Waiting quietly, he remembered the time he had first seen Catherine when was it? three years ago. No, he could be more precise than that two years and eleven months ago at Ascot. He had understood immediately why people should talk about her, why they should describe her as pretty, lovely, striking. Simon himself had had no hesitation in calling her beautiful, though then, as now, he would have found it hard to say exactly why. She had good eyes extraordinary eyes -arresting, oval with a slight upwards tilt at the corners, and her hair, when it wasn’t scraped back and dead-looking like this, was a rich browny-gold; yet her nose was by any standards rather long, while her mouth was a little on the wide side and very full. There was no one feature that could be described as exceptional, and yet taken together they had what his mother would have called an effect. From that first glimpse Simon had found it impossible not to be gripped by the sheer improbability of that brilliant face.
Later, when he’d had the chance to observe her, he’d become intrigued by her vitality, the way she moved and talked and held her head, by her low supple laughing voice and the warm conspiratorial glances she threw at those around her. She was the most vivid person Simon had ever met. He was in awe of this, and envious too, because, though he worked hard at every aspect of his life, enjoyment wasn’t something that came easily to him. Watching Catherine sometimes, he was both fascinated and disturbed by the idea that such enjoyment of life could be acquired or learnt, that if he could only devote more time to the study of it he might be able to find the secret. But in his sombre and lonely heart he knew there was no secret, no trick, no easy way; it was simply that some people loved life and others had to take the promise of such things on trust.
Her hand lay on the coverlet, white and slender and smooth as a child’s. He stared at it. He pictured himself taking it, squeezing it gently, communicating reassurance and affection, perhaps even managing to leave his hand resting lightly on hers for some moments afterwards. He imagined it, almost persuaded himself to do it, but in the end it was too enormous an undertaking, and it was a relief to hold back.
The emergency staff had removed the wedding ring, he noticed. He remembered Catherine wearing it for the first time. The wedding seemed very distant now, but it was just Simon had to think yes, eight months ago. Remembering her then, luminous and vibrant, it seemed strange to be looking down on this diminished shadowy version of Catherine, uncharacteristically subdued, confined, devoid of everything that had made her so alive.
Who would love and value her now? he wondered emotionally. Who would warm to someone so still, so changed? Not Ben’s circle of acquaintances. If Simon’s understanding of her medical condition was even half right, Catherine was going to need friends rather more substantial than that.
He found himself thinking: And Ben won’t be much use either. Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds.
A mechanical hiss broke the silence: it took him an instant to realise that it was some sort of device for redistributing air around the mattress. When he looked up again it was to find Catherine watching him through half-closed eyes.
He smiled hastily, inanely. He felt his cheek tremble. He glanced away. “Amazing flowers.”
There were flowers along the length of the window sill, at least six vases, and several more on the floor, as well as the large arrangement next to the chair, and, propped between them on every available surface, cards, several dozen of them. A few of the arrangements were striking, with unusual mixtures of flowers, foliage and dried grasses. From fellow garden designers, presumably, or, more likely still, grateful clients. He noted fleetingly but with satisfaction that the two all-white flower arrangements looked quite out of place.
“Could you .. . move them .. . please,” Catherine murmured.
“The flowers?”
The white
He looked at her sharply, thinking for a ludicrous moment that she had read his mind. “Yes rather too funereal, aren’t they?” He gave a bright bark of a laugh. “Or matrimonial! Shall I move them away?”
“Nearer.”
He felt a stab of heat in his face, as if she were making fun of him.
“Nearer?”
“I love .. . white.”
This time he managed to turn his laugh into a sharp cough. “Of course.”
It was no easy job. The sill was so crowded that he had to move two vases temporarily to the floor before he could rearrange everything satisfactorily.
Catherine’s eyes followed him back to the bedside. “I don’t see For some reason she was suddenly close to tears.
“What don’t you see, Catherine?”
“Why’ her voice cracked with open resentment “you -came.”
His chest tightened, a sharpness burned his eyes. “Why I came?”
Her face contorted. “Go away,” she cried bitterly. “I don’t want you here. I want my family.”
Steadying himself, he put a hand to his glasses and settled them more precisely on his nose. “I understand, of course .. . But someone had to liaise with the police, you see. And I thought it was the one area where I could be useful. Give Ben and your father one less thing to worry about.”
A single tear slid from Catherine’s eye. “But where are they?” she cried pathetically. “I want them here.”
“They’ll be here any moment now.” With Catherine’s rebuff still echoing painfully in his ears, Simon reached for his briefcase. “I’m sure you’ll want to rest,” he said, mustering his dignity. “You’ll want to sleep.”
The door sounded. Simon braced himself, but it was only one of the ancillary staff.
“More flowers, Catherine!” she called gaily. “What a popular girl you are!” She brandished them in the air before plopping them on top of the television set and sweeping out of the room.
Simon took a step towards the door. “Well .. . I’ll be off then.”
They wild?”
“Sorry?”
“The flowers.”
Simon gave them a cursory glance. “I wouldn’t know, I’m afraid.”
She lifted the fingers of one hand: a summons. Dutifully, Simon put his briefcase down again and, fetching the flowers, held them just above her where she could see them. They were arranged in a posy, a mass of tiny blue, white and pink flowers, set in a halo of leaves and miniature foliage, supported by an outer layer of cellophane.
She touched them, she seemed to lose interest, but just as Simon thought it would be safe to slip away she gave a soft cry. “Oh, but they look like There was an envelope pinned to the cellophane; she raised a hand towards it.
He undipped it and took out the note. “Do you want me to read it for you?”
She blinked slowly in agreement.
He turned the note over and glanced at the signature. “It’s from someone called Terry.”
Her eyes widened, she made a harsh sound of annoyance. This reaction was so unexpected that Simon went back to the note for an address or some other clue to Terry’s identity. There was none. Then, with sharpened interest, he realised precisely who it might be. If it was indeed Terry Devlin, then the man certainly had a nerve. According to Ben, this was the man who, having been shown great kindness by Catherine’s family in his youth, had repaid them by acquiring the debts on their house and throwing them out.
However, it was another, largely untold story that had taken a far deeper hold on Simon’s imagination. While it was generally known that Ben and Terry Devlin had worked on a deal together, the cause of their falling out had always been something of a mystery. Certainly it was not a subject that could safely be raised with Ben. But if the hints and rumours Simon had picked up were even half correct, Terry Devlin had achieved the unique distinction of having played Ben at one of his trickier games and out manoeuvred him. Simon had always ached to know how Devlin had achieved it.
He began to read aloud. “Dear Catherine, I am so very sorry to hear that you are in the hospital. I trust they are looking after you well.
I hope these
flowers from Morne will bring a little colour to your
room. They were fresh picked this morning from the meadow just the
other side of the bridge ‘
Catherine made a faint sound that he couldn’t interpret.
“Shall I go on?”
She closed her eyes. It wasn’t a request to stop.
He continued, “The meadow is completely covered in wild flowers every May now (last year there was a lot of marsh marigold, this year ragged robin and cranes bill I think the land there was always trying to be a flower meadow and just needed to be left alone for a while.”
Simon felt the irritation of having been mistaken. This was obviously a gardening crony or former colleague.
Seeing that Catherine was slowly losing the battle to stay awake, he rattled rapidly through the descriptions of seeding and grazing, and slowed down only for the last bit. “Now, you take care of yourself, Catherine. We all wish you a speedy recovery. With fond regards, your devoted friend, Terry.”
He glanced up to find that she had drifted off. He stood and watched her for a final moment, transfixed by her helplessness. With a rush of feeling, he thought: I will care for you when the rest have drifted away, I won’t abandon you. But no sooner had he allowed this thought to fill him with secret pride than it became confusing to him, and he shrank away from it.
He had been here too long. Hurriedly he deposited the letter and flowers on a chair and, scooping up his briefcase, went softly towards the door.
He was beginning to think he had escaped the family when the door swung open in his face and he was confronted by Alice, followed shortly by Duncan.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Alice hissed.
“Simon, old chap,” Duncan murmured, looking puzzled.
“Well?” demanded Alice.
With an arrow-like gesture of one hand, Duncan cleared a path for
himself and, muttering, “Where’s my girl?” shouldered his way into the
room. A moment later Simon heard him call in a broken voice, “My
dearest darling girl ‘
“Well?” Alice’s tone was uncompromising.
Simon gestured her towards the corridor. It was a perfectly polite gesture, in fact he inclined his head as he did so, which was about as polite as you could get, but Alice was not one to let manners or self-control interfere with her temper, and she stood square, blocking the doorway with her plump frame, so that Simon had no choice but to squeeze past her into the passage. He pulled tight against the wall, but she moved to block him further or possibly to provoke him because first her arm, then, as she turned, her breast, brushed against him, and he had to suppress the urge to thrust her away.
Following hard behind him, yanking at his sleeve, she hissed, “I suppose this was Ben’s idea!”
He didn’t answer immediately, which only seemed to enrage her further.
“How dare you!” she growled. “How dare you!”
“Perhaps when you’re a little calmer I could explain ‘
“Explain! You sneak in here, like you sneak in everywhere, you go and bother her and you think there’s anything to explain?
“The alternative was the police,” he replied in measured tones. “I’m sure you wouldn’t have wanted them to come and bother her.”
“At least they would have had the decency to waitl At least they wouldn’t have barged in uninvited!”
Alice was a tall girl and several stone overweight, with a small nose and thin lips that were lost in the broad fleshy cheeks and frame of thick dark hair. Her complexion was the colour of dough and there was an unhealthy puffiness beneath her eyes. Her manner matched her temperament, sullen and irritable. Now, with her chin thrust out, her eyes glittering shrewishly, she looked positively ugly. If she had been anyone but Catherine’s younger sister, Simon would have retreated without another word.
“Who gave you the right she flogged on. “That’s what I want to know!
Who said you could just waltz in here?”
“It was your father, actually.”
He had caught her there, and she didn’t like it one bit. Her eyes narrowed, her lips formed a jagged line.
Simon pressed home his advantage. “He asked me if I would deal with
the police and that’s exactly what I’ve been doing. And why I came
here today, to see if it was necessary for them to bother her ‘
“But you’re a bloody tax lawyer!”
Her voice was strident, it could have commanded a hunting field. Glancing up the passage, he was aware of people looking in their direction.
With a conspicuous demonstration of restraint, he lowered his voice to
a murmur. “That’s not right actually. I’m a commercial lawy ‘
“But moneyl You deal in moneyl’ From the way she said it money might have been one of the most noxious substances known to man.
“What I deal in are situations. This is just another situation.”
“Ha!” She wagged an exultant finger. “Exactly! Just another situation you’re fixing for someone else! For Ben, perhaps?”
This was the sort of emotionally charged, illogical argument that Simon found profoundly unpleasant. Recoiling, he lifted a splayed hand, in truce or farewell, however she cared to interpret it.
Alice chose to redirect her ire. “What I want to know is why Ben isn’t dealing with the police. He should be the one dealing with them not you.”
“As I’ve said, your father thought ‘
“Where the hell is Ben, anyway? God Catherine’s in this place, desperately ill, and Ben’s vanished. Where’s he been for the last few days, for Christ’s sake?”
He put her right. “He’s been dashing in and out most of the time actually. But now I can’t tell you where he’s gone.”
“Can’t or won’t?”
“Actually can’t.”
She searched his face for the lie, then, backing down, gave a grudging shrug. “Well, he damn well should be here.”
“I agree.”
“When did you last speak to him?”
Simon selected his words with care. “Not recently.”
“It’s unbelievable! He doesn’t even answer his mobile. Not for me, anyway. What about you?”
Choosing to interpret this question loosely, Simon gave a minute shake of his head. In fact, he’d managed to make contact a couple of times, but Ben had been so uncommunicative, the conversations so brief that they hardly seemed worth mentioning, particularly to Alice, who in her present mood was unlikely to believe anything so obvious as the truth.
“Just incredible.” Alice gave a harsh contemptuous sigh before fixing Simon with a cold eye. “So why have you been dropping in the whole time, then? Oh, don’t think I don’t know the staff have told me. At dawn, at night even. I assumed you were reporting back to Ben, but now you tell me you’re not.”
“Actually I’ve been coming in to find out how Catherine was,” he replied solemnly.
“Oh, have you?” Her eyebrows shot up in an ironic expression of surprise. “Really? Now why should you do that?”
When he hesitated, she declared, “You always were a creep, Simon. Right from the beginning. Wheedling your way in, getting to know people who might be useful to you. Oh, don’t think it hasn’t been obvious She broke off with a dismissive gesture.
Simon felt the coldness come over him that marked his moments of deepest bewilderment and humiliation.
“Anyway,” Alice went on, ‘the point is, you’ve been talking to the staff about Catherine!”
He said very quietly, “Only to ask about her health.”
“That’s what I mean. Getting information that wasn’t any of your business. Well, whatever you’ve heard, whatever they’ve said, it’s not to be passed on to anyone else. Is that absolutely clear?”
“I wouldn’t dream of it.”
“No talk of her condition. No talk of problems.”
“Of course not!” he retorted, lettin
g his indignation show. “What do you take me for? Quite apart from anything else, I’m bound by client confidentiality.”
Another raised eyebrow. “Well, that’s something, I suppose. Assuming you stick to it, of course. Assuming we have the faintest idea of who you’re acting for.”
Simon felt a shudder of rage. It was only with the greatest effort that he managed to control his voice. “I’m acting for Ben while he’s away. And for your father. And for Catherine of course, if she needs me.”
“Well, she doesn’t need you.” Alice loomed closer and he could see the faint dampness on her forehead and the darkness in her muddy-green eyes. “And you’re not to see her again without our permission. Is that quite clear?”
My God, he thought savagely, she’ll be asking me to kiss her arse next. He stated stiffly, “I will return if asked to do so. As indeed I was today.”
“Quite.” She gave a tight little smile, and he had no doubt that Duncan would be strictly forbidden to issue any more rash instructions.
“Well, I think I’ll go and see my sister now.” She added pointedly, “If she isn’t completely exhausted, that is.”
Simon managed to hold on to his expression until he was some distance up the corridor, when he was overtaken by a shiver that caught his breath and clouded his vision. My God, what had he done to deserve that?
Ben said it was lack of sex that made Alice so spiky, though being Ben he put it rather more bluntly than that. In his more unabashed moments he also said that she resented being fat and plain in a family of attractive people. Yet Ben had been referring to Alice’s normal chippiness, a carping banter that could almost pass as humour; he knew nothing of this particular and malicious delight she reserved for Simon. Alice had attacked Simon before twice and, then as now, he had racked his brains as to why he should provoke such hostility. He had never to his knowledge given her the slightest cause to dislike him, had never overstepped the mark in any shape or form, indeed had taken care to be polite and pleasant, going so far as to ask after her interests (she watched polo, was pro-hunting, and went skiing in Val D’lsere). No, it couldn’t be anything he had said or not said.
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