How It All Began

  All of which is entirely unproductive—self-indulgent, maybe. Leave the knives to the police, the habitats to the environmentalists. If people don’t read, that’s their choice; a lifelong book habit may itself be some sort of affliction.

  Charlotte clears away the breakfast things, feeds the cat. Gerry has gone to work, Rose is on her way to his lordship. The morning lies ahead, yawning. What to do? Pain is muffled today, thanks be. A trip to the library, despite Rose’s strictures?

  Anton plays poker with his nephew and the boys; he loses, disastrously, and forfeits a six pack of beer. The boys remonstrate, telling him it was his own fault, he wasn’t concentrating, he played a crap hand, and Anton concurs, laughing. His back and his legs ache, as always after work, and it doesn’t matter.

  Don’t think of her, he tells himself. But that is no good—of course he thinks of her. Of what was said, of what was not said. This won’t do, he tells himself, you know it won’t do. And of course he knows, and that makes no difference.

  It is like feeling well again after a long illness, he thinks. But much more than that. Coming alive again. I had forgotten . . . not just what it was like to feel, but that feeling existed at all. It is like coming out into the sunlight.

  He sends the nephew for some more beer, proposes another game, and plays with steely attention. This time he trounces them. There is much hilarity. What’s got into the uncle? they say. First he’s in a trance, then he’s like a man possessed. He’s got something on his mind, they say. Come on, Uncle, give—what’s going on? Have you won the lottery? Are you planning to liquidate the site manager?

  Rose types up the morning’s dollop of My Memoirs. Or rather, she types, pauses, stares out of the window. Don’t think of him. Yes, think of him—because I must, have to, can’t help it.

  And it is not, in any case, thought. He hangs there in her head—his face, his voice, the way he looks at a seventeenth-century plate, that finger on her wrist. He fills her mind; he takes up all her time.

  No. Stop it. Grow up, Rose. This isn’t happening, can’t happen.

  Can’t it? It happens to others. Another life. A different life. Him.

  She types: “. . . my intermittent association with Harold Macmillan prompts me to . . .”

  Anton turns to her; he smiles. Again, and again. He says, “You do not want to talk . . . about this?”

  The door opens. Here is Mark. “Oh, Rose—I mustn’t butt in, but you’re taking a break anyway, I see. Where do we keep spare wallet files?”

  Rose tells him that as it happens there are no spare wallet files right now. She suggests Ryman’s.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  At Lansdale Gardens, database creation was now on hold while Mark worked on the plagiarism article: “I feel that this is rather a priority, as a teaser for the memoirs—we want to start whipping up interest.”

  Henry concurred entirely, and was himself setting to work with renewed enthusiasm. However, there was a certain disagreement about the eventual placing of the article. Henry did not seem to understand that this challenge to the reputation of a dead scholar was unlikely to grab the attention of the broadsheet editors.

  “But why not? I thought that was the idea?”

  Actually, the idea all along has been to generate a nice little dust-up in a heavyweight journal which would have Mark’s name conspicuously attached, thus raising his profile and, with luck, lodging the name with a few of those influential in the academic world. No need for Henry to realize that.

  “Popular exposure . . . ?” wondered Mark, frowning. “Isn’t that a bit—well, tawdry? I do feel it’s more appropriate to make a splash in one of the scholarly outlets. And we need them on board for the memoirs, in due course, don’t we?”

  “I take it one’s name will be—prominent?”

  “But of course. That’s the point.”

  Henry beamed satisfaction. What luck that young Mark had come into his life. Though Henry couldn’t now quite remember how or why he had. Oh yes, something to do with all that television nonsense. A good thing that never went any further; one had been on quite the wrong track there. No—the memoirs, that was the thing. “Off you go, dear boy. Get going on this valuable work.”

  Henry reached for his pen and a clean sheet of paper. Trevor-Roper today; some reflections on the man and his work. What a mercy the fellow’s dead—no holds barred.

  Mark, in contrast, was not inclined to write a word until he had some indication of interest. You don’t waste effort. Accordingly he set about drafting an enticing proposal, and wrote a few letters, which he planned to follow up with a phone call or two. Mark knew himself to be good on the phone, and with any luck he’d be able to maneuver an invitation to drop by the editor’s office. Only after that would he get going on the piece. Meanwhile, what was in theory Henry’s time would be devoted to Mark’s work on his thesis. The old boy was never going to know what exactly Mark was tapping away at on the laptop, in the Lansdale Gardens lobby.

  Marion was sitting at a pavement table outside a coffee shop near to Hatton Garden. On her lap was her bag, not trusted to the table or the chair alongside her. Inside the bag was a small jewelry box, and, within the box, the most valuable items of the jewelry left to her by her mother: a pearl necklace, a diamond ring, diamond earclips, a diamond and sapphire brooch.

  When do I wear them? Practically never.

  Will I miss them? Not really.

  So do I mind? Well, yes. They were hers.

  She had already cruised past the Hatton Garden jewelry outlets, without going into any of them. The process repelled her: producing the box, laying out the contents for the inspection of some hard-eyed guy on the other side of a counter. The proceeds of the sale would barely make a dent in her overdraft, but she would feel that she had done something. A panic step, not rational—she knew that.

  She sat there, putting off the moment. And was overcome suddenly with a sense of desolation. Here I am, she thought, getting middle-aged, beset by financial worries, my personal life centered around an entirely unsatisfactory lover. And I am about to sell my mother’s jewelry. She was on the edge of tears. She fished for a tissue, dabbed at her eyes.

  “Marion!”

  She looked up.

  “Marion! What a lovely surprise!”

  “Laura!”

  “Oh—how good to see you. What luck. I’ve got a solicitor appointment but I’m early. Don’t tell me you’re about to rush.”

  “No, no—I’m in no hurry at all.”

  Laura Davidson and Marion had been at art college together—best friends, indeed. They had always kept up, but Laura had been living in America for the past ten years, married to an American artist, and they had rather lost touch. Laura was a craftswoman—enamel work her specialty, though she also did glass engraving and some jewelry making. She was tall, blond, merry, and occasionally raucous—somewhat Marion’s opposite. They had always felt that they complemented each other nicely.

  Laura sat down, ordered a flat white, at once filled the pavement with talk, swept aside any inclination to despair. “So how are you? How’s interior design? And listen, let’s get it over with—I’m divorced. So snap! And it’s not that bad, I’m finding. I’m sniffing the air—and, boy! is it good to be back this side of the pond!”

  She was living in a leafy cathedral city, it emerged. “And I just love it. I’ve got a ducky little terrace house, and I’ve leased a big warehouse just near that’s going to make a fantastic studio when I’ve got it properly set up. I’ve got all these plans . . .”

  The leafy cathedral city seemed a touch unlikely, for Laura. Why there? Marion inquired.

  Because Laura’s brother was there, it seemed. A schoolmaster. “His wife died last year, poor darling. And his kids are gone and he’s lonely and anyway we’ve always got on.” Laura laughed. “We can prop each other up in our old age. But what about you?”

  Marion began to talk, slowly and with restraint.
And then the restraint deserted her, and it all came out. Everything. George Harrington. The overdraft. Recession. Even Jeremy.

  And her mother’s jewelry.

  Marion opened her bag. Opened the box, shielding it from observers.

  Laura looked. Closed the box. “Put it away,” she said. “Marion, you are not doing this. You absolutely are not selling your mother’s jewelry.”

  Marion sighed. “But . . .”

  “There’s some other way. There’s got to be some other way. Listen, this needs thought. Come and stay the weekend. Just drop everything and come Friday to Monday and we’ll think together. I’m not much good at money but I’m brilliant at ideas.” More laughter. “Some of them fall to pieces but others take off. I had a whole craft commune that got going in Vermont. Anyway . . . come. You will, won’t you?”

  Marion found that she would.

  Jeremy was put out. “You’re away this weekend? What a bore, I need company. I need you. I’d thought we could do a film. Can’t you cancel? No. Oh, well. Look—I’ll call next week.”

  Marion sounded a little distant, he thought. Must see her—don’t want her going cold on me.

  Stella, on the other hand, was nicely warm. The thought of Stella perked him up again. They were talking regularly; there was a scheme afloat for a jaunt to the Cotswolds.

  “Here we are,” said Laura. “My bijou home. Your weekend task will be to advise me on what to do with the floors. And the downstairs loo. But this afternoon we’ll do a walking tour of the city. And Nigel is coming to supper.”

  Marion found herself relaxing, in Laura’s breezy company. The overdraft receded, and the empty order book. The leafy cathedral city appealed to her: quiet streets, that green central precinct. Laura’s little house in a peaceful cul-de-sac of pastel-colored stucco houses—sugar pink, almond green.

  And the warehouse that would be a studio. Laura strode around, waving her arms: “Enameling at that end, the kiln in the corner. My jewelry bench along here. Glass work on another bench under the window. Masses of shelves. And there’s room to spare. I might look for someone to come in with me. I’ve heard of a girl who weaves—needs somewhere for one of those whopping great looms.”

  Back at the house, Laura made supper. “No, you can’t help—the kitchen isn’t big enough. Just sit. Talk.” She clattered about, asking questions. “Were you making lots of money? I mean, before this recession business. Enough? Well, that’s all any of us need. Do you enjoy it? Is London life fabulous? And, Marion, one thing—I may be out of order here but it seems to me you need to ditch this Jeremy. He’s obviously more pain than pleasure.”

  “I believe you’re right,” said Marion.

  She sat there, attending to Laura’s discourse. And not attending.

  Do I enjoy it?

  Is London life fabulous?

  She said, “My London house is worth quite a bit over a million pounds.”

  Laura dropped a saucepan lid. “Wow! This one was about two hundred thousand. Are you pulling rank?”

  “I’m saying this because I’ve just realized I shouldn’t be thinking of myself as in a financial hole. I’m lucky. I’m loaded. I just need to look at things differently.”

  “It’s called lateral thinking,” said Laura. The doorbell rang. “Here’s Nigel. Let’s laterally think together tomorrow.”

  Later, Marion lay awake in Laura’s pint-sized spare room: it needs some clever lighting, and a blind not curtains, and I’d have different paintwork. Having redesigned the space around her, she returned to the financial hole, which conceivably was not.

  Marion’s London house—both home and business—had been bought with money left to her by her mother. It had seemed a lavish purchase, twelve years ago, but was now valued even more lavishly yet—a substantial mid-Victorian property in a well-regarded but not particularly grand part of London, but then every building in the city has now, it seems, a fairly startling price tag.

  Marion did some sums, lying there in this peaceful little house, in which she had just passed such an agreeable evening.

  The proceeds of my London house minus the George Harrington deficit, in other words the overdraft, would equal enough to buy a place like this—right here, maybe—leaving around three quarters of proceeds of London house as capital sum. Which could generate—well, not enough to live on in the manner to which I am accustomed but a sizable contribution.

  And I would not have sold mother’s jewelry.

  But I would no longer have a business. I would not be Marion Clark Interior Design but Marion Clark with a small house, no longer in London, and with not enough to live on in comfort, and so in need of further occupation/employment/ whatever. But Marion Clark Interior Design was on the skids anyway, doing no more than landing me in further debt.

  So?

  Such a good evening. Laura can be so funny. And what a nice man, her brother.

  Mark’s initial approaches to the editors of a couple of journals struck silver, if not gold. His proposal has been carefully worded, promising a piece that would be a general discussion of academic plagiarism—the way in which various scholars had allegedly ripped off one another—but centering on this intriguing question of Carter versus Bellamy and the disputed ownership of nineteenth-century parliamentary reform studies. An arcane matter, to most people, but not to those concerned with historical scholarship.

  Two editors e-mailed Mark to the effect that they could be interested to see the article in due course.

  Not good enough. Mark was not inclined to settle for less than a firm commission. He picked up the phone.

  His first target gave in after a few minutes of Mark’s charmingly silken pitch: “Well, yes, OK—call by if you like . . . I can’t make any promises.”

  No, thought Mark, but you will.

  “I’m thinking of giving up my business,” said Marion, over Corrie’s bread and butter pudding. She was irritated that Mark was present at a Lansdale Gardens lunch. This was a new departure; she had anticipated a private chat with Uncle Henry about her possible plans, and now here was that Mark, evidently firmly ensconced. “Moving out of London,” she went on. She spoke of the cathedral city. Henry remembered that he had known the Bishop at one point: “Or it may have been a previous man. Either way, I’m sure I can arrange an introduction—you’d want to get to know some of the cathedral people.”

  “It’s not definite, by any means. Just—I’ve been beginning to feel a bit stale, there’s not a lot of work around anyway, time maybe for a change of direction.”

  “So wise,” said Mark. “The great thing is to be flexible, isn’t it?”

  Marion eyed him sourly. What do you know about it, at your age?

  “Young Mark here tried out television,” said Henry. “Jacked it in—quite right too. Busy on my archive now, of course.” An avuncular—proprietorial—smile.

  A graceful nod from Mark. “A big undertaking. One can’t rush it, with such an archive. But so fascinating.”

  The file cupboard? thought Marion. Archive? Pushing it a bit, isn’t that?

  “Though right now,” Henry continued, “Mark is engaged on a piece of work inspired by the archive that we feel will set the academic world by the ears.” He expounded, at length. Marion stifled a yawn, battling the bread and butter pudding. She considered Mark: he’s got his foot in the door all right. Uncle Henry must be paying him—he doesn’t seem the type to be putting himself out for love. Well, if it makes Uncle Henry happy.

  “. . . so there it is,” said Henry. “A nicely provocative idea, don’t you think?”

  Marion agreed. “Fascinating.” She saw Mark watching her, with the hint of a smile. Rumbled, she thought—he knows perfectly well I wasn’t taking in a word. A smooth operator.

  She said, “You must be appreciating Corrie’s cooking, Mark. Nicely unusual, for nowadays?”

  “I think vintage might be the word,” said Mark. No smile; perfect sobriety. All right—well returned, but d
on’t think we’re in collusion—I’m not entirely sure I like you.

  Henry was puzzled. “Vintage? Yes, Corrie really knows how to cook. I’m delighted to be able to share her talents. I’m sure there’d be a spot more of the pudding. No takers? Well, there’s some Stilton, I know. Neither of you? Then I shall be abstemious too.”

  Mark said, “I had a peep at your Web site, Mrs. Clark. Most impressive. Such lovely rooms. Quite unlike anything I’ve ever known myself.” A little laugh.

  She eyed him. Am I being sent up?

  He added, hastily—catching her look, “I mean, I’ve never lived anywhere that had been much thought about.”

  Henry chuckled. “Marion would love to get her hands on this place, but I tell her I’m beyond good taste.”

  “Lansdale Gardens is sui generis,” said Mark.

  “Or vintage, perhaps?” Marion inquired.

  Marion’s Web site is alluring, but it competes with very many others. The world of interior design is crowded; cyberspace is alive with images of exquisite interiors, the stalls set out by her competitors. Everyone is scrabbling for the trophy wives, the rich Russians, the Arabs. Marion is small beer by comparison with some of the big firms with their teams of consultants—the big stuff goes to them, anyway. She has always depended on the more modest client looking for a new kitchen, a make-over to the living-room. In good times, even these would happily commit to an impressive spend, quite enough to keep Marion going, but now in this age of austerity the coffers have apparently dried up. People are making do with what they already have.

  And could it be that she was in any case less enthralled by the work than she used to be? A new commission perhaps a chore rather than a challenge? The hunt for the perfect fabric less invigorating? And a selection of tiles or light fittings or taps or basins or worktops or kitchen cabinets inducing a sigh rather than eager anticipation?