Pink Champagne

by Anne Weale

  'I—I'm sorry to carry on like this. It's just the relief of finding that it's not Nick you're going to marry. But let's not talk about him. I want to hear all about Robert. When am I going to meet him? Does Angie know he's her father? Has she always known?'

  Clare shook her head. 'She thought her father was dead, but I'll explain all that later. What I want to know is, what has gone wrong between you and Nick? Something has, obviously. Are you sure it can't be put right?'

  So then Rosie told her the whole story, starting with falling in love with him when she was seventeen and ending with Carl coming down the stairs and Nick stalking out of the house.

  'If he loves you, naturally he would be upset at thinking you were on intimate terms with another man, which is how it must have appeared to him,' said Clare. 'In your place I'd have written him a note telling him he had lumped to a false conclusion.'

  'Would you?' Rosie said doubtfully. 'I was angry with him for interpreting the facts in the nastiest possible way and for taking such a sexist attitude. He claims that he isn't and never has been a womaniser, and that may be true. But how many men who at the age of thirty-five are still unmarried haven't had several close relationships with women? None, I should imagine. What right had Nick to expect me to have lived like a nun until he appeared?'

  'I'm sure he didn't expect that. What riled him, I should imagine, was thinking that you were still involved with someone else. If, that night, he was on the point of telling you how he felt about you, Carl's appearing like that must have been a bad shock to him.'

  'But if Carl and I had been having an affair, Carl wouldn't have made that remark about Sasha and I pampering ourselves. He'd have known we had a jacuzzi. What he said was conclusive evidence that I wasn't involved with him.'

  'Strong evidence, not conclusive. Anyway Nick may not have taken it in. He knows now that you didn't go on a cycling holiday last summer and that, to the best of my knowledge, you haven't had a date with Carl or anyone else for months.'

  'You didn't tell him you thought I was in love with him, did you?' Rosie demanded, in a fit of panic.

  'If I had, you'd have had him on your parents' doorstep, demanding to see you. I' m sure of that. No, I only said that you worked too hard and could do with a relaxing holiday. I hoped it might enter his head to set up a Christmas house party and invite you to join it. Let's go down and have a cup of tea.'

  Before going downstairs, Rosie cleaned off her smeared eye make-up and washed her tearstreaked face. She was ashamed of herself for crying in front of Clare. It had been reaction to the awful shock of believing, for a few unforgettably anguished minutes, that very soon she would have to attend the wedding of the only man she had ever truly loved, or would ever love, to another woman.

  'Now I insist on hearing all about Robert,' she said, when she joined Clare in the kitchen.

  'There's not a great deal to tell. As soon as he walked on to the conductor's rostrum at the Barbican, I knew my feelings hadn't changed since I last saw him twenty years ago. I'd seen photographs of him, of course. But it's not the same as seeing someone in the flesh. Then, not long after that concert, Angie said he wanted to meet me to talk about her future. How was I to say no? But I didn't want her to be present at our first meeting so I rang him up and suggested he call at a time when she would be safely out of the way.'

  'Did he recognise you?' Rosie asked.

  'Instantly. He had begun to suspect that he would. You see, the first time he met Angie she reminded him of someone but he couldn't think who. Then one day his mother mentioned her eldest sister who had died of pneumonia when she was only twenty-three. Robert had seen a studio portrait of his aunt but not for a long time. He asked his mother to find the album it was in and, when he saw it again, his aunt's likeness to Angie was as strong as if they were twins.'

  Clare paused to pour out some more tea before she continued, 'His first thought was not that he was Angie's father but that his grandfather had sown some wild oats and she must be descended from one of the old man's by-blows. But a distant relationship didn't seem to explain why he liked Angie so much more than any of the other young people chosen for his special classes on musicianship. When he questioned her about her family, she told him what I had told her: that her father and I were planning to marry but that he had been killed. She grew up thinking his name was James Curtis, a name I invented.'

  'Why?'

  'Because at the time I thought it would complicate her life to know that she was the daughter of someone I always felt would become famous—as Robert has. Children who, for any reason, have never known one of their parents are always curious about them. I considered it best for everyone to keep her father's real identity a secret. He hadn't known I was pregnant when we said goodbye to each other.'

  'Why did you say goodbye?'

  'Because Robert was going to America to continue his studies there. We had been students together but by then I knew my voice fell short of being first class. I had been in love with him for months but his feelings weren't as deep. He was obsessed with music. He only made love to me once, after a student party at which we had both drunk enough to impair our judgement. I knew he didn't want to marry me so, although I had missed a period, I said nothing. But this was over twenty years ago and I'd had an old-fashioned upbringing. I felt it was my punishment for doing what I had been taught to believe was wrong.'

  'Oh, Clare... how unhappy and frightened you must have been.'

  'Yes, especially when my stepfather called me a slut and sent me packing. Never mind: that was long ago and it's turned out all right in the end. You see when we met again Robert had begun to realise what he was missing. He was ready for marriage.'

  'How did Angie react when you told her the truth?'

  'Amazingly well. I was afraid she would be angry with me for deceiving her, even though with good intentions.'

  'But she wasn't?'

  'She understood why I'd done it. She said that, if she had known whose child she really was, it would have been unbearable not being able to claim the relationship if he had been married with other children born in wedlock. Or if he had rejected her. As things stand, she's overjoyed at finding out she is his daughter and he wants everyone to know it.'

  'Will you mind that?'

  'Why should I? I have never concealed the fact that I'm an unmarried mother... although not for much longer.'

  'How soon am I going to lose you?'

  'Not yet... not until you've found a replacement. I wouldn't leave you in the lurch and nor can Robert leave his mother. She needs him. His father's long illness is an appalling strain on her. So we're going to get married very quietly but we shan't set up home together while his father's alive. After he dies, we'll take his mother to live in Switzerland with us. She's a nice old lady. I shall be glad to look after her for whatever few years remain to her, pool old soul.'

  Nick did not fulfil Clare's hope that he would include Rosie in a Christmas house party at the monastery.

  This year, unable to face being force-fed in Yorkshire, she splurged a great deal of money on flying by Concorde to Australia to spend a fortnight with Sasha and Tom. The change of scene, the warm weather and having nothing to do did her good. She did not pour out her heart to Sasha as she had to Clare.

  Sasha was excited because she had decided to have a baby. Rosie didn't want to cloud her friend's happiness by admitting her own wretchedness, nor did she want to discuss the fact that Nick had declined an invitation to Clare's small, very private wedding. If Clare's theory that he loved Rosie was correct, why hadn't he seized that opportunity to make contact with her?

  The publication of Crusade was now only weeks ahead. As she flew back to Europe in the luxury which had taken such a large slice out of her bank balance, she reflected that the next time she travelled by air was likely to be with Nick, en route to Glasgow on the first leg of the extensive author tour she had planned for him, every detail mapped out on a twenty-page tour schedule which, as well as bein
g stored in the memory of the office computer, was fixed in her own memory.

  She could see it in her mind's eye.

  Author Tour Schedule: Crusade— Nicholas Winchester.

  As of 23 December

  Day One: Monday 4 February

  9.15 a.m.: Shuttle departs Heathrow (check-in time 20 minutes absolute minimum) 10.25 a.m.: Shuttle arrives Glasgow

  11.30 a.m.: Daily Record Interview with (journalist to be confirmed) * Circulation: 765,000 Venue: the Albany Hotel

  And so on for page after page of carefully timed and meticulously planned appointments which should bring Nick and his book to the notice of as many newspaper readers, radio listeners and TV viewers as possible and give Bury & Poole maximum value for the high cost of the week's tour.

  She wondered how he would stand up to it. Pretty well, probably. She expected to end it exhausted. Not because she would be responsible for dealing with any hitches which cropped up. She could cope with that. It was the strain of being with him which would leave her drained. She both longed for and dreaded meeting him.

  On Monday February the fourth, Rosie climbed out of the chauffeur-driven car which would shortly be taking her and Nick to Heathrow but which at the moment was parked outside the Arlington Street entrance to the Ritz Hotel.

  Bury & Poole were paying for him to stay there throughout the tour except on Wednesday night when he, and she, would be staying at a country house hotel in Lancashire where he had a full day of interviews in Manchester followed by another in Liverpool.

  'Would you tell Mr Winchester that Miss Middleton is here with the car to take him to the airport, please?' she said to the porter on duty at the reception desk. In spite of the hotel's reputation for i mpeccable service, on her way home last night she had checked that everything was in order in his white and gold suite overlooking Green Park. Anna had intended meeting him at the airport but he had told her not to bother. He would see her at the dinner party being given for him by the managing director of Bury & Poole and his wife in their luxurious penthouse on the top floor of the firm's offices which since early Victorian days had been housed in a historic building in Piccadilly.

  Rosie had given a great deal of thought to what to wear for this first day with Nick. As she waited for him to appear, she knew that she looked both chic and businesslike in her expensive raincoat and comfortable but smart black patent leather boots with low heels. Under the coat was an uncrushable dress, bought on her trip to New York, ideal for days like the one ahead of her. She expected Nick to emerge from the lift or come down stairs near the desk. But her first sight of him was at the far end of the wide corridor which stretched from this end of the hotel to the glass doors of the famous dining-room at the other end.

  The sight of him striding towards her along the hundred-yard expanse of deep carpet made her heart turn cartwheels. She had a crazy impulse to start running to meet him, her arms wide, her face alight with the joy that seeing him gave her.

  But instead she remained where she was, outwardly composed, until he was near enough for her to smile and say, 'Good morning. I hope they didn't keep you up too late last night. Have you had breakfast?'

  'Good morning.' Nick returned her smile as he took her outstretched hand in the strong, warm clasp which always sent a sensuous shiver down her spine. 'I was in bed by midnight and yes, I have had breakfast, thank you. How are you, Rosie?'

  'Very well, thank you. And you?' she enquired politely.

  'I'm well but--' his dark brows contracted '—I know you'll be sorry to hear that Marie-Laure died last month.'

  'Oh, Nick—no! Oh, that is sad news.' With an involuntary gesture of sympathy she put her hand over his left hand which he was holding in front of him because he was carrying a raincoat over his arm.

  'It's the reason I haven't been over here before now. Unfortunately she wasn't granted her wish for a quick, easy end. I couldn't leave her. Spanish hospitals rely on the patients' families and friends to give them a lot of the attention they would receive from the staff in hospitals in other countries. A lot of people enjoyed her lunch parties and her amusing stories, but not so many wanted to keep her company when she was seriously ill.'

  'Why didn't you let me know? I would have come to Spain instead of going to Australia.'

  'She didn't want you to know or to see her laid low.'

  The driver came through the revolving door. 'If you want to be sure of catching the nine-fifteen shuttle, we'd best be on our way, miss.'

  'Yes, thank you, we're coming.'

  The news of the Frenchwoman's death made Rosie forget the list of impersonal topics she had had in mind to avoid an uncomfortable silence on the way to the airport. They were passing the Victoria & Albert Museum when she said, 'Was that why you didn't come to Clare's wedding?'

  He nodded. 'She knew the reason but I made her promise not to tell you.'

  'It must have been a very sad Christmas for you,' she said quietly. 'You were such close friends in spite of the age gap.'

  'I shall miss her,' he agreed, his eyes sombre. 'Having no near relations, she has left her house to me, but she wanted you to have some of the things in it.'

  'Me? But she scarcely knew me. We only met twice.'

  'She liked you on sight. After meeting you the first time she said you were a rare combination of intelligence, beauty and character. I agreed with her.'

  Rosie flashed an uncertain glance at him through her lashes. 'And then revised your opinion the next night,' she said.

  'I forgot the rule drummed into me years ago when I was a cub reporter. ''Check your facts". I know now I was mistaken in the inference I drew. I apologise for that false conclusion.'

  'I have an apology of mine own to make,' she said. 'I lied to you about the bicycle tour. I don't make a habit of being untruthful.'

  'According to Clare, who must know you as well as anyone, you're a paragon of all the virtues.'

  'She exaggerates.'

  'On the contrary, she is one of the most sensible, level-headed women I've met, with excellent judgement.' After a slight pause, he added, 'She's had a difficult life and made the best of it. Even now she won't find it easy being married to a man as dedicated to his art as South wold, but she sounds very happy.'

  'She glows with happiness. When the tour is over, she wants you to meet Robert and the four of us must discuss what is to be done about the house.'

  'There are many things to discuss,' he said, 'but this isn't the time or the place. I see from the schedule that I' m even tied up in the evenings.'

  'You'll enjoy having dinner with Sunday Post's woman's page editor. She's an intelligent, interesting woman who, as you're an ex-journalist, will probably tell you some of her very funny stories about famous people she's met.'

  'And what are you going to be doing while I' m dining with her?'

  'I'm going to be entertaining a couple of useful contacts. When I took over the agency, the woman who founded it warned me never to lose touch with the network of contacts she had built up in the provinces. It's fatally easy for people who work in London to think it's the centre of the universe. It isn't. Everywhere is the centre of the universe to the people who live there.'

  The special departure lounge for shuttle passengers was full of dark-suited businessmen with expensive attache-and briefcases. Boarding took place on time but then the shuttle was held up in a queue of aircraft waiting to take off. Even inside the cabin of the flight to Scotland they could feel the thunderous reverberation as a Concorde took off. This led Nick to ask about her trip to Australia and they talked about Oz, as he called it, all the way to Glasgow.

  The taxi drive from the airport to the Albany Hotel was their last time alone that day. Sitting in on his first interview with a columnist from the Daily Record confirmed Rosie's belief that it was going to be the iflost successful tour she had ever organised. Not because of her expertise but because of his.

  The next day, in Edinburgh, went off without any hitches. She had warned Nick t
hat there was considerable rivalry between the two cities and that he should watch out for questions designed to elicit unguarded 'quotes' about which of the two he preferred. On Wednesday they flew to Manchester for a third day of non-stop interviews, the last being on evening TV. When this was over a car was waiting to take them to the expensive hotel where, for the first time, they would be at leisure until bedtime. Stretching out his long legs in the back of the spacious limousine sent by the car-hire company, Nick said, 'I have to compliment you on your masterly planning, Rosie. But, even with you in charge, anyone who takes part in this circus on a regular basis has to be crazy. By the end of Day One I was sick of the sound of my own voice and wishing I' d dug my heels in when Anna mooted this tour. There is only one compensation.'

  'What's that?'

  'I'll tell you later. Right now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to take a catnap.'

  As he arranged his tall frame in a comfortable position, she remembered him saying, in Spain, that the knack of taking short naps was one he had learned on his foreign assignments. Already, within moments of closing his eyes, his body was at ease, his conscious mind switched off. He looked as if the only unrelaxed muscles in his body were the ones which kept his jaw from dropping and his mouth closed.

  Repose ironed out the laughter-lines and the deep grooves carved in his cheeks. He looked younger, traces of boyishness still to be seen in the good-looking face which, alert, was that of a rather cynical, worldly wise man who had seen many terrible things and been in some tough spots.

  A wave of love and tenderness for him swept over her. Feasting her eyes on him in a way that was impossible when he was awake, she understood for the first time that, inside the self-possessed man who could so easily puncture her own self-possession, there was another very private person. A man with many friends but no family behind him, a man who had recently supported someone he cared for through a fatal illness, a man who, like all human beings, needed to come first in someone's heart.