Jemima Shore at the Sunny Grave

by Antonia Fraser

  “Charlie Hopper! Last seen in Harry’s Bar in Venice!” Odd that those seemingly innocent words of international travelling snobbery could have destroyed Leila’s peace of mind for ever. It was some party at Belport Park in aid—as usual—of fund-raising for the Festival. Leila did not know the man concerned, a big man with receding brown curly hair and a well-cut suit which probably concealed rather too many years of good living. At Harry’s Bar, Venice, and elsewhere.

  Now Charlie had never, so far as Leila knew, been to Venice; the reason she thought she knew this was that La Fenice was one of those opera houses, described but never visited, which they had both yearned to see for themselves. The person who had been to Venice, many times, no doubt, but certainly very recently, was Magdalen Belport. In her generous way she had even brought Leila a present back—some elegant gold and glass beads. The necklace was intended, Magdalen said, as a thank you to Leila for all the hard work she had done in the run-up to the present Ballet Festival.

  At the word “Ballet” Leila had felt a moment’s genuine bewilderment. Surely even Magdalen …

  But Magdalen had quickly corrected herself. “Whoops, sweetie, opera. Trills not spills. It’s just that I’m on so many committees. You know the feeling.”

  Leila, who was on only one committee herself, smiled forgivingly and allowed Magdalen to fasten the beads around her neck. (What treachery that seemed! Leila had since smashed them to pieces.)

  “Harry’s Bar?” questioned Charlie; he was using his lying voice; Leila who loved him could tell immediately. “I don’t get it.”

  But Magdalen interrupted him. Unlike Charlie, she spoke rather too fast, as if concerned to override whatever Charlie might be going to say.

  “Venice!” she exclaimed. “Don’t you remember? We bumped into each other. There was that vast mass of people, all making a terrible noise, a lot of Italians, well, I suppose that was hardly surprising. You were alone. I was with a large party.”

  “Oh, Venice,” said Charlie after a pause as though he had somehow thought the conversation to be about quite another place, New York, Boston, Chicago (to name three cities he had recently visited). He gazed steadily at Magdalen, which meant of course that he avoided looking at Leila. “Harry’s Bar in Venice,” he repeated, still staring at Magdalen with that yearning intensity.

  Later that night, Leila was first of all informed by Charlie that he had only briefly visited Venice from Munich (where he also sometimes went on business en route from the United States) and had hardly thought it worthwhile mentioning to Leila. Then he changed his story. The truth was, he finally blurted out, after some hours of talk in which the subject never quite went away, that Magdalen Belport had asked him to escort her to an opera gala at La Fenice. She had been let down, she needed an escort—“You know what she’s like”—Charlie had been in Munich, they had been in touch over some matter to do with the Festival, he had flown down. There was nothing else to it. Absolutely nothing. And now would Leila stop all this and leave him in peace?

  Charlie Hopper closed the conversation at this point by going out of the room abruptly and slamming the door. But Leila saw by the light on the telephone that he went to make a call. It was a call that lasted some time. And when Charlie did come to bed, once again he turned away from his wife.

  The next morning all he said was, “I thought you might be jealous. Missing out on La Fenice. You can ask Magdalen if you like. Nothing else to it.”

  Jealous! It hardly seemed an adequate description of her bewildered feelings. Nor did she intend to raise the subject with Magdalen Belport. It was Magdalen who raised it with her, the next morning paying one of her rare visits to the Festival office. She used exactly the same phrase as Charlie had, Leila noticed.

  “An escort, darling. Nothing else to it.”

  “What was it?” asked Leila suddenly and, for her, very sharply, so that Magdalen opened her slanting cat’s eyes in astonishment.

  “The opera!” Leila almost shouted. “What opera did you go to?”

  But at this Magdalen merely smiled in her most feline lazy way. “Oh, darling, you don’t expect me to remember that. That’s your department. But I do know what I wore: grey satin blazer from St. Laurent, very pretty with paler grey crêpe trousers.”

  It was quite possible, thought Leila rather wearily, that Magdalen was actually speaking the truth.

  Then: “My lovely Countess.” It was those words, overheard twelve hours later, which finally convinced Leila that the unbelievable had to be believable: her adored Charlie had transferred all the passion of his nature to Magdalen Belport. And after that, of course, in a terrible brutal way, everything began to fit in. Charlie’s increasingly obvious desire to please Magdalen, for example, notably during the meetings of the Festival committee. His flattery of her taste, even her taste in opera and possible singers for the Festival … now that was really going too far. “My lovely Countess,” perhaps, but knowledgeable about opera never!

  There was one peculiarly humiliating incident which actually took place in the committee. Leila was as a matter of fact used to smoothing over Magdalen’s cultural gaffes—obviously not infrequent in a woman who could think Pavarotti was a bass on the grounds that he had a barrel-chest. She had brought it to a fine art—or so she thought. A quick change of subject, and a quick correction of the minutes afterwards, seemed to result in satisfaction all round.

  But now Magdalen insisted that La bohème was the story of a fun-loving courtesan called Violetta; one who went on a glorious spree to the country with her lover, and then came back, only to die of TB in his arms. And Charlie agreed with her! Leila could hardly believe her ears. For the first time she actually contradicted Magdalen, instead of merely altering the record.

  Maybe Leila’s voice did rise as she began: “You are thinking of La traviata, for heaven’s sake. Isn’t she, Charlie! In La bohème there are these students—”

  But that was no excuse for Magdalen to lean back delicately in the face of Leila’s passion and confide to Charlie, “I’ve always identified myself with Violetta. I adore doomed people, don’t you? That’s why La bohème is absolutely my favourite numero uno opera.” And still Charlie, Charlie of all people, did nothing.

  On stage the opera was almost over and the Count, a short fat man with none of Charlie’s handsome looks, was asking his wife to forgive him. “Contessa, perdona!”

  “I am kinder: I will say yes,” his wife responded in the rather better-looking incarnation of Emily Nissaki. It had always been one of the moving moments in Leila’s canon of opera. No longer. For Charlie Hopper (and Magdalen Belport) there was to be no forgiveness. Doomed people: yes, indeed. In a very short time the post-opera party would begin in the theatre bar. And a very short time after that Magdalen, Countess of Belport, would be dead.

  How convenient that Leila, as secretary of the committee, generally looked after the doling out of the patrons’ free drink! It was with special care that Leila handed the fatal glass to Charlie in order that he might—equally fatally—pass it on.

  “I’ve got something special for her. She really wants champagne, of course. But this is at least better than the usual plonk. Take it to her.”

  Then Leila could not resist adding—what madness over-took her when she had held her tongue for so long?—“Take it to your lovely Countess.”

  For a moment Charlie, now holding the glass, stood staring at Leila. His expression was one of total amazement, followed almost immediately by guilt.

  “She knows.” That was what his expression said to her, as clear as words. “She’s known all the time.”

  Leila’s own expression, which had been momentarily triumphant, changed to blandness.

  “Go on, darling, give it to her.” It was her usual polite, affectionate tone, the tone of an organizer who needs to make everyone happy. “Figaro is not exactly short. She must need it.”

  “She must indeed,” replied Charlie levelly, the amazement and the guilt by now well conceal
ed. He turned away. Leila followed the direction of his tall, black-dinner-jacketed figure, that formal guise which set off his fair English good looks to perfection. She watched Charlie edging his way through the crowd, polite, skilful, not spilling a drop. There he went, remorselessly towards the corner where Magdalen Belport, svelte as ever in one of her embroidered jackets which surely came direct from Christian Lacroix, held court. Despite the crowd which surrounded her, Magdalen Belport looked up to give Charlie a special intimate smile. Leila watched Charlie, holding her breath. Now, now, let him hold out the glass, let him perhaps kiss her on the cheek—for the last time—but let him at least hold out the glass, let his be the hand, let her drink from it—

  But wait—No, for God’s sake—

  “No!” screamed Leila involuntarily. She stopped. “No, Charlie, no,” she wanted to cry. “Not her …”

  It was too late. Already the wine was coursing down the throat of Emily Nissaki, that pampered throat soon to be closed and silent for ever in death, as she flung back her handsome head with its abundant coils of dark hair, the relic of her Greek ancestry, smiling her thanks with her bold black sloe eyes fixed on Charlie Hopper who had handed her the drink.

  Beside her, Magdalen, Countess of Belport, wondered when Charlie Hopper, or at least that hard-working, opera-mad wife of his, would bother to bring her a drink. After all she was the Chairman of the Festival. Hadn’t there been something about a special glass of wine? Yet Leila had been behaving so curiously lately, sulking really, she who had always been so grateful for everything. Could she possibly have found out about Charlie … Magdalen hoped to God she wasn’t planning to leave the Festival office or anything drastic like that. Leila was so clever, so inventive.

  So when was that special glass of wine coming? The plonk in the theatre bar was famously disgusting, poisonous one might almost say, even if that face the lead singer was now pulling was surely slightly over the top even for a dramatic soprano.

  The death of Emily Nissaki, popularly described as being on stage—the theatre bar was surely near enough to count as that—created a predictable sensation. There were those, it is true, who suggested that her macabre ending cast a false retrospective glamour on her actual talent. But then none of those critics had probably heard her sing in person: those few records so far released did not quite do her justice. These same critics had not, for example, as Charlie Hopper had done, ecstatically followed Emily Nissaki round American opera houses—and to Venice—throughout her brief career; following that first coup de foudre meeting with her in Chicago.

  Finally Charlie had secured, with some quiet manipulation, that “my lovely Countess” as he was wont to call her—a reference to that glorious night together following her performance in Figaro at La Fenice—should come to the Belport Festival. (Even if it had involved flattery beyond the call of duty to Magdalen Belport: still remarkable looking, if you like, and a good sort, but altogether too fond of making men into slaves. If Charlie was going to be a slave, it would be to an opera singer like Emily Nissaki, not to an idle rich woman.)

  To the rest of the spectators, the way in which Leila Hopper, shortly before confessing her crime, cried out, “The wrong Countess!” made no sense. She then quoted the general exclamation at the end of Figaro of “Heavens! What do I see?” “The wrong Countess!”: what could that mean? She had known, surely she had known, of Charlie’s affair with Emily Nissaki—otherwise why poison her?

  She must have known. It was Magdalen Belport for example who reported seeing Emily Nissaki and Charlie Hopper together in Venice.

  “Not that I told Leila,” Magdalen added quickly. “In fact after Geoffrey’s gaffe I tried like mad to cover up for Charlie by pretending he was alone; whereas of course he was hanging round the neck of that wretched singer, Emily Whatnot. And then I backed him up with Leila to the hilt. Some cock and bull story about going to the opera. As if one didn’t have better things to do in Venice! Absolutely to the hilt.”

  It was only Charlie himself, broken not only by the death of Emily but also by the part he had unwittingly played in it, who knew exactly what his wife had meant by her frantic cry of “The wrong Countess!” And her use of those words from Figaro confirmed it to him. “Heavens! What do I see?” exclaimed all those on stage when the “right” Countess finally stepped out of the alcove to reveal herself. (Not that he could ever tell Magdalen Belport, unaware both of Leila’s suspicions and of the peril which had threatened her.)

  “Take it to your lovely Countess”: how could Charlie have looked in any other direction than towards Emily Nissaki? And so in a sense Leila Hopper, self-confessed murderess Leila, did have her operatic revenge.

  Something about the way the woman twisted her rings, took one off, swapped it round with another, transferred rings from finger to finger, hand to hand, surveyed the result and then began the nervous twisting all over again, reminded me of Margaret. But these rings, so far as I could see, were not the gleaming diamond clusters, glinting ruby half-hoops, heavy sapphire globules with which Margaret had been wont to play. These were plain white rings, ivory rings at best, but more likely plastic, gold rings which were so clearly not made of precious metal that they reminded one disagreeably of curtain rings.

  The woman opposite me in the carnage continued to twist her rings. In that nervously repeated gesture was all the resemblance: for one thing this woman looked far older than Margaret must be now, last seen in all her pampered glory of fur and silk. However Margaret had aged—and she must of course have aged to some degree over the intervening years—she would have managed to age gracefully. And she could never have aged downhill as it were. I knew exactly the kind of old—or rather middle-aged—woman Margaret would have become; you see them sometimes at parties, fragile, elegant and protected, still candles for all the male moths while the younger beauties sulk at their unexpected neglect. This woman, in a blackish overcoat and dirty boots, was near to a tramp: what was more, there were bruises on her face.

  Then I looked again, at the woman still twisting her shoddy rings. I looked again and saw that the woman was Margaret. Margaret, my ex-wife.

  I will not deny that I experienced one short, savage pang of sheer pleasure. After that pity and pity alone overwhelmed me. Had Margaret remained as svelte and beautiful as she had been under my besotted care, I should certainly have felt very differently, experiencing neither the pleasure nor the pity. I might have felt a brief stab of pain for the past on first sighting her; after that I would have tried to escape from the encounter. Certainly I should have tried to escape if she had been accompanied by Jason.

  Jason: her second husband and my ex-partner, as I suppose I must call him. But I have never seen either of them following the divorce, I took care of that, and perhaps they did too; so to me he is still in my thoughts Jason, her lover and my partner. Just as she is still, somewhere in my thoughts, still Margaret, my Margaret and my wife. It was that thought which provoked the pity, that and her total physical degradation.

  The bruises—who? Surely Jason was not responsible. I had accused my partner—my ex-partner—of many things in my mind over the last twenty years, but violence or even a tendency towards violence was not amongst them. As for poverty, our business affairs were no longer linked as they had been, but even I knew enough to realize that Jason must remain an extremely rich man. Besides, this Margaret at whom I was gazing with pity was not only poor but had evidently been poor for some years. No sudden fall from wealth would account for the haggard, battered face, the cast-off clothing.

  At that moment, Margaret looked up. Her eyes, her once beautiful eyes, met mine. To my horror, I found that my own filled with tears. But Margaret herself gazed back without expression, merely continuing that twisting, that eternal twisting of the rings.

  “Meg,” I said.

  The woman, Margaret, said nothing in reply; her gaze was in fact quite vacant as though she had not recognized me. Of course I had not recognized her at first. But then I, I am we
ll preserved. Everyone says so. I have taken care of myself (having no one to take care of me). Or perhaps it would be more realistic to admit that I have always looked much as I do now, which is staid, middle-aged, and respectable. “Darling, you look like a man of 60 already,” had been one of Margaret’s favourite jibes. “Why can’t you go to a better tailor?” After a bit, I realized that this meant: why can’t you go to Jason’s tailor? And I stopped my pathetic, earnest attempts to please her sartorially. I think that cruel moment was when I knew that Margaret was going to leave me.

  I stood up and crossed the carriage. I touched the woman on the shoulder.

  “Margaret,” I said. “It’s me, Andrew.”

  Margaret looked up at me; her fingers at the rings were suddenly still. Then I saw the white stick lying beside her, previously hidden by her black coat.

  “Andrew?” she said rather doubtfully. “I thought I recognized your voice just now. But sometimes one hears voices. You know how it is.” Then with more energy she added, “You don’t know how it is.”

  “Meg,” I said tenderly, finding all the familiar protective yearning come back to me.

  “Oh, Andrew,” she cried suddenly, feeling up towards my arm and anchoring her hand upon it. “Andrew, help me.” It was a voice of pleading and need that she had never used in all the years of our marriage, the teasing, critical Margaret gone for ever. “Please will you help me? You don’t know what happened to me—”

  There and then in the carriage, I kissed her, stopped her speaking with my gentle kiss. There would be time for her to tell me these things. I held her bruised face in mine, marking how old she looked, the skin lined, the hair listless, and touched the hands adorned with their cheap rings, which had brought her back to me.