Breaking the Chain (7 page)

Duncan was overwhelmed by distaste for Phoebe, for himself, and for the whole sordid business of cohabiting. Another failure, he thought to himself. I failed as a son. I failed at college. I failed in the world of work and now I’ve failed as a husband. The knowledge was enough. There was no need to discuss it
further. ‘I d-d-d-don’t … know w-w-w …’ he tried to say. Now he was a failure at speaking too, even on his only safe recourse, the telephone. He realized with relief that there was still a way to escape. He put the receiver down.

Phoebe walked home slowly from the phone box. It got dark at 4.30 these November days, and by eight o’clock was pitch-black. When she got through the village, she felt in her pocket for a torch and shone a comforting beam of light ahead of herself, along the road and down their lane. Her brilliant idea hadn’t worked; worse than that, she had probably undermined Duncan’s masculinity for all time. She hadn’t meant to shout it all out like that. She had intended to have a controlled polite discussion. She had been so sure that everything could be sorted out if it could only be talked through. She had never failed before. Her sex life had always been more than satisfactory. A picture of herself in bed with her teacher came to mind and stayed there to taunt her. If only he hadn’t been married to someone else, then it would have been perfect. They were so good together … It’s not my fault, Phoebe thought. I’m good at relationships.
It’s not fair …

She dawdled down the lane, shining her torch up into the crown of a big oak tree in the hedge. A startled owl fell off one of the branches and flew rapidly and silently away. The southeast wind blew into her face and made her shiver.

I must have a baby, she thought. Time’s running out. Becky’s right; Duncan would come round once he saw it. He’s just got no imagination, that’s his problem. And that’s not all, an inner voice niggled her. What about the other things wrong with him? She made a mental list of Duncan’s failings. He was old-fashioned and inclined to pomposity. He was a snob. He was untidy. He didn’t have a proper job and didn’t earn a regular income. He kept all his feelings to himself and wouldn’t talk. He had made no attempt to get to know her, let alone understand her. He lived entirely in the present, with no interest in the past or concern for the future. He didn’t want any children. He wasn’t much interested in sex. He loved his dog more than his wife.

Does he beat you? asked the voice of reason within her. Does he drink? Does he have affairs? Is he a closet gay, a criminal, a child abuser? No? Then what are you whingeing about? So he’s not perfect; who is? How many women’s husbands actually talk to them? He lets you live your own life without hindrance; just be grateful for that.

He’s hindering the conception of my baby! Phoebe contradicted the voice. So don’t tell him! Have your coil taken out and let it happen. Which voice said that; the voice of emotion or the voice of reason? Who cares? Phoebe thought. Whichever it is, it’s right. She quickened her step. I’ll get in, she thought and I’ll apologize to him. I’ve been going about it all the wrong way. I’ve upset him, and I don’t want to do that because in spite of everything I’ve just thought, I do love him and I don’t want to live in an atmosphere of tension and accusation. I’ll do it his way instead. And when I tell him I’m pregnant, it will be too late for him to do anything about it. And he’ll be fine; he’ll surprise himself. She got to the cottage filled with a resolve to do better. He wasn’t in the kitchen.

‘Duncan?’ she called. No answer.
‘Duncan?’
Oh God, she thought, he’s walked out! She ran to the sitting room and flung open the door. Duncan was sitting at the telephone and listening. He flapped her away with one hand, frowning. Phoebe made an apologetic face and withdrew backwards, shutting the door quietly in front of her. She let out a great sigh of relief. How stupid I am, she told herself. Of course he hasn’t walked out!

She looked in the cupboard where they kept drinks and tall groceries. There wasn’t much there. She found a bottle of Drambuie with some eighth of an inch of liqueur at the bottom and uncorking it, raised it to her lips. It was hot and sweet. Duncan came in just as she was lowering the bottle. He frowned again. She put it down on the table.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said in a rush, ‘I really am. You were right: the telephone idea was a nonstarter. Let’s just be friends again.’

‘Have you f-finished the whole b-bottle?’ he asked.

‘It was only the dregs. Please, Duncan.’ He stood a few feet from her, irresolute. She held out her arms. ‘Give us a hug,’ she said. ‘Am I forgiven?’ He allowed himself to be embraced,
awkward and still tense. She could hear his heart beating, and feel his breath on the top of her head. It wasn’t much of a hug, but it was better than shouting. ‘Who was on the phone?’ she asked after a few minutes, drawing away from him so that she could see his face.

‘Father.’

‘How is he?’

‘Fine.’

‘What did he want?’

‘Nothing.’

‘So why …?’

‘He’s just heard that Nancy S-Sedgemoor has left him all her m-money and f-furniture and everything, in her w-will.’

‘How amazing! Is it a lot?’

‘Yes, a-a-apparently. Father thinks to d-distribute some of it amongst us s-sons.’

‘But that’s wonderful! When?’

‘He wants us to go up to her f-flat in L-London and choose some s-stuff this weekend, t-t-tomorrow.’

Money! thought Phoebe. If it makes us not hard up, then Duncan won’t be able to say that we can’t afford a baby. It’s an omen!

It was like being a licensed burglar, Phoebe thought, as she and Duncan went over Nancy Sedgemoor’s flat. It produced in her a flood of conflicting emotions which were uncomfortable and unsuitable, yet exciting. They were allowed to take what they wanted, within reason. Peter and Hope had already had their pick and the other London-based sons had had theirs. Anything too big to carry off on the spot could be marked with a label, and rival claims would be put to family arbitration later.

The flat had large elegant rooms and had clearly been beautifully kept, but now its contents were covered in six months’ dust, and the cut flowers and houseplants had died of neglect and showered the thick sea-green carpets with their shrivelled jetsam. Phoebe and Duncan were there on their own. They went from room to room, treading softly, almost reverently, as though in church. Phoebe was relieved to see that Duncan
was in reasonable spirits, in spite of their row the day before. She was grateful for this distraction. She looked about the first room, the sitting room, with fascination tinged with unease.

This was someone’s home. It was full of all her personal things. She had left it unexpectedly on the day she died, presumably unaware that she would never come back. She wouldn’t have had time or opportunity to get rid of the things she didn’t want other people to see. Here was no sanitized, expurgated version of Nancy Sedgemoor, carefully presented for posterity. Here was everything; unprotected and taken by surprise. Phoebe thought, How would I feel if I suddenly died? Would I mind people snooping through my things? She thought guiltily of the vibrator that her teacher had given her to console herself with when he had chosen to neglect her in favour of his wife. She had brought it to the cottage with her when she married Duncan and had hidden it, shamefacedly, at the bottom of her trunk, rolled up in a woollen vest. She now imagined unsympathetic strangers finding it and guffawing over it, and cringed at the thought. She resolved to get rid of it the moment they got home.

Nancy Sedgemoor hadn’t had that chance. Everything here was left as it was, to be discovered, perhaps misinterpreted, sniggered over, and ultimately taken or rejected by her inheritors. And had she even realized who they might be? She had left the flat and its contents to Peter. Would she have thought of Peter’s sons and their wives foraging through it? Could she at this very moment see them doing it? Phoebe looked up at the high ornamental ceiling as if searching for Nancy’s spirit, wishing she could somehow gain her permission, and sorry that there was no way of receiving such a sanction. She wondered what sort of a woman she had been. What had she looked like? There were no photographs.

‘This is a marvellous d-desk,’ Duncan said, from the far window. ‘I think we should p-put our moniker on it.’ He bent down and blew the dust off its green leather top. Phoebe walked over to look. It was over four feet wide and made of a dark well-figured wood, polished to an antique shine. The fronts of the two pillars and all their drawers were asymmetrically convex, and the front of the central long drawer was gently concave,
giving it a sinuous appearance. It looked grand and expensive. Duncan pulled open some of the deep drawers to show her. ‘Lovely and s-smooth,’ he demonstrated, ‘beautifully made.’

Inside the drawers there were pens and pencils, elastic bands, heavy cream writing paper and envelopes, catalogues, press cuttings, old keys, bits of string … Phoebe wanted to look at them more closely, but didn’t want Duncan to see her prying.

‘It’s gorgeous,’ she said. ‘Can we really have it?’

‘If no one else b-bags it,’ Duncan said. ‘Father won’t want it. He’s g-got a huge d-desk of his own.’

‘What’s going to happen to the things no one wants?’

‘I expect they’ll get a firm in to c-clear the place,’ Duncan said. ‘They’ll s-sell anything that’s w-worth anything and p-probably burn the rest. Father says he’s hoping to s-sell the flat as soon as possible.’

‘It’s a nice flat,’ Phoebe said, ‘but I’d hate to live in London. Let’s look over everything first and decide what we like, and then go round later on and label our final choice.’

There were obvious gaps where things had already been taken; bright squares of wallpaper previously covered by paintings or mirrors, marks of castors on the carpet where chairs had stood, dust-free circles on table tops and window sills where bowls and ornaments had once been displayed. But there was still a great deal of furniture and it still felt like a home.

Phoebe left Duncan wandering round the sitting room, and went into the kitchen. The saucepans had all gone and so had the cooker. The floor stuck grittily to the soles of her shoes. Someone had spilt sugar on it and only partially cleaned it up. All the doors of the wall cupboards were open, revealing storage jars half full of raisins, lentils, macaroni… an open box of All-Bran, and a half-finished pot of dark marmalade with a grey crust. In the bread bin there was a loaf, hoary with mould. The flip-top bin stank. Phoebe grimaced. She didn’t feel like delving too deeply here. Maybe just that cast-iron casserole, the sort she’d always wanted, the asparagus kettle and the electric toaster?

Phoebe found the spare bedroom to be lined with books. She was fascinated by their variety. A lot of them were academic texts on aspects of zoology, which she recognized from her
university job in Newcastle. There was also a thesis and a row of bound periodicals, and boxes of reprints of scientific papers. Phoebe remembered Duncan telling her that Nancy Sedgemoor had a doctorate. She must have been a zoologist, Phoebe thought, and it gave her a feeling of fellowship with the dead woman; a kind of bond. She had obviously been very concerned about environmental issues too, judging from the numbers of books on that subject, and poetry … and music. Phoebe resolved to take as many of the best books that their van would carry, and looked forward with an intense pleasure that felt warm inside her, to reading them all. She wandered into Nancy’s bedroom, smiling at the thought, but stopped short with a little cry of distress.

Someone had vandalized the room. All the drawers from the chest of drawers and the dressing table had been pulled out and roughly upended; their contents tipped recklessly onto the bed and floor, and then left in rifled, discarded heaps where they had dropped. The dust and detritus from years of use had trickled from the corners of the drawers and intermixed with them, smearing the pale pink bedspread and the cream-coloured carpet, and coating the tangled vests, the odd stockings and the long-legged thermal knickers. It was a desecration worse than all that had gone before, and Phoebe felt it keenly. She started to pick up things in an attempt to atone for it. She put the small bottle of eau de Cologne back on the dressing table and then gathered up more underclothes, face cream, handkerchiefs, a powder puff, safety pins, a packet of painkillers, an elastic bandage, hairpins, a magnifying glass, half a tube of ointment for haemorrhoids, earplugs, keys … She came upon a pair of false teeth half wrapped in a cloth but drew the line at touching them. What was the point? It wouldn’t do any good now.

Who had done this? Phoebe found it hard to imagine how anyone could. Didn’t it show an utter contempt for the dead woman? Or was it just an expression of confident certainty that there was no life after death; that the dead wouldn’t know and couldn’t care? Phoebe didn’t believe in God, but she would never have acted so disrespectfully … just in case.

As she turned away from the defiled possessions, she saw
underneath a tin of athlete’s foot powder something else dark blue. It was a passport. Phoebe bent quickly to pick it up. It was Nancy Sedgemoor’s. It was more than ten years out of date and it contained the old-fashioned full description of the bearer.
Profession,
Phoebe read
University lecturer. Place and date of birth: London. 31.1.1921. Residence: England. Height: 5ft 7ins. Colour of eyes: Green. Colour of hair: Auburn. Special Peculianties: None.
Underneath, her signature in black ink was bold and well formed. But it was the photograph opposite which riveted Phoebe’s attention. She supposed that Nancy must have been in her late forties when it was taken. It had clearly been done in a studio. It was not the modern booth-produced caricature, but a proper black and white portrait of a striking face. She was handsome, Phoebe thought, and strong. The nose was long and straight, and the eyes wide set. The hair was probably already going grey. The mouth was full and slightly upturned at the corners; humorous? She was wearing no jewellery and her eyebrows were rather bushy. She didn’t look particularly feminine, but she didn’t look butch either, just intelligent.