A Clear Conscience (20 page)

Cath knew she had no choice. If she did not promise, Mickey would tell Joe where she was and Joe would haul her all the way down all those stairs by the scruff of the neck and no-one in this block of flats would even notice. Besides, as a compromise, it was not so bad. She liked the thought of Joe being in a state. She nodded.

‘There's a good girl then.' Mickey smiled. One large hand disappeared into the pocket of the shell suit, pulled out a wad of notes and a box. Perfume. She could see it clearly. Fake Estée Lauder. When Damien worked for Mickey he had given her perfume every month. Joe had taken it away, like all gifts from Damien.

‘Buy yourself a nice frock, doll.'

The price of supremacy: one hundred pounds in cash. A man needs a wife so he can do real work: other women are merely bought and sold. Mickey Gat lumbered to her feet and went to the door. As if in response to the authority of her presence and her demand for convenience, Cath could hear the distant whining of the lift, working again.

E
mily Eliot suppressed the urge to slap her daughter. She could not bear the child whining. The need to slap a nine-year-old was not one she always withheld, although she had never administered a blow which could injure. A sharp hand was a good thing to have up your sleeve, catharsis for mother, humiliation for child, the ultimate in tame punishments, reserved for truly disgraceful behaviour. Which this was not, quite, and it did have some excuses. Children get you all ways, she had tried to explain to the
few friends who were without progeny. They drive you to leave them for half a day, but cannot bear you having time to yourself; you have to make it up to them later and still they punish you.

Alistair had gone back into his chambers but he would be home again soon. No-one coming in this evening, so maybe dinner
à deux
and an early night? That was before she saw the study, but after she had understood that Mark's role in the supervision of his sibling had been to ignore her entirely. Raised voices, challenges, surly defences, accusations of ingratitude followed, also the banging of doors. On the sidelines, little Jane fumed. No-one had time for her. Not even Cath, who had become so preoccupied she put sugar in the lunchtime soup. The same Cath who had shaken her, almost slapped her and then refused to play. The insults had come thick and fast to Jane's pride and Cath's contribution was the worst. It was sunny, but Mark would not take her out. He said the light hurt his eyes.

All this emerged in a whine to which her mother paid scant attention. And when Jane was dragged to witness the carnage of the study, to which she had added, once Cath had finally woken Mark to resume control and left. She had done it, despite Cath's dire warnings, because she was fed up with Cath too, and the day's frustrations had reached the eye of their own particular storm. Not only was she being ignored, something she resented with all her mother's passion, but she was also going to be punished.

‘Do you realise, you little horror,' Emily was saying, keeping her fists bunched against her sides and her voice ominously calm, ‘just how long it will take your father to sort this lot out? Did you think of that, you selfish little …? Do you know how hard Daddy works, and do we have to lock doors to keep you out? I feel like locking you in.'

The recitation stopped at that. Emily was gazing at the open drawers of the desk, making a mental inventory. Presents lurked in there, wrapping paper, surprises, Alistair's own cache of things to be dispensed. By an unwritten rule, she was not supposed to raid this desk either, but she was, of course, familiar with
the contents. Her eyes were riveted: Jane could see her mother deciding, perhaps a little too late to put it into effect, that this might be an occasion for a clip round the ear, after all. She saw the direction of her mother's gaze and a self-righteous cunning froze her expression for an unseen instant.

‘What's the matter, Mummy? What did I do? Why are you shouting at me?'

‘Because you …' The disingenuity of Jane's limpid gaze made her pause. ‘You've made a mess,' she finished lamely.

‘Mummy, I didn't, not really. I came in to get some paper, that was all, Mummy, I promise it was. Oh and I took some pens,' she added with convincing sheepishness, nodding towards the top drawer where Alistair kept the lurid marker pens vital for annotating papers. Emily remembered him saying he did not know how his profession would live without such pens.

‘Cath told me off,' she added in hushed tones, scuffing the carpet with her sandal, ‘because I'd been in before and she'd tidied up once already, she said. She chased me out, but then she stayed in here a long time, reading, I think. She told me to go and fix my own room, and I did, Mummy, I did. She was horrid today, Mummy; she smells of bleach. Shall I bring back the pens?'

‘Get out of here. Go down and watch TV. Don't move.'

Emily stood in the centre of the room, somehow overwhelmed with disgust. She had an intense feeling of losing control. It could have been Jane's mention of that lingering, cheap-soap, clean-but-not-entirely-pleasant smell which so typified Cath, and which Emily had told herself explained her own aversion to being within inches of the woman in any closed space. A snobbish aversion, as slight as her turning away from the sight of Cath eating bread and butter open mouthed, but one which created a
frisson
of revulsion if she thought of Cath poking around among her things. The same reaction applied, only in intensified form, to the idea of Cath touching things personal to her husband. Emily could share her privacy if she chose; in his absence, Alistair had no choice, no-one to defend his domain except his family. Cath had no business putting her stubby fingers
and her ever-so-humble body in this small and exclusive room, however messy it had been.

And besides, everyone in Emily's house had to be subject to Emily's control. They could be perfectIy good or perfectly bad, but they had to accept rules. And they had to be nice to her children, who were the very stars of her existence. Emily allowed herself to seethe, aware that she was being a bit of a control freak, fanning herself into indignation because she should never have been out of her domain long enough to let anyone take charge of it. Her command of them all, her single-minded mission to find them the best people in the world, brooked no renegades and took no captives. Poor Alistair. Poor Jane, treated with such unfairness, even though she was being honest enough to admit minor theft and trespass; that was brave, wasn't it? Emily the mother ignored the fleeting glimpse of guile she had seen in her shamefully neglected child, cut out the sound of her whingeing, instead she concentrated on the empty drawers of Alistair's desk, and in her search for a culprit, allowed a horrible suspicion to develop.

It grew as she made a comprehensive search of the corners of Jane's room. The child would not have the imagination to hide perfume anywhere else, since no-one in this most open of households would condone deceit. Jane's ground-floor bedroom contained no secrets. The marker pens were scattered on her bed in a litter of scrunched-up listing paper, and Emily's fury curdled into more guilt. How could it have occurred to her to blame her darling child for emptying the perfume drawer and interfering in the privacy of the study, how could she? The sad logic pointed to Cath, left with responsibility, taking the chance to pry and steal, and, even worse, leaving darling Jane to carry the can. That is what people did when they were poor, acted poor, smelled poor, but it did not excuse such conduct or mitigate the betrayal. The anger rose, swelling against the new target. No-one crossed the boundaries of Mrs Eliot's house rules without dire consequences.

I
t was enough to ruin the evening. Mark went out, deciding the best cure for the remnant of his hangover was to try again
and the best cure for parental disapproval was to earn even more. Jane was subdued, sweetly affectionate, her sister merely sleepy. They were a family with all hysteria spent and the relaxation of Emily's half day off seemed a thousand years old. Instead of an early night, she and Alistair drank far too much wine, which rendered them sleepy and philosophical. He was worried, she had noticed it at lunch, where her own gaiety had disguised his preoccupation. She had mentioned over supper, well after Jane's hurried goodnight to her papa, about the devastation of the study, cured for the most part before he came home, drawers firmly shut. She didn't want to linger on the missing perfume, because she was not supposed to know, and because what she was going to do about it was her decision alone. She did not mention Cath, either, any more than he did. There was a story in the paper he read out to her. A man leaving his family to work as a missionary for three years, what did she think of that?

Not much, she said shortly, not if his children were still dependent, no, she did not think much of that at all: it made her frightened. She did not add that she already felt under threat, for her judgement, for everything.

Are people with families allowed no other loyalty? he asked. Is there nothing beyond that? He was thinking of loyalties to his clients, giving up on a case because it was too close to home. You could not abandon care of anyone else, could you, simply because you had children to protect?

Yes, you could, said Emily shortly. Your family came first: sod anyone else. That was the whole idea. And if he wanted to be a missionary, would he take Jane with him?

They did not talk much after that.

G
ive a man a drink and he will talk until he drops. Ask a man who can mix a cocktail to give you a demo, and there could be serious damage, so Ryan concluded. Joe Boyce could not only mix them with dizzying speed, using up his resentment of Mickey Gat by being free with her ingredients, he was also keen to sip. It certainly improved his mood. First he assembled a concoction he described
as a Scotch Kiss.

‘One fluid ounce best Scotch, blended, any kind will do, but the better the ingredients, the better the drink, one fluid ounce Tia Maria, half ounces Malibu and pineapple juice, skip the fucking pineapple and strawberry on the side. You can't make the same cocktails with Irish or Canadian, you know. What do you think?' All the measuring had been done by sleight of hand, a buzz of liquid slopping into blender with precise ease.

‘I'm sorry, I think it's disgusting,' Ryan said.

‘Go and give it to the colonel, then.' The old man still sat outside, bawling at passers-by. He accepted the slightly foaming glass with indifference. Ryan wondered if he was suffering from shock.

‘I can tell what a man like you needs,' Joe was announcing from behind the bar, hands everywhere, sipping a single malt himself. ‘Something simpler. I like anything based on whisky, myself. You got a preference?'

‘Oh no,' said Ryan jovially. ‘Whisky every time.'

‘People have gone off cocktails, you know. Gone off most things I'm good at. Here, try this.'

Ryan sipped. He liked it. Bit sweet, but he liked it and by hell, it packed a punch. ‘Yeah,' he nodded. This one would not go to the colonel.

‘Think I'll have the same,' Joe mused, ‘while I'm thinking. Rusty Nail, they call it, silly name. One ounce each of best Scotch, I mean best, and an ounce of Drambuie. They got separate cocktails for Japanese, you know. Get a few Japanese in here. Lovely people. All smaller than me, thank God. Now, what next?'

Ryan had been under the impression that cocktails, certainly those he had ever bought for women, were to be sipped, savoured and made to last. Joe's Rusty Nail did not linger long enough for rust to form. He was fiddling with an ice bucket.

‘Straight Irish, two ounces whiskey, must be Irish, though for this one, I'm not quite sure why. Has to be aged for five years, the Irish, so it's much better. Two ounces of that, what a waste when I come to think of it, plus half ounce each of Pernod and curaçao, couple of dashes of bitter and maraschino. Some
people love it.'

Ryan merely liked it. They gave the second to the colonel, who had commenced singing hymns as the light began to fade. A few homegoing customers braved his barricade, lingered briefly while Ryan and friend moved on to Whisky Sour, Boyce style. Whisky and lemon juice, without sweeteners, suited Ryan's taste best, but it could not beat the sweetness of the Glenfiddich which followed. Someone came in and expressed concern about the colonel. They got him a taxi, paid the fare in advance, and then, with a sigh, settled back where they were. Ryan kept offering to pay. To his secret relief, the barman just as consistently refused. The plant, situated to the left of Ryan's elbow, would never recover from his carefully spilled libations, but he had slid into the confidential stance, propping his head on his hand. Coming in here was like going on a building site, he had decided. If you did not have a hard head, you needed a hard hat. By anybody's standards, he had consumed a lot and the night, if not young, was youthful.

‘Problem with my wife is, p'raps I should say was,' Ryan said, lying, but prognosticating on everything he knew about Mary Catherine Boyce, ‘she got too independent. Got a job, see? I think when they use their heads, it goes to their heads. Everything they got in the fanny, well, that just dries up. She didn't like being touched, see, only she was wearing all these short skirts. To go to fucking work, I ask you. Should be ashamed, I told her. Scared to have kids, is what it was. Have kiddies and get dependent. Why fucking not? I asked her. It's me paid the fucking bills for five years, all for no fucking …'

Ryan had three children, the apples of his eye, fathered on a wife far more competitive than himself. He recognised the truth of that without a trace of guilt, and found a certain enjoyment in his new persona. After all, it did not really matter what he said. He was humble enough, and had done it often enough, to know that inebriated exchanges between men did not include the complicating factor of one really listening to the other. Women were different, and so was Bailey. He remembered Bailey with a rosy affection, forbore, wisely, to mention him. Joe was squinting at the ceiling. The tears had left his eyes, but his
face was pink.