Or an even richer man afterwards.
I’ve since sold Aggie’s Playboy shares (I wouldn’t touch the Hefner empire with a barge pole). I’ve decided to keep her three strip clubs, though.
They are doing rather well.
Profitable, as they say.
Especially the one called Dante’s Inferno, in Moscow. Her fortieth-birthday present to herself. Even if the Inferno’s profits are a little dented by monthly payouts to the chief of the Moscow police. The mustached man is most photogenic and agile for his age. But his motto seems to be “We serve to extort.” Innocent little Anna May thus remains the de facto employer of fifty-four pole dancers and twenty-three male strippers, including five Channing Tatum look-alikes.
Yet it’s amazing how the past can come back with a vengeance. Even on a blinding white beach in Bora-Bora. Sinuous coconut palms swaying around me in the breeze, crystalline waves lapping yards away from my toes. The farthest-away place I could think of when I bought my plane ticket. I read about him in the Wall Street Journal yesterday. The man with the shaggy Labradoodle left a newspaper on the beach before taking a dinghy back to his yacht. I picked up the newspaper only to be greeted by a small headline at the bottom:
AUTHOR TO PUBLISH ACCOUNT OF HIS TIME IN BELMARSH
He is now working in the prison library. One of the choicest jobs in the facility, it seems. He hopes to publish his musings soon. Perhaps even a short-story collection. Scintillating tales of crime and punishment. Harvested from fellow inmates over endless baked-bean lunches. A model prisoner thus far. This is why he is likely to get early parole. May even be released after four years.
Bloody hell.
It’s incredible how one’s literary career can continue to flourish. When one’s political aspirations have been shattered. When one ends up in a high-security prison for the crime of manslaughter.
But then again, that man always did have a way with words. Words tend to prevail, whether you like it or not.
The article also says that he has been granted extra visits from friends and family each week. His dutiful Mono wife has apparently been visiting him every other day, bringing him books, socks, and knitted sweaters.
Why hasn’t that woman divorced him? After everything he’s done? After finding out that he not only had a mistress but also managed—supposedly—to drown her in the Cam? And why hasn’t he left her? He must be crazy to stay with a stupid Mono, especially one who killed his daughter. I don’t get it. I don’t fucking get it. I’ve long given up scouring the newspapers for reports of their divorce. I’m tired of waiting for something that isn’t going to happen. They surely don’t care about each other. Or do they?
This is bloody unsatisfactory. Deeply annoying. I’m itching to throw something at the man atop the giant inflatable swan.
The final lines in the Wall Street Journal article are particularly galling: “Mr. and Mrs. Evans have just renewed their marriage vows in the chapel of Belmarsh prison. Their spokesman, Rowan Redford, says that ‘Claire Evans is looking forward to her husband’s early parole.’”
I’m tempted to go back to Britain. Finish him off properly. Finish off their marriage, too. Just to make my point. The bit about early parole bothers me. That won’t do at all. The man deserves a slow, inexorable end in prison. Or seventeen gloomy years of confinement, at the very least.
Not four.
But that’s altogether a different story.
A future mission.
In the meantime, I’ll sit here and order a better pi?a colada and chuckle at the shiny diamond on my little finger (because revenge is brilliant and easily attainable, even if love is not). Maybe move on to a triple shot of vodka. And I might just smile at that hot lifeguard in the pink-hibiscus shorts. Even though he must be a stupid Mono.
I’ll take my pleasures as they come.
Because I remember them.
Epilogue
A man walks into a kitchen. He has been away from it for four years. His heart is full, shot through with the happiness of homecoming. He takes in a deep breath, savoring the piquant smell of rabbit and bay leaves wafting from a pot on the stove. His wife smiles as he hands her a bouquet of pink and white roses. Her lavender eyes are soft and affectionate; quiet elation shimmers in their depths. She has waited for his return for just as long.
He notices that there aren’t any gray containers of antidepressants on the kitchen counter. There are only two items there. The first is her iDiary. She tells him that it is packed with words and descriptions. Everything she can possibly write down each day. She is careful not to forget.
He nods. He understands what she means. After all, he’s trying to do the same thing himself, though it isn’t easy. Yet he also knows that few things in life are straightforward. This is why they must hold on to what they have shared, both the beautiful and the tragic, because the past will eventually make them whole again. Because the pain embedded in the past makes them who they are. Helps them understand where they have come from. Where they are in the present. Where they hope to be.
Because memory is everything.
The second item is yesterday’s copy of the Times. His eyes settle on it, taking in the large photo of a beaming blond woman on the front page. The accompanying headline reads: MONO FINALLY WINS ￡30,000 SHORT-STORY COMPETITION WITH DAZZLING TALE OF DOMESTIC LOSS AND ATONEMENT.
His eyes widen.
I never knew, he says, reaching for her hand. I’ve been so stupid and blind. To what was in front of me all along. To who was in front of me.
We both were blind, she says. But we no longer are.
What’s the story about? he asks.
It’s simple, she says. It’s a bittersweet tale about love and redemption. It is always about love in the end. Because love makes us try harder. Because love makes us want to remember.
Acknowledgments
I’m extremely lucky to have an incredible team of agents and editors at my side. Special thanks to my brilliant agents Jonny Geller and Alexandra Machinist for championing this project and taking it beyond my wildest dreams. It has been a real privilege to work with Alex Clarke and Josh Kendall, whose sage and incisive editorial comments have helped me develop my vision for the book. Thank you, Dream Team, for being passionate and committed, sensible and fun.