by Ann Bennett
‘It’s no trouble. Why wouldn’t I come?’
He leans forward. His eyes are bloodshot.
‘You didn’t help me out though, did you? That’s why I’m in this predicament.’
Her heart sinks. Not this again.
‘You could have got me off,’ he says.
‘I wasn’t prepared to lie. Not even for you, Alex. I’m sorry.’
He leans back in his chair and smiles, a sardonic smile. ‘You always had a prissy streak, didn’t you? Afraid of authority.’
‘I didn’t come here to listen to insults.’
‘So what did you come here for?’
‘I’m not sure. I was worried about you.’
‘If you were worried about me, you wouldn’t have left me and started divorce proceedings against me like you did. You would have stood by me.’
She is silent. Perhaps it had been a bad idea to come after all.
‘Alex. It’s over between us. You know that. I came as a friendly gesture. That’s all.’
He laughs. ‘I like that! Friendly gesture! I didn’t realise you were a hypocrite as well as everything else you’ve shown yourself to be over the past few months.’
‘I came because I thought you might be prepared to tell me the truth after all the time that’s passed.’
‘Truth?’
She looks him straight in the eyes, ‘About you and that girl. Jemma. I can hardly bear to say her name. You at least owe me some honesty about that.’
‘Oh that. Well I might as well tell you. It’s all over now anyway. She’s been arrested herself.’
‘Arrested?’
‘For blackmail. She was blackmailing me, Sarah.’
‘Blackmailing you? I don’t understand.’
‘That’s why I was paying her.’
‘What on earth was she blackmailing you about?’ she says at last.
‘Keep your voice down.’
He leans forward and goes on in a whisper.
‘She overheard me and Jack talking one evening in the back room. About the business expansion.’
‘Go on.’
‘Jack was telling me that he would provide generous investment for the new restaurants as long as I turned a blind eye to where the money came from. He would fund each new restaurant until it got off the ground, then we would sell it on and I would refund him his share.’
Shockwaves run through Sarah. Shock that Jemma’s involvement with Alex wasn’t what she had originally thought, and further shock at what Alex is saying now. He had lied to her when he asked her to help him. He did know about the money laundering.
‘Did you agree to that?’
‘Of course. I wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth.’
‘Did he tell you where the money was coming from?’
‘He hinted at it. Russian arms deals, off the books mainly. That’s what that little bitch overheard. She had me over a barrel.’
‘Why are you telling me this now?’ Sarah asks in a thin voice. She feels sick, shaky.
‘Because I haven’t got anything to lose anymore. The game is up. It would have been OK if Jack hadn’t got greedy. He was splashing out on a new Ferrari. The car dealer in Mayfair got suspicious and tracked the funds. Then the fraud squad were crawling all over his business dealings. I suppose I was naive to trust him in the first place.’
Sarah stares at him.
‘But you asked me to lie for you, Alex. To say to the police that you didn’t know anything about Jack’s activities.’
‘Of course I did! Anyone would have done that. It was worth a shot. Any normal loving wife would do that for their husband. But not you. It proved to me that you didn’t love me after all. Probably never did. I was glad that you’d gone after that.’
‘Alex. That’s not fair.’
He shrugs. ‘It might not be fair but it’s how I feel. Between Jack and you and that silly bitch Jemma, I didn’t stand a chance.’
She stares at him, trying to take in his words.
‘What’s going to happen now?’
‘I’ll be charged tomorrow. They’re still gathering evidence.’
‘And then?’
‘It’ll go to court, of course.’
‘Do you know what will happen?’
‘I’m not sure yet. Probably a custodial sentence. It might be reduced because I’ve co-operated with the police, and provided I plead guilty. Guy is hopeful the sentence will be short, and there would be time off for good behaviour and remand, of course, but nothing’s guaranteed.’
‘Is that why you want to sell the restaurants?’
He nods. ‘I think it’s best to sell up. They won’t survive without me around.’
‘That’s awful. After all the work you put in.’
‘We both put in. I know. It’s bad news, but I can start again when I come out. Think of the publicity I’ll be able to generate from that! I’m already making plans.’
She glances at him to check whether he’s joking, but realises from the gleam in his eye that he’s completely serious.
* * *
As she drives home the conversation with Alex goes round and round in her head. She asks herself, that if she’d known he and Jemma weren’t lovers, whether she would have walked out on him in the first place? It’s impossible to say at this time, but she knows now that she’s glad she left him. That the Alex she thought she knew and loved had disappeared a long time ago. The man she’d met today was someone quite different; someone she barely recognised. He was arrogant, dishonest and opportunistic, someone she was glad she wasn’t spending her life with anymore. She wonders when he changed. Gradually, imperceptibly over the years. It’s taken everything that has happened over the past few months to reveal to her what he really is.
Thirty-Two
Sarah
The night train from Mumbai to Kandaipur rattles across the inky dark plain. Sarah twists and turns on the top bunk in the first-class compartment, unable to get comfortable. She leans over the rail and looks at her father on the bunk below. He’s sound asleep, his mouth open, snoring lightly. She smiles. How peaceful he looks.
The recent cancer treatment has been more successful than anyone could have hoped.
‘He’s responded incredibly well and he’s now in remission. It will have extended his life by several months, maybe even years,’ the doctor had told Sarah after the first fortnight of treatment. ‘But we should keep monitoring him regularly, and bring him back in for further tests if necessary, if anything changes.’
‘Not likely,’ her father had said when they were alone at his house. ‘You’ll have to drag me back to that hospital kicking and screaming. I’m glad the treatment has been effective, but Sarah, you can’t imagine how unpleasant it was. From now on I think I’ll let nature take its course. I don’t want to live a long and painful life.’
She didn’t argue with him. She understood how he felt and that it was his choice. He had suffered enough, and now his quest to find out about his mother was almost at an end, he could afford to relax a little. He’d introduced the subject of a trip to India that very day as she’d been preparing soup for his lunch.
‘I’d like to go over there and see where she lived, Sarah. Perhaps find her grave. Before I go.’
‘Go over where Dad?’ she’d said absently, tasting the soup and adding salt.
‘To India, of course. To Kandaipur. Will you come with me? It would be wonderful to travel together. We haven’t been away together since you were a teenager.’
She put down the spoon and went to sit down beside him.
‘Yes, it would be wonderful,’ she said, looking into his eyes. ‘If you’re sure you’re up to it. They’ll be able cope without me at the bistro for a few weeks. And Terry has almost finished the house now. It will be good to get away.’
‘Will Matt let you go?’ her father asked with a twinkle in his dark eyes.
‘Of course,’ she said, blushing and going back to the stove.
That was a month ago.
A week before they set off, they attended the funeral of the unnamed baby at the local crematorium. Sarah, Matt, Sarah’s father, Josh Cartwright, Connie and Tommy were the only people there.
Sarah read out a poem she’d found on the internet called ‘Small Elegy’, and Connie read a passage from the Bible. As Connie stepped forward to the podium, Sarah held her breath. Would Connie be able to go through with it? She’d been reluctant to come, but Tommy had insisted. She looked very frail, a tiny figure in a winter coat that looked a little too large for her withered frame, her face drowned by the rim of an old-fashioned felt hat. But when she turned and faced the tiny gathering, her face was composed and her eyes bright. She held her chin up and read in a clear strong voice; the voice of someone who had spent a lifetime delivering Bible readings.
‘Mark, Chapter 10, verse 13 to 16,’ she announced. ‘And they were bringing children to him, that he might touch them; and the disciples rebuked them. But when Jesus saw it he was indignant, and said to them. “Let the children come to me, do not hinder them; for to such belongs the Kingdom of God. Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the Kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it”, and he took them in his arms and blessed them, laying his hands upon them.’
The next day, Matt had driven them to Heathrow. As they said goodbye beside the check-in desk he’d held her close to him and said gently, ‘Come back to me Sarah, won’t you?’
‘Of course I will. You know that. Why wouldn’t I?’
‘You know, I have to pinch myself every time I look at you. I always worry that I might wake up and find out it was just a dream. If you don’t come back it will just have been a dream.’
‘It’s not a dream,’ she’d said, kissing him.
‘And you’ll think about what I asked?’
‘Of course I will.’
She savoured his loving words on the long, uncomfortable flight from Heathrow to Mumbai. How impossibly romantic Matt was, always bringing her flowers, making small gestures of affection. How unlike Alex, who’d never said anything remotely like that to her, not even when they first met. Matt had asked her to marry him on that last night they shared together in her bed in Cedar Lodge.
‘I love you, Sarah. I want to be with you always.’
‘I love you too, Matt. But I’m not sure I could ever be married again.’
‘Yes, I know that. But I’m not going to let you down. I’m different.’
‘Yes you are. You’re very different.’
‘So will you think about it? You don’t have to say anything now. Just think about it while you’re away.’
Sarah and her father had stayed in the palatial Taj Mahal Hotel on Apollo Bunder, looking out across the bay of Bombay and towards the Arabian Sea in the distance. Sarah opened the curtains and looked out of the window each morning, staring out at the shimmering expanse of water, imagining the liners that would have plied to and fro in the days of the Raj, bringing fresh-faced young British men and women here to experience India for the first time. She’d read most of Anna’s diary on the flight, and Anna’s excitement and her first impressions of India had affected her deeply.
On the first day, as her father slept off his jetlag, she strolled along the seafront and under the Gateway of India, imagining Anna passing it for the first time on the deck of a ship, bursting with excitement, her mind full of dreams of the exotic land she was about to discover.
They caught a taxi up to Malabar Hill on their second day and asked the driver to drive the length of it and back again. They stared out at the once grand colonnaded houses and bungalows surrounded by trees and lush exotic gardens, where Anna had had her first experience of Indian colonial life. But her diary didn’t reveal which number Aunt Nora’s house was, so they could only guess which one it might have been. Blocks of luxury modern flats had replaced houses in many places, so it was even possible that Aunt Nora’s house wasn’t there anymore.
After two days of relaxing in Mumbai, Sarah took a taxi to Victoria terminus and booked them on the sleeper train departing the next night for Kandaipur. She queued up in the teeming station and booked two first class tickets in a two-birth compartment. The journey would take 36 hours she was told, but she should expect the train to be delayed by 2 to 3 hours.
When they arrived that evening with their luggage they’d been overwhelmed by the clamour and throng of the busy station. A huge mass of people hurried in every direction for trains carrying goods on their heads, or boxes of purchases, caged birds, chickens. Sarah even spotted a woman with a couple of baby goats. Whole families slept on benches, surrounded by their worldly goods. The vibrant colours and noise of the place was overwhelming. She gripped her father’s hand and pushed forward through the crowds to their platform. They walked down it alongside the train where she had been amazed to see their names written neatly on a card beside the door of the first class sleeper car.
The carriage looked as though it dated from the days of the Raj. The paint on the window frames was blackened by thousands of hands pushing it up and down, and the air conditioning was so feeble that Sarah herself opened the window. There were bars on the outside, but the cool breeze coming through it as the train gathered pace was welcome. A uniformed steward gave them a menu and ordered them supper from a station further up the line. Their orders of chicken curry and vegetables had arrived without hitch or error. They sat at the fold-down table and ate the food washed down with Indian lager, while the dark plain flashed past with the occasional bright burst of light as they clattered through a local station.
Now, despite the rhythmic rocking of the train she’s finding it hard to sleep. The events of the past few months are churning round in her head. She thinks of Alex. She’d heard last week from Judith Marshall that Alex had pleaded guilty and the judge had given him a suspended sentence. She guesses he struck a deal with the police and gave evidence against Jack, who himself went to prison for a lengthy term. Instead of selling the restaurant Alex returned there in a blaze of publicity. She’d read a small paragraph about it in the Daily Mail in Jacqui’s shop. Since he came out of custody, he’d managed to raise a bank loan to buy out Sarah’s share, and the house in Primrose Hill is now up for sale.
She has stopped being angry with him; there’s been too much to think about; too much happiness to absorb through being with Matt to harbour bitterness towards Alex. If anything, she feels annoyed with herself for having lived such an unsatisfactory life with him all those years and for not realising how he’d changed so drastically from the man she’d once loved. She thinks of Matt again, and of his proposal. He makes her happier than she ever was with Alex, but something is stopping her making that commitment. It’s nothing to do with him, or her feelings for him, more to do with a fear of making another mistake.
She thinks of Connie and Tommy, content in each other’s company after all those years apart. They don’t seem to harbour any bitterness either, they just seem to be focusing on spending as much time together as they have left. She thinks of Ezra Burroughs, and his duplicitous life, and still a shiver runs through her at even the thought of that name.
She’d given instructions to Terry to clear out the room above the coach house, repair the roof and ceiling and decorate it while she’s away. She had to go up there with him to explain what needed to be done. Even though Terry was right behind her, she’d felt shivers down her spine as she’d pushed open the door. She’d tried to avoid looking at the sagging metal bed with its stained mattress, at the metal bucket in the corner. She’d tried not to think about all the young, desperate women who had given birth there, the pain they’d endured and the desperate sadness they’d felt at leaving their babies in the care of Ezra Burroughs. Perhaps when Terry has finished his work, those ghosts will be banished and she will be able to go in there without thinking of the past.
Still sleep does not come, so Sarah takes up Anna’s diary, turns to the final pages and begins to read by the meagre flickering light above her bunk.
Anna’s Diary
February 1934
The sea voyage from Bombay to Southampton is virtually at an end. I’ve hardly written in this little book since the day we embarked the SS Neuralia because I’ve been feeling so low and full of dread at what the coming weeks will bring.
It’s not just the near future that troubles me though; everything that’s turned out badly over the past two years has been going round and round in my head. I’ve exhausted myself with recriminations; recriminations for rushing into marriage with Donald so quickly, without a backward glance, and recriminations too for the way I behaved with Charles. Marrying Donald was such a huge step, I should have taken the time to think about it, to notice how he was trying to rush me, and to wonder whether there was some sinister reason for that. I realise now that I was so desperate to escape the stifling confines of Aunt Nora’s house that I wasn’t in any mood to entertain any misgivings I might have had.
“Marry in haste, repent at leisure” goes the well-worn phrase. That phrase could have been coined especially for me!
Why then, after having learned the truth about Donald, but having made my bargain with him, did I get into that car with Charles Perry and let him spirit me away to the summer palace that day? I knew very well what it could lead to, I even tacitly accepted his attentions. I only had myself to blame for that.
I kept thinking about the way he had described the summer palace to me…
‘The last maharajah used to go there in the summer season with his beloved maharani, but when she died, he was so heartbroken that he stopped going there altogether. It is still beautiful though, he wanted it to be kept in her name. It’s just as he left it.’
It sounded impossibly romantic; an irresistible escape from sitting in the house and mulling over the troubled situation I found myself in with Donald. I remembered how on an impulse, I picked up my bag and ran down the steps towards the car before I could change my mind. I wasn’t really thinking straight. I just knew I wanted to be distracted; to be swept away from the house and to forget Donald and my troubles for at least a couple of hours.
