Lovers and Liars Trilogy

by Sally Beauman

  “I went through the desk twice. There was a leather blotter….”

  “Clean blotting paper?”

  “Pristine. Unused. I checked under it—nothing there. Then there was a pile of books, but there were books everywhere, on the shelves, on the coffee table, piled on the floor, by his bed—you saw.”

  “You checked inside the books?”

  “Obviously. Nothing. Oh, one of them had his name, his Oxford college, and a date written—1968. I’ll check, but I imagine it’s the date he was there.”

  “Nothing underlined in the book texts, written in the margin?”

  “Nothing I could see. I was looking quickly. They were well read, but clean.”

  “What books were they?”

  “A poetry anthology, Milton’s Paradise Lost, a Carson McMullers novel.”

  “Eclectic.”

  “Sure, but the bookshelves were the same. Novels, political works, poetry, history. Masses of history, maybe that was his subject at Oxford. Oh, and books in foreign languages, German, French, Italian…”

  “A well-educated army officer. Interesting…” Pascal sighed. “It doesn’t seem to help, however. Go on.”

  “That was it. The books, the blotter, the photograph of Lise—not a recent photograph by the way—and a leather container for pens and pencils. Nothing more.”

  Pascal shook his head. “Then I don’t see it. It’s a blind alley.” He smiled. “You don’t know any friendly neighborhood code crackers by any chance?”

  “Unfortunately, no. Not my line. Except—wait a minute. There is someone who might help. A friend of Mary’s, an erstwhile Cambridge don. He worked in military intelligence in the war—at least, I think he did. He compiles crosswords now, fiendish crosswords for The Times.”

  She broke off. Pascal, she saw, was watching her closely, his expression absorbed.

  “Is something wrong?”

  “No, nothing,” he said. “I like it when you concentrate, that’s all. There’s a certain expression that comes onto your face then. You push your hair back, behind your ears, and you…It’s nothing. Just the way the light was falling on your skin. My photographer’s eye.”

  Gini looked at him uncertainly. Pascal rose abruptly to his feet.

  “I’ll get the check,” he said. “And then I’ll walk you home.”

  When they were back in her apartment, Pascal showed no inclination to leave. While Gini made coffee, he prowled the room. He checked the doors, the windows, the pictures, the bookshelves, in a way that made her nervous. She sat down by the fire, stroking Napoleon, while Pascal peered at framed posters from art exhibitions. Eventually, she could stand it no longer.

  “Just what are you doing, Pascal?”

  “What?” He swung around and gave her an absentminded look, as if his concentration were elsewhere.

  “It’s a very ordinary apartment,” Gini said patiently. “Ordinary posters, pretty obvious books. You appear to be casing it. I just wondered why.”

  “I’d like to know you perhaps.” He gave a shrug.

  “You do know me.”

  “Maybe. You’ve changed. I’m not so sure.”

  “So what does your investigation tell you?”

  “Oh, a number of things. We like the same painters. We’ve even been to some of the same art exhibitions. This one, for instance—in Paris.” He gestured at the poster. “You were there. I was there.”

  “Yes, and so were roughly twenty-five thousand other people, Pascal. It was a very successful exhibition.”

  “Even so.” He gave her a sharp glance. “It was in Paris. I live in Paris. That exhibition was last year.” He paused. “Did you go to it on your own?”

  “Yes, I did, as it happens.”

  “No boyfriend?”

  “I was probably between boyfriends. I quite often am.”

  “I also went to this exhibition on my own….” He hesitated again. “You never thought of calling me then, when you were in Paris?”

  “No, I didn’t. Pascal, it was years since we met. You had a wife, a family, I—”

  “Not last year. No wife. I was divorced three years ago. You knew that.”

  “Did I?”

  “That’s what you said yesterday. You said you’d heard.”

  Gini looked away quickly. This deception was hard. She wondered what Pascal’s reaction would be if she told him the truth: that she could never go to Paris, or anywhere else in France for that matter, without every street, every café, singing his name. She remembered the times, the many times in the past, when she had walked the Paris boulevards, sat in Paris cafés, and seen his features in the air, in the reflections on the Seine. “What about London?” She turned back to look at him. “You must have been to London hundreds of times. You never called me, Pascal. You never wrote. There was just that one accidental meeting in Paris.”

  It was Pascal’s turn to look away. He wondered what Gini’s reaction would be if he told her the truth: that he had called her, that he had spoken to her—many, many times, in his own mind. Could you explain to someone that despite absence and the passing of time, it was perfectly possible to maintain an imagined dialogue with her, that those exchanges could take on vitality, a life of their own? No, you could not explain, he decided grimly, any more than you could explain how their influence remained with you, how it entered into you and stained you, and how sometimes, with a particularly painful trickery, it would surface in dreams.

  He stared at the curtains of Gini’s room, and for a brief instant saw his own home in Paris, the home he had then shared with Helen, five years before. Mid-afternoon, spring sunshine; his daughter was asleep in the next room; Helen had gone shopping. He picked up the telephone, put it down; he did this three times, then finally he dialed.

  He had seen Gini outside that café just a few hours before. All that time, the impulse had been mounting. Now, guiltily, he gave in to it. During that brief glacial embarrassed conversation she had mentioned the name of her hotel. Such was his perturbation, he was incapable of thinking. All he knew was that he had to speak to her, hear the sound of her voice. So he dialed, spoke to the receptionist, waited; his pulse accelerated. The room number rang three times, four, five…. Then a man’s voice answered. Pascal froze. He should have foreseen this, it was so obvious, and she had made the situation perfectly clear…. He was about to hang up, and then found he was unable to do so:

  Je peux parler à Mademoiselle Hunter?

  Non. Je regrette…. The Englishman’s French was good, almost unaccented. There was a slight pause. Elle est partie.

  Quand?

  Cet après-midi—une demi-heure…Vous voulez laisser un message?

  Non. Ce n’est pas important. Merci. Au revoir….

  He knew, as he replaced the receiver, that Helen had returned. He could feel her presence through his shoulder blades. He swung around.

  “No luck?” She gave a small, tight smile. “What a disappointment for you. I wondered when you’d call.” She gave a quick glance down at her watch. “Two and a half hours. I’m surprised you waited that long. But then, of course, you couldn’t call earlier, could you? I was here.”

  She placed her shopping bag on the table and began calmly to unpack it: bread, wine, vegetables, cheese. “Never mind, Pascal. Try her next time you’re in England. She’ll be delighted to hear from you. She made that very clear.”

  “She’s a friend,” Pascal began hopelessly. “I told you—”

  “Oh, I know what you told me—and you lie terribly badly. You always did. I thought that particularly interesting. After all—why lie? Why should I care? It was years before you met me. Just another of your foreign affairs. Why pretend otherwise—unless, of course, it was a very special affair. Was it special, Pascal?”

  “I won’t discuss this. You’re wrong. You wouldn’t understand….”

  “Wrong?” She met his eyes coldly. “Oh, no, I don’t think so. Not at all. I find it quite remarkable that you’ve never once mentioned he
r name, not in all the years I’ve known you. So secretive. Her hands were shaking—did you notice?”

  “No, I damn well didn’t.”

  “Well, they were.”

  “Look, can we just forget this?”

  “Oh, I can. Probably.” Her gaze became coolly speculative.

  “The question is, can you?” She folded the grocery bag very deliberately. “Unfinished business, I’d say. I can always tell. My advice would be to go to London, finish it off, and when you’ve got it out of your system, come home.”

  “Helen—”

  “Why not? It’s much the best way. Go to bed with her. You obviously still want to. Why else phone?”

  “For Christ’s sake, that’s the only reason to phone a woman, is it? Because you want to go to bed with her?”

  “No. Of course not. But it’s the reason in your case, whether you know it or not.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “Do you know, I really don’t care? I don’t care anymore where you go, what you do, or whom you screw.” She paused, gave him a considering look. “Have you been faithful? Are you faithful?”

  “As a matter of fact, yes, I am. With difficulty.”

  As always, anger and retaliation pleased her. She gave another chill smile. “Well, don’t fight it anymore on my account, Pascal. If you loved me, I might feel differently. But since you don’t, it really makes no difference. Feel free. Fuck around.”

  She turned away, still quite calmly, opened the refrigerator, and began to put away the groceries. Pascal lost his temper. He smashed his hand down hard on the kitchen table.

  “Why,” he shouted. “Why do you say that? I married you, after all.”

  “Ah, yes. You married me.” She turned around and looked at him. “And you said that you loved me. I even believed you—for a while.”

  “I believed it, damn you.” He hit the table again, and knocked over the wine. “I wouldn’t have said it otherwise.”

  Helen righted the bottle expertly. She gave him a cool glance. “Ah, but did you believe it, Pascal? I could see you tried—but did you really believe it in your heart?”

  There was a silence, a long silence. Pascal turned away and Helen sighed.

  “Precisely,” she said, and this time the bitterness came through in her voice. “Maybe that’s why I never felt like your wife even with your ring on my hand. Face facts, Pascal. You married me because I very unwisely let you get me pregnant. You married me because it was the decent thing to do, and you can be a decent man. Very sweet, very touching—only then, unfortunately, I lost the child.”

  Her voice had risen. It hit a high, strained note. Pascal swung around.

  “Why?” he said. He could scarcely speak. “Why, in God’s name, do you do this?”

  “Because it’s the truth. Do you think I’m totally blind? After my miscarriage I knew exactly what you were thinking. You were thinking you needn’t have married me after all.”

  “How can you say that?” He advanced on her, white-faced. “I was here. I did everything possible. I found us this apartment—you said you wanted this apartment. I gave up job after job—for six months, longer, I scarcely left your side. My mother tried to help.”

  “Oh, don’t bring your bloody boring mother into this. Your mother thinks like a French peasant. She thinks childbirth’s nothing. She expects a woman to give birth like some bloody animal in a farmyard. What does she understand?”

  Pascal bit back an angry reply. His mother had come up to Paris, had stayed several months, had tried hard to help Helen after the miscarriage: She had shopped for her, cooked for her, and been insulted for her pains. He looked at his wife, and his face hardened.

  “Forget that, then,” he said. “Distort everything. There’s one thing even you can’t forget. We had Marianne.”

  A tiny spasm of pain tightened her face. She made a shaky gesture of the hand, then regained control. “Ah, yes. We had Marianne. I finally gave you a reason to stay with me. Thanks, Pascal.”

  She turned away and began to set the table for Marianne’s meal. She shook out a tablecloth, found a bib, a child’s plate, Marianne’s special spoon. Pascal felt a sense of pain and bewilderment. Some of these charges were old, some new, and they left him wary. He had been down this particular road so often before. He could go to Helen and hold her; she would cry. Later, a day later, two days later, it would begin all over again.

  Perhaps she had been expecting him to make just such an overture, because when he did not, it angered her. Two patches of color rose in her cheeks. She stopped setting the table, looked up at him.

  “I always knew,” she said on a tight shrill note of control. “Right from the very beginning. Before you married me—I knew then. I knew there was someone else at the back of your mind. Well, at least she has a face now. I’m glad I’ve seen her. And she has an interesting face, I’ll say that much. A lover in tow, of course, but I’m sure that won’t worry you. He was so much older than she was, and your little Genevieve didn’t seem very keen.”

  Her use of Genevieve’s name made him flinch. His face became pale with anger. He turned, and moved toward the door. “That’s enough.” He could not bring himself to look at her. “I’m going out. I’m not listening to this anymore.”

  “Just tell me, was it really an accidental meeting, Pascal? Or did you know she was in Paris? Was it planned?”

  “No, it damn well wasn’t planned. I told you. I had no idea she was here. I haven’t seen her in years.”

  “I’m sure you’ll make up for lost time.” She smiled. “Take my advice. Pursue her to London. Maybe then you’ll learn the lesson I’ve learned, the hard way.”

  Pascal was in the doorway. He stopped. “Lesson? What lesson?”

  “Perfection doesn’t exist, Pascal. And if it does, it doesn’t last. So fuck around in London. Have your affair. Then you’ll find out how it feels.”

  “I do not understand. I do not damn well understand….”

  “You will. Because you’ll find out she’s not the person you imagined, just the way you weren’t the person I imagined. Try it, Pascal.” She gave a thin tight laugh. “Find out how it feels to fuck a dream.”

  He could still hear the words, their precise intonation. They repeated themselves, and again repeated themselves. They invaded Gini’s living room. Pascal looked around him blankly. He had been asked a question, and he had not answered it. Gini was still watching him expectantly. In the interval, how many centuries, how many seconds had passed? Helen’s advice had never been taken, and one of the many reasons for that was a residual fear, still with him, that her final remark might be true.

  He turned back to face Gini. She continued to stroke her cat; Napoleon purred. Gini bent to him affectionately; one gold strand of her hair mingled with his marmalade fur. Pascal thought: She does not look like a dream, or an invention, she looks as I remember her—actual, exact, real. “London?” he said. Gini smiled; the time gap, then, must have been short between question and reply. How odd, the distortions of the mind.

  “Yes, London,” she replied. “You must have come here very often. You never called.”

  “I know.” He gave an awkward gesture. “Superstition, maybe.”

  “Not anger?”

  “No. Not anger. Never that. I was angry when you left Beirut. Not afterward.”

  “Truly?”

  “Truly.”

  She gave a sigh. “I’m glad.”

  There was a silence. Outside, the rain still fell, and Gini listened to it. It was lulling, peaceful; she could feel a new contentment creeping up on her. She closed her eyes, then opened them. Pascal was still standing, watching her, his manner awkward. “You’re tired,” he said, “it’s late. I ought to go.” But he hesitated. “You’ll lock the door after me? Bolt it? You promise me?”

  “Of course.”

  “Gini, I mean it. I don’t like to leave you alone, in a basement flat.”

  “Pascal, I’ll be perfectly fine. I told
you. I’ve never had a break-in, and—”

  “And you’ve never been sent a pair of handcuffs before,” he said. “Gini, take this seriously. This story on Hawthorne. It’s a story about sadism. With women as the victims.”

  “We don’t even know if the story is true.”

  “Maybe not. But someone knows where you live. Whoever sent those handcuffs knows where you live. If he knows that much, he probably also knows you live alone.”

  “Pascal, don’t.” She rose and crossed to him. “You’re adding two and two and making ten.”

  “Oh, no.” He looked down at her gently, touched her face, then drew away. “I have an instinct for trouble. And I can feel it coming. I know.”

  There was obvious concern in his voice and his eyes, and Gini was touched by it. Looking up at him, she said, “No one’s safe, not these days, Pascal. Not me, not you…”

  Something flickered in his eyes, some glint of amusement or irony. “Oh, I know that,” he replied. “Believe me, I know.” There was a tiny pause, a beat, as if he waited for her to pick up some meaning in this remark, then Pascal turned to the door. “I’ll call you in the morning, at eight?”

  “Eight would be fine.”

  “I’ll pick you up around eight-thirty. We can be down at that courier office by nine.”

  Still he lingered. Gini, who wanted him to linger, stared at the floor.

  Eventually, still awkwardly, he touched her hand. “Good night,” he said.

  “Good night, Pascal.”

  She closed the door behind him, and bolted it, as promised. Then she stood for a long while, looking at her own warm, familiar room. Something about it puzzled her, and it took her some time to understand what it was. Then she realized. It was the same room but depleted. It lacked Pascal’s presence. It felt a thousand times emptier than it had ever felt before.

  Chapter 12

  THE NEXT MORNING THEY were at the ICD offices at nine. Susannah quickly gave them the information they needed.

  “Handcuffs?” She looked first at the woman journalist, then at her photographer companion. Both seemed pale and strained, as if they had slept little the night before. The woman worked for the News and this little episode was not the kind of publicity ICD needed.