Something between me and Miss Ford? A particular image suddenly came into my mind as I gazed at the backs of what I assumed to be family photographs.
‘You’ve made things much clearer, Mr Gunnell. I’ll put a first-class stamp on when I pay your bill.’
He smiled. ‘Actually, it’s a thing we do notice. In certain cases.’
Mrs Marriott was able, two weeks later, to provide me with an email address for Mr John Ford. Miss Veronica Ford had declined to allow her contact details to be passed on. And Mr John Ford was clearly being cautious himself: no phone number, no postal address.
I remembered Brother Jack sitting back on a sofa, careless and confident. Veronica had just ruffled my hair and was asking, ‘He’ll do, won’t he?’ And Jack had winked at me. I hadn’t winked back.
I was formal in my email. I offered my condolences. I pretended to happier memories of Chislehurst than was the case. I explained the situation and asked Jack to use what influence he had to persuade his sister to hand over the second ‘document’, which I understood to be the diary of my old schoolfriend Adrian Finn.
About ten days later Brother Jack turned up in my inbox. There was a long preamble about travelling, and semi-retirement, and the humidity of Singapore, and Wi-Fi and cybercafés. And then: ‘Anyway, enough chit-chat. Regret I am not my sister’s keeper – never have been, just between ourselves. Stopped trying to change her mind years ago. And frankly, my putting in a good word for you could easily have the opposite effect. Not that I don’t wish you well on this particular sticky wicket. Ah – here comes my rickshaw – must dash. Regards, John Ford.’
Why did I feel there was something unconvincing about all this? Why did I immediately picture him sitting quietly at home – in some plush mansion backing on to a golf course in Surrey – laughing at me? His server was
aol.com
, which didn’t tell me anything. I looked at his email’s timing, which was plausible for both Singapore and Surrey. Why did I imagine Brother Jack had seen me coming and was having a bit of fun? Perhaps because in this country shadings of class resist time longer than differentials in age. The Fords had been posher than the Websters back then, and they were jolly well going to stay that way. Or was this mere paranoia on my part?
Nothing to be done, of course, but email back politely and ask if he could let me have Veronica’s contact details.
When people say, ‘She’s a good-looking woman,’ they usually mean, ‘She used to be a good-looking woman.’ But when I say that about Margaret, I mean it. She thinks – she knows – that she’s changed, and she has; though less to me than to anybody else. Naturally, I can’t speak for the restaurant manager. But I’d put it like this: she sees only what’s gone, I see only what’s stayed the same. Her hair is no longer halfway down her back or pulled up in a French pleat; nowadays it is cut close to her skull and the grey is allowed to show. Those peasanty frocks she used to wear have given way to cardigans and well-cut trousers. Some of the freckles I once loved are now closer to liver spots. But it’s still the eyes we look at, isn’t it? That’s where we found the other person, and find them still. The same eyes that were in the same head when we first met, slept together, married, honeymooned, joint-mortgaged, shopped, cooked and holidayed, loved one another and had a child together. And were the same when we separated.
But it’s not just the eyes. The bone structure stays the same, as do the instinctive gestures, the many ways of being herself. And her way, even after all this time and distance, of being with me.
‘So what’s all this about, Tony?’
I laughed. We had barely looked at our menus, but I didn’t find the question premature. That’s what Margaret’s like. When you say you’re not sure about a second child, do you mean you’re not sure about having one with me? Why do you think divorce is about apportioning blame? What are you going to do with the rest of your life now? If you’d really wanted to go on holiday with me, wouldn’t it have helped to book some tickets? And what’s all this about, Tony?
Some people are insecure about their partners’ previous lovers, as if they fear them still. Margaret and I were exempt from that. Not that in my case there was exactly a crocodile of ex-girlfriends all lined up. And if she allowed herself to give them nicknames, that was her right, wasn’t it?
‘Actually, of all people, it’s about Veronica Ford.’
‘The Fruitcake?’ I knew she’d say that, so I didn’t wince. ‘Is she back in business after all these years? You were well out of
that
, Tony.’
‘I know,’ I replied. It’s possible that when I finally got around to telling Margaret about Veronica, I’d laid it on a bit, made myself sound more of a dupe, and Veronica more unstable than she’d been. But since it was my account that had given rise to the nickname, I couldn’t very well object to it. All I could do was not use it myself.
I told her the story, what I’d done, how I’d approached things. As I say, something of Margaret had rubbed off on me over the years, which is perhaps why she nodded in agreement or encouragement at various points.
‘Why do you think the Fruitcake’s mother left you five hundred pounds?’
‘I haven’t the slightest idea.’
‘And you think the brother was stringing you along?’
‘Yes. Or at least, not being natural with me.’
‘But you don’t know him at all, do you?’
‘I only met him once, it’s true. I guess I’m just suspicious of the whole family.’
‘And why do you think the mother ended up with the diary?’
‘I’ve no idea.’
‘Perhaps Adrian left it to her because he didn’t trust the Fruitcake.’
‘That doesn’t make sense.’
There was a silence. We ate. Then Margaret tapped her knife against my plate.
‘And if the presumably still-unmarried Miss Veronica Ford happened to walk into this café and sit down at our table, how would the long-divorced Mr Anthony Webster react?’
She always puts her finger on it, doesn’t she?
‘I don’t think I’d be especially pleased to see her.’
Something in the formality of my tone caused Margaret to smile. ‘Intrigued? Start rolling up your sleeve and taking off your watch?’
I blushed. You haven’t seen a bald man in his sixties blush? Oh, it happens, just as it does to a hairy, spotty fifteen-year-old. And because it’s rarer, it sends the blusher tumbling back to that time when life felt like nothing more than one long sequence of embarrassments.
‘I wish I hadn’t told you that.’
She took a forkful of rocket and tomato salad.
‘Sure there isn’t some … undoused fire in your breast, Mr Webster?’
‘I’m pretty positive.’
‘Well then, unless she gets in touch with you, I’d leave it. Cash the cheque, take me on a budget holiday, and forget it. Two fifty each might get us all the way to the Channel Islands.’
‘I like it when you tease me,’ I said. ‘Even after all these years.’
She leant across and patted my hand. ‘It’s nice that we’re still fond of one another. And it’s nice that I know you’ll never get around to booking that holiday.’
‘Only because I know you don’t mean it.’
She smiled. And for a moment, she almost looked enigmatic. But Margaret can’t do enigma, that first step to Woman of Mystery. If she’d wanted me to spend the money on a holiday for two, she’d have said so. Yes, I realise that’s exactly what she
did
say, but …
But anyway. ‘She’s stolen my stuff,’ I said, perhaps a little whinily.
‘How do you know you want it?’
‘It’s Adrian’s diary. He’s my friend. He was my friend. It’s mine.’
‘If your friend had wanted you to have his diary, he could have left it to you forty years ago, and cut out the middleman. Or woman.’
‘Yes.’
‘What do you think’s in it?’
‘I’ve no idea. It’s just mine.’ I recognised at that moment another reason for my determination. The diary was evidence; it was – it might be – corroboration. It might disrupt the banal reiterations of memory. It might jump-start something – though I had no idea what.
‘Well, you can always find out where the Fruitcake lives. Friends Reunited, telephone directory, private detective. Go round, ring the doorbell, ask for your stuff.’
‘No.’
‘Which leaves burglary,’ she suggested cheerily.
‘You’re joking.’
‘Then let it go. Unless you have, as they say, issues from your past that you need to confront in order to be able to move on. But that’s hardly you, is it, Tony?’
‘No, I don’t think so,’ I answered, rather carefully. Because part of me was wondering if, psychobabble apart, there might not be some truth in it. There was a silence. Our plates were cleared. Margaret didn’t have any problem reading me.
‘It’s quite touching that you’re so stubborn. I suppose it’s one way of not losing the plot when we get to our age.’
‘I don’t think I’d have reacted differently twenty years ago.’
‘Possibly not.’ She made a sign for the bill. ‘But let me tell you a story about Caroline. No, you don’t know her. She’s a friend from after we separated. She had a husband, two small kids and an au pair she wasn’t sure about. She didn’t have any dreadful suspicions or anything. The girl was polite most of the time, the children didn’t complain. It was just that Caroline felt she didn’t really know who she was leaving them with. So she asked a friend – a female friend – no, not me – if she had any advice. “Go through her stuff,” said the friend. “What?” “Well, you’re obviously wound up about it. Wait till it’s her evening off, have a look through her room, read her letters. That’s what I’d do.” So the next time the au pair was off, Caroline went through her stuff. And found the girl’s diary. Which she read. And which was full of denunciations, like “I’m working for a real cow” and “The husband’s OK – caught him looking at my bum – but the wife’s a silly bitch.” And “Does she know what she’s doing to those poor kids?” There was some really,
really
tough stuff.’
‘So what happened?’ I asked. ‘Did she fire the au pair?’
‘Tony,’ my ex-wife replied, ‘that’s not the point of the story.’
I nodded. Margaret checked the bill, running the corner of her credit card down the items.
Two other things she said over the years: that there were some women who aren’t at all mysterious, but are only made so by men’s inability to understand them. And that, in her view, fruitcakes ought to be shut up in tins with the Queen’s head on them. I must have told her that detail of my Bristol life as well.
A week or so passed, and Brother Jack’s name was there in my inbox again. ‘Here’s Veronica’s email, but don’t let on you got it from me. Hell to pay and all that. Remember the 3 wise monkeys – see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. That’s my motto, anyway. Blue skies, view of Sydney Harbour Bridge, almost. Ah, here comes my rickshaw. Regards, John F.’
I was surprised. I’d expected him to be unhelpful. But what did I know of him or his life? Only what I’d extrapolated from memories of a bad weekend long before. I’d always assumed that birth and education had given him an advantage over me that he’d effortlessly maintained until the present day. I remembered Adrian saying that he’d read about Jack in some undergraduate magazine but didn’t expect to meet him (but nor had he expected to go out with Veronica). And then he’d added, in a different, harsher tone, ‘I
hate
the way the English have of not being serious about being serious.’ I never knew – because stupidly I never asked – what that had been based on.
They say time finds you out, don’t they? Maybe time had found out Brother Jack and punished him for his lack of seriousness. And now I began to elaborate a different life for Veronica’s brother, one in which his student years glowed in his memory as filled with happiness and hope – indeed, as the one period when his life had briefly achieved that sense of harmony we all aspire to. I imagined Jack, after graduation, being nepotistically placed into one of those large multinational companies. I imagined him doing well enough to begin with and then, almost imperceptibly, not so well. A clubbable fellow with decent manners, but lacking the edge required in a changing world. Those cheery sign-offs, in letter and conversation, came after a while to appear not sophisticated but inept. And though he wasn’t exactly given the push, the suggestion of early retirement combined with occasional bits of ad hoc work was clear enough. He could be a kind of roving honorary consul, a backup for the local man in big cities, a troubleshooter in smaller ones. So he remade his life, and found some plausible way to present himself as a success. ‘View of Sydney Habour Bridge, almost.’ I imagined him taking his laptop to café terraces with Wi-Fi, because frankly that felt less depressing than working from the room of a hotel with fewer stars than he’d been previously used to.
I’ve no idea if this is how big firms work, but I’d found a way of thinking about Brother Jack which brought no discomfort. I’d even managed to dislodge him from that mansion overlooking the golf course. Not that I would go so far as to feel sorry for him. And – this was the point – not that I owed him anything either.
‘Dear Veronica,’ I began. ‘Your brother has very kindly given me your email address …’