The Birthday Present

by Barbara Vine

  “Excuse me, would you? That's my briefcase.”

  Hunter looked up from his paper and Ivor saw his flat light blue eyes, steady and expressionless. “You're Ivor Tesham. Aaron Hunter. You were good.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Of course I can't agree with the politics.”

  “No? Fortunately for me, many do.”

  A shrug of the shoulders from Hunter. He seemed about to say more but he was called at that moment. Ivor picked up his case and left, wondering what the actor was going to be interviewed about. The play he was currently in, he supposed. Two days before, when closely examining The Times for more possible news of Sean Lynch, he had come upon a photograph of Hunter on a page devoted to theater and opera notices. It was one of those pictures, usually of an actor and actress in a scene from the play, grappling with each other or in a passionate clinch, which newspapers insert into reviews. This was a fight, the two of them struggling on a marble floor. The man was Hunter but the woman was no one Ivor had ever heard of.

  But the interview wasn't about the play, though it was mentioned in passing. I watched the program myself and what Aaron Hunter talked about was sleaze. Specifically, political scandal, politicians who were unfaithful to their wives or stayed in hotels paid for by sheikhs or accepted expensive presents and lied to Parliament afterward. He blamed, somewhat obscurely, the party machine and put forward the view that proportional representation and more independent members (there were none at the time) would provide an antidote. The interviewer suggested that perhaps Hunter himself should stand at the next election, which would be in 1992. Hunter said he might at that—who knew?

  About this, at the time, Ivor knew nothing. He was on his way in a taxi to St. Margaret's, Westminster, where at ten that morning the memorial service for Sandy Caxton was to be held. While a distinguished baritone sang “Birth and Fortune I Despise” (not exactly Ivor's own sentiments) from Sandy's favorite Saul, he sat in the row behind Erica Caxton and her children, thinking of Sean Lynch. His own name might one day be associated with Sean Lynch's and the IRA and then his presence, pious and caring, at this service to bid farewell to a murdered Northern Ireland Secretary, would be remembered.

  The same day Sean Lynch appeared in court and was immediately released without any case to answer. No explanation was given, of course, but it must have been that there was insufficient evidence to warrant taking matters further. Ivor was still terribly afraid of Dermot's regaining consciousness and telling what he knew, but he no longer felt that he was under threat of being labeled some sort of IRA informer or spy. For a while, apparently, he had even been afraid of going to prison. Now the lack of evidence against Sean Lynch lifted a load from his mind. He could concentrate on the pleasant task of getting to know Juliet Case.

  11

  Last week I got the sack. They didn't use that term, naturally they didn't, but a worse one I thought was a joke that only came up in TV comedy. The Librarian, who's now called the Director, called me in and said—he actually said and he wasn't smiling—they were going to have to let me go.

  It wasn't a total surprise. The Library of British History had been in a bad way for quite a time. We rely on private funding and though we've applied for government grants we're always turned down. I'm going to start saying “they” now, “we” being inappropriate, so it was “they” who had to sell one of our collections last year and it fetched a lot of money, but not enough. The Director told me they had decided to close a whole floor down and of course it was my floor where the histories of the late medieval period are kept. The collection wouldn't be sold, he said with a kindly smile, as if to comfort me, and actually said that if I ever wanted to look at anything among all that sixteenth-century stuff, there would be no difficulty about “granting me access.”

  I was on a month's notice, that month charmingly coming to an end a week before Christmas. They would pay me for the month but prefer me to go at the end of the week. Once I'd got over the shock, my big anxiety was how I was going to pay the mortgage. I'd have to find another job but I didn't know where to start. Companies or local authorities who run libraries aren't exactly going down on their knees, begging the unemployed to come and work for them. But I made a start the evening of my last day at the library, noting down every possibility I found in five sets of situations-vacant columns and applying for ten of them—eight of these extremely unlikely.

  Mummy phoned. The only solution she could come up with when I told her was to give up the flat and come and live with her in Ongar. In case you don't know—and why should you?—Ongar is a pretty village–cum–outer suburb served by volunteer-run trains you have to catch in Epping. Needless to say, there are no jobs in Ongar, no buses going anywhere one might want to go to, and nothing to do in the evenings. When my father died two years ago he left everything to my mother, house, apartment on the Costa del Sol, a lot of money—well, three hundred thousand, which is a lot to me. I got nothing. I'd have been amazed, knowing my own luck or lack of it, if I had. No doubt he thought I was doing all right. I was young, I had a job and a home of my own. But I've sometimes thought that it wouldn't have hurt Mummy to give me, say, fifty thousand. Still, she didn't. I don't think it would have crossed her mind.

  In all the misery of being sacked I had forgotten about the pearls. I only found them because I couldn't remember how to reset the clock on the microwave and the instructions were in that drawer. When I fixed the clock I opened the case the pearls were in, looked at them and wondered how much they were worth. If it was only five thousand pounds it would be a godsend to me now, but if they were worth four times that they'd pay off my mortgage. Why shouldn't I take them to Asprey's and ask them? I could mention Ivor Tesham's name, give them his phone number, tell them to call him, and inquire. But I knew I couldn't rely on him agreeing that he'd given them to me. Perhaps he would if he thought I knew too much about what happened the night of the birthday present, when Hebe and that other man died and the driver was injured. But I didn't. I suspected him but I couldn't see how he might have been involved and, as far as I knew, he was innocent.

  It was a month since I'd been to Irving Road. I'd called Gerry's number three times. The first time a girl who wasn't Grania or Lucy answered. I don't know who she was, she didn't say. I took care to make my second call fairly late in the evening so that Gerry was bound to answer. He sounded tired and he said Justin was being very difficult, he'd stopped talking, just maintained silence, and though he slept in bed with him most nights, he was wakeful and restless and of course kept Gerry awake. He was going to have to have a nanny, though it would be a strain to afford it. He'd interviewed two women who answered his advertisement for a nanny, but both were so unsuitable it was a joke. The girl who had answered the phone to me was called Emily and was a friend of Grania's, but she was only temporary and had had to leave when her university term started. I asked him if I could do anything but he said, quite coldly I thought, that he was already overwhelmed with offers. It wasn't a shortage of help that was the trouble but the constant change of helpers. I offered again the next time I phoned and he started the conversation by saying he couldn't stop. He'd been on the point of leaving the house—his mother was babysitting— and he had a taxi waiting. No, he didn't need me, thanks very much. His mother was being wonderful.

  Naturally, I wondered where he was going in a taxi. I was surprised he could afford taxis, but perhaps he'd got the promotion and consequent salary rise Hebe had said he'd been promised. And I thought a bit about the unfairness of life. I who had no friends and virtually no money had got the sack, while Gerry Furnal, who had Justin and a house and was surrounded by women friends and supporters, was getting a step up the ladder and more money. And now, it appeared, was going out at eight in the evening in a taxi to meet someone—a girl? Was it possible he had found himself a girlfriend when Hebe had been dead for less than a year? He should have been meeting me. I was the suitable one, the woman he had known for years, his dead wife's friend.<
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  Didn't he care about Justin losing the power of speech? Because that's what it was. I'd heard of it happening to children as the result of some trauma, loss of a parent or a sibling, for instance. Gerry had passed over it lightly as if it wasn't important and he went on letting his little boy be looked after by one empty-headed female after another, the sort that thinks only about their appearance and men and sex.

  THE CLOTHES I'D brought back with me from Irving Road, I mean the kinky weird stuff, were still in the case behind my sofa bed. I hadn't looked inside it again but I did that evening. Again I imagined Hebe wearing the boots and the corset and nothing else, spread out on a bed with Ivor Tesham standing over her, his eyes on her, and again I got that excited feeling. I suppose I was putting myself in her place and I thought of taking these things back and showing them to Gerry. Why not? The truth was that I should have shown them to him when he first asked me to clear out Hebe's wardrobe. If I showed them to him and showed him the pearls too, if I told him the pearls didn't come from the British Home Stores but were a very valuable gift from someone, he'd know what Hebe was really like. He'd know he was well rid of her.

  Christmas came and as usual everything stopped. Letters weren't delivered, except the ones that were Christmas cards, so there was no chance of getting replies to my job applications. I went to Ongar to have what Mummy calls “festivities” with her. When she suggested it, I asked why we couldn't go to her place in Spain instead. At least there would be some sunshine there. She said she had put the house on the market, she couldn't afford the upkeep, and she's had an offer, so to forget it. Christmas in Ongar is normally grim, but this time it was worse, with her saying what was to become of me every few minutes and coming up as often with her own answer: live with her in that bit of the house she'll have converted for me. The present she gave me was a twinset, a garment or, rather, two garments I thought had gone out of fashion for good about thirty years ago. It was lilac and it seemed to me about the biggest antithesis of that kinky stuff Hebe had that you could think of. I came home next day, bringing with me about five pounds of meat from the largest turkey two people ever sat down to eat together. Still, it was food I didn't have to spend money on.

  Seven replies finally came to the ten job applications I'd sent, six to say the vacancy had been filled and one offering me an interview. This wasn't really a librarian's job at all but PA to the director of a small museum in the City “with the chance of outstanding work leading to an assistant curator's post.” I've never been much good at interviews. If I'm asked personal questions, and I'm bound to be, I get flustered and defensive—or so I've been told. The interview was for the Thursday in the following week and when Mummy phoned that evening I told her about it.

  “If you get it,” she said, “it would be quite convenient for you living here. I mean, being in the City. Where did you say in the City?”

  I hadn't said. “Bishopsgate.”

  “Excellent,” she said. “You come and live here with me and you could take the Central Line from Epping to Liverpool Street. It takes just about an hour.”

  Not to mention the half-hour spent waiting for the train first.

  “If I get the job,” I said, “I wouldn't need to live in Ongar. I can go on living here. Or I might move in with Callum.”

  That was met with disapproval, as I knew it would be. “Once you do that,” she said, “you can give up all hope of marrying him.”

  An acrimonious discussion followed, with me saying every married couple I knew had lived together before they were married and her replying that all she could say was that I must know some very unprincipled people. While she reverted to the “lovely home” she was offering me, I couldn't help asking myself if I was mad. Was I really getting angry and shouting at her over a man who didn't exist?

  “You could have the whole top floor, you know,” she said. “I've told you again and again, I don't mind spending money on having it converted.”

  But you'd mind handing it over to me instead, I thought. That night I was very near to deciding to take the pearls to a jeweler's next day. But I didn't. After sleepless hours, worrying about being alone—suppose I died, who would ever find me?—lack of money, the mortgage, and how I'd get on at the interview, I fell asleep at four, only to wake up wondering if the jeweler might call not Asprey's but the police. I seemed to recall reading somewhere that this is what jewelers do if they suspect they're being offered stolen goods. Well, they were, that's what they would be offered. I dared not do it.

  I didn't get the job. The interviewer was a woman. She didn't look a bit like Hebe, but it was Hebe I thought of when first I walked into the room and saw her. The skirt she wore just covered her knees and she had high-heeled boots and a low-necked cleavage-showing top. Her dark hair was long, coming halfway down her back. Naturally, she wanted to know why I'd left my job at the Library of British History and when I told the truth and said I'd got the sack, she made a note on the sheet of paper she had in front of her. I couldn't tell her I was interested in eighteenth-and nineteenth-century children's costumes, because I know nothing about them, but I said as enthusiastically as I could that I was a quick learner. She seemed doubtful.

  She looked me up and down then. I'd meant to wash my hair but hadn't had time and I'd thought it better to go without tights rather than wear a pair with ladders across the instep. I had hoped the hems of my brown trousers would hide my bare skin, but they didn't quite. She didn't comment but she didn't need to. All she said, after I'd had to tell her I'd never used a computer but again I could learn, was thank you for coming and she would let me know. She did, two days later, in a letter full of false regrets and excuses.

  I'm sure it was my less than perfect appearance that lost me the job, but surely we should be honest in our daily lives and stick to our principles? It really annoys me the way people's looks, especially women's looks, seem to be getting more and more important as we move toward the twentyfirst century. I just wonder if I would have been successful if I'd gone to that interview with bleached hair and lipstick and wearing some of Hebe's kinky stuff—anyway, the boots. That woman wouldn't have cared about my lack of computer skills or my not knowing when children wore pantaloons.

  That afternoon I took some of the stuff out and tried the boots on. They fitted perfectly, making me inches taller. I made myself walk up the road wearing them to the paper shop and a man on a building site actually whistled at me. Back at home I fastened the dog collar round my neck and imagined Callum coming in while I was wearing the boots and had my skirt pulled up above my knees, but I had to stop and switch off. The feelings it brought on made me too uncomfortable. My whole body was throbbing.

  I made myself turn to reality. The Evening Standard was carrying a few ads for vacancies in the kind of thing I could do and I forced myself to apply for two of them. The pearls in the drawer were starting to trouble me, almost to haunt me. They were worth so much—but not to me. And if it might look to someone else (i.e., the jeweler) as if I'd stolen them, wouldn't it look to everyone as if I had? Didn't I really know I had? Gerry had asked me to dispose of Hebe's jewels but to leave behind the valuable things. He hadn't known the pearls were valuable but he would have included them with the engagement ring and the locket and the bangle if he had known. Then I had an idea.

  Suppose I were to take them back and ask him if I could keep them? Maybe he'd offered those other women, Grania and Lucy and Emily, to help themselves to a keepsake but he hadn't asked me. I could say that to him and ask for the pearls. Then it wouldn't matter if Asprey's or some small jeweler called the police, because Gerry could say he'd given them to me. He would say it too, I knew he would, even if he was told how valuable they were.

  Phoning him again wasn't on. I dreaded hearing disappointment in his voice when he realized who it was. Of course I'm used to hearing that, and not only from him, but it still hurts. I would drive up there and see him.

  DRIVING THE CAR for the first time since Christmas, I won
dered how long I could afford to keep it. The way cars depreciate and so quickly is very unfair. If I sold my flat I would get far more than I paid for it five years ago, but if I sold my car I would get a sum in hundreds rather than thousands. It wasn't worth selling it.

  The evening was wet and miserable, and it's a grim drive anyway up to West Hendon. I was halfway there when I began thinking that maybe Gerry would be out, would have gone off somewhere in a taxi to meet whoever it was, and in charge of Justin would be Grania—or Emily if it was Grania he had gone out with. If that happened I would just come back and try not to calculate the cost of the petrol I had wasted. But he was in. He opened the door to me.

  “This is a surprise,” he said in the sort of voice you'd use to tell someone you're sorry their dog's been run over. He asked me in but I had a feeling he'd have preferred not to. It was long past Justin's bedtime but he was still up. He was in the living room watching television or he was sitting on the sofa staring vacantly into the air above the television screen. I sat down beside him but he didn't look at me and of course he didn't speak. Gerry had lost weight and was by then painfully thin. I had taken the pearls out of the case that said Asprey's on it and put them in a box that had once contained the nasty cheap perfume my mother had given me for my birthday. Gerry barely glanced at them.

  “Perhaps you'd put them away with the locket and her ring,” he said.

  I should have made my request then but I didn't. He went on talking about all his problems, how worried he was about Justin, how he'd taken him to a child psychologist who'd only said to give him time, his voice would come back eventually, and about his new responsibilities at work—I should be so lucky—and the longer hours this entailed and how sometimes he was at his wits' end. While he was speaking I had turned to Justin and just touched him on the shoulder. I thought he might throw my hand off but he didn't. It was as if a miracle had happened. He turned to me and held up his arms for me to take hold of him. I put my arms around him and lifted him onto my knee, where he sat and leaned his face against my chest. Gerry stared. He was silenced. And then an idea came to me. I'd really have liked more time in which to think about it, but I didn't have more time. The pearls had been my excuse for coming and once they were gone I would have no reason ever to see him—or Justin— again. It was now or never.