“Mrs. Morgan, I do hope you don’t mind my telephoning you.”
“No. No, of course not.” Mind? Being called by a man—a man who wasn’t Dudley or one of the children’s teachers? It was wonderful, the most exciting thing that had happened to her for months.
“We met last week, at the point-to-point. You were there with the Prices. Patrick Fisher…”
“Yes, I remember you, of course.”
“Good, good. Jolly day, wasn’t it?”
It had been quite jolly. It had also been very cold and wet, and inevitably muddy, and her hands had been so frozen she’d dropped the mug of tea Mrs. Jane-Anne had handed her, but they’d been so nice to her, both of them, and it had been quite interesting, watching the races, following the Prices as they charged about in the mud, and certainly good to see Caroline so happy; and compared to spending the day with Dudley and Phyllis, yes, it had been jolly. She remembered Patrick Fisher too; he’d been about fifty, jolly himself, a bit overweight with a rather red face, dressed in a Barbour so old it was shiny and a checked cap on his head, the caricature of an English country gentleman.
“I’m having a few people over for drinks next Saturday evening, wondered if you’d like to come. I remember you saying you hadn’t met many people down here yet…”
If Phyllis hadn’t still been hovering in the hall, Catherine would have sunk onto her knees there and then and offered up a prayer of thanksgiving. As it was she said, “That would be lovely, thank you so much.”
“Good, good. Now I know you’ve been living in London, so you may find us rather boring…”
“Of course I won’t,” said Catherine, thinking of the endless evenings alone in Fulham.
“Hope not. Jolly good. About six. Now then, address is Musgrove Hall, Upton Stratton…”
Phyllis was very put out. Catherine had to tell her, because she had to know if she could leave the children at home on Saturday evening.
“Yes, we will be in. You’re going to drinks with Patrick Fisher? Well, I hope you enjoy it. He’s very eccentric, of course. Never married. I mean, there are stories…well, never mind.”
Catherine didn’t ask about the stories, although Phyllis was clearly dying to share them.
“He seemed very nice,” she said. “I met him at that point-to-point that the Prices took Caroline and me to last week, do you remember?”
“Yes, of course,” said Phyllis crossly. She had found the Honourable Prices inviting Catherine to join them at the point-to-point almost intolerable.
Why did they have to talk like that, Elizabeth wondered. Why? As if you were in some way mentally defective. Why couldn’t they just say, “Wait over there,” instead of “If you could just go over there for me,” or “Please put this on,” instead of “Now could you just pop into this gown.” Always accompanied by that painfully bright smile. It just made everything worse. And worse—rather than better—was what she was expecting. She felt better, for a start: that in itself was worrying. If she was still pregnant, why didn’t she feel sick? She was still bleeding—only a tiny bit, but—
“Mrs. Beaumont, would you like to come in now? Sorry about the designer outfit.”
She stood up. “The what?”
“The robe. Not exactly Chanel, is it?”
“Mum,” hissed Annabel, “don’t look so cross.” She had insisted on taking the morning off to come to the hospital. She said she didn’t give a shit if Miki was annoyed or not. “You’re much more important.”
“Now, Mrs. Beaumont, if you could just pop onto the bed for me, that’s right, lovely. How are you feeling?” The nurse had an Australian accent; for some reason, it made things much worse.
“Fine, thank you.”
“That’s great. What we like to hear. Now I’m just going to rub this jelly stuff on your tummy—sorry it’s so cold. You all right?”
“Yes, thank you. Fine.” What did she think, silly cow? That she was going to pass out with the shock of a bit of cold jelly?
“There. Not too bad, I hope. Now, have you had a scan before?”
“No, I haven’t. They hadn’t been invented when I had my other children.”
“And do you know how they work?”
“I think so.”
“Right, well, I’ll explain. This contraption here,” she waved what looked rather like a microphone at Elizabeth, “is called a transducer, and it emits and receives sound waves. Which convert into a two-dimensional image of whatever we want to see. In this case, your baby. So I’m just going to start now. If you look at that screen, Mrs. Beaumont, you can see for yourself what’s going on in your uterus. Now you are…let’s see…nearly thirteen weeks, so Junior is about seven, maybe eight centimetres long, and you know he’s in a kind of little watery sac—”
“I do, yes, thank you,” said Elizabeth. “I do have three children already.”
“Three! Well, isn’t that lovely. Girls or boys?”
“One boy, two girls.”
“How old are they?”
“They’re all teenagers.”
“Teenagers? You don’t look old enough to be the mother of teenagers.”
Smile, Elizabeth, come on, make an effort, she’s very nice really.
“They must be so thrilled about this. Now, he’s bobbing around in there…where is he? Can’t see him. He must be playing hide-and-seek…”
She couldn’t see him, silly bitch, because he—or she—wasn’t there. He’d left her, dissatisfied with the accommodation, with the negative vibes she’d been sending down to him all these weeks. She clenched her fists.
“Right. Well, no luck that side, let’s have a look over here…there’s one of your ovaries, see, and there’s the other one…come on, little feller, where are you?”
Elizabeth thought she might scream. She couldn’t lie here, listening to this drivel, feeling so terrified and so despairing, any longer. She would just—just count to ten very slowly and then scream. She shut her eyes; the radiographer, silent now, was moving the transducer over her stomach. Her flat, clearly empty stomach. Eight…nine…ten.
“Mrs. Beaumont? If you open your eyes and look now—there, see—there he is, bobbing around like crazy. I’d say you’ve got a real little footie player there…”
“Oh, my God. My God.” Suddenly the Australian accent was the most wonderful sound in the world, and the girl’s podgy face rather beautiful.
“So, you mean, you mean it’s still—still there?”
“Of course it’s still there. Set to stay for the duration, I’m sure. Is that pretty girl out there one of your daughters?”
“Yes, she is.”
“Do you want me to get her in, show her her baby brother? Or sister, of course.”
And so for a full five minutes, she and Annabel sat transfixed and tearful, clutching each other’s hands and staring at the flickering image on the black screen, watching the baby, Simon’s final legacy to them: and sharing a sense of huge relief and happiness mixed inevitably with intense sadness and loss.
Chapter 52
NOVEMBER 1990
Well, that was a bad start. She’d managed to persuade Nigel to invite Catherine to a drinks party; in fact, his eyes had quite lit up at the suggestion, and then it turned out that Catherine was going to another on the very same day. Which was excellent, of course, it was wonderful that she was making friends down there, but: “Gosh, how annoying,” Catherine said. “I’d much rather go to Nigel’s. Talk about all the buses coming along at once. But I can’t change it, unfortunately.”
Lucinda put the phone down and sighed. It had been such a perfect occasion to get them together. And she could hardly ask him and Lucinda to cosy little drinks at their house.
“Well, I’m sorry, Jamie, but you’ll just have to postpone it…Yes, I can see that’s difficult and I’m sure your mother won’t be—…Yes, but this is really, really important. My mother’s pregnant, for God’s sake, and she’s just nearly lost the baby. I really can’t come rushing over th
ere in a couple of weeks…What?…Oh, wouldn’t she? Oh dear. Jamie, I am sorry but you must see how difficult it is for me as well. And if Tilly and Toby are going to come too, well, Mummy’d be alone. What about after Christmas? Like January. How would that be? I want to look after my mother and at this precise moment that’s the most important thing! It’s very hard for her, you know and—…Oh, for fuck’s sake, Jamie. I can’t take any more of this…”
“I just put the phone down on him,” she said to Tilly later. “He’s so selfish, couldn’t see how much it mattered, and went on and on about what a lot of work it would be for his mother, unscrambling everything and reinviting everyone. I mean, what’s that, compared to a baby?”
Jamie rang back; he was incredibly sorry, he hadn’t meant to be selfish, that of course Elizabeth and her baby were much the most important thing and that yes, his mother thought January would be a better idea.
“We can wait if you can,” he said.
“I can wait. Well, I can’t, but I have to. I’ll enjoy it much more. How is your mother?”
“She’s fine. She sends her love. She says to tell you she’s writing to your mother. About the baby. It must be making her feel so much better.”
“Well, yes and no,” said Annabel cautiously. “I think she’s pretty scared. Of coping on her own, you know.”
“I guess so. Well, better go, this is costing Dad a fortune. Love you.”
“Love you too,” said Annabel, “lots and lots. Jamie…could you—that is, would you like to—come here for Christmas? It was Mummy’s suggestion, and it would be so nice for me and for all of us. This Christmas is going to be difficult and…”
There was a silence, then Jamie said, “Well, it would be great, of course. And thank you for the invitation. I’ll, well, I’ll have to talk to my parents. Christmas is pretty sacred here; we have terrific family traditions, you know, and—”
“Most families do,” said Annabel briskly. “Well, think about it, Jamie. Bye now.”
She rang off; if Jamie thought she was going to spend the next fifty years or whatever having Christmas with his family and not hers he—well he really did have another think coming.
“Debbie, it’s Joel. What the fuck are you playing at? It’s Thursday, and I haven’t seen you for over a week. What are you trying to do to me?”
“I’m not trying to do anything to you. I’m just…just thinking.”
“Well, stop it. Or at least, don’t think on your own. Let me help.”
“Joel, I can’t see you. Not for a few more days. I really can’t. I’m—I’m sorry.” And she put the phone down.
She’d thought she was doing all right, clearing her head of him, in order properly to face the future, and decide what she was going to do.
But hearing his voice was agony, a bit like pulling off a scab. Or having the first drink. Just like having the first drink. Suddenly she couldn’t resist it. She had to see him. She just had to. While she could.
She rang him back. “I’ll see what I can do,” she said, “babysitting-wise. Tonight.”
“I love you,” he said. Nothing else. Just, “I love you.”
“I love you too.”
Toby had been told about the baby—by Annabel. He had reacted exactly as Elizabeth had predicted: he was embarrassed, shocked, almost morose. He managed to come and congratulate her, but she could see he was finding it almost impossibly difficult. He had gone back to school, clearly with relief.
“Stupid wanker,” Tilly said, as his glowering face disappeared into the train. Her still-perfect accent made her comment somehow all the more powerful.
“Tilly, that’s not a nice word,” said Elizabeth.
“Good. He doesn’t deserve nice words. He’s a complete pig. What does it mean, by the way?” she added. “Madison says it a lot, but I don’t like to ask her.”
As Elizabeth sat at her desk, writing a conference speech and feeling better and stronger than she had for months, she had a call from the coroner’s office. The date for the inquest had been set: for the second week in January. January! So long after Simon’s death. It would inevitably threaten her fragile recovery. She was at least surviving; surviving and functioning, doing her job, coping with her family, and that was all she could hope for, for the foreseeable future. Even the sale of the house, due to be completed two weeks before Christmas, seemed to be manageable. But the thought of going into the exact circumstances of his death: that was truly terrifying. Brave as she was, tough as she was, Elizabeth really didn’t know how she was going to face it.
Chapter 53
NOVEMBER TO DECEMBER 1990
Well, was this really worse than being at home with the children? Catherine wondered. She had been at Musgrove Hall for more than an hour now, and she could have been invisible for all the notice people took of her.
Patrick had been very nice when she arrived, inevitably one of the first. “Sorry, lot of the guests have been out hunting today, sure to make them a bit late. Still, jolly nice to see you. Gin? Or Whiskey? Or there’s sherry, of course. Your shout.”
She settled for a gin and tonic, thinking that it would make her slightly less drunk and she could move on to just tonic; and then followed Patrick into the freezing-cold room that he described as the drawing room; no carpets, no curtains, just stone flags on the floor—she’d have to be careful not to drop anything on that, she thought. The stone fireplace contained a rather feeble log fire, but it was unarguably beautiful.
She felt rather underdressed in her black trousers and silk shirt; the two women who were already there both wore what she remembered from her childhood, cocktail dresses. Wherever could you still buy such things, stiffly skirted, three-quarter-sleeved, scoop-necked dresses—one in dark velvet, one in heavy silk—the perfect background for strings of what were inevitably real pearls and large brooches.
“Right now, this is Pattie Smithers and her husband, Paul, and this is Mo Cummings, and this useless-looking fellow is Mr. Mo, as we call him.”
“Don’t you dare,” said Mr. Mo, holding out a clammy hand to Catherine. “Mike Cummings.”
“And this is Catherine Morgan, only been here for a couple of months. These are all neighbours, my dear. Catherine’s from London, so she’s used to all sorts of excitement. I told her she’d find us pretty dull…”
“Oh no, not at all,” said Catherine. “It was London that was dull. I—”
“Husband away, is he?” said Pattie, interrupting her. She looked rather fierce.
“No, he’s—that is, I’m a widow.” She smiled nervously at Pattie.
“Oh, sorry to hear that.” She appeared neither embarrassed by what would have seemed to many a social gaffe nor in the least sorry for Catherine. “So where do you live?”
“Oh, over at Gillingham. I’m, well, I’m living with my parents-in-law. At the moment. And with my—”
“Gillingham, eh?” said Mo, her brow briefly furrowed. “No, don’t know anyone there. Do they shoot?”
“Er, no. No, they don’t.”
“Hunt?”
“No. ’Fraid not.”
“Shame. Well, jolly nice to meet you. Ah Sally, lovely to see you,” and she beamed at a third cocktail-dressed lady with an even redder face.
“Good day?”
“Oh terrific, we found almost at once, and…”
And Catherine was spoken to no more.
Every so often Patrick would clearly remember her, drag her from one group and over to another. He was really very sweet, Catherine thought gratefully. But he must be regretting his decision, as she seemed to be nothing but a burden to him.
The talk was entirely of hunting and shooting; no one had so far mentioned fishing, but she felt that was inevitable. The drink was very slow to materialise; she supposed it was harder to remix gin and tonic than pour glasses of wine. The good news was that she was still stone-cold sober. And stone cold, come to that.
The only other topic of conversation was Mrs. Thatcher and her downf
all; the general consensus seemed to be that Heseltine deserved to be strung up for setting the whole thing in motion.
“Met him once,” someone said, “couldn’t stand him. Bit of a cad. And that hair…”
“Well, at least he’s been to a decent school,” said someone else.
“Suppose we got Major. Dreadful fellow.”
“Hurd’d be all right,” said a completely bald man. “Not exactly charismatic, but—”
“I say, Geoffrey old chap, long word for you,” said Patrick. “Catherine, do you know any of these dreadful politicians, as you live in London?”
Bless him, Catherine thought, he really wants to include me. “Well, I once met Neil Kinnock,” she said tentatively, “but he—”
“Kinnock? The Welsh Windbag? Only thing I can say for him is he’s doing a pretty good job, keeping the Labour lot out,” said Geoffrey. “How on earth did you meet him?”
Catherine started to explain that he had come to her children’s school, realised that must indicate being in the state system and therefore even worse, and said, with a glance at her watch, that goodness, she really had to be getting home, she hadn’t realised how late it was. As it said 7:25 p.m., she could see it wasn’t very convincing.
Patrick, however, appeared to find it perfectly acceptable. Clearly party regulations, like everything else, were different in the country. “I’ll come and see you off,” he said. “Hope you enjoyed it?”
“Gosh, yes, it was great fun,” said Catherine. “Thank you so much.”
“Oh, not at all. Very nice to have you here. Breath of fresh air, someone new you know, not just the old crowd. Still, they’re a pretty good lot, as you’ll discover. Well, see you again soon, I hope. You going to the point-to-point at Trister on Saturday?”
“Um…no.”
“Well, look, I’m going. Should be quite a good one. Would you like to come with me?”
“Oh, gosh.” Catherine felt rather confused. Was this a date? If so, did she want to accept? He might be very sweet, but he wasn’t exactly her type. On the other hand, it would be lovely to be out. Except of course…
An Absolute Scandal Page 51
