Part 8 (1/2)
Jeremy came out with a white towel knotted around his waist and drying his hair with another.
Alice turned her face away and twisted a handkerchief nervously in her hands.
”Now you look like your usual self,” said Jeremy. ”For a moment there I thought you were going to rape me.” you look like your usual self,” said Jeremy. ”For a moment there I thought you were going to rape me.”
”Don't make fun of me,” said Alice, wis.h.i.+ng he wouldn't look so amused, so detached detached. What if Macbeth should prove to be right?
But if they were married, it might come out. Better tell him now. And so Alice did, simply plunging into her story at the beginning and charging on until the end.
As she talked, she was back there in that dusty court on that hot summer's day with the tar melting on the roads outside. She could still remember her mother, crying with shame. She could remember her own sick feeling of disgrace.
When she finished, she looked at Jeremy awkwardly. He was studying her face in an intent, serious way. Jeremy was actually wondering whether to share his own guilty secret and at the same time noticing how Alice's schoolgirlish blouse was strained against her small, high b.r.e.a.s.t.s. G.o.d, it had been ages since...Then there was all this fear and worry about the murder. Yes, he knew why Alice had dreaded Lady Jane printing that bit of childhood nonsense. Hadn't he himself gone through h.e.l.l to try to shut her mouth? He glanced at the clock. Eight-thirty. Too early for a drink but not too early for that other tranquillizer.
He sat down beside Alice on the bed and drew her against his still-damp body. ”You don't mind?” whispered Alice.
”Of course not,” he said, stroking her hair. She smelled of nervous sweat, sharp and acrid, mixed with lavender talc.u.m powder. He put a hand on one little breast and began to stroke it.
Alice s.h.i.+vered against him. She was not a virgin, having lost that through curiosity and drink two years ago in the back of a car after a party with a man whose name she could not remember. It had been a painful and degrading experience, but he had been a heavy, vulgar sort of man.
Women's Lib has a long way to go before it gets inside girls like Alice. As his lips began to move against her own, her one thought was, ”If I sleep with him, he'll have to marry me.”
As they lay stretched out on the bed, pressed together, as Alice's clothes were removed, she had an idiotic wish that Jeremy might have been wearing some sort of status symbol, his gold wrist watch, say. For when the all-too-brief fore-play was over and she was rammed into the bed by the panting, struggling weight of this man, it all seemed as painful and degrading as that time in the back of the car. She wished he'd hurry up and get it over with. There was that terrible tyranny of the o.r.g.a.s.m. What was was it? He was obviously waiting for something to happen to her. She had read about women shrieking in ecstasy, but if she shrieked, she might bring people rus.h.i.+ng in, thinking there had been another murder. it? He was obviously waiting for something to happen to her. She had read about women shrieking in ecstasy, but if she shrieked, she might bring people rus.h.i.+ng in, thinking there had been another murder.
His silence was punctuated by grunts, not words of love. At last, just when she thought she could not bear it any longer, he collapsed on top of her. She let out a long sigh of relief, and Jeremy kissed her ear and said, ”It was good for you too,” mistaking her sigh for one of satisfaction.
”I love you, Jeremy,” whispered Alice, winding her arms around him and hugging that vision of sports car, expensive clothes, good accent, and Member of Parliament.
”Do you?” He propped himself up on one elbow. ”That's nice.” He kissed her nose and then smacked her on the bottom. ”Better get dressed. Gosh, I'm hungry.”
Alice scooped up her clothes and scuttled into the bathroom. After she had showered and dressed, she felt better. Love in the morning. How sophisticated. How deliciously decadent.
She was just putting on lipstick when Jeremy shouted through the door, ”I'll see you in the dining room. Don't be long.”
Alice's hand jerked nervously, and she smeared lipstick over her cheek. She scrubbed it off with a tissue and then ran out, hoping to catch him, but he had already left.
When she went out into the corridor, two maids were stuffing dirty sheets into a hamper and they looked at her curiously. ”Good morning,” said Alice, staring at both of them hard as if challenging them to voice their evil thoughts.
The fis.h.i.+ng party was grouped around one large table in the far corner as if the management had decided to put them in quarantine. The Roths were there and Daphne, the major and Jeremy. Charlie would be having breakfast with his aunt, but where were the Cartwrights?
”Don't know,” shrugged Daphne. ” I think they jolly well ought to be here handing out refunds. Pa.s.s the marmalade, Jeremy darling.”
Alice frowned. It was time to stake her claim. She slid into a chair beside Jeremy and took his hand under the table, gave it a squeeze, and smiled at him in an intimate way.
”I need both hands to eat, Alice,” said Jeremy crossly. Alice s.n.a.t.c.hed her hand away and Daphne giggled.
Heather and John Cartwright were sitting in Hamish's cluttered kitchen, eating bacon baps and drinking tea. They had explained they were 'just pa.s.sing'.
It was Heather who had had the impulse to talk to Hamish. Hamish was a good sounding board because he was was the law, and although he could hardly be described as a strong arm of it, he was in a position to overhear how the investigation was proceeding. the law, and although he could hardly be described as a strong arm of it, he was in a position to overhear how the investigation was proceeding.
”I just hope this won't break the fis.h.i.+ng school,” said John gloomily.
”I should not think so,” said Hamish, turning bacon deftly in the pan. ”Provided, of course, the murderer is found. It will be in the way of being an added attraction.”
”I was shocked when Blair told me she was really that awful columnist woman.”
Hamish stood very still, his back to them as he worked at the stove. ”And you did not know this before?” he asked.
There was a little silence, and then John said, ”Of course not. Had we known then we should not have allowed her to come.”
”Aye, but did you not know after she had arrived?” asked Hamish.
Again that silence. Hamish turned round, the bacon slice in one hand.
”No, we did not,” said Heather emphatically.
Hamish carefully and slowly lifted the bacon from the pan and put it on a plate. He turned off the gas. He lifted his cup of tea from beside the stove and came and joined Heather and John at the table.
”I happen to know that you had a letter from Austria. You see, you threw it out of the window, hoping it would land in the loch. The tide was out and the boy Charlie picked it up because the stamp attracted his attention. I would not normally read anyone else's mail, but when it comes to murder, well, I don't have that many fine scruples. It was from a couple of friends of yours in Austria who ran a ski resort until Lady Jane came on holiday.”
”You have no right to read private mail,” shouted John.
Hamish looked at him stolidly.
Heather put a hand on John's arm. ”It's no use,” she said wearily. ”We did know. We were frightened. This school is our life. Years of hard work have gone into building it up. We thought she was going to take it away from us.”
”But the couple at the ski resort turned out to be married to other people, not each other,” pointed out Hamish. ”They said the publicity by Lady Jane ruined them only because Mr Bergen, the ski resort owner, had not been paying alimony for years. You are surely both not in that sort of position. When you found out, would it not have been better to try to tell the school, openly and in front of her, what she did for a living?”
”I didn't think of that,” said John wretchedly. ”You may as well know that I saw Jane on the night she was murdered. I went up to her room after dinner.”
”And...?”
”And she just laughed at me. She said this sort of fly fis.h.i.+ng in these waters was like grouse shooting or deer stalking-a sport for the rich. She said she was about to prove that the sort of people who went on these holidays were social climbers who deserved to be cut down to size.”
”Deary me,” said Hamish, stirring his tea, ”was she a Communist?”
”I don't think she was a member of the Communist Party, if that's what you mean,” said John. ”She seemed to want to make people writhe. She was like a blackmailer who enjoys power. In Scotland they would say she was just agin everything.”
”Did she say she was out to ruin the fis.h.i.+ng school?”
”Not in so many words. But that's what she was setting out to do.”
”What exactly did you say?”
”I said that I had worked hard to build up this school and I begged her not to harm it. She laughed at me and told me to get out. I said...I said...”
”Yes?” prompted Hamish gently.
”You'd better tell him,” said Heather.