Dreaming of the bones

by Deborah Crombie

  The moisture in the air intensified odors, and as she breathed in, the rich, earthy spring scent came to her so strongly that she thought she must actually be smelling things growing. Glancing at Kit, she saw that his scowl had softened, and he was looking about with almost his usual interest. Judging her moment, she said casually, “Do you want to tell me what happened at school today?”

  He glanced at her and shrugged, but after a moment he said grudgingly, “I heard Miss Pope talking to the new PE teacher.”

  “Miss Pope? Your English teacher?”

  Kit gave her the disdainful glance she deserved for such an asinine comment. She knew Miss Pope perfectly well. Thirtyish and single, Elizabeth Pope had been obviously smitten with Ian, and had requested regular and unnecessary parent-teacher conferences. Whether or not Ian had taken his advantage, Vic had not known, nor had she particularly cared, except for Kit’s sake.

  “And what did Miss Pope say?”

  “They were in the lunch queue, and I went back for a fork,” he began circuitously. “They didn’t see me. I didn’t mean to eavesdrop.”

  “No, I’m sure you didn’t,” Vic said encouragingly, but he hunched his shoulders, turtlelike, and looked down at his trainers. She thought fleetingly and irrelevantly that he had outgrown his shoes again, and wondered when he would begin to catch up to his feet. “Were they talking about me?” she asked, when he didn’t speak.

  Nodding, Kit kicked hard at a stone in the path, then spit out the words with the same violence. “Miss Pope said you worked all the time, and that Dad wouldn’t have left if you’d paid more attention to him. She said you weren’t a proper wife.”

  Bitch, thought Vic, holding her breath and counting to ten. She’d have a few choice words to say to the nosy Miss Pope, but she would not take her anger out on Kit. And where had Elizabeth Pope got her nasty ideas, anyway? Pillow talk?

  “Darling,” she said when she thought she could control her voice, “it was very wrong of Miss Pope to be talking about things that are none of her business. You do know that, don’t you?”

  Kit made a slight movement with his shoulders, but kept his head down.

  Vic sighed. How could she explain to him what she didn’t understand herself? “In the first place, no one can ever really know what goes on between two people except the people themselves. And things are never as simple in a relationship as Miss Pope made it sound.” She couldn’t blame Ian-tempting as it was, she knew that trying to enlist Kit on her side could damage him even further. “Sometimes people just grow in different directions, develop different needs and interests, and one day they wake up and discover there’s no reason to be together anymore.”

  “Except me,” said Kit, taking her generalization personally. “Wasn’t I a good enough reason?”

  There it was, thought Vic, the crux of the matter, and she had no excuses to offer for Ian. And the truth, even if it were possible to tell Kit, would still not suffice. Haltingly, she said, “Sometimes grownups decide they’re not ready to be grown-ups, and they do things without thinking about other people’s feelings. It may not be right, but it happens, and we just have to make the best of it.” She couldn’t bring herself to reassure Kit that Ian loved him, for she was not at all sure that he did, and she knew Kit would sense any falsity on her part.

  They had walked almost to the outskirts of Cambridge. She could see the goalposts of Pembroke’s Sports Grounds in the distance, a thin, black vertical frame against the poplars. The daylight was fading by imperceptible degrees, for the heavy cloud cover hid any hint of sunset, and a chill little wind had sprung up in the dusk. Putting her arm lightly round Kit’s shoulders, she said, “Come on, love. Let’s turn back. It’s getting cold.”

  They turned their backs to the wind and started homeward. Glancing at her son’s still averted face, Vic sensed that she hadn’t yet reached the heart of his distress. What mattered to him so much that he couldn’t say it?

  Slowly, she asked, “Did Miss Pope make you angry because you feel I’m not paying you enough attention?”

  Kit jerked his head in a nod. His lips were pinched so tightly together that they’d turned white, an effort, Vic guessed, to keep them from trembling. Damn Miss Pope, she thought, and damn Ian, damn them all. But she knew she was shifting blame, that Kit’s security was her responsibility alone, and she had fallen down on the job.

  She’d been a fool to get involved with Nathan. Aware of Kit’s vulnerability, she’d still put her own needs first, and now she wasn’t sure she could bear the thought of giving Nathan up.

  And Lydia? Was her obsession with Lydia Brooke worth hurting Kit more than Ian had hurt him already? Perhaps Duncan had been right, and she should let it go, but she knew that was impossible even as she thought it. But she would have to tread more carefully, making sure it no longer took first place in her life.

  “I’m sorry, Kit,” she said, giving his shoulders a squeeze. “I’ll just have to do better, won’t I?”

  He nodded and gave her a swift upwards glance before his face relaxed into a ghost of a smile.

  Vic hugged him again. “What do you say we start with a fire, and some hot chocolate, and a serious game of Monopoly?”

  CHAPTER 8

  Dear, we know only that we sigh, kiss, smile;

  Each kiss lasts but the kissing; and grief goes over;

  Love has no habitation but the heart.

  Poor straws! on the dark flood we catch awhile,

  Cling, and are borne into the night apart.

  The laugh dies with the lips, “Love” with the lover.

  RUPERT BROOKE,

  from “Mutability”

  The hall clock chimed six as Margery Lester fastened the pearl stud in her ear. Her dress was new and rather successful, she thought, silver with the faintest hint of green, a high collar, and a row of tiny pearl buttons down the back. She’d had to ask Grace to do up the buttons-that was one disadvantage to having outlived one’s husbands; they were occasionally useful.

  Yes, the dress would do, she thought as she gave it one last survey in her dressing table mirror. She avoided pinks and blues and lavenders-old-lady colors, she called them, although she certainly couldn’t deny that she had crossed the threshold of that category. But there were still occasions when she caught a fleeting and unexpected glimpse of herself in a mirror and thought, Who is that old woman? Surely not little Margery!

  Margery was lithe and brown from tennis in the summer sun, Margery drove open cars a bit too fast, Margery laughed and took lovers… But the boundaries between life and fiction had blurred with the years, and she wondered now if she had ever been that girl, or if she had constructed her in memory as she would a character in a book.

  She heard Grace’s heavy footsteps in the hall, then a moment later her face appeared, reflected in the dressing table mirror.

  “Madam, the guests will be arriving any time now and you should be down to greet them,” fretted Grace as she crossed the room to flick imaginary particles of dust from Margery’s shoulders. A frown added extra creases to her already furrowed face.

  “I’m coming, I’m coming,” sighed Margery. “You’re such a tyrant, Grace,” she added, and gave the hand on her shoulder an affectionate pat. “I promise I’ll be down before the bell rings.” She’d given up years ago trying to stop Grace from calling her Madam, for Grace was getting on as well, and seemed more determined with each passing year to turn herself into a parody of an old English family retainer.

  Grace met her eyes in the mirror. “You know these parties are too much, you’ll be exhausted tomorrow. Did you remember to take your tablets?”

  “Oh, don’t fuss so, Grace,” said Margery, splashing a bit of scent on her throat and wrists. “I’ll be perfectly fine.” In truth, it was Grace who would be exhausted tomorrow, even though Margery had insisted she get help with the cooking and serving. But Margery had had a little weak spell recently, and Grace had been hovering like a mother hen ever since. Margery stood a
nd gave herself a final once-over in the three-way glass, then followed Grace obediently down the stairs.

  Her dinner parties, and Grace’s cooking, were renowned, but although she would never admit it to Grace, she was beginning to find them a bit wearing. Perhaps it was just people in general-it took more and more effort to leave her writing long enough to keep up the most basic of social connections. Fictional characters, after all, usually behaved in the ways one intended, though there were no guarantees even there.

  Or perhaps it wasn’t people at all, but only that she was growing more jealous of her time-she sensed the grains speeding through the hourglass, and she had so much still to say.

  The doorbell chimed as she reached the bottom of the stairs. “See, I told you so,” she said to Grace with a smile.

  It was Darcy, early as always, so that he could help with the coats and the drinks. “Mother, dear,” he paused to kiss her, “you look divine.”

  “Flatterer,” she said, laughing, and reached up to touch his cheek. “You’re frozen, darling. Come in by the fire, and pour yourself something before the hordes arrive.”

  “A bloody puncture, can you believe it?” he said as he made himself a gin and tonic, then went to stand with his back to the fire. “And on the Madingley Road, in traffic so heavy you’d have sworn it was Friday rather than Tuesday. I’m damp as an old dog, and will soon fill your sitting room with the aroma of steaming fur. But at least I’ll be warm on the inside.” He smiled at her and knocked back half his drink. “Who’s coming, then? Can one have a singular horde?”

  “It’s a minimal horde tonight, I’m afraid,” said Margery as she poured herself a small sherry. “Just Ralph and Christine, and Iris. Enid canceled out at the last minute, a bad case of the grippe, Iris said. Oh, and I almost forgot, Adam Lamb.”

  Darcy laughed. “Where on earth did you dig up old Adam?”

  “In the food hall at Marks and Sparks, actually. I bumped into him in the frozen foods, frowning over two dinners as if he might take all day debating their relative merits. He looked as though he hadn’t had a decent meal in months, and I took pity on him.”

  “I’m sure he groveled accordingly.”

  “Darcy, that’s neither fair nor kind, and you know it. He was polite, and he seemed pleased to be asked, and I see nothing wrong with that.”

  “You’ll forgive him anything just because you were at school with his mother,” said Darcy, teasing. “Next thing I know, you’ll be calling him a ‘nice boy’”

  The bell chimed again, and Margery said as she rose from the sofa, “I can say anything I like. But you, my dear boy, had better behave yourself.”

  Enid’s absence had actually suited very nicely, thought Margery as she surveyed the guests assembled round her table. For one thing, it made them an even number, and for another, she always found Enid’s fluttering rather tiring.

  She’d put Adam beside Iris, as they weren’t well acquainted, and Darcy next to Christine, and that left her to make comfortable conversation with Ralph.

  Adam had turned himself out quite well. The elbows of his suit jacket might be a bit shiny, but he wore a crisply starched shirt, and he appeared to have got himself freshly barbered for the occasion.

  Darcy was right, of course; she did have rather a soft spot for Adam because his mother, Helen, had been an old school friend. His parents had held such hopes for him-they’d been sure he would take a distinguished degree in history, then read law, and after that, of course, follow his father into politics. Margery, though, even then had doubted the wisdom of investing oneself in one’s children, and had watched their disappointment helplessly.

  It was ironic that she, who had not cared so desperately, had no cause for complaint, for Darcy had done quite well for himself. She supposed that Iris would be forced to retire soon, and that Darcy would succeed her as Head of Department. The position would allow him to exercise both his taste for power and his unfailing charm.

  The charm was in evidence now, as he bent close to Christine Peregrine’s sleek blonde head, telling some ribald story. It was a good thing that he and Ralph had known each other a long time, and that Ralph was not easily ruffled.

  “Darcy’s in fine form tonight,” said Ralph as he reached for the decanter and refilled her wineglass.

  “Just what I was thinking,” said Margery “And that Christine is looking especially lovely.”

  Ralph smiled. “Just what I was thinking. I’m not getting much opportunity to appreciate her from either side of the table these days-she’s been on a lecture tour.” An eminent mathematician, Christine Peregrine looked on her husband’s passion for books with the same fond incomprehension he felt for her maths.

  What an attractive man Ralph was, thought Margery, glancing at him in the candlelight. Thin and dark, with that certain indefinable air of bookishness that she had always found appealing-though she had to admit his dark hair had thinned in the years she’d known him. They’d met at some literary soiree given in her honor, he with a fresh degree in classics and a dream he had no money to implement, and she’d been captivated. She had helped him, although few people even now were aware of it, and today the familiar Peregrine Press logo was synonymous with the leading edge in fiction and poetry.

  At the other end of the table Iris gave a bark of laughter at something Adam said. She’d held the floor long enough for Adam to polish off a large serving of Grace’s veal osso buco, and now he seemed to be proving he could hold his own against Iris’s rather domineering conversational style.

  Adam’s job would have given him considerable experience, thought Margery, in dealing with formidable older women, and she imagined he would listen attentively while suspecting the little weaknesses Iris’s manner concealed. Iris, the terror of both staff and students, was madly devoted to her Persian cat, and could not sleep at night without a cup of Horlicks and a hot water bottle.

  Margery brought her attention back to Ralph, who had begun telling her about a new talent he’d discovered, and as she listened to his voice interspersed with the soft, rhythmic clinks of silver and crystal, she found herself glad of having made tonight’s effort.

  They’d finished the veal and started on Grace’s chocolate mousse when Margery heard the distant ringing of the telephone.

  “Dame Margery, this pudding is absolutely heavenly,” said Adam. “If you’ll forgive me the rather inappropriate adjective,” he added with a self-deprecating chuckle.

  “Surely your boss would allow you the slight impertinence, given the exquisite nature of Grace’s mousse?” said Darcy.

  “Or you could substitute ambrosial” suggested Ralph, “which is both inoffensive and true.”

  The door to the kitchen opened, and as Grace came in, Darcy said, “How do you do it, Grace? Do tell us your secret.”

  “Yes,” said Christine, “do tell, please. It’s so amazingly light-”

  “I’m sorry,” said Grace, interrupting the flow of compliments, “but there’s a phone call for Miss Iris. It’s Miss Enid, and she sounds dreadfully upset.”

  Iris paled, and her spoon clattered into her dish. “Oh, God. It’s Orlando, something’s happened to Orlando.” She rose, knocking the table, and turned to Grace.

  “You can take it in the sitting room, Miss Iris,” said Grace, and led her out.

  “Who is Orlando?” asked Adam, understandably puzzled.

  “Her cat,” explained Margery. “She dotes on him. He’s named after Virginia Woolf’s character.”

  “Rather suitably, don’t you think?” said Darcy. “Since the poor emasculated beast is neither one thing nor the other.”

  This comment brought a few guilty smiles, but the silence round the table grew uneasy as they waited for Iris to return. What on earth would they say to her, thought Margery, if something had indeed happened to the poor cat?

  But when Iris came back into the dining room a few moments later, she showed no sign of incipient hysterics. She walked slowly to her chair and stood behi
nd it, grasping its back with her hands. How odd, thought Margery, who prided herself on her powers of observation, that she had not noticed her friend’s enlarged knuckles, white now with the strength of her grip on the chair.

  “I’m sorry, Margery-all of you-to spoil such a lovely party, but I’m afraid I have some very distressing news. Vic McClellan died this afternoon.”

  PART II

  [W]omen have been deprived of the narratives, or the texts, plots, or examples, by which they might assume power over… their lives.

  CAROLYN HEILBRUN,

  from Writing a Woman’s Life

  CHAPTER 9

  … Do you think there’s a far border town,

  somewhere,

  The desert’s edge, last of the lands we know,

  Some gaunt eventual limit of our light,

  In which I’ll find you waiting; and we’ll go

  Together, hand in hand again, out there,

  Into the waste we know not, into the night?

  RUPERT BROOKE,

  from “The Wayfarers”

  Kincaid tossed the last of his paperwork in his Out basket, glanced at his watch, and yawned. Only half past six… Mondays were reputed to be the longest day of the week, but this bleak Tuesday had far surpassed its predecessor in tediousness and he would be happy to go home.

  Now he had only to wait for Gemma, who was out dredging up the last facts on a case that was over, bar the shouting. At least it had got her out of the bloody office, he thought as he rocked back in his chair and stretched. His phone rang and he picked it up lazily, expecting to hear Gemma’s voice. “Kincaid,” he answered, cradling the phone with his shoulder as he tidied a few things into his drawer.