City of Jasmine. Deanna Raybourn

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СКАЧАТЬ the kaiser,” Arthur said, bobbing his head in satisfaction. He applied himself to his biscuit and Aunt Dove threw up her hands.

      “Very well, but don’t complain to me if you get indigestion,” she warned him. She shook her head. “It never does to argue with parrots. They might speak, but they simply never listen.”

      She glanced at the clock and rose, gathering up her letters.

      “Lord, look at the time and I’m dining with a Savoyard prince tonight. I think I might have been engaged to him once.”

      “You think?” Wally asked, his eyes popping.

      Aunt Dove smiled sweetly. “Eighteen seventy-eight is a bit of a blur, dear boy. That’s the year I discovered absinthe. Now, you children have a lovely evening and don’t wait up. Come along, Arthur.” He flapped to her shoulder and then up to the top of her turban, narrowly avoiding the enormous paste emerald brooch she had used to pin the thing in place.

      They left in a cloud of feathers and musk perfume, and Wally turned to me. “Is it very wrong that I want to grow up to be your Aunt Dove?”

      “In that case, growing up has nothing to do with it,” I said, flipping through my letters. “She still thinks she’s twenty, exploring the world as a Victorian adventuress. It’s never occurred to her that time has marched on. Heavens, here’s something from the fuel company.”

      “What do they want?”

      “I daren’t open it. The last bill was just too ghastly. I’ll look at it tomorrow and maybe I’ll be lucky enough to lose it before then.” I tossed aside the bills and read out the most salacious snippets of news from home to Wally.

      He stretched out his long legs and laced his hands behind his head, offering an occasional comment on the gossip. “I cannot believe Delilah Drummond has remarried so soon after throwing over poor old Quentin. The sheets weren’t even cold before she said ‘I do’ to that Russian princeling—” He broke off. “Evie? What is it?”

      I stared at the photograph that had just fallen from the pile of cuttings. My hand felt cold, colder than any living hand ought to feel.

      “Evie? You look as if you’ve seen a ghost,” Wally said.

      “That depends,” I said in a small, hollow voice. “Do ghosts photograph?”

      * * *

      I did not faint, but I must have been green enough to frighten Wally into shoving my head between my knees until I was breathing normally again. He held me there for at least a quarter of an hour, his hand firm on the back of my neck.

      “I’m fine,” I said to my knees, my voice sounding marginally stronger. I tried again. “I am fine, really.”

      “I don’t believe you,” he said, narrowing his eyes at me. “How many fingers am I holding up?”

      “I will hold up a very particular one if you don’t let me sit up,” I warned him. He sprang back and I eased myself to a sitting position. “You must be worried,” I told him. “You didn’t even scold me for saying something unladylike.”

      “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a face go that colour,” he replied. “You were positively green.”

      “What colour am I now?”

      He screwed up his eyes. “A sort of yellowish parchment-white. Not very becoming, if I’m honest. Now, what’s this about ghosts?”

      I handed over the snapshot. Wally stared at it, his mouth agape, and after a long moment passed it back. “Where did it come from?”

      I shrugged. “There was no envelope. It was simply stuck in with a bunch of letters and cuttings.”

      “It means nothing,” he said firmly. “It must have been taken on one of his expeditions before the war. You said Gabriel was always haring off to parts unknown before you married him.”

      “Turn it over,” I instructed.

      He furrowed his brow as he read the inscription on the back aloud. “‘Damascus, 1920.’ Why the devil would Gabriel be in Damascus?”

      I swallowed hard. “I think the better question is why would Gabriel be in Damascus five years after he died?”

      Wally rose and went to the drinks tray. A moment later he handed me a whisky and poured another for himself. “Forget the tea. Strong drink is the only solution.”

      I obeyed and took a deep swallow, grateful for the burn of it.

      “What would he be doing in Damascus?” Wally repeated. “Did he have any connection with that part of the world?”

      I nodded. “He was born there. His father was rather high up in the army, posted to the consulate in Damascus when Gabriel was born. And then Gabriel went back to do a brief season of digging there when he was at school studying archaeology.” I paused. “I’m not wrong. It is Gabriel.” It was a statement, but he understood what I was asking.

      “It certainly looks like the photographs I’ve seen of him. Perhaps someone put on that inscription for a bit of a joke—a cruel one,” he added. “But people can be spiteful and Gabriel did make rather a lot of enemies in his time. A man cannot be that handsome and successful and still be universally liked. Mark my words, it’s a vicious prank and nothing more.”

      I peered at the photograph more closely. “I don’t think so. Look at the corners of the eyes very closely. There are lines there he didn’t have. And there’s something about his jaw even under that disgusting beard. It’s firmer, it’s—” I scrutinised the jaw through a thicket of untidy hair. “It’s resolute...” I said, hesitating. “I’ve always wondered, you know.”

      “Wondered?”

      “Whether he was actually on the Lusitania. I know it sounds mad to even suggest it. He was on the passenger list. People saw him on the ship once they’d put to sea. And they never recovered a body, so of course, I believed it when they said he’d been lost. At least I think I believed it.”

      “But, darling, why wouldn’t he have been on the ship?”

      “I don’t know. I just keep thinking of him the last time I saw him, when he left me on that steamer in Shanghai. The whole expedition to China had been such a disaster, I kept telling myself it had to get better but it never did.” I faltered. Wally knew the whole story. He’d been treated to it once during a maudlin night with too much gin and too little sleep. I told him everything—how Gabriel and I had met at a New Year’s Eve party thrown by my friend Delilah, how we had eloped that very night. I described the romantic dash up to Scotland and the hasty wedding. It was our very own fairy tale.

      But Gabriel and I hadn’t found our happily ever after. Almost immediately after the wedding he had begun to change. There were mysterious telephone calls and cryptic looks, and we began to quarrel even before we left for his expedition to China. I had thought the trip would be a sort of belated honeymoon, a chance to smooth out the little bumps in Matrimony Road. But China is where it all fell apart. The dashing, impetuous man I’d married had become a stranger almost overnight. He retreated behind a façade of cool detachment, holding himself aloof from me. He avoided my СКАЧАТЬ