It was brightly light by the time she fully awoke. Beside the bed the message light on her telephone was blinking redly and she remembered the pushed-under-the-door message. She retrieved that first, smiling down at the request from Germany’s Der Spiegel for an exclusive, in-depth interview. There were four telephone messages being held for her by the switchboard. All were from newspapers, all seeking the same. She decided to reply to none of them.
She escaped by going down the fire stairs to her hire car, which had not been identified, and drove into Nicosia for a breakfast which she needed, not having eaten at all the previous day. Afterwards she lingered over coffee, not knowing what to do next. Alone again, she acknowledged.
Without any positive intention Janet drove towards Troodos, retracing the route along which she had gone with Baxeter. It had been, she admitted to herself, that day when she’d realized-although refusing to realize it at the time-that she loved him. No, not love! It hadn’t been that quick: that positive. That she was attracted to him and that there was a possible danger, she corrected. Sensible people who recognized danger avoided it. So why hadn’t she? Janet didn’t have logical, easy answers to the logical, easy questions. Everything was mixed up, not confused but differing factors interlocking to make some sort of (although not entirely satisfactory) explanation. She had been alone and fed up with being alone. Frightened and in need of someone. Vulnerable. And Baxeter had been kind and understanding. Janet stopped the mental examination, curious. Why did she think of John as John and Baxeter as Baxeter? Subconsciously, she supposed, she was trying to separate them, accord one greater intimacy (and greater love?) than the other.
Was it possible to love two men at the same time? It was an uncertainty Janet had never before had to consider. There had been a passing affair at university before she’d met Hank, but once they’d established their relationship it had been enough for her. There’d been approaches, of course. In England, and later in Washington: approaches almost every time they had attended one of Harriet’s parties. She and Hank had laughed about it, absolutely sure of each other, neither feeling threatened.
Was John threatened by what had occurred between herself and Baxeter? The automatic mental division, she recognized again. And there was a division. Groping for a way to rationalize it to herself, Janet thought that it was practically as if she were thinking of herself as two women, one in love with John Sheridan, the other in love with David Baxeter. Hardly rationaclass="underline" positively irrational. Nevertheless it was how it settled in her mind. She accepted it was still not a resolve: not even a proper explanation. Little more than a weak attempt at easing her conscience. Sufficient, though, for the moment. That’s all she really wanted to do, go from moment to moment, hour to hour, unwilling to make plans for the next day or the day after that because there was nothing sure enough to make plans about. Wasn’t that just another attempt to avoid the most difficult question of all, the one she had adamantly refused even to bring to mind? She did so now, making herself consider it. Whom would she choose, if it came to the choice?
Janet was sitting on the tavern verandah from which Baxeter had photographed her looking out over the thickly wooded valley. She shook her head, refusing to answer. Moment to moment, hour to hour, she thought.
She drove aimlessly and slowly back to Nicosia, regretting the trip because it had not been the same without Baxeter and she’d become further depressed by her failed attempts at personal honesty.
She was surprised by the amount of mail awaiting her back at the hotel. There were three more written requests for interviews from journalists and in addition two airmailed letters both postmarked from the United States. The first she opened was from the talk show agency in Atlanta, increasing from $5,000 to $10,000 their offer for a country-wide tour for after-dinner or lunch talks. The second was from a New York publishing house proposing a $100,000 advance for a book which they had tentatively entitled The Love of Janet Stone. If she cabled her acceptance, they would fly an executive to Cyprus to finalize the details and discuss whether she felt able to complete a manuscript herself or would like to work with a ghost writer.
Janets vision blurred at the suggested title. She threw everything angrily into the wastebasket and stood at the window gazing out over the city and its sun-bleached, dun-colored outskirts, arms rigid by her side, both hands clenched into fists. Fuck it! she thought, not even sure at what or at whom she was swearing. Fuck it! fuck it! fuck it!
The following day Zarpas called: there was no necessity for her to attend the next remand hearing unless she wanted to, because it would be even more of a formality than the initial appearance. There was a follow-up call from the New York publisher which she refused to accept.
She let another twenty-four hours pass before calling England. Her mother, as always, answered the telephone and announced at once that she had very bad news.
“What?” demanded Janet.
“George is dead. I am so sorry, my darling.”
“George?” Janet could not think what her mother was talking about.
“Your cat: Harriet telephoned last night.”
It struck Janet as bizarre and she snickered. “Oh,” was all she could manage.
“I knew you’d be upset,” said her mother. Janet realized her instant reaction would have sounded like a sob.
She said: “Quite a lot has actually happened since I was last with George, Mother. And I’ve kind of been expecting it.”
“Still a shock.”
Could people think of animals dying as a shock? Janet guessed she would have known that-felt more than she was feeling at the moment at least-if she’d never met John Sheridan and never done what she was doing now but remained in the Rosslyn apartment with George. She said: “Thank Harriet for me, will you? Say I’ll settle the vet’s bills when I get back.”
“She wanted to know that,” the older woman said. “When you’re getting back, that is.”
Janet sighed, not responding. “Should I speak to Daddy?”
“He wants to speak to you.”
He must have been standing next to her, because he came on the telephone at once. “There was a lot of publicity about that remand hearing.”
“I didn’t bother to read any of it,” said Janet, who hadn’t.
“No definite date for a full hearing?”
“Not yet.”
“You could come home in between times, couldn’t you?”
So Partington and her father were still in close contact. Wearily Janet said: “I haven’t decided yet.” And don’t want to decide, she thought.
There was desultory talk about the cat, which Janet found utterly inconsequential, and an attempt to bring the conversation back to her return, which Janet ignored. He told her, as always, to call again soon and Janet, as always, promised that she would, gratefully replacing the telephone and deciding upon at least a week’s interval. Poor George, she thought, trying but still failing to feel more. Had she changed so completely, about everything and everybody? She didn’t want that to happen: not to become so hardened that nothing mattered or moved her any more. She’d known women like that-she supposed Harriet was close to being one-and thought it was ugly.
She started going back to the pool again and on the second morning realized from a faraway bustle that she was being photographed by cameramen using long focus lenses. Her immediate reaction was to feel indecent and she moved to cover herself in a wrap but then she stopped, lying back on the lounger. So what? she thought. What the hell did a picture of her in a swimsuit matter! If it made them think they were doing their job-made them think it was important-it was all right by her.