The Jewel Box (16 page)

Even hearing him talk about a
past
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 passed 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
, 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
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 naïve 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
fault?”

“He’d have you believe I pillaged our shared experiences when I wrote
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 butt 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
need to choose a path and stick to it. It isn’t enough just to be talented.”

“I understand, sir. I
am
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.

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-stitch 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 circum
stances 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 nobody would be any the wiser. Come on, couturiers. We have entered an age of mass production and this is an idea for the masses. 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 cocktails alfresco in that rarest of West End spaces, 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 cocktails 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 cocktail, 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-stitch and hang it above my bed.

Diamond Sharp

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.

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 Café 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 duchess’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.
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 hello 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 flustered, was running in and out of the kitchen. Under her apron 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.

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.
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
is a better cook than me.
Tilly
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 substituting “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.