by Patrick Gale
‘No need? The dear creature’s swelling up like one of those sheep in Hardy.’
‘Please let …’
‘If you’re trying to spare my feelings, there’s no need. I’m your archetypal modern mum.’
‘That may be exactly the problem.’
‘What?’
‘Modern mum. How many boyfriends has Netia had, as far as you know?’
‘Well, she’s very cagey of talking about them, but there’ve been at least five in the past four years.’
‘Five? You’re quite sure?’
‘Five, six, forty! I don’t care about her boyfriends, I care about her. What the hell …’ Evelyn checked herself then went on quietly, ‘what the hell is wrong with her if she’s not in the Club?’
‘Clinically at least, Venetia is still a virgin. But, she’s in a rare state of hysteria in which pent-up sexual neurosis is made manifest in all the classic pregnancy symptoms. The poor girl is even giving herself morning sickness.’ Evelyn was speechless. Fielding went on. ‘I’m no shrink, but the problem seems to be that she feels the world – or at least her mother – expects her to be more grown-up and more highly-sexed than she is. Her mind throws a desperate sop to her oppressors in the form of a galloping pregnancy.’
‘What can I do?’
‘Just give her lots of the old TLC, and only talk about it if she wants to. Maybe she just isn’t ready for sex. Perhaps she could do with a little old-fashioned maternal affection. Remind her what it’s like to be a little girl. She isn’t trying to irritate you; in a funny sort of way, not wanting to grow up is really a sign of affection. It’s bound to come as something of a shock to discover that she’s not the little vamp she made you think, but for the present you mustn’t let her know that you’ve found her out. She made me promise that I wouldn’t tell you – muttered something about “offending your Christian Modernity”.’
‘I understand, Robbie – take the cues from her. Frankly, how long do you think it will last, I mean …?’ Evelyn was growing breathless. Fielding reached out and held her hand. Professionally firm.
‘Steady. Steady.’
‘Sorry,’ she tried to laugh, and sniffed, ‘what I’m trying to ask in my feeble layperson’s way is, how long is she going to remain in this state? Will she carry on swelling and go into a fake labour or something ghastly or does she just stop at this stage?’
‘Well, I’m no specialist, but I do know that labour’s almost unheard of. Given lots of peace and quiet, the swelling should subside on its own after a matter of days or even hours. Try to remind yourself that it’s a physical hysteria. Her body’s gone into the same state of overdrive as her mind would after some appalling shock. I’d give her some tranquillizers, but I know how you …’
‘No thanks. No tranquillizers.’ Evelyn shook her head as she spoke. She stood, ‘it’s been so kind of you to rush over like this before your surgery begins. Can I get you some coffee or something? Some tea?’
Fielding walked to the door.
‘No thanks. I’ve got to get back. Don’t hesitate to call me if there are any developments that frighten you.’ She opened the door for him.
‘Horribly muggy,’ she informed him.
‘Isn’t it. No, you go inside and put some shoes on.’
She looked down and saw to her embarrassment that she was in her bare stockings. She laughed and shut the door. She could hear Mrs Thingy hoovering the bathroom. She hurried upstairs after the sound. She had to raise her voice to be heard.
‘Er …?’
The girth turned and the hoover was silenced.
‘Hello, my dear. Doctor gone, has he?’
‘Yes. Now everything’s going to be all right, thank God. Apparently, it’s all some form of hysteria, that’s all. Of course, there is the problem of people misunderstanding. The poor lamb will have to stay indoors for a few days. I can trust you not to … er …?’
‘Oh, Mrs Peake,’ Mrs Pym looked hurt but faithful, ‘of course I wouldn’t.’
‘You’re wonderful. Now I must rush.’ Her face burning, Evelyn turned and went along the landing. She paused briefly at Venetia’s door then pushed it ajar. ‘Darling?’
‘Mummy. Come in.’
She was sitting up in bed with Donne’s Sermons and a file of notes. Her tortoiseshell glasses perched becomingly on her nose’s tip. Playing for time, Evelyn walked over and teased the curtains further from the window frame. Netia was back in her book, at least her eyes were lowered. She looked extraordinarily healthy for one who got so little fresh air. Blooming.
‘Doc Fielding has gone, darling, and he says that everything’s going to be fine.’
‘Oh good,’ said Venetia, looking up brightly, ‘I’ve made you horribly late for your rehearsal. You must dash. Look, Ma, don’t worry. All right? I can take care of myself. There’s plenty of food downstairs and Mrs Whatsit can help me if I need anything from the shops.’
Evelyn bent and kissed her.
‘Back soon,’ she murmured, and left.
As she pulled out the bag of cashew nuts from under her file, Venetia smiled that her mother’s embrace had been so unusually fervent. She heard the front door close. The cleaning woman’s head came round her door with a denture-clad grin.
‘All right, my love?’
Venetia smiled sincerely.
‘All right.’
Evelyn stopped the Volvo at the crossroads and ran over to the call-box. She dialled the Keats Lane number, heard the answer-phone message, then replaced the receiver. Back in the car and speeding through the lanes, she dulled her shame by imagining Huw’s frustration at the inevitable airport delays. So unlike him to rush off on a wild goose chase. But then, he hadn’t been himself for several weeks. Those dreadful De Quincey headaches had grown worse and more frequent, and he had spent longer and longer in his study. He rarely came to bed, preferring to sleep at his desk, and he talked less. He even teased less. With the children away and so unable to corroborate her fears, she had talked to Jodie. God, that letter! Jodie made a habit of over-reacting. Evelyn hoped she could trust her not to talk.
From the radio came the announcement that in tomorrow’s edition of This Week’s Composer she would hear Sweelinck’s earliest forays into the motet form. Ten o’clock. She hoped that Seth had made the right noises. A tractor swung out into the lane fifty yards ahead. She cursed and slowed down.
‘And now an organ recital from King’s College, Cambridge.’
She stared at the labrador that sat in the cabin with the driver and wondered at this talk of Venetia’s neurosis. She would not pry. Every guide she had ever read on the subject had said how, more often than not, the disturbance was caused by the very presence of the mother. Mothers had a hard time of it. They were meant to have a hard time with sons too; strange that Seth should conform so little to plan. Dear, uncommon Seth. The labrador barked at a seagull that swooped over the hedge and into the neighbouring field. A Bach toccata. What had led her to assume that her daughter was racy; that she was not exactly loose, but far from Marian chastity? Clinically, she herself had ceased to be a virgin long before her marriage, but that was riding and bicycles at school. Netia had been reared in London so horses had been out of the question – far too expensive. A bicycle in Hampstead was plainly impractical. The tower appeared above the fields.
Trenellion Tower cocked, rabbit-eared, above the corn,
Sniffs apprehensive the encroaching foam.
How sweet to worship in your warren!
Her mind sucked at the hoary nipple of immaculate conception and, though strong, the taste was good.
MONDAY two
Mo stood in the middle of the elegant room and watched the man from Forensic as he searched the desk for fingerprints, blood, hair, dead skin, anything. The m.o. was now predictable as clockwork. The flat had belonged to a Tarot reader and palmist, one who had lately received some degree of publicity. A lurid portrait of her hung spotlit in the hall. The victim in question had returned f
rom a dinner party to find that someone had broken into her property through the skylight. She thought they had done no more than smash her crystal ball, until she smelt smoke and opened the kitchen door. Her latest work was burning in the sink. Apparently she had tried to put the flames out herself, and so had set fire to her dress. In a desperate attempt to save herself she had stumbled to the bathroom. Trying to turn on the shower, she had ignited the shower curtain and collapsed beneath the clinging sheet of frying plastic. A neighbour had been alerted by the smell as it slowly filtered through the luxurious hall. Suspecting an unattended pan fire, they had called the police. The burnt predictions remained in the kitchen sink, a soggy black pulp.
Accidental death, of course. Even a fool like McEnery could tell from his previous appearances that their man was meticulous. Had he wished to kill, his method would have been less messy, and he would certainly have stopped a flaming victim from racing so dangerously about the flat. There were two points that the Detective Inspector was left to ponder, however: the patently emotional touch of smashing the crystal ball, and the continuing lack of rational motive. Mo knew about weird burglars. They always made a mess and peed, or worse, on their victim’s clothes and bedding. Tomcats leaving their mark. This man wasn’t weird like that. His actions were unaggressive, by and large, and certainly lacked the hallmarks of a religious maniac like that bloke Gutteridge they’d just nicked at the pumping station. Each robbery was precise and, where uninterrupted, had been clean.
Mo walked out on to the landing and leant against the wall. Yet again she trailed her gaze along the scorched traces from kitchen to shower. Another man in a white coat was working at the top of the small pine staircase that led to the skylight and so to the roof garden. She stared at his brightly clocked socks and thought.
The skylight was a sliding one and had been left open by the intruder. Possibly he had heard someone downstairs and left in a hurry. Possibly he had dropped the ball by mistake and been afraid that the noise would alert suspicion. The staircase and stretch of carpet beneath it had been slightly damp. There’d only been one cloudburst all week and that was a short burst on Saturday at about ten P.M. He must have been here before dropping in on Fairy O’Leary’s place. Depending on how deep the knife wound was, he might have gone into hiding.
Her mind spiralled off after motives again. She’d had a chat with Jack and he’d reminded her about that French dolly-bird in the Fifties who’d gone loopy over a recurrent fortune-telling that said she was going to die young. She’d run amok in her neighbourhood one night, breaking into houses simply to smash clocks and watches. Extreme, obviously insane behaviour, but peculiarly logical in one who wants to bring a halt to time. This bloke had a thing about the future too, but his vendetta was an impersonal one; he seemed to be trying to enforce some kind of astrological silence. He didn’t want people to know. Know what? That French bit had taken an overdose before they’d caught her, so it had all come true anyway.
Mo needed results badly, fast, if she was to save face with Timson and his toadies, but the more she thought about the matter in hand, the more futile her recent occupation had become.
She crossed to the kitchen. It was a bright, new affair of gadgets and glossy surfaces. She stared at her reflection in a cupboard door, stared balefully and let her eyes travel on. There was one cupboard with a perspex door. There were glasses of all shapes and sizes, little bowls for crisps, a large cut-glass jug and, incongruously, a metal hip-flask on the bottom shelf. She tossed a glance over her shoulder. The landing was empty. She pulled her snot-rag out from her cuff and, using it as an extempore glove, opened the door and lifted the flask out and down to her deep jacket pocket. It was heavy, definitely silver. She shut the door deftly and pushed the snot-rag back into her sleeve. She paused for a moment on the landing, looked first at one busy man and then at the other.
‘OK, lads, I’m going back to the station now, if anybody needs me.’
‘Cheers, Boss.’
She let herself out. Subversion was easier than one had thought.
MONDAY three
The orchestra was rehearsing Britten’s Saint Nicholas. She heard a familiar tenor voice. Gregory Truscott, a rising opera star who had made time to pay one last visit. As she pulled open the oak door, Evelyn saw that conceited sculptor at work in the South aisle. He was painting a layer of preservative on an angel. He looked up as she stopped by a pillar and began to unpack her cello. He smiled and she mouthed a hello in reply. She made her way to her seat, flashed an apology at Peter and a glance at Seth. Her son was too intent to return it. Within seconds she too was rapt. The work posed no technical difficulties, and for the hours that remained until lunch, she entered willingly its iconic scenes of wondering faith. She remembered Venetia singing the part of a pickled boy at her school concert, and Seth playing the pleading introductory solo at one of his. In a beautiful church, with the sun emerging at last from the clouds, surrounded by people she admired, her ears full of favourite music, her thoughts daring occasionally to stray to her miraculous daughter, Evelyn found herself happier than she had been for months.
‘Lovely. Now just once more through number three and you can all go for a well-earned lunch.’
Peter seemed on good form. Jemima hissed at Evelyn.
‘Have you heard about the baby?’
‘What baby?’ asked Evelyn sharply.
‘Peter’s, I mean Helga’s and Peter’s. They’re going to buy one.’
‘What fun,’ she said dully, but relieved.
‘Gregory, if you wouldn’t mind, number three once more?’ Peter called the portly tenor back from the South aisle where he had been talking to the artist.
‘My parents died,’ sang Gregory.
‘All too soon I left the tranquil beauty of their home
And knew the wider world of man.
Poor man! I found him solitary, racked
By doubt; born, bred, doomed to die
In everlasting fear of everlasting death …’
Seth glanced to his right but found Roly walking out, impervious, picking something off his fingernail. They were dismissed for lunch. Please would they all be back on time to set an example to the chorus who, heaven help them, were to join them this afternoon? Tonight they would please take home and study the parts for Roger’s Cantata in preparation for tomorrow’s preliminary endeavours.
Evelyn carefully laid her cello on its side by her chair.
‘How did you get on with the doctor?’ Seth asked, ‘was it Robbie Fielding?’
‘Yes.’
‘How is he?’
‘Very well. He says Neesh has got a stomach infection and that she had better stay in bed for a few days – nothing more.’
‘Must have been a bad cashew. She’s been wolfing the things recently. There’s no need to look so worried.’ At his smile she raised one as well, with a mute cry of thanks for the lacunae of a Public School Education.
‘Let’s go and have some lunch.’
‘Yup,’ he replied, discreetly scanning the place as he followed her rapid steps. She met Roly in the porch.
‘Oh, Mrs Peake?’
‘Yes?’
‘Actually, I asked Seth if he’d give me a hand with some lifting in the break.’
As Seth caught up he could see that she was taken aback.
‘Go ahead,’ she answered, ‘borrow him. But I want him back in one piece.’
Roly turned into the church and found him.
‘Clever excuse,’ Seth smiled.
‘No. In fact I do need a hand. Could you help me pull this old girl outside?’ Mortified, Seth took hold of the head while Roly held the feet of one of the old figures that had yet to be treated with preservative, and together they bore her, crumbling, into the churchyard.
‘It’s quite true, what they were saying yesterday,’ he said.
‘Who?’
‘Oh. Just people before the first rehearsal began yesterday morning. They were saying how like yours
the angel’s hair was. It is.’
Roly laughed stiffly as they lowered the wood on to a tarpaulin.
‘No,’ he said. Then he looked up and met the feel of Seth’s eyes and repeated, no laugh in his voice, ‘No, Seth.’
‘What?’
‘You’re too young. OK?’
Seth had no time to reply, as Mother had followed them out.
‘So this is where you’ve been working.’
‘Hello,’ said Roly. A sixth-former on Parents’ Day.
‘I promise I won’t tell a soul, otherwise you’ll be bothered by women asking for busts of their children.’ The two of them chuckled obsequiously. ‘In fact, I have come to talk business, but I promise I don’t want a bust of Venetia. I don’t want one of this either, actually.’ She placed a hand on Seth’s shoulders as she spoke and he felt about twelve, forced back into shorts. He stood trapped and prickling, showing interest in the sea while his mother talked commissions. By an effort of will he managed not to look at MacGuire once for the rest of the interview. Evelyn was not long in finishing.
‘Oh well, if you’re going to be in London now, instead of Edinburgh, that makes you much more accessible. Come on, darling, we must go and get you something to eat.’ She released Seth and he walked back into the cool of the nave.
On the doorstep, Evelyn turned for a moment and caught Roland MacGuire staring at her, or past her. She turned back quickly and went after her child. They walked in silence across the church and headed for cottage number two where lunch was laid out on trestle tables, and where chorus and orchestra would chat over bread and cheese about the morning’s work. They joined the queue. Evelyn felt a barrier. Seth was sulking about something. Since Venetia was ill, he must be jealous. She would compensate with loving cheer.
‘Seth?’
‘Mmm?’
‘Is Roland MacGuire a terribly sad person, or is that just me being romantic?’
‘Just you being romantic. He’s distantly arrogant and secure. He’s talented and he knows it. I think he’s one of those people who will survive all their lives without anyone’s help.’