I tried to stifle a gasp without much success.
Jake, totally unperturbed, nodded, and said, “I’ve figured that out for myself.”
Turning her attention to me, Fiona went on, very quietly, in a subdued tone. “I knew all about you and Tony, Val, and I just want to say this . . . I’m not upset or angry, I never was. I just felt sorry for you, because I knew he was playing his usual games with you. As he had with so many other women before. He just couldn’t help himself, ’tis the truth, Val.”
Chapter 23
I
“Why did you invite them back for a nightcap?” I asked, giving Jake a hard stare.
Returning it with one equally as penetrating, and frowning slightly, he said, “Does it bother you, Val?”
I shook my head. “No, I guess not. Fiona’s been perfectly sweet to me ever since she dropped her second bombshell an hour ago. And I believe her . . . I know she’s not angry or upset with me, quite the opposite. I just wondered why you wanted to prolong the evening. It’s already ten-thirty.”
“Because Fiona obviously wants to unburden herself some more. Also, I’d like to ask her a few pertinent questions,” he answered as he opened the refrigerator and took out a large bottle of carbonated water.
“There’s quite a few I’d like to ask her myself, come to think of it,” I remarked, and emptied the contents of two ice trays into the small silver bucket standing on the countertop.
“Then, why don’t you, Val? She’ll certainly tell you the truth, honey. I told you before, Fiona’s always been as straight as a die.”
“I’ll think about it,” I replied noncommittally as the two of us left the kitchen together and went down the corridor to the sitting room.
Fiona and David were standing at the big window, looking out across the East River, and they swung around as we came into the room.
“We were just admiring the view,” she said. “And we can’t get over the beautiful metal bridges, and the way they’re strung with emerald-green lights. How lovely they look at night.”
“When you’re actually on the bridges, the lights are white, just like any other electric lightbulb. It’s the atmosphere that makes them appear green from a distance,” I explained. “The emerald green is just an illusion.”
“Like so many other things in life, eh, Val?” Fiona remarked pithily, throwing me a pointed look. “We’re surrounded by illusions, aren’t we?”
“Nothing’s truer,” I agreed, and I carried the ice bucket over to the console table, where glasses, bottles of liquor, and liqueurs were arranged.
Jake was already hovering at this end of the room, and I gave him the ice bucket, then went and sat down on the floral sofa.
Looking across at Fiona, Jake asked, “Now, what would you like?”
“I think I’ll have a Bonnie Prince Charlie, please, Jake.”
He frowned at her, looking baffled. “I don’t think we have that. . . .”
“Oh, silly me,” she said, laughing lightly, shaking her auburn curls as if chastising herself. “That’s just a nickname. What I’m referring to is Drambuie. It’s a marvelous liqueur from Scotland, and you should try it sometime. It has a lovely spicy flavor.”
Jake searched among the bottles, looked up a second later, smiling triumphantly and holding the Drambuie in his hand. “You’re in luck! There’s a bottle here after all, Fiona.”
“Oh, good, and I’d like a wee drop over a couple of ice cubes, please, Jake. In a straight tumbler, not a liqueur glass.”
I was curious about the drink, and asked, “Why did you call it a Bonnie Prince Charlie?”
“Bonnie Prince Charlie was the great-grandson of Charles I, who was beheaded, and legend has it that when the prince fled to Scotland, he was aided by a member of the MacKinnon clan of Skye,” Fiona told me. “As a reward for the man’s help, Prince Charlie gave him his own recipe for his personal liqueur, and that recipe has been passed down over the generations. Actually, it’s been kept a secret for three hundred years or more, and only the MacKinnons know what goes into Drambuie. But whatever the ingredients are, the drink is delicious.” She smiled at me, and finished, “Have one, Val, you’ll enjoy it.”
“All right, I will.” I looked at Jake and said, “I’d love a glass of water as well, please. Shall I come and help you?”
“No, no. Thanks anyway, but I can manage. And, David, what can I get you?”
“Thanks, Jake, I’d like to have a cognac.”
II
Jake not only insisted on being the bartender, he was the waiter as well, taking Fiona and David their drinks, and bringing mine over to me.
I observed him surreptitiously as he moved with an easy grace around the long room. I noticed that his limp was barely perceptible. His leg had been steadily improving over the past few weeks, until it had suddenly acted up again the other day, worrying me. I was relieved to see that he was walking with such ease tonight.
As I watched him, I couldn’t help thinking how good he looked in the dark-blue suit, white shirt, and blue-and-gray-striped tie. I rather liked Jake’s sudden sartorial elegance, which had come into being in New York. It suited him.
Once he had poured himself a small cognac, he joined me on the sofa. Lifting his glass, he glanced around and said, “Cheers, everyone.”
“Cheers,” we all echoed, and sipped our drinks.
I liked the taste of the Bonnie Prince Charlie at once. It was thick and sweet with a tangy taste, almost spicy, as Fiona had mentioned. I took another sip, decided I could easily become addicted to it, and put the glass down on the coffee table. A wise move.
After a moment or two, Jake focused on Fiona, who still stood near the window with David. “Apropos of what you said in the restaurant earlier, about Moira thinking you and David shouldn’t wait to get married . . . I’m inclined to vote along with her, Fiona, for what it’s worth. I just wanted you to know that.”
“You’re absolutely right,” David agreed. “I think it’s ridiculous to wait . . . silly really.”
Fiona’s eyes swiveled to David, and she gave him the benefit of a loving smile, then looking over at Jake, she said, “Tony’s been dead for only a few months, and—”
Jake interrupted her. “But your marriage has been dead for years. At least, that’s the impression you gave when you were talking to us about it earlier in the restaurant. Actually, Fiona, you made me think your marriage had been a sham since Rory was born, or thereabouts anyway.”
Fiona moved away from the window, came and joined us; she took a chair next to the sofa. David followed suit, sitting down in another chair within this central seating arrangement.
There was a brief silence as Fiona settled down, composed herself, and took a sip of the Drambuie. Finally she volunteered, “Things started to go wrong about three years after Rory was born, when Moira was five. By then we’d been married about seven years. I used to think it was the seven year itch, as they called it in those days, but it wasn’t . . . it was just an itch. And it had always been there. I know that now, and it grew worse as he got older.
“You know, Jake, it’s a terrible hard thing to be married to a man who can’t keep his hands off other women. I suppose as long as you don’t know, it doesn’t matter . . . but, oh, dear, when you do know, how painful it is. Dreadful, I am thinking. And hard to live with, trust me on that, both of you. Well, David himself knows what I went through, don’t you, darlin’?”
“I do indeed,” David said with a quiet vehemence. He looked across at Jake and me. “I’ve been comforting Fiona for ten years now, and wishing she would leave him and marry me.” He paused, then rushed on. “I’ve been widowed for fifteen years, and ready, willing, and able to marry her, to take her out of her misery. Needing to do so very badly, in fact. Because I love her. But Fiona wanted Rory to be a bit older before she took that final step.”
Fiona nodded and exclaimed, “David’s been a saint, waiting for me for all these years the way he has. And I don’t know how
I’d have managed without him.”
Jake inclined his head, but he didn’t comment and neither did I. There were all kinds of questions on the tip of my tongue, but I was afraid to ask them. I suppose because I didn’t want to upset Fiona; also, perhaps I was afraid to hear her answers. Sometimes it was better to remain ignorant. What was that line? “Where ignorance is bliss, ’tis folly to be wise.” I wasn’t sure who wrote it, but it was very apt.
I leaned back against the floral pillows and tried to keep my mind very still. I didn’t want to get upset tonight, especially in front of Fiona and David. And talking about Tony might exacerbate my anger, which still ran deep, ran to my core.
More than ever, I felt as though I had been lied to, used, and abused, as had Fiona. We’re a gang of two, she and I, I suddenly thought, and smiled inwardly. It was a cynical smile at that. A gang of two hundred was more like it. Who were all those women he had had? And where were they now? As if I cared!
The others were talking quietly about Tony, and their words washed over me for a moment or two, and they truly didn’t register because I was lost in my own troubled thoughts. But eventually I sat up straighter and began to listen more attentively.
“Is that really why you didn’t divorce Tony in those days? Because you had two small children and wanted them to be in their teens before you separated? Or were there other considerations?” Jake probed.
“Other considerations as well,” Fiona admitted softly in her lovely lilting Irish brogue. She let out a small sigh. “And why wouldn’t there be, Jake? Firstly, I’m a Roman Catholic, and with me, divorce goes against the grain. I’ve always believed in the sanctity of marriage, and once you’re married, it’s for life, as far as I’m concerned. So there was my belief in marriage and my religion to contend with. But secondly, I was still very much in love with Tony, if I’m absolutely honest with you, Jake. And with you too, Val. But ’tis awfully hard to love a man who comes home with the smell of other women on him all the time. So humiliating. And that’s only one of the things that erodes love, yes, it’s the truth, Val.”
Swallowing hard, I nodded my understanding, unable to say a word. I looked at this beautiful woman and I hated Tony Hampton with a vengeance, even though he was dead.
What a fool she’d been, and more fool I. At this moment I hated myself as much as I hated Tony. And I suppose that’s why I hadn’t wanted Fiona and David to come back for a drink. I had sensed she was determined to talk about him, and I didn’t want to be cast in the role of his last mistress. But of course I was, and anyway, it was the truth. Might as well admit it.
Suddenly Fiona was addressing herself directly to me. “There were always a lot of women, Val, I just want you to know that. I’m not trying to upset you, please believe me, I just want to make you understand that by the time you came along, I was well and truly out of love with Tony. Because of all the other women who had gone before you. I was beyond hurt, beyond humiliation, beyond caring. It just didn’t matter anymore.”
“I know you’re not trying to hurt me, Fiona,” I reassured her.
A deep sigh trickled out of her, and for a moment she looked weary; finally, she straightened in the chair and hurried on. “I was biding my time, waiting for Rory to go to university, and planning to leave Tony. I’d been with David for six years by then. And we’d been best friends for four years before that . . . after ten years of knowing this lovely man, I knew I could have a good life with him, a happy life, and not one fraught with jealousy and lies, betrayals and humiliations. We were right for each other.”
I nodded.
Jake said, “All the more reason to get married as soon as you can, in my opinion.”
David looked very pleased to hear this statement uttered so forcefully once more, and although he refrained from making a comment, he nonetheless beamed at Jake.
Finally summoning all of my courage, I said, “Fiona, I would like to tell you my side of the story, tell you about my relationship with Tony. . . .” My voice trailed off weakly, and I wondered if I’d made a mistake, embarking on this saga. It was after the fact now. And perhaps she didn’t want to hear it, and I wouldn’t blame her.
Immediately she said, “I have a good idea what it was about, but why don’t you tell me anyway, Val. I am thinking it will make you feel better, my dear.”
Jake reached out and took hold of my hand, held it lovingly in his, and smiled his encouragement. “Talk to Fiona,” he said quietly. “It’ll be cathartic for you, honey.”
After swallowing some water, I began. “It was like this, Fiona . . . when we met I wasn’t interested in Tony because he was a married man. I thought he was a great photographer and a good friend, but that’s all, a comrade-in-arms, as he always said about Jake and me and him. What you don’t know is that I was really attracted to Jake when we first met, but he was trying to solve his divorce problems with Sue Ellen. Anyway, about a year before he was killed, Tony let it drop to me that he was in the middle of a divorce from you, and he asked me out.” Staring at her, I took a deep breath, released it, and said, “But he wasn’t, was he? It was a lie.”
“Yes, it was a lie, Val,” she replied gently. “We were never divorced, I am Tony’s widow. But I would have given him one. However, he never asked me for a divorce in all the years we were married.”
“I’ve got something to tell you, Fiona,” Jake said, leaning forward slightly, pinning his eyes on her. “I was always somewhat emotionally involved with Val, from the first day we met. She didn’t know this, because I never told her, which was foolish of me now that I look back. When Tony got entangled with Val, I was thrown for a loop, upset, and disapproving of his relationship with her. I told him so, and he immediately said he was on the level, serious about her, and that he was now separated from you.” Jake took a sip of my water and continued. “And then later, this past summer, he was obviously in a sticky situation with Val, even though neither she nor I understood this.”
“Yes, he was, Jake, I can see that . . . and it was because he’d led her on,” Fiona murmured, nodding her head. “He’d told her so many lies.”
“Yup, he had hoisted himself on his own petard. Then, when he came to Paris in late July, just before we went to Kosovo, he told me he was divorced from you,” Jake finished.
“My God, he didn’t do that, did he?” Fiona looked at us askance.
“Oh, yes, he did,” I interjected with swiftness. “And he told me exactly the same thing. He also said we—he and I—would be married by the end of the year.”
There was a total silence, and I wondered if I had said too much.
Fiona was very pale all of a sudden. Her freckles stood out starkly. She looked from me to David to Jake, and then she leaned back in the chair and closed her eyes. It occurred to me that she seemed wiped out, wearier than ever. And shocked. But a moment later she pulled herself together. She sat up and said, “I don’t know why I’m so appalled, because he was capable of anything. But I must admit to you both, I am horrified he told you such terrible lies. It was unconscionable. How awful for you, Val, and you too, Jake. But mostly I am hurt for Val, who was the victim here.”
In a whispery voice I asked her, “And how did you find out about me?”
For a split second she was startled, and then she answered, “But I didn’t find out, Val. He told me . . . he told me he was having an affair with you, and that’s why he was away so much between assignments . . . he said he was with you in Paris because you needed him to be there.”
“But he wasn’t!” I cried. “He was hardly ever in Paris with me. He always came home to London. To you.”
“No, no, he didn’t, Val! Oh, of course he spent some time with us, he loved the kids and his garden and the house in Hampstead, but he was away an awful lot between his jobs.”
Jake said, “Well, he certainly wasn’t in Paris, that I can attest to.”
Fiona murmured, “It was odd really, our life together. We sort of muddled along when he came home, certain
ly there was nothing between us any longer. He knew that David and I were close, and he didn’t seem to mind, but I think he thought it would never come to anything. He thought I’d always be there.”
David said, “Very simply, Val, Tony didn’t want a divorce. He wanted to stay married to Fiona and have all of his other women as well. That lifestyle suited him.”
Jake said, “But he made such a point to me about having to be in London, Fiona. I can’t believe he lied even about that.”
“If he wasn’t with you, Fiona, and if he wasn’t in Paris with Val, then where was he?” David asked, sounding mystified.
“I certainly don’t know,” I said. “I’ve no idea where he went.”
“I think I know . . .” Fiona began, and instantly broke off. A look of comprehension had crossed her face, and she now said in a sudden rush of words, “It’s just come to me . . . how involved he was with Anne Curtis—”
“Oh my God!” I practically shouted, cutting across Fiona’s words, and I brought a hand to my mouth. “She was in Beirut when I was there with Tony. You were in the States, Jake, and I wasn’t involved with Tony then, but I remember at the time I thought she had designs on him. Yes, yes, and now I remember . . . it was when Bill Fitzgerald was captured by the Islamic Jihad.”
Fiona looked so stricken, I thought she was about to burst into tears.
I said, “Oh, Fiona, do you think he was having an affair with me, and with her too . . . at the same time? You do, don’t you? That’s it, isn’t it?”
For a moment all she could do was nod. But after a few minutes she spoke. “I’m so sorry, Val, but I’m afraid I am thinking that. And if it wasn’t Anne, then it was certainly someone else . . . somewhere else . . . because he was hardly ever at home between jobs.”
“What made him think he could get away with any of it?” Jake asked heatedly.
Shrugging, Fiona replied, “I’ve no idea. . . .”