‘She says her mother is dying,’ she burst out, the words coming from her own pain and uncertainty.
‘Dying?’ he repeated as if the word was meaningless to him. ‘What do you mean, dying?’
What was the matter with him? she desperately thought. Paul had always been so quick-witted. His mind had worked faster than the speed of light; she had been in awe of his intelligence. Yet now, tonight, that mind of his was slow and sluggish, as if he couldn’t make sense of anything she said. She hadn’t expected her news to shock him this much – or was he busy thinking about something else, something he hadn’t told her about? All week he had had something on his mind, he had kept drifting off into deep concentration, frowning and silent; there had been phonecalls at odd hours, business meetings in London that kept him there until very late. If their hours in bed together hadn’t been so intensely passionate Cathy might have begun to suspect there was another woman, but she knew it couldn’t be that. She knew better than to ask if anything was wrong – Paul never discussed business with her.
Looking at him anxiously, she said, ‘She’s apparently got leukaemia. Sophie says the doctors have given her three months at the outside.’
Paul walked stiffly over to the fire and leaned on the mantelpiece, his head bent down, staring into the flames.
Cathy couldn’t bear any more. ‘Oh, let’s not talk about them, they’re nothing to do with us, forget them.’ Her body was throbbing with the urgent hunger she always felt when they were alone. She whispered pleadingly, ‘I’m tired, I want to go to bed. Let’s go to bed, make love to me, darling.’
If he would make love to her she could forget Sophie and all these doubts and uncertainties; her only real certainty would be Paul’s body, her own, moving together in perfect harmony.
He didn’t turn round, or look at her, but she felt the emotion in him, and had never felt anything like that from him before – a dark, brooding rage which was like a knife thrust in her.
‘Don’t turn away from me!’ she burst out in anguish. ‘It isn’t true, she was telling a pack of lies! Paul, I need you more than ever now.’ She couldn’t stop tears stealing down her face, her body was shaking with sobs. ‘I’m frightened. I know who I am, but . . . but she’s knocked me off-balance, I’m so confused and miserable.’
‘You’d better go up to bed,’ he said heavily. ‘Go on, Cathy; get some sleep, that’s what you need. Maybe you should take one of those pills the doctor gave you for her.’ He sat down in one of the armchairs near the fire, still not looking at her.
‘Come with me,’ she begged, going over to kneel down beside him and leaning her body on his knees, clinging like ivy, putting a coaxing hand on his thigh, stroking the tense muscles under her fingers.
He pushed her
away, didn’t look at her, his eyes on the fire. ‘I’m not sleepy, I have some work to do, too, some overseas phonecalls to make. I’ll get Nora to bring me some sandwiches and coffee and work while I eat.’
The rejection made her feel sick. Humiliated, wounded, she got up, stumbled and almost fell on to the couch, knocking Sophie’s photographs to the floor. They scattered like autumn leaves across the carpet, some face up, the wraith-like forms in them shimmering in the firelight. Paul turned his head to stare at them, his brows jerking together.
‘What are those?’
She had forgotten them. Her throat rough with unshed tears, she muttered, ‘Nothing. She brought them, claimed they were photocopies of old family photos – but they’re fakes, obvious fakes.’
Paul leaned down from his chair, picked up some of the prints, straightened, holding one of them in his hands, staring at it. She saw it was the one which had startled Cathy herself; the picture of someone who looked amazingly like her, in an old-fashioned wedding-dress.
‘It could be you!’ Paul said in a voice that sounded as if it came from the pit of his stomach. ‘God, you’re the image of her.’
Terrified, she argued, ‘It’s easy to fake a photo! All they would have to do is find a good reproduction of a photo of me in a magazine, stick my head on an old picture of someone in a wedding-dress, and photocopy that, then photograph that. Paul, can’t you see what’s going on? You of all people know how easy it is to fool people. It’s all part of this con trick, a dirty-tricks campaign by Dad’s enemies back home. Dad will deal with it when he gets here in the morning.’
But Paul wasn’t listening; he was staring fixedly at that picture, his face drawn and grey. What was he thinking? If only he would talk to her, tell her how he felt, but he was shutting her out and Cathy felt so miserable she wanted to die.
‘Please, Paul, come to bed.’ She moved towards him again, her eyes burning with fatigue and passion. Their bodies knew each other so well, if she could only get him into bed . . . but his voice stopped her in her tracks, the tone of it harsh and hostile.
‘For God’s sake, do as you’re told, Cathy! Go to bed and leave me alone!’
She put a hand to her mouth to stifle the sob of shock and hurt, then turned and ran out of the room just as the phone began to ring. Paul ignored it, knowing it would be answered by one of the staff.
He heard Cathy crying as she ran through the hall and shut his eyes, groaning aloud. Opening his eyes again, he looked down at the photocopies he held, made a low, bitter sound and suddenly flung all the pictures into the fire, grabbed hold of a brass poker and held them down as they crackled and blazed into flame, watching intently as the strange, eerie faces shrivelled into black ash.
Vladimir stood in the centre of the room Steve had been allocated by the landlady and experimentally shifted his feet, his bulky body swaying with elephantine grace. The floorboards creaked under his weight.
‘Old, very old, this isn’t Disneyland, it’s real,’ he said, beaming. ‘I like this place – did you notice the sign saying real ale? What did that mean, I wonder? Is this an English joke? Are they telling us something? That some of their beers are not real, huh? I shall try them all, one by one, I like to do this research. When I am home I shall write an article on English beers.’
Steve wasn’t listening; he sat down on his bed and picked up the phone placed on the wall beside the bed. ‘I’m going to try to talk to Sophie.’
He pulled a small addressbook out of his inside pocket, flicked over the pages and then dialled. ‘Hello? Arbory House? I’m told Miss Narodni is staying there – could I speak to her, please?’ He listened, frowning. ‘Asleep? I see. Could I speak to Mrs Brougham, then, please? My name is Colbourne – Steve Colbourne. I’m an old friend from the States. Yes, I’ll hold.’
Vladimir wandered over to look out of the diamond-paned windows, stared across the village green towards the high, iron gates.
‘There’s a car parked over there, with two men in it,’ he told Steve over his shoulder.