The Girl Next Door

by Rendell, Ruth

  Recalling how Norman always told everyone that he had been born on the kitchen table, comparing the circumstances to the Duke of Edinburgh, who had also been born on a table but in Corfu, not Loughton, he phoned Lewis with his news. Lewis naturally was not particularly interested. He hardly remembered Norman Batchelor. Michael called Maureen back and this time, much against his original plan, asked if she would come with him to visit Clara Moss.

  After lunch – of course she asked him to lunch – they went together to Forest Road. Maureen was in low spirits. It seemed to her, she said, that everyone was going. First her George, now Norman, and Stanley had had pains that might be the forerunner of a heart attack.

  ‘Well, we’re old,’ said Michael. ‘Recently a prevailing belief has been that we shall live for ever, thanks to modern medicine. Stanley will probably be saved for another dozen years. I hope so.’

  Winter had come, and in leafy Loughton all the trees had lost their leaves. It was cold and grey but dry. Oaks kept their leaves longer than any other tree, brown, dried up and shivering in the wind. Maureen remarked that when leaves turned in England, with a few exceptions they changed to yellow, not copper or red. You had to go to America or Canada for that, where maples abounded, a visit she and George had paid a few years before. Memories silenced her and there was no more to be said until they reached Clara’s door. It was opened by Samantha in the young woman’s dress of jeans, stripy T-shirt and, so common as to seem like part of a uniform, the almost inevitable long, straight hair, its red tinted blonde for a change.

  ‘She’s asleep. She sleeps a lot these days.’

  ‘Should we come back another day?’

  Michael could tell by Maureen’s tone, though probably Sam couldn’t, that she was hoping to be allowed to leave before seeing Clara. ‘No, you stay,’ Sam said. ‘She’d want me to wake her up. She’d be mad if she missed you.’

  This appeared to be true. Clara woke slowly, struggled to sit up, helped by Sam. Michael hesitated, then kissed her cheek. ‘You was always a good boy,’ Clara said. ‘God knows why. You had everything to make you bad.’ She had a word for Maureen. ‘Sorry about your George. There was another good man. But they all go, there’s no help for it.’

  Michael sat on a chair by the bed, Maureen stood for a moment or two, then went into the kitchen to talk to Sam. Clara said, ‘I was thinking about your mum. Well, having a dream about her. I dream a lot these days. That pal of hers, the chap with the ginger hair, I remembered his name.’ She drew a long sigh, then seemed to change the subject. ‘The body is more than raiment,’ she said. ‘D’you know where that comes from?’

  Michael shook his head. ‘Should I?’

  ‘My mum and dad would have said you should. Not nowadays, I reckon. It’s the Bible. We had it in Sunday school. I was there every Sunday for years and years at St Mary’s. You want to know why I thought of it? On account of it was his name, that chap with the ginger hair. Rayment was his name. She called him Jimmy.’

  Her words were making him uncomfortable. This, after all, was his mother, and a man’s mother, however indifferent she had been as a parent, had something sacred about her. Clara seemed to sense his unease. ‘She had a lot of friends, gentlemen more than ladies, but there was nothing wrong. You can be sure of that.’

  ‘Of course,’ Michael said.

  Having, as she thought, reassured him, Clara went on, ‘Like there was the soldier as was Mr Johnson’s brother, used to come to the Johnsons on his leave. You remember the Johnsons?’ Michael vaguely did. The son had been in the tunnels with them, was now an ambassador somewhere. ‘Mr Clifford Johnson – well, Captain he was. He used to admire your mum, as a lot of fellows did, she was as pretty as a picture.’ She was growing tired, he could tell, her voice flagging. ‘Maybe I shouldn’t be saying this, but your dad, he didn’t like visitors, ladies or gentlemen, he didn’t like it. Wanted his wife to himself and I don’t blame him.’ She laid her head on the pillows once more. ‘My husband was long gone by then and that Captain Johnson died on a beach in France. Or so they said . . .’

  She was asleep. Maureen came in with tea for him and Clara but he wouldn’t wake her. ‘She’s been quite chatty,’ said Sam.

  ‘Talking nineteen to the dozen.’ Maureen adjusted Clara’s eiderdown, pulling it up to cover her. ‘We could hear her from the kitchen, couldn’t we, Sam?’

  ‘Does the doctor come?’ Michael asked.

  ‘The lady next door says she was here last week. Looks about sixteen, but I will say this for her, she knows her stuff. Took her blood pressure and listened to her heart, all what they always do. Her heart’s in a bad way but what can you expect at her age?’

  ‘I’ll come again next week,’ said Michael on an impulse.

  A scent bottle was what she decided on. An ornate object, with a glass stopper and gold bands – real gold, she had been assured by Fenella, the donor – decorating its emerald-coloured surface. No perfume was contained in it; you were supposed to pour that in yourself from the Armani or Guerlain you bought at what the young called a pharmacy but she the chemist. Of course Rosemary had never done this – who would bother? – but put the bottle on the mantelpiece where it made a pretty ornament along with the china dog and various framed photographs. She doubted that the stopper had ever been taken out before. The neck of the bottle was quite large enough to pour the morphine into it without difficulty.

  She did all this on Thursday evening, even putting the bottle in her handbag, unwilling to leave anything till the morning. Judith phoned her at nine thirty, later than her mother had brought her up to think calls should be made, but Rosemary didn’t reproach her.

  ‘Yes, I’m going to Hamilton Terrace. We’re going to talk.’

  ‘What, Daphne as well?’

  ‘It’s going to be very different from last time,’ said Rosemary with absolute truth. ‘I’ve given the situation a lot of thought and I shan’t do anything rash.’

  ‘I’m very glad to hear it, Mother. Let me know how you get on.’

  ‘Oh, you’ll hear all about it.’ Rosemary was determined not to lie and had skilfully avoided it.

  Her mind was made up and all her preparations were in place; even her recently made but never worn dress was on a hanger outside the wardrobe and her shoes neatly placed together. Not really knowing why, she brought the handbag with its lethal contents into the bedroom with her. She didn’t want to let it out of her sight. With everything settled and nothing left to do except drink her hot milk, something she had done almost every night of her life, she expected to sleep well. She hardly slept at all. At every hour she saw the numbers on the bedside digital clock, and when it said 5.30 she got up. It was dark, the season far enough advanced for dawn not to come before seven. She hadn’t yet turned on the central heating and the flat felt cold. It was rare for her to get up so early and it reminded her, though in a different house and long long ago, of when her babies had awakened her. Grizzling Owen and placid Judith. Did Alan ever think of those days? Did he think of her bearing his children and nurturing them, caring for them and looking after them, while he was off to the City to remain there for hours, working, of course, but enjoying himself as well with his friends he called colleagues, eating and drinking, always later home than he had promised? She had never been a feminist but she thought she would have been if she could have had her life over again.

  In the tube, clutching the fatal bag, she thought of him again using this train or its forerunner, sitting there reading his newspaper, maybe doing the crossword, while she was changing nappies, mopping up sick, spooning slop into kids’ mouths only to see it spat out. She had wasted her life, and all he could say was that it was dull! The stations flowed past. Forty years ago, the men who got in would have glanced at her surreptitiously, admiring glances, because she had been pretty then, a desirable woman, lovely to look at. All gone now.

  Two changes on the tube lay ahead of her, the first on to the Circle Line, the second to the Bakerloo. It su
rprised her that she could do it alone. She never had before, these changes or others. Alan or one of her children had always been with her. In a way it was easier on her own, no one with her to fuss or hurry her or caution her to hold on or keep away from the platform edge. She should have tried it before, when she was younger; it might have transformed her life.

  I am cleverer than I thought, she told herself as she came out of the tube station at Warwick Avenue, pleased to have emerged from the Clifton Gardens exit and not the one for Clifton Villas. She had remembered and remembered correctly. Glancing at her watch, she saw that she was early, she would be ten minutes early, so she took the long way round, walking up the hill and just before the bridge turning down Blomfield Road. She sat down on a bench and looked at the canal without really seeing it, busy with her thoughts, which had taken her back to the last time she was here, to her attempt on Daphne’s life. Seeing the scene with her mind’s eye, she pictured Daphne, tall and graceful, wearing that life-saving leather jacket, intended for a young woman. Fenella or Freya could have worn it and looked suitably dressed.

  Rosemary remembered noticing the jacket long before she reached in her bag for the knife, and now she remembered thinking Daphne was well protected against any attack. No ordinary and rather blunt kitchen knife could penetrate that. She had tried it just the same, but had she tried it because she knew it wouldn’t succeed? Perhaps. Not perhaps; certainly. Of course she couldn’t kill or even hurt someone with a knife. These teenagers in London could, they did it all the time, but they were young and their lives had been anything but sheltered. This time would be different. They called poison the woman’s method of murder – call it ‘killing’ instead, it didn’t sound so bad. Morphine wasn’t poison; it was a pain-killing, not person-killing, remedy.

  Again she looked at her watch and was surprised to see how much time had passed. She might even be a few minutes late. In an estate agent’s window she caught sight of her reflection and stopped to look at herself in the new dress, worn for the first time. It fitted well, it made her look younger. No one would take her for a day over sixty. As she turned away towards the traffic lights where she would cross Maida Vale, she thought in a rare moment of honest self-revelation, when I was thirty, how I would have laughed at someone being pleased to be taken for sixty.

  Alan opened the door to her. They had probably arranged it that way, Daphne telling him it would be better if he was the first person she saw, not her supplanter. He asked her how she was, then hesitated and she knew he was wondering whether he should kiss her. On the cheek only, of course. They went into the lounge that Daphne called a drawing room. Like her own grandmother might have, thought Rosemary. Daphne was there, standing up, looking out of the window that gave on to the street. She must have been watching for me to come. Are we going to shake hands? No, nothing but say hallo, awkwardly on both their parts. She thinks I tried to kill her, but I didn’t.

  Alan began. She had thought he would. ‘This isn’t going to be easy. I’d better say first of all that last time is forgotten. I know you didn’t mean it. Daphne knows that. It’s over and, as I say, forgotten.’ Rosemary said nothing. She wanted him to have a hard time. ‘These things,’ he said, ‘happen in many marriages, only the people are usually younger than us. It’s hard for us all. I’d like to make it easier, especially for you, Rosemary, but there’s no easy way. It’s a tragedy that can’t be avoided.’

  He was waiting for her to speak, and she did, though not in the way he expected. ‘You pompous ass,’ she said.

  Daphne started. She jumped so hard Rosemary could see her move. Alan said, ‘I’m sorry you take that attitude.’

  ‘What did you expect me to say? Be happy, my children, is that what?’ She touched her handbag, the bag that was not big enough to hold a knife but the right size for a small bottle. She felt its outlines.

  ‘I think it might help if we all had a drink,’ said Daphne. ‘I know it’s a bit early, but these are special circumstances.’

  Rosemary nodded. ‘The sun is over the yardarm, as my father used to say. I never knew what it meant.’

  Neither of the others enlightened her. Alan said, ‘Good idea,’ and left the room. Daphne said, ‘Sorry to leave you alone. I won’t be a minute.’

  The Sauvignon was evidently to be poured elsewhere and into rather tall glasses. A memory came to Rosemary of one of the rare occasions she had been to the opera. This one was called Lucrezia Borgia. She had never heard of it before Alan was given the tickets by a client arranging a musical party. Lucrezia was administering poison much as she planned to do to Daphne, but at a dinner where her son was a guest along with her lover who was to drink the poisoned wine. The glasses got switched somehow and to her grief and agony it was her son who drank the poison and not the intended victim. This wouldn’t happen now.

  The three full glasses were set down on the coffee table in front of the three chairs, Daphne’s nearest the window. The opera came back into her mind, and as Alan brought in a bowl of nuts she thought, what if the glasses get changed round and he gets the one with the morphine? But no, she would stop that happening even if it meant she gave herself away. The glasses were not really full but half filled, the way Rosemary had read was the fashionable trend. That would help her. She felt the bottle through the thin suede of the bag and undid the clasp. Holding the bag upright but leaving the bottle where it was, she loosened its top. Maybe she wouldn’t get the chance to do it, maybe they wouldn’t be out of the room together. And it seemed that that was what would happen. When she had set a dish of olives on the table, Daphne sat down in the chair that had its back towards the window and turned to Rosemary with a polite smile.

  But Alan was on his feet and looking into the garden as if he could see something interesting. ‘Come here a minute,’ he said.

  Daphne turned, got up when he said, ‘The fox is here again. The first time I’ve seen him for weeks.’

  Now they both had their backs to her and were peering through the glass. Rosemary reached across the table and poured half the contents of the full bottle into Daphne’s glass.

  ‘You want to see this, Rosemary,’ he said. ‘A big dog fox. We never saw any in Loughton.’

  It was his use of the past tense that enraged her, as if when he left, her life was over. ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ she said. ‘We’re here to talk about our future, not the bloody wildlife.’

  Wondering if she had ever used the word aloud before, she could see he wondered too. She should have said ‘fucking’, but that would have been too much for her. Even now. Daphne sat down again. Reluctantly, Alan came to join them, his eyes still on the garden. Rosemary thought, I have done it, this is it, I have killed someone. I have killed Daphne Jones. And as she said it to herself, something seemed to clutch at her chest, making her heart beat with heavy thuds like a piece of machinery about to go wrong. Alan lifted his glass, hesitated, about to say ‘Cheers’ or ‘Your health’ but stopping himself because it was so inappropriate. He said nothing, took a sip. I can’t kill her, Rosemary thought. Not me, not murder, not kill anyone.

  Saying aloud, ‘I can’t. No, I can’t,’ she reached across the table and half fell on to the dish of olives, with an outstretched arm sweeping Daphne’s untouched wine glass to the floor. Wine splashed Daphne’s legs and skirt. She jumped to her feet.

  ‘Please don’t worry. White wine doesn’t stain. I’ll get a cloth.’

  She went off to the kitchen, the wine and morphine mixture dripping off her skirt hem. Alan was perfectly still, silent, staring at Rosemary. He knew. She could tell he knew. She could tell by his face, tell because she had lived with him for half a century, could read his face the way Daphne never would. Daphne came back, mopped up the floor, picked up the fragments of glass and dropped them into a large envelope. Rosemary, ostentatiously, lifted her own glass to her lips, drank the contents and said to Alan, ‘I’d like a refill, please.’

  He left it to Daphne, the innocent one who knew nothing. Ro
semary immediately drank half of what she had been given, thought, the shock of what I have done and not done will come later and I don’t know what form it will take. The wine would go to her head, but it hadn’t yet. She swallowed the rest of what Daphne had poured her, got to her feet steadily, and said, still lucid, ‘I might as well go. I don’t care what you do. Suit yourselves.’

  Daphne started to say she was sorry about all this, but Rosemary’s face silenced her. ‘I’ll walk you to the station,’ said Alan, ‘or would you like me to call you a cab?’

  ‘Neither. I don’t want anything from you.’

  Alan opened the front door, took a step outside behind her. ‘What did you put in her drink?’

  ‘Hatred,’ said Rosemary. ‘I will never speak to you again.’

  He went back into the house, leaving her on the front path. He had already made up his mind to say nothing to Daphne. Poisons came into his mind: arsenic, strychnine, curare, all gathered from detective stories. Which of them had she brought with her and used?

  ‘Let’s go away somewhere,’ he said to Daphne. ‘Let’s go to Italy. I’ve never been there. Let’s go to Florence or Rome.’

  ‘Why not? I’d love to.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  THE DRINK HIT her, or it might have been pain, passion, rage and shame all combined. She found a seat near the junction of Hamilton Terrace with the St John’s Wood Road – there were a lot of seats round here – and sank on to it. I am too old for this, she said to herself, this is for a young woman who still has all her physical strength. I should never have gone. Why did I think that I who have never done a violent act, who never gave one of my children a tiny slap, never smacked a pet dog, who rescued a trapped wasp rather than squash it, why did I think I could kill a woman? No, much as I hated her, I should have known killing was impossible for me. She put her head against the wooden bars of the seat back, felt her eyes close and her mouth fall open. That jerked her awake and she struggled to her feet. Freya lived near here, in a block of flats opposite Lord’s.