by Nicci French
‘Oh, shit,’ I yelled in the safe confines of my car.
‘Now, the implications of this are almost infinite, but let me just make two points. One, it’s irreversible, entirely beyond the control of any national legislation or administration. Two, any organisation that is left outside that information world will wither and be left behind.’
‘Oh, fuck,’ I shouted.
A jaunty DJ’s voice wondered if ‘Theo’ could give an example.
‘All right, take one of our most respected institutions, the police force. Let’s just say that if you were creating an organisation to do the job of the police force you wouldn’t create anything like what we now have. It is a typical, unmanaged, manpower-heavy structure, which takes more money every year only to produce worse results, and one of the main reasons for this is that its role is based on a myth. An efficient police force is about rational management of staff and the ordering of information.’
‘What about the bobby on the beat?’
‘The idea is a joke. If we want people to walk up and down streets doing nothing, let’s get retired people to do it at a pound an hour. It has nothing to do with policework.’
‘We’ll take a break there. We’re talking to Dr Theo Martello about his new book, The Communication Cord. This is Capital Radio.’
I was in Tottenham Court Road and realised with amusement that I was about to drive past the Capital Tower. I crossed Euston Road and, on an impulse, turned right off Hampstead Road and parked next to the army surplus store. I sat with the radio on listening to Theo rhapsodising about the breaking down of frontiers, the collapse of institutions, the end of the state, of welfare, of income tax, of almost everything. Finally, he drew to a close with yet another plug for the book from the DJ. I got out of the car, crossed the road to the Capital Tower and waited a few yards away from the revolving door.
Theo didn’t notice me at first. He was in his business uniform, a suit whose lapels were so high and ugly that it must have been fashionable and expensive. He carried a briefcase about the size and slimness of a magazine. His head gleamed through his close-cropped hair in the cold winter sunshine.
‘Carry your case for you, guv?’ I asked brightly.
He started.
‘What’s this?’ he said. ‘Am I on This is Your Life or something?’
‘No, I heard you on the radio and realised I was just passing.’
He laughed.
‘Good. It’s good to see you, Jane.’
‘Can I give you a lift somewhere?’
‘Is Bush House on your way?’
‘No, but I’ll take you.’
Theo told a waiting taxi to go away and we set off in my car.
‘How can you manage with a briefcase that small? I go around with shopping bags full of papers crammed into my saddlebag.’
Theo shook his head.
‘It’s a waste of space as it is. In five years I’ll have something the size and weight of a credit card.’
‘I keep losing my credit card.’
‘I’m afraid that the information revolution hasn’t got anything yet to deal with your brain, my dear. You want to go left ahead and then right.’
‘I know the way,’ I said irritably. ‘You weren’t very nice about our constabulary were you?’
‘It’s the sort of thing that makes people sit up, isn’t it?’
There was a short silence and I waited, hoping that Theo wouldn’t change the subject but not daring to take the plunge. I had to.
‘Theo, what are you up to with Helen Auster?’
There was no reaction but the pause was a few beats too long.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Oh, come on, Theo, I’m not blind.’
I saw his grip on his case tighten.
‘Oh, you know, it’s something about women in uniform, isn’t it?’
‘Helen Auster doesn’t wear a uniform.’
‘Not literally, but she wears a metaphorical uniform. There’s something erotic about symbols of authority yielding and being conquered.’
I didn’t know where to begin.
‘Theo, this is a woman involved in the investigation of your sister’s murder.’
‘Come off it, Jane. Nobody’s going to solve Natalie’s murder. The investigation is a farce. There is no evidence. Nothing’s going to happen.’
‘Am I missing something, Theo? I thought you were married. Where does Frances fit into all this?’
Theo turned to me with a secure smile.
‘What do you want me to say, Jane? That my wife doesn’t understand me? This isn’t a debating society.’
‘And isn’t Helen Auster married?’
‘To the supermarket manager, yes. I haven’t noticed any signs of reluctance on her part.’ I glanced at his face. He had a faint smile that seemed to challenge, even taunt me. ‘Helen is a passionate woman, Jane. Very uninhibited, with a bit of encouragement.’
‘Are you going to leave Frances?’
‘No, it’s just a bit of fun.’
It had been horribly easy. I felt nauseous, but I couldn’t stop myself from continuing.
‘I saw Chrissie Pilkington the other day. Well, she’s not called Pilkington any more.’
‘Yes?’
‘She mentioned your name.’
‘What’s all this about?’
‘She was an old flame of yours. After your father had finished with her.’
‘Briefly.’ There was a pause. ‘Are you all right, Jane?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Do you want to know what I mean?’ Theo said, angry now for the first time. ‘I’m trying to remember who was my flame – as you put it – after Chrissie? I wonder who that was?’ He looked around agitatedly. We were totally stuck in Gower Street. ‘I’ll walk from here or get a taxi. Thanks for the lift.’
He opened the car, got out and walked quickly away. I sat, stuck in traffic, furious and shamed.
Twenty-Four
I was in the bath when the phone rang. I turned the hot tap off with my toe, sank back into the foam, and listened. I’d forgotten to switch the answering machine on. Should I bother to answer it? If I got out of the bath now, it would stop before I reached it. But it went on ringing stubbornly. I pulled myself out of the water, which suddenly seemed irresistible, wrapped a towel around my boiled body, and ran to the bedroom.
‘Hello.’
‘Jane, it’s Fred.’
‘Fred? I haven’t heard from you for…’
‘It’s Martha. She’s going.’
‘Going?’
‘She’s dying Jane, she’s dying fast. She wants to see you. She asked me to bring you with me. I’m going tomorrow, crack of dawn.’
‘Shouldn’t we go straight away?’
‘Not quite up to it, I’m afraid.’ I heard that his voice was slurred. ‘Anyway, she’s asleep.’
‘All right, Fred, what time?’
‘I’ll pick you up at five-ish, that way we’ll beat all the traffic and be there by eight. She’s best in the mornings. She sleeps most of the afternoon.’
I had made this journey too often, recently: for the family mushroom hunt, for the funeral, for my bungled confrontation with Martha and then Chrissie. Fred had been drinking – but had that been last night or this morning? I offered to drive but he waved me away. We drove through the dark morning in silence in his smooth, purring company car. Lynn had packed him a Thermos flask of good black coffee, and some sandwiches, cut into neat triangles and thinly spread with damson jam. I refused the sandwiches but accepted the coffee. Alfred opened the window when I smoked. I inserted one of the tapes I had brought up for Martha into his machine: songs by Grieg, pure and clear, filled the car.
At Birmingham, I said: ‘Do you remember how she used to sing to all of us. At supper, or on walks, suddenly she’d start singing; not just humming, or singing so that we’d all join in, but belting it out loud, really loud.’
Alfred just grunted. Well, of cours
e he remembered. But I couldn’t stop.
‘Or how she rode that old bicycle of hers, sitting up so straight in the saddle with her hair flowing back. We all used to laugh at her but she always got to the top of the hills first. Or how she used to sketch us. We’d be playing together, and not even know she was there, and suddenly she’d show us her drawing. Some of them were lovely. I wonder where they all went to. I’d love to have one.’
‘I have this vivid image of her sitting in the greenhouse.’ Alfred’s voice was gruff and he kept his eyes fixed on the road. ‘Every morning, she would go to the greenhouse and just sit on that tall stool. When we got up in the mornings, we’d often see her, absolutely still, gazing out at the garden, like a sentinel. I always found it oddly reassuring. Whatever else happened, Mum was there keeping watch on our bit of the world. Have some more coffee.’
‘Thanks. Do you mind if I smoke another cigarette?’
‘Go ahead.’
We left the motorway and followed signs for Bromsgrove.
‘Alfred, about Natalie…’
‘No.’ His voice was sharp, like the screech of a brake.
‘I just wanted to ask…’
‘No, I said, Jane. Later. After Martha. Wait.’
Martha’s room was full of flowers and chocolates, like a hospital ward.
‘It’s extraordinary how people think that when you grow old, or ill, you like sweet things,’ she laughed. She thanked me for my tapes; and Alfred gave her the cards his children had made for her. She looked at them all attentively, and put them carefully on the table beside her bed. We sat there, appalled at the thinness of her face. Her body barely disturbed the drape of the sheet, and her fingers lay like five whitening bones on the covers. There was an awkward pause as we tried to think of a suitable topic of conversation for a death bed.
‘It’s also funny,’ she continued, ‘how when it’s most important to talk – like now, when I’m dying – it also seems most impossible. Or embarrassing. Look at you, Alfred, you were about to ask me about the garden, or the weather or something, weren’t you? And yet you might never see me again.’
‘Mummy,’ said Fred. It seemed shocking that a grown-up man should call anyone by such a childish, trusting name. I looked down at my hands, clutched in my lap.
‘Fred, my love, why don’t you go and see Alan. He’s stalking round the garden somewhere. I want to talk to Jane, alone. And then to you alone. All right?’
When it was just the two of us, Martha said, ‘I’ve had a long time to get used to dying, but it doesn’t seem to make it any easier.’
‘Are you scared?’ I asked.
‘Terrified is more like it. I think about this great black hole waiting for me, and it doesn’t seem as if my life has really happened yet. It’s gone too fast, I feel cheated somehow. I can’t talk to Alan about that, though. He keeps talking about when I’m better, and where we should go on holiday this year. Half the time he’s fussing over me so that I can’t even drink a glass of water without him rushing to steady my glass,’ she lifted a trembling hand up, ‘then other times he’s saying I should get out of bed today, perhaps go for a walk in the garden. He cuts recipes out of magazines, and encourages me to try to cook them. Or he tries to cook meals for me, dumplings and things, and he puts about five times as much as I can possibly eat on my plate and watches me. He won’t talk about arrangements. Real arrangements for after I’ve died.’
‘Can I do anything?’
She looked at me steadily, as if she knew everything. ‘Yes. Alan’s always trusted you. Keep an eye on him. Make sure he’s all right, Jane.’
‘I don’t know if I can, Martha,’ I said.
‘Yes,’ she said.
How do you say goodbye to someone whom you love, and whom you know you will never see again I leant over Martha, and she gazed up at me with milky, tired eyes.
‘You’re beautiful,’ I said ridiculously, and brushed a white strand of hair from her forehead. I kissed her on both cheeks, and then I kissed her on the lips.
To me she said: ‘I’m sorry.’
Fred drove much too fast going home. The roads were crowded, and it was foggy, but we kept in the fast lane, braking as shapes loomed up, hooting at cars that were prudently keeping their speed down. He didn’t speak at first, and I was happier that way. He listened to the news on the radio, and a play I couldn’t follow. About forty miles from London, he said, ‘Jane, it’s got to stop.’
I didn’t pretend not to understand what he meant. ‘Why do you say that, Fred?’
He thumped a fist on the steering wheel, swerved to avoid something dead on the road, and replied, ‘Can’t you see we’ve had enough of all this, this nonsense. I’ve spoken to Claud – who I must say is being unbelievably understanding and protective of you in the circumstances – and he said it was something to do with some therapy or other. And I spoke to Theo as well. What are you playing at?’
I opened my mouth to speak but he hadn’t finished.
‘I don’t know why you should feel the need to take revenge, since it was you who left Claud, but never mind that. The point is, we can’t take you poking into all of our lives any longer. And now that Mum’s dying too – can’t you just lay off?’
‘It’s nothing really.’
‘Oh, don’t give me that crap. What are you trying to do to us? Leave us all alone. Get on with your nice, cosy life and your navel-gazing therapy and just leave us all alone.’
Fred had been drinking, of course. But was this what they all felt about me? There was a part of me that just wanted to be forgiven and be welcomed back into the fold. Something stopped me. We drove the rest of the way in grim silence.
I must buy a cat, I thought, as I unlocked my front door into my cold and silent house. Without even taking off my coat, I went to the phone in the living room, and punched in Theo’s number. He answered on the first ring.
‘Theo, it’s Jane.’
‘Hello, Jane.’
He didn’t sound too welcoming.
‘I had to speak to you. I’ve just been with Fred.’
‘Yes, I know, he’s just called me on his mobile.’
‘Do you feel the same way, Theo, that I’m just poking around in something that’s not my business?’
‘If you can even ask that, Jane, then you’re considerably less intelligent than I’ve given you credit for. I think you’re making a bloody fool of yourself.’
The line went dead. The doors of the Martello family were swinging closed against me.
I peered into my wardrobe. My grey gabardine suit, with a long tight skirt slit up to the knees? Too business-like. My red dress, low neck, long sleeves and tight down to my knees? Too sexy. My black dress? Too clichéd. Leggings, with a silk, Chinese-style tunic in autumn colours? Too safe. I tried them on, one after the other, turning round in front of the long mirror, and chose the Chinese tunic. Then I ran myself a bath, washed my hair, and dressed very slowly. I lined my eyes in dark green, brushed my lashes with mascara, glossed my lips in mulberry. I smiled and an anxious face smiled back at me. Too bright. I soaked cotton wool in make-up remover and scrubbed off the eye-liner.
It was only a dinner party, for God’s sake, not an exam. I brushed my hair back and pinned it up. I chose some delicate ear-rings, amber drops, and dabbed rose water on my wrists. Just a dinner party with seven other people and Caspar’s daughter in the background, and what if she took a dislike to me?
Fanny made her entrance backwards, pulling a heavy case into the room. She turned round and looked seriously at us all.
‘I’m a traveller,’ she said. She came to a halt at my knees, and considered me for a moment with Caspar’s grey eyes. ‘Who are you?’
Caspar made no move to intervene, just waited for me to reply.
‘Jane.’
‘Tell me all the words you can think of that rhyme with Jane. Ready-steady-go.’
‘Lane, mane, deign, feign, cane, pain, rain, same, vain, grain, chain, arcane…’
>
‘Now with Fanny. Go!’
‘Danny, Annie, Mannie…’
‘Those are all other names. I want real words.’
‘Canny, granny…’
‘What does canny mean?’
‘Knowing, I suppose. Like you.’
‘At school, people say that Fanny means vagina. They chant, “Fanny has a fanny”. Do you think that’s what it means?’
‘Lots of words have different meanings. For some people fanny does mean vagina; for me, Fanny now means a five-year-old girl who’s a traveller. When I was at school, people used to chant “Plain Jane Crane”.’
Caspar stood up and said to Fanny, ‘Come on, then. Bedtime for you. We’ll read a chapter of Pippi and leave our guests on their own for a few minutes, shall we? You know where the wine.’
She held up her arms, starkly vertical, and he hoisted her onto his shoulders.
‘More wine, Jane?’
‘Half a glass.’
I put up a hand to signal it was enough and our fingers met. I could not breathe. My stomach turned to water and my heart flipped like a fish.
‘So how did you meet Caspar?’ the man next to me asked: Leonard, who worked in the Hospital for Tropical Diseases and had just come back from Angola.
‘I sat next to her at a public meeting and she shouted at me,’ interrupted Caspar.
‘And then he came to a residents’ association meeting I was involved in, and he got punched in the eye.’
‘For such a pacifist,’ said Carrie from across the table, ‘you get in an awful lot of fights. Weren’t you hit by a down-and-out for trying to give him money?’
‘It was a misunderstanding.’
‘Obviously,’ said Eric with the red hair and bitten nails, ‘and that old lady in the supermarket when you walked off with her shopping trolley. You can still see the scar in the right light.’
It had been a lovely evening, full of frivolous talk. Caspar’s friends had smiled at me as if they’d heard about me in advance. Occasionally, when I looked at him, I caught him watching me. With everything I said or did, I was aware of him across the room. Happiness rose up, whoomph, in my throat, taking all my breath away. I jumped up.