“Where do you usually sit?” He indicated the small corner table. “Well, why don’t we just sit there?”
Marcello was charmed by her. He led the way to the smaller table, held Emma’s chair for her, gave them each an enormous menu written in dubious purple ink and went to fetch two glasses of Tio Pepe while they decided what they were going to eat.
Robert said, “My stock with Marcello will have gone up. I don’t think I’ve ever brought a girl here for lunch.”
“Who do you usually bring?”
“Just myself. Or Marcus.”
“How is Marcus?” … her voice was warm.
“He’s well. He’ll be sorry to have missed you, I know.”
“It’s my fault. I should have written and told him I was coming. But as you’ve probably realised, we Littons aren’t very good at letting anybody know about anything.”
“But you knew Ben had gone back to Porthkerris.”
“Yes. Marcus wrote and told me that. And I know all about the retrospective exhibition, because I read an article on it in Réalités.” She smiled wryly. “Being the daughter of a famous father does have some compensations. Even if he never does anything except send telegrams, you can usually read up what is happening to him in some paper or other.”
“When did you last see him?”
“Oh,” she shrugged. “Two years ago. I was in Florence, and he stopped off on his way to Japan.”
“I didn’t know you went through Florence when you went to Japan.”
“You do if you happen to have a daughter living there.” She put her elbows on the table, and rested her chin in her hand. “I don’t suppose you even knew Ben had a daughter.”
“Yes, of course I did.”
“Well, I didn’t know about you. I mean, I didn’t know Marcus had a partner. He was still on his own when Ben went to Texas and I was bundled off to Switzerland.”
“It was about that time that I joined Bernstein’s.”
“I … I never knew anyone who looked less like an art dealer. Than you, I mean.”
“Perhaps that’s just because I’m not an art dealer.”
“But … you just sold that man Ben’s painting.”
“No,” he corrected her. “I simply accepted the cheque. Marcus had already sold it to him a week ago, but even Mr. Cheeke didn’t realise that.”
“But you must know something about painting.”
“Now, I do. One couldn’t work with Marcus for all these years and not have some of his boundless knowledge rub off. But I’m basically a business man, and that’s why Marcus asked me to join him.”
“But Marcus is the most successful business man I know.”
“Exactly, and so successful that the whole venture of the Gallery grew too big for him to handle on his own.”
Emma continued to regard him, a slight frown between her thickly-marked brows.
“Any more questions?”
She was not disconcerted. “Were you always a very close friend of Marcus?”
“What you really mean is, why did he take me into the firm? And the answer is that Marcus is not only my partner, but my brother-in-law as well. He married my older sister.”
“You mean Helen Bernstein is your sister?”
“You remember Helen?”
“But of course. And little David. How are they? You’ll send them my love, won’t you? You know I used to go and stay with them when Ben came up to London and there wasn’t anyone to leave me with at Porthkerris. And when I went to Switzerland, it was Marcus and Helen who put me onto the plane, because Ben had already gone to Texas. Will you tell Helen I’m home, and that you gave me lunch?”
“Yes, of course I will.”
“Do they still have that little flat in the Brompton Road?”
“No, as a matter of fact, when my father died, they moved in with me. We all live in our old family house, in Kensington.”
“You mean you all live together?”
“Together and apart. Marcus and Helen and David live on the first two floors, and my father’s old housekeeper lives in the basement, and I roost in the attics.”
“Aren’t you married?”
Momentarily, he looked put out. “Well, no, I’m not.”
“I was sure you’d be married. You have a very married look about you.”
“I don’t quite know how to take that.”
“Oh, it wasn’t meant in a derogatory fashion at all. It’s really quite a compliment. I only wish Ben had that look about him. It would make life so much easier for all concerned. Especially me.”
“Don’t you want to go back and live with him?”
“Yes, of course I do, more than anything. But I don’t want it to be a failure. I was never very good at coping with Ben, and I don’t suppose I’ll be any better now.”
“Then why are you going?”
“Well…” Under Robert Morrow’s cool grey regard, it was difficult to be coherent. She picked up a fork and began to make patterns with it on the white damask cloth. “I don’t know. You only have one family. If people belong to each other, they should at least be able to live together. I want to have something to remember. When I’m old I want to be able to remember that once, even if it was only for a few weeks on end, my father and I were making some sort of a life together. Does that sound crazy?”
“No, it doesn’t sound crazy, but it sounds as if you might be disappointed.”
“I learned all about being disappointed when I was a little girl. It’s a luxury I can well do without. Besides, I only plan to stay until it becomes painfully obvious that we cannot stand each other’s company for another hour.”
“Or,” said Robert gently, “until he prefers some other person’s company.”
Emma’s head came up, her eyes a sudden furious blaze of blue. She was, in that instant, her father at his most unscrupulous, when there was no retort too cruel or too cutting to be made. But her anger provoked no reaction, and after a cold pause, she looked down again, and continued to draw patterns on the tablecloth, and only said, “All right. Until then.”
The small tension was broken by the return of Marcello bringing their sherry and ready to take the order. Emma chose a dozen oysters and fried chicken; Robert, more conservatively, a consommé and a steak. Then, taking advantage of the interruption, he tactfully changed the subject.
“Tell me about Paris. How was it looking?”
“Wet. Wet and cold and sunny all at once. Does that convey anything to you?”
“Everything.”
“You know Paris?”
“I go over on business. I was there last month.”
“On business?”
“No, on my way back from Austria. I had three weeks’ splendid ski-ing.”
“Where did you go?”
“Obergurgl.”
“So that’s why you’re so brown. That’s one of the reasons you don’t look like an art dealer.”
“Perhaps, when my tan fades, I shall look more authentic and be able to command higher prices. How long did you spend in Paris?”
“Two years. I shall miss it. It’s so beautiful, and doubly so now all the buildings have been cleaned. And somehow, at this time of the year, there’s that special feeling in Paris. That the winter’s nearly over and the sun’s just a day or so away and it’s going to be spring again…”
And buds unfolding, and the scream of gulls, swooping over the chopped brown waters of the Seine. And barges, strung like necklaces, slipping away beneath the bridges, and the smell of the Metro, and garlic, and Gauloises. And being with Christopher.
All at once it became important to talk about him, to speak his name, to reassure herself of his existence. She said, casually. “You never met Hester, did you? My stepmother? At least for eighteen months she was my stepmother.”
“I know about her.”
“And about Christopher? Her son? Do you know about Christopher? Because, quite by chance, Christopher and I met up again in Paris. Just two da
ys ago. And he came, this very morning, and saw me off at Le Bourget.”
“You mean … you just bumped into each other…?”
“Yes, we really did … in a grocer’s shop. It could only happen in Paris.”
“What was he doing there?”
“Oh, filling in time. He’d been to St. Tropez, but he comes back to England in March to join some repertory theatre or other.”
“He’s an actor?”
“Yes. Didn’t I tell you that? There is just one thing … I’m not going to say anything to Ben. You see, Ben never liked Christopher, and I don’t think Christopher lost any love over him. To be truthful, I expect they were a little jealous of each other. But there were other things as well, and Ben and Hester didn’t exactly part company on the best of terms. I don’t want to start off by having a row with Ben about Christopher, so I’m not going to say anything. At least not right away.”
“I see.”
Emma sighed. “You’ve got a very stuffy expression on your face. You obviously think I’m being underhand.”
“I don’t think anything of the sort. And when you’ve finished making patterns on the tablecloth, your oysters have arrived.”
By the time they had finished lunch and drunk their coffee, and Robert had paid the bill, it was half-past one. They got up from the table, and said goodbye to Marcello, and collected the big black umbrella and went downstairs. They walked back to Bernstein’s, asked the doorman to get Emma a taxi.
“I’d come with you and put you onto the train, but Peggy has to go out and get herself some lunch.”
“I’ll be all right.”
He took her into the office and unlocked the safe.
“Will twenty pounds be enough?”
She had already forgotten her reason for coming to the Gallery in the first place. “What? Oh, yes, of course…” She began to feel for her cheque book, but Robert stopped her.
“Don’t bother. Your father has a sort of petty cash account with us. He’s always running out of small change when he’s in London. We’ll put your twenty pounds down to that.”
“Well, if you’re sure…”
“Sure I’m sure. And, Emma, there is one other thing. The man who lent you the pound. Somewhere you have his address. If you find it and give it to me now, I’ll see he gets the pound back again.”
Emma was amused. Searching for the card, finding it at last, entangled with a French bus ticket and a book of matches, she began to laugh, and when Robert asked her what was so funny, she simply said, “How well you know my father!”
3
It stopped raining at tea-time. There was a subtle lifting of the atmosphere, a freshness in the air. An errant shaft of sunlight even found its way into the gallery, and by five-thirty, when Robert locked up his office, and went out to join the rush hour torrent of home-going humanity, he found that a small breeze had got up and blown the clouds away, leaving the city to sparkle beneath a pale, pellucid blue sky.
It was somehow more than he could bear to plunge into the subterranean stuffiness of the tube, so he walked as far as Knightsbridge, and then got on a bus and rode the rest of the way home.
His house, in Milton Gardens, was separated from the busy artery of the Kensington High Street by a maze of small streets and squares, a pleasant neighbourhood of miniature, early-Victorian houses, cream-painted, and with bright front doors and small gardens that in summer bloomed with lilac and magnolia. The streets had wide pavements where nannies pushed prams and small, well-dressed children walked to their expensive schools and the local dogs were rigorously exercised. After this, Milton Gardens came as something of a let down. It was a terrace of large and shabby houses, and Number Twenty-three, which was Robert’s—the centre house, and crowned with the main pediment of the terrace—quite often looked the shabbiest. It had a black front door, and two dried-up bay trees in tubs, and a brass letter-box that Helen always meant to polish, but quite often forgot. The household cars were parked at the pavement’s edge—a big dark-green Alvis coupé which was Robert’s, and a dusty red Mini which was Helen’s. Marcus did not own a car because he had never found time to learn how to drive.
Robert went up the steps, feeling in his pocket for his latch key, and let himself in. The hall was large and spacious, a surprisingly wide and shallow staircase curved up to the first floor. Beyond the staircase, the hall continued in a narrow passage, which led to a glassed door, and the garden. This beguiling vista of distant grass and sun-touched chestnut trees gave the immediate impression of being in the country, and was one of the most endearing aspects of the house.
The front door slammed shut behind him. From the kitchen, his sister Helen called his name.
“Robert.”
“Hello!”
He chucked his hat onto the hall table, and went in through the door at the right of the hall. In the old days this room, facing out over the street, had been the family dining-room, but when Robert’s father had died, and Marcus and Helen and David had moved in, Helen had converted it into a kitchen-dining-room, with a scrubbed country table, and a pine dresser, crammed with patterned china and a counter, like a bar, behind which she could work. There were also a great many plants in pots, straggling geraniums, and herbs, and bowls of bulbs. Bunches of onions and marketing baskets hung from hooks, and there were recipe books, and racks of wooden spoons, and the cheerfulness of bright rugs and cushions.
Helen was behind her counter now, in a blue and white butcher’s apron, peeling mushrooms. The air was filled with fragrant smells—of baking and lemons, and warm butter and the lightest suggestion of garlic. She was an exceptional cook.
She said, “Marcus called from Edinburgh. He’s coming home to-night. Did you know?”
“What time?”
“There’s a plane at a quarter past five. He was going to try and get a seat on that. It gets in to the terminal at half past seven.”
Robert pulled a high stool up to the counter, and perched on it, like a man sitting at a bar.
“Does he want to be met at the airport?”
“No, he’ll get the bus in. I thought one of us would go and pick him up. Are you in or out for dinner tonight?”
“It smells so good, I think I’m in.”
She smiled. Facing each other across the counter, the family resemblance between them was very marked. Helen was a big woman, tall and heavy-boned, but when she smiled her face and her eyes lit up like a girl’s. Her hair, like Robert’s, was reddish, but softened by streaks of grey, and she wore it drawn tightly back into a knot, to reveal a small and unexpectedly neat pair of ears. She was proud of her pretty ears, and always wore earrings. She had a whole boxful of them in her dressing-table drawer, and if you didn’t know what to give her for a present, you simply bought a pair of earrings. This evening they were green, some sort of semi-precious stone, set in a narrow rope of woven gold, and their colour brought out the green lights in her indeterminate, speckled eyes.
She was forty-two, six years older than Robert, and she had been married to Marcus Bernstein for ten years. Before that she had worked for him, as secretary, receptionist, book-keeper, and on occasions when finances were shaky—as office cleaner as well, and it was as much due to her efforts and faith in Marcus that the Gallery had not merely survived the initial lean patches, but had grown to achieve its present international reputation.
Robert said, “Did Marcus tell you anything … about how he got on…?”
“Not much, there wasn’t time. But the old Lord of the Glens, whoever he is, has three Raeburns, a Constable and a Turner. So that should give you all something to think about.”
“Does he want to sell them?”
“Apparently. He says that at the current price of whisky, he can no longer afford to keep them hanging on the wall. Anyway, we’ll hear all about it when Marcus gets back. How about you … what have you been doing today…?”
“Nothing much. An American called Lowell Cheeke came in and wrote a cheque for a Ben
Litton…”
“That’s fine…”
“And…” he watched his sister’s face … “Emma Litton’s home.”
Helen had started to slice the mushrooms. Now, swiftly, she looked up and her hands were still.
“Emma. You mean Ben’s Emma?”
“Flew back from Paris to-day. Came into the Gallery to collect enough money to get her back to Porthkerris.”
“Did Marcus know she was coming back?”
“No, I don’t think so. I don’t think she wrote to anyone except her father.”
“And of course Ben wouldn’t say a word.” Helen made an exasperated face. “Sometimes I could just strangle that man.”
Robert was amused. “What would you have done if you’d known she was coming?”
“Well, met her at the airport. Given her lunch. Anything.”
“If it’s any comfort to you, I gave her lunch.”
“Well, good for you.” She sliced another mushroom, considering this. “What does she look like now?”
“Attractive, in a rather unusual way.”
“Unusual,” Helen repeated dryly. “Tell me she’s unusual and you tell me nothing I don’t already know.”
Robert picked up a slice of raw mushroom and ate it, experimentally. “Do you know about her mother?”
“Of course I do.” Helen rescued her mushrooms, whisking them out of his reach, and taking them to her cooker, where a pan simmered with warm butter. With another deft movement, she spilled the mushrooms into the butter, and there were faint sizzling sounds and a delicious smell. She stood there, moving the mushrooms around with a wooden spatula, her strong features profiled.
“Who was she?”
“Oh, a little art student, half Ben’s age. She was very pretty.”
“Was he married to her?”
“Yes, he did marry her. I think, in his way, he was very fond of her. But she was simply a child.”
“Did she leave him?”
“No, she died, having Emma.”
“And then, later on, he married someone called Hester.”
Helen turned to look at him, her eyes narrowed. “How do you know about that?”