimes, and I think—you’d make such a fine father…’

‘Would I? I hope so.’ He hesitated. ‘I sometimes wish—’

‘What do you wish?’

‘Oh, the usual things: that the plot had worked out differently, I expect.’

‘Tell me, Rowland; talk to me. You’re too reserved; it’s not good to be as reserved as you are…’

‘Maybe not.’ He shifted her position a little, so she was curled in his arm, and they sat for some while in silence. Lindsay closed her eyes; was it three in the morning, four? The city was almost silent; its stir had subsided; no cars passed; it was quiet in the dusky room, the only sound their breathing, and quiet in the streets.

After a while, Rowland began speaking again. He continued to hold her hand, and he told her innumerable things, in no particular order, but perhaps, she thought, as they played before his eyes, or swam into his head.

He described the small farm his Irish father had owned on the west coast of Ireland, which he had left when he was eight, after his father’s sudden death. He described living in London with his English mother, and his school, his scholarship; then, jumping over years, spoke of his mother’s unyielding character and her lingering death. He talked of the purchase of his strange and beautiful house in the East End of London, and then—houses being perhaps the association—he described Colin’s search for Wildfell Hall and the house near the sea, which he and Colin had eventually found, and which Tomas Court appeared to like.

From this house, he said, a path led down to a remote and little-visited beach, a horseshoe between two headlands. There, only a few days ago, while Colin remained at the house, taking his photographs and making his notes, Rowland had walked. Shells underfoot, shells pulverized by the waves; the cry of gulls as they swooped; a heavy sea, the tide racing in and engulfing the rocks.

Lindsay, eyes closed, her body warmed by his, listened to the crunch of those shells underfoot; she listened to the scream of the gulls, the heave of the tide, and listening to them, watching Rowland alone on a pale, shrinking strand, she fell asleep.

The next morning, that morning, when it was light, she woke to a changed Rowland, or perhaps to a more familiar Rowland, a man who had reverted, who was considerate, but distant again, kindly and polite. It was only six, but he was preparing to leave. Lindsay watched him numbly. She felt as if someone had injected novocaine into an artery; novocaine was numbing the muscles of her face; novocaine impeded her breathing and interfered with her voice.

‘I haven’t been fair to you, Rowland,’ she said, finally, when he was almost at the door, the words jamming, then coming out in a rush. He turned.

‘I’m sorry. I wanted to say something at lunch yesterday and then I couldn’t. I wanted to say something last night—and I forgot…’

‘Lindsay, it doesn’t matter. It’s irrelevant now, in any case.’

‘It isn’t. It isn’t. Three weeks ago you made me a proposal, an offer—a very generous one. You gave me the time to think about it, and…’

‘Lindsay, you obviously don’t want the job. That’s all right. I was a little confused, when you announced your resignation, your plans. And disappointed, obviously. But I understand now…’

‘No. No. I shouldn’t have done it like that. I don’t even know why I did. I should have talked to you first. I should have talked to you before I resigned. I should have explained when we were on our own, not sprung all that on you at lunch, with three other people there; I owed you that. Oh, why was I so stupid,
stupid
…I was afraid, I think.’

‘Afraid? Am I such an ogre?’ Rowland gave her a puzzled look. He hesitated, and for one singing moment Lindsay thought he was about to change his mind and stay. He unlatched the door, then turned back.

‘I blame myself, not you,’ he began awkwardly. ‘You’re right, I can be arrogant. I assumed—I thought you might like to work with me again. I thought you might want to move on from fashion. It seemed such a good plan…’ He paused. ‘Do you remember, Lindsay, when I was Max’s Features Editor? You never stopped telling me how to do my job…’ He smiled. ‘I’m sure I never admitted it at the time, but your ideas were good. I haven’t forgotten that. I can hive off the heavier stuff and leave you as Features Editor, with responsibility for everything else. All those damn columns: gardens, property, restaurants, food, cars; they matter to the readers, and they’re not good enough. I’d give you a completely free hand. You could continue to oversee the fashion, if you want. If you want to reconsider, the offer’s still open—you do understand that? If it’s a question of salary…’

‘No, Rowland, it’s not money; truly. What you were offering was more than generous.’

‘Then what’s the problem? Were you worrying about Max? I told you, Lindsay, Max wouldn’t be pleased at my stealing you. But he’d accept it. Max is a realist. In fact…’ He began to smile. ‘Why don’t we
really
annoy him? Persuade Pixie to come with you, to run the fashion side of things, but still reporting to you. We could do that. We could…’

‘Stop, Rowland. Please don’t. I’m so sorry, I hate myself for this. You’ve shown confidence in me and look how I’ve repaid you. I sat there at lunch, letting Tom and Colin and Katya criticize you, and I didn’t explain the real situation. You could have given me away if you’d wanted to, taken me to task—and you didn’t. Oh damn, damn…’

She turned her face away to hide her distress. Rowland took her hand and turned her to him.

‘Forget about that,’ he said. ‘Lindsay, I don’t care what they said or thought. Listen to me, we’ve always worked well together. I know you could do this job. Won’t you at least think about it?’

‘Rowland, no. I have thought about it, and I’ve decided. I’ve signed the contract for this book. I’m committed…’

‘It isn’t that. I don’t believe you.’ He was watching her closely. ‘There’s some other problem. You don’t want to work with me, is that it?’

Lindsay looked away. To accept this job would mean working with Rowland McGuire in the closest proximity; that would destroy all her peace of mind. The only way in which she was going to cure herself of Rowland was to see him less and to put distance between them. She was now even more certain of this.

‘Tell me,’ Rowland said, when she had not replied. ‘Look at me, Lindsay. Is it that you don’t want to work with me? Is that so bad a prospect? Why? I know I can be infuriating—you tell me often enough. But we understand one another now; we know one another so well—don’t you feel that?’

‘In certain ways, maybe. But—’

‘We make a good team. We spark ideas off one another. Even the fights are useful…’ A glint of amusement came into his eyes, then his expression became doubtful again, and his manner somewhat awkward. ‘I’d rather you said, Lindsay. I—well, I didn’t expect you to turn me down. I thought—I can only assume now…’

‘Rowland,
don’t
. You know I like working with you; I always did—and you taught me a great deal. I’ve told you that often enough…’

‘No, you haven’t actually.’

‘Then I’m telling you
now
. This decision has nothing to do with you personally, Rowland. Try to understand. I’ve spent twenty years, more, in an office. I’ve spent twenty years going to the collections, twenty years catching planes and chasing around the world. I’ve had
enough
, of fashion
and
of journalism; I don’t want deadlines to dictate the rest of my life. Rowland, I never had a choice before—Tom depended on me, my mother depended on me; we had to have my salary, come what may. But now I
do
have a choice. I can write this book; I
want
to write this book—and if it’s a success, maybe I could write others. I’m looking forward to it, Rowland. You wait…’ She smiled. ‘In a few months’ time, you won’t recognize me. I’ll have become an archive junkie, a library addict. I’ll be filling up all these notebooks with research…’

It was, she thought, a seamless blend of truth and falsehood, and it was effective.

‘An archive junkie?’ Rowland also smiled. ‘I admit I can’t quite imagine that.’ He paused. ‘You promise me that this is what you truly want?’

‘Ah, what do women want?’ Lindsay made a face. ‘I wouldn’t go that far, but it’s what I want to do.’

‘I shall miss you, you know. The office won’t seem the same without you. Who’s going to cut me down to size if you aren’t there?’

‘You’ll find someone. You know you never listened anyway…’

‘You’re wrong. I did.’

There was a silence. During it, Rowland suddenly seemed to realize that he was still holding her hand; he released it at once. Exhibiting an indecision that was not characteristic of him, he turned to the door, then back again.

‘Lindsay, I’ll have to go. I have a mountain of work to get through before tomorrow. The trouble with going away is that the workload doubles when you get back. I’d have liked…I have a bad week coming up, meetings back to back…When are you leaving for New York?’

‘On Thursday. I’m staying on after the collections to do some fashion shoots. Then—Max has been generous about notice, and I’m owed that holiday time—I’ll come back after Thanksgiving, maybe. I thought of going down to Washington DC for a few days to…’

Lindsay stopped abruptly. She feared that Rowland might query Washington as a destination, in which case she would have to say her friend Gini’s name and watch him feign indifference. To her surprise and relief, he did not.

‘Washington? I have to go over there sometime too—we’re having negotiations with the
Post
. Except, no, it’s not likely our visits would coincide. Damn! Thursday? Perhaps—Look, I’ll call you later this evening, shall I do that?’

‘I’m going out this evening, Rowland,’ Lindsay replied untruthfully, staring hard at the floor. The reply checked Rowland, whose air of agitation and indecision increased.

‘Yes, well, I’ll talk to you before you leave for America. We could—you might like dinner one night…’

‘I don’t think that will be possible. I’m rushing about this week, and…I’ll see you when I come back, Rowland.’

Steeling herself, Lindsay reached up on tiptoe and briefly kissed his cheek.

‘Thank you for everything,’ she said, in a steadier voice. ‘You sorted me out, yesterday, and last night. You’re a very good father confessor, Rowland. I feel much better now. A bit hung-over, of course…’

‘Sleep. Get some sleep…’ Rowland replied. ‘Promise me now…’

‘I promise,’ Lindsay replied meekly, and with this assurance, Rowland finally left.

Lindsay watched the door close. Everything and nothing, she said to herself. She found she was trembling with the effort of deception; the unspoken and the unspeakable rose up in a wash of regret. She returned to her sitting-room and looked around her blindly. She had done what she had promised herself she would do, and now Rowland’s absence emptied the room of all content.

She touched the cushion he had leaned against the previous night; she touched the sofa-arm where his hand had rested. She tried to remember the strange calm and peace she had felt as he talked to her in those pre-dawn hours; it had been the first, and presumably the last time that he had let her into his life.

Remembering his words, she took out the pale jade tear-drop ear-rings she had removed the previous day and weighed them in her hand. Her friend Gini had given her these ear-rings, and it was her friend Gini, she knew, to whom Rowland had referred the previous night.

Nothing might have come of it, as he had said, but Rowland had been in love with Gini, and she had possibly returned that love. They had had an affair, briefly, in Paris, some three years before, after which Gini had returned to her lover, the war photographer Pascal Lamartine. Reunited, they had married and had a son. None of the participants had ever discussed these events, but she had been their mute witness. Possibly Rowland still retained a lingering regard for Gini; perhaps he did not. She would never have countenanced asking him, and she knew he would have given her no answers if she had.

She looked down at the ear-rings, a gift from a friend younger than herself, and beautiful in a way Lindsay knew she could never be. Not for the first time in her life, she protested silently at the unfairness of beauty, an accident which could make the best of men blind, then she thrust the ear-rings in a drawer, out of sight.

It was much later, and only when the church bells began ringing, first one set, then another, a series of answering chimes, summoning a city of non-worshippers to worship, that she remembered it was Sunday, worst day of the week yet again. The endlessness of that particular day weighed in upon her; but Lindsay had learned resilience, and she took comfort in the knowledge that she had executed the first part of her plans. She took greater comfort from the fact that, next Sunday, she would not be here in this empty apartment, but in a different city, one she had always loved—New York.

Bright lights, a heavy schedule, no time to think; she was sitting contemplating the advantages of that city when she remembered Jippy’s curious parting words. ‘York,’ he had said, and of course ‘York’ might indicate a city in America, every bit as much as Yorkshire.

At precisely this moment, her telephone rang; it rang twice, in swift succession. The first call, from some mumbling person claiming to work for Lulu Sabatier, she allowed her machine to field. The second, from an apparently sober and chastened Colin Lascelles, she answered herself.

‘R
EMEMBER, REMEMBER, THE FIFTH
of November—Gunpowder, treason and plot…’

Rowland, locking his car doors, turned, was about to walk on, then stopped. The speaker, he saw, was a young Bengali boy, aged about ten. He and another older Bengali boy had stationed themselves outside the Hawksmoor church opposite Rowland’s Spitalfields house. Between the boys, propped up against the railings of the churchyard, was a guy, a well-made guy. It was stuffed with newspaper and shredded computer printouts, some of which were escaping from ankles, fat waist and throat. On its feet was a pair of women’s Indian slippers; on its head was a turban; the ensemble was completed by a torn, very English tweed jacket and a tattered Nike track suit. In the dim street lighting, the guy’s face mask grinned at him; from some distance away, a rocket fizzed into the dark sky and exploded in a burst of golden stars, high up.