Collected Short Stories

by Ruth Rendell

  An empty envelope lay half under the sweat shirt. Jeremy read what was written on it and remembered. ‘Fond thoughts from Lupe.’ He had told her that wasn’t the way to write it. You should say ‘love from’ or ‘best wishes from’. Inside had been a cassette of Latin-American love songs, awful stuff he’d never even bothered to take out of the zipper bag he’d had with him that weekend at Hacienda Alameda . . .

  And obviously he never had taken it out. He had repacked the bag with the cassette – wrapped in red tissue paper, he recalled, sealed in this envelope – still inside. Well, if it was that tape they wanted they were welcome to it. But why should they want it? Jeremy hauled the mattress back on to the bed. He felt horribly uneasy, his hands shook and a muscle twitched in his forehead. He could have done with a drink but the bar closed at ten and it was past that. He pulled the stopper off the Kahlua bottle and then thought: suppose they put something in it?

  Had the whole exercise been mounted simply to get back a tape Lupe had given him? No, of course not. It wasn’t being done because he’d stolen the $320 either, he saw that now. It was because he’d stolen Lupe. Manuel had probably meant him to steal the money, had indeed set it up. It wasn’t normal for a man, however well off, to be quite so careless with cash as that or so indifferent to its loss . . .

  Jeremy was too frightened now not to drink the Kahlua. It enabled him to get some sleep. First, though, he pulled the heavy writing desk across the door. A sound he thought came from in the room awakened him and he jumped up with a cry, but it wasn’t in the room, it wasoutside in the corridor, the people next door coming in late. A Kahlua hangover began to bash his head. He had no aspirin and dared not leave the room to go and ask for some.

  Thank God he was going back to Miami today. He didn’t leave the hotel. He breakfasted in the dining room, despite the cost, and sat for the rest of the morning on the leather settee facing reception and reading one of the few books in English the Latinoamericana had, a James M. Cain paperback. Nothing untoward happened. He jumped out of his skin when a voice uttered his name into his ear. It was only Carmen, the tour guide.

  ‘The bus for the international airport is going thirteen hundred hours. Have a nice day!’

  Could he go back and work for Manuel again? The chances were Manuel wouldn’t say a word, would want bygones to be bygones, in his own phrase. Jeremy thought he’d work for him just long enough to get the fare together for California . . . It was a long three hours before the bus came. He’d finished The Postman Always Rings Twice and was reduced to reading travel brochures. He didn’t bother with lunch. It was only something else that cost money.

  Nobody drummed feet or clapped when the aircraft began its descent for Miami. But Jeremy felt a lightening of his heart. For one thing, Immigration would doubtless allow him a further six months’ stay in the United States. His last six months’ allowance had long since expired but he’d torn the slip out of his passport and would say it had fallen out and got lost. That was a trick he’d used successfully coming over the border from Mexico once before. Feeling you were legal even for a little while gave you a sense of security.

  He walked into Customs. They tended to search young people coming in after a short stay in Central or South America. Josh had told him. So he wasn’t concerned when the Customs man took everything out of the zipper bag and only mildly surprised at the close examination his sponge bag was subjected to.

  There was a split in the bottom seam. The Customs man put his fingers through, then his whole hand, and drew out from between cover and lining a package wrapped in red tissue paper. The red tissue, which he’d last seen round Lupe’s cassette, unfolded to reveal its contents, a fine white crystalline powder.

  Jeremy had never seen it before but he knew what it was. He thought briefly of the annual new car, of Hacienda Alameda, and then he thought of himself and how he need not worry about his stay in the United States being curtailed. He would be there a long time.

  The Convolvulus Clock

  ‘Is that your own hair, dear?’

  Sibyl only laughed. She made a roguish face.

  ‘I didn’t think it could be,’ said Trixie. ‘It looks so thick.’

  ‘A woman came up to me in the street the other day,’ said Sibyl, ‘and asked me where I had my hair set. I just looked at her. I gave a tiny little tip to my wig like this. You should have seen her face.’

  She gave another roar of laughter. Trixie smiled austerely. She had come to stay with Sibyl for a week and this was her first evening. Sibyl had bought a cottage in Devonshire. It was two years since Trixie had seen Sibyl and she could detect signs of deterioration. What a pity that was! Sibyl enquired after the welfare of the friends they had in common. How was Mivvy? Did Trixie see anything of the Fishers? How was Poppy?

  ‘Poppy is beginning to go a bit funny,’ said Trixie.

  ‘How do you mean, “funny”?’

  ‘You know. Funny. Not quite compos mentis any more.’

  Sibyl of all people ought to know what going funny meant, thought Trixie.

  ‘We’re none of us getting any younger,’ said Sibyl, laughing.

  Trixie didn’t sleep very well. She got up at five and had her bath so as to leave the bathroom clear for Sibyl. At seven she took Sibyl a cup of tea. She gave a little scream and nearly dropped the tray.

  ‘Oh my conscience! I’m sorry, dear, but I thought that was a squirrel on your chest of drawers. I thought it must have come in through the window.’

  ‘What on earth was that noise in the middle of the night?’ When Sibyl wasn’t laughing she could be downright peevish. She looked a hundred without her wig. ‘It woke me up, I thought the tank was overflowing.’

  ‘The middle of the night! I like that. The sun had been up a good hour, I’m sure. I was just having my bath so as not to be a nuisance.’

  They went out in Sibyl’s car. They had lunch in Dawlish and tea in Exmouth. The following day they went out early and drove across Dartmoor. When they got back there was a letter on the mat for Trixie from Mivvy, though Trixie had only been away two days. On Friday Sibyl said they would stay at home and have a potter about the village. The church was famous, the Manor House gardens were open to the public and there was an interesting small gallery where an exhibition was on. She started to get the car out but Trixie said why couldn’t they walk. It could hardly be more than a mile. Sibyl said it was just under two miles but she agreed to walk if Trixie really wanted to. Her knee hadn’t been troubling her quite so much lately.

  ‘The gallery is called Artifacts,’ said Sibyl. ‘It’s run by a very nice young couple.’

  ‘A husband and wife team?’ asked Trixie, very modern.

  ‘Jimmy and Judy they’re called. I don’t think they are actually married.’

  ‘Oh my conscience, Sibyl, how can one be “actually” married? Surely one is either married or not?’ Trixie herself had been married once, long ago, for a short time. Sibyl had never been married and neither had Mivvy or Poppy. Trixie thought that might have something to do with their going funny. ‘Thankfully, I’m broadminded. I shan’t say anything. I think I can see a seat ahead in that bus shelter. Would you like a little sit-down before we go on?’

  Sibyl got her breath back and they walked on more slowly. The road passed between high hedges on high banks dense with wild flowers. It crossed a stream by a hump-backed bridge where the clear brown shallow water rippled over a bed of stones. The church appeared with granite nave and tower, standing on an eminence and approached, Sibyl said, by fifty-three steps. Perhaps they should go to Artifacts first?

  The gallery was housed in an ancient building with bow windows and a front door set under a Georgian portico. When the door was pushed open a bell tinkled to summon Jimmy or Judy. This morning, however, they needed no summoning for both were in the first room, Judy dusting the dolls’ house and Jimmy doing something to the ceiling spotlights. Sibyl introduced Trixie to them and Trixie was very gracious towards Judy, making no differen
ce in her manner than she would have if the young woman had been properly married and worn a wedding ring.

  Trixie was agreeably surprised by the objects in the exhibition and by the items Jimmy and Judy had for sale. She had not expected such a high standard. What she admired most particularly were the small pictures of domestic interiors done in embroidery, the patchwork quilts and the blown glass vases in colours of mother-of-pearl and butterfly wings. What she liked best of all and wanted to have was a clock.

  There were four of these clocks, all different. The cases were ceramic, plain and smooth or made in a trellis work, glazed in blues and greens, painted with flowers or the moon and stars, each incorporating a gilt-rimmed face and quartz movement. Trixie’s favourite was blue with a green trellis over the blue, a convolvulus plant with green leaves and pale pink trumpet flowers climbing the trellis and a gilt rim round the face of the clock which had hands of gilt and blue. The convolvulus reminded her of the pattern on her best china tea service. All the clocks had price cards beside them and red discs stuck to the cards.

  ‘I should like to buy this clock,’ Trixie said to Judy.

  ‘I’m terribly sorry but it’s sold.’

  ‘Sold?’

  ‘All the clocks were sold at the private view. Roland Elm’s work is tremendously popular. He can’t make enough of these clocks and he refuses to take orders.’

  ‘I still don’t understand why I can’t buy this one,’ said Trixie. ‘This is a shop, isn’t it?’

  Sibyl had put on her peevish look. ‘You can see the red sticker, can’t you? You know what that means.’

  ‘I know what it means at the Royal Academy but hardly here surely.’

  ‘I really do wish I could sell it to you,’ said Judy, ‘but I can’t.’

  Trixie lifted her shoulders. She was very disappointed and wished she hadn’t come. She had been going to buy Sibyl a pear carved from polished pear wood but now she thought better of it. The church also was a let-down, dark, poky and smelling of mould.

  ‘Things have come to a pretty pass when shopkeepers won’t sell their goods to you because they’re upset by your manner.’

  ‘Judy wasn’t upset by your manner,’ said Sibyl, puffing. ‘It’s more than her reputation is worth to sell you something she’s already sold.’

  ‘Reputation! I like that.’

  ‘I mean reputation as a gallery owner. Artifacts is quite highly regarded round here.’

  ‘You would have thought she and her – well, partner, would be glad of £62. I don’t suppose they have two half-pennies to bless themselves with.’

  What Sibyl would have thought was never known for she was too out of breath to utter and when they got home had to lie down. Next morning another letter came from Mivvy.

  ‘Nothing to say for herself of course,’ said Trixie at breakfast. ‘Practically a carbon copy of Thursday’s. She’s going very funny. Do you know she told me sometimes she writes fifty letters in a week? God bless your pocket, I said. It’s fortunate you can afford it.’

  They went to Princetown in Sibyl’s car and Widecombe-in-the-Moor. Trixie sent postcards to Mivvy, Poppy, the Fishers and the woman who came in to clean and water the plants in the greenhouse. She would have to buy some sort of present for Sibyl before she left. A plant would have done, only Sibyl didn’t like gardening. They went to a bird sanctuary and looked at some standing stones of great antiquity. Trixie was going home on Tuesday afternoon. On Tuesday morning another letter arrived from Mivvy all about the Fishers going to see the Queen Mother open a new arts centre in Leighton Buzzard. The Fishers were crazy about the Queen Mother, watched for her engagements in advance and went wherever she went within a radius of 150 miles in order just to catch a glimpse of her. Once they had been at the front of the crowd and the Queen Mother had shaken hands with Dorothy Fisher.

  ‘We’re none of us getting any younger,’ said Sibyl, giggling.

  ‘Well, my conscience, I know one thing,’ said Trixie. ‘The days have simply flown past while I’ve been here.’

  ‘I’m glad you’ve enjoyed yourself.’

  ‘Oh, I have, dear, only it would please me to see you a little less frail.’

  Trixie walked to the village on her own. Since she couldn’t think of anything else she was going to have to buy the pear-wood pear for Sibyl. It was a warm sunny morning, one of the best days she’d had, and the front door of Artifacts stood open to the street. The exhibition was still on and the clocks (and their red ‘sold’ discs) still there. A shaft of sunlight streamed across the patchwork quilts on to the Georgian dolls’ house. There was no sign of Jimmy and Judy. The gallery was empty but for herself.

  Trixie closed the door and opened it to make the bell ring. She picked up one of the pear-wood pears and held it out in front of her on the palm of her hand. She held it at arm’s length the way she did when she had helped herself to an item in the supermarket just so that there couldn’t be the slightest question of anyone suspecting her of shoplifting. No one came. Trixie climbed the stairs, holding the pear-wood pear out in front of her and clearing her throat to attract attention. There was no one upstairs. A blue Persian cat lay sleeping on a shelf between a ginger jar and a mug with an owl on it. Trixie descended. She closed the front door and opened it to make the bell ring. Jimmy and Judy must be a heedless pair, she thought. Anyone could walk in here and steal the lot.

  Of course she could just take the pear-wood pear and leave a £5 note to pay for it. It cost £4.75. Why should she make Jimmy and Judy a present of 25p just because they were too idle to serve her? Then she remembered that when she had been here with Sibyl a door at the end of the passage had been open and through that door one could see the garden where there was a display of terracotta pots. It was probable Jimmy and Judy were out there, showing the pots to a customer.

  Trixie went through the second room and down the passage. The door to the garden was just ajar and she pushed it open. On the lawn, in a cane chair, Judy lay fast asleep. A ledger had fallen off her lap and lay on the grass alongside a heap of books. Guides to the management of tax they were and some which looked like the gallery account books. It reminded Trixie of Poppy who was always falling asleep in the daytime, most embarrassingly sometimes, at the table or even while waiting for a bus. Judy had fallen asleep over her book-keeping. Trixie coughed. She said ‘Excuse me’ very loudly and repeated it but Judy didn’t stir.

  What a way to run a business! It would serve them right if someone walked in and cleared their shop. It would teach them a lesson. Trixie pulled the door closed behind her. She found herself tiptoeing as she walked back along the passage and through the second room. In the first room she took the ceramic clock with the convolvulus on it † off the shelf and put it into her bag and she took the card too with the red sticker on it so as not to attract attention to the clock’s absence. The pear-wood pear she replaced among the other carved fruit.

  The street outside seemed deserted. Trixie’s heart was beating rather fast. She went across the road into the little newsagent’s and gift shop and bought Sibyl a teacloth with a map of Devonshire on it. At the door, as she was coming out again, she saw Jimmy coming along the street towards the gallery with a bag of groceries under one arm and two pints of milk in the other. Trixie stayed where she was until he had gone into Artifacts.

  She didn’t much fancy the walk back but there was no help for it. When she got to the bridge over the stream she heard hooves behind her and for a second or two had a feeling she was pursued by men on horseback but it was only a girl who passed her, riding a fat white pony. Sibyl laughed when she saw the teacloth and said it was a funny thing to give someone who lived in Devonshire. Trixie felt nervous and couldn’t eat her lunch. Jimmy and Judy would have missed the clock by now and the newsagent would have remembered a furtive-looking woman skulking in his doorway and described her to them and soon the police would come. If only Sibyl would hurry with the car! She moved so slowly, time had no meaning for her. At this rate Tr
ixie wouldn’t even catch her train at Exeter.

  She did catch it – just. Sibyl’s car had been followed for several miles of the way by police in a Rover with a blue lamp on top and Trixie’s heart had been in her mouth. Why had she done it? What had possessed her to take something she hadn’t paid for, she who when shopping in supermarkets held 17p pots of yogurt at arm’s length?

  Now she was safely in the train rushing towards Paddington she began to see things in a different light. She would have paid for that clock if they had let her. What did they expect if they refused to sell things they had on sale? And what could they expect if they went to sleep leaving their shop unattended? For a few moments she had a nasty little qualm that the police might be waiting for her outside her own door but they weren’t. Inside all was as it should be, all was as she had left it except that Poppy had put a pint of milk in the fridge and someone had arranged dahlias in a vase – not Poppy, she wouldn’t know a dahlia from a runner bean.

  That would be just the place for the clock, on the wall bracket where at present stood a photograph of herself and Dorothy Fisher at Broadstairs in 1949. Trixie put the photograph away in a drawer and the clock where the photograph had been. It looked nice. It transformed a rather dull corner of the room. Trixie put one of the cups from her tea service beside it and it was amazing how well they matched.

  Mivvy came round first thing in the morning. Before letting her in Trixie quickly snatched the clock off the shelf and thrust it inside the drawer with the photograph. It seemed so exposed up there, it seemed to tell its history in every tiny tick.