Rachel's Secret

by Susan Sallis

  ‘Not at the moment. It’s all been rather . . . bloody awful.’ I don’t think I’d ever sworn in front of Dad before, and he widened his eyes.

  ‘It’s a shock. I thought you were au fait with a lot of things. I’ve had a long time to get used to it, and my one thought was to protect Mum.’

  I glanced at the clock. ‘Dad, I must go. The girls will be home at four.’ I stood up. ‘Look, please don’t do anything . . . precipitate. Give me a day or two. You’ve shown your hand to Hermione’s mum – you might even have frightened her off.’

  ‘Not very likely.’

  ‘Meriel will be home tonight. She’s driving back straight after her last lecture so that she can be with the twins while Tom and I are at the reception at the Shire Hall. Let me talk it over with her. Please, Dad.’

  He held my coat for me. I think it was his hesitation that convinced me of his intentions. My heart hammered.

  ‘Dad . . . I couldn’t care less about Mrs Smith. But you . . . Uncle Gilbert will never be able to cover this up. And it will finish you, Dad.’

  ‘Let me work that one out, Rache. It will be all right.’

  He cycled back with me as far as the Pitch. The fog was dense. I promised to ring him when I got in. It was so good to see the street lamps each with their foggy aureole, to turn into Chichester Street, lug my bike up the two steps and go into the hall. Mrs Smith a murderer? All I cared about was getting a cup of tea and stirring up the fire. But there was something . . . not right . . . about Dad’s story. I couldn’t think what it was, then. But it sounded so much like something Meriel and I might have cooked up when we cycled to school each morning. Up to a point we were spot-on with our pretend games; but then there was something wrong. They became phoney.

  The Shire Hall was ablaze with lights; there was a red carpet following the treads of the steps. On the opposite side of the Westgate, the cathedral, shadowy in spite of the floodlighting, rose above the houses and illuminated the river mist into a separate entity: a silvery cloak. Meriel had arrived just as we were dressing and was now somewhere in the small crowd on the pavement with Rose and Daisy and a camera. She had been fiddling with it as I told her briefly what had happened since her last visit. She had just nodded and peered through the view-finder. The photography crew from the Clarion were there in force but she wanted personal family snaps to send back home for Georgie.

  Tom gave up the keys of the car to someone called Stan and took my arm for the walk up to the resplendent figures just inside the doors. Besides the lord lieutenant there were the mayor, the sheriff and a horde of councillors, all accompanied by bejewelled wives, mothers and daughters. Two Jamaican couples hovered uncertainly next to the mayor, looking uncomfortable in English evening clothes. Our ancient schools were represented, and as we shook the row of hands I spotted Miss Hardwicke, marvellously severe in silver-grey satin. I did so hope Meriel had got a snap of her as she swept up the steps. Somehow, be it second- or third-hand, Vicky and Georgie had to get a glimpse of Miss Hardwicke. Tom and I took a glass of something from a silver tray that appeared before us and moved to join her.

  Tom looked suddenly middle-aged in the evening suit we had hired from Nightingale’s. I realized I usually saw the Tom I had first met in the lower office of the Clarion; I hadn’t noticed that he had changed. The nervous business of covering his slightly prominent teeth with his upper lip had long gone, and he smiled often and without embarrassment. People took to him instantly because of what he called his rabbit smile. Miss Hardwicke had met him at parents’ evenings, and held out a hand, smiling herself.

  ‘How lovely to see you both. Mr Fairbrother, you look very handsome.’ She sounded surprised, and then even more surprised as she turned to me. ‘And Rachel, at last you’re not ashamed of your height! As you came into the room you were moving so freely! Remember to keep those shoulders well back at all times.’

  I nearly spluttered into my wine glass and Tom said, ‘Both kitted out at Nightingale’s, of course. I rather think you did the same. Am I right?’

  I was amazed by his sheer cheek, but Miss Hardwicke dimpled – yes, she actually dimpled, something I had never seen before.

  ‘The families of my girls are – it naturally follows – my own family. And we have to support our families, don’t we?’

  I could imagine how Dennis would love this. Actually Maria had chosen my dress, and told me how to walk in it so that I wouldn’t tread on the fishtail train at the back. It was a strange blue, which shaded into black as I moved, darkened my eyes and made my cloud of dark hair nearly exotic. Tom had already told me what he thought; Miss Hardwicke’s comment increased my self-confidence.

  Uncle Gilbert was announced, then, and everybody put down their glasses and clapped. He was a popular figure, and cultivated his resemblance to Winston Churchill. Maxine was nothing like Clementine. She clung to his arm as if she expected to be torn from it at any moment. The white feather boa which wound itself around her bare shoulders appeared to be tickling her nose, and she screwed up her face occasionally and responded to the applause with little snuffling laughs. She had not aged at all as far as I could see, though Uncle Gilbert had mentioned trouble with her weight now and then. They moved from group to group easily, expertly. People still chatted, but very quietly, and it was plain that they were waiting their turn. When he reached the three of us, Gilbert gently detached himself from Maxine and held out his hands to me.

  ‘My goddaughter,’ he explained to Miss Hardwicke over my shoulder, and planted a kiss on my cheek, then added into my ear, ‘You are so like Flo, it hurts.’ And then he put Maxine’s hand back on his arm, and spoke to Tom and Miss Hardwicke together. I hardly heard what he said, and whether they responded. My cheek burned. I remembered Dad saying that Gilbert Carfax would do anything for Mum. Would he approve . . . even help with . . . the murder of Maude Smith? I shook myself. It couldn’t happen.

  We followed Gilbert and Maxine Carfax into the banqueting hall and took our places with much fuss and reading of place cards. The soup arrived and turned out to be brown Winzie, which made Tom and me smile and touch hands beneath the knife edge of the starched table cloth. Tom turned to share the joke with Miss Hardwicke, who appreciated it.

  ‘Knowing Rose, I think you were very lucky she took to any of the hotel food,’ she commented. ‘She professes to be disgusted by everything Cook makes for school dinners!’ Tom made an apologetic face, and Miss Hardwicke added, ‘She eats as much as the others, in spite of that.’ I smiled, and felt some kind of normality washing around me. Rose being awkward, Daisy being sunny, Tom always being there . . . trying to find time for my weekly contribution to the Clarion . . . promising myself that one day I would write a book . . . this was my life – these were the links in the chain of my life. Not old conspiracies and present-day planned murders.

  As usual, Meriel had tried to take the whole thing on to her own shoulders. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll think of something. Just enjoy your evening.’ Then she had looked past me and said, ‘She wouldn’t harm her own daughter.’

  The evening began to take shape around me, someone whispered to me, ‘Isn’t that the old headmistress of the Swallow School? My God, she must be nearly a hundred!’ And I laughed, because of course Miss Hardwicke looked exactly the same as she had done back in 1944. There was an entree, fish, I think, then very unexpectedly a small sorbet to freshen the taste buds – my knowledgeable neighbour told me that – then beef cut from an enormous joint lying on a gigantic trencher at the side table. It wasn’t even a joint, it was a section of the actual animal. Tom said it was a bit too Henry the Eighth for him but, like his daughter, he ate as much as those who had no criticisms whatsoever. The puddings came on tiered trolleys, one for each side of the table. I had something that tasted a bit like sherry trifle; Tom had lemon meringue pie, which was all the thing at that time.

  After the cheese and port came the speeches. Some very nice things were said about Uncle Gilbert; I found myself believing them
until I caught Miss Hardwicke’s eye. She didn’t exactly wink, but the impression was similar. As Tom said later, ‘He’s an old rogue, but that’s all right when he’s on your side.’

  (I repeated Tom’s words to Dad when I saw him next and added, ‘We’ve got a lot to thank Mum for.’ I spoke without thinking, but Dad gave a rueful smile and shook his head with a kind of resignation.)

  There was a lot of talk about the independence of Jamaica. We had quite a few West Indian Gloucestrians now and Uncle Gilbert had floated a scheme for cultural exchange: he and Maxine were taking the mayor and his wife to Jamaica to promote English local government; the medical officer had recently joined the group. Tom had suggested to Gilbert that some representatives of the West Indian community should join the ‘Benevolent Society bash’. Tom could get away with saying things like that; he added with a grin, ‘Make it less of a benevolent society, if you get my meaning.’

  Anyway, the mayor explained it all in his speech and made it sound amazingly innovative and democratic; more smiles were directed at Gilbert and Maxine, then, as an afterthought, towards the Jamaican group, who smiled back with generous flashings of beautiful teeth.

  We did not stay long. Maxine kept chatting for ages in the cloakroom, asking me whether I would have Frou-frou while she and Gilbert did their Jamaican ‘exchange’. ‘I cannot bear to be separated from her, Rachel darling. But Gilbert can’t live without me, and of course she would never survive the quarantine.’

  Only then did I remember Frou-frou was her poodle. I accepted willingly; this was the sort of thing we did, this was ‘normal life’. When she told me it would mean she had to visit me every afternoon so that Frou-frou could get used to my ‘premises’, I wasn’t quite so willing, but by then the die had been cast.

  Stan was magically waiting for us on the steps; he had just delivered Miss Hardwicke’s car and held the door for her with suitable reverence. We waved and wished her a happy Christmas, and then Stan disappeared to fetch our car, and we drove to the old stables at the end of Chichester Street and walked down to number twenty-one almost on tiptoe. It might be the swinging sixties elsewhere but at midnight in Gloucester everyone had been in bed for some time. Except Meriel, of course.

  She was waiting in the kitchen, the oven lit and the door open. It was bitterly cold and the insulation we had acquired from food and drink had gone during the short walk from car to house. We huddled around the cooker and gave her an outline of our evening, and she was the usual wonderful audience, clueing in to the funny side of it, rejoicing at the thought of Miss Hardwicke in her silver-grey satin. She opened her eyes wide when Tom told her about Gilbert and Maxine going to the West Indies.

  ‘All expenses paid?’ she asked.

  I saw a furious political diatribe opening up and was thankful when Tom said, ‘When we were waiting outside the cloakroom the Gaffer mentioned he might have to help the Jamaican nurses with their fares, but otherwise the trip would be self-funded.’

  Meriel couldn’t quite let Uncle Gilbert get off scot-free and put her head on the table giggling helplessly. ‘Self-funded? There’s a new one! I predict we’re going to hear high usage of self-funding!’ She poured the last few words down her nose exactly like poor Mr Kennedy might have done, and I have to admit Tom and I laughed too.

  Tom put an end to the long, long day by switching off the cooker. We all stood up. Meriel kissed us both and walked to the living-room door where she turned and smiled at us lovingly.

  ‘I know we don’t want to mention that woman, but I’ve had all evening since the girls went to bed to think about it. And the answer is right under our noses, and so perfect it’s almost unbelievable.’ I felt Tom’s hand between my shoulder blades so knew I had visibly tensed. Meriel smiled slightly then said, ‘Dear George and Hermione should get married. She can’t kill off the two of them but just in case, George deposits a letter with his solicitor to be opened . . . if necessary.’ She flipped through the door, then opened it again and looked through. ‘It would be so good for George to have someone to look after again. You and me, Rache, we’ve always been so bloody self-sufficient. You’re lucky, you’re in a partnership. And George knows that.’

  She was gone again and Tom and I looked at each other blankly.

  ‘I don’t get it,’ I said. ‘It doubles the problem, if anything.’

  ‘It does and it doesn’t,’ Tom said helpfully. He held the door open for me and I ducked under his arm which, somehow snake-like, then encircled me and held us together. He whispered, ‘Could your father love her, d’you think? They’re both scientists, they’re living together very comfortably, as far as we know—’

  ‘Dad is lodging there . . . in his old home—’

  ‘But they both seem so at ease with the situation.’

  ‘Hermione feels safe. She always did with Dad. Dad is – must be – on tenterhooks the whole time, living so close to the woman he is convinced murdered that poor man—’

  ‘Darling, your dad is facing up to life again. Which he hasn’t done for fourteen years.’

  ‘How can you be so – so precise?’

  ‘Because your mother died just before the girls were born and they are now thirteen years old.’

  I was silent, digesting this, although I knew immediately that he was right.

  He whispered, ‘You are so beautiful, Rache. I wanted to shout it out tonight: This is my wife, and on the day we met we found a dead body, and we’ve been investigating it ever since!’

  ‘No, we haven’t.’ I kissed him. ‘We’ve been living ever since. That is what we’ve been doing, Tom Fairbrother. We were shown the importance of living and we’ve done it. And will go on doing it. In spite of – or perhaps because of – your father and mine!’

  He clamped me to him; my chin on his shoulder, his on mine. Both of us filled with sheer gratitude. But then he said right into my ear, ‘I wonder what that harridan of a woman had got on your mother.’

  I whispered, ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘How did she make Flo Throstle smuggle secret information from the records office? It must have been blackmail, Rache. It wasn’t money. Flo would never have been bribed. She was blackmailed.’

  I held on to him tightly. That was what had been phoney about Dad’s story. There had been no reason for Mum’s actions; none for his, either.

  ‘What do you think it was?’ I asked obscurely.

  Tom knew what I meant and sighed into my neck. ‘Well . . . if it is still bad enough to make your father consider murder, it’s not very likely we will find out. Is it?’

  We looked at each other in the darkness. And then we went to bed.

  Nineteen

  NONE OF THE events of that Friday stopped me sleeping like a log that night. Tom and I were still curled together like an upper-case S when Daisy knocked very circumspectly and then entered at Tom’s drowsy ‘C’min’. She had two enormous pint mugs of tea inside a washing-up bowl. We had devised this adaptation of the usual tray and cups when she had first started the tea-in-bed thing aged seven. It saved a lot of frantic mopping-up.

  I opened one eye but could not move. ‘How absolutely lovely,’ I said, eyeing the steaming tankards and wondering whether I could ask for a straw.

  Daisy said, surprised but very interested, ‘Have you got a hangover?’

  Rose came close behind, clutching a packet of digestive biscuits. ‘Of course they haven’t,’ she said scathingly. ‘It’s Mum and Dad!’

  Tom started to giggle first, but I wasn’t far behind. We couldn’t stop. We couldn’t move. Tears streamed down our faces. The girls stood there looking disgusted. Eventually, after they had told us how pathetic we were, they placed the washing-up bowl and biscuits on the floor, my side of the bed, and left. ‘Hope Aunt Merry will be more sensible!’ was Rose’s parting shot.

  Once they’d gone we simmered down, and Tom shouted his thanks, and we struggled up in bed, and I placed the washing-up bowl on the bedspread. We sipped and grinned and almost gi
ggled again with sheer pleasure. It was eight thirty. Tom worked out that we had had seven hours’ sleep, which was sufficient for people of our age, and we should be up and sweeping the snow from the doorstep.

  ‘Snow?’ I asked, seriously alarmed.

  ‘Metaphorically speaking, of course.’

  That started us off again. We couldn’t understand it. There was still the awfulness of discovering that crabby old Mrs Smith had probably murdered someone, plus the fact that my father was proposing to follow in her footsteps. Oh – and also the fact that Meriel thought he should marry Hermione Smith. Hermione Smith, daughter of the horrible Mrs Smith! And there was something else, too . . . what was it . . . it was the extent of Uncle Gilbert’s wheeling and dealing. Perhaps we were hysterical. It was enough to cause hysteria.

  Meriel yelled from the landing, ‘I’m hogging the bathroom for half an hour!’

  And that seemed funny, too.

  Eventually we staggered downstairs and joined Rose and Daisy at the kitchen table with the cereal. Rose made toast and demanded details of last night’s dinner.

  ‘Miss Hardwicke there? You didn’t tell us that! Oh, sewers and drains – what did she wear?’

  We told them. Daisy said, ‘Silver satin? So romantic. D’you think—’

  ‘We’re talking about Miss Hardwicke,’ Rose said repressively.

  ‘By the way, we’re going to be looking after Frou-frou for Aunt Maxine when she goes to Jamaica,’ I mentioned. The response was overwhelming. Daisy clasped her hands ecstatically. ‘How lovely! How simply lovely! She can sleep with me. Oh, darling Aunt Maxine! I just love her!’

  Rose said, ‘Jamaica? Why? When? But mainly, why?’

  Tom took over and was half-way through when Meriel appeared and confessed to having shaved her legs and blocked the bath outlet. ‘It’s OK now, I’m rather good at plumbing. You didn’t mention about Jamaica last night. When are you going?’