She smiled faintly. ‘It was an act,’ she said. ‘I got very tired of them discussing me as if I wasn’t there. I might have been as dead as Mathilda. It’s the money that excites them.’
Unfair, he thought. Both men had gone out of their way to sympathize with the difficult situation in which Sarah found herself but she was determined to see everyone as an enemy. Including himself? Impossible to judge. He turned his glass, letting the sober wall-lights gleam through the red wine. ‘Do you want Jack back? Is that why you’re so angry? Or are you just jealous because he’s found someone else?’
‘Can you be just jealous?’
‘You know what I mean.’
She smiled again, a bitter smile that twisted her mouth. ‘But I don’t, Keith. I’ve been jealous for years. Jealous of his art, jealous of his women, jealous of his talent, jealous of him and his ability to bedazzle every damn person he meets. What I feel now is nothing like the jealousy I’ve felt before. Perhaps it’s there but, if it is, it’s overlaid with so many other emotions that it’s difficult to isolate.’
Keith frowned. ‘What do you mean, his ability to bedazzle everyone he meets? I can’t stand the man, never have been able to.’
‘But you think about him. Mostly with irritation and anger, I expect, but you do think about him. How many other men do you dwell on with the compulsion with which you dwell on Jack? The policeman who’s dogging my tracks put it rather well: he said: “He leaves something of a vacuum in his wake.”’ She held Keith’s gaze. ‘That’s one of the best descriptions I’ve ever heard of him, because it’s true. At the moment I’m living in a vacuum and I’m not enjoying it. For the first time in my life I do not know what to do and it frightens me.’
‘Then cut your losses and formalize the separation. Make the decision to start again. Uncertainty is frightening. Certainty never is.’
With a sigh she pushed her plate to one side. ‘You sound like my mother. She has a homily for every situation and it drives me mad. Try telling a condemned man that certainty isn’t frightening. I doubt he’d agree with you.’
Keith beckoned for the bill. ‘At the risk of blotting my copybook again I suggest you go for a long walk by the sea and blow the cobwebs out of your head. You’re allowing sentiment to cloud your judgement. There are only two things to remember at a time like this: one, you told Jack to leave, not he you; and two, you had good reasons for doing so. It doesn’t matter how lonely, how rejected or how jealous you feel now, it cannot affect the central issue, namely that you and Jack do not get on as man and wife. My advice is to get yourself a decent husband who’ll stand by you when you need him.’
She laughed suddenly. ‘There’s not much hope of that. The decent ones are all spoken for.’
‘And whose fault’s that? You had your chance, but you chose not to take it.’ He handed a credit card to the waitress, watched her walk away to the counter, then transferred his gaze to Sarah. ‘I don’t suppose you’ll ever know how much you hurt me, not unless what you’re feeling now is something like the hurt that I felt then.’
She didn’t answer immediately. ‘Now who’s being sentimental?’ she said at last, but he thought he saw dampness in her eyes again. ‘You’ve forgotten that you only found me truly desirable after you lost me, and by then it was too late.’
And the tragedy was, he knew she was right.
The door of Cedar House opened six inches in answer to Keith’s ring. He smiled pleasantly. ‘Mrs Lascelles?’
A tiny frown creased her forehead. ‘Yes.’
‘I’m Jack Blakeney’s solicitor. I’m told he’s staying here.’
She didn’t answer.
‘May I come in and talk to him? I’ve driven all the way from London.’
‘He’s not here at the moment.’
‘Do you know where I can find him? It is important.’
She gave an indifferent shrug. ‘What’s your name? I’ll tell him you called.’
‘Keith Smollett.’
She closed the door.
Violet Orloff, sheltering by the corner of the house, beckoned to him as he walked back to his car. ‘I do hope you won’t think I’m interfering,’ she said breathily, ‘but I couldn’t help overhearing what you said. She’s in a funny mood at the moment, won’t talk to anyone, and if you’ve come all the way from London . . .’ She left the rest of the sentence unsaid.
Keith nodded. ‘I have, so if you can tell me where Jack is I’d be very grateful.’
She cast a nervous sideways glance towards Joanna’s door, then gestured rapidly to the path running round the far corner of the house. ‘In the garden,’ she whispered. ‘In the summer-house. He’s using it as a studio.’ She shook her head. ‘But don’t tell her I told you. I thought Mathilda’s tongue was wicked, but Joanna’s – ’ she cast her eyes to heaven, ‘she calls Mr Blakeney a homosexual.’ She shooed at him. ‘Quickly now, or she’ll see you talking to me and Duncan would be furious. He’s so afraid, you know.’
Somewhat bewildered by this eccentric behaviour, Keith nodded his thanks and followed the same route that Sarah had taken with Ruth. Despite the cold, the doors to the summer-house stood open and he could hear a woman singing a Cole Porter song as he approached across the lawn. The voice was unmistakable, rich and haunting, backed by a simple piano accompaniment.
Every time we say goodbye, I die a little,
Every time we say goodbye, I wonder why a little,
Why the gods above me, who must be in the know,
Think so little of me they allow you to go . . .
Keith paused in the entrance. ‘Since when were you a Cleo Laine fan, Jack? I thought Sarah was the aficionado.’ He pressed the eject button on the recorder and removed the tape to read the handwritten label on the front. ‘Well, well. Unless I’m very much mistaken, this is the one I made for her before you married. Does she know you’ve got it?’
Jack surveyed him through half-closed lids. He was on the point of telling him to put his hackles down, his customary response to Smollett’s invariably critical opening remarks, when he thought better of it. For once, he was pleased to see the pompous bastard. In fact, he admitted to himself, he was so damn pleased he could be persuaded to change the habits of the last six years and greet him as a friend instead of a marriage-breaking incubus. He stuck his paintbrush in a jar of turpentine and wiped his hands down the front of his jumper, producing a huge paint-smeared palm as a peace-offering. ‘I suppose Sarah’s sent you.’
Keith pretended not to see the hand, instead eyed the sleeping-bag, abandoned in a dishevelled heap in a corner, then pulled forward a chair. ‘No,’ he said, folding himself into it. ‘I left her in Poole. She doesn’t know I’m here. I’ve come to try and talk some sense into you.’ He studied the portrait. ‘Mrs Lascelles presumably.’
Jack crossed his arms. ‘What do you think?’
‘Of her or the portrait?’
‘Either.’
‘I only saw six inches of her through the gap in the door.’ He cocked his head on one side to examine the painting. ‘You’ve been pretty heavy-handed with the purples. What is she, a nymphomaniac? Or is that just wishful thinking on your part?’
Jack lowered himself gingerly into the chair opposite – the cold and the floorboards were wreaking havoc on the muscles of his back – and wondered if the gentlemanly thing was to bop Keith on the nose now or wait till the man was on guard. ‘Not all the time,’ he said, answering the question seriously, ‘only when she’s stoned.’
Keith digested this in silence for a moment or two. ‘Have you told the police?’
‘What?’
‘That she’s a user.’
‘No.’
‘Then I think it’s better all round if you never told me and I never heard it.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I’m on the side of law and order and I don’t have your freedom to behave as I like.’
‘Don’t blame your profession for your lack of freedom, Smollett,’
Jack growled, ‘blame yourself for selling out to it.’ He nodded towards the house. ‘She needs help and the best person to give it to her is the one she won’t see. Sarah, in other words. What good would a policeman be to her?’
‘He could prevent her murdering someone else.’
Thoughtfully, Jack rubbed his unshaven jaw. ‘Meaning that because she’s degenerate enough to use drugs, she’s ipso facto degenerate enough to kill her mother. That’s crap, and you know it.’
‘It gives her a damn sight better motive than the one Sarah’s been saddled with. It’s expensive to feed a habit, not to mention the effect it has on the personality. If she didn’t kill the old woman for money, then she’s probably unpredictable enough to have done it out of sudden fury.’
‘You’d have no qualms about briefing a barrister with that codswallop either, would you?’ murmured Jack.
‘No qualms at all, particularly if it’s Sarah’s neck that ends up on the line.’ Keith turned the cassette in his fingers, then reached out to put it beside the recorder. ‘You do know she’s worried sick about losing her patients and being arrested for murder, I suppose, while you’re here mooning over a drug-addicted nymphomaniac? Where’s your loyalty, man?’
Was this Sarah talking? Jack wondered. He hoped not. ‘Mooning’ was not a word he recognized as part of her vocabulary. She had too much self-respect. He gave a prodigious yawn. ‘Does Sarah want me back. Is that why you’re here? I don’t mind admitting I’m pretty fed up with freezing my balls off in this miserable dump.’
Keith breathed deeply through his nose. ‘I don’t know what she wants,’ he said, bunching his fists in his lap. ‘I came because I had an absurd idea that you and I could discuss this mess in an adult way without either of us needling the other. I should have known it was impossible.’
Jack squinted at the bunched fists, while doubting that Keith could ever be provoked into using them. ‘Did she tell you why she wanted a divorce?’
‘Not precisely.’
He linked his hands behind his head and stared at the ceiling. ‘She took against me when she had to arrange an abortion for my lover. It’s been downhill ever since.’
Keith was genuinely shocked. That explained Sarah’s bitterness all right. With a shake of his head, he pushed himself out of his chair and stood by the door, gazing out across the garden. ‘If I wasn’t so sure I’d lose, I’d invite you out there for a thrashing. You’re a shit, Jack. JE-SUS!’ he said, as the full import of what the man had said slowly dawned. ‘You had the bloody nerve to make Sarah murder your baby. That is so damn sick I can hardly believe it. She’s your wife, for God’s sake, not some sleazy back-street abortionist slaughtering wholesale for money. No wonder she wants a divorce. Don’t you have any sensibilities at all?’
‘Clearly not,’ said Jack impassively.
‘I warned her not to marry you.’ He turned back bludgeoning the air with his finger because he hadn’t the courage to bludgeon Jack with a fist. ‘I knew it wouldn’t last, told her exactly what to expect, what sort of a man you were, how many women you’d used and discarded. But not this. Never this. How could you do such a thing?’ He was almost in tears. ‘Dammit, I wouldn’t even turn my back on the baby, but to make your own wife responsible for its murder. You’re sick! Do you know that? You’re a sick man.’
‘Put like that, I rather agree with you.’
‘If I have my way you won’t get a penny out of this divorce,’ he said ferociously. ‘You do realize I’m going to report this back to her, and make sure she uses it in court?’
‘I’m relying on you.’
Keith’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘It means, Smollett, that I expect you to repeat every word of this conversation verbatim.’ His expression was unreadable. ‘Now do me a favour and take yourself off before I do something I might regret. Sarah’s friendships are entirely her concern, of course, but I admit I’ve never understood why she always attracts domineering little men who think she’s vulnerable.’ He flipped the tape, pushed it back into the recorder and pressed the ‘play’ button. This time it was Richard Rodney Bennett’s ‘I never went away’ that drifted in melancholy splendour upon the air.
No matter where I travelled to,
I never went away from you . . .
I never went away . . .
Jack closed his eyes. ‘Now bugger off,’ he murmured, ‘before I rip your arms off. And don’t forget to mention the sleeping-bag, there’s a good chap.’
Duncan and Violet Orloff are the most absurd couple. They spent the entire afternoon on the lawn with Duncan fast asleep and Violet twittering non-stop drivel at him. She’s like a manic little bird, constantly twitching her head from side to side for fear of predators. As a result she never once looked at Duncan and was quite oblivious to the fact that he wasn’t listening to a word she said. I can’t say I blame him. She was empty-headed as a child and age has not improved her. I still can’t decide whether it was a good or a bad idea to offer them Wing Cottage when Violet wrote and said they’d set their hearts on spending their retirement in Fontwell. ‘We do so want to come home,’ was her appallingly sentimental way of putting it. The money was very useful, of course – Joanna’s flat was a shocking expense, as is Ruth’s education – but, on balance, neighbours should be eschewed. It’s a relationship that can all too easily descend into forced intimacy. Violet forgot herself and called me ‘love’ last week, then went into paroxysms of hysteria when I pointed it out, beating her chest with her hands and ululating like some peasant woman. A most revolting display, frankly. I’m inclined to think she’s going senile.
Duncan, of course, is a very different kettle of fish. The wit is still there, if somewhat slower through lack of practice. Hardly surprising when it has been blunted for forty years on Violet’s plank of a brain. I wonder sometimes how much they remember of the past. I worry that Violet will twitter away to Joanna or Ruth one day and let cats out of bags that are better confined. We all share too many secrets.
I read back through my early diaries recently and discovered, somewhat to my chagrin, that I told Violet the week before her wedding that her marriage would never last. If the poor creature had a sense of humour, she could reasonably claim the last laugh . . .
Nine
JOANNA SHOWED little surprise at finding Sarah on her doorstep at noon the next day. She gave the faintest of smiles and stepped back into the hall, inviting the other woman inside. ‘I was reading the newspaper,’ she said, as if Sarah had asked her a specific question. She led the way into the drawing-room. ‘Do sit down. If you’ve come to see Jack, he’s outside.’
This was a very different reception from the one Keith described having the previous evening, and Sarah wondered about Joanna’s motives. She doubted that it had anything to do with the drug addiction Keith had harped on about, and thought it more likely that curiosity had got the better of her. It made sense. She was Mathilda’s daughter and Mathilda had been insatiably curious.
She shook her head. ‘No, it’s you I’ve come to see.’
Joanna resumed her own seat but made no comment.
‘I always liked this room,’ said Sarah slowly. ‘I thought how comfortable it was. Your mother used to sit over there,’ she pointed to a high-backed chair in front of the french windows, ‘and when the sun shone it turned her hair into a silver halo. You’re very like her to look at but I expect you know that.’
Joanna fixed her with her curiously inexpressive eyes.
‘Would it help, do you think, if you and I talked about her?’
Again Joanna didn’t answer and to Sarah, who had rehearsed everything on the assumption that the other woman would be a willing party to their conversation, the silence was as effective as a brick wall. ‘I hoped,’ she said, ‘that we could try to establish some sort of common ground.’ She paused briefly but there was no response. ‘Because, frankly, I’m not happy about leaving everything in the hands of soli
citors. If we do, we might just as well burn the money now and be done with it.’ She gave a tentative smile. ‘They’ll pick the bones clean and leave us with a worthless carcase. Is that what you want?’
Joanna turned her face to the window and contemplated the garden. ‘Doesn’t it make you angry that your husband’s here with me, Dr Blakeney?’
Relieved that the ice was broken, though not in a way she would have chosen herself, Sarah followed her gaze. ‘Whether it does or doesn’t isn’t terribly relevant. If we bring Jack into it, we’ll get nowhere. He has a maddening habit of hi-jacking almost every conversation I’m involved in, and I really would prefer, if possible, to keep him out of this one.’
‘Do you think he slept with my mother?’
Sarah sighed inwardly. ‘Does it matter to you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then, no, I don’t think he did. For all his sins, he never takes advantage of people.’
‘She might have asked him to.’
‘I doubt it. Mathilda had far too much dignity.’
Joanna turned back to her with a frown. ‘I suppose you know she posed in the nude for him. I found one of his sketches in her desk. It left nothing to the imagination, I can assure you. Do you call that dignified? She was old enough to be his mother.’
‘It depends on your point of view. If you regard the female nude as intrinsically demeaning or deliberately provocative, then, yes, I suppose you could say it was undignified of Mathilda.’ She shrugged. ‘But that’s a dangerous philosophy which belongs to the dark ages and the more intolerant religions. If, on the other hand, you see the nude figure, be it male or female, as one of nature’s creations, and therefore as beautiful and as extraordinary as anything else on this planet, then I see no shame involved in allowing a painter to paint it.’
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