The Keys to the Street (38 page)

“Thank you,” she said faintly.

“I want to say something, one last thing. It’s this. Don’t think you can come back to me. When things go wrong, I mean.”

She said, with a spark of spirit she didn’t feel but forced to flash out, “Don’t you mean,
if
things go wrong?”

“No, Mary, that’s what
you
mean. As long as you know. I won’t be available. I won’t be carrying any torches. I shall have found someone else.”

Thinking of this meeting, she had planned all kinds of things to say, charitable wishes for his future, even the expression of some impossible hope that they might go on knowing each other. But now she had no words, she simply felt a kind of despair in his presence that she knew would disappear entirely once he had gone. He was the kind of man, she thought, that she would always run away from
and she wondered that she had not done so before, long ago.

He paid the bill. He jumped up and struck an attitude. She watched him, appalled, already nervous.

“And whether we shall meet again I know not,” he declaimed. “Therefore let us our everlasting farewells take. Forever and forever farewell, Mary!”

A group of tourists approaching the next table turned and stared. He said it again.

“Forever and forever farewell, Mary!”

He pushed back his chair and sent it skidding across the pavement where it toppled and fell over. Then he walked rapidly away. Someone laughed. Mary was embarrassed and rather shaken. She picked up the parcel but it was too big to go into the small bag she was carrying. She would have to carry it in her hand. It was too hot to walk far but she would walk, she would keep to the shady side of the street, and hope it was true what they said about endorphins being released by exercise to calm you down, to create a sense of well-being.

More than endorphins, she wanted someone to comfort her. Leo, of course. But she knew she really wanted her grandmother. Her grandmother would hold her as she had done when she was a little girl, hug her in warm silence, but her grandmother was dead, was ash, was dust. Leo would be there, eventually he would, though he was spending the evening with his family. When Leo came in at the front door she would go quietly up to him and he would take her in his arms.

The man she called Nikolai came into her mind and she thought, strangely, that he was one of the few people she could think of who she would like to talk to, to have listen to her, to receive from her confidences whose nature she hardly understood. But when she came to the Gloucester Gate and, crossing the road by the bronze maiden, looked down into the Grotto, there was no one there and no evidence of his occupancy. A cigarette packet, discarded over the
wall, floated on the surface of the pool. Otherwise the place was as neat as a suburban garden.

She put the parcel down on the hall table. Gushi was too hot to run out to meet her. He lay panting on the cold kitchen floor, his tongue hanging out. There was no point in taking him out for hours yet, perhaps she would wait until Leo came home and they would walk him together. She stroked Gushi’s head, gave him fresh water, then went upstairs to shower and put on trousers and a T-shirt.

It was at this point that the telephone rang. It was Leo. Once, several years before, she had spoken on the phone to Dorothea’s husband Gordon just after he had come round from an anesthetic. Leo’s voice sounded like Gordon’s had then, thick, throaty, half-choked, aged by many years.

“I can’t get away this evening,” he said. “I don’t know when I will. Things haven’t been too—too good. I’ll see you tomorrow.” There was a pause in which she fancied she heard sounds like sobs suppressed. “Is that all right?”

“Leo, of course it is. But can’t I …?”

“No, I don’t know what you were going to say but you can’t do anything. No one can. I shall be fine. Did you see Alistair?”

“For the last time, I’m sure. He’s given us a wedding present.”

“What is it?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t opened it yet.”

“Perhaps you’d better not open it. Perhaps there’s a bomb inside.” There was a hysterical edge to his voice. Had she imagined a sob? “Mary, I’m sorry I can’t come back tonight.”

“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “I understand.”

But she was not at all sure that she did. She was aware of bitter disappointment. Why is it worse to be alone on fine summer evenings than when it is cold or wet? The food in the fridge looked uninviting. She drank some sparkling water, ate a peach, and settled down to put the final touches to the Irene Adler brochure. It was due to go to the printer by the end of the week. By the time it came out
she would no longer be Mary Jago but Mary Nash.

Did she want that or would she keep her maiden name? She hadn’t thought of that before. Somewhere on the brochure there should be a line saying, “Designed by Mary Jago” or “Designed by Mary Nash.” She wrote the new name to see how it looked, how it felt. Many people would say it was unlucky for a woman to write her new name before it was hers, before she was married. She tried her new signature, disliked it, and almost decided to keep the name Jago.

From the hall Gushi gave a sharp yap. She went out to see what had alarmed him and found another flier from Express Tikka and Pizza on the doormat. Alistair’s present was on the hall table where she had left it, pink and silver paper, curlicues of ribbon, clumsily bunched corners. She took it back into the living room. Gushi jumped onto her lap and curled up like a cat.

Sticky tape held the parcel together under the ribbon. It was surprisingly hard to get off. She had to disturb the dog to fetch scissors. Leo’s words came back to her then, about the present being a bomb. That was absurd, of course, he hadn’t been serious, but she held the package up to her ear as if to hear something ticking. She shook it. There was nothing loose inside, nothing to rattle.

She cut the sticky tape, then the corners. Inside the paper was a flat silver box, the kind you can buy from the gift wrapping section in stationery shops. The lid was taped to the base. More cutting and the lid came off. Bubble-wrap, cotton wool, a handful of tissues for padding, and a card in an envelope.

It was a strange choice for Alistair to have made. That was her first thought as she looked at the picture of a bride and groom, doll-like figures, the man in a top hat and morning coat, the woman in white crinoline and bridal veil, the pair of them standing on the carved and scrolled icing of a beribboned cake. Underneath the legend read:
Wishing You Joy on Your Wedding Day
.

Was this his present? Was this all? Inside the card was an enclosure;
evidently a letter, the paper folded twice. He had written nothing on the card, not even his name. For a moment she thought of not reading the letter, of throwing it away unread, apprehensive of his insults and reproaches. But it was cowardly not to read it. It could do her no harm, it was only words and from someone who now meant nothing to her. She was holding it between thumb and forefinger, still unfolded, when the phone rang again, and as she picked up the receiver it was still with her, just a standard sheet of paper, folded twice.

Leo’s voice said, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry for that—that display just now. I’m at my brother’s, but he’s gone out for a moment and I’m ringing back as soon as I could. Forgive?”

“Nothing to forgive. Are you all right?”

“I’m fine.”

She said wistfully, “I wish you could come home now.”

“Mary, my mother wants me to stay the night. She’s here. I may not see her again for years, if ever. You know what I said about that. That this was the final meeting.”

“That’s all right,” she said. “Of course you must stay. Don’t worry about it. I shall be fine.” Afterward she didn’t know why she had told him. “I’ve opened the present. It wasn’t a bomb. Just a card and a letter and a lot of padding.”

“I love you,” he said. “I just wanted to ring you and say that. On Thursday you’ll be my wife. It’s too good to be true.”

“It’s true,” she said.

His brother must have come back into the room. He said goodbye, he would see her on the following evening, and put the receiver down. That reminder that he was with his family for the last time was disquieting. It suddenly seemed unnatural, unnecessary. She wished she had asked his reasons, simply asked to know more about it. Anyway, it wasn’t too late. Tomorrow she would ask him.

She unfolded the sheet of paper she was still holding in her hand.

•   •   •

The logo of the Harvest Trust, the scarlet mushroom shape, the Battersea address, and opposite this the direction to her, Ms. Mary Jago in Chatsworth Road, NW10. Below it was a line that this was from Deborah Cox, Donor Welfare Officer. The date was six days earlier.

Her first thought was that the letter shouldn’t have gone to her old address. Then she remembered she had never given the trust a firm change of address, only asked for one letter, the last she thought she would receive from them, to be sent to her care of her grandmother. She read:

Mary laid the letter down in her lap. She was simply confused. How could Leo’s death be a shock when she had spoken to him five minutes before? They had made a mistake. They were confusing her with someone else and Leo with someone else, they had their files mixed.

She picked it up and read it again.
This is confirmed by our receiving no replies from you to our recent letters
.… What recent letters? Transplant updates that Alistair had received and opened? She was suddenly very cold and she moved into the sunshine of the open windows, feeling the heat touch her.
Mr. Nash died yesterday
 …

Now, at seven, it was too late to phone them and ask for an explanation. Anger and indignation started to replace the initial shock. Alistair was as much to blame as the trust in perpetuating their mistake, and surely out of malice. He had sent her this letter as a wedding present, the most vindictive act he had ever committed against her.

The phone rang and rang. At last he picked it up and said, “Alistair Winter.”

“Alistair, Mary. You must know why I’m phoning—”

He put the phone down. The dial tone began. She looked at the receiver in disbelief. Blood rose into her cheek where he had struck her and she put up a cold finger to feel the heat. After a moment or two she poured herself a measure of brandy and drank it down neat. The brandy made her choke but filled her with warmth as if some heating agent had got inside her and sent its rays to travel outward to her skin. She told herself to take deep breaths. Alistair’s malice had shaken her profoundly. She fancied that in his silence at the other end of the phone she had heard satisfaction and glee.

But she reminded herself that it wasn’t he who had written that letter. He had only sent it on. It was a real letter, from a real place, not something Alistair had forged. He had only been the instrument that ensured she received it.

This was no time for those old hesitations. Avoiding thought, she dialed Leo’s brother’s number at Redferry House. It rang and rang, there was going to be no answer. Leo had said he would be there, but he wasn’t there. That meant very little. He and his brother might have gone out for a drink or he gone back with their mother to wherever she was staying. It just seemed strange, she felt it suddenly as suspicious and odd, that he should have talked to her about breaking with his brother, never seeing his mother again, yet be going out with them, staying the night with them.

Mary needed someone to be with her, to bring to this letter, to these events, a detached and dispassionate mind. After a while she
phoned Dorothea, but instead of coming out with all of it, she found herself asking if it would be all right not to come in tomorrow. She had arranged to take a week off from Wednesday but could she start her holiday tomorrow instead?

“Sure. Why not?” Dorothea said. “Gordon will cope. Are you okay? You sound a bit shaky. Pre-wedding nerves?”

“I expect so,” Mary said, and for some reason tried to smile into the receiver as if Dorothea could see her. “Thanks, Dorrie.”

“It’s your wedding, not your funeral.”

“Yes.”

It had been impossible, would have been grotesque, to have read or quoted the letter to Dorothea. To anyone? She picked it up again, read it again, and this time saw something that she had not previously noticed. Under the Harvest Trust address was Deborah Cox’s own home number. Mary had begun to feel sick. The brandy perhaps or not having eaten for so long. She wondered why she had told Dorothea she wouldn’t go to the museum tomorrow. What was she anticipating? What specter awaited her?

The fear of knowing was starting to overcome the fear of not knowing. Suppose she were to destroy the letter now, tear it into pieces and burn the pieces in an ashtray? Or make a little bonfire outside? Then she could pretend it had never come, that Alistair’s parcel had contained only a card, say nothing of it to Leo.… She dialed Deborah Cox’s number.

It was answered after the second ring. Scarcely waiting for Mary to say what she wanted, Deborah Cox asked her if she wanted counseling. The trust would be happy to provide counseling. She would advise it, particularly as Mary had written to Leo Nash, had even got to know him.

“You did actually meet?”

Mary hesitated. She had begun to tremble, her knees shaking. How she could tell so blatant a lie she didn’t know. “No,” she said. “No, we never met.”