Almost a Crime (44 page)

‘It was very kind of you.’ She felt disproportionately touched; her life had not contained a great deal of kindness lately.

‘Well, I’m quite a kindly chap. On the whole. I don’t

really like upsetting people.’

‘Actually,’ she said, after a long pause, ‘it wasn’t only you

that upset me. I’d had a hard week.’

‘And what constitutes a hard week to you? Don’t look at

me like that, I really want to know. Too many lunches?

Too few grateful clients? Bad traffic on the M4?’

The treacherous tears stung at Octavia’s eyes again; she

blinked furiously, stirred some sugar into her tea.

‘Mummy! Minty’s nearly swimming.’ Poppy stood in

front of them, beaming, breathing heavily. ‘On her tummy,

properly, arms and legs together. Caroline said she’d been

teaching her.’

‘Who’s Caroline?’

‘Our nanny. She’s very nice. You might have met her,

but she’s gone away this weekend. Gideon, stop that. Stop

it!’ Poppy ran off.

‘Ah, another hardship,’ said Gabriel Bingham lightly, ‘no

staff.’

‘Oh, shut up!’ said Octavia. Her voice shook. ‘What

have I done to you, why do you have to be so — so snide all

the time?’

‘Look.’ He put his hand on her arm. She pulled it away.

‘Don’t! Don’t touch me.’

‘I’ve done it again, haven’t I?’ he said. ‘Oh, dear. I was

only teasing you. Again. How very sensitive you are, Mrs

Fleming.’

‘And don’t call me Mrs Fleming!’

‘I thought you didn’t like me calling you Octavia?’

‘I don’t care what you call me,’ she said, and burst into

tears.

He was very nice, very calm. He moved into the chair

next to her, gave her a handkerchief, poured her another

cup of tea, added two spoons of sugar.

‘Here,’ he said gently, ‘drink this.’

‘I don’t want it,’ she said, blowing her nose furiously.

‘It will do you good. My nanny always said sweet tea cured what ailed you. There, I’ve done it now. Telling you

I had a nanny. Does that make you feel better, knowing

what a hypocrite I am?’

‘A bit,’ she said, smiling reluctantly through her tears.

‘I’d rather it didn’t get all over the House. Don’t tell your

husband.’

‘I don’t tell him anything at all,’ she said, ‘at the

moment.’ And then froze, staring at him in alarm. ‘I

shouldn’t have said that.’

‘Don’t worry,’ he said, his untidy face very gentle. ‘If you

don’t tell about my nanny, I won’t tell about your husband.

Promise. Bad patch? No, sorry, shouldn’t have asked.

Ignore the question.’

‘No, it’s all right. And you could say that, yes.’

‘Marriage, as far as I can see, consists of one large bad

patch, interspersed by a few very small good ones. Would

you care to comment on that, Mrs Fleming?’

‘Is that why you’re not married?’ she said.

‘Partly. Probably more because no one would marry me.’

‘So you don’t have a fiancee? Putative or otherwise?’

‘No, I don’t. She’s just given me my marching orders,

wants to marry someone else, much nicer and more

convenient than I am. Doesn’t keep rushing off to London

every five minutes.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Oh, it’s all right. I think we both knew it was

over months ago. Just jogging along, for the sake of convenience.’

‘Specially

for you,’ she said briskly.

‘Sorry?’

‘Well, I mean, you need to have someone, don’t you? In

your business? Otherwise people think you’re …’

‘Gay? That wasn’t why I went out with her,’ he said

slowly, and his face was less friendly now. ‘You seem to

view me as a bigtime hypocrite, which is rather a shame. I

felt we were becoming friends. I’m not sure that’s going to

be the case after all.’

‘Mr Bingham — Gabriel — I really didn’t mean …” She

felt panicky suddenly, and cold. It had been a foul and

insensitive thing to say to someone who had gone out of his

way to be kind and friendly to her. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said,

rather helplessly. ‘It was tactless of me.’

‘Yes, it was,’ he said, standing up, smiling down at her

rather coolly. ‘Anyway, I must go. It’s been a very pleasant

afternoon. Goodbye, Mrs Fleming.’

‘Are you going?’ said Gideon, running over to them.

‘That’s a shame — I wanted to ask you about my bowling.’

‘Sorry. Work to do. Nice to meet you, Gideon, I’m sure

you’ll make a fine batsman. For Winchester or wherever

else you go. ‘Bye, Poppy.’

And he was gone, striding across the lawn towards the

gate and his rather battered old Golf, parked just outside it.

Octavia watched him go, feeling very sick.

‘He’s really nice,’ said Poppy.

‘Yes,’ Octavia said, and heard her own voice, rather sad,

‘yes, I think he is really nice.’

‘Louise, are you sure you shouldn’t see the doctor?’

It was early on Monday morning; Louise had gone into

the lavatory to be sick three times already, had crawled back

into bed and lain there shivering, resisting any attempt to be

comforted.

Every time Sandy looked at Louise, he felt more afraid: a

deep gnawing fear that logic tried desperately to deny. She

looked like this, was ill like this, only when she was

pregnant; but pregnancy, he had been assured, was a total

impossibility. He had had the vasectomy over two years

ago; he had had tests done, his sperm count, the doctor had

cheerfully assured him, was zilch. He had been unsure

about having it done, had thought in those first few months

that perhaps one day Louise might feel strong enough to

have another child. But he had done it for her because he

loved her so much, loved her in spite of her dark moods,

her impatience with him, the fear that she no longer loved

him at all …

She looked at him now, her head turned to him on the

pillows, her great blue eyes dark and shadowed with misery,

and seemed genuinely puzzled at the question.

‘Why should I see a doctor?’

‘Darling, you keep being sick, you’ve lost weight, you’re

not sleeping, it can’t be - I mean, surely it can’t …’

‘Can’t be what?’ she said sharply, and afraid of confronting

her, confronting himself with the awful words, he said

feebly, ‘Can’t be all grief.’

‘Of course it’s grief, Sandy,’ she said and started to cry

again, fierce angry tears. ‘Of course it is. I’ve lost my

mother. She’s died. She’s dead, gone. I shall never see her

again. How can you be so insensitive as to think that isn’t

enough to make me ill, how can you?’

Sandy got up in silence, dressed and walked out of the

room and out of the house. It was exactly like the time after

Juliet had died, when Louise wouldn’t let him near her,

physically or emotionally, warded him away from her by

the sheer force of her pain; there was nothing he could do

but keep away from her. And try not to feel so wretchedly

afraid.

‘Thanks a lot!’ Tom’s voice was shaking with rage.

‘What?’

‘Telling Lauren Bartlett I wasn’t around on Sunday.

When you knew she had a contact for me, when you know

how desperate we are. Jesus, Octavia. You, I, the children,

we’ll all suffer if Fleming Cotterill go down. We’re on a

fucking knife edge, don’t you understand?’

‘Tom, if I might interrupt this torrent of abuse just for a

moment,’ said Octavia, ‘I did try to get hold of you on

Friday. Actually. To tell you about the lunch at the

Bartletts’, to tell you Lauren had a contact for you. I was

quite prepared to go. And where were you? Not with Bob

Macintosh in Birmingham, as Barbara Dawson informed

me, but on some mysterious assignation which nobody

knew about. Presumably with your mistress. With whom, it

seems, you’re still involved. Well, you know, it’s funny, Tom, but after that I didn’t feel able to continue with arranging networking opportunities for you. So sorry.’

Octavia stood in the vast space of the Central Lobby at the

House of Commons, feeling absurdly nervous. It was

crowded with a huge assortment of people: parties of

tourists and rather weary-looking people wearing identity

badges, clearly part of the workforce, scurrying through,

holding sheaves of paper and files; rather less weary-looking

people, walking more slowly, often in twos or threes, heads

together, the members of parliament themselves - she

recognised several of them, Austin Mitchell, Harriet Harman,

Virginia Bottomley, and the Earl of Longford, looking

too old to be alive at all, standing courteously back to allow

a group of schoolchildren through; and the elaborately

dressed doorkeepers, in their white tie and tails uniform.

The noise level in the great echoing space - the hum of

voices, the occasional announcement (totally unintelligible)

over a loudspeaker, the calls of greeting - was extremely

high. The whole place wore an air of total disorder, she

thought, more reminiscent of some huge marketplace or

money-changers’ temple than the seat of government of

one of the leading countries in the world.

Julie Springer had been in a meeting all morning; when she

got back to her office, her voice mail told her to ring the features department at the Independent. Good. It would be that nice Diana Davenport again, probably phoning to

check some details.

‘Hi,’ she said to the person who answered the phone,

‘this is Julie Springer. Could I speak to Diana Davenport?’

‘No Diana Davenport here,’ said the voice.

‘Oh. Well, maybe she’s freelance. Could I speak to

someone else, then? I did have a message to call you.’

‘Who is it?’ said the voice, slightly impatiently.

‘Julie Springer. From Fleming Cotterill.’

‘Just a minute. Hold on.’

A long silence. Then, ‘Yes, apparently it’s about your

letter. To this Davenport person. Look, I’m sorry, but we’ve never heard of her. Probably a freelance trying to

pull one on you. They do it all the time. We have no

feature planned about lobby shops, sorry. Shall I send the

list back or what?’

‘Oh, no, don’t,’ said Julie. The oldest trick in the book

for freelancers getting information, and she hadn’t spotted

it. Now she looked a fool to the Indie, and if they found out

at Fleming Cotterill — well, there was no reason why they

should. ‘No, just bin it.’

‘Peace offering,’ said Octavia. She held out a long narrow

box. ‘It’s not vintage, but it is—’

‘Let me guess. Bollinger. Mrs Fleming! How very kind.

And to take time out of your extremely busy schedule.’ The

voice had an edge to it, but the eyes, moving over her face

slowly, were soft, thoughtful.

‘I felt I owed it to you,’ she said quickly, feeling the

wretched easy flush rising from her neck. ‘I am so sorry

about the other day. What I said.’ She realised the

messenger at the desk was watching her with some

amusement; Gabriel Bingham realised it too.

‘About my being gay, you mean?’ he said loudly. The

messenger glanced at him involuntarily, then returned to a

intense study of his telephone directory. ‘Honestly, I didn’t

mind. I’ve come to terms with it now. It’s fine. If you can

live with it, so can I.’

Oh—’ She turned away, crossly, half hurt still.

He caught her by the shoulder, pulled her round to him,

smiled down at her. ‘Don’t be silly. I really do appreciate

your coming. Look, are you free for lunch? Or does a table

full of power-dressed women await your arrival at the

Ritz?’

‘I never lunch at the Ritz,’ she said, and then realised

how absurd that sounded and smiled reluctantly.

‘Well, are you awaited anywhere else?’

‘No.’

‘Good. Then have lunch with me? We can go up to the press dining room, I have a pass. The only thing is I must be in the chamber by three.’

‘No, really, I have to get back to my office. I’ve a

meeting at two thirty.’

‘It’s only a quarter to one. Where’s your office?’

‘South Ken,’ she said, realising too late how predictable

that must sound too.

He grinned at her. ‘Of course. Well, what about a drink?

On our famous terrace? Go on, Mrs Fleming, you can’t

come all this way and not let me give you at least something

to wash down the humble pie. Just a small glass of mineral

water. That’s what you ladies who lunch drink, isn’t it?’

‘I’m not a lady who lunches,’ she said irritably.

‘I’m sorry. I thought you were. Well, anyway, you must

allow the occasional drop of something to pass your lips.

Clearly nothing solid, you are so admirably slim. Come on.

Just a quiet one, as they say.’

She hesitated, then, ‘Yes, all right. That would be very

nice.’

‘Marvellous. And we can discuss my sexual predilections

further there.’

She smiled with pleasure as they came on to the famously

lovely terrace, the river flowing surprisingly far beneath

them, Westminster Bridge arching to their left.

‘There’s a table there, look. Grab it quickly. Busy day

today.’

‘Yes, I know.’

‘You do?’

‘Yes, of course,’ she said irritably. ‘Debate about taxation,

isn’t there? And the IMF. That’s why I came today. I