Andrew said, hugging her, ‘My darling, don’t ever join the police. You’re far too emotional. But I’d swear that’s how it happened. He admits, or at least did
once
admit, though that too is now inadmissible, dammit, that he hit her. Anyway, there’s evidence he did. The bruises.’
‘Evidence someone did,’ Sara corrected quietly. ‘Perhaps not him.’
Andrew smiled. ‘You’re learning. You’re definitely learning.’ He kissed her on the nose, but turned back to the view over the hedge. ‘No. No, it was him. He hit her, that’s certain. He slapped her because they had been having a row and she left him about a week before she died. And that, bugger it, that’s all I’ve got. Not enough to charge him. Despite a dead first wife in the picture, too.’
‘Sounds like it should be, somehow.’
‘I
know
he killed her. I just know it. When you’ve seen a few of these cases—’
‘That,’ Sara said, poking him in the stomach, ‘sounds exactly like the kind of thing you won’t let me get away with. Forget instinct, don’t bother me with intuition, where’s the evidence—isn’t that right?’
‘That is quite right. Because I’m not talking about intuition, I’m talking about experience.’
‘But it doesn’t help, does it, if you haven’t got enough to charge him? All you can do is keep up with appeals for information, is that it?’
‘Yes,’ Andrew sighed, ‘and we ask around, we ask around some more and we check and we check again. It’s what the
Bath Chronicle
calls “pursuing a number of lines of enquiry”. They’ve been great, actually. We couldn’t reach nearly so many people without their cooperation, even if we do have to allow them a few “Killer In Our Midst”
headlines. Meanwhile I don’t see there’s much more I can do, except hope that the ID parade comes off. That would be a start.’
He placed his hands on her shoulders and looked at her. ‘And you’re off to Salzburg on Sunday.’
‘I thought you’d forgotten.’
There was a yell from the hedgerow. ‘I’m starving! When’s lunch? Can we have it here?’
‘Here would do, I suppose,’ Andrew said to Sara, ‘unless you want to get a bit further away from Cold Comfort Farm over there. Though you could always lead a raiding party and go scrump an organic turnip for us.’ Sara laughed and he pulled her to him.
‘Come here, you,’ he said, kissing her loudly. ‘I haven’t kissed you all morning.’
‘Not in the last two minutes,’ Sara said. ‘Do you think they mind, though, seeing us kiss? They might not like it.’ The children all had their backs to them, but still.
Andrew let her go and spread one of the picnic blankets on the ground. ‘Maybe not. But honestly, I sometimes think we should be able to expect a bit more of them. Dan’s been poisonous all morning over bloody Legoland. The whole of the way along the path from Bathampton I was trying to explain to him why I’m not taking them, but of course I have to try to explain it without criticising his mother. He’s still furious. With
me
. Bloody Valerie.’
‘It must be hard. When he was looking forward to it so much.’ They watched Dan, crouched by the hedge, picking blackberries.
‘But he’s still
going
, as I pointed out, just not today. He’s got to learn to wait for things. He’s old enough now,’ Andrew murmured. Sara nodded, but felt she knew as
well as Dan did that you might want a thing so badly you could never be old enough to be able to wait for it.
The children came out of the bushes, a little reluctantly, when Sara called them to come for something to eat. She was sitting on the blanket and filling baguettes from various plastic boxes around her when Benji raced up last, holding out both fists.
‘I got better ones! I got special blackberries! Mine are special!’ With a delighted smile he thrust out his hands and opened them. Sara stopped buttering bread.
‘Andrew—’
Andrew quietly put down the bottle of beer he had just opened, crouched down, took both of Benji’s wrists and tipped the deadly nightshade berries quickly on to his own hand. ‘Darling, have you eaten any?’ Benji shook his head.
‘Are you quite, quite sure, Benji? Have you eaten any?’
Benji shook his head again, firmly. ‘I was saving them for pudding.’
Andrew said, ‘These aren’t blackberries. They’re a different sort of berry. I’m going to get rid of them.’ His tone of voice had silenced all three children and they stood with serious faces, watching and listening. ‘But first, all of you. Take a good look at them. See? Small and round, and very, very dark, nearly black.’ Andrew passed his hand round under their solemn eyes and then flung the berries as far as he could across the path and back into the hedge, where they hit the leaves, pattering like hail.
‘They are very, very poisonous.’ Benji began to cry. Andrew, crouching once again, pulled him close. ‘It’s all right. I’m not cross, Benji. Don’t cry. I want you to listen. I had to throw them away because they’re poisonous, do
you understand? If you ate them you’d be very ill and you might even die.’
‘Sorry, Daddy. I didn’t mean it. Don’t tell Mummy … you won’t tell Mummy, will you, Daddy, don’t tell,’ he sobbed.
‘Darling, I’m not cross. I know you didn’t mean it. I just want you all to recognise those berries another time and never, never touch them. All right? Come on, let’s have lunch. Who wants Coke?’
‘Can I open the crisps, Sara?’
‘How many’d you have to eat to die, Dad?’
‘C’n I have a cheese triangle?’
‘Don’t know, Dan, but probably not very many. That’s why you mustn’t ever touch them.’
Natalie made the first dive into the basket, followed by Dan. Food and drink restored the children’s swaggering wellbeing and the adults’ sense of ease. After a spit of rain which nobody took seriously, the sun actually came out. More birds, mallards, landed on the water. Andrew sat and threw little bits of bread to the ducks, who raced and squabbled with each other for each soggy lump, reminding him of his children, who lay or sat around. Still with mouths full of food, Dan and Natalie were making screeching noises through blades of grass between their thumbs. Benji sat humming parts of
The Snowman
, as he picked bits out of his baguette. The older children were given second baguettes and they wandered off with them in their hands to find better blades of grass.
‘Don’t go too near the bank,’ Sara called after them. ‘No falling in!’
But for the whisper of far-off traffic on the road half a mile away and the muffled drubbing noise of barges farther
up by the viaduct, the only sound was the rustle of Benji working through his second packet of crisps. Sara moved the depleted food basket and plastic boxes off the blanket, lay down on her back and watched the clouds twisting in the sky, calculating when the next would cover the sun and bring the sudden, unwelcome cooling that would drain the blue from the water. Andrew was lying nearer the bank and she stretched down one bare foot, found his shoulder and made him jump. He grabbed the foot and tickled it until she squawked and pulled it away.
Dan appeared and squatted by the basket.
‘Found any good grass?’ Sara asked, with her eyes closed.
‘Not doing that any more,’ he said. ‘We’re watching ants now. Aw, Benji’s got more crisps, c’n I have more?’ He began foraging in the basket. ‘D’you want any more to eat, Sara? There’s more bread.’ He looked up. ‘Want another sandwich, Sara? I could do it.’
It was an impressive show of manners from a nine-year-old, Sara thought, still lying on her back and smiling up at him upside down. He had clearly calmed down and was trying to show there were no hard feelings. She did not want more to eat but it was important that she accept the offering.
‘Yes, thanks, Dan, I will. There’s a bit of pâté and lettuce to finish. Can you manage? Want me to do it?’
‘No! I’m doing it. Shut your eyes and I’ll surprise you.’
‘Careful with the knife, then.’
Five minutes later, when there was almost as much mayonnaise between the pieces of bread as there was on the grass, Sara sat up in obedience to Dan’s command, took her ragged sandwich and bit into it. After two or three chews she jumped to her feet and spat out the mouthful across the water. The ducks scattered, splashing.
‘Oh! What’s in this? Dan?’
Andrew got up. ‘Dan, you little—! Was that a joke?
Dan! Christ!’
Sara stared at the water where, among the floating, half-chewed white and green shreds of bread and lettuce, were the black tatters of berries. She had nearly swallowed a mouthful of deadly nightshade and was still holding in her hand the rest of a highly toxic sandwich. Just then Dan dashed forward and planted a kick on his father’s shin.
‘I hate you, I hate you! I hate you, Dad! I hate you!’ Andrew now had hold of the flailing arms. Dan’s face was unrecognisable with rage.
‘Dan! Dan! What’s this? What the—’
‘I
hate
you! I hate you! You’re horrible! You’re a horrible Dad! Mum says you’re horrible to all of us now because of Sara! You promised we’d go to Legoland and you’re not meant to break promises! You’re meant to keep a promise! Mum cries every day because you’re so horrible and I hate you!’
‘Dan, listen—’
‘And I’m not called Dan any more! I’m DANIEL! It’s not Dan, it’s DANIEL! Mum told you and you can’t even remember! So don’t call me Dan!’
‘Dan—Daniel, wait—’
But Daniel had already turned his tearful red face away from his father and was tearing off back down the towpath in the direction of Bathampton Lock.
* * *
N
ATALIE AND
Benji took advantage of the stunned, silent condition of the grown-ups to crunch through almost a
whole tin of travel sweets on the way home. Daniel too, having walked ahead furiously by himself to the car, stared out of the window without speaking. When Andrew delivered the children up at Valerie’s doorstep, he waited until the three of them had trooped off into the house and out of earshot. Sara watched from the car as he raised a hand against Valerie’s opening tirade for bringing them back at three o’clock when she had told him five. She was standing mouthing in the doorway, her arms folded like a bouncer, dressed aggressively in red trousers and a black sleeveless polo neck. Sara wound down the window and listened.
‘No,
you
listen,’ Andrew was shouting. ‘I have something to say. Are you listening?’ His voice was shaking with anger. Valerie uncrossed and crossed her arms and looked out distantly somewhere over his shoulder to indicate that she was, grudgingly.
‘Ask Dan what he did today. See if he tells you. Just in case he doesn’t, I will. He tried to poison Sara. Not very cleverly, but he tried, and the reason was because he was so angry with me. Not just about Legoland, though you fucked that up beautifully for us all, thank you very much.’
Valerie opened her mouth to speak but Andrew stopped her. ‘No, no, don’t tell me again it’s natural he should be angry because we all know that. But whether he tells you what he did today or not, I want you to tell
him
something. Tell him why his father doesn’t live with him any more. Tell him it wasn’t just about Sara. Why not tell him you had an affair of your own, and you didn’t even
want
me to stay. I really do hope you’re listening, Valerie, because if you don’t tell him I am going to contest the arrangement and get them with me at least half the time.
Do you understand? Oh, and that was another great job you did, not telling me he wants to be called Daniel. Only
he’s
the one it hurt.’
Valerie responded just as he knew she would, with an absolutely predictable, bog-standard, averagely hostile slam of the door in his face. Andrew returned to the car. Sara had moved into the driver’s seat. She drove off with a slight crunch from first into second gear. Andrew did not speak at first. He was half-wondering, now that he had said what he meant to Valerie for the first time in a while, why he should feel not in the least better for it.
‘Thanks for driving. Sorry. This was meant to be a nice day.’
‘I don’t feel like going home yet, do you?’ she asked, leaving aside the question of where home was, exactly. She had suddenly remembered that the kitchen in Medlar Cottage was bedecked with Happy Birthday banners and that Daniel’s cake, saying ‘Happy Birthday, Dan’ was sitting on the table, awaiting the teatime return of five happy picnickers. She must spare Andrew the sight of it, if only for a time.
Andrew stared out the window at the rain. ‘Eclipse day tomorrow,’ he said, miserably. ‘I thought of taking the kids to Cornwall for it but then I thought no, money’s too tight. I wish I were, though.’
Sara did not reply, but turned the car down North Parade towards the centre of town.
‘Where are we going?’
‘Pump Room,’ she said, with decision. ‘We are going to drown our sorrows in tea and bury them under clotted cream. I am taking you to tea and I am going to get so fat
I’ll have to wear a parachute instead of a dress in Salzburg and I don’t care.’
Her stomach lurched suddenly at the thought of Salzburg and the Dvořák which had taken on, in her mind, the shape of a high wall. Her earlier confidence with it had gone. There was something now that she could almost hear in it that was demanding a gigantic leap of courage from her, a leap that she knew she should be able to make but did not always manage to. Something had raised the fence—but, please God, not Joyce’s comments—and she felt afraid that she might be too small and weak, musically speaking, to clear the new height. She calmed herself with the thought that she had four days to work on it before Sunday. And if it was rather calculating of her to attend to Andrew’s problems over tea for what remained of this afternoon because she was going to dump all concern for him for the rest of the week, well, that, she thought inarticulately, was just too bad.
For the next precious four days she was going to rid her life of clutter and do nothing but work. Except, of course, for meeting Stephen Golightly tomorrow, whose invitation to discuss ‘one or two concerns’, when he had telephoned yesterday, she had unaccountably found herself able to accept. After that, all distractions—a category into which she now ruthlessly lumped Andrew and his children along with Joyce and even James—in fact any other human being who might make the mistake of wanting something from her would not be tolerated. People were wrong to expect it; she was an artist, a musician, not the bloody fount of all compassion.