Two Women

Thirteen

I t was more practical – his decision, about which there was later some ironic, even irritated, reflection – to meet Jane at her father’s estate, which is what Carver did rather than put down at their own country home to drive the ten miles around the separating lake. Jane hadn’t arrived but Jack Jennings was already there and together they toured the house. There wasn’t the slightest trace of damage anywhere. All the jack-hammered doors had been replaced and those torn off their hinges rehung. New refrigerators and freezers gleamed in the recesses. Cracked or too badly stained tiles had been relaid and overbalanced wine racks rebuilt and re-labelled, although there was obviously no wine. George Northcote’s bedroom and dressing room had been re-carpeted. The only hint of the work that had gone into redecoration was the faintest smell of paint and a lot of windows open to dispel that.

Carver said: ‘In the time you’ve had you’ve worked miracles, Jack.’

‘Mr Northcote was well liked around here. I called, things got done right away. The outhouses are the same. Everything fixed, all the damaged machinery gone…’ The man gestured in the direction of the hollow into which the tractor and cutters had flipped. ‘There was…’ He stopped, seeking the acceptable words. ‘… some stuff, mess, there. We cleaned that up, too.’

What might there have been for a proper forensic examination to find, wondered Carver. ‘You’ve still done damned well. Thank you.’

‘I heard about Mr Northcote’s PA. It’s terrible, poor woman.’

‘Terrible,’ echoed Carver. He wished Jane would arrive, so they could get it over with and he could get back to New York. In the circumstances he supposed he had to be here, supporting her, but he’d had again to reschedule his already rearranged appointments – which actually took away the need for any hurried return – but he felt cut-off here, too far away from things. Wasn’t that what – and where – he wanted to be, he asked himself at once: away from it all, where no one could find him? In truth – truth which he forced upon himself – Carver didn’t properly know any more where he wanted to be or what he wanted to be doing. There wasn’t a road that wasn’t blocked, no half-formed hope that stood up to examination. There was the one hope he hadn’t explored, he corrected himself: the one that had come to him the previous night, when he had been with Alice. Which wasn’t new. It was the one, the last one, that he’d inexplicably forgotten but which to pursue, as he had to, could be as destructive as everything else closing in around him.

‘Here they come,’ announced Jennings, from the newly restored front door.

Barry Cox was the senior partner in the real-estate firm that bore his name, a squat, quickly moving man able to smile and talk at the same time, which he did constantly. He, not Jane, led the tour of the property, making quick entries in a small notebook and frequently having Jennings secure one end of a long, spool-retracting tape to measure the main rooms.

As they followed the man around, Jane said: ‘I’m coming back to New York with you. I had Barry drive me over, so we can leave right away.’

‘You didn’t say, last night.’ He’d somehow make time to see Alice. He was glad after all that his diary was clear for the afternoon.

‘It hadn’t been fixed then.’

‘What hadn’t been fixed?’

‘Our first meeting with Rosemary. She got a cancellation so she called me. I tried to catch you at the office but you’d already left to come here. Hilda said she thought it would be all right. And there’s some more replies to condolence letters I need to sign, apparently.’

‘In future will you personally clear things with me first?’

She looked at him curiously, frowning. ‘What’s the matter?’

‘I haven’t done any worthwhile work since I can’t remember when, in a firm I have now to run. I intended trying to fit some things in later today.’

‘I tried calling you! You weren’t there!’ she said, stiffly.

‘You knew I was coming here. You should have waited.’ There was no purpose in exacerbating it into an argument but he was irritated by her increasingly taking him for granted. It occurred to him to tell her that he was in charge of the firm now, not her, but decided against it.

‘I’m sorry!’ she said, in a voice that didn’t sound it.

‘Let’s leave it.’

‘All done,’ declared Cox, emerging from the main living room at the opportune moment. ‘Time to talk.’

Jane said to Jennings, who was already withdrawing, ‘Will you transfer my stuff from Barry’s car to the helicopter?’ and then to the realtor, ‘How long will it take to sell?’

The man gave a professional non-committal shrug and went into a well-rehearsed speech about market difficulties in an economic recession, concluding that it was a very valuable property, in the three-to-five-million band, which was a big commitment for a person to make.

‘Not for a person with five million,’ said Carver. ‘And people who haven’t got that sort of money don’t look at this sort of property. You’re going to concentrate upon the city?’ Cox had three offices there and the reputation of being the best country-house salesman operating out of Manhattan, which was why Jane was employing him.

‘I’m going to offer it to as wide an audience as possible, Mr Carver,’ said Cox. ‘The Net, with a picture display and digital viewing, major prominence in the housing mags all along the East Coast right down as far as Florida. Might even consider the Caribbean: lot of money in places like Antigua and the Caymans.’

‘What?’ broke in Carver, sharply.

Jane and the realtor looked at him with matching frowns.

‘I’m sorry…?’ questioned Cox.

‘Why did you suggest the Ca…?’ Carver only just managed to switch to Caribbean and knew he sounded as stupid as he looked.

‘There’s a lot of money there,’ repeated the man. ‘It’s a good marketplace.’

‘Advertise it wherever you judge the most likely places to get a sale,’ instructed Jane, impatiently. ‘Put it on for three.’

Now the realtor frowned at her. ‘That was my bottom figure, Mrs Carver. I think we should begin higher. People like to bargain, think they’re getting a deal. Starting at three-seven-five would build in the drop to make a buyer think he’d got his deal and cover your costs and fees.’

‘Three,’ insisted Jane. ‘Thanks for your time, Mr Cox. I look forward to hearing from you.’

In the helicopter, their conversation unheard by the earphone-wearing pilot, Jane said: ‘What was all that about back there?’

‘Just clarifying some things,’ said Carver, inadequately.

‘Sounded more like confusing some things.’

‘You’re giving the place away, you know.’

‘It’s mine to give away, OK?’

‘OK,’ accepted Carver. He didn’t like the new Jane, he decided. At once he contradicted himself. He loved her as much and as deeply as he’d ever done. What he didn’t like was the new attitude. Perhaps his own wasn’t much better.

Rosemary Pritchard was a diminutive, sharp-featured woman with the sort of commanding presence that reminded Carver of the matronly, no-nonsense Hilda Bennett. The clipped voice fitted, too.

Jane said: ‘Thanks for fitting me in.’

‘Fitting you and John in,’ qualified the gynaecologist.

‘OK,’ said Jane, with a touch of renewed impatience. ‘Can you help me…’ The break was a speed bump. ‘… help John and I, to have a baby?’

‘Does John want a baby?’

Rosemary’s quiet-voiced question startled both of them. Jane began: ‘Of course John…’ before Rosemary in turn, but much more definitely, blocked the response.

‘It wasn’t your question, Jane. It was John’s.’

No! thought Carver, at once, and was just as quickly surprised at his reaction. Of course he wanted a child: children. He and Jane had talked about it – planned it or thought they were planning it – until the months had stretched into years, sixteen in fact. But he didn’t want a baby now: not at this precise moment with so much hanging over them. Jane had insisted – arranged without discussing it with him – that he should be here. Invited him, in fact, to have his own voice even if she hadn’t anticipated what he would say. ‘I think we’re rushing things. Because of what’s happened.’

He was conscious of Jane twisting towards him. He didn’t look back at her. She moved to speak but before she could Rosemary said: ‘What do you think of that, Jane?’

Strangely, for someone who’d been about to respond so quickly, Jane didn’t answer.

The gynaecologist said: ‘How long have you both been thinking about in vitro fertilization?’

Hurrying ahead of her husband again, Jane said: ‘A year, at least.’

Once more Carver ignored her demanding look. He said: ‘The question was both. We haven’t both been thinking about it for a year, at least.’

‘Jane?’ prompted Rosemary.

There was still a hesitation before Jane said: ‘It’s time we started a family!’ And maintained the bloodline of a wonderful man, she thought.

‘Is this the time?’ demanded the other woman.

‘I came here to talk about having a baby!’ said Jane. ‘Not to be psychoanalysed!’

‘That’s good,’ said Rosemary. ‘It’s easy to cross boundaries, in this job.’

‘Can we just talk about IVF?’ asked Jane.

‘Sure,’ agreed the other woman, easily. ‘What do you want to know?’

‘How quickly – easily – can I become pregnant?’

The gynaecologist let some silence come between them before, straightening and picking up her pen, she said: ‘I put you on the Pill to regularize your periods: hopefully to make them more comfortable for you?’

‘When my periods became easier I found I didn’t need it,’ said Jane.

‘I didn’t know you’d stopped,’ intruded Carver.

‘You didn’t talk to John about that?’ demanded Rosemary.

‘No,’ Jane admitted.

‘And you didn’t tell me, either, did you?’

‘No.’

Everyone lies – or avoids the truth – with everyone else, thought Carver. Until now he wouldn’t have believed it from Jane or Alice but now he knew both had avoided the complete truth. The rushed awareness of his own hypocrisy – at least towards Jane – surged through him. What had he been doing, for the past eighteen months? Not lying, certainly, because the question had not been put to him. Nor avoiding the truth, he supposed, because again there had been no challenge. But he was certainly morally guilty of lying to Jane by having the affairs with Alice. Or was the moral lie the one to Alice, prepared though she insisted she was to live with their arrangement? Another to join the never-ending list of unanswerable questions.

‘Do you properly know what in vitro fertilization involves, beyond what you’ve read in newspapers?’ asked Rosemary.

‘No,’ managed Carver, just ahead of Jane, who almost as quickly said: ‘Yes.’ Anxious to cover the awkwardness – genuinely to help Jane – Carver said: ‘I’d certainly like to know.’

‘The first – the most important thing – you’ve both got to understand is that IVF is not the absolute guarantee of pregnancy,’ said the specialist. ‘Despite all the claims, only one in ten women successfully becomes pregnant at the first attempt, by which I mean actually having a baby. My personal experience – success rate – is that just a quarter of my patients ever achieve a full pregnancy that produces a healthy child…’

‘What’s it involve?’ demanded Carver. He had to find an escape, not from ever having a baby – a dilemma he had until now refused to contemplate – but from even considering it at this time.

‘For you, a series of tests,’ replied the woman. ‘Neither of you have undergone fertility exploration, have you?’

‘No,’ said Carver, quickly again.

‘A sperm count for you is the most obvious. For you, Jane, a fallopian-tube examination and ovulation monitor…’ She hesitated, looking directly at Jane. ‘At this moment – maybe for some time in the future – I’m not convinced you two can’t create a baby in the normal, unaided way. And until I am, I’m not even going to begin to consider IVF. Doctors don’t fix arms and legs before they’re broken…’

‘If John and I were able naturally to have a baby, I’d have become pregnant by now,’ insisted Jane.

‘There’s no logic in that whatsoever,’ dismissed Rosemary. ‘You’ve a history of menstrual difficulty. Simply coming off the Pill, for however long you have, doesn’t automatically mean you’re going to become pregnant. We’ll run the tests, on both of you. If there’s a problem that we can’t fix, then we’ll move on to IVF.’

‘When?’ demanded Jane.

‘When we’ve discovered if there is a problem. Rushing into IVF if there’s not could actually lessen rather than increase your chances of becoming pregnant.’

‘When can we start the tests?’ persisted Jane.

‘All we initially need from John is a specimen. I could start with you, Jane, next week.’

‘It’s fixed then,’ decided Jane.

‘We’re beginning a procedure,’ said the gynaecologist. ‘We don’t yet know there’s anything to fix.’

‘When next week?’ said Jane, rising.

‘Tuesday, ten,’ said Rosemary. ‘And Jane…’

‘What?’ said Jane, already on her way to the door, Carver following.

‘I am a psychologist, as well as a gynaecologist. Why don’t you and John really talk this through?’

Jane held back until they got outside. Then she whirled on Carver and said: ‘Thanks a whole lot!’

‘Don’t blame me for what happened back there! You fouled it up, not me!’

‘You didn’t help!’

‘You heard what she said – why don’t we really talk this through? Which we didn’t. And haven’t. This is irrational, Jane. I know your grief and I know your loss. But this isn’t the way to compensate.’ He was aware of curiosity from people having to manoeuvre around them on the sidewalk. Aware, too, that this wasn’t the time to ask her about any safe-deposit facilities in her father’s private bank, Carver’s last hope of a more complete dossier.

Jane began, at last, to cry. But silently and, unlike the first day, with no racking sobs. She let the tears run, unchecked. Her nose, too, and Carver gently wiped her face, angry at the now greater curiosity of passing people. She said: ‘I’m trying to hang on, John, I’m looking for something to hang on to.’

‘How about me?’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘How about hanging on to you?’

Carver had the cab detour to East 62nd Street, glad Jane changed her mind about returning with him to the office. Having tried three times to call Alice he didn’t understand why the message on her answering machine had changed. Or why, even more worryingly, she hadn’t replied. He tried a fourth time from the back of the taxi and got the same strange-voiced reply – strange-voiced but to him easily identifiable as her – and couldn’t comprehend why she didn’t confirm her name or number in her message: she was a working journalist to whom the telephone was a major source of commissions.

He was even more unsettled by Jane’s kerb-side collapse and her unarguing acceptance of the nurses’ help when they’d got to the apartment. How close was Jane to a much more severe breakdown? By finally acknowledging the need for nurses, Jane was acknowledging a problem. Would she also acknowledge the need for a psychiatrist? He could talk to Dr Newton, from the office. Have Newton make a visit to the apartment and, if he considered it necessary, the doctor could broach the idea, to put the thought into Jane’s mind ahead of his suggesting it.

If there was some mental condition, could he risk talking to Jane about safe-deposit boxes? Not that there was a risk in talking about such boxes. The danger, in Jane’s fragile state, was what those boxes, if they existed, might hold. And Carver wasn’t thinking at that precise moment of incriminating evidence of long-term and massive money laundering. He was thinking about photographs of a beautiful, laughing girl named Anna. If Northcote had left the photographs so easily discovered at Litchfield and at West 66th Street – needing nostalgically to remind himself, Carver presumed – or in the firm’s vault, what was there likely to be where Northcote would have believed only he would ever have access? But he had to get to it, if it existed. And for precisely that reason. The more he thought about it the more logical it was that a personal safe deposit was the only place Northcote would have believed secure and secret from everyone except himself. And there had to be one, Carver decided, letting his speculation run on. He knew from the Chase Manhattan ledger that Northcote had been to the firm’s vault on the day of his Harvard Club encounter. And if he’d handed over then what he’d retrieved he – and Janice Snow – might well still be alive. So where else but to his own bank would he have gone, in between the Chase Manhattan at 11.30 a.m. and the Harvard Club, at 1 p.m.?

So engrossed was he that Carver physically jumped at the sound of his own cellphone, almost dropping it as he fumbled it from his pocket.

‘Mrs Carver told me you would both be coming back,’ said Hilda.

‘She’s not, after all,’ said Carver. ‘I’m on my way, though. Five blocks maybe but the traffic’s like it always is.’

‘I took it upon myself to arrange something, knowing you’d be here around this time.’

‘What?’ demanded Carver, apprehensively.

‘There was a call from a lawyer, representing those companies Mr Northcote kept on,’ replied Hilda.

‘What’s the name?’ demanded Carver, hearing the crack in his own voice.

‘He didn’t give one, although I asked, obviously. He said it was extremely important that he talk to you as soon as possible but that he was leaving New York tomorrow. So I gave him an appointment at five this afternoon. You’ll be here well in time for that.’

Run, instinctively thought Carver. Then, delay: delay at least until he could prepare himself. Get to Northcote’s personal box. ‘He leave a number: a way to contact him?’

‘I asked him for one, of course. Just in case. He said he was moving around the city and couldn’t be reached.’

Carver looked at his watch. He had just twenty-five minutes, he saw. Abruptly, ahead, the traffic cleared.