Dead Romantic

by Simon Brett

  Laura looked up, hopeful now, but impatient.

  ‘You are sure that you’re in love with this Terry?’

  ‘Absolutely certain. We’re just right for each other. It works.’

  ‘Good.’ Another dramatic pause was allowed to go the distance, before the sudden question, ‘Would you like to come and stay at my house from the 2nd to the 4th of November?’

  Laura looked wary. ‘You mean, with Terry?’

  Madeleine nodded bountifully.

  Laura leapt from her seat, threw her arms round her aunt, and kissed her. ‘You’re great. I knew you wouldn’t let me down.’

  Madeleine was warmed by the embrace. She remembered how easily and frequently Laura had used to hug her, and she felt that more of the recent distance between them had been closed.

  Laura sat down, still smiling ecstatically. Then a shadow of doubt clouded her face. ‘But that’s a weekend, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes. Friday night and Saturday night.’

  ‘Terry goes back to Worcester at weekends, to see his mother.’

  ‘Couldn’t she forego seeing him for one weekend?’

  ‘Maybe,’ said Laura dubiously. ‘Perhaps he could stay down the Friday night and then leave the Saturday morning. I’d have to check.’

  ‘It’s up to you to sort out the details.’ There was some asperity in Madeleine’s voice. She did not like having the teeth of her gift horse examined so minutely. ‘I thought you wanted me to act as an alibi and that’s what I’m offering to do for you. If you don’t want to take up the offer, then that’s up to you.’

  Warned by her aunt’s tone, and realising that the opportunity might establish a useful precedent, Laura was instantly conciliatory. ‘I’m sorry, Madeleine. I didn’t mean it like that at all. No, I’m really grateful. It’s terrific for me to have someone around like you, someone who’s not all hidebound and petty, someone I can really talk to as an equal, who understands what I’m on about.’

  She was saying all the right things and Madeleine, predictably, glowed.

  ‘But’, asked Laura, still solicitous, ‘are you sure it’s OK? It is enormously kind of you, but are you sure you’re not going to mind having us around?’

  ‘It’ll be no problem’, said Madeleine, ‘because I am going to be away for that weekend.’

  ‘So you mean we can have the house to ourselves?’ Laura tried not to let her grin become too huge. It wouldn’t do to show how much more she relished the prospect of being alone with her lover, without her aunt emoting around the place. ‘Oh, what a pity. Then you won’t meet Terry. I’m sure the two of you would have lots in common,’ she lied.

  ‘Yes, you can have the house for the weekend.’ Then, to show that she hadn’t quite forgiven her niece’s treatment of her gift-horse, Madeleine added, ‘Or for as much of the weekend as Terry’s mother can spare him.’

  ‘Don’t worry. We’ll sort that out.’ Laura was confident now; the prospect of having the free run of Madeleine’s house with her lover had cheered her enormously.

  ‘Good,’ Madeleine smiled beatifically at her niece. ‘There is one thing, of course.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You’d better not tell Aggie that I won’t be there.’

  Laura’s hand leapt to her mouth in mock-horror. ‘Good Lord, no. Yes, she’s hardly going to believe that I’m staying with you if she knows you’re away.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘Is she likely to find out?’

  ‘Only if you tell her, Laura.’

  The girl winked. ‘Your secret is safe with me.’ She grinned. ‘So, in fact, while you’re providing an alibi for me, I will also be providing an alibi for you.’

  Madeleine laughed her silvery laugh. ‘Sounds a bit over-dramatic, but I suppose you could see it like that.’

  Laura looked into her aunt’s eyes. ‘Why? What are you up to that weekend?’

  ‘Ah,’ said Madeleine, retaining her mystery. ‘Wouldn’t you like to know?’

  She had always liked intrigue, and being involved in this conspiracy with Bernard gave her a positive charge of excitement. It refurbished her old fantasy of Madeleine Severn, the femme fatale, and imparted drama to every preparation that she made for the encounter at Winter Jasmine Cottage. It made her feel special.

  After the lunch with Laura, she returned to Kemp Town to change into her disguise.

  She put on black tights, an old black, shapeless T-shirt dress which she had ceased to wear some couple of years before, and boring black shoes which had been discarded soon after purchase as unsuitable to the style of Madeleine Severn. Over these she belted a black coat which had been her mother’s and which was usually aired only at funerals.

  The red-gold hair that was her glory must, of course, be hidden. She shaped it into a tight bun on the back of her head and over this placed a large black beret, which she occasionally affected when her hair was loose, but had never before used for concealment. However, it served the purpose admirably.

  Then, gilding the lily perhaps, she put on a pair of black-rimmed sunglasses she had bought when on an art-appreciation package-tour to Venice two years previously. As she did so, she felt a stray hair snag on a roughness on her hand. She looked with dismay at her knuckles, to see the creases in the skin looking dry and chalky. One or two had split, to show a moist redness inside. Both hands were similarly affected.

  The sight angered her. She recognised immediately what it was, a skin infection which affected her in times of emotional upheaval. It had appeared once or twice during her teens, erupted quite virulently in the months surrounding John Kaczmarek’s death, but since then had not troubled her. For the infection to appear now, when she had a new lover, when she wanted to look her best, was aggravating in the extreme.

  She would get some cream from the chemist. Maybe there was something new on the market that would clear it up before it got any worse. For the time being, she added a pair of gloves to her black ensemble.

  She cast a final look in the mirror and decided that no one would recognise her. This was probably true, though whether the costume made her inconspicuous was another question. The casual observer might have been forgiven for thinking she was playing the part of a spy in an amateur dramatic society production.

  She went to the local chemist, where she knew the proprietor well. He took a look at her hands and produced a recently-developed steroid-based cream which was supposed to be very good. If that didn’t sort it out in a week, he said, she’d better go and see her doctor; skin conditions were funny things. Madeleine rubbed some of the cream on to the affected areas, replaced her gloves, caught a bus to Brighton Station and took the next train up to Victoria.

  She knew exactly where she wanted to go. Victoria Line to Green Park, Piccadilly Line to Covent Garden. Thence a quick walk to Laura Ashley in Bow Street.

  She chose the sheets and pillow-cases first. Her pastoral image of country cottages demanded a white or cream background and some floral or herbal design.

  From the considerable selection, she homed in on a pattern of green and brown sprigs from some unidentified plant set against a background the colour of milky coffee. The design seemed right, rustic and yet at the same time smart, reminiscent of shepherdesses (or perhaps of Marie Antoinettes playing at shepherdesses).

  She then turned her attention to the nightdress. This, though a more important purchase, was easier to find, because she had such a distinct image of what she required. She quickly selected one in white linen, with a high, chastely frilled neck and a pleated panel coming down to just below the breasts. She held it against herself, looked in a mirror and was satisfied that it looked properly sacrificial.

  The uninterested girl at the counter said, as she keyed the information into the cash-register, ‘Right, one nightdress, one pair single sheets, one pair –’

  ‘Single?’ Madeleine repeated. ‘But I wanted double.’

  ‘Well, you got single.’

  ‘I’ll just go and change them
.’

  The girl sighed truculently at this disruption, and Madeleine had to join the end of the queue after exchanging the sheets. When her turn came again, she was greeted by a sarcastic, ‘Got it right this time, have you?’ from the girl on the cash-register.

  Madeleine did not deign to reply.

  ‘How do you want to pay?’

  ‘Cash.’ She had thought this out and withdrawn a large amount of money over the last few days. Deep in her Mata Hari dream, she did not want to reveal her identity by cheques or credit cards.

  The girl was no more interested in how Madeleine paid than in anything else about her, and the purchases were made.

  When she emerged into the street, Madeleine looked at her watch. It was after five. She had no desire to hurry to Victoria and become embroiled in the rush-hour.

  She wandered round the piazzas of Covent Garden, looking idly at the shops and stalls. She bought a copper hair-slide in the shape of a leaf. Then she meandered off, still killing time, with the vague intention of catching a tube at Oxford Circus. She felt unpressured and happy. There was no itching from her hands; when the gloves were removed, she felt confident the skin would have cleared up. She looked in shop-windows, watched the people, felt invisible in her black disguise.

  By chance, her route took her to Wardour Street and then along a little alley that ran off it. She did not notice the doorway which still bore the bell-pushes for ‘Mandy’ and ‘Cleo’. She did not know of the fate of the former, which had only had scant coverage in the national press.

  Nor did she know that police investigations had not yet discovered the identity of the prostitute’s murderer. They had found few clues, but were working on the theory that the killing was one of a series that had taken place over the previous five years.

  Chapter 16

  ‘For Christ’s sake!’ said Tony Ashton, rolling off Sharon on the sofa of her sitting-room. ‘I mean, come on. You can’t hold out for ever. Look, you want it – God knows I want it – let’s just get on and do it, for Christ’s sake.’

  Sharon smiled sweetly and started to button up her blouse. ‘We’ve been through this before, Tony, and I still feel exactly the same about it. I am not going to make love to you. I am not going to make love to anyone before I’m married.’

  ‘But why, for Christ’s sake? This is the bloody eighties. Virginity went out some time back in the fifties.’

  ‘Not for me, Tony.’

  ‘Oh, but come on, how much longer do you think I’m going to go around with you when I’m not getting any? There are other girls I know who aren’t quite so bloody scared of sex.’

  ‘I’m not scared of it,’ Sharon repeated patiently. ‘I just think it’s something that belongs with marriage.’

  ‘Well, if I never ring you up again, you’ll know the reason.’ He stood up defiantly.

  ‘Yes, I will. And I’ll be very sad. You mean a lot to me, Tony. I don’t want to lose you.’

  He clenched his fists. ‘For Christ’s sake, you don’t have to lose me. All you got to do is let me make love to you. It’ll be all right – I won’t get you in the club or anything.’

  Sharon shook her head firmly. ‘I’m sorry, Tony.’

  He shook his head and sat down, deflated, in an armchair.

  There was a silence before Sharon spoke again. ‘I was talking to Dad the other day. . .’ Tony made no response.

  ‘About the pub. He said he’s always looking for bar staff.’

  ‘Oh yes?’ It was said with complete lack of interest.

  ‘That’s how he started. You work in the bar, if you’re good, you get given more responsibility, then after a time you become a manager, do that well you can get your own pub. That’s what Dad did.’

  ‘So bloody what?’

  ‘Tony, all I was thinking was – you haven’t got a job, maybe you might –’

  ‘Now listen, sweetheart,’ he snapped, pointing an angry finger at her, ‘if and when I ever do get a job, it’s not going to be as a bloody barman!’

  ‘No. All right. Just an idea.’

  ‘Forget it,’ said Tony. But he didn’t say it with quite the same vehemence as when she had last mentioned the idea. Sharon thought she might be beginning to get somewhere.

  ‘Dad’ll be back soon. If you wanted to have a word with him. . .’

  ‘I don’t want to have a bloody word with him,’ said Tony, separating each word with venomous clarity. ‘I’m going.’ He slouched towards the door.

  ‘You’ll call me?’ asked Sharon.

  ‘I wouldn’t bloody count on it,’ he said, as he walked out.

  But Sharon did count on it, and Tony knew he would be in touch with her again. He was confused and angered by the effect she had on him. God, he wasn’t even getting any bloody sex, for Christ’s sake! If his mates ever found out, they’d laugh their bloody arses off. But, in spite of that, he would be in touch with her again.

  Sharon went up to have a bath, content with her evening’s work. She still did want him enormously, but she had managed to control her lust, and now she felt she was beginning to control Tony too. He wasn’t an ideal candidate for her plans, but he could be moulded. If she could organise him into a job – particularly in her father’s business – Tony would cease to be quite such a ridiculous contender for the main part in her main fantasy. She’d have to get rid of the ear-ring, of course, and she’d have to change his attitudes towards jobs and mortgages, but she didn’t think any of it was beyond the realms of possibility.

  Tony Ashton did not know that he was observed leaving Sharon’s house. Paul Grigson sat slumped over the wheel of his mother’s car, with a new bone-handled sheath-knife on his belt. He had felt naked after Madeleine confiscated the black one, and replaced it from the same shop on his way home the same day.

  The sense of power he got from having the knife was diminishing, but driving the car gave it new strength. His mother was still being kept in hospital and she need never know that her Mini was being used. He was taking a big risk, of course, driving around before he had passed his test, but the danger excited him.

  What was happening with his mother he didn’t know. He went to see her every day or so and she seemed to look much the same each time. Maybe a little thinner, but not dramatically so. He didn’t talk to her about what was actually wrong, but was told each time that she would have to stay in the hospital a little longer. He knew he should ask the ward-sister or one of the doctors about her illness, but something in him didn’t want it defined.

  In the meantime, he lived in limbo, camping out untidily at home, eating unheated food out of tins, wearing unironed shirts more days than he should. But the chaos of his domestic arrangements was nothing to the chaos in his mind, where constantly shifting desires and memories took ever more threatening forms.

  He only used the car after dark, as if the night gave him a cloak of invisibility. Some of the time he just drove around aimlessly, but he spent hours parked within sight of Madeleine’s front door, watching to see who came and went. That evening he had been there for a couple of hours, until he had seen a black-clad figure, whose outline he knew to be Madeleine’s, return to the house at about nine o’clock. He had continued his vigil until the downstairs lights went off and the upstairs ones went on. Then there had seemed no point in staying.

  Driving home via Sharon’s house and parking outside there had been an act of sheer masochism, turning the knife in another of his wounds. And seeing Tony Ashton emerging from the house with his customary cocksure gait had only confirmed Paul’s sense of his own inferiority.

  For a moment he contemplated driving after his rival, running him down perhaps, leaping out of the car and attacking him. His hand tightened on the bone handle of the new knife.

  But then it relaxed. The dream of violence passed and he let Tony Ashton walk off, unmolested, down the street.

  Tony Ashton wasn’t his real enemy. Paul had never really cared about Sharon. His pain had derived only from the public s
hame of his virginity.

  No, it was Madeleine he really cared about, and his real enemy was his rival for her.

  Bernard Hopkins had become the focus for all Paul’s images of violence. And in his mind, the setting for that violence had also become fixed.

  It was Winter Jasmine Cottage, Shorton, near Pulborough.

  Chapter 17

  Madeleine had devoted the Thursday evening to her packing. It was only a weekend, but it was an important weekend and she was determined to get all the set-dressing right. The climax, bed, had been catered for by the sheets and the white nightdress, but there were other moments during a weekend of love for which she knew she must be properly prepared.

  There was the dinner à deux beforehand, and for that she selected a long black dress with full, hanging sleeves. It was cut rather on the lines of something that Guinevere might have worn when mourning King Arthur. To complement this, she chose a long belt of plaited silver which could be tied loosely and allowed to dangle, reinforcing the medieval image. Her hair, she decided, would be displayed to best advantage gathered loosely at the nape with her silver brooch shaped like a Highland shield. This could be easily unclasped at the right moment, to allow the full red-gold glory to cascade down over her shoulders.

  She also needed day-clothes, lighter garments for lazing side by side before the open fire, thicker, fuzzier jumpers to cocoon her as they took long country walks, arms linked, safe in the togetherness of their love. She selected some of her usual skirts and pullovers in their customary muted hues. She was concerned to show how natural she was, how unaffected, how little effort she was making. Bernard must take her as she was.

  Each time she thought of Bernard she felt a little frisson, part pure excitement, part fear. The surrender of her virginity was not something she was taking lightly. The eczema on her hands, which the chemist’s cream had not cleared up, was a constant reminder of just how seriously she was taking it. She remembered, uneasily, awkwardnesses with other men, her reactions to former passes, the way she had recoiled from their touch. But then none of the other men had been right. The thought of Bernard calmed her. He was so sensitive, so well-read, so gentle. Everything would be all right with Bernard.