Death Penalties

by Paula Gosling

  Now secure in her corner of the taxi, Tess looked at Archie sideways and tried to free herself from the last, seductive strands of alcohol. It wasn’t Archie’s fault at all, but her own. He’d read the signals correctly – she was attracted to him. The trouble was, she was physically attracted not only to Archie, but also to Richard, to Sergeant Nightingale, to John Soame, to that lovely young curate who came around to play chess with Max, and – it seemed to her – practically every male she passed in the street. Even ever-so-elegant Adrian gave her odd moments of speculation. My God, she thought, I’d better be careful. If the taxi-driver turns around I’ll probably manage to find something devastating about him, too. Was this a result of hormone build-up or a reassertion of her own sensual persona?

  Clearly, Mother Nature was not a feminist.

  Well, she was not going to give in to Mother Nature any more than she was going to give in to Archie McMurdo’s apparent conviction that women were supposed to pay for their dinners, albeit not with Visa. Unfortunately, there were other wishes to be considered, and other obligations. She wrestled with the dichotomy, and then her nerve snapped.

  ‘Perhaps you’d like to come to dinner one evening?’

  Archie glanced across at her, somewhat startled by this apparent reversal in her attitude. ‘Well, sure. Maybe. Why not?’ He began to smile again. After a minute he began humming to himself, and reached over to pat her hand, allowing his fingers to linger. ‘Why not?’ he repeated.

  I’m doing this for Adrian, she thought.

  I really am.

  NINETEEN

  Tess’s briefcase was never the same again.

  She got rid of Archie in the nicest way she could, and carried the case inside at arm’s length, for it had developed a leak from one corner.

  She ran down the hall with it, and plunked it into the sink. John Soame, who had been reading on baby-sitting duty, appeared with a worried expression. ‘Is there anything wrong?’ he asked. ‘You ran in so quickly—’

  The briefcase gave a squeal.

  He looked at it and then at her with an owlish expression. ‘Your briefcase is haunted,’ he said. He inspected her, gravely. ‘And you are—’

  ‘Perfectly all right,’ she said, not realizing that her struggles with Archie had left her make-up smudged and her hair rather corkscrewed over one ear. ‘But if they breathalyse me I may be taken in for being drunk in charge of a pair of shoes. Which hurt.’ She kicked them off, and sighed. ‘Better,’ she said. ‘Much better.’

  The briefcase squealed again. Soame raised an enquiring eyebrow.

  ‘He threw it at me,’ she explained.

  ‘Did he?’

  ‘Yes. He was a mean, drunken old tramp.’

  ‘Really. I was under the impression he was a client.’

  ‘Oh, not Archie. Archie didn’t throw it.’

  ‘That is a relief.’ There was a pause. ‘Then who—’

  ‘The man in the alley.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘Outside the restaurant.’ She looked at him crossly. For a college professor he seemed rather dim. ‘He was having a fight with another man and he saw us and he threw the cat at us. Didn’t hit us, though,’ she finished, triumphantly.

  ‘It’s all in the footwork,’ Soame nodded. He went over to the sink and inspected the briefcase, which had ceased to leak but had begun to rock. ‘May I?’

  ‘Watch out,’ she warned him. ‘It’s very fierce.’

  He gingerly opened the briefcase to reveal the very small, very bedraggled kitten crouching in one corner. ‘My God,’ he said. ‘He is a dangerous beast. You’re lucky to be alive.’ ‘It was a close thing,’ Tess smiled, sinking on to the rocking chair in front of the old Rayburn range. ‘But I thought maybe Max would like it. He isn’t happy.’ She closed her eyes and leaned her head back. ‘He should be happy.’

  ‘I know,’ Soame said, softly, and then watched her fall asleep in an instant. He put a quilt over her, then went down to the local high-street shop which was run by a hardworking Asian family who knew no night. He returned bearing flea powder, a litter tray and litter, a few tins of cat food, and a tiny bright red flea collar.

  He ran a few inches of warm water into the sink and extracted the kitten from the briefcase for a bath. During the following few minutes Tess awoke. In fact, she was surprised the entire neighbourhood didn’t awake. After most of the water in the sink had been redistributed over the kitchen floor and the two bath attendants, there was a brief pause for TCP and plasters. There followed an interlude of relative peace concerning flea powder and a saucer of milk, and the evening’s entertainment was concluded by the ceremonial fastening of the collar.

  The exhausted kitten was settled down in an apple box beside Tess’s bedroom radiator, and the equally exhausted bath attendants retired to their respective corners for the night. Tess, now plagued equally by doubts about Archie McMurdo and indigestion from the veal piccata, was convinced she would never sleep and dropped off instantly.

  Had she remained awake she would have been aware of John Soame pacing back and forth above her head, until very, very late.

  In the morning the kitten’s thin cries awakened Tess. She put on her robe and padded over. ‘Good morning,’ she said, and gathered up the box to present to Max, discovering in the process that she had a hangover for which bending over was definitely not a cure.

  ‘What’s that?’ Max asked, wearily, when she entered his room. ‘More books to read?’

  ‘No. Guess again.’

  He turned his head away and looked out of the window. ‘Something Educational,’ he said, in vast disgust.

  ‘Absolutely,’ Tess agreed.

  Though he had been healing in body, Max was still unsettled in mind. He would cheer up after a visit from Simon Carter, who seemed always able to make him laugh. And he would be mentally lively after a lesson with John. But there were still too many moments when she would catch him staring into space with a frown. He had begun asking questions about his father, as if he were a stranger he’d never known. More than once she had caught him crying over the stamp collections or the aeroplane models he had made with Roger, or going through the box of snapshots of them all together on holiday and stacking them in various and apparently arbitrary combinations, or rereading a childhood story book rescued from the bottom of his pine chest. But when she’d tried to comfort him he’d become offhand and cross, telling her not to treat him like a baby. He was just bored, he said. Sick of being sick, he said.

  And she guessed he was still having nightmares, for she often found his bedlight had been turned on in the night, and shadows would come and go beneath his eyes.

  They were there now.

  Without another word, she put the box on the bed beside him, and went down to the kitchen to make breakfast.

  She spent the morning at the Victoria and Albert museum, sketching and taking notes, researching the final details for the McMurdo interiors. It was the part of the job she most enjoyed, reconciling the stylistic demands of the past with the practical realities of the present. Fortunately for her – and for Mrs McMurdo – Victoriana was now very much in fashion, and there were many companies reproducing the lovely curling lines of early William Morris designs in both lighting and plumbing fixtures, basic areas in which anachronistic clashes most often occurred.

  Tess had also renewed many contacts in the antiques trade that she had made before her marriage, and asked several dealers with whom she had a good relationship and whom she could trust to find her authentic pieces to feature in the large rooms of the McMurdo mansion. Proportion was very important here she felt, and wherever possible she wanted to use original things rather than reproductions, which were often scaled down slightly to fit into the reduced dimensions of modern homes.

  In some cases she’d had no alternative but to find craftsmen willing to reproduce the items she�
��d chosen, and she spent the afternoon with one of them, a cabinetmaker who would be building the special wine-racks for the basement. Tess was determined to carry authenticity even to those dark regions.

  She arrived home at three thirty, told Mrs Grimble she could leave early, and made tea for Max and the kitten, whose name was apparently Albert. Leaving them mutually absorbed and quite transformed by their new friendship, Tess sank into a scented bath, enjoying the rare luxury of being pleased with herself and her day’s work. She was just drying her hair when the phone rang.

  She froze for a moment, then squared her shoulders and went downstairs to face the worst.

  But it was not the mysterious caller.

  It was Adrian, and he was in a foul temper.

  ‘Don’t tell me that’s really you,’ he said, sarcastically. ‘How nice to know you’re still breathing. May I assume, despite finding you at home at this hour, that you are still working for me and have not resigned to go into business for yourself?’

  ‘You knew my schedule for today – or you would if you’d bothered to ask Maud. I phoned her and told her I would be at the V&A this morning, which I was, and with Mr Greenslade this afternoon, which I also was, skipping my lunch-hour, by the way, so I am taking it now.’ She dropped into the chair beside the phone and inspected her toes. ‘What is it, Adrian?’

  His tone was measured, small doses filtered between clenched teeth. ‘I have been having a long, heart-to-heart talk with Mr McMurdo, who kindly called into the studio this afternoon.’

  ‘Oh, really?’ She was amused, imagining how Archie would have impressed Adrian. ‘Beautiful, isn’t he?’

  ‘I hardly noticed.’

  She laughed. ‘Oh, come on—’

  ‘His attractions are not in question, here. What is in question is you, Tess.’

  ‘Me?’ She was startled.

  ‘Indeed. He seems to think you’re not “up to the job”.’ ‘What?’

  ‘He told me some mad tale about burglars and unpleasant phone calls and you having a lot of money. That was quite a revelation, my sweet.’ There was nothing sweet about his tone. ‘I was under the impression that you were as stony as me.’

  ‘I am. He had no ri—’

  ‘He says you’re too “burdened” by your private concerns to give the restoration of the house your full attention, and that the work is being skimped or not done at all.’

  ‘That’s not true!’

  ‘He says he’s going to ask his Aunt Dolly to name another decorator. Or, preferably, allow him to do so.’

  Tess had been slowly sitting up as Adrian spoke, and was now fully erect and at full attention, her spine stiffened by dismay. ‘And what does Aunt Dolly say to that?’ she demanded.

  ‘How should I know?’

  ‘But I told you to get in touch with her, to ask—’

  ‘Yes, yes, yes.’ Adrian was in full flow, ignoring her protests, concerned only with what he saw as betrayal and a considerable loss in income. ‘But the damage is done, Tess, and you’ve done it. I told you to charm him, I told you to handle him. I have enough to do just keeping Brevitt Studios afloat these days . . . ’ Self-pity was beginning to creep into his voice.

  The scene in the taxi came back to her, in every detail. Apparently Archie really hated taking ‘no’ for an answer, after all. ‘Adrian, there’s more to this than you think. I think you ought to look into Mr Archie McMurdo’s motivations a little more closely, because—’ she began, angrily, but he gave her no chance to continue.

  ‘That is not all,’ he continued, his voice growing heavier with each word. ‘According to our irreplaceable builder – and I underline the word irreplaceable, which does not apply to everyone in this organization – the good Ernest Flowers, with whom I’ve just spoken, Archie continues to turn up at the house and tries to get them to change things.’

  ‘What kind of things?’

  ‘Oh, doors, windows, ceilings, floors – just small items of that nature. He’s apparently underfoot at every turn, getting into everything, and generally making a nuisance of himself. I’m afraid Ernest became rather heated on the telephone. He wants to know whether to treat Archie like a client, or throw him off the site. We are at risk here, Tess, Ernest and his fellow workers are threatening to down tools if the situation isn’t clarified.’

  ‘Then clarify it, Adrian,’ she snapped. ‘I can’t believe this is—’

  ‘Oh, really? I find it dismayingly easy to believe,’ Adrian said. ‘It is a direct result of a slack hand at the tiller, Tess dear. Of somebody not tending to business.’

  ‘I have been working hard on the McMurdo house,’ Tess said, hotly. ‘I have rearranged my life entirely so that I can concentrate on the work – you begged me to do it, remember? And I’m doing it.’

  ‘I’m beginning to wonder if I wasn’t too hasty about all that. I shall be going over to the house myself, tomorrow, to see exactly what you’ve been doing.’

  ‘You know what I’ve been doing. I’ve showed you all my sketches, from the beginning. It’s not fair that you—’

  He interrupted. ‘I haven’t time to be fair, Tess. I only have time to survive, and however fond I am of you personally, I am not going to let that cloud my judgement. I’m not going to let even you destroy what I’ve taken years to build up.’ Within his wrath, Tess could detect the sound of imminent tears.

  ‘Adrian, dear, you know that I—’

  ‘I don’t know anything, Tess, but I will know more tomorrow, that is certain. Goodbye.’

  TWENTY

  Stunned by the sudden ferocity of Adrian’s attack, Tess sat back and stared at the small group of framed Bateman cartoons on the far wall. One was slightly crooked, and she noticed that the heavy embossed wallpaper she had chosen so carefully – so long ago now – had begun to curl away from the wall in the lower corner near the sitting-room. It seemed appropriate to her mood that little things which had formed the solid background of her life were becoming skewed and worn. She thought about straightening the picture. She thought about finding some paste and sticking the paper down. But she remained, immobile, on the bench beside the telephone.

  Adrian had sounded almost hysterical.

  Although he had a temper and temperament, she had never heard quite that degree of angst in his voice. Could it be she was doing a poor job at the McMurdo house? It was true she hadn’t gone there in the past few days to see what progress was being made, but that was because she trusted Ernie implicitly.

  Had she been wrong? Had she made errors of judgement as to concept, overall design, small details? No, she refused to believe it. She knew her work was good. Better than good.

  She sat there for a very long time, until the hall grew dark, and beyond. Wind suddenly shook the windows in the sitting-room, and there was a mutter of thunder. A little while later, she could hear rain falling, and above it, the sound of Max’s television set. Still she sat there, staring without seeing. She was so absorbed in her reflections that the doorbell, going off without warning above her head, made her jump in alarm. Perhaps Mr Soame had forgotten his key. Wearily, she got up, pulled her old, comfortable dressing-gown around her, tied the belt in a knot, and went to the door.

  Suddenly overtaken by caution, she stopped before opening it and called, ‘Who is it?’

  The clamour of the bell, which had continued, abruptly stopped, and an equally loud voice replaced it. ‘G’day! Is that my sweet little sheila? I’ve come to bring you joy and merriment, as promised.’

  Anger swept through her. Taking a deep breath she opened the door. Archie McMurdo stood on the doorstep, grinning, his hair wet and his mac dripping rain. He was carrying a bottle of champagne under one arm, and had a bunch of roses in his hand. As he stood there he wavered a little from side to side – clearly he had fortified himself for the anticipated rigours of the evening ahead.

  Te
ss glared at him, firmly gripping the front of her robe as an alternative to his throat. ‘How dare you go behind my back to my boss and tell him I was incompetent.’

  His face fell, comically. ‘Why, the old galah promised he’d let me talk to you first. Damn his eyes.’ Archie’s voice carried clearly above the hiss of the rain, and Tess glanced nervously at the neighbouring bay windows. Archie leaned forward, and a gust of beery breath hit her full in the face. ‘I ought to have a chance to explain, don’t you think?’

  ‘I’m not interested.’ She began to close the door.

  ‘Here, wait on, sweetheart,’ Archie bellowed, jamming a foot in the opening. ‘You and me have got to come good over this. That old wowser only gave you his side of it, I’ll bet. I’ve got a few points to make, too.’

  ‘I don’t care to hear them.’

  ‘Then I’ll just stand here and shout them through the door.’

  She assessed him. He was grinning, again, and she decided he would do just what he said, if only for the sheer hell of it. He seemed the sort who enjoyed such little scenes of macho courtship. ‘Five minutes,’ she said in a steely voice. He followed her in, his eyes bright, smilingly certain that he could overcome all obstacles in his way, including her anger and the knot in the belt of her dressing-gown.

  ‘That’s better. Not used to all this rain in Adelaide,’ he said, shaking himself like a dog.

  ‘I thought you said you came from Sydney,’ she said, standing with hands on hips while he put down the champagne and roses, after offering them to her without success.

  ‘Adelaide first, then Sydney,’ he said earnestly.

  ‘But—’

  ‘You look real beaut,’ he went on, oblivious to her expression. ‘And you smell good, too.’ He came closer. ‘Just stepped out of the bath, I’ll bet, and nothing on but that little robey thing . . . ’