The Decision

by Penny Vincenzi

  ‘I will not kiss you, or we will be here forever. I love you, I love you, dear Gentleman Jeremy, and – and goodbye. Thank you for loving me.’

  And she was gone, swiftly, shutting the bedroom door after her, not even looking back; and he heard the front door slam, and she was gone, out of his flat, out of his bed, out of his life, and he turned back into the bed, and buried his face in the sheets that still bore her perfume and her imprint and the sweet, raw smell of sex with her, and he saw a hair, a long dark hair, and realised it was all he had left of her, and buried his face into his pillow and wept as he had not done since he was a small, small boy, shuddering, desperate sobs; and thought how hard it was, this grief, born as it had been from sheer joy, the joy hardly out of its infancy, that there could be no comfort for it from anyone, for who, knowing the circumstances, would think they had any right to it? And yet it was as harsh and as cruel as one born of bereavement, perhaps harsher in its own way, for they were without one another, longing for and needing one another, while knowing with the touch of a phone, a scribble on a page, they could be together again. And yet could not.

  And then finally, exhausted, he got up and showered and dressed in one of his hundreds of beautiful shirts and one of his dozens of beautiful suits and drank a strong cup of coffee and walked all the way to Carlos Place, blind and deaf to everything, and pushed through the doors of the agency which was still blessedly empty and went up to his office and stood staring at it as if he had never seen it before.

  And then the day began, and he went through it, a smiling, charming automaton, so filled with grief and loneliness he had no real idea what he was doing; and no one, no one at all, could have begun to guess the depth of his misery and how his life seemed utterly devoid of any kind of purpose whatsoever.

  Chapter 62

  It was over. That bit at least. The whole thing seemed like a dream now, walking with Philip Gordon into that vast Victorian Gothic building with its great wrought-iron gates that she had seen a hundred times, on the news and in corny old films. She followed Philip and his pretty, posh assistant, Sarah, into the huge cathedral-like atrium, with alcoves on either side where people huddled, having clearly urgent conferences, and barristers berobed and bewigged strode about looking important. Nobody seemed to be smiling. Rather curiously, large glass cases contained life-size models of judges and Lord Chief Justices down the centuries, dressed in the requisite wigs and robes. It was all totally – what? Terrifying. That was about it.

  A glass-fronted, double-sided noticeboard stood just inside the cathedral entrance, with details of the day’s cases; and there it was, pinned up, Court number 31, Mr Justice Harris, Shaw vs Shaw. That was her; and how had that happened, that her marriage, her really rather amazing marriage, entered into with such happiness and love and hope, had become Shaw vs Shaw and sent into Court number 31 to be dismembered by Mr Justice Harris? She felt her eyes fill – God, she must stop weeping all the time, it was pathetic – brushed the tears impatiently away, got out a hanky and heard a crisp voice, ‘No bogies, please!’ and there was Toby Gilmour, not quite smiling, looking oddly older and more important in his gown and his wig.

  ‘All right?’ he said and she nodded and managed to smile. ‘Good. We’re lucky in Harris, nice old chap, quite benign. Pity we won’t have him next time. He’d be ideal. Still – you OK?’

  She nodded.

  ‘Good. The others are here, upstairs already. We’ve got a bit of time, want to see round?’

  She shook her head; it seemed a bleak suggestion.

  She followed them up a large stone curving staircase – everything seemed to be stone or marble – which opened onto a wide balcony overlooking the huge, empty space; ‘this is one of the few places you can actually have a meeting,’ said Philip, ‘you see people balancing enormous files containing millions of pounds’ worth of information on windowsills or this balustrade; there’s one windowsill if you get there early enough which is pole position, it’s actually got a seat and somewhere to put your files, only we’re too late. Which doesn’t matter, because we don’t need to have a meeting.’

  He smiled at her and she managed to smile back; they were both being so nice, she thought, working so hard at cheering her up …

  They seemed to know everyone; they were constantly stopping to say good morning to people and ask them how they were. Her main emotion, apart from terror, was a sort of astonishment at this strange new world she found herself in, so different from anything she had ever known, so cold and muffled and restrained, and she could have been in another country altogether; and yet outside, just beyond the gates, was Fleet Street, noisy, drunken, gossipy Fleet Street, one of the places she knew and loved best in the world.

  They stood there for a while and then, ‘Might as well go along,’ said Toby Gilmour, ‘my pupil is meeting us there,’ and she followed them again down a long corridor with a vaulted ceiling and panelled walls, with doors leading into the individual courts. ‘This is where the family courts are – and look, there are the rooms for the Lord Chief Justice – and oh, yes, there they are, outside Court 31, your husband and his cohorts.’

  Her husband; again she thought, he’s my husband but now he’s also Shaw and I’m Shaw and we’re versus one another and how and why …

  ‘Morning,’ said a rather large, bruteish-looking man to Philip, who smiled graciously and said, ‘Good morning, Mr Lewis. You know Toby Gilmour, of course?’

  ‘Yes, morning, good to see you.’ He nodded to Eliza, held out his hand. ‘Ivor Lewis.’

  ‘Good morning,’ said Eliza. Her own voice sounded very clear and firm to her; she felt relieved. She’d been afraid it would wobble.

  ‘This is my assistant, Maureen Gunn. And our QC, Sir Bruce Hayward,’ said Ivor Lewis.

  Bruce Hayward clearly considered himself far too important to speak; he looked disdainfully at them all. He was much older than Gilmour; probably about as old as Tristram Selbourne, Eliza thought, approaching sixty, but taller, thinner and much less fruity.

  ‘And you two don’t need any introductions, of course,’ said Ivor Lewis, clearly with an attempt at humour, indicating Matt rather awkwardly. Matt managed something approaching a smile. Eliza stared back blankly. And thought, two hours ago, we were in the same house, having baths, cleaning our teeth, making tea …

  ‘Ah,’ said Philip, ‘here comes the judge now. Good morning, your honour.’

  Mr Justice Harris acknowledged this with a gruff ‘morning’ and an inclination of his head, and swept into the courtroom followed by his minions. And closed the door.

  ‘Now we wait,’ said Gilmour, ‘shouldn’t be long.’

  And then they were in there, and it was even more like a film set with Mr Justice Harris sitting on his bench, beneath a lion and a unicorn carved in wood – it was all wood in here, no longer stone and marble, with every inch of wall, it seemed, covered in books – and some rather lovely art nouveau hanging lamps, Eliza noticed, surprised that such a thing should even impinge on her consciousness.

  She and Matt and their legal teams sat on benches below him, and sundry important-looking people bustled about, clerks, she supposed, and a typist who settled herself immediately under the bench.

  Mr Justice Harris had a rich but almost quavery voice, a long pale face and an oddly sweet smile – when it showed. He looked over the courtroom and all the people in it, a sweeping, interested survey …

  ‘Very well,’ he said, ‘let us begin.’

  It was over in less than an hour; Mr Justice Harris listened courteously to what was put before him, occasionally with a sharp glance at whoever was speaking, and once or twice at Matt or Eliza, and then opined that it would be a whole week’s case and that they would need at least six weeks to have it in shape as he put it. ‘You will be required to have all your witness statements, medical reports you may want to rely on, documents, letters lodged in a month’s time. Your solicitors will then prepare your case. So I suggest the first week in July for th
e hearing commencing on, let me see, Monday the fifth and that date will be in the court diary and cannot change. I hope that is clear.’

  There was a murmur of ‘Yes, My Lord’, and then the clerk of the court told them to rise and Mr Justice Harris swept out, without a further glance at any of them.

  ‘Come along,’ whispered Philip Gordon, taking Eliza’s arm, and she looked at him, slightly bewildered, feeling she wasn’t quite sure who he was, or indeed who she was, and they left the courtroom ahead of the others, and found themselves suddenly and rather wonderfully out of the building and into the sunshine, by way of a side entrance, and thence into New Square.

  Eliza’s legs suddenly felt rather weak and she sank gratefully onto one of the seats and looked at the four of them, who were all looking at her in various degrees of anxiety, and said, ‘Oh, dear.’

  And Matt, having refused the offer of lunch and its attendant postmortem with his legal team, and loathing the air of complacency draped almost visibly around them, said he had to get back to the office and went and picked up his car from where he had left it in Covent Garden and drove very fast out of town, quite where he had no idea, merely struggling to escape from the demons which had attached themselves to him so firmly in the courtroom that morning; he bought himself a couple of beers and parked in the gateway of a field, and sat there for a long time, drinking and thinking; and then, as the long afternoon became evening, he turned the car back towards the city, while wondering slightly desperately where he might find further distraction.

  The person who would have done that most effectively, of course, was on her way to Summercourt with her mother; Gina, he knew, would be waiting for him, with food, drink, the sympathy that was beginning to enrage him, and the ongoing offer of sex; and Louise had told him if he wanted to drop by she would be in and pleased to see him.

  They both waited, and for a long time; but he did not come to either of them, merely phoning briefly to say he was tired and going home.

  And he walked into the silent house, filled as it still was with the ghosts of happiness and laughter, and sat with only the whisky bottle for company and wondered at the folly of both of them, him and Eliza, that they had thrown that happiness so wilfully and stubbornly away, and what, if anything could have halted them before it was too late. Which it now so indubitably was.

  Chapter 63

  ‘Scarlett, this is Persephone. I would like to see you, as soon as possible. And please don’t tell Mark.’

  Oh, God. This was it. Mark had told her they were engaged, and she was obviously displeased. He had been very quiet when he got back from the interview, and refused to say anything, except that yes, it had gone fine.

  ‘And did you tell her we wanted to be married on Trisos?’

  ‘Yes, of course. And it was fine.’

  ‘And did you ask about writing the – the—’

  ‘Epithalamium? Yes.’ An epithalamium, it transpired, was a poem celebrating a marriage.

  ‘And is she going to do it?’

  ‘Yes, I think so.’

  It was like being back with the Mark Frost she had first met. And he stayed with them for several days. And now …

  ‘Ah, there you are. Lovely flowers but actually next time, I’d rather have chocolates. If you don’t mind.’

  ‘Oh, all right.’

  ‘Dorothy, put these things in water, would you? And bring us some tea.’

  Scarlett sat silent. She had obviously fallen far from favour.

  ‘Cake?’

  ‘No, thank you.’

  ‘You should eat more. You’re very thin.’

  ‘I like being thin,’ said Scarlett firmly.

  ‘Very well. If you think you look better that way.’

  ‘I do.’

  She was beginning to get the measure of Mrs Frost. She was a bully and you dealt with bullies by facing them down. But …

  ‘Now, I’m not going to tell you I’m pleased about this marriage because I’m not.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘Not particularly, at any rate.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Oh, you’re a very nice girl, and I like you very much. But—’

  It would be hard for her to say that Scarlett wasn’t Mark’s intellectual equal. But she probably would.

  ‘But you are simply not Mark’s intellectual equal.’

  ‘Mrs Frost—’

  ‘Persephone.’

  ‘I’d rather call you Mrs Frost for the time being. If you don’t mind.’

  ‘Please yourself. And do go on.’

  ‘No, you go on. Tell me why that means I shouldn’t marry him.’

  ‘Oh, my dear girl, it’s so obvious. That you ask that question proves what a mistake it would be. I’m sure everything is hunky-dory now. Lots of lovey-dovey talk, lots of sex, lots of excitement.’

  ‘Yes, that describes it pretty well.’

  ‘But in the years to come, then what, eh? When you’ve stopped gazing into one another’s eyes and so on, what are you going to talk about?’

  ‘What we talk about now, I expect,’ said Scarlett.

  ‘And that is? Certainly not the subjects that truly interest him.’

  ‘Which are?’

  ‘Oh, my dear girl, if you have to ask that’s extremely indicative.’

  ‘Of what?’

  ‘Of the yawning chasm between you.’

  Scarlett digested this for a moment; felt the tears rising; crushed them; and said, quite quietly, ‘You must excuse me, Mrs Frost. I don’t have all afternoon, I have a business to run.’

  She saw herself out; as she passed through the hall she saw Dorothy hovering in a doorway, and could have sworn she saw an expression of approval on her pinched, pale face, and even the shadow of a smile.

  Safely in a café about half a mile down Kingsway, she burst into tears; the proprietor, a sentimental old Italian, insisted on supplying her with a cappuccino laced with sugar for free, patted her hand and told her she was bella, bella, bella. It didn’t exactly solve Scarlett’s problem, but it made her feel better for a while at least.

  Just the same, and in spite of her rage and indignation, she knew Mrs Frost was actually right; and when Mark rang her that night, she said she was very sorry, but she had a lot of work to do, and that it would probably extend into the next evening as well; clearly hurt, he said he would wait to hear from her, he wouldn’t bother her again. And maybe, she thought, it would be better for both of them if neither of them ever bothered the other again; and that Mrs Frost did after all know him a great better than she did and that she was perfectly justified in her claim that she Scarlett was not Mark’s intellectual equal by a very long way. And that was – arguably – no basis for a marriage. Or certainly not a happy one.

  The roller-coaster ride went on and on. A particularly interesting one it was turning out to be, Philip Gordon thought. Matt’s sister was going to appear for Eliza; that must have been a big blow for him. It would shatter his confidence, surely; at this stage of the game, that was good. And then Eliza reported he had an erstwhile business partner appearing for him. ‘I thought she hated him. And what does she know about his parenting skills? Weird.’

  It was, a little.

  A brief note, in her unmistakably foreign-looking writing:

  ‘Giovanni is coming to London when I come to be a witness for Eliza and he has suggested you join us at the opera on the Wednesday night. Please, please tell him you are to be away, I could not bear to see you. M.’

  Jeremy read this through eyes blurred with tears. And understood and felt the same and told Lucilla he wanted to make a trip to New York the week of Eliza’s custody case.

  ‘Jeremy, you can’t. I’m sorry. It’s the week of the European conference, you know it is, and all the CEOs are coming to London, it’s been in the diary for months. I’ve fixed meetings, dinners, the opera—’

  ‘The opera? Which night?’

  ‘The Wednesday. Jeremy, you can’t have forgotten, it’s Travi
ata, oh, dear, you’re so tired aren’t you, you need a break so badly. Why don’t I clear the diary for the following week, and book you into that hotel on St Bart’s you like so much?’ Lucilla’s large brown eyes looked at him with concern; he managed to smile at her.

  ‘No, no, don’t worry, I don’t want to go then, too hot. I might take myself down to Norfolk though, that week, if you could see your way to facilitating that. Bless you, darling.’

  Now how in God’s name did he tell Mariella? He could hardly write. And he had to warn her, say when he would be at the opera house. Maybe, maybe – yes, the one person in the world he could trust …

  ‘Oh, Jeremy, darling, darling Jeremy, I’m so sorry. How sad, how dreadfully, dreadfully sad. For both of you. I can’t imagine how much it must hurt.’

  ‘Unbearably,’ said Jeremy with a heavy sigh.

  ‘Oh, God, what a tragic story. And also a wonderfully romantic one. But of course you would be too good to let it go on. I think Mariella might just manage it, she’s not used to sacrifice.’

  ‘She’s been marvellous,’ said Jeremy, swiftly defensive of his love. ‘So wonderfully brave.’

  ‘Sorry, and yes, I’m sure she has. God, it’s an operatic plot in itself. Yes, of course I’ll write to her, I’ll be terribly discreet, I’ll wrap it all up in fashion gossip and I’ll just say you’ll be at the opera house on the Wednesday and you asked me to tell her. She’ll understand and then she can ring me if she wants. Poor Jeremy. You look so tired.’

  ‘I am tired,’ he said. ‘Unhappiness is very exhausting. I’ve never known it before.’

  ‘Not even when I broke off our engagement?’

  ‘My darling, I’m afraid not. This seems to be my first experience of love. I hope that doesn’t offend you.’

  ‘Of course not,’ said Eliza, giving him a kiss.

  Four days later came a phone call from a distraught Mariella to Eliza. ‘Please, please tell Jeremy, that is the night we too are going to the opera. Tell him I beg him not to come.’