She Died Young (7 page)

Left alone with Jarrell, Blackstone eyed the young man and pulled out his packet of fags.

‘I don’t smoke.’

‘Your superior officer didn’t seem in the best of moods.’

Jarrell smiled. ‘He’s upset about something, got things on his mind. Trip to Oxford, I shouldn’t wonder.’

Slyly, Blackstone took his chance. ‘Could it have anything to do with his new role?’

Jarrell’s pale, watery eyes gave nothing away.

‘No point in stonewalling about it. He told me himself.’

‘We’re going to see some changes,’ said Jarrell and smiled.

chapter
8

M
RS WILLIAM DROWNES
, Regine Drownes, formerly Mrs Neville Milner, before that Mrs Smith (at least, that’s what her first husband had called himself), earlier still, Roisin and originally – but never, never mentioned – Kathleen O’Kelly: in other words the London hostess familiarly known to her friends as Reggie, took Charles’ arm as they paced the length of Longwall. She liked to be seen in the company of a good-looking man and Charles, only slightly taller than she, fulfilled the role perfectly. He no longer resembled a Caravaggio boy. These days the classical planes of his face reminded her more of a marble statue looking impenetrably into – what?

They turned left into the High towards the Botanical Gardens. ‘William says the climate isn’t bracing here. Unlike Cambridge. He was at New College. It’s because Oxford’s in a valley. Damp and slightly depressive, he says.’

‘That more or less sums up how I feel.’

‘Darling! I thought you were having such a good time …’

‘It’s different now – it’s nothing really – I suppose I’m feeling a bit glum – not exactly looking forward to Christmas.’

Of course – Regine remembered now. It had been at Christmas a year ago that his mother had killed herself. And six months later his father had married again – his secretary or something.

Regine squeezed his arm, but conventional platitudes were not her way. She excelled in the art of silent sympathy. If her companion didn’t choose to unburden himself (and it was usually a he) then things could go on in a perfectly companionable absence of words, but if he wanted to talk she’d listen with total understanding, conveyed with her body rather than with words: a tender bend of the head, the turn of a shoulder, a hand tactfully placed, in this case her linked arm. Yet while she had the reputation of being a sympathetic listener and believed her own myth, as often as not she listened for her personal ends, which were ever at the centre of her thoughts.

‘You’re looking marvellous, anyway,’ said Charles. ‘Very Pre-Raphaelite, this coat really suits you. So good with red hair – marvellous scent, too. Chanel Gardenia, isn’t it?’

‘How clever of you, darling.’ Few men noticed such things the way he did. They’d say you smelled lovely or looked beautiful, but they weren’t interested in the creation of the illusion. That was actually just as well. Yet it was amusing to
parler chiffons
with a man who had taste. ‘I’m so glad you like the coat. I simply had to have a mauve coat – not purple, you know,
violet
– and I couldn’t find one anywhere. I had it made specially in the end. William was furious. Such extravagance! And do you like the scarf?’ She pulled it forward over her collar. ‘From Liberty’s. They’ve reintroduced all the old William Morris designs.’ It was a leaf pattern in strange tones of spinach and moss and mauve. ‘We’re thinking of having the drawing room done in one of the Morris wallpapers. A lighter pattern than this, of course.’

‘How glamorous. I can’t wait to see it.’

They walked on. Oxford was colourless in the still air. No wonder Charles was depressed and undergraduates attempted suicide; a whole ward was reserved for them at the asylum, William had told her.

As if reading her thoughts, Charles said: ‘I’m not as gloomy as I sound. I’m doing a bit of tutoring this year, as well as slogging away at ancient Rome. I do enjoy the subject. The early Roman Empire was so fantastically
modern
.’

‘All those wicked emperors; rather like Stalin, I suppose. William says if there’s a book at the end of it – well, you will think of Drownes’, won’t you?’

She acted as a scout for her husband’s publishing firm, keeping up equally with the
Times Literary Supplement
and the little magazines, prowling through literary parties, listening out for all the gossip.

‘Nice of him to say that. But I’ve hardly started writing – and my research isn’t meant to be about that side of it. Lurid perversions not the thing at all. And even if it were, Drownes’ isn’t that sort of publisher, is it?’ He smiled sideways at her. ‘And what I’m working on … it’s more about political change in the early Empire and its relation to the economy. Which is a problem as what I’m really interested in is not the economy, but all their religions.’

‘Religion? That might be interesting. And you know Drownes’ isn’t as fuddy-duddy as it used to be. I’m making sure of that.’ To the horror of that dreadful old gorgon, Edith Blake, once the power behind the throne, now reduced to fuming impotence on the sidelines. If only she’d leave … she was dangerous. A frustrated lesbian, what else could you expect? Regine was sure Edith guessed something was going on – and if she found out, if
anyone
found out – but it was better not to think about that.

They turned through the gate of the Botanical Gardens and walked along the gravel paths between neat box-edged beds. ‘We might be in another century,’ she said.

‘Actually, we are. That’s part of the problem.’

‘Let’s sit down, shall we?’ She gestured to a convenient bench. ‘It’s a little chilly, but … a short rest.’

She settled herself, her legs crossed, the coat pulled richly round her. She turned towards him, pale, thin face and great green eyes so closely focused on him that he could not help, she was sure, being flattered. He might not desire her; there might be that dead space between them where erotic attraction should have pulsed, but young men like him always lapped up the attention of an older woman, a woman of the world. She was, after all, in her own small way a figure of sorts on the literary scene, with her parties and dinners for her husband’s distinguished authors and the gallery owners and artists and critics who were also of their world. Lately, however, had come a new turn, so that now she understood that her world could stretch wider still and that she could gain a foothold in thrilling regions of real power: the murky world of politics.

‘D’you mind if I smoke?’ He took a packet of Sobranie Turkish from his pocket. She couldn’t help smiling at the affectation. He was still so young, after all, half her age. He lit the oval, untipped cigarette and blew out scented smoke. ‘My social life’s taken the most tremendous dive.’

There was a purpose to her visit. The cloudy afternoon wrapped them in a kind of companionable melancholy, but she must break the comfortable silence to introduce the vital subject. It was stupid to be so nervous. ‘I met your supervisor the other day. Hegley Quinault, isn’t it? He thinks very highly of you.’

‘You met Professor Quinault?’

‘He published a book with Drownes’, you know. He’s supposed to be tremendously clever. You’re lucky to have him, I imagine.’

Charles looked at the tip of his cigarette. ‘He said he thought highly of me? He was just being polite. I don’t think I interest him at all, actually. He has bigger fish to fry.’

‘He came to one of our parties … a funny little man … He was in intelligence during the war, wasn’t he? His book for us was about Julius Caesar, but it’s his adventures in Eastern Europe that really interest William. Since the spring, when Burgess and Maclean reappeared in Moscow, everyone’s so interested in all that again.’

‘Really?’ He murmured the word between almost closed lips, too blasé to speak aloud.

‘But I daresay he’s rather out of touch now. Isn’t he very old? He looked old. Is he interested in politics at all?’

‘I hardly ever see him. Don’t be taken in by him, though. He pretends to be a moth-eaten old don, slowly turning to dust in the library, and doddering around College, but that’s just a smokescreen. The other day, when I was having a supervision with him, some Tory MP turned up.’

Her heart jumped against her ribs beneath the violet coat and she squeezed and kneaded the dark blue gloves she’d taken off when they sat down. Tory MP? It must be! What amazing luck he’d raised the subject himself! She played with the empty glove fingers, pulling and smoothing them flat. That made it easier to say what she had to say, what she was dying to say, even though it was so difficult.

‘Rodney Turbeville.’

A faint tremor of surprise disturbed Charles’ marble pallor. ‘How did you guess? Untidy but energetic. Bald but forceful. He came to talk to Quinault about the Hungarians. At least I suppose it was about that. So I pushed off. They clearly didn’t want me around.’

‘Darling – can I tell you a terrific secret? You absolutely mustn’t breathe a word.’ She took a deep breath. ‘I’m having an affair with him.’

‘With Turbeville? Really?’ Again the murmur from between his lips. As if it were … nothing. That again must be his youth, the self-absorption of the young, and he couldn’t be expected to understand. University life, said William, not to mention public school, could easily lead to arrested development. Well, he should know. Of course Charles couldn’t understand, he knew nothing of the great public world. Yet she leaned forward, inflamed by the insane desire to talk. ‘You mustn’t tell anyone. You won’t, will you?’

‘Who would I tell? But what a coincidence. That he should have turned up during my supervision.’

‘You mustn’t think – I mean I do love William, I do love my husband, it’s just that …’ and she looked away into the distance, squeezing and crushing her poor, limp kid gloves. ‘You know when you fall in love … and you’re right, he’s a very forceful man. He makes me feel ten times more alive. But of course it’s frightfully difficult.’

Her marriage, the humiliation for William, her twin girls, Lucy and Sarah, Drownes’ … but all that was nothing compared with the risks to Rodney’s career and his wife and family. He risked far more than she did, oh
far
more. She already had a reputation – a divorcée, a woman with a past, but Rodney – as a politician he must be purer than pure. The difficulties were so vast and complex. The hugeness of it all, weighing on her, suffocating, silenced her. Eventually she said: ‘He knows your Professor Quinault. They were together in the war for a bit. Rodney said he absolutely found himself in the war, found out what he was good at. Before that he didn’t have a clue. When he was up here, and afterwards, he was basically a gambler, international bridge player, absolutely lived at Crockfords – or else living the high life on the Riviera – and look at him now, he’s the most promising politician in the Party – he may well be prime minister before long.’

‘All sounds a bit reckless, Reggie. He must be very keen.’

She laughed, pretending to be offended. ‘Reckless? What makes you say a thing like that?’

Could Charles really understand the madness of love? The jolt of electricity? How could he understand, a young man of twenty-two, how could he understand that longing to submit, to be carried away? ‘It’s the chemistry,’ she said. Chemistry gave adultery a kind of scientific determinism. You couldn’t fight against chemistry.

Charles flicked his ash away. Now he consented to smile. ‘Freddie used to say you were an adventuress in Shanghai before the war. It must have been fun out there.’

Freddie. Their dead friend, dead eight years ago. Their friend … well,
her
friend; but Charles? Freddie had seduced Charles, hadn’t he, he’d been mad about the boy, as she was mad about Rodney, but of course that wasn’t the same …

‘Did Freddie say that?’ And she wondered if Charles fully understood the doubtful implications of the word ‘adventuress’. ‘Did he really?’ It was a shock, an unexpected insult shot out of the past. That Freddie, her greatest friend, whom she’d always trusted, could have said …

‘Why are you telling
me
, Reggie, about your affair? I’m hardly a substitute for Freddie, I’m afraid.’

It was true. If only Freddie had still been here she could have talked to him. He’d have understood, he’d have known what to do. And perhaps, coming from him, ‘adventuress’ had been a compliment. ‘Do you miss Freddie?’ she asked.

Charles frowned and stared at the tip of his cigarette. ‘I suppose I do. From time to time.’

‘I miss him. Still, after all this time; eight years. He was the only person who knew me before the war … He’d have known what to do – how to carry it off. But I have to talk to someone. I can’t talk to my married women friends; all the good little wives.’

And Charles was queer, after all, so he must know something about forbidden love. Although – if Freddie had been typical – the way they went about it seemed so very different from love between a woman and a man. So perhaps Charles was a stranger to passion. Freddie had been in love with
him
, of course, but that didn’t mean …

‘I feel I can talk to you, Charles. Perhaps Freddie does have something to do with that. Does that sound silly? But the thing is, you know Hegley Quinault. I only met him briefly at that one party of ours. I didn’t get much of an idea of him. I just wonder why he seems
quite
so important to Rodney. Rodney seems to set great store by him.’ She’d jealously wondered if it was an excuse, if he had another mistress in the university city. Now at least Charles had confirmed that Rodney wasn’t lying to her. Not about Quinault, at least. ‘What’s he like?’ she asked.

Charles shrugged. ‘As I said, I don’t really
know
him. He’s very keen on promoting the study of the classics … and he writes articles denouncing commercial television. According to him it’ll destroy western civilisation. But you know, I’m in this kind of – well, almost a sort of limbo. Once you’re a graduate it does sort of begin to dawn that there’s a whole world of Oxford politics the undergraduates are completely oblivious to. But one’s not part of it. Though some of us might be one day … I suppose,’ he ended doubtfully, as if thinking of a rather unattractive future for himself.