Blind Date (29 page)

These were not her own, solid stone steps, which made a gritty sound underfoot, unlike the linoed, police-station steps which had made a slapping sound, as if being punished by feet; these creaked. This was one, vertical tunnel, with landings leading onto half-glassed doors with names inscribed: it had the same effect as if it had been underground, but warm and busy, like the world outside.

How would Patsy react now? Not the Patsy of last night, who had substituted brittle anxiety for the confidence she had once possessed, but the person she had been. She would want to feel contemptuous. Patsy had been good at staying cool: it had been Patsy Elisabeth had emulated when the man squeezed. All of a sudden, Elisabeth wanted to change her mind about how she should approach this: Joe was right. She changed tack at the top of the stairs and almost capsized.

She stopped, took out her little lipstick mirror and checked it. Too loud. She dabbed at her mouth with a tissue. The sellotaped profile crackled in her bag: she pushed it down and opened the door.

There was a woman arranging flowers, fussing over them, plucking at a leaf which had dropped. Such magnificent flowers reminded Elisabeth of a wedding, perhaps that was the idea, suggesting the hope of the big day.

The light was uncertain, diminished by the flowers, as was the woman. The flowers were a clever arrangement, Elisabeth observed, the sort of thing her mother would have done, combining economy with style. Plenty of inexpensive foliage of the kind a florist might give away and her mother might gather from the garden, to offset a very few, expensive blooms.

“How
lovely,” she said politely.

The woman on the far side of the flowers was wearing a wig, another instant impression. The hair on a wig stood still, like hair stiffened with laquer: it was arranged to show no hint of a hairline and it did not respond to surprise. Although the woman was merely pretending surprise: footsteps on the creaky stairs would surely have the same effect as a herald, unless she had been entirely absorbed and not, as she appeared, waiting.

“Sorry?” the woman said, imperiously. “Have you made an appointment? Only I don't recall it. Appointments only, I'm afraid.”

She moved into the light. The recognition was slow at first and not entirely mutual. Elisabeth would not have recognized Caroline Smythe at once, except for the voice. She had heard the voice, so recently, out in the garden at Budley, distinctive above the sound of the sea, as shrill as a seagull when she had raised it to emphasize some platitude about a bloom. “Oh how
sweet
these dear little pinks are! How
clever
you are Diana!” said Elisabeth, lying in bed, faintly enjoyed the thought of her mother's irritation, hidden beneath some smooth reply. She had not actually seen Caroline Smythe in years: their visits had not coincided and Elisabeth had always endorsed that huge division between family and guests in a way her sister never did. Caroline Smythe was squinting at her, removing her glasses, conscious of familiarity, but uncertain of it as yet. Elisabeth knew that recognition would dawn any second. Mrs. Smythe was not a woman who forgot a face and, in particular, she would not forget hers. Even if it was fifteen years before, she was still the girl who had slapped her son and told him to give back the rings he had removed from her own mother's bedroom.

“Well, do sit
down anyway, now you're here.”

“Mrs. Smythe?” Elisabeth said, extending her hand, putting warmth into her voice, like sugar into tea.

“Emma,” Caroline said, faintly. “Is it really?”

“No, I'm Elisabeth.”

“Oh, my dear … Of course!” She was rallying, the colour in her face turning from ghastly white to pink. “How
are
you? Did your mother send you? I thought I'd seen a ghost … Oh what a surprise. I thought you were still at home, dear.”

“I'm fine.” Not quite. There was a bubble of hysteria rising which might yet break into nervous laughter. Caroline Smythe with an introduction agency; how they might have added that fact into the melting pot of their contempt for her, if only they had known. Not an employment agency, as she had told them, a scrubby little introduction agency, a joke. Even Emma, who was so nice to Mrs. Smythe, scolding Steven and she for their snobbish mimicry of her, might have found that funny. Elisabeth felt she was playing a game of charades.

“No, my mother didn't send me. Although I'm sure she might have done, if she'd known. No, I'm under my own steam, Mrs. Smythe. Saw the agency advertised, what a clever name, I thought. I didn't know it was yours, of course. Is it yours?” She looked as uncertain as she felt. “And I was only thinking, what with my convalescence and my non-existent social life, it might be a good idea. I've been feeling so hopeless and I was passing and …”

She was talking too fast. Caroline nodded, the smile a travesty of puzzled compassion. She had not advertised recently.

A wig, in the warmth of these closed rooms? Elisabeth was thinking. Did the woman reinvent herself and her flowers every day, in the same way she had seemed to reinvent herself each year in Budley? Sometimes attempting to copy Diana Kennedy's elegant simplicity, but always with the wrong colours and buttons?

“Let me look
at you, dear. Such a long time.”

Despite herself, Elisabeth flinched under the scrutiny. It was a long, searching stare, during which she waited for Caroline to touch her, steeling herself against the stroke of a finger against her averted cheek, a kiss, even. The feeling of endurance was almost unbearably familiar, but Caroline had her hands firmly in her pockets, as if ashamed of bitten nails, grinning girlishly, then looking concerned.

“Naughty girl. I can't understand why you came back to London, dear. Such a lonely place. Me, I'd never leave darling Budley and that lovely house, if I had the choice.”

“I don't have the choice. My mother's house isn't my home. This is my home.”

“Your tower? It sounds wonderfully quaint, I must say. Do call me Caroline. Do you live there alone?”

“Yes, of course, how else would I live?”

“Are you looking for a particular kind of man? Is that why you came here?”

It sounded like an accusation, so uncannily near the truth, Elisabeth was horribly aware of the letter in the bag. The plan to flourish it became wildly inappropriate. She fiddled with the buttons at the neck of her blouse, checking if she was quite as naked as she felt, and then she nodded, looking genuinely foolish, exposed and reluctant. A deep breath before a confession.

“Yes, to be honest, I suppose I am. You see, one way and another, I've lost contact with all my friends. I feel marooned, I couldn't think what else to do. You know I was in the police, before Emma, well you know about that. You meet men, of course, not the right kind, and then, this accident, you see …” She let the voice trail away petulantly.

“Yes I do see,
dear, I really do,” Caroline said patiently. “But I'm not sure. You aren't exactly love's young dream at the moment, are you?”

Elisabeth was surprised to find this hurt, albeit slightly.

“Fact of life, my dear. Men go for looks, always did, always will. They like women to look like healthy adverts for something or other, but …” She gave a big, reassuring smile. “I'm sure there's something we can do. Hang on a minute, will you?”

She left Elisabeth standing by the waxen flowers, disappeared into the room behind. There was the sound of drawers being opened, the clink of something dropped, a rustling and then she was back with a set of forms.

“Such nice men come here, dear. I'm sure your mother would approve. Fill in the address and the phone number. No need to do the background stuff, I know all that, don't I? Sorry to hurry you, it'd be so lovely to chat, but I've got an appointment you see, in a minute or two. I'll write it for you, shall I?”

“I'm a bit slow at it,” Elisabeth apologized. Caroline scribbled at her dictation. “No fee of course. Not for a family friend.”

“I couldn't possibly,” Elisabeth said.

“Well … we can discuss that some other time. I'll ring you dear, or write. Give me a day or two. You don't mind about age, do you? No, I didn't think so. One of our older gentlemen, I think.”

“You're very kind.”

“Not at all. Byeee. Love to your mother.”

This dusting her off and practically throwing her down the stairs was elegantly done, and it left Elisabeth troubled and outmanoevred. She wanted to go back and kick her, to ask one question which may have hurt. How's your son, Mrs. Smythe? Is he still a thief?

She burst headlong
into the sunlight, boiling with rage, frustration and indignation. She wanted to shout, scream, tell someone. Boiling mad, clenching her fists. Instead, smiling a smile as false as Caroline Smythe's, sauntering, lighting a cigarette as she faced the shop window with the green and white shirt which would look nice on Joe. She waited and watched, saw him striding down the street, checking numbers as she did in the doorway.

There was that absurd feeling, watching him go in. She wanted to protect him from Mrs. Smythe.

H
e groaned. Stairs and more stairs, taken in furious leaps and bounds and a muttered, “Sorry” when he almost flattened a small woman with a large screen moving from one door into another. He knocked at the top door with the glass panel, Select Friends in Gothic script and the name underlined by a depiction of a long-stemmed rosebud. Colour that red, and it could look like an outpost for the Labour party. The door stuck: he remembered to dip his head. Attic levels and Joe did not go together. Maybe that was why he liked the belfry rooms, because of the height. Small rooms like this made him feel aggressive.

He was supposed to be on a voyage of discovery, but women like this also made him feel aggressive. Especially those designed to calm the fevered brows of giants and convince them into domesticity. The man in question would be particularly amenable if he loved the dulcid smell of pot-pourri and thought it a sign of civilization. Joe was not sure about that. The smell only reminded him of the smells it might mask. Bleach, polish, rot. The abundance of flowers reminded him of hospital wards.

He seemed to have surprised her, sitting at her desk, apparently in the act of putting rings onto her fingers, two already on the left, one, slightly tight, being persuaded over the fat knuckle of her left little finger. She was nicely dressed, nothing pretentious, a homely, verging-on-elderly businesswoman with the rings her only ornament. She looked competent and friendly. He could see why the Owl had liked her, why she would have kept Rob in his place and why even Michael had been impressed. There was a quiet competence: a facade which made him rebel.

“Here's the
hot seat,” she said, gaily. “Joe, isn't it?”

“S'right,” he said. For today he was not accentless English, but vaguely Australian. Joe had the knack of copying voices. It amused the old mates. There were a few escapades, years ago, when they had put him forward as the foreigner, confused by
l'addition
.

“And who recommended you, Joe?”

“Bloke called Michael. Said he had a woman friend who come here. Nice woman, too. So I thought, if you have nice women on the books that I might like to meet, this was the place for me. Right?” He winked, lewdly.

She laughed with a gentle shake of the head, like a kind teacher anxious to make an essential point without actually wagging her finger.

“Are you looking to settle down, Joe? Or are you looking for a crowd? Can't help you in the latter case,” her voice assumed the receptionist style, posher and more deliberate. “This is a place with serious intentions, you know. Didn't your friend tell you? Who did you say?”

“Michael. Never can remember his name, and yes he did, mam.” That was slightly over the top. He was looking at her intently, flirtatiously even, examining her familiarity. She had such distinctive eyebrows, unplucked, but sweetly shaped with a little quirk at the narrow end, and a thick thatch of stiff, artificial-looking hair.

“Matter-of-fact
man, he resembles you, Aunty. Our Michael, I meant. Could be a son of yours. Or maybe lots of people have that kind of hair.”

She laughed, immoderately, while pulling forms out of the drawer in her desk. “Oh, no, no, nooo. My clients are my children, Joe, I've none of my own, only those who get adopted by me. And I
never
discuss other clients. You work with this Michael, do you?”

“Did. Gave it up. I like to travel, see?”

“And how do you earn your living, dear?” Obviously an important consideration, when her fees, discreetly apparent from the top form turned towards him, revealed themselves as a thousand a year. De luxe service, that was.

“Oh I'm a rolling stone. Freelance photography, never forget a face. I do bits and pieces, you know how it is.”

She did not know: she was frowning.

“Actually, you can earn quite a lot that way,” he added helpfully. Frowning, she looked even more like an older, female version of Michael, with rings on her fingers and, possibly, her toes.

“I've done bits of works for the Fuzz, even, would you believe. Some for medical journals, but it's mostly insurance, crashed cars, burglaries. Also floral displays, shop signs, body scars, you name it I snap it. I'm hoping to get into food, though. A lot of dough in photographing food. Geddit? So I could do with a bird who cooks.”

She was disliking this, finding him distasteful, eyeing the drab jacket, the tieless neck, the clean scruffiness and the awful pony-tail. He could see she could not envisage him as fit companion for some executive Miss, but then neither could he. In a way, he was enjoying himself, forgetting what it was all about and trying to push down the acute temptation to provoke her. He smiled, gave her another roguish wink. Again, as he did it, he realized it was a mite over the top. The receptionist voice had become glacial and the sarcasm was scarcely veiled.