The Dark Shore

by Susan Howatch

  The door opened. Facing him on the threshold was a woman in a maid’s uniform whose face he did not know.

  “Good evening,” said Jon. “Is Mrs. Rivington in?”

  The maid hesitated uncertainly. And then a woman’s voice said, “Who is it?” and the next moment as Jon stepped across the threshold, Camilla came out into the hall.

  There was a tightness in Jon’s chest suddenly, an ache of love in his throat, but the past rose up in a great smothering mist and he was left only with his familiar detachment. She had never cared. She had always been too occupied in finding lovers and husbands, too busy trekking the weary social rounds of cocktail parties and grand occasions, too intent on hiring nursemaids to do her work for her or making arrangements to send him off to boarding school a year early so that he would no longer be in the way. He accepted her attitude and had adjusted himself to it. There was no longer any pain now, least of all after ten years away from her.

  “Hullo,” he said, hoping she wouldn’t cry or make some emotional scene to demonstrate a depth of love which did not exist. “I thought I’d just call in and see you. No doubt you saw in the paper that I was in London.”

  “Jon...” She took him in her arms, and as he kissed her on the cheek he knew she was crying.

  So there was to be the familiar emotional scene after all. It would be like the time she had sent him to boarding school at the age of seven and had then cried when the time had come for him to go. He had never forgiven her for crying, for the hypocrisy of assuming a grief which she could not possibly have felt in the circumstances, and now it seemed that the hypocrisy was about to begin all over again.

  He stepped backwards away from her and smiled into her eyes. “Why,” he said slowly, “I don’t believe you’ve changed at all... Where’s Justin? Is he here?”

  Her expression changed almost imperceptibly; she turned to lead the way back into the drawing-room. “No, he’s not. He went out after dinner, and said he wouldn’t be in until about eleven ... Why didn’t you phone and let us know you intended to see us? I didn’t expect a letter, of course that would have been too much to hope for—but if you’d phoned—”

  “I didn’t know whether I was going to have time to come tonight ”

  They were in the drawing room. He recognized familiar pictures, the oak cabinet, the pale willow-pattern china.

  “How long are you here for?” she said quickly. “Is it a business trip?”

  “In a way,” said Jon abruptly. “I’m also here to get married. My fiancée is traveling over from Toronto in ten days’ time and we’re getting married quietly as soon as possible.”

  “Oh?” she said, and he heard the hard edge to her voice and knew the expression in her eyes would be hard too. “Am I invited to the wedding? Or is it to be such a quiet affair that not even the bridegroom’s mother is invited?”

  “You may come if you wish.” He took a cigarette from the box on the table and lit it with his own lighter. “But we want it to be quiet. Sarah’s parents had the idea of throwing a big society wedding in Canada, but that was more than I could stand and certainly the last thing Sarah wanted, so we decided to have the wedding in London. Her parents will fly over from Canada and there’ll be one or two of her friends there as well, but no one else.”

  “I see,” said his mother. “How interesting. And have you told her all about your marriage to Sophia?”

  There was a pause. He looked at her hard and had the satisfaction of seeing the color suffuse her neck and creep upwards into her face. After a moment he said to her carefully, “Did you phone the Mayfair Hotel this evening?”

  “Did I—” She was puzzled. He saw her eyes cloud in bewilderment. “No, I didn’t know you were staying at the Mayfair,” she said at last. “I made no attempt to phone you ... Why do you ask?”

  “Nothing.” He inhaled from his cigarette, and glanced at a new china figurine on the dresser. “How are Michael and Marijohn these days?” he asked casually after a moment.

  “They’re divorced.”

  “Really?” His voice was vaguely surprised. “Why was that?”

  “She wouldn’t live with him any more. I’ve no doubt there were various affairs too. He divorced her for desertion in the end.”

  He gave a slight shrug of the shoulders as if in comment, and knew, without looking at her, that she wanted to say something spiteful. Before she could speak he asked, “Where’s Marijohn now?”

  A pause.

  “Why?”

  He looked at her directly. “Why not? I want to see her.”

  “I see,” she said. “That was why you came to England I suppose. And why you called here tonight. I’m sure you wouldn’t have bothered otherwise.”

  Oh God, thought Jon wearily. More histrionic scenes.

  “Well, you’ve wasted your time coming here in that case," she said tightly. “I’ve no idea where she is, and I don’t give a damn either. Michael’s the only one who keeps in touch with her.”

  “Where does he live now?”

  “Westminster,” said Camilla, her voice clear and hard. “Sixteen, Grays Court. You surely don’t want to go and see Michael, do you, darling?”

  Jon leant forward, flicked ash into a tray and stood up with the cigarette still burning between his fingers.

  “You’re not going, are you, for heaven’s sake? You’ve only just arrived!”

  “I’ll come again some time. I’m very rushed at the moment.” He was already moving out into the hall, but as she followed him he paused with one hand on the front door latch and turned to face her.

  She stopped.

  He smiled.

  “Jon,” she said suddenly, all anger gone. “Jon darling—”

  “Ask Justin to phone me when he comes in, would you?” he said, kissing her good-bye and holding her close to him for a moment. “Don’t forget. I want to have a word with him tonight.”

  She moved away from him and he withdrew his arms and opened the front door.

  “You don’t want to see him, do you?” he heard her say, and he mistook the fear in her voice for sarcasm. “I didn’t think you would be sufficiently interested.”

  He turned abruptly and stepped out into the dark street. “Of course I want to see him,” he said over his shoulder. “Didn’t you guess? Justin was the main reason why I decided to come back.”

  2

  Michael Rivers was out. Jon rang the bell of the flat three times and then rattled the door handle in frustration, but as he turned to walk away down the stairs he was conscious of a feeling of relief. He had not wanted to see Rivers again.

  He turned the corner of the stairs and began to walk slowly down the last flight into the main entrance hall, but just as he reached the last step the front door swung open. The next moment a man had crossed the threshold and was pausing to close the door again behind him.

  It was dark in the hall. Jon was in shadow, motionless, almost holding his breath, and then as the man turned, one hand still on the latch, he knew that the man was Michael Rivers.

  “Who’s that?” said the man sharply.

  “Jon Towers.” He had decided on the journey to Westminster that it would be futile to waste time making polite conversation or pretending that ten years had made any difference to the situation. “Forgive me for calling on you like this,” he said directly, moving out of the shadows into the dim evening dusk. “But I wanted your help. I have to trace Marijohn urgently and no one except you seems to know where she is.”

  He was nearer Rivers now, but he still could not see him properly. The man had not moved at all, and the odd half-light was such that Jon could not see the expression in his eyes. He was aware of a sharp pang of uneasiness, a violent twist of memory which was so vivid that it hurt, and then an inexplicable wave of compassion.

  “I’m sorry things didn’t work out,” he said suddenly. “It must have been hard.”

  The fingers on the latch slowly loosened their grip; Rivers turned away from the door and
paused by the table to examine the second post which lay waiting there for the occupants of the house.

  “I’m afraid I can’t tell you where she is.”

  “But you must,” said Jon. “I have to see her. You must.”

  The man’s back was to him, his figure still and implacable.

  “Please,” said Jon, who loathed having to beg from anyone. “It’s very important. Please tell me.”

  The man picked up an envelope and started to open it.

  “Is she in London?”

  It was a bill. He put it back neatly in the envelope and turned towards the stairs.

  “Look, Michael—”

  “Go to hell.”

  “Where is she?”

  “Get out of my—”

  “You’ve got to tell me. Don’t be so bloody stupid! This is urgent. You must tell me.”

  The man wrenched himself free of Jon’s grip and started up the stairs. When Jon moved swiftly after him he swung round and for the first time Jon saw the expression in his eyes.

  “You’ve caused too much trouble in your life, Jon Towers, and you’ve caused more than enough trouble for Marijohn. If you think I’m fool enough to tell you where she is, you’re crazy. You’ve come to the very last person on Earth who would ever tell you, and it so happens—fortunately for Marijohn—that I’m the only person who knows where she is. Now get the hell out of here before I lose my temper and call the police.”

  The words were still and soft, the voice almost a whisper in the silent hall. Jon stepped back and paused.

  “So it was you who called me this evening.”

  Rivers stared at him. “Called you?”

  “Called me on the phone. I had an anonymous phone call welcoming me back to England and the welcome wasn’t particularly warm. I thought it might be you.”

  Rivers still stared. Then he turned away as if in disgust. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Jon heard him say as he started to mount the stairs again. “I’m a solicitor, not a crank who makes anonymous phone calls.”

  The stairs creaked; he turned the corner and Jon was alone suddenly with his thoughts in the dim silent hall.

  He went out, finding his way to Parliament Square and walking past Big Ben to the Embankment. Traffic roared in his ears, lights blazed, diesel oil choked his lungs. He walked rapidly, trying to expel all the fury and frustration and fear from his body by a burst of physical energy, and then suddenly he knew no physical movement was going to soothe the turmoil in his mind and he stopped in exhaustion, leaning against the parapet to stare down into the dark waters of the Thames.

  Marijohn, said his brain over and over again, each thought pattern harsh with anxiety and jagged with distress. Marijohn, Marijohn, Marijohn...

  If only he could find out who had made the phone call. Even though he had for a moment suspected his mother he was certain she wasn’t responsible. The person who had made that call must have been at Clougy during that last terrible weekend, and although his mother might have guessed what had happened with the help of her own special knowledge she would never think that he...

  Better not to put it into words. Words were irrevocable forms of expression, terrible in their finality.

  So it wasn’t his mother. And he was almost certain it wasn’t Michael Rivers. Almost ... And of course it wasn’t Marijohn. So that left Max and the girl Max had brought down from London that weekend, the tall, rather disdainful blonde called Eve. Poor Max, getting himself in such a muddle, trying to fool himself that he knew everything there was to know about women, constantly striving to be a second-rate Don Juan, when the only person he ever fooled was himself ... It was painfully obvious that the only reason why women found him attractive was because he led the social life of the motor racing set and had enough money to lead it in lavish style.

  Jon went into Charing Cross Underground Station and shut himself in a phone booth.

  It would be live, of course. Women often made anonymous phone calls. But what did she know and how much? Perhaps it was her idea of a practical joke and she knew nothing at all. Perhaps it was merely the first step in some plan to blackmail him, and in that case...

  His thoughts spun round dizzily as he found the number in the book and picked up the receiver to dial.

  He glanced at his watch as the line began to purr. It was getting late. Whatever happened he mustn’t forget to phone Sarah at midnight ... Midnight in London, six o’clock in Toronto. Sarah would be playing the piano when the call came through and when the bell rang she would push the lock of dark hair from her forehead and run from the music room to the telephone...

  The line clicked. “Flaxman nine-eight-double-one,” said a man’s voice abruptly at the other end.

  The picture of Sarah died.

  “Max?”

  A pause. Then! “Speaking.”

  He suddenly found it difficult to go on. In the end he merely said, “This is Jon, Max. Thanks for the welcoming phone call this evening—how did you know I was in town?”

  The silence that followed was embarrassingly long. Then: “I’m sorry,” said Max Alexander. “I hope I don’t sound too dense but I’m completely at sea. John—”

  “Towers.”

  “Jon Towers! Good God, what a sensation! I thought it must be you but as I know about two dozen people called John I thought I’d better make quite sure who I was talking to ... What’s all this about a welcoming phone call?”

  “Didn’t you ring me up at the hotel earlier this evening and welcome me home?”

  “My dear chap, I didn’t even know you were in London until somebody rang up and told me you’d been mentioned in the evening paper—”

  “Who?”

  “What?”

  “Who rang you up?”

  “Well, curiously enough it was that girl I brought down to Clougy with me the weekend when—”

  “Eve?”

  “Eve! Why, of course! Eve Robertson. I’d forgotten her name for a moment, but you’re quite right. It was Eve.”

  “Where does she live now?”

  “Well, as a matter of fact, I think she said she was living in Davies Street. She said she worked in Piccadilly for a firm of diamond merchants. Why on earth do you want to know? I lost touch with her years ago, almost immediately after that weekend at Clougy.”

  “Then why the hell did she phone you this evening?”

  “God knows ... Look, Jon, what’s all this about? What are you trying to—”

  “It’s nothing,” said Jon. “Never mind, Max—forget it; it doesn’t matter. Look, perhaps I can see you sometime within the next few days? It’s a long while since we last met and ten years is time enough to be able to bury whatever happened between us. Have dinner with me tomorrow night at the Hawaii at nine and tell me all you’ve been doing with yourself during the last ten years ... Are you married, by the way? Or are you still fighting for your independence?”

  “No,” said Alexander slowly. “I’ve never married.”

  “Then let’s have dinner by ourselves tomorrow. No women. My days of being a widower are numbered and I’m beginning to appreciate stag-parties again. Did you see my engagement mentioned in the paper tonight, by the way? I met an English girl in Toronto earlier this year and decided I was sick of housekeepers, paid and unpaid, and tired of all American and Canadian women ... You must meet Sarah when she comes to England.”

  “Yes,” said Alexander. “I should like to.” And then his voice added idly without warning: “Is she like Sophia?”

  The telephone booth was a tight constricting cell clouded with a white mist of rage. “Yes,” said Jon rapidly. “Physically she’s very like her indeed. If you want to alter the dinner arrangements for tomorrow night, Max, phone me at the hotel tomorrow and if I’m not there, you can leave a message.”

  When he put the receiver back into the cradle he leant against the door for a moment and pressed his cheek against the glass pane. He felt drained of energy suddenly, emotionally exhausted.r />
  And still he was no nearer finding Marijohn...

  But at least it seemed probable that Eve was responsible for the anonymous phone call. And at least he now knew where she lived and what her surname was.

  Wrenching the receiver from the hook again he started dialing to contact the operator in charge of Directory Inquiries.

  3

  Eve was furious. It was a long time since she had been let down by someone who had promised to give her an entertaining evening, and an even longer time since she had made a date with a man who had simply failed to turn up as he had promised. To add lo her feeling of frustration and wiper, the phone cull lo Max Alexander, which should have been so amusing, had been a failure, and after Alexander had slammed down the receiver in the middle of their conversation she had been left only with a great sense of anticlimax and depression.

  Hell to Max Alexander. Hell to all men everywhere. Hell to everyone and everything.

  The phone call came just as she was toying with her third drink and wondering whom she could ring up next in order to stave off the boredom of the long, empty evening ahead of her.

  She picked up the receiver quickly, almost spilling the liquid from her glass.

  “Hullo?”

  “Eve?”

  A man’s voice, hard and taut. She sat up a little, the glass forgotten. “Speaking,” she said with interest. “Who’s this?”

  There was a pause. And then after a moment the hard voice said abruptly, “Eve, this is Jon Towers.”

  The glass tipped, jerked off balance by the reflex of her wrist and hand. It toppled on to the carpet, the liquid splashing in a dark pool upon the floor and all she could do was sit on the edge of the chair and watch the stain as it widened and deepened before her eyes.

  “Why, hullo, Jon,” she heard herself say, her voice absurdly cool and even. “I saw you were back in London. How did you know where I was?”