Jemima Shore at the Sunny Grave Page 10

  “That piece in the paper—the woman spy in love with an Israeli—”

  “Ah, you saw that. I wondered. Premature, I’m afraid. She won’t talk to us. Too much conflict already about what she did for love.”

  “I too did it for love,” Clemency interrupted her. “You could say that I, too, gave up everything for love.” She was busy stubbing out yet another of those wretched cigarettes and she did not look at Jemima as she spoke.

  “You mean there was a man involved?” Jemima spoke tentatively. Clemency’s nervousness was not perhaps surprising under the circumstances but quite marked all the same, including this sudden out-of-the-blue request for a face-to-face interview. She had no wish to frighten her off at this stage.

  “Correct. There was a man.” Clemency pulled on her cigarette with increasing ferocity and then once again stubbed it out.

  “That didn’t come out at the trial.”

  “I didn’t want it to. I pleaded ‘Guilty’ and that was that.”

  “Is he still involved? Or rather, are you still involved with him? You were in prison a long time. Or is it over? Is it like the Love-versus-Duty question of the woman spy and the Israeli you mentioned? Is that what we might talk about on the programme?”

  Jemima realized too late that she had posed too many questions too quickly. An obstinate closed expression on Clemency Vane’s face warned her of her mistake.

  “I don’t want to say anything more at the moment. You must understand: there are problems.” And Clemency declined to explain any further, sharply and inexorably. That was all Jemima was left with—until the summons this morning.

  So there was a man involved. And this was him? Was Jemima now looking at the man for whom Clemency, product of a privileged education, showered with worldly advantages by her doting parents, clever enough to achieve university, achieve anything she wished in truth, had thrown it all away? Infatuation was a fascinating subject. One woman’s infatuation was another woman’s poison … Take this man. Very strong physically, perhaps (she hoped not to find out), certainly quite handsome … this was the man for whom a privileged English girl had wasted five years of her life. This Santangelino without even a name …

  “My name is Alberto,” he said to her with a smile—his first smile, and that might be a good sign, might it not? Once again, however, he had apparently read her thoughts—not such a good sign, that.

  “First of all you will take off all these clothes. Even the shoes now. Then we will know each other better. And perhaps we will love each other.” Alberto put both his big hands on her shoulders as though he were measuring her for something.

  “Shouldn’t we really get to know each other first?” Jemima spoke in the most reasonable tone she could muster. She must at all costs, she knew, from studying such things, humour him: she must not arouse his violence, his hostility, give him that psychological impetus he needed to transform the situation from polite parleying to physical action. It was the feeling of helplessness that was so terrible; just as she had been told so many times.

  “And perhaps we will love each other.” For God’s sake, it wasn’t the stripping off that mattered! Jemima had a beautiful body, or at least had been assured of it enough times to lack self-consciousness on the subject. She had no particular feeling about nudity and privacy either, sunbathing topless or even naked when it seemed right without giving much thought to the subject. The exposure of her body, however disagreeable the demand in this secret claustrophobic context, was not the point. But to love each other!

  How near, for example, was the hotel telephone? Looking round, she saw the telephone was on the far side of the bed. Her eye then fell on an ashtray with stubs in it. That gave her an inspiration. It was worth a try: even for a dedicated non-smoker like herself.

  “Could you let me have a cigarette first, please, then I promise—”

  Alberto hesitated. Finally he said, “I have no cigarettes.”

  Jemima gazed again at the stubs. Half-smoked. In spite of herself, she found she was trembling. And her voice shook when she spoke. She had not realized before how much she had been counting—subconsciously—on Clemency’s arrival to interrupt them, somehow save her. (Clemency Vane was after all the one person in the world who really did know where she was.)

  Jemima looked at the bathroom door. It was closed. She had not really thought about it but now the blank door had a sinister look. “What’s happening here? Is she—wait a minute—is she still here? Is this a plot?”

  Alberto smiled again. Jemima, her fear rising, decided that his smile was not after all a good sign.

  “A plot? Yes, you could call it that,” he said. “A plot to get to know you. You thought it was your plot with your silly programme about love and duty—even an intelligent woman like you, with your fine education, can be a little silly sometimes. But it was not your plot. It was our plot!”

  “Clemency knows about this!” exclaimed Jemima. “Well, she must. How else did you know I was coming? Listen, Clemency’s here. That’s what you’re saying.”

  “Don’t you understand? Clemency would do anything for me. She’s my woman. The drugs, everything, prison, that was all for me. And now she has brought you here for me. She set you up for me.

  “Clemmie told me to come here,” he went on with that strange, horrible exhilaration. “She laughed, yes, she laughed at you, for thinking that she would take part in your stupid programme.”

  He was becoming vehement again and, apparently unaware of what he was doing, tightened the grip on her arm.

  “I’m a strong man, you see, the kind of man women love—women love to support and help men like me. Clemency knew that: strong man, she said, you get to know Jemima Shore then, if you want, get to know Jemima Shore if you like, because during all those years you never knew anything really about me. And now you never will. Poor Alberto, you will never know me.”

  Alberto’s grip had loosened again, and his voice too had changed subtly as though he was imitating Clemency herself. Her abrupt, rather scornful tones. There was a silence between them.

  “You will never know me.” But it was Alberto who had said that, quoting Clemency, not Jemima. It was Alberto himself imitating Clemency.

  “She did do it all for me, didn’t she?” He was questioning Jemima now; there was something pathetic about him, despite his fierceness, and the strong hands which still held her prisoner.

  But then that temporary glimpse of something pathetic was quite gone. Alberto started to pull at Jemima’s clothes. The cream jersey dress came off quite easily, or would have done so, but the very violence of his actions hindered him, those scrubbed strong hands seemingly frustrated by his own haste.

  “I must not struggle,” thought Jemima desperately, “I must not even scream. I know what to do, I must be passive, I must endure, I must survive. Otherwise he’ll kill me.” Now she was in her silk petticoat and the man was panting horribly, sweating much more. He began to talk, gabble. “Women, you like this, this is what you really want, bitches, traitors …” He talked on, and then half-hissed, half-shouted at her, “You I’m really going to possess—”

  In spite of herself Jemima lost control. The careful passivity went. She began to struggle in Alberto’s grip, to shout at him.

  “Even if you killed me”—having raped me was the unspoken phrase, for, in spite of everything, she did not wish to pronounce the words—“even if you killed me, and especially if you killed me, you would not get to know me. You would not possess me.”

  Alberto stopped. He still held her. Now they were both sweating, panting.

  “She said that, Clemency.” But before Alberto spoke the words, Jemima knew the truth, understood suddenly and clearly what had been implicit all the time. What had been done for love. Once long ago. And once only recently.

  “Alberto,” she spoke more strongly now. “Release me. Then let me go into the bathroom.”

  “No. It’s not right.” Some of the power was waning in him, the passion.
Jemima felt it. Her own increased.

  “She’s there. Clemmie,” he added in a low voice.

  “I—I want to see her,” said Jemima.

  “There’s nothing you can do.”

  “You must let me go in there, there may be something I can do.”

  Alberto shook his head. “It’s too late,” he said.

  “Listen, for God’s sake—”

  “It’s too late. It was already too late when you arrived here.” Now the force she had felt in him was totally extinguished. She was in command. In command as Clemency Vane had once been—had been until the very end.

  “I followed her here,” he went on. “I knew she was stealing out to come and see you. I pleaded with her when I got here. I knew she wanted to get out of it, I made her frightened. She told me she found me rough—but she used to like that—she called me things like demanding after she came out of prison. She said sex didn’t interest her. She never, ever wanted to make love with me. She said I bored her.”

  Alberto began to sob convulsively.

  “Then when I pressed her more, she said she never loved me in the first place. She did it all for the cause. Yet I helped her. I protected her. She wouldn’t listen. The money was needed then, she said, so she did what she had to do. Now it was not. Santangela was safe. And she would tell the world why she did it all—not for me, but for the country, the cause.”

  He sobbed more terribly.

  “For love.” Clemency’s words came back to her. “You could say indeed that I gave up everything for love.” Dry, wry, defiant words. But for love of the cause, not the man.

  Jemima jumped up and Alberto did not even try to stop her. She pulled on her dress and he made no move to stop that either. She went into the little clean white hotel bathroom, saw the shower, the bright pristine towels on the rail, not very big towels and an unremarkable beige colour—it was that kind of hotel. All the towels were clean and untouched except one: that was the towel draped inadequately over the body lying in the bath.

  The towel left the woman’s face exposed, or perhaps Alberto had not wished to cover it. Certainly he had not closed Clemency Vane’s eyes; they stared at Jemima, sightless and bulging, above the purple discoloration of her face, the mouth and the tongue. There was no sign of what Alberto had used to strangle her—but the memory of his strong, black-haired, well-tended, well-scrubbed-afterwards, muscular hands came back to her. The hands which had held her, Jemima. And tried to know her, as in the end they had never known Clemency Vane.

  “I told you it was too late,” Alberto said from the bedroom. He had not moved. “You can go away now,” he added, in a remote voice, as though the subject no longer interested him. “I shan’t harm you. Go. It’s nothing to do with you any more.”

  Much later, about seven o’clock, back at the Megalith office, Cherry said to Jemima with that cheerfulness she maintained even towards the end of the office day, “Where were you this morning? There were quite a few calls. You left a message you were out seeing that woman, what’s-her-name, the drug-runner who did it all for love, the persistent one who kept ringing up about the new programme. But you never left me a number. Did you see her?”

  “I saw her,” said Jemima. Later she would tell Cherry, of course, as she told her everything, and later still everyone would probably know. But not just now.

  “Was there anything in it for the programme?” enquired Cherry. “She was so sure she could help us.”

  “No, after all, nothing in it for the programme.”

  “Ah well,” said Cherry comfortably. “You never really know about people, do you?”

  Jemima Shore agreed.

  “I heard it again last night. That woman wailing down by the sea.”

  Martha James was in the act of pouring herself some more coffee from the tall black thermos. As she poured, her face under its veil of streaky fair hair was hidden from Jemima Shore.

  “She sounded so unhappy. Not like a real live woman at all. I think it’s a ghost.” Martha’s tone was purely conversational: she might have been commenting on the lights of a fishing boat seen at night, the wind which had arisen at dawn (and since dropped) or just mentioning with renewed delight the even sunshine now spreading across the terrace of the Villa Elia.

  Then Jemima looked at Martha James’s hands and saw that they were shaking. The coffee which she had visualized being poured confidently into the huge blue and white pottery breakfast cup was in fact being splashed into the saucer. And on to the rough blue and white tablecloth.

  “Martha,” exclaimed Jemima with alarm, jumping up and taking the thermos from her. Then incredulously, “You’re really upset.”

  Martha James stared at her for a moment. The impression given by the long straight hair and the slim figure, clearly visible since she was wearing a pink T-shirt, cherry-coloured bikini bottom and nothing else, was of youth—athletic youth at that; the legs were firm and muscled as well as brown. But Martha, when you looked into her face, was not all that young. In fact she was not really young at all. There were fine lines, a good many of them, round her eyes, despite the tan. It was the face of a middle-aged woman. This morning she also looked quite haggard. Or frightened.

  Suddenly Martha smiled. She took the thermos back from Jemima, saying ruefully, “What a mess! Irini will murder me. Bad night, I’m afraid. And then that—crying I suppose it was. Kept me awake for hours. I kept thinking I should do something. Thus: the shaking hand of Martha James, the ruined tablecloth of our dear Irini. A cup of coffee is definitely the answer. If I can somehow get it into the cup.”

  “Have a fresh cup.” There were still a few unused ones on the long wooden table which served for all their meals on the terrace.

  “A fresh cup and a fresh start. Most appropriate to this holiday.” Martha sat down and began drinking composedly. The moment of anguish, fear or whatever it was had evidently passed. Jemima Shore decided to forget the incident: this despite her own slightly unruly curiosity—the quality after all which had made her into a leading television investigative reporter. She had, as she then believed, other more urgent matters to preoccupy her.

  Jemima Shore thought instead about the subject of fresh starts. It was, as Martha had observed, appropriate to the holiday and, for that matter, appropriate to Jemima’s own presence on the island of Corfu.

  The party now staying at the Villa Elia, situated just above a small beach beside a rocky headland, was not exactly a party in the strict sense of the word. That is to say, according to the hostess, Alice Garland, none of the guests had been known to her in advance. They were also all paying—quite heavily—for the privilege of being there in the first place. That included Jemima Shore herself (although Megalith Television, her employer, would end by picking up the tab). The important point was that she was receiving no reduction from the full rate, despite the handsome offers made by her hostess.

  “But you really needn’t pay! Not the whole amount, at least. After all, if you did make a programme about our little party venture, it would be the making of us!” Alice Garland had sounded appealingly wistful in London. But then she nearly always did sound wistful, Jemima decided. Even in her London clothes—check jacket, white silk blouse, short black skirt—Alice had the air of an elegantly dressed doll. She certainly looked too young and virginal to be running her own business, despite having a husband—somewhere—no further details given. At the Villa Elia itself, straight hair falling, she looked a positive infant. It was in fact the same kind of pretty light-and-dark hair as Martha’s and the two women were not so dissimilar in type. But Alice’s face was genuinely youthful; standing beside her, Martha looked a rather weary echo.

  Long before she reached Corfu, Jemima Shore had however appreciated that there was nothing notably childish about Alice Garland’s business methods. Alice was—justifiably of course—quite determined to make her so-called “Fresh Perspective Holidays” a success; but Jemima fancied that Alice could probably show herself quite ruthless if the
occasion offered, beneath that naïve exterior. Alice, yes. But this Alice was hardly in Wonderland. She was in business in London and Corfu, competing with a number of tour operators, not by offering cut prices—far from it—but by offering a holiday of a particular, and rather special, type.

  Fresh Perspectives, as advertised, were for those who felt themselves to be at some kind of turning-point in their lives; it might be marital, professional, spiritual or all three. Whatever its nature—with which Fresh Perspectives was not concerned—“guests” took advantage of some weeks at the Villa Elia to contemplate this turning-point. There was only one theoretical condition laid down: guests were supposed to arrive solo, spouses, live-in-lovers, companions, mere friends being none of them officially welcome.

  “And if a fresh perspective on life happens to include encountering a fresh partner at the Villa Elia?” Jemima had asked Alice.

  “Naturally it happens,” Alice had replied in her soft little-girl voice. “At least I presume it happens, human nature being what it is. We wouldn’t know of course. Most people don’t sleep in the house, only the officially elderly or infirm. People who might have some difficulty making their way to the various guest-houses scattered about the property at night. And we don’t get many of those, as you will see. But in any case one of the things which prevents the burgeoning of ‘Fresh Perspective’ romances, even in this day and age, is the fact that far more women than men seem to want to come.” Alice smiled enchantingly. “I suppose it means that far more women than men need to make a fresh start in life,” she added.

  “It may mean that,” commented Jemima drily. “Or it may simply mean that more women than men have the courage to realize it.” Was there perhaps something smug about this elfin creature, with her husband and her rapidly expanding business? You could not imagine Alice Garland herself needing to make a fresh start … but if she did, plenty of people would want to help her do it. For Alice was one of those people who had the effect, consciously or unconsciously, Jemima had yet to decide, of arousing a kind of hero-worship in those around her; or just a desire, quite simply, to be in her presence. Jemima had once or twice surprised Martha James, for example, gazing at Alice with a kind of yearning. Another of the guests, a somewhat older woman called Mrs. Vascoe, was inclined to try and engage Alice in earnest private conversation whenever possible. (Then Jemima reflected that Mrs. Vascoe, although dressed in a much older style, was probably not much older than Martha James in years.)