Her face broke into a gentle smile and he realized, not for the first time, that she could be beautiful. “Oh, Charles, you understand how well-known I am. For me to approach somebody else, a man, a man who is…” She regarded him for a moment, pointedly. “…unattached, this is so difficult. I am too well-known here among people whose ways are not perhaps the ways of this world. Oh, there are men who have said things to me behind their hands when their wives are out of the room, propositions, Charles, but not proposals.”
She set down her cup and sat perfectly still. Resnick continued to watch, wait.
“It was a little over a year ago, I was feeling, perhaps you will recognize this, so alone I could no longer believe the sound of my own breath as it left my body. For three whole weeks I shut myself in the house; I went through piles of old letters, read diaries I had kept ever since I was a child in my country. I stared into the faces of old photographs until they almost became my own. For the last five days I did not eat, I drank nothing but water. If the telephone rang, I did not hear it.”
She reached out for his hand and he took her fingers between his own. How could she be so cold?
“One morning in the bedroom I saw a face in the glass and it frightened me. I had seen it before, faces like it after the flesh has fallen away and only the eyes seem alive, the way they are staring. You know where I have seen such faces.”
After a little time she withdrew her hand, straightened her back. “You would like more coffee?”
“Please.”
When it was poured, she continued. “The advertisement I sent, it was discreet without telling a lie. I told the truth about my age, about the kind of friend I am seeking-educated, a gentleman, ‘with fine tastes and intellectual pursuits,’ I said this.” She sighed. “Even so, of the few replies I received, you would not believe…perhaps now you would. But there was one, the only one worthy of reply; a professor at the university, Doria.” Smiling, she angled her head towards the light from the window. “A renaissance man. Truly, that is what he is.”
“So you met him?”
“Yes, but not immediately. You have to understand, I was now uncertain of what I was doing. Did I want to meet this man, no matter how charming his letters, how erudite? I felt vulnerable and I am not used to this. So for a time there was a correspondence, nothing more.”
“And he was satisfied with this?”
“Perfectly.”
“Yet you did meet him?”
“He was a clever man, he knew by now my interests. I have, he wrote, a pair of excellent tickets for the Polish National Symphony Orchestra, here in the city. Chopin, naturally. Eisner, Lutoslawski. Everyone I know is there. It is wonderful, all wonderful. Flowers are thrown on to the stage. The audience is on its feet, cheering. There are three encores. Doria-he is charming, he has brought for me a small corsage. He smiles at my friends and shakes their hands, stands a little behind me and to the side. When we walk back to our seats after the interval, he takes, for a moment, my arm. After the concert we go for supper, a few glasses of wine.” She laughed, remembering. “Vodka!”
“A success, then?”
“Ah, that depends.”
“You had found your man with fine tastes.”
“Oh, yes.”
Marian stood up and moved across the room in the direction of the piano.
“You saw him again?” Resnick asked.
“The next day, the day after that,” Marian replied, “the telephone it was ringing constantly. All the friends who had forgotten me when I had been so lonely. What a wonderful man, such a charmer, who is he, where did you meet him, you lucky woman, what a catch!” She folded her arms across her chest, switched them behind her back, fingers linked.
“The catch was this-amongst all those telephone calls, there was not one from him. Nor was there a letter. Only, the next morning there had been a card, thanking me for being such a good companion and suggesting that perhaps we might go together again, one suitable evening, to a concert.” She paused. “Evidently, no such evening has proved suitable.”
After a while Resnick asked, “You’ve had no further contact with him?”
Marian shook her head.
“And you’ve made no attempt to contact him?”
“Of course not,” she said sharply.
“Nor would you?”
“No.”
“But if he had called, you would have seen him again?”
“Yes, I think so. After all, wasn’t he, as you say, what I had been looking for?”
“Really?” Resnick asked, shifted forward in the chair.
“What do you mean?”
“All the charm, the knowledge, you thought it was real?”
“As far as I knew.”
“Sincere?”
“Certainly.”
“And yet he never wrote or phoned? Doesn’t that call all that sincerity into question?”
“Charles, he was honest with me, this man. I think so. He did not make a secret of the fact that this was the way he met women, a number of women. He liked, he said, the excitement of meeting someone for the first time, getting to know them in that way. He was not looking for something more permanent than that suggests.”
Resnick stood up. “I’m grateful, Marian. For what you’ve told me as well as the coffee.”
“You are not suspicious of him…these awful crimes?”
“I don’t think so.”
He took his overcoat from her in the hall; wound his scarf about his neck. “Did you find him attractive?”
Something seemed to pass across her face, across her mind.
“Oh, Charles, be sure of this, he is an attractive man. To women, I think so.”
“He’s good-looking?”
“He listens; he makes you think that you are important. That you matter.”
Resnick hesitated: he wanted to ask Marian if anything had taken place between them, anything sexual. She stood there, like a governess, watching him as he put on his gloves. He couldn’t ask her.
“Charles,” she said when he was out on the step, “at the end of the evening he took my hand, he kissed it, so quick I barely felt it. That was all.”
Resnick nodded, wondering if he were really blushing. “Goodbye, Marian.”
“Next time,” she said after him, “come only for the coffee.”
At the gate he raised a hand and walked quickly from sight, leaving her standing there, alongside the flag.
Twenty-Six
Rachel gulped at her tea, swore when the toast splintered apart as soon as she pressed the butter knife against it. On the shelf behind, Radio Four was moving from the weather forecast to the news headlines via a trailer for that afternoon’s play. Through the voices she could just hear Morning Concert on Radio Three coming to an end in the bathroom. Files, diary, letters to be posted. She swept the pieces of toast from the table into her hand and deposited them in the plastic bin.
“Why don’t you hang on? I’ll give you a lift.”
“Thanks, Carole, but I can’t. I promised I’d look in on the Sheppard kids first thing.”
“No problem, is there?”
“I don’t think so. But if I show my face, Grannie can have a moan at me instead of taking it out on the home-help.”
“You’ll be in tonight?”
“Not sure. But I’ll see you in the office later.”
“I’ve got a case conference all afternoon.”
“Carole, if I miss you I’ll phone.”
“Just want to make sure I don’t make too much lasagna.”
“Bye!”
There was a slam as Rachel closed the door. Her car was parked thirty yards along the road and she was about to climb into it as Chris Phillips got out of his.
Rachel thumped her bag down against the roof of the car and glared.
“Well,” Chris said, “when else do I get a chance to see you?”
“I thought that was the point.”
“Jesus! How long were we living together? One week we’re talking about moving out of the city and buying a new place together…”
“You were talking.”
“…and the next…”
“You were talking.”