Forever (12 page)

Gussie fought for breath. ‘Do you mean it, Eden? Is it my imagination?'

‘Undoubtedly.'

‘But the movie!'

‘The world and his brother were at St Michel that night. No doubt someone who resembled Beau was there. I made an ass of myself in Goldberg's yesterday. I thought it was Dean being served at the counter and rushed in, covering his eyes and chirrupping “Guess who?”. It turned out to be a tourist from England.'

‘What did you do?' Gussie's breathing was returning to normal. She wiped her eyes and reached for the tooth mug.

‘Had a most enjoyable evening,' Eden said with a grin.

Gussie laughed tremulously.

‘If I'm going to be your bridesmaid, we ought to decide definitely about colours for the dress. I refuse to wear pastels. Mae, as your maid-of-honour, would look fine, but I would look as if I'd just stepped off the top of a Christmas cake.'

‘Well, you can't wear scarlet!' Gussie said, giggling, feeling as if the world had righted on its axis. ‘Where did you get that outfit from, Eden? It's incredible.'

Eden looked down at her crushed velvet, searing red jacket and culottes and said calmly, ‘It was one of the costumes for that last Shakespearian production at college. I just altered it a little here and there. It's rather stunning, don't you think?'

‘It's different,' Gussie said truthfully and agreed to Eden's suggestion that they go out to eat. The dark weight that seemed at times to crush her had evaporated. She felt happy; normal; sane.

Later in the evening she rang Bradley to apologize for her behaviour and to tell him how thrilled she was with the house. In the days that followed they saw each other constantly, went swimming, to restaurants, for walks in the park. She didn't turn, or even hesitate in their conversation when the dark, cold shadow fell across her path. Instead she chatted more brightly, laughed more loudly. Her brittle gaiety was overpowering.

Bradley sensed her underlying fear and asked her time and time again if she wanted to postpone the wedding. The prospect only made her more excitable. She wanted to marry him: today, tomorrow. As soon as possible.

‘Another death for the Clays,' her father said as they breakfasted together a few weeks later. ‘Not that this is the tragedy young Beau's death was. Judge Clay's mother was eighty-four at least.'

Gussie had been about to reach for a slice of toast. Her hand fell into her lap; the blood drained from her face.

‘Laetitia Clay,' Charles Lafayette said, removing his spectacles and folding up the newspaper. ‘She was quite a lady in her youth. I believe she had a soft spot for Beau, for all his wildness.' He rose to his feet. ‘The funeral is on Friday, Gussie. Tell Allie to make sure your dark clothes are ready.'

‘No!' She pushed her chair away from the table. ‘
No!
I'm not going!'

Her father's steel-grey eyebrows rose imperceptibly. It was not often he was firm with Augusta. ‘Laetitia Clay was one of the oldest and most respected of New Orleans'citizens. Judge Clay is a personal friend of mine. I expect you to accompany me, Gussie.'

Gussie stared after him, appalled. When her father spoke in that tone there was no arguing with him. She began to shake. She remembered clearly the burials she'd had to attend before. The hideous depositing of the body on the stone shelf. The mouldering, swathed bodies on other shelves. The smell of death and decay. When the Clay family tomb was opened there would be another brief glimpse of the long dead; and of the not-so-long dead. She raised a hand to her mouth and stifled a cry. In the last few weeks only Eden had saved her sanity. With utter conviction, Eden had repeated time and again that the presence at her side, the voice she heard at all times of the day and night, was nothing but her imagination. She was
not
insane. She was
not
possessed. She was sensitive and overwrought and had reacted badly to the death of a man she had idolized. Like a litany, Gussie had repeated Eden's words until she had almost come to believe them.
Had
believed them when Bradley was at her side and the room was crowded and the music loud. Now she would be faced with a nightmare: the sight of Beau's dead body: the terrible knowledge that he still held her heart and that Bradley had never completely succeeded him. She hated Laetitia Clay for dying. She hated her father for imposing his will on her. Most of all, she hated herself for not

being able to love Bradley as he deserved.

The heat was oppressive, the sky overcast as the mourners followed the coffin to the old, overgrown graveyard in the centre of New Orleans. Gussie squeezed her hands together tightly. The St Louis Cemetery was itself a city. A city of the dead. How could Beau have been laid to rest in such overpowering grimness? How could he have borne it?

The priest held up his arm and blessed the assembly as they halted before the ornate magnificence of the Clay mausoleum.

‘Dearly beloved. We are gathered here today to pay our respects to one of our most revered citizens. A lady of great character; great fortitude …'

The iron grille before the mausoleum was still closed, the officiants standing by, ready to open it. Gussie tried to tear her eyes away, and could not.

‘I have seen death too often to believe in death … To be mortal is to share in divinity …'

Beads of sweat broke out on Gussie's brow. If she fainted her father would have to carry her from the graveyard. She felt queasy. There was a tight band around her chest. Judge Clay's sister was crying softly.

‘Come to meet her, angels of the Lord. Welcome her. Present her to God, the most high. Saints of God, come to her aid …'

The same words had rung over Beau's coffin. Beau, too, had lain shrouded and still on that high catafalque.

‘I am the resurrection, the truth and the light …'

She should never have come. She should have defied her father.

‘May the angels speed you into Paradise, and the Masters welcome you as you draw near and lead you into jerusalem, the Heavenly City …'

Gussie swayed. Was it never going to end? The sound of sobs intensified. Laetitia Clay had been well-loved.

‘Lord, grant her everlasting rest and let perpetual light shine upon her. May she rest in peace. Amen.'

The grille was swung open. The priest was sprinkling holy water on the mummified body in the coffin. Gussie's heart began to slam against her chest in thick, heavy strokes. She would not look when the last barrier to the interior of the tomb was removed. She would remember him as he was; standing beneath the tree, watching with jealous passion as she danced in Bradley's arms. Her hands were clammy, her breath coming shallow and fast. Beau had been dead when she had danced at her birthday party. Dead as Laetitia Clay was dead.

Judge Clay stepped forward and sprinkled holy water on the body of his mother, his face haggard. His sister and son followed.

‘Augusta. Augusta.'

She gave a small cry, staring round her with petrified eyes. Her father's fingers tightened on her arm. Augusta had not been close to Laetitia Clay. There was no need for her to express undignified grief.

‘I'm here, Augusta,'
the barely audible voice said, floating up and around her. ‘
Forever and forever
…'

‘Dead! Dead! Dead!' she chanted silently to herself, clinging desperately to a last shred of sanity. ‘You're dead and I'm alone …'

The corpse was lifted from its casket. The heavy inner door of the mausoleum was opened slowly.

Gussie summoned up a remnant of courage. She would take one last, swift look; say one silent goodbye.

There were cries of incredulity and horror. Sobs rose to hysteria. Frenzied explanations were relayed to those at the back who had no view of the tomb. The priest faltered in his task. Laetitia's body was held aloft, rudely jostled by those who pushed forward to see for themselves.

The stone shelf that had held the body of Beau Clay was empty. Only other, older grey mounds of disintegrating bodies waited to be joined by Laetitia Clay.

‘Oh my God! It isn't possible! It's gone, I tell you! Gone!'

Pandemonium broke out and Laetitia Clay's body was ignored. The priest was ashen-faced. A flashbulb popped boldly. Dignity was dispensed with. Revered members of the community fought for a vantage point. Screams and sobs echoed round the grim monoliths of the dead.

The priest was the first to recover his equilibrium, and he tersely ordered the bearers of Laetitia's body to deposit her inside the tomb as quickly as possible. With indecent haste, the inner door was slammed into place, the iron grille following.

‘Who would want to do such a terrible thing?'

‘Is it a joke? Have those wild friends of Beau's taken his body as a joke?'

‘Some joke. How the hell would they get in there? It's sealed as tightly as a Hampton bank!'

Charles Lafayette caught his daughter as she fell. This time there was no Bradley to carry her with swift ease. The crowd pushed in, milling and shouting. Charles glimpsed Judge Clay's stunned, uncomprehending face and then he was pushing his way frantically through the mass of near-hysterical bodies. Twice he stumbled, but there was no one to come to his assistance. No one had time for anything but speculation as to what had happened to the body of Beauregard Clay.

The Lafayette chauffeur had been lolling against the bonnet of the limousine reading the
States Item
. As Charles Lafayette staggered from the graveyard, Augusta in his arms, the chauffeur dropped the paper to the pavement and ran to his employer, taking the insensible weight of the girl.

Charles Lafayette's face was grey. ‘Home! Fast! Must ring Jim Meredith!'

The chauffeur laid Gussie on the rear seat and her father practically scrambled into the car. ‘For Christ's sake, man! Move!'

Charles Lafayette twisted round in his seat, reaching a hand out to steady Gussie. Her face was marble white; her eyelids were closed.

‘Of all the tasteless, vulgar, barbaric acts,' Charles said to Jim

Meredith as he closed Gussie's bedroom door behind them.

Jim Meredith shook his head. ‘It's hard to credit, Charles. Are you sure Beau's body was not simply on a shelf other than the one people expected?'

‘The only remains in that tomb had been there for thirty years or more,' Charles said firmly, pouring two stiff brandies. ‘The body had been taken all right, and I can imagine by whom.'

Jim Meredith waited. He had never seen Charles so distressed before. ‘Those hellrakes young Clay used to associate with. It would be their idea of a joke. They're sick. Promiscuous, Marxist and sick. The shock nearly killed Augusta.'

‘Augusta's fine,' Jim Meredith said soothingly. ‘Obviously she's deeply shocked. It's a pity you were right upfront with the family mourners, but it can't be helped. She's young. She'll soon forget.'

‘They deserve tarring and feathering when they're caught,' Charles Lafayette said viciously. ‘Prison's too good for them. I'd whip their hides myself, given the chance.'

A flicker of amusement lit Jim Meredith's eyes. Charles Lafayette was the mildest mannered man he knew. Nothing but distress to Augusta could have aroused such passion.

‘They'll find them,' he said reassuringly. ‘Judge Clay will see to that. If the body has been taken – and I must say, Charles, that I'm still not one hundred per cent convinced of the fact – then the Clay family will go to every length to see that it is returned.'

‘
If
they find it,' Charles Lafayette said, sinking into his chair, feeling suddenly old. ‘You should have heard the inane babbling of the Delatours and Lafittes. It took them all of two seconds to come to the conclusion that the body had been taken for use in a black magic ceremony. We're going to hear nothing in this town but voodoo and witchcraft for the next six months.'

Jim Meredith's face was stern. ‘Then see that Gussie doesn't get to hear any such foolish talk. Warn Bradley. He'll see to it that she isn't exposed to such idiocy. I like that boy. He's got both charm and sense. A rare combination.'

Alone in her vast bed Augusta lay motionless. Where was he, her dead lover? His voice was silent now, his presence absent. She wondered: if she held out her arms, if she pleaded with him to come and take her, if she, too, would die, his kiss on her lips, his arms around her as their spirits soared. Beneath the silken sheets she dug her nails into her palms, resisting the temptation. Beau would not want her to die. She was eighteen. The whole of her life stretched before her. Her forehead burned. It had stretched before Beau, too. When she had summoned his heart to hers he had attempted to reach her in such desperate haste that he had killed himself. That was how Beau had died. She knew it as surely as she knew his body no longer inhabited the Clay mausoleum.

A pair of narrow eyes, slanting above high cheekbones, swam before her. His black hair had a blue sheen, his mouth curved into a smile. ‘Beau,' she whispered, her hands sliding up and free of the sheets. ‘Beau, my darling …'

‘—Jim Meredith says you should take one of these three times a day for the next week or so,' her father said, striding into the room, a bottle of Valium in his hand.

She blinked, scarcely recognizing him, the vision shattered.

‘Maybe we should take a vacation? Go down to Barbados or Antigua?'

‘No, Daddy. I want to stay here.'

Close to Beau: close to the arms and lips that were just a fingertips' touch away.

Charles Lafayette thought he understood. It was not long now until the wedding and it was understandable that she would not wish to be parted from Bradley. He watched as she obediently swallowed a tablet, and then kissed her on the forehead. His little girl. She would be a wife soon. Bradley would take care of her.

When the door closed behind him, Gussie waited expectantly but the room remained as it had always been: the row of dolls lined the sofa; the late afternoon sun streamed through the window and on to the pale carpet and the array of perfumes and cosmetics on her dressing table. He did not come to her. She closed her eyes and slept.