The Pure in Heart (26 page)

‘Kate …’ the word came out eventually, an odd croak.

‘She’ll be here in just a minute. Don’t worry.’

The girl now lifted a cup of warm sweet tea and held that to Marilyn’s lips. People walked
by in the corridor. A door closed with a strange sucking noise. There was a chink of metal on metal. This room was very warm, very calm. There was a
picture of a wave curling over on to a beach, another of a garden in the snow. ‘
Donated by the Friends of Bevham General Hospital. 1996
.’

Marilyn tried to find a handkerchief in her coat pocket. Her face was scored with tears. The nurse handed her
some tissues. She shrank from the thought of the violence that had welled up inside her, of how she had turned so angrily on the policewoman; she had never struck out at anyone in her life, never hurt a spider or trod on a snail. Neither of her children had ever been given the lightest smack. Yet she had felt rage enough to want to kill.

The door of the room with the blue chairs and the quiet
pictures opened. A young doctor in a white coat came in.

‘How are you feeling, Mrs Angus?’

Why were they being so kind to her, speaking so reassuringly, looking so sympathetic? They should be locking her away, straitjacketing her, leaving her alone with her own anger – not this.

He took her pulse, then held on to her hand. ‘That’s fine. When you feel ready the police have sent a car – someone
will drive you home and stay with you. I’ve prescribed a sedative, you can collect it at the nursing station as you go out … you need to sleep. Is there anything else I can do?’

She looked into his face. He had a tiny mole beside his eye, and a scar on his upper lip. He might have been fifteen years old. How could he be speaking to her with such calm confidence? How was it that she was ready
to do whatever he asked?

She shook her head, then again managed to say Kate’s name.

‘She’s fine but she’s going off duty for tonight.’

‘What did I do?’

‘Gave her a bloody nose actually. No lasting damage.’ He smiled. ‘You packed a punch.’

She didn’t mind that he was trying to lighten her up, make her relax. She didn’t mind. She smiled back at him. Then she said, ‘My son David is dead,’ and
knew that it was the simple truth.

The young doctor did not insult her by contradicting her or trying to jolly her out of what she had said, he merely took her hand and held it firmly in silence, and stayed with her until a different police officer came and took her down to the waiting car and home.

The room smelled of damp coats. Outside Blackfriars Hall the square was like a sluice and the guttering poured water on to everyone stepping inside. A great many people had come, mainly, Karin McCafferty thought, to escape the wet rather than to support the exhibition of the proposed new day-care centre. The helpers in charge of refreshments had been serving coffee and cakes non-stop,
and the raffle and tombola tables had attracted a queue since the opening. But people wandered vaguely round the model of the centre without asking any questions or, save for a few, writing their names in the book left out for those who wanted to be contacted with further information. It was a very nice model. The day-care centre would be at the side of Imogen House and have facilities for patients
to meet together, to paint and sew, make models, play games. There would be consultation and treatment rooms and a conservatory opening out on to the garden. Not everyone needed to be an inpatient at the hospice, and not all inpatients simply went
into Imogen House to die; many went for respite care and pain relief and returned home for weeks or months of better quality life. If they had a day
unit to attend, their care package would be complete. Karin and Meriel Serrailler had been ready with the answers to every conceivable question, ready with explanations and leaflets, ready, as Meriel put it, with a better sales pitch than any used-car dealer. But they had scarcely been asked a question and no one had wanted to stay long enough to have the idea of the day-care centre sold to them.

Now, the room was thinning out as people finished their coffees and got ready to plunge back into the rain. Meriel had gone to help with washing-up. Karin sat beside the model, finishing her second cup of tea and feeling dispirited.

A second later, she looked up at a young woman who had just come in. She wore a cream belted raincoat and a pale pink cashmere stole, and her hair gleamed with raindrops
but was neither tangled into damp rats’ tails not plastered round her face. She was beautiful. Karin stared at her. She was probably the most beautiful woman she had ever seen. She was slim with a perfect skin and very large, dark eyes, as dark as the sheet of hair.

Karin stood up. It was, she felt, what you did in the presence of such beauty.

The girl made her way slowly across the room towards
the model.

‘Good morning.’

‘Hi there.’ American then. The accent was gentle, educated, soft. The girl held out her hand. ‘You are?’

‘Karin McCafferty.’

‘Lucia Philips. Now please tell me what is going on here – what this model represents. I guess we came in out of the rain and to see the old building, and here is something going on we should maybe know about?’

Five minutes later she knew
everything that Karin could tell her and she listened with intelligent attention. They walked round the model. Karin pointed out this and that feature, the girl looked carefully. At the back of the room, Karin was aware of Meriel and a couple of the other volunteers peering out, wondering.

The girl, Lucia Philips, turned at the sound of a footstep behind her. ‘Cax, come and see this.’

He was
in his fifties and good-looking. He wore the American equivalent of Savile Row and had an accent to match. But the downpour had been less kind to him. His mackintosh was soaked at the neck and sleeves, and the rain ran down the sides of his face into his neck.

‘Please, let me get you some coffee … and I’m sure I can find a clean towel for you to get a little drier.’

He held out his hand. ‘Well,
thank you. George Caxton Philips. I see you already met my wife Lucia.’

Karin looked again. The girl could not be more than twenty-two or -three and Karin had taken the
man for her father. But whatever he was, she sensed that they ought to be given the best attention. She went off to the kitchen in search of fresh coffee and a towel. Meriel backed her in beside the sink. ‘Who?’

‘American. Charming.
Can you make them a fresh pot of coffee?’ She rummaged in one of the drawers and came up with a couple of faded but clean tea towels with pictures of St Michael’s Cathedral.

‘I’ll bring it out,’ Meriel stage-whispered. ‘You go back there.’

The couple were examining the model together and, as she approached, Karin sensed a frisson of intimacy and sexual electricity between them which startled
her, though they stood inches apart and were intent on speaking about the display.

‘I’m sorry this is all we have for you to mop up with but they’re quite clean.’

‘Thank you so much.’ He turned a smile on Karin which explained in a second his attraction for any woman, even a stunning beauty at least young enough to be his daughter. He rubbed his hair vigorously with one tea towel and wiped his
face and neck with the second, while making a rueful face. His wife glanced at him and rocked back on her heels with laughter; as she did so, Karin noted the expression on his face in response – adoration, she thought. Not merely love but totally bewitched adoration.

‘Now, let me take these somewhere to be laundered.’

‘Good heavens, no, please.’ Karin held out her hand as Meriel came up with
a tray. From somewhere she had made not cups of instant but a cafetière of real coffee materialise. Karin moved away and started to gather up litter from the tables. A few more people came in and headed for the tombola. A couple asked for tea.

Meriel had taken over, as Karin had been perfectly sure that she would, but not before she had heard the American say, ‘We’re so interested in everything.
We’ve bought Seaton Vaux, maybe you know it, just a few miles out of town?’

Karin shot into the kitchen where three of the others were huddled. ‘Seaton Vaux,’ she said, indicating with her head.

‘I’d heard there was somebody …’

‘My God, that is serious.’

The tiny kitchen buzzed.

Seaton Vaux, a few miles west of Lafferton, was a Grade I Elizabethan manor house with several hundred acres and
an estate village and had been owned by the Cuff family until the death of the last member ten years before. Since then, it had fallen from disrepair into semi-ruin. It had been on the market for a long time, and the usual rumours of pop stars, film stars, royalty and exotic foreigners had done the rounds. Lately, there had been silence. Until now, and this good-looking Ivy League American with
the young wife who could put any film star or princess into the deepest shade.

Karin looked out of the kitchen. The lull was over. More people had come in. She went over to take sandwich orders, passing Meriel who was now sitting with the Caxton Philipses. Meriel ignored her.

Meriel saw them out of the hall. Karin hesitated, then climbed on to a chair to look from the high window. A dark blue
Bentley glided to the kerb as the George Caxton Philipses appeared in the doorway.

Royalty, Karin thought. Money and royalty. What else?

They closed the doors at four. Mary Payne sat at a card table for twenty minutes surrounded by piles of money and cash bags while the rest of them cleared the hall of everything except the architectural model and displays which would be taken separately.

‘One thousand, one hundred and eleven pounds and fifty-eight pence, two Irish pennies and an Israeli shekel.’ Mary sat back and rubbed her knuckles into her eyes.

A small cheer went up. Everyone was exhausted. Outside it was still raining. No one asked anyone else if the Americans had made a donation.

Two days later Karin was in the garden early, repotting and feeding half a dozen camellias which
stood on the sheltered terrace at the side of the house. She heard the postman’s van and walked
round to meet him. She still waited, knowing that there would be nothing, uncertain even if she wanted to hear from Mike. She was not happy but she had begun to adjust, focusing on her work and her own garden, and spending as much time as ever on keeping to her organic diet and therapies which had held
her cancer at bay for almost eighteen months. The postman leaned out and handed her a pile of mail banded together. She did not want to see a New York postmark. She did want to.

She fanned the letters out on the bench. Nothing from New York. Did she mind? No. Yes. They were all bills and circulars except for one letter in a thick cream envelope, addressed in black.

Dear Karin,

It was such a
great pleasure to meet you on Saturday and we do thank you for your kindness to us and your attentiveness in showing us the very interesting exhibition of the proposed hospice day-care centre.

I look forward to welcoming you to Seaton Vaux and not only after we have come to live there. As my husband told you, our main attention has been to the house but I am so anxious to make a real English
garden and especially to recreate something of the great glory that we know was there in former years and which we have seen from photographs. Dr Serrailler enthused to us about your garden design and planning genius and I would so love
it if you were able to come and look at ours as it is now, share any ideas you may have, with a view to your being involved in the new work.

We are in London
next week and can be reached at Claridge’s Hotel, after which we fly back to New York for a time. I have enclosed a card.

We look forward to renewing your acquaintance.

With all good wishes

Lucia Caxton Philips

The phone rang inside the house.

‘Hallo … Meriel, I was just thinking of you. I’m reading a letter from the beautiful American girl. She wants to restore the gardens at Seaton Vaux.’

‘I know. I sang your praises. Now listen, never mind the gardens,
I
have had a letter from the handsome Mr Caxton Philips. He’s offered to pay for the day centre.’

‘What? All of it?’

‘All of it. He’s giving us a million pounds.’

‘Bloody hell.’

‘Quite. It means we go ahead without having to cut any corners or send out any more begging letters.’

‘And all because they walked in out of the rain
to look at the Blackfriars Hall.’

‘Now I must ring John Quatermaine. He won’t believe it.’

Meriel put the phone down, as ever without saying goodbye. She would enjoy telling the consultant to the hospice about George Caxton
Philips. Within half an hour one American couple had changed the world around. Money, Karin thought. Never despise it.

She re-read Lucia Philips’s letter, written in the
slightly unformed hand which gave away her age.

For the first time since Mike left, Karin found herself looking forward. To work on the redesign and planning of the gardens at Seaton Vaux would be a dream job. It was also a daunting prospect. She would need all her skills, her health and strength.

‘Life,’ she said out loud into the kitchen. ‘Life!’

My Darling

I am sitting over a glass of Sancerre, chilled just as you like it. It is half past two in the morning and I can’t sleep. I have scarcely slept since I drove fast back to London like something scuttling back to its hole, after you threw me out of your flat. Harsh? Yes … I’ll revise it. ‘Made me so unwelcome at your flat.’

I felt ashamed of myself. I felt a fool. I felt
with the deepest certainty of my life that I am, and have long been, in love with you. I think it all began as a friendly game, didn’t it, on my side as well as on yours? I think we both wanted a companion for a pleasant evening out, a social partner isn’t it called? And some light-hearted sex. It worked like that for a time but I now realise that for me it was a very short time indeed.

I fell
in love with you. I did not want to do so, and I barely admitted it to myself for a long time. Certainly I never admitted it to you. It spoiled things. It has spoiled things. But there we are. I
came to see you out of desperation, after having left the messages you never returned. I wanted to know what I felt when I saw you again. Perhaps I had been wrong, and perhaps I would no longer love you
and want you so much. It would have been a relief. But I did. The moment you opened the door, I knew nothing within me had changed, but only grown and strengthened.