Two of the items related to Sylvia Gamelin. Apparently she was sick of Hammersmith (‘and who wouldn’t be, darling?’), and was moving somewhere quiet, clean and peaceful. Pressed as to the possible place of relocation, Felix replied, ‘She just said the country. And we all know how big that is don’t we? She may not even have meant the Home Counties.’ Snipping scissors faltered at the enormity of such a prospect.
‘She did say she’d met a marvellous man, tho’ whether the two things are connected ...’
Although these fragments of information yielded naught for his comfort Guy, starving, fell on them and instructed Jasper’s to fan out and redouble their efforts. But no further lead could be discovered and six more sterile months dragged past, affecting Guy adversely. The fierce relish he had once obtained from the grab and grind, and cut and thrust of the market place became transmuted into a numb unfocused longing to inflict pain. This in turn affected the clarity of his judgement. He bought and sold clumsily and, for the first time in twenty years, started to lose money. Then, a few days ago, the letter had arrived.
After the first violent jolt of disbelief, inevitable when something yearned for over a long period of time seemingly drops into the hand, Guy had been overwhelmed with excitement. Although the communication was not in Sylvie’s handwriting (was not, in fact, from her at all), it was about her and, even better, contained an invitation. Guy made to touch the letter which had come to hold almost talismanic powers for him. It was not where he expected it to be. He tried other pockets, slapping and pulling at his clothes in an excess of panic before remembering that since putting it away he had changed his suit. No matter. He knew the address and every line of the contents by heart.
Dear Mr & Mrs Gamelin, Your daughter has been staying with us for some time now. We will be celebrating her birthday on August the seventeenth and would be happy if you could both be present. Perhaps arriving around seven-thirty? We eat at eight. With kindest regards, Ian Craigie.
Guy had lain awake all the previous night, excited and intrigued, turning over each phrase and intimation in the brief note, extracting solace where he could. The ‘us’ consoled him greatly. For a start it didn’t sound as if Craigie was the marvellous man for whom Sylvie had left London. The word implied plurality to the extent of at least a wife, perhaps even a family. And there was something a bit formal and middle-aged about ‘your daughter’.
Naturally Guy had not mentioned the invitation to Felicity. Her dislike of Sylvie, the relief she had not troubled to conceal when the child left home, her indifference to her daughter’s welfare - she never even mentioned Sylvie’s name - made it unthinkable that she should accompany him. Guy decided to say that she was ill. That seemed simplest. And who would be any the wiser?
Danton Morel was one of the best-kept secrets in London. No one who employed him ever told a living soul, so jealously did they guard the advantages his ministrations gave. In spite of this whenever the rich and glamorous, famous and infamous were gathered together in celebration’s name, there would most likely be present, taking the collective breath away, at least one example of Danton’s sorcery.
His card described him with becoming modesty as Coiffeur et Visagiste but the dazzling transformations that his art contrived far exceeded the simple ‘making over’ techniques shown in magazines or on television. Danton magicked up not only dramatically transfigured flesh, but also an apparently dramatically transfigured personality too.
As well as these fairy-godfather abilities, Danton was blessed with the most mellifluous cream-and-brandy voice. And when not speaking, the quality of his silence was warmly, encouragingly, receptive. Consequently people felt compelled to tell him things. All sorts of things. Danton would listen, smile, nod and continue on his designing way.
He had started out twenty years ago as a mask-maker and puppeteer and would often ironically reflect that he was still in the same line of business, although his devotees would have been mortified had they known he thought so. His private life was one of extreme simplicity. He lived vicariously, nourished by information received from muddled emotional outpourings, confessions and confidences, and by the descriptions of sybaritic events so much larger than life that his heart would glow with envious excitement. Because he never gossiped everyone assumed he was discreet and in that one respect he was. But he wrote everything down and was now in the tenth year of keeping the diaries that he hoped would make him disreputably wealthy. He was helping himself to some fresh bay leaves when Felicity opened the door. She looked wild. Her hair was standing on end as if she had been tugging at it, and he could have been a stranger so blank was her stare.
Once upstairs she began pacing about, lamenting; long expensively tanned legs flicked in and out of her housecoat like deep-brown scissors. She had thrust the letter into his hand the moment he entered the house. Danton, having read it, sat down and waited.
‘The deceit of it Danton ... the deceit ... My own daughter! As if I wouldn’t want to see her ...’
Felicity gasped out the words. Her shoulders twitched and she kept brushing at her arms as if being attacked by a swarm of insects. She said again: ‘My own daughter!’ in a loud accusatory voice as if Danton were somehow at fault. She had awaited his arrival in a positive torment of emotions. Amazement at the very fact of the invitation, fury that she had not been informed and a growing queasy awareness that, having discovered the envelope, she would now be compelled to make some sort of decision regarding its contents. Coming and going in this boiling mess was a needle-sharp surprise at the letter’s compulsive power. She had been quite sure that her love for her daughter was long since dead. She had ground it into oblivion herself, devalued it over the years until now it was a tawdry thing of no account.
Sylvie had never wanted her mother. As a baby she would struggle and strain away when Felicity tried to cuddle or even hold her. Toddling, she would direct her steps towards her nanny, the au pair, or even casual visitors to the house. She would go to anyone - or so it seemed to Felicity - but the person who loved her best. Later, when it became plain that Sylvie not only didn’t love her mother, but also refused even to like her, Felicity began the slow pulverisation of her own affection. This had caused her great pain for she had already guessed at the arid landscape that her marriage would prove to be and had seen the child as an antidotal source of comfort and joy. Now, so many years later, how could she let hope in? She would not dare.
‘It’s some sort of practical joke I suppose.’
‘Why do you say that Mrs G?’
Danton was always being asked by his clients to use their Christian names and he always declined. In Felicity’s case the diminution of her surname was as far as he was prepared to go. She disliked it intensely, thinking it made her sound like a Cockney char in some rubbishy play but would not have risked offending him by saying so.
‘We haven’t seen or heard of her for five years.’
‘Didn’t you say once she comes into some money when she’s twenty-one? Perhaps he’s a solicitor and you both have to sign something.’