by Roger Curtis
There was to be one exception.
By late afternoon she had moved to the drawing room and lay stretched out on one of the two crimson sofas, contemplating the plaster ceiling rose above the confection in crystal that Mark had bought at Sotheby’s. She wanted Mark to come home and comfort her with assurances that he had enlisted Brian’s help. It was inexplicable that Brian had not come to see her; but then, as Alice had explained, he had his patients to consider.
Around five o’clock she heard Marguerite answer the door bell, then the girl’s protestations as another, more forceful, voice gained ascendency. Brisk footsteps sounded on the polished oak floor of the hall. It was the least expected of all her potential visitors.
‘It’s kind of you to come, Mrs Adams.’
The woman seemed taken aback, eyebrows arching, as if it were not the greeting she expected. Then her face reassumed its usual angularity.
‘There’s no kindness in it, Mrs Preston, as you well know. Nor will there be, leastways not for a long while to come. I take pity on you because I would wish that on no-one, and I hope your face heals, in spite of what you’ve done.’
After all this time the pang of remorse for Clare’s death was sharper than Sarah-Jane might have anticipated. But it had to be countered; she knew no other way. ‘Done? Will you never let the matter rest? Haven’t I done penance enough for you and your family?’
‘Maybe you have, maybe you haven’t. God will be the judge of that. But I think you know that’s not why I’ve come. Let’s be straight about it since you seem not to understand.’ Marjorie Adams’ eyes seemed to want to tear Sarah-Jane’s wounded cheek apart. ‘Why have you accused my son?’
‘Accused…’ At last she understood.’ I have accused no-one! I have no idea who it was.’
‘But you told the police.’
‘They asked who might have a grudge against me. That’s a different matter. You’re not denying your son once threatened me?’
Until that moment the woman had remained standing. Suddenly her composure evaporated. She removed a cushion and lowered herself into the far end of Sarah-Jane’s sofa.
‘You know they’ve searched our house? Rooms, garage, attic, workshop, everywhere.’
‘No, I didn’t know.’
‘And they’ve taken Jack for questioning.’ She opened her handbag, took out a handkerchief and sniffed into it.
Sarah-Jane had her own problem to occupy her. There was no room for another’s. ‘Then events are going to have to take their course, aren’t they?’
‘You’ll regret saying that, Mrs Preston. You mark my words you will.’
‘I’ve expressed enough regret, Mrs Adams. I think you’d better go, don’t you?’
‘You know my boy’s not capable of such a thing.’ She was crying now.
Sarah-Jane thrust her injured face towards the woman, jabbing her forefinger at the wound. ‘With this I no longer care. Now please go!’
Brian arrived at nine forty-five, just as the hall clock struck the quarter. Mark had sent her to bed and she lay imagining Brian on the doorstep looking at his watch to achieve a precisely timed entry; she’d seen that before. Whatever it was that Mark has slipped into her drink – as he admitted later – it had not quite taken effect. Through the haze in her head she heard them climbing the stairs. The bedside light was still on. She shifted her position so that it illuminated the damaged side of her face, then closed her eyes, pretending to be asleep. She sensed Brian’s feline scrutiny of the lesion, taking his time, as he did with his patients, his face almost touching hers. The minty medicinal breath forced her to stay still. The back of his hand brushed the angle of her jaw.
‘He’s done a good job, that young man of mine. I could hardly have done it better.’ He drew himself away. ‘There’s nothing much to be done, Mark, at least not in the immediate future. When it’s settled down we can consider other options.’
‘Like grafting?’
‘Perhaps.’
‘My poor Sarah-Jane!’
‘It’ll become less obvious with time. You must be patient if you’re to help her. I’ll call by tomorrow and talk to her if you like.’
‘Would you? You’re a good friend, Brian. I appreciate that.’
Mark switched off the light. She felt his dry lips brush her forehead; would that it had been her damaged cheek. Then they tiptoed from the room. She opened one eye and watched the door close after them.
12
Although the attack had happened on the Friday, in Sarah-Jane’s mind day one began on the following Monday morning. She remembered that when her sister – but not, it must be said, her father – had died a similar thing had happened: the flurry of actions by those purporting to be concerned and the inner turmoil that made time pass in a kind of emotional high. Now, there was even the dubious excitement of not knowing where it all might lead. It was still there, that feeling, when she went to bed on the Sunday evening, cheered by the television, a bottle of Mark’s finest claret and those around her wishing her well. When she woke it was gone and in its place lay a featureless, grey wasteland stretching into the future.
Marguerite, with a cup of tea, tip-toed into the room so as not to wake her until the last moment as the curtains were drawn back. But the already open eye above the wound had seen her enter. For a second a little flame flickered – the girl didn’t usually do this – but then was gone.
‘How’s your face, Miss?’
‘Still painful, thanks, but at least I slept.’
‘That’s good.’ There was a moment’s silence. ‘I wanted to ask. Could you take me to the station again, please?’
‘I thought you were here with me today.’
‘Mr Preston said I could.’
‘What did you do to earn that?’ The week before it wouldn’t have mattered; now it did.
The girl looked away. Her request had not been made without conflict. But the balance between what you want for yourself and what you can reasonably expect from others is difficult to set at that age.
‘Can you be back early, then?’
‘I’ll try my hardest.’ She meant it.
Brief though this exchange was, it seemed to tell Sarah-Jane more about Mark and his priorities than about Marguerite.
There were flowers downstairs. Not, this time, roses, but there was a note attached: Jed and Abel had cared enough. Now there would be reason to get to know them better. That cheered her a little.
She began to realise that the killing of time – which until now had only occasionally pricked at her conscience – would become a burden from which she might not extricate herself. This was partly in the mind, but it was also a sensation exacerbated by the knowledge that little time-filling packages – like going to the shops for no real purpose other than to be seen, or picking up the telephone when you still hadn’t decided who to phone – might no longer be available to her. Time, she could see, could become her greatest enemy. In the past it had been a friend and an asset, but it had been squandered. She knew that now.
Surely the secret was to plan ahead, so as never to be left with nothing to do.
Gingerly sipping her coffee at the right commissure of unobliging lips – she had thrown away the sodden straw in disgust – she watched the postman on his bicycle ploughing through the new gravel, before giving up and pushing for the last few yards. The post fell in a cascade. Still at the door, she opened each item, glanced at it, then tossed it onto the hall table. It took her a while to realise that what she was seeking was word from her assailant. After all, a relationship had been established between them; wasn’t it likely it would be pursued?
On the table beside her lay the pad she had used to sketch the outline of her attacker. The police had taken the sheet, but the imprint remained on the next. She angled it to the light, following in her head his refl
ection in the mirror. She judged that he could not have been very tall. Why, then, had she not tried to defend herself? To have stood up, struck out at him or screamed were options she had seemingly and perversely rejected. Why?
At eleven Inspector Guthrie called to tell her that the raid on the Adams’ home had yielded nothing.
‘I didn’t think it would, Inspector.’
‘Oh, why’s that?’
‘Because the man’s basically a wimp, and harmless.’
‘Jack Adams? You surprise me. I thought he was held in high regard. Like for his charitable work.’
‘A vested interest, wasn’t it? Clare’s condition, I mean.’
‘Not in all that he did. If you’ll forgive me, Mrs Preston, off the record I would strongly advise you against taking that particular line.’
Sarah-Jane shrugged.
Guthrie was staring at the pile of cards and letters. ‘May I look?’
‘Help yourself.’
‘Any suspicious, like typed ones for instance?’
‘A couple. Did you get anywhere with the letters I gave you?’
‘We’re still working on them.’
‘Do you think there’s a connection?’
‘It’s the only lead we have. What puzzles me is the total lack of witnesses. Outside in the lane, I mean. Further away, even.’
‘Did you try Mrs Horsedung – Mrs Fowler I think she calls herself – three houses down?’
‘We’ve visited all fifty of your neighbours, all the golfers, all the local public services, buses, taxis. Nothing even slightly suspicious.’
‘Inspector?’
‘Yes?’
‘Will he try again, do you think?’
‘The deliberation in his case suggests to me that he won’t, but who can tell. We have an officer near the gate. In fact we’ve had one there since Friday.’
‘I didn’t know.’
When he’d gone the whole house became silently, unbearably oppressive. It had the feel of one of those grey mornings long, long ago when the house at Peverell Hessett was given over to her mother’s Monday wash and cheerfulness was not allowed back until the wretched business was over. Only then was the sun permitted to filter through the dank clouds to restore her spirits. Here, now, today, it seemed the sun had simply died.
I need a plan, she told herself: something to hang on to when the going gets rough, as it will. She wrote on the pad: one – re-establish your life as far as possible as it was before – by doing that the difficulties will be easier to isolate and deal with; two – identify your real friends and use them sparingly, as they may not be over-keen to help; three – try, if you can, to keep Mark happy as you’ll need to keep him; four – find things to do to keep yourself busy; five – try to put out of your mind what happened – what’s done is done and recriminations will not help.
She found herself chewing the end of her pen. Five was not right. She knew from her days as a houseman that patients who pushed disasters from their minds later regretted it. Okay, five – face up to it and consider counselling only as a long stop if you really need it; but only if.
Mark rang as she was reading through the list again.
‘Mark, dear. The dinner we cancelled. I want it to be on again.’
‘Sarah-Jane, don’t be ridiculous. You’re not yet up to it.’
‘I’m fine, really.’
‘We’ll talk about it when I get back.’
It was a start. She would surprise him with her determination and resolve. But she would come to find she had underestimated his resistance.
At the car park near the shops she drove without thinking to the far end where there were fewer vehicles, and sat there agonising for having already allowed her behaviour to be dictated by fear of embarrassment. So she took a deep breath, straightened a few stray wisps of hair with her fingers and drove back along the row of cars. Having parked, she walked towards the shops with her head erect.
There were five people in the gift shop. With each the first response was the same: a stare, a momentary engaging of the eyes and then a furtive looking-away. From two of them, not quite strangers, the usual smile of recognition was not there. The third, stricken with guilt and pity, approached her. ‘Mrs Preston, I’m so sorry.’ Then she paid at the counter with cash and was gone.
Sarah-Jane bought two packets of the most expensive invitation cards, each with an elaborate floral design surrounding the words ‘At Home’. The counter assistant’s eyes flicked from her face to the cards and back again. A rush of anger, and Sarah-Jane said, ‘You don’t think I should be entertaining, do you?’ But she had misjudged. ‘Oh, Mrs Preston, I just hope you will be brave enough.’ The hand that passed her the change paused to pat her wrist. There was some hope, then.
But no-one asked her about the attack, or how she felt, or whether she could cope. That reluctance to engage would be the cruellest of the barriers she would face in the weeks to come.
With petrol low her next stop was the garage at the end of the road. This time she would do it herself rather than, as was usual, ask one of the gardeners.
She could see Ann Fowler’s car by one of the islands. She drew alongside with the pumps between. Ann’s three-year-old daughter was climbing out of the car as Sarah-Jane unscrewed her filler cap. The child liked Sarah-Jane and always greeted her. At the level of her legs the child said, ‘Hello, Sarah-Jane.’
‘Hello, Arabella.’ She bent to pick up the child, as she’d done twice before. The response was electric and terrible. As their faces closed the child shrieked, squirming out of Sarah-Jane’s grasp. She ran in terror towards the door of the kiosk from which her mother had just emerged, tripping on the rough concrete and flying headlong into the woman’s legs. Ann Fowler looked at the child’s grazed knees, then, witheringly, at Sarah-Jane. The child’s head remained buried in her mother’s skirts and no amount of coaxing would make her look around. The grim countenance said, I was prepared to pity you, Mrs Preston, but frightening my child has deprived you of that; I want no more to do with you. ‘Good morning, Mrs Preston,’ she said, sweeping up Arabella and marching away.
Sarah-Jane had been home only five minutes when Alice rang.
‘I’ve been trying to get you all morning. Brian and I wondered if you’d like to come to supper tomorrow. Bring Mark if he’ll come. Whatever.’
‘No thanks, Alice. Ask me in a week’s time when the honeymoon’s over and I’m really going to need it.’
‘As bad as that?’
‘It was this morning. You can’t imagine.’
‘There are some good people about, Sarah. In time you’ll become good at spotting them. You won’t be alone for ever.’
She had no appetite for lunch, but forced some soup down. Where was that bloody girl, for heaven’s sake? She hunted for the Sinatra tape that Mark had given her before they were married. There seemed to be something wrong with the equipment – the magic voice had lost its sparkle.
Writing the invitation cards took her the whole afternoon. She followed the original guest list to the letter. No matter what their responses had been at the time – or what had been her thoughts towards them – it was to be as it was to have been. Whatever proved otherwise she would come to terms with, if necessary through sheer force of will.
On the day the stitches came out Sarah-Jane accepted Alice’s invitation to a barbeque the following Saturday evening.
She had been to the Davisons’ Putney house twice in darkness and once in desperation. This time she was better able to appreciate the white Georgian façade, perfect in its symmetry, unspoilt by the conservatory on one side and the new extension on the other that she rightly guessed housed Brian’s private consulting rooms. The bow of the drive rose to the front door, then fell away towards the second entrance, reminding her of a sensuous upper lip
. She switched off the engine at the door, where Brian, dressed in check shirt and white flannel trousers, was waiting for her.
‘You see, we’ve observed your request to be casual,’ he said, adding, ‘May I see?’ She could feel him mentally rearranging the stitch marks on her face.
‘When did they come out?’
‘A week ago. Your Dr Ransome was awfully kind.’
He ran his finger down the line of the scar. The corrugations were horribly apparent under his touch. Pride prevented her asking for a prognosis, even though her need to know was almost uncontainable.
‘It won’t be quite so obvious when the swelling subsides.’
What might have been an opportunity for further explanation was destroyed by Alice emerging from the doorway. ‘You’re a naughty girl for leaving it so long before coming to see us!’
The words jarred. They were of a kind she associated with a perverse love of scolding children. Had, then, her vulnerability reduced her to the status of a mindless delinquent?
‘I needed to think things out,’ Sarah-Jane said flatly.
‘To us you’re still the same old Sarah. Isn’t she Brian?’
‘Not quite the same, Alice. If anything more dignified, almost regal. It’s given you a presence, Sarah, that didn’t show before. Or if it did it wasn’t obvious to me.’
Alice looked at him critically. ‘That’s just despair, Brian, so don’t go glamorising it. Why don’t we all go in?’
The hall extended to the back of the house, where a pair of lightly etched glass doors with Aesculapian snake motifs opened directly onto the terrace. A dozen or so people were gathered outside, all but one men, casually dressed, each with a glass. They were talking quietly; almost expectantly, Sarah-Jane thought.