The Debutante (30 page)

Hadn’t his marriage been based on that idea too? Again, he’d abdicated his vision of becoming an architect as too time-consuming and expensive when there was money to be made, a life to build together, property to buy. He’d taken up increasingly less space in the relationship, imagining that she would see this as proof of his devotion. But in reality, he’d just withdrawn, disappearing into the idea of himself as a lover in the same way an actor loses himself in a part, hoping that if he never made demands on her then she would love him more. In the end, he was so vague, so hidden, she couldn’t even see him.

Perhaps that’s why she strayed. Looking for someone who would risk being seen for who he truly was.

Outside, Jack could hear seagulls screeching, calling to one another mid-flight. Getting up, he went to the window and opened it. The wind was brisk, smelling of sea and wind. The oppressive humidity of the past few weeks was gone.

And as he looked out over the view, vast and unfamiliar, it occurred to him that he was at a turning point. And as at most crossroads, there was something to be paid, given up, in order to move on. Perhaps it was time he let go of the idea of being good and its childish promise of sleek moral perfection. It didn’t work any more; he’d outgrown it. Maybe now he needed to make peace with the idea that he was closer to those he liked to judge; that he couldn’t separate himself off from the more unsavoury, less palatable parts of his own character.

And in that way, perhaps for the first time in his life, Jack finally became free.

12
Birdcage Walk
London

23
March
1940

My dear one,
You are, as always, so very kind. And I will come if you want me to. It is horrid in London but oddly thrilling at the same time. Everywhere there is a sense of real purpose. Anne is training for the Red Cross. She has the sweetest uniform and has shown me how we can stack our beds up on soup cans and sleep underneath them on the mattresses on the floor. That way if the windows get blown in we’ll be perfectly safe. She is so clever. But I’m not so well in myself. And I don’t want to upset you. Perhaps it’s best if we simply carry on, don’t you think?

D xxxx

After getting dressed and having breakfast, Jack spent the next morning in the local library, looking up material on the owner of the writing case, Benedict Blythe. The librarian pointed out a recently published biography, yet another book about the Blythe sisters, packed with photographs, which had come out only a few weeks ago. As he leafed through the early chapters, Jack discovered that their father, Benedict Blythe, had been an obscure academic and historian, whose work in Celtic myth (most notably
Into the Mists—A History of Irish Imagination)
had been in fashion briefly at the end of the Victorian era. An old photograph showed him to be a handsome, rather flamboyant figure, with wild, pale blue eyes and delicate, almost feminine features. According to the author, he’d pursued and married the young society beauty Gwenevere Healy with frightening speed and determination when she was still only seventeen. They settled in a house on one of the less fashionable streets of Dublin.

Among his peers Benedict was known to be romantic and impulsive; loved for his witty sense of humour and boundless generosity. However, it seemed he also had a taste for reckless, self-destructive encounters, which were neither understood nor countenanced by his young, devout bride. So he indulged in a secret life, taking frequent trips to the Continent, particularly to Paris where his increasingly voracious sexual appetites were only satisfied in the company of cheap, common prostitutes, most famously La Goulue, who was known for accepting clientele from even the lowest of the low. These episodes
undoubtedly led to him contracting syphilis, which later killed him, aged forty, and contributed to an increasing dependence on opium, compromising both his family’s financial future and isolating them from all polite society. Ashamed and terrified of anyone discovering the true nature of her husband’s illness, his wife led a secluded life, educating her daughters at home herself and relying heavily on her religious beliefs for solace and guidance. As children, the young Blythe girls had free rein of the old house, which they believed to be haunted by ghosts and goblins, playing wild lonely games, with only each other for companionship. Torn between their mother’s strict Catholic beliefs and their father’s heightened, fanciful stories, they developed into bold, extreme characters in their own right, veering between periods of almost pathological disregard for conventional moral standards and intense religiosity.

Upon his early death, the young widow sold the house, and, leaving her two daughters with her parents in Dublin, used the money to accept an invitation from a married cousin in Belgrave Square, setting out to establish herself in London society. Her efforts were a resounding success, charming many of London’s most eligible bachelors and finally accepting a marriage proposal from Lord Warburton, whose own wife had died three years previously from tuberculosis. Gwenevere Blythe, then just thirty-five years of age, became Lady Warburton. Putting Ireland and her disastrous first marriage firmly behind her, she collected her two adolescent daughters and never
returned to Dublin. The Beautiful Blythe Sisters became famous debutantes and socialites and, in time, their mother developed into a rather outspoken pillar of Catholic society in London, especially during the Second World War when her dedication to helping Catholic foreign refugees created an ever widening gulf between her and her husband.

Jack leafed through the pictures. There were formal groupings, taken at a photographer’s studio, of Gwenevere and the girls. The force of her beauty struck Jack; full lips, wide-set eyes and a bold, challenging stare. The girls had inherited both their mother’s strong features and their father’s delicate blue eyes. Then he came upon a photograph of a modest, quite unremarkable Victorian house on a quiet street. ‘Tir Non Og,’ the caption read, ‘named after the mythical fairy afterworld which translates roughly as “the land of the forever young”. It was meant to be a haven that mere mortals could only dream of, where the fairy folk spent eternity gaming, feasting, love-making and listening to beautiful music.’

There it was, Benedict’s Land of the Forever Young—an everyday, red-brick suburban home.

Jack leaned back in his chair.

Benedict Blythe had only written three books; had died around the age he was now. For all his talent and initial success, the true legacy of his life had been a series of kamikaze emotional missions, throwing himself blindly into the fray of his own childish romantic determinations, only to emerge bloodied and baffled, and ultimately dead.

Jack closed the book, looking up at the clock on the wall. Two hours had flown past. He photocopied the relevant pages, then left the library, strolling out onto the seafront; feeling the bracing wind, cool and refreshing on his face.

The sad thing was, he could identify with Blythe. How seductive simply to sidestep reality and slip into another world. But also how tragic and pathetic the consequences. The shabby little house, the debts, and a young wife, betrayed and destitute, forced to find another husband in order to support her two young daughters.

What had he written on the writing case? Chapters about the mysterious, dark, dissolving divides between the seen and unseen worlds of mythology? Or vague, dishonest letters to his wife and children, composed from third-rate brothels in the cold, stinking backstreets of Pigalle? Had the case been a gift, from his bride who had believed in the ascendancy of his academic career and their budding life together? Or had he bought it himself, armed, yet again, with resolve and the intention of starting afresh a new life marked by solid effort and achievement?

To the naked eye, the writing case was little more than a wooden box. But in truth, it was the last remaining evidence of a dream, an aspiration. And a life gone terribly, terribly wrong.

It was very early in the morning when Cate took a cab back to Upper Wimpole Street, unlocking the door and letting herself in. The flat was empty. Without turning on the lights, she threw her bag down in the hallway and sat down on the stairs. A window banged in an upstairs room from where it had become loose in the night. The rooms were dark. It seemed shabby and dreary; not a haven at all but a sad, second-rate existence. She pressed her hands over her face, tears filling her eyes. She had nothing. Nothing to show for her years in New York. Nothing but an infection and an outstanding debt.

He had betrayed her.

Her nose was running; she wiped it on the back of her wrist.

She had always known. What she’d said to Jack was a lie. Of course, she’d never asked outright, but in her heart she’d known not to ask, which was the same thing.

She’d been at the hairdresser’s, leafing through a copy of the
New York Times,
when she’d come across a photograph. There he was, his arm wrapped easily around her slender waist. ‘Mr and Mrs Alexander Munroe’. He was escorting her to some event at the Met. Tall and elegant, with shiny dark hair down to her waist, she possessed a dancer’s bearing and poise. She was dressed in understated flowing silk, in chic, muted colours that set off her dark skin. Anne Marie, that was her name. She was French. She existed. And they looked good together. It wasn’t so much a shock as an affront to her childish fantasy.

She’d put the paper down. And then, of course, picked it up again. She was unable to stop herself from turning back to the page; staring hard, for a long time. There was something that was both painful and perversely liberating about seeing the truth.

When she’d left the hairdresser’s, she didn’t go home. She went across the street, to a bar. She’d had a drink. And then another.

Late afternoon turned to evening. Her phone rang. It was him. He was sending his car to get her.

She remembered being in the back of the limousine. She remembered the doorman and the ride in the elevator.

But what happened in the apartment was fuzzy, unclear.

She’d shouted and she remembered crying. It seemed to her that he’d tried to comfort her; tried to reassure her that he loved her. But she hadn’t believed him. She’d told him he was a coward and a cheat. That he wasn’t even a real man. She’d thrown the credit card at him. He was revolting. She was never going to see him again.

That’s when he’d grabbed her; hit her hard across the mouth. Her lip split, her mouth filling with blood. And he pulled her to the floor.

Had she wanted him to? Wasn’t any response from him better than none at all? He’d torn at her clothes, hiking her dress up, pinning her to the ground. Even while she’d fought against him, punching him and kicking, there had been another part of her that seemed to be watching from a distance, like a stranger watching TV. Yet the more it
had hurt, the more unreal it had felt, as if she’d been acting out a part, a predestined role. And hadn’t she been wet as he thrust himself inside her? The lines were blurred between pain and passion; she couldn’t tell the difference any more. There had been a part of her that had responded, against her will; pushing her hips up to meet his, pulling at his hair, biting his lips as she’d pulled his mouth closer. She remembered him whispering, hissing in her ear, ‘You belong to me.’ And that was true too. She was lost. In the absence of love anything, even violence, would do.

When it was over he’d got up, left her there. After a few minutes she’d heard the shower running.

Then, she’d crawled onto her hands and knees and, shaking, got up off the floor. She’d found her coat and her bag.

There had been no car to take her home. She’d wandered, dazed, until she’d finally had the presence of mind to hail a cab.

The next day she had flown to London.

And now she sat on the stairs of Rachel’s flat, broken and unreal.

The Mistress.