Authors: Priscilla Masters
I waited for the inevitable sparks to fly.
She shook Paul’s hand. ‘I’m Sara, Susie’s sister.’ Her wide eyes were frankly flirtatious. ‘I expect Susie’s told you lots about me.’
Paul gave me a quick, enquiring glance. We both knew I’d never mentioned my family to him. ‘Yeah,’ he said.
I offered to mix them both a drink and vanished into the kitchen. When I returned with a jug of Pimm’s, complete with cucumber, strawberry and lime slices, clinking ice cubes and three tall glasses, I could see the pair of them were as close as peas. The two blonde heads were together on the sofa and they were discussing me.
‘She was so heartbroken when Richard died. You know, Paul, I think this business venture’s been really good for her.’
‘So do—’
I clinked the glasses loudly and they both turned around. I knew they didn’t care that I had heard them.
Sara stayed till late and when Paul went to get his overnight bag from the car she launched in. ‘You know, Susie. He’s lovely. So charming.’
‘Charming if you like,’ I said. ‘But he’s not for me so leave it.’
‘Oh, Susie,’ she said disappointedly.
‘Leave it,’ I said. ‘He’s a good business partner but I don’t love him and I wouldn’t marry him if—’
I looked across to the doorway. Paul was standing in it and I knew from the disappointed expression in his eyes that he had heard all that I had said and understood all that I had not said.
Sara kissed him goodbye, hugging him far longer than was necessary and muttering something in his ear. I could guess what it was, that she’d work on me.
I went to bed as soon as my sister had left. Paul had the spare room.
I heard the Porsche roar away early the next morning. He hadn’t even said goodbye.
I thought I was beginning to reconcile myself to this new life. It was exciting and glamorous. I had my stepgrandson to visit whenever I liked at Hall o’th’Wood, an international business to run. And while we were apart I had a good business partner. It was only uncomfortable when we were physically together – which was rare. I believed that nothing could rock my new-found stability.
And then, quite suddenly and without warning, the jug was back.
I’d been in Glasgow, attending a sale, having been tipped off about some good pieces of Staffordshire in a small, provincial saleroom. While I was there one of the Scottish dealers told me about some fine ware in an
antiques shop in Aberdeen and I determined to travel up. I drove up to Glasgow on the Thursday and spent most of the morning studying lots and marking my catalogue. I was excited because none of my usual rivals had travelled so far north and I believed I would be able to buy plenty of good items. Sometimes it was well worth travelling out of area.
I was very successful at the saleroom, buying pieces – some of them very cheaply – and the exhilaration fired me to drive the extra miles to Aberdeen. I bought the lots and stayed overnight in a small bed and breakfast just north of Dundee. The next morning I arrived at Aberdeen. I found the shop easily, a lovely double-fronted place in the old town. And then I saw it. Standing on top of a poor quality mahogany bureau. My jug, looking so familiar I could have cried. I picked it up, cradled it in my hands, felt the same warm, light, soapy body.
The dealer was watching me. ‘Fabulous piece isn’t it?’
I couldn’t disagree. ‘Yes it is. Where did you get it from?’
He had a think about it. ‘It came in with a whole load of other pieces,’ he said finally. ‘It was the travelling Gypsies.’
‘I suppose you bought it for cash?’
He nodded.
‘I owned this,’ I said, ‘many years ago.’
It was only eight. It felt more like eighty.
I could have brought in the police, proved that the jug
once had belonged to me. I still had the catalogue and the bill of sale. The police would have records of its reported theft, within days of my purchase. But I did not want the delay.
I wanted it back now. So much time had been wasted.
The jug was one of the few threads I still had to bind me to Richard. I felt its smooth, warm body in my hands, closed my eyes and recalled the last time I had held it. Before so much happiness and unhappiness.
Rychard Oliver. Hys jug. I looked at Hall o’th’Wood again, so familiar now. Remembering the time when I had not known which would be his bedroom window. I knew every strut of its walls, every angle of its structure, every pane of glass in its casement windows. I turned the jug around to look at the back, studied the hanged man and knew. Matthew Grindall had portrayed himself. This was no one of the Oliver clan. Even distorted as the man’s face was, there was no sign of the straight nose, the regular features. The face was coarse – not refined. It was no one of the Oliver family. Matthew Grindall had portrayed his own death. The jug had been his confession to, and reason for, the crime he had committed. Why? In revenge for his sister’s end.
I held it up to my face and wondered, as though I could divine from its clay body, what had been its story from the time when I had last seen it in my cottage and it turning up here, eight years later, hundreds of miles away? I would never know. All I could guess at was that it had probably changed hands many times. The Gypsies
would not have held on to the piece for all those years. It was too long and they were notorious for selling swiftly, often for little profit. They depended on turnover in cash.
I asked the shop owner the price. He said I could have it for four hundred pounds and I bought it.
And now it was mine again I felt as though I had reentered the full circle of a time warp and returned to that auspicious day in 1967. I drove all the way home as though in a dream, conscious only of the driving rain, the dark, the empty loneliness of a quiet road, wanting to be at home, alone with the knowledge that my jug– Richard’s jug – our jug – the start of it all – lay carefully wrapped, in a box, on the passenger seat of my car.
It was terribly late when I arrived home, somewhere near four in the morning – that dead time of the night and I was dog-tired. I unwrapped the jug, placed it on the table, stretched out on my sofa, still in my saleroom clothes and fell asleep.
I have said before that of all the people I have ever known Paul Wernier-King had the most unfortunate sense of timing. I awoke some time late morning, aware that someone else was in the room. He was standing with his back to me, staring up at my portrait of the Tudor woman.
‘Paul?’
He turned around.
I tried to rub the sleep out of my eyes. ‘What are you
doing here?’ I sat up. ‘Has something happened? Is something wrong?’
‘No.’ He held out my bunch of keys. ‘You left these in the door. Careless girl.’
‘Paul?’
I sensed then that something was wrong. I studied his face. There was something different about it. His mouth looked firm and strong. He looked determined.
Something warned me.
Paul kept his eyes on me and knelt down on the floor. ‘Susanna,’ he said with the smallest of smiles. His eyes were fixed on me, very bright blue, with an uncertain expression in them.
‘Paul,’ I said softly. ‘What is it? Tell me.’
He paused before he spoke, choosing his words very carefully, picking them out, like fishbones. ‘I know you’ve never really been interested in me. No.’ He held up his hand to stop me speaking. ‘Don’t start saying things, Susanna. Listen. Just listen. Please. Hear me out. What do you know about me? Or about what I want? You’ve never asked one single personal thing about me because you don’t care. I understand that. It’s Richard. It was always Richard. I should have realised that back at the sale that day when I saw you kiss him.’
I opened my mouth to speak then shut it again.
‘I thought you seemed very beautiful and very loving. I wanted to be on the receiving end of that love.’
Behind him I could see the jug standing on the table, its pale shape a spectre watching over the scene.
Paul’s voice was bitter. ‘But I think– I like to think,’ he corrected, ‘that over the time we’ve been together we’ve become friends. At least that. So I’m going to tell you what I want for a change – whether you’re interested and ask me – or not.’
I watched him quietly. His hair was bright blonde – almost yellow. It had been the one of the things I had noticed on that first encounter. That and the blue of his eyes. Together with the name, had I thought about it I might have guessed at German origins but Paul was right. I never had thought about it.
‘Tacoma,’ he said, ‘is named after the city in Washington State where my great-grandfather first got work when he came over to the States last century. It’s called the City of Destiny. Apparently after he built Tacoma he said he would either call it that or Point Defiance – the park.’ He gave his lopsided grin. ‘I’m kind of glad he chose Tacoma – although sometimes Point Defiance would have seemed more apt.’
He continued. ‘I already told you my mother left when I was two and I never really had any contact with her again. She’s somewhere in Florida now, I believe.’ He licked his lips. ‘My father and I were very close. We did everything together but he died a few years back now. When I first saw you I was studying at Oxford.’ He smiled. ‘Fine Art. I fell in love with you when I first saw you. I don’t know what it was – whether it was your looks or your manner or the way you got excited over a little china rabbit. I’ve wondered lots of times what it
was but I don’t have a sensible answer. All I know is I couldn’t forget you. Every day you were in prison I thought about you. I couldn’t bear the idea of you being in that horrible place for something I never believed you did consciously. I hated Richard for what he left you to.’
I looked away.
‘I thought you an innocent. I collected the china partly as a way of keeping in touch. I visited your shop many times while you were in prison. And partly because I always planned to use my collection as a lure to bring you to Tacoma. Then you came to my house and you weren’t a fantasy figure anymore. You were someone for real. I could see you, touch you. Love you. Make love to you, Susanna,’ his face twisted, ‘as long as you thought it was Richard. But we’ve got along together for a coupla years now. We’ve built up a relationship.’
I nodded. Of sorts.
He gave one of his dry laughs. ‘This is where it gets tricky,’ he said. ‘Susanna, I live in that big place alone. I come from an old family a little like your Richard’s but now there’s only me left. I don’t want to live my life alone. I want a family. Children of my own. I want a son.’ The wide grin held a hint of sadness now. ‘Maybe even a little daughter who looks like her mother. I want that house filled with life and a future and children, not a shut-up mausoleum. I want a family, Susanna. I want you. I’m asking you to marry me.’
He rested his head on my lap and I could tell he was relieved now he had spoken.
As gently as I could, stroking the yellow hair, I told him that when I had lost Richard’s child there had been some damage. I had to tell him that his dream was simply a dream. I could never be the mother of the children he so badly wanted.
He stood up then, his face a blank and he walked out without saying another word.
I glanced up at the Tudor woman and read there a warmth and sympathy as she gazed after Paul Wernier-King. Even some pity for me. I looked across the room at the jug and then I sat and covered my face with my hands, feeling hopeless.
A month later Paul sent me a letter to say that he had married Frances Swanson.
I did wonder whether Paul would want to wind down the business now he was married. I realise now that I still saw him as someone mercurial, inconstant when he was anything but. I believed he would have other things to fill his mind– his wife, his family. But I was wrong. As 1975 melted into 1976 he rang me up and expressed the desire that we continue importing and exporting antiques in and out of the States. He also told me that Frances was pregnant. He couldn’t hide the joy in his voice and though I felt a gut-wrenching twinge of envy I was glad for him. Six months later he rang in the middle of the night and told me he had a son. ‘Paul Wernier-King the fifth,’ he said proudly. ‘I’ll be calling him Junior.’
I congratulated him.
We still spoke once or twice a week during the intervening years but I sensed he was not anxious to meet up with me again and I, I told myself, felt the same. I did not know whether his marriage to Frances was
happy. I assumed so but there were no more children and Paul never mentioned her. It was obvious that all his attention was focused on his little son whom he always referred to as ‘Junior’.
So the Seventies melted away into the greedy Eighties and the antiques trade fired up to its most profitable decade. I spent every spare moment at Hall o’th’Wood with Richard, my stepgrandson. He called me Zanna and accepted me into his life without question, as children do. We did everything together, rode horses, played tennis, swam, sailed. I batted while he bowled and bowled while he batted in cricket. I lurked around the goalpost while he was practising his goal shots. I tested him for school exams and took him to Majorca for the summers. He grew tall and strong, and each day a little more like the Richard I had been married to. I adored the boy. He was my raison d’être, the son I had so cruelly been deprived of, because I always believed that the child Richard and I had lost had been a son.
He was a pupil at the same public school that Richard had attended and Michael after him and held strong to the family traditions.
In 1985 antiques hit the world headlines when the contents of a Dutch East India Company ship called the Geldermalsen, laden with Chinese porcelain, was rescued from the bottom of the South China Seas by a diver named Michael Hatcher. The contents were put up for sale by Christies in Amsterdam. Known as the
Nanking Cargo the sale attracted worldwide interest.
Like many others I was curious and excited by the story of adventure and determined to attend the sale. To my surprise Paul decided he would come too. We had fallen behind with some of the bookwork and it needed a face-to-face meeting. I had not seen him since his visit to my cottage and I was curious to see how he looked.
He was waiting for me on the tarmac as I flew in. I saw him as the plane taxied in and was surprised at how much I had forgotten about him, the bright hair, that awkward grin. I wondered if his son had it too. He was wearing a long, tan, leather coat and looked different – not the Paul I had last seen at my cottage.
He watched me descend the aeroplane steps. ‘So,’ he said. ‘Finally. Susanna.’ He kissed my cheek then drew back and studied my face. ‘You look well,’ he said. He nodded his head in agreement with himself. ‘You look very good.’
‘I am well.’
He searched my face with those well-remembered, determined eyes. ‘Happy too?’
It was an uncomfortable question but I looked away and said yes, that I was happy enough and asked him if he was. His reply was equally unconvincing. We took a cab to the hotel. Our rooms were on the same floor and we arranged to meet for dinner.
Paul was every inch a proud family man. Over dinner he showed me pictures of ‘Junior’, a confident young lad with Paul’s yellow hair and toothy grin. I noticed
too that he was wearing braces. I asked him how Frances was and he answered very briefly that she was ‘OK’. He was not anxious to enlarge and I did not pry. It was his personal life while I was simply a business partner but I did wonder why they had had only the one child. Perhaps it was enough for Paul – to have an heir.
It was like the old days. We spent hours that evening sorting out the paperwork and took a brandy nightcap together, arranging to meet in the morning and view the sale.
It was fantastic to see the contents of the Nanking ship laid out. Fabulous Chinese porcelain. Acres of it. Eighteenth century. Some pieces were badly damaged but incredibly much of it was perfect, some even encrusted with shells and barnacles. Paul couldn’t hide his enthusiasm and bought three or four pieces for his own collection. ‘With all this publicity,’ he pointed out sensibly, ‘it’ll fetch too much money. We won’t be able to sell it at a profit but there’s no reason why I should miss out.’
I admired his reasoning. He was right on both points.
I bought a barnacle-encrusted plate. Like Paul I would add it to my collection. And now the sale was over there was no need to tarry. My flight was early the following evening. He came with me to the airport. He was flying later on that day. I sensed he was reluctant to say goodbye to me. He gave a great sigh, put his arms around me and spoke. ‘I wish things had been different,’
he said quietly. ‘I wish—’ This time it was I who shushed him with a finger on his lips.
‘It couldn’t ever have been different, Paul,’ I said. ‘It is all written in our destiny.’ I tried to make a joke of it. ‘Tacoma,’ I said. ‘City of Destiny.’
‘Destiny can be very cruel,’ he replied.
I believe then that he wished he had never seen me at the duke’s country sale.
I flew back to England in pensive mood.
So we settled back into our ruts. Paul and I continued to speak but we did not meet again.
Then in the autumn of 1986 I received word that my aunt was ill and flew to the Casa Rosada at once, dropping everything.
The minute I saw her I knew she was dying. The fact that she was lying in her bed when she had always had so much energy, the waxen sheen on her face, the way her eyes had lost their brightness. And I knew that she was disappointed in her life. The fame that had promised so much had somehow cruelly eluded her. She had received accolades but never real recognition.
She was having difficulty breathing and the skinny, brown hands clutched at the bedclothes. ‘I feel cold,’ she said so I lit a fire. Houses in Majorca are not geared up with central heating and the Casa Rosada was no exception. It had one huge log fire to keep the entire place warm. When we had been children Sara and I had loved this. We would sit round it with my aunt and tell stories while listening to the wind howling around the
lonely house. We would feel safe and secure and the sun would soon be out to warm us again. It was never really cold like an English winter.
I stayed with my aunt night and day, sleeping in a chair so she could stretch out and touch me at any time. On the second day she rallied a little and talked for most of the daylight hours. ‘Susie,’ she said, ‘I’ve left you the house. Sara gets most of the rest but I want you to keep the Casa Rosada. It’s your home.’
I nodded and she fell asleep.
A little later she started again. ‘Susie,’ she said. ‘You should marry again. You’re not old. You have a great capacity to love. I wished you had had your own children.’
‘Richard is like my own son.’
‘He’s not your son,’ she said cruelly. ‘You’re still pursuing the wrong path.’ Then she turned her face to the wall. ‘But you won’t listen to me.’
I remember wondering then how she could make such a distinction when she had brought us up as her own.
‘I don’t want to marry,’ I said. ‘My destiny is written up there, Eleanor, in the clouds and the stars. How can I escape? I didn’t pursue all that has happened to me. It has simply happened.’
‘Maybe,’ she said wearily. ‘I’m too tired to discuss this now. You’ll know all one day.’
I kissed her then and bathed her face. ‘Will I?’ I asked. ‘Will I? Will it all come clear and straight?’
She didn’t answer. She had slipped into unconsciousness and died late that afternoon.
It was when the storms hit the sunshine isle. For three days the wind howled and the seas lashed the coast. At times I almost wondered if the house itself would be hurled from the cliffs and thrown into the Mediterranean. On the third day we buried my aunt. Sara and I followed the coffin, hearing the church bell toll and I felt alone. More alone than ever before in my entire life. Now I had no one except my sister and Richard’s family.
Sara didn’t stay but returned to the UK straight after the funeral while I remained at the Casa Rosada, saying I wanted to pack up my aunt’s belongings.
It wasn’t true. The real reason was that I wanted to grieve alone and to ponder her final words to me.
She was everywhere in that house. There were paint daubs all over the place. Her pictures hung on every wall, her belongings in every cupboard and drawer. I found I didn’t want to pack her things up but leave them out to pretend to myself that she was still with me. And the storms continued to lash around the house.
Late on the third night after the funeral I had lit a fire of pine logs, bathed and wrapped myself up in a towel. As I passed the mirror I caught sight of myself. Instead of moving on I moved closer and studied my face, trying to read the destiny prepared for me but only succeeding in seeing myself in a different way.
I was forty-six years old. I did not look old or fat or wrinkled. My hair was still thick and dark but what held
my gaze was a terrible void behind the eyes. A desperation. It had been there ever since Richard had died. I had lost the light, the sparkle and, I believed, the capacity to love. Not to love a child. I loved Richard’s grandson but to love a man, to feel a man wrapped around me, holding me, kissing me, inside me. I would not feel that again. I backed away from the mirror. I did not like what I had seen.
So I sat, my arms wrapped around my knees, staring into the flames. In a log fire you can read all sorts of things. Demons and fairies, houses and lives. It hissed and spat at me and I continued to stare.
I did not hear the knocking at first. The storm was too fierce and noisy. He told me later that he had been knocking for many minutes. But I did hear his voice calling me impatiently. ‘Susanna, let me in, will you?’
I opened the door to the rainstorm.
Paul was standing there, an inadequate windcheater held over his head. He was getting soaked. Rain poured down his face. I knew then that I wanted him. Physically. I flung myself at him, wanting human contact, wanting something from him.
At first he did nothing but stood still, the rain streaming down his face, his hair, his clothes getting wetter by the minute. He held his arms stiffly away from me. ‘Hey,’ he protested gently. ‘Hey, Susanna.’
I stepped back. ‘What are you doing here, Paul?’
‘At the moment? Getting wet,’ he said, laughing and pulling me to him. Now we were both wet. ‘I heard
about your aunt and…well let’s just say I didn’t want you to be alone. Not here. I’m sorry I missed her funeral. Now can I come in out of the rain?’
I laughed and led him inside to the fire.
And now I had broken that taboo I could not let him go. I remember I asked innumerable irrelevant questions, how had he known about my aunt, how had he known where to find me. The answers were all the same. I had always suspected that he and Sara would become allies and now he confessed all. They had kept in touch.
About Frances I said nothing but pushed her out of my mind. I enjoyed the feel of him too much, stroking my breasts, touching my mouth with his fingers, his lips, exploring my body. His hands fumbled under the towel and then he stopped. ‘Are you sure about this?’
‘Never so sure about anything,’ I said.
We spent an entire week together, hardly leaving the house – or each other. I have never known such an intensity of emotion or need. As I had once been greedy for Richard now I was greedy for Paul and this rediscovered physical lust. Like a teenager freshly in love I clung to him as though he was my oxygen, my life, my colour, my love. My pleasure. And Paul? He was happy as I had never seen him. He hummed tunes around the house, cooked simple meals. We rang Carmina and she dropped provisions off every other day. We saw no one else in that entire time. We were
sealed off from the world. Alone. The island turned warm and we ate on the balcony, eating sardines, drinking Rioja, watching the stars by night and the sun by day. It was a quiet pool of pure indulgent hedonism. I had forgotten how good it felt to know that your body is being enjoyed.
But happiness does not last.
Eight days after he had arrived I awoke and stretched out my hand, expecting to feel Paul but there was a cold, empty patch. Sleepily I opened my eyes and saw him standing naked, his back to me, staring out of the window. I watched him with a feeling of dread.
He must have sensed that I was awake because he came back towards the bed, bent down and kissed me. ‘I have to go back,’ he said gently. ‘There are things I have to sort out.’
I sat up. ‘What things?’ I knew once this spell was broken it could never be reworked.
Halcyon days are like that. They can never be recaptured and I had loved these past days too much.
He kissed me again and stared into my eyes. ‘I have to divorce Frances,’ he said.
I was appalled. ‘Divorce Frances? Why? What’s she done?’
He lay down beside me, his hands underneath his head, staring up at the ceiling. He still looked cheery. ‘It’s what I want to do.’ He raised himself up on his elbow. ‘We can be married, have Junior along with us.’
I did not answer and he must have sensed that I did not approve.
‘Susanna,’ he said. ‘Our marriage was a sham. You can’t think I ever loved her? After you?’ The wide grin was back. He was more sure of himself now. He sat up, explaining patiently as though to a child. ‘You couldn’t have children. It was the only way.’
There was a candid innocence behind his eyes and I saw that his feelings for me could not die. Perhaps that makes subsequent events even more cruel. Or perhaps it was part of destiny still laughing at me and him.