Miss Carter's War (32 page)

The last part of the treat was to have cocktails at the Ritz and then go on to dine at a recently opened restaurant in Chelsea, Le Gavroche.

‘They’re a couple of Froggie brothers, the Roux, so you should feel at home. It is
the
place to be,’ said Tony as they walked from the tube station down Lower Sloane Street. Marguerite was astonished at how her liberated limbs and bouncing unlacquered hair altered her frame of mind. She felt free, light-hearted, and attractive. They were welcomed by the maître d’, who led them to the corner table where Donald was waiting.

He rose to greet them with a cry of delight.

‘Wow, what a stunner.’

All traces of the depressing insecurity caused by Jimmy’s absence disappeared as they ate their way through the gourmet delights of the menu. The melting cheese soufflé, the langoustine and pigs’ trotters in mustard sauce, the raw tuna with spicy ginger and sesame dressing, the venison and cranberry sauce were the food of the gods and they relished and swooned over every flavour-filled mouthful. These delicacies, combined with the different wines that complemented each course, sent them into a state of hedonistic delight.

They were pausing to digest the main feast before embarking on the dessert when the quiet of the restaurant was disturbed by a group of four people in evening dress who, from their over-loud conversation, had obviously been to a First Night. The maître d’ was fawning over a woman whose age it was difficult to assess.

‘She’s about fifty,’ whispered Tony.

‘Nah, sixty if she’s a day. She’s had her face done,’ contradicted Donald.

‘Vada the Aunt Nelly danglers,’ said Tony.

The woman’s earrings were spectacular diamond drops. In addition she had a three-string pearl necklace that looked real. Her black hair was swept back in a bouffant style that Vidal would have chopped to pieces, but with her pale make-up and flashing green eyes, she was a spectacular sight.

She took off a sable stole, revealing a black-satin décolleté frock, which made Marguerite, in her simple little Mary Quant, feel underdressed. The woman handed the stole to a man in a dinner suit with his back to them, kissing him lightly on the mouth as she did so.

‘Get rid of this, sweetheart.’ The man turned to give the fur to the maître d’ and Marguerite saw his face for the first time.

‘Christ,’ said Tony. ‘It’s Jimmy.’

‘Dear God. The arsehole,’ said Donald with disbelief.

‘I’m going to be sick,’ said Marguerite.

‘Please don’t, darling,’ said Tony. ‘It would be a terrible waste of money.’

The three of them slumped down in their chairs in the mercifully dark corner as the woman put a proprietary arm around Jimmy’s waist and, chatting and chuckling, led him through the tables. From the furtive glances the woman gave, to see if people were watching, which indeed they were, she wanted her companions and the world to know that the handsome younger man was hers. Just as the earrings and the pearls and the sable were.

‘Who the hell is she?’ said Tony.

‘I recognise her,’ replied Donald. ‘I’ve seen her photo.’

‘Yes, come to think of it, so have I,’ said Tony. ‘In that bloody awful “Jennifer’s Diary” in your
Queen
magazine. All those old-hat High-Society idiots.’

‘Who is she though?’ asked Donald.

Marguerite hesitated.

‘His auntie.’

At that moment the woman was holding her champagne glass for Jimmy to drink from, whilst caressing his hair.

‘Oh really?’ drawled Tony, and despite the grotesquery of the situation all three let out a burst of laughter. The noise made Jimmy look across the room over the rim of the glass from which he was sipping. He squinted in the dim light, then spluttered the champagne, a look of stark terror crossing his face. Choking, he left his worried companions and made for the toilet. Before Marguerite could stop him, Tony had followed him out.

‘There’s probably some simple explanation, Mags.’

‘Let’s go, Donald. Do you mind?’

Donald summoned the waiter who was unctuously expressing dismay that they were missing the superb dessert selection when Tony nearly knocked him flying returning from the Gents.

‘Good, I see we’re leaving. Let’s pay the bill and go.’

As they made their exit, Marguerite saw Jimmy had returned to his table where the woman was fussing over him anxiously.

Outside the restaurant Tony said, ‘OK, Mags. He’ll be at the pub at eleven tomorrow morning.’

‘I don’t want to see him.’

‘You must. Do you want me to be there with you?’

‘No. I’ll be all right,’ she said wearily. ‘I usually am.’

Chapter 32

‘Love the hair, old girl.’ The grin was uncertain.

‘Don’t, Jimmy, please.’

‘No. All right.’

As they stood facing one another in Marguerite’s room, a train went under the building.

Jimmy laughed.

‘The house is shaking as well.’

He did look terrified. She said nothing.

‘I suppose you want an explanation.’

‘That would be nice.’

He moved to the window.

With his back to her he said, ‘Right. No more bullshit. I’m not her nephew. I’m her lover. She gives me lavish presents, keeps me in a style to which I am unaccustomed, in return for boosting her ego with her friends and the odd fuck.’

She flinched as if he had struck her.

‘How long has it been going on?’

He took a deep breath before answering.

‘All the time I’ve known you.’

Marguerite was too stunned to speak.

Jimmy was shaking.

‘You may ask yourself why I behaved like this. The answer is – that’s what I do. I lie. I cheat. I dissemble. I con my way through life. Usually I’m very good at it, but you have been my Achilles heel. I made the worst mistake for a conman. I cared about you.’

Marguerite laughed,

‘I can’t believe this. You’re conning me now.’

He turned to face her. He was ashen.

‘I swear not. Please sit down, Marguerite. I need to try and explain. To myself as much as you.’

Marguerite reluctantly sat on the bed.

‘All right but it had better be good.’

‘That night at Tony and Donald’s, I prepared in my usual way. I know a bit about art from her collection. I read up on ballet and Donald’s career. I dressed as I thought they might find attractive, and did my full charm offensive.’

Marguerite was appalled.

‘Is that what you did with me? That trip to Brighton, was it all coldly calculated? The picnic? The hotel?’

He shouted, ‘Yes. Don’t you understand? That’s what I do. I please people. I make them happy. I do it well. As I’ve often heard you say, “All youngsters are good at something.” Well, I’m good at understanding what people want and giving it to them. Being it. Whatever they need.’

‘Even when you make love?’

‘Usually, yes. I’ve got it down to a fine art. Haven’t I? I’m good at it, aren’t I. Aren’t I?’

She closed her eyes to shut out the image of his beseeching little boy’s face and murmured, ‘Yes.’

‘Well, it all went wrong that night. It was the painting.’

‘The painting?’

‘Yes, the Samuel Palmer. When I asked to buy it, as a child, the man laughed at me. “You won’t ever be able to afford that, sonny.” Sod you, I thought. I made a vow there and then to prove him wrong. I wanted lovely things like that painting in my life and I’d damn well get them. But when I listened to Donald, I realised that man in Shoreham was right. Donald’s got real talent. I haven’t. I’m just good at pouring drinks and fucking. He worked for that painting and deserved it. I looked at all three of you that night and I felt jealous. You’ve made something of yourselves, you do something worthwhile. I liked them both so much. How kind they were to you and welcoming me like that. And you’ – he turned to look at her – ‘you’re a good woman, Marguerite. Dedicated, loving, clever. But I’m sorry – I can’t live up to you.’

‘
You’re special, Marguerite. You have a mission. A vision of a better world. I fought because I had to. Now I want peace. You must obey your voices, my brave little Jeanne d’Arc. I am just a peasant farmer. I only want to hear the sound of the birds, and the wind in the trees. I can’t be part of your quest
.’

Marguerite put out her hand and pulled him to sit next to her.

‘It’s not too late for you, Jimmy. You obviously have a talent for art. I could find a course in art history that you could do—’

‘Could but wouldn’t. I’d give up when it got difficult. And what would I be in the end? Some old bloke working in a museum. It’s too late for me. Why do you suppose I’ve not done anything serious in the twenty-odd years since the war? You think education is the answer to everything but for some of us it isn’t. I don’t want to work hard. I can’t stick at anything for long. The only time I was really happy was in the RAF when I was told what to do and everyone thought I was a hero.’

‘You were.’

‘For a while. Not later. After the war no one wanted to know. I wasn’t one of the famous Few. I was Bomber Command. We destroyed Dresden, Cologne, Hamburg, killed thousands of civilians. We lost more men, half of us in fact, than any other set up, including my navigator. He got hit by flak in the rear turret and when we limped back to base, I scraped him off the bloody walls of the plane. We thought he’d died for his country, but then we found out he was a war criminal.’

‘You won a DFC, Jimmy. That’s more than Donald or Tony ever did.’

He stood up suddenly and started pacing round the room.

‘Right, now I’m spewing it all out. Let me tell you the truth about that. Let me tell you about that valiant event. The true version, not Stan’s. When the plane was hit I knew I was badly injured. I managed to ditch the plane. Two of them had got out and were in the drink. I thought the other two, still inside, had gone for a Burton. Mind you, I didn’t spend a lot of time checking their pulses, I was too busy trying to get the dinghy out, because I knew – I, you understand me, I, me, I didn’t care about the others – I knew I was too knocked about to do much swimming. I managed to release the dinghy just before the plane went under the waves. Then, I helped Chalky heave Stan into it, and I fell into it myself.’

‘Yes, that’s what Stan told me. You saved his life.’

‘Actually he saved mine. There I was flopped on the bottom of the boat like a dead fish, with my face in 6 inches of water, drowning, and, as usual, I gave up. But he lifted my nose out of the water with his foot. I managed to sit up. And then – then, I could hear this voice calling for help. One of the other lads was in the drink somewhere. He wasn’t dead.’ Jimmy’s face contorted with grief.

‘What happened then?’

Jimmy started pacing again.

‘This is the funny bit. Get ready to laugh. I organised a sing-song to drown out the noise. The sound of him dying – drowning – begging for help. It went on for fifteen minutes. And, guess what? They gave me a medal for keeping up the morale of my crew until we were rescued. You’re not laughing. Don’t you think it’s funny?’

‘Jimmy, listen to me. I know from Stan you were badly wounded. You couldn’t have reached the other man.’

‘You would have. Someone like you would have. But not me. I just got the lads singing “Roll Out The Barrel” to stifle the noise of a drowning comrade. So there you are, Marguerite. That’s me. Phoney war hero, without a pot to piss in. I bum around, and truth to tell, I like it that way. I get the lovely pictures, the Lalique glasses, the silk shirts and the luxurious houses. Second-hand, but better than a bedsit in Pimlico. You think they’re deadbeats, but I even like my friends at the Dominion. I feel at home with all those failures. Yes, it works for me. But it wouldn’t for you, my dearest, dearest Skylark.’

He looked intensely at her face, as if he were drinking in its features.

‘Thank you. Knowing you has been a Samuel Palmer painting for me. Something truly wonderful that is out of my reach.’

He kissed the palm of his hand and laid it on her lips. Then he turned abruptly, and picked up his jacket from the chair.

He held it up,

‘Best chamois leather,’ he chortled. It was back. The lopsided grin.

And then he was gone.

Five minutes later Tony arrived, presumably tipped off by Flo. Marguerite had not moved from the bed. He sat next to her. She no longer felt any anger at Jimmy’s betrayal, just a terrible despair that she could see no way to help him.

‘Has it occurred to you, petal, he actually doesn’t want or need help? He’s surviving in the best way he knows. Your way is not his. Beware the Messiah complex.’

Marguerite murmured:

‘ “And, though little troubled with sloth,

Drunken Lark! Thou would’st be loth

To be such a traveller as I.” ’

‘What’s that?’

‘A poem we liked. Or I liked. And he probably pretended to like. Who knows? My judgement is not very reliable. Is it?’