“What are you doing?”
Clara pauses before the door, tilting her chin in a martyred pose. “I’m off to collect a mountain for you, my darling. Or at least a bottle of champagne, which is just as difficult in this strange Puritanical teetotal nation of yours.”
BEING CLARA, SHE RETURNS BEARING not just champagne but dessert, pushed through the doorway on a mirrored serving trolley by a waiter who’s paid to ignore the distinctive round-bellied bottles dangling from each of Clara’s slender hands. “I couldn’t decide,” she says, setting down each one, “so I had him bring them all.”
I can’t tell her that I hate champagne, the taste and the smell and the zing of bubbles against my nose, which brings such painful memories rushing against my skull, I sometimes hold my breath on those rare occasions when champagne must be endured. Clara’s so triumphant, so full of joy at her successful mission—God only knows where she found these bottles, and what she had to do to obtain them for us—I just keep quiet. Wince at the shhh-pop of the first cork. Take my glass and sip as small as I can: a toothful of bubbling wine.
Clara drains half a pint or so and reaches for the strawberries. “That’s better. Now where were we?”
“We weren’t anywhere.”
“Do have one of these chocolates. The pastry chef makes them himself. One by one. I watched him once. Mesmerizing.”
I took a chocolate.
“And for heaven’s sake, drink your fizz. You’ve no idea what promises I made to obtain it. No, no. Not another miserable little sip. Properly. Like this.” She tipped back her head and finished off the glass and poured herself another.
“I can see you’re an expert.”
“You don’t need to be an expert to enjoy champagne.” She made a little leap and plopped herself on one of the beds. “How I do adore this hotel! We stayed here when we first came to Miami Beach, Samuel and I. That was March, after we’d been to identify poor Simon’s body. I couldn’t stand to stay in that dreary little town, so we came here to recover. Just like you! That’s why I thought of this place, when you said Miami.”
I lower myself to the edge of the other bed. “That wasn’t necessary.”
“Yes, it was. I could see it in your face, when we saw the elephant. You were enchanted—as enchanted as darling Evelyn—only you wouldn’t admit it. You daren’t admit your enchantment anymore. Because of Simon, I suppose.” She drinks her champagne and stares at the ceiling. “I say, I rather fancy a fag. You don’t mind, do you?”
I tell her I don’t mind at all, and she leaps up again and rummages through her handbag until her hand emerges in possession of a slim gold case. She knocks out a cigarette and lights it in a series of quick, graceful movements that mesmerize me. When she’s finished, and the cigarette burns from her fingers, she lifts the champagne bottle and wanders dreamily across the room to where I sit on the edge of my bed. “Refill, darling. Now be a good girl and drink it.”
For some impossible reason, I obey her and drink deep, and this time it isn’t so bad. As if those first few sips have numbed the nerves that connect sensation to memory. Anyway, everything’s different now, isn’t it? This is Florida, sun-warmed and hibiscus-scented. The icy champagne just fits, somehow.
Clara watches my face. “That’s better, isn’t it? There’s nothing a bottle of vintage fizz can’t cure, I always say. And you need it more than anyone. You’re in desperate need of a good roaring drunk, Virginia Fitzwilliam.”
“Am I?”
“Oh, yes. Poor thing. I’ll bet you’ve been blaming yourself for the past three years, telling yourself you can’t have any fun, that you don’t deserve any fun because you made such a dreadful, dreadful mistake trusting Simon.”
“It wasn’t a mistake. I thought so in the beginning, after I realized what he really was. But then Evelyn came.”
“Oh, Evelyn. Of course. No, I don’t suppose you can regret her.”
“Never.”
“And you can’t really hate Simon, can you, when he gave you such a daughter. Oh, my darling! What a terrible burden you’ve been carrying, between Simon and your father. All these dreadful men pressing around you.” She wandered back to her own bed and made that same little skipping motion, landing on her back, one white-stockinged leg dangling from the side. “You mustn’t blame yourself, you know. It’s not your fault that men are such beastly bounders.”
“I don’t blame myself.”
“Oh, lies! Yes, you do. And you’re punishing yourself for it. You’re doing penance for allowing yourself to be taken in. Not once, but twice! First your father, and then Simon. Or is it the other way around?”
In a single awkward, unpracticed movement, I lift the glass to my lips and drink all the champagne, all of it, jiggling the stem so that the last drop tracks along the bowl and into my mouth.
Clara turns on her side and examines me. “Ah! I’ve got it right, haven’t I?”
“Not at all.”
“Yes, I have. I’m a terribly keen observer of other people, you understand. We younger siblings always are. I knew right away, as soon as I saw you. My poor Virginia. My poor brave darling.”
I rise from the bed, and this time I’m the one who takes the bottle in my hand. I’m the one who pours the champagne into my glass, almost to the rim. “I’m not brave at all, though. If anything, I’ve been weak. Weak and blind.”
“Because you wanted to be loved. You had no mother, no other family. My God! That man was your father. And Simon was your lover. Of course you wanted to believe in them. I remember the first time I saw you, clinging to Simon like a lovely pale little vine—you’re so tall, and yet you didn’t look tall at all then—and I thought, oh, the poor dear sweet thing. What am I going to tell her? How am I going to warn her?” She reaches forward—I’m standing next to her, because she left the champagne bottle on the small table between our two single beds—and she seizes my empty left hand. “And your father, too. It’s the same thing. You wanted so desperately to believe that he was good, that he wasn’t a murderer. You had no choice but to believe in him. He had all the money, and you had a sister, and then the baby. Where else could you go? You simply had to believe he was innocent. To go on believing. Oh, come here, darling.” She pulls me onto the bed with her and puts her arms around me, and while I’m absolutely not crying a bit—my eyes are dry, my chest still—I find myself helpless to resist her. She has paralyzed me. “You’re safe now, anyway. They can’t lie to you anymore.”
“What a shame. They were both excellent liars.”
“Oh, you don’t need to tell me that! Simon was just—what’s the word? He was congenital. I don’t know about your father, but Simon was simply born that way. A liar. He was an expert, a natural. He knew exactly what to say to you, to make you believe him. He knew exactly what you wanted to hear.”
“Yes,” I whisper.
“Of course, it made him terribly charming. All the local girls used to go mad for him, whenever he came down from school at the end of term. You can only imagine what a clever seducer he was. He was no more than fifteen, I think, when he got started. Yes, fifteen at the oldest. I remember because I happened upon him with a girl one afternoon, the summer I turned ten. There was a pretty little secret garden on the grounds, you see, just perfect for that sort of thing, all walled and sunken and loads of benches and sweet-smelling roses. I used to play there all the time. I thought it was a fairy garden. Don’t