Jemima Shore at the Sunny Grave (21 page)

What about Leila’s own position in all this? Did she really expect to elude discovery for very long? It was true that she had persuaded Charlie in one of his good-husbandly moments to purchase the poison in question on her behalf. (A peculiarly nasty garden potion destined to reduce errant lawns to scorched earth, it was accompanied by a list of warnings which had caused Charlie to observe mildly, “What price the ecology these days, darling?” But when Leila had retorted, “If you weren’t away so much and helped me more in the garden …” Charlie had dumped the poison and hastily changed the subject.) Since Charlie had indubitably purchased the poison, it would be Charlie’s
word against hers when it came to the question of who had actually administered it.

At the same time, more grandly, Leila did not expect and did not want to avoid discovery for very long for the crime of passion she was about to commit. After all, what did life hold for her, now that she had lost Charlie?

“J’ai perdu mon Eurydice …”
—Leila adored Gluck—even if she was an unlikely Orpheus and Charlie, handsome broad-shouldered Charlie, an even more improbable Eurydice.

But Magdalen Belport, of all women in the world! It was not that Magdalen Belport lacked beauty. The late Earl of Belport had died childless some years ago leaving Magdalen, his fourth, much younger, wife, a large fortune and the right to queen it at Belport Park for her lifetime. Whatever his faults, he had known how to pick a woman who would in a sense grace the role of Countess. Previous countesses had been renowned for their looks in periods which stretched back into the thirties. Magdalen, a former model (as the newspapers never failed to point out), had the long legs, the narrow hips and neatly catlike features of her original profession. With her elegant, unchanging leanness—she had to be well over 40—and an endless fund of money at her disposal, Magdalen Belport could cut more dash at a patrons’ function in a pair of white silk trousers and a sequinned matador’s jacket than all the other women in more conventional evening dress. Leila knew. She had seen her do it …

No, the fearful cruelty of Charlie’s behaviour lay in the relative positions of Leila Hopper and Magdalen Belport within the Festival organization. And who knew the facts of this better than Charlie himself? As Countess of Belport, by far the most glamorous local figure, Magdalen acted as titular Chairman of the Festival committee. This meant
that she attended at least one committee meeting, and bought a great many tickets (some of which she always gave away, whether she attended the performance or not, since Magdalen’s friends were not exactly passionate lovers of the opera). If Magdalen did attend, she could be guaranteed to behave with the utmost benevolence, glittering matador jacket and all, and make remarks which were on the whole gracefully innocuous—Magdalen liked to please. Then she always went on to accept all the credit for the work of the Festival. That was the work which had actually been carried out, dutifully, devotedly, day in, day out, or so it often seemed, by Leila Hopper.

Leila’s love of opera might be verging on the obsessional—she knew in her heart of hearts that it was—but then so, she had always thought, was Charlie’s own passion for the subject. And yet he had not appreciated the sheer disloyalty of an affair with Magdalen Belport. It was as though to denigrate all their shared feelings for the Festival, the pooled task of finding singers, arranging programmes, in all of which Charlie had so often said, “You
are
the Belport Festival. Don’t worry about the public thank you. Magdalen Countess of B. is just our essential figurehead, a publicity-mad mermaid on the prow of our ship. A woman who actually thinks Pavarotti is a bass”—Leila had laughed at the time, much reassured by Charlie’s words—“just because he’s got that wonderful deep barrel-chest. No, she actually said that to me. You’d think even Magdalen noticed that wasn’t exactly a bass singing
‘Nessun dorma’
at the time of the World Cup.” And surely Charlie had laughed too.

Given Charlie’s essentially lighthearted temperament, the wayward nature which Leila both loved and deplored, she had often thought that a passion for opera was the deepest, most stable thing in her husband’s life. Had it not drawn them together in the first place—that magic evening
at the Coliseum listening to Linda Esther Gray as Isolde? Yes, opera was Charlie’s greatest passion—until his passion for Magdalen Belport, that is.

“My lovely Countess”: Leila would always remember how she found out: those words overheard on the telephone when Charlie had imagined she was working late in her tiny Festival office, following immediately on the highly disquieting incident of the trip to Venice. Charlie Hopper had always travelled a great deal, mainly to America, since his work as a rather grand kind of salesman demanded it, and Leila, since she had no choice, accepted the fact. Charlie did after all in consequence get to hear of rising young stars in the States who might be prepared to visit Belport: that was part of the way in which the Festival work had drawn travelling Charlie and homebound Leila together. (Emily Nissaki, whom Charlie had heard sing Mimì while in Chicago, was an example of that kind of happy serendipity between husband and wife.)

What she did not accept, could never accept, and was now going to take violent action to end, was Charlie’s new passion for Magdalen, which meant that since that Venetian trip—as it turned out to be—he had hardly seemed to cast an affectionate glance in Leila’s direction, let alone a caress. No Micaela bewailing her lost happiness with Don José had ever felt more piercing sorrow than Leila recalling how long it was since Charlie last made love to her.

“Charlie Hopper! Last seen in Harry’s Bar in Venice!” Odd that those seemingly innocent words of international travelling snobbery could have destroyed Leila’s peace of mind for ever. It was some party at Belport Park in aid—as usual—of fund-raising for the Festival. Leila did not know the man concerned, a big man with receding brown curly hair and a well-cut suit which probably concealed rather
too many years of good living. At Harry’s Bar, Venice, and elsewhere.

Now Charlie had never, so far as Leila knew, been to Venice; the reason she thought she knew this was that La Fenice was one of those opera houses, described but never visited, which they had both yearned to see for themselves. The person who had been to Venice, many times, no doubt, but certainly very recently, was Magdalen Belport. In her generous way she had even brought Leila a present back—some elegant gold and glass beads. The necklace was intended, Magdalen said, as a thank you to Leila for all the hard work she had done in the run-up to the present Ballet Festival.

At the word “Ballet” Leila had felt a moment’s genuine bewilderment. Surely even Magdalen …

But Magdalen had quickly corrected herself. “Whoops, sweetie, opera. Trills not spills. It’s just that I’m on so many committees. You know the feeling.”

Leila, who was on only one committee herself, smiled forgivingly and allowed Magdalen to fasten the beads around her neck. (What treachery that seemed! Leila had since smashed them to pieces.)

“Harry’s Bar?” questioned Charlie; he was using his lying voice; Leila who loved him could tell immediately. “I don’t get it.”

But Magdalen interrupted him. Unlike Charlie, she spoke rather too fast, as if concerned to override whatever Charlie might be going to say.

“Venice!” she exclaimed. “Don’t you remember? We bumped into each other. There was that vast mass of people, all making a terrible noise, a lot of Italians, well, I suppose that was hardly surprising. You were alone. I was with a large party.”

“Oh, Venice,” said Charlie after a pause as though he had
somehow thought the conversation to be about quite another place, New York, Boston, Chicago (to name three cities he had recently visited). He gazed steadily at Magdalen, which meant of course that he avoided looking at Leila. “Harry’s Bar in
Venice
,” he repeated, still staring at Magdalen with that yearning intensity.

Later that night, Leila was first of all informed by Charlie that he had only briefly visited Venice from Munich (where he also sometimes went on business
en route
from the United States) and had hardly thought it worthwhile mentioning to Leila. Then he changed his story. The truth was, he finally blurted out, after some hours of talk in which the subject never quite went away, that Magdalen Belport had asked him to escort her to an opera gala at La Fenice. She had been let down, she needed an escort—“You know what she’s like”—Charlie had been in Munich, they had been in touch over some matter to do with the Festival, he had flown down. There was nothing else to it. Absolutely nothing. And now would Leila stop all this and leave him in peace?

Charlie Hopper closed the conversation at this point by going out of the room abruptly and slamming the door. But Leila saw by the light on the telephone that he went to make a call. It was a call that lasted some time. And when Charlie did come to bed, once again he turned away from his wife.

The next morning all he said was, “I thought you might be jealous. Missing out on La Fenice. You can ask Magdalen if you like. Nothing else to it.”

Jealous! It hardly seemed an adequate description of her bewildered feelings. Nor did she intend to raise the subject with Magdalen Belport. It was Magdalen who raised it with her, the next morning paying one of her rare visits to the
Festival office. She used exactly the same phrase as Charlie had, Leila noticed.

“An escort, darling. Nothing else to it.”

“What was it?” asked Leila suddenly and, for her, very sharply, so that Magdalen opened her slanting cat’s eyes in astonishment.

“The opera!” Leila almost shouted. “What opera did you go to?”

But at this Magdalen merely smiled in her most feline lazy way. “Oh, darling, you don’t expect me to remember that. That’s your department. But I do know what I wore: grey satin blazer from St. Laurent, very pretty with paler grey crêpe trousers.”

It was quite possible, thought Leila rather wearily, that Magdalen was actually speaking the truth.

Then: “My lovely Countess.” It was those words, overheard twelve hours later, which finally convinced Leila that the unbelievable had to be believable: her adored Charlie had transferred all the passion of his nature to Magdalen Belport. And after that, of course, in a terrible brutal way, everything began to fit in. Charlie’s increasingly obvious desire to please Magdalen, for example, notably during the meetings of the Festival committee. His flattery of her taste, even her taste in opera and possible singers for the Festival … now that was really going too far. “My lovely Countess,” perhaps, but knowledgeable about opera never!

There was one peculiarly humiliating incident which actually took place in the committee. Leila was as a matter of fact used to smoothing over Magdalen’s cultural gaffes—obviously not infrequent in a woman who could think Pavarotti was a bass on the grounds that he had a barrel-chest. She had brought it to a fine art—or so she thought. A quick change of subject, and a quick correction
of the minutes afterwards, seemed to result in satisfaction all round.

But now Magdalen insisted that
La bohème
was the story of a fun-loving courtesan called Violetta; one who went on a glorious spree to the country with her lover, and then came back, only to die of TB in his arms. And Charlie agreed with her! Leila could hardly believe her ears. For the first time she actually contradicted Magdalen, instead of merely altering the record.

Maybe Leila’s voice did rise as she began: “You are thinking of
La traviata
, for heaven’s sake. Isn’t she, Charlie! In
La bohème
there are these students—”

But that was no excuse for Magdalen to lean back delicately in the face of Leila’s passion and confide to Charlie, “I’ve always identified myself with Violetta. I adore doomed people, don’t you? That’s why
La bohème
is absolutely my favourite
numero uno
opera.” And still Charlie, Charlie of all people, did nothing.

On stage the opera was almost over and the Count, a short fat man with none of Charlie’s handsome looks, was asking his wife to forgive him.
“Contessa, perdona!”

“I am kinder: I will say yes,” his wife responded in the rather better-looking incarnation of Emily Nissaki. It had always been one of the moving moments in Leila’s canon of opera. No longer. For Charlie Hopper (and Magdalen Belport) there was to be no forgiveness. Doomed people: yes, indeed. In a very short time the post-opera party would begin in the theatre bar. And a very short time after that Magdalen, Countess of Belport, would be dead.

How convenient that Leila, as secretary of the committee, generally looked after the doling out of the patrons’ free drink! It was with special care that Leila handed the fatal
glass to Charlie in order that he might—equally fatally—pass it on.

“I’ve got something special for her. She really wants champagne, of course. But this is at least better than the usual plonk. Take it to her.”

Then Leila could not resist adding—what madness over-took her when she had held her tongue for so long?—“Take it to your lovely Countess.”

For a moment Charlie, now holding the glass, stood staring at Leila. His expression was one of total amazement, followed almost immediately by guilt.

“She knows.” That was what his expression said to her, as clear as words. “She’s known all the time.”

Leila’s own expression, which had been momentarily triumphant, changed to blandness.

“Go on, darling, give it to her.” It was her usual polite, affectionate tone, the tone of an organizer who needs to make everyone happy. “
Figaro
is not exactly short. She must need it.”

“She must indeed,” replied Charlie levelly, the amazement and the guilt by now well concealed. He turned away. Leila followed the direction of his tall, black-dinner-jacketed figure, that formal guise which set off his fair English good looks to perfection. She watched Charlie edging his way through the crowd, polite, skilful, not spilling a drop. There he went, remorselessly towards the corner where Magdalen Belport, svelte as ever in one of her embroidered jackets which surely came direct from Christian Lacroix, held court. Despite the crowd which surrounded her, Magdalen Belport looked up to give Charlie a special intimate smile. Leila watched Charlie, holding her breath. Now, now, let him hold out the glass, let him perhaps kiss her on the cheek—for the last time—but let
him at least hold out the glass, let his be the hand, let her drink from it—