‘Mariella.’
‘Yes?’
It had to be done, said, now. Before things went any further.
‘Mariella, I don’t think I can do this.’
‘Do what, Jeremy?’ Her expression was puzzled.
‘Please, Mariella. Don’t insult me by playing silly games. I can’t – do what you want. I can’t have an affair with you.’
‘Don’t you want to?’
The dark eyes filled with pain, the lovely mouth trembled. God, she was a master of this. Or rather a mistress.
‘Of course I do,’ he said, ‘I want it very much. It is agony for me to sit here and – and say this. But – I can’t do it, Mariella. I like Giovanni too much. He has given me his hospitality, his friendship. I can’t deceive him, I can’t take from him what he values more than anything on earth.’
‘But Jeremy, he would not know. It would not hurt him.’
‘I would know, Mariella. I’m sorry. I can’t.’
She stood up; she was going to walk out, he thought, possibly throw something at him and in a way he hoped she would. It would make things easier.
But, ‘I go to the bathroom,’ she said, ‘I will be back.’
She was gone a long time: ten, fifteen minutes. Jeremy sat, reflecting on the treasure he had rejected, hardly able to believe it of himself.
And then she returned; stood behind his chair, bent over him, put her arms round his neck, kissed him on the cheek. She smelt amazing, a thick, rich perfume, and when she sat down again, she was smiling, her eyes very bright, her make-up perfect, her hair absolutely in place.
‘Oh, dear,’ she said, shaking her head at him, ‘oh, Jeremy. Would it not be just my bad luck to fall for a perfect English gentleman. Why could I not have found a – a – what should I have found, Jeremy?’
‘A cad,’ he replied, smiling. ‘I think that’s who you should have found. A bounder. A rotter. Who would have rushed you off to bed, as I so long to do, without another thought. That’s what you should have found.’
‘Oh, no,’ she said, ‘I do not think so. It is you I want, dear gentleman Jeremy. So much, so very much. Well – perhaps. One day. I shall not give up, you know. I am not proud. And I always get what I want in the end.’
‘Is that so?’ he said, struggling to keep his voice light, and, ‘oh yes,’ she said, blowing him a kiss across the table, ‘that is really, really so.’
‘Miss Scarlett! How nice of you to come.’
Scarlett smiled at Mark Frost. He really was so charming, she thought; and he was attractive too, with his shock of brown hair and those grey eyes peering through his steel-framed spectacles.
And it was nice of him to greet her. She’d actually been feeling horribly out of it, her confidence was at a low ebb anyway, the exhilaration of tipping the champagne over David Berenson’s head having worn off after about half an hour, leaving her weary and wretched. In fact she had very nearly not come at all; except that Mark Frost’s PR had been doing a ring-round on the last morning and Scarlett had been out and the party being in her diary, the secretary had confirmed and she didn’t want to let him down after that.
Although – it would hardly have mattered, the room was packed and every single person there seemed to know every other person and they were all talking loudly and confidently about books and publishers and even agents … ‘Actually the only one I really liked was her first … aren’t those new Penguin covers just the most amazing works of art … I really think you should move on, they’re turning out absolute rubbish …’ and although smiling rather distantly at her, as she walked slowly past with her glass of champagne, or tried to infiltrate a group, they were the opposite of friendly.
‘Anyone here you know?’ Mark Frost said now.
She shook her head. ‘Not really.’
‘Right. I thought you might know a few of the travel journalists. Come and meet Chrissie Morgan, she’s on the
Daily Sketch
and quite tame, really. How’s your venture going?’
‘Oh, pretty well.’
‘Good. I asked Demetrios last time I was there, but he’s very discreet, always pretends he doesn’t know anything about it.’
‘I don’t think he’s being discreet,’ said Scarlett laughing, ‘I think he really doesn’t. I do hope his extension isn’t going to spoil the taverna though.’
‘Oh, I don’t think it will. Not now I’ve got my architect on it. He and Larissa did have some dreadful ideas, but we’ve sorted him out. It cost me a bit, between you and me, but it’s worth it, from my point of view, keeping the island as it should be.’
‘Oh,’ said Scarlett, ‘oh, that explains it. Demetrios said your achitect had done it and he was very cheap. I thought that was a bit unlikely.’
‘Yes, well, not a word!’
‘Of course not.’
‘Now – Chrissie, meet Scarlett Shaw. She’s the brains behind a wonderful travel club, you’ve probably heard of it—’
‘Mark.’ It was one of the extremely posh publishing girls. Eliza would have been at home here, Scarlett thought. ‘Mark, time for your speech.’
‘Oh Christ.’ He went quite white; it was the first time Scarlett had seen any hint of the original Mark Frost, the silent, withdrawn person she had first met in Demetrios’s hotel.
‘Poor Frosty,’ said Chrissie, looking after him as he was borne away, ‘he really does hate it. Speaking, I mean.’
But he spoke charmingly and amusingly, with some rather fulsome praise for his editor, his publisher, and his agent, and a funny story about how he had heard two ladies in Hatchards discussing the ‘Islands’ book and saying what a pity he hadn’t included the Isle of Wight.
‘He’s such a star, isn’t he?’ said Chrissie Morgan. ‘So funny and so charming.’
‘Yes, he is. I didn’t think so when I first met him, he hardly said a single word.’
‘No, that’s his way. He hides behind this sort of Trappist veil until he’s decided he really likes you and then he drops it, just like that. It’s quite disconcerting really.’
Scarlett felt rather flattered.
‘Have you met Mrs Frost?’
‘No. No, I haven’t.’ She felt promptly recalled to reality.
‘She’s amazing.’
‘I thought she’d be here.’
‘No, apparently wheelchair access is difficult here.’
Wheelchair! So he was married to an invalid. How extraordinary, then, to build a house on a remote Greek island. Perhaps he liked getting away from her…
‘So – your travel club – tell me about it,’ said Chrissie. ‘I’m doing a piece on the smaller agencies, and I might be able to include it.’
Scarlett left with a signed copy of the book, a kiss from Mark Frost and a sense of considerable achievement.
She just wished David Berenson could have seen her, being chatted up by one of the foremost travel writers of his day.
‘Things have got worse here, Eliza. Much worse.’
‘Oh, Heather, I’m so sorry.’ Eliza felt a pang of remorse. It was mid-January and she had been round to see Heather – now seven-and-a-half months pregnant – for the first time since Christmas, and found her in despair.
‘It’s not me this time, it’s poor old Mr Carter upstairs. You know, he’s the widower, can hardly get up and down those stairs at all. Anyway, yesterday morning, a bird got in through the hole in the roof and flew into his face. He panicked and tried to fight it off and then slipped and fell down three or four steps. If I hadn’t heard and found him, I don’t know what would have happened. Poor old thing, I got the ambulance and he’d broken his hip. Coral and I went to see him in the afternoon in hospital and he was much more worried about what would happen to his room and where he could go when he came out.’
‘Poor old chap. How sad. Anyway, I’ll come over again tomorrow with Emmie,’ said Eliza.
‘Oh, would you? Coral is so bored, poor little thing. Getting her to school is all I can manage at the moment, and it gets dark so early—’
‘Course I will,’ said Eliza and then, struck by a thought, ‘have you got a TV?’
‘You’re joking! No, of course we haven’t.’
‘Right. Well, we’ll be there straight after school.’
Emmie said she didn’t want to go to Coral’s house, it smelt.
‘That is not Coral’s fault and she and Heather need our help. Oh, and how would you like to give Coral our old TV, the one in your playroom? She hasn’t got one. We can get you a new one.’
‘I would. It’s a nice idea.’ She could be so sweet sometimes.
Heather was so overcome at the sight of the TV she burst into tears.
‘I can’t take that, Eliza.’
‘Of course you can. We want you to have it, don’t we, Emmie?’
Emmie nodded. ‘Yes, we really do—’
‘It will make such a difference,’ said Heather, wiping her eyes. ‘One of the reasons Coral gets teased at school is because she doesn’t know about all the programmes. She’ll love it so much. But – oh, dear, Alan will go mad. And he’ll go on about the licence, I know he will. He’s always said we couldn’t afford that, even if we got a telly.’
‘Well, he’ll just have to go mad. And I’ll pay for the licence, tell him it’s all for Coral’s benefit. You haven’t found anywhere, I suppose?’
‘No, of course not. We’ve decided to go to Alan’s mum, we’ve got no choice.’
‘Oh, Heather. I’m so sorry. Oh, don’t, don’t cry. Emmie, take Coral into the bedroom, start a game of snap, we’ll join you in a minute.’
‘Come on,’ said Emmie, holding out her hand to Coral, ‘let’s go next door. How’s Amanda Jane?’
She seemed far ahead of Coral now in every way; and they had been born the same week. That didn’t seem right either …
‘Matt, have you got any cheap flats? I mean really cheap?’
‘Not a lot of money in cheap. To buy or to let?’
‘Oh, to let.’
‘Shouldn’t think so for a moment. Why?’
‘Well – you know about my friend. The one living in this awful place in Clapham, her and her husband and their little girl, and she’s having a baby in a month or so. And they’ve got to get out, and they can’t find anywhere. There’s a few months left on their lease, but after that – it’s pretty hopeless. And it seems to me what the landlord is trying to do is make their lives so impossibly awful they’ll have to leave anyway. Like he’s not mending a blocked loo, stuff like that. I just thought you might know of somewhere. Even for a bit. It doesn’t seem fair.’
‘I’ve told you before, Eliza, people create their own circumstances. Look, I didn’t have any silver spoon in my mouth. I worked like stink, round the clock, nobody helped me, I just got on with it. Who are these people anyway?’
‘Matt, for heaven’s sake. You haven’t been listening to me. I’ve told you about Heather before. She – she’s been a really good friend to me. And I’d so like to help her.’
‘You’re asking the wrong person. Sorry. Now I’ve got to go, I’m late already.’
‘Bastard,’ said Eliza aloud as he closed the door. Well, she wasn’t going to let it go. Somehow, she was going to see justice done. She owed Heather too much not to.
That afternoon, she had to go to the dentist. Sitting in the waiting room, she reached for a newspaper someone had left behind. It was the
Daily News
.
She sighed and flicked through the pages. Jack was doing a brilliant job. The news coverage was superb and there was now a full page of analysis called ‘NewsWatch’ added onto both home and international events.
Very good gossip column – Jack had always had a penchant for gossip, and knew its importance to even the most cerebral paper – and, God, this was a fascinating article: ‘A Tale of One City’, it was called, written by a journalist called Johnny Barrett, who was billed as the paper’s Man of Property. It wasn’t just about the property trade, though, it was feature-based, about two families living what Barrett called either side of the Cultural Divide, the intellectual Georgian squares of Islington, and the more traditional, old-money scene of the mews and mansion blocks of Chelsea. She could see Jack’s hand in this too; but she loved the way Barrett wrote, sharply and perceptively, catching the nuances of the two different styles of talking, dressing, entertaining. This wasn’t about property, it was what property was about: people, and what they made of it, and it of them.
It was that very hour, while the dentist was drilling agonisingly into a tooth which he had declared nerveless, that the idea began to form …
‘Susan,’ said Matt. ‘Get Andrew Watson on the phone, will you?’
‘Yes, Mr Shaw.’
‘And let me have any lists of letting agents on file, as well. The bottom end of the market.’
‘Yes, Mr Shaw.’
‘Hello, Louise. How are you?’
Eliza was meeting her mother for lunch in the Trattoria Terrazza, the just still-fashionable Italian restaurant in Romilly Street. Sarah had been low after Christmas, missing Adrian more than usual, and Eliza was treating her to a couple of days of shopping and general self-indulgence. Exactly the sort of day she herself hated, but it wasn’t a hardship and she wasn’t exactly busy.
Louise was sitting at a table with a man: a young, rather attractive man. Good. Maybe she’d found someone to replace the perfidious Barry Floyd.