The Lie of You: I Will Have What Is Mine (26 page)

One was called
Britannia Pacificatrix.
This showed the nations of the world as costumed figures who were paying homage to Britannia. Italy was depicted as a woman in white holding the
fasces
, Canada was a young man girdled with maple leaves, while Africa was a small naked boy with a basket of tropical fruits on his head! I looked more closely and saw that Portugal was depicted as a woman with a basket of grapes. Britannia, the peacemaker, was comforting a naked girl, Belgium, who was holding a broken sword aloft. We lingered in front of this mural for a few minutes.

‘Quite extraordinary! It just oozes Imperial confidence, doesn’t it? When was it painted?’ Philip asked.

‘Between 1914 and 1921 by the artist Sigismund Goetze,’ the event organizer said.

‘Great choice, Victoria. We should do a feature on this some time, Kathy.’

‘Indeed,’ I replied.

An uneasy peace had been restored between us but we were still at the chilly stage.

We entered the Grand Reception Room. A large plasma screen had been set up at the far end and a dais had been built in front of it with a table and two microphones for Philip and me. Two long tables covered in white linen cloths lined the side of the room and were being set up as bars. White-jacketed waiters were arranging trays of wineglasses in sequence down their length.

‘I asked them to do interesting soft drinks as well wine and beer,’ Victoria told us. ‘Elderflower cordial and pomegranate juice. More and more people are swerving booze these days.’

‘The hacks still like a drink,’ said Philip.

One of the waiters came over and offered us a drink. I asked for mineral water. I was absurdly nervous and kept swallowing.

The event organizer said, ‘We’d like to do a sound and picture check now. Mr Parr, Kathy, would you mind getting into your positions on the stage, please.’

Philip read through his speech. It was a good speech, quite funny in places, and he did acknowledge that the guide was my idea. He delivered it a bit too fast and I wondered if I should say anything. I decided not to. His closing words were the cue for a three-minute promo tape cut to music, which was made up of some of the best images and quotes from the guide. It was very well done and I was glad that they’d followed my advice and ended it with a freeze frame on Hector’s shot of the Torre de Belem taken from the river. At this point the plan was to take questions from the guests and that was when I would be needed.

‘Kathy, could you please say a few words into your mic so we can check the sound level?’

I said, ‘The Torre de Belem in Lisbon, a UNESCO World Heritage Site...’

‘That’s fine. OK. Everything’s ready.’

Philip and I got down from the dais.

‘Great speech, Philip, maybe take it a bit slower,’ Victoria said.

‘You think?’

‘Yeah, give the jokes time to sink in, it’s very amusing. The photographer who did that last shot is coming tonight.’

‘Kathy, make sure you introduce him to me. He’s got something special...’

‘Hector Agapito.’

‘We should use him more.’

‘I plan to,’ I said.

I went to the Ladies and checked myself over. My stomach would not be stilled and I just wanted the evening to be over with.

Around five to seven the first guests started to arrive. Philip, Victoria and I positioned ourselves by the huge oak entrance door so we could greet people as they came in. It was such a large and magnificent room that the early guests looked a little awkward and they grouped together by the bar. I could hear the moan of the wind against the vast high windows and saw dead leaves being whipped up into the sky.

‘Bloody awful night,’ Philip hissed. ‘May keep people away.’

‘Don’t worry,’ said Victoria. ‘People will want to see this amazing building.’ She looked a bit anxious.

More guests started to arrive and slowly the room began to fill, the level of voices rose and it started to feel like a party. Markus came in and squeezed my arm. The organizer came over to Victoria.

‘I think we’ll start to circulate with some hot canapés now.’

‘Fine; please make sure the food stops circulating as soon as he starts his speech.’

Then Hector was standing there in front of me. He was wearing a red brushed-cotton shirt and black trousers. His hair curled around his neck and he was smiling warmly at me.

‘Kathy.’ He kissed me on both cheeks. ‘What a place! I’d love to photograph that staircase. Did you find it?’ he asked.

‘No, I didn’t. Did you take a look at those murals?’

‘I did; wonderful and quite absurd!’

‘Portugal’s in there – a woman with a basket of grapes, of course. Personally I far prefer the Mosteiro,’ I said.

He looked at me, really looked at me. ‘How are things?’

‘I’ll be glad when this is all over, to be honest. I’m happy to say that you are one of the stars of tonight’s show. There are lots of your shots in the promo tape.’

Philip was standing next to me, talking to a female journalist from a Radio Four arts programme. He looked over at us.

‘I want to introduce you to the publisher of our magazine,’ I said. ‘Philip Parr, this is Hector Agapito, who photographed the Portuguese sites’

Philip said how much he admired Hector’s work. Hector thanked him and I remembered our conversation in the café and his description of Philip as a prick. Sensing this, Hector glanced over at me and winked. Victoria joined us then, introduced herself and said, ‘You must be Hector. There’s a journalist here from a photo magazine and he’s seen some of your shots. Would you be willing to be interviewed?’

‘Delighted...’

He looked over at me and said, ‘We’ll talk later.’

Victoria moved off with him into the scrum of guests and the media.

‘Time to mingle,’ Philip said.

The room was now full of people and there must have been over three hundred there. There was that excited clamour of voices you get at a good party. I found Markus standing by the great door that led out of the main room into a smaller room.

‘Come here. I want to show you something,’ he said. He led me through to the adjoining conference room.

‘Look at the hinges on this door. See those acorns carved in brass above the hinges? What a superb detail to find on an oak door...’

He stroked the wood of the door and I loved him again at that moment for caring about the architectural detail and not caring about the loud, self-important people in the other room. I touched him on his back.

‘I’m sick with nerves.’

‘You look perfectly cool and calm.’

‘Was Billy OK when you left?’

‘He was as happy as could be.’

‘Fran’s good with him.’

We walked back into the reception room together. A waitress passed and offered her tray of miniature crispy duck pancakes. Markus took one.

‘It is a bit of a circus. Go on, you’d better mix with the guests.’

This is the warmest conversation we’ve had for weeks and I was grateful that he’d come along to support me. I moved back into the noise and heat of the room.

Philip walked up onto the stage and it took him two minutes of calling for people’s attention through the microphone before the voices were stilled and the room finally became quiet.

‘Thank you, thank you. This won’t take long. We are here to tell you about our World Heritage Sites guide. I’m Philip Parr, publisher of the guide, and this is Kathy Hartman, editor.’

Markus had moved close to the stage, at the side. Hector and Victoria were standing in the centre of the room. As Philip spoke I saw through the far window that the wind was getting ever fiercer. A plastic bag flew past the window and it ballooned and fluttered in an agony of movement. Aisha was pushing though the guests from the door of the room as Philip was giving his speech. I wondered what she was doing. She was looking for someone. I tried to catch her eye but she did not look in my direction. She moved as quickly and as surreptitiously as she could through the crowd. Philip had finished speaking. He had got a few laughs with his speech. Then the lights in the room were dimmed as the plasma screen lit up with images of World Heritage Sites from across Europe.

I looked over to where Hector was standing, watching, and Victoria, who stood close to him, was looking very excited. There was a collective sigh of pleasure as the tape ended and then people started to clap enthusiastically.

Philip waited a moment and said, ‘I’m glad you enjoyed that. We’d be delighted to take questions now. There are people with microphones in the room so if you could use the microphone to ask your questions, please.’

I noticed that Aisha had reached Markus. She touched his arm and whispered something in his ear. In that instant a profound change came over his face. I couldn’t read it other than to say that it looked as if he had committed a terrible crime. He glanced at me for a split second, too quickly for me to acknowledge his look, then turned and started to walk out of the room, pushing through the crowd with real urgency. Aisha followed closely in his wake. My instant reaction was that something had happened to Billy. There was ice in my chest and in my stomach. People were talking in the distance. Their voices were muffled by the noise of my heart. There was a silence, a stretched-out silence. Then I heard Philip saying my name from a long way away.

‘Kathy, that’s one for you, I think.’

I looked at him. He was giving me a strange look.

‘I’m sorry, would you, would you repeat the question, please?’

We got through the questions. Somehow I managed to get out the answers. Philip did most of the talking. Aisha had come back into the room and now she was standing where Markus had stood, to the side of the stage, and she was clearly very agitated. She could not keep her hands still; she was actually wringing them in her distress. And she would not meet my eye, although I kept looking in her direction. My mouth was dry and my mind was running through the catalogue of sudden infant death syndrome; of babies choking on their vomit; of fits and of accidents with boiling water.

Finally Philip said, ‘Please enjoy the rest of the party.’

I got up and walked off the stage straight towards Aisha. Philip was saying something to me as I moved quickly away from him and Aisha looked at me at last.

‘What is it?’

‘Not here, Kathy. Let’s go into the other room,’ she pleaded.

‘Tell me, tell me now! What’s happened?’

‘It’s Billy. He’s disappeared. Your nanny called reception and the security man found me.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘Your nanny went into his room and he was gone.’

The room started to turn on a strange axis. Philip must have been standing by me because he helped me on to a chair.

OCTOBER

I crossed Oxford Street into North Audley Street and drove round Grosvenor Square. As I passed the Connaught Hotel I could see my father’s face as he sliced into his chicken pie. His eyes were glittering with amusement as he looked over at me. I found myself smiling at the memory. I may not see him ever again. It is how I will remember him, his face lightened by pleasure. I turned left into Piccadilly and down to Trafalgar Square. The wind had grown stronger in the last few minutes and I saw pieces of paper and plastic debris being swept up into a frenzy in the centre of the square. A broken umbrella was caught by a gust. The bent spokes opened and twisted the black umbrella up into the sky, like a hideous broken-winged crow, up past the lion statue on the corner. The wind whistled against the windows of the car as we drove down Whitehall and turned on to Westminster Bridge. I felt the smack of the blast on the body of the car as we crossed the bridge. I tightened my grip on the steering wheel and wished, again, that I was in my low-slung convertible.

There was something alarming about the intensity of the wind. There had been no warning on the radio. I had listened to the forecast at six o’clock. I drove past Waterloo and on to the Elephant and Castle. Here the wind was whipping up grit and gravel into mini-cyclones. Several small stones hit my windscreen with a vicious crack that made my heart skid. I had filled the car with petrol that morning. Now I wondered about pulling into a garage to take shelter. I decided to carry on. The storm would blow itself out. I wanted to put miles between me and London and reach Deal as fast as I could.

Markus and I were caught in a storm that summer of our holiday in Åland, the summer of our great row. He had made friends with a Swedish couple who had a small sailing boat. The four of us had taken her out for a day of sailing and diving. The day had started fine and we had sailed a good distance. Then by lunchtime the sky became overcast and the sea started to get choppy. We were planning to sail overnight to a mooring at Sottunga on the other side of the island. It started to rain and the waves grew to ten feet high, which the boat rode without difficulty. Then the bilge pump stopped working. The owners went below to bail out the cabin. Markus and I were left above to steer the boat.

The wind got up and the waves grew in front of us. Now they were fifteen feet high. We rode them down. As we rode them up again the moon pulled away from a cloud and shone down on us. It was nearly full. Markus shouted at me that the bloody moon was responsible for the turbulence. He looked so exhilarated, so alive. The owners came up and said we would have to do watches through the night. I went below to try to sleep for a few hours. Markus was up on deck with the boat owner’s wife, Agneta, doing his watch.

Now we had reached the M20 and the wind was hitting the car at gale-force speed. It was taking all my strength and concentration to keep the car in a straight line. There were very few cars on the road, much fewer than usual. I saw a high-sided lorry in the slow lane in front of me. The driver was having difficulty keeping his lorry in the lane. The pressure on the side of the vehicle was making it swing over into the second lane. Then he would pull it back. I accelerated across into the third, fast lane, and passed him. Further on I saw five lorries parked on the hard shoulder. A driver was getting out of his cab and a gust of wind flung his cab door open. He leapt out of the way. I drove on, concentrating hard.