The Running Lie

by Jennifer Young

  ‘Russell. But it’ll be Swander soon enough, I guess.’ He stared at the wall, rather than at her. Whoever Swander was, John didn’t look happy about it.

  ‘Is she getting married?’

  The phone rang. ‘Damn. Excuse me.’ John leaned over Max to lift the receiver. ‘Knox.’

  Max slid out from under John’s arm, and he brushed her shoulder as she left the bed. She went downstairs. It’d be too easy to listen to the other voice, although as distorted as it sounded, it had definitely been a female’s.

  She relit the gas under the kettle. Tea. Why hadn’t she gotten clothes? She rubbed her arms and tried to think of taking the night train to Berlin, rather than the fact that she was standing naked in a strange man’s flat waiting for a kettle to boil. But he wasn’t a stranger. Not anymore.

  She stacked her hairpins into a crooked pile. Why hadn’t she just told Mother she had had a date tonight? And who was that dark-haired woman—Sarah—in John’s photos? The kettle ticked as it heated beside her, but she still heard John’s feet on the stairs. Max didn’t turn.

  ‘Is this what British people do after making love? Have tea?’ John draped something soft over her shoulders, and she turned to him. His dressing gown. He wore trousers, but remained barefoot and bare chested.

  ‘I don’t know. I’ve only slept with Americans.’ She slid her arms through the black sleeves. They fell over her hands, so she rolled them back. ‘Thanks.’ She pulled the tie closed.

  ‘Sorry about that.’

  The kettle whistled, and Max poured the water, watching as the leaves writhed. John shifted her hair and pressed a kiss to her nape.

  ‘That was Joyce, my secretary. I’ve been called into the office.’ His lips trailed over her neck, and she shivered.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I don’t know. She just said to come in.’ He squeezed her shoulders. ‘I’m really sorry.’

  Max turned towards him again. ‘I’ll get dressed. We don’t have to have tea.’

  John held her hands. ‘I don’t have to rush immediately out the door. Stay for a little longer. How long will you be away?’

  ‘A week, I think.’ She wrapped her arms around his waist. ‘May I ask you a question?’

  ‘Of course.’

  Max pushed down a faint feeling of nausea. What would he say? ‘Why did you propose?’

  ‘Because I’d like to marry you. Isn’t that the traditional reason?’

  Max nodded. ‘It’s just, well, quick.’ She kept her eyes down. ‘It wasn’t because I—because we slept together?’

  ‘No. Good Lord, no.’ He raised her chin and smiled at her. ‘I had thought about proposing before. I know it sounded like I just blurted it out.’

  ‘When? We hardly know each other.’

  ‘We’ve actually spent quite a lot of time together. Hang on.’ He let go of her and left the room. What was he doing? He returned quickly and with… his wallet? The card he tossed on the countertop crashed her hairpin tower. After fumbling inside the wallet for a second, he placed a small rectangle of paper in her palm.

  Her graduation photo from Vassar. From 1949. Three years ago. The image was paler now, paler than it had been when her mother handed them out to family. ‘How on earth did you get this?’ And why? She’d forgotten how sad her eyes looked in this photo. The fallout from her breaking up with Daniel hadn’t settled. Rather than just being distant as she was now, her mother had refused to speak to her for the entire first half of 1949.

  ‘I told you before I saw your brother in a bar, talking about his amazing sister. He was pretty drunk. I convinced him to leave that flea pit, but your photo was still on the bar. I stuck it in my pocket and meant to give it to him at his hotel, but it was an adventure, to say the least, to get him there.’

  ‘He wasn’t a good drunk.’

  ‘No. I planned to return it to him the next day, but I got dragged out of bed in the middle of the night. I was back in Korea for six hours when I got hit.’

  His scar felt rough under her fingers. It started from the bottom of John’s ribs and dipped under his trousers. The line came from stitches, clearly, but had burns left the abraded skin around it? What kind of explosion had it been? And why did a bruise cross it now?

  ‘When I woke up, a MASH nurse had put this on the table beside my cot. She must have assumed you were my girl, and, well, it was nice to see a pretty face. I was laid up for quite a while, and I thought a lot about what I’d heard him say.’

  ‘I must have been a disappointment in the flesh. Horribly rude and difficult.’ She flipped the photo over. Had George written on it? Had she? Instead she saw a brownish streak. John’s blood. She shivered.

  ‘You were prickly, and fragile, and funny. He didn’t say you were funny. He said you were mean and ornery. Ornery, yes, mean, no.’

  ‘So you wanted…’ Want? ‘…to marry a fantasy version of me.’ Disappointment curled her insides. No different than any of the young men her mother pushed her out on dates with, who saw her father’s title and nothing else. Her wealth. Her appearance.

  ‘No. I didn’t want to propose to her.’ He tapped the top of the photo. ‘I just liked to think of her every so often. Of this beautiful, intelligent woman, living a normal, sane life, while I was stuck in a really awful place. I didn’t…’ John stopped. His chest rose and fell in a deep breath. ‘I didn’t fall in love with you until I got to know you. And I learned very quickly that you’re honest, and brave, and kind. It wasn’t the photo. It was you.’

  Air struggled into her lungs, but she managed to drop the photo on the countertop. She framed his face with her hands and kissed him. ‘Mr John Knox, I’m fairly certain I’m in love with you.’ The weight on her chest lifted. Did it matter if she didn’t know what he did? She felt safe and happy in his arms.

  ‘I know I’m in love with you.’ He held her tightly. ‘Marry me. Please.’

  Max closed her eyes. Love was one thing, but marriage? ‘You should go to work.’ She trailed her lips along his clavicle. ‘And that tea is going to be stewed.’

  ‘Still no answer to my question.’ His arms stayed easy around her, and kisses scattered across her hair.

  ‘Everything we’ve done has been so fast. I’ve never… this isn’t what I do. I’m cautious. I heard some of what Will said to you last night.’

  John drew back, but he held onto her hands. ‘I’m not after your money.’

  ‘I know that.’ And somehow, she did. ‘I don’t know what else he said, but I don’t have flings. I don’t say I love you easily. And I need to be sure before I agree to marry somebody again.’ She frowned. Ending the engagement—not the choice itself—but the ramifications of it had been one of most difficult points in her life.

  John nodded. ‘I’ll wait.’

  ‘I really should dress.’ Max traced over his eyebrow, down the bridge of his nose, and around his lips. ‘I love you. I like saying that.’

  ‘I like hearing it.’ He pulled her close again. ‘I’m extraordinarily glad you drove over.’

  Photos still littered the bed, but Max didn’t ask about Sarah. The kisses and caresses that interspersed their efforts to dress distracted her too much.

  Back downstairs, Max twisted up her hair and slid in the pins quickly. ‘Why did you want my hair down?’ Daniel had always complained about her hair falling in his face and choking him.

  John tipped the tea into the sink. He shrugged. ‘It’s beautiful. And I like it down. Is that okay?’

  Max nodded, pleasure heating her insides. Beautiful. She passed him the photograph.

  ‘It isn’t really mine. Do you want it?’

  If she’d thought about it, she would have assumed George’s photo had burned up in the crash, If it had made it to the jungle mud, the gelatine top layer would have dissolved in the moisture. Or pests would have eaten it. Maybe the baryta coated paper would have survived, but with her image completely washed away. Max heaved a breath. George wouldn’t have missed it, more than lik
ely, between losing it in the bar and his death.

  ‘Max?’

  ‘Sorry. I was thinking about George.’ She folded John’s warm fingers over the photograph. ‘Keep it. But I’ll give you a newer one, if you want. I look too sad in that one.’

  ‘I’ve wondered about that.’

  ‘Another time.’ She kissed him. ‘I’ve kept you here long enough.’

  As Dad’s chauffeured car slid through London traffic, Max stared out the window. Mr Rawls, sat in the backseat too. Dad could call him staff all he wanted, but Mr Rawls, with his broad shoulders and grim face, could only be a bodyguard. He had appeared, along with the chauffeured car, when Dad had been appointed Home Secretary a month ago.

  ‘Thanks for coming along, Max,’ Dad said.

  ‘Why do you need family?’ Max asked. ‘You’ve gone on trips before without us.’

  ‘Because we’re trying to negotiate—well, it’s a relatively delicate situation. And if I have family, it looks less—it looks social.’

  ‘What do you need me to do?’

  Dad patted her hand. ‘You won’t need to be around all the time. Just come to a few evening events, maybe a lunch or two. Smile and carry on intelligent conversation. I hope you won’t find it too dull.’

  ‘I’ll be fine.’

  ‘Thanks for leaving the dig.’

  ‘Will it make a difference?’

  Dad looked out the window. ‘I don’t know. I hope so. Is it just the dig you’ll be missing?’

  Max shook her head. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’ A flush climbed her cheeks though. John had walked her to her car, then went back to his flat. To tidy, he had said. But why would someone phone to ask him to come in, and yet he didn’t need to leave immediately?

  Dad lit his cigar. ‘Nancy has this idea you’re quite serious about Mr Knox.’

  Max glanced at Mr Rawls, but he gazed impassively out the window. Her entire life had been accompanied by servants, but they mostly had worked for the family for years. Mr Rawls had simply arrived. ‘Maybe.’ Max coughed. If Mr Rawls hadn’t been there, would she tell Dad John had proposed?

  At the station, someone tapped Max’s shoulder.

  ‘Hiya, kiddo.’

  ‘Victor?’ She turned to see Victor and Emma. ‘What are you doing here?’ They held suitcases.

  Dad smiled. ‘Hello, Mr Westfield, Mrs Westfield. Thanks for coming along.’ He wrapped an arm around Max’s shoulders. ‘I thought you might get bored, and since Nancy tells me Vivian is due to give birth any day, I thought I’d ask the Westfields to join us.’

  ‘I’m not twelve, Dad.’

  Victor grinned.

  ‘But thank you. It’s very kind of you to think of me.’ Did he honestly think she couldn’t amuse herself for a week without friends?

  Dad followed porters onto the train, and Mr Rawls kept close behind him.

  ‘For God’s sake,’ Max said.

  ‘It’s a holiday for us. We weren’t going to say no,’ Victor said.

  Emma’s face had set in tight lines, and Max remembered that she and Victor had been trying for a baby for a while now. Not only was Max’s friend Vivian pregnant, she already had a two-year-old son. And being reminded of that couldn’t help Emma’s mood.

  ‘Thanks for coming along. I don’t mean to be grumpy.’ Max squeezed Emma’s hand.

  ‘Well, frankly, I’m looking forward to hearing all about you coming to the party with John Knox. And leaving so early, too,’ Victor said. ‘Almost with undignified haste.’ He grinned as he ushered them onto the train.

  ‘Preferably not around Max’s father,’ Emma said.

  Max didn’t sleep on the train. Wouldn’t she have argued more fiercely about leaving the dig, even a few months ago? She couldn’t put it down simply to St Bride’s falling outside of her research interests. This summer didn’t give her the freedom from her mother’s control, as her summers abroad had. But the usual pleasures of a dig, the sense that anything might turn up under her trowel—it hadn’t happened.

  Was it about Mother? She’d fought her mother’s expectations by joining the ATA. She’d done it again with her PhD. But now digging up skeletons in London simply didn’t inspire her.

  Maybe another site. Maybe editing her thesis into a monograph. Because if she didn’t have archaeology to distract her, she’d be nothing more than the shallow debutant the others thought her.

  She hadn’t felt this way diving on Mull. But did she lose the excitement of archaeology when their regulators failed, or when she’d fought her way out of the distillery?

  CHAPTER THREE

  AFTER MAX SETTLED into the hotel—with Mr Rawls between her father and her room, and Victor and Emma on the other side—she went out to explore the city with the Westfields. They laughed and chatted as they moved through streets, towards the film festival. Max glanced across the street to the Delphi Filmpalast. A huge banner under the Art Deco sign proclaimed the dates of the international film festival.

  ‘Are we going to see any films?’ Emma asked.

  ‘Dad said we’ll see one tomorrow. It’s…’

  A tall man in a black suit stood on the steps leading up to the cinema’s doors, flanked by banners on flagpoles. The man turned too quickly for her to see his face.

  ‘Max?’ Emma asked. ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘Yes.’ The man disappeared into the dimness of the cinema. But it couldn’t have been John, no matter how familiar his shape appeared. ‘Fine.’

  Victor looked towards the cinema too, and then he draped an arm around each of their waists. ‘Shall we get lunch?’ He steered them towards a cafe, and Max told herself to forget about the man. Lots of men were tall and well built.

  Twice more across the day, Max saw someone who looked like John. The angle of his hat once, the shape of his shoulders another. She never saw the face clearly. But it couldn’t be. Why would John be in Berlin? She couldn’t be that besotted, could she, that she saw him everywhere?

  Two days later, she came around a corner, and there he was. John Knox, standing in his blue suit, talking to another man. John glanced at her, and then he looked away. As if he hadn’t seen her. As if she didn’t exist. As if they hadn’t spent hours in his bed together.

  Max pushed up her sunglasses and kept walking, her heels clicking on the pavement.

  ‘Max? Max Falkland?’ That voice had too high a pitch to be John’s, and Max kept going. But a hand grabbed her arm and she turned. John didn’t meet her eyes.

  The other man matched her height. ‘Tommy?’ Tommy Dinsmore. Tommy had been great friends with her ex-fiancé. And his sister Catherine had been rather more than that. Max pushed aside those thoughts.

  ‘Fancy seeing you here.’ Tommy smiled and took her hand, not to shake, but in an uncomfortably tight hold.

  Dad had said Mr Dinsmore had died. How strange—she hadn’t heard anyone mention the Dinsmores in ages, but now to see Tommy so soon after Dad had brought them up. ‘I heard about your father. I’m very sorry, Tommy.’

  ‘Yes, well, it’s been a little tricky.’ His hand squeezed hers. ‘Thank you.’

  Tommy wore a pale grey suit, not the mourning Mother had insisted they all don after George’s death.

  ‘Oh, excuse me, let me introduce you,’ Tommy said. ‘This is James Carter.’ He could only mean John—no one else stood nearby. A woman came out of the shop behind them, unmissable in a bright red suit.

  Catherine, of course. Max slid her hand out of Tommy’s discreetly. At least she wore gloves. Tommy had often had sweaty palms at university.

  ‘James, this is Max Falkland,’ Tommy said. His arm wrapped around Max’s back. They’d certainly danced a lot at parties, but they’d never had a relationship where he felt he could proprietarily grip her like this.

  Catherine looped her arm into John’s. ‘Max’s an old, dear friend,’ she said.

  Max felt every second of the two years she had on Catherine in that single phrase, but she raised her eyes to John’s face.
He smiled pleasantly and extended his hand to her.

  ‘Nice to meet you,’ he said.

  ‘Lovely to meet you,’ Max said. She gripped his fingers, the same fingers that had caressed her only three days ago. But they released hands quickly. And Catherine didn’t budge her scarlet nails from John’s left coat sleeve.

  ‘Max?’ Victor came around the corner. ‘There you are.’ Emma followed him.

  Max had left them in a shop, despite Victor asking her to wait. Why hadn’t she listened? Would Victor and Emma call John John—as any normal acquaintances would do? She took a half step towards them, but Tommy tightened his grip.

  ‘Friends of yours?’ Emma asked.

  ‘Friends from university days.’ Max gestured to them. ‘Tommy and Catherine Dinsmore, and, I’m sorry, what was your name again?’ Did he have her photo in his wallet right now? Max experimented with moving again, but Tommy shifted with her, as if they were dance partners.

  ‘James Carter,’ John said smoothly.

  ‘Victor Westfield. My wife, Emma.’ Victor and John shook hands, just as they had months ago when Max introduced them the first time, and then Emma and John.

  Why did everyone participate in this farce? And would Catherine and Tommy notice? Her molars ground against each other. Max searched her dress’s pockets for anything to help, and came up with her handkerchief.

  ‘Did you arrive today?’ Catherine asked.

  ‘No.’ Max found a smile, albeit forced. ‘Have you known each other long?’ Did John have a girl in every capital city? Maybe she was just the London one.

  ‘Only few days. Horseback riding. But isn’t he lovely?’ Catherine squeezed John’s arm. ‘I’m thinking of having him wall mounted as a decoration.’

  ‘Really, Cat,’ John said.