Another Woman’s Husband

by Gill Paul

  David’s accession as Edward VIII was proclaimed from the balcony at St James’s Palace the day after his father’s death, Wallis wrote in reply.

  There was a fanfare of gun salutes and trumpets playing the national anthem and the Garter King of Arms proclaiming in solemn tones while soldiers marched around. David is quiet and sad, as you would expect. Already he must spend hours each day on some mysterious red dispatch boxes containing notice of affairs of state. He does not enjoy it and I have to nag him to finish . . . My own company is even more in demand than before, with society hostesses clamouring to swear undying friendship, but I do not flatter myself that it has anything to do with whatever small charms I may possess.

  She did not address the question of where the accession might leave her, and Mary guessed she was as much in the dark as the rest of them. The letter finished: I hope he will be a modern king, who will update many of the ancient, outmoded customs of the institution he was born into. He could be a great monarch for this new era.

  Ernest wrote with some startling news in February, his tone matter-of-fact and the content anything but:

  The new King invited me to dine at York House last night. Wallis would not be there, he told me, so I decided this was the occasion on which we must clarify our mutual positions. Perhaps he had the same idea. I took my friend Bernie Rickatson-Hatt with me, as a witness of sorts. During the meal, conversation was all perfectly general, about politics and such like, but over the brandy and cigars I broached the subject on all our minds by asking about the King’s intentions towards my wife. ‘Do you plan to marry her?’ I asked, straight out. The King rose from his chair and said, ‘Do you really think I could be crowned without Wallis by my side?’ There was some toing and froing after which I said that if he would promise to look after her, then I was prepared to end my marriage.

  Mary’s first emotion was jubilation: Ernest would be free and they could be together. But almost immediately, this was tempered by doubts: what would Wallis say? Mary sensed she would be furious to have her fate decided by these two men without them so much as consulting her.

  The next letter she received from Wallis did not mention it. Are you still planning to visit in spring? she asked. I’m dying to see you. I must be in Paris in the last week of March for some dress fittings, but why not come at the very end of the month?

  It was going to be excruciating to see Wallis and Ernest together, but Mary reasoned that if she met him on his own first, it might be easier to come to terms with the situation, so she booked a crossing that arrived on 24 March. He met her at Waterloo, giving her a warm hug and a tender kiss before taking her arm to lead her to his car.

  ‘It’s wonderful to see you,’ he breathed, holding her hand and gazing at her. ‘I wish we could be together tonight, but I fear the servants at Bryanston Court would not prove as biddable as yours in Manhattan. One of them would be bound to let the cat out of the bag.’

  ‘I don’t mind,’ she said, although she was secretly disappointed. She longed to hold him in her arms, and had hoped he might visit her in the circular guest bed once the servants were asleep. But he was a gentleman of principle and would not be unfaithful to his wife in her own home.

  During Wallis’s absence they dined together, drank whisky – for which Mary had developed a taste – and talked every evening. Predictably, the subject often turned to Wallis and the King.

  ‘She doesn’t know of my conversation with Peter Pan,’ Ernest said. ‘There is a complication in that, as head of the Church of England, he is not supposed to marry a divorcee. But I am sure he will find a way around it.’

  ‘What about an heir?’

  Ernest shrugged. ‘To be frank, I think it is the least of his concerns. He just wants to be with Wallis. If they don’t have children, the succession will pass to his brother Bertie, and then to Bertie’s elder daughter Lilibet.’

  ‘Is that what Wallis wants? Have you asked her?’

  Ernest shook his head. ‘I told you: we never see each other on our own. She is the queen of London society and seldom spends an evening at Bryanston Court. There is no more KT hour here, because she mixes her KTs at York House. A lot has changed since your last visit.’

  Wallis arrived back in London on Saturday the 28th and swept into the drawing room in a haze of expensive perfume, stopping short when she saw Mary. ‘What a surprise! You’re here already. I was expecting you next week.’

  ‘Hello, Wallie.’ Mary rose to embrace her. ‘I got a cheap first-class berth on an earlier sailing. Of course I’d forgotten all about your trip to Paris. You look divine. Is that new?’

  Wallis was wearing a blue wool suit with chalk stripes and a matching trilby. It could have been a man’s office wear but for the tiny waist, the padded shoulders, the long slim skirt and the jaunty angle of the hat.

  ‘Charles Creed. I do like his tailoring.’ Wallis smoothed her skirt.

  ‘And that’s a stunning brooch.’ Three diamond-studded feathers curled out of a gold crown. ‘A gift from the King, perhaps?’

  ‘The Prince of Wales feathers,’ Wallis agreed. ‘I guess I should stop wearing it now he’s been promoted to the top job.’ She flung herself into a chair, removed her hat and kicked off her shoes. ‘Oh Mary, I hope you have brought your Baltimore common sense with you, because I am in a complete tizzy. My entire life is unmanageable. You will tell me what to do, won’t you?’

  ‘You might not like the answer,’ Mary teased.

  Wallis rang the bell set into the wall by her chair, and when a maid came she said, ‘Two martinis, please,’ and sighed heavily. ‘Thank God for alcohol. I swear it’s my only refuge.’

  She looked utterly worn out, and Mary felt a surge of compassion. ‘You need a vacation. Can’t you go away somewhere without the King, and have some time alone to contemplate your situation?’

  ‘He wouldn’t let me. It was all I could do to stop him following me to Paris this week.’

  Mary gave her a rueful smile. ‘Do you remember saying to me once that you weren’t lovable; that I was the lovable one of the pair of us? Well, it seems you’ve found someone who will love you to the ends of the earth and back.’

  ‘It’s not love.’ Wallis shook her head wearily. ‘It’s need. It’s obsession. He says he can’t live without me. He begs me to marry him twenty times a day and won’t take no for an answer.’

  ‘Do you love him?’ Mary scarcely dared ask, because the answer meant so much to her. It could change the entire course of her life, either setting Ernest free or keeping him from her for ever.

  Wallis didn’t answer straight away. The maid came in with their drinks, picked up Wallis’s shoes and hat, straightened some cushions and left again.

  Wallis took a sip of her martini, then put it down on the table. ‘I care about him a lot,’ she said. ‘But at the end of the day, I’m not sure if that’s enough.’

  Chapter 48

  Brighton, 13 December 1997

  BY MID DECEMBER, CHRISTMAS TRADE HAD GOT so busy in Forgotten Dreams that Rachel called Nicola and asked if she could come and help. On her own, she spent so long gift-wrapping purchases that customers had to queue to pay and she had no time to chat or offer advice. She felt a little uneasy around Nicola since finding the emails and realising she was meeting Alex on Friday evenings, but there was no one else she could ask.

  She eyed Nicola critically as she walked in and hung her parka on a hook.

  ‘How’s things?’ she asked.

  ‘Could be worse,’ Nicola said, sounding a bit flat. ‘I’m looking forward to your wedding.’

  ‘Have you found something to wear for it?’ Rachel asked. ‘You would suit that fifties silk dress.’ She picked it off a rail to show Nicola. It had a structured bust that would give her fabulous cleavage, and the silvery colour with a subtle blue-green floral pattern would look great with her dark colouring.

  ‘It’s gorgeous, but I can’t possibly afford it.’

  ‘Try it on! Borrow it if you
like,’ Rachel offered. ‘You seem tired. Did you go out last night?’ she asked, testing. Alex hadn’t arrived home till after ten and had been non-committal when she asked where he’d been.

  ‘I had a quick drink with a friend,’ Nicola said. Her back was to Rachel.

  ‘Anyone I know?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’ She was refolding some cardigans, tidying the shelf on which they were displayed. ‘We were talking about Diana. My friend says she had to have a virginity test before she got married. Do you think that could be true?’

  Rachel frowned. ‘A hymen test? I wouldn’t have thought so. There’s no infallible method of testing virginity.’

  ‘Diana had to be pure as a nun,’ Nicola continued. ‘Charles had to find someone young and innocent enough to be unravaged by masculine appendage.’

  ‘What a quaint phrase. Are you suggesting I should do this hymen test before my wedding?’ Rachel asked. ‘Because I’m afraid I’ve been ravaged by more masculine appendages than I can count.’

  ‘Do you mean Alex wasn’t the first?’ Nicola pretended shock. ‘Does he know?’

  ‘Feel free to tell him when you see him,’ Rachel replied. ‘I’d hate for him to enter matrimony under false pretences.’

  A customer came in to browse, then another, and soon Forgotten Dreams was teeming with Christmas shoppers. There was a queue for the curtained changing cubicle and the till rang with a gratifying regularity. Rachel and Nicola went out for lunch separately, and it was mid afternoon before there was a lull.

  ‘Did you know that a Catholic priest gave Diana the last rites?’ Nicola said, as if she’d been thinking about the subject since their earlier conversation broke off. ‘He was based near the hospital so they called him in the middle of the night when they couldn’t restart her heart. He sat with her for around four hours until Kensington Palace staff arrived on the first flight from London to prepare her body.’

  ‘How do you know all this stuff?’ Rachel asked, sure it must have come from Alex.

  ‘Oh, just reading, conversation . . . you know.’ Nicola waved an arm to indicate she had absorbed information from the universe. ‘I found that quite moving. Diana wasn’t Catholic, but I think she’d have appreciated it.’

  The image of the Princess in the oxygen mask came back to Rachel. ‘She was dead. She wouldn’t have heard any of it.’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Nicola shrugged. ‘They say hearing is the last sense to go. Maybe the ritualistic sound of the words would have been comforting.’

  Certainly more comforting than flashbulbs going off in your face, Rachel mused with a shiver.

  Back at the flat, Alex was on the telephone and just gave a brief wave to acknowledge her arrival. Rachel kicked off her heels and went to the kitchen to pour herself a large vodka and tonic. She held the first taste in her mouth, savouring the alcohol, then let it slide down her throat, warming and soothing. Her stockinged feet were sore from standing all day in what Alex would call ‘silly shoes’, so she gave them a rub while praying that it would be a peaceful evening. These last few days before their wedding should be a time of love and closeness rather than suspicion and irritability.

  There was nothing she felt like eating in the fridge, so she delved into a drawer and pulled out a handful of takeaway menus. The Chinese and pizza ones were rejected straight away, leaving Indian or Thai. She was keen on the Thai hot and sour soup known as tom yam and decided to have it with prawns.

  Through in the sitting room she placed the menu in front of Alex, a question in her expression. Still listening to someone on the end of the phone, he glanced at the menu and put a tick beside the green chicken curry. She used her mobile phone to place the order. When the first vodka was finished, she poured another and could feel the buzz as it went to her head. She wasn’t drunk: just mellow, chilled out. When she heard Alex finish his call, she took him a bottle of beer, clinking her glass against it in a wordless toast.

  ‘Twenty minutes for food, they said. How was your day?’

  ‘Busy,’ he replied. ‘I have to go up to London tomorrow, then over to Paris on Monday, just for a few hours.’

  ‘Oh no!’ Rachel cried. ‘Not again.’

  ‘It’s important,’ he insisted. ‘My researcher has managed to get a gardener at Villa Windsor to agree to talk about Diana. It has to be off-camera and he doesn’t want to be identified, but he was there when she visited and can tell us about it. But it can only be on Monday, which is his day off. The following week he’s going on leave for Christmas, and it will be too late after that because the programme will be edited. Don’t worry. I’ll fly back Monday night.’

  ‘I was hoping we could spend a peaceful weekend together.’ Rachel felt herself sway slightly and sat down. She was a lightweight when it came to alcohol and didn’t want Alex to guess she was on her second drink. ‘Never mind.’

  Something caught her eye: Alex had left a television industry magazine on the coffee table and the front cover showed a well-known actress wearing a lilac evening gown. She picked it up. The dress was a halter-neck, and it was worn with matching elbow-length gloves. It was her Lucien Lelong, the one that had been in the shop window. There couldn’t be another. She looked at the date on the magazine and saw it was a couple of weeks old.

  ‘Alex, that’s one of the dresses that was stolen from my shop!’

  He glanced at the magazine. ‘Are you sure? Couldn’t it be another one the same?’

  She flicked through to read the story inside, which was about a 1920s drama currently being shot by Gazelle Films, the company whose intern had approached her back in October. There were some black-and-white shots accompanying the story and Rachel picked out a satin coat with a black velvet collar and cuffs and a deep border trim that had also been hers. There was no question.

  ‘These are definitely mine. It’s too much of a coincidence. I’m calling the police,’ she said, reaching for the phone.

  ‘Hang on a minute,’ Alex said, taking the magazine from her, running his eyes over the story. ‘I know Ben, the head of Gazelle Films. Let me give him a ring. We can ask him where he got the costumes and give him a chance to explain. If you get the police involved, they might confiscate his entire wardrobe and it will hold up filming. Maybe he’ll make you an offer instead.’

  ‘I can’t do that,’ Rachel argued, shocked that he would suggest it. ‘I’d be breaking the law. I reported these as stolen, and accepting a backhander not to mention that they’ve turned up again would be a criminal offence.’

  ‘Why are you always so squeaky clean?’ Alex scoffed. ‘Ben will be furious with me if his filming’s delayed and he hears I could have prevented it. Try to think of my point of view for a change.’

  Rachel felt her temper rising. ‘What do you mean, “for a change”? I do nothing but try to understand your point of view, but I notice it’s never reciprocated. You’ve been totally unsupportive while I’ve been struggling to rescue my business.’

  ‘That’s not true. I offered to help financially but you turned me down flat.’

  Rachel continued: ‘That magazine is two weeks old. You knew that dress, you must have seen it dozens of times in my window, yet you didn’t think to point it out.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I don’t have a photographic memory of your stock. I’m a man, remember?’

  Rachel couldn’t stop now she had started: ‘We haven’t talked properly for ages, and you’ve been grumpy and horrid to me for weeks.’

  Alex shifted away from her, folded his arms. ‘If anything has come between us recently, it’s your attitude to my programme. How do you think I feel when you dismiss it as opportunist and sensational? Is that what you secretly think of all my work? That I jump on bandwagons and rush out populist nonsense? I’ve found your opinions really hurtful, to be frank.’

  ‘I’m sorry if that’s how it’s come across.’ She frowned. She couldn’t think straight. How had he switched the argument away from her burglary?

  ‘It’s OK. I’ll su
rvive.’ His tone was sarcastic.

  ‘Perhaps I should be more supportive, but you should support me too. You never ask how the business is doing.’

  ‘That’s because I have faith in you. You’re good at your job. I know your new stock is selling well because Nicola told me.’ His expression was unemotional.

  ‘When did you see Nicola?’ Jealousy buzzed in her chest and she took a swig of vodka.

  ‘I had a drink with her last night when I got off the train. That’s allowed, isn’t it?’ He eyed her defiantly.

  ‘I knew it!’ Rachel cried. ‘Why did she lie to me about it? I asked her who she’d been out with and she said it was a friend I didn’t know. Is there something I should be told about?’

  Alex was irritated. ‘Oh for God’s sake, don’t be pathetic. I’ve got no idea why she didn’t tell you. You’d have to ask her.’

  ‘You’re talking to her more than you talk to me, it seems.’

  ‘Perhaps that’s because she’s not on my case the whole time. She’s interested in what I’m doing, not constantly looking for things to criticise.’ She saw his glance flicker to his notebook, as if he had just remembered something. Even now she didn’t have his full attention.

  The conversation wasn’t going the way Rachel wanted, but she pressed on. ‘There are all kinds of things in my life you know nothing about.’

  Alex took a swig of beer. ‘OK, tell me,’ he said, without warmth.

  It came out in a rush: ‘I thought I was pregnant but it turns out I’m not.’

  ‘How long did you think you were pregnant?’ he asked, showing no emotion.

  ‘Just a few days. I wanted to tell you but you were too busy. Then my period came, over a week late.’

  Alex nodded, as if that confirmed something. ‘So you’re hormonal and you’re clearly drunk. What do you want me to do about it?’

  Suddenly Rachel felt a wave of anger well up inside her. ‘Just sod off to Paris!’ she yelled. ‘What do I care anyway?’

  She stormed out of the room and threw herself face-down on the bed, waiting for Alex to come after her. He didn’t appear. She heard the doorbell ring as the takeaway was delivered, but he didn’t call her and, childishly, she didn’t want to be the one to back down. She wasn’t hungry anyway.