Part 3 (2/2)
”How did you meet Priscilla?” he asked.
”It was at a party in London,” replied Jane. ”Such a boring party, we decided to leave early and went to a bar for a drink and got talking. We had a few lunches after that.”
”And when did you last see her?”
”About three years ago, and then I heard this summer that her father had gone bust and turned the castle into an hotel.”
Hardly a friends.h.i.+p, thought Hamish. ”Shall we join the others?” he said, easing around her and making for the door.
Jane looked a little disappointed but followed him out. ”Pity,” she murmured. ”I've never had a policeman before.” Or rather, that's what Hamish thought she'd said.
The rest of the guests were back in the television lounge and grouped around the set. It was a talk show. A famous film star told everyone how he had got off the booze, and he was followed by a famous romantic novelist.
Heather's eyes narrowed. ”Just look at that silly woman. It gars me grue to see creatures like that making all that money producing rubbish.”
Sheila flushed and Hamish noticed that she slid the romance she had been holding on her lap down the side of the chair.
”Here, wait a minute,” said Harriet crossly. ”I may only write cookery books, but I do know something about romance writers. To be successful you can't write down, and very few of them make big money.”
Heather sniffed. ”Money for old rope, if you ask me. And the historical ones are the worst. I doubt if they even open a history book.”
”Well, it's the romance that sells it, not the historical content,” said Harriet soothingly. ”For example, if I wrote a book about the French Revolution, I would describe the tyranny and horror and how the storming of the Bastille was only to get at the a.r.s.enal. There were only seven people freed, you know. Now your true romance writer would see it more through the eyes of Hollywood. Thousands of prisoners would be released while the heroine, dressed in rags, led the liberators. Great stuff. I really sometimes wonder if the less romance writers know, the better. Or, for example, I would describe a s.h.i.+ekh of the desert as a fat little man with gla.s.ses and a dish-towel on his head. Your true romance writer would have a hawk-eyed Rudolph Valentine character in Turkish turban and thigh-boots. It's a harmless escape.”
”Harmless!” Heather snorted. ”It's even got women like poor Sheila here stuffing her mind with rubbish.”
”For heaven's sake,” said Harriet crossly, ”you watch the most awful pap on television, day and night. There was a programme on Channel Four last night about some Hollywood producer who does soft-p.o.r.n horror films and who was treated by the interviewer as a serious intellectual. Anyone who writes popular literature, on the other hand, is treated like a charlatan, and do you know why, Heather? It's because the world is full of morons who think they could write a book if only they had the time. You're just jealous!”
”Yes, if you're so b.l.o.o.d.y superior,” said John Wetherby, ”why don't you write a book, Heather?”
Heather looked at them like a baffled bull. Hamish guessed it was the very first time during her visit to the island that she had been under attack.
”Aren't we all getting cross?” cried Jane. ”Switch the goggle box off, John, and we'll all have a game of Monopoly instead.”
Hamish was then able to see another side to Jane, the good-business/hostess side. She flattered Heather by asking her questions about the latest shows in Glasgow as she led them through to the lounge and spread out the Monopoly board on the table. She teased Sheila charmingly on having such a devoted husband and said she ought to write an article and tell everyone her secret. She congratulated Harriet on a beautiful meal and told Diarmuid, Heather's husband, that he was so good-looking she was going to take some photographs of him to use for the health-farm brochure.
They all settled down in a better humour to a long game of Monopoly and n.o.body seemed to mind very much when Heather won.
Hamish at last went off to bed. The bed was comfortable and the central heating excellent. He wondered why Jane had seen fit to have extra wall heaters put in all the bathrooms, and then reflected that she was a clever-enough business woman to cosset her guests by seeming to supply mem with a rigorous regime of exercise outside while pampering them with warmth and comfort indoors.
He was sure no one was trying to kill her. And yet, he could not shake off a nagging feeling of uneasiness. He put it down, after some thought, to the fact that he disliked Heather intensely and had been shocked by John's revelations about his marriage. He would avoid them as much as possible. Harriet Shaw, now, was worth spending time with, and on that comfortable thought he drifted off to sleep.
Sheila Carpenter sat in front of the dressing-table in the room called Mary of Argyll which she shared with her husband. She wound rollers in her hair while her husband lay in bed, watching her.
”I could kill her,” said Sheila suddenly.
”Who?”
”Heather, of course.”
”I'll do it for you, pet. Don't let her bother you. She's not wurth it.”
”Petty, stupid sn.o.b,” said Sheila with uncharacteristic viciousness.
”Who is that long drip of a Highlander?” demanded John Wetherby. Jane shrugged. She was putting away the Monopoly pieces in their box. ”Just some friend of Priscilla's.”
”You can't fool me. For your benefit, your dear friend Heather told me this Macbeth was your latest.”
”It's not true,” said Jane. ”And Heather would not say anything malicious like that.”
”Oh, no? She's a first-cla.s.s b.i.t.c.h and I feel like bas.h.i.+ng 'her head in.”.
Jane studied him seriously and then said in a voice of patient reason, ”You must stop this irrational jealousy, John. It's not flattering or even s.e.xually motivated. It is simply based on totally irrational masculine possessiveness. It said in an article I was reading the other day...”
”Pah!” shouted John and stomped off to his room.
Diarmuid Todd sat at the dressing-table and trimmed his fingernails. His wife, Heather, was reading The Oppression of the Working Cla.s.ses in a Capitalist Society. She read as far as page 2 and then put the book down. ”What do you think of our Jane's latest?”
Diarmuid paused, and then continued working on his nails with all the single-minded fastidiousness of a cat at its toilet. ”Who do you mean?” he asked.
”Why, that Highland chap, Hamish something-or-another.”
Her husband put away the scissors in his leather manicure case and then took out an orangewood stick and began to clean his nails. ”I don't think he's anything other than a Mend, Heather, and I hope you haven't been going around saying anything else.”
His usually bland Scottish voice had a slight edge to it. ”Maybe not,” said Heather. ”Jane's a very attractive-looking woman but hardly a man-eater. There's something, well, s.e.xless about her.”
She patted the springy waves of her permanently waved hair with a complacent hand before picking up her book again.
The stick snapped in Diarmuid's suddenly tensed fingers and he threw his wife a look of pure and unadulterated hatred.
Harriet Shaw creamed her face vigorously and then slapped at what she feared might become a double chin one of these days and wished she had not come. The Carpenters were sweet, but Heather was too much to take. Thank goodness for that Hamish fellow. He was charming and quite attractive in a way with his fiery-red hair and hazel eyes. Better stick with him till the holiday was over or she would end up killing Heather. She amused herself before falling asleep by thinking out ways to get rid of Heather and then how to dispose of the body, until, with a smile on her lips, she fell fast asleep.
THREE.
Though by whim, envy, or resentment led, Though by whim, envy, or resentment led, They d.a.m.n those authors whom they never read. They d.a.m.n those authors whom they never read. -CHARLES CHURCHILL -CHARLES CHURCHILL To Hamish's surprise, breakfast, cooked by Jane, turned out to be an excellent meal, although he missed not having any tea or coffee. It consisted of toast and low-cholesterol margarine, fresh grapefruit, muesli, and a large gla.s.s of freshly squeezed orange juice.
The breakfast was marred only by the seeming emotions around him. Jane had appeared wearing pink denim shorts with a bib front over a white-and-pink-checked blouse and walking boots in tan leather. She was shortly followed by Heather, wearing exactly the same outfit.
Heather's face was flushed and angry and Diarmuid looked sulky. They had just had a row. The normally placid Diarmuid had suddenly snapped that if Heather thought Jane s.e.xless, then why did she try to dress like her? It only made her look like a fright. And certainly Heather did look awful, having rolls and b.u.mps of flesh where Jane had none, and fat white hairy legs, Heather believing that to shave one's legs was merely pandering to masculine s.e.xism. Jane looked at Heather as she entered and something for a moment glittered in the depths of her eyes and then was gone.
Sheila had carried her romance to the breakfast table and was reading it, occasionally darting nasty little looks at Heather, and her husband also darted angry little looks at Heather, so that the round Carpenters looked more like twins than husband and wife.
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