Clem watched them, and listened to Dennis and Harri have a tiresome squabble, watched the bright flashing tin of the spinning toy, felt her heart beat, her lungs inflate and deflate, the passage of tea down her gullet – the cake she could not stomach now. Gwen! And still with the feeling of Powell inside her – not Powell – tightening, almost aching. And now Gwen arriving, who might so easily mention him. No way to stop her coming. Might she fake an illness?
The sunshine through the window lent everything a glittery provisional air, flashing on Dennis’s teeth, the surface of his tea, the burnish on his shoes, the spinning top, on hair and the greasy sheen of butter on the children’s chins.
She jumped up. ‘Excuse me just one moment.’ She closed the door behind her. From the leatherbound address book on the hall table she found the number Gwen had scrawled on her last visit. Tentatively she lifted the receiver, leaned into the round transmitter and waited for the operator’s voice to emerge through the crackle. In the sitting room she could hear the babble of children, the drone of Dennis, and then a mocking laugh from Harri.
‘Felixstowe 322, please,’ she said, as clearly as she dared. There was a long hissing silence. Clem stood hunched like a thief in her own hall; she caught sight of herself, thin-faced and furtive, in the mirror.
‘Putting you through,’ said the operator, and then came Gwen’s strident voice. ‘Yes?’
‘It’s Clementine,’ said Clem.
‘I was about to set off.’
‘Glad I caught you then. About this evening, we’ll have to postpone, I’m afraid – tummy bugs all round.’
‘Oh? Harri only telephoned this morning, she was all right then.’
‘A sudden thing. I’m so sorry.’
The silence crackled with disbelief.
‘Gwen?’ said Clem.
‘Get well soon,’ Gwen said, and there was a click.
Clem put the receiver down and turned to see Mrs Hale regarding her quizzically.
‘It turns out that Miss Carslake won’t be coming this evening after all,’ Clem said, ‘so dinner for just the two of us, please.’
‘Very good, madam,’ said Mrs Hale.
Clem hurried up the stairs. She went into her studio with its new blue walls and pressed her forehead against the cool glass of the window. Green and grey out there and she could hear the cooing of a wood pigeon. Her little studio arranged for her by Dennis and never used, not yet. The sketches, the sketches of Mr Fortune: should she destroy them? They would be evidence certainly, but maybe evidence that her intentions were pure? It was about art, and that was all. No one could prove the other thing, the unplanned thing, the bad, bad thing.
But fifty pounds, where on earth could she get fifty pounds? Pounds, pounds, pounds . . . her head began to pound. That wretched man, nothing but a low-class crook.
Might she, quite simply, call his bluff?
25
FRIDAY AFTERNOON VINCE sits at the kitchen table filling in his coupon. It’s cosy, what with the kettle coming to a boil and Doll beating some cake batter, bosoms jiggling away under her checked pinny. Like him, she’s got a ciggie pinched between her lips. Companionable, that’s what you’d call it.
‘I’ve been having a think,’ she says.
‘God preserve us!’
‘Now, Vince, none of your nonsense.’
‘What then?’
‘What you were saying, about a trip . . . well, I reckon that’s not such a bad idea.’
‘Oh?’ He can hardly credit his own flaming ears.
‘Can’t be for long, mind,’ she says, ‘what with this place. But a night away, why not? Kenny hasn’t had a holiday since God knows when, poor little tyke.’
‘Hmm.’ He stares at his coupon, sprinkled with ash now, and fills in some draws – no idea what he’s putting. ‘Whit weekend?’ he suggests.
She dips a finger in the batter and licks it. ‘Too busy, it’ll have to be midweek – p’raps a Tuesday and Wednesday, what do you reckon?’
‘Done,’ he says. He’s messed up the pools now, can hardly focus.
She pours the batter into a tin, slides it into the oven, then stands with her back to it, pinkie burrowing into her ear.
‘You sure you can get someone in?’ she says, ‘Someone reliable to do, say, two dinnertimes and a night.’
‘Or two nights?’
‘I wouldn’t be able to relax.’
‘Just the one then. Walton-on-the-Naze?’ he says. ‘Ever been?’
‘I shall have to think about a new hat,’ she says, voice spiked with excitement. ‘Wait till I tell Kenny!’
‘Let me get it all booked up first, eh?’ he says.
‘You robbed a bank or something?’ she says.
He taps the side of his nose. ‘Let me worry about that side of things.’
Nothing from Mrs M. this morning though, he’s waiting for the second post.
‘Get that cake out in half an hour, will you, dear?’ Doll says. And she goes upstairs to tidy herself before catching the bus to fetch Kenny.
He can’t believe it. He’s done it. She wouldn’t have said yes if she wasn’t serious about him, would she? She wouldn’t call him ‘dear’ like that. So, Mrs M. He doodles two round shocked eyes on the margin of his ruined coupon. Shan’t need a win anyway when she pays up. Last thing he expected was a fuck. But she was up for it. He’d have thought she’d be frigid but she surprised him there. You wouldn’t think she had it in her – till he put it in her! He sniggers. Grinds out his cig. Still, she weren’t a patch on Doll. Useful leverage though: play his cards right and she must be good for a couple of hundred. Connie, landlady at the Crown, she’s witness to the goings-on if need be. Yesterday he dropped in for a pint and had a good old chinwag with her. Started out frosty as hell but he unfroze her, spun her a line, and turns out she’s got a brother who’ll run the Wild Man while they’re away, so two birds with one stone. Not bad.
Once he’s got the cash he’ll be off down that station seeing about tickets; then there’s the hotel too. Just think of Doll in that hotel room, all his for the night, undressing . . . He’ll help her unlace her stays, those silky pink ribbons.
He hears the letter flap, goes through. A letter for Doll, but that’s it. He paces round the empty bar, all ship-shape, ready for five when the first few drinkers turn up. On an afternoon like this they’ll carry their pints out front for a breath of air. Sun shining through the stained glass. Here’s an idea, a bloody brainwave more like! Why not set up a proper beer garden with tables and chairs? Make a feature of it – flower beds and that, appeal to families out for lunch, a better class of clientele. Dolly’ll love it. He’ll save it up for when he’s got her away on the Naze. In their own little bubble they’ll be, a bubble he’ll fill with dreams. If he doesn’t bring her home with a ring on her finger then . . . he doesn’t know what.
The smell of baking drifts through; won’t be done yet. Strategy, strategy, get it right. He gets a duster and goes over the bar, rubbing at the brass trim. So. Cash required pronto. She’s had a few days with no result. Time to put the frighteners on.
Harri was kneeling at her little border weeding, Mildred perched on a stool by the sandpit supervising the children. Clem sat on a dragged-out kitchen chair with her sketchbook in her lap; she’d caught the curved and chubby children’s limbs in play, their smiles and grumps, but now let her pencil go, felt lazy, warm, numb. Stay numb, stay numb. So glad to be away from the Beeches this afternoon though soon Hale would arrive to fetch her. They were having the Huberts – old friends of Dennis – for dinner, bound to be one long yawn.
‘Look at the state of them!’ Harri laughed at the sun-flushed, sandy children.
Clem smiled. Edgar’s chin was stippled with the stuff, which looked incongruously like stubble on his manly little face.
‘Nearly bathtime, methinks,’ Harri said.
‘I’ll get the water on.’ Mildred stood and went inside.
Harri knelt by the sandpit and a
ccepted the handful of sand Edgar solemnly offered. ‘Thank you, that looks delicious!’ She pretended to eat it. ‘Yummy!’
‘Don’t encourage him!’ said Clem.
‘Heard from Gwen?’ Harri asked.
Caught off-guard, Clem paused, ran her pencil over the sketched curve of Edgar’s cheek, added an eyelash. ‘Not a dicky bird. I expect she’s busy.’
‘Still, it was odd of her – rather rude actually – simply not to turn up.’
‘Oh, Gwen does what she pleases,’ Clem said vaguely. ‘It’s what she’s like.’
‘Still.’
‘At least it brought you to the Beeches. You’ll come again?’
‘I expect so.’ Harri began to speak but her voice seemed to fade, along with the sounds of the children. From the river came a distant hooting from a barge, and though there was no breeze, the leaves on the aspen shivered and shushed.
‘I say, are you quite all right, Clemmie?’
Clem blinked. It was only the Veronal; she’d begged Dennis for a draught last night, which had caused her to sleep deeply and numbly – dreams, yes, but jumbled and indistinct. It did render one a bit dazed next day, a little distracted.
‘Well, I’m glad you live with a doctor,’ Harri was saying, ‘or else I’d recommend you see one. You looked all gone out there for a mo’.’ She stood and brushed her skirt, peered at the children playing peacefully for once. And then she turned and said, unnervingly, ‘No Aida this afternoon? I thought you’d be haring off to see her.’
’It’s Ada,’ Clem said and slapped shut her sketchbook. ‘Actually I shall have to fly as soon as Hale turns up – we’re having the Huberts.’
‘Oh Lord! How screamingly tedious.’ Harri pushed back the strands of hair that clung to her neck and Clem glimpsed patches of damp beneath the arms of her silky dress. ‘Old Hubie was sweet on me once, you know.’
Clem managed a laugh. ‘Never!’
‘Not that he dared approach me himself. It all came through Dennis. “You could do worse,” he said. “Worse than a boring bally banker?” I said!’
‘Shall we get these children washed?’ Clem scooped the protesting Edgar from the sandpit and carried him into the house, where, after the sun, the dimness made her reel.
As soon as the car drew up at the Beeches, Mrs Hale scurried out to greet them. ‘That Dinah! I said she was to be back by five o’clock. I’m sorry, madam. I’ll take the little lambkin, shall I?’
Edgar had fallen asleep on the drive, numbing her arm, and with some relief Clem handed him over. ‘Bless his little heart,’ said Mrs Hale, then as she turned to go into the house, ‘I’ll have her guts for garters when she gets back, don’t you fret. I don’t know what’s come over her lately, I really don’t.’
Clem followed her in, removed her hat, smoothed down the new hair, and started for the stairs, hoping for a few moments alone, but Dennis stepped out into the hall, glass in hand. ‘Darling? Only just back? The Huberts are coming, had you forgotten?’ He caught her arm and examined her. ‘You look quite flushed. Been having fun?’
‘Splendid! Sunshine, children and so on.’ She pulled herself free. ‘I need to wash, dress—’
‘Oh, come and have a drink first.’
‘But I need—’
‘Doctor’s orders!’
She followed him into the sitting room, scented with lilac from a vase of fat white blooms, with tobacco, with polish. For the first time this year no fire had been set, and sunshine slanted in, making it almost intolerably hot.
Dennis poured her a glass of sherry. ‘Now, I have a bone to pick with you.’ He looked at her sternly. ‘I had a telephone call today,’ he said, handing her the drink. She sank down on an armchair, a sudden hard throbbing in her chest, eyes on the gold-etched sherry glass, waiting for the sword, the drip, the heavens to fall.
‘A curious thing,’ he said. ‘Your friend telephoned.’
Clem watched the shiver of the straw-coloured sherry – a little storm, storm in a sherry glass – bit her lip, feeling the danger of a panicky laugh.
‘Hoped we were all quite recovered from a tummy bug.’
She took a sip and gave a little snort. ‘Oh dear.’ She smiled. ‘I know it was naughty, darling, but Harri invited her last night and I just couldn’t bear it so I told a teensy white lie.’
He shook his finger at her, mock cross. ‘Naughty indeed,’ he said. ‘But your secret’s safe with me.’ He raised his eyebrows and gazed at her with amusement.
‘What did you say?’
‘That you were quite recovered and had gone out for a breath of air.’
‘Thank you, darling.’ She smoothed her skirt and her fingers went to the edge of her hair, just where it brushed her chin.
‘What a tangled web we weave,’ he said, and his innocence almost slayed her. His eyes were so like Edgar’s, like Harri’s; the Everetts were a different breed with their dark hair, high colouring and the bright chestnut of their irises. A breed apart from pale, fair, attenuated people like herself, like Powell, like . . . others.
‘You’re an angel.’ She finished the sherry, put down the glass and perched on the arm of his chair. ‘You do like my hair then?’
‘Hmm, actually yes, though it kills me to admit it.’
She leaned and smiled into his face. ‘You see, by cutting it I’ve presented myself with a problem,’ she said.
He drew back his head, eyebrows raised.
‘Surely even you can see that I need a new wardrobe—’
‘My God!’ he laughed out loud. ‘You impudent child! You deprive me of your crowning glory and now I’ve got to pay for it with the latest fashions?’
She leant over him, touched his lips with her finger. This unusual gesture of affection made him glow though he still affected grumpiness.
‘Don’t think I don’t know what you’re up to, you minx! How much is this going to set me back?’
She took a breath. ‘I thought a hundred pounds.’
‘What!’ he spluttered.
‘I won’t spend it all at once. I’ll budget to replace my clothes as needs be. I’m in desperate need, for instance, of hats, and a good hat costs a fortune. And a dress or two for the summer, a light coat . . . and of course there are shoes, and I dare say I’ll get some bits for Edgar and for the twins too.’
He sighed out a long breath.
‘If not a hundred, perhaps eighty, or seventy? You don’t want your little wife looking dowdy, surely? All the lovely female patients . . . Oh, I’ve seen them coming out of the surgery. I’m sure they’re all devoted to you.’ She pulled a face. ‘I want to look at least as à la mode as they do.’
‘Poppycock! As if I notice what they’re wearing! And as for you, you baggage, you’d look exquisite in a hessian sack.’
‘But Dennis—’
‘Well, it hasn’t escaped me that it’s your birthday soon. Perhaps we could discuss this in the bedroom later . . .’
As he walked his fingers along her thigh she smiled, heart teetering lopsidedly beneath its cargo of shame.
In the hall she met Mrs Hale, coming down the stairs in a fluster. ‘Dinah’s still not back,’ she said. ‘Linda’s seeing to Edgar’s tea. I must get on with creaming my onions, ma’am. I hope that’s all right?’
‘Perfectly fine, Mrs Hale,’ Clem said. ‘I’m sure there’ll be a perfectly good explanation.’
She went upstairs, paused to look into the nursery where freckly Linda was trying to persuade Edgar to take a spoonful of something. His lips were sealed, head straining away from the spoon. ‘Perhaps just give him his milk?’ she suggested, almost tempted to go in and take over, lift him from his high chair – he was beginning to love her, he was – but she must get changed before the guests arrived.
From the landing windows the sun shone warmly, watery shadows of the beeches swaying on the walls and ceiling. She gazed out at the trees, the luscious freshness of their leaves, saw a squirrel flow along a branch, the fluttering of some
tiny bird. Home. This home was so lovely, she was thinking, when, glancing down, she noticed Dinah hurrying in – Dinah with a young chap, no, not so young. Her circulation seemed to stop, the breath solidify in her lungs, as she saw that the tall man in the wide-brimmed hat, bidding Dinah farewell now, was Mr Fortune.
26
Dear Mr Fortune, I enclose fifty pounds. That is the end to the matter. Do not come near my house again or I shall call the police.
SHE SIGNED HER name, then stopped, screwed up the note. How stupid! But what about the letters she’d sent before? If he wanted to ruin her he could do so in an instant. But if that was his plan, well, she still had his, which proved the way he’d wheedled for money, begged one might say, if one were to be uncharitable. And look where being charitable got one! She knelt and opened the sewing box, felt under the cotton reels for the flimsy sheaf of paper. Soon she’d throw them on the fire, but not until this beastly business was over and done with.
She paced the room. A loose floorboard caused the piano to sound each time she stepped on it. Blackmail. If there were to be a sordid trial, it would be the end: the end of her marriage, the end of everything she could imagine . . . There went the piano again, a sonorous groan. Outside the window birds snip-snip-snipped as if unpicking a wrong seam.
Last night she’d earned her money. Though fifty pounds was as far as Dennis would stretch. He’d been tickled when she demanded the money immediately but, long-sufferingly, hauled himself up to fetch it for her. ‘My own dear little harlot.’
Into the envelope she folded five ten-pound notes. She’d wouldn’t leave it in the hall but deliver it to the postbox herself, and that, surely, would be the end of the whole shameful matter. It had been rainy earlier, but it seemed that as soon as the letter had gone into the box, the sky broke open, sun glinting on all the wetness till her eyes stung. As she reached home Clem saw Dinah setting out with Edgar in the pram and hurried to catch her up.
‘Perhaps I might tag along?’
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