Part 5 (1/2)

”Let me give you another drink.”

”No thanks, Jack,” said Max, rising, ”we must go.”

Jack didn't apologize further. He knew it had to be done, and he'd done it. It would take a good deal to convince him that a doctor's wife could commit any sort of impropriety with a patient. He was satisfied. This at least was what I imagine Max made of the interview.

I was with Bridie in the drawing room when Jack joined us. I'd been there for the last hour, bringing them up to date on what little I knew about Stella's relations.h.i.+p with my patient.

”Well?” I said.

He nodded. ”I'm afraid it's true.”

”Oh G.o.d.”

”What will you do?”

Jack sighed. ”That depends.”

”Max doesn't see she's lying?” said Bridie.

Jack opened his hands. He said nothing.

”I suspect,” I said, ”that he does. But he would rather not not see it. Which is why he let him get away.” see it. Which is why he let him get away.”

Jack gazed into his whisky. I suddenly saw that he was out of his depth. He was genuinely shocked to think that Stella might be guilty of what I'd suggested. He didn't want to believe it.

Bridie had no such qualms. ”To think of it,” she murmured, ”to think that a doctor's wife-”

She fell silent. It was too much for her too.

”Perhaps,” I said, ”I should have a word with Max.”

It seemed, said Stella, that the evening would never end; it seemed as if every permutation, every ripple of this stone dropped into the still pool of their lives must wash through before she could take a pill and go to bed and properly be alone with the misery walled up behind the facade she had erected against the world. As they drove past the Main Gate she had said to Max: ”What will you say to Brenda?”

”I hadn't thought.”

Their voices seemed now to be operating in two registers, a front register that functioned as a screen behind which seethed unspoken reservoirs of feeling. Max's front was one of weariness and preoccupation; behind it she felt the storm system of his anger, directed both at himself and at her. Though why he should be angry with her was unclear. Hadn't she explained herself, and hadn't that explanation been accepted by Jack Straffen? But there was no point in going into any of this now.

Max went into his study and without a word closed the door behind him. Brenda's avidity to know everything was barely veiled.

”I sent Charlie up to bed,” she said. ”He wasn't very happy to be missing all the excitement.” They were standing in the hall. Stella put her bag on the table under the mirror and gazed at her reflection. Brenda waited.

”Well?”

”There have been rumors,” said Stella. ”About me.”

Brenda followed her into the drawing room and stood by the fireplace while Stella poured herself a drink. She would have to be told, but Stella was d.a.m.ned if she'd hand it to her on a plate.

”About you?”

She moved to the window with her drink. She gazed out into the garden. The curtains were still open though night had fallen. There was a full moon.

”It's a lovely night,” she said. Where is Edgar now? In a ditch or a barn or a haystack, huddled in the darkness, dressed in Max's clothes, eking out his tobacco? Or had he disappeared into some world she knew nothing of? She turned away from the window.

”Yes, about me.”

”Stella, please tell me what happened. Or don't, if you don't want to. But I am concerned, you know. I would like to help.”

”Someone told Jack there was impropriety in my relations.h.i.+p with Edgar Stark.”

”Was there?”

”Of course not. Need you ask?”

”I'm sorry.”

She gazed at her calmly. Oh, Brenda was ready to cast her as the scarlet woman and see all of Max's troubles laid at her door, but Stella wouldn't allow her to do it.

I had meanwhile left the Straffens' and driven down past the Main Gate to the deputy superintendent's house. Already I felt a different atmosphere on the estate: there were men about despite the lateness of the hour, there was urgency in the air. This was a delicate interview I had to conduct with Max, and the point of it was to prevent him adopting, psychologically, a posture of isolation. Unfortunately we needed him with us. About Stella I was less certain, but what I predicted was that she would now see that she'd been betrayed, and would become angry not so much at Edgar as at herself. Which might in turn trigger a depressive episode. We would have to be vigilant.

I rang the doorbell. On her way down the hall Stella again paused briefly at the mirror. There was no sound from the study. She opened the front door.

”Peter, come in. Max is in the study.”

”Let me talk to you first.”

”We're in the drawing room.”

I followed her down the hall. She moved with an exaggerated ease, her body denying its tension. Brenda greeted me warmly. I sank into an armchair.

”b.l.o.o.d.y for all of you,” I said, as Stella gave me a gin.

”Peter, tell us what's going on,” said Brenda.

”All the usual procedures. Jack carries the worst of it of course. He'll be crucified in the press, questions in the House, the whole parole system will be condemned. An escape like this sets the hospital back five years.” I was trying to project a sort of weary languor, to cast the whole thing as a nuisance merely and mask the true seriousness of the crisis. Brenda had a.s.sumed her woman-out-of-her-depth stance, designed to appeal to my gallantry and prompt confidences.

”But surely he'll be caught quickly?”

I sipped my gin and allowed a hand to fall over the arm of the chair. ”Perhaps. Though we think he may have friends in London.”

”I didn't know he had friends in London,” said Stella.

”How would you?” I gazed at her rather dreamily.

”Max said nothing about him having friends in London. Who might be involved, I mean.”

”He has friends from the old days. Soho. That crowd.”

Stella says she suddenly saw the three of us as though she were on the other side of the window, as though she were standing in the garden, in the darkness, watching a man in an armchair talking to two women, each in a state of rapt attention. Brenda's expression was one of naked curiosity mingled with fascination and horror. Her mask had slipped.

After a few minutes I rose to my feet. ”I'd better have a word with Max,” I said. ”Please don't get up, Stella.”