A Woman Involved Read online

  But, they had not. Because she was a Catholic and she wanted a proper church wedding, with her family around her. So they had flown back to Grenada for their last few days together, to introduce him to her parents and tell them that their darling daughter was going to live in darkest England for the rest of her life. They were going to be married on his next leave, four months hence. Then he had gone back to sea in his goddam submarine.

  He had never seen her again.

  It was that shark story that had finally made up his mind to go back to Grenada, after five long years. Janet Nicols had looked him up on her last visit to England, and the tale had come out.

  So now here he sat in a dark aeroplane, staring out of the window at the moonlight, at long last doing what he had so often dreamt of doing, flying across the Atlantic to try to see the woman he had once loved so madly. He had no idea what was going to happen. He had not told anybody he was coming, not even Janet Nicols. He did not know if he would set eyes on Anna, even from a distance. Maybe she would refuse to see him. And now that he was actually doing it at last, fulfilling his dream, he was not even sure what he wanted to happen. Did he really still love her so madly? Or was she just a dream? And if so, was it not best that he just keep her as that, his lovely dream-girl? When you’re lying in your lonely bunk in your submarine, or sitting in your lonely farmhouse drinking whisky in front of the fire, home is the sailor home from the sea but the home is empty, it is easy to be sure that you still love her with all your heart, you are even glad to be sad, thinking of what might have been – but now that he had finally made up his mind to go, he was not so sure. It was unreal. He was very excited, but wasn’t all this foolishness? What the hell are you doing? he asked himself many times that long night – why are you flying halfway round the world just for the chance of seeing, of only glimpsing maybe, the woman who once loved you and left you and married another man? What right have you got to try to interfere with her marriage now? What makes you think you’ve got a chance? The shark story? Because Janet Nicols cautiously admitted, under cross-examination, that Anna’s marriage to Max had not been going well? But had Janet said that Anna ever spoke of him? No. Indeed, Janet had said that Anna would never leave Max because she was a devout Catholic, marriage is for better or worse … What makes you think she’ll even want to see you? So, what foolishness is this? – and now that you are actually on this aeroplane at last, are you even sure you really still love her? Don’t you really prefer to be free to be glad to be sad? … Don’t you even resent her, for breaking your heart? …

  Many times in that long, unreal night it was like that. But then, a little later, it was different again. Because you had another dream about her, he said. Because she came to you again, and she was beautiful and smiling, and you felt her whole loveliness pressed against you again, and you smelt her scent and you looked into her lovely eyes and oh God yes you still loved her, and oh yes she still loved you, and when you woke up your heart was breaking and you desperately tried to go back to sleep, to be with her again. And for days afterwards you could not stop thinking about her, and there was such yearning …

  And then the sun came up, glorious and red and gold, and the Caribbean was born below him, the turquoise waters, and the reefs, and the white beaches, and the palms, and he glimpsed again the golden girl; this was her part of the world, where she lived, he glimpsed her hair swirling across her laughing face as she ran across the white sands into his arms, he felt her warm-cool body against him, and he knew that he did still love her, that she was in his blood. He was very excited when the plane began its descent and the island of Grenada came up out of the sea, mauve and brooding in the sun, the blue sea fading to turquoise around it; and his heart was beating deliciously, and he knew he still loved her.

  3

  There had been a revolution here since his last visit, a coup by the New Jewel Movement; there were some tattered posters proclaiming its glory and he saw Cuban soldiers around Pearls airfield, but otherwise it was just like he remembered: the sun shining big and bright, the sky so blue; everything so green, the air fragrant with spices: it was a beautiful day to be doing the wonderful thing he had yearned to do for so long. He was grinning inside with excitement as he strode into the hot airport building, he wanted to smile at everybody, and he loved every black face. He rented a car. It seemed he remembered everything, and he loved every mile of the road into town. This was her island in the sun … He was grinning when he turned his car into the gates of the Victoria Hotel.

  It was somewhat run-down, and he did not remember it like that, but he did not care. He checked in, carried his bag to his room. It was unreal, and beautifully real. The gardens out there beyond his balcony, the bar, palms, the beach beyond, the sparkling sea. Her sea. He showered, and shaved carefully. He looked at his face in the mirror. How much change would she see? There were no grey hairs yet – and most of his colleagues had plenty of those. He brushed his teeth thoroughly. Then he did not know what to do with himself.

  It was only breakfast time, too early to do anything yet. He went down to the empty bar in the garden. It was sultry-quiet. He ordered a cold beer, and just gave himself up to the delicious excitement of waiting.

  He had drunk half of the beer when a voice behind him said: ‘Hullo, Jack.’

  He turned, taken by surprise. ‘Janet Nicol … ’

  He stood up. He took her hands, grinning, and kissed her cheek. ‘What a coincidence! I was going to contact you …’

  She said, ‘Not a coincidence at all. I’ve known for three days that you were coming back to Grenada.’

  She sat beside him, drinking fruit juice. She said: ‘I work for British West Indies Airways, remember. BWIA has strict instructions to report if ever a Jack Morgan books a seat to our fair island.’

  He was astonished. ‘Good God …’

  She said: ‘Max is extremely jealous, Jack. And one of his many sidelines is that he’s a director of BWIA. And the immigration department is under instructions to report the arrival of any Mr Morgans.’

  ‘Good God! Does he run the Post Office as well?’

  Janet did not smile. ‘Grenada is a small island. And Max has a lot of clout.’ She added significantly: ‘With the police, included.’ Before he could ask what the hell that meant she went on soberly: ‘And he’s not just a big fish in a small Caribbean pond.’ She raised her eyebrows. ‘And big fish can bite.’

  ‘Are you saying that he’d use the police?’

  ‘He might.’

  Morgan said incredulously: ‘For what bloody offence? …’

  She said, ‘I don’t know what he’d do. But your offence is that you’re in love with his wife.’

  ‘I haven’t seen Anna for five years!’

  ‘And they haven’t stopped having arguments about you for five years.’

  He was amazed. ‘Arguments?’

  Janet said, ‘Hell-fire rows. Max is obsessed with the belief that Anna is still in love with you.’

  Morgan wanted to throw his arms wide to the sky in joy. ‘And? Is she?’

  She ignored the question. ‘He even says that you have lovers’ trysts every time she goes to New York and London.’

  He wanted to throw back his head and laugh, because she loved him. ‘Would that we had … ’

  Janet said: ‘That’s why he did that shark hoax. To punish her.’ She looked at him: ‘So don’t you think you should stay away from the island?’

  Morgan put his hands on his chest.

  ‘I should stay away from the island because Max … ?’ He shook his head. ‘Look, in five years I haven’t so much as sent her a Christmas card. And I wouldn’t be here now, if you hadn’t looked me up and told me how he punishes her with shark hoaxes.’ He shook his head in wonder. ‘Why doesn’t he put detectives onto her and find out the truth?’

  She said: ‘Oh, he’s done that. And had detectives following you.’

  He was incredulous. ‘I don’t believe it.’

  Janet said,
‘You have a grey Ford station-wagon. Three years ago you bought a farmhouse outside Plymouth. You’ve had a number of girlfriends but the last one I heard of was a blonde bombshell called Ingrid something.’ She raised her eyebrows.

  He was amazed. ‘Then he knows I’ve been at sea every time she came to England.’

  She said, ‘No, you spent a year ashore. With the Special Boat Service.’

  Morgan was astonished. The Special Boat Service is a very secretive branch of the Royal Navy. ‘He must be out of his mind to go to such lengths.’

  ‘Is he?’ She gave a little smile. ‘Tell me – why have you come back to the island?’ Before he could answer, she said: ‘After all these years, you come to take his wife away from him.’

  His heart turned over like a porpoise.

  ‘I’ve come to lay a ghost,’ he said.

  Janet nodded at the sea.

  ‘So he’s not out of his mind, is he? He loves her, you see. Obsessed with her, if you like.’ She turned to him, ‘Like you are. And so he’s obsessed with the notion that she’s still in love with you.’

  He felt his pulse flutter. ‘And? Is she?’

  Janet turned back to the sea.

  ‘He says she dreams about you.’

  Morgan stared at her. Dreams … And he felt joy.

  ‘How would he know what she dreams?’

  ‘She speaks your name.’

  Morgan slumped against the bar happily. Janet went on: ‘So you should go away and not cause any more trouble and pain, Jack.’

  ‘Trouble? I haven’t uttered a murmur since that awful day she sent me a telegram saying she was marrying Max.’

  ‘You don’t know what it was like for her to send you that telegram … You don’t know the agony of indecision she went through.’ Janet sighed, and shook her head. ‘The pressure upon her – the last-minute pressure from friends and family alike to think again, was enormous.’ She turned to him earnestly. ‘She will never leave Max. She believes she’s made her bed and must lie in it. So all you can do is cause emotional confusion. And endless trouble.’

  Oh God, he was so happy.

  ‘ And if I don’t leave, what is Max going to do? Burst in here with the police?’

  She shook her head. ‘He’s not even here at the moment – he’s in New York. But don’t underestimate him.’ She paused. ‘You must leave.’

  He squeezed her hand. ‘Is that the message she sent me?’

  She said, ‘She’s not going to see you, Jack.’

  He did not believe that. ‘But her message?’

  She hesitated, then she said, reluctantly: “‘Tell him I love him. And goodbye.”’

  He wanted to shout for joy. I love him … Janet sighed, as if she regretted telling him. ‘And now I must go.’

  He was deliciously happy.

  ‘Will you give Anna a message from me?’

  Janet waited, noncommittal.

  ‘Tell her that I’m not leaving until I’ve seen her.’

  4

  Oh yes, he was in love.

  It seemed the longest day of his life, and the happiest. He thought through what Janet had said, and he tried to caution himself, against causing pain, against being optimistic, but he did not quite make it. He dared not leave the hotel, he dared not sleep off his jet-lag, in case she came and went while he was asleep. He sat alone at the crowded bar in the garden, slowly drinking beer, watching the hotel lobby, just feeling the excitement, of her, of being back here where she lived. Finally the sun went down, blazing red and gold through the palms; after dinner he could resist it no longer. He got into his rented car. He drove through Saint George’s, out onto the winding coastal road, through the heavy tropical foliage, past the grand houses; then he came to hers, on the seashore. He had never seen it before, but he knew the address from the telephone directory. He drove slowly past it. He stopped two hundred yards beyond. He walked down onto the beach.

  The big house was across a little bay. There were lights on, twinkling between the trees. Her house. He stood, looking at it. Imagining her inside it, imagining what she was thinking and feeling; she knew that he was here, he knew what she was feeling, and with all his happiness and his yearning he willed her and willed her to come to him tomorrow. He sat on the dark beach for over an hour, just watching her house, imagining her, remembering her. Finally he drove back to the hotel, and went to bed, very tired but too happy to go to sleep easily.

  That first night, five long years ago, their dinners had gone cold whilst they talked and laughed and talked. She had said:

  ‘Saint Thomas Aquinas will prove it to you, Jack Morgan, by pure Aristotelian logic, even if he cannot prove by logic what kind of God He is – read his Summa in Theologica. He gives five proofs of God’s existence, though it’s his third argument I like best, his Actuality-Potentiality proof of a Prime or Un-moved Mover. “And this all men call God.” No intelligent man could read that book and remain an agnostic, Jack …’

  And when the floorshow came on, a troupe of limbo dancers from Jamaica, she had been unable to resist it when the pole was only twenty inches above the floor and she had kicked her shoes off and gone dancing under it, to roars of applause, her long blonde hair sweeping the floor, her arms upstretched, her jerking feet wide apart, a grin all over her lovely face; and when she had come back to the table, flushed and laughing, he had known with absolute certainty that he was going to marry this marvellous girl; he had taken her hand, and what he wanted to say with all his heart was ‘Let’s check into this hotel and make love’, but instead he said:

  ‘Tomorrow, you’re coming on a picnic, Ms Valentine, and reading Saint Thomas Aquinas to me, it’s this Actuality–Potentiality theory I’m really wild about …’

  ‘Oh? What about my lectures, Jack Morgan?’

  ‘What about my immortal soul, Ms Valentine?’

  She had agreed to try to save his soul, though not to kiss him goodnight (nor had he tried too hard, in order to impress her), but he had driven back to his digs on air, wanting to whoop and holler and toot his horn, and he had blown Mrs Garvey a big kiss instead when she came out complaining about him disturbing the house by coming in late. ‘Mrs Garvey, be joyful, tomorrow I’m taking the most wonderful girl in the world on a picnic to read Summa in Theologica! …’

  ‘What about your lectures, Lieutenant-Commander?’

  ‘What about my immortal soul, Mrs Garvey? – What about my immortal soul? … ’

  And what a picnic it was! He bought Summa in Theologica as soon as the shops opened and he swotted up Saint Thomas’ third proof while the delicatessen packed up the hamper. It was an absolutely beautiful spring day for saving his soul! The sun shone bright and the birds sang and the bees buzzed and butterflies fluttered and he sang her ‘The Surrey with the Fringe on Top’ as he tootled her down the Cornish lanes in his beat-up old Volkswagen, absolutely on top of the world. And he knew he was going to live deliriously happily ever after with this wonderful girl, and it was a wonderful feeling to be totally self-confident and very, very amusing. He spread their blanket on the soft grass by the stream and popped the champagne, and the cork flew and went dancing away over the sparkling rapids and he said:

  That’s how our life’s going to be, Anna Valentine!’

  And he took her in his arms and toppled her over onto the blanket, and she grinned up at him:

  ‘What about your immortal soul, Jack Morgan? That’s what I’m bunking lectures for …’

  ‘Ms Valentine, I’ve got a complete arm-lock already on the Third Proof and I know that good Saint Thomas would approve entirely of my honourable intentions towards you …’

  And she had laughed up at him, and let him kiss her. But she had not made love to him. They really did read Summa in Theologica. While the birds sang and the bees buzzed and the stream twinkled, and the champagne tasted like nectar.

  She had not made love to him for five long, deliciously nerve-racked days, five more days of walking on air, of singing in the rain, of
Summa in Theologica and everything from Karl Marx and Adam Smith to the Beatles and Beethoven, from P. G. Wodehouse to Franz Kafka, five more delightfully anguished days of lovely Cornwall country pubs, bangers and mash and cream teas, of Cornish moors and coves and beaches, long tracks along the sand, five more days of delicious frustration and almost no lectures at all; on the sixth day he had fetched her at her residence, and she had solemnly announced:

  ‘I wrote to Max this morning. I’ve told him.’

  It was the most important moment in his life, the happiest and the most solemn. He had taken her hand, and turned and led her silently down the steps to his old car. They drove in silence through the town. He parked the car, and opened the door for her. They walked hand in hand, by unspoken agreement, into the hotel. His hand was shaking as he signed the register. They rode up in the elevator wordlessly. Hand in hand, down the corridor. Room 201.

  He closed the door, and leant back against it. They looked at each other. They were both very nervous. Then he took her in his arms, and crushed her against him, and his hands were trembling as he undressed her. They toppled wordlessly onto the bed, and, oh, the bliss of each other’s bodies at last.

  He was awake before dawn. For a few moments, at his lowest ebb; Janet’s words flashed through his mind, and he tried to caution himself; then he was properly awake and he knew that she was awake too, lying in this same pre-dawn unreality. He got up and pulled on his swimming trunks. He went down onto the beach, and he started to run. To run, to run, to appease his yearning in the humid dawn, sweating out the booze and cigarettes of yesterday, with each rasp of his breath just thinking of her, thinking of her. When he had run two miles he turned into the sea, splashing and pounding, and he plunged. He swam and he swam underwater until his lungs were bursting, then he broke surface with a gushing gasp. And he flung his arms full wide to the horizon where she lived, and he bellowed to the early morning: