Lovers and Liars Trilogy (159 page)

He gathered together all the reminders of Esther that he had kept so carefully all these years. They were few: some letters she had written him when she, or he, had been working away; letters friends had written to him after her death; photographs taken by him, of her, in the Washington apartment they had shared, and finally, photographs of them together, taken by Esther’s lawyer brother, on one of their visits to New Orleans. Quietly, Rowland reread the letters for the last time, then consigned them to the fire in his living room. He watched them blaze up, then slowly added the photographs one by one. He looked for a long time at the last of these pictures, himself and Esther, caught in a shaft of sunlight, walking along hand in hand. The street, he thought, was Canal; it was midafternoon; Esther was laughing; she had just been presented by Rowland with a flower, and she had tucked it into her hair. The flower was white, a white carnation: its crisp curled petals bloomed against the blackness of her skin. Rowland hesitated, then consigned this photograph, too, to the fire. He had intended to complete this ritual with one last item—Gini’s brief and negative telegram.

He picked it up from the table where it lay in readiness, leaned toward the flames—and then found he no longer had the will to burn it. He folded it up again and replaced it in his wallet. It was a small weakness, he told himself; in no way did it alter his determination to put her out of his mind.

His conscious mind, of course; that determination did not prevent her returning to him at night, in his dreams. It was from one such dream, tranquil and resonant with the illusory promises of dreams, that Max roused him, at three o’clock one morning, to announce that Charlotte had just given birth to their first daughter. In April, Rowland received an invitation to the christening of this child, to be held the following month.

May; Rowland accepted. He was touched by the request, and touched by Max’s obvious joy and pride. “We’d like you to be the godfather,” Max said in his office one day over a sandwich lunch. “Charlotte insists. You predicted it would be a girl, after all.”

“Delighted. An honor.” Rowland smiled.

“Charlotte’s asking Tom to be the other godfather…”

“A very good choice. I like Tom.”

“Godmothers—we’re not sure yet. One of Charlotte’s sisters, probably…” Max gave Rowland a small sidelong glance. “And then we thought, Lindsay perhaps…”

Rowland merely nodded. His attention rarely left work for long these days, as Max had noted, and now it had already returned to the story on Max’s desk, which they would run the next day.

Written by Gini, and faxed in by her directly to Max, it detailed the raid made that week on the Amsterdam drug manufacturing outfit, and the subsequent arrest of the Dutch chemist and the American pusher behind it. The story seemed of greater interest to Rowland than the details of Max’s daughter’s christening and the identity of her godmothers.

Noting this, Max sighed and, as soon as Rowland had left his office, telephoned his wife, who—an obstinate romantic—still cherished hopes on Lindsay’s behalf.

Charlotte questioned Max for a while, with vivacity. Max, who felt he knew Rowland better than his wife did, and who knew he was in a better position to judge Rowland’s present state of mind, heard her out patiently. He then began the gentle process of making Charlotte face facts. Finally opting for a racing analogy, he informed her that the odds against Lindsay were—at very best—one hundred to one.

“Darling, listen to reason,” he said. “I promise you, I
know.
Lindsay is a total long shot.”

Charlotte made dismissive noises. It was not unknown, she reminded him, for total long shots to romp home.

Lindsay, who gambled rarely and always incautiously, might have agreed with her. She had spent the past months trying to subdue such instincts, but did not always succeed. She was not assisted by the fact that the months since Paris had given her time to consider, and time to make certain observations of her own.

She observed that Gini, to whom she spoke regularly on the telephone, had remained with Pascal in France. She observed that Gini’s voice lifted with optimism and delight as she discussed, first, the success of the operation on Pascal’s fractured arm, and then his slow but gradual progress since. She observed that neither Gini nor Pascal seemed eager to return to London, and were planning to remain in Paris until late May at least. She observed that Rowland McGuire now worked longer hours than anyone else in the
Correspondent
building, even longer than Max. She observed—with Pixie’s assistance—that McGuire had become curiously impervious to the seductions of seductive women: his latest research assistant—or so Pixie claimed—a young woman so flagrantly nubile, Lindsay had hated her on sight, was rumored to have flung herself at McGuire shamelessly; she had been firmly and impolitely repulsed.

In her better moments, Lindsay could disregard such observations. In her weaker ones, unfortunately, Markov seemed to contrive to pop up. He had appointed himself love’s agent provocateur. “How’s it
going,
Lindy, my love?” he caroled down the telephone from that location in Hyderabad. “Any
progress?”
he demanded from somewhere in the Mojave Desert. “What
is
this?” he shrieked from a mobile outside an abandoned Australian silver mine, where he was photographing ball gowns. “Are you a
woman,
Lindy? What’s your heart pumping, darling—water, or blood? Get to it. I fly back tomorrow. I’m taking you to dinner. And believe me, I shall expect
action.
I shall expect
a full
report.”

“Well?” he said the next night in a wildly fashionable restaurant. “Fill me in, sweetheart.
Full intercourse
—or are we still at the tiresome courtship stage?”

He adjusted the brim of his hat, sighed, and lit a cigarette.

“Neither,” Lindsay said. “Rumor has it, he’s now a monk.”

Markov brightened.
“That’s
promising. Abstinence is bound to increase your chances. Especially in his case. Now, did you try drinks-after-work?”

“Yes, I did. Will you give it a rest, Markov? He didn’t want a drink. He also didn’t want lunch, or dinner at my flat. He didn’t even bite on the movie idea—and I thought that was bound to work. Three hours of Eisenstein, plus Tom, so he’d feel safe. I was
sure
that would tempt him, but no.”

“You’re not
trying,
Lindy. You have to be
bolder.
Act, or you’ll always regret it. Swallow your pride, darling. Stamp on your principles. Leap in where angels fear to tread.”

Lindsay considered this. “How?” she said.

Markov looked thoughtful. “Shared interests,” he announced at last. “Tell him you want to learn to climb. Buy one of those terrible anorak things. Stride across the hills with him. Clutch his manly arm occasionally. Carry his pitons—”

“Give me a
break,
Markov. I’d look like hell in an anorak. I get vertigo on my front steps.”

“Okay, okay. Let’s think.
Churches.
You said he liked churches.”

“I said he liked
one
church, Markov. It’s right across his street.”

“Like one, like them all. Stop making difficulties. I feel this one, Lindy, I can see it panning out. A weekend in the country. Somewhere like Norfolk. Norfolk has very good churches. I went there once. You do a bit of preparation, obviously, before you go. Read some books. Then you talk about buttresses. You make
sensitive
comments about rood screens, sweetling.”

“Rood screens? I can’t stand this. Pour me another drink.”

“Okay. Let’s think.”

Light came to Markov’s face. “That’s it.
Books!
I’ve hit on it. You said he reads. You said he reads all the time. Tolstoy. Updike. Proust. Heavy-brigade stuff—you mentioned that. Darling, it’s
simple,
I see it now. A poetry reading. Or, you borrow his Tolstoy, then say, ‘How about we go out to dinner, Rowland, and you talk me through
Anna Karenina, War and Peace
?’ Tutor into lover. No man can resist it, Lindy.”

“Last week,” Lindsay said in a small voice with dignity, “I borrowed a novel from him. It was there on his desk. I
knew
he’d been reading it, and I thought… Anyway. I borrowed it. I took it back, two days later—and it was a long novel, Markov. I thought he’d be impressed I was so quick. I gave it back, and I made a speech. It was a good speech too, straight out of all the best cribs. It was astute. It was
sensitive,
Markov, so damn sensitive, I nearly wept—”

“What novel?”

“Never mind. It was French. During my speech he took three phone calls and sent four faxes. I was wearing a new dress too. I’d had my hair cut.”

“Nada?”

“Oh, he was
kind.
He did listen a bit…” Lindsay gave a shaky sigh. “The kindness hurt most of all, I think. I mean, he doesn’t
dislike
me, I can see that. But he’s not remotely interested. Whereas—I can’t sleep at night for thinking of him. I go over and over everything he says to me—just in case it might suggest he’d actually noticed me. I’m so damn inventive, it’s
pathetic,
Markov. He says, ‘Good morning, Lindsay’—and I think, maybe there’s a double meaning in that.”

Markov removed his dark glasses. He looked at her small, tense, boyish frame, at her short, curly hair, and at her pale, wide-eyed face. She was about to cry, or perhaps laugh; he could not have said which.

“—If I see him, it feels like spring. If I don’t, there’s no point to the day. I contrive all these meetings—anything just to spend three minutes in his office. I’m so
ashamed,
Markov. I know I’m making a fool of myself, a woman my age chasing a man like him. But it’s as if he’s locked in somewhere, and sometimes I think I might be able to give him a key. So it’s much worse than it was before. The harder I try—I think it’s because I can see he’s not happy, and I’d so like to—Oh, shit. I’m going to cry. I’m sorry about this. You see, the trouble is… Oh,
hell.
Now my mascara will run. I’ve had too much wine, I think.”

Markov pressed her hand and made encouraging noises. After a moment, the brief tears stopped.

“Right,” he said forcefully. “I’ve had enough of this. As of now we stop pissing around. This is serious—so we switch to red alert. Full mobilization. We activate the Stealth bomber, Lindy my love. And we fly right in, over that fucker’s radar defenses.”

“Stealth bombers?” Lindsay gave a sniff.

He gave her a cunning look. “Trust me, I have a plan. Never been known to fail. Especially with a man of his character.”

“You don’t know anything about his character. Neither do I, I realize. You don’t know him. He’s an
enigma,
Markov.”

“Crap. Women always think that about the men they love. And the amount you’ve told me, sweetheart, I know this guy like he’s my brother. I know him upside down, and inside out, like I
invented
him, Lindy. And this man has a weakness,
Liebling,
an Achilles’ heel.”

“He has?”

Lindsay, knowing she never learned, that she was cursed to be eternally optimistic, drank some more wine fast. Markov looked sublimely confident. She felt new hope.

“Gallantry,” Markov said, thoughtful now. “He has these protective instincts toward women. Sweet, that—”

“He has a broken heart,” Lindsay said bitterly. “At least, that’s what I suspect.”

Markov brushed this minor problem aside.

“Darling,” he said, “in this world, even the best of hearts mend eventually. It’s just a matter of time. I’m not saying he’s going to be a pushover—I never underestimate the opposition. It’ll take a while, I can see that. But first he has to notice you, spend some time with you….” He frowned, then added in a casual voice, “When’s that christening you mentioned? At Maxopolis? It’s in two weeks’ time, in May, right? And
he’s
going to be there, and
you’re
going to be there.” A triumphant smile appeared on his face.

“What is it, Markov?”

“Oh, my God, why didn’t I think of this before? I mean, it’s just so perfect, this cannot fail, this—”

“What
is
it, damn it?”

Markov grinned broadly.

“Remember fairy tales?” he said. “Then think,
damsel in distress
.”

T
HE HEART COULD MEND
, Gini thought. She raised herself on one elbow and looked down at Pascal’s face. He was sleeping deeply still, but then, it was early, only just six o’clock. His dark hair was rumpled, falling across his forehead. Sleep eased the intensity of his features, and one by one she enumerated these accidents of nature she so loved: this the brows, this the cheekbones, this the mouth. A ray of sunlight moved against his face; he stirred, then returned to sleep. Gini leaned over him, watching him with a jealous delight. If she kissed him, she wondered, just very lightly, would he wake?

She decided against it. She wanted this morning to be perfect, and she had preparations to make. Very quietly, she eased herself from the bed and stood by the balustrade looking down at their wonderful tall studio room, and its great north window, and its curtains edged with light.

They had been back in London two days. No one knew yet that they had returned. They had been right to keep their arrival a secret, she thought. Most of their friends would be away this weekend at the christening of Max and Charlotte’s daughter. She and Pascal had been away for so long, over three months, that people were unlikely to call anyway. Even so, this secrecy gave them a few days’ more protection from intrusion. They were alone, and it felt intoxicating, as if they possessed this city. She gave a quick impulsive gesture of exultation, hugging her happiness to herself. A
May day,
she thought; a beautiful May day in which the sun would shine without fail, and the new leaves would move in the lightest of breezes beneath the arch of their window. A May day; a heart mended; yes, happily ever after—a new life.

She crept down the stairs to the room below and began quietly to tidy it. Today had to be perfect, so she threw away yesterday’s newspapers, and neatly stacked the books she had been reading the previous afternoon, and folded a sweater Pascal had tossed down the night before. Then, on an impulse, she unshook the folds again and pressed her face against the wool; it smelled just discernibly of his skin and his hair, and at this time she felt inexpressibly happy. She thought: I was right; all my predictions were correct, and—refolding the sweater—she told herself that although occasionally he still infiltrated her dreams, she had cured herself of Rowland McGuire. She and Pascal had been close, very close, to disaster, but they had inched away from it, and escaped.