Betrayals (38 page)

Janet was sitting on the tavern verandah from which Baxeter had photographed her looking out over the thickly wooded valley. She shook her head, refusing to answer. Moment to moment, hour to hour, she thought.

She drove aimlessly and slowly back to Nicosia, regretting the trip because it had not been the same without Baxeter and she'd become further depressed by her failed attempts at personal honesty.

She was surprised by the amount of mail awaiting her back at the hotel. There were three more written requests for interviews from journalists and in addition two airmailed letters both postmarked from the United States. The first she opened was from the talk show agency in Atlanta, increasing from $5,000 to $10,000 their offer for a country-wide tour for after-dinner or lunch talks. The second was from a New York publishing house proposing a $100,000 advance for a book which they had tentatively entitled
The Love of Janet Stone
. If she cabled her acceptance, they would fly an executive to Cyprus to finalize the details and discuss whether she felt able to complete a manuscript herself or would like to work with a ghost writer.

Janets vision blurred at the suggested title. She threw everything angrily into the wastebasket and stood at the window gazing out over the city and its sun-bleached, dun-colored outskirts, arms rigid by her side, both hands clenched into fists. Fuck it! she thought, not even sure at what or at whom she was swearing. Fuck it! fuck it! fuck it!

The following day Zarpas called: there was no necessity for her to attend the next remand hearing unless she wanted to, because it would be even more of a formality than the initial appearance. There was a follow-up call from the New York publisher which she refused to accept.

She let another twenty-four hours pass before calling England. Her mother, as always, answered the telephone and announced at once that she had very bad news.

“What?” demanded Janet.

“George is dead. I am so sorry, my darling.”

“George?” Janet could not think what her mother was talking about.

“Your cat: Harriet telephoned last night.”

It struck Janet as bizarre and she snickered. “Oh,” was all she could manage.

“I knew you'd be upset,” said her mother. Janet realized her instant reaction would have sounded like a sob.

She said: “Quite a lot has actually happened since I was last with George, Mother. And I've kind of been expecting it.”

“Still a shock.”

Could people think of animals dying as a shock? Janet guessed she would have known that—felt more than she was feeling at the moment at least—if she'd never met John Sheridan and never done what she was doing now but remained in the Rosslyn apartment with George. She said: “Thank Harriet for me, will you? Say I'll settle the vet's bills when I get back.”

“She wanted to know that,” the older woman said. “When you're getting back, that is.”

Janet sighed, not responding. “Should I speak to Daddy?”

“He wants to speak to you.”

He must have been standing next to her, because he came on the telephone at once. “There was a lot of publicity about that remand hearing.”

“I didn't bother to read any of it,” said Janet, who hadn't.

“No definite date for a full hearing?”

“Not yet.”

“You could come home in between times, couldn't you?”

So Partington and her father were still in close contact. Wearily Janet said: “I haven't decided yet.” And don't want to decide, she thought.

There was desultory talk about the cat, which Janet found utterly inconsequential, and an attempt to bring the conversation back to her return, which Janet ignored. He told her, as always, to call again soon and Janet, as always, promised that she would, gratefully replacing the telephone and deciding upon at least a week's interval. Poor George, she thought, trying but still failing to feel more. Had she changed so completely, about everything and everybody? She didn't want that to happen: not to become so hardened that nothing mattered or moved her any more. She'd known women like that—she supposed Harriet was close to being one—and thought it was ugly.

She started going back to the pool again and on the second morning realized from a faraway bustle that she was being photographed by cameramen using long focus lenses. Her immediate reaction was to feel indecent and she moved to cover herself in a wrap but then she stopped, lying back on the lounger. So what? she thought. What the hell did a picture of her in a swimsuit matter! If it made them think they were doing their job—made them think it was important—it was all right by her.

It was ten days after Baxeter's departure, in the late afternoon when she was returning sun-throbbing and still oiled from the pool, the room key slippery in her hands, that she heard the room telephone ringing. The key slipped further and she almost dropped it, running anxiously into the room when the door finally opened.

“I'm back,” he announced.

Janet closed her eyes, swaying.

“Thank God!” she said. “Oh, thank God!”

“You OK?”

“Yes,” she said, feeling strangely breathless. “Where are you?”

“My apartment. The pack still there?”

“Some.”

“Could you get here?”

“Of course. An hour.”

“Make it thirty minutes.”

Janet showered and changed and didn't bother to dry her hair, so eager was she to get to him. She used the fire escape stairs again and was sure she reached the hire car unobserved. She was still cautious, driving not straight to Baxeter's home but into Nicosia, parking the car near the Paphos Gate where she had been cheated of Baxeter's money. She entered the walls through the Paphos Gate, twisting at once through the narrow alleys of the oldest part of the city, constantly looking behind in an effort to detect anyone following. She couldn't see anyone: certain not an obvious camera-hung photographer. She emerged from the citadel at Eleftheria Square, where there was a taxi rank, and rode away staring through the rear window. Again there was no indication of pursuit.

Baxeter snatched at her without speaking and Janet didn't need any words either. They made love hurriedly, hungrily, and it was much too quick, but the second time was slower and better.

“I've missed you so much,” said Baxeter.

“I've missed you, too.”

“You're going to hate me,” he announced, abruptly.

She pulled away, staring curiously at him. “Hate you?”

“For cheating you: making love like this without telling you first.”

“Telling me what?” Her stomach dipped.

Instead of replying Baxeter reached sideways for an envelope, taking out a photograph. John Sheridan looked older and grayer than in any previous prints, sagged against a wall. He was being made to hold up a copy of the New
York Times
to show the date, just a week earlier.

“Do you hate me?” said Baxeter, beside her.

“No,” said Janet. “I don't hate you.”

25

J
anet became aware that she was upright, naked with her legs splayed for support and sitting directly in front of him: despite their having made love every way that love could be made and the fact that there was no secret about either of their bodies that the other had not explored and discovered (and delighted in exploring and discovering) she snatched—immediately regretting the haste—at the crumpled top sheet to pull it up over herself.

“I thought that was how it might be,” he said and Janet regretted the haste even more.

“He's alive!” she said. It was not until now, this precise moment, that Janet had opened another locked and sealed compartment, that most secret part of her mind in which she'd believed John to be dead. Now, abruptly, unexpectedly, incredibly, she had proof—that he wasn't dead! That he definitely hadn't been dead, as of just one week ago. And Janet knew—just knew—that if he weren't killed by now, he wouldn't be. That somehow, somewhere, she would be reunited with him. The awarenesses rushed in upon her, a tidal wave, and Janet was swamped by it, tumbled head-over-heels upon a bruising, scratching mental shore. For a long time she just sat, the creased sheet like a toga held with increasing tightness before her, gazing at the stained bed upon which she had just made passionate and uninhibited love to one man while she thought about another. “Alive!” she said again, empty-voiced.

“There isn't any doubt,” confirmed Baxeter.

“I want to say … I want to say …” stumbled Janet, looking down at herself and then across at his nakedness. “I want to say thank you but that's bloody ridiculous, isn't it?”

“Yes,” Baxeter agreed. “Bloody ridiculous.”

“You know what's even more ridiculous!” she said. “It makes me love you even more.”

Baxeter shook his head, becoming aware of his own nakedness and pulling part of Janet's sheet over himself. “I don't know what to say to that.”

“No.” Janet made a sound halfway between a sad choke and an excited laugh. “I don't either.”

“I'm glad,” said the man. “However it affects you and me, I'm glad …” There was a gulped pause. “No, I don't mean that at all. I'm glad he's alive, certainly. I mind very much how it affects you and me. Very much.”

“I don't know how it affects you and me,” admitted Janet, with matching honesty.

“I want to tell you something,” said Baxeter. “Even if it resolves the uncertainty about what happens between you and me, I want to tell you something …” There was another hesitation. “… I thought he was dead.”

“I did, too,” said Janet, quietly.

He stared at her, twisted-faced. “But then why!”

“I thought it, but I wouldn't accept it,” said Janet. “And I was right, wasn't I?”

“So what's the answer?” asked Baxeter.

“Answer?”

“About you and me?”

“Darling!” implored Janet. “How can I tell you that? I secretly thought that a man I was engaged to marry was dead. You give me confirmation that he's not and within minutes want me to make decisions like that!” Would it be an easier decision weeks or months or years from now? she asked herself.

“I'm sorry,” he said, at once. “It was something I shouldn't have asked.”

“How did you get the photograph?” demanded Janet.

“Luck, really,” Baxeter shrugged. “The simplest luck. In Beirut we have a stringer—someone who works for us on a freelance basis—naturally I've been plaguing him with demands about hostages ever since the kidnappings began in the Lebanon, years ago. He's a Shia. When I told him about the piece I had just done here on you, he said he knew where Sheridan was and I challenged him to prove it …” Baxeter jerked his head towards the photograph still clutched in Janet's hand. “And he did,” the man finished, simply.

“What are you going to do with it?” asked Janet.

“Nothing,” said Baxeter, more simply still. “Not yet, at least. I made you a promise about printing nothing that would endanger John's life. I meant it.”

Janet swallowed and looked away, hoping he had not seen her reaction. “I think you're wonderful,” she said. “Absolutely wonderful.”

“No I'm not!” he said, almost too loudly.

“So what are
we
going to do with it?”

“
You
” Baxeter said. “I brought the proof back for you: you've got to decide what to do with it.”

Janet shook her head. “I need you,” she said. “You know I need you:
how
much I need you. You tell me what to do: I don't want to try anything else by myself. Do anything else by myself. I'm too tired; too beaten.”

“Tell the Americans,” advised Baxeter, simply again.

Janet blinked at him. “After everything that's happened, they won't even let me through the embassy door!”

“They will,” disputed Baxeter. He indicated the photograph. “Look at it!” he instructed. “That's only a week old: eight days. No one has seen any proof whether or not John Sheridan is alive or dead for months. This
is
proof. They won't dismiss you this time: they can't.”