Death in Disguise (57 page)

‘Tea?' God, she'd be here for the duration. Making it, letting it stand, pouring it out. Milk and sugar. Bloody biscuits. Go away, you horrible old woman. Just go away.

‘That's very kind.'

Honoria filled the kettle and got milk, still in its carton, from the fridge. The teapot, a pretty piece of Rockingham covered with blue flowers was, to her relief, sitting on the side. She hated the idea of opening cupboards. Seeming to pry. Which meant doing without a milk jug. The silver-gilt caddie held Earl Grey bags.

‘Do you have bis—'

‘No.' Laura had stopped crying but her face remained crumpled, this time with incipient crossness. ‘I eat them all so don't keep them in the house.'

‘I see.' Honoria was unsurprised at this further example of undisciplined dishevelment. ‘What a charming pot,' she added, whilst waiting for the tea to brew. ‘You have such lovely things. I suppose it's being in trade.'

Laura blew her nose again, this time more loudly, putting the tissue in the pocket of her dressing gown. Actually when the drink came she was glad of it, for she had taken nothing since after dinner the previous evening.

What was it, she wondered, about the making and proffering of this, the English panacea? No matter how appalling the occasion—a devastating accident, incipient bankruptcy or news of bereavement—the shell-shocked survivors were offered a cup of tea. And after all, thought Laura, aren't I newly bereaved? Deprived forever of the hope that once sprang eternal.

She sipped the fragrant, steaming liquid. The deceit of him.
The deceit
. Such rectitude. The lonely widower nursing his loss in pious and dignified silence. Refusing all comfort. His whole life a lie. Laura crashed her cup down into the saucer.

Honoria, sitting bolt upright and already gripping her handbag very firmly, now held it up before her in the manner of a shield. Anxious both to justify her presence and to get away she reminded Laura about the catalogue, concluding, ‘Of course it doesn't matter now. I can come back again.'

‘Oh! Don't do that.' Laura sprang up with uncomplimentary speed. ‘I'm sure I know just where they are.'

She ran upstairs to her second bedroom, which doubled as an office, and started sorting through her in-tray. The catalogue wasn't there. Or in the desk. Or in the Garden (Design) file. About to check her briefcase she remembered that she had been flipping through the thing the previous evening in the sitting room. And that was where she found it, in the magazine rack.

‘I've ticked the ones I thought might be suitable.' Laura re-entered the kitchen. ‘There's no hurry to bring it back. The sale isn't for six weeks.' She paused. ‘Honoria?'

Honoria jerked her head round suddenly as if she had been dreaming. She rose and took the catalogue without looking at Laura. Her lips, always of a censorious set, seemed even more rigidly clamped than usual. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes burned with a cold puritanical fire. Laura was glad when the front door closed behind her. And it wasn't even as if anything would come of it. This wasn't the first time such an idea had been mooted. Honoria was far too mean to spend five pounds, let alone five hundred.

It was when she was once more sitting at the table wondering whether to start crying again or make some fresh tea that she noticed the photograph. About half an hour before Honoria arrived Laura had removed it from its silver frame beside her bed and dropped it in the waste basket. Since then a certain amount of tear-soaked Kleenex had gone the same way but the picture was not quite concealed. Gerald's face was still visible, smiling through the sog.

Had Honoria seen it? Seen it and filled in the missing links, crossing the ‘t' in romantic and dotting the ‘i' in despair. Laura raged at her own carelessness in forgetting the picture was in there. At Honoria for barging in. And at Gerald for being Gerald. Impelled by a mixture of anger and disgust she tipped the contents of the basket into the Raeburn and was immediately and bitterly sorry.

Rex was on the point of starting work. He had thoroughly masticated some bran and prunes, trotted his dog three times round the houses, taken fifty deep breaths in front of an open window and washed his hands. This last was of vital importance. Rex had seen a television interview once with a famous screenwriter during which the man had expressed great reverence for his hands, repeatedly referring to them as ‘the tools of his trade'. They were insured for huge amounts of money, ‘like the feet of Fred Astaire', and the screenwriter washed them thoroughly each morning, using only the finest triple-milled honey and glycerine soap. After being carefully rinsed in spring water they would be patted dry with a virginally white, soft, fluffy towel kept pristine until that very moment beneath a sealed wrapper. Only then did the celebrated inkslinger even think of approaching his state-of-the-art computer.

Rex had been terribly impressed by the man's faith in this ritual and straight away claimed it for his own. He knew the importance of routine. All the How To Succeed As A Writer manuals, of which he had practically every one extant, stressed it. Rex started work at eleven a.m. precisely. Not a minute later, not a minute earlier. There was a transistor on his desk to make sure he got it right. As the pips started he picked up his pen. By the time they finished he had written his first sentence. So vital was this procedure that if anything happened to disrupt it he never really recovered. He completed his two thousand words of course (writers write), but nevertheless felt peculiarly out of sync all day.

Now, at five minutes to eleven, someone knocked at the front door of Borodino. Rex, at that very moment turning into his study, heard them with a mixture of irritation and alarm. Would it be a matter he could handle in five—no, he glanced at his pocket watch, nearer four minutes? Or someone who would want to come in and start going on?

One thing was certain. There was no way he could go into his study and settle down with someone standing on the front step. For a start they would spot him through the window. And he couldn't draw the curtains without giving away the fact that he was in. Botheration take it. He opened the door. It was Gerald.

‘Rex—I'm sorry.' He stepped inside. ‘I know you start work around now—'

‘Yes. At eleven o' clock act—'

‘I simply have to talk to you.'

‘Is it about the food?' Rex was supplying a tin of glazed pralines, having been dissuaded from preparing one of his famous curries.

‘No. Though it is about tonight. In a way.'

To Rex's dismay Gerald walked into his holy of holies. Just strolled in, lifted yesterday's pages from the seat of a tapestry wing chair, dropped them on the floor and sat down. Rex stood and hovered, unable to bring himself to sit behind his desk merely for the purpose of idle banter. He waited, but having moved in the first instance so decisively Gerald now seemed to have difficulty getting to the point.

He stared distractedly out at the garden—not seeing the bird table, a battleground of squabbling starlings and sparrows, or Rex's great hound, Montcalm, absentmindedly truffling among the frosty cabbage stalks—while Rex stared, covertly, at him.

Gerald looked terrible. He had not shaved and looked as if he hadn't washed either. His eyes were red-rimmed and crusty with sleep. He kept clenching and unclenching his fists while seeming to be unaware of the fact. Rex, genuinely concerned, put all thoughts of
The Night of the Hyena
aside and said, ‘Gerald old chap. You look completely done in. Would some coffee help?'

Gerald shook his head. Rex, who had drawn up a companion chair, could smell the other man's breath, sour and stale with more than a hint of liquor. They sat quietly for several minutes and finally Gerald spoke.

‘This is going to sound pathetic.' A long pause. ‘I don't really know how to put it.' He stared at Rex directly for the first time. Half despairing, half ashamed. ‘However described I'm afraid it'll sound very odd.'

‘I'm sure it won't,' said Rex, already consoled for his lost day by finding himself in that most pleasant of positions, consumed by a curiosity that was about to be promptly satisfied.

Gerald had put this moment off again and again. Now there was no time left. And, old and garrulous though he might be, it had to be Rex. There was no one else that Gerald could even consider approaching. Yet how to find the words? Even exposing the barest bones of his dilemma must make him look a fool and a coward. For the first time he noticed the working of his hands and spread them on his knees, pressing the fingers hard against the grey flannel, forcing them to be still.

‘You said it was about tonight,' said Rex helpfully.

‘Yes.' He looked like a non-swimmer forced to the end of the high-dive board. ‘The fact is I knew Max Jennings a long time ago. There was some unpleasantness. We parted bad friends.'

‘These things happen.' Rex tactfully hid his appreciation of what sounded like a very juicy mystery and tried to sound consoling. This wasn't difficult for he was, at heart, a kind man.

‘Quite honestly,' continued Gerald, ‘I didn't think for a minute, when he saw my signature on the invitation, that he would come.' That letter, so endlessly worked and reworked and all in vain. ‘I don't know what his reasons are. He can be very…unpredictable. The thing is, Rex,' his voice was taut with nervousness, ‘I don't want to be on my own with him.'

‘Say no more,' cried Rex, his eyes shining with excitement. ‘But what can I do?'

‘It's simple really. Just don't leave until he does.'

‘Of course I will. Or rather—of course I won't.' He hesitated. ‘I suppose you wouldn't care to tell me—'

‘No, I wouldn't.'

‘Fair enough.'

‘You don't mind, Rex?'

‘My dear chap.'

‘It might be a bit awkward. Sitting it out, I mean. After all the others have gone.'

‘You think that will happen?'

‘Yes.'

Of course he should never have written at all. That was his big mistake. He should have told the group he had asked and been refused. No one would be surprised. And when they wanted to see the letter, which they always did, he could say that Mr Jennings' secretary had declined the invitation by telephone. It was Brian, suddenly offering to write himself, which had brought on such a panic. Gerald realised Rex was talking again.

‘Sorry?'

‘I said, what if he turns up before anyone else arrives.'

‘He shouldn't. I gave him eight instead of seven thirty. And if he does…' Even to Rex, Gerald could not admit that he would then be reduced to hiding, like an animal in its lair when the dogs are scrabbling at the entrance.

‘I wish you'd told me earlier, Gerald. We could have changed the venue. Held the meeting somewhere else.'

‘Then he would simply have left when I did. No, this way at least I have some sort of control.'

‘Would you like to come and sleep over here—'

‘For God's sake!' Gerald exploded, screwing up his eyes and clenching his fists again. ‘This is how I think it best to handle things—all right?'

‘Of course. Sorry.'

‘No—I'm sorry.' Gerald got up stiffly and moved towards the door. He added, even while knowing his words would probably be a waste of time, ‘I need hardly say—'

‘Oh, strictly between friends of course. Would you like me to come over at seven, Gerald? Just in case.'

‘Yes. Good idea.' Gerald managed a weak smile. ‘And thank you.'

Rex escorted his visitor down the path and through the gate, enthusiastically attended by Montcalm. Gerald walked heavily, shoulders bowed. He did not even cheer up when Rex pointed out that, by calling when he had, he'd missed a visit from Honoria, who was, even now, pedalling stolidly away from Plover's Rest.

Once more back in the house Rex made some coffee and sat at his desk. Not to work of course. As an object of fascination the Hyena, presently in Baghdad buying information from an anti-Husseinite cell, paled in comparison with this real life drama. Of all people, old Gerald—the last word in boring, perhaps even slightly pompous, respectability—had a past. Who would have thought it?

Rex was tempted to pop out to the phone box, barely a minute's walk away, but hauled temptation firmly back. He must keep his promise, at least till the evening was over. He looked at the clock. Seven and a half hours to go. How on earth was he going to bear it?