Meanwhile, she had to resolve the menu for tonight. She was half decided, almost decided, but there was a certain anxiety at the back of her mind, an anxiety that had nothing to do with food or the dinner itself, and that anxiety was distracting her. It made her flurried and indecisive. She opened her larder, examined the contents of her refrigerator. When distracted, she cooked badly. Concentrate, she told herself, stick to your original menu and don’t vacillate; vacillation made things worse.
They would begin with the smoked salmon as planned, she decided, then move on to a dish that was always a success, pheasants cooked with apples and Calvados. Finally, the dessert. Mary had a great weakness for dessert, and even if that weakness was not shared by guests such as Lise, she intended to provide a choice: pears baked in red wine and cinnamon would look beautiful, the color of rubies, and then—even more wicked, even more calorie-laden, her chocolate mousse.
She tied on her apron, and, humming to herself, began her preparation, already feeling less anxious. The dinner, she told herself, would be a success. It had the virtue of simplicity—and for her, the menu brought back happy memories of Richard. Odd how tastes could remind you of contentment and of love. And then, apart from this menu, she had chosen her guests well. Some were undeniably boring, it was true, but they would be useful to John Hawthorne—indeed, had been invited at John’s request.
“You devious man,” she had said to him, laughing, when he mentioned their names.
“But of course,” he replied. “I’m a diplomat now, and deviousness comes with the territory, Mary. You know that.”
“You were born devious,” she countered stoutly. “One of nature’s Machiavellis—Richard always said that.”
“It takes one to know one,” he replied in his dry way. “Besides, in my position”—he gave a shrug—“you learn early to watch your back.”
Indeed, Mary thought now, a well-developed sense of self-protection was necessary for any man or woman in public life. Her father might have made the same comment; so might her husband. A little streak of ruthlessness was indispensable. Feeling pleased with herself, she began to grate the chocolate for the mousse, absentmindedly nibbling at tiny chunks. She found the cream and eggs; a little zest of orange, she thought contentedly, that always gave the mousse a lift. She separated the eggs, began to whip the whites, and let her mind drift back to happier days.
This recipe had been given her by one of Richard’s aunts, an eccentric woman who had lived for forty years as an expatriate, in Provence. She had had the most wonderful house, halfway up the side of a hill, the approach road flanked by huge bushes of rosemary and lavender. Richard had picked a sprig of lavender for her, crushed it slightly, then held it out to her. She had inhaled deeply; a hot, dry, aromatic scent. Richard said: To me, that’s the smell of France, the South of France….
Mary stopped. She put down the whisk. The anxiety had returned sharply and abruptly. This very evening, just a few hours from now, this Pascal Lamartine would be here, in her house.
The prospect filled her with alarm. There was no point in ignoring it any longer, she thought; she would have to confront it, deal with it, decide what to do. Should she or should she not make it clear to this Frenchman that she knew about his past conduct? Should she tell him she knew exactly who, and what, he was?
Unnerved, Mary made herself some coffee and broke an inviolable rule—she lit a morning cigarette. She sat at her kitchen table and stared unseeingly into the middle distance, unhappy and perplexed.
She was certain that when, out of the blue, Gini had mentioned Lamartine’s name, her own reaction had been quick. She was sure she had covered up well, and disguised from Gini the confusion and shock she immediately felt. Mary felt quite proud of herself for this. She knew that she was not the world’s most accomplished actress, and that Gini was astute. Even so, Mary had been both a diplomat’s daughter and a diplomat’s wife. In emergencies she could summon up a repertoire of social deceit. She might not like to do so, for it was not in her nature to lie, especially to Gini, whom she loved. Nevertheless, she had been schooled to conceal boredom and dislike, and she could disguise anxiety just as well. She had learned the techniques of the white lie, the polite evasion, the digression, from her childhood. She had employed them in the past at a hundred embassy receptions. Last Wednesday, when Gini dropped the bombshell of Lamartine’s name, those techniques had come to her aid. No, Gini had suspected nothing—she was certain of that. Her comments about paparazzi had been idiotic, she knew, and in the circumstances, her matchmaking tone had been ill advised. But they had achieved their objective, and they had bought her time. Now, unfortunately, time was running out. She had to decide what to do when she finally met Lamartine tonight.
After Gini had left her last Wednesday, Mary had not slept. She tossed and turned half the night. On the Thursday evening she was at a party at the French embassy, and John Hawthorne, who was there without his wife, gave her a lift home. He came in with her, accepted a drink, had seen that she was worried, questioned her gently. …She resisted for a while, then the whole story poured out
Well, she did not regret that, she thought now. John had never betrayed a confidence in his life. She had never discussed this with anyone, for Gini’s sake, yet when she began her story, she felt the greatest relief. One of the worst and most painful aspects of widowhood, she decided, was the loneliness of decision making. She missed acutely Richard’s capacity for listening, his support, his quiet and almost infallibly wise advice.
That gap in her life was increasingly filled by John Hawthorne, and she was grateful to him for that. A harder man than her husband had ever been—though Richard could be tough—John Hawthorne shared many of her husband’s qualities nonetheless. His capacity for listening was famous, of course; those who liked him said it was the source of his charm, and those who disliked him said it accounted for his success. Beyond that, as she had discovered this past year, John Hawthorne was kind, generous, and acute. He did not mince his words; he did not flatter or falsely console. He gave straight advice, in a straight manner, even when that advice was not what Mary always wanted to hear, and she would see, later, that the advice he gave was subtle. A reserved man, she thought now; a clever man; a man who, this past year, had gradually revealed to her hidden depths. How fortunate to have such a man as a friend; how fortunate to know she could rely on his protection and his trust.
“You mean Gini knew this man before?” he had said, frowning.
“More than that. Much worse. Oh, God, John, what am I going to do? If Sam finds out, he’ll be furious.”
John, who had known her ex-husband in the past, gave a dry smile. “And Sam in one of his rages is quite a sight. To be avoided at all costs, I’d say. Go on.”
“Oh, John. I don’t know where to begin. Gini has no idea I know what happened. It was all so ghastly. Sam and this Lamartine man had a fight—really, a physical fight. Sam had a cut eye and a cracked rib. Gini, poor Gini, she was in such a state of misery for months and months. I was absolutely terrified she was pregnant—but, of course, she wasn’t, thank God. I kept telling myself she’d confide in me, and then she never did, never—not to this day, that’s how deep it went. And now this bloody man has turned up again, and I just know she still feels something for him, John, I could see it in her face. What am I to do? Should I say nothing, or intervene? Should I tell Sam this Lamartine’s reemerged—I always promised him I would, but that was twelve years ago. It seems foolish now; after all, Gini’s grown up. There’s nothing either of us could do except advise her. Well, I did think, perhaps if I said something to Lamartine on Saturday, he might back off. That is, if he’s still interested in Gini, and he’s probably not.”
She stopped, out of breath, and turned to him. “You see, my one concern is Gini. She’s much more vulnerable than she looks. I can’t bear to see her hurt again. He hurt her so badly before, John, and it was obvious he couldn’t have cared less. Why are some men like that, why?”
“A seduction, of course.” Mary gave him an indignant look. “John, it was twelve years ago. Gini was just fifteen years old.”
At that, his amusement vanished and his expression became intent. He leaned forward, and he listened with absolute attention. It was a long story, as Mary told it, and he scarcely interrupted once.
“It was that horrible summer,” Mary began. “The summer of nineteen eighty-two. It was the worst year of my life, one of the worst years. I hadn’t seen Sam in ages, and he had gone out to Beirut….”
She went through it all then—the icy telephone call from Gini’s headmistress, the ghastliness of contacting the police, the relief when late that night Gini telephoned from the Hotel Ledoyen and explained where she was. The conversation with Sam that same night, when Sam had been slightly drunk, at the three-bourbon stage, Mary would have judged. Sam’s careless reassurances that of course Gini would be fine, that he’d keep an eye on her, and Mary’s anxiety: Beirut was a dangerous place, and Sam Hunter had never kept an eye on Gini in his life.
“Oh, stop fussing, Mary,” Sam had said. “She’s here and she may as well stay for a while. Maybe it’ll knock some sense into her. You know what she’s saying now? She wants to be a journalist, for God’s sake.”
“She’s been saying that for the last five years, Sam. If you listened occasionally, on the rare occasions when you see her, you’d know that.”
“Mary, listen, this is a child we’re talking about here. A sixteen-year-old kid…”
“Fifteen, Sam. She isn’t sixteen for another four weeks.”
“Fifteen, sixteen, what difference does it make?” His voice had faded into a crackle of interference on the line.
“Journalist!” Mary made out as it cleared. “For Christ’s sake. Well, let her find out what reporting really means. I guarantee it—she’ll be out of here in a week.”
Looking into the fire, Mary paused, frowned, then continued her story. Sam, of course, had not been right. Two weeks went by, three. Mary herself would try to telephone, but Sam never took her calls, and Gini always seemed to be out, even when she called quite late.
Mary described the mounting anxiety and impotence she had felt. She described how she had scanned, every day, the Beirut stories in the newspapers. And she described the day when Sam and Gini suddenly arrived back on her doorstep, unannounced. It was ten in the morning; there had been problems with their flights. She heard the taxi pulling up outside the house in Kent. She rushed out, full of questions, had seen their faces, felt the thunder and tension in the air, and stopped.
Gini’s face was white and streaked with tears. Sam was sweating, cursing, belligerent. He had a swollen jaw, ten stitches in a jagged cut above his eye, and he was walking with a limp. He half pulled, half pushed Gini into the hall.
“All right,” he said. “You go to your room now, and you goddamn well stay in it. You come out when I say so and not before. Jesus Christ, Mary. I’ve been up all goddamn night. Fix me a drink, will you? A large drink.”
Gini ran up the stairs without a backward glance. Her bedroom was in the attic; in the distance a door slammed. Sam and Mary moved into the drawing room. Sam shut the door behind him. Mary stared at him in consternation. He drank three inches of bourbon straight down, then he came to the point.
“You want to know what’s wrong? You want to know what’s happened? Fine, I’ll tell you. A man’s happened. His name’s Pascal Lamartine. A fucking Frenchman. A photographer. One of the Leica leeches. That’s who’s happened. Get a hold of yourself, Mary. He’s been screwing Gini. He’s been screwing Gini day and night for weeks….” He stopped.
“Great. I mean just great, yes?” He poured another bourbon.
“I meet my daughter for the first time in three years, and what do I discover? She’s a goddamned little liar. She’s a goddamned little slut. You want to know what happened? I’ll tell you. He got her into bed the day they met. Then they stayed there. For three weeks. They’ve been at it, morning, noon, and fucking night. She couldn’t get enough of it. My daughter. Jesus Christ!”
He swallowed down the bourbon in one gulp, then mopped his face. “You know what’s next? Pregnancy, that’s what’s next. She’ll have gotten herself fucking pregnant, I know it—she’s goddamned stupid enough. Fifteen and pregnant. Do I deserve this? Well, if she has, I’ll pay for the abortion, then that’s it. From now on I wash my hands of her. The hell with her. The hell with that goddamned fancy school you chose for her, and the hell with their goddamned fucking fees. I hope they expel her. And I hope you understand, Mary. You look after her. You live with her. I blame you for this.”
And so it went on for several hours. The bluster, the excuses, the accusations, the obscenities, the abuse. Mary listened quietly until she had the story straight—or Sam’s version of it anyway.
Lamartine, Sam had declared, was thirty. He had a bad reputation; he and Sam had had a fight. Sam had half killed him, and didn’t understand now why he hadn’t gone the whole way, finished off the job. The story looped, looped back. For a second, a third time, she heard about the harbor room, its bed, its sheets.
“Sam,” she said finally. “He knew how old Gini was? You’re sure of that?”
“Sure? Of course I’m goddamn sure.”
“Did he admit as much?”
“Not to me, no—you think he would? He’s not a fool. Gini tried to cover up, said she’d lied to him. Lied to him! She’s a goddamned little liar through and through. He knew well enough. He’d been fucking boasting, Mary, in the bars, in the restaurants. How he seduced my fucking daughter. How he got her into bed the day they met. How she was fifteen years old, but underage girls were best. He told everyone. Everyone. Jesus Christ. The whole press corps, the barman, the fucking waiters. They all knew. I was a laughingstock. …He told them everything. Described it. What he’d taught her. What they did. …”
“What did they do?” Hawthorne had said.
The question startled Mary. She looked up, then sighed, and shook her head. “I’m sorry, John. I was miles away. I can still see it so vividly. How I felt, what Sam said…What was your question?”
“Nothing. It doesn’t matter.” He had been leaning forward, but now straightened up.
She had risen then, and made them both some coffee. Over the coffee she told Hawthorne the rest of it rapidly. How she had decided to say nothing and allow Gini to believe that Sam had kept his promise to remain silent. If the privacy of this matter was so important to her, then that seemed the best course. Mary would pretend, and had pretended, that she accepted as truth some foolish incident—staying out late, coming home drunk—as the reason for their return from Beirut. Then, when Gini was ready to confide in her, when she needed Mary’s help, when she was ready to give her own version of these events, Mary would be there, could help.
“And that moment never came?” Hawthorne had said, and Mary had an intuition that his attention was now wandering, that this aspect of the story interested him less. She nodded.
“Fine.” Hawthorne leaned across and touched her hand. “I understand. Now I’ll give you my advice. …”
Then he had done so. The advice, as usual, had been sensible. “Do nothing,” he had said.
Mary rose now and looked around the chaos of her kitchen. She was running behind; she must get a move on, finish preparing the mousse, begin on the pheasants. …She began again, in a halfhearted way, to whisk the eggs. She measured out the cream, and the doubts crept back. Was it the best advice? Was it the right course? She had been sure at the time, when he spoke, but then, John was so persuasive, so cogent, so cool and unemotional—and a little hard too, she had felt that.
“First,” he had said, “this Lamartine’s bad news—that’s obvi
ous enough. The name’s familiar—I’ll run some checks, let you know what I come up with—” He paused. “Second. Gini has to discover for herself what Lamartine is. You can’t do that for her, and you shouldn’t try. She’s a grown woman, not a child, Mary. She’s an intelligent woman, judging from how she writes. Not a woman it would be easy to deceive.” He looked at Mary intently. “Am I right?”
“I suppose so.”
“Then let her find out for herself what he is. Don’t interfere. And above all, don’t involve Sam. Sam can be guaranteed to make matters a whole lot worse.
“Third,” he continued after a pause, and it was this part of his advice that surprised her. “Don’t make up your mind in advance. You’re prejudiced against Lamartine—”
“Prejudiced?” Mary stared at him. “I don’t think I’m prejudiced. It’s obvious what he did. He exploited Gini and then waltzed off to the next woman. It was cruel and it was inexcusable.”
“Are you sure about that?” Something in his tone as he asked the question struck her as curious. It was almost as if he sympathized with Lamartine, she realized—and that was the last reaction she would have expected from him, for he could be old-fashioned, even censorious, when it came to matters of sexual morality. The Catholic in him, she had always thought.
“Are you sure, Mary?” he said again. “Think. You’ve heard only one side of the story. In my experience”—he looked away, frowning—“in my experience, that can be very misleading. It distorts. Maybe there were mitigating circumstances.”
“What nonsense.” Mary felt angry. “The facts speak for themselves.”
“No, they don’t.” He interrupted her curtly. “Facts rarely do that. You’re interpreting those facts you happen to have heard. People do that all the time.” His voice had become almost bitter. “I’ve been on the receiving end of that process. I should know.”