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Authors: Nina de Gramont
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the sound of popping rifles. He and Ursula claimed to be fond of Agatha but this did not intrude upon their willingness to accept me as a fourth in golf and as a guest at weekend house parties.
Ursula and I sat together on a lilac settee, talking about an article she’d read recently about a new term in psychology called Lucid Dreaming.
‘The idea,’ she said, ‘is that in a dream a person might be able to control events. And I thought how much better I’d like it if there were such a thing as Lucid Living. Much better to control what happens in life than what happens in your dreams.’
She laughed and so did I, though it brought me back to summers in Ireland, which always hit me with a kick in the gut. Those days when the whole world had seemed like lucid living, and I could summon a boy cresting the hill to visit me as if out of thin air.
Noel poured me another brandy, then grabbed my hand andbellowed to Archie, ‘Can’t you give her any better jewellery than that, Mr Christie?’
I wanted to snatch my hand away but instead I smiled, letting him examine the ring. From this company’s point of view it must have looked inexpensive and insignificant, like something a child might wear, turning the skin beneath it faintly green.
‘It’s sentimental,’ I said.
Noel did not let go. Ursula’s smile looked waxen. She was bespectacled and too thin but, as far as I could tell, her husband adored her almost as heartily as he seemed to adore Archie.
‘She’ll have something better than that soon enough,’ Archie said. He stood smartly, holding his snifter, elbow resting on the mantle. He had the something better in his suitcase, and planned to present it to me before the weekend was out. He smiled at me over the rim of his glass. He wasn’t one to worry over past romance and had never asked me a word about the Claddagh. In his presence I always wore it with the crown pointed away from me.
A little while later, Archie and I stood upstairs in the hallway between our rooms. If he fretted at all about his wife’s wellbeing, his countenance did not betray it. He kissed me, fierce and anticipatory, before the brief subterfuge of retiring to his own room. It would not do for the Owens’ servants to find his bed undisturbed in the morning.
At the bookshop the day before, along with Winnie the Pooh , I had bought a copy of a new novel by the American author F. Scott Fitzgerald: The Great Gatsby . I read a chapter while waiting for Archie to sneak back across the hall. I’ve said already, haven’t I, that at the time I didn’t think much of Agatha’s novels, though, unlike Archie, I had at least read them. I fancied myself more high minded. E. M. Forster and JohnGalsworthy were my favourites, though lately I’d also taken a liking to American writers like Hemingway and Gertrude Stein. And Fitzgerald. As I turned the pages of his novel, I thought he was on to something very fine indeed.
When Archie crept into my room – stealthy, as if the household didn’t know full well what we were up to – I put aside my book to do what he liked best, taking off my clothes while he lay on the bed, still in his suit and even his shoes, watching me.
‘Take your hair down,’ he said, his voice hoarse.
I did as I was told, wondering if we’d continue like this – the commands, the straddling, his thrusts through unzipped trousers – once we were married. If a part of me hated him – despised him, even – that only abetted the performance he most enjoyed. His smooth hands ran down my sides and I closed my eyes, shutting out the consequences, the devastated wife, and even my own motives, to enjoy what pleasure there was, in completing the task at hand.
The Disappearance
Last Day Seen
Friday, 3 December 1926
A T HER NEW home in Ascot, not far from Sunningdale, Miss Annabelle Oliver – aged seventy-seven – was experiencing lady troubles.
It had been going on for some days. It was what her mother used to call heat
Ursula and I sat together on a lilac settee, talking about an article she’d read recently about a new term in psychology called Lucid Dreaming.
‘The idea,’ she said, ‘is that in a dream a person might be able to control events. And I thought how much better I’d like it if there were such a thing as Lucid Living. Much better to control what happens in life than what happens in your dreams.’
She laughed and so did I, though it brought me back to summers in Ireland, which always hit me with a kick in the gut. Those days when the whole world had seemed like lucid living, and I could summon a boy cresting the hill to visit me as if out of thin air.
Noel poured me another brandy, then grabbed my hand andbellowed to Archie, ‘Can’t you give her any better jewellery than that, Mr Christie?’
I wanted to snatch my hand away but instead I smiled, letting him examine the ring. From this company’s point of view it must have looked inexpensive and insignificant, like something a child might wear, turning the skin beneath it faintly green.
‘It’s sentimental,’ I said.
Noel did not let go. Ursula’s smile looked waxen. She was bespectacled and too thin but, as far as I could tell, her husband adored her almost as heartily as he seemed to adore Archie.
‘She’ll have something better than that soon enough,’ Archie said. He stood smartly, holding his snifter, elbow resting on the mantle. He had the something better in his suitcase, and planned to present it to me before the weekend was out. He smiled at me over the rim of his glass. He wasn’t one to worry over past romance and had never asked me a word about the Claddagh. In his presence I always wore it with the crown pointed away from me.
A little while later, Archie and I stood upstairs in the hallway between our rooms. If he fretted at all about his wife’s wellbeing, his countenance did not betray it. He kissed me, fierce and anticipatory, before the brief subterfuge of retiring to his own room. It would not do for the Owens’ servants to find his bed undisturbed in the morning.
At the bookshop the day before, along with Winnie the Pooh , I had bought a copy of a new novel by the American author F. Scott Fitzgerald: The Great Gatsby . I read a chapter while waiting for Archie to sneak back across the hall. I’ve said already, haven’t I, that at the time I didn’t think much of Agatha’s novels, though, unlike Archie, I had at least read them. I fancied myself more high minded. E. M. Forster and JohnGalsworthy were my favourites, though lately I’d also taken a liking to American writers like Hemingway and Gertrude Stein. And Fitzgerald. As I turned the pages of his novel, I thought he was on to something very fine indeed.
When Archie crept into my room – stealthy, as if the household didn’t know full well what we were up to – I put aside my book to do what he liked best, taking off my clothes while he lay on the bed, still in his suit and even his shoes, watching me.
‘Take your hair down,’ he said, his voice hoarse.
I did as I was told, wondering if we’d continue like this – the commands, the straddling, his thrusts through unzipped trousers – once we were married. If a part of me hated him – despised him, even – that only abetted the performance he most enjoyed. His smooth hands ran down my sides and I closed my eyes, shutting out the consequences, the devastated wife, and even my own motives, to enjoy what pleasure there was, in completing the task at hand.
The Disappearance
Last Day Seen
Friday, 3 December 1926
A T HER NEW home in Ascot, not far from Sunningdale, Miss Annabelle Oliver – aged seventy-seven – was experiencing lady troubles.
It had been going on for some days. It was what her mother used to call heat
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