at a fast-food restaurant in the evenings, she had been keeping her head above water—just—and, if her life hadn’t exactly been glamorous, at least it was satisfying.
Virginia, meanwhile, had changed from the rather free and easy teenager she had been at school. Camilla hadn’t wanted to believe it, but already her friend was beginning to speak like her mother, and there was a sharpness to her personality that had not been there before. In addition to which the differences in their lifestyles had created a gulf between them, and, while Camilla was interested in what her friend had been doing, Virginia had a totally different set of values.
Of course, Camilla had made excuses for her. She knew it couldn’t be easy living the kind of brittle existence that her friend’s mother found so appealing. Virginia wasn’t like that, not really; at least, Camilla had never thought so. And if she did seem self-centred now, it was probably just a front. It was Virginia’s way of handling a difficult situation.
It was another two years before they had met again, and then only by chance in Bond Street. By this time, Camilla had achieved her hard-won degree in law, and was having an equally hard struggle in finding some firm of solicitors willing to give her a chance to get her articles. Until she had spent at least two years working as an articled clerk in a solicitor’s office she could not begin to call herself a lawyer, and, in those days of high inflation and unemployment, it wasn’t easy.
Virginia, however, had been jubilant. She’d insisted they went into a nearby wine-bar that she knew, and over champagne cocktails, which Camilla had paid for, she told her friend that she was getting married. A certain wealthy Argentinian polo-player was her constant escort, and both she and her mother were planning a Christmas wedding.
Camilla had been suitably enthusiastic, although the prospect of her friend’s marrying some South American playboy just because he was incredibly wealthy had filled her with unease. Virginia might appear to be on top of the world, but there was a distinct edge to her brilliance, and Camilla hadn’t been able to help noticing she seldom looked her in the eye for more than a few seconds. And she was so thin, almost unfashionably so, if that were possible. And talking of a glittering future about which she hadn’t seemed convinced.
Of course, there was nothing Camilla could have said to dissuade her, and nor did she try. She was rapidly coming to the conclusion that the Virginia she had known at Queen Catherine’s might not have been the real Virginia at all, and although she blamed the girl’s mother it wasn’t really all her fault.
However, Virginia’s Christmas wedding had not materialised. A month later the wealthy Argentinian polo-player had eloped with an American model, and although Camilla was not involved she’d felt tremendous sympathy. She guessed how humiliated Virginia must have felt, and wished there was something she could do.
But there wasn’t. She knew no one who might remotely meet Virginia’s demands so far as a husband was concerned, and the idea that her friend might realise the futility of the life she was leading, and find some other way to assuage her needs, was no longer even a possibility.
And then, nine months later, out of the blue, Camilla had received an invitation to Virginia’s wedding. Not to the Argentinian playboy, of course. He had long since married his American model, and was presently in the process of adapting to fatherhood. No, Virginia’s husband-to-be was an American businessman, Alessandro Conti, and after the wedding they were to live at his luxurious estate in Hawaii.
It had sounded like a dream come true, Camilla had to admit, except that she herself knew nothing about this American businessman. He was not someone whose face had appeared in the British tabloid press, and Camilla had assumed that was because he was not considered sufficiently newsworthy to warrant the kind of gossip status accorded more photogenically viable personalities. She supposed that was where she had first got the idea that Alessandro Conti must be some kind of Howard Hughes figure: wealthy perhaps, but too old to enjoy camera notoriety.
The fact that she now knew how wrong she had been didn’t alter the fact that Virginia had married this man, probably without knowing very much about him beyond the fact that he could keep her—and her mother—in the manner to which they had both become accustomed.
However, her chance to see Virginia’s proposed husband for herself had not materialised either. The precipitate arrival of Virginia’s wedding invitation had coincided with her own annual holiday, and by the time she had returned to London the wedding was over, and Virginia departed for pastures new. An interview with her mother, brought about by the fact that Camilla had not known where to send the handmade lace tablecloth she had brought back from Italy as a wedding present, had elicited an address in Oahu, but apart from a hurried note of thanks they had shared no further communication. For six years!
And then, just like the invitation to her wedding, Virginia’s letter had arrived without warning, sent on to Camilla’s present employer by one of the clerks in the office where she’d used to work. Evidently, Virginia had listened to some of what Camilla had told her, and although she had not remembered her address she had remembered where she worked.
Which was just as well, Camilla thought now. She had moved twice since those early days at Farquahar and Cummings, and there was every possibility that a letter sent to her previous address would have gone astray. Or perhaps it would have been better if it had, she reflected with some cynicism. At least then she would not have had to read Virginia’s impassioned prose, or flown out to Hawaii at the drop of a hat with the distinct impression that she was on a mission of mercy.
For Virginia had said some pretty damning things about this husband of hers in her letter. For one thing, she had implied that he was mistreating her, and Camilla had been half afraid she would come here to find her friend covered in bruises. The marriage had been a mistake, Virginia had stated passionately, the words she had used bringing her thin, agitated face to mind. Alex—she had called her husband Alex—didn’t care about her; she doubted he ever had, and she was going mad with no one to talk to. Could Camilla come to Oahu? She knew it was an imposition, but she had no one else. Her mother had apparently been taken ill some time ago, and was presently being cared for in a nursing-home in Surrey, and Virginia couldn’t burden her with her troubles. Please come, she had pleaded. For old times’ sake. She would be forever grateful.
But now Camilla was here, and Virginia wasn’t. For some reason—some final humiliation, perhaps—she had abandoned all hope of deliverance and run away, taking her daughter—Alessandro Conti’s daughter—with her. Camilla thought it was probably just as well she had taken the child with her. Otherwise, given what Virginia had told her about him, she might well have suspected her husband of being involved in her disappearance. After all, Alessandro Conti, by his own admission, had known nothing of the letter Virginia had sent to England, and so far as he was concerned there was no one who might question her absence. The servants were obviously devoted to their master, probably because he paid them well to be so, Camilla decided uncharitably. They wouldn’t raise a finger to help their mistress. Indeed, there seemed a distinct lack of concern for Virginia’s safety from everyone, including her husband. They wanted her—and the child—back again. But not, apparently, because of any great affection for her.
Camilla shook her head. It was hopelessly confusing, and she was finding it increasingly difficult to hold at bay the headache that had been plaguing her ever since Mama Lu, if that really was her name, had admitted her to the house. She wanted nothing so much as to lie down on the enormous bed and give way to the after-effects of prolonged jet lag, but instead she was supposed to wash and brush up, and join her host for supper. After convincing himself that Camilla really had no more idea of Virginia’s whereabouts than he had, Alessandro Conti had summoned the Polynesian woman again, and had had her show their guest to this apartment. Apparently he had decided that she should be offered their hospitality for tonight at least, and Camilla had been left alone, to unpack her suitcases and take a shower.
