“IS THAT MISS HUNTER? Miss Genevieve Hunter?” said the telephone voice.
The line was bad. The voice was interrupted by a series of clicks. Genevieve shook the receiver. She had been back in her apartment less than five minutes. Her cat was demanding food. She still had her coat on. She didn’t recognize the voice.
“What? Yes. Yes, that’s me….”
“It’s George, Miss Hunter.”
“Who? George who?”
“George from ICD. The courier service.” He sounded reproachful, “You told me to call.”
“Oh, that George. I’m sorry.” Gini struggled out of her coat. Tucking the receiver under her chin, she negotiated her living room. It was not tidy. Books and papers had spilled over onto the chairs; more piles of papers lay in wait underfoot. She made it to the tiny kitchen, Napoleon, a demanding cat, rubbing against her legs. “I’ve just gotten in. I wasn’t thinking. Can you hear that racket? It’s my cat. Demanding food. Go on talking. Ignore him. I’m listening, I’m just trying to find a can opener. And a can.”
“Well, I made my inquiries.” George sounded conspiratorial. He was, Gini thought, enjoying this. She found a can of cat food, attempted to open it one-handed, and gave a cry.
“What’s the matter?”
“Nothing. I just cut myself on this damn can, that’s all. Go on.”
“The parcel went out from the City office, like I said. It was one of a batch of four, apparently.”
“Four?”
“That’s right. All identical, the supervisor said. Same wrapping, all used sealing wax. He remembered that.”
“There were four? That’s odd.” Gini spooned the cat food into Napoleon’s bowl and set it down by the sink. Napoleon stopped mewing and began in a fastidious but determined way to eat.
“Four.” Gini smiled. “You think they were all handcuffs?”
“Articles of clothing, that’s what the form said. The other three all went abroad. I couldn’t find out much more than that.”
“You couldn’t get addresses?”
“No. That side of things is confidential and I didn’t like to ask too much. You could, maybe. Talk to the girl upstairs, in dispatch.”
“I might just do that. In the morning. Thank you, George.”
“You get any problems, you can always give me a ring. I might be able to find out a bit more….” He paused. “It’s not nice, getting sent something like that anonymously. It’s a shock.”
“You’re right, George, it is.” Gini felt a sudden pity for the man: She could hear loneliness, and recognize it, she thought wryly, since she was often lonely herself.
She took his number, scribbled it on the back of an insurance bill she should have paid the previous week, and hung up. Napoleon had finished his supper. He looked pointedly at the meaty chunks remaining in the can. When the can was replaced in the refrigerator, he gave her one reproachful glance, then set about his toilette.
“Oh, Napoleon, Napoleon.” Gini kissed his head. “Handcuffs. And I’d almost forgotten them. Was someone trying to frighten me—or threaten me? Or just play a dumb joke? What do you think?”
Gini despised herself for this habit of talking to her cat but continued to indulge it. Napoleon took it well. When she returned to her living room, he glided behind her, leapt up into the only chair not piled with papers, and composed himself for sleep.
Gini, who was not planning on going out—why had she said that?—made a brief halfhearted attempt to straighten up her apartment. She transferred some of the papers from the floor to her desk. She lit the gas fire, which made the somewhat shabby room more welcoming. She kicked off her shoes, padded into the bedroom, surveyed encroaching chaos, shoved some of it into closets, straightened the duvet, and thus made the bed.
She found a whole heap of wash she’d forgotten for days, in which several pairs of panty hose were inextricably entwined in an octopus grip. She pushed the whole sorry mess into the machine, switched it on, and checked the fridge. It contained one orange, a piece of elderly cheese, the half can of cat food, a clove of garlic, two limp lettuce leaves, and one tuna fish sandwich wrapped in plastic which she’d forgotten, and which now smelled bad.
She tossed the sandwich into the garbage and slammed the fridge door. She briefly considered going out again and walking three blocks to Mr. Patel’s grocery store, the only one for miles that stayed open till eight o’clock. She phoned for a pizza instead.
On an impulse, waiting for the pizza to arrive, and feeling furtive and guilty, she rifled through the drawers of her desk. She despised sentimentality just as she despised pathetic people who talked to their cats, but even so, there at the back of a drawer, carefully hidden so she would be reminded as little as possible, was a shoebox. In the box were relics. Yes, relics, she said sternly to herself.
One by one, as she sat by the fire, she took them out. They were poor things, she thought: junk to most people, of significance only to herself. A card listing the hours of room service in the Hotel Ledoyen, Beirut; on the back of it, in pencil, Pascal had written his address. A yellowing paperback copy of a novel in French: L’Etrangère by Camus, bought because Pascal had once said he admired it, and because she had sworn to herself that she would read it the second she improved her French. A one-page letter from Pascal. A flower from a courtyard near his house, which he had picked for her once: It was unidentifiable now, a dry, brittle thing, scattering its few remaining petals at her touch. A bullet casing Pascal had once brought her for luck when the bullet in question had ricocheted and missed him by less than a foot. One earring, tiny, gold, of the kind made for and worn by Arab children. Pascal, a romantic, had talked the jewelry merchant into selling them by installments: this one now, for her birthday, its partner for Christmas. Christmas was then four months away. But by Christmas they had parted. Pascal was in Beirut still, but she had left.
She took the little earring out of the box and held it in the palm of her hand. Its purchase had been an extended transaction. She could see the dim interior of the merchant’s shop, the glitter of gold and silver, the scales the merchant used to determine cost by weight. She and Pascal sat on upright chairs; a boy brought them sweet mint tea. The smallest, simplest purchase, she was learning, had its rituals in Beirut. The jewelry merchant spoke to Pascal in a mixture of French and Arabic. He was explaining, Pascal said to her with a smile, that such a gift, from a young man to a young woman, was a sacred affair.
“He will be disappointed if we choose quickly,” Pascal said in English. “Sip the tea slowly. This has to last half an hour at least.”
She had sipped the tea. She could taste, now, the sugar and mint. She could hear the murmur and rasp of French and Arabic. She had stared at the floor and told herself that now, now, was the moment to confess. She must explain to Pascal now, before the purchase was made, that she had lied about her age. The sentence was simple enough: Pascal, I am not eighteen, I’m fifteen. She stared at the floor. Gold glittered. The simple sentence refused to be said. Pascal was showing her a ring, then a bracelet. She shook her head. She swallowed: Perhaps there was a softer way of putting it? If she explained that her forthcoming birthday would be her sixteenth, would that sound better? After all, back in Britain sixteen was the official age of consent.
She averted her gaze. It made no difference: No matter how she put it, the fact remained that she had misled him, and if he discovered the truth, she knew how he would react. He would be angry, guilty—perhaps contrite. However he reacted, it would be over, she was certain of that. So she had said nothing, not one word. The heat in the shadowy room intensified. She sat there, flushed and miserable, in an agony of deceit. Later, back in his bare white room, Pascal clipped the little gold earring into place. He kissed her earlobe, then looked at her anxiously. “You like it? You’re sure you like it? It looks so tiny….”
“I like it. I love it. I love you.” She flung her arms around him and hid her hot face against his neck. Age did not really matter, the lie was not an important one, she told herself: One day she would explain to him, but not yet, not yet. Midday heat shimmered; reflections of waves moved on the white walls. Closing the shutters, she took his hand and drew him toward the bed. They lay down, and the lie no longer mattered. Time passed: hours, days, a week more together—until the break finally came, that one little truth was never expressed.
Let the past rest. She took the little earring and hooked it into place. An indulgence, perhaps, bringing with it the ghost of an old happiness. Then the ordinary present reasserted itself. The pizza arrived. She removed the earring, packed it carefully away with the other relics, pushed all of them into the box, and back into the desk drawer. She was stern with herself. No more relics, no more nostalgia, she told herself. She unpacked the newspaper clippings she had photocopied and spread them out on her desk.
John Hawthorne’s and Lise Hawthorne’s features stared back at her. She forced herself to concentrate. The Hawthornes, that perfect couple, looked famous, familiar, and unreadable. She sighed, and sank her head in her hands: Behind this public façade, was there a secret life?
When she had been working for over an hour, she took a break, made coffee, returned to her desk. She felt a sense of frustration. Here were all the staging-posts of a glittering career, here were the same anecdotes, the same quotes, endlessly repeated. Here was Hawthorne at twenty, at thirty, at forty—yet what had she actually learned? It was as if what she was reading was an authorized version, formulated years before, perhaps by an astute PR adviser, perhaps by Hawthorne’s father, or by Hawthorne himself. It was all too perfect, all too pat. Most of the interviews recycled material first given by Hawthorne long before, a phenomenon she was familiar with. It meant either that the journalists concerned had been lazy, content to write from clippings, or that Hawthorne himself refused to depart from a set script. No one here seemed to have reached below his guard: Even those journalists obviously hostile to him wrote articles that lacked sting. Unlike his notoriously right-wing father, Hawthorne had an impeccable civil rights record. Sure, he had fought in Vietnam in the late sixties and had been decorated three times for valor; but before he was drafted he had marched in Selma and Birmingham and been befriended by Martin Luther King. His political stance now was equally hard to define: pro-Israel, markedly so. In favor of massive aid to the Russians but an early advocate of intervention in Bosnia. Strong on law enforcement, a hard-liner on capital punishment, a supporter of the NRA and anti-gun-law reform, yet a liberal when it came to abortion and women’s rights.
Not a unique balancing act in American politics, perhaps, but one Hawthorne performed with exceptional skill nonetheless. Was this the result of conviction, or opportunism? It was impossible to judge. She had only her instincts to guide her, and her initial reaction was suspicion: Hawthorne looked too good and smelled too clean. He was too adroit, too careful, too perfect—a verdict that applied equally to his political and to his personal life.
The coverage of that personal life was extensive, the price Hawthorne paid for a famous name, a privileged background, and exceptional good looks. Here, before her, was Hawthorne the devoted husband, Hawthorne the proud father, and—old clippings these—Hawthorne the golden youth.
Here he was as an eighteen-year-old, flanked by his younger brother, Prescott, by all three sisters, and by the patriarch, S. S. Hawthorne himself. They stood outside the Hawthornes’ country house overlooking the Hudson. John Hawthorne smiled fixedly at the camera, his father’s arm around his shoulders; two spaniels lay panting at their feet.
The resemblance between father and son was strong. Both were tall, strong-featured, strikingly blond. Both conveyed a certain arrogance in their stance, Gini thought—or was that something she read into the photograph, a prejudice of her own, a reaction to the wide lawns, the expensive sports cars parked in the drive, and the towering façade of the house itself? She looked at the picture more closely. Thirty years old, a blurred photocopy of blurred newsprint. On closer examination, she decided John Hawthorne looked ill at ease and constrained, as if he endured with reluctance that fatherly embrace.
She pushed that picture aside and turned to others. A young Hawthorne with numerous well-connected girlfriends, but then the young Hawthorne had a reputation as a Lothario. There seemed to be a new girlfriend each month. Hawthorne at Yale with a group of friends—John sprawled in a chair while two unidentified women knelt in worshipful attitudes at his feet. Pictures of him in uniform; pictures of him as a young congressman, then as a senator. The first photograph of Hawthorne with Lise, snatched for a gossip column as they left a Washington restaurant together. They were indeed, as Pascal had suggested, related. Third cousins, Gini saw, friendly since early childhood, part of the immense tribe of interlinked Hawthornes and Courtneys who seemed to spend the endless summers of their youth in a round of parties at one another’s estates. Long Island, Nantucket, Tuscany; a stud farm on the west coast of Ireland; an English manor house in Wiltshire; a castle belonging to the Scottish branch of the family, in Perthshire—they moved around the globe, the golden members of this tribe, always to an aunt, an uncle, a cousin’s place, always to a house where there were servants, tennis courts, swimming pools, horses, abundant acres. They journeyed, Gini thought, and yet they remained cocooned in that citadel peculiar to the rich.
John Hawthorne and his distant cousin Lise had reencountered each other, she saw, some eleven years before. Lise, who had had some training in art history, had been away working for old family friends in Italy, cataloguing their art collection. It was some five or six years since she and her senator cousin had met. Their remeeting was staged by Hawthorne’s father—or so the gossip columns claimed—and it took place at the Southampton estate of another distant cousin, Lord Kilmartin, a diplomat then assigned to the U.N.
Hawthorne was then thirty-six, and known as one of Washington’s most eligible bachelors; Lise was twenty-eight, though she looked much younger; she was then in mourning for her parents, killed in an air crash some six months before. According to the newspapers, the attraction had been immediate, the courtship swift. Certainly the engagement was brief.
Within a year, the celebrated wedding. Gini scanned the photocopies in front of her. Again, she saw, Pascal had been correct. There was Lise, radiant, legendarily lovely, encased from neck to ankles in a nunlike, virginal, Yves Saint Laurent dress. Her black hair was worn loose; a white lace veil framed her beautiful face. The train, of heavy silk, was fifteen yards long, requiring four diminutive pages and six tiny bridesmaids in processional behind the bride to keep the train in place.
The wedding of the decade, the headlines screamed. And a decade later, here were all the details: the name of the Catholic bishop who officiated at the nuptial mass; the special flights and trains laid on for the thousand-plus guests. S. S. Hawthorne had piloted his own helicopter to the ceremony. In the photographs, formal and informal, he was ubiquitous, resplendent in morning dress.
Fireworks had lit the sky—a Hawthorne family tradition. The dancing began at midnight and continued to dawn. The roster of guests’ names was an illustrious one—statesmen, politicians, a clutch of Euro-titles; the Hollywood contingent, the authors, the diplomats, the opera diva, the English duchess.
There were many famous names here, and some infamous ones, since S. S. Hawthorne, less circumspect than his son, had contacts going back decades that might have surprised, even alarmed, some of the other wedding guests. A Middle Eastern arms dealer, for instance; a Sicilian-American rumored to own a tranche of Las Vegas clubs…. If such guests were cold-shouldered by his son, S. S. Hawthorne, Gini saw, had made up for any neglect. There he was with the arms dealer, here with the Sicilian. Robust, huge, unquenchable, indestructible, radiating purpose and energy even from faded newsprint: S. S. Hawthorne, networking, pressing the flesh.
And here, finally, were the formal photographs, the posed wedding-group pictures, taken by Lord Lichfield. They had an idyllic and yet a mysterious quality. Perfectly posed, perfectly lit, they were designed to convey perfection—and yet Gini felt they suggested something beneath and beyond: There was an inner story here, she sensed, of which Lichfield conveyed hints.
In all the official wedding pictures, John Hawthorne seemed at ease with himself. Tall, debonair, astonishingly blond, his cool blue gaze rested unerringly on the heart of the photographer’s lens. He appeared, throughout, to be slightly amused by this circus; in every photograph there was a curious, almost disdainful, half-smile on his lips.
His bride, then little used to such publicity, looked as lovely as legend claimed, but also a little nervous, a little stiff. Later, as Gini knew, Lise Hawthorne would master the art of the photo opportunity, but here, at the very beginning of her public career, her inexperience showed. She clung to her new husband’s arm as if in need of support; her eyes were either modestly lowered or fixed in anxious devotion on her new husband’s face. There was a startled, almost sacrificial quality about her, Gini decided. Her wide, dark eyes stared out of newsprint a decade old, and they seemed to carry a plea—as if Lise, encountering fame in its raw form for the first time, were silently praying to escape.
Interesting, Gini thought—and interesting too how quickly Lise adapted, how adept she soon became at dealing with photographers, with public appearances, with the campaign trail, with the press. Now, only a decade after that wedding, Lise had carefully forged a very public identity for herself. She was celebrated for her charity work, for her skills as a hostess, and—on a thousand magazine covers—for her continuing, unrelenting chic. No sign, in recent photographs, of any strain or unease. Lise now greeted photographers with a radiant calm. Gini might find Lise’s present image a somewhat cloying one, but this, she knew, was a minority view. The popular conception of Lise Hawthorne was that she was beautiful, good-hearted, and devout. She was an exemplary wife, an exemplary mother. Her friends, constantly quoted in profiles, spoke with one voice: Lise might not be her husband’s intellectual equal, indeed intellect was not Lise’s strongest point, but what did that matter? Lise was that great rarity—a beautiful woman with a good heart. “The thing you have to understand about Lise,” said the friends, “is that she’s just terribly, terribly nice….”
Was she? Gini frowned. Personally, she found niceness hard to equate with a taste for thirty-thousand-dollar Yves Saint Laurent dresses. But perhaps that was unfair, churlish, puritan even—another example of her own prejudice. Vanity was a pardonable weakness, perhaps, in a woman as lovely as Lise. All the evidence here told the same story. Lise worked hard for her pet charities; she adored her husband and children; she lived an upright, blameless life.
Gini sighed, and pushed the bundle of newsprint to one side. She turned to the last item, not culled from the press archive, but bought at a newsstand that evening. It was the latest issue of the magazine Hello!, that bland periodical chronicling the home lives of the famous and rich. There on the cover, and inside across six pages, the pictures in brilliant color, were the Hawthornes en famille. They had been photographed in Winfield House, the newly decorated ambassadorial residence in Regent’s Park.
Lise was famous for her taste; the revamped house looked as perfect as a stage set: Not so much as a newspaper marred its serenity; every chair, vase, cushion, was in exact alignment; every color used was harmonious. Lise, readers of the magazine were informed, had selected the chintz used to curtain the room because it blended so well with the Picasso that hung above the fireplace. Gini suppressed a smile. The rose-period Picasso, she noted, was flanked by an equally pinkish Matisse.
All the photographs had this roseate glow. They must have been taken the previous summer, for here were the Hawthornes in the large garden behind the house; here they walked along a path framed with pink roses; here they sat in a huge bower of pink roses, flanked by their two angelic-faced sons. The two boys, Gini saw, were aged six and eight. Both the elder, Robert, and the younger, Adam, bore a marked resemblance to their father. Both, like him, had startlingly blond hair and blue eyes. The eight-year-old seemed the more outgoing of the two. He met the camera lens with a mischievous grin, and in several of the garden pictures swung from his proud father’s arms like an agile little monkey. Adam was the child who had been so seriously ill some four years back. According to his mother, he had made a near-miraculous recovery from the meningitis that had threatened his life. In contrast to his brother, Adam seemed nervous and subdued, ill at ease with the cameras. In several pictures he averted his eyes and clung closely to his mother. “Adam’s just fine now,” his father was quoted as saying. “All he needs now is some toughening-up.”
An interesting remark, Gini thought, given John Hawthorne’s own rigorous upbringing. She closed the magazine, but its images of roseate domesticity remained. She rubbed her eyes tiredly, and thought of the story Nicholas Jenkins had recounted earlier with such malicious delight. Either he had been misinformed, or these photographs lied. Which was the true version—her editor’s or this?
She thought back, trying to recall every small detail of those two occasions on which she had encountered Hawthorne herself. The second, the previous year at Mary’s party, told her nothing beyond the fact that Hawthorne was now an accomplished, experienced politician. But the previous occasion—what about that?
She could remember it vividly. The meeting had taken place at the house Mary then lived in, in Kent. It was the end of the Easter holidays, and Gini was due back at her boarding school that afternoon. A friend from school had been staying, and the two of them were taking the train back together.
John Hawthorne was due to arrive for a brief visit that afternoon, and both she and her friend had been excited by that. Gini might never have met Hawthorne, but she knew of him from Mary’s stories; she had seen photographs of him—and had showed them to her friend. They had both been thirteen at the time, and had agreed, with much giggling, that this young, handsome, and then unmarried American was, as her friend put it, a dish.
“How old is he?” said Gini’s friend, whose name was Rosie.
“Too old for us. He’s thirty something.”
“Great. I like older men.”
“Don’t be a moron. He won’t ever notice we’re there. Two stupid schoolgirls…”
Rosie had given her a sideways look.
“Oh, I don’t know. You look older. You look pretty good. I wish I had long blond hair. Still—you wait. When I’m introduced, I’m going to give him my look. Then I’m going to lick my lips.”
They both gurgled with laughter.
“Lick your lips? Why?”
“I read it in this magazine. You have to look them right in the eye when you do it. It drives men wild, totally crazy with lust, the magazine said.”
“Okay. I dare you.”
And, of course, that was all bravado and silliness. The actual meeting had been nothing like that. John Hawthorne was late arriving. She and Rosie grew bored with waiting. They went into the garden and played tennis on Mary’s old, cracked court. It was a very hot, sunny day, and Gini said she’d go back to the house for some lemonade. She ran across the terrace, in through the French doors at the back of the house, carrying a pink cardigan which she threw down onto a chair, and paused in the doorway, out of breath, to refasten one of the buttons on her short white tennis dress. She started across the cool of the room, and then stopped dead.
He was there. John Hawthorne was actually there. He was alone in the room—Mary must have gone to fetch tea—and he was standing, looking at her, a slight smile on his face.
He was, at that point, quite simply the most handsome man she had ever seen in her young life. Much more handsome than he appeared in photographs. Photographs might convey the color of his hair, his tan, the extraordinary sharp blue of his eyes, but they could not convey his vitality, his force. He could only have been American: He radiated a peculiarly American fitness and health. Gini stared at him, and then to her fury, started to blush. It was a habit she was trying to overcome. She had thought she had almost succeeded, but now she could feel the color sweep up from the scoop neckline of her dress, to her neck, to her face. If only he would stop staring, she thought to herself. It was that intent stare, now unsmiling, though still amused, considering, which was making her blush. At which point, when with a thirteen-year-old’s passion she was telling herself it would be better to die, right then, he held out his hand to her and spoke.
“And you must be Genevieve,” he said. “Nice to meet you, at last, Genevieve.”
He shook her hand. He looked her up and down: the scuffed tennis shoes worn with no socks; her long legs, her old mended tennis dress; her hair, tousled and damp from her exertions on the court, blond tendrils clinging to her forehead. To her total astonishment, he lifted his hand, and with one finger he pushed one of these damp curls back. He looked so deeply into her eyes that Gini told herself she was going to faint. Then he stepped back and laughed.
“Well, it was obviously some game of tennis. Did you win?”
At that moment Mary returned with the tea tray and started in on train time tables. Gini fled back to the garden, and Rosie, who was lying on the grass, flat on her back.
“Oh, my God.” Rosie sat up. “He’s there, isn’t he? I can tell from your face. Why didn’t you call me, you pig. What’s he like?”
“Devastating,” said Gini—it was that year’s word.
“What did he do?”
“Shook hands. Then he lifted this little bit of hair off my face….”
“No! Were you looking like a beetroot then? You look like one now. Quick, let’s go back….”
They went back. Rosie was impressed. She was so impressed she forgot to give him the look, or lick her lips. Like Gini, she stared at the floor and went red. They talked over this major, this significant event the whole way back to school. In the dormitory at night they boasted about the meeting shamelessly. They cut out pictures of John Hawthorne from Time, and pinned them up next to their beds. The infatuation was heady, intense. It lasted about two months, perhaps three, and then—in the ways of things—they gradually forgot this young American god, and the infatuation wore off.
So, yes, Gini could remember that meeting well, and she had no intention of describing the details of her own foolishness to anyone, least of all Pascal. Looking back at it now, she could see it for the unremarkable thing it was. Her own emotions at the time had magnified it. Once she analyzed what had happened, she could see that Hawthorne probably guessed what was going on and was amused.
He had been, in the half-hour before she and Rosie finally left, polite, considerate, urbane—and utterly on the other side of that barrier between the young and the grown-up. Mary had probably shared his amusement—Gini could recall their exchanging wry looks as she and Rosie stammered their way through blushing, inarticulate replies to Hawthorne’s questions about their school and the subjects they had been studying.
Gini sighed, and stood up. She pushed this unhelpful memory to one side and gathered up the press clippings. What she needed now was more direct testimony, she decided: an update on the Hawthornes, as seen by someone who knew them well.
It was eight-thirty. There was still time that evening. She dialed her stepmother’s number, hoping that for once Mary would be in. Mary was fighting a tough battle against the loneliness and grief of her widowhood. She saw friends, and went out, as often as she could.
Mary answered on the third ring. On hearing Gini’s voice, she gave a laugh of delight.
“Oh, it’s you, darling. How lovely. What? No—absolutely nothing. Sitting curled up on the sofa, watching that new American soap—the one that’s so bad it’s good…. I’d love to see you, darling. I’ll make us some sandwiches…. What? Half a pizza? Again? Gini, when will you learn? Wonderful, darling. Come at once….”
“I suspect,” Mary said, ushering Gini into the large untidy room that had once been her artist grandfather’s studio, “I suspect that the third wife is going to murder the second wife because they’ve both been having a huge affair with the husband’s son by his first wife….”
She moved across to the television, where the credits for the soap opera were now rolling. She switched it off.
“On the other hand,” she went on, “it could be that the son’s the real villain. He could be setting up wife number three, because although he’s been having this mad affair with her, he’s actually gay and loathes all women….”
“It sounds complicated, Mary.”
“Terribly.” Mary gave her a smile of pure delight. “Complicated tosh—just the kind I like. In the end it will all resolve itself, it always does. Then I’ll know who was really bad, and who was really good. I like to keep that clear. None of this modern muddying of the waters…Now, what will you have to drink?”
“Coffee would be fine.”
“You drink too much coffee. You eat too many take-away meals. It’s good to have a chance to feed you once in a while. You sit by the fire, and I’ll just finish making those sandwiches. Then we can sin. There’s a chocolate mousse.”
Gini smiled. She knew better than to argue, she knew better than to bother Mary in her kitchen. She sat down by the huge fire, as commanded, and looked around the familiar room with pleasure. Just to be here, as always, brought a sense of contentment, of safety. At Mary’s she could always relax.
Gini could not remember her own mother, who had died when Gini was little more than a baby. She could—just—remember the succession of nannies and friends who had been roped in by her father to look after her when she was a small child. It was not a period she liked to recall. But she could remember, with great clarity, the advent of Mary in her life.
Gini had been five, and one day Sam had arrived home with this impulsive, untidy, plain-spoken young Englishwoman. It had been a whirlwind romance—and this, he announced to Gini, was his new wife. Gini had liked Mary then; she had come to love her rapidly, for Sam was always away and it was the first time any one person had stayed long enough to be loved. She had loved, and trusted, Mary ever since.
Five years after that marriage, Mary finally decided that Sam’s infidelities, his long absences abroad, and his increasingly heavy drinking could not be tolerated any longer. She had made this clear to Sam, without rancor, and they had duly—and quite amiably under the circumstances—divorced. Gini had spent the next year in Washington; of that year, her father was abroad for nine months. A new succession of friends and nannies was left to manage—and when Mary discovered this, she had told Sam in her clear, firm way that this would not do.
Since he could not cope, Gini would go to England to live. She would attend Mary’s old school. She would live with Mary, who then, years prior to her second marriage, lived alone in reduced financial circumstances, in the country, in Kent. Sam was supposed to visit regularly, and did—for the first year. Then his good intentions slipped away; the excuses began. Mary would nag and cajole and argue, and Sam would say: “Sure, sure. Give me a break, will you? I’ll visit on my way back.”
Then he would take off, to the Middle East, or the Far East, or Afghanistan, or wherever, and sometimes he would remember to visit, and sometimes he would forget.
But Mary, always, was there. When Gini thought of her now, she felt none of the muddle and pain associated with her love for her father: Her feelings for Mary were simple and calm; they had remained so throughout the period of Mary’s second marriage, which occurred when Gini was seventeen, and they remained unaltered now, though intensified, at this time of Mary’s widowhood. For Mary she felt love, and also an absolute trust. On only one occasion in her past life had she ever kept anything from Mary: She had never told Mary what had happened to her that summer when, caught up in the confusion and striving of adolescence, she had run off to Beirut.
My one secret, Gini thought now, looking around her. She felt a little anxiety at that, but it swiftly passed. This room calmed her, even lulled her. Mary had the gift of imparting happiness, and this room was very like Mary herself.
It was attached to the side of Mary’s tall, rambling Kensington house; it was where Mary now opted to spend most of her time. It was here that she held her frequent and famous parties, with their catholic mix of guests. It was here that Mary devoured her favorite crime novels, or worked on the watercolors she liked to call her “daubs.”
The room was spacious, generous, shabby, and without pretension. It spoke of Mary’s past, of her strong affection for family and friends. Mary’s greatest quality was her loyalty, Gini thought: Warmly and undeviatingly loyal to her living friends, she was equally loyal and loving toward the dead.
The room was filled with mementos from Mary’s childhood and with her grandfather’s huge Victorian oils, her diplomat father’s books. Somehow they had been crammed in beside the magpie spoils of Mary’s own life—the Italian ceramics, the Moroccan rugs, the little rickety brass tables brought back from the Far East. Mary was an inveterate traveler with a keen eye for a bargain. “What I cannot resist,” she would sometimes wail, “is junk.” So, here, cheek by jowl with inherited Chippendale, was a terrible vase, picked up in some bazaar; here, too, was a fat pink china cat of unparalleled ugliness bought by Gini for Mary’s birthday—a long-ago birthday in Washington, D.C., when Mary and Sam were still married, and Gini, already devoted to her new English stepmother, was aged six.
Here, too, was more evidence that, for Mary, love and affection were of far greater importance than taste: a ghastly and vulgar piece of Steuben glass presented by Sam to compensate for one of his “flings,” as he called them. Here, more happily, was all the impedimenta of Mary’s second marriage: bits of fishing rods and reels, a mounted stag’s head with the date on which Sir Richard shot it engraved on a plaque beneath. Here were Richard’s books, Richard’s pipes, his chess set, all the objects he and Mary had acquired abroad on his various diplomatic postings. “Don’t they make you sad?” Gini had asked a few months after his death, and Mary had been astonished by the question.
“Sad? Of course not, darling. How could they? They bring him back.”
Gini sighed, feeling guilty. She had not done enough to help Mary through her first year of widowhood, she felt sometimes. She saw Mary as often as she could, when work did not take her away from London, but on occasion she felt that she failed Mary, nonetheless. It was as if Mary needed some comfort Gini herself could not give, as if her own ability to show love were constrained, even with Mary, to whom she had been so close for most of her life. Sometimes Gini would ask herself when she had first become wary of showing emotion. Was it since Beirut, or in Beirut, that she had become guarded—or did the damage begin much further back?
From the small kitchen beyond the studio came the rattle of plates. Impetuously, suddenly angry with herself, Gini rose to her feet. She went out to the kitchen, put her arms around Mary, and gave her a kiss. Mary returned her hug, then laughed.
“That’s a nice surprise, darling. What brought that on?”
“Nothing. I’m very fond of you. Just occasionally, I guess it’s time to remind you of that.”
“And a very good thing too. Now, you take this tray. We’ll eat by the fire, would that be nice? No, Dog, you damn well can’t have a sandwich.”
She bent and gave Dog, an ancient and malodorous Labrador, a shove. Dog, who had a winning disposition, did not budge. Once trained to the gun, and Sir Richard’s favorite gun dog, he had in latter years grown soft. Since the demise of his sister—known equally succinctly as Bitch—he had lorded it over Mary’s heart and house. He continued, now, to sit under her feet, his eyes fixed on hers with liquid adoration. Mary sniffed.
“Cupboard love,” she said to him sternly, then—as Gini could have predicted—relented at once.
“Oh, very well.” She sighed. “One digestive biscuit—and that’s it.”
Gini smiled, and carried the tray back into the studio. Mary followed, Dog paddling behind her. Pacified by the biscuit, Dog lowered himself with arthritic care onto the hearth rug, closed his eyes, and pretended to go to sleep.
Mary curled up on the sofa opposite Gini. She gave Dog a fond look. “Poor old thing. I shouldn’t weaken—he’s like me, getting old and fat.”
“Plump,” Gini corrected her, passing the sandwiches across. “And that’s good. It suits you.”
“Maybe. I’m not sure. You know, after Richard died, I said to myself—right, now I’m going to give in to all my worst tendencies. I’m going to go to bed late, stay in bed all morning, read novels, eat chocolates, stop tinting my hair, and get fat if I feel like it—” Mary paused. “Oh, and stop entertaining endless strangers, that too. Forget I was ever a diplomat’s daughter or a diplomat’s wife. From now on, I said to myself, I shall never have more than four people to dinner, and they won’t get in the door unless they’re people I really like….”
“I see.” Gini smiled. “So what went wrong?”
“Training.” Mary gave a comfortable sigh. “Habit. I found I couldn’t give it all up. And then it’s good to keep busy—and people were very kind. They kept asking me out, so I had to ask them back…. Still.” She grinned. “I kept some of my resolutions. Just look at me. White hair. A whole stone heavier. A perfect fright…”
Gini glanced across at her stepmother. The description was incorrect. True, Mary’s hair was now an uncompromising white, and she was undeniably plumper, but to Gini’s eyes Mary had, and had always had, the best and most lasting kind of beauty. Her skin was clear, her blue eyes astute, and her kindness could be read in her face.
“Not true,” Gini said dryly. “And I hope you know that.”
“Good of you to say so.” Mary reached unrepentently for another sandwich. “I lack self-discipline. Always did. I saw Lise this afternoon—I took her a box of those wonderful Belgian chocolates to cheer her up. And what happened? Lise nibbled at one, the way she does, and I scoffed five of them. Five! The shame of it! And after a huge tea, at that.”
“I expect she forgave you.” Gini poured herself some coffee. There was her opening, she thought—as easily as that. “Cheer her up?” she went on, in a casual tone. “Why was that?”
“Oh, I don’t know, darling. Lise takes these dips occasionally. She was feeling pretty low, I think. She just got back today from their country place. They’d been down there over Christmas and New Year, and apparently Lise had some bug. Flu or a vile cold. Something like that. Actually, she seemed fine. By the time I left, she’d perked up. I think the truth is, she worries about John much more than she’ll admit.”
“Worries about John?”
“Oh, you know, darling. Security. With all this current Middle Eastern business—threats to embassies and so on. She sees terrorists behind every bush. I’ve told her a thousand times, John’s perfectly safe. Everywhere he goes, he’s surrounded by these terrifying thugs…. Well, maybe I shouldn’t call them that. But they are ex-marines, most of them, average height six foot six, so they give a thuggish impression, though actually when you talk to them, they’re really very nice….”
Mary’s voice tailed away vaguely. One of Mary’s weaknesses as a witness, Gini thought, was her inherent good nature. Although no fool, Mary erred on the side of charity; in her book, most people—until conclusively proved otherwise—were “nice.”
“I’ve been reading about the Hawthornes,” Gini said, still in a casual tone. “Tonight—a huge feature on them at home. In Hello! magazine.”
“Oh, I saw that!” Mary’s face brightened. “Didn’t the children look sweet? So like John. I can remember him, you know, when he was their age. In fact, that was when I first met him—when my father was posted to Washington. Old S. S. rather courted Daddy for a bit—I forget why, but he must have thought Daddy could be useful to him, I expect. Anyway, we went to stay at their country place, you remember, I told you, overlooking the Hudson. I was about twenty and terribly impressed….” She hesitated. “No, not impressed, that’s the wrong word. Awed. It was so fearfully grand, quite terrifying. Millions of flunkeys and maids, and these tremendous formal feasts. I hadn’t been in America very long then, and back in England, well, there was still this gray postwar make-do sort of world. So I couldn’t quite believe people still lived like that. And S. S. was such a grandee, such a martinet.”
“Did you like him?”
“What, old S. S.?” Mary wrinkled her nose thoughtfully. “No. I didn’t. And neither did my father, I can remember that. He thought he wasn’t to be trusted—but then, everyone knew that. I thought he was a bully—much too used to getting his own way. And rather crude, in an odd way. I mean, he had perfect manners when he wanted, and the kind of charm that turns on and off like a tap. But he thought everyone had his price. He thought he could buy anyone and anything. Unfortunately, he was usually right. But I didn’t like that.”
“Interesting…And a martinet too?”
“Darling—and how!” Mary reached for the chocolate mousse. “The whole house was run by a stopwatch. Drinks at seven-thirty, dinner at eight everyone in place, to the second, and woe betide anyone who was late. And those poor children! So regimented, private classes in this, that, and everything. They never had a second’s peace. And then, of course, they had to excel at absolutely everything, they could never be second best…. Mmmm. This mousse is absolutely delicious. Are you sure you won’t have some?”
Gini shook her head. She leaned forward to give the now-somnolent Dog a stroke. Dog made appreciative whiffling noises. Gini straightened. She knew that Mary, once launched on the past, would need only a small prompt
“All the children?” she said. “Boys as well as girls? John too?”
“Oh, yes.” Mary frowned. “Maybe, when John’s mother was still alive, she managed to intervene—though I doubt it. But when I went there that time, she was quite recently dead. Maybe that made S. S. harsher with the children for some reason, I don’t know. But it could be very ugly. He’d cross-examine them, in front of guests, and put them down in this terrible biting way he had. The second boy, Prescott, was absolutely terrified of him. He had a very bad stammer then, and his father would make fun of him—and the poor boy, you could see he was utterly crushed. He’d stand there, scarlet in the face, physically shaking…. It was really horrible. It made me feel sick.”
“Didn’t any of them stand up to him?”
“Well, darling, they were so young—John was the eldest, of course, but he was only about ten. There was one time—” Mary broke off.
“Yes?” Gini said.
Mary’s face became troubled. “I’ll tell you, darling, but you have to promise, it’s between us. I’d never mention it to John, I expect he thinks I’ve forgotten, and if he knew I’d told anyone, he’d be terribly upset.”
“Of course. Between us…”
“Well.” Mary leaned forward and lowered her voice. “It was quite extraordinary, really. It was the third day of our visit, and old S. S. knew I rode. I think he wanted to show off a bit—he had some fine horses, very grand stables, that sort of thing. Anyway, we went out for a ride, my father and I, S. S. Hawthorne, and the two boys, Prescott and John. I knew straight away that poor Prescott hated horses. He was afraid of them—you can always tell. When we arrived at the stables, one of the grooms brought out a pony for Prescott, a sweet little mare, very quiet, and just as he was helping the boy into the saddle, S. S. Hawthorne stopped him. He told him to change the boy’s mount….” Mary frowned. “I think Prescott knew what was happening, straight away. He went white as a sheet. John said something, the groom said something, but S. S. just started shouting and blustering the way he always did, and in the end, they gave in. They saddled up this other horse—it was far too big for a six-year-old boy, and it was even giving the stable hands problems, jerking and kicking, and rolling its eyes…. Anyway, to cut a long story short, poor Prescott had to ride it, and half a mile from the house, the horse threw him. He wasn’t hurt, but he was badly shaken. He was crying, and he had a cut on his face. John had dismounted, and he was helping his brother up—and then this extraordinary thing happened, well, two extraordinary things, really. S. S. Hawthorne had dismounted by then as well. He strode across to the two boys, and I thought he was going to comfort Prescott, take him back to the house. But he didn’t. He just stood there, looking down at them, and then in this horrible voice, this really icy voice, he told Prescott to remount.”
“A six-year-old boy?”
“That’s right. I couldn’t believe my eyes. By this time Prescott’s horse was frothing and sweating. S. S. could scarcely hold it, it was almost ready to bolt. But he just stood there, looking down at Prescott, and he said: ‘Get back on the horse.’”
“And did he?”
Mary gave a sigh. “Darling, I don’t think he could have done. He was terrified, paralyzed with fear. So he just stood there, I think he was trying to say something, but he couldn’t, no words would come out. And then John did this astonishing thing….”
“He intervened?”
“More than that. He moved, so he was standing right in front of his father, with Prescott cowering behind him, and he just looked at his father with this white set face, and then he said: ‘He’s not getting back on that horse. I won’t let him. It’s not safe….’ I’m not sure quite what happened next, it was very very fast, but his father started to say something, and made some move—to push John aside, something like that. And John hit him. He hit him really hard. He was tall for his age, and he just sort of reached up with his riding crop. And hit his father, across the face, with his whip.” There was a small silence. Mary gave a shiver.
“Aged ten?” Gini said.
“Aged ten. It was quite extraordinary. So very deliberate. It wasn’t as if John had lost his temper—nothing like that. He was absolutely calm, a bit pale maybe—but his expression was almost blank. And he hit S. S. hard—there was this red weal right across his cheek.”
“So what did S. S. Hawthorne do? Hit him back?”
“No. Not at all. He just stood there, looking down at John, not saying a word, and then he started to laugh—really laugh. There was this huge eruption of laughter. He threw his head back, his whole body shook, and you could see…He wasn’t angry, or embarrassed or shocked. He was delighted. Exultant. Then he threw his arms around John in a huge bear hug, lifted him off the ground, kissed his cheeks….”
“And that was it?”
“That was it. Drama over. Prescott was reprieved, John never said a word, Daddy and I rode back to the house. Daddy was terribly terribly angry. In fact, he cut short our visit. We left that afternoon. But S. S. Hawthorne didn’t give a damn. He just boasted about how one of his children had stood up to him for once. How at least one of his sons was a true man and not a milksop. It was ghastly—in front of all the children, all the house guests. It went on right through lunch.”
Mary’s gaze met Gini’s. Her kind face had set, and her eyes were anxious, as if something were troubling her. She sighed, and shook her head. “So, there you are. A little vignette.” She made an attempt at a smile. “The home life of the Hawthornes. It explains a lot about John, I think, that incident. It shows you how brave he was even then. And sometimes, now, when I look back…” She allowed the sentence to trail away.
“Yes?” Gini prompted, but for some reason Mary chose not to be drawn.
“Oh, nothing,” she said more briskly. “Just that John isn’t an easy person to know, that’s all, not even when you’ve been friends with him as long as I have. He…still, never mind that. You didn’t come here to reminisce about the Hawthornes. I must be boring you to death.”
Mary had risen. From a cigarette box she took the one cigarette she permitted herself per day, and lit it. Something was still troubling her, Gini could tell, and she watched Mary almost physically push the thought away. She gave herself a little shake, then turned back to Gini with a smile.
“Anyway, I’d love you to meet John properly. And Lise, of course. It’s so maddening. Every time I try and get you two together, you’re out of town, or he’s out of town. I don’t suppose you’re free this Saturday, are you?”
“This Saturday? Yes, I am.”
“Well, why don’t you come over, then? It’s a dinner party and it’s Lise’s birthday too.” Mary smiled. “I thought I’d have a birthday party, a sort of mixture of duty and fun. There’re a lot of rather boring people I owe invitations to, so the actual dinner will probably be a bit grim. You know what diplomats are like. Protocol and placements. But John and Lise will be coming….” She hesitated, then her face brightened. “I know. Why don’t you join us for drinks afterward? Much more fun. All the bores will leave by then.”
“Will the Hawthornes stay on?”
“Of course.” Mary laughed. “John always stays late. Hits form at midnight. Like me.”
She broke off. The front doorbell had just rung. Mary gave an exclamation of annoyance.
“What on earth? It’s way past ten—who the devil could that be?” From the hearth rag, Dog lifted his huge head. He turned his gaze toward the door, raised his hackles, and gave a faint growl. The bell rang again. Mary glanced at Gini.
“How absurd. You know I despise myself for this, but since Richard died, I get nervous sometimes, being alone at night in such a big house. Too stupid—but Dog’s perfectly useless. All bark and no bite…”
“I’ll go.”
Gini crossed the room and went into the hall, Mary hovering behind her in the open studio doorway. She felt a second’s angry concern for her stepmother. Why had it never occurred to her that Mary could be nervous? Then she noticed that, typically, Mary’s front door was unprotected. It had a flimsy lock and an old, inefficient bolt; no chain, no peephole. Making a mental note to get that changed, she opened the door and looked out into the night.
There was an odd sound, a faint crackle, like radio static. It was raining, and the street was ill lit. She peered out into the darkness, trying to accustom her eyes to the thin light. She made out the dark gleam of a car, then a shadow moved at the foot of the steps. Light suddenly caught pale hair, the sleeve of a man’s dark overcoat, then the man swung around.
“Mary?” he said. “I thought you must be out. I brought that book you wanted. I…”
He broke off, staring at Gini. There was a brief silence, an odd, taut second in which Gini felt sure that though this visitor enacted surprise, he experienced none on seeing her. Then, as he moved toward the door and up the steps, Mary moved too, rushing forward, arms outstretched.
“John!” she said. “What a lovely surprise. This is Gini—Genevieve. You remember? Come in, come in….”
Hawthorne’s opening remark was that he would stay five minutes. He stayed ten. He had, he explained, been at meetings all evening, and had picked up his two sons from friends. His sons, he said with a wry smile, had just had their first experience of an English Christmas pantomime.
“They couldn’t make head or tail of it,” he said. “Men dressed as women, women dressed as men, dancing horses, fairies, and demons…When I picked them up, they were wildly overexcited. And now the inevitable has happened. They’re both asleep in the back of the car. No, no, they’re fine, Frank is with them, but I mustn’t stay. Lise will be waiting for us. I have to get back.”
“Well, it’s very sweet of you….” Mary was clutching her new book. “But you needn’t have bothered.”
“Nonsense. You said you couldn’t wait to read it. And these friends live right around the corner, so I thought I’d drop it off. It was no trouble at all. You have—if you’ll forgive my saying so, Mary—the most lurid taste in books.” He flicked the cover. “Murders. Serial killers on the loose. You’ll be awake half the night.”
“I know.” Mary looked guilty but unrepentant. “But I adore them. I always have. It’s very kind of you, John. Thank you very much.”
He turned back to the watching Gini with an easy smile. “How about you, Genevieve? Do you share Mary’s taste for blood and gore?”
“Not really. No.”
“Me neither. And I never seem to have the time to read anymore anyway. Not for pleasure…No, Mary, really. I mustn’t stay, much as I’d like to—and no, I won’t have a drink.”
“Just a little one?” Mary held a whiskey bottle aloft.
Hawthorne laughed. “A little one? You never poured a ‘little one’ in your life. You make the stiffest drinks I ever encountered—and I don’t dare take the risk. I really do have to get back.”
He began to move toward the door.
“Genevieve.” He took her hand briefly in a firm grip, then released it. “It’s good to see you again. One of these days, perhaps, we’ll have a chance to meet properly. Mary talks about you so much, I feel I know you already—and Lise has been longing to meet you…. What?” He swung around as Mary interjected, then smiled warmly. “This Saturday? The famous birthday gathering? Well, that would be great….”
He moved out toward the hall, Mary following him. From the studio, Gini watched them. She saw him put his arm around her stepmother’s shoulder. He made some inquiry as to Mary’s welfare, which Gini could only half catch. Mary laughed, and gave him a push.
“Of course. I’m absolutely fine,” she heard. “You fuss too much, John. It’s very good of you, but you don’t need to worry. One gets used to it—truly. I just take it one day at a time.”
They passed out of sight. In the doorway they paused, and Gini heard Hawthorne make some low-voiced remark; Mary hooted with laughter. The door opened. Gini heard Hawthorne’s feet descend the steps.
“Gini,” Mary called to her. “Gini, come and look at this. Aren’t they adorable? Look …”
Gini reached the front door just as Hawthorne climbed into the waiting black limousine. In the back, just visible next to the bulk of a large security man, were two angelic blond children, both fast asleep. Hawthorne lifted his hand; the car moved away. Gini and Mary moved back into the studio. Mary gave her a small triumphant sideways glance.
“Well,” she said. “You, Gini, made a hit.”
“I did?”
“You most certainly did. Are your ears burning?”
“No, why? What did he say?”
“Never mind, but it was complimentary.”
“I can’t think why. I hardly opened my mouth.”
“Then it can’t be what you said that impressed him,” Mary replied smartly with an arch look. She moved across the room, picked up her new book, then put it down. “So, anyway, you promise you’ll come on Saturday? Just say you will. And then I’m going to shoo you out. I need my sleep.”
“Rubbish. You just can’t wait to read that book….”
“All right.” Mary smiled. “I admit it—but just promise me you’ll come.”
“Sure. I’d love to. There’s just one thing….”
“Yes?”
“Would you mind if I brought someone with me? Just a friend from France—he’s staying in London at the moment, and…”
At this, Mary rapidly lost interest in her new book, and Gini’s heart sank. She knew what was coming next.
“A friend?” Mary, who was a very bad actress, attempted a casual tone. “Is he anyone I know?”
“I don’t think so, no. His name is Pascal Lamartine.”
“Have you known him long?”
Gini considered. She averted her gaze. She could say she had known Pascal twelve years; she could say she had known Pascal for those three weeks in Beirut. Both statements were true. She said, “No. Not really. He’s working for the News right now, that’s all—”
“Single?”
“Mary, give me a break, will you? Yes. Sort of. He’s divorced.”
Mary considered this. Her concentration, Gini saw, was now intense. “A journalist, darling? An editor, perhaps?”
“A photographer. He used to be a war photographer—a very good one. Now he’s a—well, I guess paparazzo would be the right term.”
She seized on this description with a sense of relief. She might still find it hard to think of Pascal in that way, but the term had its uses. It would surely put Mary off.
To her despair, she realized it had quite the opposite effect. Mary gave a squeak of delight. A matchmaking look came upon her features; it was a look Gini had learned to dread.
“A paparazzo!” she said. “No! How absolutely splendid. I’ve always wanted to meet one of those. Such daredevils—roaring around on motorbikes, wearing dark glasses at midnight, what was that film?”
“La Dolce Vita, Mary. Fellini. And it was motor scooters, not motorbikes….”
“Same difference! I remember it terribly well. Is he like that, your Pascal?”
“He drives a car, as far as I know,” Gini said patiently. “And he’s not ‘my’ Pascal.”
She said this with extreme firmness. Mary took no notice at all. She made a noise indicating derision, and continued her cross-examination. She was still babbling about Fellini and cameras and exciting young men on motorbikes some fifteen minutes later, when Gini finally managed her escape.
“Motorbikes,” she called after Gini, down the steps. “I’m perfectly certain it was motorbikes. I shall ask him on Saturday, your Pascal….”