Past Imperfect (47 page)

'I thought he said it was before.'

'No. I called him and his flatmate said he was out there, so I left a message. He rang me the day he got back and I went round. It's funny. When we got together for the last time . . .' She had become wistful, a nicer person momentarily, in memory of her younger dreams, 'I thought we might go on with it. He seemed different when he got home, less . . . I don't know exactly, less unreachable, and for a day or two I thought that maybe it would be Damian and not Greg after all.'

'But it didn't happen?'

'No. He'd run into that beautiful girl out there, and he met up with her again when she was back in London.'

'Only once I think.'

'Really? I thought it was more than that. What was her name?'

'Joanna Langley.'

'That's it. What happened to her?'

'She died.'

'Oh.' She sighed, saddened by the inexorable process of life. 'The point is that when he got back, Damian was in a strange mood. I heard about what happened.' I nodded. 'I think the truth is he was sick of all of us. I lost touch with him after that.'

'So did we all.'

'Joanna Langley's dead. Wow. I used to be so jealous of her.' I could see that the news had made her stop in her tracks. For anyone, hearing of the death of a person you had thought alive and well is a little like killing them because suddenly they're dead in your brain instead of living. But with the Sixties generation it is more than this. They preached the value of youth so loudly and so long that they cannot believe an unkind God has let them grow old. Still less can they accept they too must die. As if their determination to adopt clothes and prejudices more suited to people thirty, forty, fifty years younger than themselves would act as an elixir to keep them forever from the clutches of the Grim Reaper. You see television interviews and articles in papers expressing shocked amazement whenever an old rocker pops his clogs. What did they think would happen?

At last, with a philosophical nod, Terry resumed her story. 'I slept with Damian two or three times before we finished. There were no hard feelings.' She paused to check that this squared with my information.

'I'm sure there weren't. But nothing happened?'

She shook her head. 'Nothing happened. Then Greg went to Poland and I followed him, and I slept with
him
, but still nothing happened and nothing happened, and finally I went to see a doctor while I was out there and guess what?'

'It wasn't him, it was you.'

She smiled, like a teacher pleased with my attention. 'It was me. All the time it was me. Some tubes were missing or something . . .' She raised her eyebrows, trying to control her delivery. 'You know the first thing that occurred to me? Why the hell had I wasted so much time worrying about getting pregnant? My late teens should have been a ball.'

'You didn't do badly,' I said.

Which made her laugh. 'Anyway, I knew that once Greg learned I could never have a child, once his mother heard about it, the whole thing would be over and it'd be back to square one. So I bought a baby.'

It seems strange now, but this sentence took me completely by surprise. Why? I cannot tell you. There was no such thing as surrogacy in those days, or if there was we knew nothing of it. She'd admitted she'd had a baby to get Greg to marry her and she'd told me she couldn't have children. What did I imagine she had done? Even so, I was flabbergasted. What I came up with was: 'How?'

She smiled. 'Are you planning it?' But she was far too deep in to telling the story to back out now. 'I was doing some social work then, with a group sponsored by the embassy. This was 1971, long before the end of Communism or anything else. There was no Solidarity. There was no hope. Poland was an occupied country and the people were desperate. It wasn't hard. I found a young mother who already had four children and she'd just discovered she was pregnant. I offered to take the baby, whatever it was, whether or not there was anything wrong with it.'

'Would you have?'

She thought for a moment. 'I hope so,' she said, which I liked her for.

'But how did you manage the whole thing?'

'It wasn't difficult. I found a doctor who could be bribed.' I must have looked shocked at this because she became quite incensed. 'Jesus, most of the time he was prescribing drugs to teenagers. Was this worse?'

'Of course not.'

'I didn't "show" until I was about five months "gone." I told Greg I didn't feel comfortable with sex, and with his puritan background he didn't either. Then I asked if he'd mind not being at the birth, as the thought made me uncomfortable. Boy, you should have seen the relief on his face. These days, if the father isn't there peering up your flue as the head appears, he's a bad person, but in 1971 it wasn't compulsory.'

'How did you manage the birth itself?'

'I had a stroke of luck when he was called to New York just before the baby came. The dates I'd given him were three weeks behind the true ones, to leave some room for manoeuvre. I did have a plan of checking into a different room. I think it would have worked but in the end I didn't need it. She went into labour and I took the mother to the nursing home where, thanks to the doctor, she just gave my name. The baby was delivered and the registration was perfectly routine. When Greg got back, I was waiting for him at home with little Susie. We cried a river. Everyone was happy.'

'And nobody ever found out?'

'Why would they? I told him I loved him, but I couldn't have sex until I got my figure back. He suspected nothing. Nobody was worse off. Including Susie. I mean that.' Clearly, she did mean it and I would say it was probably true, although one can never be quite sure about these things. Even if I do not endorse the present fashion for leaving babies with mothers who are clearly quite incapable of caring for them, rather than finding them decent homes. Terry was nearly finished. 'For a while I thought the doctor might blackmail me, but he didn't, so that was that. Maybe he was scared I'd blackmail him.'

'And there were never any tests that gave it away?'

'What tests? They're both blood group O, which was kind of a relief actually. But who runs a DNA test on their own daughter?'

'Did Greg have any more children?'

'None of his own. Two steps. He adores Susie and she adores him.' She sighed a little wearily. 'She much prefers him to me.'

I nodded. 'So he'll take care of her.' For some reason I was rather glad of this. Susie had missed a larger fortune which, in my fevered mind, she had possessed for maybe two or even three minutes. It was good to feel she would never know want.

'Oh yes. She's safer than I'll ever be.'

I had to ask. 'Would you have gone on with it if I hadn't mentioned the test?'

She thought for a moment. 'Probably. The temptation was too great. But of course there would have been some hurdle by the end of it, so I'm glad you did. Before I got too excited.'

It was once more the hour to depart and this time I knew for certain we would not meet again. Since, even if I were back in the town, I wouldn't look her up. But something in the story she had told had won me round a bit. I was reminded of the haunting words of Lady Caroline Lamb: 'With all that has been said about life's brevity, for most of us it is very, very long.' Terry's life had already been very long and very frustrating, with scant reward to show for it. That this had largely been her fault was no consolation, as I knew well. She had thrown away her only chance of a decent future with Greg and never replaced him with anything like an equal opportunity. Now she had lost even the child she'd invented to be with him. We kissed at the door. 'Please don't mention this to anyone.' She shook her head. I had something more to say. 'And please don't ever tell them.'

'Would I?'

'I don't know. If you got too drunk and too angry you might.'

She did not resent this, which was commendable, but she was confident in her denial. 'I have been drunk and angry many times since we last met and I haven't told them yet.' This, I am sure, was true. All of it.

'Good.' Now I really was going. But I had a last wish before we parted. 'Be kind to Donnie,' I said. 'He doesn't sound a bad chap.'

The evening had made me sentimental in my estimation of her. I should have been more clear-sighted. The truth was, with the sole exception of her feeling towards her not-daughter, the old Terry Vitkov was quite unchanged. 'He's a bastard,' she replied and shut the door.

Candida

THIRTEEN

Which only left Candida Finch.

I stayed on a few days in Los Angeles, in Beverly Hills to be precise, at the very comfortable Peninsular Hotel - a haven for the English, since it is the only one where you can actually walk out to the post office or get something to eat without having to stand and wait every time for a crisply suited 'valet' to fetch your car. I'd enjoyed meeting my agent who turned out to be charming, and if I did not quite follow Damian's instructions to the letter, still we got on very well and he sent me round the town to meet a few people while I was still out there. Since I was allowed the untold luxury of first class travel back to London, I felt quite relaxed and invigorated when I got home. How strange it is, the way enough sleep and the resulting physical energy can make one feel as if one's whole life is going well, while the lack of them has the opposite effect.

However, when I finally returned to the flat, if I was expecting to find a series of messages from Candida answering those I'd left before I went away, I was disappointed. There was nothing. Accordingly, I recorded yet another on her machine which was still not picking up, and settled down to a day or two of work on my latest novel, a tale of middle-class
angst
in a seaside town, which was approaching what I would hesitate to call its climax and which I had, understandably, recently neglected. It was on the morning of the following day, when I'd finally managed to get some way back into the rhythm of my troubled, marine triangle, that the telephone on my desk started to ring.

'You called Candida Finch yesterday,' said a female voice and, for a moment, quite illogically, I thought it must be Candida herself who was speaking. I can't think why, since it obviously wasn't.

'Yes, I wondered if I could see you, which I know sounds odd.'

'It does sound very odd, and I'm not Candida, I'm Serena.' A thousand bags of sherbet exploded in my vitals.

'Serena?' Of course it was Serena. It was her voice, for God's sake. What had I been thinking of? But why should Serena ring me? How could that have happened? I pondered the question without speaking, silently wondering, earpiece clamped to my ear.

'Hello?' Her voice had gone up in volume.

'Yes.'

'Oh, I thought you'd been cut off. It all went quiet.'

'No, I'm still here.'

'Good.'

I suddenly worried that I could hear in her voice a querying sound, as if she were afraid that the person she was speaking to was in fact a nutter and it might be dangerous to continue the conversation. I trembled lest she might act on this subconscious warning. All of which illustrates the fevered level of my imagination. 'How can I help?'

'I was talking to Candida this morning and she said she'd had a message to ring you, that you wanted to see her.'

'She's had more than one message from me, I'm afraid. I thought she must have emigrated.'

'She's been in Paris and she only got back last night.'

'It's rather wonderful that you're still in touch.' As the words left my mouth, I could hear their senselessness. Why did I say this? Why was it wonderful? Why shouldn't they be in touch? Was I mad?

'She's my cousin.'

Which I should have known. In fact, I must have known it. In fact, I
did
know it. Perfectly well. They gave a ball together, for God's sake. I was present at it. What kind of fool forgets something like that? What kind of stupid
moron
? 'Of course,' I said lightly. 'Of course you are. I should have remembered.' Where was this twaddle leading? To some International Idiots' Convention? Why couldn't I say anything that didn't sound illogical and inane?

'Anyway, I wondered if it was all part of Damian's search.'

My heart stopped. What had I said to her? Had I been so surprised by her presence at Gresham that I'd given it all away? Could I have? What had I told her? My thoughts were flying about like a crowd of ravens with nowhere to settle. I couldn't seem to remember anything about that evening, yet I thought I'd remembered every moment. 'Search?' I said, feeling this was the best way to flush out information.

'You said Damian wanted you to look up some of his old friends. You told me when we met up that time in Yorkshire. I wondered if Candida was one of them, since she couldn't think of any other reason you'd want to see her again.'

'She's rather hard on herself. I can think of lots of reasons.'

'But was it? Is it?'

'As a matter of fact yes, it is. I thought I'd buy her lunch and get her news. That's all he wants, really.'

'Well, I've got a much better idea. She's coming down here next weekend, so I wondered if you could join her. Join us. We'd love it.'

My despair at my own stupidity was suddenly and totally replaced by a chorus of angels' wings. 'That's incredibly kind. Do you mean it?'

'Absolutely. Come on Friday, for dinner. And you can leave at some stage on Sunday afternoon.'

'As long as we've got that settled.'

She laughed. 'Andrew always needs to know he'll have the house back by dinner on Sunday.'

I'll bet he does, I thought, the mannerless toad. 'What about clothes?'

'He wears a smoking jacket but no tie on Saturday night. Apart from that we'll be in rags the whole time.'

'Well, if you're sure . . .'

'Completely sure. I'll e-mail you directions. We're very easy to find, but you might as well have them, if you'll give me your address.'

So I did. And it was settled. I wondered if I ought to ring Candida, but I never heard back from her, so presumably Serena had filled her in.

After this conversation I sat at the desk for several minutes, quite unable to resolve exactly what I was thinking. Naturally, as I have observed, the invitation had set off a peal of chiming, silver bells in my heart, ringing and singing with joy at the prospect of two whole days when I might look upon her face to my heart's content. But there is also the old proverb that it is better to travel hopefully than to arrive, and now that I was faced with a real prospect of having the Blessed Serena back in my life, paradoxically, I wasn't completely convinced it was a good idea. Of course, all this was Damian's fault. It was Damian's fault she had left my life thirty-eight years before. At least I dated the beginning of the end from that dinner. Now it was Damian's fault she had come back. That she had been, would always be, the love of my life, was clearly established, to my satisfaction anyway, and, if I was honest with myself, it was her return to my conscious mind that had spelled curtains for poor Bridget, as I had more or less told my father. The reminder of what love is, of what it could be, made the thin facsimile that I had been living feel rather pointless.