The dramatic weight-loss, and the emergence of a startlingly good looking son, worried Mrs Penelope Matthewson, who was having a difficult day, made infinitely worse by the fact that her only son, product of a brief and difficult marriage, had been missing for months and had installed an answerphone. She had not known what to say when faced with its pleasant message, spoken clearly in his familiar friendly voice, and she had only suppressed the instinct to chatter after the whining noise when she had realised that the message was the sum-total of the response, leaving her shouting into a vacuum and feeling silly, still full of irritated affection.
Penelope wanted forgiveness from her son for her neglect of his childhood, and knew she had it. She was grateful for Ernest’s great love for his stepson, and irritated by that too. Swallowing pride, she dialled again, listened this time, and left a message after the bleep. ‘Malcolm, I know you’re there.’ (Although she had no idea why she knew.) ‘Phone me when you can. I need to see you. I’m very worried about Dad.’
He did not telephone. He arrived instead, adding to the guilt and still shocking her with his new appearance, even as her own, equally unerring instinct guided her not to comment, forced her to smile as if she did not find him changed. Malcolm, fat from the overfed age of eight, shovelled from pillar to post among the debris of a marriage, and away to school at the age of eleven where he grew fatter and learned to survive on his wits, was the thinnest she could ever remember, slender, fit and athletic.
‘Dear God,’ she said, swaying in the doorway, smile frozen, ‘you’re even thinner. Would you like to eat now or later?’ When he did not smile, she began to laugh at his handsome face, so like the mulish small-boy look he had worn when pushed too far, relieved to find him so familiar. ‘Oh, Malcolm darling. You look wonderful. You make me understand why I fell in love with your father. Come in.’
He grinned at last. ‘One condition.’
‘What’s that?’
‘No food. You got me into this, don’t hinder me getting out.’
She hugged him, melted her sweet-smelling arms around his neck, and led him in. Plump feet in plump shoes dinting the velvet carpet. Mrs Matthewson had never liked modern things or sharp angles, nothing harsh to the touch, even in the days when she had been Mrs Cook with a husband as liberal and progressive as her own Ernest was not. She sat opposite her son on a sofa which almost enveloped her in high colours of hummingbirds. The curtains matched, the walls reflected the soothing and vibrant colours, like the woman herself.
Penelope never admitted Malcolm was a mistake, but in a life now devoted to comfort and order, she wished she had produced a child of more predictable qualities, or one her second husband loved less. But in those dimmer days, Pen had always reserved the greatest devotion of life for the two husbands. Now she loved this son and this husband equally, and wished they would damn well do the same. She looked quizzically at Malcolm. Something was all wrong with the boy, and she knew by that smile of his, a wonderful smile, enlivened by enormous affection, curtailed by equally huge reserve, that she had better not ask what it was, for fear of an answer. In turn, he had sunk into a large, exquisitely comfortable chair, and was thinking with only the slightest regret how odd and spartan his own life had become in comparison to this, and to all his dear mama would want for him.
‘How’s Father?’ Noticing her fidgeting with the desire to present him with the large measure of Scotch which greeted all visitors, and which she knew he would refuse.
‘Not well. I’m worried. Will you come and talk to him?’
‘Mother, you know I can’t. He won’t take advice from me. Not since I’ve refused to take it from him, insulted him by refusing to join the practice. He’s never forgiven me, dabbling in crime, humble prosecutor paid by the state, and he won’t confide in me now.’
‘But, Malcolm . . . you could try at least . . .’
‘Yes, I could. But only if he asks. Not otherwise. Come on, Ma, you know him. If he came in now, crippled with an ulcer, he’d start the same old argument within minutes. He can’t help it. He’d ask how I was, slap me on the back, and say, “When are you coming into the firm, then?” Again. And I’d say, “You know me, Dad. I’m a loner, always was. Can’t work for anyone. Better off with crooks and coppers, drunks and thieves,” and so we’d go on until he sank into silence and me into mindless jokes. If I could get him to talk naturally, we might have a chance of being able to talk about himself, but then again, only if he would. And could.’
‘He loves you, Malcolm. You know he does. I don’t know why, you aren’t even his, but he does.’
‘You make it sound like an accusation.’
‘Well, no. Yes. I mean . . . No, I don’t mean anything. I mean I simply wish pleasing him wasn’t so difficult for you. I try to understand; part of me does, part of me doesn’t. I just want you both happy.’
Heavy tears gathered and slid solidly down her round pink cheeks before she brushed them away in frustration. Penelope was not a regular weeper. She would stoop to blackmail of most sorts, but not weeping.
‘Mother, don’t. It isn’t me making him unhappy. It’s the firm that makes him miserable. He made it, but he doesn’t belong anymore in a big commercial partnership full of whizz-kid lawyers when he really belongs in the library, dispensing common sense over half-moon specs, giving out inspired pats on hand and “don’t be so silly” kind of advice which never needs a law book. He always said he couldn’t be bothered with law books because they were all print and no pictures, a bit like me really, but his kind of lawyer isn’t in fashion. He’s all at sea with the technical age. They haven’t even got time for lunch. He might think he’d feel more comfortable with me in the room next door, but he wouldn’t. Get him out more, encourage all his other interests.’
A smile broke through Pen’s creased concern, and she was cheered by the prospect of positive action. ‘Get married, Malcolm,’ she said, unable to leave him with the last word. ‘Provide us with a couple of grandchildren. We’re both broody.’
He rose, dropped a kiss on her brow. ‘Chance would be a fine thing,’ he answered lightly.
Penelope continued, speaking to herself as much as to him. ‘There’s a gorgeous girl in the office, one of the young ones. Ernest has a crush on her. I pretend it annoys me for the sake of form, but I know it’s not that kind of crush. She’s a daughter-substitute. She stops him feeling lonely by being the only one there who can begin to think like him, or understand it. Besides, she helps me look after him. She keeps me informed,’ she added darkly.
‘Spies in the camp?’ queried Malcolm. ‘Not sure I like the sound of that.’
‘No, no, no . . . she’s no sneak. Not the school-prefect type at all. She simply understands him. When he gets upset, you know the way he does, she calms him down, and when the ulcer is on the march, she tells him jokes and stops him going on the rampage. Whenever his secretary threatens to resign, the others call her in and she makes them see the storm will pass, and makes them laugh. They talk about anything and everything, and when he’s really on the warpath to the tune of risking another heart attack, she phones me up and warns me.’
‘No secrets?’
‘If he tells her any, she would never tell me, and if Ernest tells her anything about the firm, she wouldn’t tell anyone else. She only tells me when he’s really over-excited. I trust her. Lovely voice. Penelope, she says to me, this is an early gale-warning, and I’ll know to give him a big hug when he gets back, to show he’s still king in his own house. And a good supper. And not argue.’
‘He’s a lucky man. Surrounded by adoring women.’
‘But not adoring stepsons.’
Silence fell into the sunlight passing through the curtains across Penelope’s fresh flowers and her bonny, anxious face. Malcolm wished he could please her more, please them both, herself and the irascible stepfather he loved so much. Wished he had the means to restore that volatile old man to contentment. ‘He has good friends,’ Malcolm said firmly, wa
tching the sunbeams dance on the polished wood. Pen looked at them too, pleased by the effect, secretly gratified to see her son discomfited. ‘I must clean the windows,’ she remarked, one of her non sequiturs which closed the conversation on family topics. It was always closed before she admitted too much. Malcolm was resigned to it. He knew she could not say there was more than that in Ernest’s current high anxiety. Some client, some breach of his old-fashioned honour, some arrow lodged in his keen conscience, festering, which Malcolm could have discovered and she could not.
She sighed and rose slowly. She could not say more today, and this was not, as she had hoped, the best time to suggest to her only son the delightful prospect of a dinner at home, graced by a mellow stepfather and the lovely but suitable young woman. What this family needed was a decent daughter-in-law, a bit of romance, and Malcolm was thirty-three. He needed a wife.
Painting by numbers on the life of M. Cook was adroitly, respectfully resisted. He had fended off the far more serious questions concerning work and career by waxing lyrical to Mother on the subject of the new flat, although she sniffed at the very idea of living in one storey so far from the ground, couldn’t fathom the appeal at all. ‘Why not a house, Malckie, at your age?’ She could not tell him all her fears any more than this son of hers could explain how he had emerged from the chrysalis of sixteen stone a strange, shy shadow of himself with no known place in the world, but full of silent fury, and acquiring some very eccentric habits indeed.
They always left their conversations incomplete, at the point where they should have started. It had become a habit.
‘See you soon, darling.’
‘Give my love to Father.’
‘Of course.’
She moved to the kitchen for the therapy of cooking. Malcolm hurried to court for the therapy of crime. He would feel more at home there in the mess of files and accusations. And after court he would go on looking through the directories, make ten more phone calls. Malcolm was looking for Sarah Fortune. The process was slow, but absorbing enough to dismiss all thoughts of his family from his mind. This much he knew: she was a solicitor and a widow, but the Law Society could not help. No trace of Fortune, they said. She may practise, they explained, under her married name, but the registration will be under her maiden name, you see. If you don’t know the maiden name, and she calls herself something else now, we cannot help. So, each day, time allowing, he rang another of the hundreds of legal firms in the Solicitor’s Diary, to make his discreet inquiries. The response was often puzzled, the task embarrassing but necessary. Sighing, half in hope, half in frustration, he reached for the phone.
A long day, so filled with different preoccupations. Criminals, families, and the quest to find Sarah which had so far taken months, from the two years since he had seen her. And after this, his nightlife began, running the streets in darkness, looking for the man and the dog, regarding all he might see with his mild, forgiving eyes.
CHAPTER SIX
‘You look like the nicest kind of sleepy cat. And I wish you didn’t have to go.’
She smiled a wide smile, pulled a face in the middle of a graceful yawn.
‘So do I, but there’s just this little question of work in the morning.’
‘It’s only eleven. I’ll get you a taxi. Stay on a minute. Talk to me.’ He pulled her hand. She sat down next to him on the bed, half-dressed, nicely rumpled, obliging. Simeon’s moves were all ponderous, not as heavy-handed as before, but she could still see him thinking ahead, like a child.
‘Sarah?’
‘Yes?’
‘You know we agreed I wouldn’t pry into your life. I’ve known you for three months now, and I feel a new man . . .’ He smiled at her fondly. ‘I can hold a knife and fork, I don’t stop people smoking by waving things in their faces . . .’ She stroked his head, and he grinned sheepishly. ‘And I’ve honoured the agreement, haven’t I?’ She nodded. ‘Well, I thought it gave me licence to ask. You don’t have to answer. But why, why be so secretive with your life? Even though you seem content. You don’t have to answer, but what made you?’
‘Made me? Nothing made me.’
‘I know that . . . But why, then? Why be . . .’
‘Your mistress?’ She dimpled.
‘Your description. I rather like it. Every man should have a mistress at one point in his life, perhaps. It honours me, your description, but you aren’t mine. And you are a lady, never anything less.’ Even in his dressing-gown, with his eyebrows and hair pointing on end, like an endearing goblin, Simeon had relearned the gallantry of his youth, and he meant it.
‘Why do you want to know?’ She was buttoning the sleeves of a white blouse, the one she had worn into his house after her official life, and now he watched as she reassumed that other shape in front of his eyes, hiding herself in the good black skirt, silk scarf and all the everyday uniform.
‘I want to know because I like you,’ he said simply. ‘And whatever our arrangement, I’d like to be counted as a friend. Difficult thing to be if one’s as ignorant as this. I know some of the motivations, of course, but not all of them. Tell me why.’
She sat again. One flick of the hairbrush through that red mane and it would be too late, she would have become the Sarah known to the Law Society, not the luminous-eyed creature who, among other things, sang him songs and insisted he learn how to cook. (When you’re indoors, eat properly. Enjoy it.) And redecorate his flat: make yourself comfortable and you’ll make others comfortable. No, don’t undo what your wife did, just adapt it to your own taste. A motto to alter his life. Sarah’s service was comprehensive. He often forgot the bedtime bit when faced with her subtle capacity for mending lives, often regretted the restrictive nature of the association, but he never once counted the expense which followed in the wake of it. His flat and himself glowed with new health and his face was alive with questions.
‘All right. I’ll tell you why. Briefly. An exercise in making a long story short.’
‘Not too short.’
‘Very short. Call it the reaction of a disillusioned widow with a career which bores her to death, a kind of prison. In order not to see the bars, needs uncomplicated relationships on equal terms, with everyone knowing where they are. Will that do?’
‘Far from satisfactory.’
‘It isn’t really very much more complicated than that. I like doing what I’m good at. I like you. You’re good company.’
‘Sarah . . . What do you do on all the other evenings in the week when you don’t see me?’
‘Ah. Clean the windows, wash my socks, see friends and twiddle my thumbs. In other words, with all respect to your curiosity, nothing harmful and none of your business.’ It was said inoffensively with the smile he could not resist.
‘Tell me about your family.’
‘Genteel, poorish, brutally religious. Wanted the best for me. Threw me out with the onset of the first boyfriend. Forgave me for qualifying and marrying, a brief period of acceptance, but not for being widowed. Indecent, you see, bound to be my fault and very embarrassing for them. They always preferred my sister. Better I stayed away.’
In the calm tones, and although he lacked sensitivity, Simeon could sense undertones of terrible rejections, fights, abandonment. He hesitated.
‘And your husband? What was he like? Did you love him?’
‘Oh yes, I loved him, but he is a different story for another time. Not today.’
Nothing more detailed would follow. Simeon believed that widowhood was about as dignified as a poke in the eye, but did not see why it led to Sarah’s solution of such a floating life. On the other hand, he could not see why not.
‘You could always marry me, and give up the single status.’
‘Don’t be silly, Simeon my love. You know we’d never work on a daily basis, and anyway, you’ll need a respectable wife. Someone really wifely, you know, someone intelligently normal. If you go for an appointment on the Bench, as well you might, you’ll need a spouse beyond re
proach, fit for all those Benchers’ dinners and the occasional scrutiny of the press. Not a reprobate like me. Someone who would think like you and support everything you did.’
He sighed, thought of the outrage of the top table in the Inner Temple Hall, shook his head sadly. Too glamorous she was, and far too funny for that august company.
‘There’s nothing I dislike about you, Sarah, except your dreadful realism.’
‘Kiss me goodbye, then.’
‘Until next time,’ he added quickly. ‘I still need you. Don’t forget the Ball. You haven’t forgotten Gray’s Inn Ball? Big occasion for me, the final test of my greatly improved manners. You said you’d think about it. You will come, won’t you? Please?’
‘Oh, I don’t know, Simeon. I can’t, really.’
He was openly distressed. ‘Please, Sarah. I’ve been out of circulation for so long I won’t manage without you. Just once. Please. Why not? Is the thought of an evening with me in public so terrible?’
Pretty terrible, thought Sarah, but only because of potential embarrassments which have nothing to do with your company.
‘Why not?’ he repeated, taking advantage of her sudden and surprising nervousness.
‘Well, half my legal acquaintance and some of my clients go to this thrash. I shall feel exposed,’ she added lamely.
‘Exposed to what?’
He regarded her with innocence, his concern touching her as he took her hand. ‘Exposed to what?’ he said again. ‘I’m sure you haven’t done anything wrong.’
‘No,’ said Sarah. ‘No, of course not. I haven’t done anything wrong at all.’
‘Well then, you’ll come with me,’ he said triumphantly. ‘I’ll look after you.’
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