Scottsdale, Arizona, 13 March 1989
The postcard arrived on the same day as their twenty-first wedding anniversary. It slipped into the green mailbox, landing inside its morning-cool interior without ceremony. A silent intruder.
Twenty minutes later Lewis Bell emerged from his house. He walked across his dusty front lawn in an old Hawaiian shirt, jeans and flip-flops.
Lewis opened up the mailbox and reached inside. At first, he thought it was empty, but then his hand touched the glossy side of the postcard. He pulled it out and looked at the image on the front. He wondered if he was imagining what he saw.
A neighbour started up his growling old pickup and pulled out across the road from him, but Lewis didn’t look up. Nor did he hear the yelps of the children playing in the front yard of the house two down from him. On Lewis’s Cactus Road all sound had been pulled into a vacuum; all motion had been stilled. His universe had narrowed to what he was looking at.
It was a sea view. In the foreground of the image there was a cliff edge covered in verdant grass, which fell away to reveal seaweed-strewn rocks and a family of bathers. The aquamarine sea was capped by gentle waves, and behind it the curve of a sandy beach rose to another mossy cliff with a small white cottage atop it. In the far distance a flat-topped mountain made an indigo silhouette against a blameless blue sky. It was a view he had never forgotten, even now when his life showed no trace of who he used to be. A place lodged in a mist of nostalgia in his memory. If he was in any doubt, all he had to do was read the text beneath the photograph: ‘The Beach, Rosses Point and Ben Bulben, Co. Sligo.’
Who had sent him a postcard from Ireland?
He knew the answer of course, yet he could not quite believe it.
He turned the postcard over. His heart constricted as he read it, and the world around him shrank to the six words swimming in front of his eyes. In the distance, he could hear his wife calling to him, but he was unable to move.
Something was shifting. As if the lawn were sliding away beneath his feet; as if the world were on a tilt. His breath caught in his throat.
‘Lewis!’
Samantha’s voice eventually roused him – pulled him back with a gasp as if an icy palm had slapped his back.
He moved forward, walking back towards the house, the postcard gripped in his hand. He paused on the threshold to take one last look at the card, convince himself that it really did exist, before slipping it into his jeans pocket and stepping inside.
*
Joy Sheldon sat in her kitchen, mug of coffee steaming in front of her, the paper opened upon the table. It was her morning ritual. Ever since the kids had started school, even now they had grown up and left home, she read The Arizona Republic every day before she started the cleaning and laundry. She knew everything going on in Arizona. Who had died, what new political wrangle was going on in the state and what new housing developments had been built. She even read the adverts, fantasising about being able to apply for one of the jobs.
After she’d read the newspaper she sat at her kitchen table, watching the world spinning by outside her window, then gathered herself up. She had done this every weekday, year in year out.
Yet, since her father’s passing, her ritual was not enough to get her through the day. These past few months, she’d felt more and more restless.
In a few weeks, he would be dead one year, and still she could not quite believe she would never see him again. Her daddy alone had understood her love for nature because he had shared it, nurtured it in her. Who said that the desert was barren? Not Joy’s Arizona where, each spring, banks of golden poppies, purple chollas, desert chicory and Indian paintbrush would erupt from the gritty earth. Each time it felt unexpected and spectacular. It was an experience she had always shared with her father, the two of them setting off for hiking trips before the summer came and it got too hot to move that far south.
Joy and her daddy had shared this annual event each year of her childhood. Her mom had pretended to be happy about it, but Joy knew she’d felt left out. Yet when her dad suggested she come along too, her mom would shake her head.
‘Oh, no, Jack, you know I don’t like nature.’
Joy always found this the strangest of statements. Her mom, perfectly at ease riding a horse down the main street of Scottsdale, would never consider hiking in the Tonto National Forest with her family.
‘I’m a city girl at heart,’ she’d say, tucking Joy’s shirt into her jeans and placing a wide-brimmed hat on her head. ‘Now you stay covered up. I don’t want you getting burned. It’s bad enough that you’re covered in freckles.’
Joy’s father had died at exactly the time of year when they would have gone on their annual hike. Yet it was not just his death that bothered Joy. It was what he’d said to her the day he died. How, reeling from the shock of his words, she had suddenly understood why her mom had never really been happy with her.
Joy had no brothers or sisters. If her mom had been distracted by siblings, maybe she wouldn’t have had so many expectations for her only daughter.
‘There are plenty of opportunities for girls now,’ she used to tell Joy when she was still in school. ‘You can do whatever you want. Go to college. Have a career.’
Joy had heard that thwarted ambition in her mom’s voice. She’d been told that when her parents met her mother had been studying law in New York. She’d given it all up to be a wife and mother. Joy owed her mom a career. Yet she had struggled with books and learning. She had no inclination for the intricacies of law. She much preferred the sensory world of plants.
Her parents had saved up for her college fund since the day they’d moved to Scottsdale. Joy guessed the money was still sitting in the savings account. She had never gone to college. She had failed them. In fact, she hadn’t even finished high school, and her mother had never forgiven her. Even now, over twenty years later, she would harp on about it.
‘You could have done so much with your life,’ her mom often berated her. ‘But you had to go and fall in with that Eddie Sheldon.’
She still said her son-in-law’s name as if it left a sour taste in her mouth.
‘I didn’t fall in with him. I fell in love with him,’ Joy would reply, and her mom would look at her with disdain.
‘Oh please. You were seventeen. You didn’t know what love was. You were behaving badly. God only knows why because I never brought you up that way. You got caught out.’
‘Please, Mom, that was so long ago, can we not talk about it?’
It made Joy miserable to hear her mother go on like that. To be reminded how she’d never had any faith in her and Eddie. She’d never understood the bond that tied them together. It was stronger than love. Love was such a delicate thing, so easily crushed. She and Eddie were joined by something more robust. Joy thought of it as a sort of primal connection. That’s why she’d got pregnant the very first time they had sex. How incredible was that? And as Catholics what else were they supposed to do? They were meant to be married. Of course, they’d had their ups and their downs like any couple, but Joy couldn’t imagine her life without him.
She took a sip of her coffee, glanced back down at the paper and for once a headline leaped out at her.
‘Northern Lights Give Arizona a Rare Show’
Her father had often talked about seeing the Aurora Borealis when he was a young soldier stationed up in Alaska. He’d told her it was something she should make sure she saw one day.
‘Thanks to an unusually violent storm on the sun’s surface, people throughout Arizona are getting a rare view of the Northern Lights, colourful displays created when tiny particles from the sun strike the Earth’s upper atmosphere.’
Joy read on, her disbelief turning to excitement. How could it be possible to see the Northern Lights all this way south?
‘Astronomers say to look for a bright glow shortly after 4 a.m. in the northern sky just below the Big Dipper.’
The article went on to state that city lights would intrude on the view and recommended driving out into the desert.
Her first instinct was to pick up the phone and call Eddie.
‘I just saw in the paper that you can see the Northern Lights from Arizona!’ she told him.
‘The what?’ he asked, sounding irritated.
‘You know, the Northern Lights! You usually only see them up in the Arctic or Alaska, but for once they’re this far south. If we drive out into the desert at four in the morning, we’ll be bound to see them.’
‘Joy, I’m in the middle of something here, can we talk about it later?’
‘But can we go? It will be so special.’
‘I’m not sure, Joy. You’re talking about four in the morning. I’ve got work.’
‘But it’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity . . .’
‘Okay, we’ll see,’ he said, not sounding the least bit excited. ‘I’ve got to go, honey.’
He hung up on her and she felt like she’d been slapped in the face, despite knowing he hadn’t meant to be rude. He was just busy.
He was always working. Making money, he said, for her, for their daughter’s wedding in April, for the future. But what about now? Why did her husband never have any time for her any more?
*
All day long Lewis saw that postcard in his head. He tried to focus on the job in hand. He was typesetting a leaflet for Scottsdale library but as he laid each letter out he saw the image on the postcard. He could hear the Atlantic Ocean crashing against the western coastline, smell the salty air, almost taste it on his lips, and beneath the sound of the waves he imagined he could hear laughter bubbling with suggestion. These images and sounds were haunting him to such an extent he nearly forgot to call into The Pink Pony to book their table. Every year they went to the same restaurant on their wedding anniversary. He asked himself why he couldn’t think of taking Samantha somewhere new. He wasn’t sure whether she would be pleased or not at the change. After all this time, he still couldn’t be sure what his wife wanted.
Tonight Samantha was in a coral top that flattered her fair hair and sun-kissed skin. He could see a shade of the pretty girl he’d met all those years ago. What had happened between them had been so sudden, so fast, and yet they had stuck together all these years. They should have been proud of the achievement of their marriage, yet this anniversary meal didn’t feel like a celebration.
‘You look lovely tonight,’ Lewis said, taken by a spontaneous urge to see Samantha smile.
His wife looked up in surprise. Her expression was stern.
‘It’s a long time since you paid me a compliment, Lewis.’
Why did she always do that? Twist something that was positive into a negative? Take the joy out of a simple compliment?
He shrugged, deflated. ‘I’m just saying you look good.’
‘Well thanks,’ she said, picking at her steak.
Lewis could sense her unhappiness, but he was reluctant to ask what was wrong.
‘I’m going to Santa Fe with Jennifer at Easter, is that okay?’ Samantha asked him, pushing the rest of her food to the side of her plate and laying down her knife and fork.
‘Aren’t we spending it with your parents?’
‘You can go if you want,’ Samantha said. ‘They seem to like you more than me anyway.’
‘Come on, Sam.’ He reached out for her hand, but she pulled it away, picking up her glass of wine. She sipped it as she held his gaze. For a moment he thought she might cry, but then her expression shifted.
‘I need a break,’ she said, not a trace of emotion in her face.
Of all nights, this should be one when he made love to his wife, yet when Samantha said she was tired and off to bed Lewis didn’t stir from the couch. Instead, once she was gone, he went in search of the postcard, retrieving it from the jeans he’d discarded on the bathroom floor before they went out. He carried it back downstairs and into the kitchen. He wasn’t quite sure what to do with it. If he loved his wife, shouldn’t he throw it away? And yet he couldn’t.
The words on the back of the postcard were written in block letters, a neat black print.
EVENTUALLY THE TRUTH WILL COME OUT
Lewis read the words again, and again, until they brought him back to the morning upon which they had been said. He could almost hear her voice. He imagined her soft Irish lilt, and it took him back in time, transported him to another world altogether, when he was a different man.
He placed the card gently on the counter in front of him then looked out of the window at the star-strewn night hanging above the dark silhouette of the McDowell Mountains. He was right on the edge of the desert and its vast sky, like those words, gave him hope.
He leaned on the sink, gazing out into the Wild West. He still felt a sense of awe at being an Englishman, an outsider, in cowboy country.
He was about to pull the blinds down when he saw a shimmering red light in the desert sky. It intrigued him for the sun had long set. The red light turned into swathes of fuchsia, and bright green, moving in waves above the mountains. He’d never seen anything like it.
*
It was the darkest hour before dawn. Joy was sitting on her old Navajo blanket spread upon a rocky mound on the Papago Butte. Eddie had refused to drive out to the desert. He’d told her he was too tired and warned her not to go on her own.
‘Anyone could be lurking out there,’ he’d said.
She hadn’t told him that she went out to the desert on her own all the time, although maybe not at night.
When they’d gone to bed, she’d tried to give up on the idea. But she’d been unable to sleep. Her daddy had told her about the wonder of the Northern Lights – that she must see them. And here they were on her doorstep. She never went anywhere. It was now or never.
She’d waited until Eddie’s breathing shifted to a deep sleep and slipped out of bed. Made herself a thermos of hot coffee and crept out the house before she had a chance to change her mind.
Now, in the desert, she was not alone. There were several couples nearby, arms around each other, as they waited. A few whispers, but nothing more. There was a hush of anticipation as she looked up at the sky again. Was she imagining it, or was the dome of the night sky crackling with a kind of electricity? Shivering, she pulled the blanket tight around her shoulders and cradled her hands around her cup of coffee. She was going to sit here all night if she had to, for Joy had faith in her daddy’s words.
*
It was only when Lewis had pulled in at the side of the road and begun to climb up Papago Butte that he realised he should have woken Samantha and brought her with him. He had taken off on the spur of the moment, but surely this vision was something he should share with his wife. Would it not have been the perfect symbol for their twenty-first wedding anniversary?
But the truth was he was glad to be on his own. Samantha would know exactly what was causing this light display in the desert sky. She would take all the magic out of it with her scientific explanations, and for the moment he didn’t want to know.
He drank in all the colours in the sky. Deep shudders of purple, ecstatic pink and luminous green shot through him. It felt like a message. Things could change. The unexpected could happen. The postcard could be just the beginning.
If only he was brave enough.
Lewis kept climbing up Papago Butte, his way illuminated by the fantastical lights, his heart pounding. He felt exposed, thrilled to be doing something out of the ordinary.
*
Joy looked up and what she saw took her breath away. It was beyond anything she could have imagined. Clouds of vivid reds and purples, shot through with a mystic green, shifting high in the sky, shimmering over the distant desert.
She was aware of those around her standing up. The clicking of cameras as they tried to capture this rare Arizona moment.
Joy took a step away from the flash of cameras, bumping into someone as she did so.
‘Excuse me,’ she said, losing her balance slightly as she stumbled.
A hand reached out, caught her by the elbow and steadied her. ‘Careful – you don’t want to fall.’
It was a man’s voice. An English accent.
Something about it reassured her. He was tall, but she couldn’t make out his face in the dark.
‘This is amazing,’ he said.
‘I know,’ she whispered.
They watched in silence. She realised they were the only two not taking photographs. She wanted to tell the other people to put their cameras down. By creating that barrier between themselves and the experience of the lights, she felt they were missing it.
She glanced at the man standing beside her. He was still, as if held in a spell.
She could see his eyes now. They were filled with reflections of the Aurora. She felt a longing for her husband. If only she could share this special moment with Eddie and see stars in his eyes.
She thought of that first time Eddie had noticed her. He had been in the year above her in high school, and all the girls had a crush on him. The young Eddie had embodied everything intoxicating about the Arizona cowboy spirit: strong, lean, lithe. He was as natural on his horse as if he were born welded to it.
Eddie had never said too much, unlike the other boys who goofed around all the time. He would just watch. Lean back against the fence by the schoolyard, arms crossed, eyes blue slits and take in the rest of them. Now and again, Joy would see a girl with him, in the movie theatre or walking down Main Street, or coming out of the Sugar Bowl after sharing an ice cream. Usually it would be one of the ‘Howdy Dudette’ girls, the prettiest, most popular girls at school, and he would have his arm around her waist. He had been so sure of himself and his power over the girl. It had fascinated Joy. The way he walked, so at ease in his skin and his physicality.
And then one day, something quite remarkable had happened. She had been in the Sugar Bowl with Mary Lynn Baxter, sharing the ‘Sugar Bowl Treat Banana Split’, when Eddie had come in. He’d turned towards her – and actually looked at her.
‘Can I join you ladies?’ he’d asked.
In that instant she had been hooked. Mary Lynn had seemed to be similarly dumbstruck because neither of them had replied, both turning a deep shade of pink as they’d stared down at their half-eaten dish of ice cream.
That hour had changed Joy’s life. In the years that followed she would often ask Eddie why it was that he’d sat down with her and Mary Lynn. He would tease her that he had been after her friend and she had been his second choice, but in more serious moments Eddie had said it was because of her eyes. When he’d walked into the Sugar Bowl that day and caught her looking at him, she’d stopped him in his tracks.
‘You looked so different from the other girls. You were like Elizabeth Taylor with your black hair and pale skin. I wanted that difference.’
They had dated, and the whole of Scottsdale High had been in uproar at the news. Why was Eddie Sheldon dating little Joy Porter? She wasn’t a ‘Howdy Dudette’ gal. She couldn’t even ride a horse.
Joy had always been intimidated by the pretty girls of Scottsdale High, most of whom had their own horses. She had preferred to hang back with the less popular crowd. Mousy Mary Lynn Baxter with her thick spectacles; Rosa Fowler, the only mixed-race kid whose white father had somehow managed to get her into the high school, and Brian Delaware – not a weedy boy but an outcast because he seemed to fear horses just as much as she did.
Her parents had found it hard to understand her terror of horses. Yet right from the first day that they’d tried to put her on her mother’s mare at the age of four Joy had screamed her head off. Her mom put it down to wilfulness, but her father had tried his best to understand her terror. He would coax her gently, getting her to help him groom his own horse, and trying to help her connect with the animal, but all Joy saw when she looked into a horse’s eyes was madness – something not to be trusted.
She had wanted so much to please her parents, but no matter how hard she’d tried, she couldn’t get over her fear. In Scottsdale not to have a horse, not even to ride, was a major social disability. All those boys had cowboy souls, and they wanted western girls just like them.
Yet Eddie had wanted her, and because of that she’d even got on a horse for him. She’d been that crazy about him. He’d told her he would be right there, holding the reins and leading her, so she’d let him give her a leg-up, and she’d clambered on to Amber, a huge Arabian mare.
She hadn’t liked it. Had felt the beast shifting beneath her weight, as if it could sense her fear.
‘Can I get down now?’ she’d asked Eddie.
‘Not yet, Joy. Trust me.’
They had been up at Gainey Ranch where his dad worked. But that day there was no one else around.
‘This here is where we take those Arabian beauties through the motions,’ he’d told her as he led her round the arena.
‘Do you help your dad?’ Joy had asked him.
‘Sure do.’
She had gripped the horn of the saddle, felt the horse shifting from side to side, but it was okay. She could do it.
‘Do you want to work here when you leave school?’
‘No way. I don’t think this place can run as a ranch much longer. I’d say it’ll be turned into a development soon. I’m going to get in where the money is.’
He had looked up at her then, and she’d noticed how different he appeared from his usual cool self. He had let his guard down. His cheeks were flushed, his fair hair damp on his forehead, one big blonde curl stuck right in the middle. She had wanted to slide off the horse and kiss that curl.
‘Property. That’s what I’m going to get into,’ he had said. ‘You just watch me, baby. I am going to make it big.’
She had loved his ambition. It had thrilled her. What would life be like with a guy like this? she had wondered. They would go places together, have adventures, live the big dream. He would take her all the way to Mexico to swim in the Sea of Cortez.
‘Okay,’ he had said, stopping for a moment and handing her the reins. ‘Now you take those in your hands like so. You’re gonna try to ride Amber on your own now.’
‘Now? I can’t, Eddie.’
‘Course you can. You’re a Scottsdale girl, aren’t you?’
She had gripped the reins in shaking hands. Felt a swell of nausea inside her belly, a dizziness buzzing around her head like a swarm of flies. She had wanted to get down. But she had wanted Eddie more, and if she got off his horse he would never want to see her again. He would think she was pathetic.
‘Go on now,’ he’d said, giving the horse a slap on the rump.
Amber had started trotting, Joy bumping around on her back like a sack of potatoes, but the horse had sensed her lack of control and speeded up, and before Joy knew it she’d been cantering. Fear had soared through her. She had wanted to stop but didn’t know how. She had tried to pull on the reins but Amber had ignored her.
‘Just go with it, Joy,’ Eddie had called.
There had been a moment when Joy had felt it, that free spirit that all riders must feel at one with their horse, but it had been fleeting. Then terror had taken over as Amber moved faster and faster.
‘Pull on the reins, Joy – stop her!’ Eddie had shouted.
But Amber had known she was in charge. The horse had surged towards the edge of the arena, and too late Joy had realised that she was jumping the fence. She had screamed as she let go of the reins and fell off the horse onto the hard sand.
Eddie had scooped her up into his arms, and she had buried her face and her humiliation in his chest as he stroked her hair.
‘I’m sorry, baby, I’m sorry.’
Eddie Sheldon had apologised to her, but she had been unable to stop the tears as they leaked from her eyes.
‘I’m so stupid,’ she’d said.
‘I shouldn’t have made you do it.’ He’d stroked wisps of hair off her forehead. ‘I promise I’ll never make you ride again.’
‘Where’s Amber? Has she run off?’
‘Nope.’ Eddie had given her one of his dazzling smiles. ‘She’s right there, the minx. She was just having some fun with you.’
That night they had made love for the first time in the back of Eddie’s Plymouth. She could still remember the trembling thrill in her breast at the sensation of his fingers pushing under the waistband of her jeans, unbuttoning them. She should have stopped him. She had been raised a Catholic – they both had – and they knew they were sinning. But her vulnerability and his strength had been irresistible, and they had been unable to deny each other. She had wanted him. She had encouraged him. They’d peeled off their clothes and climbed into the back of the Plymouth, and for a while they’d just explored each other’s nakedness. She had never seen a man up close before. She’d thought she would be afraid, but instead she’d thought he was beautiful and she’d wanted to know how it would feel to have him inside her. How were they to know that one moment would change both their lives forever?
Nine months later they would be married, moving into their own little house in Scottsdale, and they would have a baby boy – Ray. Two years later their little girl Heather would arrive. She and Eddie had made a family so quickly.
‘In the blink of an eye,’ her father had said, none too happy.
Thinking of her father again reminded Joy of those last words he had said to her before he died. They felt like old stab wounds, throbbing beneath her skin. She had given her mom a whole year to talk about it, but she’d never said a word. Not in all the times they had spent together since.
Joy wasn’t going to wait any longer. Her father had only told her a little part of the truth. She needed to hear the whole story.
*
It had been one of those rare moments of familiarity with a stranger. It had happened to Lewis before on trains, or planes . . . sometimes in a bar. The sharing of an experience – an understanding that you and your unknown companion were both in your private worlds and thoughts. The woman had split her Thermos of coffee with him. It had seemed perfectly natural, as if they were old friends. But after the lights had faded away, he had said goodbye and climbed back down Papago Butte without even exchanging names.
He was home again now. He doubted Samantha had even noticed that he’d gone out in the middle of the night. He picked up the postcard from where he had left it in the kitchen and brought it out to the garage, storing it underneath the top tray of his toolbox. He was hiding it from Samantha as if it was his own secret treasure.
That very night he dreamed about Marnie. She was in her signature green coat, dark hair glossy as horse chestnuts, umbrella in hand. She was expecting rain. Yet she was walking barefoot under the midday glare through the Sonoran desert, surveying his landscape. Colour and form shifted at her command. The cacti sprouted desert blooms; the arid plains filled with banks of golden poppies. She was conducting an orchestra of vision. She was designing another new land just for them.
London, 13 April 1967, 7.15 a.m.
Lewis stood outside Marnie’s flat, ringing the bell. A few minutes later, she opened the door to him, her eyes still sleepy. She was wearing a black chiffon nightdress, and her dark brown hair was loose, tumbling around her dreamy face. But it was her plush lips that drew him across the threshold. He leaned forward, kissing them without a word and she kissed back. He put his arms around her and buried his face in her chest. She smelled of her favourite perfume, Ma Griffe.
‘What are you doing here at this hour?’
‘Don’t talk . . .’ He put his finger to her lips and continued to kiss her, pulling the straps of her nightdress down so it slid off her to the floor. He threw off his coat and walked her backward into her bedroom and onto the lopsided bed.
She was as bold as he, pulling off his clothes until they were both naked. They rolled on the bed, caressing each other until he entered her. He looked down at her. Her eyes were closed, her mouth a little open, her pink tongue pushed against her teeth. The window was unlatched, and the curtains fluttered against the bed. He could smell cherry blossom on the trees outside, and hear the patter of rain as it fell on the leaves. All of this was part of making love to Marnie. The glory of London on a spring morning, the scent of wet cherry blossom, the rainbow-filled puddles and the promise that came with a new day.
Afterwards they lay on their backs, sharing a cigarette. He watched the smoke coil above him, like steam rising from their bodies.
‘We had better get up and go to work,’ Marnie said at last, sitting up and pulling her hair into a knot on the top of her head.
Now all of sudden she was bashful as she slid off the bed, clasping her black nightie to herself, not quite hiding her nakedness completely. She tried to suppress this wildness within her, but it was her free spirit that had drawn him to her.
Lewis remembered the first day he had met Marnie. Six months ago George Miller had brought her into the design studio, introducing her as their new girl Friday.
‘What do you think, lads? Very pleasing on the eye,’ George had said as soon as Marnie had gone into the kitchen to make tea for them all. ‘Do you think she’s a modern girl, eh, Pete?’
Lewis’s colleague Pete Piper had looked embarrassed and mumbled something indistinguishable. Frankie, the Italian designer at the studio, had slapped Pete on the back. ‘Is she too much woman for you, Pete?’
But George had been wrong. Marnie had not been easily seduced, and she had been faultless at her job. The agency had never run so smoothly. Lewis had found Marnie’s cool indifference attractive. He liked a challenge. In his experience, no matter how aloof a girl might seem, there was always a chink in her armour.
Marnie’s chink had surprised Lewis. It hadn’t been flattery or gifts, like the bunches of flowers George had bought her or the chocolates Frankie had left on her desk. They were both married men, and she had no intention of responding to their constant requests for a quick drink after work.
What had turned Marnie on was, in fact, her love for art and design. Lewis had discovered all this at the Christmas party, plying her with so many gin and tonics that her ice-queen veneer had finally slipped. He had been bewitched by her as she’d talked about her dreams of being a designer herself. Had Lewis seen something in Marnie that he’d identified with? Only a few years ago it had been hard to distinguish between a commercial artist and a graphic designer, but he had sought out the new leaders in the design field. That’s why he’d pursued George Miller and persuaded him to give him a job fresh out of art school. Marnie had reminded him of his passion and drive. If she had been a man he would have felt threatened by her, but he knew her gender was against her. She had become a collaborator rather than a competitor.
After the party Marnie had let him accompany her home on the Underground. They had kissed on her doorstep, and after a moment’s hesitation Marnie had invited him in for a cup of tea. To his surprise, Marnie had showed him a series of designs she had made for the Macht shaver advertisement he had been working on. Using photomontage she had created a sleek design, alluding to the current fascination with all things space-age. He had told her how good he thought her designs were, though at the same time he had felt a little piqued. Why had this girl been gifted with such a talent?
‘Do you think I should show them to George?’ she’d asked him.
Lewis had wanted to help Marnie, but George was such a chauvinist. His boss would not have taken her work seriously no matter how good it was.
‘I think it might be better if I presented them to him for you,’ Lewis had suggested.
‘Do you mean pretend you did them?’
‘No, but maybe say that we worked on them together as a team.’
‘But we didn’t.’ And she had given him a wary look.
‘George is very old-fashioned. We’d have to build him up to the idea of having a woman designer at Studio M.’
‘Do you think they’re that good?’
‘Yes, Marnie, I do.’
He had got up onto his knees and crawled over to her, through the pictures.
‘Mind them! Careful where you’re going,’ she had said, giggling.
‘I have an idea.’ He had snaked towards her.
‘And what is that?’ Marnie had asked, letting him undo her blouse, button by button.
‘Let’s set up our own design agency.’
‘Oh yes!’ She had sat up abruptly. ‘Do you mean it?’
It had been the alcohol talking, but it had seemed like such a good idea at the time.
‘With your talent and my sales banter, we would be unstoppable.’
‘When can we do it?’ she had asked, pulling her shirt off, her breasts spilling out of her bra.
Their desire for each other had never seemed to wane. When would it end? It worried Lewis. He felt he should be playing the field, but he couldn’t help wanting only Marnie all the time.
During the first few weeks they had been together Marnie had often asked him when they were going to set up their design practice. He had tried to explain that his drunken state had made him a little premature in his enthusiasm.
‘Not yet,’ Lewis would tell her. ‘I need to get more clients. You need more design experience.’
After she had assisted him on three more campaigns, she’d begun to ask him why he couldn’t tell George about her. Could her boss really be that against female designers? Now and again they had dealt with other women in the business.
What was it that was stopping Lewis from telling his boss that she should be promoted?
Was he jealous of her talent? No, of course not. He was proud of her. So what was it?
It was to do with George Miller, he realised in the end. His whole life Lewis had trained himself to avoid conflict, and he knew broaching the subject with George would be difficult. Would the great man think less of him and his capabilities as a designer? Would Marnie rise without him – and once she was successful not want him any more?
Marnie emerged from the bathroom. Her hair was piled on top of her head, two long russet curls spiralling either side; her lips thick with gloss. She had on a sapphire shift dress, which matched her blue eyes and went beautifully with the shimmering viridian eyeshadow she was wearing. Everything about her was glowing and iridescent, as if she were a girl from the stars. Tomorrow’s Girl. She smoothed her dress down with her silver-tipped fingers. It rippled over the contours of her body like a waterfall. He grabbed her by the waist.
‘I want you,’ he said.
‘We don’t have time,’ she protested.
‘Come on, baby. We can be quick.’
He was pushing it. They were short of time as it was, but he wanted Marnie right then more than anything in the world.
Marnie twirled her silver bracelets. They looked like miniature planets orbiting each other.
‘If you give me a lift to work we might have time.’
‘You know I can’t. We agreed that we can’t arrive together.’
She took her green coat off the hook on the back of the door.
‘Well, then I had better be going. It can take over half an hour to get from South Ken to Russell Square, especially when it’s raining.’
He tugged at the sleeve of her coat.
‘Now don’t make me feel bad, will you?’
It had been Marnie who had first wanted to keep their affair a secret. She hadn’t wanted George thinking Lewis was giving her design work because they were sleeping together. She had wanted to be recognised for her own talent.
‘I could drop you at Green Park?’ he suggested.
‘And if you tell George about me today, we can drive the whole way in together tomorrow.’
There was a cheeky glint in her eye.
He watched her as she covered her lips with another smear of pale gloss.
‘Okay, darling.’ He kissed her again, tasting the synthetic lipstick, and still desiring her. ‘God, you’re gorgeous.’
She smiled at him, but there was that look in her eyes. She was stepping back from him – he could feel it.
‘I’m just a girl,’ she told him. ‘Like any other.’
‘You will never be just any girl, Marnie. You are my shining star.’
‘Oh what a charmer you are, Lewis Bell.’ She gave his face a gentle slap. ‘You don’t know how lucky you are. Just to be a man. It’s so much easier for you.’
She linked her arm in his as they went down the stairs.
Out on the street, she opened up her umbrella and they huddled beneath it. He put his arm around her, squeezed her to his side. They walked in unison, around the puddles. They could be invincible. Not a couple, yet more together than most marriages ever were.
‘Lewis, you will tell George about my design work today, won’t you?’
‘Of course I will.’
He meant every word.
‘You promise?’
Why couldn’t she trust him?
‘I have to be tactful. You know how old-fashioned George is . . .’
‘Sexist, you mean,’ she said, sounding glum.
She said nothing more for the whole ten-minute drive to Green Park. As she got out he leaned across, touched her arm.
‘Marnie?’
‘Yes.’ She turned to him.
‘I love you.’ He pulled her down and kissed her on the lips, but she was cold beneath his touch.
‘Trust me.’
‘Eventually the truth will come out, Lewis.’
She smiled yet it didn’t reach her eyes. He waited for her to tell him she loved him too, but instead she got out of the car, giving him a weak wave before stepping away.
He watched her walk across Piccadilly and down the steps into the Underground station, men turning to look at her as she went. There was no doubt about it, she was a stunning vision, her waist tiny, cinched in and belted in her green mackintosh, her russet hair like a crown upon her head. She was a jewel – something quite extraordinary in the dull London rain.