Trick of the Dark (35 page)

Of course she'd known exactly where Jay had been. Anne's devotion was legendary. The lengths to which she would go to ensure smooth running for Jay's professional life knew no limits. Jay suspected that Anne was in love with her but that she preferred the attachment to be unrequited. You could never discover someone's feet of clay if you didn't actually push the relationship to intimacy, after all. It was an arrangement that suited both of them. But sometimes, like today, Jay wondered if she really knew everything Anne did in her service. She had a sneaky suspicion there were things she would be better off not knowing.

It was a relief to get away from the office and walk back through the quieter side streets of Knightsbridge. She never allowed the office to follow her on her walks; she'd mastered the art of letting her mind roam free. It always amazed her how London changed so quickly. You could go from the bustle and throb of a main artery to empty residential streets in a couple of minutes. Her own house felt like an oasis, the triple glazing keeping the city's rattle and hum at bay. But there were plenty of escapes from the bustle if you knew where to look. She remembered her first encounter with the London the tourists don't see.

After she and Louise had been split apart like a log under an axe, Jay had let herself be picked up at a gay night in one of the Oxford clubs by a good-looking butch in bike leathers. Susanne was a graphic artist who lived in North London and came to Oxford to visit her sister. They both knew there was nothing between them but fun, and there had been no hard feelings when Jay had abandoned Susanne at the party where she'd met Ella Marcus. Ella was the fashion editor of the kind of women's magazine that featured clothes no normal woman would ever wear. She was glamorous, prosperous and she liked Jay's mix of intellectual sophistication and cultural naivete. She enlivened Jay's final year at Oxford and initiated her into the kind of life it was possible to live in the capital. Theatre, galleries, art house cinema and an absolute commitment to the cutting edge. Once the mass market got its hands on something, it was over for Ella and her crew.

It had been fun while it lasted. Jay escaped with her heart and her pride intact, and the delicious knowledge that their relationship had scandalised some and annoyed others. They'd stayed in touch - Ella had been one of the first journalists to get behind
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and, later, 24/7.

Jay was still thinking about Ella when she got home. It was more enjoyable than the other things on her mind. She needed to maintain the distraction, but Magda was working late. Since she was in a romantic mood, she decided it might be time to navigate the treacherous shoals of what she could tell the world about how she and Magda had connected after so long. This would be tricky. Things she didn't want Magda to know; things she definitely couldn't afford for the world to know; and things that needed to be spun like spider silk to keep the rest of the world happy.

For a moment, she felt a flutter of annoyance. This was supposed to be her story, but even here she couldn't be honest. The truth was, the truth was impossible to share with anyone else. But maybe for now she could write the real story of what happened between the two of them on Magda's wedding day. Nobody else would have to see it, not even Magda. Jay could edit it afterwards. It might even be easier to do it that way. In black and white, she would recognise the things she must not say.

My first job at the conference that Saturday afternoon was to deliver a seminar on viral marketing. I'd be lying if I said I had enjoyed myself. Afterwards, trying to cool down on that stifling July afternoon, I walked back along the river, breathing in the same heavy scent of lilies that had perfumed those heady summer nights when I was a baby dyke. But before I could sink too far into the slough of memory, the grumble of car engines pulled me back into the present. I looked up the bank and watched a trail of cars led by a white Rolls-Royce drive past the Sackville Building and down to the meadow. Someone had mentioned earlier there was a wedding in college that afternoon. I couldn't have been less interested.

I carried on along the riverside to the end of the path, where steps cut into the steep grassy bank led back up towards the Sackville Building. I was about halfway up when the wedding party started to spill out of the narrow pathway from the meadow. The bride and groom led the way. He was the tall husky type, dark hair so freshly barbered I could see a thin white line between his tan and his hairline. Although it didn't look as if there were much spare flesh under his morning suit, he had the cheerful, chubby face of a pre-adolescent schoolboy, all turned-up nose, chin round as a plum and cheeks like a latex puppet. He resembled a Bunter whose postal order has finally arrived.

The bride could not have been a greater contrast. Tall, with most of her height in long shapely legs, she wore a sleeveless knee-length sheath of ivory slubbed silk revealing arms evenly tanned the same golden colour as her legs. The Cossack-style toque on her head was of the same material, toning perfectly with a swatch of honey blonde hair. I have always been a sucker for blondes with long legs. But this afternoon it was far, far more than a momentary stab of lust that knocked the feet from under me. Literally.

I knelt by the steps, ravished and ravaged. The instant I recognised the bride, some self-defence mechanism kicked in, telling me, 'It's not her, it's not her! You're hallucinating; you're kidding yourself. You can't recognise someone after sixteen years. She was only twelve the last time you saw her. This woman only looks like she could be her. Don't be stupid, get a grip!' I tried to convince myself and forced myself upright. I got as far as staggering up another step before the revelation that clinched it.

A couple of yards behind the bride were her parents. I might have made a mistake over Maggot Newsam sixteen years on, but I could never have been wrong about Corinna and Henry. Henry looked like an exaggerated version of his younger self, an exemplar of the wreckage drink makes of a person. But Corinna was timeless. Unmistakable, from the shellacked hair to the unfashionable shoes.

I stood there watching the wedding guests pass, a whirling kaleidoscope of memories blurring my vision. Snatches of music from Crowded House, Corinna's favourite band, kept fading in and out of my head like a badly tuned radio station. Dazed, I eventually managed to walk calmly up the remaining steps. One or two of the conference attendees sitting under the shade of the cedars looked at me oddly, but I did not know any of them, so I did not care.

I carried on past the Sackville Building to the punt station. Patsy Dillard, the conference organiser's wife, waved as I approached. 'Jay, we've got the cushions and the pole, but we didn't realise the punts are locked up,' she called. 'Can you go to the lodge and get the key for the padlock?'

'Of course. I'd be happy to.'

'Are you all right?' Patsy demanded when I came back with the key for the heavy padlock that fastens the anchor chain of the punt to the dock. `You look as if you've seen a ghost.'

I forced a smile. 'It's a long time since I graduated from this place, Patsy. It's wall to wall ghosts for me. I can barely see today for the shadows of yesterday.' I took the key back, but the lodge was empty so I left it lying on the counter where the porter was sure to see it as soon as he returned. It's funny, I remember all the details so vividly, even the small unimportant stuff.

Since I was near Magnusson Hall, I decided to slip inside and revisit the Junior Common Room. This had been the domain where I reigned as president of the JCR. The room was surprisingly little changed since the days when I presided over meetings there. Certainly the smell was still the same: stale cigarette smoke and alcohol overlaid with the synthetic lemon of furniture polish and a whiff of chlorine bleach wafting in from the neighbouring toilets. The dartboard was still there, though by then they had run to a spotlight.The table football still lurked in a gloomy corner by the bar, where they had replaced the wooden hatch that served in my day with a metal grille. Bizarrely, the chairs looked exactly as decrepit and uncomfortable as they always did; it was hard to believe they were the same ones, but equally hard to work out where the Domestic Bursar might have managed to acquire a roomful of doppelgangers, or indeed why she might have wanted to.

More importantly, the French windows were still there, leading out on to the long lawn shaded by a pair of cedars. That day they were wide open, providing a short cut for the wedding guests from the marquee to the toilets. I watched for a few minutes, eyes roving over the peacock colours of the guests. But the face I was searching for was nowhere to be seen. Oh well, I thought. Busy bride.

I turned away and walked back towards the front entrance of Magnusson Hall, making a detour to the ladies' toilets. Nothing much had changed there either. Everything was still institutional cream paint and white porcelain. Even the rape crisis line sticker was still there. Improbably, it looked identical to the one that had been there fifteen years earlier, its adhesive specially formulated to make it impossible for the cleaning staff to scrape it off.

Inside the cubicle, I sat for a few minutes, relishing the cool of the cistern against my back, feeling it lower the heat of my body by a degree or two. The sound of the next-door cubicle closing disturbed my relaxation, and a quick glance at my watch reminded me I didn't have much time before my panel on growing an online economy. I flushed the toilet and let myself out, turning on the tap to splash face and hands with refreshingly cold water.

As the other cubicle door opened, I raised my head and looked in the mirror. Beside my dripping face, the ivory silk and golden skin of Magda Newsam appeared like the mirage of an oasis. Our eyes connected in the mirror, inevitably. I watched Magda's expression change from indifference to shock. Her mouth opened as her face flushed.

I wiped the back of my hand over my mouth and said, 'Hello, Maggot.'

Magda shook her head in disbelief. 'Jay?' she said in the tone of childhood wonder, eyes still locked on mine, mouth moving hesitantly towards a smile.

I grabbed a paper towel without looking and sketchily wiped my face, keeping my eyes on Magda. I couldn't get enough of how lovely she'd become. Magda had been a gawky but interesting child, never called beautiful. She is now, and I saw that clearly, no doubt about it. Some strange twist of genetics had taken the unpromising raw material of her moderately attractive but very different-looking parents and turned it into planes and curves that photographers would fight over. I found it hard to credit that this beautiful face was smiling so radiantly at me.

'It is you, isn't it?' Magda yelped, her voice rising through an octave with excitement.

'Who else would it be with this face on?' I turned to meet the grin head on.

Magda took a step towards me, then stopped. 'I can't believe it,' she breathed. I imagined I felt the disturbance of the air on my skin.

'Why not?'

'It's like seeing a ghost. Some manifestation of my subconscious mind,' she said softly, her voice rich with music that had always been there, but which was now the controlled modulation of an adult, not the artless piping of a child.

'A dream?' I said, trying for sardonic and failing.

'Come true. You just disappeared out of our lives. One day, you were always there, then suddenly, you were gone. No warning. Just gone. No explanation, no goodbye.'

Magda wasn't the only one with vivid recall of the sudden exile. 'It wasn't my choice, Maggot,' I said softly.

'My God, nobody's called me Maggot for years,' Magda exclaimed, laughter bubbling under. 'Not even Wheelie. But what are you doing here? Is this a surprise for me? Did Ma invite you?'

Not bloody likely, I thought but didn't say. 'I'm here for a conference,' I told Magda. 'I had no idea about . . . all this,' I added, my voice cracking unexpectedly. Without conscious thought, we'd both moved a step forward. There were less than a dozen inches between us. I could smell something sharp and spicy on Magda's skin, like lime and cinnamon. I could even see the dilated pupils of her eyes. My stomach hurt.

'Jesus, Jay,' Magda said, her voice bewildered and tense. 'I wish to God you'd come back before this.'

'Me too,' I croaked. I wondered if my face mirrored Magda's mixture of awe, confusion, fear and wonder. 'Better late than never?' I asked. It felt like a plea, a prayer, a supplication.

'I got married this afternoon.' It sounded like a confession.

'Sorry. I should have offered my congratulations.'

'Oh Christ, what have I done?' Magda's voice was low and angry.

Suddenly, I felt afraid. The emotions dancing around us were too powerful, like live cables snaking across the floor, sparking and threatening. I took a step backwards. I did not want to walk that way again. I could see something opening before my feet and it looked more like a pit than a path.The last time, I'd sworn it would be the last time. 'Good luck, Maggot. It was good to see you,' I said, pulling down the shutters behind my eyes.