Blind Date (33 page)

“Profile: E is a little older than you and very concerned about her appearance. You know about that, don't you? By the look of her, she has not forgotten you and is longing to see you! As soon as you can! Don't forget to take flowers!”

Please
, she murmured to herself,
please.
She will let you in with flowers: she is lonely. Do not tell me, as you did last night, that you have had enough, that you do not want to see any more girls. Do as I tell you. Have I ever let you down? Will you please realize that she hates me and wants to destroy us both?

Caroline washed. Cold water on hot skin, which fell in folds round her neck.

Those lovely Kennedy girls, a disappointment to their father. Of whom Caroline herself had entertained such hopes, so fleeting they were more in the nature of daydreams. About how she could drive out the divine
Diana, because she, Caroline, really did know what poor Dorian liked and what he wanted, apart from his diamonds. She had wanted a daughter, but a son was what
he
needed; a boy with eyes and tastes to match his own. It was Caroline's boy who deserved whatever Dorian Kennedy raved about leaving for his daughters. Why could he not see that?

Perhaps his death was the point when her admiration for them all and her desire to be like them them, changed into envy. It was then she had realized that he, and they, rejected her as they always had. Found her dispensable and laughable. Caroline could no longer define why it was she hated them so much; she who had been so enchanted with them all and wanted them to love her; or why she inflicted on herself the delicious torture of her visits, still giving them a chance to make amends.

She scrubbed at her face; selected the hairpiece and the earrings. They would never love her, but she could taunt them, silently. Dear Diana had no idea of what she had done to
her
family, and what she had power to do. She could smash them and seize the inheritance. By God, if she could not have respect, she would settle for revenge and a small fortune. She would be content to leave them in ruins.

The make-up was all wrong. There was no time to change. Who would notice? Whoever noticed
her?

There had always been a choice.
They
had made it, not her. But there was no choice about Elisabeth. Not now. Elisabeth was clever: she would work it out. She was the one her father would have trusted.

Caroline heard Michael leave with his usual, carefully controlled speed. Michael, neat and clean and beautifully dressed, as she had taught him, making his well-mannered way to work. He had been neat even when he had played with Emma Kennedy as
a child. He still remembered to look as if he was thinking when he was doubting, smiling when it was expected, keeping his face in order, as she had taught him. Caroline could only think of Emma, patting him on the head and making him follow her round like a puppy: they could have been twinned in their beauty. Then she remembered Emma's adult voice on the phone. “Hallo! Thought you might be lonely. Would you like to come to tea and meet my baby?” The condescending bitch. Opening the door to let her in and then closing it again, just like her hypocrite mother. Bitch.

There was a knack, Caroline decided as she exited the house and walked to the bus stop, a skill some people had of living as if they had all the money and status in the world. Emma was like that, a spendthrift in a dozen ways. Oh, it'll be all right: our ship'll come in. Which had meant to Caroline that there was a ship to come in and dock alongside this creature already over-endowed with blithe-spirited happiness, but it was only her knack of living; an illusion. Caroline had wanted a little of that knack, and then wanted whatever else the silly bitch had got. As for Michael, mooning over his tea cup, he had simply wanted Emma.

So kind of you to invite us in. How perfectly
sweet
of you to notice
us.

Sitting opposite lumpy Mrs. Smythe on the bus was a girl of peculiar beauty. A tiny little thing, she reminded Caroline of a blackbird, smiling disarmingly as she gave up her seat, continuing to smile as she stood, close. Stud earrings which glittered quality, the rest of her ensemble consisting of cheap clothes chosen and worn with the coordinated flair which made her chic.

She would do for him, Caroline thought. When all this was over, she would do nicely.

“S
ome people
have the knack with clothes”, the sales assistant was saying to Elisabeth. “I'm sure you have too. That frock looks nothing on the hanger, but it will look wonderful on you. You've got the eye.” The evil eye. Elisabeth did not want help, or at least, not that softening up kind. She was killing time. She had once had a knack with clothes. To make cheap look class, so Patsy put it—you can thank your mother for that, I suppose. Or your dad. Give a girl a string of pearls, limit her dress sense for life. C'mon, Lizzie, be daring, and she never had been, except for Jack.

All that was left for the last two weeks of summer were hangdog rails, with the long-lost remnants of sales; and nobody said madam any more. She would not have minded being called madam, for once, as long as it meant that this bored person in Dickens and Jones kept out of the way. She did not want gasps of astonishment when some harridan peeked through changing-room curtains. She was only here because there were individual cubicles, rather than a communal room full of unblemished flesh, although she had liked that, once, too. Enjoyed the expressions on faces, the hope, the scorn, the laughter and sometimes, the delight in a new garment, greeted with intense pleasure, like a best friend.

Sod the frock, drooping and sagging, sick to its own heart for someone with a bosom to wear it and make it fall right. Bugger the blouse with the padded shoulders slipping and itching and the buttons in the wrong place, and God help anyone who could wear the cool wool trousers which felt like thermal pants and covered her feet. Sod all that. There was nothing of her to dress, so she left it all behind, gazed at winter woolies and wandered through
the vaulted halls, unable to resist looking. It was so long since she had looked, the prices maddened her. Sod that too: she had money to spend, for a while.

Menswear. She had bought a couple of presents for Jack. A tie, a mixed fabric shirt, not recorded on tape. The last time she was in a shop like this she was buying stuff she hated, for Jack.

Joe would look good in that knockout yellow sweater. He would loom up out of the mist in that, frightening the horses. Or the red; he was sallow-skinned, he could take it. Or stripes, rather than lumberjack checks. Plain bottoms and colourful tops, that would suit Joe. Nothing which required a tie because a tie could not go with a pony-tail. Get out of here, Lizzie. What, for the last time of asking, are you doing? You cannot abide pony-tails on men. Even if he does have hair which looks like rough silk, and the kindest of eyes.

Children's department. Her own eyes screwed up, suddenly looking shrewd, the way Emma's did when she went shopping. Plenty of results here for Matthew. Clothes for kids were so nice, she could have gobbled up what she bought, let alone touch and pay for it. Jacket, trews, the respectable end of clothing. Outside, in junky stalls at the back of Carnaby Street, she found T-shirts with slogans. I AM NOT ALONE, said one. FUCK OFF SOONEST, said another, BRIGHTEST TRIBE, the third. Matthew might not wear this trash, but he would think he would. Dear Matt: I want you smoking and drinking and putting your back into rebellion as soon as ever. Got that? Get rid of all the shit in your teens and then go in for learning. I wish I was your mother, but I am not. Your father is a nice man, but even your mother found out that he was well on the way to becoming a solid, worthy bore.

She savoured this new realization over cigarettes and coffee. The whole
process took hours of stopping, starting, remembering. Going home with all she could dump in a taxi, kid's stuff, prepacked food and a carton of cigarettes for Jenkins.

Home to a frantic message from Flynn: more about the surveyor. Oh, go away. She knew that it was not the bells which were rotten, but the wood which held up one, two and three. She had been up there in the moonlight, night after night. She took out the wine and put it in the fridge after three trips upstairs with her burdens. She was in love with the black taxi cab. After that it was easy to wait because she was so tired, it felt like injury time.

J
oe loved to see the injured en route to rehabilitation. It pleased him, doctor's son that he was. There was quite a trade in house-to-house photography of people and objects, stolen things and damaged lives. One day, he supposed, he might go back to a proper job, but not yet. When he was forty, maybe, he would cut his hair and settle down. The pictures were taken, the pleasantries exchanged. Joe congratulating himself on the brevity and bedside manner which ensured a supply of this kind of work. All done and dusted, he went to look for Michael, asking at the desk on the modern-block floor where he had once worked himself. He was still recognized, so they let him past all the unnecessary security, created to make it look as if there was something to hide. People were always less suspicious of the man with the camera, although it should have been the opposite. No Michael Jacobi this afternoon: in a meeting, elsewhere. Joe trailed across town to the other place, missed him there, went back to see if he could find the Owl and by this time, the desk was fed up with him and the day faded. Joe had quite liked all of this once: orders, sales, targets, the discovery of a
new widget which did a different job. Looking at the sanitized setup now, he could not imagine why: he would have been bored to death if it had not been for the old mates. He still hated himself for thinking ill of an old mate. It never came naturally.

H
e checked his alternative abode, a tiny studio with sleeping space in Clerkenwell, and then went back to the greater spaces of the tower, wishing there was more cause for celebration, loaded with food and a cold bottle of Mo't, and hoping that she would not throw it at him. He needed to see Jenkins.

There was no sound from the church. Joe admired the weedless territory he had created round the side and thought about how an able-bodied man could landscape that and turn it into a shady haven. Yet another project. He looked up at the clock face with affection, admiring the gold letters on the blue face which were so visible even at night. Each time he came down the road, the clock deceived him for a second into believing its own version of the time, making him check his own watch. It was never ten to three: the clock was always wrong and he would always want it to be right.

Elisabeth was as settled indoors as a housewife, reading a paper and eating crisps. Joe's relief was profound and he did not know why, only that if he had to lock her in again after dark, that was what he would do. He waved the bottle by way of greeting.

“Now?”

“Cool it.”

You were supposed to wait for the sun to go over the yardarm, he told her. That was one of the advantages of winter days for anyone who obeyed the rule. You could tip the first one down the hatch in the mid-afternoon, excused by
darkness. “Good Lord,” she said, “I never let that worry me.”

Joe knew he should not drink anything except water. There was still the residue of alcohol swimming round his system from yesterday and he might need to drive. Still, a little never hurt: it was a catalyst. He got out of the better clothes and into the second best; shed the shoes and put on the favourite boots, just like a regular working man coming home. The first glass she handed him tasted foul. So did the olives she pressed on him, the salt and garlic making his mouth pucker. Perhaps he was sickening for something, or still affected by the taste of all that beer. Then he plucked up the courage to speak about what he could not quite believe. It embarrassed him, as if he was responsible.

“Listen, I know something, or I think I do. I think I know the someone who might have picked up Angela Collier. It's very likely the same man who met Patsy. I said, I
think
I know, but I find it incredible.”

“Tell me. Why didn't you tell me?”

“I was trying to work it out. It takes some working out, I can tell you. I don't want to be sure.”

He imagined he could still hear the band playing on the other side of the wall and found himself braced for the yell of the trombone.

Elisabeth was moving about, unable to settle in one place and he was watching her, wondering how to say what he needed to tell. Wondering what time it really was, and how long it was since he had eaten more than a disgusting little nibble. Watching her; thinking, do I fancy her? Yes, yes, oh, yes.

She was standing over him, arms either side of his shoulders, pushing him back. Her neck was slightly awry; it merely gave her a distracted look as if her mind was elsewhere, like a cocktail-party socialite, looking sideways all the time, in case
there was a better prospect. He was used to that kind of treatment. It went with the territory of resembling a gardener.

She was back from wherever she had gone, changing the angle of her intent gaze. A silhouette with the sun behind her, giving a general impression of concern. He felt enormously tired. There was a soft hand, arranging his hair.

“Joe? Are you OK? It was only a couple of mashed up Mogadon, Joe. You'll be absolutely fine in an hour or two, big man like you. Useless stuff, but the docs gave me a ton of it, silly fools. Joe?”

He was lying on the futon where he had first sat, snoring. The glass was by the side of him where he had placed it, his arms were folded over his chest and his legs crossed at the ankle.

“Joe?” This was all wrong; all terribly wrong and as such, in tune with all the other things she had ever done, neither courageous nor wise. Crossed ankles were bad for circulation. She uncrossed the feet in their boots, noticed that the laces were undone. Why, oh why, oh why? Sorry about this, Joe, but I like you too much and I've got to know what you're up to and you aren't going to tell me. I can't take the protection of a stranger: I need to know the motive, because I know it can't be me.