He raised his head and stared at her, and it broke over her like a great wave that she should tell him, just let it all out. Oh, and what a relief it would be even if he sent her packing. Even if that were to be the very end of this life, in this house, with these people.
As she opened her mouth, Mrs Hale tapped on the door and put her head inside. ‘Soup’s on the table. I’ve done you a cold one, seeing as it’s such a scorcher, a nice Vichyssoise.’
‘Thank you, Mrs Hale,’ said Dennis. ‘We’ll be there in five minutes.’
Mrs Hale darted her eyes between them. ‘I’ll hold back the entrecôte then, shall I?’
Dennis nodded and waited till Mrs Hale, with obvious reluctance, had withdrawn. ‘So?’
Clem manufactured a laugh. ‘Darling! Whatever are you suggesting?’
He stared. ‘I couldn’t have described you better myself.’
Laughter like chips of glass.
‘The clothing?’
‘Fashionable colours,’ she said, ‘and those hats are ten a penny. Really, Dennis! You aren’t seriously thinking?’
‘Refined appearance . . . fair, short hair . . .’
‘Half the women in England have had their hair bobbed,’ said her voice.
Frowning, Dennis lit a cigarette from the end of his last one. ‘And last night?’ he added. ‘Miss Carslake—’
‘Call her Gwen, you silly old stuffed shirt,’ she teased desperately.
‘That moment of hesitation when you mentioned dinner? And you rushing off to Felixstowe like that, and staying the night when Hale could perfectly well have come and fetched you? You must admit, it does look rather fishy, darling.’
Clem met his eyes, startled to realise that he was afraid. She took a deep breath and a decision made itself inside her. ‘I was feeling nostalgic for my old town,’ she said quietly, ‘for a particular reason.’ She stopped and blinked, eyes brimming. ‘Gwen’s such a good old chum, and we were going to go walking around all the old haunts before I told you . . . and then I felt too ghastly for dinner.’
She glanced up at his handsome, credulous face, and then down at her abdomen. ‘You see, I think . . .’
Dennis put down his cigarette, came to her and knelt by her chair. ‘You think?’ His eyes were bright and questioning.
‘I’m not sure yet, but—’
‘Oh, my sweet, my clever little girl.’ He jumped up. ‘Ha! This is marvellous, Clemmie, this is simply ripping!’
‘If it’s so.’
‘How late?’
‘Two weeks, getting on for three.’
‘Any other symptoms?’
‘The usual things.’
‘Darling.’ He bent down and kissed her lips and then stood again, kicked at the newspaper and shouted out a laugh. ‘And to think I thought . . . !’
‘I can’t believe it.’ She made her voice a little cross. ‘To think that of me! You really are a perfect buffoon.’
‘I am, aren’t I!’ Almost bouncing on the balls of his feet, he calculated on his fingers. ‘March or April – a spring lamb!’ Pacing around the room, waving his cigarette, he began to speculate about the sex of the child, how Edgar would react to the news. ‘I see your point re a pay rise for young Dinah now,’ he said.
‘I didn’t like to speak of it. You see, I’ve been rather afraid . . .’
‘No, no.’ He sat on the arm of her chair and took her hand. ‘You were unwell last time but now you’re well. No reason to think it will recur. We’ll take such care of you, darling, wrap you in cotton wool. I do love you so.’
‘Yes,’ she said, smiling up at him. ‘But do you know, I am feeling a bit shabby – think I might go up.’
‘Of course,’ he said. ‘I’ll see to a tray for you, bring it up myself.’ He shooed her away, and as he went to stub out his cigarette he stopped, eyes snagged by the newspaper and, in the mantel mirror, she caught a slide of unease behind his smile.
Upstairs she undressed once more, put on a fresh nightdress and stood by the window, open to let in the sluggish air. The weather would surely break tonight – a swarm of storm bugs were clustering on the glass. She took the scrap of paper with Gwen’s handwriting from the drawer, tore it into minute scraps and scattered them in the grate. The telephone rang and she jumped as if she’d been shot.
Dennis came in with a tray: Vichyssoise, bread and butter, a glass of white wine, a dish of wobbly pink shape. ‘In you get,’ he said.
‘What was it?’
He inclined his head.
‘The telephone?’
‘Oh, nothing you need worry your silly noddle about.’
She forced breath into her lungs and made a smile come into her voice. ‘Go down and have your own dinner, darling,’ she said. ‘You must be famished.’
He went to the window and gazed out for a moment, fidgeting and clearing his throat. ‘I did however make a telephone call myself,’ he said, back still turned.
She held herself utterly still.
‘I spoke to Miss C. – to Gwen. And we agreed that you were at home last night, feeling poorly due to your condition. As it happens, the Hales were off and I’m certain Daisy would verify should it became necessary.’ He turned and approached her. ‘You dined alone and were snug as a bug in bed when I got home from bridge. Understand?’
‘But—’
He lifted a finger. ‘Just in case there were to be any nonsense with police and so on with this . . . rather coincidental description.’
Clem’s eyes rested on the cold green surface of the soup where floated a dust of pepper.
‘Understand?’
She nodded, unable to raise her eyes to his. Sweat was crawling in her hair.
‘Now eat up and let’s forget all this silliness, eh?’
Obediently she lifted her spoon and dipped it in the soup.
‘I love you, you know that,’ he said.
She looked up. ‘Oh, Dennis . . . I should tell you—’
‘No.’ He almost shouted it, and she started, splashing soup on the tray. His hair had flopped over his eyes, and in his expression once again she glimpsed fear. A fly was buzzing in the room now like a tiny drill. Pushing his hair back, Dennis softened his voice: ‘Least said soonest mendest, eh?’
‘Yes, darling.’ The fly tried to settle on her wine glass and she batted it away.
‘Best foot forward then?’ He bent and kissed her head. ‘Eat up, that’s the ticket.’
She listened to him descend the stairs, heard a blackbird singing, the dim bang of a door somewhere in the house. The fly had settled on the pink shape and she watched its progress, the way it gorged itself then stopped to rub its forelegs together as if washing its hands, the iridescent sheen of its wings.
She lifted the tray, put it on the floor – let the fly make merry – and paced the room, hand to her mouth, unable fully to grasp what had just happened. Dennis was prepared to overlook this? Prepared not to know? She’d thought him so straightforward, or she’d believed him to be, but this . . .
Her eyes in the mirror were unfamiliar – the pale grey inked away, shadows beneath them. The spot on her chin. She looked flawed. And that was right, that was correct, that was some satisfaction. She was flawed. Nothing was flawless. She sat at the dressing table and gazed, angled the side mirrors to catch her profile. She picked up her brush and pulled it through her short hair. Last night people had seen this face in the Wild Man, but no one knew her. Unless Vincent spoke up how could they possibly trace her?
He might speak up though, he might.
The telephone rang again and fear jolted through her like an electric shock. She climbed back into bed, pulled the sheet to her chin. The fly lifted into her eyeline, snarled around the room, settled back on the tray and went quiet. She need not fear, she told herself. If Vincent hadn’t spoken yet, the chances were that he would not. If he did, there were the letters to prove the blackmail; it would not go well for him.
And Dennis would protect her, dear Dennis, pr
epared – it seemed – to lie for her. Queerly this made her respect him more, like him more. And there was the baby to consider now, of course. Dennis was quite right. They must look forward, only forward.
She slept badly, woke late. Dennis had already gone down, and with her newly heightened sense of smell she detected bacon and coffee in the distance. There had been a storm in the night and she’d lain and listened to the grumble of thunder, which reminded her of shelling at the Front, and – because it was not that, because it didn’t mean a flood of ghastly injuries to treat – it had seemed delightfully innocent, somehow pure. Now the air was fresh. She stood and stretched, pulled back the curtain and inhaled the smell of wet grass and roses, listened to the fluting of a thrush.
On impulse, she knelt to retrieve her old sketchbook from the bottom drawer of the wardrobe and with it, it seemed – or perhaps it was only fancy – came the smell of war, of cordite and gangrene. Dennis was right that she should burn it, but first, crouching on the floor, she leafed through pages of dead and dying boys to stop at a sketch of Powell. The best likeness, the most successful portrait she had ever achieved: the face of her one true love, wide silver eyes with pewter rims, dimple in his left cheek, mouth always on the edge of smiling, as if he saw the joke of the world and was trying to suppress his laughter. He was nothing like Vincent, really, nothing like him at all.
And he was gone.
The locks in the doors in her head were sprung; it must come together, all the contents of all the rooms. It was all one life, one her. This was it. There was no Clem in Canada. No Powell. All she had was here. Holding her breath, she lifted a finger to face it, to open the one page she’d never been able to look at. A moan came from her as she saw again the tiny thing, her own homunculus, a sprig of a creature curled as if to fit into a walnut shell. No, it was larger than she remembered – more of a hen’s egg – or had she merely enlarged it in the drawing? Face tight as a bud, fingers, toes, ribs and bumpy vertebrae: tiny, tiny Aida.
Gwen had not wanted to leave the ‘result’, as she’d called it, with Clem on that day, but Clem had begged and Gwen had given her half an hour and, crouching on the bathroom floor, she’d used her pencil to catch, to keep, at least in graphite, Powell’s child.
The telephone rang and Clem jumped. She closed the sketchbook and shoved it back into the wardrobe. She must learn not to react so to every call; after all, living in a doctor’s house there were so many. She took a deep breath, determinedly slowing her heartbeat.
She must bathe, she must dress and breakfast, perhaps get Hale to drive her and Edgar to Harri’s. Yes, that’s what she’d do. Continue as normal, that was the way. Perhaps she might tell Harri about the baby? The thought carried her hand to her belly. She recalled once more the sketch of Aida, and, with a marvellous rush of understanding, it came to her that the child was back. Clever thing, clever girl. Aida had found her way back.
She stood listening to the sounds of the house – her house, her home, her precious life – palm resting on the cradle of her pelvis. Please let this be, she murmured, please allow me this and I will be content.
38
UNDER A THIN blanket he tosses and turns, hips and shoulders aching from the cold hard bench. Not more than a wink of sleep at a time, just a scrap of dream. Funny how Mum and Dad have got into his dreams lately; just now there was a woman, Mum or Doll, stroking his face and he was whole. Two eyes, he could feel them moving, blinking; he could see both sides of everything.
In this cell the green tiles shine like stagnant water, black stuff between them making a pattern; the ceiling has cracks like roads to follow to nowhere. Three days now, and all that time the buzz of the electric globe, the bleak light. What he’d do for a bit of darkness to have some proper shut-eye, a bit of softness, a clean sheet.
It’s never quiet. You might get a few minutes, then someone shouts or a door bangs, and everything echoes: footsteps, voices, slams and jangles.
He’s in a cell alone today and that’s a blessing.
Breakfast comes, bread and tea, and then Mr Barry turns up.
He comes in huffing and puffing, and Vince stands, a bit of a lift in his heart. What’s Doll said, what’s Mostyn?
‘How’re you keeping?’ Mr Barry extends his hand.
‘Tolerable. Hardly the Ritz, is it?’
‘Seen worse,’ he says. ‘Least it’s cool. It’s a scorcher out there today. Mind if I take a pew?’ He lifts his coat-tails, lowers himself onto the bunk, shuffles his arse about. ‘Come to update you on progress, a few questions and so on.’
‘Seen Doll?’ Vince asks.
Mr Barry pulls out a handkerchief to blow his nose, folds it carefully and stows it back in his pocket before he replies. ‘Ah . . . that, yes. Mrs Pepper . . . now, rather a disappointment, I’m sorry to say. Might be that we have to look elsewhere for our principal character witness.’
Vince can feel the meat of himself shrink against his bones. ‘What’s she said?’
‘And rather the same story with Sir Mostyn, I’m afraid.’
‘What’s he said?’
‘Full of praise for how you were, but says last time he saw you he thought you were, shall we say, disturbed. We can call him, of course, to vouch for you in the past, but what we need is someone more recent to give you a character reference.’
Vince traps his arms under his armpits, breathes in and out, getting himself under control. ‘So what’s she said then, Doll?’
Mr Barry takes out his notebook. ‘She seemed aghast, if I may say, at the idea that you were, so to speak, betrothed. “First I’ve heard of it” were her precise words.’
‘I never . . .’ Vince almost wails.
‘Her story is that she put you up when you were down on your luck and you did a bit of work in the bar for board and lodgings.’ He flips the page and reads: ‘“He never was a permanent fixture.” And, most injuriously to the case, she says she got the idea that you had previous knowledge of Miss Chance – looks passing between the two of you and so on. And she says Chamberlain told her the same thing, thought you’d cooked up some scheme between you.’
‘We never!’
‘Quite sure of that, Mr Fortune?’
Vince nods, heart thumping him in the ribs. ‘Told you, never seen her before.’
‘You must know how damning it’ll be for you if it turns out otherwise? Best come clean now.’ Mr Barry takes out his handkerchief and blows again, pressing a finger against each nostril.
Quiet for a moment, and then Vince blurts: ‘Doll really say we were never together?’
Mr Barry folds his handkerchief, returns it to his pocket, then takes out and glances at his watch. ‘Certainly she implied so.’
‘We even went on holiday – her, me and the kiddie.’
‘Ah yes, I did put that to her. She said it was all above board, separate rooms. I’ve spoken to the hotel manager. It seems also that your Mrs Pepper was witnessed dancing “into the small hours” with a chap that evening, a chap who happens to go by the name of Edward Chamberlain.’
Mr Barry looks at him significantly and waits, riffling the pages of his notebook with a long thumbnail.
Within himself Vince can feel a change of heart as definite as a change of weather. ‘He weren’t invited,’ he says. ‘He just turned up.’
Mr Barry clucked his tongue. ‘This is not going well, Mr Fortune. You can surely see my problem? First, on arrest, you admit your guilt. You said’ – he opened his notebook again – ‘“I did it. I wanted him done for.” And to clarify, you added: “I rode at him on purpose.” And you see, now we have a motive – the green eyed-monster, as you put it yourself. I’m not saying there’s no hope, but . . . well . . .’
‘Doll really made out we was never intimate?’
Mr Barry sniffed, wobbled his head from side to side. ‘Ah, she might not have said never, but she was certainly scandalised at the suggestion.’ He sniffed. ‘I wonder . . . puts herself about a bit, does she? The jury ne
ver react well to that. I wonder if sexual provocation might be some sort of defence, deliberately playing you off against each other?’
‘No,’ Vince says. ‘No, that’s not right, that’s not what I said.’
‘A love triangle. I imagine we can dredge up some racy stuff about Mrs Pepper. Any other men you know of? Money changing hands?’
‘It’s not her on trial!’
‘Not as such, but . . .’ Mr Barry flicks through the pages of his notebook, chuntering under his breath as he thinks.
Vince is hot, clammy. He’s not having her name dragged through the mud. Even if she did deny him. Not his Dolly. She’s got her reasons, her name to keep clean. Dolly humiliated – he can’t have that. And if he was to go down this line, ruining her reputation, upsetting Kenny, he might avoid the noose, but what then? If he doesn’t swing, he’s in for a long stretch by the sound of it. A stretch of this: walls damp, skin damp, whole place stinking. Christ, he’d rather be back in the trenches taking his chances. And when he’s served his time and they let him out – then what? That thought is like stepping off a cliff.
Christ, he could do with a smoke now. ‘All right. I did it,’ he says quietly. ‘It’s all on me.’
‘Now, now,’ Mr Barry says. ‘No call for that.’
‘No, I mean it. Straight up. I did it.’
Mr Barry shakes his head. ‘Haven’t got time for this now.’ He hauls himself to his feet, bangs on the door, signal to the screw. In an undertone he says, ‘You don’t want to throw your life away, do you, old chap? Not after serving your country. Officer, weren’t you?’ He shakes Vince’s hand in his moist one. ‘Throw all that away for one moment of madness? Think about it: war hero, throw in the shell shock for good measure. Perfect defence in the making.’ He raises an eyebrow at Vince. ‘When you’ve come to your senses you ask for me, Mr Fortune. But don’t leave it too long.’
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