‘He made a joke of it then, but he must have been thinking about my reaction, brooding, I suppose, you know, the way he does. Now he says I’m selfish, that I’m happy to live off his wages as long as I don’t have to put up with him in the house.’
‘Mm.’ Evelyn had one finger to her lips. ‘It could seem that way, I suppose. Have you tried to discuss it with him, to reassure him?’
‘Trying to discuss anything with that man when he doesn’t want to know is like fishing for crab in December.’
‘Meaning it’s a waste of time,’ Rose added, in case her mother was not au fait with the patterns of marine life.
‘But are you serious, Laura? Would you really not be able to cope if he got a job on land?’ Evelyn could not understand it because she and Arthur had rarely spent a night apart. Maybe it was considered old-fashioned now, but they had been, and still were, unusually close, working in tandem when they had the farm. It had been easier for them than for some when Arthur retired, they were used to one another’s daily company.
‘Yes. I’m sure I’d get used to it eventually, but what Trevor won’t see is that he’s as much at fault as me. It’s not as if he’s even thinking about giving it up, but he’s still got to make an issue of it.’
‘Oh, come on, Laura. Think about it. Trevor would normally be going back out to sea, when?’
‘Tomorrow.’
‘Exactly. And Billy’s said they won’t do another trip until after Joe’s funeral, right?’
Laura nodded, her cascade of curls bobbing around the neon pink of their restraining band.
‘And there’s no date yet for the funeral because the inquest isn’t until tomorrow, and if Joe’s body is released for burial, then the service still can’t be arranged for at least another few days.’
‘Oh, Rosie.’ Laura jumped up and kissed her, long limbs flying everywhere. ‘I should’ve realised what’s eating him.’
‘Rose?’ Evelyn looked from one to the other.
‘Despite what Trevor’s told Laura, he’s doing exactly what he always does, and Laura, his wife for more years than I care to remember, never sees it. His problem is that he can’t wait to get back to sea.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Many fishermen feel the same ambivalence. When he’s out there he hates it and can’t wait to land. Once he’s been back for a couple of days he can’t wait to go again. But this time he doesn’t know when that’s likely to be and he’s restless.’
‘Well, if you do want my advice, Laura, the old methods rarely fail.’
‘Meaning what?’
‘A nice meal, a few smiles, an apology, that sort of thing. What’ve I said?’ She looked from Laura to Rose and back again. They were both laughing, doubled up, unable to stop. Laura was clutching her stomach. She did not know that they often found the same things funny and could still, even at their age, collapse, giggling like schoolgirls, tears running down their faces, nor did she know what she could possibly have said that was so funny. The astonishment on her own face made them laugh harder.
‘Oh, Mum, you don’t …’ But Rose couldn’t continue because she’d caught Laura’s eye again.
‘Oh, Evelyn. Never in a million years,’ Laura added, her shoulders shaking as more laughter welled up.
‘She’s as feisty as you are, Rose,’ Evelyn commented with a sniff, disappointed her sensible advice had been so soundly rejected.
Her maternal instincts reasserted themselves when Laura started hiccuping. She went to the sink and poured her a glass of water then went to join Arthur where watching cricket would seem like the lesser of two evils.
13
Melanie Hammond stood behind the tall terrace windows and watched the rain bouncing off the broad leaves of the plants in her sub-tropical garden. The outlines of the plants were blurred by the snakes of water running down the glass but she was aware that the green stems of the fig with its nine-fingered leaves were no longer drooping. The roots drank greedily and the plant soon recovered from lack of water. If only she and Roger could recover so quickly.
They had called out an emergency repair man last night and the house had been made safe again but the feeling of violation remained, and she was not sure how much longer she could keep her secret.
Melanie had dressed in smartly creased summer-weight trousers with a narrow belt and a silk blouse. The belt felt tight. A knitted jacket was draped around her shoulders and on her feet were red Italian leather sandals. Everything she wore had been paid for by Roger. He had always treated her far better than she deserved.
A sudden gust of wind dashed more rain against the window and made her jump. She felt cold, chilled from within, the weather was not responsible. The holiday had been good, had relaxed them both, but the homecoming had soured it. In half an hour the police would return and she and Roger would answer more of their questions, although whether they would be able to stick to the truth was doubtful. She was convinced that Roger was seeing another woman, he was bound to have told her he would be away, and there was her own past to consider. She had not thought about William Beddows in years but last night, unable to sleep, she had thought of nothing else. How much more trouble could she bring to Roger’s door? She had to hope that she was wrong.
The world had turned upside-down. Melanie smiled wryly. In her experience, every good thing was always balanced by a bad one. She decided to wait until the police had been before she mentioned to Roger what she had known for a month, but only if she had guessed correctly, only if the circumstances were right.
The house was covered in fingerprint dust which she had felt disinclined to do anything about. Despite their wealth they did not have a cleaner or a gardener; Melanie preferred to see to things herself. As she no longer held down a job menial tasks kept her occupied and she had discovered that they did not, as she had imagined, either bore her or free her mind, but, instead, diverted her thoughts from the thing which caused her the most pain. She did not miss her job as a buyer for the accessories floor in a department store. When she left it to move to Cornwall she realised she had seen enough gloves and handbags to last her a lifetime. In retrospect, the work she had been doing had come to seem shallow; running a house did not.
Roger opened the door quietly. Most of his movements were understated, although he was not self-effacing. He watched his wife for several seconds, wishing he could read her mind. ‘Are you all right, darling?’
Melanie turned to face him, her arms folded beneath her breasts. ‘Yes, I’m fine, Roger. I hope this interview won’t take long. I know it’s silly, but they made me feel so guilty yesterday, as if I’d crept back and burgled the place myself.’
Roger kissed her forehead. Her face was brown and the lighter streaks of her hair had been bleached by the sun. ‘They have to be sure. Such things have been known to happen. Melly, I – no, it’s nothing, forget it.’ He rubbed his eyes. They stung. He had not slept much last night but he had tried not to let his wife, sleepless beside him, know it. While the loss of his possessions had hurt, that could be dealt with: hurting Etta was a different matter, but it had to be done.
‘Your paintings meant a lot to you, didn’t they?’
Roger sighed. ‘They did, and the porcelain, and they should not have done. People are more important than possessions. I’d started to forget that. They were …’
‘A substitute,’ she finished for him. ‘I know. I understand.’
Roger was wearing a suit. The beige cloth showed off his tan and his lean body but worry and lack of sleep had aged him. His eyes were red-rimmed. Melanie waited. She saw that there was something he wished to say.
‘Can I ask you something? Have there been …?’ he finally began.
‘Any men since we moved down here?’
He smiled then. ‘We know each other better than we suppose. We’re both capable of reading each other’s thoughts. Have there?’ he added more quietly.
‘No, Roger. Not in four years.’ Tears sprang into her
eyes. ‘It was so stupid of me, I really don’t know why I was doing it. Damn it, of course I do. Can I ask you something?’
‘Of course.’
But there was no time. A car swung in through the gate and pulled up in front of the house. The police had arrived.
‘Do I offer them coffee?’
‘Not if you don’t want to.’
Melanie nodded. ‘You let them in.’
Roger did so. She heard voices in the hall which grew louder as they approached. She turned to the door and smiled. Two men, she noted, but this would be considered a big crime down here.
‘I’ve notified the insurance company,’ Roger was saying, ‘and they need the case number. We’ve also had the necessary repairs made and arranged for more security.’ He raised his hands, palms uppermost. ‘Yes, I know. Stable doors and all that. Please, sit down.’
Melanie remained standing in the window. Roger was nervous, he was talking too much and she thought she knew why. He had told someone they would be away.
The police did not stay long. The scene-of-crime officers had examined the whole house yesterday; the two detectives had only wanted to go over the same ground already covered, to see if Mr or Mrs Hammond had remembered anything relevant overnight, such as someone they might have mentioned their forthcoming holiday to or visitors to the house who might have guessed how much the collections were worth.
They were at the door when Melanie said, ‘Wait.’ This was, she decided, a day for honesty. They turned in unison. ‘Roger, what about that man from – where was it? A village somewhere near Leicester?’
Roger frowned. ‘Beddows. Not the place, the man’s name,’ he added, seeing the incomprehension on the faces of the officers. ‘It’s probably nothing, but he made me an offer for some of my paintings on more than one occasion. I refused. I didn’t buy them as investments, I bought them because I enjoy looking at them. As a collection of art it isn’t worth a fraction of what the real collectors own, just over a million at the last valuation, and it’s taken me twenty years to accumulate it. But, yes, he was rather insistent at the time.’ He blushed and glanced at Melanie who added nothing.
‘Do you happen to know his full name and address, sir?’
‘William Beddows, and he lives somewhere in Leicestershire. I can’t be more specific than that, I’m afraid, but he shouldn’t be hard to find, he’s an extremely rich man. But I honestly don’t believe he’d stoop to this, not when he can afford to buy more or less whatever he wants.’
‘We’ll check anyway. Thank you for your time.’
The rain had eased a little and the thunder which had woken Melanie early had rolled away across the narrow part of the peninsula several hours ago. She had become used to the vagaries of West Cornwall weather and knew that it might be raining in Penzance when St Ives was bathed in sunshine.
‘Were you serious about Beddows?’ Roger asked, after he had shown their visitors out.
‘I’m not sure. I didn’t like him, you know that, Roger.’ How ironical it would be if the one time she had resisted temptation it had resulted in this.
‘That doesn’t mean he’s a thief.’
‘No. But he’d hardly have come down here himself anyway. I don’t know, maybe it was just something to say, but he was extremely persistent.’
‘Melanie, what is it you’re not saying?’
‘Nothing, Roger. Really. It wasn’t what you think. Shall we have some coffee?’ She went to make it in the large, luxuriously appointed kitchen which was a pleasure to cook in. What she wasn’t saying, and never would, was that she had gone to a hotel room with Beddows but had not gone through with it in the end. At first he had tried to get her to persuade Roger to sell the coveted paintings to him; Roger had already refused. Later, when she wouldn’t take off her clothes, he had become furious. The evening had culminated in Beddows slapping her. Melanie had not been able to return home until the redness in her face subsided. She thought at the time that she was being used, and she was, but later she realised it was more than that. Beddows had been persistent about more than the paintings and she had had a hard job persuading him she did not want to see him again. It had been many months before he stopped pestering her. He seemed to be obsessed with her, telephoning every time he knew Roger was out, sending flowers anonymously and following her to and from work. Beddows had wanted what Roger possessed, his wife and his paintings, perhaps only because he could not have them. Melanie poured the rich, dark Colombian coffee into bone china cups more relieved than ever that she had not given into the man.
But those days were over. For some reason she had settled down once they had moved away from the place where she had been told it was unlikely that she would ever bear another child.
They sat on the cream leather sofa side by side. The sky lightened from slate grey to oyster; the rain was now no more than a fine drizzle.
‘You wanted to ask me something – what was it?’
‘I’m not sure that I should. I don’t think I have a right to know.’
‘Please, Melanie? Isn’t it time we stopped deceiving each other?’
‘Is that what you’ve been doing, Roger?’ There was no hint of an accusation in her voice, she was not in a position to be making one.
Roger took a deep breath. ‘Yes. I have been seeing someone for several months.’
‘And you needed the holiday to decide whether or not to continue doing so?’
How well she knows me, he thought. ‘Yes and no. Deep down I’ve always known there could be no one but you. I was looking for something I believed you could not give me and then I discovered I only wanted what you had to offer.’
‘No matter how awful?’
Roger smiled. ‘No matter how awful. Can you forgive me?’
‘How can you ask that of me?’ She placed her cup and saucer on the wood block floor and held him. ‘We’ve both been such fools. Oh, Roger!’ He deserved to know, however things turned out.
‘What is it?’ He pulled back, horrified. Melanie rarely cried, let alone sobbed as she was doing now. He stroked her hair, not knowing what else to do, and let her weep into his shoulder, dampening the thin material of his jacket.
When she looked up her face was streaked with mascara. It made her look vulnerable. ‘I don’t know how to tell you, I just don’t know what this’ll do to us now. Everything happens to us when it’s too late.’
‘What’re you talking about?’ His stomach muscles clenched. Had she, now that he had decided to end his affair, finally met someone she preferred to him, someone she loved? She began to laugh and he wondered if she was hysterical and if he might have to slap her.
‘Nothing ever goes according to plan, does it? I’d guessed, you see, before we went away, that there was someone else. It was only then I began to realise I might lose you, that your patience might not be endless. It’s true what I told you, there’s been no one else since we moved, and unless you believe me, it’s useless, there’ll be a question mark hanging over us for ever. But you have my word on it, Roger.’
He nodded, believing her but fearful of what was coming next. ‘Are you one hundred per cent certain you no longer want to see this other woman? I really have to know.’
‘You, too, have my word on it.’
Melanie sniffed and blew her nose on a crumpled tissue she found in her cardigan pocket. If Roger had decided to leave her she would not have said what she was about to say. There could be nothing worse than keeping a man only because he felt he should stay. ‘Your collections have been stolen. You said they were a substitute. Well, perhaps you won’t need any more substitutes.’
‘What? Melanie?’ He shook her by the elbows then stopped himself quickly. ‘Melanie, are you telling me you’re pregnant?’
‘Yes.’
‘Oh, God.’ Tears filled his own eyes as his wife finished wiping hers away. ‘But I thought it was too late, I thought with the menopause and everything?’
‘So did I. Apparently it’s not uncom
mon. In fact, it’s quite a risky time, especially for women who’ve had a family and don’t want any more children and think they’re safe. Dr Adams told me that the change can last for years, as long as ten years, before there’s no risk, and in my case, because I’d started it early and given up all hope, I’d relaxed. But Roger. I’m forty, he warned me there could be complications and a higher risk of an abnormal baby.’
‘Yes.’ He was still unable to take it in. No wonder Melanie had seemed different lately. ‘But there’re tests they can do these days, from quite early on.’
‘I know. But I’m not prepared to take them. That’s what I was so afraid of telling you. This is our second chance, our only other chance – I’m prepared to take it whatever the consequences. I will love this baby no matter who she or he is, whatever it turns out to be. Will you be able to love it unconditionally?’
‘Yes.’
The storm outside had passed but the air between them was electric. Roger paced the room trying to take in what his wife had said. This was a second chance for both of them, their only chance. Whatever else he did in life he must not ruin it. He knew what he had to do and he would do it at once. ‘I have to make a telephone call, Melanie. I think you know why.’
She nodded and watched him leave the room. She would never know for certain if he had intended ending his affair, only that he was about to do so now.
It was fifteen minutes before he returned, his expression grim.
Melanie spoke first, not wanting to hear the outcome of that telephone call. ‘It’s strange, isn’t it? We’re about to experience the one thing we’ve always hoped for and in return you’ve lost your paintings. As I’ve always said, one bad thing for every good one.’
‘More than one, Melly. The woman I was seeing, her son was killed while we were away. He was a bright young man. She’s devastated.’ He paused. They had been so preoccupied with their own problems that they had not listened to the news. ‘She blames herself, she feels it’s a punishment. In a way, I do too.’
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