The Jewel Box Part 11

"My dear, I thought perhaps you might be tired of your occasional-or, really, not so occasional 'chats' with my brother on the subject of your ongoing performance and general demeanor. It occurred to me that you might have something to say to me about it all? Something redemptive, possibly? And since Aubrey is now sufficiently vexed that he's about to wash his hands of you altogether, I thought I should, as it were, step into the breach." While he was speaking, he made a steeple of his fingers; collapsed it; made another steeple.

"Well, Mr. Pearson, I..."

She and O'Connell, hand in hand by the river. As their walk had continued, she'd felt their togetherness, their "coupleness," becoming more real. Her confidence had grown, along with her curiosity. Under the shadow of Blackfriars Bridge, where the air was rank with rotting wood, sewage, dead things moldering on the silt bed, all mingling with industrial fumes and the distant whiff of tallow rendering, she'd started asking about Cramer, probing for O'Connell's side of the story just as Cramer himself had predicted.

"Eva was unique," O'Connell had said. "More alive than anyone I've ever known. Lived only in the present-to h.e.l.l with the consequences. You never knew where you were with her because she didn't know who who she was from one moment to the next. She was my first love. Perhaps she was my only real love." she was from one moment to the next. She was my first love. Perhaps she was my only real love."

Even hearing him talk about a past past love in this way was difficult. "That's the way children are," Grace had said. "She sounds like a child." love in this way was difficult. "That's the way children are," Grace had said. "She sounds like a child."

He'd blown a trail of smoke into the wind and pa.s.sed the cigarette across to her. "Maybe. She was crazy, that's for sure. She wasn't cut out for marriage."

"And yet she married Cramer."

"It was a huge mistake, that's what she wrote me. She wrote me lots of letters all those times he put her in the hospital. Asylum Asylum, I should say. That's what he did to her, Grace. Shut her away. In the end she killed herself."

"What?"

"It was tragic, of course, but entirely in character. Eva wasn't someone who would ever have settled down the way Cramer wanted. It's impossible to imagine her growing old."

"Miss Sharp?"

SNAP.

Mr. Henry had reached across the desk and clicked his fingers right in her face. This room was terribly hot. What What had he just called her? had he just called her?

"Yes, you did hear right. I know about your other persona. Your other little job."

Grace touched her hand to her forehead, just gently. "How...?"

"You're rather more naive than I'd have expected, young lady. A secret of that sort doesn't stay secret for long. Not in the world of newspapers."

The sun had grown stronger over the river. Reflecting and refracting off the water in dazzling darts of light. Someone on one of the boats had been singing in a deep baritone. The voice was operatic and resonant, but Grace couldn't spot the singer, no matter how hard she looked.

"Cramer blames me for Eva's death," O'Connell had said. "I'm a convenient scapegoat for him so that he doesn't have to look closer to home."

"But how can he think it's your your fault?" fault?"

"He'd have you believe I pillaged our shared experiences when I wrote The Vision The Vision, that I actually stole a part of his and Eva's lives and made it public property in a horribly distorted form. He believes she couldn't cope with that, and that it broke her down. Now he's taking revenge by writing his own novel."

"Are you sure? I thought he was a journalist."

O'Connell made a face. "He told me so himself. Made it a kind of threat."

"So what's it about? Is it his version of what happened between the three of you? Does he have a publisher?"

"I don't know." He threw his cigarette b.u.t.t into the river. "All I know is that I've just spent five years out in the wilderness trying to get away from all this. And John Cramer is determined not to let it go."

"Remarkable bit of work, that column of yours." Pearson's fingers made a steeple. Then another.

"Really, sir? Thank you." She knew it wasn't a real compliment though. O'Connell and the river walk were evaporating now. The solid stuff of her life-Mr. Henry and his office, the dull and the everyday-was becoming vivid and worrying.

"Oh yes. But if you don't mind me saying so, you have a problem. It's rather like the occasions when I ask Miss Hanson out there to make me a little snack. Perhaps a sandwich or two filled with Potter's meat spread. Miss Hanson's sandwiches are always spread just a little too thin."

Grace swallowed and felt herself tense. Beneath the desk her feet were wrapped tightly around the legs of her chair.

"It isn't a good idea to spread yourself too thin, Miss Rutherford. It's not for me to tell you which path you should choose to follow in your life. But you do do need to choose a path and stick to it. It isn't enough just to be talented." need to choose a path and stick to it. It isn't enough just to be talented."

"I understand, sir. I am am serious about this job, sir." And she was now. She was. serious about this job, sir." And she was now. She was.

"Right then." He rustled the newspaper in front of him.

"Thank you, sir." Realizing this was her dismissal, she got to her feet.

"Oh, Miss Rutherford..." He was writing something into his crossword. "The Potter's account is back with us. I thought you might like to know."

The horses in those paintings on the walls: All of them were caught midjump. Not one had a single hoof on the ground.

Piccadilly Herald The West-Ender May 2, 1927 Thank you, darling readers, for the veritable cacophony of agreement that Good Girls are Dull. Truly you are my sisters in high-spiritedness. Together we'll make our own Charleston-dancing, bob-cutting, cigarette-smoking contribution to Darwinian evolution, while the dissenters (there were a few in my postbag, I must admit) sit at home embroidering moral sentiments in cross-st.i.tch and going to bed early. For those who have shown an interest, all is progressing very nicely now with that Handsome Devil, and this hasn't come about through sitting and waiting and being demure.

Life is so much better this week. Wouldn't you agree? This newly gorgeous weather has me all frisky and full of ideas and innovations. First, may I request that someone design and put in our shops a range of fully reversible skirts? On those awkward occasions when one is forced by circ.u.mstances beyond one's control to turn up to work in yesterday's clothes, one could simply turn the skirt inside out and-hey, presto, another outfit would be born and n.o.body would be any the wiser. Come on, couturiers. We have entered an age of ma.s.s production and this is an idea for the ma.s.ses. Just think of the sales potential!

To my second seasonal notion: We're now at that delicate moment of the year when you want to start the evening with c.o.c.ktails alfresco in that rarest of West End s.p.a.ces, the hidden-away garden (my current favorites being a sweet, ivy-lined courtyard at the Bombardier on Drury Lane, and the newly opened terrace at the Lido Club, complete with Greek statuary)-but you then need to retreat inside around eight or nine o'clock when your arms and legs have broken out in attractive goose pimples and your teeth are chattering. Come on, publicans and nightclub owners: It's time to put your heads together to devise some form of gas-fired or electrical outdoor heater so we can have our c.o.c.ktails and drink them, too!

Innovation three: One of you nightclub owners should have a complete revamp in the Oriental style. Anyone who has ventured out on the wild side to Limehouse (I'll try anything once, as you know-even an intimidating stew of octopus, though that was not quite deliberate) would understand the appeal of eating Peking duck pancakes or sweet and sour pork whilst playing mah-jongg for money and watching people in kimonos try to dance a Charleston 'neath an array of gaudy Chinese lanterns. Go on, Sheridan Hamilton-Shapcott-you're a man who likes a bit of novelty, and I promise you this would be better than snakes. Yes, readers, you did read it right. My favorite fop is bringing live pythons to his new Tutankhamun nightclub, but apparently we shouldn't be nervous because, "They don't bite and they can't squeeze much if you dwug them." Enough to give you the cold shudders? Reptiles aside, though, I have to report that the Tutankhamun is now London's most remarkable nightclub, laden with treasures from Ancient Egypt and staffed by splendidly pretty boys and girls in black wigs, Egyptian makeup and, in some cases, loincloths. Hie thee along for a Luxor Lizard c.o.c.ktail, and get there quickly before the serpents arrive!

A witty, disreputable friend whispered into my ear the other night, which struck such a chord with me that I've decided to adopt it as my personal motto.

"An opportunist is a girl who can meet the wolf at the door at night and appear the next morning in a new fur coat."

I think I might embroider this in cross-st.i.tch and hang it above my bed.

Diamond Sharp

Six.

Hedonism. That's what it was. Sheer, dizzying, magnificent hedonism. So delicious you wanted it to last forever. So wildly out of control that you knew it couldn't possibly do so. That's what it was. Sheer, dizzying, magnificent hedonism. So delicious you wanted it to last forever. So wildly out of control that you knew it couldn't possibly do so.

Life at Pearson's had been just tickety-boo since Grace's little chat with Mr. Henry. She'd finally hit on a Baker's Lights campaign which directly addressed women. "Fancy a cake? Reach for your Baker's. Lose those unwanted pounds with Baker's Lights." She'd come up with the idea without even trying, and even though her head was miles away.

She'd be scribbling-head down-focused, the way Mr. Henry had suggested she should be, on the latest half-double for Potter's Wonderlunch or Baker's Lights-devising catchy phrases, thinking about what might make a striking image, congratulating herself on the sparkle of her original thoughts, the breezy efficiency with which she strung words together, the intensity with which she applied herself to this, her role-when suddenly she'd find herself on the telephone, asking to be connected to the Savoy. And she'd have absolutely no idea how it had happened, how she'd come to lay down her tools in this way without even having made a conscious decision to do so.

His voice down the receiver. Rich and resonant over that thin, crackling line. "So, what's on tonight's menu?"

She'd loll back in her chair, kick her door closed and allow her face to relax into a luxurious cat-that-got-the-cream smile. She'd tell him their destination: the latest West End play followed by Ben Bernie at the Kit-Cat Club, drinks at the Cafe Royal followed by wine and cheese with a bunch of artists and a gramophone in a Bloomsbury studio, a party on a river barge, a d.u.c.h.ess's birthday bash, a circus on Blackheath. Diamond and the Devil out to play, night after night, taxiing back and forth across town in search of brighter lights, stronger martinis, faster jazz, racier cabaret. Ending each night in his room at the Savoy.

Bed with O'Connell was like dinner at the most fabulous of restaurants. Rich, sumptuous, exotic. And nothing-but nothing-was off the menu. It seemed to her, now, that the men she'd slept with previously had been rather straitlaced. She'd always known, instinctively, when to rein herself in, how to avoid the dreaded I thought you were a Good Girl. I thought you were a Good Girl. She had learned how to be desirably demure, how to deploy a sort of covert suggestion. You couldn't actually say what you most wanted in bed but you could use a form of subtle insinuation to make the man think it was he who'd wanted it and initiated it. She hadn't thought it could ever be any other way. But with O'Connell there were no boundaries, nothing you couldn't say or do. She had learned how to be desirably demure, how to deploy a sort of covert suggestion. You couldn't actually say what you most wanted in bed but you could use a form of subtle insinuation to make the man think it was he who'd wanted it and initiated it. She hadn't thought it could ever be any other way. But with O'Connell there were no boundaries, nothing you couldn't say or do.

It was a full ten days before she took a "night off." She'd been running on adrenaline. Burning her way through her days at the office and fueling up her nights with alcohol and pure whirling excitement. During those ten days she'd gone back to Hampstead only occasionally, to bathe and change her clothes and shout h.e.l.lo to the family as she headed out the door again. Finally, she needed respite. A cuddle with Tilly and Felix. A decent night's sleep before she drove herself into the ground.

It was Edna's day off. The table was laid with the best crockery and Nancy, all fl.u.s.tered, was running in and out of the kitchen. Under her ap.r.o.n was a chiffon dress in dusky green, one of her best. The children were already in their nightdresses, but had been allowed downstairs again. Mummy was marshaling them needlessly from room to room, perhaps thinking that if they stayed in one place for too long, they'd make a mess either of the room or of themselves.

Cramer's coming for dinner, Grace realized. And with the realization came a weird little tightening of some muscle or other, somewhere in her stomach.

She put her head in at the kitchen. "What are you cooking?"

"Wiener schnitzel." Nancy was bashing at some thin, pink pieces of veal with the tenderizing hammer.

"John's favorite?"

"Not so far as I know." Nancy carried on hammering. Her cheeks were very red. "I believe he's spent time in Vienna though."

There was no "believe" about it. She probably had full details of his trip there, complete with the address of his hotel and a list of all the museums, theaters and restaurants he'd visited.

Her stomach tightened further and she had to take deep breaths to relax it.

It's all right, she told herself. O'Connell is yours and Cramer is Nancy's. It's all settled and you don't have to worry. Just sit back and enjoy the evening. O'Connell is yours and Cramer is Nancy's. It's all settled and you don't have to worry. Just sit back and enjoy the evening.

He arrived at seven-thirty on the dot. Grace, who was hiding behind a book in the living room, heard Catherine exclaiming with delight at a bunch of flowers he'd brought-then rushing off to find a vase. And now here he was, standing in the living room doorway. His shirtsleeves were rolled up and his jacket was slung casually over his shoulder. He was too real, somehow. His hair was too shiny, his eyes too dark, his laugh too loud. The fact of him being here at all-of his physical presence in her house-it produced in her a kind of shock. And Cramer's own manner, when he caught sight of Grace, was far from casual. There was a tensing of the shoulders, an unconscious touching at his mustache as though he were afraid something may be stuck in it.

He feels the same, Grace realized. Grace realized. He's no more comfortable around me than I am around him. He's no more comfortable around me than I am around him.

"Nancy's making Wiener schnitzel especially for you. With sauerkraut." She laid the book down but remained in her seat. Wasn't sure she quite trusted herself to stand with confidence. "Thought I should let you know in case you have difficulty identifying it."

"It's all right." He touched at his mustache again. "I know what Wiener schnitzel and sauerkraut are."

"Yes, but does Nancy? Her cooking doesn't, as a rule, stretch to much more than cooked ham and boiled potatoes."

"Grace..." He looked distinctly awkward. "The other night at the Tutankhamun...I offended you, and-"

"Though even Nancy Nancy is a better cook than me. is a better cook than me. Tilly Tilly is probably a better cook than me." is probably a better cook than me."

"Uncle John! Uncle John!" Tilly came skipping in, her blond hair loose over her shoulders, her bear dangling from one hand. "I know all the words of 'All Things Bright and Beautiful.' Listen."

She placed herself centrally, in front of the fireplace, straight and tall with her hands locked behind her back, and began to sing in her shrill, little-girl voice. She was pretty much word perfect, though subst.i.tuting "growing collars" for "glowing colors." While she sang, Felix came crawling after her, getting his knees caught up in his nightie and squeaking with frustration-an articulately wordless command for Grace to scoop him up and cuddle him. She did just that, finding comfort in his warmth, as one might with a cat. Until he started wriggling madly, at which point she set him down and watched, with irritation, as he crawled straight across to Cramer and tugged at his trouser leg to be picked up again.

The hymn ended in applause and Grace was across the room in an instant, dragging Felix off Cramer with an expression that pretended to be an apology.

"Bedtime, children."

Tilly stamped a foot. "Oh, Auntie Grace! I was going to sing 'There Is a Green Hill Far Away.'"

"It's May, Tilly. Christ rose from the dead weeks ago."

"But I like the bits about dying and blood."

"Typical woman." Cramer caught Grace's eye, all jovial.

"You're lucky my mother's not in the room. She'd sling you out for less than that. Come on, Tilly. Bed."

"Auntie Grace, is Uncle John going to be my new father?"

This came out of the blue, at that moment when Tilly was fond of asking her most difficult questions: after her stories, as she wriggled down in the bed, and just as Grace was about to turn off the light.

"Oh, darling." She looked into Tilly's wide-open eyes, and saw George. George's seriousness. George's intensity. "n.o.body can ever replace your daddy. He'll always be with us."

"Will he come back from the dead, like Jesus?"

"Not exactly, no. He's alive in you, Tilly. In you and Felix."

But Tilly was cross now. She thumped her arms down on the counterpane. "That's a lie. He's gone. I can't even remember him."

Grace tried to hug her, but Tilly was too angry for hugs.

"It's not fair. Elizabeth has a new father. He got lots of medals in the war and now he's a bank manager and counts up all the money. I want Uncle John to marry Mummy so I can have a new father, too."

It was hard not to laugh. "Fathers aren't like library books, Tilly. We don't keep getting new ones. And anyway, perhaps Mummy and Uncle John don't want to marry each other. Did you think of that?"

Tilly scowled. "Why not? They like each other. And he's always here. He might as well just give up his house and live with us."

"Tilly..." Just how often was was he here? She had to curb the urge to start asking detailed questions about when he came over and how long he stayed. He wasn't sleeping over, she was pretty sure. Nancy wouldn't give her all without a ring on her finger at the very least. he here? She had to curb the urge to start asking detailed questions about when he came over and how long he stayed. He wasn't sleeping over, she was pretty sure. Nancy wouldn't give her all without a ring on her finger at the very least.

"Well, if he's not going to marry Mummy, he should marry you."

"Tilly."

"Or me. He could marry me! I could be a bride in a white dress. He'd be my bridebroom." And now she was smiling again and settling herself down for the night. Grace bent to kiss her on the forehead. "This cabbage is quite peculiar." Catherine Rutherford prodded it with her fork. "Is it pickled or something?"

"It's in the Austrian style," said Nancy. "And frankly, Mummy, I think you're you're more pickled than the cabbage." more pickled than the cabbage."

"Stuff and nonsense." But Catherine's accent was slightly more horsy than usual-a sure sign that she was tipsy. She rarely drank and tonight she'd taken a sherry before they'd even begun on the bottle of Hock. "Anyway, what if I am? Is there a written rule that only the young may get tight? Is the more mature lady to confine her evening activities to knitting, tea drinking and gazing into the fire, longing for her lost youth?"

"Well, you do do have your bridge night..." Grace caught Nancy's eye and they both giggled. It was all much easier now they were sat around the family dinner table. The sisters had slipped into their traditional roles as accomplices, finishing each other's sentences and exchanging glances above their winegla.s.ses. have your bridge night..." Grace caught Nancy's eye and they both giggled. It was all much easier now they were sat around the family dinner table. The sisters had slipped into their traditional roles as accomplices, finishing each other's sentences and exchanging glances above their winegla.s.ses.

"You flibbertigibbets don't know you're born! Let me tell you-" Catherine gestured with her knife and a fleck of sauerkraut flew at Cramer.

"Oh, here we go." Nancy rolled her eyes.

"I was thrown in a cell for the good of you whippersnappers..." Grace mimicked her mother's voice. Grace mimicked her mother's voice.

"Were you really, Mrs. Rutherford?" Cramer looked genuinely interested. "What was the charge?"

"I committed the most heinous crime of campaigning for a woman's right to vote." Catherine pushed her gla.s.ses up her nose and sat proud and erect.