by Roger Curtis
There were many more wreaths against the chapel wall than there were mourners. Most were expensive, each no doubt an appeasement of a guilty conscience. But one, the largest – a confection of white lilies against a background of subtly pink dendrobium orchids – bore no card. Stepping closer, Sarah was just able to make out the letters MF within the arrangement of the flowers.
No-one accepted the invitation to return to Hightower for refreshments and Brian offered his usual patients-needing-me excuse. Perhaps, she thought, it was to avoid giving a prognosis on her still-healing face, now devoid of bandages but still criss-crossed by delicate pink suture lines that made her feel like an expiring fish in a net. Since he arrived she had not once seen him look at it.
The last of the vehicles sped from the car park, throwing up clouds of spray. Sarah stared after it. Now, she realised, came the test: to follow it, go home and let the chapter close or… Or what? Succumb to a wilful curiosity that even Bermondsey and Hatomi had failed to expunge? She glanced at her watch, mindful of her recklessness, then stood immobile, eyes fixed on the ground. Two minutes passed: the invitation could not have been more plain. She didn’t turn even when the footsteps stopped behind her.
‘Well, Mrs Preston, my compliments for such a clear signal.’ Pierre’s voice carried no trace of a French accent, but there was another inflection, barely discernible but still foreign, that she could not place.
‘I’m surprised you came.’
‘Someone had to deliver the wreath and we were hardly likely to use Interflora.’ Their eyes engaged. ‘I see they’ve all deserted you. Shall we travel separately or together? I can have your car delivered to your home should you…’
‘I think separately, don’t you?’
‘As you wish.’
She sped towards the arc of a rainbow that encompassed Shirley Hills like callipers. By the time she reached home Hightower was bathed in clear winter light. A flight of Canada geese circling overhead descended like stones behind the house. Against all logic her spirits soared. To her surprise the familiar black limousine was already parked discreetly under the trees.
They sat in the drawing room across the spread of unwanted food.
‘I catered for twenty. So you see, Pierre, I can still get nothing right in my life.’
‘Sarah-Jane…’
‘Sarah.’
She caught him smiling to himself. ‘In that case I’m Peter.’
‘I wasn’t really fooled.’
‘Of course you weren’t. Sarah, you have questions, but I must tell you I am not here to answer them.’
‘Why, then?’
He shrugged. ‘But I can tell you that my association – my contract – with the Massingham Foundation terminates today – and with it this assignment.’
‘Me? An assignment?’
‘Your visit to the Massingham Tower – remember – raised… resulted in… concerns for your welfare.’
Sarah realised, with a flush to her cheeks, that they had usurped the basis of their meeting. ‘My welfare? What about Mark, my husband? Was that part of your assignment too?’
‘Mark was never part of my remit. The principle at Massingham is to compartmentalise. Mutual ignorance, believe it or not, is the cement that binds the organisation together.’ He put down the prawn sandwich that moments before he had selected carefully. ‘Look, we have an hour of daylight and I have never properly explored your garden.’
‘Have you not? Alright then, you shall.’
They went by way of the conservatory.
‘Your butterflies?’
‘All dead.’
‘All of them?’
‘Except one.’
‘Ah.’
The path from the terrace skirted the swimming pool and led up to the seat overlooking the lake, where the geese had congregated on the grass. It was an inevitable place to sit.
‘My guess is that this is where your husband proposed to you. Am I right?’
Sarah looked up sharply. ‘Why would you want to be right?’
‘Up there…’ He pointed at a spot midway up the trunk of a silver birch about twenty yards from them. ‘…used to be a tiny surveillance camera. Be assured it was taken down a while ago.’
‘My husband put…’
‘No, not your husband. He would not have known. It was… for the owner before him.’
‘The one killed by the elephant?’
‘You have to give them credit for imagination!’
‘For Christ’s sake, does this nightmare never end?’
Realising he had said too much he was suddenly humble. For the first time a look of concern replaced the defensive shield that belonged to Massingham. ‘It will, Sarah. For both of us, if…’
‘Right. Then tell me about yourself. What seems to be coming across is a person, not a henchman in thrall to your bloody organisation. Can I cope with that? Or is this just more delusion?’
‘Gently, gently, Sarah. Let me tell you.’ She could see that confiding in someone did not come easily. ‘Can you believe I was once an academic – a lecturer in linguistics at the Technical Institute in Beirut?’
‘Not easily.’
‘It happened during the troubles of 1980. My family were killed by a bomb thrown through the door. Not an uncommon occurrence, then.’ He paused. ‘You see, our local militia managed to capture one of those believed to be responsible.’
‘And brought him to justice?’
‘Maybe, maybe not. I was invited to participate in the… interrogation. And a barrier was crossed. Do you know what I mean? So easily done, with all the provocation in the world confronting you; now, with hindsight – I mean now Sarah, not just last week, or yesterday – incomprehensible. If Massingham has taught me anything, it’s that violence is within all of us. Anyway, I had a brother in London and fled here. When I was recruited by Massingham – for a certain kind of job, you understand – my moral numbness was – how shall I say – an asset. It has taken your…’
‘So now?’
‘So now, shackles released, I’ll return and find the man’s grave, and pray to whatever deities I can think of to grant me forgiveness… and peace.’
‘And I’m part of that journey?’
‘I believe you have been…’ He looked away, letting his eyes wander across the lake, and over the lawns to the blackened ground where the stables had once stood. ‘You never rebuilt them?’
‘My needs changed.’
He must have sensed the question that was building in Sarah’s mind. It seemed he wanted to say something but caution prevailed and he nodded his head slowly from side to side. ‘Sarah, try not to look back, still less to reason why. Look only to the future and to your own welfare, no-one else’s. Move from here, get new friends, let no-one influence you. One day you’ll understand.’
‘And you won’t tell me more?’
‘That’s more than my life is worth, even now.’ For several seconds he sat in silence, scrutinising the geese, which had drawn closer. Then he leant across and stroked her damaged face with his forefinger, and she moved her head closer to him. ‘You’ll get there, eventually. Wish the same for me.’ She did not flinch when he kissed her cheek.
As if a matter of public business had been transacted the geese became suddenly restless, shook their feathers and waddled back to the edge of the lake. As they did so Sarah caught sight of Jack Adams walking slowly towards them from the conservatory. He was clutching a small cardboard box. She knew instantly from his long face what it contained.
‘I’m sorry, Sarah. I found her on the floor next to the fountain.’
Sarah took the box. At first she was undecided what to do, then she said, ‘I’ll look by myself if you don’t mind, Jack. Why don’t you two men introduce yourselves over a cup of tea? It sh
ould still be warm. Give me a minute of two and I’ll join you both in the house.’
As soon as the conservatory door clicked shut behind them she lifted the lid and peered inside. The colours were as brilliant as they had been in life. But it was the integrity of the wings and antennae that drew her gaze. Smiling wistfully she snapped the lid shut. Whether it was because of that or something else, the geese, as if mindful of the significance of the moment, lifted themselves as a body into the air and disappeared over the rooftop.
Sarah looked once more into the box, then followed the men into the house.
22
Could she sense a difference in the air as she drove through the Davison’s white gates, this second time of facing such a gathering, months after the trauma to her cheek and many weeks after Brian’s repair? That was irrational and she thought not, but by the time she had reached the front door she was less sure. Some things were similar, like Brian coming down the steps with Alice a pace behind, and the warm sunshine – although that was at odds with the still bare trees. No, it was rather a tension in the atmosphere, an expectation – not necessarily threatening – where before there had been sympathetic concern.
‘I’m glad you could come early, Sarah. There are a few friends I’d like you to meet before the hordes arrive.’ Brian’s eyelids flickered nervously.
‘Twenty-five are hardly hordes, Brian.’
He ignored Alice’s remark.
In the hall outside the drawing room a young woman, slim, with long black hair, was contemplating a framed photograph on the wall. Sarah thought she was more interested in her reflection in the glass.
‘Sarah, you remember Nicole from last year?’ Alice said.
Sarah had never quite forgotten the pushy Arab’s seductive companion. So here was an opportunity for a real comparison: today’s pride against yesterday’s abject misery. Sarah thought momentarily that she herself might have the edge, then pushed the thought aside as unworthy of her new-found status. To her surprise Nicole grasped her hand and squeezed it.
‘I’m so, so pleased for you, Sarah. Brian’s done a magnificent job.’
‘I’ll never be able to thank him enough.’
It was not intended for Brian’s ears, but he had moved silently behind them.
‘One day I’ll put that to the test, my dear Sarah.’ He took their arms and led them into the drawing room.
As if a control button had been pressed, the room was suddenly in motion. Glasses tinkled, the French windows to the garden opened, someone sat at the piano and began to play Summertime. It could have been a theatrical stage. Only later would Sarah realise that the pushed button was her own presence there.
Sarah counted twelve men gathered in the room. The dress was uniformly casual – slacks and jackets – but the faces belonged to bodies that were more at home in charcoal grey. Bankers, were they, or lawyers? There was warmth in their handshakes. Perhaps success in business segregated with benevolence. She could recall meeting none of them before.
It didn’t seem odd that the men should want to charm them, she and Nicole; the strangeness was in the measured doses, reminding her of seabirds diving to take fish and just as quickly veering away. No-one complimented them directly, yet the interest in both women seemed concentrated and focused, in contrast with the snatched conversations.
The attention must have lasted only eight or nine minutes before Brian re-appeared. Sarah glanced at Nicole to see if she had found the experience unusual, but there was no evidence of it in her bright open face.
Brian said, ‘You must forgive me for being a little jealous of the attention. Let me demonstrate that beauty is not exclusively in your keeping. Come with me.’ He led them into a long gallery at the back of the house that Sarah could not remember from her previous visits. Nicole was already ahead, pecking at each of the paintings with her eyes like a chicken thrown corn. ‘Brian, they’re magnificent! Sarah, isn’t he just a genius?’
‘A craftsman, that’s all.’ Brian’s attempts at modesty were always ill-concealed.
Sarah stood back to take a longer, harder look. Already, in those few seconds, she had an agenda to work through. While Nicole enthused and Brian demurred, she was asking herself how this man, if friend he was, could have concealed the extent of his talent from them. Why hadn’t she – or Mark for that matter – been invited to witness these paintings being brought to life on his easel. What was his motivation? But was that so difficult to grasp, looking at him now with Nicole, imbibing praise?
No, this was a superficial and simplistic analysis. This was not at all the joy of a kissed footballer or a prima donna parrying flowers after a performance. It was more the achievement of one more step towards a goal, and the accomplishment of it followed the exercise of will and conscious expectation in which pleasure – as she knew it – had no part. Now she understood why, against almost universal medical prognostication, her face was perfect.
Her thoughts had never quite left the group of men remaining behind in the drawing room; which was why, when the music stopped, she heard the distant cries of celebration, of glasses raised and contents downed.
One of them – the pianist – appeared beside them, exuding benevolence. ‘Brian, we’d appreciate your attention for just one moment, if you two good ladies can spare him.’
Brian followed him with a measured tread that reminded Sarah of when they came to fetch her from the common room for her first interview at St Catherine’s. What had made the man suddenly humble, in the twinkling of an eye?
‘Where’s your companion?’ Sarah asked Nicole, with as much indifference as she could muster.
‘Mr Khasoni?’
‘Yes.’
‘He’s coming. About now I should think, with all the others. It’s just that I came early.’
As she said it, from the front of the house came that peculiar muted closing of doors that typifies cars belonging to the rich.
Now comfortable in Nicole’s company, Sarah began to enjoy the evening. They went into the garden together with an admiring entourage which grasped at glasses and canapés and fanned out on the lawn with the purposeful precision of soccer players taking up their positions.
The images slipped into focus. It was as it had been all those months before, except that now there were faces besides those at the previous gathering. The same juicy aromas from the barbeque wafted around the same clipped bushes and over the blue water of the swimming pool. Exactly as it had been, except for the group of men they had met earlier, now standing apart with Alice. Then it was clear that everyone was waiting.
Conversations died as attention shifted to the French windows of the drawing room. A moment later Khasoni was standing there, beaming, with his arms raised. Then, as if someone had rewound his spring, he minced across the flagstones followed by a bevy of girls in white tops and short black skirts carrying trays of glasses pink with champagne. He clapped his little brown hands with the delight of a child, calling them to order.
‘Friends, colleagues. Do I scent victory in the air? A triumph perhaps? What would our friend call it?’ The corners of his mouth turned down in the manner of a clown. ‘Let us see. He would say, a job which on this occasion happens to have been well done. Is that not how he would express himself? No?’ He looked directly at Sarah. ‘And indeed well done it was, as you all can see. Perfection restored by rigorous discipline and perfect technique.’ He stared hard at her. ‘And you, young lady, vulnerata non victa, the subject of all this attention. How would you describe it? Come, tell us.’ He extended his cupped hands towards her, as a conductor of an orchestra might to extract the last drop of sentiment from his players.
Something curious was happening here. She had come to the party as one guest amongst many. Suddenly she had become the focus of patronising attention. She felt anxious, and damp under her blouse. She glanced sideways at her c
ompanion, but Nicole was looking hard at Khasoni. She had to stay calm. ‘The result is more perfect than I imagined possible, Mr Khasoni. So I am pleased to join with you in acknowledging Brian’s skill.’
She saw Brian’s forehead crease into a deep frown, but for what reason she could not imagine. He came forward and stood beside her. ‘The point is, Sarah, the technique we used is of interest to a number of people here, so you must forgive them if they appear inquisitive.’ He glared hard at Khasoni, then spoke to the wider circle. ‘It was a great relief to me that the exercise was brought to a satisfactory conclusion for all concerned. I am most appreciative of Mr Khasoni’s kind words.’
It seemed an odd remark to make. But stranger still was the collective raising of glasses, led by Khasoni. ‘To future accomplishments,’ he said. ‘To future accomplishments,’ they all replied. Sarah, still facing the group that had remained apart, noticed their puzzlement in joining in the toast. One of them whispered something to Alice, but she only shrugged her shoulders.
‘I think I owe you an explanation and an apology,’ Brian said to Sarah afterwards. ‘Let’s get out of earshot.’ He led the two women to the end of the terrace and pointed to a rose growing just beyond the balustrade. He said loudly, ‘That’s the one named after me – one of the most fragrant in the garden, but you must judge for yourselves.’ Then he lowered his voice. ‘The fact is, some of my friends didn’t think a perfect result was possible. I’m afraid Khasoni went a little over the top, don’t you agree, Nicole?’
‘Sarah coped very well,’ Nicole said. ‘Now, Brian. While you attend to your guests Sarah and I will finish the debate we were having over your paintings. Definitely not for your ears, if you’ll excuse us.’
‘Of course. You can be as frank as you like.’
‘What debate, Nicole?’ Sarah asked when they were back in the gallery. ‘I thought we were agreed about them.’