by Karen Swan
‘She would want to be woken for this, Cass.’
‘I know, but what would it achieve? It’s not like she can do anything from there.’
‘No.’
Neither of them said anything for a few beats. They didn’t need to.
‘How is Henry?’
‘Not great.’
‘No. I bet . . .’
There was another pause.
‘Guillaume?’
They were the same words but it was a different question. Guillaume wasn’t tied in to this tragedy like Henry. He wasn’t struggling to keep it together. The words, framed around him, amounted to a nicety, an automatic social more that meant nothing in the circumstances. Anouk, as though recognizing this, paused before replying and Cassie could just picture her friend dragging slowly on her cigarette. ‘Fine.’ Anouk’s voice had that bored insouciance only Frenchwomen could pull off when talking about their lovers. ‘He is in Cap Ferrat. Back next week. You are sure I should not come over?’
‘At the moment, no, but I’ll let you know if his condition changes.’
‘OK. Well, you give that man a kiss from me.’
‘That might give him another heart attack, Nooks.’
They disconnected just as the sound of keys scratched in the lock. Cassie turned. Through the frosted glass she could make out the hatted, billowing silhouette of Henry and Suzy’s mother, and a moment later the door opened, Hattie’s tall, wiry frame filling the doorway. She was wearing her usual uniform of black Nicole Farhi apron dress, draped taupe openwork cardigan and plimsolls, and her frizzy ash-blonde hair was contained by a bashed straw hat that was fraying in so many places it looked like it had been nibbled by a donkey. Battered holdalls dangled from each brown hand, but at the sight of Cassie – pale-faced, moon-eyed – staring back at her, she dropped both bags on the spot and wrapped her arms around her, rocking her gently from side to side.
For a split moment Cassie felt herself go limp – a ‘grownup’ had arrived: she didn’t have to pretend to be brave now – but as they stood there, swaying slightly in the open hallway, she realized it wasn’t Hattie who was comforting her: stoic, no-nonsense Harriet Sallyford, the renowned garden designer and four-times gold-medal-winner at Chelsea, the woman who’d shown Suzy exactly how strong and imposing a woman could be . . . Her. She was the one trembling, holding on too tight as she tried not to cry, as broken down by the rest of them at the flattened sight of her happy-go-lucky son-in-law, who still looked at her daughter, every day, like she was a dream come true.
‘He’s going to be fine, Hats. You know Arch,’ Cassie said weakly.
Hattie pulled away, drying her damp eyes with a quick one-two motion of her hands, before clapping them together loudly. ‘Of course he is. You’re quite right. He wouldn’t dare leave my two girls. It’s not his time. It simply isn’t.’ She inhaled sharply, pulling herself together. ‘Tea?’
Cassie watched as Hattie swept into the kitchen behind, busily choosing two mugs and sniffing the milk. Cassie picked up the abandoned bags from the doorway and closed the door softly, so as not to waken Velvet. ‘You’ve come from the hospital, I take it?’ she asked, stepping into the kitchen.
‘Yes.’
‘Any change?’
‘Not this morning apparently, although since I saw him last – what, two, three weeks ago . . . ?’ Her blue eyes flicked up to Cassie’s. ‘He looks like he’s been steamrollered. I mean, his skin is actually grey. Roger and Emma had arrived only minutes before me and they looked like they needed oxygen themselves, poor things. No parent should ever have to see their child like that.’ She paused, a look of genuine puzzlement crossing her features as she was drawn back into the tragedy again. ‘I just don’t understand it, Cassie. He’s such a young man, so vigorous—’
‘He’d been under a lot of stress, apparently, at work.’
Hattie gave a sceptical frown.
‘I know – he hid it from everyone. No one knew. Suzy barely realized the severity of it herself.’
‘But . . . there must have been warning signs, surely? Men of thirty-three don’t drop down half dead after a quick run just because they’ve got a lot on at work. Surely he must have been looking unwell or complaining of aches or pains beforehand. I mean, we all know how stricken Archie is by the man-flu every winter.’
Cassie shrugged. ‘He really did look totally normal. I saw him and his colour was as good as ever, and he was leading the other runners in a round of songs just before the race.’
‘Well, that does sound like him. Let me guess: “Sweet Chariot”?’
Cassie smiled. Arch had played prop for Harlequins’s youth team and had been gunning for a place in the senior squad after university, when an ill-advised tackle in the bar broke his collarbone so badly he not only had to wave goodbye to his ambition of going pro, but any contact sport at all. Touch rugby in Battersea Park was as good as it got for him now, although Suzy – who had met him six months after the injury – had consoled him, saying he couldn’t afford cauliflower ears anyway, ‘not with his nose’.
They sipped their tea quietly for a while, Cassie leaning lightly against one of the Heals bar stools and warming her hands, which were unaccountably cold, Hattie distractedly dead-heading a begonia that still had the red reduced label on the pot and clearly hadn’t been watered since it had been bought. For a mother and daughter who were so alike in every other way, it was a source of constant despair for Hattie that the one thing her daughter hadn’t inherited from her had been her green fingers.
‘Listen, if you’d prefer to get back to the hospital, I’m more than happy looking after Velvet,’ Cassie said.
‘I know you are. You’re such a natural. I can’t wait till you and Henry crack on and have some of your own. Then I really will be spoilt rotten.’
Cassie gave an abashed laugh. Having children was on the ‘One Day’ shelf, along with a few other things that she preferred not to dwell on. Like setting a date.
‘It’s just that it can feel more difficult to be stuck back here, rather than at the hospital. At least there you feel like you’re doing something.’
‘Oh, there’s nothing any of us can do for that poor boy right now,’ Hattie sighed. ‘I’m as much use being a good grandmother as anything right now. What about you, though? You’ve been stuck here a day and a half baby-sitting? You must be desperate to go in and see darling Arch. Henry said you haven’t been in yet.’
Cassie looked away. ‘Well, if Roger and Emma are there . . . it may be a little crowded,’ she murmured, not wanting to elucidate on her ‘outcast’ status. It felt humiliating and belittling somehow, to have been left stranded behind glass doors as one of the most beloved people in her life fought to save his own life – all because the lack of a ring and a piece of paper kept her at one remove too far.
She suddenly remembered her car, her shiny, malingering car, which had been repaired again – for the time being – and was waiting for her at the garage. She had been on her way to pick it up when Archie had collapsed. ‘Actually, though, there is something I need to do. If you’re sure you’re happy to man the fort here . . . ?’
‘Absolutely. You go on and do what needs to be done. I thought I’d take Velvet down to the flower stalls at the farmers’ market after her sleep. They should have some marvellous agapanthus now and it’s about time I started introducing her to the Alliaceae family. You can never start them too young, you know.’
Cassie drained her tea and set down the cup with a smile. ‘I’ve got my mobile with me. You will ring if anything changes?’
‘Of course. Now go, go.’
‘See you later, then.’ Cassie grabbed her cardigan from the stair banister and closed the front door quietly, glad to be out of the stifling quiet and suspended atmosphere of the house, glad to be doing something other than waiting. It wasn’t until she was on the train to Putney Bridge that she remembered something else that had been forgotten in yesterday’s events.
She struc
k gold at the Travellers Club in London’s Pall Mall – the heart of Clubland – a white wedding cake of a building, winking opulent and gilded interiors through its street-facing windows. Unlike the colonial style of the Explorers Club in New York, this club boasted the kind of grandeur that was standard for hosting royalty, aristocracy and eminent diplomats and luminaries, with silk walls and marble floors and shimmering chandeliers that would bring down the roof of an average London terrace house.
Not that Cassie got to see much of it. The lobby was as far as she was permitted, and to save both herself and the concierge the embarrassment of staring at each other politely, she was busily occupying herself by reading the club housekeeping notices on the walls while Bob Kentucky and Derek Mitzenhof, the president and chair of the Flag Expedition Grant Board, were called from their rooms.
She had been lucky to have made it this far (although she was going to pay through the nose for it when her mobile bill came in – half-hour calls to New York didn’t come cheap), but there had been no other way to get the names and London addresses of the men Henry had been en route to meeting yesterday. The Explorers Club had been reluctant to impart their details, even after she had lengthily explained her relationship to Henry and yesterday’s disaster; they had much preferred the option of getting the board to contact Cassie, but she had stood firm, for once. This had to be sorted today. She had called them, standing outside Jimmy’s garage in Putney as he hunted for her car keys, and it had taken her another hour to get back into town and find a parking space.
‘Miss Fraser?’ Cassie turned to find a tall, white-haired man with a lean face and neat moustache standing before her. ‘Bob Kentucky.’ He held out his hand. He was wearing a dark grey suit and a tie that she recognized as being Explorers Club – Henry had been given the same one when he was made a fellow back in March – and she wished she was wearing something smarter than her blue-and-white-striped sundress, Converses and navy moth-nibbled cashmere cardigan.
She saw Bob Kentucky wish it too and he discreetly looked over at the doorman, who, after a moment, gave a nod as subtle as the Mona Lisa’s smile.
‘We’ll take coffee in the reading room,’ Kentucky said – whether to Cassie or the doorman, she wasn’t sure – holding one arm out in an open hook and inviting her to step into the gilded sanctuary.
It was immediately apparent the walls must be as deep as Afghan caves, as the rush of London traffic speeding along to St James in one direction and Admiralty Arch and Trafalgar Square in the other was instantly muted when the inner door closed behind them.
‘I’m afraid Derek can’t join us,’ Bob said with an apologetic smile. ‘He’s engaged in a fight-to-the-death rackets game with an old acquaintance.’
‘Oh, no, of course. I’m just so grateful you could see me at such short notice. I’m really sorry for turning up unannounced like this,’ she said, as they climbed the elegant winding staircase, which was set at such a gentle pitch it seemed almost embarrassed to turn.
Kentucky smiled. ‘On the contrary – I was delighted when the club rang to tell me you were on your way. We were so baffled by Henry’s no-show yesterday.’
‘I’m also sorry for looking so scruffy. I hadn’t planned on coming here when I left the house today.’ She tried rolling the cuff of her cardigan to hide the fact it had a thumb-sized hole through it.
‘Well, I admit jeans would have been harder to get around, but I think Mr Stanley at the door was also of the opinion that with a face as pretty as yours, nobody’s going to be looking at your feet.’
‘Oh . . . Thank you.’ Cassie blushed. ‘You’re very kind.’
‘We can talk in here,’ he said, stopping outside the door to a large and sunny room. Inside, groups of leather chairs were arranged at intervals beneath the solemn and lavishly gilded portraits of illustrious former members. It took her straight back to her days in Scotland, living in one of the country’s great houses. This was another level again, but she didn’t feel out of her depth here. This was a world she knew and understood.
They settled themselves in a pair of wine velvet wing chairs by the window – she could see the buses sitting in traffic outside – as Kentucky ordered some coffees.
He sat back in the chair, fingers interlaced, an interested smile on his face as he waited.
‘Um, so I don’t know how much they told you on the phone . . .’ she began.
He shrugged. ‘Not much, but once they said you were Henry’s fiancée, I knew you’d be coming with an explanation of sorts.’
‘Well, yes, exactly. Because, you see, none of it was Henry’s fault yesterday. He was en route to see you and everything was tickety-boo.’
He chuckled at her choice of words and she grinned back nervously.
She started again. ‘There’s this annual event, you see, that Henry organizes. It’s called the Annual Tube Dash, or Beat the Train, as the runners call it.’
‘Runners?’ Kentucky sounded as amused as he was intrigued.
‘Yes. It commemorates the anniversary of Roger Bannister breaking the four-minute mile’ – Kentucky’s smile turned into a low, rumbling laugh as he began to get the gist – ‘At least it’s supposed to; we’re a bit late with it this year. Anyway, all the runners have to jump off the same carriage of the train at South Kensington and run a set route through the streets, getting back on the exact same train and carriage at Fulham Broadway.’
‘How wonderful!’
‘Yes, well . . . Henry’s unbeaten at it.’ Cassie rolled her eyes. ‘It’s pretty gruelling. Basically a nine-and-a-halfminute sprint in the middle of rush hour. You can imagine all the people they’ve got to dodge, the cars and bikes crossing the roads . . . Only about ten per cent actually finish it.’
‘And Henry was doing this on the way to our meeting?’ he laughed.
‘I know, it’s mad, isn’t it?’ She shook her head. ‘I kept telling him it was crazy, but well, I think he feels honour-bound, as the organizer, to do it himself. And truthfully, he’s so fit he could run it and you’d never know five minutes later, whereas I bet all the others have to take the rest of the day off.’
Kentucky smiled, sitting further back in the chair as their coffees, in porcelain cups, were set down on the table between them.
‘Anyway, yesterday . . .’ She took a deep breath, willing her voice not to break. ‘Yesterday the worst thing happened. Everything was fine to begin with – Henry had finished the race and was back on the train. We were pulling out of the station when Archie, his brother-in-law, who was doing the race too, had a heart attack on the platform.’
Kentucky’s bemused expression changed to one of immediate horror. ‘Dear God!’
‘I know. It was terrible,’ she said, her voice cracking slightly as she remembered it all too clearly, yet again. She wasn’t sure she’d ever get over the sight of Archie’s face in the split second before he fell. ‘We couldn’t stop the train, because then we’d have been stuck in the tunnel and unable to get off, so we had to go all the way to the next station, knowing what was happening behind us, that he had only strangers looking after him.’ She bit her lip and reached for her coffee, needing a break from the words and images, but it was still too hot to drink and she had to replace it, untouched, on the table. She noticed her hand had begun to shake.
‘What happened?’ Kentucky asked gently.
‘Well, Suzy, Archie’s wife, who is Henry’s sister and my best friend’ – her eyes flickered up to him, as she worried she was bombarding him with too much information – ‘she was there with their little girl; she’s only two.’ She sighed. ‘So you can probably imagine the state everyone was in.’
Kentucky murmured his agreement.
‘When we got to the next station, Henry jumped off and ran back to Fulham while Suzy and I got a cab. She couldn’t run carrying Velvet too,’ Cassie mumbled. ‘Anyway, the ambulance had arrived by then, so Suzy went to hospital with the paramedics and Henry caught a cab after them and basically stayed the
re all night. He’s still there now.’
‘What a truly terrible story. Is Henry’s brother OK now?’
‘Well, he’s hanging on,’ she said after a moment. ‘He’s still in the Cardiac Care Unit. He had another heart attack soon after getting to the hospital, apparently.’
‘I’m truly sorry to hear that. What a dreadful thing.’ He shook his head as he picked up his coffee, cradling the saucer in his palm, and stared out of the window for several long moments. ‘Well, that certainly accounts for things. We knew something drastic must have happened for Henry not to have shown, or even sent word. We just couldn’t understand it, sitting there as the minutes ticked past and no word.’
‘No, I’m sure. It was just so crazy, you see – everyone panicking and screaming, Henry running all over London, CPR . . . And he’s not allowed to have his phone on in the hospital, obviously.’
‘No, no, of course not,’ Kentucky agreed, taking another sip of his coffee. He sighed heavily. ‘I just wish we had known this yesterday morning.’
Cassie swallowed. ‘It’s not too late, though, is it? It was only yesterday, and in the circumstances—’ She was stopped by his sympathetic smile.
‘My dear, I wish it were that straightforward, I honestly do. But you see, the nature of our profession means we’re rarely all in one country – much less one room – at the same time. A decision had to be made there and then.’ He gave another sigh. ‘It’s all the more frustrating because, in truth, the flag was his. Henry’s a great ambassador for the exploring community and we’re very proud to have him as one of our fellows. This expedition he’s pitching appeals to us on many different levels, and the meeting yesterday, really, was just a formality. But when he didn’t show and there was no explanation . . . Well, I’m sure you can appreciate we can’t afford to lay ourselves open to claims of favouritism or, worse, nepotism. It would have seemed, at the very least, curious, if not downright suspicious to the others if we had tried to accommodate the proposal outside of the formal process.’
‘So then the grant’s been awarded to . . . someone else?’
