by Janet Tanner
‘For goodness’ sake stop this, Sally!’ Harriet exploded. ‘ You’re hysterical. I don’t know what you are going on about but you couldn’t have stolen him from Mom. She was dead. I didn’t want to believe it, but now I do. She was dead. She has been dead, Sally, for more than twenty years.’
Sally’s shoulders were shaking; her slim frame in the enormous fur looked almost emaciated. ‘No – no! Not for twenty years …’
Harriet turned cold. Prickles of ice ran up and down her spine. She stared at her aunt, her eyes hard and blank.
‘What are you saying?’
The door opened. They both spun round. It was Dr Clavell. He looked grave and Harriet’s heart lurched again.
‘Doctor – is he …?’ she tried to say but no words would come.
‘No, I’m not bringing bad news.’ He smiled thinly. ‘The crisis seems to have passed – for the moment.’
‘You mean he’s going to be all right?’ Sally was motionless now, hugging herself.
‘It’s a little early to say for certain. Prognoses in cases such as this can be difficult and I don’t want to raise too many false hopes. The human heart can take just so much and no more. But for the moment the situation seems to be under control. Would you like to go in and see him now?’
‘Can we?’ Harriet asked.
‘As long as he’s not upset or over-excited again.’ Dr Clavell turned his mournful gaze on her. ‘I can’t stress too much he is a very sick man.’
‘I think we realise that,’ Harriet said.
She turned to Sally. Her aunt’s eyes were still wild in her pale face but her lips were parted in an expression half way to hope.
Harriet put her arm around her. Whatever dark secrets lay between them this was not the time to dwell on them. As Sally had said, nothing mattered but that Hugo should pull through.
‘Come on, Sally,’ she said softly.
Together they followed the doctor along the corridor to Hugo’s room.
By the time Danny, the chauffeur, returned Harriet and Sally to the triplex on Central Park South it was late evening. Jane the cook had prepared them a cold supper and a pan of home-made watercress soup which only had to be heated the moment they arrived and whilst Harriet knew it would be delicious as it always was, she also knew she was past eating and she guessed Sally would have no appetite either.
‘What I need is a drink.’ She crossed to the cabinet, poured herself a large vodka and tossed it back in one. ‘What will you have, Sally?’
Sally gave a small shake of her head and Harriet poured her a brandy.
‘Drink it for goodness’ sake. You look as if you need it.’
As Sally sipped her drink a little colour returned to her pale cheeks. She had gone into herself now, so silent and withdrawn that Harriet found herself half wondering if she had imagined the outburst at the hospital. Lack of sleep was making her feel light-headed and unreal, but she had gone past being sleepy. Her whole body felt tight-strung, her mind was racing. She had to know what Sally had meant by the things she had said. But how could she ask her now, when she was in such a state of distress?
Suddenly Sally drained her glass, coming out of her reverie with a snap.
‘What was your father saying to you when he was taken ill again?’ she asked, her voice low and steady.
Harriet avoided her eyes. She did not want to repeat the tortured self-accusations.
‘Just ramblings. I couldn’t make head or tail of them. But I think he blames himself for Mum’s death.’
‘Yes, I think he does,’ Sally agreed. ‘ He shouldn’t, of course. He was a wonderful husband, generous, loving. He gave her everything she wanted and he would have been prepared to forgive her anything … well, almost anything.’ She broke off, her eyes going far away, and after a moment, when she continued, her voice was so soft Harriet had to strain to catch her words. ‘That was the trouble, really. I thought … yes, I thought he’d still take her back. Even after what she’d done – how she’d hurt him. Even, God help us all, as she was … I thought he’d take her back and I couldn’t bear it. Not for me – I loved him so much – and not for him either. What sort of a life would it have been for him? For any of us?’
Harriet leaned forward, clutching her glass between hands that had begun to tremble.
She hadn’t known how to raise the subject with Sally again but now Sally had brought it up all by herself. It was as if Hugo’s brush with death had unlocked the flood gates on twenty years of silence and now there was no way to stop it all pouring out. But still it made no sense, these tortured, disjointed fragments.
‘Sally – are you saying what I think you are saying?’ Harriet asked. ‘That Mum didn’t die, any more than Greg Martin did?’
Sally’s face contorted slightly. Then she gave an almost imperceptible nod. Harriet’s heart was pounding so hard she could scarcely breathe.
‘You mean – she is alive?’
‘No – no. She’s dead now.’
‘But she didn’t die in the explosion?’
‘No.’
‘And you knew it – you’ve known all these years? My God, did Dad know too?’
‘No.’ Sally shook her head vehemently; she appeared close to tears. ‘He doesn’t know, Harriet, and he mustn’t. That’s what I’ve been so afraid he’d find out, ever since Greg Martin turned up and the investigators started probing. It’s all going to come out now isn’t it? Oh God, he is going to hate me so much …’
‘Why, Sally?’ Harriet pressed her, though the pieces of the jigsaw were beginning to fit together to form a picture she was not at all sure she wanted to see. ‘Why will he hate you?’
‘Because I knew she was alive and I didn’t tell him. I let him think she was dead … I kept it from him, Harriet. I kept it all to myself. Oh, I kidded myself it was for the best. That I was saving him – and you – a lot of pain. But it was pure selfishness really. I always thought Paula was the selfish one but in the end I was just as bad – worse. She was at least up front, honest, selfish, while I … I was sneaky and underhanded. I cheated you all, Harriet, may God forgive me!’
She raised her glass to drink, found it empty, and tossed her head back with a small strangled sob. Harriet crossed to the drinks cabinet, fetched the bottle and refilled both Sally’s glass and her own. She needed it – and would need more yet by the time this was over, if she was not much mistaken.
Sally was sitting on the very edge of one of the antique Sheraton chairs; Harriet fetched a pouffe and brought it over. She felt shaky yet oddly calm, like the eye of a storm.
‘I think you had better tell me the truth, Sally, don’t you?’
Sally’s face was almost in repose now as if she had faced the worst and survived. After all these years the ice was broken – from here on in all she could do was explain and hope Harriet would understand. But whether she did or not, it was almost a relief to share the secret she had borne alone for so long. No more lies, no more deception – Harriet, at least, would know her for what she was.
‘Where do you want me to begin?’ she asked.
Harriet sipped her drink, eyeing her steadily.
‘At the beginning.’
‘Very well,’ Sally acquiesced.
It was going to be a long night.
‘I came over to New York as soon as the news broke,’ Sally began. ‘Hugo – your father – telephoned me. He was in a dreadful state. At first he simply said that Paula had been on holiday with Greg when the accident happened but I could tell he was beside himself. I threw a few things for Mark and myself in a suitcase and booked us on the first available flight. I was in a state of shock myself as you can imagine and all I could think of was getting to Hugo – and to you. Family solidarity was the most important thing – we needed to be together, giving one another support. Then when I arrived Hugo told me the whole story. Paula had been having an affaire with Greg – she told him about it the night before she left. Naturally, he went crazy. He threw her out there and
then and told her he never wanted to see her again. She flew to Italy with Greg and the very next day they sailed from the marina in his yacht. Other people with boats there saw them go – alone. I already knew that much, of course. It had been in all the newspapers, along with reports of the explosion and as far as I was concerned at the time that was the whole story. Hugo was dreadfully upset, blaming himself, though that was quite ridiculous, and I agreed to stay in New York for a while at least to comfort him and to look after you.’ She paused, looking at Harriet. ‘At first that was honestly all it was. But then things began to get complicated. Because I fell in love.’
‘With Dad’, Harriet said softly.
Sally nodded. ‘Yes. I’d always thought him attractive, of course, and Paula a fool not to appreciate him. But in the aftermath of our grief we grew very close. He is a wonderful man, Harriet – but then I don’t need to tell you that – and he was grief-stricken. Whether he turned to me because I reminded him a little of Paula, whether it was simply because I was there, or whether even then it was something more, I don’t know. Things developed between us – too quickly, perhaps, but develop they did, and suddenly for the first time in my life I was not only deliriously happy with a man, but comfortable too.’
She paused, remembering the wonder she had felt when she had first realised Hugo returned her love. All her life she had felt inadequate, unworthy of love. Now, suddenly, here was a wonderful man who needed her. How long had it taken to reach this watershed? She did not know. But when the realisation came it had come suddenly, bowling her over with its intensity.
It had been late one night, she remembered. Hugo and she had been sitting in the garden together after the children were in bed when Hugo had suddenly buried his face in his hands, overcome by despair.
‘Where did I go wrong?’ he had asked, and she had gone to him, putting her arms around him.
‘You didn’t, Hugo. Believe me, it wasn’t your fault,’ she had comforted him. ‘Paula couldn’t help herself. She was always the same – it was just the way she was.’
‘But she was a sick woman, Sally. I knew it and I should have got help for her.’
‘Hugo, don’t torture yourself. I’m sure you did all you could.’
‘I did what I thought was best.’ She could feel his agony; it was almost tangible, running in waves through his body. ‘I thought I could make her love me but I couldn’t. That was my greatest failure.’
‘Paula wasn’t capable of loving anyone,’ Sally had said, stroking his hair. ‘She was beautiful and vivacious, but she couldn’t love.’
‘She loved Greg.’
‘I don’t think so.’ Sally had felt she was drawing on some deep truth. ‘ She was obsessed with him because she couldn’t have him. Paula always wanted what she couldn’t have.’
He had been silent for a moment, then he had turned his head into her breast like a child.
‘Oh, why couldn’t she have been more like you, Sally?’ It was a cry from the heart.
Sally had felt something sharp and sweet twist within her. For a long time they had remained motionless, she the comforter, he the soul in torment. Then, almost imperceptibly, the tiny shudders of awareness had begun. At first she had tried to suppress them, telling herself it was wrong to lust after her bereaved brother-in-law. But then as his head moved against her breast and his hand moved tentatively across her back she realised with something like wonder that she was not alone in these new stirrings. She pressed closer, all else forgotten in the sudden exultant joy in his nearness. He lifted his head from her breast and she slid down so that they were looking at one another, looking, just looking, their very souls naked in their eyes.
Even now, across the years, she remembered that moment so clearly – the scent of the roses hanging in the still-hot air, the muted sounds of the city, and Hugo, looking at her as no one had ever looked at her before.
‘Oh Sally.’ He sighed, a deep shuddering sigh and then his arms were around her, his lips on hers. ‘ Oh Sally, Sally, Sally …’
Their need was born of deep unsatisfied longings, they drew together like children of the storm and found a completeness neither had known existed. There in the garden, isolated on their island of grief and despair, a new love was born, and the heights and depths were all there at once so that it was potent and totally overwhelming. Without a word spoken they staggered into the house and up the stairs.
There was nothing of Paula in the bedroom. How could there have been? It had been Hugo’s alone for so long. But even if there had been Sally did not believe it would have made any difference. She loved him too desperately. Since Stuart there had been no one – she had not wanted anyone. Now there was Hugo and it was so wonderful that momentarily it blotted out all else from her mind.
Later, when she lay in his arms, she had begun to be afraid. Would he despise her? Had she provided him with simple release? But no. She was amazed and delighted to find that instead he treated her in the same courtly way he had treated Paula and which she had so envied. The total adoration was missing, of course. It was too early yet for that and perhaps that had been a blind, once-in-a-lifetime thing. There were still the times when she saw him staring into space with pain in his eyes but now there was no despair – that seemed to have gone – and she took pride and joy in feeling that it was she who had exorcised it.
As the weeks passed they had grown ever closer. Across the years the glow she had felt then warmed her and she wrapped her hands around her knees, remembering. Oh, it had been so wonderful – love and happiness and security all rolled into one. And she had basked in the security of love that transcended anything she had ever known before – the love of a man who would never let her down.
‘Sally?’ Harriet’s voice broke into her reverie and she looked up, a little bemused, as if coming back from a long way off.
‘Yes?’
‘You haven’t told me what happened. I’m sorry, but I must know.’
‘Yes. Yes, I suppose you must. Well, as I say, I fell in love with your father and I thought he had fallen in love with me. We had to be discreet, of course, people would have said it was too soon, indecent, but it really wasn’t like that. He didn’t love Paula any the less, I knew that, nothing we shared detracted from his love for her. But she was dead and I was alive – and he needed me. The summer came to an end and it was time for me to come back to England – Mark had to start a new term at infant school. I was dreading it! But Hugo asked me to stay. ‘‘I lost Paula, I couldn’t bear to lose you too,’’ he said. So of course I stayed. Well, why shouldn’t I? Hugo wanted me to, and you wanted me to. You were very unsettled by Paula’s disappearance though she had never paid that much attention to you; perhaps it was everyone else’s distress that communicated itself to you. Anyway, I could calm you when no-one else could and I didn’t want to leave you in the care of a succession of nannies, especially if your father sank into the depths of depression again. And Mark – well, it was good for Mark too. It hadn’t been easy bringing him up all alone with precious little money – there had been baby minders and day nurseries and later on he would either become a latch-key kid or have to go without all the little luxuries my wages could buy – and heaven knows, they were few enough! Here in the States he could enjoy all the benefits of an affluent home. And me? Well, as I already said, I was happier than I’d ever been in my life. Everything in the garden was rosy, you might say. And then came the bombshell.’
‘What?’ Harriet asked. Her chest felt tight, she could scarcely breathe.
‘A letter came – from Italy. It was addressed to your father but he was away, doing a trunk show, so I opened it. To this day I don’t know why I did it – I’m not in the habit of opening other people’s mail. But some sixth sense told me it was important. Do you know I felt physically sick as I opened that letter – as if I knew the bottom was about to drop out of my world.’
‘Was it from Mum?’ Harriet asked.
‘No – oh no. I’d have known her
writing. No, it was from a Sister Maria Theresa. Strange, isn’t it? That name is imprinted on my heart. I’ll never forget it. Sister Maria Theresa.’
‘Who was Sister Maria Theresa?’
‘A nun. She belonged to an order who ran a small hospital on a tiny island off Sicily. A very special sort of hospital, as a matter of fact.’
‘And …?’
‘The letter said that Paula was there. Not dead at all. Alive.’ She broke off. Her eyes had gone far away again, as if she were seeing it again for the very first time, that letter that had spelled the end of her new-found happiness.
It hadn’t been that simple, of course. There had been the first flood of joy that her sister was alive, together with something close to disbelief. But then realisation had dawned and with it a sinking feeling inside that she was ashamed of but could not stifle. If Paula was alive then Hugo was not free at all. Not legally and not emotionally either. Sally knew with a sick heart that whatever they had become to each other she could never compete with Paula. All the experiences of her youth had taught her she had never been anything but second best. No one had ever favoured her. Hugo, adoring Paula as he did, most certainly would not. She shivered now as she had shivered then, seeing her dreams crumbling to ashes, hating herself for the selfishness of her emotions and not being able to do a thing about it.
‘Sally?’ Harriet’s voice recalled her again. ‘What are you saying? That Mum had been injured in the explosion and was being cared for by nuns?’
‘Not injured, no. There was no mention of anything like that.’
‘Then what was she doing in hospital? And why didn’t anyone know she was there? This was – how long after the accident? A couple of months? Surely these nuns would have reported it to the authorities?’
‘It seems not. They didn’t know who she was.’
‘But the reports of the explosion must have been in all the newspapers.’
‘They didn’t have newspapers. It’s a very tiny island, remote and primitive, and they lived a totally isolated life.’ Harriet shook her head in disbelief.
