A Banquet of Consequences

by Elizabeth George

  India said again, “Charlie, what are you doing here?”

  He said stupidly albeit honestly, “I was in the neighbourhood.”

  “No one’s ‘in the neighbourhood’ who doesn’t live here.”

  Charlie said with a nod at Nat, “What about him?”

  “You know what I mean,” she said. “You’ve been following me again, haven’t you?”

  Nat said, “She hasn’t rung the police yet, but if this doesn’t stop, she will do. You know what stalking is, don’t you?”

  Charlie felt the first flush of anger. “Shut up. This doesn’t concern you.”

  Nat took a step towards him. India put her hand on his arm. She said not to him but to Charlie, “We’re going out to dinner.”

  “I don’t expect you’re inviting me along,” Charlie said. “Third wheel and all that. Just the husband getting in the way of the wife and her fancy man.” And to Nat Thompson, “She did tell you I’m the husband, didn’t she?”

  “For now,” Nat said.

  At that, Charlie wanted to hurl himself at the bloke. He wanted to smash his fist into his perfectly pleasant face, drag him over to one of the church’s windows, and drive his head straight through it. But he knew at the same time how utterly risible the image was. Although shorter than Charlie by an inch or more, Nat had the body of someone who took care to keep himself fit, and already Charlie could see that his hand—the one not firmly clasping India’s shoulder—had curled into an anticipatory fist.

  India said quickly, “Nat, will you wait outside for a moment?”

  The man didn’t answer at once. Instead, he did an assessment of Charlie, and Charlie could see that in Nat’s estimation, he was coming up very short. When India said his name quietly another time, though, he nodded. “If you need me . . . ,” he told her.

  “Thank you, darling.” As soon as she said the final word, India’s face flooded crimson. When Nat walked out of the church, she said to Charlie, “That wasn’t deliberate. I’m sorry.”

  Despite what he was feeling, an anguish intensified so greatly that his entire body was throbbing with it, Charlie said, “I do know who you are, India.”

  “Thank you,” she said. “Now you need to tell me why you’ve come. If this is about Nat, it’s simply not on that you—”

  “There’s a memorial meant for Will.” If she didn’t talk about Nat, Charlie could pretend, if only for a moment, that he did not exist. “I thought you might want to come.”

  She frowned, looking perplexed. “But before the cremation, we had a service.”

  “It’s not that sort of memorial. There’s an actual memorial, a physical memorial, and it’s being dedicated. I hoped you . . .” He cleared his throat, for it had begun to tighten. “It would mean a great deal to me if you came, India.”

  “Where?”

  “Shaftesbury.”

  He saw her defences rise in the way her posture altered, her neck lengthening as her chin lifted. “Not your mum’s house.”

  “That’s not where it is. There’s a spring on some land below Bimport Street—”

  “Where?”

  He waved off her question with, “It’s not important. It’s below the property where Clare Abbott lives. Mum can walk to it—to the spring—on workdays when she wants to think about Will or meditate or something.” He coughed roughly, surprised by the sudden emotion that overcame him. He said, “It’s this thing Clare Abbott’s done for her, just to be kind, I presume. Because of Will. She’s brought in someone to do the design. I think it’s a seating area at the spring along with a stone for Will’s name and I don’t know what else. Clare phoned me up as she’s had it in the works for a while and now it’s ready. She’ll take her there on some sort of pretext and the rest of us will be waiting.”

  “Your dad as well?”

  Charlie snorted. “That would be a real slap in Mum’s face. No, he’s not been invited. It’ll be Clare, Alastair, me . . . I was hoping for you as well. I’ve been looking for Lily to tell her, but no luck there. I think women from the Shaftesbury Women’s League will attend. I don’t know exactly. I was just . . . I know it’s a lot to ask India, what with Nat in the picture.”

  He stopped his rambling discourse when he saw that she was softening. He hated the idea that she was softening because she probably felt sorry for him, but he decided he would take that if it meant she would go down to Shaftesbury with him. They could drive together and he’d be able to spend the day with her. He could prove to her . . . something . . . anything . . . whatever needed to be proved to make her consider returning to him.

  She said, “Of course I’ll go.” She reached out her hand, but she’d kept her distance, so she did not touch him. “I’m terribly sorry, Charlie. About everything. You know.”

  “But not about him,” he said, inclining his head towards the door of the church and the man who waited for India outside.

  “I can’t be sorry about Nat.”

  “So what does that mean?”

  “I don’t know exactly,” she said.

  SIX WEEKS BEFORE

  10 AUGUST

  SHAFTESBURY

  DORSET

  A Londoner, Rory Statham always arrived in Shaftesbury with the very same feeling: that she was casting herself adrift from civilization, entering a place where the wind that swept up the stone spur of greensand from the wide, marshy bowl of Blackmore Vale rendered the town bleak in winter and far too exposed to the vicissitudes of English weather the rest of the year. As far as she was concerned, Shaftesbury’s one claim to fame was a picturesque cobbled lane called Gold Hill, and this brief, descending thoroughfare actually offered the casual visitor only two opportunities for delight. The first presented the chance to admire a row of admittedly lovely old cottages that tumbled down the hillside. The second tendered a heart-stopping climb back up to the town centre should one be foolish enough to descend the length of the lane to arrive at the neighbourhood of St. James below. At the top of this climb, a panorama of Blackmore Vale presented itself on a clear day from a tarmac promenade called Park Walk. Here one could see as far as the emerald lumps of Hambledon and Bulbarrow Hills and in the distance the chalk ridges and limestone plateaux of the Isle of Purbeck some thirty-five miles away. But otherwise, as far as Rory could tell, there was nothing at all in the town to enchant.

  Clare Abbott always claimed that this conclusion of Rory’s was complete tosh as the town centre had a quite decent medieval church plopped down in the marketplace as well as a town hall that, while admittedly only pre-Victorian, was at least built to look like a companion of the ancient church next to it. And yes, yes, although there seemed to be a plethora of charity shops for so small a town, Shaftesbury also had the requisite pubs, tea shops, hotel, supermarket, clothing shops, and police station. All of life’s requirements, she declared. To Rory’s insistent queries about how Clare could possibly spend so much time in such a backwater when she had, after all, a home in London, Clare would go on with a dismissive, “Because it isn’t London, Rory.” To which she would add that Shaftesbury’s very lack of London’s diversions or—“let us face it”—its lack of even Sherborne’s diversions was precisely why Clare had chosen to live here. King Alfred, she’d declared more than once, had selected well when he established the town. It had excellent defensive properties since its exposed position allowed one to see the approach of the enemy for miles around. To Rory’s pointed demand about enemies from whom Clare thought she needed to be kept safe, Clare laughed and said they were the enemies that shouted in her mind when she attempted to work. The wind outshouts them, she liked to say.

  Rory couldn’t disagree with that. There was wind aplenty. Clare’s house in Bimport Street sat in the west part of the town, facing southeast, and while its spacious front garden offered a pleasant lawn from which one could enjoy the sun while lounging upon one of the several mossy deck chairs wi
th the house itself as protection from buffeting, its rear garden suffered the same prospect as did Park Walk: gale-force winds storming across the valley and sweeping like ceaseless tidal waves to beat against the back of Clare’s house. Only in the finest weather could one actually use her back garden. The rest of the time, it was similar to the town itself, victimised by its position in the landscape.

  Now Rory pulled up to Clare’s house and opened the wrought iron gate that marked the property as private. Beyond this gate, a short drive led to a parking area for visitors and, beyond this, to the garage for Clare’s ageing Jetta. High summer, and there was not a breeze stirring in the oak trees standing between the house and the street as Rory got out of her Fiat and went to the car’s hatchback for Arlo’s travel kennel. She let the dog out, and he bounded happily across the lawn, sniffing and marking along the flower beds. It was a bright, warm day of perfect weather with more promised for the morrow, which Clare had chosen as the dedication day for the memorial she’d had built to honour the memory of Caroline Goldacre’s younger son.

  Rory and Arlo had come to Shaftesbury for “the ceremony,” as Clare was calling it. Rory had no clue what sort of ceremony was intended, and she would have vastly preferred to skip the entire dedication, for there were far too many unanswered questions in her mind about Caroline Goldacre, and she remained uneasy about all of them. But Clare had been insistent, and when it came to Clare, Rory generally wavered first and caved in second.

  “Let’s just say I’d love to have you here as my friend” was how Clare put it. “Please say that you’ll come, Rory. Afterwards, we can . . . I don’t know . . . take a drive to Chesil Beach? Corfe Castle? A long walk for Arlo on Castle Hill? Name your price.”

  Rory had told her that there was no price and that she would be there, and so she was. But when she walked along the limestone path to the front door and rang the bell, no one was at home. Rory fished in her bag for her coin purse in which she kept the keys she had to both of Clare’s houses. She whistled for Arlo to cease his explorations among the shrubbery and she let herself in, calling Clare’s name. No reply. She called Caroline’s next. Same result. But it was no matter. Rory knew the house well, so she said, “Come along, then” to her dog and took her overnight case up to the bedroom she always used. There she opened the window. She leaned out to look at the view as Arlo did his best to make sure the room was up to his sniff standards.

  She could see from this spot the site that Clare had chosen for the memorial. Some fifty yards beyond her back garden, the landscape fell away to a narrow strip of paving called Breach Lane, and on the north side of this little street and somewhat along the way of it, Rory could see a white canopy set up and within the canopy a stack of folding chairs waiting to form a seating area. Near those chairs, three people were talking. Rory recognised one of them as Clare. Her arms were crossed and her gaze was directed towards a spring just beyond the tent, where water bubbled into a pool set off by new shrubbery. There, benches of what looked like Purbeck limestone appeared to be a feature of the spot, as did something quite large and covered with sheeting, which was presumably the memorial.

  Rory observed this thoughtfully. Why Clare wanted to honour a young man she’d never met was a mystery to her. All she’d been able to get from Clare on the subject was just that she thought it “would please Caroline,” and she’d not asked further questions, deciding it would be best to let this particular dog lie. Please Caroline? had been her thought, though. Why on earth did Clare wish to please Caroline?

  Rory turned from the window and checked the bed. It wanted sheets and pillowcases, so she went to fetch them from the airing cupboard. Arlo trotted along at her side. She bent to pet him, told him what a good boy he was, and rooted for what she needed in the cupboard. When she had the room set up, she descended the stairs to the kitchen, where she made herself a cup of tea and offered Arlo a bowl of water. She searched out the bed she kept for him in Shaftesbury, found it on top of the washing machine, and got him established in the sitting room, along with her tea and a plate of three lemon biscuits. She’d just placed this on a table in the bay window that overlooked the front garden when she heard the door open and close and footsteps come into the flagstone-floored entry. She went to the sitting room door to see that Caroline Goldacre had arrived, bearing the day’s post and a smallish parcel.

  Caroline started with a cry when she saw Rory, although Rory found this reaction odd since her car was in plain sight next to Clare’s and, indeed, Caroline would have had to park behind her anyway. The woman also dropped a handful of letters and the parcel, saying, “Rory! You gave me quite a start.” She ignored Arlo, who came to greet her, tail wagging in doggy hello. She glanced at him and then away, saying to Rory, “Clare didn’t tell me you were coming down. I would have been here to meet you.”

  “I’ve got the key,” Rory told her. “Arlo . . . ,” to the dog, who was busy sniffing Caroline’s ankles, “back to bed please.”

  Caroline watched the dog as if to make sure he didn’t take a pillow from the sofa with him in order to chew it to bits. She then said, “Still and all . . . Well, no matter. Obviously, I’ve not seen to the spare room.”

  “Not a problem,” Rory said. “I saw to it myself.”

  “Oh.” Caroline glanced at the stairs. “It’s very odd that Clare wasn’t here to greet you.” And then after a moment she added carefully, “Rory, forgive me. I must ask. Clare does know you’re coming, doesn’t she?” Caroline made the question casual, but there was no masking its probing nature.

  “She invited me,” Rory said.

  “How strange that she didn’t tell me.”

  Rory wanted to ask why Caroline seemed to require knowledge about anyone’s intended visit to Clare, but she merely said, “She’s been busy. I daresay it slipped her mind.”

  “Setting off somewhere, just the two of you then?” Caroline asked. “Or I suppose I should say the three of you as, of course, you will have your little dog, won’t you.”

  “I certainly will,” Rory replied pleasantly.

  “Well, she didn’t tell me that either, if you are setting off. Does she have an event she’s forgotten to tell me about? You aren’t heading to a conference, are you?”

  Rory shook her head. “This is just a visit.”

  “In the midst of all her publicity work for the Darcy book? Extraordinary.” Caroline flashed her a smile. “Ah, well. As long as you’re sure this isn’t a surprise.”

  “As I’ve said. She knows I’m coming.”

  “Very odd that she wasn’t here to greet you then.”

  “As you’ve said,” Rory pointed out. “Twice now.”

  “It’s just that . . .” Caroline blew out a breath and shoved her mass of dark hair off her shoulders. “There’s actually not enough food in the house, Rory. Of course, I’ll go back into town for groceries when I have a moment. But if I’d known in advance . . .”

  “I won’t have you do that,” Rory told her. “I’ve had a very long drive, and it’ll be good to have a walk into the town centre. I can pick up what I want. And Arlo needs a walk.”

  “Now that would be a blessing,” Caroline said. “And if you wouldn’t mind doing it straightaway . . . ? So that I can sort out what needs to be prepared for dinner?”

  “Actually, I was just about to have a cup of tea,” Rory said, as pleasantly as she could manage. “And not to worry about tonight. I’m quite happy to take Clare out for a meal.”

  That said, Rory turned and went back into the sitting room, leaving Caroline with the day’s post and whatever sorting out she needed to do with it. She was enjoying her tea and her second lemon biscuit along with a copy of Majesty that Clare religiously bought for the unintended amusement value of its photo spreads and its breathlessly admiring reportage on obscure royal families round the globe when she heard Caroline at the door to the sitting room. She looked up.

>   Caroline was holding a tee-shirt before her, still bearing the signs of having been folded. Its colour was black, and across the front of it scrolled the words On the 8th day, God created clotted cream, beneath which was the depiction of a mound of that substance with a fanciful serving spoon sticking out of it.

  Rory chuckled. “That would be from the woman at the Bishopsgate signing. Was that in the parcel just now?”

  Caroline didn’t join in the amusement. She said, “How did this come to be sent here? Clare was merely being polite. You know how she is: completely incapable of giving people the casual brush-off. So what I’m employed to do is to brush them off for her. I took Clare’s card back from that person because I knew she didn’t actually want this ridiculous thing, Rory. She was merely offering someone one of those moments in which one human being thinks a connection is being made with another. A feel-good moment, as Americans would call it. So how did this tee-shirt end up being purchased and sent directly here to her home? Because I have to tell you what that suggests.”

  “What?”

  “That you went behind my back and gave whoever-she-was one of Clare’s cards despite having seen me take it from her. Which, of course, you had to have seen or you wouldn’t have given her another card in the first place.”

  “If you know all this, what are your questions, Caroline?”

  Caroline dropped the tee-shirt over the back of an armchair as she came into the room. “You hate that I work for her, don’t you?” She positioned herself directly in front of Rory, who laid her magazine aside and said, “Actually, no. I don’t understand exactly what it is that you do for her that makes you so indispensable, but Clare can employ anyone she wishes to employ.”