by Gill Paul
‘Diana was an extraordinary woman,’ Susie said. ‘But I suppose you’re ringing about setting a date to come over and clear some cupboards?’
‘I could use more stock, so it would really help me.’
‘And I could use some cash. Let me find my diary.’ She put the phone down and there was silence, punctuated by the sound of footsteps crossing a wooden floor.
Rachel tried to decide whether to mention Alex’s documentary. At least it would prove to him that she was supportive of his career, even if Susie dismissed the idea out of hand.
When Susie picked up the phone again, Rachel ventured: ‘I don’t know if I mentioned that my partner, Alex, is a documentary maker? He’s making a programme about Diana and I wondered if you would consider speaking to him.’ There was silence on the line. ‘Of course I’ll completely understand if you don’t want to. Sorry, just thought I’d mention it.’
When Susie spoke, her tone was cool. ‘Have him fax through some information about his programme and I’ll consider it.’ She gave the fax number and Rachel jotted it down on the corner of a page in her accounts book.
‘Thanks, Susie. And when do you want me to come to the house?’
‘I’ll get back to you,’ she said, and hung up without saying goodbye.
Chapter 29
Brighton, 16 October 1997
ALEX WAS DELIGHTED THAT RACHEL HAD ASKED Susie about appearing in his documentary, but she was furious with herself, and deep down she felt cross with him for putting her in that position. It had been crass to mention it, and when days went by without any word, it looked as though it might have cost her a much-needed client.
Rachel began spending her mornings touring charity shops and antique markets in the wealthier districts of the south-east and only opening Forgotten Dreams at lunchtime. Each week she found a few saleable items, but trade remained slow and her fears mounted that she wouldn’t be able to pay the rent at the end of October. Her only hope now was getting approval for the new credit card and withdrawing cash from it.
She still dreamed about Diana some nights and woke with a mixture of anxiety and guilt that coloured her mood for the day. She often thought about the Princess’s sons and wondered how they were coping with the unthinkable loss. One was fifteen, the other twelve, she had read: old enough to comprehend the tragedy but too young to have any kind of adult perspective on it. Alex had been twelve when his mother died suddenly of a stroke. He had found her lying on the floor when he got home from school and had rung for an ambulance, but they couldn’t save her.
When Rachel asked him about that period, early in their relationship, he told her he had a week off school before the funeral but was glad to return straight afterwards because it was ghastly being stuck in the house with his grieving dad. There were reminders everywhere of the loss: the empty chair at breakfast, her cosmetics in the bathroom, her coat in the hall. His father carried on, not dealing with practicalities for months on end.
At school, the teachers were unusually kind and Alex took advantage. He didn’t get pulled up for skipping lessons, so he took to hiding in the bike shed having a fag with some older boys instead of doing double maths. When he tipped his lunch over a lad who was annoying him, they said it must have been an accident and there was no punishment.
‘The sudden lack of boundaries was scary,’ he said. ‘As if I could do anything and no one would stop me. I felt as if I was floating and rootless, that nothing mattered any more. I wasn’t suicidal but I remember thinking it wouldn’t matter if I died too. Death can come to any of us at any time, so why worry about it? Does that make sense?’
She hugged him, her heart aching for the lost little boy he had been. ‘What got you through it?’
He gazed out of the window before answering. ‘I just shut Mum out of my head. It sounds cruel, but it was my way of coping. Then Wendy came on the scene, doing all the things that mums do – laundry, giving me lunch money – and I thought, “That’s all right then.” It wasn’t until I was in my twenties that I allowed myself to think about my real mum again. By then the memories were distant and felt more manageable.’
Rachel wondered if Diana’s boys were going through something similar. And she wondered if Alex’s current volatility was because the parallels reminded him of that period in his own life. If so, he probably wasn’t even aware of it.
She suddenly realised she had never seen a photo of Alex’s mum, had no idea what she looked like. A thought popped into her head. She was driving out to Arundel one evening later that week to discuss the cake with Wendy. She could ask to see a photo of his mum then. Maybe if there was a particularly nice one she could blow it up and frame it as a wedding present from her.
‘We don’t have any prints,’ Wendy told her as they sat at the kitchen table over mugs of Nescafé. A few undissolved granules floated on top of Rachel’s coffee. ‘Alex’s dad had a camera that produced slides, so we’ve got a boxful of them and a little slide viewer. You’re welcome to borrow them if you like. I think it’s a lovely idea to give him a framed photo.’
She fetched the cardboard box, along with an old-fashioned grey plastic viewer. You slotted a slide in at the side and viewed it on the screen. There was little Alex posing in navy swimming trunks with a medal he had clearly just won, his ribs sticking out and his grin displaying a missing front tooth; by a riverbank proudly holding a tiny fish while wearing some wide flared jeans and a dodgy patterned shirt; hanging on grimly as he rode a donkey at an English seaside resort. The colours had an old-fashioned magenta tint.
‘Isn’t he cute?’ Rachel laughed. ‘He looks so happy. And cheeky.’
None of the slides had captions and lots showed people and scenes that neither she nor Wendy could identify.
‘That’s his mum,’ Wendy said when they came to a shot of a blonde woman in a high-waisted 1960s bikini wearing huge Jackie Kennedy sunglasses. She was holding up her palm in a ‘Don’t photograph me’ gesture but laughing at the same time.
‘She looks very chic,’ Rachel commented.
‘Yes, I believe she was,’ Wendy agreed, obviously without any sense of insecurity about her own lack of interest in clothes. ‘Feel free to borrow all the slides and have a look through. Now, shall I show you my idea for the cake?’
She shyly produced a picture she had found in a bridal magazine of a 1930s-style wedding cake. It was in three tiers, with festoons of pearls made of white icing around the sides and a spray of real orchids on top.
‘I picked this one because I know the thirties is your favourite era, but if you don’t like it, we can look for another.’
Rachel was stunned. She leaned across, grabbed Wendy and kissed her on the cheek. ‘You genius! I am the fussiest person in the world, but this is perfect. It’s simple and classic. I love it.’
Wendy grinned, clearly delighted. ‘Oh good. I had an inkling you would.’
When he arrived home from Paris that Friday evening, Alex was whistling, his mood transformed. He produced a parcel wrapped in tissue paper from his case and kissed Rachel on the lips before handing it over. ‘I saw this and thought you might like it. If not, you can sell it in the shop.’
She opened the paper to find a forest-green velvet turban with a paste brooch of pale green and amber stones on the front.
‘It’s gorgeous,’ she remarked, looking inside for a label. ‘Lanvin – wow!’ She rushed to the hall mirror to try it on, tucking her short hair underneath except for a few tufts at the forehead. ‘What a wonderful present. Thank you, darling.’ She modelled it for him, then threw her arms round him. ‘What did I do to deserve this?’
‘Glad you like it. You’ve given me a present too, as it turns out. Susie Hargreaves has agreed to talk and we’re going to film her next Tuesday. She suggested you might like to come. Said you could pick up more clothes.’
‘I was sure she would refuse.’ Rachel was delighted to hear that Susie was still prepared to do business with her, but alarmed by the prospect of th
e interview.
Alex flicked on the television, as he invariably did when he got home these days. ‘I used the old charm . . . and money seemed to be a factor. She drove a hard bargain.’
‘But she’s so protective of Diana!’
Alex turned to her, frowning. ‘And you think I’m going to trash her. Is that it?’
‘No, of course not . . .’
He was defensive now. ‘If I were Diana’s friend and I suspected she’d been murdered, I’d be happy to help anyone investigating her death. The French police seem to have decided on day one that it was a drink-drive accident and are not exploring any other possibilities.’
Rachel went to the fridge to get him a beer, flipping the top off the bottle, then poured herself a vodka and tonic in her edelweiss glass. When she returned, she asked: ‘Does Susie think Diana was murdered?’
‘Thanks.’ Alex took a sip of the beer. ‘I haven’t asked. She thinks we’re going to talk about Diana’s charity work – they were on some committee together. I’ll warm her up gently and ask about the crash later.’
‘So basically you’ve tricked her into agreeing?’ Rachel was alarmed. She pulled the turban from her head and laid it on the table. There was a price tag on the back: 180 francs. Not bad if it was a Lanvin original, she noted; far too much for a replica.
‘She didn’t place any areas out of bounds. She knows what the media are interested in – and she needs the money.’
He turned up the sound as the news headlines were read out: the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh were planning celebrations for their fiftieth wedding anniversary the following month. It seemed awfully soon after Diana’s death for the royal family to be celebrating anything. Rachel wondered if she and Alex would ever get to their fiftieth anniversary: if they did, she’d be eighty-eight and he’d be eighty-nine. What kind of old people would they be? Crotchety ones, if the current atmosphere was anything to go by.
Chapter 30
London, 13 June 1931
MARY WAS KEEN TO SEARCH FOR THE TOMB OF A Kirk ancestor in Westminster Abbey, so one Saturday afternoon, while Wallis was at a dress fitting, Ernest took her there in his yellow Lagonda motor car. As they entered through the Great West Door, she got goose bumps all over and felt for a second as if she couldn’t breathe.
‘I had no idea it was so big . . . so magnificent,’ she exclaimed, then immediately felt embarrassed. Of course it would be: all the British kings and queens had been crowned there since 1066, and many were entombed there.
Ernest was amused. ‘We know how to do pomp and ceremonial in England; it’s our speciality.’
As he led her around, he pointed out the cobweb-like fan vaulting in the Henry VII Chapel, the French-style tracery on the rose windows and the tall, slender proportions of the building. They stopped at Poets’ Corner, examining the memorials to writers from Chaucer and Dryden through to Dickens and Mary’s compatriot Henry James. They wandered for hours, not managing to find her ancestor but enjoying every moment.
Since Mary had shown such interest in the history of the monarchy, on 6 June Ernest arranged for the three of them to watch the Trooping of the Colour from private windows at the Admiralty, which offered a perfect view. First there was the procession of King George V and Queen Mary in state coaches, then Mary was enthralled as they inspected the troops in their dress uniforms glittering with gold.
‘All this could be yours, Mary,’ Wallis teased. ‘Just think . . .’ She turned to Ernest. ‘Mary was crazy about the Prince of Wales when we were at school.’
‘Mary is still a married woman, dear. I don’t think it’s our place to be matchmaking for her,’ Ernest rebuked.
Mary had told Ernest about the problems in her marriage when they were on their own one evening. She liked the fact that he had not offered advice, had merely listened and sympathised. Wallis, on the other hand, was adamant that she should get divorced and find a new husband as soon as possible: preferably one hand-picked by her.
June flew by in a flurry of engagements and visits and Mary barely had time to think about Jacques. Wallis asked her to help pick some new furniture for Bryanston Court and they spent hours wandering round Heal’s department store on Tottenham Court Road, sitting on four-poster beds to test their comfort and looking at the new Bauhaus chair designs of Mies van der Rohe made in chrome and leather.
‘Very stylish,’ Mary said, trying one, ‘but not entirely comfortable. I like more padding.’
‘Look at this.’ Wallis waved her over to an old-fashioned dressing table in rococo style. ‘I’ve seen these before,’ she said. ‘Watch.’
She slipped her gloved hand along the coving on the left underside of the dresser top until she triggered a hidden mechanism and a drawer sprang out. It was about six inches long by four wide and two deep, but when Mary pressed it back in there was no sign of it. You’d never have guessed it was there.
‘How clever!’ she remarked. ‘But whatever would one keep in it?’
‘Secrets, of course,’ Wallis said. ‘Everyone has secrets. Even you, Mary.’
Mary laughed, but the word did not have positive connotations for her. She thought of the syphilis Jacques had given her, and the wartime memories he would never talk about. Secrets were seldom good in her experience.
Wallis and Ernest made her feel so welcome that she began to consider whether she might move to London after the divorce and lease an apartment close to Bryanston Court. She got on equally well with both of them, sharing Ernest’s intellectual interests and Wallis’s love of sparkling conversation. Would they feel she was encroaching on their territory? She was sure they wouldn’t.
And then one evening, as she left the guest room to join them for dinner, she heard them through the open door of the drawing room.
‘Could you bring me a drink, darling?’ Wallis asked, then there was the clink of a glass and the murmur of Ernest’s voice before Wallis continued: ‘Where’s the house pest?’
Mary stopped dead in the hallway.
‘Stop that!’ Ernest snapped in a whisper. ‘She might hear you.’
There was a sotto voce discussion. Mary felt herself flush scarlet. She turned and tiptoed to the bathroom, locking the door behind her, then perched on the edge of the bath, blood pounding in her ears.
Could Wallis have meant someone else? No. It had to be her. She was the house pest. She’d had absolutely no indication that she was outstaying her welcome. Did Ernest feel the same way? It was a horrible thought. She was so hurt, she felt like packing her trunk and leaving that very evening, but then they would know she had overheard. Instead, she decided to plead homesickness and bring forward the date of her return sailing.
She splashed some cool water on her cheeks, refreshed her lipstick, then took a deep breath before walking through to join her hosts, deliberately coughing so they would hear her approach.
‘You can’t possibly leave early,’ Ernest protested, seeming completely sincere. ‘I was planning to take you to Canterbury Cathedral this weekend. And then we are going to Paris next week, and you absolutely must see Paris.’
‘Oh yes, do come to Paris, Mary,’ Wallis pleaded. ‘We can visit the fashion houses and see what’s new for fall.’
Mary couldn’t bring herself to look either of them in the face. She argued that she felt it was time for her to resolve matters with Jacques, but Wallis replied: ‘What’s another ten days? Come to Paris and you can change your sailing to leave from Cherbourg when I head down to the Côte d’Azur.’ She was joining friends for a holiday in the South of France, while Ernest returned to London to work.
Their arguments were determined and their desire for her to stay seemed genuine, so Mary allowed herself to be persuaded. But in bed that night, when she thought of Wallis’s casual words, two tears of humiliation trickled down her cheeks and the hurt nagged like a shard of broken glass in her heart.
As if they sensed her emotional withdrawal, both Ernest and Wallis showered Mary with generosity during her la
st days in London. Nothing was too much trouble, and both stressed how much they had enjoyed her visit and how strongly they hoped she would return soon. Guilty consciences, she thought to herself.
On arrival in Paris, she was pleased she had let herself be persuaded to come as soon as she saw the wide tree-lined boulevards, the iconic Eiffel Tower, and the bouquinistes selling antiquarian books on the banks of the Seine, where Ernest was soon lost in a world of his own. Mary had never been to the country of Jacques’ birth, and she enjoyed hearing the language spoken all around, and sitting in street cafés with a large bowl of milky coffee and a type of pastry they called a croissant.
On their second day there they were invited to the apartment of Gloria Vanderbilt for a very pleasant luncheon. Gloria was the twin of Thelma Furness and had the same darkly exotic looks. Her seven-year-old daughter, also named Gloria, was there, and Mary enjoyed chatting to the girl, asking the names of her dolls and admiring their hand-stitched clothes.
As the three of them left the apartment, they stepped out to cross the street, Mary slightly ahead. Suddenly there was a screech of tyres, a shout, and Mary saw a speeding taxicab heading straight towards her. She had no time to leap out of its path, no time to react, before there was a thump and she was tossed into the air and landed in the gutter.
Isn’t it strange I feel no pain? she thought, just before she lost consciousness.
Chapter 31
Paris, 2 July 1931
MARY FELT A SENSE OF MOTION AND OPENED HER eyes a fraction. There was a man she didn’t recognise wearing a sort of uniform. That was odd. She was lying in some kind of moving vehicle. She rolled to the left as it turned a corner, and realised someone was holding her hand, clutching it tight. She opened her eyes further.
‘Oh Mary, my God, I thought you were dead,’ Wallis cried. Tears were rolling unchecked down her cheeks. ‘Please don’t die.’
