Dead Romantic

by Simon Brett

  She pulled on her long forties-heroine gloves and stood back to get as full a picture as the small mirror would allow. Though she said it herself, she had to admit that she looked pretty stunning.

  At that moment she heard the hum of an approaching vehicle. She drew back one of the honeysuckle curtains to see headlights swinging through the gap in the laurel hedge.

  Perfect timing, she thought, as she went downstairs to welcome her lover. It was symptomatic of how the whole weekend would turn out. Everything was going to be all right.

  Ah, but here’s one,’ said Bernard. ‘Here’s one. I bet you don’t know this.’

  ‘Try me,’ Madeleine grinned. The curry had been a success. So had the hazelnut meringue. They had just broached the second bottle of cold champagne. The red roses stood in a vase on the dresser. The lovers were playing literary games. Madeleine had everything she could possibly want from life.

  ‘ “A rose-red city – half as old as Time,” ’ Bernard quoted carefully.

  ‘Well, it’s very familiar. . .’

  He nodded agreement, waiting for her identification of the source.

  ‘It refers to Petra, in, um. . she couldn’t exactly remember where, ‘in the Middle East.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And I would say it’s early nineteenth century. . .?’

  ‘Nineteenth century, anyway.’

  ‘It sounds sort of reminiscent of Ozymandias’, doesn’t it?’ She took a stab. ‘It isn’t Shelley, is it?’

  ‘You are right,’ said Bernard and, as Madeleine smiled, continued, ‘It isn’t Shelley.’

  A tiny grimace of annoyance tugged at her mouth. ‘Give me a clue.’

  ‘Hmm. What clue can I give you? I’ll tell you this – the author is not famous for anything else except that one line.’

  ‘Oh, thank you. That’s really helpful.’ Madeleine looked at him hopefully, but Bernard didn’t volunteer a second clue. ‘No, I’m sorry. It’s just one of those things I don’t know. I’m never going to get it. You’d better tell me.’

  Bernard smiled with a degree of complacency. ‘The line comes from a poem called “Petra”. . .’

  ‘I could have guessed that.’

  ‘It was written by a gentleman who was born in 1813 and died in 1888 . . . He was a clergyman. . .’

  ‘Oh, do get on with it. I don’t know the answer. You can just tell me,’ Madeleine’s voice was edged with petulance.

  He looked up at her, an expression of surprised irritation on his face. It was a moment of conflict, the first snag in an evening that had up to that point been going perfectly.

  Madeleine saw the danger and defused it by taking his hand in her gloved one, shaking it gently and saying in a little voice, ‘Please tell me.’

  Bernard’s good humour was instantly restored. The lines around his brown eyes crinkled as he said. ‘It was the Reverend John William Burgon.’

  ‘Well, fancy that.’ Her tone was ironic.

  ‘Exactly. Totally unheard of, except for the one line.’

  ‘Ah well,’ said Madeleine casually, ‘that’s like:

  One crowded hour of glorious life

  Is worth an age without a name’

  ‘Yes,’ Bernard agreed, and, to Madeleine’s vexation, identified the author: ‘Thomas Osbert Mordaunt.’

  For a moment she wondered if the weekend was a good idea. Was Bernard Hopkins really the right man, was he the one in the world who deserved Madeleine Severn? But, as she looked into his melancholy brown eyes, she knew it was right. They were in love, she was going to give herself to him completely, surrender her body to the gentleness of his experience. ‘I’m so glad to be here with you,’ she murmured.

  His voice was almost inaudible with emotion as he responded, ‘And I with you.’

  Madeleine let go of his hand and picked up her champagne glass. She raised it in a toast, ‘To us, Bernard. And to our love.’

  The logs on the fire had disintegrated to deep red and the glow winked through the champagne as their glasses clinked together. The brown eyes gazed into the eyes which, so long ago, John Kaczmarek had described as ‘forget-me-not wedded to violet’.

  They were dilatory about tidying up the table and stacking the dishwasher. Partly it was because they were both self-consciously relaxing, desperate to show that they were in no hurry. But also in both of them there fluttered a little pulse of fear. Bernard grew more and more silent as time went on and eventually, after she had sponged down the kitchen surfaces sufficiently to meet even Mrs Rankin’s high standards, it was Madeleine who asked, too breezily, ‘Well, shall we go upstairs?’

  Bernard nodded.

  Except for a brief kiss on his arrival and the hand-holding over dinner, they had not touched each other in the course of the evening.

  The bedroom seemed very small with the two of them in it. They loomed over the bed, filling all the available space. Madeleine stood irresolute. She wasn’t quite sure what should happen next. She was waiting for a lead from Bernard. Would he take her in his arms and undress her, or was she expected to get ready for bed on her own?

  Bernard seemed equally irresolute, so, before the silence became embarrassingly extended, Madeleine asked, ‘Shall I use the bathroom first?’

  Bernard, who had hardly spoken since the end of the meal, nodded.

  She picked up her sponge-bag, her dressing-gown and the new nightdress, and went through the low door into the bathroom. She took off her gloves and wondered for a moment what to do about her lenses. Under normal circumstances she would have taken them out at this stage in the evening, but she wasn’t quite sure of the correct procedure on such a special occasion. How much should one be able to see when losing one’s virginity? She made her decision and took the lenses out. After that she undressed and washed carefully. She had contemplated having a bath to relax her, but she did not want to keep Bernard waiting too long. Anyway, it was only a few hours since she had had one.

  She looked at her body in the small mirror and was pleased with what she saw. True, it was no longer a girl’s body, but it had retained much of its tension. She couldn’t help comparing the tightness of her breasts favourably with the stretched sagging of her sister’s. She checked the smoothness of her armpits, though she had only shaved them that afternoon, and pulled the new nightdress over her head. She buttoned the pleated front up to her neck. Then, turning on both taps in the sink to disguise any unromantic sounds, she used the lavatory. Another brisk brushing of the red-gold hair, a couple more puffs of the perfume-spray, dressing-gown draped loosely over her shoulders, and Madeleine Severn was ready to meet her lover.

  It was then that she noticed her hands. The cracks seemed to have widened even since before dinner. She put on some more of the cream and rubbed the hands together as if washing them, but they still looked raw and ugly. It was maddening. Otherwise she knew she was looking so good, and yet suddenly she was handicapped by this disfigurement.

  There was nothing else for it. She put her long gloves back on again. The effect in the mirror was perhaps eccentric, but not unattractive.

  She lifted the latch, bowed beneath the low doorway and went into the bedroom.

  Bernard was sitting on the bed. He was turned away from her.

  ‘Bathroom’s free,’ she said, once more too breezily.

  He rose from the bed, picked up a small overnight case and, still without looking at Madeleine, went through the low door to the bathroom.

  Madeleine lay in bed, on the right side, affecting to read, holding the book very close to her unlensed eyes, tensely aware of every creak and gurgle that came from the bathroom. On the table at her side was her crammed brief-case. She had looked at her reading-matter and decided that The Poems of Emily Dickinson best fitted the occasion. She flicked through, but, though her eyes followed the familiar lines, her mind kept sliding off them. She had opened the book at the ‘Love’ section, usually an unfailing source of pleasure, but the only verse that held her attention was this:r />
  Come slowly, Eden!

  Lips unused to thee,

  Bashful, sip thy jasmines,

  As the fainting bee,

  Reaching late his flower,

  Round her chamber hums,

  Counts his nectars –

  enters,

  And is lost in balms!

  The poem calmed her. Its mention of jasmines was serendipitous in the setting of Winter Jasmine Cottage. As ever for Madeleine, literature had the power to take the sharp edge off reality.

  The door from the bathroom clicked open, and Bernard came in. He held the small case in his left hand; in his right were his shoes, and over his right arm his clothes were neatly folded. He wore light green pyjamas with dark green collar and cuffs. He kept his eyes and his body averted from Madeleine and the bed while he laid his clothes over a chair.

  Madeleine concentrated on her book as she felt the mattress give to take his weight. He pulled the bedclothes over himself and lay back on the pillow. There was a silence.

  ‘Emily Dickinson, eh?’ His voice was deep and very close beside her.

  ‘Yes. Yes, it is,’ she replied fatuously.

  ‘Brought your brief-case with you, I see,’ he said, trying without complete success to lighten his voice. ‘Reckoning to catch up on work over the weekend, are you?’

  ‘Oh no, not that.’ She sat up now, needing to be busy, needing to occupy her hands, needing to end the embarrassment of his proximity. She pointed out the contents of her bag as she itemised them. ‘It’s just that I put so much stuff in here that I never like to be without it. You know, books, newspapers, addresses, theatre programmes, prints. . . It’s just me, I’m afraid. This bag is like me, really, mind full of all kinds of things, you know, a bit scatty. . .’ She was gabbling. There didn’t seem to be enough objects in the bag to keep her going. She needed to keep talking; she needed to re-establish their intellectual empathy before the physical encounter. ‘And all kinds of bits and pieces slip down to the bottom . . . pens and pencils . . . and, oh, there’s my stapler. I’ve been looking for that for weeks. And that’s a hair-slide . . . and a catalogue from an art exhibition and –’

  She stopped dead.

  ‘Why on earth do you carry that?’ asked Bernard, looking at the black-handled sheath-knife.

  ‘Well, I. . . To be quite honest I’d forgotten it was there. I confiscated it from one of my students. I mean, really, you can’t have them coming in to tutorials armed to the teeth?’ She let out a little giggle. ‘Can you?’

  ‘No,’ Bernard’s voice sounded abstracted. He looked hard at the knife.

  ‘Still, don’t want that.’ Madeleine’s gloved hand put it down firmly on the bedside-table. ‘Or this.’ She put The Poems of Emily Dickinson down beside the knife, and turned to face Bernard. ‘Hello,’ she said softly.

  ‘Hello,’ he echoed and, awkwardly, put his arms around her.

  For a moment they lay wordless and still.

  ‘It’s warm,’ said Madeleine. Her tensions were easing. This was quite cosy, being held in the warmth of the bed. It was reminiscent of childhood. It was just a cuddle, nothing frightening.

  Bernard kept a space between their bodies. He too felt calmed. There was nothing to be afraid of. With a woman whom he loved, it would be different. His erection was hard and firm. It was all quite natural. He was with a woman to whom he wanted to make love, and he would make love to her. All the confusions in his mind would resolve themselves. At last he would be normal.

  He moved his face towards hers and kissed her. At first their lips just touched dryly and drew back. Then they touched for longer, then they were pressing each other apart, then liquid, turning, tongues joining. Bernard felt the moist opening and giving of her lips, and desperately needed the other opening and giving that they parallelled. His arms closed behind her back and pressed the softness of her body against the hardness of his own.

  The need in him was now furiously urgent, the need that had gone unsatisfied for over thirty years. He rolled his body over on top of hers, disengaging his hands which came round to knead and pummel her breasts through the crisp pleats of the nightdress. The lower part of his body was thrusting through the fabric at the tight knot of her legs. His hands reached down in desperation, first to pull off his pyjamas, then scrabbling to raise the white skirt and give him access.

  This was not how Madeleine had envisaged it. The cuddling had been nice, the gentle exploratory kissing had been nice. She had felt herself slowly aroused, felt a melting within as he touched her. But this sudden animal attack was different. There was no beauty in this, no romance in the jabbing and ransacking of her privacy. It was too fast, too fierce; it was not the gentle rhythm that her own fingers could so regularly find. Her gloved hands were no longer around him, pulling him towards her; now they were pushing, trying to hold him off, trying to force away the urgent sweatiness of his flesh. ‘No, no,’ she shouted. ‘No. Not like this.’

  ‘I know what I’m doing.’ He almost spat the words at her, and closed her mouth with a kiss. But this was not a gentle kiss, it was like a gag to silence her, to stifle her perhaps. There was no tenderness; his teeth were hard and bruising on her lips.

  His hands had now fought away the skirts of the white nightdress and were reaching, scratching, digging into the privacy between her rigid legs. Madeleine tried to scream, but his mouth was still clamped on hers, stopping her breath. She tried to scratch and pinch his chest, but through the gloves her nails had no power to hurt.

  Suddenly she felt the body above her twitch and shudder. Bernard detached his mouth from hers and let out a little whimper of despair. Then, odiously, Madeleine felt a viscous warmth spreading across the private flesh below her navel.

  The weight of Bernard’s body was suddenly lifted off and he threw himself to the far side of the bed, with his back to her.

  ‘Well, really!’ Madeleine burst out, when she had sufficient breath for indignation. ‘What on earth did you think you were doing?’

  ‘I know what I’m doing,’ Bernard’s voice was petulantly dogged, but edged with despair.

  ‘No, you don’t. God, if that was meant to be making love. . . That had nothing to do with love.’

  ‘If you’d been more gentle, if you had been more loving, it would have been all right.’ His tone was now one of whining adolescence.

  ‘Huh. Why should I be gentle, when you behave like an animal? God,’ she said with sudden venom, ‘you revolt me!’

  Suddenly he was once more facing her, his hands tight and pinching on her shoulders, his eyes only inches from hers. ‘Revolt you?’

  ‘Yes,’ she hissed. ‘You’re disgusting and pathetic. And’, she added viciously, ‘you can’t even do it properly.’

  There did not seem to have been time for him to move, before she felt the immobilising weight of his body on top of her and the pressure of his rigid fingers on her throat.

  Desperately she reached her gloved hand round for the black-handled sheath-knife on the table.

  But Bernard saw what she was doing, and their two hands reached for the weapon together.

  PART THREE

  After The Murder

  Chapter 23

  During the Christmas rush, Tony Ashton helped out as a barman in Sharon’s father’s pub. After Christmas he stayed on. By the time he and Sharon announced their engagement the following May, Tony was managing two of the bars. (He had also by then been prevailed upon to abandon his ear-ring.) And by the time they were married, in the November of that year, Sharon had managed to get her fiancé to share her interests in mortgages, fitted kitchens and matching bathroom suites. Their first house was bought, decorated and ready to move into by the time that, on their wedding night, in a hotel in Paris, just like something out of one of her favourite romances, Sharon relinquished her virginity.

  Paul Grigson confounded expectation by being accepted at Oxford. Perhaps some of Madeleine’s coaching had paid off; or perhaps his brush with the police had conce
ntrated his mind sufficiently for him to get the best out of his natural intelligence.

  He had appeared in court on a considerable accumulation of charges after his adventure in Pulborough, but skilful legal representation had so convincingly attributed his behaviour to anxiety about his examinations and his mother’s state of health that he got off lightly (although it would be some time before he could contemplate continuing his driving lessons). When Paul had mentioned suspicions about the death at Winter Jasmine Cottage, his solicitor had been of the opinion that the young man had ‘quite enough legal complications on his plate’, and advised him to ‘leave well enough alone’, which, after only a momentary struggle with his conscience, Paul did.

  Mrs Grigson got better. The hospital, after running every test they could think of on her, finally isolated a food allergy as the cause of her illness. By keeping strictly to the prescribed diet, she was able to return to a completely normal life.

  She was delighted that her son had justified her confidence by getting to Oxford. (She even wrote a letter, thanking him for the school’s help, to Julian Garrett, who added it to the file that he always produced to convince the wavering parents of potential pupils.) Her ambitions for Paul had been achieved and so she was not too reluctant to accede to her son’s request to spend four months doing Voluntary Service in Nigeria. The separation was good for both of them. After a few weeks in Africa, Paul lost his virginity to and had an eight-week affair with an uncomplicated German girl called Helga. The relationship only ended because of her return to Germany, but it was not continued. Both of them were keen to meet other people. Paul managed another brief sexual fling in Nigeria, had two more back in Brighton that summer, and looked forward to meeting the female undergraduates when he started at Oriel College in the autumn.