London Broil (23 page)

Trying to make
sense of her feelings, Laura called her father. In their
previous conversations, she had mentioned Ellen in passing, but
hadn't discussed the strange attraction that she felt for her.

"Pappy, I only
saw Ellen a few times, and didn't get to know her," she said.
"Why should I feel so devastated?"

"You felt
eros
, which means you
were moved by her beauty. All the beautiful things around us can
be doorways that lead away from daily experience toward the
transcendent. For you, Ellen was one of those doorways."

"So I'm mourning
that loss?"

"Yes. Emmet
often had experiences like that. Sometimes he would unexpectedly
fixate on people or things and be filled with feelings of love
for them. He said it made him remember what life was for." Emmet
was her father's older brother, the uncle whose personality was
much like Laura's, according to Pappy.

"You always say
that Emmet was normal, but Mom says he can't have been because
he killed himself."

Pappy sighed.
"Your mother doesn't accept that suicide can be a rational
choice." A few weeks after learning he had Lou Gehrig's disease,
Emmet had shot himself, having written loving letters of
farewell to his relatives and friends. Characteristically, he'd
laid out plastic sheeting on the walls and floor of the room in
order to make the cleanup easier. All this had happened when
Laura was still in diapers. "Until the diagnosis, Emmet was as
happy as anyone else, though he struggled, as you do, with the
conflict between his need for love and his desire to be alone.
Laura, I've observed both of you from the time you were
children. People react to your separateness, your apartness, in
one of two ways. Some of them find you cold and aloof." Laura
wondered whether her own mother was one of those people. "Others
are attracted by it," Pappy continued. "They want to break
through your wall and know everything about you. They also feel
protective toward you. Emmet always said that women, and even
some of his male friends, tried to mother him."

Laura thought of
the way James and June and even George and Babur looked out for
her. Though it was kind of them, she didn't think she needed
their protection. But now she knew that she needed love. "Did
Emmet have someone he loved?" she asked, dreading the answer and
expecting to hear that he had spent his entire life alone.

"Eventually, yes.
He needed sex, but he didn't want to marry, so most of his
relationships didn't last long. He tried visiting prostitutes,
but those experiences weren't satisfying, and he felt guilty
about using women that way. Finally, he met Patricia. Her
husband had early onset Alzheimer's. Emmet said that she still
loved her husband deeply, but was terribly lonely. She and Emmet
had an arrangement that gave them both a great deal of
happiness."

"I'm glad you
told me all this, Pappy."

"I knew you'd ask
me some day."

**

James didn't call
until the next Monday evening. "They're going to charge Hamish
Porteous with the murder of his sister," he said. "Hamish
confessed after they found his semen in Ellen's body. Alexander
Porteous had changed his will, and Hamish bribed a clerk in the
law office for information. He'd witnessed the will and knew
that it left Hamish's share of the estate to Ellen." Laura
nodded to herself. The clerk was Terence Drake, the man who came
to the Porteous house with John Curtis.

James paused, and
then said, "You said it was Hamish. Why didn't you tell me what
you knew?" He sounded angry and hurt.

"I didn't want it
in the newspaper."

"So you don't
trust me."

"I didn't think
it was right to put you in a position where you had to choose
between using the information and breaking my trust."

"Can you meet me
at Roxana's for dinner? I want to see you."

They agreed to
meet in a half hour. She didn't have much time to see to her
clothes, but threw a jacket over what she had on, her tan
corduroy trousers and silky brown V-neck top. She arrived first
and was shown by Babur to a table in the middle of the long
dining room. She sat facing away from the door, but she could
feel it in her bones the moment he came in and strode down the
aisle to the table. He bent and kissed her on the cheek before
removing his jacket, hanging it on the back of the chair, and
sitting down. Babur came to take her order, and his eyes widened
at the sight of her with James, but he didn't comment.

"Hello, mate,"
said James to Babur. "What would you like, Laura?"

"I'll have the
kadu
," she said. It was
a dish of sautéed pumpkin with mild spices and yogurt, served
over rice.

"The braised lamb
shank, and some garlic
naan
.
Gewürztraminer okay with you?" he asked, glancing at Laura. She
nodded, and Babur left to get their wine. James leaned forward,
his eyes on her neck and chest.

"That's the top
you were wearing the evening we met."

"Yes, I think
you're right," she answered. She recalled their conversation
that night, how exciting it had been, and her mingled feelings
of arousal and embarrassment. She looked up into his eyes and
she could tell he was thinking about it too.

"Do you remember
the week after, when I didn't show up here?"

"Yes. I thought
you'd dropped me because I didn't sleep with you that night."

"No. I went to
Belfast. It was me older sister Maeve's birthday and I hadn't
seen her for a long time. We had a talk and she told me to stop
mucking about with lasses who were too young for me. She has her
spies in London, you see," he said, in a tone that showed he
didn't mind the fact that Maeve kept an eye on him.

"What does she
do?"

"She's a grammar
school English teacher," he said, and laughed, as Babur poured
their wine. "Sometimes we trade Shakespeare quotes. I told her
that food is the music of love, not the other way around."

"I agree with
you," said Laura. "What did she say?"

"She liked the
sentiment but said it ruins the meter. Then she said I needed to
find someone who loves food as much as I do and settle down.
'Jamie,' she said, 'kissin' don't last, cookery do.'"

Laura nodded.
"That's from one of George Meredith's novels. Maeve got the
quote exactly right. Most people don't." In the back of the
dining room, she saw the kitchen doors open and George's head
pop out. He looked at her questioningly and she glared at him.
By the time James turned his head to see what she was looking
at, George's head was gone.

"Laura, I've got
the sack," said James, picking up his wine glass and draining
it. He poured more wine into both glasses.

"What? You mean
you're being fired?" She was shocked.

"More or less.
We've a bit of a scandal about to break. Some of the lads have
been paying the cops for information, and the boss would like to
have done with me. I've not been happy in the job. An odd thing,
that, after I'd worked so hard to get the promotion. So I told
him I'd go under certain conditions."

"James, are you
telling me that this pay for information was done with your
knowledge?"

"Yes. I'm aware
that it was wrong, but this is a very competitive business. The
boss let us know that it was expected. Now he wants someone on a
lower rung to take the blame."

"Are you going to
be charged with a crime?" she asked. Her heart was sinking.

"Not according to
our solicitors, though they can't be certain. They'd like to
have me out sooner than later, just in case. I'm negotiating a
severance agreement." Babur arrived with their food and set the
plates down. As soon as he was gone, she said, "What will you
do?"

"I'll land on me
feet. The payout from the agreement will be substantial, and
I've quite a few friends," he said, but she heard a note of
uncertainty in his voice.

Laura took a bite
of her food. "Have you ever paid the police for information
yourself?"

"Not as such.
I've never paid anyone." He gave a slight emphasis to the word
'paid' and she closed her eyes. The
kadu
tasted like
flavorless putty in her mouth. With difficulty, she swallowed
it.

"It's Magda,
isn't it. You've been sleeping with her, and she's been giving
you information. That's how you know so much about the Porteous
case." Laura remembered their last evening together, the
fireside picnic when James had told her he loved her. He must
have slept with Magda only a few days later. A searing flame of
hurt and anger ignited inside her.

They looked at
each other for a long, silent moment. His dark eyes were filled
with pain. "You have a right to know," he said. "There was a
great deal of pressure brought to bear for us to get the story,
but that doesn't excuse it. I only did it once, Laura."

"Thank you for
telling me," she said slowly. She put out her hand mechanically
to pick up her wine glass, but James caught it in his. "Laura, I
want you to marry me. Will you?"

She froze,
looking down at their hands. His, with its long, sensitive
fingers, gripped
hers
tightly. "No. I won't marry you. But I'll tell you something,
James. You need a higher love."

"What do you
mean?" he asked. "You think I ought to believe in God?"

"No, not at all.
I'm saying you need the kind of love that makes you want to be a
better person."

"I already have
that," he said quietly, and then, "You spread your dreams under
my feet and I trampled them. I'm sorry."

She dug in her
handbag and pulled out some money. "This is for the dinner. I'm
going now, and I don't want you to follow me, and I don't want
you to call me."

"So that's it?
You're leaving on Thursday. Are you going to go home and sleep
with some other bloke?"

"If the right one
comes along, yes. Now that you've introduced me to good sex,
it's not something I want to give up." She said this knowing it
would hurt him. She didn't add that it was hard to imagine
anyone else exciting her as much as James did.

"You said you
loved me," he reminded her.

"I do. Goodbye,
James."

Laura stood up,
tightly clutching her handbag, and then turned and left the
restaurant without looking at him. She wondered bitterly whether
he would get up in a moment and start a conversation with some
other woman who was sitting alone. She felt surprised that there
were no tears. She would cry over him later, after she got home
to Parnell. She couldn't afford to fall apart right now. There
was too much to be done.

29.
The Consolation of
Philosophy

The next day she
called John Curtis, Esq. to find out whether Alexander Porteous
was well enough to receive a visitor. He promised to check, and
in an hour called back to say that Mr. Porteous was anxious to
see her. She was to come to the house in Knightsbridge that
afternoon. The familiar front door was opened by a new staff
person, a middle aged man in a dark suit who introduced himself
as Mr. Banks. Charlotte had apparently been dismissed. Banks led
her up the stairs and along a hallway to a sizable suite with a
masculine feel to the heavy, antique furnishings. Amidst the
dark wood chests and Persian rugs was a hospital bed with an IV
stand and other medical paraphernalia beside it. A young,
dark-haired nurse was standing by the bed checking the pulse of
an old man who must be Alexander Porteous. She smiled at Laura
and said, "I'll leave you two alone."

Mr. Porteous
looked like a man in his eighties. His frame was large, but
painfully thin. He had only a small amount of white hair around
the sides of his head, with a few strands combed over the bald
top, and age spots on his scalp. His skin had the thin,
translucent look of extreme age, and an oxygen tube ran across
the middle of his face and beneath his nose. His voice, however,
was still deep and surprisingly rich.

"We meet at last,
Miss Livingston. It is a pleasure. I had not imagined that you
were so young, and may I add, so lovely. Please sit down," and
he pointed to a chair beside the bed.

"Mr. Porteous,"
she said, sinking into the chair, "I am very sorry for your
loss. I only knew Ellen for a short while, but I'll never forget
her."

"Thank you," he
said. "Hamish and Ellen were the issue of my second marriage.
They have Helen's looks. She was the most beautiful creature
I've ever seen."

"Where is she
now?" asked Laura.

Mr. Porteous was
gazing at a point past her left shoulder, as though someone else
was in the room. "Dead for many years now. She ran off with a
Greek shipping magnate soon after Ellen was born." He turned his
attention back to Laura.