The one thing she did know about death was that she didn’t fear it. Perhaps that was one of the main benefits of being alone. There were no children to despair about leaving behind. Not even a cat to worry about when she had gone.
She had already decided that she would leave some money to Lucas, although he was wealthy and successful enough not to really need it. Some would go to charity, and she would give some to Will too. She was glad that she had bought Amy Carrell the Ralph Lauren dress, and would speak to her solicitor about finding a discreet way to bankroll her children’s ballet company. She had worked hard for her money and she didn’t want it to be frittered away, but she had a feeling that young Amy would do something special with her windfall – and even if her business wasn’t a success, she would have a great deal of fun trying.
She made a note to find out a little more about Amy’s plans this evening. She had been surprised to receive a phone call from Will asking if the two of them could drop by for coffee. He’d sounded dreadful – apparently it had been a very late night, but she supposed that was the way things were with young people: staying up all night to bring in the New Year. The thought of Will and Amy arriving together even gave her a little thrill. She knew Amy had a boyfriend – who she hadn’t liked the sound of – but perhaps she could encourage a friendship between her cousin’s son and her new friend. She thought they would be good for each other. She’d lived long enough to know a good love match when she saw one.
The buzzing of her intercom disturbed her from her thoughts.
Other than Will and Amy, who’d said they would come round at about six o’clock, she wasn’t expecting any visitors. She peered through the fine voile curtains at Primrose Hill’s rare, ghostly calm.
‘Georgia Hamilton?’
‘Yes,’ she said hesitantly, not instantly recognising the voice. It was elderly, well-spoken, with a touch of familiarity . . .
‘It’s Christopher. Christopher Carlyle.’
The name took her so much by surprise that she had to lean against the wall. She inhaled slowly and closed her eyes for one moment.
‘Christopher,’ she said, steeling herself. ‘What do you want?’ She hadn’t meant it to come out so curtly.
‘May I come up?’
She could almost hear her own heartbeat as she waited for him to climb the stairs. Of course he took his time. He was older than she was and the flat was a long way from the ground floor. She left the door open and went back into the living room, standing by the window and looking out as she waited for him.
It was a shock to see him. It had been fifty-four years, but for a moment those years vanished in a heartbeat. He was still tall and thin – advancing years had not given him a stoop or shrunk his frame. His blazer and cream chinos were smart – in fact he looked as if he were on the way to a cricket match, and if it wasn’t for the fact that it was January, she would imagine that he was.
‘Don’t you have better things to do on New Year’s Day?’ she said quietly, sipping at the cognac she had left on the drinks cabinet.
‘We always have a quiet New Year’s Day.’
‘Of course – the annual Stapleford party was last night.’
‘How are you, Georgia?’ he said quietly.
‘Fine. Marvellous, actually. I’ve been away. New York,’ she added, her voice as bright as she could manage.
He supported himself on the bookcase with one hand. She guessed that the walk up the stairs had taken it out of him and it had the effect of making him seem quite fragile. Certainly he looked nothing like the vital elder statesman she regularly saw on the television, popping up to discuss the state of the economy, or at some literary party in the society pages of the Mail. Heading up the Carlyle family had not been his original destiny, but once he had been handed the role, he seemed to have grown into it. The shallow youth she had met in that summer of 1958 had been replaced by someone far more impressive.
‘So how was last night?’ she continued. ‘Still going strong, that tradition? Clarissa always liked a party. No need to change that just because we’re getting on a bit.’
‘Your friend came, with Will.’
His words stopped her in her tracks.
‘Which friend?’
‘The American girl. Amy.’
She felt the cold twist of betrayal.
‘What was she doing there?’ she asked with as much nonchalance as she could manage.
‘She came with Will. I believe they might be together.’
‘Really?’ she replied. It was suddenly becoming clear why they wanted to see her this evening. They had evidently been up to no good – meddling, she supposed – and were coming to confess and apologise.
There was a long pause that seemed to go on for ever.
‘Amy told Clarissa that you’re ill,’ said Christopher finally.
‘She had no right to do that.’
‘It was with the best intentions.’
‘Really.’
‘Are you getting proper care?’
There was sympathy in his voice but she chose to ignore it. She didn’t need anyone’s charity – least of all his. Perhaps he was not aware that she was worth tens of millions – a fortune she had created herself. She was tempted to tell him.
‘There’s not a great deal anybody can do, if the truth be told.’
She looked at him intently. Christopher and Edward had always shared a resemblance, though Christopher had always been the poor facsimile of his brother. But the similarities were enough for her to see Edward in his face, and for a second she wanted to reach out and touch him.
‘I have to tell you something.’
Georgia knew what was coming before he even uttered a word. She could see it in his eyes. Guilt, sadness, shame. A shame that had been eating away at him for decades.
‘Edward did not rape Clarissa,’ he said finally.
She sank her top two teeth into her bottom lip and for a moment she could taste blood. She had wanted to hear that admission for over fifty years, but now that it had come, they seemed the saddest and most futile words in the world.
Regret almost suffocated her. She closed her eyes and had to sink down on to the sofa.
‘She would never have let him go to jail, you know,’ said Christopher quickly. ‘She certainly never wanted it to end up the way it did.’
‘How generous of her,’ growled Georgia. She was not sure she could bear the sight of him any longer.
‘She was wrong and she was foolish. We both were.’
‘Oh, I could think of a lot stronger words to describe your wife, Christopher. She was evil, although I will say one thing: she was a lot cleverer than I ever gave her credit for. It was really quite a plan, wasn’t it, and it all worked out so beautifully for you.’
She looked up and could see that he was crying.
‘How much did you know, Christopher? How culpable were you?’
‘Enough,’ he said, his voice so quiet she could barely hear it. ‘I’d been dating Clarissa for a few weeks before my twenty-first. We first met at your party and kept in touch. You could say I had a bit of a schoolboy crush on her. She took me to a hotel in the City after just a couple of weeks and we spent the night together. I don’t how experienced she was as a lover, but she blew me away. She was very physical and quite the temptress, and I would have done anything for her, even though I suspected she was a little bit in love with Edward.’
‘Did anyone know about your relationship?’
‘No. She wanted to keep it a secret. I think she was hedging her bets.’
‘So you planned the rape claim together.’ She could hear her own voice, cold, unrecognisable, as if she was listening to someone else.
‘No.’ He spoke with such plainness that she believed him.
‘About a week before the party at Stapleford, we had another night in a hotel. She spent most of the time trying to convince me that I should assert my position in the family a bit more. I hadn’t been to university and by thi
s point I had already put in three years at the bank. But I wasn’t taken seriously, whereas Edward was being groomed for a very senior role as soon as he finished at Oxford. Clarissa convinced me that it wasn’t right, and I believed her. I came away from that night feeling resentment against my brother, and just wishing that he would get out of my life, get out of the bank, where he had immediately overshadowed me.’
He brushed a tear off his papery cheek and continued.
‘As you know, Clarissa came to my twenty-first. We slipped off and had sex in the wine cellar. The next thing I knew, we were all in the middle of this drama. She was claiming rape. Edward was adamant that he was innocent.
‘I managed to get a couple of minutes alone with her to ask her what the hell was going on, and she told me not to breathe a word about the fact that we had had sex. She was smart and knew the way it was all going to pan out – no police would be involved, but Edward would be taken out of the picture until the scandal died down.’
‘So she let you believe that Edward had raped her?’
‘I didn’t know what to believe. Within a week it had been arranged that Edward was going to Singapore. The Hamiltons agreed not to press charges. After all, the last thing they wanted was for word to get out that Clarissa was a rape victim. She would never have found anyone to marry her.’
‘When did she tell you the truth?’
‘A few weeks after Edward left for the Far East. When she admitted that she had staged the rape, I was angry, confused. Clarissa was adamant that she had done it for my benefit, although I suspect she was also furious that Edward had asked you to marry him. But I couldn’t deny that the situation had worked out in my favour. I was suddenly the golden boy, the favoured son, and Edward was the proverbial black sheep.’
‘Until he died.’
They stood there in silence.
‘She wept for two days when she heard the news.’
‘I’ve wept for a lifetime,’ said Georgia coldly.
‘We were both devastated, but what could we do? We had lied and covered up the truth, and we just had to carry on with it.’
‘I’ve asked myself many times whether the pair of you sleep well at night.’
‘I do not.’
Georgia sank her head into her hands and tried to rein in the emotions that were desperate to get out.
‘We can’t change the past, Georgia. I wish we could. I wish we could bring my brother back. I wish you’d had the chance to grow old with him.’
Her eyes were closed to hold back the tears, but she heard footsteps coming towards her and she felt him put something on the arm of the sofa.
‘I don’t expect you to ever forgive us, but I think you deserve to know the truth. Your friend Amy was right about that.’
‘What’s this?’ asked Georgia, looking at the set of keys he had placed next to her.
‘I think he would have wanted you to have this,’ he said, then turned and walked out of the flat.
She held the keys in the palm of her hand until the cold metal turned warm. Then she got her coat, pulled it on and took the stairs slowly, one at a time, until she was out on the street. Christopher was gone, but at the kerb sat a cherry-red Aston Martin that she instantly recognised.
Her breathing felt shallow and her hands trembled.
She walked over and touched the paintwork, and for a second she was back on Putney Bridge in her dripping wet dress. She kicked off her shoes and bent down slowly, carefully to pick them up, every joint and muscle in her body reminding her that this was now the twenty-first century, not 1958. Although it was a cold winter’s day, the roof of the convertible was down. As she put the shoes on the passenger seat, she noticed a parcel propped up in the back. Frowning, she touched the brown paper and traced her finger around the edges of the large rectangle.
She had no idea if she was meant to open it, but it was too tempting to leave it there.
She pushed one finger into the paper, then used both hands to strip the packaging away. Inside was a painting, and it took her a moment to realise that it was one of her mother’s Ribbons series. At the time it had been seen as a difficult composition, but looking at it now, it was like a decent Jackson Pollock rip-off. Her mother was quite the visionary.
It took a minute for the significance of the painting to sink in. The series of pictures had been bought by a rich collector, and the money had not only kept them off the breadline for several months, but had allowed Georgia to have her dance. They had never known the identity of the collector. Once the money had been banked, it hadn’t mattered. Now, as she realised what Edward had done for her, the tears finally began to flow.
She went round to the driver’s seat, climbed in and gripped the wheel. When she closed her eyes, she could almost feel him.
She started to smile. She would be back with him soon, and she knew he would be waiting. Wiping her eyes, she pushed the key into the ignition and started the engine. It gave a quiet, satisfied growl, as if it was happy for her to be behind the wheel. Oh, she had loved him. She had loved him with all her heart. And he had loved her too. Suddenly she wanted to tell someone about it, and looking at her watch, she realised that Sally and Gianni’s lunch would not yet be over. And as she motored down the street, the wind whipping in her hair, she was suddenly young again, and he was by her side. And at that moment, she was happy.
Before I sat down to write this book I took a four-day trip to Manhattan, just like Amy and Georgia. I’d been to New York many times before, but never in the run-up to Christmas and, to my delight, it was everything I hoped it would be – the cold hint of snow in the air, the streets bustling with excited shoppers and, as ever in New York, there was movie-set glamour on every street corner.
Here is a guide to an assortment of the places we visited, some of which made it into the The Proposal, others which I know and love from previous trips to this dazzling city . . .
I love this Alice in Wonderland-style café so much that I have its menu pinned up on my kitchen wall at home. But it always seems that everybody else in New York wants to drop in for their famous Frozen Hot Chocolate too, so book ahead for lunch even if you just want to try the dessert. Get in the mood by watching the lovely Kate Beckinsale and John Cusack film, Serendipity.
225 East 60th Street, NY
This tiny Israeli take-away is a West Village local’s favourite and you might even see famous fans like Gwyneth Paltrow there too. It’s a scrum to get served but the ginger and mint lemonade and amazing falafel with melt-in-your-mouth hummus make it well worth it.
222 Waverly Place, NY
New York’s most famous railway hub. Surround yourself with the buzzing commuter crowd, marvel at the beautiful Beaux-Arts building and soak up the real Manhattan. The Grand Central Oyster bar is great too for station food but not as we know it (be sure to try the cheesecake).
87 East 42nd Street, NY
A brilliant toy shop near Central Park South that featured in the recent Smurfs movie. A must for the young or young at heart.
767 5th Avenue (at 58th Street), NY
I was tipped off about this shabby-chic Lower East favourite by a cool American friend who said the Saturday morning brunch queues are worth the wait. My Dutch pancakes were sweet, thick and delicious. Even better is the Bloody Mary menu – I went for the Virgin Green Lake (with a wasabi and beef jerky swizzle stick) but there’s another dozen to choose from.
54 East 1st Street, NY
I wanted Georgia and Amy to stay somewhere in New York that represents pure old-school glamour, and this Upper East Side institution fitted the bill perfectly. Quiet, discreet and elegant (it was Princess Diana’s preferred New York hotel, and still attracts the stars), its location on a quiet side street that’s a stone’s throw away from everything is just perfect.
37 East 64th Street, NY
This is one of my favourite spots to shop in the whole city. It’s got an eclectic range of shops, from Murray’s Cheese Store with its bright yellow frontage
and strong scent that wafts down the street, to the famous Magnolia Bakery, and with everything from Coach to James Perse in between. Molly’s Cupcakes is another great place for a sweet treat, especially for the ‘swing-chairs’ at the counter.
Murray’s Cheese Shop – 254 Bleecker Street, NY
Magnolia Bakery – 401 Bleecker Street, NY
Molly’s Cupcakes – 228 Bleeker Street, NY
A must for any winter visit to New York. It’s particularly romantic at night and is open from October to April.
Central Park South (59th Street) and 6th Avenue, NY
One of Manhattan’s most iconic restaurants. Choose a banquette table in the downstairs bar and quiz the waiter about the model aircraft hanging from the roof and the speakeasy history of the place (the wine vaults are fascinating). George Clooney favours table 8 and Humphrey Bogart sat at table 30 on his first date with Lauren Bacall.
21 West 52nd Street, NY
Christina Aguilera recommended this to Jaunt, a travel magazine I set up a few years ago. Since then, every time I go to New York I make the pilgrimage to Carmine Street for a slice or two. The chewiest, tastiest pizza on the planet.
7 Carmine Street, NY
That scene in When Harry Met Sally. You know the one. It was filmed here – and the salt beef sandwiches might send you into raptures of your own.
205 East Houston Street, NY
One for a summer rather than winter New York experience. A great spot for lunch overlooking the lake, where you can hire out a rowboat afterwards.
East 72nd Street and Park Drive North, NY
It’s a toss-up between which is my favourite New York museum – the elegant Frick with its Old Masters collection or the stunning Guggenheim, if only for the incredible spiral Frank Lloyd-Wright design of the building.
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