Robert Lowe. It was such an incongruous, such an unexpected sight – Robert Lowe in the dingy corridor of the Courier – that she laughed. ‘Robert,’ she said. ‘It’s you.’
He shrugged. ‘It’s me.’
‘What are you doing here?’
‘Actually,’ he began, and then he stopped. ‘I . . . I was seeing a friend who works at the Telegraph and . . . I thought, seeing as I’m on Fleet Street, that I’d come and look you up. But,’ he gestured at her coat and her bag, ‘you look as if you aren’t in a position to be looked up.’
‘Oh,’ she said, ‘I’m not. I’m having a rather disastrous day. I’ve got to go over to Westminster.’
‘I see.’ He nodded, pushed his hands into his pockets. ‘Well . . .’
‘You could walk me down to the street . . . if you like . . .’
‘The street?’
‘I have to find a taxi.’
‘Ah.’
‘Only if you have time.’
‘I do,’ he said. ‘I will.’
Lexie walked ahead of him on the stairs. ‘How are you?’
‘I’m fine. And you?’
‘Fine. As well. When did you get back from Ireland?’
‘Yesterday.’
‘Did you get much out of Fitzgerald?’
‘Not a great deal.’ He smiled. ‘He’s not an easy subject, as you know.’
‘Yes.’
‘I’ll have to go back. In a month or so. Sometimes you can catch him on a talkative day. As you did. He was rather disappointed when you left.’ He held open the door for her and as she passed through she thought she heard him add, ‘As were we all,’ but she wasn’t sure.
Outside, the sky was flat and white above them. Lexie stood at the kerb, looking up and down Fleet Street. ‘No taxis,’ she said, ‘of course.’
‘There never are, when you want one.’ He cleared his throat, folded his arms, then unfolded them. ‘How’s Theo?’
‘He’s fine. Got a bit of a cold.’
Robert came to stand next to her at the kerb. ‘It means “God’s gift”,’ he said.
‘What does?’ Lexie was distracted, straining her eyes into the traffic, searching for an orange light.
‘His name. Theodore.’
She looked at him, amazed. ‘Does it?’
‘Yes. From the Greek theos, meaning God, and doron, meaning gift.’
‘I had no idea. God’s gift. You’re the only person in the world who’d know that.’
There was a pause. They were two people standing on a pavement in the watery London sunshine, waiting for a taxi. It was a simple scenario but it seemed suddenly fraught with significance and Lexie wasn’t sure why. She had to swallow and glance down at the ground to clear her head of the thought. ‘It’s nice to see you,’ she said because it was and she couldn’t for the life of her work out why he was here, on a Wednesday morning, in Fleet Street.
‘Is it?’ He passed a hand through his hair. Then he stretched his arm up in the air. ‘There you are,’ he said. ‘Look.’ A taxi slowed, swerved and arrived at the kerb.
‘Thank God,’ Lexie said, and climbed in. Robert shut the door for her. ‘Goodbye,’ she said, and put her hand out of the window. ‘I’m sorry I had to dash.’
He took it and held it. ‘I’m sorry too.’
‘It was lovely to see you.’
‘It was lovely to see you too.’ They were talking like caricatures or people in a bad play. It was unbearable. He released her hand and she watched out of the window as the figure on the pavement got smaller and smaller.
A few days later she was coming into the reporters’ room when her colleague Daniel waved the telephone receiver at her. ‘For you, Lexie.’
‘Lexie Sinclair,’ she said.
‘It’s Robert Lowe,’ came the familiar voice. ‘Tell me, are you dashing about again today?’
‘No. Not today. I’m . . . What am I doing? I’m lounging. By comparison.’
‘I see. I’m not sure what lounging constitutes but does it allow for lunch?’
‘It does.’
‘Good. I’ll be outside at one.’
In the event, they came straight to the point. There was no hedging, no pursuit, no uncertainty, no seduction. Lexie walked up to where he stood on the pavement. Neither of them said hello or made any greeting. She drew a cigarette out of the packet, put it into her mouth.
‘You strike me,’ he said, after a moment, ‘as someone who is good with secrets.’
‘Good in what way?’ she said, searching her bag for matches.
‘In that you keep them.’
‘Oh, yes,’ she said, and held the flare of a match to her mouth. ‘Yes, of course.’
‘You know that I’m married?’
‘I do.’
‘And so are you,’ he held his hands up to ward off her interjection, ‘or whatever you want to call it. I have no desire to leave my wife. And yet . . .’
Lexie exhaled her smoke. ‘And yet,’ she agreed.
‘What shall we do?’
She thought for a moment. It occurred to her afterwards that he might have been talking about where to eat lunch. But at the time, she said, ‘A hotel?’
Such deals can be struck so easily sometimes.
They went to a street near the British Museum where there were several hotels that accepted people during the day. Lexie didn’t ask how Robert knew this. The room had velvet curtains of a faded blue, a potted fern, a washbasin with a chipped mirror. There was an electricity meter that wouldn’t accept any of their shillings. The pillows were hard, the sharp ends of feathers prickling from the cotton cases. They were both nervous. They made love quickly, more from a desire to get it done, to gain that sense of having embarked. Then they talked. Robert tried again to feed shillings into the meter, with no success. They made love again, with more leisure and more skill this time. As she dressed, Lexie watched the clouds piled up beyond the narrow window.
The arrangement they devised was simple, straightforward, perfect, you might say, worked out in moments. They would meet twice a year, no more, and never in London. An exchange of telegrams was to be their method. THE GRAND HOTEL, SCARBOROUGH, they might read, THURSDAY 9 MARCH. And nothing more. No one was ever to know. They never spoke of Robert’s family, of his wife Marie. Lexie never enlightened him as to what had happened with her and Felix. Robert never asked, never questioned why Theo always came with her to their assignations. Perhaps he guessed the truth of the situation, perhaps not.
It was hard to know whether Theo remembered Robert, from one time to the next. He was always pleased to see him, always took him by the hand and dragged him away to show him something – a crab in a bucket, a shell from the beach, a stone with a hole worn through it.
Mrs Gallo and Lexie were in the kitchen, fiddling with the cooker dials and arguing amiably about whether or not it was right for Mrs Gallo to cook Lexie a chicken pie. Mrs Gallo had just commandeered the oven when the doorbell rang.
‘I’ll go,’ said Lexie, backing away from the oven and touching Theo’s head as she passed. He was piling cushions into a soft, towering heap.
‘Darling,’ Felix said, when she opened the door, stepping forward to envelop her in a rather lingering embrace, ‘how are you?’
‘Fine.’ Lexie disentangled herself from him. ‘I didn’t know you were coming. You should have phoned.’
‘Don’t be anti-social. Can’t I drop in on my son and heir if I want to?’
‘Of course. But you should phone first.’ They glared at each other in the close confines of the hallway.
‘Why?’ he said, without moving his eyes from her face. ‘Who have you got here?’
She sighed. ‘Paul Newman, of course. And Robert Redford. Come and meet them.’
‘Going away, are you?’ he said, pointing at the bags in the hall. Lexie and Theo had just returned from seeing Robert in Eastbourne.
‘Just got back, actually,’ she threw over her shoulder, as she walked into t
he sitting room, where Mrs Gallo was watching Theo leap off the sofa and on to the cushions.
Felix stood at the edge of the rug, like a man hesitating before deep water. ‘Hello, young man,’ he boomed down at Theo, before nodding at Mrs Gallo. ‘Mrs Gallo, how are you? You’re looking terribly well.’
Mrs Gallo, who did not entertain a high opinion of Felix, based on the view that any man worth his salt would have made an honest woman of Lexie long ago, gave a sound between a tut and a cough.
Theo looked up at his father and said, with devastating clarity, ‘Robert.’
Lexie almost laughed but managed to stop herself. ‘Not Robert, sweetheart, it’s Felix. Felix. Remember?’
‘Who’s Robert?’ Felix was saying, as Lexie went into the kitchen.
She ignored him. ‘Would you like tea, Felix? Coffee?’
He followed her into the kitchen, just as she had known he would. She got out three mugs from the cupboard, milk from the fridge, eyeing Felix as she did so. He read the notes pinned to her fridge; he picked up a beaker of Theo’s, looked at it, put it down again; he took an apple from the fruit bowl, then put it back.
‘How’s work?’ he said abruptly.
Lexie filled the kettle at the tap. ‘Fine. Rushed. You know.’
‘I saw your piece on Louise Bourgeois.’
‘Oh.’
‘It was very good.’
‘Thank you.’
‘I . . .’ he began, then stopped. He leant on the counter and buried his head in his hands. Lexie replaced the lid on the kettle, then put it on the hob, striking a match and holding the flame to the gas, all the time watching Felix or, rather, the top of his head.
‘I’ve got myself into a bit of a tight spot,’ he said, his voice muffled behind his hands.
‘Oh?’ Lexie opened the caddy and spooned tea leaves into the pot. ‘What kind of tight spot?’
‘There’s a girl.’ Felix straightened up.
‘Ah. And?’
‘She . . . she tells me she’s got a bun in the oven. Claims it’s mine.’
‘And is it?’
‘Is it what?’
‘Yours.’
‘I don’t know! I mean . . . it could be, I suppose . . . but how does one ever know?’ He glanced at Lexie, then said hastily: ‘I don’t mean you, darling, I mean her. It’s not that often we’ve . . . that she and I . . . I mean, I’ve hardly . . . you know.’
‘I see. Well, you’ll have to take her word for it, I suppose.’ She gives him a sideways look. ‘What does she want to do about it?’
‘That’s just it,’ Felix says despairingly. ‘She says we have to get married. Married!’ He pushed himself away from the kitchen cupboard and roamed to the window and back. ‘The idea makes me sick. And now,’ he muttered, ‘I’ve got her damn mother breathing down my neck as well. And a right battleaxe she is.’
The kettle started to shudder and tremble, letting out a jet of steam. Just as the whistle shrilled in the kitchen, Lexie seized it and lifted it off the heat. She put it down next to the sink. She placed her hands on the edge of the cupboard. She didn’t look at Felix. She could see the backs of his trouser turn-ups, his heels, as he stood at the window. ‘Are we,’ she said, ‘talking about Margot Kent?’
His silence was enough. She saw his feet move as if he was about to come towards her. Then he must have changed his mind because he headed for the table. She heard him pull out a chair, sink into it. ‘It’s damned bad luck,’ he murmured. ‘That’s what it is.’
When she didn’t answer, he fidgeted in his chair, twisting round and twisting back. ‘I don’t want to marry her,’ he said, a trifle petulantly. ‘I think it’s all her bloody mother, pushing her from behind.’
Lexie let out a short bark of a laugh. ‘I’ll bet,’ she said.
Felix stood up and came towards her. ‘You know her mother as well?’ he asked.
‘I do,’ she said, ‘have that particular pleasure, yes.’
She saw a flicker of interest in Felix’s eyes. ‘What is your connection with them again?’ he said.
‘None of your business,’ Lexie said, and her throat felt raw and scraped. ‘That’s what it is.’ She thought for a moment. ‘Has Margot never said?’
Felix pulled a grape from a bunch in the fruit bowl and tossed it fretfully into his mouth. ‘I don’t believe she has. Look, Lex,’ he said, still chewing the grape, ‘only you can help me.’
She looked at Felix. ‘Sorry?’
‘Only you,’ he said urgently. ‘If I . . . if we say that we are . . . you know . . . married, then I can’t marry her. They can’t pressure me into it. Do you see? I mean, they know about you and me. And Theodore. God knows how. But if I could tell them we’d got married, which isn’t totally out of the question, is it, then that would be that. Problem solved.’ He beamed at her with a mixture of hope and lust. He placed a hand on her shoulder, applying a little pressure, to draw her towards him.
Lexie put a hand against his chest. ‘I find it hard,’ she began, very slowly, ‘to say which part of that speech is more odious to me. Maybe it’s just the idea of being married to you. Or is it that you want to marry me to save yourself from being forced into marrying someone else? No. Perhaps it’s that, in your mind, our getting married isn’t – how did you put it? – totally out of the question. Perhaps it’s the thought of my having any connection whatsoever to those evil, manipulative, devilish . . .’ she searched for the right word, before she remembered ‘. . . maenads that strikes such sheer horror into my soul. But, like I said, it’s hard to say.’ She knocked Felix’s hand off her shoulder. ‘Get out of my house,’ she said. ‘Now.’
Midnight in the Blue Lagoon Café Bar. The baristas have gone for the night, having swept the floor, wiped the tables, bagged up the rubbish and locked the door behind them.
In the dark, shut café, the cappuccino machine cools, unplugged at the socket. The chrome of its casing will give a loud click every few minutes. Cups and glasses stand inverted on the draining-board; tepid water slides off them to pool in circles around their rims.
The floor has been swept, but not very well. There is a focaccia crust under Table Four, dropped by a tourist from Maine; the floor around the door is littered with fragments of leaves that have fallen from the plane trees of Soho Square.
Far above in the building, a door slams, muffled voices are heard and there is the sound of feet rapidly descending a staircase. The café seems to listen attentively. The dried glasses on the shelves vibrate against each other, in sympathy with the crashing footsteps. The contracting metal of the cappuccino machine clicks. A drop of water falls from the tap, spreads over the bowl of the sink, then trickles towards the plughole. The footsteps are thudding along the passageway beside the wall of the café, the front door slams and out on to the pavement comes the girl who works nights upstairs.
She stalks the pavement outside the shut door of the Blue Lagoon; back and forth, back and forth, she goes, in her red ankle boots with dagger heels. She crosses and recrosses the paving slab where Innes first embraced Lexie in 1957; she passes the kerbstone where Lexie stood, trying and trying to hail a cab to take her to the hospital; she leans for a moment against the piece of wall against which Lexie and Innes posed for John Deakin on an overcast Wednesday in 1959. And right where the girl from upstairs is grinding out her cigarette is where, in wet weather, it is possible to see the ghost-outline of letters spelling ‘elsewhere’, and probably no one notices this and if they did they wouldn’t know why.
The girl flicks the butt into the gutter, wrenches open the door and disappears. Her footsteps judder the glasses on the shelves, the salt cellars on the tables, even that chair by the window with one leg shorter than the others.
After this the café is quiet, the cappuccino machine cooled, the cups standing in wet circular pools, the focaccia crust lolling on its side. A magazine on a table lies opened at a page with the headline How to Become Someone Else. A sack of coffee beans slumps, exhausted, aga
inst the counter. A bicycle skims past the window, the beam of its light veering over the dark street. The sky outside is mineshaft black, washed with orange. As if sensing the night-time calm, the refrigerator obligingly shudders into silence.
A light wind outside pushes a drink can off the top of a bin on to the pavement, where it rolls into the gutter. A police car glides along Bayton Street, its radio crackling and spitting. Two males . . . heading south . . . it sputters brokenly . . . disturbance in Marble Arch.