A Sight for Sore Eyes (28 page)

Chapter 31

David Stanark had died by his own hand and Richard had failed to be there in his hour of need. He was ignorant of David's troubles because he hadn't bothered to find out, because he had neglected David. An hour of need it must surely have been as, deserted by his wife, no doubt friendless, with no one to whom he could unburden himself, he had hung the rope over a beam in his garage and made a noose, put it round his neck and stepped off the chair. It was months since Richard had seen him. Their friendship had never been the same after David had said those sententious things about the reason why Pride was one of the Seven Deadly Sins. Richard knew it himself, it was only an echo of his own conclusions, but there are situations in which we dislike those who agree with us. We have confided in them because we want them to deny our humiliating suspicions and too-frank analysis of our own character. Richard could never see David without remembering that little lecture on vanity and learning to live with our own mistakes. So he continued to see him only rarely and then always with his wife Susan, who was Julia's friend. But now he was dead, David who hadn't deserted him when a friend was needed, David, who, if he hadn't quite saved his life, had at least spared him days or weeks of police interrogation and suspicion and a calumny that might have stuck. Guilt overwhelmed him. If he had been a true friend David might be alive now. Again it was that wretched pride of his intervening to wreck his life and other people's. All he could do now, and very inadequate it was, would be what the police asked and go to see them on his way to Heathrow on Friday. As soon as her father's back was turned, as it seemed to Julia, Francine went out. Possibly she said where she was going, Julia hadn't listened. She was tired of these attempts to make a fool of her when she knew the girl was going off to meet Jonathan Nicholson. She told herself she was glad to see the back of Francine. Without her tiresome obstinate presence in the house she, Julia, could get on with all the tasks and occupations her conscientiousness had forced her to neglect for so long. After all, she was an educated woman with an active mind. There were a thousand things to do which a tiresome teenager knew nothing of and should no longer be allowed to interfere with. But when she reviewed these pursuits she found that they had disappeared or no longer held any interest for her. That phase of her life was over. She hadn't had a big lunch, or so it seemed to her now, three hours later, so she ate up the remains of the quiche no one had had much of, and all the chocolate biscuits in the tin and a guava-and-mango yoghurt. All there was to do was make phone calls. She phoned Noele, who couldn't talk for long, Friday being a busy time in the shop, and Jocelyn, whose answering machine replied, and Laura, who had time to spare and was quite willing to talk for half an hour about the outrageousness of the modern adolescent. At about six a strange thing happened. She suddenly understood that all afternoon she had been longing for Francine. It had seemed to her that if the girl had walked in the door all her troubles would be past and she would be happy and serene again, she wouldn't have to gorge herself on unsuitable foods, she wouldn't have to make occupation. But as it grew dark, and by six it was as dark as midnight, a second desire entered Julia's mind and, although its opposite, existed alongside it, running parallel to it. She longed for Francine I and she hoped, perversely, that she wouldn't come, that she would be extravagantly late, as late as midnight, which she had never been. She wanted Francine to be desperately, appallingly late so that she, Julia, could reach a peak of anxiety and terror beyond anything she had known before, a madness of waiting and enduring until, when Francine finally came, she could explode. She could burst like the rainstorm that comes at the end of a day of insufferable heat. In this frame of mind she watched the clock. Paced and looked at the clock, paced and told herself not to look at the clock again until she had counted a hundred paces. The bus shelter had been empty for hours, she could see into it clearly enough by the street lights, but she was unsurprised by Jonathan Nicholson's absence. Of course he wasn't there, she thought grimly; he was with Francine. By seven-thirty she was almost happy. She was getting what she wanted. Francine wouldn't come for hours and hours. Huge fantasies of rape and assault and murder could be allowed to fill her mind unchecked. A bulging edifice of tension began to grow. Nine o'clock would become ten and ten eleven, and long before that she would have been sick with dread, actually physically sick, and have eaten to steady herself, perhaps at some point lain on the floor and screamed. She paced and watched the clock, her heart beginning to race. At nine, or a few minutes after, Francine had come in. Julia couldn't speak. She was stunned with relief and disappointment, both at the same time. She simply looked at Francine, giving her a long, wretched and disgusted glare, and in her misery turned away her head. Four-one-six-two. Harriet Oxenholme might have had to write it in her address book, masquerading as a restaurant, but he had no need of secret mnemonics. If she had had a memory like his she wouldn't have betrayed herself and opened the door to her bank account, as simply as one might lift the lid of a box of chocolates and offer its contents. What a fool! Probably she thought she was being clever, when all she had had to do was look up 'pin' in a French dictionary. He walked over to the cash dispenser on the Barclays Bank branch that was on the corner of Circus Road and Wellington Road. Originally, he had meant to wait until he had plastered over his new brickwork, but he found himself unable to bear the suspense any longer. First he checked that the machine would accept Visa Connect. It would. It showed a small picture of a card like Harriet's. Teddy held his breath, told himself not to be stupid and started breathing normally. The card went in. He did it the wrong way up the first time, so had to begin again. This time all was well. Very carefully, with a finger he would not allow to tremble, he punched out the number, four-one-six-two. There was no explosion, no angry voice, no simple refusal. But this was a slightly different machine from the one he watched the girl operate. Hers required you to say what kind of money you wanted - English, French, US or Spanish - it asked you if you needed a receipt. This one was simpler. He punched the 'enter' key. 'Please Wait', said the machine, then, 'Your order is being processed.' The card came back. He couldn't believe it. He had known it must work, but he still couldn't believe it. The money came out. Not with a squeak or a roll of drums or to the tune of the National Anthem, but slipped out in silence. Eight twenty-pound notes and four ten-pound notes. It worked. He was in business. It was a mysterious encounter, this interview with the Detective Superintendent and the Inspector, strangers, for Wallis had retired. Even when it was all over and he was hailing a taxi, Richard had only a scant idea of their purpose in inviting him there. If one concrete fact caine out of the meeting it was that Susan Stanark had left her husband back in the summer. 'Is that why he killed himself?' Richard asked. 'Perhaps. Partly. We think there may have been other reasons. ~You don't want me to - I mean, you haven't asked me here to identify him?' 'No, no. His brother did that. He was related to your present wife, I believe?' Richard didn't like that 'present', as if he had wives in series. 'Distantly,' he said, surprised. 'A second cousin or something of the sort. 'You'd known him a long time, I think?' 'Eleven years.' Richard didn't see why he should go into all that alibi stuff with them. They ought to know about it and if they didn't he wasn't going to assist them. Besides, if you tell a policeman that at one time you needed an alibi he will immediately assume (so reasoned Richard) that you were either guilty or that you engaged in activities that made you a suspect. So he said nothing and the policemen said very little more beyond mysteriously enquiring if he had 'any samples of the late David Stanark's handwriting' in his possession. Richard said he hadn't, they had never written to each other, and then they let him go. 'You are very likely to hear from us again, however,' said the Superintendent, making it sound more like a threat than a guarantee. When one thing goes well, and it is a big thing, all good things will follow. It is as if that initial success lays a spell over all subsequent enterprises, sheds light on the path towards them. Teddy had had trouble with his plastering of the cellar wall where, as it turned out, it hardly mattered. Up here, beginning the work with caution, he found that he couldn't put a foot wrong - or, rather, make a false move with the diamond-shaped trowel. The plaster was of precisely the right consistency, neither too dry nor too damp. It went on like cream. His firm, assured movements created a smooth, even surface which, when painted, would be indistinguishable from the original walls of the hall. He set the strip of carved wood he had had to make himself in place and, if anything, he thought, it was an improvement on the existing skirting board. Now it was finished, though the plaster was still wet, he couldn't keep from laughing out loud. It was going to look as if that wall had been there for ever. He might even hang a picture on it. Why not fetch that Simon Aipheton still life? It deserved a wall to itself, not to be reduced to mediocrity among the other indifferent stuff in the dining-room. Francine was coming. The golden spell of his success was reaching ahead to her visit as well and he was making plans for it, something almost unprecedented with him. He would be sensible, understand that his failure was due to overwork, to tiredness and anxiety. Today he wouldn't try. Let her make what she liked of that, he wasn't obliged to fall in with all her wishes. They'd go out for a drive in the Edsel. He was picking her up near where she lived and they would go to the Imperial War Museum and see the exhibition of forties fashion. That was something he longed to see and all girls liked fashion, he thought. Then they'd come back here and he'd show her the new wall and watch her face. Maybe she'd clap her hands, he wouldn't be surprised. She'd expect him to want her to take her clothes off and pose for him all covered in silk and jewels, but he wouldn't ask. Not today. He'd have wine for her, something expensive, and after that they'd go out to eat. Somewhere or other, it didn't much matter where. Perhaps he'd buy her a dress, white or black. A black velvet dress would be wonderful, with a long skirt cut on the bias and a draped neckline. The Edsel would be full of petrol, so he could drive her all the way home, and if she wanted to be early he wouldn't make a fuss. Tomorrow, Sunday, he'd take the card to the machine again and draw out another two hundred pounds. Waking hungry at four in the morning, Julia went downstairs and ate two of the white chocolate finger biscuits. Then, because she knew that if she went back to bed on an empty stomach she would only have to come down again, she ate the rest of the packet. Strangely, though she often needed to eat in the night-time she never wanted to pace. She walked languidly from window to window, looking out at nothing, at the empty, light-washed street and the little island in the middle of it with its solitary bollard. She understood that young girls like to sleep late in the mornings. Miranda's mother had told her that her daughter sometimes lay in bed till two in the afternoon. Julia had never allowed that. Ten was absolutely the latest Francine had been permitted to lie in and that only at the weekends. But she had parted early from Jonathan Nicholson the night before and come home early. This Sunday morning she was up before her stepmother. Julia came downstairs at nine, heavy-eyed from lack of sleep, and found Francine at the kitchen table, eating cornflakes. 'Shall I cook lunch today?' Francine asked. 'You're always cooking for me and I'd like to do it for a change. Shall I?' 'Not if it's going to be mung beans or tofu or anything like that.' Francine was inclined to this sort of food when she prepared it herself. 'You can take some meat out of the freezer or I've got a free-range chicken.' Francine said she would cook the chicken and bake potatoes. And make what she called her special salad with avocados and peppers. 'You won't have to do a thing. I'll get it ready and clear up and wash up, or at any rate I'll put the stuff in the dishwasher before I go out.' Only the last part of these remarks really registered with Julia. Francine was going out. Julia got up from the table, cut herself a thick slice of bread, buttered it, spread greengage jam on it and began stuffing it into her mouth, using both hands. She didn't look at Francine so had no idea if the girl was watching her. Of course, Francine was not going out. She might think she was, but she was mistaken. Jonathan Nicholson could wait for her over there in that bus shelter for hours, for hours on end, or hide behind the fence or even in someone's. dustbin, but Francine wouldn't come. For she, Julia, had had enough. She had borne with Francine's behaviour for months now, for years, going out whenever she pleased, coming home when she liked, using the house as an hotel, and torturing Julia. It wasn't deliberately thoughtlessness or a young girl's ignorance of how to behave, or a disturbed mind, Julia knew that now. It was purposeful malice and wickedness. But she had done it for the last time. Julia said aloud, her mouth full, 'The worm has turned.' 'I'm sorry, what did you say?' ~Nothing,' said Julia, and liking the sound of it she said it several times more, 'nothing, nothing, nothing... Francine left the room. She didn't go upstairs. Julia listened to hear what she was doing. Going into the laundry room, by the sound of it, ironing something. Ironing a dress to wear when she went out. Only she wasn't going out. Julia would see to that. She phoned Noele, she phoned Amy Taylor. Amy had a son of seventeen and a fifteen-year-old daughter and they talked for a while about the problems of living with teenage children. Amy said her daughter had stayed out till two in the morning without any warning, without giving her a sign she meant to do such a thing, and Julia said, how dreadful, and one thing she would say for Francine, she wouldn't dare do that. The conversation cheered her up. She made coffee for herself and Francine, and for once she didn't feel like eating anything, the delicious espresso coffee was enough on its own.