Loretta Lawson 01 - A Masculine Ending

by Joan Smith

  Loretta gave in, for fear of antagonizing her. ‘So you’ve had a wasted trip,’ she said sympathetically. She would allow Veronica to direct the conversation for a while, and see where that led her.

  ‘No’, Veronica said slowly. ‘As a matter of fact, they did have some news,’ She stopped, suddenly sounding tearful. ‘They said they were finished with Hugh’s body - that I was free to arrange the funeral.’ She paused again ‘Oh, God,’ she muttered, fumbling in her handbag for a handkerchief. Finding one, she dabbed at her eyes. ‘It’s going to be awful,’ she said wretchedly. ‘They say the formalities are over, so he can be brought over and buried. But I haven’t the faintest idea what to do. I’ve never had to arrange a funeral before.’

  ‘What about your family?’ Loretta asked cautiously. Veronica’s father was Lord Somebody-or-other, she reminded herself, and didn’t the aristocracy go in for rather grand affairs? They must be able to help.

  ‘Daddy’s the last person I’d go to for help,’ Veronica said bitterly. ‘He was fit to be tied when I separated from Hugh, and he seems to blame me for the whole thing. And Mummy won’t do anything that upsets Daddy. I’ll just have to get by on my own.’

  Ignoring her own discomfort at hearing a grown woman use such childish titles, Loretta detected that Veronica’s last statement was not so much an act of defiance as a cry for help. ‘Why don’t we make a list of things that have to be done?’ she suggested practically. The task of organizing her grandmother’s funeral had fallen to her a couple of years before and, although the present situation was bound to be more complicated, she had a fair idea of the steps Veronica would need to take. She drew a notebook out of her bag, and began to make a list.

  By the time they had finished tea, Veronica seemed much more cheerful. She paid the bill, which seemed outrageously large to Loretta, without batting an eyelid. ‘You’ve been such a help,’ she said, brushing aside Loretta’s half-hearted attempt to make a contribution. Remembering the other woman’s private income, Loretta made only a faint protest. Winning Veronica’s confidence to the point where she could ask direct questions about her husband’s death looked like being a slow job, and Loretta’s bank balance would not stand many trips to establishments like the Waldorf. In fact, it might be as well to be ready in advance with her own suggestion of a rendezvous next time Veronica called. It wasn’t just a matter of cost. Loretta, who was ignorant of the etiquette attached to these affairs, had been on tenterhooks throughout tea in case anyone should ask her to dance. Her education had not included much in the way of ballroom-dancing.

  At least she had one thing to be thankful for, she consoled herself, seeing Veronica into a taxi in the Aldwych: she was in no doubt at all that Veronica would be in touch again. She would not be forced to invent further spurious reasons for contacting the victim’s widow. She just hoped she would be spared a pressing invitation to his obsequies.

  Loretta had assumed that she would have to leave a message for Jamie with some college functionary, and wait for him to ring back. To her surprise, the phone was answered by someone who volunteered to go and see if he was in. A couple of minutes later, she heard footsteps approaching at the other end of the line. Her heart beat faster.

  ‘Hello?’ said Jamie’s voice.

  ‘It’s Loretta Lawson,’ she said lightly, in case the messenger had not passed on her name. There was nothing to worry about, she assured herself. The suggestion she was about to make was entirely reasonable. If he didn’t respond, all she had to do was ring off. ‘Your note arrived this morning,’ she went on, ‘and it gave me a rather interesting idea. Remember what you were saying on Sunday evening - about misogyny, and the kind of attitudes instilled in boys at public schools? Why don’t you write something about it for Fern Sap? It could be about particular authors who’ve been through the public-school system, or even about the way the system works at close hand. What d’you think?’

  There was a pause. ‘I’m very flattered you should ask me,’ Jamie said slowly. ‘But aren’t there two rather obvious objections? For one thing, I’m an undergraduate. I haven’t produced a single piece of writing of lasting value in my life. And for another, I’m not a woman.’ His tone was cool. Loretta could not decide whether he was genuinely unenthusiastic about the idea, or whether it was the alienating effect of his upper middle-class accent.

  ‘If that’s all you’re worried about, there’s no problem,’ she said. ‘Fem Sap has never recognized the sort of hierarchy which says that only published authors, or professors of literature, have something worth saying. I admit that the vast majority of contributors are women, but this is one occasion when the article I’m thinking of could only be written by a man. When women write about misogyny, they do it from the standpoint of victims. You’d be tackling it as someone who was brought up to perpetuate it. On the other hand,’ she said, careful to allow him a way out, ‘I quite understand that you might be too busy to take on work that’s well outside your syllabus.’ There, she’d got it all out. What happened now was out of her hands.

  ‘All right, you’ve convinced me,’ Jamie said suddenly. ‘But I think we ought to talk it over first. Just so I know exactly what I’m doing.’

  Of course,’ Loretta said, taken aback by his abrupt acquiescence. ‘I suppose the difficulty is going to be finding a time in the next couple of weeks when we’re both free.’

  ‘Why wait?’ Jamie asked recklessly. ‘Are you busy tomorrow? I could come to London in the afternoon.’

  With a slight sense that things were moving faster than anticipated, Loretta admitted that she had no firm plans for the next day. ‘Why don’t you come to my flat?’ she suggested. ‘Say about three?’ Jamie asked whether she could make it slightly later, giving him time to finish an essay that should have been completed during the summer vacation. Loretta agreed, and gave him directions to her flat.

  After she had put the phone down, she felt in a daze. She had been convinced at first that it had all been a mistake, that she had indeed misread the unspoken message contained in the postcard. But now Jamie seemed, if anything, even keener than she that they should meet again. Perhaps, she thought, deciding there was no point in worrying about it, he was simply nervous. She went over to her bookshelves, and began to look for books that Jamie might find useful in writing his article.

  Saturday morning’s mail brought a postcard from Germany. Too tied up for sight-seeing’, Tracey had written, ‘so can’t tell you much about what Berlin is like. Everything is ludicrously expensive - thank God the Sunday Herald is paying my expenses. More revelations this weekend. Cheers, John.’ As an afterthought, he had scribbled another line at the bottom: ‘Any luck with the Gandell girl?’

  Shaking her head over Tracey’s capacity for self-absorption, Loretta reflected that she had not yet made any progress in her attempt to track down Melanie Gandell’s relatives. To be fair, it was not an easy task; her only clue to date was the address in Somerset. She did not even know whether the occupants of Cherry Cottage had any connection with the dead girl. And if Melanie’s family had moved, would the new people be able, or willing, to pass on information about their whereabouts? It was a long way to drive on the off-chance that something would come of it. She could address a letter to ‘the occupier’, but so impersonal a request might well go unheeded. She wondered whether she should ring Bridget - she still hadn’t spoken to her since leaving Oxford on Monday morning - but, with Jamie’s visit imminent, she shied away from the thought. She did not want to talk to her friend about Jamie, and she did not trust herself to hold a lengthy conversation with Bridget without mentioning his visit. She decided to think about it later.

  Turning over Tracey’s postcard, she found a striking picture of a bombed church. She propped it up on the mantelpiece, and went to the kitchen. She had been invited to dinner on Sunday evening by another member of her women’s group, and she had promised to take a pudding. Taking a bag of soft white ricotta cheese from the fridge, she set about making a budin
o Toscano.

  It was just before five when the buzz of the entryphone announced Jamie’s arrival.

  ‘Come up,’ Loretta called gaily, pressing the button to release the street door. Now he was here, she felt unexpectedly at ease; maybe it was because she was on home territory. She opened the door, and found him huddled in an overcoat, hands deep in pockets, a red scarf thrown carelessly around his neck. ‘You look frozen,’ she exclaimed, stepping back to let him into the hall. ‘Come in and get warm.’

  The train had no heating,’ he said, blowing on his gloveless hands. ‘I’m sorry I’m late. We stopped for half an hour in Reading to wait for a connection.’ He took off his coat, and handed it to Loretta. ‘I was going to bring you some flowers,’ he said awkwardly, ‘but the flower stall was closed at the station.’

  ‘Never mind,’ she said, charmed by the thought. She led the way into the drawing-room, and pointed to a pile of books and journals on the floor. ‘I’ve found mounds of stuff for you,’ she said.

  His attention was elsewhere. ‘A real fire,’ he said admiringly, going straight to it. ‘Do you have them often?’

  ‘It’s the first one this autumn,’ Loretta admitted, ‘but I usually have them at weekends in the winter.’ Switching on her surviving table lamp, she knelt on the sofa and closed the curtains. ‘What would you like to drink?’ she asked, turning back to Jamie. ‘I can offer you tea, coffee, or whisky if you’d rather.’

  ‘Whisky,’ he said. ‘It’s one of the many things I acquired a taste for at school. Illicitly, of course.’

  Loretta smiled. Watching Jamie out of the corner of her eye while she poured whisky for both of them, she reflected that it was all going very well. He was sitting in the armchair to one side of the fire, still warming his hands. The Fair Isle pullover had given way to another in pale blue and the firelight struck almost red notes from his hair. Handing him his drink, she sat down on the sofa. ‘Now, about this article -’ she began.

  Jamie interrupted her. ‘I hope you don’t think this is rude, but there’s something I want to ask you,’ he said. Surprised, Loretta waited. ‘Its about those notes you sent Hugh. It’s just something I don’t understand,’ he added, his earlier awkwardness returning. ‘The thing is, what made you ask his advice? Hugh was scathing about any form of non-structuralist criticism, particularly if it came from a feminist -I should have thought you and he would have had absolutely nothing in common. So why did you do it?’ His brown eyes slid away from Loretta’s.

  She was not as disconcerted as she had expected to be. For an awful moment, she thought that Jamie had found out something about her real connection with Puddephat. But this was a question she could handle. She managed a rueful laugh. ‘I can see why you’re puzzled,’ she said. ‘So was Bridget when I first told her about it. I’m afraid it’s another story which doesn’t reflect much credit on me - I seem doomed to show you the worst side of my character. Anyway, it’s all a matter of department politics. There are two professors in the English department where I work, and in the last twelve months, one of them has got very keen on structuralism. I know he’s a late convert, but he’s not the only one. He’s put a lot of pressure on people like me to take it seriously. It means I’m in a rather difficult position - the department’s under pressure to make cuts, and I haven’t got tenure. You know what that means?’

  That you can be sacked,’ Jamie nodded.

  ‘More or less,’ said Loretta. ‘There is a possibility that this chap will move to another university next year, but for the time being I’ve had to look for a way to take the heat off. I decided to draw up a proposal for a book which would attempt a synthesis of structuralist and feminist ideas - not with any enthusiasm, and with the hope that it would never actually get done. But to show how willing I was, I sent the outline to Hugh Puddephat. I though it would sound good at department meetings to say I’d consulted him. I was so uninterested in the damn thing that I didn’t bother to keep a copy. That’s why I panicked when I heard he was missing. The last thing I wanted was to have to write the outline again. But now it looks as though I’ll have to.’ She stopped. Was Jamie convinced? As far as she could tell, he wasn’t looking suspicious.

  ‘Poor old you,’ he said sympathetically. ‘Another victim of Thatcherism. I had no idea university politics were so cutthroat until I came to Oxford. I suppose there must have been a time when it wasn’t like this?’

  Loretta agreed. The part of her story about the pressure of Government cuts was true, and it seemed a long time since she’d existed in a world that wasn’t penny-pinching. ‘I take it you’re not a Tory?’ she asked, deftly moving the conversation to safer territory.

  Jamie laughed. ‘Certainly not,’ he said. ‘I’m proud to say I’m the first member of my family to join the Labour Party. My mother’s in despair - says she can’t look her MP in the face when she meets him at Church. She’s your archetypal Tory lady, always holding jumble sales to raise funds, all that sort of thing.’

  Loretta smiled, picturing the consternation in the Baird household at the prospect of a Socialist in the family. Reluctantly, she put the image aside. ‘We really should talk about your article,’ she said. ‘Shall I tell you my thoughts about it?’

  Jamie was in the middle of a story about a disagreement he’d had with a master at his school over the A-level English syllabus when the phone rang. It was Judy, the woman who had invited Loretta to dinner the following evening. ‘Could you arrive a bit later than planned?’ she asked. ‘I’ve promised to take Elinor and one of her schoolfriends to the zoo, and I’m worried about getting back in time.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Loretta. ‘Shall I leave it till after eight to be on the safe side?’

  ‘As long as it won’t ruin your pudding,’ Judy said gratefully. ‘If s not something dramatic like a souffle, I hope?’

  Loretta laughed. ‘Far from it. It’s something cold, and it’s already sitting in the fridge. See you about eight thirty.’ She put down the phone and turned back to Jamie.

  He was looking slightly alarmed. ‘Gosh, I’m terribly sorry,’ he said. ‘I didn’t realize you were going out to dinner. I’m holding you up. Look, I’ll go at once.’ He was already gathering together various pieces of paper.

  ‘Wait a minute,’ cried Loretta. ‘You’ve got it all wrong. It was tomorrow night I was talking about. I’m quite free this evening.’

  Jamie brightened up. ‘In that case,’ he said, ‘how about having dinner with me? I’m absolutely ravenous - I missed lunch, and there was no buffet car on the train, as well as no heating. Are there any reasonable places to eat near here?’

  There’s a very good pasta restaurant at the bottom of the road,’ Loretta admitted, trying to conceal her enthusiasm. ‘Shall I ring and see if they’ve got a table in half an hour or so?’

  They arrived early enough to consume a vast spaghetti carbonara and a litre of house wine before the little Italian place became crowded. ‘Shall we get some more wine?’ Jamie shouted above the noise, holding up the empty carafe, but before Loretta could answer, a waiter showed two more people to their table.

  ‘Do you mind sharing?’ asked one of the new arrivals, a woman in her thirties.

  Loretta looked at Jamie. ‘Let’s go back to the flat,’ she suggested. There’s plenty to drink there.’

  They left the table to the newcomers, and got their coats. As they opened the street door, a blast of cold air hit them.

  ‘I think we’d better run,’ said Jamie, taking her arm. Heads down, they set off at a fast trot which lasted until Loretta twisted her ankle.

  These shoes aren’t made for running,’ she laughed, checking her high heel to make sure she hadn’t broken it.

  ‘I could carry you,’ Jamie offered, half seriously. Loretta refused with a laugh, and they continued at a more sedate pace.

  As she led the way upstairs to her flat, it occurred to Loretta that she was feeling slightly light-headed. ‘More wine?’ she asked, throwing her coat carel
essly on to a sofa in the drawing-room. ‘Or do you want to go back to whisky?’ She noticed that Tracey’s postcard had fallen off the mantelpiece, and put it back. ‘From my ex-husband,’ she explained. ‘He’s in Berlin at the moment.’

  ‘Whisky would be very nice,’ said Jamie, taking off his overcoat. ‘Shall I put some music on?’ He knelt down in front of her stereo system. ‘Traviata,’ he exclaimed, picking up a cassette. ‘My favourite opera.’

  As Loretta handed him his drink, the room filled with the sound of high violins. She leaned forward to turn the volume down, muttering something over her shoulder about the neighbours. She felt his arms around her waist, and turned to face him. ‘Do you want to stay?’ she asked, still sober enough to be anxious that there should be no misunderstandings. Jamie smiled, and kissed her.

  Daylight breaking through the hastily closed curtains at her bedroom window woke Loretta next morning. Surfacing from sleep, she blinked as she noticed Jamie’s head on the pillow next to her. He was still asleep, and she lay in pleased contemplation of his face for several minutes. Then, sliding carefully out from under his outstretched arm, she slipped out of bed. Wrapping herself in the pink kimono hanging on the back of the bedroom door, she went softly down the stairs to the kitchen. She filled the kettle and leaned back against the sink, waiting for it to boil. She realized she was humming a pop song to herself, and blushed. The kettle switched itself off, and she peered in a cupboard for a rarely used teatray.

  When she returned to the bedroom, Jamie was awake. Neither of them spoke. She put the tray down beside the bed, and sat down with her back to him to pour the tea. His hand caressed her shoulder, and she smiled.

  ‘Are you interested in breakfast?’ she asked, handing him a cup of tea. There isn’t much food in the flat, but I can go to the Asian shop round the corner.. They have things like sausages and bacon.’