sounding board thinks. You have to forget Tom, as you know you should. You must put him out of your mind once and for all. He’s not for you, Alexa, or anybody else, in my opinion. What happened to his wife and child was unbearable, very, very tragic, and so heart-rending. But it was years ago. Sixteen years ago, to be precise. And if he’s not over it by now–’
‘He wasn’t over it three years ago, but I don’t know about now–’
‘–then he never will be,’ Diane continued in a very firm voice. ‘Your life is here in New York, not in Paris. For the most part, your work is here, and you know you can make a wonderful life with Jack. And that’s what you should do…’ Diane stopped, tightened her embrace, and said against her daughter’s glossy dark hair, ‘There are all kinds of love, you know. Degrees of love. And sometimes the great love of one’s life is not meant to last…perhaps that’s how it becomes the great love…by ending.’ Diane sighed, but after a moment she went on, ‘I know it’s hard to give someone up. But, in fact, Tom Conners gave you up, Alexa. Not vice versa, so why torture yourself. My advice to you is not to go to Paris. That way you won’t be tempted to see Tom, and open up all those wounds.’
‘I guess you’re right, Mom. You usually are. But Anya’s going to be really upset if I don’t go to the party.’
‘I’m sure she will be.’ There was a slight pause, and then Diane exclaimed, ‘There is an alternative! You and Jack could go to Paris together. Obviously, you couldn’t go looking for Tom if you were there with another man.’
Want to bet? Alexandra thought, but said, ‘The invitation doesn’t include a guest. Only my name is written on it. And I’m sure Anya’s only invited former pupils and her family.’
‘But she wouldn’t refuse you…not if you said you were coming to Paris with your…fiancé.’
‘I don’t know what she’d do, actually. I have to think about that, Mom, all of what you’ve just said…and implied.’
The invitation stood propped up on the mantelpiece next to the carriage clock, and the first thing Alexandra did when she got home was to pick it up and read it again.
Down in the left-hand corner, underneath the initials rsvp was the date of the deadline to accept or decline: April the first 2001. And in the opposite right-hand corner it said: Black Tie, and underneath this: Long Dress, All the information she needed was right there, including what to wear; attached to the engraved invitation with a paperclip was a small rsvp card, and an envelope addressed to a Madame Suzette Laugen at 158 Boulevard St Germain, Paris.
So, she had the rest of February and most of March to make up her mind, to think about Anya’s birthday and decide what to do, whether to go or not. That was a relief. But she knew she would spend the next few weeks vacillating.
Deep down she wanted to go, wanted to celebrate this special birthday with Anya, an extraordinary woman who had had such an enormous influence on her life. But there was the problem of Tom Conners, and also of her former friends…Jessica, Kay and Maria. Three woman once so close to her, and she to them, that they were inseparable, but they were sworn enemies now. She couldn’t bear the thought of seeing any of them.
April the first, she mused. An anniversary of sorts, since she had met Tom Conners on April the first. In 1996. She had been twenty-five, he thirty-seven.
April Fool, she thought, with a wry smile. But she wasn’t sure if she meant herself or him.
Placing the invitation back on the mantel, she knelt down in front of the fireplace, struck a match and brought it to the paper and small chips of wood stuffed in the grate. Within minutes she had the fire going, the logs catching alight quickly, the flames leaping up the chimney.
Pushing herself to her feet, Alexandra turned on a lamp. Along with the fire it helped to bring a warm, roseate glow to the living room, already shadowed as it was by the murky winter light of late afternoon. She felt tired. After leaving her mother, she had walked all the way down Park Avenue from Seventy-Ninth Street to Thirty-Ninth. Forty blocks of good exercise, but she had finally given in and taken a cab back to the loft.
After glancing out of the window at the lights of Manhattan slowly coming on, Alexa sat down on the sofa in front of the fire, staring into the flames flickering and dancing in the grate. Her mind was awash with so many diverse thoughts, but the most prominent were centred on Tom.
It was Nicky Sedgwick who had introduced them, when Tom had come out to the studios in Billancourt to see his client Alain Durand, who was producing the movie. It was a French-American co-production, very elaborate and costly. Nicky and his brother Larry were the Art Directors and were designing the sets, and at Anya’s suggestion they had hired her as their assistant. But she had become more like an associate, because of all the work and responsibility they had heaped on her.
What a challenge the movie had been, and what a lot she had learned. It was a historical drama about Napoleon and Josephine in the early part of their relationship, and Nicky, who was in charge, was a stickler for historical accuracy and detail. Even now, when she thought of the endless hours she had spent at Malmaison she still cringed. She had taken countless notes, knew that house inside out, and had often wondered why the famous couple had ever lived there. Its parkland and closeness to Paris, she supposed. Nicky had been thrilled with her…with her work, her overall input, and most of all with her set designs. In general, it had been a positive experience, and she worked on most of their films and plays after that, until she left Paris.
The day Tom Conners came out to the studios shooting was going well, and Alain Durand had been elated. He and Tom had invited the Sedgwick brothers to dinner when they wrapped for the day, and she had been included in the invitation since Anya’s nephews had by then adopted her, in a sense.
She had been struck dumb by Tom’s extraordinary looks, his charm and sophistication. So much so, she had felt like a little schoolgirl with him. But he had treated her as a grown-up, with gallantry and grace, and she had been smitten with him before the dinner was over. Later that night she found herself in his arms in his car after he drove her home; two nights later she was in his bed.
‘Spontaneous combustion,’ he had called it; not very long after this he had said it was a coup de foudre, clap of thunder, love at first sight. Which they both knew it was.
But that easy charm and effortless grace hid a difficult man of many moods, a man who was burdened down by the needless deaths of his wife and child, and by an acute sorrow he was so careful to hide in public.
Nicky had teased her about Tom at times, and once he had said, ‘I suppose women must find his dark Byronic moods sexy, appealing,’ and had thrown her an odd look. She knew what he was hinting at, but Tom was not acting. He really was in pain. But it was Larry who had been the one to warn her. ‘He comes to you dragging a lot of baggage behind him, emotional baggage,’ Larry had pointed out. ‘So watch out, and protect your back. He’s lethal, a dangerous man.’
Alexa stretched out on the sofa. Her thoughts stayed with Tom and their days together in Paris. Despite his moodiness, those awful bouts of sadness, their relationship had always been good, even ecstatic when he shed the burdens of his past. And it had only ended because she had wanted permanence with him. Marriage. Children.
She wondered about him sometimes, wondered who he was with, how his life was going, what he was doing. Still suffering occasionally, she supposed. She hadn’t been able to convey to her mother the extent of that. She hadn’t even tried. It was too hard to explain. You had to live through it with him to understand.
He was forty-two now, and still unmarried, she felt certain of that. What a waste, she thought, and closed her eyes, suddenly craving sleep. She wanted to forget…to forget Tom and her feelings for him, forget those days in Paris…she was never going back there. Not even for Anya Sedgwick’s eighty-fifth birthday.