Didn’t that sum up the whole world? Always the poor ones carrying the world’s scars. Agatha liked to quote William Blake: ‘Some are born to sweet delight, some are born to endless night.’ In my mind, even at that moment – lunching at Simpson’s while her husband shopped for my engagement ring – I considered Agatha the former and myself the latter.
An expression kept rising to Agatha’s face that I could see her actively pushing away. As if she wanted to say something, but couldn’t bring herself to. She had brought me to luncheon, I’m sure of it, to confront me. Perhaps to ask for mercy. But it’s easy to postpone the most unpleasant conversations, especially if confrontation is not in your nature.
To do so, and because she meant it, Agatha said, ‘What rubbish, war. Any war. It’s a terrible thing for a man to endure. If I had a son, I’d do whatever I could to keep him away from it – whatever the cause, even if England was at stake.’
‘I think I’ll do the same. If I ever have a son.’
Our meat was carved tableside and I chose a piece that was rarer than I liked. I suppose I was trying to impress Agatha. The richer the people, the bloodier they liked their steak. As I sawed into the meat the red oozing made my stomach turn.
‘Do you still think of the Irish boy?’ Agatha asked me.
‘Only every day of my life.’
‘Is that why you never married?’
Never married. As if I never would. ‘I suppose it is.’
‘Well,’ she said, ‘you’re still young. And who knows? Perhaps he’ll turn up one day, recovered.’
‘I doubt that very much.’
‘There was a time during the war that I thought Archie and I would never be able to marry. But we did and we’ve been so happy. We have, you know. Been happy.’
‘I’m sure that’s true.’ Clipped and stern. Talk of the war had steeled me. A person who has nothing might be excused for taking one thing – a husband – from a person who has everything.
The waiter returned and asked if we wanted a cheese course. We both declined. Agatha put down her fork with her meat half eaten. If her manners had been less perfect, she would have pushed her plate away. ‘I must start eating less. I’m too fat, Archie says.’
‘You look just fine,’ I said, to soothe her and because it was true. ‘You look beautiful.’
Agatha laughed, a little meanly, derision towards herself, not me, and I softened again. It gave me no pleasure to cause anyone pain. The death of her mother was dreadfully timed, too close to Archie’s leaving. I’d never planned on that. Agatha’s father had died when she was eleven, so in addition to the loss of her mother she now found herself in her family’s oldest generation at far too young an age.
We walked outside together after Agatha insisted on paying the bill. On the street she turned to me and reached out, curling her forefinger and thumb around my chin.
‘Do you have plans for this weekend, Miss O’Dea?’ Her tone insinuated she knew perfectly well what my plans were.
‘No,’ I said. ‘But I’m taking a holiday next week. At the Bellefort Hotel in Harrogate.’ Immediately, I wondered why I’d told her. I hadn’t even told Archie. But something about sharing a woman’s husband makes you feel close to her. Sometimes even closer than to him.
‘Treating yourself,’ she said, as if the concept did not appeal to her sensible nature. ‘Lovely for you.’
I was thankful she didn’t ask how I could afford such an extravagance. She let go of my chin. Her eyes held something I couldn’t quite read.
‘Well, goodbye, then,’ she said. ‘Enjoy your holiday.’
She turned and walked a few steps, paused, then walked back to me. ‘You don’t love him,’ she said. Her face had utterly changed. From contained and still to wide-eyed and tremulous. ‘It would be bad enough if you did. But since you don’t, please leave him to the person who does.’
All my edges disappeared. I felt ghostly in my refusal to respond, like I might dissipate, the pieces of me floating off and away into the air. Agatha didn’t touch me again. Instead she held my face in her gaze, examining my response – blood leaving my cheeks, the guilty refusal to move or breathe.
‘Mrs Christie.’ It was all I could manage to say. She was demanding a confession I did not have permission to make.
‘Miss O’Dea.’ Clipped, final. Returning to her usual self. Her name on my lips had prefaced a denial. My name on hers was a stern dismissal.
I stood in front of the restaurant and watched her walk away. In my memory she vanishes into a great cloud of fog but that can’t be right. It was broad daylight – crisp and clear. More likely she simply walked around a corner, or into a crowd.
I was due to return to work but instead I headed towards Archie’s office. My secretarial job no longer meant much to me as Archie covered more and more of my expenses. I knew he would be worried about my lunching with Agatha, and if he really did tell her he was leaving tonight, she might level the charge that I didn’t love him. So it was important to leave him feeling as though I did.
On my way I passed a bookshop that displayed a mountain of copies of a pink children’s book, a little teddy bear clutching the string of a balloon and flying off into the air. Winnie the Pooh. It looked so whimsical, I went in and bought a copy for Archie to give to Teddy. For a moment I considered giving it to her myself, as a Christmas gift. By then her parents might be living apart. Perhaps Teddy would spend Christmas with her father and me. Cosy, the three of us, exchanging gifts beneath a Christmas tree. Sometimes one did hear of children living with their father, after a divorce. And Archie always claimed Teddy loved him better. Though that was like Archie, wasn’t it, not only to say such a thing but also to believe it.
When I returned to Archie’s office I gave him the book to give to Teddy himself. He locked the door and drew me into his lap, unbuttoning my skirt and pulling it up around my waist.
‘It won’t be like this much longer,’ he breathed into my ear, shuddering, though I did believe he liked it like this. Didn’t all men?
I stepped off him and smoothed my skirt. My hat was still on my head, it had barely budged.
‘How did she seem?’ he asked, returning to his desk.
‘Sad.’ If she ever told him she’d confronted me, I’d deny it. ‘And worried.’
‘You mustn’t go soft on her,’ he said. ‘It’s kinder to plunge the knife quickly.’
‘I’m sure you’re right.’
I blew him a kiss and headed towards the door, hoping none of my protestations had made a dent in his resolve. My conversation with Agatha made his leaving her all the more urgent. I unlocked the latch.
‘Nan,’ Archie said, before I could step through the doorway. ‘Next time you see me I’ll be a free man.’
‘Not at all,’ I told him. ‘You’ll belong to me.’
He smiled, and I knew there was nothing for me to worry about, at least in terms of Archie breaking the news to Agatha. The man had a mission. Once he decided to do something, he did it with the coldness required of a pilot releasing bombs to cause death and havoc below. All the while sailing through the sky, untouchable.
The Disappearance
One Day Before
Thursday, 2 December 1926