Lovers and Liars Trilogy (73 page)

I will not let that happen,
Pascal thought,
not to us.
And so he sat there in the café for an hour, seeing nothing and no one, planning what he should say and do when he rejoined Gini, and how—somehow—he would rescue them both. Quarrels were to be expected, he told himself; all lovers quarreled and fought and disagreed. There could be purpose and egality in quarrels: They were nothing to fear, provided they did not undermine the fundamental commitment. This thought heartened him. He ordered more coffee, lit a cigarette, watched the hands of the clock on the wall move slowly toward seven forty-five. He would leave then, for Mary’s house. Suddenly he was impatient to leave, could not wait to leave, to see Gini, to talk to her, to make everything between them clear again, and good.

The hands of the clock, though, seemed to move unnaturally slowly. Frustrated, impatient, he picked up the newspaper again in an effort to distract himself, and then he saw it, a tiny item on the back page, in the Stop Press. It was headed
Accident Outside Oxford.
Pascal glanced at it, froze, read it once, then read it again.

He swore under his breath, tossed some money on the table, picked up the paper, and hurried out to the street. It had begun to rain again, heavily. He ran back to his motorbike, mounted it, and accelerated south.

He turned into Kensington High Street. Mary’s house was a few blocks off this main road, to the west. There was heavy traffic still, although the rush hour was over. Pascal began to weave in and out of other vehicles. It was urgent now to speak to Gini. He had almost forgotten about her father, and his presence at Mary’s house: All he could think of was seeing Gini, and telling her this news.

All along the street, every set of traffic lights hit red as he approached. Pascal swore, and muttered to himself under his breath. There were further lights, up ahead, and they were still green. He checked his side mirror, saw a large black Ford behind him, some twenty yards back. He increased his speed and pulled out past a delivery truck on his left. He was now in the fast lane with the Ford behind him. The lights ahead were still green, still green—and then he realized: The Ford had picked up speed and was now right on his rear wheel. The lights ahead were amber. He had a second to decide as he reached the intersection and they went red: brake or continue?

He thought for one tiny instant of a boulevard in Paris. The Ford behind was too close to allow him to brake. He increased his speed; he had just enough time, he judged, to shoot the light. Then he realized: Neither the delivery truck nor the Ford was braking. They were still with him, on his tail and to his side, as he started across the intersection. He felt the air move as the truck skimmed alongside him. Its driver did not signal or slow. The truck cut in on him, fast, and without warning, swerving right across his front wheel.

As the bike skidded and he started to lose control, the Ford switched its headlights to full beam. In that long, slow second of dazzle, Pascal watched the bike tilt. He watched the wet, glassy surface of the road rise up to meet him. There was a grinding of metal, a screech of rubber. His spine juddered against tarmac; he felt himself start to slide, skid, twenty feet down the road, thirty. The velocity and the pain still had a hypnotic slowness. He was not unconscious. He could see with a timeless and brilliant clarity that this was a dual-action maneuver. The truck, having hit the bike, was now speeding away, and the black Ford was heading straight at him. He was lying in the middle of the street. The Ford had all the time in the world, and all the space in the world, to make its hit.

“I don’t know what story, exactly, McMullen fed your newspaper about my personal life,” Hawthorne was saying, “but I do know one thing for sure—he will have concocted the story with Lise’s help, and she will have lied to him. Even if she weren’t ill, unable to distinguish between truth and falsehood anymore, Lise would still lie where our marriage is concerned. She has never accepted the truth. Every fact has to be adjusted, so she is the innocent, the injured party….” He shrugged. “I won’t get involved in that contest. There is blame on my side, I admit that.”

He paused, and Gini saw his glance move around the room, taking in the bookshelves, the fireplace, then the objects on the mantelpiece—some postcards, a pottery jar and, just to the side, because she had wanted to keep it, Napoleon’s collar. It was made of blue leather. It had a nameplate and a small bell attached. Gini thought Hawthorne saw none of these objects, for all he looked at them. His concentration was directed inward, toward his own life.

She looked at him uncertainly. There was evil in this story, and as Pascal had said, evil did not show in a man’s face, or in his gestures, or his voice. Even so she did not sense evil here: despair, yes; exhaustion, yes; bitterness, possibly—and beyond that, a desire for exactitude and for honesty that was clearly at odds with Hawthorne’s reserve. Mary was right, she thought: This was not a man who liked, or found it easy, to speak openly about himself.

As he looked away, she glanced quickly down at her watch again. She was worried about Pascal, and this inexplicable delay, but she was unwilling to let Hawthorne see that. This opportunity might not come again, and if she was honest with herself, it was more than a journalistic opportunity. It was not easy to remain distanced, she realized, or to remember that her function here was that of a reporter. But then, of course, Hawthorne was not addressing her as if she were a journalist. He was addressing her as if she were a friend. Was that simply a clever maneuver on his part? It could have been—but when she looked at his expression, she thought not.

His gaze had returned to her face. “I’m not good at this. It’s something I’ve never discussed with anyone. But I think the problems were there right at the beginning. Lise and I married primarily for political reasons, for dynastic reasons, if you like. A senator needs a wife. My father promoted the marriage, Lise herself sought it and I went along with it. There was no one else I loved. Lise seemed sweet, very young. I thought, maybe, with time…But I was wrong. The marriage was a disaster, almost from the first. Within a year both Lise and I knew we were incompatible in every possible way. Especially sexually.” He looked at Gini. “I don’t want to dwell on any of those details. But the situation deteriorated very rapidly. It became—painful and ugly for us both. Within six months of our marriage we were sleeping apart. Lise then seemed to expect me to lead a celibate life, except on the few occasions, the very few occasions, when we could overcome our mutual dislike and go to bed.”

He gave a small shrug. “Well, that proved unworkable. I’m no different from other men. From time to time, I need sex.”

He looked at Gini intently as he said this. When she did not speak, he leaned back in his chair, and continued, still in the same even voice. “A year and a half into our marriage, I finally did what Lise had already been accusing me of doing for months. I was away at a conference. I met a woman there who made it plain what she wanted, so I took her to bed. She was about your age. She was blond-haired. She was pretty, kind, generous, and inventive. We spent three nights in my hotel room, and I’ve never seen or heard from her since. I remain deeply grateful to her. She reminded me of what sex can be between two adults. Something purely pleasurable, not part of an endless appalling bargaining process, not a power game, not a contest—and it was all of those things with my wife.” He glanced sharply at Gini. “You disapprove?”

“I don’t approve or disapprove. Adultery happens. It’s not for me to judge.”

“I expect you do, one way or the other. Never mind. It doesn’t matter….”

His gaze moved away from her face, and he looked across the room. When he continued speaking, she had the feeling that this confession was aimed particularly at her, but also beyond her, to those listening walls, perhaps, or to himself.

“It’s ridiculous, isn’t it?” he went on. “For a man in my position, there’s only one question that counts. Has he or has he not screwed around? If so, when, and with whom? No one ever cares or concerns themselves with the
why
—just, did he do it, and with whom?” He paused. “Tell me something. You’ve met Lise. What did you think of her?”

Gini hesitated.

“Tell me the truth, Gini.”

“I thought she was afraid of you. I thought she was confused, forgetful. She kept contradicting herself. She stressed her devotion to you some of the time. She quoted you constantly. …”

“Oh, I’m sure.” He smiled. “And you found it convincing, did you, all that devotion?”

“I found it overstated, if you like. Sugary, perhaps.”

The term seemed to please him. “Sugary? Honeyed? I’d agree. Lise overplays the devotion sometimes, the same way she overplays the charm. She’s always done that, long before this illness. The fact is that our dislike for each other is shared. Lise detests me—but Lise is a very good actress, an exceptional actress. It was one of the reasons my father advised me to marry her. He believed—and still believes—that acting ability is essential in a future president’s wife.”

He sighed, and drained his whisky. “My father’s a cynic, of course. He now views Lise as a liability. He’s advising that I engineer an annulment and marry again in due course.”

“Could that be engineered?”

“Of course.” He made the statement blandly, as if it surprised him she should even ask it. “If you have contacts at high levels in the Catholic Church, it can always be arranged. It would be difficult without Lise’s cooperation, and while she remains this ill, it’s an impossibility. But in the future, perhaps. If Lise could ever be persuaded that she had an identity of her own, that her fame and preeminence, all the things she enjoys, did not depend on her status as my wife.”

“Do you think she ever would feel that?”

“No. Probably not.” The answer was given in an offhand, almost lazy way. His gaze returned to her face. “Of course, if I ever were free to remarry, I’d have to educate my father a little. He’d have to understand that I now require rather different qualities in a wife.”

“Such as?”

“Stamina. Discretion. Unselfishness. An ability to love. Intelligence…Intelligence especially. That would help.”

Gini looked away. The intensity of his gaze was now making her self-conscious. “Lise didn’t strike me as exactly stupid,” she began.

“Oh, come on.” Hawthorne rose to his feet impatiently. He moved across to the table and refilled his glass. “Come on, Gini, you’re better than that. Lise is a vain, vapid, self-obsessed woman. She’s prodigiously stupid. She lives in a permanent state of anguished vanity and discontent. She has this need, this appalling, inexhaustible need to be the center of attention. Lise is the greatest egoist I ever met in my life. If cuddling sick babies in front of photographers gets her that attention, then that’s what she’ll do. If slashing her wrists gets her attention, she’ll do that as well. Dear God, I’ve been married to the woman for ten years. She’s the mother of my children. You think I don’t know my own wife?”

There was a silence. Gini was shocked by the sudden and impassioned vehemence with which he spoke, and Hawthorne, as if realizing that, gave a sigh, and a hopeless gesture of the hand.

“I know. I’m doing exactly what I said I wouldn’t do. I didn’t mean to discuss Lise, or run her down. But sometimes—just for once—I’d like someone to understand what my famously perfect marriage is actually like. I’ve fathered two children by a woman I neither love nor respect—and if Lise is paying the consequences for that, so am I. Unlike Lise, I don’t take refuge in lies, or pills. I have other remedies. Sometimes drink—just to get me through the night—and sometimes women. The drink is too addictive, too dangerous, as we saw with your father tonight. So these days I settle for something that’s easier, readily available, and much less habit-forming. Women. I screw around, Gini. Yes.”

There was a pause. Gini could sense it again, that little pulse of danger in the room, and unease too.

“Are women not habit-forming, not addictive?” she said.

Hawthorne looked at her closely. “Is that what McMullen implied? That I needed women for some kind of regular fix?” His face hardened. “Well, if he did, it wouldn’t surprise me. Lise has made that particular accusation, and variations upon it, many times. I don’t think it’s true. I told you. I like women. I like sex. So, yes, I’ve been unfaithful to my wife. I was unfaithful for the first time eighteen months into our marriage, and I’ve been unfaithful on many occasions since. If you want chapter and verse, in eight and a half years I’ve had four affairs of some duration, in each case with kind, discreet married women. Women I liked. Women I respected. They began by mutual agreement and ended without tears the same way and—” He stopped, as if considering whether to reveal the rest. “And, all right,” he went on angrily now, “there have been other episodes as well. One-night stands, if you like. I’ve slept with other women for no better reason than that I was away someplace, and I was tired, and I was lonely and sick at heart, and they were
there.
So, just like a million other men, I gave in to the illusion that a woman might help….” He stopped again. “I’m a politician, not a priest, Gini. Sometimes it’s very simple. I just meet a woman I want to fuck.”

There was another silence, and this time Gini could sense the danger in the room acutely. He had been shifting their relationship, she realized, throughout this conversation, drawing her deeper into an area of his life where it was unwise to trespass, and now—with that one final verb—he had shifted their relationship again. This was no longer a confession, and it had long ceased to be an interview: They were now simply a man and a woman, alone in a room at night. Hawthorne might have been scrupulous up to that moment, attempting to curb his emotion, keeping his distance, but the instant he uttered that word, all that changed. The silence between them was now loaded, and it carried a sexual charge.

She was not certain if Hawthorne had planned it that way—she thought not. But she knew he could sense it as acutely as she could, and she could read it in the alteration of his face. He put down his glass and leaned forward.