Part 4 (1/2)

It didn't occur to her that she looked like a stereotyped country housewife. Bland. Tending towards plumpness. Rea.s.suringly ordinary.

And it didn't occur to Rhoda, who opened the door dressed in an old green caftan of Lisa's, that she looked like a mediaeval looter of clothes of the dead.

Meg, recognising the caftan as the one Lisa used to wear when she was painting, and the woman inside it as the one who had dropped the camera in the church porch, felt a hot rage burn up in her cheeks and for a moment she couldn't speak. How dare this woman come here and take possession?

Rhoda, mistaking the flush of anger for a blush of shyness, was reminded of Simon. She asked the caller with the basket of goodies if she had called to see him. Meg, still speechless, nodded.

Rhoda graciously asked her in. ”Simon's down in the orchard doing some scything. Apparently there used to be a regular gardener but he hasn't been recently. Shall we go through to the kitchen?” She led the way and suggested that Meg should put the basket on the table. ”All those nice things. That chutney looks lovely. Everyone is so kind to him.” ”Are they?” said Meg drily. Not. overtly, hostile. But almost. She introduced herself. ”I'm Meg Maybridge. My husband and I have been friends with Simon and his parents for many years.”

Rhoda began emptying the basket while she rea.s.sessed the situation. One of the eggs rolled out of the carton and cracked. She picked it up and wiped the slight ooze with her forefinger. Maybridge. One of the policemen who carried Peter's coffin. ”Your husband is the superintendent who gave the address at the funeral?”

”Detective Chief Inspector. And - yes - he read the excerpt from the Bible.”

”Very sympathetically. It was well chosen.” No gush this time. Total honesty.

Meg relaxed a little. ”It was important to choose something that wouldn't hurt Simon. Some pa.s.sages are too full of doom and d.a.m.nation. It's an Eastern ethos, of course. Difficult to relate to.” Mentally she cautioned herself: Don't be sidetracked. She hasn't told you her name yet. You're not supposed to know it. See if her story tallies with Simon's.

”And you are?”

Rhoda removed the jam. ”Home made? He'll enjoy it.”

Meg smiled. Said nothing.

Rhoda stopped stalling. ”Rhoda Osborne. I'm a journalist. I thought Simon had told you last time you called. Or maybe it was another visitor.” Simon had referred to her as Meg and she hadn't made the connection. This lady was no p.u.s.s.ycat. A little gentle stroking wouldn't do. Her position here would have to be made tenable - somehow.

The kitchen smelt of soup spilt on to the electric burner. It had splashed on to her jeans and s.h.i.+rt, too, but luckily hadn't scalded her. Her clothes were tossing on the rotary drier in view of the window. She indicated them and explained. ”That's why I'm wearing this. With Simon's permission, of course. I haven't brought much in the way of spare clothes - didn't intend staying more than a few days. The caftan happened to be handy - it was up in the studio where I'm working.” Stalling an immediate a.n.a.lysis of her 'work', she hurried on. ”I've never worn anything of Lisa's before. You must have thought it shockingly insensitive of me, but there wasn't any option. I think her clothes and Peter's should be packed away and given to a charity. Would it be cra.s.s of me to suggest it? Would it be more acceptable coining from you?”

A neatly turned conversation. A necessary statement made.

Meg, not fooled but mollified, went along with it. The trespa.s.ser trespa.s.sed within limits. ”It wouldn't be cra.s.s coming from either of us, but it's up to Simon to say who's to do it - and when. How long have you known him?”

It was the obvious question and she had been expecting it. As far as Simon was concerned, it had to be honest. ”Briefly. His father used to mention him quite a lot - Lisa, not so much. I suppose you know he's not going back to Collingwood - and he's not taking up his place in medical school?”

Meg hadn't known. She sensed it was another devious twist in the conversation away from Rhoda, but was genuinely upset by what she had been told. David had chucked university, too, and had been in and out of jobs ever since. A stint on an oil rig. A season on a trawler. Courier with a travel firm. And now, and for the first time, an indoor job portering for Christie's. Humping antiques, he called it, a prelude to selling them at a million a bid.

”Does Kester-Evans, Simon's headmaster, know?”

”I couldn't say. I haven't discussed it with Simon. He just told me he'd written to the medical school -Bart's, or wherever - and that was that. It's his life. His decision. He'll be happy in his own way. Eventually.” She noticed the book in the bottom of the basket. ”Is this for Simon?”

”It was his mother's. I suggest we take it to Peter's study and put it with the rest of the books. Perhaps you know Housman's poems?”

Rhoda didn't. ”Quite jolly little country pieces,” she said, flipping through the pages, scarcely glancing at them. ”Should cheer him up.”

Meg looked at her thoughtfully. If this woman were the journalist she professed to be, then her knowledge of literature was sadly lacking. Or was she, Meg, being unfair? What had journalism to do with literature, anyway? Precious little. Some of the poems were deeply depressing. Death on the gallows and dust to dust - and so on - and so on. If Rhoda had been one of her students she would have told her so. ”Not as happy as they might seem,” was all she could politely say. ”He might like to read, them later on. Not yet.”

The two women were in the study when Simon came in from the garden, hot and sweaty, with wet gra.s.s on his shoes. Rhoda was leaning against his father's desk, her head tilted back, her long hair brus.h.i.+ng against a silver penholder. There was nothing aggressive in her att.i.tude; she was, in fact, smiling. Meg, seated, looking up at her - a disadvantaged position - was smiling, too. There was an aura of combat in the air. ”Lisa,” Meg was saying, ”was a very private person. It's hard to imagine she'd want to be featured in a magazine or newspaper - or whatever you intend. She shunned publicity when her book was published. She's that kind of person.”

”Was,” Rhoda reminded her softly. ”Simon will have the last word about this when the profile of his mother is completed.” She turned and saw him standing by the door. ”My being here isn't bothering you too much, is it Simon? Mrs Maybridge thinks perhaps it is. That the whole idea upsets you.”

Meg, about to protest that she had said nothing of the sort, bit her lip and was silent. She hadn't said it, but obviously she had implied it. She waited for Simon's answer.

His anger grew slowly as he realised what was happening. Meg Maybridge had come here to pry. She had come to get Rhoda out. ”No,” he said, trying to keep his voice calm, ”I'm not upset. Not about anything. This was my parents' home. Now it's mine. I say who is to come and who is to go. You don't have to worry about me. Rhoda is here because I want her to be here. What she is doing is okay.”

He turned away from Meg and went over to stand by Rhoda. A declaration of alliance. ”You'll knock it over.” He moved the penholder and touched her hair. An excuse to touch it. He could smell her scent and his own sweat. At this worst of moments, fuelled by anger, embarra.s.sment and sheer proximity, he found it hard to control himself. Oh, G.o.d, Meg thought, observing him, he's in love with the b.i.t.c.h!

Rhoda took a few paces away from him and picked up the penholder. ”Engraved. T.B.' Peter Bradshaw. Nice present from someone. Your mother, perhaps.” She put it down again. ”Go along and get yourself cleaned up, Simon. You're walking gra.s.s and mud into the carpet. And when your hands are clean, put the kettle on. I'm sure Mrs Maybridge would like a cup of tea.”

It was brusquely dismissing. The bubble of emotion p.r.i.c.ked with a sharp pin.

”It must have hurt him,” Meg told Tom later. ”She could have been kinder but at least she's not leading him on.” She had declined the tea, making an excuse of having to do some shopping. ”I went to fetch my basket from the kitchen, hoping to see him, but he wasn't there. He'd left the study, looking abject like a kicked dog. I wanted to give him the photo, but not in front of her. Luckily he was on his own, doing something to the car, when I was leaving, and I handed it to him then. It was in an envelope. He looked at it as if it were a subpoena, he was still very uptight, but he took it graciously enough when I explained. I told him to come round and visit us sometime. And have a talk. I suppose I should have said for a meal - or a drink - or a round of golf with you. The word 'talk' seemed to shrivel him up. He hardly said goodbye.”

Maybridge tried not to smile. Meg's 'talks' could spark off bonfires. He wondered what was worse - a frigid indifference to other people or too much concern. ”You can't wade in and sort out his love life for him,” he told her. ”If his parents were around, they couldn't either. At eighteen, an obsession with an older woman isn't unusual. She's probably harmless. If she isn't, it's up to him to sort her out. And if he can't then he can come to me and I'll do all I can. But he must come to me first. Friends can be too intrusive. As for his chucking medicine as a career, he's probably right. It amazes me how he got through the interview. Candidly, if I were mortally ill in hospital, seeing Simon approaching with a stethoscope around his neck would hasten the end.”

Meg, who hadn't been expecting that sort of response, was annoyed. If students had academic ability, and Simon had, it was enough to be going on with, she pointed out. Students grew into their chosen profession as time went by. All they needed was a chance to start. ”He's sabotaging his future, and she knows about it and doesn't care. I can't help being worried.”

Maybridge didn't answer. He'd had rather a b.l.o.o.d.y day. Literally. A lad of fourteen had stolen a motorbike and crashed it through a plate gla.s.s window. When you arrive on that sort of scene you tend to put other matters into perspective. At that particular time, Simon's affairs seemed of little consequence.

Later that evening Simon showed Rhoda the photo. It was a gesture of reconciliation. Her gesture had been to pour him a large whisky on the rocks. It had always zoothed his father and though it might not be a good idea in Simon's case it was, by implication, a man's drink and she couldn't think of anything else. She was sorry she had belittled him in front of the Maybridge woman, but it had seemed the only thing to do at the time. In retrospect she should have handled the visit better. In retrospect one can usually do most things better. She had changed out of the caftan as soon as her jeans and s.h.i.+rt were dry. It was a pity Mrs Maybridge had seen her wearing it. The wolf in grandma's gear. Red Riding Hood, alias Simon s.e.xually transformed, standing by her bedside, anxious to jump in.

Not so anxious now, thank G.o.d. They were sitting looking at a nineteen-forties Western on television. He on the sofa. She on the chair that had probably been Lisa's, a squashy fawn-coloured recliner. Peter would have favoured the upright brown leather, more supportive for his back. Lumbago, he had told her, was an occupational hazard of pathologists and missionaries. Bending over countless cadavers or rec.u.mbent ladies in old-fas.h.i.+oned positions took its toll. She had liked his humour - wry - not always kind. His son showed no vestige of humour whatsoever. But, given the drum-stances, what could she expect?

He got up and turned the television sound down before handing her the photo. ”My parents,” he said laconically. And then he turned up the sound again so that the room was filled with the rattle of gunshot, thudding of hooves and blaring music. He closed his eyes, listening to the din, being anaesthetised by it. He should have felt some pain on seeing the photo - or, perhaps, pleasure - instead he felt guilt. His mother had looked very trim and young in a green dress and matching shoes, the same dark green as the gra.s.s. His father, three rows behind, had his head turned towards a blonde woman, a little shorter than he, standing next to him and at the end of the row. It was windy and she was clutching a red straw hat. The only one there with a hat. And the only one he didn't recognise. The others were local people. Teachers from the village school. A couple of librarians. Doctor and Mrs Francome. The vicar and his wife. Steven Donaldson. He couldn't think why they were all grouped there together. Some village event, probably, and his mother seemed to be the star of it, whatever it was. Or Meg Maybridge must have thought so when she'd taken the snap. She stood out from the rest and seemed confident though unsmiling. The centre of attention. Why couldn't she have been calm like that all the time? Socialised. Been ordinary. What had been wrong with her?

Rhoda was saying something and he couldn't hear above the din. Didn't want to hear. Consoling words, probably. He had carried the photograph around in the pocket of his jeans for some while before deciding to show it to her. His mother's ma.n.u.scripts hadn't meant very much to him. It hadn't mattered that she was reading them. To him they hadn't felt personal. This was the only photograph of his parents he had; if there were others he'd never seen them, and he had been reluctant to share it. Even with Rhoda.

She turned the television off and her voice was sharp in the silence. ”Is this your mother standing in the front?”

The question surprised him. It was a good likeness. She had met his mother, hadn't she, at a publisher's party?

”Yes. I thought you would have recognised her.”

”I do, of course ... but ...”

He noticed her hand holding the photograph was trembling. ”What's the matter?”

She ignored the question. ”This was taken here in Macklestone, wasn't it?”

”Yes, by Meg Maybridge. She gave it to me when she called.”

”Meg Maybridge,” Rhoda said softly. ”The wife of the local detective chief inspector. How apt.”

She walked out of the room, still carrying the photo-graph, and Simon heard her going upstairs and into his mother's studio. Alarmed for her, she had looked odd and seemed to be talking rubbish, he followed her. He stood outside the door on the landing and spoke her name tentatively. She didn't answer. He tried the door. It was locked. ”Rhoda, what's the matter? Are you all right?” ”Go away, Simon. Leave me. Just go away.” Echoes of his mother's voice. Go away, Simon. Go away. Go away.

Rhoda left the next morning for London. She borrowed Simon's car and left it in the station car park. She had been gone an hour when Simon got up shortly after nine.