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‘That’s better. Can I buy you a cup of coffee?’
‘I’d like that. Thank you,’ Ginty said before checking her watch. ‘Oh, no! I can’t. I’m really sorry. But I have to be in Hampshire by eleven-thirty, so I’ll have to go now.’
Harbinger hit the button on the top of his kitchen radio with a triumphant pop of his fist. No wonder he’d sent little Ginty out to interview Rano! No wonder he’d had this idea that he’d met her for a purpose, that she had something he needed! He could have kissed her.
‘Calling that rape diminishes the real thing and shortchanges the real victims,’ he recited, practically dancing over to the espresso machine.
Good for Little Ginty Schell. His heroine. He’d buy her a bloody good dinner on Monday. And he’d see what he could do to get her the career she wanted so much.
Freshet House was a small Queen Anne box, built on a gentle incline above untouched, old-fashioned water meadows. Its red brick façade had been pitted and faded to a rosy softness, but the pristine paint on the cornice and windows gleamed in the sunlight as Ginty turned into the drive two hours later.
Square, safe, and very English, the house sat in ravishing gardens that had just reached their annual moment of perfection. She looked and admired and wished she felt part of it all. Now that she’d probably alienated half the world by what she’d just said on air, it would have been nice to find a refuge here.
Luckily neither of her parents listened to the radio, unless of course there happened to be some incredibly important music on Radio 3. She parked her Ka neatly between their Volvos, checking that she’d left enough space for them to open their doors, and that she hadn’t allowed her front wheels to slip over the edge of the gravel on to the grass, both sins for which she’d been castigated in the past.
To one side of the house were the old stables, where Louise Schell had her working library and offices; to the other was the startling, modernist music room Gunnar had had built when he bought the place thirty years ago, in the days when planning officers let that kind of thing through. Ginty sometimes thought that the arrangement was typical of their lives: screened, separated, and selfcontained.
As always in good weather, the back door to the house itself stood open. Ginty walked past the laundry and the store rooms, down the long black-and-white-floored passage towards the kitchen. In the pantry a strange young man in white trousers and T-shirt was counting piles of plates. Crates of glasses were stacked up on the floor beside him, with cases and cases of wine. Dozens of champagne bottles lay on their sides in the wine bins. In the dim light, the rows of dark-green glass looked like Rano’s guns.
The kitchen smelled of yeast and raspberries. Mrs Blain was very much in charge, standing in a white overall with a clipboard in her hand. Three other women were working for her, dressed in similar overalls and mesh hats. One was making what looked like brioches, another picking over trays of soft fruit, and the third was standing at a separate worktop trimming whole fillets of beef. Her hands were bloody, but all the kitchen surfaces were of gleaming stainless steel and there were no ungainly gaps or chips to collect grime and microbes.
Ginty had a moment’s guilty pleasure as she dropped her purchases on one of the draining boards. The plastic bags had almost certainly collected germs from her car.
‘I’ll take care of those,’ said Mrs Blain, looking up from her clipboard. ‘Thank you. Your parents are in the garden. And …’
And you are in the way, Ginty supplied, understanding the polite tones with ease. She nodded, moved on to the garden room to collect a floppy straw hat from the pile by the door, and set out to find them.
There was no wind to stir the hot air. Nothing moved. Even the birds had ceased to flop in and out of the dovecote. A pair of rooks squatted on the shaven lawn, beaks open and wings hanging out from their bodies like stiff black screens. The mower had left a faint petrol smell to spike the richness of cut grass and lavender.
Over the top of the yew hedges, Ginty could see the pinnacles of what looked like an elaborate marquee. She was amused to see that the peacocks were not in evidence. After the last concert they’d ruined with their screams, her father must have insisted on their removal.
She followed the distant hum of voices, between the borders, through the walled garden, and down the yew walk towards the river. The sounds became inaudible words, then distinct syllables, then real language:
‘… think so. It’s too much responsibility. If one of them should drink too much, take a canoe and capsize, it would be … tricky. Let’s have both put into the boathouse and then there will be no temptation and so no trouble.’
‘Hello?’ Ginty called.
‘Ginty!’ Her father’s voice answered. ‘You have made good time. We are down here by the bridge.’
She walked on, to see her mother sitting on the stone parapet, with her back to the river. She was wearing another of the big soft straw hats. The unravelling edge made a ragged fringe over her face, but when Ginty bent forwards to kiss her, she saw the unmistakable marks of exhaustion. She knew better than to say anything.
When she straightened up, Gunnar kissed her forehead as he always did. ‘You look well. Doesn’t she, Louise?’
‘Yes.’ Louise smiled at Ginty but managed, in patting her arm, to push her further away. ‘It’s a relief. If I’d known where you were while I watched the news each evening, I …’ Louise stopped, then took a fine lawn handkerchief from her pocket and wiped her upper lip. ‘Well, as you can imagine, I’m glad to see you safely back. Shall we go up?’
Couldn’t you sound a bit more passionate about it? Ginty asked in silence. I could have been in real danger out there.
Humiliated by the longing she should have grown out of years ago, she wondered suddenly if she’d accepted Maisie Antony’s commission as a way of scaring her mother into showing some emotion. If so, it had clearly been a waste of time. Nothing was going to shock Louise Schell into pretending affection she didn’t feel.
She staggered a little as she slid to the ground, murmuring something about the dazzle. Gunnar took her arm and they strolled together towards the house, both tall and elegant in their matching loose white linen trousers and shirts. Ginty followed, bending to pick up the sunglasses that had dropped out of her mother’s pocket with the handkerchief.
That night, as she moved among the guests in the garden, Ginty discovered that her encounter with Rano had bought her something, even if not what she’d most wanted. Instead of spending the evening hovering on the edge of conversations between her parents’ friends, she found herself talking about the war, as though she’d become some kind of expert. A few of the guests had heard the Annie Kent programme, but luckily most of them agreed with Ginty, and even the ones who didn’t were polite about her views on rape.
Boosted by the interest and compliments, she voluntarily went to talk to a music publisher and her husband, who had always terrified her in the past. Tonight they greeted her with apparent pleasure and even congratulated her on the courage she must have needed to face a thug like Rano.
‘Thank you.’ Ginty smiled up at the woman. Like most of the guests tonight, she was intimidatingly tall, as well as beautifully dressed and jewelled. Ginty tried not to let that make her feel small and grubby – or stupid. ‘But honestly I didn’t have much choice. His men picked me up and forced my interpreter and bodyguard to stay behind. So I just had to go along with it.’
‘I think you’re amazing. I’d have been scared out of my wits.’
As Ginty thanked her, she caught sight of a lone woman, standing on the edge of the terrace and apparently unable to break into any of the groups of chatting friends. Instead, she was peering into the waxy paleyellow petals of the magnolia grandiflora that grew beside the garden room door, as though an air of intense concentration might protect her from the humiliation of being alone. Someone would have to gather her up and ease her into the party. Ginty knew from experience that no one else would bother, so she made an excuse and moved to the rescue. Before she was half-way to the magnolia, she overheard the publisher say:
‘She has done well, hasn’t she? What a relief for Gunnar! With that cloth ear of hers and all the problems over her education and career, he must have been worried she’d never amount to anything.’
Her husband’s voice was kinder: ‘Don’t be too hard on her. Think what it’d be like to be an only child growing up in a house like this, always in their shadow. And with Louise being so beautiful and Gunnar looking like a Norse god …’
Ginty walked on in the scented dusk, glad she had her back to him. He was right, of course: it had been hard. For years she’d assumed she must have been adopted because that was the only way she could account for her lack of looks and talent. Just after her sixteenth birthday she had pretended she needed her birth certificate for some bit of school administration. That should have settled it because she was described in a neat italic hand as the daughter of Gunnar and Louise Schell, née Callader. But it had only set her thinking up stories of hospital carelessness and changelings and unlabelled babies given to the wrong couples.
‘I’ve always thought they smell of lemon soufflé,’ she said to the solitary guest, ready to take the conversation into botany, art, the sensual effects of flowers, or anything else that might suit. ‘By the way, I’m Ginty Schell.’
‘I know. I think I’d have recognized your smile anywhere.’
Ginty looked up at the softly creased face of the older woman and tried to find the right name in her memory.
‘Don’t worry about it,’ the woman said comfortably. ‘I moved to the States soon after your third birthday. You couldn’t possibly remember me. I used to look after you while Louise was working for her degree.’
‘I …’
The woman smiled, which made her face even more creased. Something did begin to move in Ginty’s mind and before she’d thought, she said: ‘Are you Nell?’
‘My God! Amazing!’
Warm memories were gushing up, as though a switch had been thrown in Ginty’s brain. There had been picnics, and stories, nightlights in the dark, sweets and all the warmth anyone could have wanted. How could she have forgotten it?
‘Of course I do. I can’t think why I didn’t recognize you at once. I missed you so much when you went.’
‘Me, too. It took me months to get over it. But I had to leave if Louise was to have any chance … You know, Ginty, I’ve been hearing about you from all sides and trying to tie up these stories of the fearless war reporter with the touching little creature you were, who had such awful nightmares. How did you do it?’
Ginty laughed. The party suddenly seemed more alive. Then she saw that the guests were moving towards the music room. There was to be an hour’s concert before dinner. She felt as though she was shrivelling inside her skin.
‘What’s up?’ asked Nell.
Ginty explained, adding: ‘It’s not that I don’t like music; I just hate the way it always has to be more important than anything else.’ She looked quickly over her shoulder to make sure they couldn’t be overheard.
‘Then why don’t we take advantage of the weather and the garden and just chat?’ said Nell. ‘There’s no reason why we have to go and listen to Gunnar and his band, is there?’
Band, thought Ginty in shocked delight. The irreverence!
They walked slowly down through the yew walk towards the river. Seeing the moon reflected in the blackish-green water and the way the pink and yellow flowers trailed off the opposite bank, she regretted the locking up of the two canoes. A fish nosed upwards, sending ripples through the surface, breaking the light into thin strips that spread and shivered and slowly reformed.
Nell kicked off her evening shoes to reveal bare legs and scarlet toenails and sat on the bank, wriggling her toes in the dark green water. Ginty looked at the bare legs in envy, then thought: why not? Hitching up her long cream-silk dress, she stripped off her tights and sat down on the bank. This was an unexpected bonus of freedom in a weekend she’d been dreading. She stretched out her feet until the cool water met her hot constricted toes.
‘So,’ Nell said, patting her hand, ‘tell me what’s happened to make you so tough.’
Ginty grimaced, thinking of the huge mass of people and possibilities that made her feel so vulnerable. ‘It’s only cosmetic – like fake tan. But I’m glad if it’s convincing.’
Nell looked her up and down in the moonlight. ‘Dead convincing. Very well applied, if I may say so; no tell-tale streaks at all.’
Chapter 5 (#ulink_d1e3f7bb-c559-5ddf-b388-ab60fedaa1b6)
Next day Ginty couldn’t remember exactly what they had talked about, but she felt as though Nell’s affection had stacked cushions of reassurance around her. They’d swapped e-mail addresses and promised not to lose touch again. But now she’d gone, along with all the other guests, the musicians and Gunnar himself, leaving Ginty alone with her mother.
They were sitting under the cedar at the edge of the lawn, having lunch. Sunday was Mrs Blain’s weekly day off, so Ginty had made sandwiches from some of the leftover beef, layered with asparagus and dollops of cold Béarnaise sauce sharpened with extra lemon juice. Trying to think of everything her mother might want, she had brought out an ice bucket with a bottle of fizzy water and a half-drunk bottle of claret from the pantry.
‘Tell me what happened to you out there,’ Louise said, tilting her head back against the padded head-rest of her chair to look up through the dark layers of the tree. Her left hand trailed against the grass, occasionally rising to stroke the icy glass of water.
‘Why do you think anything happened?’ Ginty heard herself sounding defensive and wished she had more self-control. Her mother’s question wasn’t that different from Nell’s, however critical it had sounded. Ginty tried to see kindness rather than judgement in her mother’s face, and failed.
‘Because you’ve changed, even since Easter. I was watching you at the party last night. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you so confident. Happy, even. Are you in love again?’
Ginty thought about the days when she’d still brought boyfriends to Freshet and watched them elegantly demolished by one parent or the other. Sometimes, looking back, she thought she might have been able to make it work with one or two, if she hadn’t been made to feel an undiscriminating fool for even liking them.
‘No. I still see a bit of Julius, but we’re only friends these days.’
‘Just as well. He’s not reliable, I’m sure, and all that exaggerated charm! Rather cheap, really.’ Louise shuddered delicately. ‘So it must have been something that happened to you out there in the refugee camps. Tell me about it.’
Ginty described a little of what she’d seen and heard, always watching for signs of boredom. Louise listened carefully, but made no comment, so Ginty ploughed on.
‘And he sat there in the room where he’d clearly been torturing the man I saw as I arrived, explaining to me that the things his men did to women were perfectly normal.’
Louise sipped her water and watched Ginty over the rim of the glass. Ginty had no idea what she was thinking.
‘So I suppose if I do seem tougher, it may be partly because I finished the interview, in spite of being such a hopeless coward.’ She paused, not sure whether she wanted denial or compliment. She didn’t get either. ‘And partly because he made me so angry.’
‘Angry about the beating you nearly witnessed, or about what they’re doing to those women?’ Louise’s voice was different now, almost breathless. Of course it was very hot, even under the tree. Ginty picked up the bottle of Vichy to refill her glass, but there was still plenty there.
‘All of it,’ she said. ‘But particularly the rapes. In fact I was on the radio yesterday, talking …’
‘About date rape. I know. Mrs Blain came running upstairs to tell me you were on. I heard most of it.’ Louise’s voice was hard. ‘You think that talking about “date rape” diminishes victims of “the real thing”.’
‘Don’t you?’
There was silence as they both stared out at the faintly blue distance. A heat haze was making the air shimmer. The cedar above them smelled heavily spicy. Ginty brushed a passing fly off her damp forehead and bent to pick up her glass, resting the cold wet surface against her forehead. It soothed the ache.
‘Ginty?’
‘Yes?’
‘You ought to know that date rape isn’t so trivial.’
Surprised at the thinness of her mother’s voice, Ginty turned. A muscle was fluttering under the slack skin beneath her mother’s left eye. She swallowed, then coughed as though there was no saliva in her mouth. Her lips parted, but she said nothing. She licked her lower lip, then coughed again.
‘Ginty …’ There seemed to be a plea in the sound. Unprecedented.
Oh God, Ginty thought, far too late: it happened to her. But how could I have known?
‘I’m sure it’s horrible,’ she said carefully, wanting to make peace without giving in yet again. ‘But it can’t ever be as bad as what’s happening to the women out there.’
‘Maybe not.’ Louise pulled a clean handkerchief out of her trouser pocket and wiped her dry lips. ‘But it can have repercussions. Serious, damaging repercussions that last for ever.’
‘I …’ They had never discussed anything messily emotional, and Ginty had no idea how to deal with this. But she had to say something. ‘I’m getting the feeling that this conversation is turning rather personal.’
Louise said nothing. Ginty drank for courage. ‘I had no idea you might ever have … If I’d realized, I’d …’ What would I have done? she wondered. Not raised the subject here, anyway.
Louise swung her feet to the ground so that they were face to face. ‘I know,’ she said quickly. ‘You’ve never been prurient or gratuitously unkind.’
There was a sudden sharp pain in Ginty’s calf. She brushed her trousers, felt something move under the cloth and pulled it up. A huge horsefly flew off her skin, leaving a swelling red patch and a spreading ache beneath.
‘Ugh,’ Ginty said. ‘A cleg. Sorry, but I think I’m going to have to put something on this.’
‘Yes, you’d better. Stay there; I know where the Sting Relief is. I’ll get it. Don’t put your leg up; that makes it worse. Leave it there. I’ll be back in a minute.’
Louise ran towards the house so fast that her hat dropped behind her. In spite of the pain in her leg, Ginty was grateful to the horsefly for ending the impossible conversation. By the time her mother came back the sharpness had gone from the bite, but the ache it had left was throbbing still. The swelling was now nearly three inches across, raised like a boil.
Louise subsided gracefully on to her knees in front of Ginty and began to anoint the bite. It was strange to feel those long fingers caressing her skin through the salve.
‘There!’ Louise sat back on her heels as she screwed the top back on the neatly rolled blue tube. ‘I hope that’ll help. I’m sorry it took me so long to find. Someone must have moved it.’
‘That’s fine. It’s much better.’ Ginty smiled to show that she wasn’t going to ask any more questions about the date rape, but her mother had already turned away.
‘I’d never intended to tell you anything about it,’ she said as she lay back in her chair. This time her eyes were closed. ‘But now I’m not sure. Ever since I heard you on the radio, sounding so authoritative, so condemnatory, I’ve been thinking perhaps … Perhaps you do need to know.’
‘Don’t say anything if you’d rather not. I’m not …’
‘No. I think it’s time.’ Louise opened her eyes and let them slide sideways so that she could look at her daughter. Ginty couldn’t see any hint of affection or even tolerance in them.
‘Pour me some wine, will you? I don’t think water will be enough to get me through this.’ Louise sipped the richly tannic claret. She looked utterly in control, but she said: ‘I don’t know where to start.’
‘Perhaps with what happened, and how,’ Ginty suggested, noticing that her voice was as calm and polite as usual. Odd that, with the feelings battering at her. ‘If you really do want to tell me.’
‘It was when I was in my first year at Oxford, and …’
‘But you were at Cambridge.’
‘That came later.’ Louise moved so that she was sitting on the edge of her long chair. Her knees were slightly apart and her hands hung down between them. She picked up her glass, only to put it back on the ground without drinking. She gripped her hands together, then wound them in and out of each other as though she was washing. The rings moved so that the big stones ended up inside one hand, where they must have scratched the other. But her voice was formal and nearly as clipped as a wartime radio announcer’s:
‘I went up to Oxford – St Hilda’s – when I was nineteen. There was a boy in one of the other colleges. He used to take me out sometimes. We weren’t sleeping together.’
Ginty blinked. Her mother had never talked about her emotions, let alone her sex life.
