Another Woman (9781468300178)

by Vincenzi, Penny

  ‘No, not really,’ said Theo. ‘So you don’t have any record of her – their name?’

  ‘No, monsieur, I do not. They were gone very quickly after that. I am sorry.’

  ‘Thank you, Father, very much. You’ve been most kind. And thank you for what you did for them. We are very grateful.’ Theo took out his wallet, started riffling through notes. ‘I would like to – for the church, of course –’

  ‘Merci, monsieur. In the box, over there. Goodbye, messieurs. God bless you.’

  ‘Goodbye, Father.’

  Theo went over to the collection box, put a 500-franc note in it, stood looking at the bank of candles for a moment. Then he went forward and lit one. ‘Cressida,’ he said quietly, ‘this is all I can do for you now. I hope, in spite of everything, you will be happy.’

  He went back for James who was sitting absolutely still, staring ahead of him. His mouth was set.

  ‘Come on,’ Theo said gently, ‘there’s nothing more we can do for now. No point staying, trying to find her. She’s all right, James, she’s safe. That’s the main thing, really. She’s happy and safe. Let’s go.’

  James nodded, stood up and walked very slowly to the door of the cathedral. When they got outside, Theo saw that his face was wet with tears. ‘I’d like to go home, Theo, please,’ he said.

  And all the way home, the long drive out on the nightmare of the Périphérique, and the flight back through the blue morning, Theo thought not of Cressida at all, nor of his wild and wilful son, not even of his friend and his dreadful bleak misery, but of Harriet, and how in God’s name he was going to get her back.

  Chapter 24

  Mungo 7am

  He had slept. It seemed impossible, but he had. He woke, stiff-necked, his head aching unbearably, to hear the throbbing of a taxi outside in the street. The rest of the house was silent; Jemima and the two younger ones were clearly still asleep.

  Mungo sat up, holding his aching head, pushed back his hair. He must look ghastly, he thought: unshaven, red-eyed, slightly grubby. Well, it didn’t matter; he was hardly planning on seduction.

  He crossed to the window, looked outside; Alice was paying off the taxi. She was wearing a light floaty dress, under a man’s dinner jacket; he recognized the dress, they’d bought it together in Harvey Nichols, she’d needed something desperately, she said, for a duty party – ‘Can’t take you, it’s business.’ He had insisted on paying for it. She came to show it to him, outside the changing room, barefooted, the chiffon clinging to her slender body, her ice-blonde hair tousled with pulling things over her head. ‘You look great,’ he’d said, ‘get that one’ and ‘It’s terribly expensive,’ she’d said, and ‘You’re worth it,’ said Mungo, and he’d signed the slip (quite a lot for a rather insubstantial dress, even he’d thought that, £1,400, but of course she was worth it) and she’d come out and hugged him, and said ‘Let’s go home, I want to say thank you. Quickly.’

  And they had rushed out of the shop, hailed a taxi, told the cabbie to go to Chatto Street, kissed all the way there, and when they got to the house, she’d dropped everything in the hall, and after calling the children’s names briefly, to check they weren’t at home, stood there, tearing off her clothes, and lay down on the stairs, quite naked, holding out her arms to him, and he came towards her laughing, pulling off his own clothes, and knelt astride her at the bottom of the stairs and started to kiss her again, slowly, very slowly and deliberately, and she raised herself up to him, her wet, greedy self, pulling herself onto him, pulling him into her, and he felt her closing round him, tightly, tuggingly, and she began to push, push, faster, faster up at him, and the familiar noisy cries began, and far far within the depths of himself Mungo felt the rising, the inexorable, rushing rise of his orgasm, and she said as she so often did, ‘Wait, Mungo, wait, be still,’ and as he paused somehow, forced its delay, savouring the sweet suspended pleasure, the time-stood-stillness, he had opened his eyes and looked at her, and she had looked back, and for just a moment then he had seen something watchful, wary, and then it was gone, and her head was thrown back again so that he couldn’t see her face, and she was thrusting, pulling, enfolding him absolutely, and then he felt her coming, in her great powerful greedy waves, and he lay, his head on her breast, releasing his own pleasure, loving her and making himself forget what he had seen.

  But he remembered it now.

  ‘Hallo, Alice,’ he said. He had opened the door, was standing smiling like a dutiful husband welcoming home his wife. ‘How nice to see you.’

  Alice’s face was absolutely expressionless; it was a gift of hers that he had often envied, to be able to make it thus to order (except when she was in mid-orgasm). ‘How do you do that?’ he would say. ‘Show me how to do it.’ And she would laugh and say, ‘You don’t want to do that, Mungo, I love your face, it’s so easy to read.’

  ‘Hallo,’ she said pleasantly, as if he were some neighbour, some casual friend, ‘what are you doing here?’

  ‘I came to see you last night. You’d gone out. With Anouska, I think.’

  ‘No, not Anouska. She’s away.’ There she goes, he thought, bloody clever, just one jump ahead of him. ‘I thought you were staying down in the country.’

  ‘I was. But I couldn’t stand it any longer. And I wanted to go to the office, and after that I came to see you.’

  ‘And how did you get in?’

  ‘Jemima let me in.’

  ‘She’s not supposed to,’ said Alice. ‘She’s not supposed to let anyone in. I shall have to speak to her.’

  ‘Don’t. It wasn’t her fault,’ said Mungo. ‘I – made her.’

  ‘Well, that was unfair of you. But it was also naughty of her.’

  ‘I don’t think any reproaches are in order,’ said Mungo, ‘and I think she’s very young to be left alone in the house all night. Actually.’

  ‘Yes, well, I don’t think I need advice on childcare from you,’ said Alice. ‘When you’ve spent a few years as a single parent, you’ll be qualified to comment, but until then … Excuse me, please, I really want to make myself a cup of coffee.’

  ‘I’ll make you some coffee,’ said Mungo. ‘You go and sit down.’

  He was surprised to find he didn’t feel anything like he might have expected; he seemed to be in control, to know what to do, how to act. He was almost enjoying it. Alice went into the kitchen ahead of him and sat down. She looked very composed and orderly; her face was freshly made-up, her hair neatly done. She didn’t even look tired; she had obviously had a good night’s sleep.

  ‘Nice time?’ said Mungo casually, handing her the coffee.

  ‘Yes, very nice, thank you. Mungo, this is instant. You know I don’t like instant coffee.’

  ‘It’s what I’ve made,’ he said, ‘and it’s what you’ll have to drink, I’m afraid. I’m not messing about with that stupid grinder thing at this time in the morning. Anyway it might wake the children.’

  She looked at him and though her eyes were blank there was a watchfulness behind them.

  ‘Did you – talk to Jemima last night?’

  ‘Oh, a bit. But not about you. We were both very loyal.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘Which is more than I can say for you,’ he said. Anger suddenly hit him, took him unawares. ‘Where the fuck were you, and who with?’

  ‘Don’t use that horrible language in my house,’ said Alice.

  ‘I’ll use what I like. Where were you?’

  ‘I was out. With some old friends.’

  ‘Oh, really?’

  ‘Yes, really. If you like I’ll give you their number and you can ring and check. Giles and Fanny Brentwood. This is Giles’s dinner jacket I’m wearing.’

  ‘I see,’ said Mungo. He was beginning to feel a little uncertain. ‘Do you often stay out all night with people? Leaving your daughter on her own?’

  ‘Yes, sometimes. She has to put the chain on the door, double-lock it, and if I want to come back I have to ring her. Last night it w
as so late, it seemed unfair to wake her. But you did, it seems, so I needn’t have been so scrupulous.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell her you were with these old friends? Why did she have to tell me some lie about Anouska?’

  ‘I didn’t tell her anything. Just that I was going out. She was engrossed on the phone with some boy, and had her stereo on at full blast, it was just too much hassle. No doubt she thought you’d be upset unless I was with some woman. Oh, Mungo, for God’s sake, you can’t think – look, ring Giles. Or Fanny. They won’t mind. Here’s the number. Go on. I’ll dial it for you –’

  ‘No,’ he said hastily. ‘No, Alice, don’t. I really don’t want to –’

  ‘You look worn out,’ she said suddenly, ‘much tireder than I am. Let’s go into the drawing room. I do want to talk to you. Actually. But I’m going to make some decent coffee first.’

  ‘All right,’ he said, ‘all right.’

  He sat on the sofa where he had spent the night staring ahead of him; he had stopped enjoying himself, the numbness was wearing off. He wasn’t sure how much of this he could take. Alice came in, sat down beside him, kissed him gently on the cheek.

  ‘You’ve got it all wrong you know,’ she said quite cheerfully.

  ‘Have I? Have I really?’

  ‘Yes. You really have. And a few other things too. Are you sitting comfortably?’

  ‘Yes thank you,’ said Mungo.

  Alice looked at him. ‘Then I’ll begin.’ There was a silence. Then: ‘Mungo, I did do something you wouldn’t have liked last night,’ she said, ‘I phoned your father.’

  The sofa rocked gently under Mungo; he tightened his grip on the mug of coffee she had handed him. ‘What did you say?’ he said finally.

  ‘You heard. You heard right. I phoned your father. He was extremely nice to me.’

  ‘Yes, I expect he was,’ said Mungo bitterly. ‘He can be very charming when it suits him. The fact remains he’s a –’

  ‘Mungo, I can see what he is. He’s manipulative, and he’s immensely arrogant and possessive and he doesn’t like being crossed. But he loves you, Mungo, my God he loves you.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Mungo tersely, ‘when I do what he wants. I don’t know how you could have done that, Alice, I really don’t.’

  ‘Well,’ she said simply, ‘I had to do something. There you were, falling out with him, setting yourself on the path to financial ruin, probably wrecking that extremely promising little business of yours, all because of me.’

  ‘Alice, it isn’t like that. You’re not just some game or toy I’m playing with.’

  ‘I should certainly hope not,’ she said lightly.

  ‘I love you. I want to marry you. Well, I thought I did.’

  ‘And what’s changed that? Me being out when you came to call? Really, Mungo, this certainly can’t be love. Love is about trust. I thought.’

  ‘I know but –’

  Christ, she was clever. She was tying him up in knots, just as his father did.

  ‘Mungo, I give you my word, I’ll swear on the Bible if you like, if I can find it, that I was simply out to dinner with my friends last night. I was not in any other man’s bed, I don’t have an interest in any other man. I love you. There. Does that make you feel better?’

  He looked at her, and against all the odds he found himself believing her. ‘Jemima seemed to think –’ he started, and then stopped.

  ‘Seemed to think what? That I was plying a brisk trade in Piccadilly? That I was in some hotel in King’s Cross with three other men?’

  ‘No, of course not, but she –’

  ‘Mungo, Mungo, Jemima is a very naughty, manipulative little girl. She would get on wonderfully well with your father. She has just discovered her own sexuality, and she’s jealous of mine. She also has a bit of a crush on you. And what was she up to last night anyway? Entertaining a gentleman far too old for her?’

  ‘No,’ said Mungo quickly, and then wondered if he was being irresponsible, immature, taking the side of youth against the grown-ups. ‘Well, that is –’

  ‘I thought so. You’re right, I shouldn’t leave her alone. She’s trouble, Mungo, much as I love her.’

  ‘Don’t say anything to her, will you? Not about last night specifically. She was very sweet to me, and I’d hate her to think I’d – well –’

  ‘Sneaked on her,’ said Alice tartly. ‘No, I won’t. Unless I find evidence on my own account. The laundry bills have gone up a lot lately, I’ve noticed. Lot of sheet changing going on … Anyway, let’s not talk about Jemima. You and me is a much more agreeable subject. And I want to tell you what we talked about, your father and I.’

  ‘What then?’ said Mungo sulkily. He hated to think of the pair of them discussing him, agreeing no doubt that he was a silly, reckless child. ‘I suppose you had a little laugh about it all, and then you said that of course you wouldn’t marry me if he didn’t want you to, that it was a crazy idea.’

  ‘No, we didn’t laugh and I didn’t say I wouldn’t marry you. Although we did agree it was a crazy idea. And then he said –’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘He said he liked crazy ideas. That a lot of his were fairly crazy. Especially when it came to what he called entanglements. I liked that word.’

  ‘You obviously got on very well,’ said Mungo. He felt wretchedly, horribly foolish.

  ‘Yes, I think we did. We agreed that we would meet. And –’

  ‘Oh, well, that’s great,’ said Mungo, standing up. ‘The two of you meeting, talking about me, the silly little boy, discussing what it would be best to do, how you could distract me.’ He felt violently hurt, abused almost; he had to get out, quickly. He slammed his coffee mug down, and the contents slopped over the coffee table onto Alice’s beige carpet. He looked at it, at the dark spattered stain, and he thought that was what had happened to his love for her; it had been treated roughly, spilt, become something dirty, messy, spoiling everything.

  ‘I’m so glad you’ve been able to discuss our future with my father,’ he said. ‘What a pity it’s all become irrelevant. Because I really don’t want to see you again, Alice. Perhaps he’d be a better friend for you. I don’t know how you could do it to me, when I loved you so much. And trusted you. Goodbye, Alice.’

  He walked over to the door, then turned to look back at her. She was staring up at him, startled, shocked almost, her face concerned, no longer carefully blank. ‘Mungo,’ she said, ‘Mungo, please. You don’t understand. Please don’t go.’

  ‘I want to go,’ he said, ‘and I do understand, I’m afraid.’

  He walked out of the front door, slammed it behind him, and then leant against it briefly, thinking of all the happiness he had had in the little house, the lovely Sundays, the golden evenings, the rapturous love-making, and for just an instant he was amazed that he could leave it, walk away. Then he thought of Alice, Alice and his father, talking, laughing indulgently about him, and he ran, ran away from her, away from both of them, as fast as he could down the street and into the Kings Road, and hailed a taxi, and told the driver to take him to the one place where he wanted to be at that moment, the one place where he was a person in his own right, the one place he felt was his own: his office in Carlos Place.

  Chapter 25

  Tilly 8am

  ‘Yeah, I’ll go,’ said Tilly, ‘if you want me to. The sooner the better.’

  ‘You don’t sound very enthusiastic.’

  ‘Felicity, right this minute I’d find it hard to be enthusiastic if Brad Pitt and Keanu Reeves asked me to spend a year on a desert island with them both. Sorry. I’m just gutted. I’d actually love to go to New York. Anything to get out of this place.’

  ‘I can get you on a flight at noon. You’ll have to be at Heathrow at ten. I’ll send a car.’

  ‘OK. Fine.’

  ‘And the Rosenthal people will meet you at Kennedy. They said they’d book you into the Pierre. For three nights, I think.’

  ‘Fine.’

&nbs
p; ‘Right then. Take a couple of slightly smart outfits. You can’t meet le tout New York in those torn cut-offs.’

  ‘Felicity, as if I would …’

  ‘Tilly, you know you would. Anyway, I’ll confirm your flight. Call me when you get there. I hope you feel better soon. Lots of love.’

  ‘Thanks. Bye, Felicity.’

  She hauled herself out of bed: just under two hours till she had to go. Bit of careful packing. Slightly smart. What did that mean, for God’s sake? The Karan probably, the black silk jersey suit, and the glorious new stuff from Claude Montana, the white linen crepe Nehru jacket and trousers. That would do for le tout New York, surely. If it didn’t, they could go play with themselves. She needed some shoes, but she could get them when she got there. Fuck, it was going to be hot … she suddenly heard Rufus’s voice saying ‘I don’t like people saying fuck all the time,’ and a spasm of such intense pain took hold of her heart that her eyes filled with tears. Now, Tilly, don’t start. It’s over now, he belongs in the past. A lovely, loving, joyful past, but the past. The future’s what you have to think about now. The immediate future first, just getting things into your bag, yourself into the car, onto the plane – ‘Shit,’ she said aloud, ‘shit, I have to see my mum.’ That was essential; and she had to phone James too, with the phone number. She had victory in her hands; she mustn’t let it go. She could call at her mother’s house on her way to the airport; she would tell Felicity to send the car there. That would be good. And she could phone James Forrest right now.