Secrets of the Heart

10

The reception was being held in a house in a renovated Queen Anne terrace close to the Houses of Parliament. It was, Julian informed Agnes, a contact party arranged by the lobbyists Portcullis employed to persuade key people that a project for a riverside development outside Peterborough was viable. A minister had promised to appear.

‘But you’re the host, then,’ she exclaimed. ‘And I’ve made you late.’

‘Yes, I suppose you have.’ He was unfazed by his dereliction of duty and she was impressed by his good humour. ‘But not too late.’

‘You should have told me.’ Agnes got smartly out of the car.

He tucked his arm under hers. ‘Yes, I suppose I should, but don’t worry, not too many people will have turned up yet. They come late and leave early, and the trick is to drink and talk as much as possible.’

But by the time Agnes and Julian had ascended the stairs to the beautifully proportioned room, a couple of the minister’s juniors were already tackling the champagne with an expression that suggested that no vintage could or would ever influence their judgement.

Agnes’s spirits rose even higher. The party looked interesting and might yield some subjects for Bel and her, the surroundings were lovely and there was dinner to look forward to afterwards. She ran her hand over the material of her dress and felt the satisfactory concave curve of her waist. Sometimes, things did fall into place and it was possible to move on from mistakes. It was important, therefore, never to give up hope, or to lose grace and desire, and to try to build on what had gone before.

‘Let me introduce Chantal.’ Julian guided a chic-looking girl in a short skirt into Agnes’s orbit. She was looking up adoringly at Julian. ‘Chantal works for the lobbyists in the Brussels office and keeps us informed as to what is going on there. Chantal, you might have seen some of Agnes’s television work.’

Chantal’s expression adjusted into professional interest. ‘I’m afraid not.’ She smiled with wide, knowing eyes at Agnes. ‘By the way, how’s Kitty?’ She floated the question past Agnes to Julian.

Kitty?

His answer was instantaneous. ‘She’s fine. She’s coming up in a couple of weeks. She sends her regards. Agnes, there are people I must talk to.’ He moved away and was immediately buttonholed by two well-known politicians.

Chantal’s attention did not waver as she explained to Agnes that her company’s role was to make sure that the right politicians received the briefing papers and to arrange site visits. Then they discussed the art of manipulating vested interests, which, they agreed politely, was one of the main functions of politics. Chantal’s gaze slithered between Agnes and the figure of Julian, now surrounded by a circle of businessmen and politicians at the other end of the room.

Who is Kitty?

A chill made free with Agnes’s bare arms and exposed spine. Gradually, the wonderful excited feeling drained away. No doubt Kitty was his wife, and she told herself wearily that she should have known, should have asked a few questions and, furthermore, she was a fool to be lured into an arena where it was plain that she was not the wife.

She looked around at the smart, hustling gathering and felt the beat of their indifference and the weight of greed. Chantal was talking smoothly about the possible release of tied agricultural buildings on to the housing market, and Agnes remembered Andrew Kelsey. She felt her anger stir for him too.

When Julian reappeared at her elbow after a tête-à-tête with the minister and the party was breaking up, she said, ‘I’m sorry but I’m very tired. I’ll think I’ll go straight home.’

The excuse was transparent but he said at once, ‘Of course.’

After a silent ride, the car drew up at the flat. ‘You seem angry,’ he said. ‘Did someone offend you? If they did, I’m sorry. But I thought you might be interested in the set-up.’

It was as if all their conversations had never happened and a curious formality had taken over. ‘I was,’ she replied, ‘and you’ve been very kind.’

He pressed his hand briefly against his eyes. ‘Actually, I’m tired too, so I’ll say goodnight.’

The gesture touched her and slipped past her defences. Anyway, she wanted to know who Kitty was. To be told, perhaps, that she was his sister. She wanted to smooth things over and go back to the beginning of the evening. ‘Would you like to come in and have some scrambled eggs? I think Bel is out.’

He leaned back in the car seat. ‘Do you mean it?’

‘I mean it.’

He hesitated and she was terrified that he was listening to the voice of common sense. Then he said he would like that – if she wasn’t too tired to crack an egg, and Agnes laughed and replied that her cooking was terrible, whatever her state, and the atmosphere suddenly changed.

He sat on the sofa with a glass of wine and watched her whisk in and out of the kitchen. ‘There was another reason I asked you out.’

‘Yes…’ Agnes pushed some eating implements at him. ‘Would you mind putting these on the table while I go and find a cardigan?’

‘You sent me the letters and, like you, I became rather hooked and I got Angela to do a bit of digging. I know it’s a coincidence that I’ve been reading up about the SOE but there is some basis for thinking that my theory might hold water.’

He pulled a folded piece of paper out of his pocket and, while Agnes made the salad, he read out to her, ‘“The records show that in July 1942 the first women SOE agents went into France. They would have trained for at least six months previously.” So Jack’s first letter in January 1942 would fit.’ He glanced down at his notes. ‘“They trained in various places including a manor near Guildford, Arisaig in Scotland and Beaulieu.”’

Agnes put the food on the table and while they ate, pushing bits of information back and forth, a shared story began to take shape as to where Mary might have trained and been infiltrated. ‘Don’t you think she would have confided in him?’ The eggs were heavy and leathery and Agnes’s hunger was quickly satisfied. She put down her knife and fork.

‘Not necessarily. It’s possible that she wanted to leave Jack and used the war to escape.’

Julian and Agnes looked at each other across the table. Why not consider Julian’s theory? thought Agnes. It was safe and containable. ‘But even in war don’t you have to trust?’

‘It depends. I can think of lots of cases where you love someone very much but don’t tell them everything for good reasons.’

She refilled the glasses, watching the red swirl of liquid until it settled. ‘Are you being nice to me for me or my house?’

‘Guess.’ Julian cut into an apple from the fruit bowl. ‘Why are you being nice to me when, clearly, somebody has told you something at the party?’

‘Guess.’

They stared at each other. Then he leaned over and kissed her.

‘Who is Kitty?’ she murmured, through a welter of sensation, which ceased abruptly as he stopped kissing her, sat back, ran his fingers through his hair. I know that gesture already, she thought.

She pressed the point. ‘I think I should know, don’t you?’

All the ease and humour had fled from his expression. In their place was a frozen, at-bay look. Oh, God, she thought, not again. Not again.

‘Would you mind if I told you about Kitty another time?’

A familiar angry, hopeless feeling took possession of Agnes. ‘Yes, I do mind,’ she said. ‘I don’t know what you’re trying to do, but if you have something to tell me about Kitty, then you must do so now’

There was a swish and hum of traffic on the wet streets outside, and the murmur of conversation, the click of car doors and clattering feet.

‘Julian, who is Kitty?’ He frowned but she persisted. ‘Why can’t you say who she is?’

He looked straight into Agnes’s eyes and replied, ‘Kitty and I have had an arrangement for a long time. We meet mostly at weekends.’

She was conscious of relief, as sharp and unmistakable as a mouthful of lemon juice. He was not married.

Saturday.

Very early in the morning, Kitty had slipped through the white mist shrouding the path to Cliff House. Now and again, her feet fought for anchorage on the drenched grass, and she blundered in the obscuring mist. The sea murmured quietly and the shrieks of the gulls tore out of the shrouded sky. As she slipped and slid along the narrow, stony path, she told herself that everything was quite normal. Absolutely normal.

Kitty let herself into Cliff House, via the conservatory, stopping to plump up the Wedgwood blue cushions on the white wicker chairs. She tiptoed silently into the house and halted by the open door of Julian’s study. He kept his fossils in here – extinct sea animals with obscure names. Dull, implacable things.

She glided into the room to check them and stopped by the desk where a file lay open. On top of it was a list in Julian’s handwriting. ‘Virginia Marie, Claude, Katrine.’ Kitty stared and a hand gripped her heart coldly. Virginia? Katrine?

She pushed aside Julian’s list and bent over to read what was in the file. ‘The enemy is now me…’

Oh, yes, it is, she thought. The enemy is me: my rotten, ageing body. She leafed further through the pages. ‘5 June 1942. My Darling. I am worried. I can’t help feeling that you are exposed to danger, your white, slender body hungry or damaged… Remember you promised to return.’

Kitty sat down heavily in the desk chair. Tears began to flow down her cheeks and she let them drip down to her chin.

A hand descended on to her shoulder, causing her to rear up in fright. ‘And what the hell do you think you are doing?’ asked Julian.

She looked up at him, wet eyes meeting antagonistic ones, and faltered, ‘Reading these letters. What does it look like?’

He sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. ‘You’re snooping, Kitty.’

She sobbed. ‘I know, I know.’

Julian had woken suddenly, choked by a dream. He had been walking along the beach. His feet dug into sand so hot that it burnt his soles. Arms wide, he swung round to savour the heat and then, suddenly, he was in deep water, fighting for breath. Below his blurring vision lay rocks and sands and a world of undulating seaweed.

He lay and reflected on his dream. Its imagery and significance were embarrassingly obvious. He was in deep water.

Not now.

He turned and punched the pillow. On that Friday morning a journalist from the Guardian had rung to check whether the rumours that Portcullis’s disappointing margin of return on the Hastings and Bournemouth project had been correct. Julian had been able to put him right – after a fashion. But it was a straw in the wind.

It was no good becoming involved with Agnes Campion at this precise moment. Why, therefore, had he asked before he left Agnes’s flat that night if he might see her again? That she had refused meant nothing. He had asked a second time and she repeated that she could not see him again until they had sorted out the subject of Kitty. It had not occurred to Julian that Agnes might be a woman of scruple.

Kitty? Kitty was the thorn buried in Julian’s flesh that, every so often, drove itself in deeper. It was a reminder, a penance… an anchor. How could he explain the position to a pair of puzzled grey eyes?

He said goodnight and left the flat.

The sound of feet padding softly in the kitchen broke his reverie. Kitty.

He heard the sound of stifled sobbing.

Agnes knew perfectly well that she had been obsessed by Madeleine. Madeleine the virtuous mother, Agnes the outcast sinner. Madeleine was dazzlingly soft and seductive, full-bodied, fragrant and powerful. Agnes placed her in a frame and arranged the objects of married life around the figure of the suffering wife.

The three elfin-faced daughters in smocked floral frocks and white socks. The appartement in the rue Jacob, painted a fashionable grey-white. The china, the glassware, the books.

But even all these considerations, and the domestic details, begged from the reluctant Pierre, had not stopped Agnes continuing the affair, and she had learned the lesson of the selfish power and persuasion of passion.

Yet Madeleine had triumphed. In their bed, she lay beside Pierre, and it was Agnes who grew bitterly jealous of the rightful wife. Equally, Agnes understood the other woman’s grief and her desire to make Agnes pay for her trespass. In that Madeleine had succeeded superbly, for Agnes suffered as she had never before, her guilt ensuring that it was sharper, more intense and more damaging than perhaps was necessary.

Perhaps Madeleine had banked on that too.

The pattern must not be repeated; nor should she get back on the treadmill of hope and self-disgust. Yet the terrible thing was that the moment Julian had confessed about Kitty, Agnes’s emotions slipped into a higher gear. She had fallen in love.