Jemima Shore at the Sunny Grave (13 page)

Jemima looked at the man again. Not a Moroccan, an
Algerian or a Turk, then, but a Santangelino? If that was what its nationals were called, as she seemed to remember they were. More vagueness, she ruefully admitted. All the same, for the first time her gaze was inquisitive, not challenging and self-protective. A Santangelino. Somehow connected to Clemency Vane’s drug charge, once deemed in some way political, then all of a sudden quite apolitical, just criminal. What she was not in any way clear about as yet was exactly how Clemency and her drugs fitted into Jemima’s current series. She had been wondering that ever since Clemency Vane had made the first contact. But there seemed plenty of time to find out.

Jemima’s new series—very much at the planning stage—was tentatively entitled “For the Love of the Cause.” It concerned the rival claims of public campaigning and private life. She had already made various soundings concerning it, had had one or two preliminary interviews with dedicated campaigners of various sorts (including one with a man who, very much against Jemima’s own beliefs, wanted to bring back capital punishment but whose wife opposed him). To her irritation, she was failing to turn up sufficient numbers of “strong women” who fitted this particular bill; they existed all right, but preferred to keep their private lives and/or disputes to themselves. Jemima sympathized, of course, but remained professionally irritated …

Then Clemency Vane telephoned out of the blue. Jemima herself would certainly never have thought of a reformed (one hoped) drug-dealer in connection with this series. Yet Clemency’s original call, fielded by Cherry, indicated that this area of conflict was what she wished to discuss. Various other calls followed, guarded conversations, all on the telephone, with Jemima herself, with no direct information offered absolutely pertinent to the programme,
yet a good deal of talk about the principles involved. Love and duty, their rival demands and so forth.

They had met only once: as now, in an hotel, an anonymous block in a different part of London; as now, the summons had come suddenly, giving Jemima little time to prepare.

“I can get away now,” Clemency Vane had said. “Please come.” And Jemima, to the sound of a few protests about workload from Cherry, had gone.

For Clemency Vane’s appearance, Jemima had been dependent on the numerous newspaper and television news images from the time of her trial: the strong features, particularly the nose, which might be described kindly as patrician, otherwise beaky; the circular tinted glasses which added a somewhat owlish look; and the pretty softening halo of blonde curly hair. In fact Clemency was darker than Jemima had expected, or perhaps the blonde hair had been allowed to darken in prison; as it was her hair, also much straighter, was scraped back, and her face behind the circular tinted glasses—they at least were familiar—was virtually devoid of make-up. You got the impression of someone deliberately rendering themselves unattractive or at least unappealing; gone was the feminine softness of the prisoner on trial.

At the same time Clemency was quite tiny physically; that, along with her cultivatedly plain appearance, was another surprise. Well, you never really knew about people from their newspaper photographs, did you? That was one certain rule. Even television could be oddly delusive about size and scale.

It was still a strong face, despite the unexpectedly small scale of it all. A strong face: and a strong character too, judging from the evidence yielded up by the trial.

“I need to find out about you,” Clemency had said at this
meeting. She spoke quite abruptly, dragging on her cigarette. (She had smoked throughout the interview, stubbing out each cigarette with fury when it was about half-way finished.) “I need to know if I can trust you.” Her attitude was certainly not conciliatory: defiant if anything. But she was also nervous.

“As it happens, you can trust me.” Jemima was prepared to be patient. “But I hope you will find that for yourself. With time. That’s the best way. I’m in no hurry about this series: we’ve only just started to research it, as a matter of fact—‘For the Love of the Cause.’ It’s a fascinating topic but a tricky one. I need to get exactly the right people—”

“That piece in the paper—the woman spy in love with an Israeli—”

“Ah, you saw that. I wondered. Premature, I’m afraid. She won’t talk to us. Too much conflict already about what she did for love.”

“I too did it for love,” Clemency interrupted her. “You could say that I, too, gave up everything for love.” She was busy stubbing out yet another of those wretched cigarettes and she did not look at Jemima as she spoke.

“You mean there was a man involved?” Jemima spoke tentatively. Clemency’s nervousness was not perhaps surprising under the circumstances but quite marked all the same, including this sudden out-of-the-blue request for a face-to-face interview. She had no wish to frighten her off at this stage.

“Correct. There was a man.” Clemency pulled on her cigarette with increasing ferocity and then once again stubbed it out.

“That didn’t come out at the trial.”

“I didn’t want it to. I pleaded ‘Guilty’ and that was that.”

“Is he still involved? Or rather, are you still involved with him? You were in prison a long time. Or is it over? Is it like
the Love-versus-Duty question of the woman spy and the Israeli you mentioned? Is that what we might talk about on the programme?”

Jemima realized too late that she had posed too many questions too quickly. An obstinate closed expression on Clemency Vane’s face warned her of her mistake.

“I don’t want to say anything more at the moment. You must understand: there are problems.” And Clemency declined to explain any further, sharply and inexorably. That was all Jemima was left with—until the summons this morning.

So there was a man involved. And this was him? Was Jemima now looking at the man for whom Clemency, product of a privileged education, showered with worldly advantages by her doting parents, clever enough to achieve university, achieve anything she wished in truth, had thrown it all away? Infatuation was a fascinating subject. One woman’s infatuation was another woman’s poison … Take this man. Very strong physically, perhaps (she hoped not to find out), certainly quite handsome … this was the man for whom a privileged English girl had wasted five years of her life. This Santangelino without even a name …

“My name is Alberto,” he said to her with a smile—his first smile, and that might be a good sign, might it not? Once again, however, he had apparently read her thoughts—not such a good sign, that.

“First of all you will take off all these clothes. Even the shoes now. Then we will know each other better. And perhaps we will love each other.” Alberto put both his big hands on her shoulders as though he were measuring her for something.

“Shouldn’t we really get to know each other first?” Jemima spoke in the most reasonable tone she could muster.
She must at all costs, she knew, from studying such things, humour him: she must not arouse his violence, his hostility, give him that psychological impetus he needed to transform the situation from polite parleying to physical action. It was the feeling of helplessness that was so terrible; just as she had been told so many times.

“And perhaps we will love each other.” For God’s sake, it wasn’t the stripping off that mattered! Jemima had a beautiful body, or at least had been assured of it enough times to lack self-consciousness on the subject. She had no particular feeling about nudity and privacy either, sunbathing topless or even naked when it seemed right without giving much thought to the subject. The exposure of her body, however disagreeable the demand in this secret claustrophobic context, was not the point. But to love each other!

How near, for example, was the hotel telephone? Looking round, she saw the telephone was on the far side of the bed. Her eye then fell on an ashtray with stubs in it. That gave her an inspiration. It was worth a try: even for a dedicated non-smoker like herself.

“Could you let me have a cigarette first, please, then I promise—”

Alberto hesitated. Finally he said, “I have no cigarettes.”

Jemima gazed again at the stubs. Half-smoked. In spite of herself, she found she was trembling. And her voice shook when she spoke. She had not realized before how much she had been counting—subconsciously—on Clemency’s arrival to interrupt them, somehow save her. (Clemency Vane was after all the one person in the world who really did know where she was.)

Jemima looked at the bathroom door. It was closed. She had not really thought about it but now the blank door had
a sinister look. “What’s happening here? Is she—wait a minute—is she
still
here? Is this a plot?”

Alberto smiled again. Jemima, her fear rising, decided that his smile was not after all a good sign.

“A plot? Yes, you could call it that,” he said. “A plot to get to know you. You thought it was your plot with your silly programme about love and duty—even an intelligent woman like you, with your fine education, can be a little silly sometimes. But it was not your plot. It was our plot!”

“Clemency knows about this!” exclaimed Jemima. “Well, she must. How else did you know I was coming? Listen, Clemency’s here. That’s what you’re saying.”

“Don’t you understand? Clemency would do anything for me. She’s my woman. The drugs, everything, prison, that was all for me. And now she has brought you here for me. She set you up for me.

“Clemmie told me to come here,” he went on with that strange, horrible exhilaration. “She laughed, yes, she laughed at you, for thinking that she would take part in your stupid programme.”

He was becoming vehement again and, apparently unaware of what he was doing, tightened the grip on her arm.

“I’m a strong man, you see, the kind of man women love—women love to support and help men like me. Clemency knew that: strong man, she said, you get to know Jemima Shore then, if you want, get to know Jemima Shore if you like, because during all those years you never knew anything really about me. And now you never will. Poor Alberto, you will never know me.”

Alberto’s grip had loosened again, and his voice too had changed subtly as though he was imitating Clemency herself. Her abrupt, rather scornful tones. There was a silence between them.

“You will never know me.” But it was Alberto who had
said that, quoting Clemency, not Jemima. It was Alberto himself imitating Clemency.

“She did do it all for me, didn’t she?” He was questioning Jemima now; there was something pathetic about him, despite his fierceness, and the strong hands which still held her prisoner.

But then that temporary glimpse of something pathetic was quite gone. Alberto started to pull at Jemima’s clothes. The cream jersey dress came off quite easily, or would have done so, but the very violence of his actions hindered him, those scrubbed strong hands seemingly frustrated by his own haste.

“I must not struggle,” thought Jemima desperately, “I must not even scream. I know what to do, I must be passive, I must endure, I must survive. Otherwise he’ll kill me.” Now she was in her silk petticoat and the man was panting horribly, sweating much more. He began to talk, gabble. “Women, you like this, this is what you really want, bitches, traitors …” He talked on, and then half-hissed, half-shouted at her, “You I’m really going to possess—”

In spite of herself Jemima lost control. The careful passivity went. She began to struggle in Alberto’s grip, to shout at him.

“Even if you killed me”—having raped me was the unspoken phrase, for, in spite of everything, she did not wish to pronounce the words—“even if you killed me, and especially if you killed me, you would not get to know me. You would not possess me.”

Alberto stopped. He still held her. Now they were both sweating, panting.

“She said that, Clemency.” But before Alberto spoke the words, Jemima knew the truth, understood suddenly and clearly what had been implicit all the time. What had been done for love. Once long ago. And once only recently.

“Alberto,” she spoke more strongly now. “Release me. Then let me go into the bathroom.”

“No. It’s not right.” Some of the power was waning in him, the passion. Jemima felt it. Her own increased.

“She’s there. Clemmie,” he added in a low voice.

“I—I want to see her,” said Jemima.

“There’s nothing you can do.”

“You must let me go in there, there may be something I can do.”

Alberto shook his head. “It’s too late,” he said.

“Listen, for God’s sake—”

“It’s too late. It was already too late when you arrived here.” Now the force she had felt in him was totally extinguished. She was in command. In command as Clemency Vane had once been—had been until the very end.

“I followed her here,” he went on. “I knew she was stealing out to come and see you. I pleaded with her when I got here. I knew she wanted to get out of it, I made her frightened. She told me she found me rough—but she used to like that—she called me things like demanding after she came out of prison. She said sex didn’t interest her. She never, ever wanted to make love with me. She said I bored her.”

Alberto began to sob convulsively.

“Then when I pressed her more, she said she never loved me in the first place. She did it all for the cause. Yet I helped her. I protected her. She wouldn’t listen. The money was needed then, she said, so she did what she had to do. Now it was not. Santangela was safe. And she would tell the world why she did it all—not for me, but for the country, the cause.”

He sobbed more terribly.

“For love.” Clemency’s words came back to her. “You
could say indeed that I gave up everything for love.” Dry, wry, defiant words. But for love of the cause, not the man.

Jemima jumped up and Alberto did not even try to stop her. She pulled on her dress and he made no move to stop that either. She went into the little clean white hotel bathroom, saw the shower, the bright pristine towels on the rail, not very big towels and an unremarkable beige colour—it was that kind of hotel. All the towels were clean and untouched except one: that was the towel draped inadequately over the body lying in the bath.