Sextet (44 page)

Colin felt a rush of gratitude and liking. He thought of the elegant pale-blue Tiffany’s box safely stowed in his bags.

‘I have. I bought it in New York, the morning before I left for the ranch. Just in case I couldn’t find anything in Montana…’

‘Very wise. What one finds in Montana doesn’t take too portable a form.’ Court paused, then added, somewhat awkwardly, ‘I hope you liked the ranch.’

‘I did,’ Colin replied.

‘It’s isolated, of course. My son loves it. Ah well.’ He gave a sigh, held out his hand and clasped Colin’s.

‘Enjoy your Thanksgiving. I’ll be speaking to you on Monday, in England, as arranged. And you can relax—it won’t be before.’

Colin hesitated still, alarmed by something in his manner, by a note of resignation or fatigue he had not heard in Court’s voice before. With another dry smile, Court turned away from him and took out the photographs he had requested. He waved Colin away and Colin, moving towards the door, watched him blend over these images of a bleak northern landscape. He thought of Thalia’s assertion that Tomas Court was without friends. He could believe that. Court seemed to him to be a man inexperienced at intimacy, slow to trust, and awkward at indicating regard. His attempts to convey liking, both at the ranch and now, touched Colin. He wished Court goodbye, unease and affection tugging at his heart.

Then he remembered Lindsay; his spirits rising at once, he sprinted down the stairs and out to his cab. He told the driver to get him uptown to the Plaza by the best route, and to break every record when doing so. The driver, amused by this demented Englishman, duly did so. Half an hour later, all thoughts of Tomas Court forgotten, Colin was walking into the lobby at the Plaza, his heart beating hard.

He was five minutes late. Meeting Lindsay, who was waiting for him, and who sprang to her feet as soon as he entered, he saw that she was even more nervous than he was. He took her hand, which felt small and cold, in his own. He watched colour come and go in her face; her eyes rested on his, their expression dazed and a little afraid. Colin, who had planned an amusing speech, found he was struck dumb; he could say nothing at all.

He booked them both in under the name ‘Lascelles’, told the desk clerk to hold all calls until further notice, overtipped the porter who showed them to their room, and, the second the man departed, fixed the ‘Do Not Disturb’ notice to the door.

He locked it. Lindsay had retreated, he saw; she had backed away, past a table decked with flowers, and was standing in front of the tall windows that overlooked Central Park. Joy welled up in Colin’s heart. She was wearing a new dress, and a coat he had not seen before; they were black, like most of her clothes. She was smaller than Colin remembered, and slighter in build; with a sudden sense of her frailty, he saw that her small white hands were tightly clasped at the waist of her funereal coat. He saw the anxiety flare in her eyes, and he sensed a new defencelessness in her. At this he felt a great tenderness for her, and his own anxieties melted away.

‘I’m so afraid,’ she said, as Colin began to walk towards her.

‘Don’t be,’ Colin replied.

‘I did plan what I’d say and do. Now—you look different. I’m afraid I’ll say the wrong thing, or do the wrong thing…’

‘You don’t have to say anything,’ Colin answered. ‘Darling, you don’t have to say anything at all.’

He took her hand gently in his own and kissed it. Lindsay made a small, nervous, disconsolate sound. Colin drew her back across the room to the bed, which was large. Lindsay sat down on it and looked up at him. Colin saw that her hands were trembling.

‘I spent all morning shopping,’ she said, panic in her voice. ‘I bought an illicit coat and an illicit dress. I’m wearing them both—and now I don’t feel illicit at all.’

‘Neither do I,’ said Colin quietly. All desire for pretence fell away from him; a new, and unmistakable expression came into his eyes. Lindsay, reading that expression, gave him a half-fearful look, then gave an odd, breathless sigh.

Colin thought of all the things he had intended to say, and realized just how wrong and how inadequate they were. Her face, lifted to his, was alight with contradictions and doubt; seeing that, he felt a second’s fear. He could see questions in her eyes, and he could sense some tidal pull in the room, exerting its force on him. For a moment he felt at sea, in uncharted waters, with no experience of how to navigate here.

‘I love your illicit clothes,’ he began, somewhat nervously. ‘I love you in them, and I know I’m going to love you out of them…’

He paused; Lindsay saw him battle with his pride and struggle against some final constraint. Then his face cleared.

‘The truth is—I love
you
,’ he said quietly. ‘I expect you’ve realized that. I tried to hide it when I wrote, and it couldn’t be done. I meant to hide it now too—and I can’t do that either. I love you so much it actually hurts. That’s never happened to me before.’

Lindsay, moved by a sadness in his expression, by the directness and simplicity of his words, felt a rush of pure affection for him flood her heart. She gave a small flurried gesture of the hands; she raised her eyes to his, then looked quickly away. ‘Oh God,’ she began, her voice catching. ‘You mustn’t—I can’t—I don’t know who I am any more, Colin…’

Colin was hurt by that reply, but he hid it; it seemed to him that words were better avoided now. In a way that brooked no argument, he drew her to her feet and took her in his arms. He began to kiss her, and that kiss silenced them both. Feeling blind with sudden happiness, and certain he could see a similar blindness in her eyes, he caught her against him. He felt a mad conviction that they had no need for words, and that the language of his body was one she must understand.

He began to make love to her, in ways which he had had 101 hours to dream of and plan. By the time this eloquence was finally over, it was dark in the city outside, and a full moon was riding above the bare trees in Central Park. Lindsay, her body pleasured, and her mind in disarray, gave a small cry of loss as he withdrew from her. She felt both broken and whole. In a frantic way, she began to press kisses against his throat and his chest, and to murmur endearments; taking his hand, with mingled sadness and happiness, she began to kiss his face, and his eyes, and his hair.

Colin’s heart lifted; he felt a certainty of purpose, a contentment, and a calm deeper than he had ever known. He kissed Lindsay with great tenderness, then, having learned when it was wiser to remain silent, lay with her clasped against him, making no comment and asking no questions, when she began to weep quietly in his arms.

‘Rowland, you are handsomer than ever,’ said Emily Lancaster, regarding him with affection and pouring him a very large bourbon indeed. Rowland, who was standing at the window of her drawing-room, did not respond. ‘Close the curtains, would you?’ Emily continued. ‘I don’t like to see the moon through glass; it’s unlucky…’

‘That’s only when it’s a new moon,’ Rowland replied. He watched the trees move in the darkness of the Park, then obeyed her instruction. Emily, who had been watching him thoughtfully, moved across to the sofa. ‘Now come sit down,’ she said. ‘You must be exhausted—that long flight. Lord only knows what time it is by your body clock. Are you sure you won’t let Frobisher get you something to eat? No? Rowland, my dear, I’m sure you must be suffering jet lag—even a man of your determination can’t face that down.’

Rowland made some polite disclaimer. He seated himself beside her on the sofa; Emily budging her pug with a smile. She inspected him closely, putting on one of her pairs of spectacles to do so; she gave a small frown.

‘Yes, you’ve definitely improved with age,’ she pronounced. ‘You have a dangerous look about you these days. An air of
perturbation
. I’ve always found perturbation attractive in a man. If I were forty years younger, Rowland, I’d fall madly in love with you, and we could have a
very
incautious affair.’

Rowland looked at Emily with affection; in the five years since he had last seen her, she had considerably aged. She could no longer hold herself as straight as she had once done, but her spirit, he sensed, was as indomitable as ever. He thought of the first time he had met her, when she came over to Oxford for Colin’s graduation. At sixty-five, she had been magnificent; and at eighty-five, wrapped in a shawl of heathery-coloured tweed, she was still magnificent. Rowland could see, though, the distortions time had made to her hands and spine; suspecting she might be in pain, he pitied her for the ravages of the last twenty years.

Liking her, and also knowing how astute she was, he tried to shake off his own exhaustion and despondency, to rally himself and respond.

‘If you were forty years younger, Emily,’ he said, ‘you’d be playing havoc with my heart. And I wouldn’t risk an affair: I’d propose.’

Emily smiled at this. ‘Smartest move you could make,’ she said. ‘I’m one of the few women I know who could cope with you. I’d sort you out in no time. I’d be more than a match for you. What you need, Rowland, is a woman who’s ten jumps ahead of you the entire time.’

‘Do I?’ Rowland said, giving her a glinting, green-eyed glance that made even Emily’s eighty-five-year-old heart beat appreciably faster. ‘Do I indeed?’

‘My dear, it is very good
indeed
to see you.’ Emily laughed. ‘I’d forgotten how well you flirted. Wicked man! This is a pleasure—an unexpected one, too…’

‘Yes, I had to leave London rather suddenly. It was a last minute thing.’

‘What did you say brought you to New York, my dear?’

‘Work,’ said Rowland, who had not previously explained his presence. ‘My paper’s negotiating various link-ups with the
Times
here. We’ve suddenly run into a few problems.’

‘How exciting. Oh dear.’

‘So I came over to—finalize things.’

‘Of course. But won’t everyone be away, my dear? It is Thanksgiving tomorrow after all.’

‘That shouldn’t present any difficulties.’

Emily raised her eyebrows, but taking pity on him, pressed him no more. She began to chat away about inconsequential things, while waiting for Rowland to reveal his true reason for being here in this apartment. Much as she liked him, and flattered though she was by his gallantry, Emily was not under the illusion that he was here to see her.

Rowland listened to her with half his mind. He was finding it almost impossible to sit still and be patient; it required all his self-discipline, and that discipline was usually considerable, to avoid questioning Emily at once. All he needed was a location or a telephone number, then he could be speaking to Lindsay within the hour. What he would then say, he had no idea, but he felt a frantic conviction that once he heard her voice, or preferably saw her, he would be blessed with eloquence; the right words, or actions, must inevitably come.

This address and telephone number he had been chasing ever since he had finally arrived at the Pierre some four hours before. He had first tried calling Lindsay from Heathrow airport, only to find her number engaged; he had tried calling from Kennedy as soon as he landed, and had been cut off three times.

‘What do you mean she’s checked out?’ He had stared at the two young men behind the desk at the Pierre. ‘Checked out when? Checked out
where
?’

‘Ms Drummond checked out this morning,’ said the younger of the two, glancing at his confrère. The confrère smirked.

‘That’s right,’ he confirmed. ‘She collected her
faxes
, then checked out. Around ten.’

The mention of faxes produced visible and incomprehensible mirth. Rowland stared blankly at the two men. He felt as if he were still travelling: he was on the motorway to Oxford, on a fool’s errand to see Tom; he was on the motorway back, breaking the speed limit to catch his plane. He was in the limbo of the aircraft itself, and he felt in limbo now. The two men had denied all knowledge of Lindsay’s present whereabouts. Grimly, Rowland had booked himself in to the small cell that was the only room available there over Thanksgiving, and had started telephoning. Twenty calls later, he still had no information and no leads. As a last resort, he obtained Markov’s Manhattan number from a giggling Pixie, in London, and dialled it. He did not expect a kind reception, nor did he get one.

‘Looking for Lindsay?’ Markov trilled, in his most infuriating tone. ‘Too thrilling, my dear. I always
wondered
when you’d get round to it.’

‘Where is she?’ Rowland said, swallowing his pride. ‘I need to talk to her and I need to talk to her
now
.’

‘Can’t help, I’m afraid.’

‘Please,’ said Rowland.

‘Not a word I ever expected to hear on
your
lips,’ cried Markov, detectable triumph in his tones. ‘How are the mighty fallen, my dear.’

‘Fuck it, Markov—where is she?’

‘Sweetheart, I
genuinely
don’t know. Tucked up in a love-nest somewhere, I suspect. With the new inamorato. I can’t
wait
to meet him. He sounds too charming for words.’

‘Markov—have you ever been desperate?’

‘Of
course
, darling. Most of the time.’

‘Well, I’m desperate. No doubt that delights you. Help me out, here.’

Markov made a considering noise. ‘I’m seeing a little cabin in the woods,’ he said, in a maddening way. ‘Could it be out of state? Yes, I think so. A
cosy
little cabin, somewhere très discreet. An
intimate
little cabin, with log fires…’

‘Christ, Markov—’

‘Oh, all right.’ Markov gave way to the temptation to cause trouble, a temptation he could never bear to resist for very long. ‘I’m seeing the Oak Room at the Plaza, tomorrow evening at seven; they get back then. Thanksgiving drinks, darling. Jippy and I get to vet the inamorato. I gather…’ Markov lowered his voice. ‘I gather he has auburn hair, hyacinthine curls, diabolic eyebrows, an Apollonian body, and a way with women…’

‘What fool gave you that description?’ Rowland said, in a violent tone.

‘Can’t
think
, darling. Someone who knows him pretty well, I guess. Have to go now. Byeee.’