Where You Belong. Barbara Taylor Bradford
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or two I stood there clutching the receiver, chastizing myself under my breath. I was so dumb. Absolutely stupid. I ought to have realized that Tony’s agency would hold a memorial service for their fallen colleague. One who had been their biggest star. And their hero. If only I’d thought it through properly, and earlier, I would have been far better prepared. But as it was I’d spent the last six weeks grieving for him, feeling sorry for myself, and getting angry at him and the world in general.
I banged the receiver into the cradle and stared at the kettle absently, thinking it was taking a long time to boil. I turned up the gas automatically, and let out a heavy sigh. I’d been caught off guard. And now there was no way out. I would have to go to the memorial service for appearance’s sake. And I could easily come face to face with her.
That was it, of course. That was at the root of my discomfort and reluctance to go to the memorial. I didn’t want to run into Fiona Hampton. Tony’s ex-wife. It struck me then that it was unlikely she would be there, in view of their recent divorce and the searing bitterness which had existed between them. Of course she wouldn’t go to hear him lovingly eulogized by his friends and colleagues. That would be out of character. She was a hard woman whose contentiousness had driven him away from her and the marriage, and sympathy and compassion did not exist in her makeup.
Remembering how unpleasant things had been between them convinced me I was right, and eased my anxiety about going myself. I made a mug of green tea, took out a packet of cookies and stood at the counter munching on a couple and sipping the tea, suddenly feeling more relaxed.
Of course I had no way of knowing that indeed Fiona would attend the memorial, and that meeting her would change my life irrevocably, and so profoundly it would never be the same again.
I
After my long morning walks through the streets I always felt tired in the afternoons, and invariably had to rest. Today was no exception; in fact, I felt more fatigued than usual. I went through into my bedroom, took off my cotton trousers and shirt, slipped into a dressing gown and lay down on the bed.
My head had barely touched the pillow when the phone next to my ear shrilled loudly. I reached for it, and pushed myself up on the pillows as I said, ‘Hullo?’
‘It’s me, Val,’ Mike Carter announced in his warm, affectionate midwest voice. He was the head of the Paris bureau of Gemstar, one of the founders actually, and a very old, very dear friend. ‘How’re you feeling, honey?’
‘I’m fine, Mike, thanks. A lot better. Well, coping at least. What’s happening?’
‘Oh just the usual stuff…you know, wars, terrorist attacks, hijackings, serial murders, famine, earthquakes, floods. Disasters by the cartload, in other words.’ He laughed, but it was a hollow laugh. ‘I guess one day the world will blow itself up, but in the meantime, what’s happening is what I call the small stuff.’ He chuckled again, in that macabre way of his, and asked, ‘Know what I mean?’
‘I do,’ I answered, laughing with him. Mike’s black sense of humour appealed to me, as did his penchant for practical jokes. But these things aside, he had always been my strongest ally, a great supporter of mine ever since I’d joined the agency seven years ago. Over the years a close friendship had developed between us. My grandfather had been very taken with him, and Mike had been smitten in much the same way, and the two had remained good friends until the day Grandfather died.
Mike went on, ‘I’m not calling to lure you back into the fray, Val. Whenever you want, come on in. But take as much time as you need. It’s your call. We all understand how you feel, me most especially.’
‘I know that. Maybe in a couple of weeks,’ I murmured, and surprised myself with this answer. Two weeks was not so far away; I’d actually planned on taking three months off, and here I was shortening it. I was amazed at my unexpected response to him.
‘Well, that’s great!’ Mike was exclaiming down the wire. ‘You’re sorely missed around here. But listen, sweetie, the reason I called is because Qemal, the brother of Ajet, got in touch with the agency today. He asked for you, so he was put through to me. He wanted you to know that Ajet’s safe. In Macedonia.’
‘I’m so glad to hear that!’ I cried, genuinely relieved and pleased to have news of the young Kosovar at last. What had happened to him, what his fate had been, had troubled me and Jake for weeks. When we’d attempted to reach his brother there was never any reply at his Paris apartment. ‘Jake and I thought Ajet had been killed, Mike,’ I explained. ‘Where has he been all these weeks? Did his brother say?’
‘Yes, he told me Ajet had been wounded the day he was with you outside Péc? Apparently he left the wood where he was waiting for you with the jeep, once the fighting started. He actually went looking for the three of you, but he was shot before he could make contact. He was left for dead in the streets, but later he was rescued by some of the locals. They went out into the countryside a couple of days later and found soldiers from the K.L.A., who were able to get medical help for Ajet. The Kosovar soldiers then took him to Albania, God help him; I’ve heard the hospital conditions there are primitive. Eventually Ajet got to Macedonia, although his brother didn’t say how. You’d written the agency number on a bit of paper and given it to him, and the kid kept it. He asked Qemal to let us know he was safe. He especially wanted you to know that, Val.’
‘I’m glad he’s safe, and recovered. It was a fluke he made it.’
‘I know, I know. Everything’s in the lap of the gods in the long run. That’s my belief, at any rate. As Bogie once said, it’s a cockeyed world we live in.’ Mike half sighed, half coughed, and hurried on, ‘I gotta go, honey. Let’s talk next week, or when you feel like it. I’m here if you need me, whenever you need me, day or night. Just give me a shout and I’ll be there.’
‘Thanks, Mike, for everything, and especially for caring about me, and for your friendship…’ I found myself choking up and left the sentence unfinished.
‘Feel better soon,’ he murmured into the phone.
We hung up and I lay back against the pillows. Mike Carter was one of the good guys, one of the best, and he’d seen it all. After knocking around the world as a photojournalist, he and several of his colleagues had founded Gemstar, an agency very similar to Magnum which had been started years before, in the late 1940s, by Robert Capa.
When Mike’s beloved wife Sarah had been killed in a freak automobile accident outside Paris, he had given himself a desk job at Gemstar in order to stay put so that he could bring up his two young children himself, with the help of a nanny. He was no stranger to sudden death, to unspeakable loss. And grief and sorrow were old companions of his, as I well knew. But he somehow managed to hide his pain behind the gruff heartiness and a genuine warmth. Still, I knew how much he had suffered after Sarah’s unexpected and untimely death ten years ago.
Now my thoughts turned to Ajet and that fateful day near Péc the memory of it still terribly vivid in my mind. Almost immediately, I pushed the violent images away, smothered them. I closed my eyes, needing desperately to sleep. That was the ultimate refuge from heartache, and now I craved it. Very simply I wanted to blot out everything, everyone, the whole damn world.
II
I must have dozed off and slept for a very long time, because when I awakened with a start the room was no longer filled with the bright sunlight of early afternoon.
Grey shadows lurked everywhere, curled around the bookshelves and the big Provençal armoire, slid across the ceiling and spilled down onto the walls.
The overwhelming greyness gave my normally cheerful bedroom a gloomy look, and involuntarily I shivered. Someone walked over my grave, I thought, as gooseflesh speckled my arms, and then I couldn’t help wondering