An Evil Streak
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Book 1
Book 2
Book 3
Book 4
Book 5
Copyright
An Evil Streak
Andrea Newman
Book 1
‘I sing their pain as best I can’
One
That she had intended to die tidily in the bathroom was clear enough from the amount of blood in the bath, but, being completely unscientific, she had no idea how long the process would take, and at some point, through either boredom or panic, she had endeavoured to reach the sitting-room, leaving a trail of blood to mark her slow progress along the corridor. When I found her she was sprawled across my newly upholstered brocade sofa, her leaking wrists still marginally out of reach of the phone.
Two
But if you prefer to begin at the very beginning, I have no objection. When Beatrice asked me to be Gemma’s godfather, I remember I made one of my feebler jokes (to cover my surprise and embarrassment, I think). I remarked in my flippant way that this would be the closest link God and I were ever likely to enjoy. Beatrice of course did not laugh, nor even favour me with a smile. She was shocked. She was always the kind of woman who shocked easily (a constant temptation to me) and more so, I suppose, since the death of her husband. To have a funeral and a christening within so short a space of time not unnaturally fixed her mind upon higher things. Eternity was, if not in her lips and eyes, certainly in the forefront of her thoughts, leaving no room for irreverence.
Holding the squalling infant wrapped in the family shawl, I pondered the words of the service, the life of rectitude to which the child was being condemned by proxy. I was responsible. Surely the works and pomps of Satan, whatever they were, would be more fun? The cries faded as the discomforts of virtue eased, and the red-faced, wrinkled creature looked at me with my dead brother’s eyes.
Gemma was a posthumous child and even I, self-cast cynic that I am, could see the pathos in that. My brother Hugh was on his way home in 1945, having served his country with hardly a scratch, as they say, making us all believe that his was indeed a charmed life, when he carelessly stepped on a mine and blew himself up, together with several of the men serving under him. It was a messy accident that need never have occurred, and it took me some months to recompose his features in my mind – to stop picturing fragments of Hugh scattered all over the oft-quoted foreign field.
People tend to think, because I am flippant and cynical, that I have no feelings. That is untrue. I cared deeply for Hugh. I felt for him the kind of obsessive love that only jealousy can inspire, for he excelled in everything – looks, charm, sport, study and luck – and I was proud of my defeat. As he was younger than I, my progress through school and college preceded his, and my notable mediocrity provided him with, as it were, a plain carpet on which to perform and dazzle. I would even go so far as to say that his death was a greater loss to me than to his wife. But, as I am often reminded, I know nothing of marriage.
Beatrice’s grief was genuine enough: they had not been married for sufficiently long to become either quarrelsome or bored. I simply did not regard her as a creature of much depth. No doubt she felt as much as she could and it was not her fault that her capacity for feeling was so limited. She was intensely practical, not given to flights of fancy, displays of emotion or any kind of introspective excess.
My brother Hugh had made the army his career and had seen ten years’ service at the time of his death. Beatrice settled down with her child to a life of the middle-class poverty that some people call comfort, much in the way my mother had done with us in 1917 after our father was killed. It was unpleasant to see the pattern being repeated: the large house divided into flats and let to a succession of quiet, childless couples, for motherhood had not made Beatrice fonder of other people’s children even at a distance, and certainly not in contact with her own property. Her pension was insufficient for her needs and the family assets, such as they were, shrank severely when my mother died and death duties had to be paid.
My mother had resisted all persuasion to make sensible provision well ahead of this event, seeming to believe it was less likely to occur with each year she survived. And, like many old people, she had not only clung to belief in her own immortality but also cherished her money as the only source of power remaining to her. She was not a greedy or a selfish woman but she wanted to give in her own good time. Useless to explain covenants, bequests, deeds of gift to her. She saw no urgency because she intended to live for ever. Meanwhile, money warmed her old age like a shawl.
She did, however, go so far as to make a will – a small concession to family pressure – and when this was read to us (the greatest possible secrecy having surrounded it during her lifetime) it provoked, as wills do, a family scene. Beatrice was horrified to discover that only half the estate came to her. The other half had been left to me. But since I was a bachelor and she had a child to support, it was obvious that she was entitled to two thirds and I to one. She argued this forcibly and I was compelled to agree; in fact it seemed prudent to agree before she concocted some even more specious argument and succeeded in proving that I was only entitled to a quarter or maybe a fifth. ‘Surely you want to make proper provision for your own god-daughter,’ she said, and I suddenly caught a whiff of the panic my mother must have felt. It was irrelevant to point out to Beatrice that the money was my mother’s to dispose of as she wished and that we had even a moral duty to respect her wishes and abide by her decision. I genuinely believe I would have felt this if my mother had left me nothing but I could not hope to make Beatrice accept such a fanciful idea. I paid up. It was, after all, in Gemma’s interest that I should do so.
Gemma was a beautiful child, and I speak as one who finds most children nauseating. I avoided her as far as possible until she reached the age of four, which is where, it seems to me, the humanising process begins. I wanted nothing to do with the moist and scruffy little animal preceding that stage, and I was rewarded for my patience. Gemma at four was enchanting. Nothing at all like her mother, fortunately (Beatrice is one of those rare and unlucky women who combine blonde hair and brown eyes with sallow skin and a large nose), but the image of dead Hugh, dark-haired and pale, with the same enormous cornflower-blue eyes, a colour so vivid as to be almost vulgar, surrounded by thick, dark lashes that looked as if they had been painted on. I was proud to be seen with her: I have always been much affected by beauty. Some people regard this as a vice or a weakness, but I do not. I took Gemma out once or twice a week, the more public the place the better, so that I could be envied and she admired; I bought her imaginative presents at Christmas and birthdays, considerably taxing my bachelor ingenuity, since I scorned to ask advice from Beatrice; but I never gave her money again after the affair of my mother’s will. I considered I had given her enough.
Beatrice was pleased to see that I took my godfatherly duties so much to heart. ‘She needs a man’s influence,’ she used to say. ‘It’s not good for a girl to grow up without a father.’ Then she would stare at me suspiciously. (My family secretly fear that because I have never married I must be homosexual or a womaniser: they have not considered that I could be both, or neither.) It was unnerving and absurd, like being surveyed across a hedge by an anxious cow.
Occasionally, as a cure for insomnia, I would give my mind to the problem of why my brother Hugh, who could have had any girl whose path he happened to cross, should have chosen to marry Beatrice. I know, of course, that human nature, like God, moves in a mysterious way – it was this fact that first attracted me to a literary career – but the marriage of Hugh and Beatrice seemed more inexplicab
le than any other event I had ever observed. If I had been a believer in providence I should have said that they had been permitted to marry purely in order to produce Gemma. The achievement of Gemma and the brevity of the marriage would seem to bear me out. But I am not a believer in providence, inclining to the view that any supernatural agency there may be tends to the malicious rather than the benign, so let that pass. They married, Hugh died, and Gemma was born. I cannot think so ill of my brother as to believe that the marriage would have lasted had he lived.
Beatrice is a woman much given to moderation and I am a great believer in excess, so Gemma and I became conspirators from an early age. Most of my time with her was spent ensuring that she had more of everything than Beatrice considered good for her. If I took her out to tea I would ply her with cake and cream buns, eclairs and meringues, jelly and orange juice, until guilt overcame her natural greed. ‘I mustn’t have any more,’ she would say eventually, her eyes round with longing. I would ask why not. ‘Because Mummy’ll be cross.’ Then I would produce my ace. ‘But Mummy won’t know.’ Poor Gemma wrestled with her conscience and generally lost.
‘Now I don’t want you making that child sick again,’ said Beatrice before our next outing.
‘Gemma’s never sick,’ I said righteously. ‘Are you, Gemma?’
She shook her head, nervous and excited at being caught in the adult crossfire.
‘Well, last time you took her out she couldn’t eat her supper and she was nearly green when I put her to bed,’ said Beatrice, snapping her thin mouth trap shut.
‘What nonsense,’ I said. Gemma trembled: no one else ever spoke to her mother like that.
It was the same when Beatrice went out in the evening. As Gemma grew older I took to spending occasional weekends with her and Beatrice in the country. It was pleasant for me to get out of London sometimes and Beatrice would take advantage of my presence to visit various people she claimed were friends, leaving me alone with Gemma. The game then was for me to persuade Gemma to stay up beyond the prescribed bedtime hour. I usually succeeded, and a delightful atmosphere of wickedness would build up during the evening. ‘Just one more round,’ I would say if we were playing cards, and watch the ensuing struggle with her conscience as Gemma’s eyes crept guiltily to the advancing clock. On the most spectacular occasions she would be flying up the stairs in her nightdress as Beatrice scraped her key in the lock at midnight.
‘What time did that child get to sleep?’ Beatrice demanded at breakfast. ‘She could hardly get up for church this morning and she had great dark circles under her eyes.’
I shrugged innocently. ‘I put her to bed when you told me but I’ve no idea when she went to sleep. Do you want me to spy on her?’
She stared at me. ‘What extraordinary words you use.’
‘It’s my profession,’ I said smugly.
‘You don’t let her read in bed, do you?’ she accused me. ‘She’ll only strain her eyes.’
‘Read in bed?’ I echoed, shocked. ‘Of course not.’ And remembered the golden days of Gemma’s childhood when I had read her Grimm and Hans Andersen, the little mermaid dancing as if on knives for her love, the girl spinning till her fingers bled and she dipped the spinning-wheel in the well and lost it, the horse’s head fixed above the gate, the dwarf putting a ring of hair on the girl’s finger, and later, something about being flayed alive. Those were our favourites, when Beatrice imagined we were still with Little Grey Rabbit. I watched Gemma turn pale as I read; I would stop and wait till she begged me to go on. Eventually Beatrice’s voice would peal up the stairs: ‘That’s enough now, you two,’ and I would drag myself away, downstairs to a good dinner with a dull woman. In the morning, accusation. ‘Whatever did you read to that child? She had nightmares.’
‘Did you give her cheese for supper?’ I enquired.
Beatrice sighed; she was building a great reputation for martyrdom. ‘Really, Alex, it’s too bad. You come down here and get her over-excited and I have to cope with the results. You’ve no idea how hard it is to bring up a child alone. You really mustn’t undermine everything I do.’
‘Perhaps, if you feel like that, you’d rather I didn’t come at all.’ My injured voice. I was surprised that it worked: I daily expected Beatrice to put a complete ban on my visits. But that, I suppose, was too extreme an action for her temperament, and besides she had a curious sense of family loyalty. I was the only male relative left on whom she could depend, and of course I was Gemma’s godfather. A rift was unthinkable, and would have reflected on her judgment. I used to fear that she might remarry, which would have reduced my influence considerably, but luckily her natural endowments made this unlikely, and as time went by, my position became completely secure.
Three
Gemma at fourteen started to become interesting. Hitherto, she had been an attractive plaything, with all the charm of a puppy or kitten. But there is, necessarily, a limited amount of subversion that can be practised on a child. My scope was restricted by her age. Oddly enough, it was Beatrice who alerted me to the first crisis. We had met for lunch on one of her rare shopping expeditions to town. I could not see the necessity for shopping, since nothing she bought could possibly enhance her appearance, but she seemed to consider these periodic efforts essential.
She behaved strangely through lunch, not listening to the anecdotes I had prepared to amuse her. She was absent-minded, vague, unlike herself. I studied her face, while I talked and she failed to listen, and thought how rapidly she was ageing. The make-up she used, though it probably qualified as discreet, settled itself in the folds of her face, the frown creases on her forehead, the wrinkles round her eyes, the streaks of dissatisfaction that ran from nose to mouth. She ate too much and took no exercise, so a double chin was emerging, apart from the comfortable spread of her figure under her clothes; and her lipstick, too dark to be flattering, leaked into the sharp, fine cracks she had etched in her mouth by pursing her lips too often in disapproval. She was too young to be running to seed in this way, but it was happening nevertheless. I was glad that my brother Hugh was not there to see it.
‘I’ve got to talk to you about Gemma,’ she said abruptly. ‘I’m very worried about her. She’s met this boy. Well, he goes to the local boys’ school but he’s always hanging about the gates, waiting for her. He walks her home and they stand around talking for hours. I think she likes him.’ She looked at me despairingly. ‘I don’t know what to do.’
‘Need you do anything?’ I was soothing. ‘It’s natural, isn’t it? She’s bound to start getting interested in boys sooner or later.’
‘Well, I thought later rather than sooner,’ said Beatrice sharply. She was really worried. ‘He’s quite unsuitable. Peter Hughes. His father runs a bicycle shop in the village. I don’t want Gemma associating with people like that.’
‘Unless she’s planning to become a child bride, does it really matter whom she associates with?’ The words struck me as quaint, more suited to a description of criminal activity than adolescent friendship.
‘Of course it matters,’ said Beatrice. ‘There’s no knowing where these things will lead if they’re not checked. I am solely responsible for her, after all. If any harm should come to her, it would be my fault. People are very merciless about parents these days. Whatever happens, it’s always the parents’ fault.’
‘But why should anything happen, Beatrice?’ I asked. ‘And what sort of happening do you have in mind?’
To my amazement she flushed. A blonde, sallow woman, prematurely faded, with dull red cheeks, is an extraordinarily unattractive sight. I fixed my gaze on a distant pot-plant, green and inoffensive.
‘You must know what I mean,’ she said.
I let her flounder for a few seconds. ‘A romantic entanglement,’ I said finally. ‘Romeo and Juliet. Well, she’s the right age. Stolen kisses behind the shrubbery. Would that be so terrible?’
‘I wish you’d be serious,’ said poor Beatrice. ‘She’s far too young for any no
nsense like that. I don’t want her being mauled by common boys from the village.’
‘Would it help if his father was a lord?’ I enquired.
‘If she makes herself cheap, she’ll get a bad reputation,’ said Beatrice. ‘And you know what that means. All she’s got are her looks and her good name. She’s not a clever girl, I’m afraid. Last term’s report was most discouraging.’
‘You sound as if you’re trying to sell her to the highest bidder,’ I said. ‘Isn’t it a little early for such desperate measures?’
‘She’s not a clever child,’ Beatrice repeated. ‘I’ve got to be practical. She’s very average at school, she’s got no special talent. I can’t see her having a brilliant career at anything.’
‘Therefore she must make a brilliant marriage,’ I said. ‘Is that what you mean?’
‘Well, why not?’ She eyed me sternly. ‘She’d be very happy if she met the right young man.’
‘But not a boy from the bicycle shop. Of course not, I quite see that. Are you afraid his adolescent passion will overcome him? Do you see him flinging Gemma across the seat of his cycle and pedalling off into the distance? Does he perhaps run the junior branch of the Surrey White Slave Trade?’
‘You’re impossible,’ said Beatrice. But she managed to smile.
‘What do you want me to do?’ I had been flippant long enough.
She looked quite grateful for my change of tone. ‘Talk to her,’ she said. ‘Could you? Explain to her that boys don’t respect girls who make themselves cheap. She’ll accept it, coming from you.’
‘You mean it’s not true?’
‘I mean she thinks you’re a man of the world.’ She did not explain what she herself thought I was. ‘If I tell her, I’m only her mother, trying to spoil her fun. We’ve already had arguments about what time she comes in. She wants to go to dances in the village and mix with all kinds of people. She complains that some of the other girls have more pocket money to spend. I tell her they have fathers to support them.’ As always with Beatrice I felt uneasy at the mention of money.‘Yes, I do see that a rich husband is the answer,’ I said, ‘as soon as she reaches the age of consent. Do you think we could falsify her birth certificate, just to be on the safe side?’
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