The Jewel Box (29 page)

“Yes it’s him all right. And that’s not all. I know the girl, too.”

It was Margaret the typist, her face all over an ecstatic kind of happiness until she belatedly spotted Grace and adjusted her expression. Her hair was newly bobbed, her glasses abandoned. Poor cow was wandering blindly about the place so as not to be seen in those thick-lensed specs of hers. The transformation was remarkable, though. The bob had the look of Marcus Rino about it. The dress showed a figure far better than Grace would have suspected. Margaret didn’t look like Margaret, and in a good way. But how did she come to be here?

“Gwace!” Sheridan, appearing suddenly at her side, was all painted up in thick Egyptian makeup, prompting many a stare. “I’m not sure whether to thank you or curse you for that
column of yours the other week. You have such a sweet-and-sour tongue that I simply can’t tell if you’re fwiend or foe.”

“Barbed, that’s what her tongue is,” said Dodo, helpfully. “Barbed like the wire.”

Grace was still glancing across at O’Connell and Margaret, and experiencing the oddest sensation—a kind of slow fall. Was she falling or was the roof garden around her rising? It was impossible to tell.

“
Did
you like the club?” There was a touch of anxiety in Sheridan’s voice. “I have to know what you weally think, darling, just between ourselves.”

It took an effort to focus her attention on him, what with those two standing just over there…

“It’s as I said. Yours is the most remarkable club in London.”

“Gwace, you’re incowwigible.” He looked, as he spoke, like the little boy he once was. She could see him in their garden, squealing in alarm while she and Nancy tortured worms in front of him. And the memory brought with it other memories…a veritable cascade of them.

“What were you up to, calling in on my mother the other day? It wasn’t just about the photographs, was it? If I was paranoid, I’d say you waited for a time when Nancy and I were away so you could get her on her own…”

“Not at all. Don’t be daft.” He appeared to be waiting for Dodo to wander off before continuing. “I wanted to talk to Cathewine about my mother. That’s all. I miss her
so
much and yet I feel I’ve never understood her. There weren’t many people who were close to Amelia—she didn’t let people in.” While he spoke, he kept fiddling with his signet ring.

“But our mothers hadn’t seen each other for years, you
know that. I can’t imagine Catherine would have had anything very enlightening to say?”

“Well…” Still he twisted at that ring. His face looked just the way it did when he fibbed as a small boy.

“What’s
really
going on, Sheridan?” A memory flickered up. “Last time I saw you, you wanted to talk to me confidentially about something. What was it?”

His kohl-rimmed gaze darted about, landing anywhere but on her. “It’s not the time or the place, darling.”

“Then I’ll come to see you tomorrow. I could drop by your house.”

“All wight.”

Grace watched him slip off through the throng. Perhaps Catherine had been wrong when she said he didn’t know what had happened all those years ago…

The glittering dancers sashayed off, to be replaced by a bunch of stilt-walkers dressed as cocktails. Then came a magician who did tricks with newspaper: pouring water into a copy of the
Herald
and shaking it out dry; ripping it into tiny pieces and transforming the shreds into paper dolls; placing the dolls in a dish, setting fire to them, quenching the flames and pulling forth a gigantic, intact copy of the
Herald
with a photograph of Dickie’s face on its front page.

At this point the music stopped and the spotlight skidded across the crowd to fix on a jubilant Dickie.

“Good evening, everyone, and thank you.” His voice carried well across the roof. “Welcome, one and all, to the
Herald
’s fifteenth anniversary party. Gosh, but I’m happy…” His speech was all exuberance and eloquent froth. Once or twice he caught her eye, and his look was so light and clear. He might just float away into the sky. Grace drained her champagne glass. She could no longer see O’Connell among the crowd.

“Is that your sister over there?” Dodo again. Did she have nothing better to do than continually claw open Grace’s life with her gold-painted talons? “So divine in that pink dress. Look how she’s threading back and forth through all those people over there. She’s looking for someone. Perhaps for you?”

“I doubt it.” Grace didn’t bother looking.

Dickie had finished and the stage was taken by a Chinese contortionist, who twisted her rubbery body into such peculiar knotted shapes that it made one quite queasy. Heading over to the bar for a glass of water, Grace looked up at the mirror that stretched along the back wall and saw, reflected in it, John Cramer. He was perched on a high stool down at the far end of the bar, gazing at nothing in particular and toying with a highball glass. The suddenness of this—his nearness—was too much. She wanted to turn and slip away, but he’d already seen her in the mirror. They’d seen each other.

“Have a nice weekend with Nancy, did you?” She tried to keep her voice icy. Didn’t want the emotion showing through.

He shook his head as if despairing of her. Swore under his breath. “Grace, you turned me down flat and went straight off on your little trip with O’Connell. Why the hell should I tell you anything about my weekend?”

At the sound of that slurred voice, Grace realized the obvious. The sullen, oddly malleable look about his face, the glassiness in the eyes…The teetotaller was drunk! Probably too drunk to do anything but prop himself up on that bar.

“What are you
doing,
John?”

“I wish I knew.” He looked away, back down into his glass, and Grace felt herself sinking even further inside. Somewhere nearby, Nancy was searching for him, she was sure of it.
Threading back and forth through the crowd looking for her lover.

“Go home. Out of respect for my sister, if not for yourself.”

“Grace…”

She turned her back on him and was instantly enveloped in a crowd of celebratory colleagues. A big pack of news writers, feature writers, reviewers, copy editors…A herd of jolly, smiling faces full of mirth and gossip, wanting to show her that she was one of them. That she belonged. Usually she would have been gratified but tonight her mind was on other things. She was there, among them, bathed in their niceness, for what felt like forever. When they finally moved on and away, Cramer was gone from his seat at the bar. She couldn’t see him or O’Connell for that matter—and she found herself narrowly evading Sam Woolton and Verity, who were deliberating over a tray of vol-au-vents (that naked hairy body and that
thing
of his so vivid in her mind’s eye…those bulbous eyes and her own whirling Oriental wrap…), and then someone trod heavily on her foot and—

“Sorry, Grace.” Margaret, pink-faced from the drink or the awkwardness. “Didn’t see you.”

“I don’t suppose you can see much at all without your glasses. What are you doing here?”

“Ah.” The face went from pink to magenta. “You
don’t
know. Thing is, they sent you an invitation at the office and—”

“I see. You decided to be me.”

“Please don’t be cross! I can’t go on as I am. As I have been. My life is like something hollowed out. Like a…Is it true that French people eat snails? I’m like the shell that’s
left behind after the snail’s been eaten. That’s what it’s like, being me.”

“For goodness’ sakes, Margaret, I’m not bothered about your using my invitation. Not when there’s so much else to be bothered about.”

“Oh. You know then?” A fierce intelligence was burning away in Margaret’s myopic eyes. And a hunger. An insatiable hunger. “I’m sorry, Grace.”

“Know what? What are you talking about?”

“Ah.” A sheepish look. Slightly nervous. “I’m going to be Dexter O’Connell’s secretary. I’ll book his restaurant tables and take his suits to the cleaner’s and type his letters, but
also
I’m going to type up his novels! I’ll be the very first person to read the new book!”

There was a stiffness in Grace’s face.

“I’m sailing to New York with him. I’ll be going wherever he goes. Following him all over the world! Can you
imagine
it?”

“He’s going back to New York?”

“I wrote to him at the Savoy. I know I should have told you but…Well, it all seemed a little delicate, what with you and him and…I met him, remember? And he thought I was clever. So I sat down and wrote to him about his books and I mentioned that if there was ever a chance to meet him again, or if there was anything I could do for him…”

“Unbelievable!”

A quick shake of the head. “It’s not like that. I’m not trying to compete with
you.
But it’s over between the two of you anyway, isn’t it? And in any case, you surely knew it wouldn’t last? He isn’t the type to belong to anyone but himself.”

“And how do you know all this? How do you know him so much better than I do?”

A shrug. “I’ve read all his books. Have you?”

It was like the most dreadful dream—Margaret standing there all pretty and knowing and full of herself. You couldn’t wake out of this dream, no matter how hard you tried. And then things got even worse.

“Grace!” It was Nancy, in pink with daisies in her hair. Tugging at Grace’s arm. Her eyes wild and panicky. “Come with me. Quickly. Please.”

Even before Grace had grasped what was happening, there were sounds of shouting. You could hear it above the music. A doorman went running, cutting through the crowds, followed closely by Dickie. The sound of bone colliding with bone over by the staircase. A man’s yell. Women squealing.

Nancy was shouting at people in an authoritative way as she pushed through. “Make way! Out of the way!” Grace, in her wake, was tongue-tied.

Two doormen had hold of Cramer. He was struggling, yelling about how he was going to kill “that bastard.” His face was wild and full of hatred, his shirt ripped and bloody. It was only now—seeing Cramer so out of control, so
not
himself—that she realized just how gentle he normally was, how gentleness was one of his defining characteristics. His eyes were looking at her now, but without seeming to see her, seeing only his own rage. As Nancy hurried to his side, Grace felt the prickle of tears.

Over on the staircase, seated on the top step, was O’Connell. There was a lot of blood on his white suit. He appeared to be quietly watching Cramer, as the blood flowed freely from his nose and lip. When he spotted Grace, he gave a grimace that might have been a smile. He spoke, and his words were blurred but discernible.

“Some would say I had that coming. What do you think?”

“I don’t know.”

Nancy was speaking to Cramer. Grace couldn’t hear what she was saying, but whatever it was, it was working some kind of magic. He seemed to go limp, the rage ebbing away. Then she turned angrily to O’Connell. “What have you done?”

“You must be the lovely Nancy.”

Dickie was speaking to the two doormen, persuading them to let go of Cramer. Once they’d done so, Nancy took his arm, holding him up. Dickie, talking intently to Nancy, took the other arm. His hair was working free and was sticking up all over in greasy strands. Turning back to the room, he said loudly, “Righto. Sideshow’s over. You hear me? Excuse us, please.” And together, they half carried, half dragged Cramer past Grace and O’Connell, heading down the stairs and out of the club.

“You know, Grace, I’ve been to many places, seen many things, but this is my first time inside a ladies’ bathroom. I only wish I had my notebook with me.” O’Connell was perched up on the edge of the marble-topped counter beside the sinks. Next to him was a pile of bloody, sodden tissue. Grace had a wad in her hand and was dabbing at his lip and nose. Mostly he was stoic, but every so often he winced and groaned.

“I think this lip may need a stitch,” she said. “We should go to a hospital.”

“No need for that. I’ll be fine.” The lip was sufficiently swollen that his words were blurred. “Hey, lady.” He was addressing the only other woman in the room, primping and preening into the mirror at a neighboring sink. “That lipstick is too pink for you. You want a darker tone to set off that red hair.”

“You shouldn’t even be in here,” snapped the woman. “He shouldn’t even be in here.”

Grace silently mouthed the word “sorry” at the woman, who made her way past and back out to the party. “So you’re an expert on makeup now?”

“Just trying to be helpful. It’s always been my downfall.”

“Right. That should do it.” She gathered up the pile of tissue and threw it into the bin. Then she delved into a cupboard and produced a hand towel. “Hold this to your face.”

“It’s just as well your dress is red.” He took the towel and did as he was told.

Grace caught her reflection in the mirror. There was a tired and vaguely distressed look about her. O’Connell, on the other hand, somewhere behind all that blood and swelling, was positively chipper.

“You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?” she asked.

“Well, it
is
a party. Isn’t one supposed to enjoy parties?”

“What did you say to John?”

“Oh, it’s
‘John’
now? The man’s a drunk. A one-man justification for Prohibition.”

“So you’re saying it was unprovoked? He hit you for no reason at all?”

A sigh. Beneath the swelling his face became serious. “It’s between me and him and our shared past. Nothing to do with you.”

“Why don’t you just tell him what happened on the day that Eva died? For five years that man has been torturing himself over not knowing and thinking the worst possible thoughts about it all. Tell him the truth, whatever it is. Yes, she chose you over him, but hasn’t he suffered enough for it?”

O’Connell lowered the bloody towel and gingerly put his hand to his face, touching his lip and nose lightly. Exploring. “My dear girl, do I have to remind you that you
left
me, the other day? That you hotfooted it back to London while I slept?
Without even paying me the simple courtesy of leaving a good-bye note? I’m…‘touched,’ shall we say, by your interest in my private life, but frankly this was never any of your concern, and it’s even
less
of your concern now.”