Lost Autumn

by Mary-Rose MacColl

  Some of the color had returned to Daddy’s face. “Ah, Maddie,” Mr. Waters said. “We’ve had a good chat.”

  “About the war?” I knew Daddy didn’t like to talk about anything to do with his time in France.

  “Goodness, no,” Mr. Waters said. “About you, as a matter of fact. I’ve promised your father we’ll look after you.”

  “You have already, Mr. Waters, and it’s been a grand—”

  “It really has,” Mr. Waters said, cutting me off.

  Daddy hadn’t spoken. He was looking at Mr. Waters almost pleadingly.

  “Tom,” Mr. Waters said as he stood and put down his glass, his drink unfinished. “I will say again, it has been a great honor to meet you. Our Helen says your poetry is remarkable, and I know from experience your daughter has been a great help to us. And now I know you myself.” He smiled and picked up his hat and coat from the chair. “It gets easier with time, man,” he said softly.

  They shook hands, Daddy nodding acknowledgment.

  After Mr. Waters left I asked Daddy, “Are you all right?”

  “I think so,” he said. “The whisky came in handy. He’s a decent fellow.”

  “Yes, he is,” I said. “He loves semicolons.”

  “Ha! If only I’d known that. There’s always something wrong with the King’s men. I hear you’re writing for them now though.” He smiled weakly. “Imagine your mother!”

  “Yes,” I said. “She saw the actual prince outside and nearly fainted.”

  “Did she now?” he said. “That will have made her happy.” He looked awfully sad then.

  “It did.” I nearly mentioned my brother Edward but held my tongue. “Writing for the prince was enormously fun, Daddy. I did everything you taught me.”

  “I didn’t have to teach you anything, Maddie.” He was so proud of me. “It was all already there.”

  Mummy and the boys soon came to join us, and Helen asked if I could come back to Government House for the afternoon to make sure all the instructions we’d given in relation to correspondence would be carried out by the governor’s men.

  I told her I didn’t feel I had the authority to instruct the governor’s staff. She said anyone who could pour tea with the accuracy I did ought to be able to instruct anybody to do anything.

  “Just come and see me if you have a problem,” she said. “But I’m fairly confident they’ll be fawning all over you.”

  I told Mummy I’d meet them back at Bea’s and explain all. I noticed Daddy had already withdrawn again, his poor frightened eyes staring into the middle distance.

  Sixteen

  LONDON, 1997

  After the lunch with Finian Inglis, Victoria took a cab back to her flat and threw some clothes into an overnight bag. There were still no photographers outside, she was relieved to see.

  Victoria had no blouses ironed and Martha was sleeping on her favorite jacket in the bathroom. Victoria had meant to take it to the cleaners. Now cat hair was added to a red wine stain. Maybe cat urine as well, she thought when she picked up the jacket.

  Victoria couldn’t chastise Martha, a rescue cat with difficulties the Royal Society vet said were probably caused by early traumatic experiences. They were the reason she played at three in the morning on the bed, toileted just about anywhere but in the litter, and slept on Victoria’s favorite clothes during the day if Victoria left them on the floor. She and Martha had been together for three years now, and Martha was improving, Victoria told herself. At any rate, she was family so that was that.

  Victoria took the waiting cab to Claire’s flat in Peckham on the way to Waterloo.

  “Flying visit,” she said when Claire answered the door, knowing a flying visit to Claire was almost impossible. Her friend was wearing track pants—the kind, if they’d ever seen an actual track, that had long since retired—and a fuchsia T-shirt. She had baby Max in her arms.

  Claire’s husband, Tony, who was finishing his PhD in politics and caring for the kids while Claire established her PR business, was nowhere to be seen. This was not unusual, Victoria knew.

  Claire put Max on a mat on the floor while Victoria made tea.

  “Fuck,” Claire said when she came back in. “Jordan’s sandwich.” She opened the toaster and took out something black. “Baked beans and cheese with pineapple, his favorite. Do you think it’s salvageable?”

  Victoria shook her head. She wasn’t sure if Claire was serious. You wouldn’t feed what was on the spatula to a dog.

  “You’re right. Jordan, honey!” she yelled. “I’ll do your sandwich a bit later. That’s the end of the pineapple anyway, so it will be something else.”

  “I’m going to Paris,” Victoria said. “Can I borrow your black jacket?”

  “Sure,” Claire said. “Oh, hang on, mine’s got vomit on it.”

  “Damn,” Victoria said. “Mine’s covered in Martha hair. “I’ll just have to be color-blind and wear my brown.”

  Claire sat down. “It’s unbelievable, isn’t it? I’ve been crying all morning on and off. It’s just thrown me completely. I told Tony to go to uni. I couldn’t face work today. Poor you.”

  “Why?” Victoria said.

  “What do you write? Everything just confirms the view that we did this.”

  “I suppose,” Victoria said. “Did we?”

  After the Panorama interview the year before, Claire had said she thought they’d cornered Diana, that the family were threatening to take the children from her and she didn’t know what else to do. While most of Victoria’s colleagues decided that interview was the end for Diana, Claire said it was desperate. She said the royal family were like the mafia, only worse. “It’s all about how things look, not how they are.”

  “What did you do?” Claire said then. At first Victoria thought she was talking about Diana, how she had contributed to Diana’s death, and she was about to mention the story she’d written all those years ago, when Claire leaned across and touched Victoria’s cheek.

  “Oh that. I fell last night. I tried some cover stick. Didn’t work, obviously.”

  “No,” Claire said. “I’m really sorry I haven’t called lately.” She waved a hand at the kitchen, which was still a mess from dinner the night before, overlaid with breakfast. “It’s the Bolognese years.”

  Victoria looked over at her friend, bit her lip. “I . . .” She had the strongest urge to cry. She held it back.

  Claire sat down. “What is it, Victoria?”

  “We’re engaged.”

  “Engaged! Oh, wow, that was fast. Ben?”

  Victoria laughed. “Yes. I don’t have a list.”

  “No, it’s just sudden.”

  “I was planning on telling you. I just . . .”

  Victoria did start crying then, one of those messy noisy sobs that comes out whether you like it or not.

  “What’s the matter, love?” Claire leaned over and took her hand. “Are you thinking you don’t want—”

  Just then Jordan came in from the lounge and asked for his sandwich. Victoria managed to compose herself. “Hey, Jordy.”

  “Hi, Victoria,” the little boy said. “I’m hungry.”

  “In a minute, sweetie,” Claire said. “Go put the telly on, will you? I think it’s Teletubbies.” She looked at her friend. “Desperate times!”

  Jordan toddled off.

  “What is it, Victoria?” Claire asked.

  “I don’t even know. I’m just upset and anxious and, until today, it’s been every day outside the flat.”

  “What has?”

  “It’s Ben. The papers. They all want pictures of him, and me. They chased me down the street on my way to work one morning last week. I felt like a criminal. I didn’t even look to see if they ran the pic. I suppose they won’t bother now, with Diana filling pages, but that will pass and they’ll be back, won�
��t they?”

  “Yes, you could probably see it coming,” Claire said. “I saw a shot of the two of you somewhere. You looked great, if that helps.” She smiled weakly.

  “Ben says we have to get out in front, tell them we’re engaged, control the story.” She sniffed.

  Claire thought about this. “He’s probably not wrong about that in one way. It doesn’t look like you’ll have the option of privacy.”

  “Why not?” Victoria said.

  “He’s a big deal,” Claire said. “Who knows why?” She paused. “But you’re engaged, and happy about that?”

  Victoria didn’t respond.

  “What is it?”

  “Nothing.” She wiped her eyes, made herself smile. “Nothing. Just stress.”

  “You know, you don’t have to get married,” Claire said. “You know that, right?”

  She nodded, smiled tightly. “The thing is, we’re everywhere together,” Victoria said. “I’m Ben Winter’s girlfriend.”

  “So? Do you think it would help if you went back and saw the psychologist?”

  “I like strong women,” Victoria said.

  Claire laughed.

  Just then the baby cried and Claire said, “Give me a minute. Sorry.”

  When she came back, the baby on her breast, Jordan asking for his sandwich again, Victoria apologized for barging in. “It was really just the jacket. Ignore me. I have to go or I’ll miss my train. Love you.”

  “I’ll call you tonight,” Claire said as she was leaving, still looking concerned.

  Victoria knew Claire probably wouldn’t call; she had too much on her plate as it was. Victoria shouldn’t be burdening her further. “I’m fine,” she said. “Paris!” She did her best to smile, and left.

  * * *

  Victoria checked in with Ewan before she boarded the train at Waterloo. People were gathering at the palaces, he said, leaving flowers. Ewan didn’t make a wisecrack as he normally might have. “The city’s really quiet,” he said. “It’s almost like a great darkness is coming down on the world, like evil has been done. You don’t think the family . . .”

  “No,” she said. “They’re the royal family. You’re starting to sound like Claire.”

  “They’d have means,” he said. “It’s what Danny reckons. He reckons they bumped her off. And they had cause. She was so much trouble for them.”

  “Ewan, I need you to be normal,” Victoria said. “Meredith can cry and Claire can tell me they’re the mafia. But I need you to stay Ewan, the Scottish republican bastard I know and love. I’m about to go under the channel.”

  He laughed. “The tunnel,” he said in a ghostly voice.

  “Stop,” she said. “Look, I really don’t know what I’ll write. I’ll call from Paris. But I don’t feel I’m the person for this.”

  “You’re perfect for this,” he said.

  “No one could do it justice,” she said.

  “No one else,” he said. “When you’re on, Victoria, there’s no one better.”

  She sighed. “Thank you for saying that, but I’m not on much lately.”

  He ignored what she’d said. “Harry wants you to go to the hospital when you get there,” he said. “I’ll get the name. It’s where . . . the body. Mark will pick you up. He’s already sent some shots back but there’s nothing for the magazine that I can see. I want something that won’t date. I think the hospital might work, depending what you write.”

  “Will you look at whatever I do tonight before you give it to Harry?”

  “Of course,” he said. “But where’s your brash confidence, Victoria? You usually eat stories like this.”

  “I don’t know. I think this one’s different.”

  “I suppose. Anyway, we’ll get through. Oh, Ben called.”

  “Yes?”

  “No, nothing. He just didn’t know you were in Paris. I might have mucked things up.”

  “That’s okay. I haven’t had time to call him.”

  Ewan didn’t say anything.

  “Hey, before you go?” she said.

  “Yes?”

  “The lunch with Finian Inglis,” she said. “You think it might be real?”

  “What do you think?”

  “Well, that’s the thing. It’s almost too odd to be made up.”

  “I thought that too. Fin’s a good guy. Maybe not savvy, like I am, but a good guy.”

  “You’re not savvy.”

  “No. It was probably a figure of speech.”

  “He wants me to go to Australia.”

  “Yes.”

  “And he says you’re paying the airfare.”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “Great story, if it’s true. Imagine the shots of this fossil who wrote Autumn Leaves. And is it autobiographical? Did he have an affair in World War I? If so, who was the woman? Is she alive? What’s the new book like? Is it as good, or better? There are so many angles.”

  “It’s not a he. M. A. Bright is a woman.”

  “Really? I’d have sworn he was a he.”

  “That’s what Finian said anyway. Ewan, wouldn’t you normally go yourself to check this out?”

  “Maybe. But Bright didn’t ask for me. She asked for you.”

  * * *

  As the train began to move, Victoria stared straight ahead, repeating a mantra in her head: I am not afraid of the tunnel. I am not afraid of the tunnel. Fear rose up and swallowed her mantra whole. Breathe, she told herself. Just breathe.

  She hadn’t called Ben before she left London. She knew she should have. He’d be annoyed that Ewan had been the one to tell him she’d gone. He wouldn’t like it, she knew, and that was the reason she didn’t call. She didn’t want to have to explain herself.

  “You know, I only took this role because you told me to, Tori,” he’d said at some stage last night, and it had irked her, not least because she hadn’t told him to take the role. If she were honest, she’d been relieved to be back in her flat without Ben after she’d left him in New York the last time. She felt less anxious on her own, she realized. Then she felt guilty for thinking this way. He was her fiancé. She should want to be with him, shouldn’t she?

  She did want to be with him.

  Didn’t she?

  They would be married in two months. The invitations would go out next week. New York, at Victoria’s insistence; the middle point between Los Angeles and London, and everyone could have a holiday at the end. He’d wanted a gala at his ranch in Wyoming, but she said they’d honeymoon at the ranch, just the two of them.

  Ben wanted Victoria to quit her job once they were married. He’d said it before and last night he’d become angry about it. He didn’t like Claire either. That was what he’d said last week. Victoria wanted Claire as her matron of honor. They’d been friends since Victoria started at The Daily Mail. Ben said Claire was a smart-mouth. That was after the second time he met her—dinner at Claire’s place, Jordan banging on saucepans, Max wailing in Tony’s arms, Tony watching Ben with a mixture of adulation (the Zombie movies) and suspicion (Tony had adopted an overtly fraternal role in Victoria’s life after he married Claire, not altogether unwelcome but not much help with Ben). It was true Claire was a smart-mouth, but she was only a smart-mouth because she was so smart. When Victoria said this to Ben, he said, “Whatever. I don’t like smart-mouths.”

  The conductor was standing in front of her, Victoria saw, wanting to see her ticket. “Sorry,” she said. She found her ticket and he checked it and kept going.

  It was Victoria’s job that was the main problem now as far as Ben was concerned. The photographers had found them, as he had said they would. If she’d listened to him at the start, none of this would have happened, he’d said last night. That was his logic.

  She’d told Ben she didn’t sign up for this. It wa
s a threat, wasn’t it? She didn’t mean it to be a threat, but of course it was a threat. I didn’t sign up for this so now I can opt out. That’s what would come next, wasn’t it? Was that what she was thinking?

  After the first picture ran of Victoria in her bike gear, Ben came back from Los Angeles and the photographers came back with him. The day he landed, they were in front of Victoria’s flat in the morning. She took the fire escape stairs at the back of the flat and went out into the garden. She climbed over the fence into the yard behind, taking treats for the dog. She walked down the side of the house to the street and from there to the station. Ha! she thought. She’d fooled them.

  And then, she and Ben were going for a run early on the Saturday of that week. Victoria came out the front door first. “Hey,” she’d said, blinded momentarily by the flash. When her vision cleared, she saw Nathan Ashbury.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked.

  “Come on, give us a smile, Victoria,” Nathan said. “You look great.” He was taking shots the whole time, talking to her in a way she’d heard him talk to people who didn’t want their photograph taken, coaxing.

  Victoria had been wearing track pants and one of Ben’s sweatshirts, no makeup. She hadn’t even combed her hair. It was somehow worse that he was someone she knew.

  “I’m sorry, Nathan, but this is private property,” she said.

  “I’m not on your property,” he replied. “Ben!” he called out.

  Victoria turned and saw Ben waving and smiling.

  “Hello there,” Ben said. “How about a quick picture and you leave us alone to run?”

  “Great,” Nathan said. “Thanks, man.”

  The shot they used, page five, wasn’t the smiling picture Victoria found herself acquiescing to. It was one of the first ones. The headline was BEN WINTER’S TRYST, Ben handsome, his beard one of those fetching shadows over his cheeks and chin, Victoria in front of him like a rabbit caught in headlights. Ben couldn’t see how unreasonable it was.

  Fear. She felt a moment of fear then. She looked through the train window to the blackness. It passed quickly. The photographers frightened her. She knew them, or knew what they did. But when their lenses were trained on her, it was entirely different.