The Debutante (38 page)
My love for you has always been so hugely, so terribly flawed, through my own foulness of being, that part I wish I could tear out of me and thrash into conformity. What sort of creature am I that I cause harm to the one person I love above all else? I know for all my fine words that you are better off without me. Mine is a compromising, soiling obsession that rots everything it comes in contact with. I cannot bear to have it defile you.
And yet, could it be that you could forgive me?
I have no right to ask you, but if you do, please send word. I will come back for you. I will find you. I will get a divorce and we will start again in some other corner of this wide, wounded world. You see, it is as you have always said, life is one long series of catastrophes. Especially, when like me, you have very large, very determined feet of clay. But I would give anything to spend my days stumbling alongside you.
There is not one part of me that won’t shrink and die without you. There is not one moment when I will not regret the very air I breathe. I am inadequate, a complete failure in the very task of loving and yet I love you. I love you. Badly. Stupidly. As clumsily and as greedily and as hopelessly as a child. And I would not, for all the world, have you believe otherwise.
I am broken.
Nick
The air was cooler now; heavy with the promise of rain. It had been a glorious summer so far, the hottest in history. And yet it was a relief when the sheer unbearable brilliance and heat of the sun softened. There’s a nostalgic tenderness, a delicacy about a true English summer. It’s a fragile, fleeting thing; more of an apparition than an actual event. The grass was damply fragrant and the first fallen leaves crunched beneath the feet of the people who passed by the bench on Primrose Hill. Cate pulled her cardigan more tightly around her shoulders.
It was evening. The sunset was gradual, a fading out of the light, leaving the sky streaked by pink and lavender, melting into strips of deepest navy blue. New York was gone now. London spread out before her, older, convoluted, defined by paradoxes and a series of familiar historical landmarks, their outlines vague in the distance.
Suddenly a pair of white Labradors cut across the hill, almost glowing against the darkening horizon, chasing each other. She couldn’t help but smile at them; couldn’t help but admire their boundless enthusiasm; their cheerful ignorance of anything beyond the present moment.
And behind them was Jack, walking up the hill towards her.
Some people disappoint when you see them again after a while. The imagination constructs an impossible image that the reality can’t begin to approach. But as Cate watched him making his way towards her, she felt a physical certainty and exhilaration that far exceeded any expectation.
He stood before her, catching his breath a little from the climb, a messenger bag slung across his shoulder.
She inclined her head. ‘Mr Coates.’
‘Katie.’ He sat down next to her, placing the bag carefully at his feet and turned, looking at her with a wide, knowing smile.
‘What is it?’ she laughed, suddenly self-conscious.
‘Kiss me.’
‘What?’ Her heart pounded; instantly she felt about twelve years old. ‘Just like that? Kiss me?’
But before she could go on, he pulled her towards him, his mouth over hers.
He kissed her softly, slowly, her eyelids, cheeks, the slender arc of her neck. She kissed the bridge of his nose, his chin, pulling him closer, relaxing into his embrace, until the kisses grew harder, longer, more urgent, and they had to pull apart from one another.
The dogs had settled now, exhausted in the grass, curled round one another in an easy, lolling heap.
‘Are you hungry?’ he asked, gathering himself.
‘OK.’ She nodded, pulling her cardigan backup. ‘Sure.’
‘The usual, my love?’
She smiled. ‘Yes, darling.’
They got up.
‘Have I missed something, Mr Coates?’ she asked softly, leaning her head on his shoulder.
He turned to face her. ‘No more excuses.’ His face was serious, his gaze sure, direct. ‘No excuses any more.’
‘All right then,’ she agreed, knowing herself to be stepping off an inner precipice. Only this time it wasn’t into a void. It was solid, real. And more terrifying for it. ‘No excuses.’
‘Oh, and I have something for you.’ He tapped the bag. There was that smile again. ‘I think you’ll like it.’
‘Do you now?’
‘Oh, my little mistress of innuendo!’
They were heading down, towards the Greek restaurant on the Regents Park Road.
She stopped. ‘Of course, we could always get a take away … later.’
‘I make world class eggs.’
‘Prove it.’
He held out his hand. ‘Linger with me, Katie.’
‘Yes.’ She took it. ‘Yes, I’d like that.’
They didn’t look remarkable; not in the least. Just a couple, like half a dozen other couples that evening, walking through the park on their way home. Yet no one would guess what it cost them, to be there, speaking tenderly, teasingly.
For to love.
Again.
Will always be the most daring, dangerous thing of all.
There have been several key influences that have inspired the writing of this book that I’d like to acknowledge and share with the reader. The first one is the most important to me, namely because it concerns a dear friend of mine.
About a year ago, I had the idea of writing a novel in which a wayward heroine in present day London, stumbles across a mystery concerning a glamorous young debutante from the late 1920s and, as the book develops, their lives and choices began to parallel one another. I was also intrigued by the notion that the story should take place in the Victoria and Albert Museum, mainly because I found it such a fascinating and evocative building.
In my grand scheme, my main character should be called in to help inventory its contents and discover a letter (or some such useful device) that sets her off, uncovering this other woman’s life and that all the “clues” for the mystery should be out in the open—displayed in the vast collection of the V&A. For example, the designer dress the debutante wore on a significant evening would be on show in the fashion department, a custom-made
bracelet hidden in the jewellery department, a provocative portrait in the archives of the photography department and so on. I was thrilled by my seemingly brilliant concept.
Only, once I began to write, I became rapidly overwhelmed with the scale of the V&A, the scope of researching so many different departments and disciplines, and the task of orchestrating the increasing number of characters which came with writing about a national institution of that size. I wanted the book to be a fast-paced, lean mystery. Instead I was trudging through lumbering explanations and unintentional crowd scenes.
One evening I was moaning to my friend, fellow writer Annabel Giles, on the phone. ‘I just can’t seem to get them all under control,’ I complained. ‘What you need,’ she suggested, ‘is to narrow the whole thing down. You don’t need a museum—you need something more manageable, like a shoebox.’ She paused. ‘In fact, I have a shoebox.’ Then she began to laugh. “How would you like a real challenge?”
A week later, she met me in London and handed me a fragile shoebox she’d come across years ago. It was from the 1930s and contained a pair of tiny, silver mesh dancing shoes. I was to discover later that, packed underneath the newspaper, she’d thoughtfully hidden a selection of unrelated objects, including a photograph of a handsome sailor, a beautiful Tiffany bracelet, and an old badge from her girls boarding school. (There was also a spoon, some lace, a brooch in the shape of a butterfly and other objects
I wasn’t able to incorporate into my tale. I really tried to write about the spoon but it, in particular, proved quite tricky.) ‘Now,’ she instructed me, in her best head girl voice, ‘you can use a few or all of the objects in any way you choose. But they must add up to the resolution of your mystery. Oh, and you’re not allowed to even look at the objects in the box until you’ve written up to point in the story where your main character finds it. Then it will really be a surprise!’
And it was.
That’s how the book really began. Annabel was right, of course. I didn’t need an entire collection of rare treasures on display in one of the world’s largest museums. The shoebox was more real and far more human. One of her many gifts as a friend is her ability to slice right through my grandiosity and get to the nub of the thing.
The inspiration for the characters of Irene and Diana “Baby” Blythe was culled from many well known sources—the Mitford sisters, Zita Jungman, the Curzon sisters, Thelma Furness, Viscountess Furness and Gloria Morgan Vanderbilt. These woman have inspired many with their beauty and paradoxical natures and I’m not the first to be intrigued by them. However the closing revelations of the book were influenced by two remarkable true stories in the national press.
The first one came out just after the Queen Mother died, in April, 2002, when it was discovered that two of her first cousins, Katherine and Nerissa Bowes-Lyon,
daughters of the Hon. John Herbert Bowes-Lyon (the second son of the 14th Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorn and brother of the Queen Mother) and the Hon. Fenella Hepburn-Stuart-Forbes-Trefusis, had been locked away in the Royal Earlswood Hospital at Redhill, Surrey for some sixty years. They arrived at the mental institution, aged fifteen and twenty-two, in 1941. Both were said to be severely mentally-handicapped. Such was the shame of the family at having handicapped children that Narissa was listed in Burke’s Peerage as having died in 1940 and Katherine was listed as having died in 1961. In this way, they simply ceased to exist anymore. The family rarely visited them and the royal household never acknowledged them.
They were later joined by three of their first cousins who had all been certified as mentally disturbed. Daughters of the Hon. Harriet Hepburn-Stuart-Forbes-Trefusis and Major Henry Nevile Fane,—Indonea Fane (known by staff as “Baby”), Etheldreda Flavia Fane and Rosemary Jean Fane—were admitted to The Royal Earlswood Hospital, all on the same day. When Nerissa died in the mid-1980s, she was buried at Redhill Cemetery (at first there was only a plastic tag with a serial number on it to mark her grave, though there is a headstone now). Katherine (called “Lady” by staff) was then moved to Ketwin House—a care home for the mentally disabled where she was joined by Indonea.
Ketwin House was eventually closed in 2001 amidst allegations of sexual, physical and financial abuse of its
patients. The fees to keep Katherine Bowes-Lyon at Ketwin House were paid for by the NHS, despite her family’s wealth.
Katherine is apparently still alive and a resident of an unidentified nursing home in Surrey.
The second story is more recent. In July 2008 it was revealed that more than forty women suffering from typhoid had been locked up for life in a large red brick Victorian mental asylum in Long Grove in Epsom, Surrey between 1907 and 1992. It was reported that although they were sane when admitted, many went mad as a result of their incarceration, though painfully, some remained completely compos mentis despite the hardship they endured. Many had families, jobs and children, yet were forgotten by everyone and detained in prison-like conditions, some for up to sixty years. Despite the advent of antibiotic treatments in the 1950s, the women continued to be detained for the rest of their lives on the grounds that their mental health was compromised. The information only came to light when researchers found two volumes of records in the derelict building, long after its closure.
I hope these postscripts have been helpful. As you can see, the writing process for me is a series of elaborate plans, predictable failures, and occasional divine interventions. If I’ve made an error regarding my historical facts, I apologize in advance and assure you it wasn’t intentional. I’m extremely grateful for my readership and
for the privilege of being a published author. I can hardly wait to see what fresh follies the next book will bring, so, if anyone had any interesting shoeboxes lying around, feel free to fill them up and send them my way!
K
ATHLEEN
T
ESSARO
ELEGANCE
ISBN 978-0-06-052227-8 (paperback)
“Through vivid descriptions, lively mishaps and devastating details, Tessaro serves up a witty, original, fast-moving debut.”
—
USA Today
