Some Old Lover's Ghost (20 page)

She heard Max say, ‘I’m not asking for all of you. I’m not asking you to give me what you gave to Daragh. If you still love him
a little, in your heart, then I can live with that. But I couldn’t bear that you should cheat me, Tilda. I couldn’t bear that you should betray me. You have to understand that I couldn’t live with that.’

She thought that she had made a good bargain. She had exchanged passionate love for something gentler and more reasonable, less liable to give pain, and perhaps more enduring.

She made her promise easily. ‘I won’t betray you, Max. I’ll be a good wife to you. I’ll never hurt you.’ She kissed him, and felt the tension fall away from him.

C
HAPTER
S
IX

The garage phoned me to tell me that my car was repaired; I took advantage of the journey to Oxfordshire to collect some material from The Red House. Tilda had left hospital, but was staying with Melissa at her house in Surrey.

I went through the contents of the boxes over the next few days. They were a jumble of old diaries and receipts and letters. On first glance, the diaries were disappointingly unrevealing. Their entries were of the ‘Pay milkman’ type, and the fact that there wasn’t a full set showed that Tilda, too, had thought them unimportant, no more than an aide-mémoire. I dutifully read them through, listing only the meetings with the rich or famous people that Tilda had charmed or badgered into supporting her various ventures, and skipping the children’s dental appointments and music lessons. My only excuse for my lack of observation is that I still felt edgy and found it hard to concentrate. I had been convinced for a week now that Toby would ring.

When the phone did ring, I jumped with nerves and barked my number down the receiver. Charles’s voice said, ‘Rebecca? Is that you?’

‘Sorry, Charles – I thought you were Toby.’

‘Toby
. Good grief – that hasn’t started again, has it?’

I explained about meeting Toby at the party, and found myself agreeing to go to the cinema that night with Charles. It would get me out of the house; it would take me away from the telephone.

I met him inside the cinema. He bought choc ices and huge buckets of popcorn. Watching the adverts, he said, ‘I can’t believe you are contemplating the loathsome Toby again, Rebecca.’ Charles came to dinner with Toby and me once, and they detested each other on sight.

‘I’m not,’ I said, but he went on as though I hadn’t spoken.

‘After what he did. I mean, I may not be the most sensitive chap in the world, but even I wouldn’t dump a woman just after she’d miscarried my child.’

The film began then, thank goodness. It was something melancholy and French, and it took me a while to get a hold of myself and to make the effort to follow the rather tenuous plot. Afterwards, we went to a café for coffee. Charles asked me about my progress on the biography.

‘Tilda’s been ill,’ I explained. I began to tell him about that exhausting day, from my car breaking down to my horrible, memorable nightmare about Edward de Paveley. He interrupted me when I mentioned Patrick Franklin.

‘Patrick?’

‘Tilda’s grandson.’

‘How old?’

‘My age. Early thirties.’

‘Married?’

‘I’ve no idea. Probably not. He might be more human if he was.’

‘Patterned sweaters and a stamp collection?’

I laughed. ‘Oh no. Not at all. Rather attractive, in fact.’

He said, ‘You sound … smitten.’ He was stirring sugar into his coffee; his head was bent, and I couldn’t see his expression.

I shook my head. ‘Not my type. Too much like hard work. That’s why you’re so restful, Charles – I don’t feel I have to make
an effort with you.’ I thought of Patrick. ‘And he’s a lawyer. Not another lawyer – I couldn’t, could I?’

On Monday I looked through the diaries again and noticed at last what I should have seen the previous week.

‘See headmistress re Caitlin’ was the entry in the mid-September of 1947. And then, in the spring of 1948, ‘Melissa, Hanna, Caitlin to dentist.’ Daragh and Jossy’s daughter had been called Caitlin. It was an unusual name – even more unusual, I guessed, in the England of the 1940s. Could the Caitlin that Tilda had taken to the dentist on 9 February 1948, possibly be Caitlin Canavan? And if so, why?

I’d phoned Joan, Tilda’s housekeeper, the previous Friday, and knew that Tilda had left hospital, but had been ordered to rest for a couple of weeks. I sat with my elbows on the desk, chewing my nails, trying to work things out. I went back to the diaries and looked at them more carefully, noticing how the names came and went over the years. Hanna and Erich appeared in mid-1940, but there was no mention of Erich after 1949. Tilda had not yet given me the diaries for the 1950s. Max’s name, I realized suddenly, did not appear after mid-1947. Perhaps, I thought, searching frantically for the 1948 diary, Tilda had divorced Max, and married Daragh, her childhood sweetheart and the great love of her life, in 1947.

But there was no mention of Daragh in the 1948 diary. If the Caitlin who was then Tilda’s responsibility had been Caitlin Canavan, what had happened to Daragh and to Jossy? I could not imagine that loving, indulgent father allowing anyone else – even Tilda – to care for his daughter.

I considered telephoning Melissa, but I did not know her number, and anyway, I did not want to disturb Tilda. Then I thought of Patrick. I didn’t know his number either, but there was a way of finding it out. Lawyers all know each other. I picked up the phone and dialled Toby’s chambers. I detected pleasure (or triumph?) in Toby’s voice when he came on the line, but an increasing sulkiness as the conversation wore
on, but he knew Patrick Franklin, and gave me his phone number.

I telephoned Patrick before I had time for second thoughts. A secretary answered me and told me frostily that she would check whether Mr Franklin was available. I was left on hold, listening to
The Four Seasons
.

‘Rebecca?’ Patrick’s voice, interrupting ‘Spring’, made me jump. He sounded impatient.

I apologized for disturbing him and said quickly, ‘Patrick, there’s something I need to find out.’ There were no encouraging comments, so I ploughed on. ‘When I looked through Tilda’s diaries, I saw that there was a Caitlin living with her in 1948. That wasn’t Caitlin Canavan, was it?’

There was a longish silence. Then he said, ‘Yes, it was.’

‘Why? What had happened to her parents?’

‘Joscelin Canavan died in 1947. Daragh disappeared after the floods. You know about the floods of 1947, I assume?’

‘I’ve read a little. Daragh disappeared in the floods? You mean he was drowned?’

‘No.
After
. He disappeared after the floods.’

The line was crackly and I wasn’t sure whether I’d heard him right. I said feebly, ‘Disappeared. Where did he go?’

‘No idea. Now, if that’s all – I am rather busy—’

I thanked him profusely and put the phone down. I added Jossy’s death and Daragh’s disappearance to the time-line I was making, and tried to continue to work methodically through the letters and diaries. I couldn’t concentrate, though, and I felt uneasy. In 1947 Jossy had died and Daragh had disappeared and Caitlin had gone to live with Tilda, and Max … I had forgotten to ask Patrick what had happened to Max.

I worked through the afternoon in the reference library, making notes. There were no books about the Fens, but I found a rather dull tome about rivers and inland waterways, with a chapter on the 1947 floods. I remembered the man in the blue jersey at the party, and the lock he had made from celery and pistachio nuts. The thought of food reminded me that there was nothing
in the house, so at five o’clock I left the library and walked to the supermarket. I pushed the trolley through the aisles, and then hauled four bulging bags home with me, their thin plastic handles constantly threatening to break. When I reached the end of the street, I saw a blue Renault parked outside my house.

Patrick stepped out of the car as I drew level. He glanced at my carrier bags. ‘I was going to ask you whether you’d like supper, but perhaps you’ve company.’

‘No—’ As I unlocked the front door, one of the bags split and oranges rolled across the pavement. Patrick fielded them efficiently.

He followed me into the house, taking the oranges and the broken bag through to the kitchen. ‘No, you haven’t company, or no, you don’t want supper?’

I dumped the shopping and books on the table. ‘No, I haven’t company, and yes, I’d love supper.’

‘Good.’ His back to me, he was rinsing the oranges under the tap.

I put away the shopping and escaped to the bathroom to slap on some make-up. Patrick’s invitation astonished me. I wondered what he wanted.

‘Wheeler’s, I thought,’ he said, as I emerged from the bathroom. He added, with only a flicker of amusement in his blue eyes, ‘I know you’re keen on shellfish.’

We ate oysters and drank white wine in a room as dark and narrow as one of The Red House’s corridors. Polite conversation at first: music and books and the endlessness of the recession. After a glass of wine, I had the nerve to ask him about his father.

‘You’re Josh Franklin’s son, aren’t you?’

He prised another oyster out of its shell. ‘I told you – some of us are rather peripatetic.’

‘You must have had an interesting childhood.’

‘At first. I had to go to boarding school eventually, which was rather less interesting.’ He topped up my glass. ‘And you, Rebecca? Have you family?’

‘I’ve a father and a sister and two nephews. Jack’s three, Lawrie is eighteen months.’

‘I have a four-year-old daughter,’ said Patrick, and I almost choked on my oyster.

‘You’re married?’

‘Separated. Ellie lives with her mother.’ His eyes were expressionless.

I remembered the diaries. ‘Tilda and Max split up, didn’t they?’

He nodded, and dropped his last oyster shell onto the heap of empty ones.

‘Because of Daragh?’ I persisted, and he shrugged.

‘I’ve really no idea. It’s all history, isn’t it?’

‘And best left alone?’

The waiter took our plates away and Patrick ordered coffee. ‘I didn’t say that.’

‘But it’s what you think.’

‘Perhaps.’

‘Is that why you asked me out? To warn me off again?’

He looked at me. ‘Well, no. It wasn’t, actually.’

I felt all my nerve endings become hot, and prayed that the restaurant was too dark for him to see me redden.

He said smoothly, ‘I thought I might be able to answer a few more of your questions. I’m afraid that I was rather abrupt on the telephone this morning.’

I mumbled something about being sorry to have interrupted his work.

‘I was quite glad of the interruption, to tell the truth. You can get swamped in things, so you can’t see clearly.’

I knew just what he meant. ‘Tell me about Daragh. He can’t have just disappeared.’

‘But he did.’ Patrick frowned, rubbing his forehead. ‘I don’t know much about him – as I said, it was a long time ago, and Tilda’s always played things close to the chest – but Daragh Canavan does seem to have put everyone’s backs up. And he was in a financial mess. Southam Hall was sold in the late
Forties.’ The waiter arrived with the coffee. ‘Have you been there, Rebecca?’

I shook my head. I had been oddly reluctant to visit Southam, afraid, perhaps, that the real place might not come up to my imaginings. ‘Have you?’

‘Once, years ago, with my father. It was all rather depressing. The Hall was being used as a furniture warehouse, and Tilda’s old cottage was derelict – it was about to be knocked down. The land had been sold to the council. It was winter, and everything was grey and brown and frozen. Although’ – Patrick’s eyes narrowed as he remembered – ‘I do remember being rather stunned by the flood plain between the Hundred Foot Drain and the Old Bedford river. We’d travelled down from the North by train, my father and I, and I remember how the railway track seemed to skate over the ice. That was all you could see, to either side of the carriage – just a great white plain of ice. Even my father was impressed.’ He blinked, coming back to the hot, crowded restaurant. ‘Anyway – Daragh. My guess is that he hoofed it. Realized that he was in a mess of insoluble dimensions and ran. It happens, you know. I’ve defended men who’ve pocketed the petty cash and taken the first boat to the Continent. Daragh was clever enough not to get caught, that’s all. I think he just upped and went.’

Without his daughter? I thought, but did not say. The waiter arrived with the bill. I took out my purse, but Patrick pushed the notes away.

‘I dragged you out, remember. You’d probably have preferred a quiet evening in, eating oranges.’

The next weekend, I drove up the M11, past Cambridge and out on the old A45 to Newmarket, turning off and heading north at Quy. The land between the villages became flatter, young green corn piercing the black soil. It had rained heavily overnight, and the fields were blistered with silver streaks of water. Because the drained peat of the fields had dried out and sunk, the shored-up roads were uneasy bridges across a disappearing land,
their tarmacked edges crumbling. The scattered houses were of yellowish-grey brick, their front doors several feet above land level, surrounded by rusting farm vehicles.

Southam village was strung along the roadside, a straggle of variously sized cottages, a dozen semi-detached council houses, and a small estate, The Beeches, whose red-brick walls and fiddly white porches made no concession to the vernacular. There was a tiny supermarket and an antique shop, and a shop that sold terracotta pots and wind-chimes. I parked outside the church.

It was easy to find the de Paveley graves. They had pride of place, walled off behind little iron railings, or raised up in pompous tombs of black marble. As though there is distinction even in crumbling bones. The same names – Edward and Christopher for the men, Joscelin and Cecily for the women – recurred for generation after generation. I found my Edward de Paveley under a yew tree, his monument a relatively modest granite slab inscribed with his names and dates. The lichen blooms on the stone were smaller than those of his more distant ancestors. I thought that though Edward de Paveley’s crimes had been heinous, he had surely paid for them, over and over again, in Flanders. History comforts and fascinates me, but there are bits of it that I cannot read about without fear and horror. The Holocaust, of course, is one, but the First World War, with its terrible death knell of battles – Ypres, the Somme, Passchendaele – is another.