‘What tests? They’re both blood group O, which was kind of a relief actually. But who runs a DNA test on their own daughter?’
‘Did Greg have any more children?’
‘None of his own. Two steps. He adores Susie and she adores him.’ She sighed a little wearily. ‘She much prefers him to me.’
I nodded. ‘So he’ll take care of her.’ For some reason I was rather glad of this. Susie had missed a larger fortune which, in my fevered mind, she had possessed for maybe two or even three minutes. It was good to feel she would never know want.
‘Oh yes. She’s safer than I’ll ever be.’
I had to ask. ‘Would you have gone on with it if I hadn’t mentioned the test?’
She thought for a moment. ‘Probably. The temptation was too great. But of course there would have been some hurdle by the end of it, so I’m glad you did. Before I got too excited.’
It was once more the hour to depart and this time I knew for certain we would not meet again. Since, even if I were back in the town, I wouldn’t look her up. But something in the story she had told had won me round a bit. I was reminded of the haunting words of Lady Caroline Lamb: ‘With all that has been said about life’s brevity, for most of us it is very, very long.’ Terry’s life had already been very long and very frustrating, with scant reward to show for it. That this had largely been her fault was no consolation, as I knew well. She had thrown away her only chance of a decent future with Greg and never replaced him with anything like an equal opportunity. Now she had lost even the child she’d invented to be with him. We kissed at the door. ‘Please don’t mention this to anyone.’ She shook her head. I had something more to say. ‘And please don’t ever tell them.’
‘Would I?’
‘I don’t know. If you got too drunk and too angry you might.’
She did not resent this, which was commendable, but she was confident in her denial. ‘I have been drunk and angry many times since we last met and I haven’t told them yet.’ This, I am sure, was true. All of it.
‘Good.’ Now I really was going. But I had a last wish before we parted. ‘Be kind to Donnie,’ I said. ‘He doesn’t sound a bad chap.’
The evening had made me sentimental in my estimation of her. I should have been more clear-sighted. The truth was, with the sole exception of her feeling towards her not-daughter, the old Terry Vitkov was quite unchanged. ‘He’s a bastard,’ she replied and shut the door.
Candida
THIRTEEN
Which only left Candida Finch.
I stayed on a few days in Los Angeles, in Beverly Hills to be precise, at the very comfortable Peninsular Hotel – a haven for the English, since it is the only one where you can actually walk out to the post office or get something to eat without having to stand and wait every time for a crisply suited ‘valet’ to fetch your car. I’d enjoyed meeting my agent who turned out to be charming, and if I did not quite follow Damian’s instructions to the letter, still we got on very well and he sent me round the town to meet a few people while I was still out there. Since I was allowed the untold luxury of first class travel back to London, I felt quite relaxed and invigorated when I got home. How strange it is, the way enough sleep and the resulting physical energy can make one feel as if one’s whole life is going well, while the lack of them has the opposite effect.
However, when I finally returned to the flat, if I was expecting to find a series of messages from Candida answering those I’d left before I went away, I was disappointed. There was nothing. Accordingly, I recorded yet another on her machine which was still not picking up, and settled down to a day or two of work on my latest novel, a tale of middle-class angst in a seaside town, which was approaching what I would hesitate to call its climax and which I had, understandably, recently neglected. It was on the morning of the following day, when I’d finally managed to get some way back into the rhythm of my troubled, marine triangle, that the telephone on my desk started to ring.
‘You called Candida Finch yesterday,’ said a female voice and, for a moment, quite illogically, I thought it must be Candida herself who was speaking. I can’t think why, since it obviously wasn’t.
‘Yes, I wondered if I could see you, which I know sounds odd.’
‘It does sound very odd, and I’m not Candida, I’m Serena.’ A thousand bags of sherbet exploded in my vitals.
‘Serena?’ Of course it was Serena. It was her voice, for God’s sake. What had I been thinking of? But why should Serena ring me? How could that have happened? I pondered the question without speaking, silently wondering, earpiece clamped to my ear.
‘Hello?’ Her voice had gone up in volume.
‘Yes.’
‘Oh, I thought you’d been cut off. It all went quiet.’
‘No, I’m still here.’
‘Good.’
I suddenly worried that I could hear in her voice a querying sound, as if she were afraid that the person she was speaking to was in fact a nutter and it might be dangerous to continue the conversation. I trembled lest she might act on this subconscious warning. All of which illustrates the fevered level of my imagination. ‘How can I help?’
‘I was talking to Candida this morning and she said she’d had a message to ring you, that you wanted to see her.’
‘She’s had more than one message from me, I’m afraid. I thought she must have emigrated.’
