Dead Room Farce

by Simon Brett

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Well, you see, they don’t know the one detail that we know – namely that the studio door was locked . . .’

  ‘Because you haven’t told them.’

  ‘Exactly. But, if you rule that out as a consideration, then, given Mark’s depressed mental state . . . suicide must look like a possibility. You know, he takes a bottle of Scotch, shuts himself into a space which he knows has no air supply . . .’

  ‘But why’s this suddenly come up now? I thought the police were satisfied at the time that it was an accident.’

  ‘I don’t think they’d made up their minds, but I reckon they’d have been happy to accept that explanation. No, someone has been stirring things up.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Who do you think?’

  Charles shrugged. ‘Search me.’

  ‘Oh, come on, it’s obvious. The widow.’

  ‘Mark’s ex? Vinnie?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘But I thought she’d given up all interest in him.’

  ‘All interest in him as a human being, yes. But not all financial interest in him.’ In response to Charles’s puzzled expression, she continued, ‘Mark was heavily insured, and the beneficiaries of the insurance are his children. That situation wasn’t changed by the divorce. I think his widow’s view – not unreasonably – is that, since it was her money that paid all the premiums, she should ensure that her kids get what’s due to them.’

  ‘Ah. But if Mark was found to have committed suicide.’

  Lisa Wilson nodded. ‘. . . then the insurance company wouldn’t pay up. I reckon Mark’s widow must’ve started making the claim, and then the insurance company – who, like all insurance companies, would do anything rather than actually shell out any money – became suspicious about the circumstances of his death. And I reckon they’re the ones who’ve got the police taking another look at what happened.’

  ‘That’d make sense. Has Vinnie talked to you about it?’

  Lisa gave a firm shake of her blonde head. ‘No. She wouldn’t talk to me about anything. She may not have wanted Mark any more for herself, but she was damned if anyone else was going to have any rights in him.’

  ‘So you never even met her?’

  ‘No. And, of course, I’ve only heard Mark’s side of the story . . . but I do get the impression that she is one very strong-willed lady.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose she always was. I didn’t meet her that often, but she was strong, you’re right. I think a lot of people who’re born with money are strong. Of course, when I knew her, she was channelling all that strength into keeping the family together.’

  ‘I gather she still is. Mark’s no longer part of the equation – he ceased to be from the moment she walked out on him – but I think she’ll still be ferocious in support of her offspring. The old “lioness with cubs” syndrome. Which is why she’ll fight any suggestion that Mark committed suicide. She’d regard it as him having the last laugh on her – there’s no way she’s going to allow that to happen.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘From everything I’ve heard about her,’ said Lisa, ‘she’s a truly terrifying woman. I don’t envy Mr Bradshaw.’

  ‘Mr Bradshaw?’

  ‘That’s her new married name.’

  ‘Of course! She’s Lavinia Bradshaw.’

  Lisa looked at him curiously. ‘Yes. So . . .?’

  ‘It’s just that a Lavinia Bradshaw has been trying to make contact with me.’

  ‘Ah. She’s probably found out that you were here the afternoon Mark died. She’ll want to see if she can get anything from you to scotch the suicide theory.’

  ‘Well, I’ll let you know what she says.’

  ‘Thanks.’ There was a silence. Lisa’s grey eyes locked on to him, as her hand reached across and rested lightly on top of his. ‘Talking of Scotch, Charles.’

  ‘Hm . . .’

  ‘How’ve you been doing this week?’

  ‘On the booze front?’ He grimaced wryly. ‘Well, I cannot put my hand on my heart and say it’s been a week of total abstinence.’

  ‘Ah. Why not?’

  ‘I’m sorry. I’ve had pressures and . . .’

  ‘I see,’ she said in a tone that meant: yes, she saw, but no, she didn’t approve. She withdrew her hand from his.

  ‘The thing is . . .’

  ‘Don’t worry, Charles.’ She let out a little sigh of exasperation. ‘You don’t have to explain. Remember, I’ve lived with two alcoholics.’

  ‘I’m not an alcoholic!’

  Her grey eyes challenged him. ‘No?’

  ‘No. I can stop. I just . . .’

  ‘. . . don’t stop,’ she supplied. ‘Or at least not for long.’

  ‘No . . . Well . . . I . . .’

  Lisa Wilson stood up from the table. ‘Which train are you getting back to London, Charles?’

  He was dumbfounded, as all the carefully fostered fantasies of the previous week crumbled around him.

  ‘Well, I wasn’t sure that I was going back. I thought –’

  ‘Charles,’ said Lisa firmly. ‘What happened last Sunday night was good. We both enjoyed it. It answered a need in both of us. But it was never intended to be the start of anything long-term.’

  ‘No. I know that,’ he said miserably.

  ‘As I recall, I spelt out our “terms of engagement” at the time. No commitment, no emotional entanglement. And I also seem to recall that you were very keen to accept those terms.’

  ‘They’re terms men have been trying to get from women since the race began.’

  ‘Exactly. And also, generally speaking, the terms men have tried to impose on women since the race began . . .’

  ‘All right. Possibly.’

  ‘So you can’t really complain when I act according to those terms, can you?’

  ‘Look, are you making a political point here? Is this part of some kind of feminist agenda that you –?’

  ‘No, Charles, it isn’t. What I am saying is that what happened last week was very good –’

  ‘But if it was so good –’ he protested.

  ‘It was what was needed at the time,’ she steamrollered on. ‘I enjoyed it, and it’s a memory I will always treasure.’

  ‘Me too.’

  ‘Good. But it wasn’t the start of anything. We lead different lives, we’re very different people. What we’re going to do shortly is part – with a big, friendly hug – and we’ll certainly see each other again from time to time . . . but, so far as any physical relationship between us is concerned, that’s over. Nice while it lasted, but not to be repeated. OK?’

  ‘OK,’ Charles agreed mournfully, and got out the little timetable of trains back to London.

  Just before he left, as they had their ‘big, friendly hug’, he asked, ‘Lisa, if I hadn’t had any booze during the week . . .? I mean, is it because of the drinking?’

  ‘No,’ Lisa Wilson replied firmly. ‘With you, the drinking’s just a symptom of everything else.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Charles Paris. ‘Right. Thank you.’

  The digit ‘2’ was glowing on his answering machine when he got back to Hereford Road. He replayed the messages.

  The voice on the first was dauntingly upper class and authoritative. ‘Charles, this is Lavinia Bradshaw. We met when I was married to Mark Lear. Could you get back to me urgently, please?’ She gave a London number. ‘I’m calling on Sunday morning, having, I gather, just missed you in Leeds. I’ll be up till half-past eleven tonight, so could you get back to me? It’s important that we meet before you leave for Birmingham tomorrow. Message ends.’

  Yes, as Lisa Wilson had said, she was a very strong-willed woman. And she’d done her research on his movements; maybe she’d got all that detail from Maurice Skellern. When Charles had met Vinnie before, with Mark, it had always been on social occasions and perhaps then her ferocity had been masked. But now there was no gainsaying her. He’d have to call back. Besides, Lavinia Bradshaw might, unkn
owingly, hold the key to Mark Lear’s murder.

  Checking on his watch that it was only just after eleven, he let the tape play on for the second message.

  It was a full drama queen performance from Cookie Stone. ‘Charles darling, I feel so miserable about last night, and about how we parted this morning. I just have to see you. I’m in Crouch End. It doesn’t matter what time you get in, what time you receive this message . . . you just have to call me. You must.’

  Oh, shit! thought Charles. Why do I get myself into these situations? And why can’t I get myself out of them with any kind of grace? He thought of the relative elegance with which he had just been dumped by Lisa Wilson. The rejection was still hurting, but he couldn’t deny the fact that it had had style. Why couldn’t he find within himself the skills to let down Cookie Stone in the same way?

  He rang Lavinia Bradshaw. While he dithered about what time he would be leaving for Birmingham in the morning, she announced she’d be round at Hereford Road at nine-thirty. As on the recorded message, her tone of voice did not countenance the option of disagreement.

  Then, for a full ten minutes Charles held firm. He checked through the flat and found there was a quarter-full half-bottle of Bell’s. He hadn’t searched it out because he was going to drink it, just to assess the degree of temptation it offered. Because what Lisa had said to him had hurt. Charles Paris could stop drinking whenever he felt like it. It was just that he very rarely felt like it.

  For a moment, he contemplated pouring the whisky down the sink, but that did seem an excessively melodramatic gesture. Also, that would be making things too easy. He had to prove to himself that he could keep off the booze, whatever temptations there were around him. Then, after . . . what? . . . a month . . . two months . . . six months . . . he could go back to Lisa Wilson and . . .

  He knew that scenario would never be completed. The sexual relationship with Lisa was over. But he still wanted to keep off the booze. He’d been really offended by her saying that it was ‘just a symptom of everything else’.

  At the end of the ten minutes, Charles gave in and rang Cookie Stone. He was determined to be strong and sensible, to be supportive, but to leave her with no illusions about the true state of their relationship.

  And he might have done all that, if she hadn’t cried. Two minutes later, as he put the phone down, Charles realised he had agreed for Cookie Stone to come round to Hereford Road. God, he was an idiot!

  She arrived within the half-hour, clutching a bottle of Glenfiddich. And although he managed to resist the whisky, Charles Paris didn’t manage to resist Cookie Stone’s body.

  It was realising the depth of her pain and her need that did for him, though he wasn’t helped by her assertion, ‘After all, this is where it all started.’ For Charles Paris the obscurity which surrounded their first encounter had not lifted at all.

  But he succumbed to Cookie’s need for reassurance. ‘You do really care for me, don’t you? You understand the real me, don’t you – not the flamboyant jokey front I present all the time? You really do find my body beautiful, don’t you?’

  And Charles – weak Charles – supplied all the reassurances that his words and his body could provide. And, with its own infuriating irony, his perfidious body conspired to dig the hole he was in even deeper, performing exceptionally well.

  Chapter Fourteen

  CHARLES WOKE up at quarter to seven in the morning, which meant that some sleeping must have taken place in the course of the night, but it didn’t feel that way. He ached as though his body had been through the full cycle of an industrial carpet-cleaning machine, and the minute he showed signs of life, Cookie made him go through another spin.

  Again, he was surprisingly effective, but his performance didn’t give him the warm glow it might sometimes have done. Sex without love is never good, but sex without love with someone who’s in love with you is worse, intensifying the accompanying guilt and self-hatred. Why is it, Charles pondered – not for the first time – that women so often identify sexual attention with love? In his experience, intense and continuous sexual activity was usually a sign of one partner trying to prove or justify something to the other. His most satisfactory physical relationships – like the one he and Frances had once shared – had involved a lot more stillness and stroking and cuddling than manic screwing.

  The thought of his wife brought the inevitable pang of guilt, this time stronger than ever. He hadn’t been strictly faithful to Frances since early on in their marriage, but he had rarely got himself into the kind of bedroom farce tangle he was in now. Cookie . . . Lisa . . . Ruth . . . What was he playing at? Was he going through some Final Benefit Night before the Eternal Safety Curtain crashed down and locked itself permanently in place?

  One reason, Charles knew, why he made love with such avidity to Cookie Stone was that, for a while at least, it stopped her talking. But not for long. The most recent orgasm had hardly shuddered itself away, before she started up again. ‘It worries me, Charles, that you sometimes seem so distracted when you’re with me.’

  ‘You shouldn’t bother about that. It’s what I’m like. I drift off. I lead a very full fantasy life, you know.’

  If that had been intended as a joke, it was the wrong joke for the moment. Cookie’s prominent teeth jutted forward ruefully, as she said, ‘Full of other women, I bet.’

  ‘No, no, of course not.’

  ‘I bet it is. I do worry about you and other women . . .’

  ‘You have no cause to. I mean, I still have a very strong bond with my wife, but . . .’ Good idea to slip that in. Frances might prove a useful argument when the final breaking-off with Cookie eventually happened. ‘I’m afraid the feeling I still have for my wife prevents me from committing myself fully to another woman . . .’ he could say at the appropriate moment, then adding, ‘. . . even one as wonderful as you, Cookie.’

  But, the minute he had the idea, he felt shabby. He did still care for Frances, but to use her as some kind of bargaining counter to get out of his other messy entanglements was disgusting.

  Cookie’s jealousy, however, had not been defused. ‘I was worried about you and that woman in Bath.’

  ‘Woman in Bath?’ he echoed innocently.

  ‘That woman . . . Lisa is it?. . . that you’ve been scurrying off every Sunday to do recordings with. At least, you called them recordings.’

  Her tone was only half-joking, so Charles came in quickly, ‘And you actually thought I was having a thing with her?’

  ‘You might have been. You’re so gorgeous, Charles – at least, I find you so gorgeous – that I imagine every other woman in the world feels the same about you. That’s what it’s like when you’re in love with someone . . . you’re terrified that people are trying to steal them away from you.’

  If Charles had needed any proof that he wasn’t in love with Cookie Stone, that would have provided it. He was dying for someone to steal her away from him. He wanted nothing more than for some nice man, who really did think she was beautiful, who adored her for what she was, to come along and sweep her off her feet. If that were to happen, Charles Paris would not create any problems. He would do the decent thing, stand back and concede victory to the newcomer.

  But he couldn’t see it happening. He couldn’t imagine the man had been born who could withstand her constant demands for reassurance. So deeply engrained was the self-doubt about her own attractiveness that all Cookie Stone’s prophecies seemed doomed to self-fulfilment.

  Still, there was one matter on which he could reassure her, without resorting to lies or half-truths. ‘Cookie, I promise you that nothing happened between me and Lisa Wilson yesterday. We like each other fine, but there is never any chance of it becoming a physical relationship in the future.’

  Cookie seemed to accept his assertion – which was, to Charles’s great regret, the absolute truth – and fortunately she did not enquire about any previous history. But, needless to say, reassurance on one detail did not allay all of
Cookie’s other anxieties. ‘So what is it you’re thinking about all the time, Charles, when you look as if you’re not here?’

  Oh God, he thought, can’t I even have my thoughts to myself? Being with Cookie Stone in the real world was claustrophobic enough, without her setting up a monitoring post in his brain as well. But of course that was not what he said. Instead, he tried to fob her off with a half-truth. ‘I am rather preoccupied at the moment. There’s something I’m trying to find out the truth about. Something rather private.’

  Many women in the world would have respected that hint, and discreetly withdrawn from further questioning. Cookie Stone was not amongst their number. ‘What is it, Charles?’

  ‘Well, something to do with . . . You remember that friend of mine who was running the studio in Bath . . . the one who was terribly drunk the afternoon we recorded the commercial . . . Mark Lear.’

  ‘Lisa Thing’s boyfriend?’

  ‘That’s right. Incidentally, he said he’d met you, didn’t he?’

  ‘Did he?’

  ‘Yes. That afternoon. Don’t you remember?’

  She shook her head, making the hair rustle against his naked shoulder. ‘Can’t recall it. But you say he used to be BBC.’

  ‘Yes. Radio. Continuing Education.’

  ‘I probably got introduced to him in the Ariel Bar at some point. I used to do quite a bit of radio work when I started.’

  ‘Hm.’ Charles sighed. ‘Well, Mark’s death has, kind of, affected me. You know how upset I was in Bath. So I’ve been trying to find out what really happened there.’

  ‘What, you think it might have been suicide?’

  ‘Yes, or . . . who can tell?’

  ‘You don’t mean you think he might have been murdered, do you?’

  ‘Well . . . I suppose it’s a possibility.’

  His words silenced Cookie Stone. Charles couldn’t help thinking that if – heaven forbid – his relationship with her continued, he should bear that in mind. Maybe the mention of murder would always silence her. It’d certainly be less exhausting than having to make love to her all the time.