Part 23 (1/2)

'It was a shock to everyone. Johnny sent his dresser out for an evening paper during the interval and read about it then.' Even that announcement was more modest than it should have been, Archie thought; how typical of Josephine to die when the nation was too busy mourning the King to take much notice.

'I'm not John f.u.c.king Terry, though, am I? She must have known what that would do to me, and I can't believe she didn't care. I won't believe that.' Marta stood up and walked over to one of the arches that looked out over the estuary. 'I miss her, Archie.' It was a commonplace expression of grief, but its simple truth broke Marta's resolve in a way that all her anger and bitterness had failed to do, and he held her as she cried. 'I've spent half my life missing her, for G.o.d's sake. You'd think I'd be used to it by now, but it gets worse every day.'

'I know.'

'Of course you do.' She touched his cheek affectionately, an acknowledgement of the unique bond between them which a shared love had created. 'Did she tell you she was dying?'

It was the question Archie had been waiting fora and he was glad to be able to answer it truthfully. 'No, she didn't tell me.' He had guessed, though, and Josephine had not denied it, but she had begged him not to tell anyonea and he did as she asked. It was too late now for regrets, and he refused to add to Marta's pain by being honest with her. 'You know how she hated self-pity.'

'It's easy to see the signs when you look back, though, isn't it? She'd make a joke about wanting to lie on the sofa all day, or go to Tagley and be too breathless to use the water pump. Then there was that time when we all went to the Guineasa and she missed a day because she was too tired. Nothing would normally have kept her away from a racetrack. But she always had an excusea and it was always so d.a.m.ned convincing.'

'Nothing kept her away from going to Suffolk with you,' he reminded her. He remembered how determined Josephine had been to spend that time with Marta and how happy she had been afterwards.

'She always loved it there.'

'Because she a.s.sociated it with you.' Marta was quiet for a long time. 'If we knew how many last times went on in our lives when we weren't looking, we'd go insane,' he said gently, guessing what she was thinking.

'Am I that transparent?' She smiled. 'I wanted to go again a few weeks later, but she kept putting me off. She blamed it on worka and I knew she was trying to get a book finished, but she usually wrote them so quickly. I couldn't understand why she was being so b.l.o.o.d.y diligent all of a sudden.'

The words were sad rather than bitter. Archie watched her face as her hand idly traced the shape of one of the scallop sh.e.l.ls which lined the inside of the building and wondereda if Josephine could have seen Marta's pain two years after her death, would she have made different decisions? 'If she had told you, what would you have done?' he asked.

'Stayed with her. Looked after her.'

'And could you have promised to be strong, to put your own sadness to one side for her sake?' He knew that Marta was too honest to lie, to herself or to him. 'She didn't want you to watch her diea and she couldn't carry your grief on top of everything else. It would have been too much. Selfish or n.o.ble a it's always a fine line.'

'And she was right,' Marta admitted. 'I would have made her feel guilty for dying.'

'We all do that to the people we love.'

'You said she died at her sister's?'

'Yes. She came south before Christmas and stayed at her club, then went on to Surrey.'

'She had no time, did she? No time to make a life for herself. Her father had only been gone sixteen months when she died. Why couldn't she have had his b.l.o.o.d.y genes and not her mother's?'

'You can't think like that a it's not fair to Josephine. Of course she had a life. What else do you call the time she spent with you, everything she achieved with her work . . .' The other people she loved, he had been about to say, but he brushed his most intimate memories to one side, unable yet to cope with them. 'Don't pity her, Marta. Leave that to people who don't know any better. She didn't put her life on hold while she was waiting, and so much has happened in the last twenty years. You have to believe that counts. I have to believe it.'

She nodded, and his words seemed to temper her regret a little. 'I destroyed all her letters, Archie. Every single one of them.'

He looked at her in astonishment. 'Why?'

'Because I was angry with her. I got drunk one night and I sat in front of the fire and burned them one by one. When I woke up the next morning, I couldn't believe what I'd done. Now there's nothing left. Nothing to speak for what we had.'

'There's the drawing you gave her. She wanted you to have it. I told you I'd take care of it until you were ready; perhaps now you are.'

Marta nodded. 'Yes, I'd like to have it, but it's not the same.' He smileda and she looked at him questioningly. 'What is it?'

'There's a letter attached to it. It's taped to the back. I didn't notice it at first.'

'Why on earth didn't you tell me?'

'Because it would have gone the same way as all the rest, wouldn't it? Whatever Josephine has to say to you, you haven't been in the mood to listen.'

Her tears acknowledged the point, and it was a while before she could speak. 'Thank you, Archie,' she said eventually. 'Have you read it?'

'Of course I haven't read it!'

'I'd have read yours.'

He laughed and stood up. 'Shall we go and get a drink?'

They took the gentler route down to the hotel and sat out on the terrace. 'I never have been brave enough to ask you about Josephine's funeral,' Marta said.

'Just be glad you couldn't get back to England in time.' He thought about that morning a the perfunctory service, the sh.e.l.l-shocked congregation, the sight of Josephine's coffin sliding back into the wall without a single flower on it because that was what she had asked for a and decided to s.h.i.+eld Marta from the desperate bleakness of it all. 'There was something surreal about it, as though all the different compartments of her life had come together for the first and last time a her family, her Scottish friends, the theatre contingent; all of us strangers to each other and thinking we knew her best. I met her youngest sister afterwards, and it was as though we were talking about a completely different person.' He closed his eyes, glad to feel the sun on his face. 'I know she hated everything to do with mourning and didn't have any great faith in an afterlife, but I kept wondering if that was really the best we could do. All the beautiful places she loved, and there we stood in Streatham b.l.o.o.d.y Crematorium.'

'Ovens in the suburb,' Marta said.

'What?'

'I've been reading A s.h.i.+lling for Candles while I've been here. It seemed appropriate, bearing in mind why we all came to Portmeirion in the first place. That's how Grant describes Christine Clay's funeral.' She smiled at him. 'One of the many things that didn't make it to Mr Hitchc.o.c.k's movie. Do you remember how bewildered she was when she saw it?'

'I know how she felt. I've got a few issues with Hitchc.o.c.k myself at the moment.'

'Oh? What do you mean?' She listened, astonished, while he told her about his elusive visitor and David Franks's crimes. 'What are you going to do?'

'I haven't made my mind up yet. Franks killed the missing child, too. Do you remember? Leyton Turnbull's son. The little boy who was supposedly abducted by Franks's father?'

Marta nodded. 'Of course I remember. I thought at the time how terrible it must have been for his mother.' Her face clouded over. 'It's unbearable to lose a child in any way, but never to know what really happened . . . I don't know how you would live with that. What did she say when you told her?'

'She hardly reacted at all.'

'You mean she knew already?'

That hadn't been what he meant, but the more he thought about it, the more possible it seemed. 'I was going to suggest that she resented Taran because of the way he was conceived and her hatred for his father.'

'Children aren't tainted in that way, Archie. You love them no matter what. My husband forced me to have s.e.x with him because it was his marital right, just like Gwyneth Draycott's did, but I would have gone to h.e.l.l and back for my son. Well, I did go to h.e.l.l and back for him a you know that better than anyone.'

'So why would she have protected Franks all these years?'

'Hadn't you better go and ask her?'

'I can't intrude with a question like that.'

'Don't you trust your instincts any more? Can you bear not knowing?' His silence gave Marta her answer. She finished her drink and stood up. 'I'll walk you to your car.' They crossed the square and left the village by the tollgate. 'Won't you be glad to retire and leave people to their own misery?' Marta asked.

'To be honest, retirement frightens me to death.'