Sweet Sorrow

by David Roberts

  ‘I hated school, Jean. I was silly, I see that now, but I was bored rigid. It all seemed so irrelevant. I larked about and got myself expelled more than once. My poor father! I wish now I had learnt something. Edward is so well read and remembers what he reads, which is alarming. I think I was lucky to find Lord Weaver. He had faith in me for some reason, or perhaps I amused him. Anyway, he gave me my chance and I took it. When I was telling Mr Churchill about my lack of education, he said, “My education was interrupted only by my schooling,” and that’s how it was for me. To be a reporter you need luck, enterprise and cheek. If someone says no to you – and, in my experience, they always do – you just take no notice and do it anyway.’

  ‘But you need to be able to write?’ Jean suggested.

  ‘You need to be able to write plain English, certainly, but I never learnt how to spell. Fortunately the “sub” – the sub-editor – will correct your mistakes. What else? You need to be alert, thick-skinned – not afraid to be snubbed – and suspicious.’

  ‘Suspicious?’ Jean queried.

  ‘You should never believe what you are told. Always check your facts. I remember one old boy I was interviewing telling me all about his childhood and I only discovered by chance that it was all lies. Or rather he believed it but it was a fantasy he had concocted without realizing what he was doing. He even told me his mother had died giving birth to him when, in fact, she committed suicide when he was your age . . . Oh, I’m sorry! I hope I didn’t upset you. My big mouth!’

  ‘No, after all Byron didn’t do that – kill himself, I mean.’

  ‘No, he didn’t,’ Verity agreed.

  ‘But Mark did try to kill himself,’ Jean added meditatively. ‘I’m glad you were in time to save him. I like him, although he is a bit odd. Sometimes he was really nice to us and let us watch him paint and sometimes he’d shout at us to go away. He was driven – that’s what my stepfather said. He said that, if you were a true artist, you cared for nothing but your work. Everything and everyone else – family, friends – could go hang.’

  ‘I don’t think that is necessarily true, Jean. Look at Mrs Woolf. She’s a true artist, and she and Leonard are very happy together.’

  ‘Yes, but he looks after her, doesn’t he? I’ve watched them together. I think they both agree that her work is the most important thing.’

  Verity was impressed by her perceptiveness. ‘I’m sure you’re right but I believe it proves that an artist or writer doesn’t need to be utterly selfish. In my limited experience most marriages – the ones that work – are about mutual support. Artists, strong in one area, can be weak in others and need support but not, if possible, at the expense of the people who love them. I don’t know whether I’m making any sense.’

  ‘What about Miss Bron and Miss Fairweather? On the surface, Miss Fairweather is in charge but I sometimes think that actually Miss Bron makes the important decisions, despite giving the impression of being all fluffy and muddled. But you and Edward are equals, aren’t you? He respects your work as a journalist.’

  ‘I very much hope so, Jean. I couldn’t have married him if he didn’t, but it’s not always easy. I mean, I may have to leave him for months on some foreign assignment. That won’t be pleasant for either of us but particularly for him. I’ll be busy doing my job and won’t have much time to be lonely. He is going to be working for the Foreign Office but I’m not sure yet how they will use him. Most men expect their wives to be there to minister to them after a hard day’s work, which I suppose isn’t unreasonable. Edward has had to learn to accept that I’m not like that. I love him very deeply but I can’t – and he wouldn’t want me to – sacrifice the thing that defines me, my job. That’s how it is with Leonard and Virginia. I think that’s why we get on so well with them. We’re in the same boat, though of course she is a great writer and I’m only a journalist.’

  ‘Do you think that’s why Mother was able to leave us with my stepfather while she went off to Hollywood?’

  ‘I don’t know, not having met your mother, but don’t forget that the money she’s earning in Hollywood is a factor. It’s easy to pretend money doesn’t matter but you can only think that when you have lots of it. They say money can’t buy happiness – and I agree with that – but I’ve seen enough poverty, enough slums, to know that the absence of money can bring misery, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.’

  Jean was quiet for a moment while she absorbed what Verity had said before remarking, ‘Thank you for talking to me like an adult and not patronizing me. It’s so difficult to get grown-ups to tell you the truth. They always want to protect you and so they tell lies and half-truths which merely confuse.’

  They walked on, enjoying the sun and the feeling of being on the top of the world with the larks swooping high above them. They had almost caught up with Edward and Ada but Jean hadn’t quite finished her questions.

  ‘And is that what makes you a good detective – being suspicious?’ she asked, harking back to what Verity had said about the qualifications needed for being a journalist.

  ‘I suppose so, if I am a detective. I never set out to be one. It was just a series of accidents but then, that’s what life is. There’s a similarity between the two jobs – both searchers after truth. At least, a good reporter wants to get at the truth.’

  ‘And do you know yet who killed my stepfather?’

  Verity was beginning to feel under siege and walked a little faster, wishing she had longer legs. Edward and Ada, chatting away happily, seemed to have forgotten all about them.

  ‘No, I don’t know who killed him. That’s for the police to find out.’

  ‘Is that why you haven’t asked me any questions?’

  Verity was taken aback. ‘Why? Is there something you know which you should tell the police?’

  ‘It’s something Ada knows. She hasn’t told me what it is but perhaps she’s telling Edward. I do hope so because it’s making her very unhappy.’

  ‘I’m not telling that Inspector Trewen anything,’ Ada was saying in response to a question of Edward’s. ‘He’s so . . . I don’t know how to say it but he treats me like a little girl when I’m almost grown up.’ Her voice quavered. ‘Anyone could have told him that Colonel Heron didn’t do it . . . kill my father. Although he can be bossy sometimes – a bit ex-army – he wouldn’t hurt a fly.’

  ‘Is there anything you want to tell me?’ Edward asked mildly. ‘Anything you don’t want to tell the Inspector? If it would help find out who did do it, I think you should.’

  ‘I found a letter on the doormat,’ Ada said in such a low voice the wind almost blew it away. ‘It hadn’t been posted – it had no stamp on it. It was addressed to Dad so I took it to him in his study. He was working so I didn’t stay.’

  ‘When was that?’

  ‘The morning of the fête.’

  ‘You didn’t see who delivered it, I suppose?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And you don’t know what was in it?’

  ‘Yes, I do. I went back an hour later with a cup of tea.’

  ‘What time was that?’

  ‘About eleven thirty. The letter was lying open on his desk.’

  ‘And you read it?’

  ‘I couldn’t help it. It was written in capital letters. It said something like “You are an adulterer and the beast must die.” It wasn’t signed, which I thought was odd.’

  ‘Did you ask your father about it?’

  ‘I said, “Who sent you that horrible letter?” He told me that it was none of my business. He was quite cross, which was unfair.’

  ‘And did you see it again?’

  ‘No. I think he must have burned it because I saw what must have been the remains in the grate that evening.’

  ‘Do you think he knew who it was from?’

  ‘I’m not sure. I sort of sensed that he did but I might be wrong.’

  ‘And did you understand what the letter meant?’

  ‘Not at first but I looked u
p “adulterer” in the dictionary. Is that what he was – my father?’

  Ada looked up at Edward and he felt his heart go out to this forlorn little girl, alone in the world – probably unloved and desperately unsure of herself.

  ‘Writers and artists have never been good at being faithful and your father was very attractive. He loved women and women loved him.’

  ‘So he was what the letter said he was?’

  ‘I think he was, but even those closest to married people can never know what really happens in a marriage. Sometimes even the people in the marriage couldn’t tell you. You’ll learn in time that every marriage is different and we shouldn’t judge other people, especially our parents.’

  ‘I don’t understand. Do you mean you would forgive Verity if she loved someone else? Oh, am I being rude? Dad always said I was.’

  ‘You need to be a bit careful about what you ask people,’ Edward said gently. ‘Loving someone is very private and we don’t always know why or how we do it. You have to trust people and trust is part of love.’

  ‘Trust them, even if you’re suspicious of them?’ Ada persisted. Edward looked at her and, seeing that it was a joke, felt a sense of relief. Perhaps she would, after all, survive her father’s murder, but was it a good idea for her to go to Hollywood with her glamorous stepmother and desirable half-sister? Oh well, it was nothing to do with him but still . . .

  ‘Have you told anyone else about the letter your father received?’

  ‘Only the vicar. I thought he might be able to explain it to me.’

  ‘And did he?’

  ‘Not like you did. He was embarrassed and said I ought not to have read the letter. Anyway, he said my father shouldn’t have done it – commit adultery – and that the Bible says that adultery is breaking one of the ten commandments. He said sinners will be punished. Dad was a sinner, I suppose. Do you think he’s gone to hell?’

  Ada tried to sound unconcerned but Edward could hear the anxiety in her voice and cursed Paul for frightening the girl. Surely that was a sin.

  ‘To be honest with you, Ada, I don’t believe in hell. Or rather I think bad people create their own hell here on earth.’

  ‘Like Hitler?’

  ‘Like Hitler,’ he repeated grimly.

  Basil came bounding up, panting after having failed to catch a hare, and they all sat on the grass and admired the view, sharing a bottle of lemonade.

  ‘I wish I had my Brownie,’ Verity said suddenly. ‘I’d like to have a photograph of us now – this minute.’

  ‘Yes,’ Jean agreed, ‘when you look at photographs you only want to see people – what they looked like then. It’s a wonderful view but views are so disappointing in a photograph without the colour and the noise of the birds and the smells . . .’

  ‘I’d like to remember this day when I’m a long way from here,’ Verity said dreamily.

  13

  Given that Edward still maintained that he was not investigating Byron’s murder and certainly not Frieda’s, he was very busy that Monday in London talking to people and asking questions. At the end of it, he thought he knew who the murderer was but had not a shred of evidence to support his theory.

  The train had been late and they didn’t get into Victoria until almost eleven thirty. In the end, they had decided not to take Ada and Jean with them as they had so much to do, though Verity was determined to keep her promise to show Jean round the New Gazette before her mother returned.

  She hurried off to Scotland Yard to see Inspector Lambert while Edward took a cab to Fleet Street. He had arranged to meet Ken Hines at El Vino, a drinking hole familiar to lawyers and journalists and just around the corner from the News Chronicle in Bouverie Street. El Vino was dark and rather gloomy. The smell of stale tobacco emanating from ashtrays full of cigarette stubs rather nauseated Edward, but he ordered a pint at the bar and went to sit beside Ken at a table badly stained by many a flagon of thick brown porter.

  He had known Ken for some years. He had been a supporter of Verity’s – for which Edward was grateful – and had shown her the ropes when she had started out in journalism. In such an all-male world, Verity would have been ignored or elbowed aside without Ken’s insistence that she be included in the information-sharing that was de rigueur in that unofficial trade union. He was regarded as the doyen of crime reporters and boasted that in a single year he had reported on no fewer than fifty-six murders.

  ‘I’m giving up crime, you know,’ he said to Edward as he sat down. ‘My bosses have agreed to send me to war. I always envied Verity her experience of covering the Spanish Civil War. I don’t want to be left in a backwater when this new war starts. Will a crime, even one as gory as Byron Gates’s murder, make the front page when whole armies are fighting? I don’t think so.’

  ‘Talking of Byron, Ken, what did you mean when you said on the telephone that Frieda wasn’t quite the nice girl we took her to be?’

  ‘Well, I don’t like sex gossip but it’s well known in certain circles that she didn’t only like men.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Do I have to spell it out?’ He saw from Edward’s face that he did. ‘All right, she was a lesbian – or rather she liked sex wherever she could get it.’

  ‘Good heavens! I would never have suspected . . .’

  ‘I don’t know why you are so surprised. Like most men, you assume lesbians all dress as men and stride about in riding boots like . . .’

  ‘Like?’

  ‘Like Miss Fairweather, of course. Why did you think I was in Sussex? I was fossicking around to find out if the affair was still going on. I was intrigued to discover that Gates and Fairweather both lived in the same village.’

  ‘You’re telling me that Frieda and Elsa Fairweather were lovers?’ Edward was taken aback. The thought had never crossed his mind that Frieda had known Miss Fairweather. ‘But how could they be?’ he objected. ‘As far as I know, Frieda never came down to Rodmell.’

  ‘I don’t think she did. She must have suspected there would be ructions if she showed up there. Even a girl like Frieda wouldn’t have wanted her lovers squabbling over her. She worked at the BBC, remember? There are plenty of that kind – male and female – in Broadcasting House but, as long as nothing is done in public to scare the horses, if you understand what I mean . . .’

  Edward did. ‘I see. And does Miss Fairweather know about Byron and Frieda?’

  ‘I don’t know about that. You’ll have to ask her yourself. But I do know that she went to London to visit her publisher in Bedford Square on the day Frieda was killed. It’s only a ten-minute bus ride from there to Portland Place.’

  ‘And you think . . .’

  ‘I’m not accusing her of anything, but she might have been trying to tempt Frieda back and Frieda might have rejected her advances. It’s just a theory.’

  ‘It certainly is. Well, thank you, Ken. I owe you.’

  ‘I know you do,’ Ken said with a grin.

  Before his meeting with Lewis Cathcart, Edward had taken the precaution of telephoning Reg Barnes to find out more about him. Reg had laughingly described him as a Scot on the make. He had been assistant editor of the Scottish Bookman in which he had published some of his own poems and was one of the first to recognize Dylan Thomas’s talent. They had met when Thomas came up to Edinburgh and Cathcart had bought a poem off him for the princely sum of two pounds. The two men had taken to each other, perhaps because they were both Celts and felt excluded from London’s Grub Street. They shared a liking for pubs, the shabbier the better, and, when Cathcart came to London, they had become drinking partners.

  The shoe was now on the other foot and Thomas had found Cathcart freelance work which kept him in funds while he looked for an editorial position with a newspaper or publishing house. Thomas had introduced him to some BBC chums and that was where Barnes had come across him.

  ‘Cathcart wrote quite a good play I used – I think Thomas must have had a hand in it because it had his rat
her whimsical humour – and he’s done several other things for me. Of course, he’s not as talented as Thomas. If only Dylan didn’t drink so much he’d be one of our leading writers, but perhaps he’s one of those unfortunate people who can’t write without the drink. He’s damned lazy, too. I’ve got to know him quite well and I like him but I wouldn’t trust him an inch. He has charm but he is quite unscrupulous when it comes to money. He’ll try and touch you for a pound or two, I guarantee it!’

  Barnes had gone on to say that, when Cathcart first arrived in London, he had shared a flat in Hammersmith with another Scottish poet and was soon friends with W.H. Auden, Stephen Spender, Robert Graves and Byron Gates. In fact, it was Barnes who had introduced Frieda to Cathcart and they had quickly become lovers. Frieda liked older men, he explained.

  ‘Frieda thought Cathcart could introduce her to “people that mattered” but it wasn’t long before she realized that he wasn’t quite the influential poet and editor she believed him to be because of the company he kept. It was inevitable that she turned her attention to Byron. She would have preferred Auden but quickly discovered that he wasn’t interested in women.’

  ‘So could the spurned lover have murdered the girl he still loved?’ Edward asked.

  ‘I wouldn’t have thought so,’ Barnes opined. ‘Cathcart was jealous all right, and in his cups swore to have his revenge on Byron, but I think it was all talk.’

  Lewis Cathcart was not quite what Edward had expected, despite Verity’s description of him. He was about forty-five, thin and pasty-faced, with the haggard look of a man who drank too much and could only be bothered to shave every other day. He was sitting at the bar with a cherubic-looking man of about the same age who, Edward guessed, must be Dylan Thomas.

  ‘Lord Edward!’ Cathcart said in mock surprise. ‘I never thought you’d find this place.’

  They had arranged to meet at the Mitre, a rather squalid pub off Fleet Street. The last thing Edward wanted was another drink but he knew he must make an effort to look as though he was at home in pubs and insisted on standing a round. Dylan – which Cathcart pronounced Dullen – looked at him over the foam on his pint with sharp, twinkling eyes and Edward could not help smiling in response. He was like a naughty boy – a plump cherub, Barnes had called him – whom you could not be cross with for long. Cathcart, on the other hand, was surly, his bad temper inadequately disguised behind a thin veil of bonhomie. Here was a man, Edward thought, who could wield a knife if he had to, whatever Reg Barnes might say to the contrary.