One May Smile

by Penny Freedman

  6

  DAY FOUR

  Of deaths put on by cunning and forced cause. 5.2

  ‘Never mind a comfortable night – that doesn’t mean anything. I expect you’re quite comfortable if you’re in a coma, aren’t you? If you can’t feel?’

  There is a pause. Zada is pacing the verandah, phone in hand, and the pause suggests that a nurse at the Helsingør Sygehus is trying, patiently, to explain to her the niceties of patient confidentiality, but Zada is soon back in action. ‘Well, good,’ she says. ‘I’m delighted that you’ve given full information to his parents – who, by the way, only knew about his accident because I told them – but it is ridiculous – ridiculous – if I’ve got to ring Scotland to find out myself about his injuries. So I really – what? Who am I? Well. My name is Zada Petrosian, and I happen to be Jon McIntyre’s fiancée.’ She has spotted me watching her from the salon doorway so she grimaces and turns round to waggle two crossed fingers behind her back. ‘Well, I would have told you before if you’d given me half a chance. Right. Thank you. OK. A fractured femur – that’s a broken leg, isn’t it? OK. Well, he wasn’t planning to be a ballet dancer. Yes. Yes. OK. And can he have visitors. OK. Well, thank you. That’s all I needed to know.’

  ‘Broken leg?’ I ask, going onto the verandah. ‘Anything else?’

  ‘Torn back muscles. Cuts and bruises.’

  ‘And he can have visitors?’

  ‘Two till eight.’

  ‘Sorry I listened in, but you were quite public.’

  ‘I know. I can’t get a signal up in my room.’

  ‘So you rang Jon’s parents?’

  ‘I did.’ She puts her phone in her pocket, flops onto one of the cane sofas that furnish the verandah and lights a cigarette. ‘It was quite heroic of me, actually.’

  ‘How did they take it?’

  ‘Oh, Scottishly. You know – brisk and practical. No hysterics. Even though I couldn’t reassure them much. Jon’s father’s a doctor so no doubt he got the full story out of them at the hospital.’

  ‘Don’t you love the way the Danes call a hospital a sygehus?’ I ask her. ‘A sick house. Just what it is. While we dress things up with words designed to disguise. A hospital originally means a guesthouse; a cemetery means a sleeping place – a dormitory. There’s no Danish equivalent to ‘pass away’ – you just die in Danish – dø. It’s refreshing.’

  ‘They never liked me,’ Zada says, in a nicely Pinteresque non seqitur. ‘They thought I was a flibbertigibbet. They didn’t want me to marry Jon but now that I’m not going to they like me even less because I’ve made their puir wee laddie sad.’

  ‘Well, he’s got something else to be sad about now.’

  ‘Actually, his mother is quite a duck. She at least said thank you to me for ringing. “Thank you for telephoning, my dear. I expect it wasn’t easy for you.” Oh. Sorry. I’m going to blub again. The world’s worst blubber, me. There’s not a mascara to be had that can cope with the spurting fountains of my tear ducts.’ She wipes a careful finger under each eye and looks at me. ‘Do you suppose it was his fault?’

  ‘The accident? Technically, it’s always the fault of the vehicle behind, isn’t it? Because it didn’t stop in time.’

  ‘So what the hell was he doing? It’s so out of character for Jon to drive recklessly.’

  ‘I assume it was Conrad’s fault – that he came round and started trying to grab the wheel or something.’

  ‘But how could anyone prove that? It would just be Jon’s word.’

  ‘I suppose the post mortem will show how much alcohol Conrad had inside him. And there must have been witnesses to the accident. There were some other drivers being questioned at the roadside yesterday. Someone may have seen what went on inside the car.’

  ‘We shouldn’t have let Jon take him. It was bloody Ray’s fault – not wanting him to puke in his precious van.’

  ‘Well, Jon volunteered. Come and have some breakfast. There’s coffee made.’

  ‘I will in a minute. I’ll just finish this ciggie.’

  Round the table in the kitchen a desultory discussion is going on about the way forward. Adam is proposing to replace Jon by playing Claudius himself and he suggests that Stefan Pienkowsky, who is playing Laertes, doubles as Rosencrantz. Annie is juggling the rehearsal schedule to give Adam some time to learn the lines. They are subdued, mildly ill-tempered, vaguely resentful. This game isn’t fun any more.

  As Annie is reading out the new rehearsal arrangements, Zada comes in. She stands in the doorway listening for a moment and then asks, ‘Have you definitely decided to go ahead? I mean, have you talked about packing it in?’

  The effect is extraordinary. Suddenly, they are all talking at once. The sluggish ill-humour of a moment ago is gone; everyone is animated, urgent. Suggestions, proposals, questions fly round the table. There is a way out of this adventure gone scary, and they’re heading for the exit. Only Sophie is still. I look across at her, expecting to share a shrug or a smile, but I encounter instead a face of blank, white panic.

  Adam thumps the table to put up some resistance, pointing out that we have a contract with the castle authorities and there may be financial penalties for cancelling. When pushed, though, he admits that there are some get-out clauses and the death of a cast member might well be one of them. ‘I’ve got the contract upstairs somewhere,’ he says, ‘I’ll root it out.’ Getting up to leave, he adds, ‘We’ve paid for this place for three weeks, though. We won’t get that money back. I’ll need to talk to Alex.’ He goes, and Sophie slips out after him, like a shadow.

  ‘Alex?’ I mouth at Annie.

  ‘OUDS treasurer,’ she mouths back.

  With Adam gone, talk turns swiftly to the practicalities of getting home. Could ferry and plane tickets be exchanged? Who was going to make the phone calls? How soon could they get packed up? I sit watching them in mild amazement, waiting for someone to ask the question that’s buzzing in my head. In the end, it’s Annie who asks it.

  ‘What about Jon?’

  I can tell that it has been an effort to ask it, to break in on their happy relief. Her voice has come out too loud and people are startled. They stare at her and then eyes swivel to Zada, who is sitting at the table now, buttering a piece of bread. She looks up, the ready tears filling her dark, tragic eyes. ‘What are you looking at me for?’ she protests. ‘I’m not responsible for him. I rang his parents and they’ll probably be here in a day or two. What more do you want?’

  ‘Well,’ says Annie, eyeing her with the expression of cold dislike which I know only too well, ‘don’t you think someone ought to be here when they arrive?’

  ‘And does anyone know,’ I ask in the silence that follows, ‘if Conrad’s parents have been told? Do we think they’ll be coming over? Who’s going to make arrangements about – I don’t know – flying the body home, I suppose?’

  This time it’s Adam we all turn to look at. He has returned with a document in his hand and is standing in the doorway. ‘Jesus!’ he says. ‘Don’t all look at me. The police are dealing with it. I don’t know how to contact them. They’re in LA, aren’t they? And certainly ex-directory. I can’t – look, I’m just the director of this thing – just the fucking director. I’m not responsible for everything. What did you think? That you could all sod off home and leave me to clear up the mess?’ He looks angry and baffled as he did yesterday evening, puzzled at how scared this makes him when he has always carried responsibility so easily up till now. Of course I’m the person who is going to have to stay, because I’m the grown-up here, but even as I think this I also think what an appealing idea it is. The villa is paid for, after all. Freda and I could have a wonderful time here. Maybe it’s not too late for David to come and join us. And if Annie is so concerned about Jon, perhaps she will stay too, and she can help look after Freda. With rapid brush strokes my mind paints in the picture – Annie and Freda frisking in the sea while David and I walk hand in hand along the beach. Even wining a
nd dining at the Marienlyst is not out of the question if Annie is here to babysit. It’s all nonsense, of course. Even if David could be persuaded out of his sulk, the four of us together here would produce every kind of social dysfunction from tight lips and wounded silences on David’s part to slammed doors and violent expletives on Annie’s, not forgetting tears and tantrums from Freda and me. It is in the full knowledge of this that I hear myself say, ‘I’m quite happy to stay and tie up the loose ends. I’m in no hurry to get back.’ And then because I don’t want to have to look Annie in the eye, I seize Freda, who has been eating Nutella, and bear her away to wash her face and hands.

  What happens now? I wonder this as I’m fighting with Freda, who takes being washed as an assault on her human rights. I can hear movement below and feet on the stairs. The gathering has broken up, but to do what? Are they reading the small print on their plane tickets? Looking on line for the next flight out? Retrieving stray pieces of clothing with a view to packing their bags? What does Annie plan to do?

  Going downstairs into the hall in search of her, I see two figures through the glass panels of the front door, darkly outlined against the sun. One raises an arm and bangs on the door; I open it and find myself confronted by two uniformed police officers, one male, one female. Freda immediately hides herself in my skirt and I don’t blame her; they do look intimidating, not least because of their bulging gun holsters. How can it be that the police go around wearing guns in a nice, civilised place like Denmark? The man says something in Danish – probably nothing more alarming than ‘good morning’ – but the guns seem to have sent my brain into panic mode and all I can do is to shake my head in a vigorous mime of incomprehension. He looks me up and down and his eyes seem to linger for a moment on my breasts, which is something that hasn’t happened to me for at least ten years, I would say. When I glance down at them myself, though, I see that my t-shirt is attractively adorned with tiny brown hand prints, just like they do at Nursery. Impassively he asks in English, ‘Conrad Wagner was living here?’ He pronounces the name like the composer rather than American-style and I’m almost about to correct him before I think better of it and simply say, meekly, ‘Yes. Yes, he was.’ They sweep past me into the hall, and over his shoulder, as he glances into the kitchen, the policeman asks, ‘Is there someone who is in charge here?’

  ‘Well, there’s the director.’

  ‘Director?’

  ‘Of the play. We are – were – putting on a play here, at the castle. Shakespeare. Hamlet Prince of Denmark. It’s a group from Oxford University.’ I stop, and then add lamely, ‘In England.’

  ‘So you are students?’

  ‘Well, I’m not, obviously. I’m just – I’m in charge of the costumes.’

  ‘But the others are all students?’

  ‘Yes. Well, most of them have just graduated, actually, so they – look, we told the police all this last night.’

  The woman chips in for the first time. ‘Those were traffic police only. Now we need to speak to you all. But first to your director. Is he here?’

  ‘Did someone mention me?’ To my relief, Adam emerges from the salon, coffee mug in hand. He takes in the two officers and sighs. ‘More questions? I told your chaps every –’

  The policeman cuts him off, barging past him into the room beyond. ‘We first need to speak to you alone. In here, please.’ The three of them disappear into the salon and close the door on me, but I recognise a drama in the making so I slip upstairs to change my t-shirt and come straight down again, in time to see the man leaving and the woman stationing herself inside the front door. Adam turns from the door and I see that his face is shiny with sweat. Then he starts shouting. He races first up the main staircase and bangs on bedroom doors, then thunders down and hares up the back stairs to the landing where our room is. Then he dashes out onto the verandah and calls out to the garden and the seashore below. He shouts names, apparently at random: ‘James… Zada… Ray… James, where are you? … Zada … Down here. Everyone. Come down here. Now!’

  It’s just like Macduff rousing the household after he has found the king murdered in his bed. ‘Banquo and Donalbain… Malcolm… Malcolm and Banquo…’ All we need is the great alarum bell clanging through the castle.

  Doors start opening and Zada appears at the top of the stairs. ‘Are we on fire?’ she calls.

  Adam turns to me. ‘Get them all into the kitchen,’ he says. ‘I need a moment.’

  Freda, who is as attuned to drama as the rest of the family, has started crying and is trying to climb up into my arms. I pick her up, while urging the others towards the kitchen and assuring Zada that fire is not the issue. Everyone else has noticed the policewoman standing by the front door, and that shuts them up.

  Adam is standing by the back door. He waits for everyone to be still. He takes a breath. ‘There’s no easy way to say this, people, but you can forget about going home, at least in the immediate future. The police have been looking at Conrad’s car. It was booby-trapped, apparently. They say someone tampered with the brakes. They’re treating it as murder and we, of course, are their prime suspects.’

  A moment’s silence and then Zada laughs. ‘Very good, darling. This is a wind-up, isn’t it? You’re ‘avin’ a larf.’

  There is a breath of relief, an uncertain ripple of laughter, but Adam turns and opens the back door, pulling it back to reveal a policeman standing there. ‘I assume you noticed the police presence in the hall as well. There’s another of them in a car in the drive and one out on the verandah. Resistance is futile; the house is surrounded.’

  ‘So what happens now?’ It’s James’s voice, I think. I can’t see well as everyone is standing and I’m only just inside the doorway.

  ‘They want to interview us all. At the police station. Take statements. We’ll have to wait and see what happens after that.’

  ‘Do they want us to go right away?’ Ray asks. ‘And am I supposed to ferry everyone in the van or is there a fleet of police cars to take us down?’

  ‘Don’t be stupid, Ray.’ Zada’s voice is sharp. ‘They’re not arresting us for Christ’s sake, are they, Adam? They just want statements, don’t they?’ She moves towards him. ‘Did they say how long this will take?’ she asks.

  ‘Nope. They just said they wanted us to go now. If we go in the van, they say they’ll lead the way. They trust us that far, anyway. So, get it organised will you, Ray?’

  ‘Yessir.’ He jangles his car keys. ‘Come on you lot, let’s be ‘avin’ you. At the double, quick march.’

  There is, however, no quick march about it. For a start, the van will only take half of us at a time and Ray has to go and negotiate with the policeman in the car and return to say that we will be interviewed in alphabetical order, so top of the alphabet go on the first trip. We turn out to be less use than a bunch of primary school kids at putting ourselves into alphabetical order and Annie has to fetch a cast list and call us out: ‘James Asquith, Adam Barrie, Emma Dalton, Clare Dartmouth, Sophie Forrester – and then there’s me and Gina. That’ll be the first lot.’

  ‘And Freda,’ I mutter. A morning in a police station with Freda. Such interesting challenges life brings.

  Even now, we are hardly fast in getting ourselves organised. People wander vaguely, looking for jackets, bags and shoes; queues form outside the three bathrooms. Eventually we climb into the van, and we’re all very quiet, busy in our own heads, so that it takes a while for me to notice that Zada is with us, sitting the other side of Adam, who is next to me.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ I mouth across to her, drawing a large P for Petrosian in the air.

  She turns her soulful eyes to me. ‘Had to be with Adam,’ she mouths back, lifting a hand that is clutching his. It seems Adam isn’t comfort enough, though, because in a moment she’s on her phone, talking urgently in what I take to be Armenian. By the time she has finished, she is weeping again and everyone in the van is watching her. She shoves the phone into her bag, pulls out a
handful of tissues and blows her nose.

  ‘What?’ Adam asks. His body language tells me he doesn’t want to deal with this; he is edging along in my direction.

  ‘My bloody father,’ she storms. ‘Make sure you have your papers with you, Zada, he says, when he knows that all the papers I’ve got are a sodding Armenian passport.’

  We all look a bit blank, not quite seeing the purport of this.

  ‘I didn’t think of passports,’ Adam says. ‘But it doesn’t matter. We can always fetch them later if they need to see them.’

  ‘That’s not the point,’ Zada storms. ‘You’ve all got nice British passports. Mine’s Armenian!’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So, it’s weird. I’m weird. All my life, at airports, there’s all the normal people going smugly through the EU passports channel and I’m in the other one, with the burkha women and the hairy men. I might as well be carrying a placard that says Real Foreigner – probably terrorist.’

  ‘Americans go through the non-EU channel,’ James remarks and Zada bares her teeth at him.

  ‘Weren’t you born in the UK?’ I ask.

  ‘No. My parents came here when I was two. Twenty years Daddy’s been here and he won’t apply for British citizenship.’

  ‘Why?’

  ’It’s a ridiculous affectation – it shows he’s a patriot! If he loves Armenia so bloody much, why doesn’t he want to be there? I mean, I don’t mind that we have to celebrate the festivals and eat the peasant food that goes with them, but this passport thing – I knew it would be a disaster one day.’