Victims

by Richardson,Robert

  ‘Oh … Hello. I didn’t notice you.’

  ‘You were miles away. Talking to yourself. Sorting out dialogue for your book?’

  ‘Yes.’ He wondered if she could have heard anything.

  ‘I thought so.’ Joyce stood up, indicating the narrow strip of earth with a fork held in a canvas-gloved hand. ‘I was clearing out some of the weeds. It’s not actually our land, but pro bono publico.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘For the public good … I thought you went to Cambridge.’

  ‘I did. But I read English.’

  ‘Well my Latin’s only the dog variety.’ She wiped the back of her wrist across her forehead. ‘What a day … I was just going to have a cold drink. Would you like to join me? You look as if you need one.’

  ‘No … thank you … I don’t want to —’

  ‘Don’t be silly. It’s no trouble. Please.’ She picked up a wooden trug and the cushion and waited. She’d said please, and it would feel ill mannered to refuse. They walked through the gate and round the curve of the conservatory, all gleaming glass and basketwork settees, geraniums and some exotic crimson plants. The garden was much larger at the back, mazarine sun umbrellas shading white wrought-iron outdoor furniture beside an ornamental pond. He could just see a turquoise swimming pool beyond the trellis.

  ‘Make yourself comfortable. I’ll only be a minute.’

  She went across the flagged patio and through the door into the kitchen as he sat in a curved harp-back cast-iron chair next to a beetroot bronze Japanese maple in a terracotta urn. He rationalized why he had accepted; he was tired and hot and the offer of a drink had persuaded him. And meeting her had reminded him that she had known the family, and he felt a need to talk about them. But he could think of no way to lead her to them without making her suspect his reasons. And would it help anyway? A fat chaffinch landed on the table, expectant that Jowett’s presence meant food, its head tipped in enquiry, impatiently hopping. As she returned, carrying shining tall glasses on a stainless steel tray, it flew off.

  ‘Lemonade with real lemons. I make it myself.’ It was very pale green and the glasses were opaque with frost, as though she kept them in the freezer the way Americans did. Balls of ice like Arctic pearls floated amid slivers of peel.

  ‘Thank you.’ He swallowed more than he had intended. ‘Great.’

  She must have washed her face while she was indoors because the sheen of perspiration had gone; without make-up she looked … not older, but more mature, ripened. She was wearing canvas shorts, back pocket embroidered with gold and purple tulips, and a loose T-shirt announcing that she was a Friend of the Aldeburgh Festival. An irregular mesh of tiny scarlet veins formed two faint patches on the inside of her thigh; girlish ankles and feet seemed too delicate for such smooth, powerful legs.

  ‘That is so much better.’ A faint silver streak of moisture coated the fine down above her lip as she lowered the tumbler. ‘Thank you for joining me.’

  ‘It’s OK.’

  ‘The fact is, Mr Jowett, I haven’t spoken to another human being since breakfast. Country living has its drawbacks.’

  ‘Especially when you’re from London.’

  ‘I’m not … Oh, yes. I told you we moved from there. That was after I married. I grew up in Wiltshire … but in a rather bigger village.’

  ‘Why are you on your own? I mean …’ He hesitated, unsure if, even how, he should enquire. It was a long time since he had felt at ease with people, and he had mislaid many social courtesies.

  Fingers tipped with pale blue nails pushed back a stray lock of hair as though it irritated her or she was aware that it spoilt the curls and spirals of harvest gold.

  ‘Usually my mother’s here — she lives with us — but some friends have taken her out for the day. My husband spends the week in London — we have a flat near Camden Market. More a cupboard with pretensions really, but it’s a base while he’s at work. And the children are at school.’

  ‘Boarding school?’ Her lifestyle suggested it.

  ‘Yes and no. Rupert’s at Oakham, but Annabel’s not a boarder. She’s a day pupil at Margaret Wood School in Bury St Edmunds. It’s only half an hour away. She’ll be back about five.’

  ‘Do you pick her up?’

  ‘Sometimes, but she’s quite happy catching the bus.’

  ‘How old is she?’

  ‘Fifteen … Do you have family?’

  ‘Just my sister. She lives in Normandy. Near Rennes.’

  ‘How lovely. Do you go to see her?’

  ‘Not often … We’re not close.’

  And no mention of parents, she reflected. What a lonely young man you are. While preparing the drinks, she had been wondering why she’d invited him in. Another solitary day was insufficient reason; she had adapted to them: gardening, writing letters, polishing silver, attending to church business, planning changes to the house, reading, having coffee at a friend’s, chatting to her mother, a constant quiet busyness to avoid just existing in a void she called her life. Had his appearance fulfilled her ridiculous fantasy of the stranger who would appear unannounced, understanding and attentive, offering only uncomplicated happiness? Intellectually, she mocked romantic fiction, but could be tempted by its honeyed artifice …

  ‘So how’s the writing?’

  ‘OK.’ He gestured with his glass at lavender-blue blooms sprawling up the wall of the house. ‘That’s Lawsoniana, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes.’ Joyce felt a spasm of pleasure. ‘Do you know about clematis?’

  ‘A bit. Gardeners say they like company. You should plant climbing roses there as well.’

  ‘Really?’ She smiled. ‘What variety?’

  He shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I’m not an expert.’

  But you know something about gardens; perhaps you grew up with one. Did you make it into a hiding place like I do?

  ‘I’ll check in my books and choose one for next year. Thank you.’ And what will I remember when I look at them? One lonely summer afternoon when I dragged in a passing stranger so that I had someone to talk to?

  ‘This is a lovely house.’

  ‘Would you like to see inside?’

  ‘I didn’t mean that. I —’

  Frankly, my dear, I’m not sure if you ever know what you mean. ‘Bring your drink.’ My home may look like gingerbread, but I’m not going to eat you.

  It was, as always, flawless: every cushion plumped, nothing out of place, no traces of dust; the sterile show home of a woman with little to attend to but her luxurious cell. He admired proportions, ornaments and furnishings, paintings, decorated plaster ceilings, the sweep of the staircase, the aquamarine sunken bath.

  ‘That’s out of bounds.’ She indicated a closed door on the landing. ‘My daughter’s going through the grunge stage. Whenever I look in it I think about calling the bomb squad … This is the main bedroom.’

  Regency drapes with a deep mauve fringe edged tall windows, blending with wallpaper of pink wild roses on cream, pale violet carpet, mahogany wardrobe, dressing table and standing mirror, circular table with a glass top and a hammered copper bowl containing silk peonies. The empty, impeccable bed with its equivocal atmosphere, created when a woman showed a man the intimate space she shared with her husband. A room that had no purpose in the day.

  ‘And that’s it — except for my mother’s apartment which we treat as her private territory — and no gift shop on the way out. Would you like another?’ She nodded at his empty glass.

  ‘I ought to be getting back.’

  ‘There’s plenty.’ There was sharp disappointment in the thought of him leaving. ‘Unless it’s going to ruin the muse, of course. I wouldn’t want to be a person from Porlock. You know, the visitor, who interrupted Coleridge, so that he never managed to finish “Kubla Khan”.’

  He hesitated, as if unable to insist. ‘All right.’

  Again, he let her precede him down the stairs and into the kitchen where she took a pottery jug from the dou
ble fridge and refilled his held-out glass. She realized he was staring at where her breasts pushed out the T-shirt’s legend. As she finished pouring his eyes didn’t move for a moment, then he raised his face to hers again. This was not just the hackneyed, crude male mind imagining hidden flesh; the look was softened by what she felt was some form of longing.

  ‘I’ll get you some more ice.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  She kept a bowl of ice-cubes in the freezer and occupied herself with scooping out a handful, then dropping them in the lemonade. ‘Let’s go back into the garden.’

  Murmuring stillness of heat and quiet now infused the afternoon, birds and insects drowsy, growing things suspended in simmering air, shadows fixed, time slow, all movement lazy. There was a sense that it would be wrong to break it with speech. Joyce felt a sudden contentment, and faint tremors of an unexpected and ludicrous anticipation. Jowett didn’t look at her, but gazed down towards the dark columns of trees at the far end of the garden, surely seeing other things.

  ‘It’s a bath for the soul, isn’t it?’

  Her voice pulled him back from wherever he had gone. ‘What is?’

  ‘A day like this.’

  ‘Yes … That’s a nice phrase.’

  ‘Use it if you want … in your book.’

  ‘I don’t know if it’s … it might not work.’ Her speaking seemed to have opened a channel he wanted to explore. ‘May I ask you something?’

  ‘What about?’

  ‘Your friends … in the church … The ones who were killed.’

  ‘Ben and Annie?’ She frowned at a blight brought into the afternoon. ‘What about them?’

  ‘What were they like?’

  ‘They were … Why are you interested?’

  ‘I don’t know … I just wondered.’

  Death, she thought. You are close to it, aren’t you? And it’s hurting because you’ve not been hardened.

  ‘As I told you, they were just lovely people. There was nothing special about them, but you couldn’t not like them.’

  ‘But they were killed. The children as well.’

  She saw the dismay in his eyes and leant forward, laying her hand on his knee. ‘Yes. But if you think about it, things like that — even worse things — happen all over the world, all the time. The pain comes when it’s someone you know, but … God, I’m about to sound dreadfully old. Somebody’s death hurts much more when you’re young.’

  ‘But they were murdered.’

  ‘Yes, and of course that makes it worse. But … I don’t know how other people came to terms with it … but I decided it mustn’t destroy my belief that most people are good. Not perfect, but not wicked. If I lost that, then whoever killed them would have done even more damage.’

  ‘But you must hate whoever did it.’

  ‘I try not to think about them, but … hatred can turn in on you.’ She smiled slightly as she removed her hand. ‘Now I’m sounding philosophical. I don’t know what I think about them. They mustn’t be allowed to matter. And however much I hated them wouldn’t bring anyone back. So you have to let it go …’ He nodded, but as if to himself, rotating the glass in his hands, abstractedly watching melting ice swirl and tinkle against the sides. Joyce felt she may have been one of the first people to whom he had tried to speak about what she was increasingly certain was a private grief; his approach had been oblique — five deaths with which he had no emotional connection — but it might give him a perspective on the one that was his own. She waited, then knew he was not ready to continue.

  ‘Anyway, that was a long time ago and this is too lovely a day to think about it,’ she said.

  Abruptly, Jowett stood up. ‘I think I should go now. Thank you for the drink.’ His glass was still half full.

  ‘Oh, that was sudden.’ She was dismayed. Their meeting should not have ended on so serious a note — and perhaps she didn’t want it to end at all, leaving melancholy and regret behind. ‘If you want, we could have something to eat. It won’t take a minute.’

  ‘No. Thank you.’

  She felt an irresistible impulse to tease, to take away the sting of disappointment. ‘Oh, Mr Jowett. Are you running away from me?’

  ‘Why should I do that?’

  Are you really so innocent or just polite? ‘I don’t know … All right. I’m being selfish. I needed someone to talk to, but you’ve got work to do.’ They walked past the conservatory again, across the front lawn and to the gate; he kept the distance between them greater than it need have been. ‘If you go through the first gate you come to, then follow the footpath round the field it brings you out by the old chapel. It’s quicker.’

  ‘Right. Thanks again.’

  She watched him walk away, never looking back. He held himself very erect, as though disciplined, even guarded, but with none of the confidence of a young and successful man — she had silently admired the red MGF and noted the sumptuous quality of the luggage.

  ‘And why do I suddenly want you so much, Mr Jowett?’ The question was a private whisper. ‘You can’t have got through my layers that quickly.’

  Had it been nothing more than an extra glass of wine taken with a solitary lunch, sun-fermented inside her into a caprice, a daydream of delicious passion? He was good-looking, well-mannered, intelligent, made interesting by his uncertainty; she was sure he would be kind … Alone and unhappy … but why was she wondering what it would be like to be touched by those slender hands? She shook herself. There was that birthday card to send to Ralph’s sister, the seam of Annabel’s tennis shorts to repair; the proper concerns of a tamed, captured wife and dutiful mother. She must mind her house and not be ridiculous.

  *

  Jowett found that he was weeping. She had been so welcoming, an attractive, interested woman whom he should have been able to talk to easily, joke or even flirt with. Then, when they met again, connections would have been made, the distance of strangers reduced, the country of friendship entered. Such idle conversation was something he had lost, another bitter reminder of how unscarred people lived. But her natural and polite interest would be turned to revulsion by the truth …

  I am sorry they are dead. If there is a heaven, may they be in it. I am ashamed I cannot confess. I wish …

  I wish I had not been part of the killing of people you loved.

  Chapter Six

  Jowett read the febrile, fragmented diary written at the end of each painful day, convincing himself that simply having remained in Finch for a week without breaking down, hurling everything into the car and racing back to his hole in London, was a milestone on a terrible road. There had been nothing important, no sudden moment of revelation, nothing that had brought comfort, but he was still precariously there, however frightened and alone.

  Sunday: Woken by the church bells, but I couldn’t go knowing that other people would be there. I’ll do it tomorrow. Drove to Bury St Edmunds, bought food and ordnance survey map. Went into museum, but had to leave when I saw death mask of William Corder, who murdered Maria Marten in the Red Barn not far from here. Took long way back (shouldn’t have done). Wrote about Giles, how we met, what I thought of him. Crap film on TV in evening.

  Day not as bad as I expected.

  Monday: Went into the church and was praying (or trying to) when Mrs Hetherington arrived to do some cleaning.

  She’s the type who’d belong to the church. Made myself ask her about the memorial plaque by the door, pretending I thought someone had been arrested. Cracked up when she said she knew them. Asked me back to her place for coffee. She was sympathetic — I’ve not had that before — but backed off when I lost it again. But she listens, and that’s good.

  Would it help to talk to her? How? I’ll have to think about that. Stayed round the cottage afterwards, read in the garden, then tried more writing, but only about myself. I’m putting off the bad stuff.

  Tuesday: Day from hell. Spent hours just walking round the house, couldn’t write, felt like shit. Wanted to jack it in,
get back to London, but forced myself to wait another half-hour, then an hour, like when I tried to give up smoking. Watched kid’s TV; they’re still showing things I saw years ago. Finished the gin and went to bed early. Futile session of Onanism, first for several weeks. (Written this Wednesday morning.)

  Wednesday: Better. Went into the village and had a ploughman’s at the pub. Good beer and nobody tried to talk to me, but there were some looks. They don’t get many strangers. Wrote more about Giles in the afternoon.

  Amazing what came back, like him having a thing about Bette Midler films, and the way he could imitate people’s voices. I’m putting too much off. The farm’s marked on the map; I’ve got to make myself go tomorrow.

  Thursday: The farm looked exactly the same as I remembered. Felt sick as I walked past. Who lives there now? There was something about a son inheriting. Did he really move in after what we did? I’ve got to go there — right up to the house — but could I hack it if I met him? Would it do any good? Is anything doing any good? It’s like being in a sodding horror movie. Couldn’t walk back past the farm, so went across the fields and met Mrs Hetherington again. Invited me into the garden for a drink and showed me round the house. Why? I think she must be lonely, but she ought to have enough friends. Began to fancy her at one point and felt somehow guilty. She told me more about them, but I mustn’t make her suspicious by asking too much. Nearly a week, but have I got anywhere?

  Friday: Good writing day, managed to give all the details.

  Felt totally gutted when I’d finished, but at least I’ve faced it head on. Something’s got to come out. Beginning to feel the need to talk about it to someone, but I’ve felt that for years. Who, for Christ’s sake? A priest? The Samaritans? God doesn’t give any feedback.

  Anyway, I’m still here, and that’s something. Wondering about returning to the farm tomorrow after it’s dark, and getting nearer the house. I don’t know what it will achieve, but the idea keeps coming back. I’ll sleep on it (I’m sleeping better) and think again in the morning. Nearly finished part one of War and Peace, seriously weird way to do it at last.