'You hardly touched a thing. Are you sickening for something? I told you you'd catch something nasty if you went to that foreign place. When my late husband, Stanley, was in Cairo he had trouble with his tummy the whole time. That was during the war, of course. Army food was nearly as bad, he said, and he wasn't one to grumble…'
'I brought you back something,' Marie said, as the other woman stopped speaking. She picked up a brightly wrapped parcel from the bureau behind her and handed it to Mrs Abbot, who stared at it with overdone amazement. This ritual was proceeded with every time Marie came back from a trip abroad. She always brought Mrs Abbot a present, and Mrs Abbot always pretended to be taken aback.
Now she turned the parcel over and over, saying, 'You shouldn't have bothered. Why, my goodness, what is it? You shouldn't have bothered, you know. I wonder what it is?'
'Open it and see,' said Marie, as she always did. Mrs Abbot got as much fun out of the parcel first as she could, pinching it and fingering the corners, trying to guess what it was, before at last she untied the string.
Marie had bought her a little Arab statuette of a cat, about five inches high, carved in creamy ivory, with green gem eyes. Mrs Abbot was crazy about cats and kept two Siamese in her own part of the flat. Now she exclaimed delightedly and thanked Marie several times before she departed with her gift.
Marie watched her leave the room with an affectionate smile. Mrs Abbot had looked after her ever since her mother ran away. She was a kind, warm, caring woman without relations in the world since her own husband died. In her early sixties, she was still active and hardworking, with no intention of retiring, although Marie knew that she had plenty of money invested in a building society for the 'rainy day' she had been expecting all her life. She ran the flat with impeccable skill. Her cooking was plain but excellent. She tended to bully both Marie and her father at times, but otherwise she kept herself to herself, preferring to sit in her cosy living-room at the far end of the flat with her two cats rather than go out or meet friends.
What would we have done without her? Marie thought. Then she walked over to the window and stared out at the London skyline, thinking over what her father had told her.
What would they do if her father lost control of Brintons? Would he be forced to retire from the board? She could not imagine what he would do with the rest of his life if he lost the mainspring of his existence. Despite their close relationship, she had always been aware that Brintons came first with him. From time to time she had minded that, but she had learnt to face facts.
She thought of the Unex Group with bitterness. Why were they so greedy, like great sharks devouring everything in their path! The impersonal face of big business hid a cruel ruthlessness every bit as harsh as the bleak wilderness of the desert.
She remembered Ian MacIntyre, chief accountant of Brintons, once saying to her father that it was dangerous to grow much bigger. 'You'll attract the sharks,' he had said. And her father had only smiled and shrugged the warning away.
Marie spent the afternoon on the telephone to her friends, telling them bland lies about her holiday. She would never tell a soul about her night in the desert, she thought, as she hung up for the last time. Let them all imagine that she had spent a blissful fortnight swimming in blue water and lazing on the beach. The reality was a secret locked in her own mind.
For the first time she felt restlessly wistful about her lack of occupation. She had never got a job because her father had insisted it was not necessary. She was sup posed to run the flat for him, arranging his dinner parties and lunch parties, writing the personal letters which had to go to friends and doing all the jobs her mother would have done had she not run away.
In fact, of course, she had very little to do all day for most of the time, and filled in the hours with idle leisure; shopping, visiting friends, reading books and playing the piano.
Until now that had rarely bothered her, but now she wished she had a proper job, something to take her mind off the images which continued to haunt her. Every time she relaxed her guard that face flashed into her mind.
Oh, well, she thought, time would solve that problem. In a few weeks she would be unable to remember what he looked like. That time could not come too soon.
She slowly dressed for dinner, choosing her dress with care; a pretty blue dress she rarely wore because of its childlike simplicity, the bodice demurely sprinkled with very tiny white lace daisies, the skirts full and calf-length, swaying around her as she walked. With her hair styled in loose waves around her face she looked like a teenager, she thought wryly, gazing at her reflection.
Well, that should suit her mother. She could hardly manage to look much younger.
Her mother was staying at a large luxury hotel near one of London's parks. Marie asked for her at the reception desk an
d was immediately directed into the lounge bar. Pausing in the doorway, Marie saw her mother at once. She had hardly changed a hair. At a casual glance one would have put her down as a woman of thirty-five, but in fact, as Marie knew perfectly well, she was in her late forties. The miracle was accomplished invisibly. Her make-up was carefully applied, her clothes expertly chosen. Her beauty remained intact by some magical act of will.
She turned, as Marie entered, a glass in her hand, and for a fleeting second Marie saw an unmistakable look of apprehension on the flower-like face. The blue eyes widened, the mouth trembled, then Clare raised a hand in greeting, smiling brightly. 'Darling! There you are!'
There were, naturally, some men hovering in vague attendance, their faces wearing the sheepish look Marie always associated with men whom her mother took in tow. But Clare calmly dismissed them all with a few sweet words, saying, 'Darlings, you must run along now. This is a very private meeting…' The smile which accompanied the words left the men bemused as they drifted away.
'You haven't lost your touch,' Marie said lightly, brushing her mother's raised cheek with her lips. 'How are you, Clare?' Her mother preferred to be called that. She said the name Mother was 'ageing'.
'Hasn't James told you ? Poor Arturo… so sad. And those horrible sons of his, grabbing everything, even my cars and my house. All I had left was the clothes I stood up in, I swear.' Clare looked tragic, her lower lip trembling, her wide pansy blue eyes filmy as though with tears.
Marie glanced at the flat pearl studs in her mother's tiny ears; at the diamond bracelet clasped around that slender wrist, at the diamond and pearl brooch discreetly pinned into the elegant black dress into which her mother's slender youthful body had apparently been poured so that it clung to her from the neck to the hem, accentuating the delicate sway of her hips, the alluring uplift of her breasts.
She vividly recalled the other jewels which Arturo had showered upon Clare over the years, and suspected that Clare's poverty was by no means as drastic as she wished people to think.
'I'm very sorry, Clare,' she said, however, mindful of her promise to her father. 'You look marvellous, in spite of your grief…' then hoped her mother would not take the words as irony.
Clare, however, was ready to accept her words at their face value, eager to be friends, apparently.
'Thank you, darling.' The blue eyes scrutinised her, approving of the blue childlike dress. 'You look very sweet yourself. I like to see you dress your age. I thought, last time we met, that you were in that tiresome stage of trying to be very sophisticated, which doesn't suit the young, you know. What will you have to drink?'
'Something cool and refreshing,' Marie said demurely.
Clare ordered her a glass of lemonade, adding mischievously, 'With just a dash of gin, barman. We don't want to overdo it, do we?'