They listened in silence to the music.
‘Talking of cheating, has that Emma come clean yet?’
She shook her head. ‘Nope. Doesn’t seem likely she will. And Daniel still hasn’t called.’
‘Not sure I’d call either, under the circs. Too complicated.’
Story of your life … and mine for that matter, she thought.
The alcohol didn’t seem to be working any more. She was feeling headachy and depressed. For the first time in her life, she had no plan. In the past, when faced with trauma she’d buried it, covering the grave with ranks of distracting blooms. Now there seemed nothing, no panacea, that would do the job successfully.
Charles reached over from his chair and held his hand out towards her. She took it.
‘I’d better get home.’
She got up, and Charles got up with her. ‘Dance with me,’ he said, pulling her close against him and beginning to sway to the plaintive, sexy rhythms of Sonny Boy’s harmonica. The movement itself was comforting, and she went with it, making no attempt to extricate herself. It seemed safe in this separate reality, with this man who was both deeply familiar and a complete stranger, listening to music from a different time and culture – and easier to stay than to go.
For a while they danced, her head on his shoulder, their bodies hot and close on the muggy summer afternoon.
‘Kiss me,’ he said softly. ‘Kiss me like you did all those years ago on the grass.’
‘You don’t even remember it,’ she retorted, but she held his gaze for what seemed like a long moment.
‘Oh, but I do … I do.’
She didn’t have time to answer, because Charles bent swiftly and kissed her upturned face. The kiss was urgent, needy, and it took her completely by surprise, lifting her up in a sudden fierce whirlwind of desire. Her body responded almost without her permission, as if it remembered that first time too, when their lips, cold from the orange ice lollies, had come together. After a while, he drew her towards the bedroom. Breathless and weak, she followed him.
As she lay down he began to undress her slowly, covering each bit of skin that he laid bare with soft kisses. She helped him, caressing his body in return, unbuttoning his shirt and lifting it away from his tanned shoulders, until they were both naked on the cover of the bed. He pulled away and she saw him stare down at her.
‘You’re beautiful,’ he whispered.
But something about the moment brought her up short. Her breathing sounded loud and ragged in the quiet bedroom. What the hell am I doing? She pushed him gently off her and sat up, clutching the bedcover to her nakedness.
‘Charles! We can’t. This is crazy!’
‘Is it?’ He looked surprised, as if she’d brought him round from a trance. ‘Why?’
She stroked his cheek; his blue eyes were still bright with desire.
‘Because it would be revenge sex, that’s why.’
‘Revenge? Revenge on whom?’
‘On Richard, for a start, who I’m convinced is having an affair. On Louisa, perhaps, for being such a pain about Daniel.’
He sighed, looking disappointed, but gallantly got off the bed and put on his dressing gown.
‘Not sure what it’s got to do with anyone else.’ He sat down beside her. ‘My fault. Sorry, Annie, got a bit carried away there.’
‘It wasn’t just your fault,’ she said shakily, getting up and attempting to dress herself, pulling at her buttons, straightening her skirt, trying to smooth her ruffled hair. Her lips felt bruised and on fire, her body as if it were coming down off a high. Then she sat down hard on the bed next to him, unable to do any more.
Charles looked as let down as she felt. ‘You know,’ he said, ‘since meeting you again, and knowing about the boy, I’ve felt quite strange.’ He frowned, his expression puzzled. ‘I keep wondering how it would have been … if you’d told me back then. Would we have made a go of it, d’you think?’
Annie shook her head.
‘It’s fantasy, Charles … a fantasy that negates our other families, our real lives.’
‘Oh, I know, I know … but I still find you very attractive.’ He shot her a boyish grin.
‘You had your chance,’ she replied tartly. Just take thirty-five years to let me know you fancy me, why don’t you, she thought. For a second she had a flashback of her eighteen-year-old self, waiting, waiting for him to ring. When she didn’t hear from him the day after their night together, she told herself he was busy getting ready to go away. It was inconceivable to her that he wouldn’t call. Then, when she realised he must have gone without phoning her, she told herself he would call from the French house. And when August dragged on and there was no phone call, she thought perhaps he would be waiting to see her when he got back at the end of the month. That August was the longest month of her life. September dragged by in an increasing miasma of despair. She wondered if her mother had forgotten to give her messages, but she knew that any contact from Charles Carnegie would be greeted with a fanfare by Eleanor. She would look for him when she was out, terrified she would bump into him on the Knightsbridge streets with his arm round another girl. That summer night had meant so much to her, and in her innocence she couldn’t believe he hadn’t cared too. It did not occur to her for a single second that she was already carrying his baby. Sitting on the bed next to him now, she felt again the agony of that teenage rejection.
‘You won’t let this silly mistake come between us, will you?’ Charles was still bent, dishevelled, on the bed. He looked up, brushing his hair back off his face in a gesture reminiscent of Daniel.
‘Better stick to the Ritz in future,’ she replied, as casually as she could manage, and he chuckled.
‘The Ritz … perfect. You’re so sensible, Annie. I love that about you.’
She almost ran down the worn, red-carpeted stairs from Charles’s flat. She was lightheaded and slightly nauseous from too much wine. All she wanted was to get home and stand under a powerful stream of hot water, to wash away her foolishness. How could she have done that to Richard? However bad things are between us, he doesn’t deserve that, she told herself. The thought of him knowing made her feel ill.
She hailed a taxi at the bottom of Queen’s Gate, and immediately got out a mirror to check her face. She saw the taxi driver glance at her in his rear-view mirror. He knows what I’ve been up to. I look so wrecked and guilty. She reached in the bottom of her bag for her mobile. Three missed calls in the last hour, two from her mother’s number and one from Richard. She didn’t bother to listen to the message from him, he could wait. What does Mother want? She listened to the first voicemail. But it wasn’t her mother’s voice.
‘Mrs Delancey … iss Mercedes … please come quick … iss your mother.’
The Spanish housekeeper sounded frantic. Annie felt her stomach turn over. She listened to the next one, also from Mercedes, which said exactly the same thing. This wasn’t Mercedes being ‘Mediterranean’ – this sounded serious.
Had her mother had a fall? She shouted through the glass to the taxi driver to take her to Cadogan Gardens as quickly as he could.
She checked to see when Mercedes had called; it was only fifteen minutes ago. She dialled Eleanor’s number repeatedly as the taxi changed direction, but it was always engaged. The taxi driver, despite her desperate exhortations, seemed incapable of going more than three miles an hour. It was a ten-minute journey at most, but the lights were all against them and Pelham Street had a massive queue leading up to the junction at Brompton Cross. By the time she got to the flat she was almost fainting with anxiety.
The buzzer let her into the building without anyone answering the intercom. She flew upstairs. Dr Graham opened the door.
‘Annie, come in.’
‘Mother … what’s happened?’ she gasped, breathless.
The doctor didn’t say anything at first, just drew her through to the drawing room. Mercedes was nowhere to be seen, but she thought she heard her talking hysterically in Spanish in the far reaches of the large flat.
‘Where is she? What’s happened?’
‘Annie, sit down. I’m afraid I’ve got bad news. Your mother … I think she must have had a heart attack.’
‘Where have they taken her? Which hospital is she in?’
‘She, er, I’m afraid she didn’t come round,’ the doctor said slowly, looking anxiously at her face. She stared at him. She’d always thought Rob Graham looked uncannily like Colin
Firth. He had the same soulful, hesitant look in his brown eyes. He’d been her mother’s doctor for a decade, and Annie was convinced Eleanor was a little in love with him.
‘Didn’t come round? I don’t understand …’ She jumped up. ‘I must go to her.’
Dr Graham put a restraining hand on her arm. ‘I’m sorry, Annie. Your mother died about an hour ago. I’m so sorry.’
‘Died? Mother can’t have died,’ she said stubbornly, and pulled herself free from the doctor’s hand. ‘She had a new bed yesterday.’
‘I’m so sorry,’ Rob Graham repeated.
‘Where is she?’ She wasn’t sure she was understanding any of what the doctor was telling her.
‘She’s in the bedroom.’
Annie almost ran down the passage. Her mother’s room was at the end of the L-shaped flat. She passed Mercedes’ door, and the housekeeper, red-eyed, poked her head out nervously, as if she’d been listening out for her.
‘Ah, Mrs Annie …
su madre, iss terribile, terribile
… I very sorry … I call you, but you no answer.’
She patted the housekeeper’s arm, but kept on going. The bedroom was very silent. Her mother lay propped against the puffy goose-down pillows on the brand-spanking-new, queen-size Vi-Spring divan. She was fully clothed, covered to her chin by the turquoise-blue patchwork quilt. Her eyes were closed, her hands by her sides. Annie stood silently looking down at her. Eleanor Westbury
had gone, that much was clear. The face looked blank, empty; strangely, indefinably devoid of life. She reached out and laid her hand on her mother’s cheek. It was still powdery, but cool, with the coldness of death. She heard Dr Graham behind her.
‘What happened?’ she asked, turning to the doctor. Her heart felt slow and heavy, as if it were having trouble pumping blood around her body. She wanted to sit down, but she couldn’t move.
‘From what I can gather, Mercedes went out to the supermarket, as she always does, while your mother was having her afternoon nap. When she came back, Eleanor wasn’t up, which was unusual apparently. At first she thought she might have gone out, but your mother always told her what she was doing, so after a while she tiptoed to the bedroom to see if she was alright, and that was when she found her. She says she was already dead.’
‘But why? There wasn’t anything wrong with her heart, was there?’
Rob Graham shook his head. ‘Not that I was aware. She hadn’t been to see me for some time, so I don’t know, but perhaps there was some underlying health problem that caused her heart to fail.’
Annie felt exasperated. ‘I saw her only yesterday. This is a new bed, new sheets, new pillows. All new. We made it up and I lay next to her. Right there. She was fine, really happy. Surely I’d have known if she was so ill.’ She was talking almost to herself.
‘Heart problems don’t always show up.’ He paused, then said gently, ‘Annie, I’m afraid there will have to be a postmortem.’
‘NO … no, you can’t cut my mother up!’
Rob put his head on one side, his brown eyes full of pity. ‘We don’t have a choice. It’s the law. If someone dies unexpectedly, then the cause of death has to be established. I have to refer it to the coroner.’
‘But don’t you need my consent for that?’
‘No, unfortunately not. Annie, we need to know why Eleanor died. You don’t think so now, but you
will
want to know eventually. These things are important.’
She nodded slowly, acknowledging that the doctor was right. Her mobile phone, which she realised she was still clutching in her left hand, began to buzz. She didn’t even look to see who it was, just answered it automatically.
‘Annie … thank God I’ve got you. Listen, I got a call …’
‘I’m here,’ Annie replied dully. ‘I know. Mother’s dead, Richard.’
‘I’m on my way. I should be at the flat in about ten minutes,’ her husband said. ‘Is Dr Graham still there?’
‘Yes. Hurry, please hurry,’ she begged, then burst into tears.
18
Richard was stalwart. So kind and supportive. All the tensions between them had been put aside in her hour of need, but guilt sat like a lowering backdrop to the much greater distress about her mother. I don’t deserve him. Now he lay against her back in bed, his arm warm and protective round her body. She was very still, almost not wanting to breathe, because breath meant life, which meant thought, and she couldn’t bear to think. There had been so many times over the years when she had wished her mother was not her mother, times when she almost wished her dead, definitely imagining, on occasion, that she would be relieved when she was gone. She’s dead, she thought. She’s really dead, and I’ll never see her again. She was very far from feeling relieved.
‘I should have known there was something wrong,’ she whispered. ‘Maybe if I hadn’t been so wound up in my own problems …’
‘People have heart attacks out of the blue all the time,
Annie. Someone at work, much younger than your mother, had one last year. Peter. Remember? I told you. He seemed fine until he wasn’t.’
She sat up in bed. ‘It just seems impossible that she could die that quickly. And she was in such a good mood about her bed.’ She looked down at her husband. ‘Can you believe she’s dead?’
‘Not really.’
‘She had such spirit. She was so tough. It doesn’t seem possible that she’s gone.’
‘She was eighty-two,’ Richard pointed out.
‘That’s not old these days … if I’d got there more quickly.’
‘She was already dead, Annie, when Mercedes found her.’
They talked on for a while, until Richard’s responses became more monosyllabic and in the end stopped altogether, and Annie heard his breathing take on the slower rhythms of sleep. But she doubted she would sleep. Her heart seemed to have sped up and taken over her whole body with its hammering. Her brain was on a relentless loop: she was dying and I was naked in bed with Charles Carnegie. That moment, the moment when I came to my senses … was that the moment she died? she asked herself. Was Mother warning me to stop, in a last act of unusual kindness … or disapproval? Had she needed Annie
in extremis
? Was she frightened, knowing she was about to die? The questions tormented her thoughts.