“I see,” she said, though all that she saw was that Ben’s worries must lie outside the business.
“What caused the glitch in the winter?” she asked after a while. “Ben never really explained it to me.”
“Ah.” Simon exhaled heavily. “It was the deal with Polska CMC. Twenty generators. A million quid each. We spent months setting it up and then it just.. . evaporated.” His voice rose at the memory. “We never knew why. I tried to find out what had happened, I did everything I could to resurrect it, but it’d gone stone cold.” He gave a slow shrug, a lift of the shoulders, an upturn of both hands. “We put everything into it. The set-up costs were huge, we lost a packet. It’s taken all this time to claw our way back. Finally got there with the Bahrain contract. I tell you, Catherine, I’ve been eating, sleeping, breathing the goddam Bahrain contract. But now, at long last, we’re there. By the skin of our teeth, I have to say. But we’ve made it.” He added in renewed indignation, “And now Ben’s saying I’m leaving at a bad time.”
There was nothing she could say to this.
“It’s really not fair, Catherine.”
Was he really expecting her to take his side against Ben’s? She said noncommittally “I’ll be sorry if you and Ben part on bad terms.”
He leant forward again, his moist eyes glowing with a passionate light. He reached out to touch her hand and she noticed that his own was rigid and trembling slightly. “I couldn’t bear it if you thought I was abandoning Ben at a bad time.”
It was at moments like this that Catherine remembered why she could find Simon rather trying. She gave a minute shrug.
“I rate loyalty above everything, Catherine. If you abandon your friends well, it’s all meaningless, isn’t it?”
She nodded in the hope that he would drop the matter, but Simon was not someone to leave a subject before he had made his point.
He said, “You do understand that I’ve tried to do everything possible to avoid this?”
She replied with heavy emphasis, “I do understand, Simon.”
“Really?”
She held up both hands. “Really!”
“It was just that ‘
She shook with sudden anger. “You don’t have to go on! Please don’t go on!”
He pulled back sharply as if she had struck him and looked quickly down at the floor, but not before she had seen the dart of injury in his face.
She sighed inwardly. This was the way with Simon, to push too far and then be astonished by the reaction. She muttered, “I’m tired. It’s been a long day.”
His face tightened with remorse. “Of course. I wasn’t thinking. Of course. How stupid. It’s late. I should never have .. .”
They both took a moment to recover.
Catherine said, “I’m sorry. I’m glad you came to tell me. You’ve been such a good friend .. .”
“No, my fault. My fault entirely.” He offered a soft unhappy smile.
Letting the last of her anger go, she touched his arm briefly and declared brightly, “Well, then pastures new for you and Ben!”
He said, “There’s one other bit of news.”
When he hesitated, when his cheek fluttered and jerked, she thought he was still smarting from her rebuke. Nothing in his manner prepared her for what he was about to say.
“The police are questioning someone.”
She stared at him.
“Since yesterday. That’s why I asked if Ben had called. I thought he might have told you.”
And still she couldn’t speak.
“But, Catherine, he’s not the guy. He’s just someone who’s got caught with some of your property. They’ll do him for receiving.”
“Receiving?” she echoed stupidly, as if she were unfamiliar with the term.
“He had a piece of your jewellery on him.”
Catherine had never thought that any of the stolen property would turn up, had never allowed herself to imagine seeing it again. “What sort of jewellery?”
“A brooch, I think.”
She had only ever owned one brooch, a sunburst in malachite and amber given to her by her mother. She had kept it in her jewellery box in a chest of drawers in the bedroom.
“Who is he, this man?”
“Oh .. .” Simon made a dismissive gesture. “The police gave minimal details. Mediterranean appearance, aged twenty-eight, I think.”
“And ... is he known for this sort of thing?”
“They didn’t say. But, Catherine,” Simon insisted in his most solicitous tone, “I really wouldn’t worry about it.”
But I do, she thought. This man had handled her mother’s brooch, this man had touched her life and brought the burglary back into focus.
Simon leant forward and rested a hand on her forearm,
then after the tiniest hesitation and a quick upward glance, shifted it onto her hand. The coolness of his touch belied the faint dampness on his forehead. “I’ll keep a watch on everything, Catherine. I’ll make sure there’s nothing for you to worry about. Really you mustn’t give this man another thought.”
She did, though. She thought about him for the rest of the evening and between disturbing dreams and when she woke early the next morning to face her twenty-ninth birthday.
Chapter Seven
“NEARLY THERE,” Emma cried rousingly. She was perched in the back of the car, sitting forward with her elbows resting on the two front seats, her head at Catherine’s shoulder, a cigarette brandished aloft, within an inch of Ben’s head.
Ben drove silently, with concentration. Catherine stared steadfastly ahead. They were passing along Holland Park Avenue, through air hazy with dust and fumes and heat that had gone on too long. On Campden Hill a chestnut drooped in the moisture less air, its outer leaves shrivelled like brown paper, in declaration of an early autumn.
For no apparent reason Emma squeezed Catherine’s shoulder.
“We did tell you Jamie and Sue were coming, didn’t we, darling? We couldn’t leave them out they just insisted on coming. Wanted to pop in for a quick drink, but in the end -well, we felt we couldn’t not invite them to lunch. Could we, Ben? But we’re still only ten. Oh maybe it’s twelve. Is it twelve?” This addressed to Ben. “Anyway, darling, it’s still nice and small, like you wanted.” Making a futile attempt to blow smoke backwards over her shoulder, she cried, “But you must tell us exactly what you want to do, Cath. Just tell us! We’ll kick them all out at two thirty sharp if you need to lie down and rest. Quickest lunch in history. Honestly, darling the lot. You must just tell us.”
They turned into Ladbroke Grove and, cresting Notting Hill, sped down the other side before turning east and crossing the fruit-and-vegetable end of the Portobello Road, which was thronged with stalls and shoppers and bands of shuffling tourists.
“God. Bloody Saturday,” Ben sighed. “Bloody parking.”
“I found a space in All Saints Road last week,” Emma responded. “The far end.”
And still Catherine looked ahead. Last Saturday Ben had not come to see her, neither had Emma. Ben, she remembered, had been tied up with a meeting.
“I can go and park the car, if you like,” Emma volunteered.
“Sure,” Ben murmured.
Nearing Westbourne Park, they made the last turn into the street of small stuccoed villas. Catherine registered the bunch of brilliantly coloured balloons attached to someone’s front door and dimly attributed them to some kids’ party. It was only when they got closer and she picked out the house that she said in cold anger, “Could you remove them, please?”
Ben slowed the car and double-parked outside. There was a pause in which no one moved.
Catherine stated quietly, “I’ll wait here until the balloons have gone.”
Emma scrambled for her door. “I’ll do it.” She ran up the short path and began to pick at the ties holding the balloons to the door knocker.
Ben offered a rueful expression. “Not my idea.” He looked her full in the face, and in the harsh sun
light she noticed that his eyes had grown a web of small lines at the corners, an unhealthy puffiness beneath, and whites that were red from lack of sleep or strain, or both.
She said, “You look so tired. Have you been overdoing it?”
He gave a short smile and ran his fingers lightly over her hand. “No more than usual, Moggy. Just a bit hectic, that’s all.”
“The business?”
He made a soothing gesture, a slow weave of his hand from side to side, to suggest that he didn’t want to bother her with such things.
“You must tell me.”
“Oh, just a small glitch.”
“Is it Simon leaving the partnership? He told me last night.”
“God, no!” he exclaimed derisively. “No that’s a blessing! He’s been a complete pain. A real old woman. No it’s not Simon!”
Then .. .? Tell me.”
He seemed to come to a decision. Taking her hand, he lifted it solemnly to his mouth and kissed it. “Nothing I can’t manage if you’re there to help me through, Moggy. Nothing we can’t battle together.”
“But what is it? A deal? A contract?”
He flinched slightly and offered a brave tortured smile. “Sort of.”
It was a show of defenceless ness so uncharacteristic of him that it filled her with alarm. In the same instant it came to her that this had been the reason for the barrier between them. There was no estrangement, it had all been in her head, it was just this bad deal, they were going to be all right. At this realisation something overturned inside her, she felt a wrench of love and longing. “What is it, darling? You know I’ll do anything to help.”
He gave his same forlorn smile. “Later. We’ll talk about it later. As soon as we get a quiet moment.”
“Whatever it is, I wish you’d told me before. Why didn’t you tell me?”
He grimaced and gestured impossibility. “Couldn’t, could I?”
“But if you can’t tell me .. .”
“Didn’t want to worry you, Moggy.”
She shook her head gently. “Oh, Ben. Far better to know .. .”
He would have climbed out then if she hadn’t reached across and touched his arm. “We’ll get rid of everyone as soon as we can, won’t we, darling? Be on our own? So we can talk. I feel we never have the chance to talk.”
Reaching for the door again, he said, “Sure.”
Like a child, she called after him, “Promise?”
“Promise.”
While he retrieved the wheelchair from the back, Catherine watched Emma remove the last of the balloons from the door and take them inside. She had loved this house from the moment she and Ben had first seen it. It was narrow and red and gothic, a garish interloper in a sedate low-built terrace of stucco and grey brick. Built in 1896 for the pastor of the Methodist chapel that had once stood in the adjacent street, the house wasn’t much bigger than its humble two-up two-down neighbours, yet it dominated the street by the stridency of its red brick, the height of its leaded windows and the precipitous barge-boarded gable end that rose above the smooth line of slate roofs like the prow of a ship. Seeing it again after all these months, a number of images spooled through Catherine’s mind: of the rain-soaked day she and Ben had moved in; of the weekend she had planted the tubs with early geraniums, now parched and bent; of a day just before the wedding when she had stood opposite the house and thought: This is where I will live as a wife a wife!
Darker images crowded in from another time, only to vanish as Ben wrenched the door open and reached in to lift her out. He had set up the wheelchair as close as possible to the door, in the gap between two parked cars. Since the road was heavily cambered, the gap between the parked cars not all it might be and this was a piece of choreography they had never tried before, she arrived in the wheelchair at an odd angle with one hip in the air and without her cushion, and with the brake off so that the chair began to roll backwards towards the gutter. In the process of lunging out to grab the chair, Ben lost his balance and, teetering precariously on one foot, almost fell across her, only saving himself by twisting his body round in an awkward jerky motion and throwing his other foot to the ground. For an uncertain moment he hung all his weight on the chair arm. The chair rocked, jolted back, trembled, and was finally still. Ben, pinioned against a Jeep, pushed himself upright, panting hard.
Catherine had long since forced herself to find irony in such situations. She gave a raucous bray of laughter. “Fuckin’ Ada!” she yelped in mimicry of Julie. “Almost a gonner!”
Ben glared at her in shock and what might have been rage, his skin white, his lips drawn back against his teeth.
“Hey, it’s okay,” she said placatingly. “It’s okay.” This was what she always failed to take into account how even the smallest humiliation cut him to the quick.
Still breathing furiously, Ben squeezed rapidly between the chair and the Jeep and hauled her backwards onto the pavement. As he spun the wheelchair round to face the house Catherine murmured again, “It’s okay,” and reached over her shoulder to touch his hand, but either he’d removed it from the handle or she didn’t reach far enough because she couldn’t seem to make contact.
A cry and Alice hurried from the house. “Sorry on the phone!” She stooped to give Catherine a small hug, a show of affection that by Alice’s standards was decidedly effusive. “Happy birthday!” she cried.
“You look fantastic,” Catherine said.
A small smile of satisfaction twitched at Alice’s mouth, she bowed her head in acknowledgement. “Why, thank you.”
Until now Catherine hadn’t appreciated quite how much weight Alice had lost. She was dressed in clothes she wouldn’t have dreamt of wearing a few months ago, a skimpy top and tight trousers that emphasised the shape and curves of her new figure. She must have lost two stone, maybe more. Her hair was different too, newly cut and subtly highlighted with hints of amber. Her make-up, rather haphazard in the past, was dramatic and flawlessly applied, as though she’d been taking lessons from a professional. Overall, the effect was of transformation.
Catherine said, “You’re still eating now and again, I hope.”
“In restaurants,” Alice replied archly. “Still got half a stone to go, though.”
“Don’t overdo it.”
“No danger of that,” she declared drily. “Never too thin, never too rich.”
“You’re having a good time, then?”
Out of old instinct Alice bristled slightly she had always resented family enquiries into her social life before submitting with an expression of magnanimity. “Mmm,” she smiled. “A great time, actually.”
As Alice caught some signal from Ben and stepped back to let the wheelchair pass, Catherine thought: She’s feeling good about herself. She’s probably got a man. She’s going to be happy after all.
Ahead, Emma was standing on the threshold, one hand resting on the open door, a broad smile on her face, and now Catherine was overtaken by a more disturbing thought, that Emma was welcoming her into her own home.
Inside, there were rapid discussions about cars, parking and luggage. People hurried about and dispersed, and for a moment Catherine was left alone in the hall.
Flowers stood on the side table, and, propped against the vase, a batch of brightly coloured envelopes, addressed to her. On the wall beyond, a new picture had appeared, a pen-and-ink drawing of a mediaeval street that might have been Prague or Warsaw. In the far corner the work to widen the loo door was evident in the bare patched-in plaster work and primed but unpainted woodwork. The sixteenth-century blanket chest from Morne that used to stand tucked into the bend of the stairs had been shifted around at right angles until it stuck out beyond the newel post into the hall. It didn’t fit in that position, it looked all wrong, but she supposed it had been put there to spare her feelings. According to whoever worked these things out, it was the front edge of the chest that had broken her back, although, in one of the more interesting ironies, it had also in all probability save
d her life by breaking her fall and preventing her skull from meeting the stone floor at full force.
Finally she looked up the stairs, which rose with two turns to the short stretch of railed landing at the top. There was no sign of her fall. The weak rail had been replaced, the splintered banisters repaired. Directly below, the stone was smooth and unblemished. A little closer, however, she noticed a faint mark on one of the flags, a large irregular splodge the colour of tea. Blood? Or an old mark she hadn’t noticed before? A memory tugged at her, she looked back towards the still-open door, and, in a faded image like sepia, she saw herself lying here at this spot, her cheek pressed against the flagstone, looking along the distance of the grey surface, out through the door towards the street.
“Champagne? Coffee?” Alice asked brightly, bending forward with her hands propped on her knees. “Loo? Wash and brush up?”
Catherine usually asked people not to bend over her in the same way they bent over prams and push chairs because, subconsciously or otherwise, they were apt to speak to her in the same over-precise over-loud tones they used for small children.
“Or guided tour?” Alice continued, like an energetic scout mistress.
“Guided tour?”
“Your new bedroom.”
“I think I can manage that myself, thank you.”
Catherine must have spoken more sharply than she meant to because Alice stiffened and shot upright. “Of course. I’ll leave you to it.”
Catherine hesitated at the door of what in the house’s clerical days would have been the front parlour, but which from the first day of their occupancy she and Ben had agreed could only be a dining room. North-facing, noisy and dusty from the street, starved of sun except for a few fragile rays that slanted in on midsummer evenings, it had become a room for late dinners and candlelight, with its dark polished floorboards, rich terra cotta walls, large splashy paintings and matt black woodwork and fireplace.
There had been alterations since her accident, but Ben’s description had been sketchy and as she wheeled herself in she still wasn’t sure what to expect.
The table and chairs had gone into storage. In their place was a bed, a bedside table with phone, and a television on a trolley. The black woodwork had been painted white hastily by the look of the finish the floorboards had been covered by a fitted carpet in deep parchment laid recently from the amount of fluff while the windows had been hung with muslin day curtains. But it was the bed that drew Catherine’s unhappy gaze. It was what the English have the nerve to call a small double, but which by any reasonable standards cannot hold two people in harmony unless they sleep facing the same direction and turn in unison. Catherine told herself that this bed had been chosen because its head fitted neatly against the only available wall space while leaving room for the bedside table on one side and wheelchair access on the other. She told herself that nothing bigger would have been practical, since the window took up much of the second wall, the fireplace the next, the double doors to the sitting room the fourth. Yet even as she tried to persuade herself of this, she saw again the white melamine bedside table, the ugly utilitarian trolley, and, what she hadn’t noticed before, tucked away behind the television, a cantilevered table on castors for taking meals in bed, and it came to her in a burst of humiliation that the place had been fitted out for an invalid.
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