In a True Light by John Harvey

Author:John Harvey
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House

‘Why didn’t you tell me about Jane Graham?’ Rachel asked.

They were in Raoul’s on Prince Street in SoHo, the two of them seated at a table three-quarters of the way back. Dark wood, silver cutlery, dim lights.

‘What about her?’ Sloane asked.

Rachel tilted her head a fraction to one side and treated him to a look that hinted at exasperation. Her hair was down now, framing her face in a Dante Gabriel Rossetti meets Toni & Guy kind of way.

‘We never had that kind of conversation,’ Sloane said a moment later.

‘Then let’s have it now.’

She reached for the bottle of Shiraz but the waiter was there before her, refilling both their glasses and then stepping smartly away.

‘All right,’ Sloane said, ‘what do you want to know?’

Rachel laughed lightly. ‘Anything. Everything. Jake told me the basics this afternoon, how you two were the hot item of the day.’

‘I don’t know,’ Sloane said, ‘it’s difficult to know where to start.’

‘How about where you met?’

‘The Five Spot. It was a jazz club, Cooper Square. It’s not there any more.’

‘And you were how old? Twenty, twenty-one?’

‘Eighteen.’

Rachel whistled softly. ‘So Jane Graham must have been in her thirties, early thirties?’

‘Something like that.’

‘Good for her.’

‘You think so?’

‘You bet. All these guys in their forties, fifties, older, schlepping around with some bimbo on their arm, young enough to have graduated alongside their daughters. Why not have a little of it the other way around?’

Sloane smiled his wry smile. ‘You think that’s what I was then, a bimbo?’

‘A boy bimbo, sure.’

‘Thanks a lot.’

‘Oh, come on, Sloane. What do you think? She loved you for your brain, your grasp of foreign affairs? Maybe your art?’ Rachel speared a piece of veal with her fork and left it uneaten while she drank more wine. ‘You were cute, I imagine you were cute back then, tall, strong; at that age you could could probably make love – what? – three or four times a night.’ Seeing the expression on his face, she stopped. ‘Now you’re upset?’

‘No.’

‘Offended.’

‘No.’

‘Oh, God, Sloane, you loved her, didn’t you? Of course you did. And you thought that she loved you, at least you wanted her to.’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ Sloane said, not looking her in the eye.

‘No, it does.’

‘Look, let’s forget it. Let’s talk about something else, anything, the weather, the price of real estate, the Davis Cup, the …’

‘Stop,’ Rachel said. ‘Just stop.’ And then, ‘What happened? When it finished, what happened?’

Sloane fiddled with his knife, readjusted the position of his fork. ‘She went to France,’ he said quietly. ‘She got on a boat and went to France.’

‘And that was that, the end?’

‘The end, yeah. Pretty much.’

‘You never saw her again after that?’

‘Not till this year, no.’

‘That’s incredible.’

‘Yes, maybe it is.’ He paused. ‘I saw her in Italy, a couple of days before she died. Held her hand. Watched her breathe. Just not for very long. Now can we talk about something else? And since you insisted this was all on you …’ With one long swallow he emptied his glass.

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