Hartsend (23 page)

It was exactly what he'd thought himself.

‘‘If you want to be certain, I'll call the number for you. My feeling is that it would be better to keep Harriet out of the loop, at least until we know for certain. What d'you think?''

What did he think? He didn't know. He'd never even seen his father. There wasn't a single photo of him in the house.

‘‘If it is him, what will you do?'' the man said finally, ‘‘Would you want to meet him?

Overcome by virtue, Harriet had gone to the kitchen and switched on the radio. She had grown up in an old house with walls made of grey Aberdeen granite. This manse was less than ten years old. Simply by standing in the corridor beside the closed sitting room door, she could have heard every word, but there were times, and this was one of them, when her father stopped being Dad and became someone else. She took out a can of Coca Cola, and rifled in a drawer for one of the pink swirly straws which were kept for the youngest of the Scottish cousins. Needing more comfort, she went back to the fridge and took out the remains of a chocolate cake. The sponge had gone a bit dry, but the icing was still good; thick and dark, with just the right amount of apricot jelly under it. She broke off a piece, decided it was too small, but managed with a struggle to close the door on what remained.

Was being good a virtue if it was just a habit? She was probably the only one in her class unable to drop litter, the only one who had to carry an empty crisp packet in her blazer pocket until she came to a bin. She couldn't lie about undone homework, or make believable excuses for not going to things. Because, basically, she was a coward. She'd been afraid to do what Ryan asked without consulting the Fount of Wisdom, and now he'd taken over. She stuck out her tongue at one of the fridge magnets. ‘‘Do you want to speak to the man in charge or the woman who knows what's happening?''

Just give me a few minutes with him.

Why? What for?

Was he warning Ryan off? Telling him to keep his distance?

She had her back to the corridor, and her legs under the table. When the door opened behind her, she turned round too slowly. Ryan was at the outside door and gone into the night before she could stop him. She ran to her father.

‘‘What did you say to him? What have you done?''

Before he had a chance to speak, she flew back to the kitchen, grabbed the first coat her fingers found on the pantry door and rushed down the steps.

Ryan had only reached the far side of the car park. She ran after him, not calling, in case he too would begin to run. When she caught hold of his arm, he went rigid.

‘‘Don't,'' he said, so quietly she could hardly hear. He spoke to the ground, didn't look at her.

‘‘What's wrong? What did he say? Did he tell you to stop seeing me?''

Slowly he pulled his arm free. ‘‘This isn't about you, Harriet.''

‘‘Don't make it sound like that. I meant him … I wanted him to help you.''

‘‘Yeah, right. After I jump off the bridge he can do the fucking funeral.''

He pulled a small bottle from an inner pocket, took a swallow, flung it towards the graveyard and started walking away, still facing her. ‘‘Would you miss me, Harriet? Would you cry? My Mum would, but that doesn't count. She cries all the time. Just promise you won't wear black.''

‘‘I'll wear black if I want to.'' she called back. She tried to match her steps to his, not wanting to get closer, not wanting to lose him.

‘‘You won't look good in black.''

‘‘Maybe I won't come. Maybe I'll have something better to do.''

They were yelling now, as the space between them grew. A large yellow Labrador with a man at the other end of the lead came out from one of the bungalows further ahead. The man glanced at Ryan, then tugged the dog over to the other pavement.

Harriet hesitated. The raincoat she'd thrown on was unlined. Her shoes were more like slippers with thin soles and the cold of the pavement was already seeping up her body. She turned back.

‘‘You have to come! Harriet!''

Frightened, she stopped. In the same moment, there was the sound of a car horn. On the other side of the road, a car was pulling to a halt.

She went over.

‘‘Get in the back,'' her Dad said through the lowered window, ‘‘And stay put.''

She watched him cross to where Ryan was standing. There was a brief conversation before they both came back to the car. Ryan got into the front passenger seat.

In silence they drove down the first side road, turning towards the centre of the village and along Main Street. Her father pulled into the car park beside The Dirty Duck.

‘‘Fifteen minutes,'' he said to Ryan, ‘‘Then we'll take you home.''

‘‘Why are we going into the …''

‘‘
I'm
going in, Harriet. I have to confirm the booking for the Pie and Pint night. You and your friend are waiting for me.''

She hated it when his voice took on that flat, sarcastic, superior edge. Undoing the seat belt, she slid over so that she could see Ryan's face. He was quietly, rhythmically thumping the window. The thumping stopped.

‘‘So do you want to know or not?''

She didn't care, didn't want to talk, didn't want to listen. She didn't care what happened to him next or ever.

‘‘Yes,'' she said.

‘‘He said it's my dad. Makin' the phone calls. He wants to come back. He left when I was younger than Chrissie.''

‘‘Why?''

‘‘I don't know. Maybe he didnae like the look of me.''

It wasn't what she meant. Later she was to give thanks that she hadn't tried to explain, or worse, made some kind of flip remark.

He went on, ‘‘It's like everybody's going one way, and I'm being pushed in the other direction. Every fucking day. I'm a joke. It's no' as if I don't know.''

Was he talking to her, or to himself?

‘‘It looks good, but it's no' real. It's pure shite. All of it. I just want … I don't fucking care what they want from me.''

‘‘I have this weird dream sometimes,'' she said. ‘‘I'm in some kind of Army, and people are ordering me to do things I don't want to. It's not our Army, it's some foreign place, and they're evil, and I know I'm not supposed to be there, but I can't get away from them.''

He didn't say anything. What could he say? He probably wasn't listening anyway.

When her Dad came back, there was no more conversation at all, apart from Ryan's brief directions to his home. He left the car without a word.

Lesley lifted her mother's fur coat out of the wardrobe and laid it out on the bed. The colour was richer than she remembered from childhood. It was the shade a woman's hair might be if you began with dark brown and added something like a maroon rinse, but there was a gloss on it no woman's hair could ever have. She trailed the back of her hand down the sleeve. The outer hair felt cool and slippery but next to the skin the softer hair was unexpectedly warm. The lining matched the colour of the fur. Her mother's initials were embroidered across one corner in copperplate, two inches high, as if to say, let there be no doubt whose coat this is. Had furriers done this on all coats in the days when furs were common, where two might hang together side by side, and be so alike that the owners needed to initial their property? Perhaps they still did in countries where fur was worn. A few years back one of the staff had returned from a Christmas honeymoon in Athens. ‘‘I couldn't believe it,'' she told them. ‘‘I counted seven women in furs before we even got to the hotel. They all wear fur over there.''

This wasn't Athens. She didn't think she would ever wear it. Mother hadn't worn it for years. She put it back on the rail. It could wait. Many things could wait.

She glanced at the black bin-bag, into which she had earlier emptied two drawers of underwear. She'd done it quickly. No-one wanted anyone else's smalls. But the cardigans and blouses were different. You couldn't bin them without thinking. She had divided them into three piles: worn/bin, worn/still decent, and unworn. The worn/decent pile could go to Mrs Robertson's Hospice Shop, and Mrs Flaherty could have her choice of the unworn. It was difficult to imagine when Mrs Flaherty might wear a fur coat. Ought she to offer it anyway? One of the daughters might take it and shorten it into a jacket.

She had decided not to feel guilty about Mrs Flaherty. She'd put a note through the door with the information from the Reverend Smith about diverting calls, repeated his advice to contact the police, and assured the poor soul that she was not to come back until she felt strong enough. What more could she do?

The mantel clock downstairs chimed the half hour. One chest of drawers and half a wardrobe cleared. The smallest of beginnings, and she felt drained. Now she needed to bathe and change. What time had they decided on? Seven or seven thirty?

Mrs Crawfurd picked up the phone. Duncan? Duncan was at the computer. Was it something she, Mrs Crawfurd, could help with?

‘‘We're having tea tonight,'' Lesley said, ‘‘but I can't remember what time …''

‘‘It's seven, Lesley dear. When I suggested he should take you out, I said to make it seven. The service is always better, and it's so much quieter. I do hope it's all right. It's under new management, but Eunice Calvert went with her staff at Christmas. She said the food was very acceptable.''

 

Lesley turned on the hot tap, and regarded the floor of the bath through the steam for some time before actually seeing it and realising she'd forgotten to put in the plug. A shallowish bath would still have been possible, but instead she turned off the tap, went to her room and lay down on top of the bed, pulling the top quilt over her.

A cream silk blouse and a pleated black skirt hung on two hangers on the door knob on the inside of the door. The curtains were open, and the blouse buttons, mother of pearl, caught and reflected the light from outside. On the dressing table lay two packets of tights, ‘‘one to wear, one for spare'', the cellophane wrappers still sealed. On the floor beneath next to a pair of black patent court shoes, size 4, C fitting, sat a matching handbag containing a purse, a small comb, a white handkerchief with embroidered gentians in one corner (Made in Switzerland), and a tube of Taylor of London's Lily of The Valley hand cream.

She cried a little, though without passion. For a time she watched the unmoving shadow stripes on the Paisley patterned wall paper, before turning on her side, away from the window and the street lights.

 

Duncan had tried on three different ties, and was not convinced about the one he was now wearing, a cream and pale green stripe. It looked almost colourless in the restaurant's dim light. He sat perched at the very edge of the bench seat, next to the passageway, in case Lesley, being short, might not see him when she arrived.

Paper-wrapped breadsticks filled a grey stoneware jar in the centre of the table. Product of Firenze, according to the labelling. It was quite disconcerting to be less than a mile from home in a room that tried to convince you that you were in Italy. A continuous mural on the longest wall represented a summer lakeside scene, viewed through windows. In one alcove, real water trickled from a stone spout into a stone basin, draped above and below with ivy and other greenery, which might have been real, and black grapes which he assumed were not. The smells coming from the direction of the kitchen were exactly those he remembered from the long ago school trip, olive oil and garlic frying, coffee beans freshly ground.

‘‘Would you like to order, sir?'' It was the thin young waitress who'd earlier led him to the table and lit its candle.

Duncan explained that he was a little early. He would wait for his friend.

Would he like something to drink, then? Perhaps the house red? One glass while he waited?

She made little marks on her small square pad, and turned to the couple in the next booth. The man could have been any age. He could only see the top of the woman's hair, puffed up like white candy floss. The waitress was pretty, but terribly thin. Sideways on, she seemed to have no flesh under the short, black skirt and blouse; her legs were like straight poles, the same circumference from thigh to ankle.

‘‘So how's life treating you, Diana,'' the man was saying.

The girl leaned towards them, out of his line of vision.

‘‘You're absolutely right,'' the woman's voice, ‘‘And I can tell you what I'd …''

‘‘Margaret,'' the man said sharply. ‘Mahgrit' was how he said it. Duncan transcribed the next sentence on the table cover with his index finger.
We're here tae enjoy wurselvs
.

Music came on, very loudly at first, then reduced after a few seconds to something more reasonable. Il Trovatore. Duncan listened carefully to the voice. Caruso? Could it really be Caruso? Astonishing. He willed Lesley to come quickly and share his delight.

The glass of house red arrived.

‘‘Is that Caruso?'' he said.

The girl looked blankly at him, managing a diffident smile as she withdrew.

For years he had walked past this restaurant, never dreaming that such pleasures lay within. He would have to compliment the owner. Unable to stop himself, he unwrapped one of the breadsticks and bit off a small portion.

Over the next three quarters of an hour, with two whole breadsticks nibbled to extinction and the glass of bright wine drunk, sip by increasingly anxious sip, his sense of delight gradually evaporated. He dialled Lesley's number. After several tries he gave up. The staff were beginning to glance at him, and the restaurant was filling with cheerful couples. Finally he went to the bar.

‘‘I'm terribly sorry, I think something must have happened to my friend.''