What the Eye Doesn't See

by Alice Jolly

  I met her first when Geoffrey brought her to stay for the weekend at Brickley Grange. What a cliché she seemed. An All American Girl, bright and brazen, with an expensive tan and blonde hair. She ran her hands over the quaint old furniture, and exclaimed over our strange Old World ways. Geoffrey was all over her, embarrassed and proud. I took her for a gold-digger. That was before I knew that she had far more money that Geoffrey has, or ever will have. At dinner, she insisted that she should sit next to me, which certainly wasn’t part of Fiona’s seating plan.

  She talked about the inner journey, working things through, trying to find a place of peace. So very sincere. Too much time in California, I thought.

  Isn’t it much more important to be honest with yourself than to have a successful career? That’s what she asked, over the roast beef.

  Doubtful, I said. The importance of becoming rich and powerful can hardly be overestimated.

  But doesn’t material success just lead to unhappiness, she said.

  We don’t really do unhappiness on this side of the Atlantic, I replied. It’s just divorce and chemical substances. And occasionally nervous breakdowns, but only for the truly self-indulgent. She didn’t like that.

  There was a Frenchman staying with us that weekend, and he asked about the difference between English and American English. Tiffany started to tell him about that, but he wasn’t clear. But can you understand everything that an American says? he asked. Oh yes, I replied. We can understand everything that Americans say, we just can’t understand why they bother to say it.

  That made her even crosser. I was enjoying winding her up. Maggie was as well. Tiffany spent a long time explaining to us all this bunkum about feng shui. Then Maggie nodded her head, looking serious and puzzled. So what exactly is the difference between feng shui and having a really good clearout?

  Later, further down the table, there was a drunken conversation about what it would be like if you could know the future. Tiffany interrupted saying that she could read tarot cards. I mean, really. But that’s how she was. Very attention-seeking. And I don’t like attention-seeking people. Because I like everyone to pay attention to me. Of course, everyone found that ridiculous and started to joke about it. Geoffrey didn’t want her upset, so he said of course she could read tarot cards. And so it finished up that she was going to tell our fortunes. But it was all just a drunken game.

  She sat in my study and we went in, one by one. I was the last and I tried to sit in an armchair by the fire, but she tapped the leather seat of an upright chair with her pink varnished fingernails, so I sat down beside her. She had turned off the lights except for the green shaded lamp on my desk. There was ringing in my ears. The curtains of my study were drawn. Her fingertips touched mine as she leant over and took my glass from me. You shouldn’t drink so much, she told me, and tipped my Irish malt into a plant pot. Typical, that. She had a great taste for Hollywood clichés.

  Blonde hair tied back in a ponytail. Swimming-pool eyes. The kind of face you want to slap. The light made a circle around her hands as she laid out the cards. We sat in silence and I fidgeted. From the dining room I could hear people laughing and joking. I saw her looking down at my slippered foot. I moved it under the table. The cards gave me the creeps. Black and spiky line drawings with evil faces on them. I watched her kneecaps, pressed together, under the hem of her skirt. Her perfume was cloying. Her black top showed the strap of her bra.

  You’re not the man you seem, she said. You hide your face.

  I said that’s probably a good thing, and she frowned and shook her head so that the leaf earrings shook. I felt like laughing. Then she said she could see a woman, a powerful influence in my life. Probably your mother, she said.

  It must be Fiona, I said.

  But she said no, it was someone more powerful. Someone who was close and yet distant. I thought about Rosa. A log on the fire popped and crackled, and she leant towards me so I could see the movement of her throat as she breathed. Then the drink and the embarrassment of the situation got the better of me. Perhaps it’s you, I said.

  She looked at me and she put her hand on my knee. Perhaps it is, Max, she said. I felt like laughing. But she didn’t take her eyes off me, and there wasn’t any sound from the dining room. She looked at the cards again and she said she couldn’t see my future clearly. She nodded her head sadly.

  I’ll tell you a story about fortune-tellers, I said. I had to clear my throat because my voice had gone croaky. A friend of mine went to see a fortune-teller and he said what you’ve said – I can’t see anything much about your future. And the fortune-teller was really upset.

  Well, yes, Tiffany said. When you lay out the cards and you can’t see the future, it’s worrying. You have to be careful what you say. She was looking at me intently. I was looking at the skin of her neck.

  Anyway, you’ll never guess what happened, I said. The next week the fortune-teller was run over by a bus. Tiffany was really angry and stamped out of the room. I sat by the fire, poured myself another whisky. But the truth is I was stirred up. Because it does happen sometimes. You do know the future. And I think it happened that night. Her hands on the cards, the strap of her bra, the log falling in the grate. The future was there. The road had divided. I took the turning which brought me to this infernal spot. And somehow I knew it at the time. No way forward, no way back.

  Today I’m in London, just for the afternoon. I’m meeting up with Geoffrey. His idea, not mine. Before I head back to Gloucestershire. He’s busy, he said, so he’ll have to be brief. As though I’ve got all the time in the world, which of course I have. I wouldn’t put up with it, but I’m hoping he’ll have some news about this job.

  He’s a curious chap, Geoffrey, always has been. There’s really no excuse for him except he’s an old friend. And finally that does excuse everything. He plods through life in his crêpe-soled shoes and dandruff-scattered tweed jackets. At school he was picked last for every team and was famous for having extraordinarily little pubic hair. At university he was known as Two Brain Drummond but no one took him seriously. Then in the blink of an eye thirty years have gone by and suddenly he’s recalled. Energy Minister. Tipped for the Cabinet. Mind you, I could have gone the same route if I’d wanted. But I was never a man to toe the line.

  I arrive at his house in Chelsea, ring the bell, ease my finger under the collar of my shirt.

  ‘Geoffrey, good to see you.’ He draws me into the house, takes hold of my hand. Then my whole arm. I’m like an actor who’s forgotten his lines. That morning comes back to me. When I had to go and tell him that Tiffany was dead. All night we’d been trying to reach him, with no success. He’s an insomniac and often unplugs the phone. So I had to come around here. Gus said he’d come for me, but I couldn’t let him do that. It was ghastly. I’ve always been absolutely awful at that kind of thing. No idea what to say. Worse than that I had to resist a terrible desire to laugh. Shock, I suppose.

  ‘Max,’ Geoffrey says. ‘Max.’ He’s still got hold of my arm.

  ‘Good for you,’ I say. ‘Yes.’ Still I can’t think of the words.

  Geoffrey looks worse than ever. Poor sod. Partly it’s overwork, of course. But it’s not just that, it’s grief. Funny, you’d think that if you’d been through that yourself, losing your wife, you’d have lots of patience, but oddly you have less. The awful truth is that Geoffrey, sitting there with his white face and fleshless body, makes me annoyed. There’s nothing anyone can say that will help. There is no comfort. You’ve got to get on with it, that’s all you can do.

  Geoffrey takes me to his study. His hands are shaky. His long arms swing and his head is bent forward. He’s like something left over from some earlier stage of evolution. He has freckles and sandy red hair, and long legs which don’t seem to be part of him. He’s forever swinging them around, crossing them, uncrossing them, hooking them over the arms of the chairs. Clearly he’s got a cold. He’s snuffling and red-eyed.

  He sits down behind his de
sk. From the formal way he does that, and the fact that he keeps clearing his throat, I know there’s something wrong. Something more than the normal, that is. This isn’t about the job, that much is clear. He starts to chat, but chat isn’t Geoffrey’s thing. He talks about Maggie. Brussels, what an opportunity for her! The weather. Fiona. How is James getting on at school?

  Above his desk there’s a photograph of Tiffany. A very good photograph. She’d have made sure that there were no bad photographs of her. And of course, she was a pretty girl. One of the prettiest girls I’ve ever seen. Features which were rather too large and obvious. Like those heroines in boys’ comics. Eyes slanting upwards, mouth shaped like a bow. In the photograph the three of us are standing there together at some formal dinner. I can’t remember where. Geoffrey and Tiffany. They were so mismatched. Makes me wonder why he ever married her. She was right out of his league. That always leads to trouble. The problem is that Geoffrey’s an innocent. He may have his hands on the levers of power, but essentially he’s only just out of short trousers.

  Geoffrey’s phone rings and he takes the call. It’s Leo. I listen to half the conversation. The proposed tax changes, the budget wrangles, whether Robson is really in line for the Defence portfolio. It’s like hearing about some thrilling outing from which you’ve been excluded. Once they’d have been interested in my view. But not any more.

  The conversation goes on for a while. Geoffrey sits down, stands up, swings his legs over the back of the chair. Geoffrey, Hugh, Buffy, Angus. We were all at university together. Members of the Citadel Club, which we, in fact, set up. It’s attracted a lot of attention in the press, over the years. That’s what this journalist asks me about. But it’s hard to explain. On the one hand it was about big ambitions. About power. But in another sense it was just a boys’ drinking club. It all seems pretty childish now. To dream and not to count the cost.

  Geoffrey puts the phone down, starts to recap the conversation, forgetting that I heard half of it anyway. This is an avoidance tactic. I don’t like the way he’s so twitchy. Come on, Geoffrey, get to the point. He keeps stopping to sneeze or cough. Sorry, he says. Sorry. Frightful cold.

  Then he says, ‘Look here, Max, I actually wanted to see you on rather a difficult matter.’

  I nod.

  ‘Well, the fact is that Tiffany’s brothers, and the rest of the family have been talking …’

  He coughs and snivels. ‘Sorry, I haven’t offered you a drink. Tea, coffee, something stronger?’

  ‘No, really. I’m fine.’

  There’s silence.

  ‘Yes, well, as I was saying. The fact is that Tiffany’s brothers – well, you know, they had their criticisms of the police, well anyway, they have talked about launching a private prosecution.’

  I watch Geoffrey across the desk. Feels like my head’s being screwed into a vice. ‘And who are they going to launch this prosecution against?’ I know but I want to hear Geoffrey say it.

  ‘Well, well …’

  Geoffrey peers out of the window. ‘Max, I must stress, I don’t think it’s going to come to that. It’s just a discussion. And of course I’ve tried to tell them a thousand times what a bad idea it is.’

  ‘It’ll cost them a fortune.’

  ‘Yes, of course it will, and I’ve told them that.’

  ‘I don’t see what they think they’ll gain. It was an accident. There’s nothing more to be said …’

  ‘I’m so sorry, Max … You know, they’re Americans, and nothing against the Americans, of course, but they do like their pound of flesh.’

  I feel like a drink, or a cigarette. It’s an effort to sound calm and reasonable. ‘Well, obviously, they’re very upset. Understandably so. We all are. And they want someone to blame. And if that’s their way of coping with this …’

  ‘Nothing is decided. I’m still trying to dissuade them. I’m her husband and I must have some say in this. I’m so sorry.’

  He burbles on a while longer, sneezing and coughing. I’m not listening. Always I think if I wait just a little longer I’m going to be free of this. But the truth is it’ll never end. I realise Geoffrey is asking me a question.

  ‘Sorry, what was that?’

  ‘I was just asking where you are off to now?’

  ‘Back to Brickley.’

  ‘Ah, peace and quiet in Gloucestershire. How I envy you that.’

  Patronising sod.

  ‘Sorry, to be in such a rush,’ he says. ‘I’d have liked more time to talk. When are you here again? We must have lunch one day.’

  ‘Yes, we must. Any time.’

  He’s relieved now that he’s got this conversation over with.

  ‘Actually,’ he says, ‘Maggie is going to be here on Saturday. I don’t suppose you’ll be around then?’

  ‘Maggie? I thought she’d gone already.’

  ‘No, no. Any day now, but I wanted to catch up with her before she goes. Saturday lunch seemed the best plan.’ Suddenly it’s all agreed.

  ‘And bring Gus along,’ Geoffrey says. ‘I need someone to do some digging for me and he might be just the man.’

  Geoffrey starts to pick up papers from his desk.

  ‘Sorry to hurry you, Max, but I’ve got to get on. I’ve a meeting at the House at three. You know how it is.’

  ‘Yes, yes, of course. Although I was going to ask you, just quickly, about that job?’

  Geoffrey looks blank.

  ‘The Inquiry job.’

  ‘Ah yes,’ Geoffrey says. ‘Yes.’ He sighs and looks over at me. ‘Of course, I did suggest you for that. I’d mentioned that, hadn’t I? Excellent solution, I thought. But no go.’

  ‘Oh don’t worry,’ I say. ‘I’m not sure I’d be best suited anyway.’

  Bugger, bugger. I needed that job.

  Geoffrey shrugs again and gives me a hangdog look. ‘Sorry, old chap.’

  The last thing I need is his sympathy. He’s let me down. And I’ve been a very good friend to him. He thinks he’s got the better of me, but he hasn’t. Geoffrey is looking at me intently through his bloodshot eyes. ‘The decision was to do with qualifications, that’s all, there were simply people with a bit more knowledge in that sphere …’ He coughs and looks away.

  So there are people better qualified than me. Funny that, really.

  ‘But there are many other possibilities, I’m sure of that. What with your qualifications and abilities …’ But he knows as well as I do that if there’s any gossip about a trial, then there’ll be no jobs for me. Somehow we say goodbye. Geoffrey is full of apologies. I am ushered to the door. See you Saturday. Yes, Saturday. I find myself in the street.

  I drive back to Gloucestershire through horizontal rain and thrashing winds. I’m feeling pretty shaky. Bugger Geoffrey. Bugger Tiffany. How did I allow her to drag me into all this? What should I tell Fiona when I get home? Nothing. I’ll just have to hope it doesn’t happen.

  Finally I see the lights of Brickley Grange. My spirits lift. The house I always dreamed I’d own. A Georgian facade and a big kitchen table, with everyone crowded around it, eating roast beef. As a child I never had that. It was all jam sandwiches in the back of Nanda’s Austin Seven. This is a house other people admire, a place where I’m on the inside. The only problem is that I’ve never quite believed in it. I’m always waiting for the grown-ups to come home and tell us off for sitting on the best furniture. And now, of course, it isn’t my house any more. Fiona owns it. And if I don’t behave then she can tell me to pack my bags.

  I open the front door, cross the hall. The house is quiet with James away. I miss him. An outgrown coat of his hangs on a hook. His Wellington boots gather dust on a rack beneath. When Fiona and I married it looked like we wouldn’t be able to have children. Test tubes and needles. Ghastly sessions behind hospital curtains. I tolerated it for Fiona. Then after we’d given up, James turned up of his own accord. Looks just like me, and I adore him.

  Children are different when you have them late. When I had Ma
ggie I hadn’t finished being a child myself. I couldn’t see the point of her. But now I see myself in James. Time rolled backwards. Dreadful – watching him go away to school, seeing the cage of life close around him.

  In the back corridor my path is blocked by a church pew. I remember now that I bought it last weekend at some auction, despite Fiona’s attempts to dissuade me. It is rather large. A barometer hangs above the telephone table. It was given to Fiona and me as a wedding present. I tap it and the needle rocks then settles back at the same point. Stormy.

  In the kitchen Fiona is standing at the sink, looking at her watch, her eyebrows raised. A chef’s striped apron, rubber gloves. ‘Ah, there you are.’ She swallows as though she’s getting something difficult down. She has big, watery eyes. Untidy hair streaked blonde. There’s a leathery, hard-working look about her which I’ve always found rather attractive.

  ‘Had a nice day at the office, dear?’ Her perennial joke, but it falls rather flat now there isn’t an office. I nearly go to kiss her, then remember we don’t do that any more. At the moment she’s at a bit of a loose end. No job for me, no job for her. Invitations dried up. No James to look after. She’s chopping up liver. The knife pulls down through the slime of it. My stomach turns. I look away, shuffle through post.

  Inevitably our relationship has been pretty tricky since the fire. The pained expression on her face annoys me, although she’s got every right to it. She’s stuck to me through thick and thin. And I admire her for that. Any other woman would have baled out. She knows I’ve got my faults and failings, of course. Fidelity has never been my strong suit. Not that I’ve ever let her catch me out. I love her too much for that. But perhaps over the years she’s guessed something. And my arrest upset her a lot. Being married to an adulterer, it’s possible. But a criminal – no.

  ‘You’ve come just in time to help me with some mouse-traps,’ she says.

  ‘Oh. Do we need them?’

  ‘Yes. A mouse walked right across the floor in front of me this morning.’