Sour Grapes

by Natasha Cooper

  ‘Have you got any theories about why he was upset by the car questions?’ Jemima asked, sounding quite unworried herself.

  ‘For a long time I was completely stumped,’ Emma said, wondering how to frame the crucial enquiry. After a moment, determined to try, she added, ‘Then I did wonder—and please don’t be upset—whether he could have thought that perhaps you’d taken the car that night. D’you see what I mean? I know you didn’t, but he might have been afraid of it. After all, you had keys. And they must have told him that the car wasn’t broken into. Have you ever thought that he might have told the lies because he wanted to protect you?’

  Jemima shook her head so that her soft greying-blonde hair flew about her face. She did not look at all angry.

  ‘I wondered that too at one stage and decided that it could well have crossed his mind that I’d done it. He’s a highly intelligent man; and it’s the obvious answer to the lock mystery. But you see I had an alibi for that night. So, even if he’d been afraid it was me while he was with the police, he couldn’t still have been worried about it when he was talking to you only a week ago. Or whenever it was you saw him.’

  ‘No, I see. Well, that’s that, then. There is just one other possibility,’ said Emma, impressed by Jemima’s dispassionate manner and grateful for it. ‘Someone I showed the sheet to at the university—he doesn’t know whose test it was—suggested that Andrew might have had a guilt reaction because of some other occasion when he’d had a passenger in the car who he perhaps shouldn’t have had. I mean …’

  ‘No, no, it’s all right. I understand what you’re getting at,’ Jemima said, still not apparently taking offence. ‘You think Andrew might have had a mistress in the car with him on some other occasion. That’s it, isn’t it?’

  ‘Well, yes, I suppose so,’ said Emma. ‘I know it sounds an awful thing to say, but—’

  ‘But you think that he could have felt so guilty about some other woman that he confessed to a crime he did not commit, went to prison for it, and then displayed an incriminating reaction years later when you asked questions designed to prove him innocent of the crime after all. Is that what you’re suggesting?’

  ‘Put like that, it sounds unlikely, I’ll admit,’ said Emma, taking another sip of the peculiar tea.

  ‘Not only unlikely: positively ridiculous.’

  ‘I suppose it does. Sorry. Then I’m still stumped,’ said Emma, smiling openly at the other woman. ‘Can you help? Do you know what he might still be feeling guilty about?’

  ‘Yes, I think I probably do, but I’m not sure it’ll help your work much.’

  ‘Any information that’s true will help.’

  Jemima sat up straighter, as though bracing herself for something difficult.

  ‘I told you our son had died, didn’t I?’ she began.

  ‘Yes. It was necrotising fasciitis, wasn’t it? It must have been so awful for you. I—’

  ‘Who told you that?’ Jemima’s voice was sharp enough to make Emma realise what she had done.

  ‘Told me what?’ she asked, playing for time and silently cursing her own stupidity.

  ‘How my son died.’

  Emma felt her jaw tighten as she tried to think whether there was any way to cover her mistake. ‘Wasn’t it necrotising fasciitis that killed him?’

  ‘Yes, it was,’ said Jemima coldly. ‘But I didn’t tell you that. And Andrew can’t have because he doesn’t talk about it. In any case, if it had been him, you’d have said so straight out. Who have you been talking to?’ She stared at Emma. ‘Why are so many people suddenly coming here to ask me questions about Andrew and Pipp?’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean.’ Emma wished she had sounded more convincing, but she could hardly go back and try again.

  ‘I think you probably do. Have you got some connection with the Daily Mercury?

  Emma did not think she had moved or shown any sign of discomfort, but Jemima laughed contemptuously.

  ‘That’s it, isn’t it? You’d better learn not to blush if you want to make a career of this sort of thing. Or is that why she sent you here, because you look so naïve and she thought I might be distracted by that and let you get under my guard?’

  Emma bowed her head and then, valuing the truth as she did, forced herself to look up and say, ‘It’s not actually as bad as it sounds.’

  ‘No?’ The monosyllable was almost expressionless, but Emma thought she could imagine the outrage that Jemima must be feeling. ‘D’you work for her?’

  ‘Who?’ said Emma, in a pathetic attempt to deflect the wrath she was sure was coming.

  ‘Jane Cleverholme, editor of that filthy rag.’ As Emma still hesitated, Jemima added so coldly that Emma almost shivered, ‘Please don’t humiliate yourself or bore me by lying. Just do me the courtesy of explaining precisely what’s going on here and exactly what you have been trying to trick me into saying.’

  ‘No one’s been trying to trick you into anything, Mrs Lutterworth. And please don’t blame Jane for any of it. I went to her, not the other way round.’

  ‘Are you some relation of the woman who was killed?’

  ‘Good heavens no! It’s nothing like that. Honestly, everything I told you about my thesis and the polygraph tests is entirely true. Listen, Mrs Lutterworth, please don’t look at me like that. I’ll tell you the whole thing, if you’ll just listen. Please?’

  ‘I’ll listen,’ Jemima said after another uncomfortable pause. ‘I don’t promise anything more than that.’

  Emma described her pathetic attempts to find enough material for her thesis, her collapse on to Jane and Jane’s suggestion that she should look into the Lutterworth case.

  ‘She was worried, you see,’ Emma said pleadingly. She was not at all sure that Jane would forgive her for talking so frankly, but she did not think she had any option. ‘She found you so convincing—and so likable—that she was worried about what you said to her. She thought that if I could find out more about the truth of what happened the night your husband’s car was crashed and even discover who was driving it, then she’d be able to publish a huge vindication of him. That would have been good for you and him as well as helping both her and me. You must see that it would.’

  There was silence. Jemima Lutterworth’s lined and pretty face looked more obstructive than at any time that afternoon.

  ‘And Cressida Woodruffe? Where does she come in?’ She laughed with unmistakable contempt. ‘You know, you really must do something about that blush.’

  ‘She’s a friend, too. She introduced me to Jane. That’s all.’

  ‘Then why couldn’t you—or she—have come to me honestly in the first place? That’s what I don’t understand. I would have answered anything any of you had wanted to ask in such a good cause.’

  ‘I thought I had to talk to your husband first. For all I knew, he might have…well, you know, the police might have been right. It wasn’t until after I’d seen him and read up some of the stuff about the crash that I realised how wrong they’d been.’

  Emma stopped talking and sat staring at the shiny table, feeling as though she were about six and in dire trouble. Jemima Lutterworth did not move.

  ‘Well, now you’ve come this far,’ she said eventually, sounding completely implacable, ‘you’d better tell me whatever it is that you really believe about my husband.’ Emma shook her head, feeling sick. ‘You’ve insulted us both. You’ve abused my hospitality and my trust. You might as well go the whole hog. Who knows? You might even find out something you could use to your advantage.’

  ‘I still don’t know what I believe,’ said Emma doggedly, wondering how she was ever going to get back to the station if Jemima was too angry to telephone for a taxi for her. She had brought no map and had no idea of how to reach a main road, let alone Reading itself.

  With visions of herself walking round and round the lanes of Berkshire until she fell apart, Emma added, ‘Only that something the police said that night must have made him think it safer
to confess to something he hadn’t done than go on telling the truth. I still want to know why. But perhaps I never will.’

  Jemima was smoothing the pleats of her well-made pinkish shirt.

  ‘I think you’d better leave now, don’t you?’ she said.

  ‘Probably. Would it be too much of an abuse of your hospitality to ask you to telephone for a taxi to take me back to the station?’ Emma spoke with all the humility that she found useful in defusing anger in the past. Either that or her genuine embarrassment seemed to soften Jemima’s fury a little as she shrugged.

  ‘I suppose I might as well drive you.’

  ‘Oh, I couldn’t let you do that,’ said Emma. ‘Not after all this.’

  ‘Don’t worry. It will at least assure me that you’re well and truly off the premises and not poking around the house or digging up the garden. Come along.’

  Feeling her cheeks pulsating with the treacherous blush, wishing that she had power over space and time and could magic herself away, Emma followed Jemima down the long passage from the kitchen to the back door and the car.

  They drove back to Reading in excruciating silence; Emma fumbled with the door lock as she tried to get out as quickly as possible. Once her feet were on neutral ground, she bent down so that she could look back into the car, and attempted to apologise once more and even thank Jemima Lutterworth for the tea.

  She merely looked witheringly at Emma and put the car in gear again. As she drove out of the station forecourt much too fast, she only just missed another large car that was manoeuvring out of its parking space. Emma thought that Andrew could have been forgiven for being afraid that his wife had caused the crash. She wondered whether he had really been convinced by Jemima’s alibi and wished that she had been forceful enough to ask what it was. She also wished that she had ignored her embarrassment and made Jemima tell her what she had been going to say about why Andrew might still be displaying signs of guilt.

  The journey back to London proved to be a suitable punishment for someone who had betrayed a friend, mucked up a potentially useful interview, and seriously upset a woman who had already suffered a great deal. There was a bomb scare only ten minutes after the train had left Reading and everyone was herded off it at the next station. The replacement train, packed tight with at least twice its proper complement of passengers, left half an hour later and then broke down fifteen miles short of London. Several of the passengers were determined to get out and walk to the nearest station, but the conductor would not open the doors on the grounds that it would be far too dangerous for them to risk being hit by other trains. One imaginative if dangerous man loudly suggested setting fire to the seats since, after all the awful railway fires of the recent past, the conductor would be bound to open the doors at the first sight of flames.

  Eventually a third train was shunted back along the line and the hot, furious, exhausted travellers were at last allowed out of their prison. The relief train got them in to Paddington only an hour after the first should have arrived. Emma pushed her way on to the tube to Blackfriars, was propelled out of it by yet more furious commuters and fought her way to the right platform. Amazingly, a train for St Albans appeared five minutes later and she was soon sitting in relative comfort.

  Lying back against the seat with her eyes closed and her head aching, she tried to make her mind blank. She felt someone else sitting down in the seat beside her, heard a polite ‘excuse me’and muttered something reasonably friendly but not encouraging in return.

  ‘You have a nice sleep,’ said the voice. ‘You look worn out, you poor dear.’

  Emma opened her eyes, saw an elderly woman’s broad, lined face, and managed a smile.

  ‘That’s right, dear. You go to sleep. Which is your stop?’

  ‘St Albans.’

  ‘You don’t need to worry, then. I’ll wake you. I don’t get off till after that. Sleep well, dear.’

  ‘Thank you,’ murmured Emma, knowing full well that it was humiliation rather than exhaustion that was making her look peculiar.

  When Emma had dragged herself up to her room she found that some friendly person had pushed her post under the door. On top of the small pile was a letter with her name in Andrew Lutterworth’s small, neat, auditor’s handwriting. The address underneath it had been added by someone else, presumably by the governor’s secretary. Emma was not sure that she wanted to have anything more to do with Lutterworth, but, remembering how much work everyone else had already put in on her behalf, she knew she could not ignore the letter. She opened it.

  Dear Emma, I have an irritating feeling that an apology is due to you. You caught me on the raw by talking about my son. I cannot bear to talk about his death. On the other hand, now that I have got over my shock, I can see that you can’t have meant to hurt me and that your intentions were good. If, therefore, you are still in search of material for your thesis, I am prepared to see you one more time. I must stress that the subject of my son is not for discussion, but if you wish to ask me anything else, you may.

  Yours sincerely,

  Andrew Lutterworth

  The telephone began to ring. Emma moved across her small room, reading the note as she went, and picked up the receiver.

  ‘Hello?’ she said, hoping that it would be Jag, or even Hal, to give her back her sense of herself as someone worthwhile.

  ‘Sweet Thing. Hello. How are you?’

  ‘Oh, hello, Anthony. What can I do for you?’

  ‘Nothing at all.’ He laughed. ‘Luckily, because you don’t sound very helpful. What’s the matter?’

  ‘Nothing. I’ve had a heavy day, that’s all. I’m tired.’

  ‘Ah, you poor little thing. You’d better have an early night and don’t go drinking too much coffee. It’s not good for you. If you would only—’

  ‘What is it you want, Anthony?’ asked Emma, not bothering to tell him that she would drink whatever she wanted and stay up all night if she chose, and work herself into terminal exhaustion come to that. There seemed no point

  ‘Only to sort things out between you and your mother. She came for lunch the other day, and she’s unhappy and very worried about you. I promised I’d have a word and find out why you’re being so unlike your sweet self. What has got into you, Emma? You’ve changed.’

  ‘Yes, thank goodness. I don’t pretend any more. I’m fine and there is nothing for you to do,’ Emma said, holding on to her temper with difficulty.

  ‘Well, if you are fine, then I don’t think there’s any excuse for the way you’ve been upsetting your mother.’ Anthony sounded not only as pompous and patronising as usual but also as though he was enjoying the opportunity of giving her a reprimand. ‘You’ve been thoughtless, Sweet Thing. It’s quite uncalled for and very hurtful. She’s your mother. Has it never occurred to you that the most important thing to remember in life is that you should do everything you possibly can to avoid hurting your family?’

  Emma was counting to ten to get some kind of control over herself before giving voice to her protest when Anthony said loudly, ‘Are you there? Emma? Have we been cut off? Hello? Hello?’

  ‘No, Anthony, we have not been cut off. I was simply trying to understand how you of all people could dare to say something like that to me,’ she said, surprising herself.

  ‘What do you mean?’ All the pomposity and pleasure in his voice had been overtaken by astonishment.

  ‘Oh, come on. You must know what I’m talking about.’

  ‘I haven’t a clue. What is the matter with you, Emma?’

  Tempted as usual to say ‘oh, nothing’and smooth him down, Emma thought that she would never be able to respect herself again if she did not tackle him once and for all. She breathed deeply and loosened her grip on the telephone, which had been so tight it was making her whole arm ache.

  ‘Anthony, do you remember when we were children?’ She was glad to hear how calm she sounded.

  ‘Naturally. But what has that got to do with it? You got on very well with y
our mother then.’

  ‘Yes, I know,’ said Emma, remembering the simplicity of the early days, when her mother had seemed unquestioningly wise and benevolent. ‘But I’m not talking about her. I’m talking about you and what you did to me then.’

  ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake! You never could take a joke and you always used to make the most ridiculous fuss about a little brotherly ragging, but I can’t believe you’re still going on about it now. Really, Emma. How childish can you get?’

  ‘Don’t you remember,’ she said, feeling a welcome surge of anger banish the last scrap of her impulse to retreat, ‘how you used to threaten to hide me from the grown-ups, lock me up and starve me to death?’

  ‘Nonsense.’

  ‘Or drown me by squeezing water from your flannel into my nose and mouth while I was asleep? Or burn my eyelashes off with the cigarette lighter you stole from Uncle Angus? Or put poisonous mushrooms in that foul porridge Sarah and I were made to eat every morning in winter? Don’t you remember how you told me you’d done it one day when Sarah was ill and so there weren’t any witnesses?’

  ‘Certainly not.’

  ‘When I wouldn’t eat it,’ Emma went on, still amazed that anyone could have behaved as Anthony had, ‘you held my nose so that I had to open my mouth to breathe and you forced that stuff into me until I gagged and threw up. And when my mother asked why I’d been sick, you persuaded her that I’d stuck my fingers down my own throat so that I could get off school. And she took a slipper to me. Don’t you remember that?’

  ‘Emma, you’re exaggerating. You’re blowing a few practical jokes right out of proportion. All children do those sort of things.’

  ‘No, they don’t, Anthony. That’s what I have at last come to accept. Normal children do not behave like that. And you were hardly a child anyway. I was five, but you were fifteen then, huge and unbelievably powerful in comparison to me. You were a sadist.’

  ‘You’re mad.’

  ‘You enjoyed my terror, didn’t you?’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

  ‘I don’t know how you can go on pretending. I certainly can’t I just wish I’d told you so years ago and not tried to contain what you made me feel.’