Lovers and Liars (7 page)

‘He should write these scripts. He has the perfect style.’ Genevieve replaced the receiver.

‘It’s lunch,’ said the newsman, driffing away. ‘He says if you’ve made arrangements, cancel them. You have to meet some photographer and it must be important. I overheard his secretary making the arrangements. Editor’s diningroom stuff.’

Genevieve groaned. She stood up. ‘That’s the afternoon blown. You’re sure he said me? Since when did you become his messengerT

The news-desk man gave her a languid salute. ‘Aren’t we alITHe turned and threaded his way down the room, through the ranked word processors, the ranked desks.

When God summoned, you went. Gini took the lift to the fifteenth floor. She stepped out onto thick Wilton carpeting.

From here the large windows overlooked docklands: there was a grey view of cranes, girders, the river and Thames mud.

She made her way through the outer office, through the in,ner office. As she approached the sanctum itself, the door was thrown back and Nicholas Jenkins emerged looking powerful, pink, complacent and svelte.

‘Ah, there you are at last, Gini/ he said. ‘Come in, come in. Charlotte, get Gini a drink.’

Charlotte, his senior secretary, made one of her rude minion faces behind his back. She moved between Gini and the open doorway. Gini remained rooted to the spot. She was staring into the office beyond, where a tall darkhaired man stood by Nicholas Jenkins’s desk. The office became silent; the air moved, A’ckered, became excessively bright.

-, ‘Come in, come in.’ Nicholas bustled around her. He drew her through the door. He was leading her across to the man, who ,had turned and was regarding her equably.

‘Gini, I want you to meet Pascal Lamartine. You’ll have heard him, of course … ‘

t,“Zini took the hand that was being held out to her. She could fieel the blood draining from her face. She shook Lamartine’s hand, and released it quickly. She had to say something - Nicholas was

4taring.

‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I’ve heard of him. More than that - we’ve t , .,

Jy,,-.`A long time ago,’ Lamartine put in, in a polite neutral tone.

4*s accent was unchanged. Gini could still feel Jenkins’s eyes iesting curiously on her face.

‘Years ago,’ she said rapidly, taking her tone from Lamartine.

41 was still at school. Pascal is an old friend of my father’s.’

6o ‘Oh, I see/ said Jenkins - and to Gini’s relief lost interest at

Years ago, in Beirut. And he had never been a friend of her father’s ‘requite the reverse. Her father might have won that Pulitzer for his *Yietnarn work, but by that time fame and bourbon had made him :4,4 ‘An old warhorse/ he would say, easing himself into the first

of the day, holding court in the palm bar at Beirut’s ikr-star Hotel Ledoyen, surrounded by cronies, surrounded by -:,j#*Jftophants quick to prompt. There was her father, sluicing I., ,

&Urbon and anecdotes, and there she was, silent, ignored and

embarrassed, averting her eyes from the spectacle, watching the ceiling fans as they rotated above his head.

An old warhorse, an old news hound, a forty-six-year-old boozer. Her father, a living legend, the great Sam Hunter - worshipped by the rest of the press corps. These days he relied on stringers, helpers. Once a week he took a taxi to what he called the front.

And there, on the edge of the group, was a young photographer. He was French, introduced by an Australian reporter, flanked by the man from UPI. Pascal Lamartine, aged twentythree and already on his third Beirut trip. She had seen his photographs, and admired them. Sam Hunter had also seen them and dismissed them at once.

‘Pictures? Who gives a damnT It was one of his favourite refrains. ‘Spare me the Leica leeches, please God. One story’s worth a thousand pictures, I’ll tell you that. This stuff - today it rates an easy tear, tomorrow it’s wrapping trash. But words - they stick. They lodge in the goddamn reader’s goddamn brain. Genevieve, remember that.’

The contempt was mutual, she had known that at once. The Frenchman was introduced; he made some polite remark. He stood on the edge of the group. Some sycophant made some sycophantic joke, and her father was launched.

The Frenchman watched him quietly. He never spoke once, but Gini could feel the eddies of Lamartine’s dislike. She was young and naive, and she loved her father very much. The ceiling fans revolved; on and on her father talked, and Gini’s heart shrivelled inside her. The young Frenchman stood there, silent and stonyfaced. He made no effort to disguise his contempt.

Gini could feel Beirut on her skin now, in a newspaper diningroom. She could smell Beirut - honey and pastries, arak and coffee grounds, cordite and mortar dust - while the English waiter served them an English lunch. Nicholas Jenkins was speaking, but over and above and through his words came a richer sound - the clamour of the Beirut streets.

Machine-gun fire and the cries of street vendors; the liquid voices of the bar girls; the creak of louvred shutters, the sudden drum of summer rain, the Western songs seeping out from the dancehalls, the thunderclap of bombs and wail of Arab ululations. She could feel it now, that new foreign land, that dry rasping heat.

Pascal Lamartine had lived in a room by the harbour. It was next door to a bar, over a cheap dancehall: twelve feet square, bare as a monk’s cell, all his pictures filed in boxes. There was a

mattress on the floor, two chairs and one table. When she went to -the room, she found that the dancehall music from below filtered up. It made the air move and the floor vibrate like the deck of a ship. Several times, in the evenings, she’d stood at his window ,,,,and watched night fall. When darkness came, the fishing boats left “Iffie harbour beyond, and the dancers below began their routines. ,,$he could hear the murmurs of their male audience soft as distant #iunder, a million miles beneath.

She’d imagine then, waiting, how it would be if Pascal did not back. She’d hear the bomb, see the sniper, live his deaths. ,5.he would count the seconds, the clink of glasses from the bar, _, e

“ih passers-by in the streets, whispers in foreign tongues. And “then the door would open, and Pascal would come back. Quick, “MY darling, he would say, or she would say, please be quick.

mo twilights; neon seeping through the shutters. She could ell his skin now, recollect the detail of his gaze, feel the touch his hand. She closed her eyes, and thought, Dear God, will I ver forget?

J#,, Years ago, another place, another life. She had encountered Pascal just once since.

She looked up, tried to push the past back where it belonged, in e deadzone. She sipped a glass of water. A modish newspaper g-room deconstructed then reassembled itself. The lunch

rovided was elaborate, unusually so - as if Jenkins intended impress.

In front of her on a white plate was a tiny bird some in

ki d, its glazed skin impaled with grapes. Jenkins was &A 9, and she had not heard a single word he’d said. Sense s agmen

fr ting: Pascal sat three feet away from her as polite astranger. There was still a pair of handcuffs in her bag; this in was a very normal and a very crazy place.

ns was drinking Meursault. He drained his glass and coned speaking. Beirut receded: this was some briefing, a new ment. For the first time Gini began to listen to what he

… tota confidentiality.’ He smiled. Nicholas Jenkins, thirtypink-cheeked, baby-faced, growing plump. He wore rimless clear-physicist-st%je spectacles. His bonhomie never quite dis…,194ised t e fact that Jenkins was on the make.

I.. F, -

.. . ‘No leaks,’ he continued, stabbing the air with his knife. ‘Anyug you discover, we check it once, we check it twice. Make blY sure. We can’t afford any errors. This story will be big.’

He looked from Gini to Pascal. He pushed his quail aside, half-eaten. ‘I’m using you, Pascal, because I want pictures. Pictures equal proof. And I’m using you, Gini, because you have certain contacts.’ He paused, and gave a tight secretive smile. ‘You’ll understand when I give you a name. Then you keep that name to yourselves. You don’t tout it at dinner tables. You don’t leave it in a notebook in the office. You don’t stick it up on a computer screen. You don’t use it on the office phones. You don’t trot it out to wives, girlfriends, boyfriends, favourite dogs - you’ve both got that? Radio silence.’

He gave them both an impressive glance. ‘You work together on this. You start today, and you report to me - to me and no-one else, under any circumstances. UnderstoodT

‘Understood, Nicholas,’ Gini replied, thinking what a selfdramatist he was.

She caught an answering glint of mockery in Pascal’s eyes. Then Jenkins came out with the name - and the glint of amusement vanished. Pascal’s face became alert. Like Gini, he started to pay attention, and at once.

‘John Hawthorne.’

Jenkins leaned back in his chair watching them. When he was sure they were suitably surprised and intrigued, he continued. A suffle played around his lips.

‘John Symonds Hawthorne - and the fabled Lise Courtney Hawthorne, his wife. Or, to put it another way, his Excellency the United States Ambassador to the Court of St James. The American ambassador, and his wife.’ He lifted his glass in a mock toast.

‘The perfect couple, or so we’re always told. Except, as I know, and you know, my dears, there’s no such thing as the perfect couple.’

Gini registered the name, and the implication - and was shocked. She began to concentrate. She had a reporter’s memory, and so did Pascal. As the filing cards in her mind started to flick, she saw his expression also become intent. Names, dates, connections, rumours, new and old hints. She saw her own mental process mirrored, checking and re-checking, in his eyes.

Nicholas Jenkins would have liked a more dramatic reaction. He liked to stage-manage his own effects. Now, as if deciding to keep his revelations in reserve, to make them wait, he leaned forward, suddenly businesslike.

‘Tell me what you know/ he said. ‘Then I’ll tell you what rye heard. Pascal, you first.’

Gini watched Pascal closely. The Pascal she once knew did not care much for ambassadors and their society wives - but this Pascal *pparently did.

Nery well/ Pascal began. ‘Politics in the blood. Three gener-4tions of public service at least. The Hawthorne money comes *om, steel and shipyards originally. The younger brother - Prescott

runs the companies now. They were ranked sixth in America on the last Forbes list. John Hawthorne is aged around forty-six, forty-seven-‘

‘Forty-seven,’ Jenkins put in. ‘He’ll be forty-eight in a couple of weeks.’

‘Educated at Groton, then Yale. Went through Yale law school.’ Nscal paused. ‘He served in Vietnam, which for a man of his

16ckground makes him unusual, maybe unique.’

,-Not a draft-dodger. Unlike others we could all mention . Y-`‘Indee!d-‘ Pascal frowned. ‘What else? There’s his father, of ;,&urse. Stanhope Symonds Hawthorne, known to his enemies

SS. A not inappropriate nickname, either, given his politiviews. Stanhope’s still alive though he must be eighty at ‘_,466t-The legendary wheeler-dealer, the man at the heart of the

1”cal machine. He’s semi-paralysed now, I gather, from the ‘WM stroke. In a wheelchair. But he still lords it over that vast ,’,’.place they have in New York State.,

?6S. S. Hawthorne/ Jenkins chuckled. ‘Old SS. Kind of a cross een King Lear and a Nazi. Not the easiest of parents. What i.,ut the motherT

Aong dead.’ Pascal shrugged and lit a cigarette. ‘She was killed car crash years back, when Hawthorne was still a child, aged t eight. The father never remarried. He ruled the dynasty ehanded from then on.’

d the wife? John Hawthorne’s wifeT Jenkins put in silkily. e famous Lise? She’s very beautiful, of course, Related to orne, I think, but distantly. Second cousins, third perhaps

have to check. They married a decade ago. People say S. S. home handpicked his son’s bride, but I don’t know about John Hawthorne was said to be besotted with her. Anyway, as a notorious wedding. One-thousand-plus guests . A

of amusement returned to his eyes. ‘As I recall, the bride a thirty-thousand-dollar St Laurent dress.’

you cover the wedding?’ Jenkins asked.

Gini flinched.

Pascal gave him a cold look. ‘No,’ he replied. J told you, it was ten years ago. I was in Mozambique at the time. I didn’t cover society weddings then.’

d ‘Yes, yes, of course.’ Jenkins sounded impatient, unconcerne

at his own lack of tact. Other people’s pasts held no interest for him, unless they had direct bearing on a story. ‘So, anything else’ Pascal? You hear rumours - it’s your job to hear rumours. An

y scandal about the Hawthornes? Any ripples, hintsT

‘Nothing at all/ Pascal replied evenly. ‘But then it’s some time since I was last in the States. I’ve been working in Europe this past year. Something could have come up in that time. All I hear is that the Hawthornes are unfashionably h4ppy. Two children, both boys. Marital devotion … ‘ A hard note had entered his voice. He shrugged. ‘Good works and public service. Husband and wife - everywhere seen, everywhere admired. In short, the perfect couple. Just as you said.’

Nicholas Jenkins gave Pascal a sharp glance. Gini felt that he might have liked to make some jibe, and then restrained himself. Pascal Lamartine’s temper was well known. Jenkins obviously decided to watch his tongue. He leaned back in his chair looking secretive and smug. How he loved information, Gini thought. Jenkins nursing a story was like a miser hoarding gold. He turned to her.

‘Your turn, Gini. There’s plenty to add.’

‘There certainly is.’ She hesitated. ‘I should say that I’ve met John Hawthorne, of course.’

The second the words were said, she regretted them. The ‘of course’ had slipped past her guard. Across the table Pascal picke d up on it at once.

‘Of courseT he said. ‘Is Hawthorne another friend of your father’sT

There was a nasty little silence. enkins, who always enjoye J d tensions between others, gave a smirk. Gini looked away. The tone in which Pascal had spoken, lazily disguising what she knew to be a reprimand of sorts, hurt her. She waited a second, then Jenkins intervened.