Julia took a step closer, her nose wrinkled as she pointed at the cage. ‘There’s something in there.’
Beth stepped forward; she looked down to the bottom of the cage where a baby dove lay in the corner. Its neck was broken; one blood-encrusted eye stared upward. There was a message tagged to the bird’s foot; it said simply: I died inside.
The box was on the hall table, on top of the Washington Post and the unopened mail. It was wrapped in white paper, tied with red velvet ribbon, scarlet red. Kelly didn’t see it until she was about to leave the house at ten after twelve. She was screaming orders at her cook from the hall, and checking she had everything she needed for the charity luncheon she was due to attend in less than fifteen minutes. This was the first meeting of the fund-raising committee; what would it be this time, she wondered. A black-tie ball for three thousand of Washington’s élite? A musical soirée? A masked carnival? A fashion show? All the same repetitive stuff, and as usual Kelly was dreading the tedious debate and the well-meaning, sanctimonious chatter of the other members. She would much rather be having lunch with her friend Sally Oritz, who made her laugh with her crude bar-room humour.
Kelly grabbed the box on her way out and was comfortably settled in the back seat of the car when she examined the package. It was about a foot long, and a couple of inches wide. There was no message tag, and she suspected by the weight and shape it was an orchid or a rose.
The ribbon came off easily, as did the fine tissue gift wrap. Inside was a wooden box, it was midnight blue and resembled a long jewellery case. She lifted the lid; the interior was a lighter shade of blue. At first glance Kelly thought it was empty. On closer inspection she realized it contained a string, a musical instrument string, probably part of a violin or cello. It was broken, one end coiled around a card lying underneath. When she picked up the card, her hand was trembling as she read it: You broke my heart.
He was lucky to get the apartment. It had come back on the market two days ago, after being let for two years. ‘A snip,’ the agent had said, several times. ‘A two-bed, fully furnished duplex on M Street for six thousand bucks a month is a steal.’
Jay had merely nodded silently and handed over three months’ rent in advance. The apartment was comfortable in a white-on-white, young designer hot-out-of-school and eager-to-impress sort of way. ‘Chic’ was the agent’s description. Jay didn’t know chic from crass, good taste from bad. But it was enough that he was within spitting distance of Kelly and, as of today, on line.
With a self-satisfied grin in Jay’s direction, Luther pointed to the equipment he’d set up on a marble-topped console table in the corner of the large living room. Jay was sitting on the arm of the chair, a cigarette dangling from his lips.
‘You wanna hear?’
Jay exhaled, and nodded at the same time.
Luther flicked a switch, and Jay heard a man speak.
‘Hi, Kelly.’
‘You OK, Todd? You sound out of breath.’ Kelly’s voice, throaty and deep, caused Jay to have a physical pain in his gut.
‘I’m fine, and you, what did the doc say?’ There was a long silence then, ‘Kelly, you still there?’
In a very small voice she replied, ‘Yes I’m still here. And no, you’re not going to be a daddy.’
There was another long silence, longer than the last, followed by a deep sigh. Jay wasn’t sure whether it was Kelly or Todd sighing. A second later Todd spoke, the enforced joviality in his tone failing to mask acute disappointment. ‘That’s OK, honey, we can try again.’
‘Todd I –’ Kelly paused. ‘Todd, I’m sorry.’
‘It’s not your fault. Like I just said, we’ll try again. It’s fun practising.’
‘Tell me the truth. Are you very disappointed?’
Another long sigh then, ‘I would love to have a baby with you, Kelly, but if it’s not possible it won’t stop me loving you, nor will it change our relationship. We’ve got each other.’
‘I’m so pleased you said that, Todd. Because it’s exactly how I feel.’ Jay detected something in her tone that didn’t quite ring true, but then he rejected it as overreacting. It was, after all, the first time he’d heard her voice for over twenty-five years.
‘You get some rest now, Kel, I’ll call you in the morning.’
‘Night, Todd.’
‘And by the way, Kelly. I love you.’
Jay did not hear Kelly’s reply as the line went dead. Luther flicked a switch and, finger poised, said, ‘You want to hear some more?’
‘What else is there?’
‘A call to her hairdresser, the rest is business. A real cute operator, Mrs Prescott. Did you know that the little lady is about to launch a tabloid called the Georgetown Gazette?’
Jay grinned. ‘No, as a matter of fact I didn’t. But now that this little baby is in place,’ he pointed with his cigarette to the electronic playback, ‘there isn’t much about Mrs Prescott that I won’t know.’
‘I saw her leave the house this morning.’ Luther whistled. ‘Sure is one beautiful dame. He added quickly, ‘Too much for a dumb ass nigger boy like me.’
‘For a dumb ass nigger boy,’ Jay grinned and touched Luther’s arm, ‘you’re one hell of an electronics genius.’
But by now Jay was really thinking about Kelly. The sound of her voice had plucked another chord in his memory.
It was the fall of 72; they had been invited to a friend’s house at the beach for the weekend. Late in the evening Kelly had suggested a walk on the beach. He’d agreed and hand in hand they had crossed a wide sweeping terrace, bordered on three sides by terracotta pots overflowing with white and occasional pink geraniums. He recalled saying to Kelly that it was how the other half lived. She’d grinned and replied, ‘This is how we’re going to live, Jay.’
The sound of surf crashing on to the shore at the foot of the garden had mingled with the giggling of two naked couples in the pool, and that of several entwined bodies on the pool side. They never did get to walk on the beach, because Kelly discovered the privacy of the poolroom. And if anything else had been said that night, he’d forgotten it.
Luther noticed Jay’s distraction, instinctively aware that he was still in love with Kelly Prescott. He, too, knew how it felt to love a woman and lose her, and at that moment he longed to have Shirley’s knack of saying the right thing at the right time. Jay had befriended him on his first week in prison, talking to him like an equal, like he was a fellow college graduate, someone of substance – instead of a punch-drunk ex-boxer, a terminal loser and thrice-convicted felon. He would never forget Jay’s painstaking patience when he’d taught him chess.
He watched Jay stand up, stretch and walk across the sitting room of the small apartment, located on the opposite side of M Street, two hundred metres from the Prescott house.
Luther spoke to his back. ‘You happy with the reproduction?’
Without turning around, Jay said, ‘It’s great, you did a good job.’
‘It was easier than I first thought.’
‘Does that mean I get a discount?’
A guffaw filled the room. ‘Come on, man, gimme