Permissible Limits (46 page)

I didn’t quite know how to take the last bit but I was determined to hang on to this new relationship of ours. We respected each other. We trusted each other. We really could be friends.

Over the second helping of baked grouper, I changed the subject.

‘
Tell me about Adam,’ I said quietly, ‘How well did you really know him?’

‘
Pretty well.’

‘
And you liked him?’

‘
Very much.’

I nodded. There was no perfect way to approach this, no rules about minimum speeds, flap settings and all the other stuff you had to learn to stay alive. I decided on long finals, nice shallow glide path.

‘
He was away a lot,’ I mused. ‘Obviously.’

‘
And sometimes, you know, I felt I lost touch a bit.’

I went on about Mapledurcombe for a while. The house, I said, had been as demanding as any baby. I’d had to nurse it to keep the business alive. Much to my regret, there’d been absolutely no chance of spending as much time with Adam as he’d deserved.

‘
He thought you were doing a wonderful job.’ Harald was shredding the last of the flesh from the grouper’s backbone. ‘I know he did.’

‘
But was that enough, do you think?’ ‘Enough?’

Harald caught my eye and I knew at once that all my careful preparations for landing had gone pear-shaped. He knew already. He knew exactly what I was talking about.

I leaned forward. Touchdown, I thought. At last, the truth.

‘
Adam was having an affair, wasn’t he?’

Harald wrinkled his nose, as if a bad smell had just wafted in from somewhere or other.

‘
Adam was crazy about you,’ he said softly. ‘It was obvious to anyone who knew him. There wasn’t anything he wouldn’t do for you.’

‘
Like buy me a Spitfire?’ ‘Yes.’

‘
But that’s exactly the way he’d play it, don’t you see? He was a lovely man, a lovely, lovely man, but he was larger than life, Harald. And he couldn’t get enough of it.’

‘
Enough of what?’

‘
Life. Mustangs. Spitfires. Women. Whatever. It was all meat and drink to Adam. He was terrible at…’ I shook my head, staring at the wreckage of the grouper, ‘… drawing the line. He wanted everything, all the time.’

‘
But he had you.’

‘
I know he did. Of course he had me. But me wasn’t enough. He was an attractive man. He was over there on bloody Jersey all by himself. He had money, time, opportunity. And he got bored really easily. You know he did. You must have seen it.’

Harald might have been smiling.

‘
Are you making a case for yourself here? Only something doesn’t quite fit.’

‘
Like what?’

‘
Like all this. It’s almost as if you
wanted
him to have an affair. Retrospectively, of course.’

‘
I
hated
him having an affair. It broke my heart.’

‘
But you definitely know, do you? There’s no doubt in your mind?’

So far I hadn’t mentioned Michelle La Page, but I was too exhausted to care any more about withholding bits and pieces of this sordid little story. Either Harald was the friend I wanted him to be, or something else was going on. Briefly, I told him about finding the photograph in Adam’s office drawer. Harald was less than impressed.

‘
Pretty girl. Nice day on the beach.’ He shrugged. ‘What does that prove? Except he had a camera.’

‘
There was a message on the back.’

‘
Oh yeah?’

‘
It was pretty explicit, Harald. It didn’t leave much to the imagination.’

‘
You want to tell me what it said?’

‘
Not really.’

Harald leaned back, letting the waiter clear the plates away.

‘
Maybe the message was for someone else. Have you thought about that?’

‘
Don’t be silly, Harald. Whoever collects other peoples’ billets-doux? It just doesn’t happen. Especially to someone like Adam. He was as red-blooded as the rest of you. Probably more so.’

This protestation, for some reason, made Harald smile again.

These smiles of his were beginning to get to me. He knew. I knew he knew.

‘
Listen Harald, you were good friends with Adam, good buddies. Believe it or not, I know how these things work. Men confide in each other, just the way women do. Something was going on and I just don’t believe you weren’t aware of it.’

‘
You’re right.’

‘
Something was going on?’

‘
No, Adam was a really good friend.’

‘
And that’s where this conversation ends? Is it loyalty, Harald? Discretion? All that crap?’ I was getting really angry now. ‘You’re my friend, too, you know. Or isn’t that quite the same thing? What should I do, Harald? Wear Chinos? Get myself a deeper voice? Drink more beer?’

His hand came out and covered mine. It was the first time he’d ever touched me like that.

‘
It’s an impossible question, Ellie. There’s no way I can answer it.’

‘
Ever?’

‘
Ever.’ He nodded.

‘
But you know?’

‘
That’s your assumption.’ ‘You must know.’

‘
Not necessarily.’

‘
So why the games? Why the evasions? Just tell me, for God’s sake. Tell me whether you know or not.’

Harald gave my hand a little squeeze and then leaned back.

‘
What difference would it make?’ he asked at last.

‘
Every difference. Every bloody difference in the world.’

‘
Why?’

‘
Because it would prove it one way or the other. And that would put my mind at rest.’

‘
OK.’ He nodded. ‘So say it was true. Say he was having an affair. Would that make life easier?’

The final word in that sentence settled heavily between us. Easier. Easier for me. Easier for Jamie. Easier to justify a widow losing her heart to a twenty-one-year-old. Was there any point in trying to complete this conversation? Was there anything left to say?

I lowered my head, sullen, disgruntled. I felt about twelve.

‘
You know Jamie,’ I muttered. ‘Or you’ve met him, at least.’

‘
And?’

‘
That’s it. He’s there. He’s been kind to me, more than kind actually. These things make you vulnerable.’

‘
Someone dying?’

‘
Yes.’ I looked up at him. ‘Does that surprise you?’

‘
Not in the least.’

There was a long silence. I felt incredibly tired. Then Harald stirred.

‘
We’ve all tried, Ellie. We’ve all done our best…’ He frowned, fingering the tablecloth. ‘I’ve never lost a wife… you know… had a marriage go from under me. It must be tough.’

‘
It is. It’s bloody tough. And I’m grateful, Harald, don’t get me wrong. Old Glory, our Harvard, all the time you’ve spent, all the money, this…’ I gestured round. ‘God knows what I’ve done to deserve it.’

Harald watched me tallying the help he’d given me since Adam’s death. The smile had gone now and there was another expression on his face, infinitely bleaker. He signalled to the waiter, calling for the tab. It was barely half past nine. I couldn’t believe it.

‘
Is that it, then? We just go home now?’

Harald was sorting through a sheaf of credit cards. When he spoke, he didn’t bother looking up.

‘
You’re tired, Ellie. We’ve got a helluva day ahead of us, a helluva week. I want you solo by the end of the month. That’s a damn tight schedule.’

‘
But what about Adam?’ I glared at him across the table.

Harald sighed. He’d had enough of this conversation and he wanted me to know it.

‘
Adam and I had supper that last night. You probably remember me mentioning it.’

‘
The Japanese place. Adam had sushi.’

‘
He did. We also talked a lot. Like always.’

‘
And?’

‘
He wanted me to do something for him, just in case… you know… anything ever happened.’

‘
He had a
premonition?
‘

‘
Absolutely not. You know him. He’d laugh at all that horseshit.’

‘
You’re right.’ I nodded vigorously. ‘So what exactly did he say?’

The waiter had returned now and Harald scribbled a signature on the credit card slip. Then he looked up.

‘
He asked me to make sure you’d always be OK,’ he said softly. ‘He asked me to look after you.’

‘
Me?

‘
Yes.’

‘
Why?’

‘
Because he loved you. Because he cared. Because he never wanted to see you hurt.’ He pushed his chair back and got to his feet. ‘Now does that answer your question?’

On the way back to Standfast, confused, exhausted, drained of all anger, I had a major attack of the guilts. This
man
had been more than kind to me. He’d kept the business afloat. He’d shipped me halfway round the world. And now he was spending his own precious time teaching me to fly one of the world’s trickier aircraft. Yet all I could do in return was put him on the spot about Adam. As we sped down the long, dark blacktop, I felt cheap, and adolescent, and ungrateful, and when we finally made it back to the Casa Blanca, I tried to make amends.

The wind had got up, and standing in the warm darkness beside Harald I could hear the slap-slap of the halyard against the metal flagpole.

‘
Tell me about the flag, Harald.’ I gestured up at the ghostly cross and stars rippling in the night wind. ‘Why that one?’

‘
It’s the Confederate flag. Dixie. The old South.’

‘
Were you born round here? Is that where your heart is?’

‘
No.’

‘
But you like it?’

‘
The mind-set, yes.’

I wanted to slip my arm through his, be friends again, but Harald wasn’t having it. I followed him into the house. It was barely half past ten but already the place was in darkness. He led the way to the kitchen and turned on the lights.

‘
Help yourself to anything. Coffee, juice, whatever. There’s liquor if you need it. I’ll see you in the morning.’

He gave me a thin smile and a peck on the cheek and he was halfway up the hall before I heard his footsteps falter. Then he was back again. The base station for the cordless phone was on top of the dresser. He picked up the phone and gave it to me.

‘
Take it to bed if you want to. The code for the UK’s zero-zero-four-four.’

He left me holding the phone, and seconds later I heard a door opening and closing down the hall. Then came a soft surge of music, something classical, and I sank into a chair at the long pine table, feeling terrible. Adam asked me to make sure you’d always be OK. That’s what he’d said. Adam asked me to look after you because he cared.

Cared about what? That I was a child? That I was vulnerable? That I’d fall apart at the first suspicion that the man I’d loved might have had eyes for someone else? I shook my head, confused and bewildered and above all disgusted with myself. I’d seen the look in Harald’s eyes. He was disappointed with me. He thought I was worth more than Jamie, worth more than my petulant outburst in the restaurant, worth more than a daily drip-feed of schoolgirl letters. God knows, maybe he was right. Maybe I should try and grow up, be stronger, behave like the woman he so obviously thought I could be.

I hauled myself to my feet and drifted across to the fridge. There was a corked bottle of Chablis in the rack, half full, and I poured myself a generous glass. The wine tasted of oak and apples and I drank it the way you’d drink fruit juice, big, needful swallows. I was thinking of that first night Jamie and I had slept together at the hotel over in Jersey. Maybe it really had been Harald’s Mercedes down in the courtyard. Maybe he’d followed us, discharging his pledge to Adam, keeping an eye on the wilful, headstrong widow.