Authors: Merryn Allingham
‘Then we’ll both sleep in the bed and you can put a blanket down the middle in case you touch me by mistake.’
His tone was acid, and I couldn’t blame him. But I was feeling very sore, mostly at myself for having come on this stupid safari. I couldn’t now imagine why I’d done so. I’d risked losing Oliver and for what? This truly horrible house with its sagging bed and its dubious bathroom and a man who was wholly unfazed by finding himself here.
‘Hey, lighten up.’ He was wearing a let’s-make-the-best-of-it face, which immediately made me want to scowl. ‘We’ll go and find a meal. Nothing seems as bad after food.’
He was wrong. The food was on a par with the room and not even copious amounts of cheap wine could make it better.
After we’d sat in silence for a good ten minutes, he said, ‘You know you’re a real prima donna.’
‘If you mean that I value a clean and comfortable room and a meal I can eat without ingesting a month’s fat intake, then I agree—I am a prima donna.’
‘If you feel so bad, why did you come?’
‘Why indeed? I can’t recall right now.’
‘I’ll tell you, then. You came because you had another fight with Oliver. Working with him in Newcastle was out of the question and you had a few days to fill. Perhaps you figured it might also annoy him, even make him jealous, knowing you were with me.’
‘Hardly. Why on earth would Oliver be jealous of
you
?’
‘I haven’t a clue,’ he said grimly, and got up to go.
The night was every bit as uncomfortable as I’d expected. There was no blanket to partition the bed although God knows I would have done so. We both lay as near to the edges of the mattress as we could, clinging to our individual precipice while constantly under threat of falling into the pit yawning between us. Each time I began to doze I found myself slipping. Seemingly Nick was having the same problem and every so often we would touch and then hastily regain our rocky crag, bodies stiff with tension until we dozed again and repeated the whole sorry performance. At one point during that endless night I heard the grandfather clock in the hall strike three discordant chimes. I clung to the sound as though it was a lifeline back to a familiar world, but when the last tinny echo faded, I knew myself abandoned.
* * *
We ate the small bowl of cornflakes and the one slice of toast in cold silence. I could see Nick had slept about as well as I had. The blue eyes had lost their sparkle, and he wore dark smudges beneath. He ate the miniscule breakfast in less than five minutes and looked around hopelessly for more. Our formidable landlady stood in the hall watching our every swallow. Any minute her foot would start tapping. We didn’t linger and were out in the street where she wanted us by nine o’clock.
Once outside Nick trudged ahead, and I followed meekly. He was upset and I’d been the one to upset him. Last night I’d poured scorn on the idea that he could ever rival Oliver in my affections, and he hadn’t liked that one little bit. I didn’t want to think why it had made him angry, and I didn’t want to ask myself just why I’d been so keen to dismiss him. But it had been an unlucky remark. His usual cheerful manner had disappeared entirely. I wasn’t used to seeing him like this and somehow the morning felt chillier than it should have done on a bright June day.
‘Where are we going?’ I asked when it was clear he had no intention of speaking.
‘
I’m
going to the address I’ve got—the offices where Poorgrass and Fray hung out. But feel free to do your own thing—get a decent breakfast, indulge in some retail therapy, catch a train back to Waterloo.’
‘Why don’t we both get a decent breakfast?’
‘Because I can barely afford to pay that gorgon her miserable mite as it is. I certainly don’t have money for another meal.’
We’d stopped at traffic lights and for the first time that morning I managed to make eye contact with him.
‘Then let me pay—as punishment,’ I coaxed.
‘For what exactly?’ His words floated over his shoulder as he dived across the road. I was getting breathless trying to keep up with him.
‘For whatever I’ve done to annoy you.’ Much better not to specify.
He stopped suddenly at the entrance to a greengrocer’s shop, and I nearly cannoned into a fountain of oranges, precariously balanced on one of the open-air stalls.
‘Acting the prima donna, you mean.’
‘If you like.’
‘I can’t punish you for what comes naturally, can I?’
‘A hot bacon roll? Fruit yoghurt? Lashings of coffee?’ I tempted.
For the first time that morning, his face broke into one of those irrepressible grins. I hadn’t realised till now how much I missed them.
‘The roll and coffee will do fine.’
It didn’t take us too long to find a café that fitted the bill. I swear that Nick had a nose that could sniff out carbohydrates wherever they were hiding. The coffee helped to dissolve any surviving strain and two cups in, we’d relaxed sufficiently to discuss the day ahead. After yesterday’s petulance, I wanted to make amends and be willing to follow whatever strategy he chose. Orchard Street was a few minutes’ walk away, and we decided to go there first and check whether the occupants of the offices that had once belonged to Poorgrass and Fray could offer us any help. Depending on our success—or probable lack of it—we’d move on to the County Museum next and ask to see their archive. I knew my uni card should be sufficient to gain us access to any relevant papers. After that, if we’d still not found any leads, we might be reduced to asking at random, targeting the older inhabitants of Dorchester. I wasn’t looking forward to this final slice of the Heysham plan and hoped we might never have to put the idea into practice.
Even before we stood in front of number 44 we’d spotted the blue plaque. At least we’d got the right place, and I couldn’t stop myself feeling just the slightest tremor of excitement. And it still housed an architects’ practice, although one with a completely different name. The girl on reception stopped her phone conversation to smile vaguely in our direction.
‘I wonder if we might speak to someone about Lucas Royde,’ I said, feeling a little foolish.
‘Sorry, but we don’t have a Mr Royde here,’ the girl sang out, ready to make a swift return to the phone.
‘No, we know you don’t, but you do have a plaque on your wall engraved with his name. We wondered if there was someone—one of the partners perhaps—who might be able to tell us something about the man.’
She looked nonplussed and then said slowly, as though addressing an alien being, ‘Mr Hammond is in this morning. He’s an architect.’
‘Mr Hammond will do fine if he can spare a few minutes.’
He could—and more than a few minutes. Roger Hammond was a jovial man with time on his hands. He was delighted to welcome us into his comfortably furnished office, ordering refreshments on the way. By now we were almost floating on a sea of coffee but we tried to look suitably grateful.
‘Lucas Royde?’ He rocked backwards against expensive cream leather. ‘I see you’ve spotted the plaque. No relation of course to the existing partners but an architect we’re proud to have succeeded in the same offices.’
‘Royde was famous in his time?’ Nick had gone down the route of pretending ignorance. It was a good decision.
‘Very famous, probably the most celebrated of all Victorian architects.’
‘What did he design—would we know any of his buildings?’
‘You might. You’ve come from London, I believe? There’s a splendid church in Shoreditch—Hoxton Road or Hoxton Street?’
I realised that I must have passed very near the church for the last ten years but had never realised the connection.
‘Was that his first commission?’ I continued Nick’s naivety and was rewarded by an expansive beam. I was Mr Hammond’s kind of audience.
‘No, it’s an example of his more mature work. I have the feeling that his first work was a chapel for some aristocrat. Yes…that’s right.’ He was remembering his past studies, too. ‘It was quite different from anything that had gone before and caused a storm. Of praise, I hasten to add.’
I decided to go straight to the vital question. ‘I expect he was involved with the Great Exhibition,’ I said innocently, flashing the green eyes. ‘Such a famous architect wouldn’t fail to have been commissioned to produce something for it.’
‘Now there you have me. The Exhibition was 1851? I’m pretty sure Royde did most of his work after that date.’
Nick was getting restless with a conversation that appeared to be going nowhere, fidgeting this way and that in his chair; either that or the coffee was making him twitch. His interruption verged on the curt when our host began to recite a list of the Royde triumphs that he remembered.
‘I don’t suppose you still have any of Royde’s plans here.’
Mr Hammond laughed uproariously as though Nick had told the joke of the year. ‘I doubt we ever had anything, and if we had it would have disappeared forty years ago.’
‘Why forty?’
He leaned towards me with a conspiratorial air. ‘A fire!’ Then warming to his theme, ‘You could see the blaze from Maiden Hill two miles out of town. The rear storage area had to be completely rebuilt. I designed it, I was a very young man then and it was my first job.’ He must be older than he looked. Having a happy nature certainly keeps you young. ‘Would you like to see it?’
‘No,’ I said rather too definitely. ‘You’ve been most kind, Mr Hammond, but we mustn’t trespass on your time any longer. Thank you so much for the coffee and talk.’
We’d almost reached the street when we heard him calling after us.
‘Quick,’ Nick breathed, ‘run for it.’
Mr Hammond’s plump figure moved with surprising agility and in a few minutes he’d caught us up. ‘If you’re really interested in Royde, you could talk to Mr Fawley. I’m not a great one for local history, but he knows just about all there is to know about Dorchester.’
We stopped on the spot. ‘Mr Fawley?’
‘That’s right. He works at the County Museum.’
We thanked him again profusely, only this time it was sincere. We’d planned to visit the museum, but now we had the name of a person who, according to Mr Hammond, would know anything there was to know. We walked quickly along the rest of Orchard Street and turned into the High Street outside a black and white Tudor building. A pub sign depicting a cloaked and bewigged figure swung in a breeze that had sprung from nowhere.
‘That must be Judge Jeffreys,’ I said, pointing at the grim face above our heads. ‘He probably lodged in this house when he came to Dorchester to hear the trials of men who took part in the Monmouth Rebellion.’
Nick looked impatient. ‘Thank you for the history lesson. How about we stick to architecture?’
‘It was called the Bloody Assize,’ I teased.
He grabbed my arm and hurried me along the pavement. He was high on anticipation and Judge Jeffreys an unnecessary distraction, but when we reached the museum, his hopes were dashed. Mr Fawley wasn’t in. He was working from home.
‘Are you able to give us a contact number?’ I sounded professional, but to no avail.
The assistant looked shocked. ‘I couldn’t do that.’
‘Could you perhaps ring him for us?’
Her face remained in shock mode. ‘Mr Fawley doesn’t take office calls when he’s working at home—not unless it’s an emergency.’
She saw our faces somewhere around our knees and said more kindly, ‘Come back this afternoon, he said that he might pop in for a few hours. You never know, you might just catch him.’
‘
Might
catch him,’ Nick repeated once we were out on the pavement again. ‘I’m beginning to think you were right. This is a wild goose chase.’
‘Hey, it’s not like you to give up. It could be worth coming back. If we hang around the museum long enough, the receptionist might get fed up and decide that we’re an emergency!’
‘Sorry, but it’s my turn to be a prima donna.’ He grinned and his blue eyes were alight with laughter. ‘It’s the carbohydrates, you know.’
‘What is?’
‘Losing heart. I’m starving again, and I can’t operate on less than three thousand calories a day.’
I sighed. Too much time spent with Nick Heysham and I would be as wide as I was tall.
‘Okay, we’ll find somewhere to eat, but it’s got to have salad on the menu.’
Halfway through a very large plate of lasagne, he suddenly stopped eating and fixed me with a penetrating look.
‘So where is Oliver?’
I was caught on the hop and answered before I thought, ‘Newcastle.’
‘Without you?’
‘As you see.’
‘I thought you were essential to his comfort.’
‘I thought so, too.’ I must have sounded a little sad because he reached out and squeezed my hand.
‘We’ll be back in London tomorrow. You could always get a train up there.’
‘I could, but I won’t. He assures me that I needn’t worry over arrangements at the Newcastle gallery. He has a new assistant to help him.’
‘And she is…I take it, it is a she?’
‘Oh yes, it’s a she. Rebecca. She’s on work experience.’
‘Blonde and petite?’
‘How did you know?’
His smiled compassionately. ‘Have a think.’
‘They don’t have that kind of relationship.’ I knew he wouldn’t believe me, but pride required me to say it.
‘Who says they don’t?’
‘Oliver.’
‘I rest my case.’
‘When I accused him, he told me I had a vulgar mind.’
‘He would, wouldn’t he? No man likes to get caught out and I guess he was—caught out, I mean.’
I thought about Rebecca at the door. Oliver hadn’t expected me home so early. He’d told the girl to come to the house on the assumption that I wouldn’t be there. He would have left me a note saying he’d had to go earlier than expected and not to worry about making the journey myself. I could see it all now.
My silence made Nick uncomfortable. ‘It’s probably one of those middle-aged flings,’ he said. ‘Over in a trice. He’ll be back in a few days, begging your forgiveness.’
‘Middle-aged?’ The description was annoying.
‘How old
is
Oliver?’
‘Forty-five.’
‘There you are. Classic case of the male menopause. How long have you known him?’