“Right in one.”
“So?”
“So, it’s not the station, it’s the airport.”
“The airport?” Kit had thought they were going to Galway.
“They’re going to London,” Stevie said. “Didn’t they tell you?”
Chapter Seven
IVY could hardly believe it when she saw the letter with the Irish stamp and the foreign-looking postmark that nobody could read. She twitched her curtain as Lena ran downstairs on her way to work.
Lena scarcely dared to hope. She sat down in Ivy’s kitchen and read it. It was one page. It had no beginning, no greeting. But then, neither had her note to Kit.
Thank you very much for the beautiful dress. It looked very well and was much admired. It arrived at the college over a week ago but I waited until now to write.
So that I could tell you the ceremony has taken place. It all went very well and they have gone to London today. I thought it was Galway that they were going to, but apparently it’s the Regent Palace Hotel, London.
I know London is a huge city but I thought you would want to know. Just in case.
Once more, thank you for the dress.
Kit.
Lena sat holding the letter.
“Is it bad news?” Ivy asked.
“No. Not bad news, no.”
“Well, is she speaking to you?”
“No, not really speaking to me. Not yet, no.”
“Oh come on, Lena. Don’t make me beg…what is it?”
“It’s a sort of contact, sort of warning me off something…but I haven’t told you the whole background. Can I do that some long, lonely evening?”
“There’ll be plenty of those ahead of us,” Ivy agreed.
When she got to the agency she found Jessie Park waiting in her office for her. Jessie was a changed person to the tired, flustered woman in a cardigan whom Lena had discovered the first day. Now a trim, smart woman of forty-seven, Jessie exuded confidence. Her mother played racing demon with the other tenants in the sheltered accommodation and seemed to have forgotten her digestive problems.
They had set the date, were going to have a small wedding. Just eight people to sit down to a lunch in a hotel. Could Lena be one of the witnesses? Jim Millar’s brother would be the other. And they would love Lena’s Louis to come as a guest to the wedding, of course. Lena embraced her and said how happy she was. She very much hoped that Louis would be free. His hours were so difficult. She said all the right things. But her mind was far away.
She was breathing up a prayer of thanks to Kit for having warned her about Martin and Maura’s being in London. Suppose, for example, that Jessie’s wedding lunch had been in the Regent Palace Hotel? There had been stranger coincidences. To be forewarned was very useful indeed.
She knew that Louis wouldn’t want to go to the wedding.
“Darling heart, don’t I get enough of this every day at work?” he said, smiling at her despairingly and holding his hands out as if to show that it was raining weddings on him every time he moved.
The Dryden did a very scant wedding business indeed. But Lena didn’t make an issue out of it. “I know, just to let you know that you’re welcome and they’d love it if you could get away. That’s all.”
“Can you get me out of it?” He seemed pleased.
“Easily,” she said.
She saw the little tension lines around his eyes relax. Perhaps Louis Gray didn’t like the idea of going to weddings with her, watching other people making promises for a future together. And Louis was in such good form these days, so lighthearted and happy. It would be ludicrous to make a fuss over his attending the function. It would of its very nature be as dry as dust. Louis would hate it.
Because she hadn’t forced him or complained that he wouldn’t give her support he was even more loving than ever. And he called unexpectedly at the office one day with a bottle of champagne for the happy couple.
“I’m so sorry I can’t be there,” he said. There was a real regret in his eyes and voice.
Lena stood listening to him, and even she felt that there were ways in which Louis Gray was sorry he wouldn’t be attending.
Jim Millar and Jessie Park were, of course, delighted with him. “He’s a great man, that husband of yours. I’m sure he’s a top businessman,” Jim Millar said.
“I think they value him a lot at the Dryden,” Lena agreed.
“I’m surprised he doesn’t run his own hotel,” Jessie said.
“He may one day,” Lena said. But she didn’t think that far ahead. She had discovered that you got by better taking life in short bursts.
She dressed in front of Louis, he lay making admiring sounds from the bed. It was one of his late mornings.
“You’re far too glamorous for that crowd,” he said. “Let’s you and me go off somewhere and dazzle the world.”
“I’ll see you later.” She blew him a kiss.
“Come home sober,” he called after her.
“I think that’s fairly likely,” she laughed.
The wedding luncheon ended nice and early as everyone had known it would. Mrs. Park was brought back to her new friends, Jessie and Jim caught the train for St. Ives. They were going back to Cornwall, where their romance had begun. Lena assured them she had many things to do.
Without her realizing it her feet took her toward the Regent Palace. She stopped and studied hard her appearance in a shop window mirror. She was wearing a cream-colored suit with lilac trim. Her hat was in velvet to match the trim. She had a large black bag, black gloves, and very high-heeled court shoes. She wore a fair amount of well-applied makeup. Surely she could not look like the woman in the dirndl skirts and loose, flowing dresses that they had known years ago.
Her eyes might give her away. People often recognized others by the eyes alone. She stopped in Boots and bought a pair of sunglasses. “Not much call for those these days,” said the young girl selling them.
“I’m going to rob a bank,” Lena explained.
“Want anyone to help you carry it all away?” the girl said. Louis was right about the English. They were dying to talk, it was just that they needed someone to start them off.
Lena studied herself in the sunglasses. That was just the trick. She positioned herself in the lounge of the Regent Palace. She had no other plans for the rest of the day, she would wait here until she saw them going in or coming out.
James Williams couldn’t believe it. He had thought that the well-dressed woman in sunglasses was Louis Gray’s wife. There weren’t many with that hair and those legs. But what on earth was she doing sitting in the foyer of a huge hotel like this? It was almost as if she were waiting to pick someone up. But perhaps she was just waiting to meet that handsome if feckless husband.
James Williams wondered whether Mrs. Gray had any idea of her husband’s popularity with the ladies. He declined to listen to whispers in his own hotel, thinking it beneath him. But he would have to be deaf not to have known that Louis Gray had gone off with some rich spoiled young American to Paris not long ago. Possibly Mrs. Gray put up with it.
He looked over at the elegant figure sitting in front of a drink, which she was studying through sunglasses. Perhaps she might even be here consoling herself. It was an attractive thought, but James Williams had a meeting in one of the conference rooms.
When he came down through the hall again he saw she was still there. “What’s the lady drinking?” he asked a waiter.
“She’s refused other drinks that were offered.”
“She won’t from me, I know her.” He learned it was gin and orange. He ordered one for both of them and just as the tray arrived he appeared at her table. “Really, Mr. Williams,” she said.
“Really, Mrs. Gray.” It was always their joke to be so formal.
“Were you waiting here by any chance hoping I’d turn up?” He was playful, flattering, flirtatious.
“No, I’m sorry to disappoint you. I just came in to take the weight off my
feet,” she said.
“Just came in? Wasn’t I lucky!”
“Just this minute,” Lena Gray said. He looked at her with interest. She had been in this lounge for more than two hours. What on earth was making her lie to him like this?
They talked away, Lena and James, about the world in general and hotels in particular. At no stage did either of them mention Louis Gray, who was the only person they had in common. They had another round and another.
Three gin and oranges with him, and perhaps more before he arrived. James was wondering if by the most amazing good fortune he had got lucky with this attractive Irishwoman. Her voice was not slurred. He couldn’t see her eyes because of the ridiculous glasses, but she said she had an eye infection and needed to wear them. He thought there was something a little odd and light-headed about her behavior, and at one stage she stood up and excused herself very suddenly. She didn’t go to the ladies’ as he expected, she went inside to stand by the gates of the lift. She stood quite near a middle-aged couple who were carrying a lot of shopping—typical out-of-town tourists and shoppers. If it hadn’t been so ridiculous, James Williams would have thought that the elegant Lena Gray had gone over to eavesdrop on what they were saying.
It was five years since she had seen them. Her head was slightly dizzy. She must remember this moment.
Martin was still in a bulky suit. It looked new, this one, but it had not been made by a tailor. He was forty-five, a year older than Louis, but he could have been ten or fifteen years older. His stance was the same, slightly stooped, his good-natured smile was there. His arms were full of bags, from British Home Stores, C & A, and even Liberty’s. Was anything different? He looked happy, he looked like he used to when he had been playing with the children or had pushed the boat out on the lake. He looked less anxious to please.
And Maura Hayes. Maura, whom she’d hated to meet because she was the jovial sister of Lilian, the woman who made it very difficult to refuse an invitation. Was she older or younger than Lilian? Had she been told? Had she ever listened? She looked flushed and happy.
“I’d love a cup of tea,” Lena heard her say. “Is that a real country-hick thing to want?”
“And this from the city sophisticate working in Dublin all those years?” he said, laughing. “But I imagine that they’ll have no difficulty in bringing a tray to the room.”
“Do you think so?” She looked eager and as if all her problems had been solved at a stroke.
“This isn’t the Central Hotel in Lough Glass, you know,” he said.
She was so near she could touch them, the ghost of the wife they had thought was dead. Her appearance would destroy so many lives. Filled with the self-pity that gin can often bring, Lena started to weep. Perhaps it would have been better if she had died in the lake that night.
She looked flushed when she came back. James Williams leaned across the table. “If you’re in no hurry home…?” he asked. His tone was polite, it was not remotely like a proposition.
“If I’m not, Mr. Williams…?”
“Then I was wondering what we might do…” He was walking on eggshells now; her voice had got shaky, there seemed to be glistening tears on her face.
“I was wondering if you might like me to give you a lift in a taxi…perhaps?”
“To where?”
“To wherever you’d like to go next. Somewhere for another drink possibly? A bit to eat? Home to your doorstep? To the Dryden Hotel?”
“Anywhere you say.” She took off her glasses and looked at him. She had been crying, but her eyes did not look infected. She was very upset. “You’re a very intelligent man, James Williams, very smooth, very polished. I’m no match for you. I think I’m so capable and in control, but I’m only a poor country hick. That’s the word I heard two people using a few minutes ago. That’s what I am, a hick.”
“No. No,” he protested. “Please tell me. What can I offer you?”
“A chance to go now while I still have two legs to carry me to the door,” she said.
She put on her sunglasses. She was a very attractive woman. If ever he saw anyone who needed a strong shoulder to cry on over something, it was Lena Gray. After she had cried she would feel grateful to him. He considered it for a moment. But only a moment. “Off we go then, I’ll find you a taxi.” His hand lightly on her arm, he steered her out into the traffic of Piccadilly Circus.
“I see you didn’t take my advice,” Louis said as Lena stumbled in the door.
“What advice wash that?” Lena couldn’t get the words out.
“I thought I said you should stay sober, and you said there was no question but that you would.” He looked at her quizzically.
She had flung off her shoes and her hat was at an awkward angle on her head. “Yesh,” she smiled at him. “That’s what I thought. But I wash wrong.”
“You’re a sweetheart,” he said. And peeled off her good suit, hung it carefully on a hanger, and steered her to bed.
Twice in the night she got up to be sick.
If Louis heard he made no sound. He lay breathing gently. He never dreamed, or at least he couldn’t remember his dreams. A man who had so much to remember, why did none of it come out in dreams?
Lena had dreamed incessantly of James Williams and what might have happened if she had accepted the offer he was so definitely making. She shuddered to think she had been so near to saying yes.
Louis was on an early shift. I didn’t wake you, he wrote in a note. Your lovely little snores sounded as if they deserved to be allowed to continue. See you tonight.
She had never felt worse. Why did people drink too much if this was how it left them feeling next morning? She wasn’t at all sure that she could make the office.
She called in on Ivy.
“How did the wedding go?” Ivy said, pouring coffee.
“They seemed to be happy, buying lots of stuff in Oxford Street and going back to the hotel to have tea served in the bedroom.”
“You went on their honeymoon with them?” Ivy asked, shocked.
“No, that was something else. Ivy, do you think I should have something like a prairie oyster?”
“A what?”
“It’s to cure a hangover.”
“What is it?”
“You’re the one with the contacts in the pub.”
“Not anymore,” Ivy said.
“Well, I need to know. Would Ernest know?”
“I expect he would.”
“What’s his number?”
“Lena, you’re mad. It’s only nine-thirty in the morning.”
“Yes, I’m half an hour late for work already. I can’t go in like this or I’d collapse. Give me his home number or I’ll ring directory inquiries.”
“I’ve always said you’re mad.”
“Hello, Ernest, it’s Lena Gray.”
“Yes?” He sounded cautious.
“You do remember me?”
“Well, yes.”
“Ernest, very simply, what’s a prairie oyster? It’s got something to do with raw eggs and nothing to do with oysters, am I right?”
“A raw egg in a glass, a tablespoon of sherry, some Lea and Perrin’s, shake like mad and swallow in one.”
“Thank you, Ernest.”
“Have you got all the ingredients?”
“Yes, I think so. Thanks.”
“Will she be all right, do you think?”
“Who?”
“Ivy. I presume she’s been overindulging.”
Lena paused for a moment. Perhaps this was a way to get Ivy back with Ernest. “I do hope so, Ernest. She doesn’t tell you, but it’s all hitting her very badly.”
“Could you—um—tell her…?”
“Yes?”
“Tell her…to take care.”
“Maybe you should tell her yourself, Ernest.”
“It’s difficult.”
“No, it’s not. These things are easy.”
“But she’s always pissed drunk.”
&nb
sp; “No, she’s not, last night was special. It was some kind of anniversary between you both. I don’t know exactly. But whatever it was it hit her hard.” Lena hardly dared to lift her eyes to meet Ivy’s.
“Yeah, well, it’s about this time of year that she and I…But you don’t want to bother.”
“It’s none of my business. All I know is that she won’t hear a word against you, Ernest. I have tried, God help me I’ve tried to say a few, but she won’t listen.”
“You’re a very good friend, Lena. Even with you being Irish and not understanding any of our ways,” he said.
“Thank you, Ernest,” she said humbly, and hung up.
“I’ll kill you here and now in my own kitchen,” Ivy said.
“No, get two eggs, sherry, Worcestershire sauce, and a saucer to put on top of the glass.”
“Why?”
“So that it won’t all fall out when I shake it.”
“No, I mean why should I do any of this for you?”
“Because I think I may have saved your great romance for you. Hurry, Ivy. I might be about to die.”
“Was it a great wedding?” Dawn asked.
“Simply lovely,” Lena said.
“I was hoping I might be asked.”
“There were very few of us there. Honestly it was only a handful.”
“Was your husband there, Mrs. Gray?”
“No. Louis wasn’t able to go, sadly.”
Dawn went back to her work.
Lena looked over at her blond head bent over the papers at her desk. Dawn was a spectacular-looking girl. Lena and Jessie had arranged that she take public-speaking lessons and it had been a wise investment. Now Dawn could stand up in front of any gathering of school seniors. Lena knew that the students would listen to the words that came from a slim young glamour girl only a few years older than themselves. If Dawn talked about the need to get good typing speeds, exact shorthand symbols and office routine, then they would accept it. Such advice coming from Jessie or herself would carry little weight.
Lena felt her head heavy and she had an inexplicable thirst. She must have drunk six glasses of water by lunchtime. Is this the way all heavy drinkers felt? The regulars in Paddles’ and Foley’s back in Lough Glass? The regulars in Ernest’s bar? Did they all have to rehydrate themselves the next morning? What a pointless exercise it was. She would never get drunk again.