‘I missed you too. Have you had fun?’
‘Well – a bit. There’s this boy in the village, he’s shown me how to make a shooter.’
‘A shooter?’ said Francesca. ‘What sort of shooter?’
‘Well, you have a sort of stick thing, and some elastic, and then you can shoot stones with it. It’s really good.’
‘Oh I see,’ said Francesca faintly. ‘How’s Kitty, where’s Nanny?’
‘Oh, stupid as ever,’ said Jack, ‘she – ’
‘I’m here, Mrs Channing.’ Nanny had appeared, pushing Kitty in the buggy. Kitty waved her small arms and beamed at her mother. ‘I watch Jack from behind the hedge, so I don’t get too wet. I am quite near enough at hand to see he’s safe, I wouldn’t wish you to think he was in any danger.’
‘No, Nanny, I wouldn’t think that. Anyway, they both look really well. Kitty’s all right, is she?’ she added, reminded of the ever-present spectre of Kitty’s health as the baby sneezed lightly.
‘Perfectly all right, Mrs Channing,’ said Nanny, clearly resenting the implication that something might have gone wrong with Kitty while she was in her care.
‘Good. Now look, I’m staying here tonight and then tomorrow I’m taking them down to Devon.’
‘To Devon!’ said Nanny. ‘With the children!’ Her tone implied that Sodom and Gomorrah might have been more suitable locations. ‘Why Devon, Mrs Channing, is there a reason?’
‘Well, my mother is there,’ said Francesca lightly, ‘and I want to see her.’
‘I see. But surely you can’t be thinking of taking them on your own?’
‘All on my own, Nanny. I won’t be needing you for a few days. You can have a little holiday.’
‘Yeah!’ said Jack, punching the air.
That night Liam phoned.
‘Are you OK?’
‘Yes. Yes, I’m fine. Thank you. Thank you for everything. I think I’d have really gone off my trolley this morning without you.’
‘You did come off it. For a moment or two.’
‘Yes. I know. So thank you.’
‘Well, you know. I’m always here. Waiting.’
‘Yes.’ She smiled. ‘I’m sorry there’s been so much waiting.’
‘It’s all right. It was worth it in the end. Wasn’t it?’
His voice was very intense suddenly, stirring emotions, memories in her; physically disturbing memories.
‘Yes,’ she said quietly, ‘yes it was. Liam – ’
‘Yes?’
‘Liam, you never talked to Sandie about – about us, did you?’
‘Sandie? Of course not. Don’t be absurd.’
‘Oh – well, apparently she said something to Kirsten. It was she who told Bard, incidentally.’
‘Kirsten! Little cow. How dare she, I’ve a very good mind to – ’ ‘Liam don’t. She’s desperately sorry. And she had the guts to come and see me about it. She’s just a silly, mixed-up girl. Anyway, she has her own problems at the moment. And besides, he had to find out sooner or later.’
‘Maybe.’
‘You haven’t heard from Bard, have you?’
‘No. Not a thing. I suppose he’s just given up on us both.’
‘Oh – ’ She found that hurtful; she had expected, perversely almost wanted, Bard to create total havoc about it. ‘Well – ’
‘Look,’ said Liam, ‘I know I said it all this morning. But you really cannot – must not – do what he asked. It’s an appalling thing for him to do, he couldn’t possibly really care about you and place you in that position. I can’t believe it, quite honestly, even of him. It’s horrific. Dreadful.’
‘Liam, you won’t – ’
‘Won’t what?’
‘Well – I shouldn’t have told you. It was so wrong of me. It was just that I – well, I was so upset. But I am worried about it. About telling you. I shouldn’t have said anything.’
‘Darling! What do you think I’m going to do? Tell the newspapers?’
‘Oh don’t,’ said Francesca with a shudder.
Lido’s was a fairly flash bar, it was a sunny evening, and most people were sitting outside. There was man sitting alone in corner, drinking what looked like whisky, who Gray thought was probably Tyson: he was middle aged, grey haired, and wearing the regulation tan and blazer of the Jersey rich. He went over to him.
‘Jeffrey Tyson? Graydon Townsend.’
‘Yeah, sure. Come and sit down. Shelley said you might be along. What will you have?’
‘No, no, let me,’ said Gray.
‘OK. Bourbon. Thanks. You enjoying Jersey?’
‘Very much,’ said Gray untruthfully, ‘but it’s a bit of a flying visit. I’m in the restaurant trade, and I thought I’d take a busman’s holiday, check this place out.’
‘And? Any recommendations?’
‘Oh – several, yes. I had a very good lunch at the Central, and – ’
‘Good.’ Tyson was clearly bored by the discussion already. ‘How long are you here for?’
‘Oh – till Thursday morning. Then I have to get back. Have you lived here long?’
‘About twenty years. It gets a hold on you in the end. St Helier’s a bit of a non-event, but the north coast is beautiful, you should take a look at it, if you haven’t already.’
‘How much time do you spend here?’
‘Oh – about two thirds of the year. The rest of it I’m travelling round the world. Seeing to my businesses.’
‘Which are – ?’
‘Chemists. Got a chain of them. All over the UK and Europe. Tough market these days, you have to be into everything from jewellery to aromatherapy and all that nonsense. But I get by.’ He grinned at Graydon. ‘So what do you really want?’
Gray was startled. ‘Sorry?’
‘Come on, Mr Townsend. I do read the newspapers, you know. And your name’s pretty big in the financial pages of your paper. Is this a sneak interview or what?’
‘Sorry,’ said Graydon. ‘Pretty silly really. I should have realised.’
‘Yes, you should have. But I won’t hold it against you. Anyway, I’d do anything for Shelley. She’s a lovely girl. Except tell you the island’s secrets. Which are many.’
The drinks arrived. He raised his glass. ‘Cheers. Thanks.’
‘Cheers,’ said Graydon. He felt completely poleaxed, incapable of saying anything. Tyson looked at him thoughtfully.
‘Look,’ he said, ‘we don’t have to continue with this at all. Or we can talk about the weather, or the financial situation in general, I don’t give a shit. It’s quite nice for me to have someone new to chat to here. It gets a bit incestuous after a bit. Or you can just go back to your hotel. But you might as well ask me whatever it is you want to know, and get it out of the way. It won’t do any harm.’
‘OK,’ said Graydon slowly, ‘I’ll ask you. Do you know a man called Bard Channing?’
‘Yes, I’ve met him,’ said Tyson. ‘We had a tangle over a property, as a matter of fact. Oh, about ten years ago. He won. Clever chap. I’ve been following his decline and fall in the papers. Bloody shame. It’s that government of yours that’s to blame, of course. Criminal incompetence.’
‘Yes, well, I have some sympathy with that view myself,’ said Gray, ‘but I don’t think they’re going to reach out much of a hand to him, or indeed any of the other businessmen they’re crucifying with such vigour at the moment.’
‘ ’Fraid not. Anyway, I’ve never seen him here, if that’s what you want to know. Or heard any talk of him.’
‘No?’ said Gray. He could feel his stomach churning into panic again. Christ, he’d got himself into a mess.
‘No. And that’s the truth. Mind you, I’d deny it if I knew, or even thought, he did have any business, any dealings here, but as it happens, I can tell you hand on heart that he doesn’t. I have never heard a whiff of the man. You’re wasting your time. Got it wrong. Sorry. Do you play poker?’
‘No,’ said Gray.
‘Pit
y. Got a game tonight. That’s how we pass the odd evening here. We’re not allowed a casino, you know, they’re afraid we’ll lose all our money, so poker’s the nearest to gambling we can get. Oh well. Look, have another of those, will you, and tell me if you think this damn recession’s ever going to end …’
Fate, thought Gray miserably, as he made his way back to the doubtful refuge of the Deux Jardins, did not seem to be on his side, and his own faith in his hunch was beginning to fade. He had no doubt that Tyson had been telling the truth. Probably the best thing he could do was cut back to London tomorrow, with his tail between his legs. He’d try and change his flight first thing in the morning.
As he waited for his key, he looked idly at the rack of leaflets on the desk; he picked out one that said ‘Go Flying’ and promised trial flights in a four-seater aircraft round the island. Gray often said he’d had more trial flights than most people had had flights; he had taken them at small airfields all over the country. It was a perfect way of looking over an area, the instructors were always relaxed, uncomplicated and fun, and – most relevantly, he felt, contemplating his sinking spirits – he usually found the experience exhilarating. If he couldn’t change his flight, he’d do one next day.
Rachel was waiting for Francesca and the children with Mary at the big gates when they arrived next morning. Mary smiled at them, went round to peer in the car.
‘Baby,’ she said, pointing at Kitty in her seat.
‘Yes,’ said Francesca, lifting Kitty out. ‘She’s called Kitty.’
‘Like a cat. I can take her,’ said Mary, holding out her arms. ‘Show her to Mother.’
‘Well, I don’t know …’ said Francesca. She hated appearing in any way awkward with Mary, but she was afraid she might drop Kitty.
‘Put her in her buggy,’ said Rachel quickly, ‘and then, Mary, you can push the baby.’
‘If you run with her,’ said Jack, who had been studying Mary, ‘she shakes up and down and laughs.’
Mary shook her head. ‘Never run with the baby,’ she said reprovingly, ‘be very careful with the baby.’ She started very slowly pushing the buggy across the courtyard.
Rachel looked at Francesca and smiled. ‘Nothing to worry about there,’ she said.
Reverend Mother had prepared a room for Francesca and the children. ‘You’ll all have to be in together,’ she said, ‘I’m sorry.’
‘That’s fine,’ said Francesca. ‘And I hope my mother told you, I have a cot with me. A travelling cot.’
‘Yes, she did. What a pretty baby.’
‘She’s stupid,’ said Jack. ‘She can’t even talk.’
Reverend Mother looked at him. ‘I expect you’d like to help Richard with the eggs, wouldn’t you?’
‘What, cooking them?’
‘No, finding them. All over the barns and so on.’
‘Cool!’
‘Mary,’ said Reverend Mother, ‘take Jack to find Richard. Then you can come back, I expect. Can’t she, Mrs Channing?’
Francesca looked at Mary, who was stroking Kitty’s face gently, with her rather clumsy little hands.
‘Yes, of course she can.’ She smiled at her mother. ‘I feel better already,’ she said.
She told her mother about Liam. They sat and talked after supper, when the convent was quiet, when the children were asleep, about what had happened. Rachel listened in silence; Francesca had been afraid she would be judgmental, reproach her. But all she said was, ‘How do you really feel about him, darling?’
‘Who, Liam?’
‘Well, I meant Bard. But we can talk about Liam if you like. Are you in love with him?’
‘Yes,’ she said after a long pause. ‘Yes, I think so. I really do.’ ‘And Bard?’
‘I don’t know, is the answer. I don’t know how I feel about him any more. Hostile, at the moment. He’s treated me so – so contemptuously.’
‘Fairly contemptuous, the way you’ve treated him, I would have thought,’ said Rachel briskly.
‘I know that,’ she said quietly, ‘of course I do. But if Bard had been – different, I would never have done it.’
‘Francesca, every adulterous wife since the beginning of time has said that.’
She paused, looked at her mother slightly awkwardly. ‘Has she?’
‘Of course. It’s essential to have a justification. It’s always different, of course: that you needed the excitement, or the reassurance, or the understanding, or the respect. Otherwise you’re just wicked, faithless.’
‘Yes Mummy, all right,’ said Francesca irritably. ‘I get the message.’
‘Anyway, you say you’re in love with Liam. What does that mean?’
‘Oh – I don’t know. I just feel happy with him. Safe. You know? He’s so much more my sort of person, really.’
‘I wouldn’t have thought you were quite in a position to make that judgment,’ said Rachel drily.
‘Well – no. But he’s so funny, and gentle and – and civilised. It’s hard to explain. And we agree about so much. Enjoy the same things. I just love being with him. It’s easy. Happy. That’s all. After Bard, being with Liam is like – like a lovely spring day after months of ice and fog and driving rain.’
‘And I presume you’ve been to bed with him?’
‘Yes,’ said Francesca, meeting her mother’s eyes steadily, ‘yes, I have, I’m afraid.’
‘Well, he is extremely attractive,’ said Rachel after a long pause. ‘Very good looking in that marvellous tortured way; I fancied him myself the first time I met him.’
‘Mummy, you fancy everyone,’ said Francesca, laughing for the first time that day.
‘Not quite everyone. Mind you, given a straight choice between Liam and that Barnaby – but that’s by the way. But Francesca, nobody knows more about the charms of the extra-marital affair than I do.’
‘Mummy – ’
‘No, hear me out. It is heady, wonderful stuff. After all those years of ice and fog and driving rain, of course it’s a lovely spring day, as you put it. You’re back to courtship, and romance, to gazing across the table at one another and hand-holding and waiting for the phone to ring, and being told you’re wonderful again, having your jokes laughed at, your conversation found fascinating. And sex is marvellous too, not boring, and predictable, you’re right back to being young, virginal almost …’
‘Yes,’ said Francesca doubtfully, remembering Liam’s painfully ferocious, demanding lovemaking, thinking her response to it scarcely warranted the description of virginal, ‘but – ’
‘And then it’s all forbidden, all so exciting. That adds a huge frisson to the whole thing. And in this case, throw in the fact that Liam is Bard’s son, his estranged, ill-treated son, hurt, damaged, and my God, Francesca, of course you’re in love with him.’
Francesca was silent. Then she said, and she could hear her own voice defensive, irritable: ‘There’s more to it than that. I know there is.’
‘And is there a future in it? I mean, have you talked about that?’
‘No,’ said Francesca, ‘no of course not, we hadn’t even thought that far. But – ’
‘So what of his marriage, then?’ said Rachel.
‘What? Oh Liam’s, you mean. Well, it’s dead. They just live together. For the sake of the children. She doesn’t talk to him, she’s contemptuous of him, he’s in a hideous position, financially dependent on her, he has no self-esteem. I’ve actually seen him in tears at things she’s said, things that have happened – ’
‘Could he not get a job?’ said Rachel.
Francesca looked at her. Then she said rather coldly, ‘This seems to be becoming an attack on Liam. I don’t like you turning him into some kind of – of bit on the side. It’s not fair. It’s not like that. I love him and he loves me. I think, if you don’t mind, I’ll go to bed. Goodnight.’
‘Liam,’ said Naomi, relaxing against him finally, after a tumultuous, climbing, falling, crying, cataclysmic orgasm, ‘that was just – just, I do
n’t know, inspired.’
‘Funny you should say that,’ he said simply. ‘It’s exactly how I felt.’
Chapter Twenty-seven
Oliver couldn’t concentrate. He had sat at his desk all day, hearing over and over again, like some strange dream, Barnaby’s voice saying, ‘She’s pregnant, you little twat, with your baby,’ and then seeing Kirsten’s face, so thin and drawn and shocked, and hearing her voice saying how lovely the time they’d had together had been, and seeing her body, that long, slender body, so unbelievably holding a child, and then kissing her, for the last, the last ever, time and then leaving her, somehow, and going away from her, aching, hurting more even than before.
He had found a taxi and gone home, told Melinda, sweet, loyal, stupid Melinda who was waiting anxiously up for him, to go to bed, and sat and drunk himself into a stupor; in the morning, had woken late, feeling terrible but still gone to the office. Barnaby had phoned, embarrassed, chastened, full of apologies, of wishes to make amends, to do anything, anything at all, practically take out a page in The Times or space in Piccadilly Circus to try and make Oliver feel better, it was funny almost; in the end Oliver had found himself trying to soothe Barnaby, to calm him down.
It was when Barnaby had offered to tell his father what he had done, to prostrate himself on the ground in front of him, as far as Oliver could make out, wearing no doubt best quality sackcloth and ashes, that his sense of humour began to surface.
‘It’s OK, Barnaby,’ he said, ‘honestly. I’ll get over it. Kirsten’s explained. I’ve seen her. I’d probably have done the same thing.’
‘I doubt it,’ said Barnaby gloomily. ‘You’ve been properly brought up.’
By the end of the day Oliver was feeling sick and very tired; he wondered if that was how it felt to be pregnant, how Kirsten felt. He was totally weary of the situation at Channing House, it was depressing and tedious, and none of the firms he had applied to recently for articles had come back to him.
He felt so rough that when Mary stood up with a sigh and said she must go and face the horrors of the Albemarle Street post office, he offered to do it for her.
The Dilemma Page 67
