The Last Summer (44 page)

‘Still, seems jolly rude to have had a wedding there, at Deyning, and not to have invited
you
.’

‘I wouldn’t have gone anyway.’

‘Really? Why ever not? You love weddings.’

‘Sometimes,’ I replied.

. . . I never said I ‘would not’, I simply said I wasn’t sure, but it really was the most extraordinary and uplifting experience, not at all as I’d imagined, & a tremendous (and unexpected) comfort to me – just to know that they are at peace on the other side, & together. Did I tell you that she was v emphatic that H is alive & well? Across the water, she said, but she couldn’t say which water. And I’m still mystified about ‘the child’ . . .

When Charlie told me about the invitation to a drinks reception at the new Cuthbert-Deyning offices in Park Lane, I told him immediately that I didn’t wish to go. The thought of seeing him again, and with Nancy, was too much.

Tom had recently appointed Charlie’s firm as his corporate lawyers, and though Charlie saw him occasionally, in business meetings or at his club, I had not seen him since our weekend at Deyning. Almost another year had passed. During that time there had been a number of events, dinners and such like, occasions where I could have seen him, but I’d managed to wriggle out of them and sent Charlie on his own.

‘I don’t know for the life of me why you’re so reluctant,’ Charlie said. ‘He’s really a jolly nice chap. Very down-to-earth and quite unlike a lot of these new-moneyed sorts.’

‘Yes, yes, I know he’s very nice. It’s not so much him . . . it’s his wife,’ I said, clutching at straws, desperate to find a reason why I might not wish to go.

‘Ah yes, the American,’ he said. ‘Well, she may not be there. She wasn’t with him at the Blanchs’ last time, and she certainly wasn’t with him at the Hyde Park Hotel last week.’

‘But it’s a business thing, Charlie,’ I said. ‘Is it really so important that I go along with you?’

‘He’s invited us both. Look at the invitation,’ he replied, pointing to our mantelshelf.

‘Oh, he’d have had his secretary write that for him,’ I said, knowing full well it was Tom’s handwriting.

‘No, darling, that’s his hand. I know it.’

On the day, Charlie said he’d meet me there; come straight from his office in the city. And all day I felt sick. I toyed with the idea of telephoning Charlie to tell him I was ill, and I tortured myself with the possibilities, how the evening
could
unfold. Would Nancy be there? I wondered. Would they be holding hands as they circumnavigated the room, nodding and smiling at all of Tom’s minions and business associates? Would I be standing in line waiting to shake his hand too?

And yet, I wanted to see him; longed to see him again.

I ran a bath, and took a drink with me, even though it wasn’t yet six. And as I lay in the bath, looking down at my body, I realised that physically, at least, I hadn’t changed much over the preceding decade. My body had produced only one child, when my shape was still young enough to recover quickly. Like Mama, and blessed with her looks, I was naturally slim, and her insistence on good posture and lessons in deportment had paid off. I held myself tall, carried an invisible book upon my head. But
I’d recently celebrated my thirtieth birthday and become acutely aware of my age, and of the passing of time. Perhaps that had something to do with Tom. Being displaced, estranged from one’s heart served only to make the years more desolate. And I had nothing, nothing at all to show for my life: no children I could talk about; no work or vocation I could speak of.

Clarissa: beautiful, unfulfilled, useless, and childless.

It was a glorious spring evening, and I walked for quite a way before hailing a taxicab. I was no longer nervous. In fact, I felt rather calm and mellow as the cab headed towards Park Lane. I thought of the gardens at Deyning; the rhododendrons would be coming into bloom, the old wisteria too. And then I thought of him. Every unguarded thought led me back to him.

When I arrived at the building, I took the lift to the top floor, as Charlie had instructed me. It was eight o’clock, half an hour later than the time on the invitation. Charlie was bound to be there, I thought. He would be looking out for me, see me emerge from the lift.

The room was full of men in suits and, I noticed, a few very glamorous women. I took a glass of champagne from the waiter who greeted me, and then walked on into the crowd, looking for Charlie.

‘Clarissa! Over here!’

It was Davina, in crimson satin with matching lips (and teeth).

‘But darling, I’m rather surprised to see you here,’ she said. ‘You normally avoid these sorts of things.’

‘Yes, well . . .
normally
I let Charlie attend these affairs on his own. He receives so many invitations. And you know what he’s like. Can’t say no.’

‘But I’m sure Tom’ll be pleased you’re here,’ she said, looking at me with a curious smile.

‘And where is he?’ I asked.

She leant towards me. ‘Right behind you,’ she whispered.

I turned. He’d seen me, was watching me. I smiled at him as he spoke with a huddle of eager people, and then I turned back to Davina. I tried to make small talk, the way one does at those types of gatherings, but I was distracted and Davina was smiling a little too broadly, too obviously for my liking, and so, after a few minutes, I moved away, saying I must look for Charlie. I walked through the room, smiling and excusing myself through strangers, looking for my husband, and for once hoping he was there. But I was aware of someone following in my pathway. I could hear him behind me: ‘Good to see you . . . thank you for coming.’ And as I reached the other side of the room, I stepped out on to a balcony, overlooking Park Lane.

‘Are you trying to escape from me?’

I looked straight ahead, over Hyde Park. The sun was just beginning to set, slipping down behind the trees, and I didn’t turn; I kept my gaze on that pink ball of fire.

‘No, not at all, I was looking for Charlie, actually,’ I replied, still unable and unready to meet his eyes.

‘He telephoned earlier. I’m afraid he’s going to be stuck at the office until late . . . at least ten,’ he said. And I thought,
as flies to wanton boys . . .

‘That’s a shame, he was looking forward to being here.’

He moved alongside me, placing his hands upon the painted wrought-iron rail, inches from my own. Beautiful hands: hands that had touched me, loved me.

‘I suppose you’ll just have to make do with me,’ he said.

I turned to face him. ‘Yes, it would seem that way,’ I replied.

‘Will you have dinner with me later?’

‘And Nancy?’

‘She’s not here. She’s in New York.’

I looked away; felt that knot in my stomach, hard and tight from years of longing, years of wanting. Was it always going to be like this? Was I always going to give in to one man?

‘Yes. Yes, I’ll have dinner with you,’ I said.

‘I’m pleased you came. It’s been a while . . .’

‘It’s always been a while.’

‘It doesn’t have to be, you know that.’

I said nothing.

‘I have to mingle now, say a few words . . . wait for me,’ he added, and then he stepped back inside the room.

I stood in the doorway, watching him as he moved through the room: smiling, greeting people, shaking hands. I watched him as he stepped away from the huddle and began his speech. And I looked away as I listened to his voice: so cultured, so assured. I clapped with everyone else, moved further into the room and spoke to a few people. Had I known him long? Had I been at the wedding? Was I a friend of Nancy’s? Yes, he was charming – and yes, rather humble with it too. No, I hadn’t been at the wedding; I didn’t really know Nancy. Yes, it was such a shame she wasn’t there.

I could see him on the other side of the room, head bowed, listening intently as someone spoke to him. And he shone. For there was a light that emanated from him, his soul, his substance. I hadn’t seen it when I was young, or perhaps I had but had failed to recognise it. But now I saw it, saw it quite clearly, and even at a distance I felt its heat.
Tom
. He looked up, straight at me, as though he’d heard me think his name. Then he turned, said something to the gentlemen he was standing with, and moved over to me. He stood alongside me without uttering a word, and as the fabric of his jacket brushed my arm I felt that current once more: a bolt of electricity travelling through my veins, straight to my heart.

‘Right, I’m done. Let’s go,’ he said, taking my arm, and leading me through the room, towards the lift. As we stepped into it, he sighed, lit a cigarette – the first I’d seen him smoke all evening – then he looked at me and said, ‘And now, Clarissa . . . now to business.’

He was being funny, of course, and I laughed. I was as relieved as he to be away from that ordeal. When we stepped out of the building on to the street, a cream-coloured Bentley was waiting – pulled up by the kerb. He opened the door, saw me inside, closed it, and said something to the uniformed driver.

‘Where are we going?’ I asked, as he climbed inside the car.

‘Home, of course,’ he replied.

There was a bottle of already corked champagne standing in an ice bucket in the back of the car. He lifted the top of the walnut compartment between our seats, pulled out two glasses and poured the champagne.

When he said
home
, I’d presumed he meant
his
home; that he was taking me back to his place in London, though I wasn’t entirely sure where that was, and I knew he owned a number of properties in the city. I was nervous and couldn’t help but wonder if he kept a place specifically for taking women back to. I wasn’t convinced he’d be a faithful husband to Nancy, in fact, I imagined he’d have more than one glamorous girlfriend. After all, he was rich and handsome – what was to stop him? But had he assumed I’d be the same? Was I simply another conquest? As we headed over the river, and then through the streets of Battersea, I began to feel irritated, and mildly alarmed. I pictured some seedy flat in the outer suburbs, and I turned to him and said, ‘Tom . . .
where
, exactly, are you taking me?’

‘Don’t worry,’ he said, turning to me and smiling. ‘Everything’s been sorted.’

‘No really, I need to know. Charlie will be worried.’

‘Charlie knows. I have your husband’s permission.’

‘Knows what, exactly? Have his permission for what?’

‘Permission to take you out for dinner.’

I laughed. ‘But
where
?’

‘Deyning.’

‘Deyning! And you arranged this with Charlie?’

‘Yes, I did. He’s working on a rather big deal for me tonight, so I said – I said the least I could do was take you out to dinner.’

‘But did you tell him
where
you were taking me to dinner?’

He ran a hand through his hair. ‘No, I’m not sure that I did.’ He turned to me. ‘But to be honest, Clarissa, at that point I hadn’t decided where I was going to take you.’

I’d been kidnapped, albeit politely, and with my husband’s approval. How convenient, I thought, that Charlie should be stuck at the office working on Cuthbert-Deyning business. Tom’s company was his biggest client, there’d have been no way he could have said anything other than ‘yes’ to whatever Tom Cuthbert suggested. I could hear their telephone conversation in my head, hear Tom telling Charlie not to worry about me; he’d see to it that I was looked after. And of course my husband – oblivious to my feelings, insensitive to any chemistry – no doubt thought it an ideal time for me to get to know what a ‘jolly nice chap’ his rich client, Tom Cuthbert, was.

At that time I hadn’t worked out the exact level of Tom’s duplicity, but I later realised he’d set the whole thing up so that I’d be on my own. He’d learned from Charlie that we would both be attending his drinks reception, and on the day, late in the afternoon, he’d specifically requested Charlie to handle an
urgent
piece of business. ‘Work through the night if you have to,’ he’d said to him. And I suppose Charlie saw the enormous fee he’d be able to invoice Cuthbert-Deyning. It was all too strange, too wonderful for words. There I was, going back to Deyning, with Tom, alone.