by Ruth Rendell
They had to sit in a waiting room while the doctors did things to Oliver – pumped his stomach, presumably. Then a young black doctor and an old white doctor came and asked James a whole string of questions. What exactly was the stuff Oliver had drunk? When was it made? How much of it had been in the bottle? And a host of others. They were not very pleasant to him and he wanted to prevaricate. It would be so easy to say he hadn’t known what the stuff really was, that he had boiled the thornapples up to make a green dye, or something like that. But when it came to it he couldn’t. He had to tell the bald truth, he had to say he had made poison, knowing it might kill.
After they had gone away there was a long wait in which nothing happened. Mrs Hodges’s daughter would have come by now and James’s father would be home from where he was teaching at a summer seminar. It got to five-thirty, to six, when a nurse brought them a cup of tea, and then there was another long wait. James thought that no matter what happened to him in years to come, nothing could actually be worse than those hours in the waiting room had been. Just before seven the young doctor came back. He seemed to think James’s mother was Oliver’s mother and when he realized she was not he just shrugged and said as if they couldn’t be all that anxious, as if it wouldn’t be a matter of great importance to them:
‘He’ll be OK. No need for you to hang about any longer.’
James’s mother jumped to her feet with a little cry. ‘He’s all right? He’s really all right?’
‘Perfectly, as far as we can tell. The stomach contents are being analysed. We’ll keep him in for tonight, though, just to be on the safe side.’
The Fyfield family all sat up to wait for Mirabel. They were going to wait up, no matter what time she came, even if she didn’t come till two in the morning. A note, put into the letter box of Sindon Lodge, warned her what had happened and told her to phone the hospital.
James was bracing himself for a scene. On the way back from the hospital his mother had told him he must be prepared for Mirabel to say some very unpleasant things to him. Women who would foist their children on to anyone and often seemed indifferent to them were usually most likely to become hysterical when those children were in danger. It was guilt, she supposed. But James thought that if Mirabel raved she had a right to, for although Oliver had not died and would not, he might easily have done. He was only alive because they had been very quick about getting that deadly stuff out of him. Mirabel wouldn’t be able to phone Ewes Hall Farm, for the phone was still out of order. They all had coffee at about ten and James’s father, who had gone all over his room to make sure there were no more killing bottles and had given James a stern but just lecture on responsibility, poured himself a large whisky.
The yellow Volvo came up the drive at twenty to twelve. James sat tight and kept calm the way he had resolved to do while his father went to answer the door. He waited to hear a shriek or a sob. Rosamund had put her fingers in her ears.
The front door closed and there were footsteps. Mirabel walked in, smiling. She had a big diamond on the third finger of her left hand. James’s mother got up and went to her, holding out her hands, looking into Mirabel’s face.
‘You found our note? Of course you must have. Mirabel, I hardly know what to say to you . . .’
Before Mirabel could say anything James’s father came in with the man she was going to marry, a big teddy bear of a man with a handlebar moustache. James found himself shaking hands. It was all very different from what he had expected. And Mirabel was all smiles, vague and happy, showing off her engagement ring on her thin little hand.
‘What did they say when you phoned the hospital?’
‘I didn’t.’
‘You didn’t phone? But surely you . . . ?’
‘I knew he was all right, Elizabeth. I didn’t want to make a fool of myself telling them he’d drunk half a pint of coloured water, did I?’
James stared at her. And suddenly her gaiety fell from her as she realized what she had said. Her hand went up to cover her mouth and a dark flush mottled her face. She stepped back and took Gilbert Coleridge’s arm.
‘I’m afraid you underrate my son’s abilities as a toxicologist,’ said James’s father, and Mirabel took her hand down and made a serious face and said that of course they must get back so that she could phone at once.
James knew then. He understood. The room seemed to move round him in a slow circle and to rock up and down. He knew what Mirabel had done, and although it would not be the end of him or ruin things for him or spoil his future, it would be with him all his life. And in Mirabel’s eyes he saw that she knew he knew.
But they were moving back towards the hall now in a flurry of excuses and thank yous and good nights, and the room had settled back into its normal shape and equilibrium. James said to Mirabel, and his voice had a break in it for the first time: ‘Good night. I’m sorry I was so stupid.’
She would understand what he meant.
May and June
Their parents named them May and June because their birthdays occurred in those months. A third sister, an April child, had been christened Avril but she had died. May was like the time of year in which she had been born, changeable, chilly and warm by turns, sullen yet able to know and show a loveliness that couldn’t last.
In the nineteen thirties, when May was in her twenties, it was still important to get one’s daughters well married, and though Mrs Thrace had no anxieties on that head for sunny June, she was less sanguine with regard to May. Her elder daughter was neither pretty nor graceful nor clever, and no man had ever looked at her twice. June, of course, had a string of admirers. Then May met a young lawyer at a thé dansant. His name was Walter Symonds, he was extremely good looking, his father was wealthy and made him a generous allowance, and there was no doubt he belonged in a higher social class than that of the Thraces. May fell passionately in love with him, but no one was more surprised than she when he asked her to marry him.
The intensity of her passion frightened Mrs Thrace. It wasn’t quite nice. The expression on her face while she awaited the coming of her fiancé, her ardour when she greeted him, the hunger in her eyes – that sort of thing was all very well in the cinema, but unsuitable for a civil servant’s daughter in a genteel suburb.
Briefly, she had become almost beautiful. ‘I’m going to marry him,’ she said when warned. ‘He wants me to love him, doesn’t he? He loves me. Why shouldn’t I show my love?’
June, who was clever as well as pretty, was away at college training to be a schoolteacher. It had been considered wiser, long before Walter Symonds was thought of, to keep May at home. She had no particular aptitude for anything and she was useful to her mother about the house. Now, of course, it turned out that she had an aptitude for catching a rich, handsome and successful husband. Then, a month before the wedding, June came home for the summer holidays.
It was all very unfortunate, Mrs Thrace said over and over again. If Walter Symonds had jilted May for some unknown girl, they would have been bitterly indignant, enraged even, and Mr Thrace would have felt old-fashioned longings to apply a horsewhip. But what could anyone say or do when he transferred his affections from the elder daughter to the younger?
May screamed and sobbed and tried to attack June with a knife. ‘We’re all terribly sorry for you, my darling,’ said Mrs Thrace, ‘but what can anyone do? You wouldn’t marry a man who doesn’t love you, would you?’
‘He does love me, he does! It’s just because she’s pretty. She’s cast a spell on him. I wish she was dead and then he’d love me again.’
‘You mustn’t say that, May. It’s all very cruel, but you have to face the fact that he’s changed his mind. Isn’t it better to find out now than later?’
‘I would have had him,’ said May.
Mrs Thrace blushed. She was shocked to the core.
‘I shall never marry now,’ said May. ‘She’s ruined my life and I shall never have anything ever again.’
Walter and June we
re married, and Walter’s father bought them a big house in Surrey. May stayed at home, being useful to her mother. The war came. Walter went straight into the army, became a captain, a major, finally a colonel. May also went into the army, where she remained a private for five years, working in some catering department. After that, there was nothing for it but to go home to her parents once more.
She never forgave her sister.
‘She stole my husband,’ she said to her mother.
‘He wasn’t your husband, May.’
‘As good as. You wouldn’t forgive a thief who came into your house and stole the most precious thing you had or were likely to have.’
‘We’re told to forgive those who trespass against us, as we hope to be forgiven.’
‘I’m not religious,’ said May, and on those occasions when the Symondses came to the Thrace home she took care to be out of it. But she knew all about them – all, that is, except one thing.
Mr and Mrs Thrace were most careful never to speak of June in her presence, so May listened outside the door, and she secretly read all June’s letters to her mother. Whenever Walter’s name was spoken or mentioned in a letter, she winced and shivered with the pain of it. She knew that they had moved to a much larger house, that they were building up a collection of furniture and pictures. She knew where they went for their holidays and what friends they entertained. But what she was never able to discover was how Walter felt about June. Had he ever really loved her? Had he repented of his choice? May thought that perhaps, after the first flush of infatuation was over, he had come to long for his former love as much as she longed for him. Since she never saw them she could never know, for, however he might feel, Walter couldn’t leave June. When you have done what he had done you can’t change again. You have to stick it out till death.
It comforted her, it was perhaps the only thing that kept her going, to convince herself that Walter regretted his bargain. If there had been children, what the Victorians called pledges of love . . .
Sometimes, after a letter had come from June, May would see her mother looked particularly pleased and satisfied. And then, shaking with dread, she would read the letter, terrified to find that June was pregnant. But Mrs Thrace’s pleasure and satisfaction must have come from some other source, from some account of Walter’s latest coup in court or June’s latest party, for no children came and now June was past forty.
Trained for nothing, May worked as canteen supervisor in a women’s hostel. She continued to live at home until her parents died. Their deaths took place within six months, Mrs Thrace dying in March and her widower in August. And that was how it happened that May saw Walter again.
At the time of her mother’s cremation, May was ill with a virus infection and unable to attend. But she had no way of avoiding her father’s funeral. When she saw Walter come into the church a faintness seized her and she huddled against the pew rail, trembling. She covered her face with her hands to make it seem as if she were praying, and when at last she took them away he was beside her. He took her hand and looked into her face. May’s eyes met his which were as blue and compelling as ever, and she saw with anguish that he had lost none of his looks but that they had become only more distinguished. She would have liked to die then, holding his hand and gazing into his face.
‘Won’t you come and speak to your sister, May?’ said Walter in the rich deep voice which charmed juries, struck terror into the hearts of witnesses and won women. ‘Shall we let bygones be bygones on this very sad day?’
May shivered. She withdrew her hand and marched to the back of the church. She placed herself as far away from June as she could get, but not too far to observe that it was June who took Walter’s arm as they left and not Walter June’s, June who looked up to Walter for comfort while his face remained grave and still, June who clung to him while he merely permitted the clinging. It couldn’t be that he was behaving like that because she, May, was there. He must hate and despise June as she, with all her heart, hated and despised her still.
But it was at a funeral that they were reconciled. May learnt of Walter’s death through reading an announcement of it in a newspaper. And the pain of it was as great as that she had suffered when her mother had told her he wanted to marry June. She sent flowers, an enormous wreath of snow-white roses that cost her half a week’s wages. And of course she would go to the funeral, whether June wanted her there or not.
Apparently June did want her. Perhaps she thought the roses were for the living bereaved and not for the dead. She came up to May and put her arms round her, laying her head against her sister’s shoulder in misery and despair. May broke their long silence.
‘Now you know what it’s like to lose him,’ she said.
‘Oh, May, May, don’t be cruel to me now! Don’t hold that against me now. Be kind to me now, I’ve nothing left.’
So May sat beside June, and after the funeral she went back to the house where June had lived with Walter. In saying she had nothing left, June had presumably been referring to emotional rather than material goods. Apart from certain stately homes she had visited on tours, May had never seen anything like the interior of that house.
‘I’m going to retire next month,’ she said, ‘and then I’ll be living in what they call a flatlet – one room and a kitchen.’
Two days later there came a letter from June.
‘Dearest May, Don’t be angry with me for calling you that. You have always been one of my dearest, in spite of what I did and in spite of your hatred of me. I can’t be sorry for what I did because so much happiness came of it for me, but I am truly, deeply, sorry that you were the one to suffer. And now, dear May, I want to try to make up to you for what I did, though I know I can never really do that, not now, not after so long. You said you were going to retire and wouldn’t be living very comfortably. Will you come and live with me? You can have as many rooms in this house as you want, you are welcome to share everything with me. You will know what I mean when I say I feel that would be just. Please make me happy by saying you forgive me and will come. Always your loving sister, June.’
What did the trick was June saying it would be just. Yes, it would be justice if May could now have some of those good things which were hers by right and which June had stolen from her along with her man. She waited a week before replying and then she wrote: ‘Dear June, What you suggest seems a good idea. I have thought about it and I will make my home with you. I have very little personal property, so moving will not be a great headache. Let me know when you want me to come. It is raining again here and very cold. Yours, May.’ There was nothing, however, in the letter about forgiveness.
And yet May, sharing June’s house, was almost prepared to forgive. For she was learning at last what June’s married life had been.
‘You can talk about him if you want to,’ she had said hungrily on their first evening together. ‘If it’s going to relieve your feelings, I don’t mind.’
‘What is there to say except that we were married for forty years and now he’s dead?’
‘You could show me some of the things he gave you.’ May picked up ornaments, gazed at pictures. ‘Did he give you that? What about this?’
‘They weren’t presents. I bought them or he did.’
May couldn’t help getting excited. ‘I wonder you’re not afraid of burglars. This is a proper Aladdin’s Cave. Have you got lots of jewellery too?’
‘Not much,’ said June uncomfortably.
May’s eyes were on June’s engagement ring, a poor thing of diamond chips in nine carat gold, far less expensive than the ring Walter had given his first love. Of course she had kept hers and Walter, though well off even then, hadn’t been rich enough to buy a second magnificent ring within six months of the first. But later, surely . . .?
‘I should have thought you’d have an eternity ring.’
‘Marriage doesn’t last for eternity,’ said June. ‘Let’s not talk about it any more.’
May could t
ell she didn’t like talking about it. Soon she shied at mentioning Walter’s name and she put away the photographs of him which had stood on the piano and the drawing room mantelpiece. May wondered if Walter had ever written any letters to his wife. They had seldom been parted, of course, but it would be strange if June had received no letter from him in forty years. The first time June went out alone, May tried to open her desk. It was locked. The drawers of June’s dressing table disclosed a couple of birthday cards with ‘Love from Walter’ scrawled hastily on them, and the only other written message from her husband June had considered worth keeping May found tucked into a cookery book in the kitchen. It was a note written on the back of a bill, and it read: ‘Baker called. I ordered large white for Saturday.’
That night May reread the two letters she had received from Walter during their engagement. Each began, ‘Dearest May.’ She hadn’t looked at them for forty years – she hadn’t dared – but now she read them with calm satisfaction. ‘Dearest May, This is the first love letter I have ever written. If it isn’t much good you must put it down to lack of practice. I miss you a lot and rather wish I hadn’t told my parents I would come on this holiday with them . . .’ ‘Dearest May, Thanks for both your letters. Sorry I’ve taken so long to reply but I feel a bit nervous that my letters don’t match up to yours. Still, with luck, we soon shan’t have to write to each other because we shan’t be separated. I wish you were here with me . . .’ Poor Walter had been reticent and shy, unable to express his feelings on paper or by word of mouth. But at least he had written love letters to her and not notes about loaves of bread. May decided to start wearing her engagement ring again – on her little finger of course because she could no longer get it over the knuckle of her ring finger. If June noticed she didn’t remark on it.
‘Was it you or Walter who didn’t want children?’ May asked.
‘Children just didn’t come.’