Secrets From the Past Read online

  For Bob, with all my love

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Author’s Note

  Part One: Snapshot Memories: Manhattan, March 2011

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Part Two: Personal Close-Ups: Venice, April

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Part Three: Revealing Angles: Nice, April

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Part Four: A Single Frame Tells It All: Nice/New York, May/June

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Part Five: Candid Images: Libya, July/August

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Part Six: Out of Film: Venice, August 2011

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Epilogue: Nice, October 2011

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  Books by Barbara Taylor Bradford

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  I have been a journalist all of my life. I started my writing career on the Yorkshire Evening Post in Leeds. I became a cub reporter when I was sixteen, women’s page editor at eighteen and graduated to London’s Fleet Street when I was twenty. I was fashion editor of a women’s magazine before returning to newspapers at twenty-one, as a feature writer for the London Evening News. I have always been at home in a newsroom and was happy to go back to one.

  Although I have spent the last thirty-odd years writing novels, I have continued to be a journalist and still write for newspapers and magazines. I owe a lot to journalism, and to other journalists, not the least when doing research for this book.

  I am particularly indebted to those war correspondents and war photographers who have so courageously covered the wars in the Middle East over the past few years. The Arab Spring began in December of 2010, when a young Tunisian man, Mohamed Bouazizi, set himself on fire in protest of his mistreatment by a local policewoman. He ignited the revolution in his country and brought down the Tunisian government, which fell after his death in January of 2011.

  After uprisings broke out in Tunisia, they quickly spread to Egypt, Libya and then Syria. Being a fan of news shows, I constantly watched television coverage, and voraciously read newspapers and magazines. I wanted to know as much I could about the Arab Spring in the early part of 2011, since I was about to start writing this novel featuring a woman war photographer.

  In the summer of 2011 my husband and I were in France, and my routine remained the same. I read every newspaper available every day, and part of the day we were both glued to the television set watching the coverage on Sky News, the BBC, ITN, CNN and the American networks when we could get them. The Libyan war was at its height that summer, and we witnessed it without being actually there in Libya.

  I could not have written the Libyan section of this book without the television coverage by such correspondents as Lara Logan of CBS, Christiane Amanpour of CNN, Richard Pendlebury of the Daily Mail, and Marie Colvin of the Sunday Times, and her photographer Paul Conroy. Their graphic reporting was extraordinary and it gave me the information and photographs required to create the scenes of the Libyan war for this novel.

  I was stunned when the courageous Marie Colvin was tragically killed in Homs, Syria on 22 February 2012. She will be mourned forever by her family and friends, her colleagues and fellow journalists, myself included. Intrepid, intelligent, and humane, she was a woman who had defied the odds for years. Her brilliant reporting of war atrocities saved many lives, and we will all remember how she insisted that she had to get the truth out, so that the world knew what was happening. She succeeded. And died for it. And for that reason, amongst others, Marie Colvin will never be forgotten.

  PART ONE

  Snapshot Memories:

  Manhattan, March 2011

  In my own very self, I am part of my family.

  D. H. Lawrence, Apocalypse

  Memories of love abound,

  In my heart and in my mind.

  They give me comfort, keep me sane,

  And lift my spirits up again.

  Anonymous

  ONE

  It was a beautiful day. The sky was a huge arc of delphinium blue, cloudless, and shimmering with bright sunlight above the soaring skyline of Manhattan. The city where I had lived, off and on, for most of my life, was looking its best on this cold Saturday morning.

  As I walked up Sutton Place, returning to my apartment, I began to shiver. Gusts of strong wind were blowing off the East River, and I was glad I was wearing jeans instead of a skirt, and warm clothes. Still shivering, I turned up the collar of my navy-blue pea jacket and wrapped my cashmere scarf tighter around my neck.

  It was unusually chilly for March. On the other hand, I was enjoying my walk after being holed up for four days endeavouring to finish a difficult chapter.

  Although I was a photojournalist and photographer by profession, I’d recently decided to write a book, my first. Having hit a difficult part earlier this week, I’d been worrying it to death for days, like a dog with a bone. Finally I’d got it right last night. It felt good to get out, to stretch my legs, to look around me and to remind myself that there was a big wide world out here.

  I increased my pace. Despite the sun, the wind was bitter. The weather seemed to be growing icier by the minute, and I hurried faster, almost running, needing to get home to the warmth.

  My apartment was on the corner of Sutton and East Fifty-Seventh, and I was relieved when it came into view. Once the traffic light changed, I dashed across the street and into my building, exclaiming to the doorman, as I sped past him, ‘It’s Arctic weather, Sam.’

  ‘It is, Miss Stone. You’re better off staying inside today.’

  I nodded, smiled, headed for the elevator. Once inside my apartment I hung up my scarf and pea jacket in the hall cupboard, went into the kitchen, put the kettle on for tea and headed for my office.

  I glanced at the answering machine on my desk and saw that I had two messages. I sat down, pressed play and listened.

  The first was from my older sister Cara, who was calling from Nice. ‘Hi, Serena, it’s me. I’ve found another box of photographs, mostly of Mom. Looking fab. You might want to use a few in the book. Shall I send by FedEx? Or what? I’m heading out now, so leave a message. Or call me tomorrow. Big kiss.’

  The second message was from my godfather. ‘It’s Harry. Just confirming Monday night, Serena honey. Seven thirty. Usual place. Don�
��t bother to call back. See ya.’

  The whistling kettle brought me to my feet. As I made the tea I felt a frisson of apprehension, then an odd sense of foreboding … something bad was going to happen, I felt it in my bones.

  I pushed this dark feeling away, carried the mug of tea back to my office, telling myself that I usually experienced premonitions only when I was at the front, when I sensed imminent danger, knew I had to run for my life before I was blown to smithereens by a bomb, or took a bullet. To have such feelings now was irrational. I shook my head, chiding myself for being overly imaginative. But in fact I was to remember this moment later and wonder if I’d had some sort of sixth sense.

  TWO

  The room I used as an office was once my mother’s den, years ago. It was light, airy, with large plate-glass windows at one end. She had decorated it in cream and deep peach with a touch of raspberry; I had kept those colours because they emphasized its spaciousness and I found them restful.

  In fact I had pretty much left the room as it was, except for buying a modern desk chair. I loved her antique Georgian desk, the long wall of bookshelves that held her various decorative objects and family photographs as well as books.

  At the windowed end of the room my mother had created a charming seating area with a big comfortable sofa, several armchairs and a coffee table. I headed there now, carrying my mug. I sat down on the sofa, sipped the tea, and, as always, marvelled at the panoramic view spread out before me: the East River, the suspension bridges and the amazing skyscrapers that helped to make this city so unique.

  The windows faced downtown, and just to my right was the elegant Art Deco spire of the Chrysler Building and next to it the equally impressive Empire State. The city had never looked better, had made an unusually spectacular comeback after the bombing of the World Trade Center in 2001.

  I realized, with a small jolt of surprise, that it was ten years ago already. The anniversary of that horrific attack would be this coming September, since we were now in the year 2011.

  What mattered, though, was that One World, the new tower, was already on its way up, would keep on going up and up and up, until it reached 1,776 feet, that well-known number not only commemorating Independence Day, but also making it the highest building in the Western hemisphere.

  That particular September remained vivid in my mind, not only because of the heinous crime that had been committed, but because we had all been here together as a family. In this very apartment, which my mother had bought thirty years ago now, in around 1980, just before I was born.

  My mother, who had an amazing eye for art and architecture, had a predilection for buying apartments and houses, which is why my sisters and I had grown up all over the world: New York, London, Paris, Nice and Bel Air. My grandmother used to say we were like gypsies with money.

  My father, who loved to tease my mother about anything and everything, would point out how proud he was of himself, because he had never felt the need to indulge himself in this way, had never invested money in bricks and mortar, and never would.

  My mother’s pithy answer was always the same. She would point out that despite this, he managed somehow to commandeer most of the closets in their different homes, in which he would then hang his extensive collection of beautiful, very expensive clothes. This was true, and they would laugh about it, as always enjoying being together, loving each other, the best of friends.

  Suddenly, I saw them in my mind’s eye. They were true blue, those two. True to each other and to us, to me and my twin sisters Cara and Jessica, who were eight years older than me and who used to boss me around, albeit in a genial way. My father called us his all-girl team, and he was so proud of us. We were such a happy family.

  That September of 2001 my father was in New York, not off somewhere covering a war, and so was his best friend and partner, Harry Redford. They had been pals since childhood; both of them had been born and brought up in Manhattan, had gone to the same school, become photographers together, then partnered up and roamed the world, plying their trade.

  My father and Harry had founded Global Images in 1971, a photographic agency that was managed by Harry’s sister, Florence, since the two men were not always in New York. My father and Harry were joined at the hip, and he was very much part of the family, loved by all of us. Dad’s compadre, my mother’s protector and champion. And an avuncular presence in our lives, always there for us, no matter what. And these days he was my best friend as well as my godfather. He had always treated me as a pal, was never condescending, and I’d been his confidante since I was eighteen … he told me first when he was getting a divorce from Melanie, his first wife, who was too temperamental, and then again when he got his second divorce from Holly Grey, who was jealous of any woman who looked at him. And many did. He usually brought a girlfriend when he came to Nice.

  The weather that autumn had been glorious. Indian summer weather. Balmy, soft, with light blue skies, sunshine and no hint of autumn.

  Even though we were all angry, shocked and sorrowing because of the brutal terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, we were able to draw enjoyment from each other’s company, and also comfort from being together at this frightening time.

  Cara and Jessica had flown in from Nice, where they lived at the old house up in the hills, in order to celebrate their twenty-eighth birthdays in October.

  Before 9/11 we had been to see Broadway plays and movies, eaten at my father’s favourite restaurants, most especially Rao’s. There was a great deal of family bonding during that period, and now, when I looked back, I was glad we had this special time together.

  My mother’s mother, Alice Vasson, and her sister, Dora Clifford, had come in from California to celebrate the twins’ birthdays with us. The two of them were staying at the Carlyle Hotel, but they were mostly at the apartment during the day.

  My mother, an only child, nonetheless had a great sense of family, and revelled in such occasions. This made us happy, especially my father, and particularly since my mother wasn’t in the best of health during this period. Being surrounded by those who loved her helped to make her feel better, and she was more radiant and happier than I had seen her for a long time.

  My grandmother and great aunt had been instrumental in developing my mother’s career, and, not unnaturally, they couldn’t help boasting a bit, taking bows. They had made her into a megastar, one of the greatest movie stars in the world.

  Their tall tales and antics amused my father no end, and made him laugh hilariously; my mother merely smiled, said not a word, her expression benign. And we girls, well, we just listened, once again awestruck, even though we’d heard these yarns before.

  I sighed under my breath, remembering my grandmother and great aunt, the roles they had played in our lives, and I thought of their deaths, and the other losses over the last few years …

  When someone you love has died, everything changes. Instantly. Nothing can ever be the same again. The world becomes an entirely different place … alien, cold, empty without the presence of that person you love.

  When one quarrels with a loved one, there is often a reconciliation, maybe a compromise, or we go our separate ways. If a friend or relative decides to live somewhere else, in another place, it is easy to reach out to them, speak on the phone, send emails or text. In other words, to remain part of their lives is not difficult at all.

  Death does not offer that consolation.

  Death is the final exit.

  Memories. Those are what I had in my heart, abundant memories that would be with me until the day I died. They were founded on reality, on things that actually happened, and so they were true. And because of this, they offered real solace.

  My father died eleven months ago. I was in total shock, filled with sorrow, grief and guilt. A terrible guilt that still haunted me at times, guilt because I did not get there in time to tell him how much I loved him, to say goodbye.

  I was late because of a missed plane in Afghanistan. Only a
paltry few hours too late, but it might as well have been a month or even a year. Too late is exactly that.

  When death came, that sly pale rider on his pale horse, he relentlessly snatched his prize and was gone. Suddenly there was nothing. A void. Emptiness. A shattering silence. But inevitably the memories did come back. Very slowly at first, they were nonetheless sure-footed, and they brought a measure of comfort.

  The book I had been writing for the last few months was about my father. As I delved into his past, to tell his amazing story, he came alive again. He was quite a guy. That’s what everyone said about him. Quite a guy, they told me, admiration echoing in their voices.

  My father, John Thomas Stone, known to everyone everywhere simply as Tommy, was one of the world’s greatest war photographers. Of the same ilk as the famous Robert Capa, who died covering the war in Vietnam when he stepped on a land mine.

  Until my father appeared on the scene many years later, there had never been many comparisons to the great Capa. At least, not of the kind my father inspired.

  For years Tommy cheated death on the front line, and then, unexpectedly, he died. At home in his own bed, of natural causes – a second heart attack, this one massive. He was gone, just like that, in the flick of an eyelash, without warning. No prior notice given here.

  It was the suddenness, the unexpectedness of it that did the worst damage to me. Aftershock. My father, who was given to using military lingo, would have called it blowback, and that’s what it was. Blowback. It felled me.

  My mother, Elizabeth Vasson Stone, died four years ago, and I was devastated. I still grieved for her at times, and I would always miss her. Yet my father’s death affected me in a wholly different way. It crippled me for a while.

  It could be that my reaction was not the same because my mother had always suffered from poor health, whereas my father was strong and fit. Invincible, to me. That perhaps was the difference. I suppose I thought he would live forever.

  My sisters still believed I was our father’s favourite child. Naturally, I’d continued to deny this over the years, reminded them that I was the youngest, and because of this perhaps I was spoilt, even pampered a bit when I was growing up.