Death Of A Hollow Man (26 page)

“Who’s he, sir, when he’s buying a round?”

“It’s a Russian play.”

Troy’s nod was distant. It seemed to him that you could go on for a very long time indeed before you ran out of decent English plays without putting on foreign rubbish. And Communist rubbish, at that. He tuned back into the chief inspector’s gist.

“I think the next thing is to give Carmichael’s house the once-over. There might be something in his effects that will give us a lead. Organize some transport, will you? I’ll sort out a warrant.”

* * *

Rosa had a plan. She had not revealed it to Earnest despite the fact that if the plan came off, his life would never be the same again. Time enough to spring it on him if it proved to be workable. Really, it all hinged on whether Rosa had read Kitty’s character correctly. And Rosa was sure she had. Kitty had always struck her as a vapid, silly little thing, frankly on the make. A good-time girl. Now she was free, rich (unless Esslyn had been singularly spitefull in drawing up his will), and still only nineteen. What on earth, reasoned Rosa, would someone in that position want with a child?

Kitty had been in the company for two years. Never during this time had she been heard to express the slightest interest in children. Dressing-room conversation, when touching on family matters, produced only yawns. Various offspring of CADS members backstage from time to time hardly merited a glance, let alone a kindly word. So, given this lack of interest, Rosa, like the majority of people at the Latimer, assumed that Kitty had got herself deliberately pregnant only to ensnare Esslyn. Now that he was so conveniently dispatched, surely the means of ensnarement would be nothing but a hindrance? Of course, there were those with no concern for other people’s children who still, when their own arrived, found them a never-ending source of wonder and delight, but Rosa believed (or had persuaded herself to the belief) that Kitty was not of that number. And it was this persuasion that had instigated her grand design.

Since Esslyn’s death, Rosa had been whirling around in a veritable hodge-podge of emotions and troubled thoughts. Beneath her affected public manner she was increasingly aware of an aching pulse of sorrow. She recalled constantly the early days of her marriage, and mourned the passing of what she now believed to be a tender and passionate love. And as she dwelt on those happier days, it was as if her imagination, newly refurbished by the recent tragedy, wiped out in one blessed amnesiac stroke the years of disillusionment, leaving her with a wholesome if slightly inaccurate picture of Esslyn as sensitive, benevolent, and quite unspoiled.

It was this sentimental sleight of memory that had led her first to covet Kitty’s baby. A child, Esslyn’s child, alive and growing in his wife’s womb, would transform her (Rosa’s) barren life, making it fresh and green again. Over the past two days the idea of adoption had flickered through her mind, returned, settled, taken root, and flowered with such intensity that she had now reached the point where she was practically regarding it as a
fait accompli.

Until she picked up the telephone. Then her previous sanguinity was swamped by a flood of doubts. Prominent among these was the idea that Kitty might decide to have an abortion. Having dialed the first three digits of the number at White Wings, Rosa replaced the receiver and pondered this alarming notion. Common sense forced her to admit that it must appear to Kitty the obvious solution. And she would have the money to go privately, so there would be no holdups. The whole thing would be simplicity itself. In and out: problem solved. The baby, vulnerable as an eggshell, all gone. She might even now be making the arrangements! Rosa snatched up the receiver again and redialed. When Kitty answered, Rosa asked if she might call in for a chat, and Kitty, as laconic as if such a request were an everyday occurrence, said, “Sure. Come when you like.”

Backing the Panda out of the garage and crashing the gears with nervousness, Rosa struggled to plan out the strategy that would shape the argument she would have to present to Kitty. If it was going to be successful, she must look at the whole situation from the younger girl’s point of view. Why, Kitty might well and understandably ask, should she lumber around for the next five months, getting heavier and heavier, less and less able to circulate and enjoy life, then go through the lengthy and perhaps extremely painful ordeal of giving birth, only to hand over the result of all this travail to another woman? What (Rosa could just see her sharp, calculating little eyes weighing the odds) was in it for her?

During the ten-minute drive over to White Wings, Rosa made herself answer that question to what she hoped would be Kitty’s satisfaction. First she would point out the psychological as well as the physical damage that might result from an abortion. Then she would ask Kitty if she had thought of the expense involved in rearing a child. A child cost thousands. They weren’t off your hands until they were eighteen, and even then, if Earnest’s sister’s complaints were anything to go by, you had to cough up for three more years while they went to university. “But you will have none of that financial burden,” Rosa heard herself saying, “I will take care of everything.”

On the other hand, once the adoption was legally formalized, she would make it clear that Kitty could continue to see the child whenever she wished. Surely, Rosa thought as she drove, far too fast, down Carradine Street, the triple thrust of her argument (huge savings, no responsibility, ease of access) must win the day. She had already forgotten her previous assumption—that Kitty’s maternal instinct was minus nil—which made immediate nonsense of hook number three.

And as things turned out, none of the previous dialectic was of use anyway. Because at the moment of pressing the bell at the house and hearing it jangle in that so-familiar way in the sitting room, all Rosa’s careful reasoning evaporated and she was left, trembling with the urgency of her appeal, on the doorstep. And when Kitty opened the door and said “Hi” and clicked back to the kitchen in her feathered mules, Rosa, mouth desert dry, followed floundering with uncertainty.

The kitchen was just the same. This was both a surprise and a comfort. She had been sure that Esslyn must have changed things around. That Kitty must have wanted new furniture, wallpaper, tiles. Apparently not. Rosa looked at the eggy, fat-smeared plate and the frying pan on the burner and noted the lingering fragrance of the full English breakfast. All this grease couldn’t be doing the baby much good, she thought proprietorially. Which brought her back to her reasons for being there. As Kitty removed a butter dish, its contents liberally garnished with burned toast crumbs and smears of marmalade, Rosa reviewed the situation.

Momentarily she wondered if she should throw herself on Kitty’s mercy. Reveal how she’d always longed for a child and that this might be her last chance. Almost immediately this idea was rejected. Kitty would just give the thumbs down. She would enjoy that. Seeing Rosa on her bed of nails. The thing to do—why hadn’t she thought of it before?—was to offer money. Rosa had five thousand pounds in the bank and some jewelery she could sell. That was the way. Not to let Kitty see that she was desperate but to remain calm, even casual. Just to slip the subject almost lightheartedly into the conversation. Won’t be much fun coping with a child by yourself. Or, I expect you feel differently about having a baby now that Esslyn’s gone. Kitty removed more crumbs from the table by the simple expedient of sweeping them onto the floor with the sleeve of her negligee, and asked Rosa to take the weight off her feet.

As soon as she did so, Rosa felt the move was a mistake. She felt uneasy and at a disadvantage. Kitty put the frying pan on top of the dishes already in the sink and turned on the hot tap. The water hit the handle of the pan and sprayed upward and all over the tiles. Over her shoulder Kitty said, “And how’s dear old Earnest?”

She always referred to Earnest in this manner, as if he were a shambling family pet on the verge of extinction. An ancient sheepdog, perhaps. Or elderly spaniel with rapidly stiffening joints. The point of such remarks, Rosa knew, had always been to force a comparison between her husband and Kitty’s, the man Rosa had loved and lost. Normally it evoked a response of irritation shot through with bitterness. Now, noticing these dual emotions twitching into life, Rosa made a determined effort to repress them. Apart from not wishing to give Kitty the satisfaction of knowing she’d drawn blood, any feelings of antagonism would assuredly work against a successful outcome to the mission. And, Rosa comforted herself, whatever Earnest’s shortcomings in the youth and glamour stakes, he did have the undeniable advantage of still being alive. That should give him some sort of edge, if nothing else.

She settled back a little more easily in her chair. Outside the waxen dark green leaves and scarlet berries of a cotoneaster framed the kitchen window through which the winter sun streamed, further gilding Kitty’s already extremely honeyed curls. It was intensely hot. The central heating was on full blast, and Rosa sweltered in her heavy cape. Kitty was wearing a shortie cream satin nightie styled like a toga, slit almost to the waist on one side, and a spotted blue chiffon cover-up with little knots of silver ribbons. And not a knicker leg in sight, observed Rosa sourly. And her stomach still as flat as a pancake. She noticed with some satisfaction that, without her armory of blushers and shaders and pencils and lipsticks, Kitty’s face looked almost plain.

Kitty dried her hands on the dish towel and, leaning against a radiator for extra warmth, turned to face her visitor. She had no intention of offering coffee or tea. Nor any other form of sustenance. Kitty did not go in for female friendships at the best of times, and certainly not with women old enough to be her mother and with a hefty ax to grind. Now, watching Rosa’s greasy, large-pored nose, which seemed to Kitty to be positively quivering under the urge to poke itself into matters that were none of its business, she braced herself against what she was sure would be a great slobbery wash of false sympathy and sickly reminiscence.

Rosa took a deep breath and shuddered under her heather-mixture bivouac. She felt immobilized by the complexity of her thoughts. She saw now that she should have blurted out the reason for her visit, no matter in what garbled and emotional form, the minute she entered the house. The longer she sat in the untidy, homely kitchen (only a high chair needed to complete this picture), the more bizarre did her request appear. And Kitty was no help. She had made no welcoming gesture; not even the one regarded as virtually mandatory in any English home when a visitor calls. Realizing she had missed the boat on the instant-clarification front, Rosa had just decided to approach the subject snakily, starting with a formal expression of sympathy, when Kitty spoke.

“What’s on your mind, then?”

Rosa took a huge lungful of air and, not daring to look at Kitty, said, “I was thinking now that Esslyn’s dead, maybe you wouldn’t feel able to keep the baby, and was wondering if I could adopt it.”

Silence. Timidly Rosa looked up. As she did so, Kitty lowered her head and covered her face with her hands. She made a small sound, a little plaintive moan, and her shoulders trembled. At this Rosa, who was basically a kindhearted person, experienced a spontaneous welling up of sympathy. How callous, how imperceptive she had been to assume that, just because Kitty made no public display of sorrow she was unmoved by the shocking fact and manner of her husband’s death. Now, observing the thin shoulders shaking in despair, Rosa pushed her chair back and, awkwardly holding out her arms, made a tentative, somewhat clumsy move to comfort the sobbing figure. But Kitty shook off such consolation and crossed to the open door where, her back to Rosa, she started to make terrible jackdaw squawks and cries.

Rooted to the spot, impotent, distressed, and self-castigating, Rosa could only wait, her hands held beseechingly, palms upward, continuing to offer solace should it be eventually required. At last the dreadful noises stopped and Kitty turned, her face puffy and red traces of tears on her cheeks, her shoulders still feebly vibrating. And it was then Rosa realized, with a tremendous shock of outrage and indignation, that Kitty had been
laughing.

Now, shaking her head apparently with disbelief at the pricelessness of the situation, Kitty pulled a crumpled tissue from the pocket of her negligee, mopped her streaming eyes, and dropped it on the floor. Her shoulders finally at rest and her breathing quieted, she stared across at Rosa, and Rosa, still mortified but starting to get healthily angry, stared back.

Everything became very still. And quiet. A faucet dripped, making a dull, soft-spreading sound. Already, only seconds into this embarrassing and faintly ridiculous confrontation, it was getting on Rosa’s nerves. She stood (she would have said stood her ground), and could think of nothing to say. In any case, she felt it was not up to her to speak. She had described why she was there, and invoked in Kitty an explosion of grotesque mirth. Now, it was up to Kitty to either explain her behavior or bring the interview to an end.

Rosa forced herself to meet that hard blue gaze. No merriment there. Indeed, now she came to think of it, there had not been much humor in those raucous hoots in the first place. They had been run through with an almost … almost
crowing
aggression. Yes, that was it! There had been triumph in those sounds. As if Kitty, with the battle lines hardly sketched out, was already victorious. But why was she crowing? Probably, thought Rosa, with a stab of humiliation, about the fact that she had Esslyn’s first wife in a begging position. What a tale that would make to pass around the dressing rooms. Rosa could just hear it. “You’ll never guess. Poor old Mrs. Earn came round the other day wanting to bring up the baby. Talk about an absolute scream. Left it too late to have any of her own. Silly old fool.”

Ah, well, observed Rosa, she’d brought it on herself. Imagining Kitty’s phantom gibes made her now wonder how she had ever entertained the ridiculous, misbegotten idea of adoption for a minute, never mind letting herself get to the stage where she’d actually visited the house and put the question. What in the world, queried Rosa, now devil’s advocate, did she want with a child at her time of life? And dear Earnest, who had brought up three and, while doting on his grandchildren, found a half-hour-a-week romp and dandle with each a contact of ample sufficiency. How would he have coped? But there was no point in railing, she thought doughtily. What was done was done. Now, the only course open was to withdraw with as much dignity as she could muster. And she was about to do just that when Kitty closed the door.