The Decision

by Penny Vincenzi

  But her bladder grew more and more excruciating. She felt quite desperate. And then she looked at the window; although her room was on the first floor at the front of the house, it had been built into the hill at the back and was more or less at ground level. She could climb out easily.

  She opened the window cautiously and looked out; absolute silence and stillness. She slithered out and ran gratefully to the nearest bougainvillea bush … although why she was looking for shelter she had no idea, there was no one to see her. Probably because there was a full moon and it was light as day, she felt very exposed. She pulled down her pants and …

  ‘What on earth are you doing?’ It was Mark Frost.

  It was such an utterly ridiculous question that she giggled.

  ‘Well,’ she said, after completing her task, standing up, and pulling up her pants again, ‘you’ve got to guess. Do you think I was (a) writing a letter, (b) sunbathing, or (c) having a pee?’

  And then she felt stricken at having laughed at him. ‘Sorry, that was very rude of me, I’m so sorry, Mark,’ and turned and walked back towards the open window.

  And decided that the more dignified option was to walk round to the front of the house and go in the front door. And set off at a brisk pace to do exactly that.

  At which point she felt a hand on her shoulder, and turned, and he said, clearly trying not to laugh himself, ‘If you’re going in that way, Scarlett, I think you should pull your skirt down. It’s tucked into your – your knickers. Just thought you ought to know.’

  ‘Oh,’ she said, desperate now to regain a little dignity, and fumbled with her skirt; and then something extremely unexpected happened and he said, ‘Here, let me help,’ and she felt his hand smoothing out her skirt, pulling it out of her knickers and setting it straight; and then he said, ‘Let me escort you to the door,’ in a very formal voice.

  ‘No, no, it’s fine,’ she said, ‘I can see, it’s very light. It’s the moon I suppose.’

  ‘I suppose it must be,’ he said politely; and she thought there I go, saying another stupid thing, he must think I’m half-witted.

  There was a silence and she stood there, not knowing whether to move or not now and he suddenly said, ‘Since things can’t possibly get any worse …’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, since you’re in love with someone else, and you refused my invitation to dinner and you’re dashing away from the island the minute I get here and you dislike me so much—’

  ‘Mark—’

  ‘I would just like to say I think you look very beautiful in the moonlight.’ There was a pause and then, ‘And also that you have an extraordinarily attractive bottom.’

  ‘Oh,’ she said, and then, taking a deep breath, ‘oh, Mark no, no, you are quite wrong and things could get much, much worse.’

  ‘In what way?’ he asked and followed it with a sigh of some magnitude.

  ‘I might never see you again, that would be much worse, and since you’ve been brave enough to compliment me in that rather personal way, I want to tell you, that I am not in love with anyone else, and I wanted to accept your invitation to dinner more than anything I can remember, and I don’t want to leave the island tomorrow or indeed for as long as you are here, and the thing is I thought that you were married and—’

  ‘Married!’ he exclaimed, staring at her. ‘What one earth made you think that?’

  ‘Well—well, you see, I thought that this Mrs Frost I kept hearing about was your wife. Not your mother. Dumb, that’s me.’

  ‘Oh, Miss Scarlett,’ he said, very slowly, ‘that is so, so stupid. Wonderfully, brilliantly stupid. Come here and let me kiss you.’

  And she stood there, being kissed by him and thinking however shy he might be, he had certainly managed to learn how to kiss, on and on it went, and Larissa, glancing out, saw them and called Demetrios over and indicated the pair in the moonlight and said whatever ‘I told you so’ was in Greek, and how clever she had been to know that if they could only keep Miss Scarlett on the island until Mr Frost arrived, it would work its magic and all would be very well.

  Chapter 52

  Marriages do not suddenly drop dead; they expire slowly, from a thousand cutting words, a million misunderstandings, from an unwillingness to apologise to a willingness to take revenge. There is a dawning, slow at first then gathering pace, that things are not as they were and moreover not as they should be, that responses are not what is hoped for, that disappointment is more frequent than delight, that resentment is more persistent than forgiveness, all remarked upon and brooded over and then stored angrily away. Desire dies, affection withers, trust becomes a memory.

  But there has to be a catalyst, a final piece of havoc, that sees the whole edifice finally crumbling, that makes forgiveness unthinkable and happiness finally an impossible memory; but it is still the rot beneath that makes for that final collapse.

  For Matt and Eliza, struggling along in savage resentment and outraged despair, aware of the hopelessness but fearful of the alternative, and lost for what to do, the end when it came was shockingly swift.

  Eliza was watching The Magic Roundabout with Emmie when the door opened and Matt walked in. He nodded at her briefly, bent and kissed Emmie.

  ‘How’s my best girl?’

  ‘Fine, thank you,’ said Emmie without looking at him.

  ‘You’re home early,’ said Eliza, tentatively.

  ‘Yes, I’ve come to pack.’

  ‘Pack! Where are you going?’

  ‘To Manchester for a couple of days.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘A conference.’

  ‘You didn’t tell me,’ she said, struggling to sound friendly and interested. ‘What sort of conference?’

  ‘A property development conference. I didn’t think it would interest you, given your contempt for what I do. Anyway, I must get on if you’ll excuse me, I’m going up on the sleeper.’

  ‘What, tonight?’

  ‘Yes, tonight. And therefore I have to pack. Unless of course you’d like to do it for me. But I imagine you’re too busy.’

  Eliza turned away without saying any more; she felt the usual surge of anger. Matt could go away at literally a moment’s notice, without warning, without the need to make any arrangements, leaving her on her own. Not that that made any real difference, she reflected; she might as well be living in the house without him for all the contact there was between them. But she was not able to even contemplate two days away to do her work. It was so unfair. So totally unfair.

  ‘Mummy! Mummy, look, I can jump like Zebedee, watch …’

  It was bound to happen sooner or later of course: the world in which they moved, Louise and Matt, was not a large one. Nevertheless, confronted by his name placed next to hers at the table at an awards ceremony, Louise felt momentarily panicked, unsure of what either of them might say or do.

  She was as usual the only woman; she was just shaking out her napkin when she saw him approaching the table, but too engrossed in conversation with someone to have seen her. By the time he had sat down himself, he had realised his escape was impossible.

  ‘Hello,’ she said, trying to achieve eye contact and failing, as he reached for his glass of water without looking at her, ‘fancy seeing you here. Small world.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said shortly. ‘Very.’

  ‘How are you?’

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘How is that building in the City going?’

  ‘Very well, thanks.’

  Louise turned to her neighbour on her other side; he couldn’t be worse, she thought.

  Ten minutes of appallingly patronising conversation later, she discovered she was wrong. Donald Miller was the managing director of a cement company, and asked her how it was working for Roderick Brownlow, ‘with, not for, we’re joint managing directors’, how it was going, ‘pretty well, third hotel going up now, on the Bayswater Road, on the edge of Hyde Park’, and told her how nice it was to have a lady at s
uch luncheons. He finally managed to flick a small splodge of prawn cocktail off his fork and onto Louise’s blouse; he turned a violent puce.

  ‘Oh, I am so sorry, Louise, may I call you Louise, what my wife would say I dare not think. Here, let me help.’

  He started dabbing at her shirt with his napkin; the stain was perilously near her bosom. She tried to smile. ‘Please don’t worry.’

  ‘No, no, I insist, here, let me call a waiter, see if we can get some water and—’

  ‘Here.’ It was Matt’s voice; he was proffering his napkin, dipped in his water glass. ‘This should help’. She took it gratefully and dabbed at the stain.

  ‘It’s great to see you again, Louise,’ he said then, deliberately loud, ‘and I’m very interested in how the new hotel is coming on. Will it be ready for the summer tourist trade?’

  ‘I’m afraid not,’ she said, surprised he should ask such a thing, when the hotel had hardly begun its construction; and then realised he was smiling at her.

  ‘Thank you,’ she hissed, giving him back his napkin and turned, relieved, away from Donald Miller, ‘thank you so much.’

  ‘It’s OK. I thought you deserved a break. I must be getting soft in my old age. Seriously, how is the hotel coming on? Ready for next spring, I suppose. That’s a very good site.’

  ‘Yes, hopefully. I had a rival for it, you must have heard.’

  ‘I did. I was pleased you won.’

  ‘Thanks.’ It was – actually – nice to see him; she smiled at him.

  ‘How are things with you, Matt? Apart from your new City skyscraper?’

  ‘Oh – pretty good, yes. Increasingly hard to find sites for redevelopment now, as you must know. Only thing that’s safe is office development. All these grants for improving old places. Absurdly generous, they are, the government, with taxpayers’ money, all those bloody do-good councils. It’s certainly changing London all over again. You find posh people in the most unlikely places. Like Islington.’

  ‘Yes. Or even Fulham … How – how is Eliza?’

  ‘She’s all right,’ he said shortly.

  Not a good time to discuss the return to work that she’d heard about then.

  ‘And Emmie?’

  ‘Emmie’s fine. Doing very well at school. And I’ve got her a pony, down at Summercourt, she loves him, loves riding. Very good at it.’

  ‘Really? I was so sorry about that piece in the News,’ she said suddenly. It seemed best to come out with it, rather than let it lie between them. And while he was being friendly. ‘I hope you didn’t think it was anything to do with me.’

  ‘I have to say it crossed my mind,’ he said. ‘But then I decided it wasn’t your style.’

  ‘No, no, it wasn’t.’

  ‘Well – blood on the tracks, I suppose. How’s Roderick?’

  ‘He’s OK. Very good to work with. How’s Barry?’

  She hardly thought about him these days; that was revenge of a kind in itself. To be able to dismiss him so easily.

  ‘He’s all right. Louise – I’m – sorry you were so upset about – about the partnership.’

  Not that he hadn’t offered it to her; just that she had been upset. But – that was quite something. For Matt, a huge olive branch. A whole tree in fact.

  ‘Well – also blood on the tracks.’

  ‘Yes, indeed.’ He sighed. ‘There’s a lot of it about.’

  ‘What – blood? On the tracks?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  He didn’t enlarge upon it; and in any case, the interminable speeches prior to the presentation of the interminable awards had begun. Matt was presenting one of them; he did it rather well, she thought. As soon as he had sat down again, he leaned towards her and kissed her briefly on the cheek.

  ‘Got to cut and run. Mind you behave now and don’t run off with Mr Miller.’

  ‘I won’t. Nice to see you, Matt, I’m pleased we’re friends again.’

  ‘Yes, me too. Bye, Louise.’

  She looked after him as he wove his way across the room. There had been something different about him. Still touchy, still argumentative; a bit down, clearly. But – as well as that? He seemed less arrogant. Less sure of himself. Yes, that was it. Interesting.

  ‘Rex, hi. Lovely to see you. Rob said you were coming in. He won’t be long, he’s stuck in the dining room with a prospective new client. He’ll be in a terrible mood when he does get out, I warn you, presentation started at nine this morning, and then lunch—’

  ‘Isn’t he quite often in a terrible mood?’ said Rex.

  ‘Yes, I suppose so.’ She grinned at him. ‘I’m just good at dodging them.’

  ‘Yes, I heard you and he were great buddies.’

  ‘Did you now?’ said Eliza, not sure whether to be pleased. The last thing she wanted was rumours going round London about her and Rob Brigstocke. If Matt heard anything like that …

  ‘Yeah. Don’t look so alarmed, nothing unseemly. Just that you’re two minds with a single thought. Anyway, you enjoying it here?’

  ‘Oh, Rex, I love it so much. It’s heaven. After all those years mopping up mess, and dealing with temper tantrums.’

  ‘Sounds a bit like a creative department,’ said Rex, laughing. ‘It’s really nice to see you, Eliza.’

  He grinned at her; he was very sweet, she thought. ‘Eliza,’ said Rob’s secretary, putting her head round the door, ‘message from Rob. He’s going to be at least another thirty effing minutes, his words not mine, so why don’t you and Rex go out and have a coffee or something and come back in forty-five?’

  ‘OK,’ said Eliza, ‘we will. Thanks. Come on, Rex, licence to play.’

  ‘I don’t know about you,’ he said, ‘but I rather fancy a drink. Bit more fun than coffee.’

  They walked down to Browns Hotel, ordered a bottle of champagne.

  ‘You should come with us, you know, it’s going to be fun. You know we’re shooting near Balmoral, we’ve found the perfect spot, on the moors, with the castle in the background.’

  ‘Yes, of course I know,’ she said gloomily.

  ‘It’s going to be a gas. And only two nights. Why not?’

  ‘Oh – Matt wouldn’t let me.’

  ‘What? Am I hearing this right? Christ, Eliza, hasn’t he heard of women’s rights?’

  ‘He calls them women’s wrongs.’

  ‘Things not good between you and Matt?’

  ‘Yes, of course they are.’

  He shrugged. ‘OK. It’s nothing to do with me. But I don’t believe you.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Eliza, I can remember how you were when we were all starting out. When you were at Charisma, just an assistant, but still so sure of yourself, what you wanted, even when you were taking sessions for Fiona and should have been completely out of your depth. You were brilliant, Eliza, we all thought so. We still do.’

  Eliza suddenly wanted to cry. She knew why; he had brought her back to those heady days when she had been happy, sure of herself, successful, when they had all been so young and she had first been with Matt and he had seemed so utterly sexy and totally what she wanted, and it had all been so perfect and exciting and wonderful. Where had that gone, where where where?

  ‘Hi, you two. Is that a private party or can anyone join in?’ It was Rob; he sat down beside them and took Eliza’s glass of champagne and drained it. ‘Mmm, nice, let’s get another of those. We can have our meeting here. Now then, Rex, have you managed to talk Eliza into coming to Scotland with us next week?’

  ‘Actually,’ said Eliza, and it was as if someone else was speaking for her suddenly, ‘actually, yes, he has. I’ve decided to come.’

  Chapter 53

  The sun was very warm up on the moor. Surprisingly so. Eliza pulled off her sweater and lolled back, leaning on her elbows. The sky was intensely blue, the view all around breathtaking, a vast wooded valley, the mountains beyond still topped with snow. There was a constant sound of running water from endless small streams, and far, f
ar above, curlews wheeled and cried. Balmoral lay half-hidden in the trees.

  ‘Wine?’ said Rob Brigstocke.

  They were all there on the Scottish moor, having a picnic, Rob, Rex, the twin models, Hugh Wallace and her. The shoot was going well; the polaroids looked wonderful. There had been a slight problem, when they’d realised that the twins couldn’t be roller skating with the castle behind them, sunk in the valley as it was, but they’d got some great shots of them whizzing down the track laughing, past a bemused looking trio of Highland cattle who had most conveniently placed themselves on the verge; Eliza had thought Rob would have a coronary with excitement when they ambled into view.

  ‘Jesus fucking Christ,’ he yelled, ‘Rex, Rex, get over here, quick and you two, Pinky and Perky, it’s you I’m talking to, OK, concentrate, that’s what you’re paid for, get in the truck, Hugh, you drive them twenty yards up and then, girls, jump out and just skate down towards us, past them. And don’t fuck it up, those animals won’t wait around for a reshoot.’

  The twins, aristocratic creatures whose real names were Hattie and Tilly, didn’t seem to mind the rather unflattering nicknames Rob had bestowed upon them or the insults he threw at them constantly.

  After the cattle had removed themselves, they had found a field full of sheep, and a local farmworker, as bemused as the cattle, but anxious to oblige. He had corralled a couple of rams and showed the girls how to hold them by their horns and stand astride them – ‘that looks fucking brilliant,’ yelled Rex, ‘hold it, hold it’ – and then drove his Land Rover truck along the track, with the girls standing up, laughing in the back, amidst a crowd of sheep.

  ‘We’ve done well,’ said Rob, reaching for a sandwich, ‘three fantastic shots already, and it’s only lunchtime. Well done, girls.’

  ‘We still haven’t got the shot the client’s expecting,’ said Hugh Wallace gloomily. ‘The one with Bamoral behind the girls.’

  ‘Oh, shut up, you miserable old bugger,’ said Rob, ‘these shots are far better than that, far more original. Just stop fussing, Wallace, the client is going to be over the moon when he sees these. But we’ll do the boring old Balmoral thing as well, don’t worry. OK, come on, let’s get moving again, before the light goes. Eliza, can we have the red kilts now, and I think those funny spat things you found …’